BERLIN (Reuters) - German police are searching for a motorist who beat a 24-year-old woman selling white asparagus because he was upset about her asking price for the coveted springtime vegetable, police said on Monday.

The prices for white asparagus, sometimes called "edible ivory" in Germany, fluctuate wildly during the short springtime season, peaking early in the season at 10 euros per kilo.

The man screamed at the woman that her asparagus was overpriced. He then punched her in the face and threatened to unleash his attack dog at her. She fled and called police.

"The motorist said her prices were totally over the top," said Dietmar Keck, police spokesman in the Havelland district west of Berlin, without saying how much she was asking.

Prices for asparagus now range from 1 to 5 euros per kilo, he said. Some 55,000 tons valued at 175 million euros are harvested annually.

(Writing by Jacob Comenetz; Editing by Louise Ireland)

KYOTO, Japan (Reuters) - Whether you're a g-string girl or prefer granny-style knickers, a Japanese lingerie maker is inviting women to liberate themselves from conventional, body-hugging underwear and don loincloths instead. Loincloths, called "fundoshi" in Japanese, were worn by adult men in the past, but they are now a rarity.

Kyoto-based lingerie firm Wacoal, however, has brought them back into fashion, this time for women seeking "emancipation" from the tightness of conventional underwear.
"We wanted young women to have a more sense of freedom and release. And as we tried to come up with the ultimate liberation item for women, we thought of a fundoshi," said Tomoka Okamura, merchandise director for Wacoal's Nanafun female loincloths.

The loincloths for women come in seven different colors and two designs -- plain and chequered. Prices are about 1,260 yen ($13). Wacoal has sold more than 5,000 since December, three times more than it had expected, officials said, and the company now plans to start selling them in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore. "It's easy to wear and is quite nice. It's also good for summer. And since it's getting warmer, I figured it would be good for that," said Hiromi Iwamura, a 28-year-old shopper who was buying a patterned loincloth and matching bra.

(Reporting by Toshi Maeda, editing by Miral Fahmy)

AP, BRYANT, Ark. - Police said a woman has been arrested for allegedly slipping some tranquilizers into her boss's coffee because she felt "he needed to chill out." Police said the 24-year-old woman admitted to detectives that she slipped the drugs into veteranarian John Duckett's drink. Officers said Duckett knew something was wrong shortly after drinking some of the coffee Tuesday morning.

Officers said the woman cleaned the cages at the the Reynolds Road Animal Clinic.

A judge set bond at $25,000 Friday and a jailer said the woman was still being held Friday. Her next court appearance is scheduled for April 21.

Information from: KLRT-TV, http://www.fox16.com

FORT PIERCE, Fla. - Authorities say a Florida woman called 911 three times after McDonald's employees told her they were out of McNuggets. A police report said 27-year-old Fort Pierce resident Latreasa L. Goodman told authorities she paid for a 10-piece last week but was later informed the restaurant had run out.

She says she was refused a refund and told all sales were final. A cashier told police she offered Goodman a larger portion of different food for the same price, but Goodman became irate.

Police say Goodman was cited on a misuse of 911 charge. A current phone listing for Goodman couldn't be found.

A McDonald's spokesman says Goodman should have been given a refund, and she's being sent a gift card for a free meal.

Information from: The Stuart News, http://www.tcpalm.com

By ELIZABETH BOUGEROL, WashingtonPost.com

Hey, what'd you get up to this weekend? We did brunch, watched the Oscars, and tried to give ourselves one of those newfangled Japanese boob jobs with our cellphone.

That's right: Apparently some enterprising young Japanese doctor went and cooked up a ringtone that will grow your bust by three centimeters (or about 1.2 inches) if you listen to it 20 times a day over a 10-day period. How does it work? According to inventor and musician Dr. Tomobechi, buried in the ringtone is the sound of a baby crying, which works subliminally on women to ignite maternal instincts which in turn launch hormones that pump up your bust. Or something.

Watch the video and decide for yourself. Afterall, it was on the Discovery Channel, so it must be legit.

Reuters, SEOUL, Feb 21 - A South Korean woman who has failed the driver's exam 775 times is not about give up on her hope of buying a truck one day to go into her own business, whether other drivers want her on the road or not.

Cha Sa-soon, 68, has been trying since 2005 to pass the written portion of the test to get a licence, but she has so far failed to get the 60 percent required to clear it.

"I've looked up some guidebooks to get a driver's licence, and they were saying it takes at most five years to get this," Cha said in North Jeolla province, where farmers on tractors or cows can be just as common on country roads as motor vehicles.

"It's already been four years, so I might pass the test next time. That's what I hope for."
Driving schools in South Korea offer courses to enable applicants to walk away with a licence in a week. Cha has not been fortunate enough to set foot in such a class, which tends to congregate more in busy metropolitan areas, but she remains unfazed, even after having spent more than 10 million won ($6,800) on test applications.

"I believe you can achieve your goal if you persistently pursue it," she says. "So don't give up your dream, like me. Be strong and do your best."

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Other than having a bit of a headache, a Kansas City woman was uninjured after a bullet fired at her ended up tangled in her hair weave.

Police said the 20-year-old woman was in a convenience store parking lot late Wednesday when a man flagged her down and told her that her ex-boyfriend still loved her.
She replied, "Well I dont love him," then heard gunshots.

She said she looked behind the vehicle and saw her ex-boyfriend firing a handgun at her. She stomped her accelerator and fled, then turned into another parking lot and called police.

She told officers she recently had ended an eight-month relationship with the suspect.
Police arrested the ex-boyfriend and his friend in a car.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- She said she had nothing left to lose when she handed the bank teller the hastily scrawled note.

