| Pakistan announced a ban on lavish wedding feasts. Explaining such
celebrations cause financial hardships for the poor and middle classes,
lawmakers voted in May to restrict families to a wedding meal at home for relatives and house guests. Larger gatherings can take place at hotels and clubs outside the home, but no food may be served -- only hot and cold non-alcoholic drinks. |
| Almost all of Nevada City, CA, lost power for 30 minutes this spring when a branch blew off a tree and hit a Pacific Gas & Electric power line. The Grass Valley Union newspaper reported the outage delayed the trial of PG&E for failing to trim vegetation around power lines as required by the state. |
| Baltimore, Maryland - A 15-year-old girl was briefly suspended from school for casting a spell on a fellow student. Jamie Schoonover acknowledges she practices witchcraft, as does her mother, but both say Jamie would never cast an evil spell on anyone, even if she knew how. "Casting a spell isn`t something that just any novice is going to know how to do," said Colleen Harper, a transexual who was Jamie`s biological father and now calls herself her mother. |
| A team of Latvian doctors claimed a new world record after reattaching four severed hands in just five days. According to the Baltic News Service, three of the patients had their hands cut off by saws while chopping down trees. The fourth, a woman, had her hand severed by a dough machine. The agency noted doctors normally reattach only two or three hands a year. |