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MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Alabama’s ban on a wine that features a nude nymph on the label became a business opportunity for a California vintner who is preparing a marketing campaign to capitalize on being “Banned in Bama.”

The Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board recently told stores and restaurants to quit serving Cycles Gladiator wine because of the label. Board attorney Bob Martin said the stylized, art-nouveau rendition of a nude female with a flying bicycle violated Alabama rules against displaying “a person posed in an immoral or sensuous manner.”

Bill Leigon, president of Hahn Family Wines in Soledad, Calif., said Thursday that visits to the company’s Web site have increased tenfold since news of the ban broke late last week, and callers from across the country have been asking where they can buy the wine.

Because of the interest, he’s developing store displays that say “Banned in Bama” and “Taste What They Can’t Have in Alabama.”

Hahn said he will never miss the 500 cases sold annually in Alabama. “There is going to be a significant increase in our sales,” he predicted.

Rosanna Guardagno, a social psychologist at the University of Alabama, said a ban often increases people’s interest in a product.

“The ABC Board, without realizing it, is going to boost their sales,” she said.

The wine’s label is copied from an 1895 French advertising poster for Cycles Gladiator bicycles. It shows a side view of a full-bodied nymph flying alongside a winged bicycle.

Martin said the ABC Board rejected the label last year, which meant the product wasn’t supposed to be sold in Alabama. A citizen recently sent a bottle to the board to show it was still being sold in the state, prompting the letter to restaurants and stores to stop sales, he said.

Hahn’s president said he was unaware of the ABC Board’s rejection until the letter was sent to retailers. He said the poster is a classic piece of art, with originals selling for as much as $50,000.

Although nude art bothers the alcohol board, it’s not a problem for some other branches of Alabama government.

The Alabama Tourism Department distributes a brochure with a cover featuring Hiram Powers‘ 19th century nude statue, The Greek Slave, which is on display at the Westervelt Warner Museum of American Art in Tuscaloosa. It is available in museums statewide, interstate highway welcome centers and visitors’ bureaus statewide.

“We haven’t had any concerns about it,” Tourism Director Lee Sentell said.

And Alabama’s Capitol has historic paintings on display, including two that show several topless female Indians.

Guardagno, who studies social influences, said people allow more freedom of expression in art than in advertising.

“With art, you have to be really explicit with how a person’s body is displayed before people are offended,” she said.

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On the Net:

Hahn Family Wines: http://hahnfamilywines.com

MEXICO CITY – Surprised tourists found their little piece of Cancun beach paradise ringed by crime-scene tape and gun-toting sailors on Thursday.

Environmental enforcement officers backed by Mexican navy personnel closed off hundreds of feet (dozens of meters) of powder-white coastline in front of a hotel accused of illegally accumulating sand on its beach.

Mexico spent $19 million to replace Cancun beaches washed away by Hurricane Wilma in 2005. But much of the sand pumped from the sea floor has since washed away, leading some property owners to build breakwaters in a bid to retain sand. The practice often merely shifts sand loss to beaches below the breakwaters.

“Today we made the decision to close this stretch of ill-gotten, illegally accumulated sand,” said Patricio Patron, Mexico’s attorney general for environmental protection. “This hotel was telling its tourists: ‘Come here, I have sand … the other hotels don’t, because I stole it.’”

Patron said five people were detained in a raid for allegedly using pumps to move sand from the sea floor onto the beach in front of the Gran Caribe Real Hotel. The hotel is also suspected of illegally building a breakwater that impeded the natural flow of sand onto other hotels’ beaches, he said.

An employee of the hotel’s marketing office said nobody was available to comment on the allegations. Authorities said the hotel owner ignored previous orders to remove the breakwater.

A knot of angry tourists gathered around the closed beach.

Some were irked by the sight of police tape and “Closed” signs.

Maria Bachino, a travel agent from Rocha, Uruguay, said by telephone that she had booked a beachfront room in Cancun, only to find herself cut off from the clear, bathub-temperature waters that lure millions to Cancun each year.

