Ms Laws said Elise was breastfed for 15 minutes by the wrong mum before staff realised the bungle.

Masada Private Hospital's director of nursing refused to comment when called by the Herald Sun yesterday.

The revelation comes just days after a first-time mum breastfed the wrong baby at St Vincent's Private Hospital.

The Williamstown woman complained to a midwife she did not think the baby was hers before the mix-up was discovered on Sunday. The hospital is investigating.

Ms Laws said she and husband Brett were stunned when a blood test invoice for just over $100 arrived at their home last month.

"I couldn't believe they had the audacity to send me the bill," she said.

"I phoned them straight away to tell them there was no way I was paying and I sent it back."

Ms Laws said she was so upset she left the hospital just one day after Elise's birth without making a formal complaint.

"I just wanted to get out of there," she said.

The mix-up happened when Ms Laws briefly sent Elise to the nursery so she could sleep, she said.

The nurses undressed Elise to give her a bath, before wrapping her in a standard-issue hospital blanket and sending her to the wrong mother, Ms Laws said.

Ms Laws, who has two other children, Adam, 4, and Daisy, 2, said she still looked at her two-month-old and thought about her being fed by another woman.

"I feel absolutely violated. Feeding is such a special thing," she said.

Ms Laws said she had to wait almost a full day before blood test results from both herself and the other woman confirmed neither child had contracted any illnesses.

Despite repeated requests to the hospital for a full summary of events, Ms Laws said she had received nothing.

"The most important thing for hospitals to do now is tighten their procedures to ensure every newborn is with their mother," Ms Laws said.

Sunday's mix-up at St Vincent's Private is the second known involving the hospital.

Ringwood mum Mary Pearson said she was handed the wrong baby two days after giving birth to Michaela in 1994.

Ms Pearson said she breastfed the infant for five minutes in the middle of the night before realising the mistake.

"Obviously nothing has changed in their practices in all this time," she said.

Ms Pearson said the recent cases had also upset her daughter.

"My daughter seriously asked me today if I was sure she was my daughter," Ms Pearson said.

"We look too much alike so I know she is."

In 2003, a Royal Women's Hospital nurse was reprimanded after a mother who had given birth to a girl was given a boy to feed the next day.

Blood tests and screening cleared the infants of any transmitted disease and the parents were offered counselling.

Nola Jenkins, who as a baby was part of Victoria's most notorious maternity ward mix-up, told the Herald Sun she was sad to hear such mistakes were still happening.

Ms Jenkins and Lee Morrison were born within minutes of each other in Kyneton Hospital, 85km north of Melbourne, in 1945.

Gwen Morrison was convinced Lee - the baby she took home -- was not hers, sparking a marathon custody battle with the Jenkins family that went all the way to the Privy Council in London.

Blood tests proved inconclusive and, by the time the girls were five, the Privy Council decided Nola should stay with the Jenkinses.

"I am surprised it is still happening and it is an awful shame," Ms Jenkins said yesterday.

"But I have had a good life and I am very fortunate. It was all a long time ago now for me."

OTTAWA, Canada (Reuters) -- The pilot of a Canadian airliner who went to the washroom during a flight found himself locked out of the cockpit, forcing the crew to remove the door from its hinges to let him back in, the airline said on Wednesday.
The incident occurred aboard a flight from Ottawa to Winnipeg on Saturday. The regional jet, capable of carrying 50 people, was operated by Air Canada's Jazz subsidiary.
Jazz spokeswoman Manon Stewart said that with 30 minutes of the flight to go, the pilot went to the washroom, leaving the first officer in charge. But when he tried to get back into the cockpit, the door would not open.
"The door malfunctioned ... this is a very rare occurrence," Stewart said, adding that the crew's decision to remove the door had been in line with company policy.
A report in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper said that for about 10 minutes "passengers described seeing the pilot bang on the door and communicating with the cockpit through an internal telephone, but being unable to open the door."
Stewart said the paper's report was "a bit dramatic" and stressed that at no time had the plane or passengers been in danger. She did not say how many people had been on board.

