Oddly enough headlines

Baby's Belly Holds Key to Starting Car
Tue Dec 3, 8:13 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - A British woman may have discovered the ultimate in car security when she started her vehicle with a hi-tech electronic key -- lodged inside the belly of her one-year-old son.

The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Tuesday that 34-year-old Amanda Webster called for roadside assistance when her car refused to start after a shopping trip near her home in west London. Her son Oscar had been sucking on the key.

A patrolman sent to help noticed that part of the key -- a pill-sized radio transponder that acts as a security device -- was missing and guessed that Oscar might have swallowed it.

"She sat him on her lap and made sure that his tummy was pressed up against the wheel," Keith Scott told the Telegraph.

"She turned the key and the car started," he said. "I guess this was the ultimate in car security."

The paper reported that Oscar was none the worse for wear and the chip was recovered after nature had taken its course. It still worked.

Monkey Hunt After 23 Women Attacked
Tue Dec 3, 8:12 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Monkey business is anything but funny for one rural Japanese town where a roving simian has bitten 23 women over the past two days.

Officials in Shimosuwa, some 112 miles northwest of Tokyo, turned out with cages and tranquilizer guns Tuesday in an attempt t-o trap the beast.

"The monkey has been causing damage by stealing fruit since October, but this is the first time it has actually harmed people," a town official said.

Among the animal's victims was a 27-year-old television announcer, who was bitten on the back of the leg early on Tuesday, apparently while preparing for a shoot. Most of the other victims were attacked while taking out household garbage.

"We hope to capture the monkey or chase it back into the woods permanently, but if the worst comes to the worst we may have to shoot it," the official said.

Asked why the monkey's victims were all women, the official said: "I believe that monkeys attack things that seem weaker than they are. It wasn't, of course, because it liked women."

Although wild monkeys are native to some areas of Japan, Shimosuwa is not one of them.

Officials in another municipality plagued by monkeys took a novel approach to the problem earlier this year -- the city of Shibata, 160 miles northwest of Tokyo, used government subsidies meant to combat unemployment to hire four people as monkey chasers.

Nude Calendar Sells Courage, Not Cars
Tue Dec 3, 8:03 AM ET | By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) - Calendars in Italy use bare breasts to sell everything from cars to coffins.

Now, a different calendar uses photos of nude women who have had breast reconstruction to sell a very simple but vital message -- that there is life for women after breast cancer.

"Calendars in Italy are usually associated with female beauty and we wanted to send a message that courage is beautiful too," Dr Simonetta Franchelli told Reuters Monday.

Franchelli and her colleague Marisa Muggiano, both of whom work at the Genoa Tumor Institute, came up with the idea to encourage women who have undergone radical mastectomy and reconstructive surgery to lead normal lives.

The calendar, which will go on sale throughout Italy next week, will raise funds for the Italian League to Prevent Tumors.

Franchelli said in a telephone interview from the hospital that it was not difficult to find the six women patients who allowed themselves to be photographed naked after surgery. The women each represent two months.

"Still, they are courageous women because there still is too much of a stigma attached to breast cancer and reconstructive breast surgery," she said.

In one of the pictures, a woman wearing only a black bow tie and a white silk scarf. She is smiling broadly.

In another, a woman contemplates her reconstructed breast in a meditative pose and in a third, a romantic red rose rests on one of the reconstructed breasts.

"These pictures are artistic, nothing shocking and no one was trying to be sexy," Franchelli said.

"We were trying to give a voice to our patients so that women can tell other women that they too can cope with something as traumatic as breast cancer," she said.

Franchelli, a 40-year-old plastic surgeon at the northeastern city's cancer hospital, said some people had complained the calendar was in bad taste but most calls had been supportive.

She said she got the idea from a patient several years ago who was mentioning how pin-up women are used in Italian calendars.

To show that breast cancer can strike women of all ages, the patients photographed ranged in age from 30 to 68.

"It is by women, for women and essentially the message is that you can return to a normal life. We are not trying to be sexy, we are not trying to be vulgar. We are trying to be women," she said.