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POLICE in Romania have caught a serial dater who invited women for romantic meals at expensive restaurants then ran off, leaving them to pay the bill. Police say good-looking romeo, George Hodoroaba, 23, struck dozens of times in the town of Suceava in eastern Romania. Five women have so far come forward to register complaints against Hodoroaba. A police spokesman said the fraud would demand the best wines and told his female guest to have whatever she wanted. Hodoroaba would say he had to make an important phone call and needed to go outside and then would vanish.

News of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's selection as pope has some worried that the schism among Catholics, caused by the sex-abuse scandal and wrangling about the role of women, gays and lesbians in the church, will only grow wider. "I felt so sad, so disappointed,'' said Marianne Duddy-Burke of the Boston chapter of Dignity USA, an advocacy group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Catholics. ``On a personal level, I felt a real sense of betrayal by the leaders of the Catholic church.'' The new Pope Benedict XVI, whose past writings take a rigorously conservative and orthodox stance on church doctrine,...

The Romney administration laid out its argument Tuesday for why Matthew Amorello should be fired as chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, saying his poor job performance is "ongoing, worsening, and in certain respects irreversible." Gov. Mitt Romney is seeking an advisory opinion from the state's highest court on whether he has the authority to demote Amorello, who has long feuded with the governor over the Big Dig. In a legal brief filed in support of that request, Mark D. Nielsen, Romney's chief legal counsel said "the Gov. believes that the chairman's performance failures as MTA CEO have caused serious...

These days Apple is generating more buzz than a swarm of African killer bees. Of course, we PC users can sit back and watch the hoopla about the Mac Mini and its brethren with detached interest, right? Well, maybe we should pay more attention. The fact is, Apple gets a lot of things right. For starters, the new Mac Mini is a sleek, pared-down little number that has a trim US$500 price tag to match. For Mac fans, it's an affordable, well-designed digital media machine that gets along nicely with other peripherals. The Mini will let you store and play...

In an article named "With closed eyes through the tunnel" German magazine Der Speigel published a material dedicated to the vote of the European Parliament (EP) on Bulgaria and Romania's entry in 2007 that took place last week. According to the magazine by greenlighting the entry of two of the poorest countries in Europe EP has made the Block more complicated and hard to manage. France's referendum on EU constitution would fail due to the EP's last week decision on Bulgaria and Romania's entry, the magazine forecasts. "This would throw Europe in a major crisis," Der Spiegel reports citing a...

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has released a game called Food Force. Available for download for free, the game is compatible with Macs and PCs. The WFP's goal in releasing Food Force is to educate players about world hunger and the work the aid agency does. The game puts players in charge of a hunger relief effort on the fictional Indian Ocean island of Sheylan, ravaged by a civil war, flooding and drought. You lead a crack multinational team of WFP professionals including a logistics officer, nutritionist and air drop specialist, and you must lead the team through six...

Record numbers of Germans are suffering from depression and other mental illnesses, a new report says. According to the research, by a German health insurance firm, cases of depression among Berliners have risen by 70% since 1997. Up to 70% of Germans also say they are prepared to seek professional help for psychological problems. Mental health experts blamed the rise on Germany's faltering economy, which has seen unemployment rise to over 5m.

Tucked away in Mayor Thomas M. Menino's staggering $2 billion budget is a $50,000-plus request to hike salaries at the city's Fair Housing Commission - an embattled agency that handled just 12 complaints last year and is banned from getting cases from the feds for past inefficiencies. Despite the feather-light caseload, the total annual salaries at the agency are set to jump from $619,000 to $668,657, with nearly a quarter going to four of the top five earners. "I keep hearing Mayor Menino whining and carrying on about how little money he's got and how the state hasn't been giving...

Ann Coulter and I were well into a bottle of white Bordeaux—and I believe she was chewing her fourth piece of Nicorette—when it happened. From what little I knew of her—mainly her propensity for declamations such as "liberals love America like O.J. loved Nicole"—I thought it impossible for Coulter to blush. Many of her fans would later tell me it was her fearlessness they admired, her fully unburdened sense of outrage against liberalism, against anyone left of Joseph McCarthy (whom Coulter flattered in her best-selling book Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism).

