Times are now so tough that Valerio Novelli, a ticket inspector on Rome's buses, is planning to sell his old gold teeth.

"I can't get to the end of the month without running up debts," said Mr. Novelli, 56, who has to support an ex-wife and daughter. "I know I won't get much, but I need the money."

In a country suffering from economic crisis, buying gold off desperate people has become one of the few boom industries.

City centres are being transformed as traditional shops go out of business, their signs replaced by ones that announce "Compro Oro", or "I Buy Gold".

The Eurispes thinktank estimates the number of "Compro Oro" shops has quadrupled in the last two years. The growth of the industry is "a very good indicator of the level of hardship in the country," said Gian Maria Fara, the think tank's president.

"Business is very good, you can really feel the crisis," said 30 year-old Alexia Messi, who works in Oro Change on Via Medaglie D'Oro in northern Rome. It opened its first branch five years ago and now has seven outlets in Rome.

"People are never happy to sell, but now they come in with anything - gold, silver, old stuff, new stuff. I would say we have twice as many customers a day as we did a year ago."

Meanwhile, the toll of the crisis is being felt by traditional retailers. In central Rome, Massimo Della Rocca, 57, who has run the men's' clothes shop EDEL since inheriting it from his grandfather 30 years ago, is planning to close up.

"Things have been getting worse for years but now it's becoming impossible. Sales this summer are down 25 per cent from last year," said Mr. Della Rocca, whose garments are all made in Italy from local fabrics. "It's sad because this shop has been going for 80 years."

Why is it so many people obey when they feel coerced? Social psychologist Stanley Milgram researched the effect of authority on obedience. He concluded people obey either out of fear or out of a desire to appear cooperative--even when acting against their own better judgment and desires. Milgram's classic yet controversial experiment illustrates people's reluctance to confront those who abuse power. It is my opinion that Milgram's book should be required reading (see References below) for anyone in supervisory or management positions.

Liberty - One of the men accused in a series of repeated sexual assaults of a young Texas girl disappeared from his trial Wednesday, following a day of emotional testimony from the now 13-year-old girl who cried as a video of one of the encounters was played for jurors.

Testimony continued despite the absence of 20-year-old defendant Eric McGowen, who is one of 14 adults accused of having sex with the girl during a nearly three-month span two years ago. Six juveniles were also charged.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys huddled briefly with Judge Mark Morefield in front of his bench when McGowen failed to return to the courtroom following an afternoon break. The judge then told jurors the trial would go on without him.

Morefield later said a bench warrant had been issued, and McGowen's bond was increased from $35,000 to $250,000. The judge denied a defense motion for a continuance in the case and said the trial would resume Thursday morning.

"Your client left voluntarily," Morefield told defense attorney Matthew Poston.

Champaign, Ill. - Well driller Randy Gebke usually uses a geology database and other high-tech tools to figure out where to sink new water wells for clients. But if asked, he'll grab two wires, walk across the property, waiting for the wires to cross to find a place to drill.

Gebke is water witching, using an ancient method with a greater connection to superstition than science.

Thousands of wells have gone dry this summer in the worst drought the nation has experienced in decades. Some homeowners are spending as much as $30,000 to have new ones drilled, and Gebke said most potential customers in his area expect water witching to be part the deal.

"Over 50 percent of the time in that conversation, they ask do we have a witcher on the crew," he said. "And my response is, 'We have a witcher on every crew.'"

Water witching, also called divining or dowsing, goes back to before the Middle Ages and involves using a forked stick, metal rod or piece of wire that mysteriously points to water underground. While scientists and professional groups say there is no evidence witching works, some well drillers say it usually does.

"I'm a wire man. ... I use two wires, and when they cross, that's where the water usually is," said Gebke, 56, the general manager of Kohnen Concrete Products in Germantown, Ill.

Doc McClanahan, 46, who owns Doc's Well & Pump Service in Farmington, Mo., quietly acknowledged that he too will witch for water if a customer asks. He favors wild cherry branches for their flexibility and, though he says he has no idea how witching works, insists it can.

"You kind of get a feel for it," McClanahan said. "It'll twist in your hand."

Cherry is a common choice, Gebke said, but no one chooses willow.

"That pulls toward dog squat," he said, laughing at the thought of looking for water and finding a pile of something unwanted instead.

The National Groundwater Association, a trade group for well drillers, has officially disavowed witching as "totally without scientific merit."

And scientists who specialize in water are, at best, skeptical.

An uprising within the Israeli establishment is preventing an insane war from being started. In how many other countries could such a thing happen? This is a proud moment for Israel's democracy.

People don't realize what a miracle is taking place in this country. A revolt by the Israeli military/intelligence establishment and Israel's best reporters, helped along by President Shimon Peres and ultimately enabled by the Obama administration, is stopping an insane war from being launched by Israel's two ideologically insane political leaders, a war they've been planning for years.

The eight-member inner cabinet, or "octet," which in recent weeks has been reported to be split evenly between pro-war and anti-war ministers, has now tilted anti-war, write Nahum Barnea and Shimon Shiffer today in Yedioth Aharonoth. Not coincidentally, this shift comes as the heads of all the military and intelligence branches continue to stand solid as a rock against Bibi and Barak's plans. They haven't budged from their position that an Israeli attack without America behind it - and America isn't - would do little damage to Iran's nuclear facilities in return for a lot of death and destruction in this country, and end up strengthening Iran while weakening Israel, especially its relationship with the U.S.

