Somali wedding planners rejoice in new freedom

Women decked out in brightly colored gowns, gold jewelry and elaborate dance with men to the slow tunes of Somali love songs. A pianist, guitarist and female singer entertain the crowd packed into a small, stuffy hall for a wedding reception. Such a scene would have been unthinkable in Mogadishu just months ago when a hardline Muslim movement ruled the seaside capital and much of southern Somalia, imposing sharia law and shutting down many forms of entertainment seen as un-Islamic. But business is back after the interim government, with Ethiopian military help, in January ejected the Islamists and their strict form of Islam.

Smoking marijuana ups risk of schizophrenia: study

Using marijuana increases the risk of one day developing a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia, according to a study that provides some of the strongest evidence yet linking the drug to a mental disorder.

Marijuana is one the most commonly used illegal substances in many countries with up to 20 percent of young people in places like Britain reporting either some use or heavy use, British researchers said, citing government statistics.

Many consider it on par with alcohol or tobacco but the results shows marijuana poses a danger many smokers underestimate, said Stanley Zammit, a psychiatrist at Cardiff University and the University of Bristol, who worked on the study.

The researchers found that marijuana users had a 41 percent increased chance of developing psychosis marked by symptoms of hallucinations or delusions later in life than those who never used the drug. The risk rose with heavier consumption.

"If you compare other substances like alcohol or tobacco it may not be as harmful, but what we are saying is neither is it completely safe," Zammit said in a telephone interview.

Other findings have highlighted the link between marijuana use and the risk of schizophrenia-like symptoms such as paranoia, hearing voices and seeing things that are not there.

But this study marks one of the most comprehensive, thorough and reliable reviews of its kind and should serve as a warning, two Danish researchers wrote in an accompanying comment in the Lancet medical journal, which published the study on Friday.

Hotels told to provide condoms

China has ordered all hotels, holiday resorts and public showers to provide condoms, part of nationwide efforts to fight the spread of AIDS, a newspaper said on Friday.

The regulation, issued by the commerce and health ministries, also required pamphlets about AIDS prevention to be displayed, the Beijing News said.

The move follows an unusual step by the booming eastern province of Zhejiang in March to fine hotels and bars if they did not provide condoms.

China originally stigmatized AIDS as a disease of the decadent, capital West -- a problem of gays, sex workers and drug users. Traditionally, none of these officially existed in communist China.

It has belatedly woken up to the problem and health experts have warned the virus is now moving into the general population.

But a lack of sex education and unwillingness to talk about sex still hampers the fight, health experts say.

Thief battered in fish shop

A man who attempted to rob an Australian fish and chip shop found himself on the losing side when the angry shop owner threw fish batter and hot oil at him.

 

"The hot oil missed but the batter hit the offender and he fled empty handed," South Australian police said in a statement.

 

Police said the attempted armed robbery happened on Thursday evening at the quiet seaside retirement town of Victor Harbor, near the South Australian state capital of Adelaide.

 

Police were checking local hospitals in case the man was injured.

Giant prehistoric tusks found in Greece

Researchers in northern Greece have uncovered two massive tusks of a prehistoric mastodon that roamed Europe more than 2 million years ago — tusks that could be the largest of their kind ever found. The remains of the mastodon, which was similar to the woolly mammoth but had straighter tusks as well as different teeth and eating habits, were found in an area about 250 miles north of Athens where excavations have uncovered several prehistoric animals over the past decade.

N.H. couple evade death and taxes

SHE sits on the lookout in a lawn chair on their front porch, her forehead glossy with sweat, Bible next to her left foot, wind chimes clinking at her back. Her husband of 24 years is by her side, German shepherd at his knee, handgun tucked beneath the belt on his jeans.

 

High in these humid hills, Ed and Elaine Brown have been holed up in their home for six months, refusing to serve a five-year prison sentence for tax evasion. They all but dared law officials to come and get them. This, they say, is a fight they're ready to die for.

 

"Show me the law!" says Ed, a trim 64-year-old with a silver mustache, whose forehead crinkles when he gets heated. The Browns stopped paying income taxes in 1996. They say the Constitution and Supreme Court decisions support their claims that ordinary labor cannot be taxed. But a judge ruled against them in January, convicting the Browns of conspiring to evade paying taxes on $1.9 million in income from Elaine's dentistry practice.

 

Now, the Browns say they're in a battle for freedom, and it just might end in bloodshed right here, in a towering turreted house with 8-inch-thick concrete walls and an American flag fluttering over the double-car garage. They have garnered national support, with blogs devoted to news about the standoff and supporters regularly showing up on the couple's doorstep with groceries.

 

Government and law officials have cut off power, Internet, house phone, cell phone, television and mail service to the couple's 110-acre compound. But their house is equipped with solar panels, a watchtower, a satellite dish and a stockpile of food.

 

"We are self-sustained like a ship," Ed says. "We don't need power from the shore to run the ship."

 

FBI agents are trying to avoid a deadly shootout reminiscent of Waco, Texas, or Ruby Ridge, Idaho. They have tried negotiating, waiting, begging.

 

"We are proceeding carefully to make sure no one gets hurt," says U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier, the lead officer handling the siege. "We are aware that there are guns in there."

 

Monier says the couple broke the law and should turn themselves in peacefully. "They have been tried and convicted and sentenced."

 

But the Browns aren't budging.

 

"You remember that little gentleman in China, Tiananmen Square?" Ed says, peering through his sunglasses. "He was the same as we are. You can scare me, you can kill me, but you can't intimidate me."

 

"We're fighting for you, your country," adds Elaine, 66, a calm woman with short, wavy dark hair. "This isn't just taxes."

 

"There's no more America," Ed says. "It's already gone."

 

"I'll die fighting, rather than live in slavery," Elaine says. "I'll tell you that."

 

 

 

THE mountain air outside the Browns' home is hot and thick with flies. On the shaded front porch overlooking a small duck pond, a visitor in a straw hat — who drove his pickup truck for two days from Texas to meet the Browns — eats grapes out of a paper bag and flips through an issue of Shotgun News magazine. He introduces himself as Doug. His last name is Tibbetts, he says, "like that guy who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima."

 

Another guest, who refuses to give his name and makes it a point to tell everyone he is armed, drove here from Massachusetts. He talks about illegal immigration and government corruption in a slow deep drip of a voice that seems to irritate Ed, who frequently cuts him off.

 

The government, Ed says, is at a point of "communism in its purist form."

 

Elaine nods.

 

 

 

A jar of Vaseline and peanut butter

What you never want to hear your neighbors say

 

1. Perhaps you should build a higher fence because we are buying a pack of Pit Bulls.

2. My parents are coming to stay with us because their village is being ravaged by Ebola.

3. Is your chainsaw strong enough to cut a hooker in half?

4. I beat my wife only because she walks in to doors and falls down stairs.

5. Can my kids play at your house while I clean our Meth lab?

 

 

Things nobody wants to find on their dresser the morning after a night out

 

1. Some dude’s boxers, cowboy hat and bullwhip.

2. Empty bottle of Rohypnol and an enormous German bratwurst.

3. Videotape wrappers and a note that says: “Thanks for last night whatever your name is!”

4. Grandma’s dentures, a jar of Vaseline and peanut butter.

5. A straight razor and some bloodied bandages