Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe Italy bans angry gestures but not tongue ROME, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- Italians can be fined for using traditional insulting hand gestures against fellow motorists but can say anything to vent their rage. Advertisement Italy's supreme court has outlawed rude gestures that risk a fight. However, using the full Italian vocabulary of obscenities is OK, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. The high court earlier this week upheld the guilty verdict and fine against a man for making threatening gestures against another driver who had overtaken his vehicle. The court has taken forays into other aspects of road etiquette. In a recent ruling, it said drivers who illegally park in such a way as to block another vehicle committed "private violence." They were thus subject to fines and risked a prison term, the court ruled. Conductor faces discipline for comments BOSTON, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- A Boston-area railroad conductor is waiting to learn his fate after a passenger complained of off-color comments. Advertisement Jennifer Barrett of Gloucester, who rides the Rockport line to and from Boston, told the Boston Herald she was upset when Junior Rodriguez used street slang to describe her daughter's rear end, saying that she had a "ghetto booty." She said she heard Rodriguez make other inappropriate comments the same day. On another occasion, Barrett said, Rodriguez watched her pick something up and said, "Oh, yeah, show me more of that." "Then I realized he was looking down my shirt," Barrett said. A disciplinary hearing was held last week, a spokesman for the company that operates the Rockport line said. The hearing officer is expected to make a decision by Friday. Flasher sentenced not to talk to women TRURO, England, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- A British court is banning a 43-year-old man from talking to all women for the next five years after he admitted flashing a young student. An Anti-Social Behavior Order was issued against Thomas Brown by the Truro Crown Court in Cornwall in addition to a 104-day prison sentence. The order makes an exception for female bank cashiers, lawyers, shop assistants, doctors, dentists and nurses -- but only in their professional capacities, the Daily Mirror reports. Advertisement Brown admitted exposing his genitals to a young woman who was vacationing on the Isles of Scilly, off England's southwest coast. Investigators said he was lurking on a coastal path when the woman happened by last April. Guard fired for drinking urine in uniform ORLAND PARK, Ill., Feb. 3 (UPI) -- An 84-year-old Chicago-area crossing guard has been fired for being photographed off-duty in his police uniform while drinking his own urine. Ed Danis, 84, is an Orland Park "urine therapy" devotee who was featured in a Jan. 29 Daily Southtown newspaper story, along with three photographs of him practicing his belief of 12 years. "It has nothing to do with urine therapy," Orland Park Police Chief Tim McCarthy told the newspaper. "People cannot go around in Orland Park police uniforms speaking out on any issues." Danis said a police sergeant who supervises the crossing guards asked him Wednesday to resign or face being fired this week. Danis refused to resign and contacted a lawyer. But he stands by the controversial practice and suspects a plot in which the medical establishment is trying to keep urine therapy a secret. "I think someone in the medical lobby got to the chief of police," he said. "They don't want this out." Advertisement