Copyright 2006 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

A woman spoke of her distress yesterday at emerging from a stroke to find that her Geordie accent had been transformed into a Jamaican one.

Linda Walker, 60, is one of only 50 people to have been recorded as suffering from foreign accent syndrome. She is now helping researchers from Newcastle University in the hope that they can find a cure for future sufferers.

The condition occurs when patients wake up after a brain injury. In Mrs Walker's case it appeared as she regained consciousness from a stroke in March.

She failed to realise the extent of the transformation of her voice until her speech therapist played her a tape.

"I was devastated," said Mrs Walker. "I don't sound like me. It is so strange because you don't feel the same person. Not only did I have a stroke but I got lumbered with this foreign accent syndrome as well."

There is nothing in Mrs Walker's history to indicate why she should now have an accent that some hear as Jamaican and others as an Eastern European dialect.

She was brought up in the Westerhope area of Newcastle and now lives a short distance away in Fenham. She lived for a brief period of time in Canada.

After four months of speech therapy she is beginning to despair of recovering her native accent.

She said: "I want my own voice back. It's like losing a big part of your identity. You don't feel like the same person any more."

Frauke Buerk, Mrs Walker's speech therapist, said: "Although Linda has improved it looks likely that she will be left with an accent."

Foreign accent syndrome was first discovered in Norway in 1941 when a young woman started to speak with a German accent after an air raid.

Parent /Teacer proof ringtones, only the kids can hear them.

A high-pitched alarm which cannot be heard by adults has been hijacked by schoolchildren to create ringtones so they can get away with using phones in class.

Techno-savvy pupils have adapted the Mosquito alarm, used to drive teenage gangs away from shopping centres.

They can receive calls and texts during lessons without teachers having the faintest idea what is going on
The alarm, which has been praised by police, is highly effective because its ultra-high sound can be heard only by youths but not by most people over 20.

Schoolchildren have recorded the sound, which they named Teen Buzz, and spread it from phone to phone via text messages and Bluetooth technology.

Now they can receive calls and texts during lessons without teachers having the faintest idea what is going on.

A secondary school teacher in Cardiff said: 'All the kids were laughing about something, but I didn't know what. They know phones must be turned off during school. They could all hear somebody's phone ringing but I couldn't hear a thing.

'One of the other children told me all about it later. I couldn't be too cross, because it shows resourcefulness.'

The Mosquito technology is said to play on a medical phenomenon called presbycusis, or age-related hearing loss.

It is thought to begin at 20 and first affect the highest frequencies ? 18 to 20kHz.

The device was developed by Merthyr Tydfil-based Compound Security.

Boss Howard Stapleton said: 'I think it is a giggle. A teacher would be able to hear the sound only from 1m away. Teenagers could hear it from much further away.'

Air Force One Subject to Internet Hoax
dailytech.com- Michael Hoffman - April 24, 2006 1:05 AM

Air Force One, the jet responsible for transporting President Bush and his staff around the world, was recently used as part of an Internet hoax. It all started when a low-quality, grainy video showed someone climbing over a barbed wire fence to spray paint graffiti on Air Force One -- the jet looked so authentic that the Air Force actually checked to see if the real aircraft had been vandalized. How was it done? The people that made the video rented a 747 and then painted it to look similar to the Air Force One. After the first time consuming task was completed, it was time to film a renegade video that depicted the alleged act. Once that was done, the video began circulating around the Internet. The amount spent on the prank was not disclosed. The Associated Press reports:
" I wanted to do something culturally significant, wanted to create a real pop-culture moment," said Marc Ecko of Marc Ecko Enterprises. "It’s this completely irreverent, over-the-top thing that could really never happen: this five-dollar can of paint putting a pimple on this Goliath."
To be taken directly to a video of the prank, please click here.

