NEWS FROM AROUND THE GLOBE: BAD BUBBLY, LICE AND GOOD NEWS FOR ALCOHOLICS

Well, it's week number two for the News From Around the Globe column. This week we will travel to South Africa, New Zealand, Honduras, Washington D.C., and points in between.

I'd like to start this week in Christchurch, New Zealand, with the New Zealand Press Online, where I found this headline, "Second foot found on beach linked to first."

Well, I don't know about you, but unless floating feet are an every day occurrence in New Zealand I think this is something the public probably figured out on their own (let's file this one in the 'no duh' file).

In other New Zealand news (I file this one under misunderstood sermon) a fight broke out after services in the parking lot of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Royal Oak, Aukland. Knives and iron bars were produced during the fight.

More church news, this time from jolly old England where it will cost Sunday visitors to the Cathedral at Canterbury two-and-a-half pounds to come inside (and in a related story, Sunday collections are up while attendance is down).

From Honduras This Week, a headline reads "Lice teach lessons of cooperation in stories and dance" (let's not file this one).

Anyone out there enjoying a fine champaign? Well, it might just be fake bubbly you're toasting. It seems mischievous champaign producers in South Africa operating under the code name 'Project Spark' have been polluting the world market with 240,000 bottles of fake bubbly.

This troubling piece of news came from the South Africa Mail & Guardian. There have been suspicions of South African champaign fraud since the late 1980s. Of course, champaign can only come from grapes grown in Champaign, France, and the secondary fermentation has to take place there as well. They are just going to have come up with another name. I've got an idea for this fake champaign product. Why not name the product after its signature taste--South African Pond Water.

And while we are on the subject of alcohol. There's good news for alcoholics everywhere. This news comes to us from The Guardian Journal. Doctors in Australia are saying that "long-term heavy drinkers are NOT damaging their mental faculties." Let's file this one under research funded by Foster's-Australian for Beer.

And from The Iceland Daily News weather report, the writer asks "Can you believe it? June, and parts of the country are still being troubled with snow!" Let's file this one under YES I CAN BELIEVE IT CONSIDERING YOUR COUNTRY IS NAMED ICELAND.

Here's another 'No Duh' file from the Associated Press where a story informs the reader that rich people are more likely than poor people to avoid interest charge penalties on their credit cards.

Now, there's something I didn't know.

And from an Alexandria, Va., newspaper there was a story about government officials baffled by 19,000 new jobless claims. And in a related story, recent college graduates still looking for work

Now, I couldn't let this one go, I didn't get this one from the Internet. This one from the Associated Press ran in the Southeast Missourian last Sunday, I like to file it under headlines that will cause widespread panic, "Floss or die, doctors warn."