Fellatio is common among fruit bats: The revelation is a surprise because previously the only animals thought to practice oral sex - besides humans - were bonobo chimpanzees.

    
    Australian scientists have developed "the world's best apple" - the first apple that doesn't rot.

    
    LinkedIn and Twitter have linked up. Starting immediately, users of LinkedIn and Twitter can cross-file to each other's services by checking a box on either Twitter or LinkedIn.

    
    Simon Cowell, the acerbic American Idol judge, creator of America's Got Talent and a record producer, is the top earning man on prime-time U.S. television with an estimated haul of $75 million, Forbes.com said yesterday.

    
    What do you do with a 9-year-old killer? That's the question Arizona lawmakers are facing in the case of a nine-year-old boy who shot and killed his father and a family friend last November.

    
    Come for the war, stay for the tourism: With Saddam gone and the war waning, Iraq has turned its attention to attracting international tourism.

    
    California's jobless rate may be one of the highest in the country, but one place is hiring: The University of California at Santa Cruz, which has posted a job listing for a "Grateful Dead archivist."

    
    A British Virgin Islands judge ruled yesterday that a former Rhode Island dive shop owner must serve at least 25 years of a mandatory life sentence for killing his wife on a Caribbean scuba outing in 1999, rejecting his lawyers' bid for leniency.

    
    In France, it's a tale of one and now two sons of President Nicolas Sarkozy. Last month, Sarkozy rolled his eyeballs around the republic when his son Jean, 23, and not finished with college, was tapped as a candidate to run Paris' wealthiest district, La Defense. A slightly shocked public reaction brought a withdrawal from Sarkozy the younger.

    
    A TV news producer accused of blackmailing David Letterman in exchange for keeping quiet about his sexual affairs was only trying to sell the late-night comic a screenplay, the producer's lawyer said at a hearing yesterday.

    
    A woman who lived for years with an alleged serial killer said she never suspected the putrid smell at their Cleveland, Ohio, home came from decomposing bodies, after being told the stench came from a sausage factory.

    
    Tropical Storm Ida weakened to a depression yesterday, but not before high waves brought in an old buoy which had been floating off the coast of Satellite Beach, Fla., for months. All day, beach-goers and surfers stopped to look at the mysterious object near Hightower Beach Park - a rusty metal drum about eight feet wide and three feet in diameter with a heavy metal chain. It was no longer a UFO, an "unidentified floating object" about 600 yards away from the shore. Inquiries from residents led to a fly-over by a Brevard County Sheriff's Office helicopter. Then, the U.S. Coast Guard put a strobe light on top to warn boaters. Larry Kientz, who lives north of the Hightower Park, said he saw the object near shore yesterday morning. "It was meant to be a marker for something," he said. "What it's doing here, no one knows."

    
    It's time again for the annual "Stella Awards." For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after 81-year-old Stella Liebeck, who spilled hot coffee on herself and successfully sued a McDonald's in New Mexico, where she purchased coffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it between her knees while she was driving.. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right? That's right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S.

    Here are the Stellas for the past year:

    Kathleen Robertson, of Austin, Texas, was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict - considering the running toddler was her own son.

    Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, Calif., won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.

    Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Ark., garnered 4th Place in the Stella's when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor's beagle - even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because Williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.

    Amber Carson, of Lancaster, Pa., because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.

    Kara Walton, of Claymont, Del., sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000, plus dental expenses.

    And this year's runaway first place Stella Award winner was: Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Okla., who purchased new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven onto the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner's manual that she couldn't actually leave the driver's seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her $1,750,000, plus a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit -just in case Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.