Electrical current boosts brain power by 20 percent.
By Amit Asaravala

Sending a weak electrical impulse through the front of a person's head can boost verbal skills by as much as 20 percent, according to a new study by the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
In the study, researchers at the institute asked 103 volunteers to recall as many words that begin with a particular letter as possible. The researchers then passed a 2-milliamp current -- one-tenth of what is needed to power a small LED (light-emitting diode) light -- through electrodes attached to the surfaces of the volunteers' foreheads. When the volunteers were quizzed again while the current was still on, this time with a different letter, they were able to come up with 20 percent more words on average.
The only side effect reported was an itching or "fizzing" sensation around the scalp where the electrode was attached.
The findings could lead to new, drugless treatments for the symptoms of brain injuries and diseases, the researchers said.
"This could be a very helpful way of boosting brain function in people with brain disorders," said lead researcher Eric Wassermann, a neurobiologist with the National Institute's Brain Stimulation Unit in Bethesda, Maryland. "Drugs have more side effects and addictive potential. This doesn't seem to have those problems, at least at this point."
Though it's not clear exactly why a current boosts a person's verbal response, the research team believes it may allow cells in the prefrontal cortex, the region of the brain associated with verbal memory, to transmit signals more easily.
"What we think we're doing is changing the electrical environment of neurons and causing them to change their activity," said Wassermann.
Theoretically, the technique could also improve skills associated with other regions of the brain, he said.
It isn't the first time doctors and scientists have used electricity to modify the way the brain works. Some historians believe Greek physicians as early as the second century directed patients to apply a live torpedo fish, a type of electric ray, to the forehead as a cure for headaches.
More recently, scientists have tried using an electrode-free procedure known as transcranial magnetic stimulation to treat hallucinations and severe depression. But the process is considered risky because it can trigger seizures in some cases.
The National Institute's low-current technique does not seem to have this problem so far, but Wassermann cautions that more research is needed. "It's unknown whether chronically overdriving an impaired system might cause it to burn out faster," he said.
Still, Wassermann said he is excited about the doors that his team's discovery may open for cognitive science.
"This process is so easy to miniaturize that it essentially becomes wearable," he said. "One day, a patient could be wearing it in a hat with the power source in a bucket and turning it on perhaps at critical times of day."
But don't expect to be able to buy a "thinking cap" to help your kids with their homework anytime soon. Wassermann said he and his team only plan to focus on medical applications right now.
"The question of improving normal function is fraught with complexity," he said. "It's going to come up, obviously, but it's not something that I'm planning to do at this point."

Man who was deaf for 15 years feels pop in his ears, regains perfect hearing

A former soldier who lost his hearing 15 years ago has suddenly regained it on a ski lift in the Italian Dolomites.
Derek Glover, 72, from Bourne, Lincolnshire, was 7,000ft up on holiday with his daughter when he heard a loud pop and his hearing returned.
Mr Glover's hearing was first damaged while on National Service 50 years ago and gradually worsened until he had to have a hearing aid fitted 15 years ago.
Doctors have so far been unable to explain what happened.
'Believe in miracles'
Mr Glover said: "I'd been skiing all morning and we'd decided we'd had enough so we were coming down in the cable car with my daughter and son-in-law.
" All of a sudden my ears went pop and their voices were dead clear, it was unbelievable.
" The doctor can't explain anything and he's starting to believe in miracles I think."
Mr Glover put his poor hearing down to firing rounds on the army shooting range when he was a soldier on National Service.
But he added that the army had also taught him to ski which was a very fortunate thing.
David Reid, of Deafness Research UK, said: "Regaining your hearing because of a change in altitude is very unusual - and the NHS aren't going to be prescribing holidays to the Alps anytime soon!"

Second floor of one-story office building discovered after 70 years

EVANSVILLE, Ind. A couple touring an old office building they hoped to buy made a shocking find _ the structure's second story had been sealed off from the world for some 70 years.
Lincoln and Lucille York Christensen bought the building last summer after discovering that a stairway passage to the second floor had been removed and the floor closed off.
Although most of the hidden floor's furnishings had been removed before it was sealed off, the room still offered a time capsule to the world of the 1930s.
A stack of canceled checks, all dated between June and December 1930, had been left on one of the two fireplace mantels. The checks were drawn on the account of the E-M Bush Hardware Company _ a dealer in cutlery, tools and builders hardware.
Underneath the stack of checks was a ledger book, all entries in pencil.
The floor was fitted with ceiling light fixtures designed for both electric and gas lights and contained a heavy wooden display rack like those seen at hardware counters of the era.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Naked train driver dismissed
08/12/2005 14:43 - (SA)