“They promised us a beach,” said Bachino. “This is very unpleasant, we feel bad. This is intimidating,” she said of the armed navy personnel who participated in the raid.

Patron said he regretted any inconvenience for tourists, but said the government is planning projects to restore beaches throughout Cancun in an orderly, environmentally responsible way.

“I apologize to the tourists for this problem, but it is a question of enforcing the law,” Patron said.

LONDON (Reuters) –
Fans of English third division club Tranmere Rovers were bemused to find their club up for sale on popular online shopping and auction site eBay this week — a move prompting an angry reaction from owner Peter Johnson.

Johnson appointed American firm Dornoch Capital earlier this year to find a buyer for the club but said on Friday he was shocked to discover it had been listed on the website for 6 million pounds.

"This is not a second-hand bike we're selling," Johnson was quoted in the Daily Mail on Friday.

An official statement on the club's website (www.tranmererovers.co.uk) said Johnson had told Dornoch to withdraw the advert immediately.

"Mr. Johnson was very disappointed to discover that Dornoch Capital had chosen eBay.com as a route to find a potential buyer and would not have given them permission to do so had he been asked," the statement said.

Last month Tranmere appointed former England winger John Barnes as manager.

(Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Peter Rutherford)

CHENNAI, India (Reuters) –
India's unfancied rugby sevens side must bulk up if they hope to make an impact at next year's Commonwealth Games, eating seven meals and at least 15 eggs a day, the country's South African coach said on Friday.

"I have told them (his players) they must eat at least 15 eggs a day, six for breakfast and the remaining nine any time, any how, during the day," the country's South African coach Norman Laker told the Telegraph newspaper on Friday.

"The players have three meals a day and that's not enough. In South Africa, elite rugby players have seven meals a day."

India is rated a lowly 83rd out of the 95 teams in the International Rugby Board rankings which are currently headed by South Africa.

"Indian players weigh 72-77 kg on an average whereas the international players weigh between 88 and 100 kg. That is the weight difference you have to make up," Laker said ahead of the team's departure to South Africa for a training stint.

India is hosting the Commonwealth Games in October 2010.

(Reporting by Sanjay Rajan; Editing by Nigel Hunt)

LAS VEGAS – Police in Las Vegas say a tamed tiger that escaped from a magic act has been captured.

Police say the residents in the city’s northwest section reported seeing the tiger wandering their streets Thursday night.

Police Lt. Les Lane says the cat belongs to Fernando’s Brothers magic act. He says the cat got loose, but “they got it back into custody.”

The cat was found in a resident’s backyard.

Animal Control and Metro Police are investigating the incident.

CROSSVILLE, Ala. – A 37-year-old Georgia woman was arrested and charged with padding her bra with methamphetamine. DeKalb County, Ala., Sheriff Jimmy Harris said the woman was arrested Tuesday and charged with trafficking in controlled substances.

Harris said authorities pulled the woman over for a traffic violation and searched her car. During a pat down, an officer found a pound of meth hidden in her bra, worth about $13,000.

She was released from the DeKalb County jail Wednesday on $30,000 bond.

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Information from: Fort Payne Times-Journal, http://www.times-journal.com

FRASER, Mich. – A game of Monopoly has landed a Michigan man in jail. WDIV-TV reported a 54-year-old man was playing the board game Saturday night with a female friend when he tried to buy Park Place and Boardwalk from her.

When she refused, Fraser police Lt. Dan Kolke told WWJ-AM he hit her in the head, breaking her glasses.

The man was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault and battery.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) –
A divorced Saudi man with four children has shocked Saudi Arabia, one of the most conservative countries in the world, with details of his sexual exploits on an Arabic television show.

Mazen Abdul-Jawad, 32, has gone into hiding after appearing two weeks ago on Lebanese channel LBC — mainly owned by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal — where he spoke to camera from his bedroom in the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah about how couples can spice up their sex lives.

