Limp

An Italian man is demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation after claiming his wife’s constant nagging has left him impotent. Sergio Vinucci, from Parma, has produced medical evidence in court that backs up his claims that his wife’s nagging caused him so much stress that he has been left unable to perform sexually. He told reporters, “All she ever does is complain. It is extremely stressful and it has left me unable to be a man. I want some compensation.” We’ll keep you posted on this one.

Dogged

In Washington State, a 19-year-old Pasco man is in jail after a police dog sniffed him out of a doghouse. When a man called police to report that his car had been stolen, officers around the city began searching for it. They spotted it once and tried to stop the car, but the driver fled. Eventually the driver ditched the car and went on foot. Officers from five agencies staged themselves around the area, and Pasco’s K-9 unit was called in to help with the search. A police dog found Francisco Montalvo hiding – guess where? In a doghouse.

Birthday

Also from Washington, Spokane police say a man picked the wrong way to celebrate his 43rd birthday. Dawayne D. Butler is accused of committing two robberies in less than half an hour on his “special day.” According to a police report, a man demanded money and said he had a gun at a Rite Aid store only to flee when a manager intervened. Using the same approach, a man got an undisclosed amount of money and checks from a Shopko 25 minutes later. Soon afterward police received a report of money and checks in the street, and Butler was stopped in a vehicle and arrested based on witness descriptions.

Missing

In the land down under, a Melbourne couple returning home from vacation were shocked to discover police about to hold a news conference at their house about their suspicious disappearance. William and Heather Ostell’s daughter, Angela, had not seen or heard from her parents in days. She went to their house in the southeast Australian city and discovered the front door unlocked, their car gone and their dog home alone. She called the police and reported her parents missing. Homicide detectives were holding a press conference at the Ostell’s home to appeal for information when the couple drove up.

Postal

A French teenager who wrote a letter to her late mother in heaven had it returned with a demand for postal costs. The 13-year-old girl, named only as Anais by the French newspaper Le Journal de Saône-et-Loire, addressed the letter to Paradise Street, Heaven. Two days later it was returned to her home in Chatillonais with an “unknown at this address” notice and a demand for 1.35 euros – she hadn’t put a stamp on the envelope. Two years after her mother’s death, Anais was still inconsolable. She decided to send her a letter to let her Mom know how much she loved her. The French post office has since apologized. A spokesman said there was a village called Ciel, which means heaven in French, but it had no Paradise Street.

Polished

In the UK, a bungling bankrupt crook hoped to clean up by holding up a bookie. But his weapon of choice was odd. He used a can of furniture spray. Amazingly, the can worked and employees forked over the loot. But James Thomson’s getaway skills need work. As he fled, the money spilled from his bags, attracting attention as he got into his girlfriend’s car to flee the scene. Onlookers took the registration number and he was quickly traced. The best part is that when detectives caught him, he had already blown the cash he got in the raid by gambling the whole take with another bookie. Thomson, 33, immediately confessed and told officers, “I went into the bookie’s with a can of Pledge. It wasn’t armed robbery. I wasn’t aggressive. I’m bankrupt. I needed the cash.”

Stuck

Sometimes no good deed goes unpunished. German police had to rescue a driver after he moved out of the way to allow a police car with flashing lights to pass, and got stuck in setting concrete. Hans-Peter Wagner, 62, was driving on the A1 motorway near Ratekau in Northern Germany when he saw police flashing to get past him in his rear view mirror. He instantly made way and pulled over, but went straight into a stretch of road that had just been freshly paved. His car was later pulled out of the concrete by traffic cops. Wagner said: “It looked like a regular road, and I didn’t see it was wet concrete.”

Theater

In Minnesota, a new state ban on smoking in restaurants and other nightspots contains an exception for performers in theatrical productions. So some bars are getting around the ban by printing up playbills, encouraging customers to come in costume, and pronouncing them “actors.” The customers are happy to play along in order to get their fix without stepping outside. Happily puffing away and sometimes speaking in funny accents and doing a little improvisation, customers can now smoke to their hearts’ content under the guise of theater. The state Health Department is threatening to bring the curtain down on these sham productions. But for now, it’s on with the show. At The Rock, a hard-rock and heavy-metal bar in suburban St. Paul, the “actors” during “theater night” do little more than sit around, drink, smoke and listen to the earsplitting music. “They’re playing themselves before October 1 – you know, before there was a smoking ban,” owner Brian Bauman explained.

Biggie

In Mexico City, when Manuel Uribe went out on a date, he made all the necessary arrangements – a forklift to carry him out of the house and a flatbed tow truck big enough to haul the 600-pound man and his bed to a party. But Uribe was only halfway there when one of the posts holding a tarp over his bed hit an overpass. Uribe’s blood pressure dropped so much his doctors advised him not to go on. The celebration, being documented by photographers from around the world, was canceled.