London - The driver of a 200km per hour Sheffield to London express train has been sacked after he stripped naked at the controls and snapped a picture of himself in the buff.
A spokesperson for Midland Main Line said on Thursday: "The driver was suspended straight away while we held a full investigation.
" The driver has now been dismissed. Safety is, and always will be, our main priority."
The driver, whose name was not disclosed, was believed to have used his camera-fitted mobile phone to snap the photo. It was later sent on to a Midland Mainline railway employee, who informed bosses.

Discussing art relieves constipation: study
AFP
October 17, 2005

STOCKHOLM: Viewing and discussing art not only soothes the soul, it also helps cure ills like high blood pressure and constipation, according to a Swedish researcher.
Britt-Maj Wikstroem of the Ersta Skoendal University College in Stockholm had 20 women of around 80 years of age gather once a week for four months to discuss different works of art.
" The result was positive. Their attitudes became more positive, more creative, their blood pressure went in the right direction ... and they used fewer laxatives," she told AFP.
A control group of 20 women who met to discuss their hobbies and interests once a week instead of art did not experience the same effects, she pointed out.
" There was a significant difference between the groups," she said, adding that the art group had continued to show positive effects many months after their last discussion.
Wikstroem has been studying the effects of art on people in different settings since the 1980s, including a study of how museum art hung in offices impacts on the employees working there.
" It's all about using art in a structured way," she said.

This article was posted before Katrina: New Orleans police arbitrarily fires 700 blank rounds to test response, nobody calls to report the gunfire.

POSTED: 1:56 pm CDT August 18, 2005

NEW ORLEANS -- Murder rates have fallen dramatically in many major U.S. cities -- but that's not happening in the Big Easy.
Although the murder rate in New Orleans is lower than it was a decade ago, it's rising and is nearly 10 times the national average.
A criminologist said the city's trend is the reverse of 46 of the top 50 cities in the United States.
Experts said the trend in the city that's home to the popular French Quarter exists for several reasons -- drugs, too few police, inexperienced prosecutors, and residents staying quiet because they fear retaliation.
They point to an experiment last year by university researchers in which police fired 700 blank rounds in a New Orleans neighborhood in a single afternoon.
No one called police to report the gunfire.

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Manual Transmission Foils Carjacker

Sep 26, 8:53 PM (ET)

SHAWNEE, Kan. (AP) - A would-be carjacker got away with nothing more than the keys Monday after he apparently was thwarted by the vehicle's manual transmission.
The thief was armed with a shotgun when he ordered a 26-year-old man out of his Chevrolet Camaro in a suburban Kansas City parking lot. The driver complied, but when the robber got into the car he was unable to manage the stick shift.
The robber fled the scene in a four-door car that someone else was driving.
Police are investigating whether the attempted theft is linked to four similar robberies in Johnson County during the past week.

New Bosnia icon: Bruce Lee

Monday, September 12, 2005; Posted: 9:44 a.m. EDT (13:44 GMT)SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (Reuters)

The ethnically divided Bosnian city of Mostar has agreed to erect a new symbol of unity -- a statue of kung fu legend Bruce Lee, worshipped by Muslims, Serbs and Croats.
A group of enthusiasts came up with the idea of honoring the childhood hero of the city's ethnic groups in 2003, on the 30th anniversary of his death. They launched the project, found donors and waited a year for the city's approval.
"We plan to erect the statue in November in the center of the city," Veselin Gatalo, a member of the Urban Movement organization, told Reuters by telephone on Monday.
"This will be a monument to universal justice that Mostar needs more than any other city I know."
He said Mostar, scene of fighting between Muslims and Croats in 1993-1994, needed a symbol of justice, mastery and honesty -- virtues upheld by the late Chinese-American actor.
Born in San Francisco, Lee starred in several kung fu movies, including 1973's "Enter the Dragon". He died at the age of 32 from swelling on the brain.
A German organization agreed last year to sponsor the project with a 5,000 euro ($6,162) grant.
The statue, cast in bronze and showing the martial arts master in a typical fighting pose, will be designed by a local sculptor and put up in central Mostar.
Lee's widow Linda will be invited to attend the ceremony.
For years, reconciliation in post-war Mostar was slower than anywhere else in Bosnia. But the reconstruction of the city's Old Bridge last year has helped reunite Muslim and Croat communities separated by the river.

Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

High-tech tombstones with embedded flat screen monitors that show videos of the deceased

A company in the US plans to unveil new high-tech tombstones with embedded flat screen monitors that would allow visitors to play memorial videos of the deceased, according to a report.
Joe Joachim, who says he wants to be the Walt Disney of the funeral business, plans to unveil the Vidstone at the annual funeral directors convention in Chicago in October.
The solar-powered Vidstone will play a video of the person's life at the touch of a button. It will not have speakers, but a jack to plug in headphones at cemeteries.

Russian Man Hammers Nail Into Head After “Hearing Voice”
Created: 08.06.2005 18:12 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 18:22 MSK MosNews

The resident of a Russian village has hammered a nail into his own head.
While alone at home 37-year-old Yuri Dedov took a hammer and drove a 122-millimeter nail into his forehead all the way down to the nailhead, Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper wrote. When Dedov’s mother came home, she found her son had a fever. Upon seeing the nail in his head, she called for an ambulance.
Dedov was taken to hospital and operated on. After the successful operation, he said that he had heard a voice saying “Take a hammer and do it.”
Neurosurgeon Yuri Tanvel, who operated on Dedov, said a piece of iron had almost gone through the latter’s head and stopped near the eyeball. “If its trajectory had been 15 degrees different, he would have died immediately. As it is, no vital function was violated. The main thing is the nail did not reach the brain,” the paper quoted the doctor as saying.
In April, doctors in the Voronezh region pulled a 35 cm knife out of a man’s head who lived to tell the tale. The patient’s friend had plunged the knife into his eye.

Woman jailed after calling 911 about pizza man
Wednesday, May 25, 2005 Posted: 8:41 AM EDT (1241 GMT)

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (AP) -- An 86-year-old woman was jailed after police said she called emergency dispatchers 20 times in a little more than a half-hour -- all to complain that a pizza parlor wouldn't deliver.
Dorothy Densmore was charged with misusing the emergency telephone hotline, jail spokeswoman Mandy Giannini said.
She told dispatchers Sunday that a local pizza shop refused to deliver to her south Charlotte apartment, said Giannini. She also complained that someone at the shop called her a "crazy old coot," Giannini said.
Densmore wanted them arrested. Instead, police came to arrest her, and she resisted, Giannini said.
It's unusual for someone to face charges for nonemergency calls, Giannini said. But on Sunday, Densmore kept calling 911, even after she was told to stop, Giannini said.
When an officer arrived at her apartment, the 5-foot (1.5-meter) -tall, 98-pound (44.5-kilo) woman attacked him, Giannini said. Densmore scratched him, kicked and bit his hand, she said.
Densmore also is charged with resisting a public officer and two counts of misusing the emergency telephone system, jail records show.

Police: Obscenity forcibly tattooed on teen's forehead

March 28, 2005, 4:31 PM EST

NORWICH, N.Y. -- A man and a teenager have been charged with forcibly tattooing an obscenity on the forehead of a 17-year-old boy, police said Monday.
Norwich Police Officer Craig Berry declined to describe the tattoo, except to say it was a phrase.
"It's just ludicrous that someone would do something like this to another person," Berry said.
Kenneth D. Peer, 23, of South New Berlin and a 17-year-old boy from Earlville were charged with felony assault and unlawful imprisonment. Police were withholding the name of the 17-year-old, who was charged as a youthful offender, Berry said.
The pair were being held in the Chenango County jail on $25,000 bail. They were to return to court Wednesday.
The victim _ whose name also was withheld by police _ walked into the Norwich police station Friday to file a complaint against his attackers. The victim told officers he had been held down by a man and another teen at a Norwich residence while they forcibly tattooed the vulgarity.
Police have not established a motive for the attack, Berry said. Police, however, said the three were acquaintances and that the incident was not a hate crime.
Berry said the attackers used a homemade tattooing instrument. Berry said it was likely the victim would require plastic surgery or a laser process to remove the ink.

