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Rodman bares all for PETA

NEW YORK, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Former NBA star Dennis Rodman has taken it all off in an anti-fur ad for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an animal rights group.

The ad features the multi-tatooed, 6-foot-8 Rodman sitting naked in profile stating: "Think Ink, Not Mink."

Rodman, nicknamed the "Worm," is the first man to pose nude for a PETA anti-fur ad.

Actresses Pamela Anderson and Kim Bassinger and supermodel Christy Turlington have all posed in the buff for PETA's "Rather Go Naked than Wear Fur" series.

The provocative Rodman ad was introduced Monday at New York Fashion Week.

Rodman said he supports the sentiment of the ad: "Be comfortable in your own skin and let animals keep theirs."

He said he heard about PETA through a program that donates castoff fur coats to people in homeless shelters. Rodman said he only wears fake fur.

No charges against 4-year-old driver

SAND LAKE, Mich., Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Police say they won't press charges against the 4-year-old Michigan boy caught driving to a video store in the middle of the night.

The unidentified boy's video games were taken away from him as a punishment and he was determined to replace them, officials said. So he took his mother's car during the early hours Friday morning.

He drove to Home Video, a quarter-mile road from his home in Sand Lake, Mich.

Many have wondered how the small boy was able to drive his mother's 1990 Geo Prizm. Sand Lake police said the boy pushed the gas pedal to get the automobile started, then cruised about 7 mph on a high idle. His mother said she had allowed him to sit in her lap and steer the car, so he knew how to work the gear shift, reported Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press Tuesday.

The boy may have made it home without incident had police not spotted the swerving car and surrounded it -- at which point the boy panicked and put the car in reverse, hit the gas and crashed into a police cruiser. No one was injured.

Flawed coin worth more than face value

MILWAUKEE, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Coin collectors are paying hundreds of dollars to buy Wisconsin commemorative quarters with a flaw on the tail side.

The "tails" side of the Wisconsin commemorative quarter features a cow, a wheel of cheese and a cornstalk. But some of the coins have an extra leaf, or a flaw that looks like a leaf, on the cornstalk, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Tuesday.

Such coins have been turning up around Tucson, Ariz., and San Antonio, Texas, and drawn as much as $500 each from collectors.

"People go absolutely bonkers over some of these," said Rollie Finner of Iola, Wis., a coin collector and editor of The Centinel, the quarterly journal of the Central States Numismatic Society.

Crossing streets now difficult in England

NORWICH, England, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- While crossing streets in England has been happening since Roman times, it is now more dangerous because of improvements made to crossing signals.

While driving instructors in civilized countries teach drivers to look ahead at where they are going, Britain's Department of Transport is now encouraging pedestrians in Norwich to look at where they stand instead, using signals called "puffins."

The acronym stands for "pedestrian user friendly intelligent crossings," but already in the pilot project, The Telegraph said, more than 30 pedestrians, motorists and bus operators have filed formal complaints while hundreds of others protested to officials about the crossings.

Puffin crossings differ from traditional ones in that the little green man who lights up when crossing is safe is on a display pad at the pedestrians' side, rather than on a sign on the opposite side of the road.

"It may seem unnecessary to tell people how to use a pedestrian crossing, but we have had a lot of complaints from people who believe this new style is dangerous," said Steve Jarrett, the county's senior road safety officer.