A shoplifter looking to make a quick getaway from a Dutch supermarket after stealing a packet of meat left police a crucial piece of evidence — his 12-year-old son.

In his haste the 45-year-old thief made a solo dash to his car, batting away a supermarket worker who had flung himself on the vehicles’ bonnet in a bid to stop the escape.

Police in the southern Dutch town of Kerkrade said they managed to contact the thief via the boy, but he had refused to return and collect his son. The man told officers to get hold of the youngster’s mother instead.

The thief later turned himself in Thursday, a police spokeswoman said.

A man in Australia is auctioning his life — his house, his job, his clothes and his friends — on eBay, after his marriage broke up, saying he wants to start a new life.

“It’s time to move. A completely fresh start. I want to see where life takes me,” Ian Usher, 44, told Australian television on Tuesday from Perth in Western Australia state.

Usher said he was auctioning his life as “a package” with his house in Perth valued at around A$420,000 (US$385,000).

“Hi there, my name is Ian Usher, and I have had enough of my life! I don’t want it any more! You can have it if you like!,” reads his Web site http://www.alife4sale.com, which has a link to eBay for bidders.

Usher said his life auction, which starts on June 22, included not only his house, a car, a motorbike, a jet ski and a spa, but also an introduction to “great friends” and a job at a rug shop in Perth for a trial two-week period.

“When it’s over, I will just walk out the front door, take my wallet, my passport and start a new life,” he said.

Usher said his ex-wife had heard of his auction.

“Her last comment was, ‘it seems a bit mental to me’,” he said.

A medieval cathedral in Spain’s Mediterranean port of Valencia has installed two indoor traffic lights to help control the influx of visitors expected during Holy Week which begins on Sunday.

The traffic lights were placed at the bottom of the 207 steps of Valencia Cathedral’s octagonal bell tower, which offers sweeping views of the city, as well as at the top of the staircase, the cathedral said on its website.

The traffic lights were set up earlier this month “to avoid jams between the groups of people who climb and descend the stairs of the bell tower” and are controlled either manually or automatically with sensors, it added.

The Roman Catholic cathedral was completed in the 15th century and its bell tower, La Miguelete, is a city landmark.

Thousands of people flock to the cathedral during Holy Week — the seven days before Easter — for special services and festivities.

It contains numerous treasures, including two paintings by Francisco de Goya, a 14th century lantern and a golden chalice which is believed by many to have been used by Christ during the Last Supper.

Two Australian women who bludgeoned a British girl and then kissed as she lay dying have been jailed for life.

The body of Stacey Mitchell, 16, was found in December 2006, in a wheelie bin in Perth, Western Australia, days after her family reported her missing.

Lesbian lovers Jessica Stasinowsky, 20, and Valerie Parashumti, 19, were ordered to serve a minimum of 24 years.

The court heard how Parashumti had a history of drinking blood as part of a vampire sub-culture.

A psychologist told the court she had very strong sexual sadistic tendencies and was sexually aroused by physical torture and violence.

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High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.

Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.

“As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don’t believe, or a legend, which I don’t believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics,” Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the “burning bush,” suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances.

“The Bible says people see sounds, and that is a clasic phenomenon,” he said citing the example of religious ceremonies in the Amazon in which drugs are used that induce people to “see music.”

He mentioned his own experience when he used ayahuasca, a powerful psychotropic plant, during a religious ceremony in Brazil’s Amazon forest in 1991. “I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations,” Shanon said.

He said the psychedelic effects of ayahuasca were comparable to those produced by concoctions based on bark of the acacia tree, that is frequently mentioned in the Bible.

An Italian man was jailed for more than two years for putting pornographic pictures of his ex-girlfriend on the Internet and sending them out in more than 15,000 emails.

The 32-year-old man had created a Web site that appeared to show his ex-girlfriend offering sexual favours and erotic games, with her phone number also on display.

The man, who also sent threatening text messages to the woman and her parents, was accused of aggravated defamation, threatening and violence.

In its ruling, the Milan court said the man had publicised photos and data that should have remained private, and done so without his ex-girlfriend’s consent.

The court sentenced him to 2 years and 4 months in jail.

For the first time in U.S. history, more than one of every 100 adults is in jail or prison, according to a new report documenting America’s rank as the world’s No. 1 incarcerator. It urges states to curtail corrections spending by placing fewer low-risk offenders behind bars.

Using state-by-state data, the report says 2,319,258 Americans were in jail or prison at the start of 2008 — one out of every 99.1 adults. Whether per capita or in raw numbers, it’s more than any other nation.

The report, released Thursday by the Pew Center on the States, said the 50 states spent more than $49 billion on corrections last year, up from less than $11 billion 20 years earlier. The rate of increase for prison costs was six times greater than for higher education spending, the report said.

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