Short index finger indicates physical aggressiveness in men.

THE length of a man’s fingers can reveal how physically aggressive he is, according to new research.
The shorter the index finger is compared to the ring finger, the more boisterous he will be, University of Alberta researchers said.
But the same was not true for verbal aggression or hostile behaviours, they told the journal Biological Psychology after studying 300 people’s fingers. The trend is thought to be linked to testosterone exposure in the womb.
There is known to be a direct correlation between finger lengths and the amount of the male hormone testosterone that a baby is exposed to in the womb. In women, the two fingers are usually almost equal in length, as measured from the crease nearest the palm to the fingertip. In men, the ring finger tends to be longer than the index.
Other studies looking at finger length have suggested that, in men, a long ring finger and symmetrical hands are an indication of fertility, and women with a longer index finger are more likely to be fertile.
One study found boys with shorter ring fingers tended to be at greatest risk of a heart attack in early adulthood, which was linked to testosterone levels.
In the current study, Dr Peter Hurd found men with the shortest index fingers scored higher on measures of physical aggression than those with longer index fingers.
Dr Hurd is now looking at male hockey players to see if there is any correlation between finger lengths and each player’s penalty record for contact and fouling during matches.

Man turns on sprinklers to create a tower of ice

By TIM MOWRY
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Published: March 7th, 2005

For a guy who doesn't like winter, John Reeves sure has a funny way of showing it.
How else do you explain the nearly 150-foot-tall, prehistoric-looking tower of ice Reeves has grown -- and continues to grow -- next to the Steese Highway eight miles north of Fairbanks?
"I don't really care for winter; I guess that's why I do stuff like this," Reeves said. "You've got to act crazy to keep from going crazy." Mission accomplished.
With nothing more than a well, a pump, some 1-inch copper pipe and a regular old Fairbanks winter, Reeves has created something that is absurdly Alaska.
"It's unique on the planet," said Reeves, standing next to his masterpiece on a sunny Saturday. "It's not like anybody else has one of these things."
Draped with thousands of icicles and several cauliflowers of ice protruding from its torso, the giant white stalagmite looks like something from the ice age. It was 141 feet tall Thursday and is still growing. It is about 70 feet wide at the base, and it narrows as it rises.
The "Fox Icescraper," as some are calling it, is taller than any building in Fairbanks, though that will change in a month or two when it begins to melt.
Two weeks of bitterly cold weather during January may have stunted the tower's growth, said Doug Buchanan, president of the Alaskan Alpine Club.
"We didn't go up it for a couple weeks when it was too cold," said Buchanan, who is the one who climbs the tower each week to extend the pipe and sprinkler head that has been spraying water 24 hours a day since mid-October, when temperatures were cold enough to turn water into ice. "The ice was just too brittle."
The tower has developed into one of Fairbanks' top winter tourist attractions. The Alaskan Alpine Club's Web page, which features photos, background and updates on the giant spire, receives almost 150,000 hits a day, Buchanan said.

Cat Survives 10-Mile Trip Atop Car

Thu Mar 3, 4:12 PM ET
 Strange News - APINKOM, Idaho - Torri Hutchinson's cat might just have one less life to live. Hutchison was driving along Interstate 15 one day recently when a motorist kept trying to get her attention and pointing to the roof of her car. She said she was wary of the man, but wondered if perhaps her ski rack might have come loose.
 She pulled over to the side, but kept her doors locked and the motor running.
The man pulled up behind her. Hutchinson rolled down her window to hear the man frantically shouting, "Your cat! Your cat!"
He reached for the roof of her car and handed the shocked Hutchinson her orange tabby.
She had driven about 10 miles with the cat on top of the car, and didn't even notice the feline when she stopped for gas.
Hutchinson said Cuddle Bug, or C.B. for short, had climbed into the back of her car as she was getting ready to leave. She put him out, but he must have jumped on the roof while she wasn't looking, she said.

