Newsletter BOX: Reuters Oddly Enough Report

09/26/2013

Reuters Election 2012 Daily round-up of the day's top news from the campaign trail, the White House and all the politics in between

Termites' powerful weapon against extermination? Their own poop

ORLANDO (Reuters) - Scientists trying to understand why destructive wood-eating termites are so resistant to efforts to exterminate them have come up with an unusually repugnant explanation.

Diageo's 'Arthur's Day' faces backlash in home of Guinness

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The Irish are famous around the world for their convivial drinking culture and the cosy pubs that have been copied around the world - but it seems they do not want to be cajoled into an annual celebration of their best-known beer.

IRS rides 1884 'dead horse' law to defense of tax preparer rules

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Tuesday defended its effort to regulate the tax return preparation business for the first time in U.S. history, basing its case largely on a 19th century law dealing with horses lost or killed in the Civil War.

Wild pigs menace suburban Atlanta

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Wild pigs have descended on a suburban Atlanta neighborhood where they are scaring children, making a general nuisance of themselves, and acting as they if they own the place.

Male Dallas Zoo gorilla to get therapy for sexist attitude

DALLAS (Reuters) - A gregarious male gorilla at the Dallas Zoo will be sent to South Carolina for therapy after he bit one female gorilla and sneered at others, zoo officials said on Monday.

"I'm not Tarzan," Pope Francis tells young crowd

CAGLIARI, Sardinia (Reuters) - Pope Francis brought laughter to a crowd of young people on Sunday when he told them he was not "Tarzan" but gets his staying power during times of difficulty from his faith.

South Carolina man who won nearly $400 million jackpot withholds name

CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - The winner of a nearly $400 million Powerball jackpot has declined to be named, lottery officials said on Monday, but they said the winner who lives near Columbia, South Carolina, told them he bought the ticket while on a mission to buy hot dog buns.

Venezuela orders temporary takeover of toilet paper factory

CARACAS (Reuters) - A Venezuelan state agency on Friday ordered the temporary takeover of a factory that produces toilet paper in what it called an effort to ensure consistent supplies after embarrassing shortages earlier this year.

Jackson auction halted by another Jackson's possibly fake signature

(Reuters) - The U.S. Marshals Service on Friday canceled an auction of assets forfeited by convicted former U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr concerned that one item - a guitar signed by Michael Jackson and Eddie Van Halen - might be faked.

French court fines mother for 3-year-old's "Jihad...I am a bomb" T-shirt

PARIS (Reuters) - A woman who sent her three-year-old son - called Jihad - to school in a T-shirt marked "Jihad, Born September 11, I am a bomb" was fined and given a suspended jail sentence by a French court on Friday.