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INNSBRUCK, Austria — It wasn't "Snakes on a Plane," but an Austrian Airlines jet made an unscheduled stop as a precaution Friday after a passenger sneaked a hamster aboard and the rodent escaped.

A recent bust in Jefferson Parish involving assault rifles, drugs and tens of thousands of dollars in cash was another example of a major crime problem within the black community, Sherriff Harry Lee said Wednesday. Sheriff Lee said the department was shocked to see how many firearms were inside the backseat of a GMC Yukon. Lee said that narcotics agents arrested four men on Monday for drug possession and firearms, two of which were semi-automatic pistols, two semi-automatic rifles, and a grenade launcher. Lee said they also found one pistol with a major drumround which could hold up to 50...

In a recent blog posting , Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) Lead Program Manager Chris Wilson revealed many of the technical improvements that Microsoft will add to IE 7.0 for its final release. Almost all the improvements are related to bugs in IE's implementation of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), an HTML-like technology that Web developers use to create Web sites. Many of these bugs aren't fixed in the currently available IE 7.0 Beta 1 release, Wilson noted. Wilson's post raises some serious questions about IE 7.0, not the least of which is this: If IE 7.0 Beta 1 doesn't include the...

WASHINGTON - In its continuing crackdown on on-air profanity, the FCC has requested numerous tapes from broadcasters that might include vulgar remarks from unruly spectators, coaches and athletes at live sporting events, industry sources said. Tapes requested by the commission include live broadcasts of football games and NASCAR races where the participants or the crowds let loose with an expletive. While commission officials refused to talk about its requests, one broadcast company executive said the commission had asked for 30 tapes of live sports and news programs. “It looks like they want to end live broadcast TV,” said one executive,...

A Vacaville funeral home owner took exception to "Peace Mom" Cindy Sheehan's allegation that his mortuary did not fulfill its duties after her son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004. In her blog last week, Sheehan wrote that the mortuary had refused to pay the cemetery as it was supposed to. Steve Nadeau, the mortuary's owner, said Monday that not only did he properly pay the cemetery, but that he subsidized the process with his own money. Nadeau read Sheehan's comments in The Reporter Sunday, in a story about Sheehan's defense of her decision not to put a headstone...

Dozens of Central Texas drivers got pulled over Thursday for doing absolutely nothing wrong. Travis County deputies kicked off what has become a controversial reward program. You know that heart stopping feeling you get when seeing the flashing red lights of law enforcement in the rear view mirror. Well, you won't see that if you're a good driver, but you may get pulled over. Getting pulled over for doing nothing wrong may not sound right to a lot of people. Travis County Deputy Derrick Taylor says his job is to not only look for bad drivers, but reward and encourage...

The planned demolition of hundreds of hurricane-ravaged homes in New Orleans has been put on hold until Jan. 6, when a judge has scheduled a hearing on a legal challenge to the controversial proposal announced last week by Mayor Ray Nagin's administration. City Hall officials agreed to the delay Wednesday following a brief appearance before Civil Court Judge Herbert Cade, who had been asked by a coalition of activists to ban the bulldozing of up to 2,500 homes over the next several weeks. New Orleans lawyer Bill Quigley, a longtime advocate for the poor and working-class, is seeking an injunction...

ROME (Reuters) - Rome's mighty Colosseum risks being damaged and diminished by a major MTV rock concert, traditionalists and conservationists warned on Thursday. As a prelude to the MTV Europe Music Awards taking place on the outskirts of Rome in the late evening, an array of pop and rock artists were set to play in front of the huge 2000-year-old arena where gladiators fought in ancient times. The venue was used twice in recent times for rock concerts, by Paul McCartney in 2003 and Simon and Garfunkel in July this year, with thousands of fans packed into a street which...