"Nicollette Sheridan Banned for Life by the Sushi Nazi":

No, this isn't a Seinfeld spinoff in bizarro world. According to the National Enquirer, Sheridan got an unexpectedly raw deal recently when she tried to send back some "too fishy" flounder at L.A.'s Sushi Nozawa. Seems the tempura, um, temperamental chef Nozawa, known to many as the Sushi Nazi, wouldn't allow it. All his regular customers understand there are no returns and no exchanges--ever. But the episode quickly became a diva duel, complete with voices raised (as Hollywood heavyweights including Lucy Liu looked on). One eyewitness said, "Nicollette had a meltdown--she was absolutely seething." Nozawa himself said, "She kept yelling how angry she was. I told her, 'No, I am angry with you! You need to get out now and never come back!" Sheridan shouted he couldn't treat people like that and called him a "weird old man." He reportedly screamed, "You're nasty, nasty lady star. That's it. You are banned for life. No sushi for you!" Sheridan's reps dispute that account. They say Sheridan and Housewives costar Marcia Cross were told to leave because Cross wasn't eating, even though they say Sheridan was prepared to pay double so her friend could keep her seat at the sushi bar. Both versions end the same, however, with the Housewives California-rolling right out of there.

If you're going to fight with cabdriver over fare, make sure your jacket isn't caught in the door as he drives away

February 14, 2005
BY NATASHA KORECKI Staff Reporter

A 23-year-old Wheeling man was in critical condition Sunday after his jacket got caught in a cab door during a scuffle with occupants and he was dragged down a North Side street.
The confrontation started around 3 a.m. Sunday outside SoPo Bar and Restaurant, 3418 N. Southport. One of three men getting into a cab there opened the door into the side of the Wheeling man's parked Audi.
The Wheeling man, whom police would not identify, punched a 25-year-old occupant of the cab after they exchanged words, police said.
The Wheeling man continued arguing and leaned inside the cab when one of the three riders slammed the door shut, catching the man's jacket.
Cabbie could be charged
The cabdriver drove off, dragging the man, police said.
The cabbie soon realized what happened and stopped after a couple of blocks, Chicago Police spokeswoman Patrice Harper said. The three passengers got out, and the cabbie left the scene, Harper said.
No one has been charged in the incident. The cabbie could face charges for leaving the scene, police said.
The Wheeling man was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was listed in critical but stable condition, officials said.

Unwitting coffee model awarded $15.6M

Tuesday, February 1, 2005 Posted: 8:53 AM EST (1353 GMT)

GLENDALE, California (AP) -- A jury has awarded $15.6 million to a man whose image was used for years without his permission on Taster's Choice coffee labels.
Russell Christoff, a former model from Northern California, posed for a two-hour Nestle photo shoot in 1986 but figured it was a bust -- until he stumbled across his likeness on a coffee jar while shopping at a drug store in 2002.
A legal dispute with Nestle USA ensued, during which Christoff, 58, declined the company's $100,000 settlement offer, and Nestle USA turned down his offer to to settle for $8.5 million.
Last week, a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury ordered Nestle USA to pay Christoff $15.6 million for using his likeness without his permission and profiting from it. The award includes 5 percent of the Glendale-based company's profit from Taster's Choice sales from 1997 to 2003.
During that time, Nestle sold the freeze-dried coffee with labels featuring Christoff's face in the United States, Mexico, South Korea, Japan, Israel and Kuwait. The company's Canadian arm started using his image in 1986.
Nestle USA attorney Lawrence Heller said the company would appeal the verdict.
"The employee that pulled the photo thought they had consent to use the picture," Heller said.
Eric Stockel, an attorney for Christoff, said he hadn't expected such a large verdict.
Christoff, who while working as a model had appeared in corporate training videos and hosted his own public television show, is now a kindergarten teacher in the Bay Ar