WARNING: This story contains disturbing details


A woman from Longueuil, Que., is in a medically induced coma with serious burns to her upper body after she was attacked with acid during a conjugal fight on Sunday.

According to Martin Simard of the Longueuil police, Tanya St Arnauld, 29, has burns to 70 per cent of her body caused by a household cleaning liquid, like drain or cement cleaner.

Nikolas Stefanatos, 27, of Brossard, Que., has been charged with aggravated assault. His bail hearing was put over at his first court appearance on Monday.

Nineteen miners were killed and 28 are missing in China after a gas explosion in a coal shaft, the Xinhua news agency said on Thursday, marking one of the biggest disasters of the year in the accident-plagued industry.

Rescue teams from other mines had been sent to the Xiaojiawan Coal Mine in Sichuan province where 107 miners had been rescued after Wednesday's blast, it reported.

China's mines are the deadliest in the world because of lax enforcement of safety standards and a rush to feed demand from a robust economy. But the death toll from accidents has been falling, government statistics show.

The government work safety watchdog said that 1,973 miners were killed in coal mine accidents last year, according to state media. In 2010, 2,433 people were killed, down from a toll of 2,631 the previous year.

Xinhua said the Xiaojiawan mine was owned by Zhengjin Industry and Trade Co., Ltd. Police were questioning the owner.

Men should sit down to urinate in the toilet instead of standing up because it helps maintain a cleaner environment, says a Taiwanese government minister.

Stephen Shen is Taiwan's minister for Environmental Protection Administration (EPA). He has stirred up a widespread debate on whether men should sit down on the toilet to urinate, like women do.

Shen himself maintains he does, both at home and in public toilets.

The EPA carries out regular inspections of Taiwan's 100,000 or so public toilets and suggests while many of them are very clean, there is room for improvement. Standing up to urinate causes urine splatter which creates a bad smell, say EPA officials.

Local governments in Taiwan are being advised in the next few days to place public notices asking men to sit when urinating.

Cindy Sui, of BBC News, Taipei, says the announcement has stirred a lot of online debate. Although social media activity suggests women think it is a good idea, the men are likely to find it hard to change their ways.

A new poll shows that the 58 percent of Americans believe the rich are intelligent and hardworking, but also greedy and dishonest, and should pay more taxes.

The poll, released by the Pew Research Center on Monday, also found that 52 percent of Americans - including the upper class - want upper middle class Americans to pay more in taxes, while only 10 percent said they pay too much.

As America's middle class is shrinking and poverty is reaching a record high since the 1960's, the wealth is increasingly distributed among the upper percentile of Americans, the Associated Press reports.

Eleven students have been arrested and are facing charges in Quebec following confrontations with police. The incident took place during an ongoing student-led strike against proposed tuition fee hikes, with over 31,000 participating in the protests.

The demonstrators are disobeying Quebec's back-to school law in Montreal, which demanded that students return to their universities on Monday despite their stated opposition to the proposed government tuition hikes. Over 31,000 students are striking - boycotting class, demonstrating, banging pots, disrupting classes and marching through university halls in masks, Canadian media reported.

A total of 49 classes were forced to be suspended at the University of Montreal, due to a lack of attendance.

The right wing elite think they can make a major breakthrough, they can end the last vestiges of the welfare state

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.