TV reporter Bert Lozano’s story on Texas wildfires got a little wilder … OK, maybe a lot wilder — thanks to a naked dude armed with an air horn and hell-bent on flaunting his fanny on live TV.
Lozano, who works for WFAA-TV, was dutifully describing the dry grass near the North Texas town of The Colony on-air when a streaker zoomed in front of the camera, air horn in tote, likely tooting his way into TiVo fame for viewers lucky enough to catch him in the act, WFAA reports.
"He came out of nowhere," Lozano said. "We figured the man was hiding in the bushes and decided to show his stuff. We think he had been given a cue from nearby residents that we were filming there."
"I thought about putting my hand over the lens, but it was all over in a split second, so I decided to continue with my introduction," Lozano added. "The show has to go on."
Michael Valentine, executive news director for the station, issued an apology for the accidental nudie-vision and said the station will cooperate with any police investigation that might be spawned from the streak.
"The station's reporters take every precaution to control the environment of their live shots, but some situations can't be anticipated," he said.
Startled and mostly amused viewers flooded the station with calls and e-mails inquiring about the naked newscast.
"Was that a naked guy blowing an air horn and running past during the piece about the wildfires in The Colony?" Lisa Smith wrote. "I am a teacher and a mom, I can do a lot of things at once, but I had to make sure I am not going crazy."
Police said the man could face public indecency and public lewdness charges.
Said Lozano: "It was certainly the most interesting live shot in my 11-year television career."
Thanks to Out There reader Jimmy E.
If Your Husband Calls You a Mule, Is It a Compliment?
NEW DELHI (AP) — A textbook used in western India compares housewives to donkeys — and concludes that the pack animals make more loyal companions, a newspaper reported Tuesday.
"A donkey is like a housewife," declares the Hindi language primer approved by the state of Rajasthan, according to The Times of India newspaper. "It has to toil all day and, like her, may even have to give up food and water."
"In fact, the donkey is a shade better," continues the text meant for 14-year-olds, "for while the housewife may sometimes complain and walk off to her parents' home, you'll never catch the donkey being disloyal to his master."
The book, reportedly used in Rajasthani schools, has sparked protests from the women's wing of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which controls the state government and approved the text, the Times reported.
Rajasthan is known to be one of India's most traditional states, where conservative attitudes toward women predominate, and state education officials said the comparison was meant to be funny, nothing more.
"The comparison was made in good humor," state education official A.R. Khan was quoted as saying.
He added, however, that "protests have been taken note of and the board is in the process of removing" the reference.
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Marijuana-flavored lollipops, gum balls and chocolates with names such as Hydro and Sticky Icky Buds could be banned in Alameda County under an ordinance being considered by the Board of Supervisors.
The ordinance would ban goodies made by Corona, Calif.-based Chronic Candy, whose Web site promotes the tag line "every lick is like taking a hit" and features endorsements from pot-loving rapper Snoop Dogg and hotel heiress Paris Hilton.
The ordinance says the candy improperly influences teens and young adults and promotes illegal behavior.
Chronic Candy's owner, Tony Van Pelt, said the products are flavored with legal hemp oil and do not contain THC, which is the active ingredient in marijuana. The products are intended for adults.
The candy has been banned in Chicago and Suffolk County, N.Y., and is facing a possible ban in Georgia, Van Pelt said.
He said parents should use the candy as a tool to teach their children about the dangers of drug use.
"Use Chronic Candy to have that conversation at home about drugs," Van Pelt said. "Say why this product isn't for us as a family."
I'm Doing Well Trekking 3 Miles on a Treadmill
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — After two weeks of trekking through a moving obstacle course of shifting, treacherous plates of pack ice, adventurers Karl Bushby and Dimitri Kieffer have crossed the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia.
The pair stepped ashore in Siberia on Friday, said Karl's father, Keith Bushby, from his home in Hereford, England.
"All of us knew the chances of them getting across were slim," he said. "We were obviously elated when they arrived."
Karl Bushby and Kieffer are in an elite club of a few adventurers to make the trek across the 58-mile stretch of largely frozen ice pack.
Leaving sometime in mid-March from Wales, a village of about 150 people on the tip of the Seward Peninsula, they battled minus-20-degree temperatures, fast-moving ice and arduous climbs over fields of crumpled ridges the size of refrigerators, Keith Bushby said.
"The ice was splitting up behind them," he said.
Leads opened quickly, and pack ice moved rapidly with the currents — at times 5 knots an hour. While sleeping in their tent one night, the two adventurers were swept in a crazy loop miles off course.
Karl Bushby is 18,000 miles into a planned 36,000-mile walk around the world that he began seven years ago in Chile. The 36-year-old former paratrooper plans to continue his hike across Siberia, Asia and Europe. He hopes to return home by 2010 — after crossing four continents, half a dozen deserts, mountain ranges and now, a frozen sea.
"I'm just extremely relieved for him it's over," Keith Bushby said.
"But it's not really over, it's just the start of another adventure."
Thanks to Out There reader Steve R.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The sheik was a fake, the Rembrandt a replica, and the doors never opened for The Greatest.
A man who posed as a member of the Saudi royal family and tried to sell a forged painting was sentenced Tuesday to five months in federal prison plus five months of home confinement.
Majed A. Ihmoud, 53, of suburban St. Charles, had pleaded guilty in October to conspiring to commit mail fraud for his role in the fake Rembrandt caper.
Ihmoud dressed as a sheik and took a forgery of Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn's "Man With the Golden Helmet" to a meeting with a buyer in August 2004, expecting to sell it for $2.8 million, the government said.
The buyer was an undercover FBI agent, said Robert Wittman, the Philadelphia-based senior investigator on the FBI's art crime team.
Ihmoud also admitted he had sought $130,000 for a pair of brass doors he said had belonged to Muhammad Ali.
The doors never belonged to the boxer and were worth only about $10,000, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Drake.
The real "Man With the Golden Helmet," which hangs in a Berlin museum, is likely not a Rembrandt, either. In 1986, art experts concluded it was painted by an unknown artist in Rembrandt's studio.
The University of 'Books, Babes and Beer'
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Where's the best place for a college kid to party? Right in the middle of the heartland, Playboy magazine says.
The magazine, breaking a four-year hiatus by issuing a list of top party schools, has named the University of Wisconsin-Madison No. 1 in its study of "books, babes and beer."
The issue hitting newsstands Friday cites two annual parties that UW-Madison students love: a Halloween Party that attracts up to 100,000 people and a rowdy spring block party in the heart of campus.
But the magazine also commends the city's vibrant music scene, its enthusiasm for the Badgers sports teams — and, yes, its reputation as a good academic school.
University officials said they weren't thrilled about topping another list for party schools after the Princeton Review named the school its top party school last year.
But "it's good to be known as a place where there's a lot going on for students," said UW-Madison spokesman John Lucas. "It's good they do take into account the academics."
Playboy editorial director Christopher Napolitano said the question the magazine was trying to answer was this: "Where would a guy who wants to live the Playboy lifestyle want to go to school?"
Compiled by FOXNews.com's Taylor Timmins.
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