Meanwhile, a public opinion poll in Ma'ariv today finds that while a slight majority of Israeli Jews favor an attack and a large majority of Israeli Arabs oppose it, a clear majority of both sectors say the political leadership does not have the "legitimacy" to start a war if the military and intelligence leadership is against it. (Overall, 44% agree, 33% disagree). Another nail in the coffin of Operation Never Again.

Republicans love the symbolism of coal miners. Coal miners represent big energy. They are real men, not afraid to work hard and get dirty for their living. When pressed to produce a jobs plan, Republicans are quick to point to coal workers. Coal workers make great GOP photo ops and Mitt Romney's handlers know that well enough to arrange exactly that. They contacted a friendly Ohio coal mine and asked them to send a few miners to a Romney rally. The problem? The coal miners weren't paid for the photo op and they felt they could lose their jobs if they didn't go.

From Raw Story:

"Yes, we were in fact told that the Romney event was mandatory and would be without pay, that the hours spent there would need to be made up my non-salaried employees outside of regular working hours, with the only other option being to take a pay cut for the equivalent time," the employees told Blomquist. "Yes, letters have gone around with lists of names of employees who have not attended or donated to political events."

"I realize that many people in this area and elsewhere would love to have my job or my benefits," one worker explained. "And our bosses do not hesitate in reminding us of this. However, I can not agree with these callers and my supervisors, who are saying that just because you have a good job, that you should have to work any day for free on almost no notice without your consent."

"We do not appreciate being intimidated into exchanging our time for nothing. I heard one of your callers saying that Murray employees are well aware of what they are getting into upon hire, or that they are informed that a percentage of their income will go to political donations. I can not speak for that caller, but this is news for me. We merely find out how things work by experience."

Creation Science Hall of Fame plans to honor scientists who further the idea that God created the world 6,000 years ago.

A stretch of interstate in northern Kentucky may soon be the official capital for creationism fans across the globe.

Online-only institution the Creation Science Hall of Fame hopes to establish a real-life creationism center located between the Creation Museum and planned creationism theme park Ark Encounter.

The hall of fame website was launched in February and honors "those who honored God's word as literally written in Genesis." Any scientist who the institution believes furthers the scientifically inaccurate idea that God created the world 6,000 years ago can be included.

"We honor these people, not because we believe everything they say, but because they made critical contributions to creation science and to the explanation of the Genesis story," secretary/treasurer of the hall of fame Terry Hurlbut told the Cincinnati Enquirer.

There are several creationism institutions in the US, including another creation museum in Texas and a mobile museum that takes fossil exhibits to churches and schools. The hall of fame would solidify northern Kentucky as the center for creation-tourism.

The Creation Museum opened in May 2007 and was built by Answers in Genesis, the Australian ministry that is also behind Ark Encounter.

Ark Encounter - which would feature a life-size replica of Noah's Ark - was supposed to break ground in Kentucky in 2011, but has been unable to reach its $24.5m fundraising goal.

Since 2008, the makers of the Your Baby Can Read! learning system have made $185 million from parents who hoped that the product could indeed help their infant get a head start on becoming a voracious reader.

Now the company has to forfeit all that money (well, sort of) after the FTC filed false advertising charges against it, its former CEO and its creator.

In infomercials that ran for several years, the folks behind Your Baby Can Read claimed that through the use of videos, flash cards, and pop-up books, children as young as nine months old could learn how to read.

The company stated in its ads that these claims were backed up by scientific studies.

While the company and its former CEO have agreed to a settlement that would turn over what little remains of the aforementioned $185 million, the FTC says it is initiating litigation against the creator of the product, Robert Titzer, Ph.D., whose name is touted on the packaging for Your Baby Can Read.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel laureate and icon of the anti-apartheid struggle, has withdrawn from a seminar in South Africa in protest at the presence of Tony Blair and the former prime minister's support for the 2003 Iraq war.

"The archbishop is of the view that Mr Blair's decision to support the United States' military invasion of Iraq, on the basis of unproven allegations of the existence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, was morally indefensible," said Roger Friedman, a spokesman for the cleric, who won the Nobel peace prize in 1984.

"Morality and leadership are indivisible. In this context, it would be inappropriate and untenable for the archbishop to share a platform with Mr Blair," he added.

Blair's office said he was "sorry" that Tutu had decided to pull out of the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit, which is due to take place in Johannesburg on Thursday, adding in a statement that the two were not due to be sharing a platform at the event.

A deaf preschooler in Grand Island, Nebraska, has been prohibited from signing his own name because school administrators believe the gesture he uses looks too much like a gun.

"He's deaf, and his name sign, they say, is a violation of their weapons policy," Hunter Spanjer's father Brian told Channel 10/11.

Hunter uses Signing Exact English or SEE - a form of manual communication that uses modified ASL handshapes in an effort to better mimic the spoken English language.

"Anybody that I have talked to thinks this is absolutely ridiculous," Hunter's grandmother told the news outlet. "This is not threatening in any way."

The preschool, which has a strict zero-tolerance policy toward "any instrument...that looks like a weapon," would not discuss the matter, but said they were working with the parents on a compromise.

Meanwhile, the ACLU and the National Association of the Deaf have reached out to the family in support, committing themselves to assist should a legal avenue be pursued.