The new game in Correns, a Provençal village hit by media frenzy since Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie moved into a nearby villa, is to make up stories about the couple for the scandal sheets.
You will be treated to a free glass of pastis if you can
get a particularly silly story published, mischievous residents have said.
Pitt and Jolie, who is pregnant with twins, are staying at the Miraval domain – almost 1,000 acres of woods and vineyards with a 17th-century villa, swimming pool and helicopter pad. But they have been hounded since arriving with their four children.
"They came here to find some peace and instead there are paparazzi at the gate day and night, it's really unbearable," said Christine, a local winemaker.
INDIAJackals, monitor lizards and raptors descended on a runway at New Delhi's main airport after heavy rains last week, delaying flights.
The animals were looking to dry off and warm up after the first monsoon rains hit India's capital, and their appearance on the runway forced authorities to stop planes from taking off and landing for about an hour, Indira Gandhi International Airport spokesman Arun Arora said.
UNITED STATESThe girls, all under 16, went repeatedly to their high school health clinic, asking for pregnancy tests. But their reactions to the test results were puzzling: high-fives if they were expecting, long faces if they weren't.
School officials in the New England fishing town of Gloucester say an alarming 17 girls – four times the usual number – became pregnant this year. And even more disturbing: some of them may have made a pact to have babies and raise them together.
Superintendent Christopher Farmer said he had no independent confirmation of a pact. But he said: "What we do know is there was a group of students being tested for pregnancy on a regular basis, which would suggest they were not taking steps to avoid becoming pregnant, and that when some of them had their babies, they appeared to be very pleased."
None of the girls or their families have come forward to confirm any type of pact, and school and health officials have not identified any of the youngsters.
CZECH REPUBLICThe most disturbing report of this week, and possibly the year, comes from Prague where two boys were kept chained in a cellar by their cannibal family, who skinned and ate parts of them.
Ondrej Mauerova, eight, and his brother Jakub, nine, were rescued when a neighbour's CCTV baby monitor accidently picked up the feed from an identical camera recording their agony.
A Czech court heard how the boys were kept in cages or handcuffed to tables while they were physically and sexually abused. As well as being burned with cigarettes, the boys were whipped, held underwater and forced to eat vomit.
When police raided the house they also found a girl who claimed to be 13, later revealed to be 33-year-old Barbora Skrlova. Skrlova went on the run and was discovered posing as a 13-year-old boy at a children's home in Norway.
The boys' mother claims Skrlova brainwashed her, and that the abuse of the children was ordered by text message from a leader of the Grail Movement Cult known as "Doctor."
OH, REALLYAn Italian man has been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping his ex-girlfriend from a pub, taking her home and forcing her to iron his clothes and wash the dishes.
The 43-year-old man dragged the woman out of a pub in the port city of Genoa, shoved her into a car and took her to his home, police said.
Police arrived at his house after being tipped off by a friend of the woman who watched the scene at the pub.
The man, who was apparently furious at his ex-girlfriend for leaving him, was arrested on charges of kidnapping.
MOVERS & SHAKERSNECULAI IVASCU
What would Dracula say? The residents of a Romanian village have knowingly voted in a dead man as their mayor in municipal election, preferring him to his living opponent.
Neculai Ivascu, 57, who ran the village for almost two decades, died from liver disease just after voting began, but still won the election by a margin of 23 votes.
A local official said the authorities decided to keep the poll open in case Ivascu's opponent, Gheorghe Dobrescu, won, avoiding the need for a re-run.
"I know he died, but I don't want change," a pro-Ivascu villager told Romanian television.
In the end, election authorities gave the post to the runner-up, but some villagers and Ivascu's party, the powerful opposition Social Democrat Party (PSD), have called for a new vote.
KRISTIN DAVIS
In Sex And The City, her character converts to Judaism out of love for her Jewish husband. But in her first visit to the Jewish state, Kristin Davis refused to say if that was a case of art imitating life.
The 43-year-old actress was touring Jerusalem's Old City last week as part of her campaign to promote Ahava skin products.
At a news conference, she praised Israeli women for their natural quality and for "being comfortable in their own skins".
Davis played Charlotte York on the HBO series Sex And The City, which was recently expanded into a film. Her character is a socialite turned Jewish wife.
She said she learned about the religion on the set, but when asked if she liked Jewish men in real life, she refused to discuss her romances.
ANTHONY PUZO
The son of author Mario Puzo, who created The Godfather, is suing Paramount Pictures, claiming the studio has failed to hand over any of the revenues from a video game based on the book and award-winning movie. In court documents filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court, Anthony Puzo of New York said he was claiming at least $1m in damages for breach of contract.
COMING UPThe 60th annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Santiago, Chile this week will see Brazil propose the adoption of a South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary.
Meanwhile, whaling nations Japan and Norway are waging a determined campaign to get the IWC's 1982 moratorium on commercial whaling lifted, despite the threat to the blue whale and humpback whale from retreating Antarctic sea ice.
The full article contains 1067 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