1. Henry VIII 2. Donald Trump 3. Mick Jagger 4. Tony Soprano 5. Justin Timberlake 6. Pat Buchanan 7. Robert Johnson 8. Matt Damon 9. Ralph Kramden 10. Howard Stern

Most French newspapers give President Jacques Chirac poor marks for his performance in Thursday's live TV debate aimed at producing a Yes vote in the EU constitution referendum. "Faced with an audience in which the No camp seemed to be in the majority, the head of state often struggled to get his pro-European case across, throughout a programme which was often confused," says the leading conservative daily Le Figaro. Le Parisien is even less impressed, calling it a "complicated, chaotic and - all things considered - a very disappointing broadcast." The president and others still have a lot of work...

eff Gordon never has approached the popularity of the late Dale Earnhardt -- perhaps NASCAR's biggest star ever. But Gordon is fast approaching one of Earnhardt's greatest accomplishments. A victory last Sunday at Martinsville Speedway was Gordon's second of the year and the 71st of his career, moving him within five of matching Earnhardt's 76 wins -- fifth on NASCAR's victory list.

Gartner Inc. reported Friday that despite disappointing results for most vendors shipping computers in the United States, Apple has leapfrogged Toshiba to become the fifth largest vendor of PCs for the region, based on Gartner's estimates of shipments made during the first calendar quarter. "Apple's PC shipments in the United States increased 45.1 percent in the first quarter," reported Gartner. For the fiscal quarter ending in March, Apple reported 477,000 CPU units shipped for its Americas segment, which include North, South and Central America. The company also reported another 144,000 units shipped through its Retail segment, which includes domestic and...

A competition to find the best way of saving hedgehogs from getting squashed has been launched in Russia. Local authorities in Saint Petersburg are offering prizes, including holidays, for the best hedgehog saving methods. Contestants are invited to submit details of their schemes and include pictures of hedgehogs saved. Interfax reported that at the end of 12 months the best hedgehog-saving plan will be honoured with a special prize. The group of judges, including environmentalists and local VIPs, will take into account the inventiveness of the scheme and the estimated number of hedgehog lives saved. A spokesman said: "Far too...

Highly reliable sources have confirmed the specifications of Apple's forthcoming revisions to its Power Mac G5, iMac G5 and eMac systems, expected to start shipping within a few days of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger's April 29th release. New Power Mac G5 systems, code-named Q87, will top out at 2.7GHz, sources said, while video cards are being upgraded with double the SDRAM. All models will feature SuperDrives offering dual-layer DVD+R support, as well as DVD±RW/CD-RW compatibility.

Gérard Depardieu took his reputation as a bon viveur to the limit this week in an apparently drunken outburst on national television. Giving what was arguably his best on-screen performance in some time, the 56-year-old appeared on this week's edition of the cultural talk show Ça balance à Paris to promote his new cookery book, Ma cuisine. Apparently angered by a criticism of the book from fellow guest and journalist Martin Monestier, Depardieu launched into a vicious verbal attack, repeatedly calling Monestier "un abruti" (a prat). Monestier responded with good humour, saying, "You're quite right, it's good to get things...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich cited illegal immigration by possible terrorists through the country's porous borders as one of the biggest risks America faces in the coming years, in a speech yesterday.      Speaking to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Gingrich said the measures to guard against terrorism after 9/11 haven't dealt with the long stretches of unguarded borders with Canada, Mexico and the porous nature of America's seaports.      "We had better get control of the borders," said Gingrich, a prominent Republican who resigned as speaker after questions were raised about payments he received for writing a book. "You had...

The Firefox browser continues to be a beacon for many Internet users.More than 2.6 million people visited the Firefox Web site in March to obtain more information about the open-source software and perhaps download it, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. That's up from 2.2 million in January and 1.6 million in February. Firefox has come on like gangbusters since last year, and now holds approximately 5 percent of the browser market. That's a small share, but the arrival of the browser--which has garnered attention in part as an alternative to Microsoft's Internet Explorer--has coincided with IE's dominant market share dipping below 90...

Two jailbirds turned lovebirds want to wed, but state correction officials have nixed the marriage of the incarcerated male couple, citing a ``significant security risk.'' Sex offenders Essie Billingslea and Bruce Hatt are committed indefinitely to the Massachusetts Treatment Center in Bridgewater, where they are serving civil sentences after criminal convictions, according to state officials. ``A marriage between two residents of the Massachusetts Treatment Center would also have a direct impact on the orderly running of the facility,'' Bridgewater Superintendent Robert Murphy said in a March 23 letter to Billingslea. ``Your record reflects that you have been found guilty of...

The feud between Joan Kennedy and her three children is likely to get more bitter and nasty should the ex-socialite struggling with alcoholism continue to fight for control of her own life, experts said. "In most cases, when someone is placed under guardianship it's understood on all sides that it's best for the person. Usually the person under guardianship is in no position to contest it,'' attorney Robert George said. ``It only becomes emotionally charged if she doesn't want a guardian appointed. It becomes ugly.'' The 68-year-old ex-wife of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy is reportedly fighting her children's attempts to...