Watercooler Stories

Protesters gather at 'Da Vinci Code' shoot

LINCOLN, England, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- A nun led a 12-hour prayer vigil outside Britain's Lincoln Cathedral where Oscar-winner Tom Hanks is filming "The Da Vinci Code."

The Lincoln Cathedral, about 100 miles north of London, is being used as a stand-in for Westminster Abbey, which denied a request to film there. The makers of the controversial movie made a $180,000 donation to use the Lincoln Cathedral, the World Entertainment News Network reports.

Lincoln Cathedral's the Rev. Alec Knight had called Dan Brown's bestseller, which claims Jesus married Mary Magdalene and fathered a child, "a load of old tosh," but said the money would pay for badly needed repairs at the 11th century cathedral.

Sister Mary Michael, 61, said her group was not buying leaders' claims that it was OK to shoot the film at the Lincoln Cathedral because it was fiction.

"I just don't think it is right that they are filming this story here," she said. "... It might even be brilliant fiction -- but it is against the very essence of what we believe."

'Honest' teen unfazed by gun-toting thief

ST. LOUIS, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- A 16-year-old St. Louis youth remained calm and honest in the face of a gun-toting teen demanding things he didn't have or couldn't provide.

The unidentified victim arrived home in his car Sunday night when a Jeep Cherokee swung in behind him and another 16-year-old approached him with a gun dangling in his hand, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said.

"I thought, 'This guy's got a gun, I've got to do just what he tells me'," the victim said.

He gave the thief all the money he had in his wallet -- $25 -- but then the bandit demanded an ATM card. The victim said he didn't have one. A demand was made for a credit card, and again the victim said he didn't have one.

The gunman then told the teen to remove the CD player from his car. The victim calmly turned him down, saying the stereo doesn't come out easily, and he would need tools.

"I was just being honest," he said later.

Police later chased and apprehended the thief and four other juveniles in the stolen Jeep, the newspaper said.

Cops drop undercover crosswalk sting

MADISON, Wis., Aug. 17 (UPI) -- Public outcry has led police in Madison, Wis., to drop plans to use undercover officers to target drivers who don't stop at crosswalks.

Announced last month, the original plan was to have plainclothes officers legally use crosswalks, then ticket anyone violating the state statute requiring motorists to yield.

Capt. Cameron McLay said the department received a lot of complaints that police were setting up motorists for failure, the Wisconsin State Journal said.

Instead, he said plainclothes officers will begin monitoring downtown intersections Tuesday and ticketing motorists who don't brake when pedestrians are lawfully using a crosswalk. They will also be ticketing pedestrians who step into traffic in such a way that forces motorists to stop suddenly, the newspaper said.

Tales of big jury awards lead to reforms

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- Tall tales about outrageous jury awards are fun to read, but they may also help in the campaign for tort reform.

One such tale is a man winning a $1.7 million award from the maker of a recreation vehicle. The fabricated story making the rounds on the Internet is that the vehicle crashed after its driver put in on cruise control, slid away from the wheel and went back to fix a cup of coffee.

The award, goes the story, was based on the plaintiff's claim the manufacturer had not warned against such a maneuver in the manual.

Such stories regale millions with examples of cluelessness and greed being richly rewarded by the courts, reports the Los Angeles Times.

But legal experts like George Washington University's Jonathan Turley say their wide acceptance also has helped rally public opinion behind business-led campaigns to overhaul the civil justice system by restricting some types of lawsuits and capping damage awards.

But advocates of reining in lawsuits say there is no need to invent fictitious examples of legal abuse. "All false stories should be exposed," said Victor Schwartz, general counsel of the tort reform association.

U.S. slow to adopt text messaging

LONDON, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- The British send cell phone text messages "to avoid having to speak" while "Americans absolutely love to talk," a cell phone content provider says.

Text messaging has become widely used in Britain, where there is a cell phone for every person in the country. In the United States, however, only 60 percent of the population has cell phones and just a small percentage use text messaging.

Britain's record is 133 million cell phone text messages in one day. The U.S. record is just 26.4 million.

"Texting is perfect for the English because they'll do anything to avoid having to speak," Sharpcards founder Lorraine Stephenson told the Telegraph of London. "The Americans absolutely love to talk. They'll just ring someone up and be much more direct rather than text."

Stephenson recently expanded the London-based mobile phone content provider's operations to New York.

"America was very late to the cellular boom," said Sharpcards' Anil Malhotra. "They're much more attached to e-mails and instant messaging on computers."