WhiteBoard News for Tuesday March 31, 2003

Rome, Italy (Reuters):

All roads are supposed to lead to Rome, but amorous young Italians anxious to escape mamma's beady eye might be tempted to take a detour to the country's first "Love Car Park." 

The Tuscan town of Vinci, more commonly known for its Renaissance artist son Leonardo, is renovating a car park complete with soft lighting and special trash bins for condoms. 

"We're just recognizing that young people love each other," Mayor Giancarlo Faenzi told Reuters by telephone on Monday. 

"If you don't face that fact, you're simply closing your eyes to reality and you just end up sending them a kilometer (half a mile) down the road," he said, adding that the town was still deciding whether to install a condom machine. 

The back seat often acts as a substitute bed for those Italians who live with their parents well into their 30s. 

Even Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi famously reminisced last year about how "many of us first kissed our girl in a Fiat 500." 

Italians talk of a "Car-ma Sutra," illustrating positions best suited to specific car models, though no one can ever remember the name of the book. 

Car sex is not illegal in strongly Catholic Italy -- as long as the windows are covered up. 

But woe betide anyone who is spotted in flagrante, whatever their age. 

Last month an 85-year-old man and his 74-year-old lady friend were caught having sex in a car park next to a school and were given a two-month suspended sentence. 
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London, England (Reuters):

The trial of an army major accused of cheating in the "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (news - web sites)" TV quiz with the help of a coughing accomplice has been adjourned -- because of an outbreak of coughing among the jury. 

A court official said the trial of Major Charles Ingram, who is charged with swindling his way to the million pound top prize, was delayed because several members of the jury were experiencing cough and throat problems which made it hard for them to concentrate. 

"It was adjourned for that reason...but should restart in the morning," the official told Reuters, adding that the judge would begin his summing up of the case then. 

Ingram is charged alongside his wife, Diana, and college lecturer Tecwen Whittock with conspiracy and procuring a valuable security -- the million pound cheque -- by deception. 

All three deny the charges. 

The prosecution alleges the three devised a plan whereby Ingram, who was a contestant on the show, would muse aloud which of the four possible answers to each question he should choose. 

Whittock, a fellow contestant on the show, is alleged to have guided Ingram to the right answers through a series of 19 strategic coughs which were later noticed on a tape of the show. 

The court was told that Ingram went on to answer all 15 questions correctly, often thrilling the audience by changing his answer at the very last minute. 

But Ingram denies meeting Whittock and the lecturer said any coughs he might have made were pure coincidence. 

Quiz show host Chris Tarrant, told Ingram after his big win that "You are the most amazing contestant we have ever had". 
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Stockholm, Sweden (AP):

Air traffic controllers at Sweden's biggest airport in Stockholm say they are falling ill because their tower sways in the wind.

The 270-foot high tower sways nearly a centimetre each way when the wind blows more than 33 miles per hour.

Pia Johansson, the airport's lead traffic controller, said the movement has caused fits of nausea and vertigo among the 30 controllers who direct the 850 flights in and out of the airport daily.

Sweden's Civil Aviation Authority, which owns Arlanda, said a plan to stabilise the tower by putting water storage tanks on the roof was cancelled this year because of the cost.

Instead, Johansson said controllers who get queasy will be sent downstairs to "relax on firm ground" until they feel better.

The $40 million tower opened last year.
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