"We're armed," the note said. "Don't say anything. Just give us all the money."

Moments later, the woman and her male accomplice raced from the bank, jumped in their car and sped off with $10,000 in cash.

"It felt powerful, exciting, quick," said the woman, who spoke with CNN under the pseudonym Jane Smith. "At that time of my life, everything was upside down and I didn't have any control."

Smith told CNN she was going through a bad divorce and that robbing a bank "made me feel like I was in control again." She is one of a growing number of female bank robbers, a crime normally committed by men.

Nationwide, 6.2 percent of all bank heists today are committed by women. That's up from 4.9 percent in 2002 -- a 25 percent increase, according to the most recent FBI crime statistics.

"Here's a crime that you can commit easily and its an equal opportunity crime," crime historian Robert McCrie said. Banks have become so customer-friendly and open, they've become "a safe place to rob," he added.

In Long Island's Nassau County, Detective Sgt. John Giambrone says he came across not one female bank robber in his first 25 years in law enforcement. He has seen 15 in the past three years.

"For a woman, especially a woman, to take that step ... you're crossing a big threshold," said Giambrone, who heads up the Nassau County police department's robbery squad.

In Giambrone's experience, the women who are captured in bank heists usually say they're doing it to "pay bills, get a little extra cash."

It's different for the men, he added. They usually say they rob banks for the thrill of it, or to get money for drug, alcohol or gambling addictions.

Giambrone said women tend to carefully plan their holdups, and prepare the notes ahead of time.

"Women are more pragmatic," forensic sociologist Rosemary Erikson agreed. "They need diapers for the baby that kind of thing."

The most notorious female bank robber was Bonnie Parker of the famed Bonnie and Clyde duo. Often she was armed, not the usual modus operandi of today's women. Like the men, they usually just hand the teller a note, knowing most banks instruct employees to hand over the cash rather than risk injuries.

Among today's more memorable women: the giggling teen Barbie Bandits captured last year in Georgia, Northern Virginia's Cell Phone Bandit, caught in 2005, and the Starlet Bandit, still on the loose in Los Angeles, California.

As crimes go, bank robbery is hardly a fool-proof caper. The chances of getting caught are high, the prison sentences long, Erikson pointed out.

Three out of four bank robbers are caught, she said. The arrest rate is high because the FBI is involved in almost all bank robbery investigations. The penalty can be as high as 26 years.

But 83 percent of bank robbers think they are not going to be caught, Erikson said. "They have this kind of immortality thing, they have inflated egos."

Jane Smith, who is trying to rebuild her life after serving five years in a maximum security prison, agrees that while the holdup was exciting, it wasn't worth it.

Still, she couldn't help smiling as she recalled how the tire blew on the getaway car while she and her accomplice made their getaway.

"I kept going on the rims, sparks flying on the highway," she said.

When she could drive no farther, Smith recalled, "I started flagging people down. All the money is on the floorboard of the car. One lady did pull over to pick us up and so I got the money and I stuffed it in my purse and could barely zip it. She took us to a convenience store close by and I called a taxi."

She went on wild spending spree, going through most of the money before her arrest several days later.

She said she would never again rob a bank, because her arrest and incarceration nearly destroyed her parents and two kids.

But Smith admitted that the thrill was addictive. "I loved the danger in it. I wanted to get more money. I wanted to keep doing it. That's how it really felt -- an adrenaline rush. Perfect."

BEIJING (Reuters) - A 107-year-old Chinese woman who was afraid to marry when she was young has decided to look for her first husband and hopes to find a fellow centenarian so they will have something to talk about, a Chinese paper reported.

Wang Guiying is worried she is becoming a burden to her ageing nieces and nephews since breaking her leg when she was 102 and had to stop doing chores like washing her clothes.

"I'm already 107 and I still haven't got married," the Chongqing Commercial Times quoted her saying. "What will happen if I don't hurry up and find a husband?"

Born in southern Guizhou province the child of a salt merchant, Wang grew up watching her uncles and other men scold and beat their wives and often found her aunt crying in the woodshed after an attack, the paper said.

"All the married people around there lived like that. Getting married was too frightening," she said of an era when Chinese women had few rights and low social standing.
Many also had their feet bound in an excruciating process aimed at making them look more dainty and marriageable.

After Wang's father, mother and older sister died, she still shied away from marriage. Instead she moved to the countryside and survived as a farmer until she was 74 years old and no longer strong enough to work in the fields, the report said.

Her nephew in the booming city of Chongqing then took Wang in, but she is worried he and her other nephews and nieces are too old to take care of her now even the youngest is 60.

"My nephews and nieces are getting older and their children are already tied up with their own families and I am becoming more and more of a burden," she said.

Local officials have said they are happy to help Wang search for a 100-year old groom, and suggested her family get in touch with old people's homes to find candidates, the paper said.
(Reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Nick Macfie and Sugita Katyal)

(CNN) -- The Rev. Sharon Watkins will deliver the sermon at the traditional National Prayer Service on January 21, the day after Barack Obama is sworn in as president, the Presidential Inaugural Committee announced Sunday.

Watkins, the general minister and president of the 700,000-member church Disciples of Christ, will be the first woman to deliver the sermon at the inaugural event.

It takes place at the National Cathedral in northwest Washington.

"I am truly honored to speak at this historic occasion," Watkins said in a news release from the committee.

She added, "I hope that my message will call us to believe in something bigger than ourselves and remind us to reach out to all of our neighbors to build communities of possibility."

The National Prayer Service is a tradition dating back to the nation's first president, the inaugural committee said.

The service includes prayers and hymns delivered by various religious leaders.