Jockstrip: The world as we know it.

Police: Scam forced marital lie from man

OCALA, Fla., Sept. 8 (UPI) -- A 27-year-old man told his wife he had been robbed to avoid revealing he actually had been tricked by a scam artist, police in Florida say.

Marion County sheriff's deputies said Mario Oscar Carlos initially told authorities he and his wife he had been robbed of $8,000 in cash, but the man allegedly later confessed to making the story up to avoid embarrassment, the Ocala (Fla.) Star-Banner reported.

A police report alleged that after officers noticed inconsistencies in his robbery account, Carlos admitted he actually lost the money to a spiritual healer.

Carlos allegedly told police the healer told him to place the cash inside a sock so it could be blessed and then put it in the trunk of his car. He said when he checked on the money Friday, he found the cash-filled sock had been replaced by one filled with only $50, the report alleged.

The Star-Banner said for his marital and legal lie, police charged Carlos with filing a false police report.

N.Y. man has McCain's name, Obama's looks

NEW YORK, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- A New York man says he shares something in common with both major U.S. presidential candidates -- John McCain's name and Barack Obama's looks.

The 40-year-old musician -- whose name just happens to be John McCain, same as the Arizona senator who is the Republican nominee -- said he repeatedly has been told he looks like Obama, the Democratic nominee, the New York Daily News reported.

"I travel to Europe a lot, and a few people have said I look like Obama," the lesser-known McCain said. "When people ask me my name, I always say John McCain, like the senator."

While McCain says he has not used his famous name and face for any sort of advantage, he admits it comes in handy when calling radio talk shows.

"Once I mention that I'm interracial and my name is John McCain, they put me right through," he told the Daily News.

St. Paul mayor hits hole in one

ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 8 (UPI) -- It was a big week for St. Paul, Minn., Mayor Chris Coleman: his town played host to a national political convention and he hit a hole in one.

No sooner had Republicans left town after nominating John McCain as their presidential candidate, than Coleman found himself out on a golf course for a Cystic Fibrosis Foundation charity event Friday.

On the par 3 No. 8 at Highland National Golf Course, he pulled out his nine iron and stroked his ball into the hole 150 yards away, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported, citing the mayor's press spokesman and other witnesses.

Philly, Baltimore dispute Poe's body

BALTIMORE, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- Edgar Allan Poe may have wandered in life, but the curator of Baltimore's Poe House says his body will remain where it has been for 160 years -- in Baltimore.

Jeff Jerome is scheduled to travel to Philadelphia in January to debate Poe's proper burial place, The New York Times reports. Freelance writer Edward Pettit says Philadelphia has a superior claim because Poe wrote many of his best-known stories there.

Poe, who was 42 when he died in Baltimore in 1849, was born in Boston and spent much of his childhood in Richmond, Va., with foster parents -- although the family moved to Britain for a few years. As an adult, he served in the Army in South Carolina, published his first book as "A Bostonian," attended West Point in New York, married in Baltimore and lived in New York and Philadelphia.

Last year, Pettit, in an article in a Philadelphia weekly, urged body-snatching. Jerome says he has a cadre of Baltimoreans ready to defend Poe's grave.

"If they want a body they can have John Wilkes Booth," Jerome said, offering the Lincoln assassin, who is also buried in Baltimore.

The Jerome-Pettit debate is scheduled for Jan. 13, 2009, at the Philadelphia Free Library. That's six days before the bicentennial of Poe's birth.