"Everything happens in this room," he said on an episode of the salacious show "Ahmar Bilkhat al-Areed" (Wide Red Lines), before launching into descriptions of foreplay techniques and tricks for cruising women on the streets of Jeddah.

Clips of the racy confessions from the TV show, which can be seen via satellite in Saudi Arabia, have had nearly half a million hits on Youtube.

Saudi Arabia follows an austere form of Islam where religious police patrol the streets to enforce a strict moral standard including no mixing of unrelated men and women, as well as no drugs and alcohol.

Public beheadings are regularly carried out for a range of crimes, from murder to rape, witchcraft or insulting Islam.

But many young Saudis find ways around the draconian system to make contact with each other, and the clerics have tried in vain to limit mobile phone and other technology.

Men have been prosecuted for taking pictures of young women with phones in malls and many reports say such photographs are often used as blackmail.

STARTED AT 14

Abdul-Jawad said sex became an important part of his life at age 14, following his first sexual encounter with a neighbor.

He demonstrated how he would cruise girls in his red convertible or in supermarkets, often making use of Bluetooth mobile phone technology, and produced sex toys and lubricants from his bedroom cupboard.

"While I'm driving I turn my Bluetooth on. It has the description of my car and my mobile number… I get calls from girls… and in some cases I call back and she goes out with me," he says in the Youtube clips.

Newspapers and bloggers have said the young man should face legal action for spreading vice in what has been dubbed by media as the "frank with filth case."

"He confessed before the world that he committed fornication and continues to fornicate," an anonymous user wrote on al-Medina newspaper's web forum this week.

"It is for that reason that he deserves to be stoned to death, as Islamic law stipulates."

Hashim Adnan, a 24-year-old from Jeddah, said Abdul-Jawad deserved at least some form of censure. "He must be punished and become an example for all. We Saudis are not used to and will not accept such behavior," he said.

It was not possible to contact Abdul-Jawad who has made only one public comment since the controversy erupted.

"I offer my apologies to everyone and I am ready to accept the consequences," he said in an interview with the daily Okaz last week. It carried a photograph of him in traditional Saudi robes but with his face concealed.

(Writing by Asma Alsharif and Andrew Hammond; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

SYDNEY (Reuters) –
A flea-bitten dog rescued from a squalid backyard is to be reunited with her owners 1,000 miles away — nine years after she disappeared.

The dog, Muffy, was found sleeping on a tattered piece of cardboard in a backyard in Melbourne with a bad skin condition and matted coat by the RSPCA after an anonymous call.

RSPCA Victoria spokesman Tim Pilgrim said Muffy was found to have been microchipped which did not fit at all with the circumstances so they decided to try to track down the dog's owners whom they found in Brisbane.

"It's amazing that the original owners had microchipped her as it wasn't that common nine years ago and it is amazing that she had come 2,000 km from home," Pilgrim told Reuters.

"We are advising people to get their pets microchipped so we can have some more happy endings like this one."

He said Muffy was believed to have been at that house in Melbourne for about one year after being found as a stray but no one knew where she had been for the previous eight years.

Muffy will be flown home to Brisbane next week to be reunited with her owners who were delighted to hear that their lost pet had finally been found.

BERLIN (Reuters) –
Teenagers with a rare nutritional disorder invited to a special lunch at the Swedish embassy in Berlin ended up being sick when they were given food they couldn't eat, authorities said on Thursday.

At least ten of the coeliac disease sufferers from around Europe began to vomit after they ate pasta containing a gluten they could not tolerate at Wednesday's meal, the embassy said.

"This is a very regrettable incident, especially for the Swedish ambassador who is allergic to gluten herself," said Andreas von Beckerath, spokesman for the Swedish embassy.

The embassy had invited some 60 young people from around Europe to the lunch in conjunction with a Swedish youth group dedicated to sufferers of the disorder, Beckerath said.

According to some reports, all of the attendees became ill, though Beckerath said he believed it was around a dozen.

(Reporting by Caroline Copley)