  More happy news <> ROME (Reuters), Aug. 12 - A retired Italian man could face up to a year and a half in prison if found guilty of killing his six pet hamsters and one guinea-pig by throwing them off his terrace into passing traffic.
The man, detained by police after the guinea-pig crashed into the windscreen of a car, told officials that he had accidentally knocked the animals off his terrace while sweeping, AGI news agency reported on Thursday. Police in the northern coastal town of Imperia discovered the hamsters' bodies littered across the street after the motorist complained about the broken windscreen. By studying the trajectory of the pets' bodies they were able to identify the pensioner's apartment. Under a new cruelty to animals law, the man could be sent to jail for between three to 18 months for killing the pets.
He will also be held responsible for the damage to the windscreen. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP), Aug. 12 - Some motorists on Interstate 77 have complained about nude boaters, and others have stopped to watch. Boaters — with and without bathing suits — have attracted the attention of drivers in recent weeks, at times halting traffic at the causeway between Iredell and Mecklenburg counties and sparking complaints, said Iredell County Deputy Sheriff Phil Jones. "They get right up to that riprap, and they take their clothes off," Jones told the Lake Norman Marine Commission this week. Drivers get a good look at the water as they cross the causeway. There are rocks, called riprap, where the water meets land at the bottom of the causeway. Jones knows of three calls the sheriff's office has gotten complaining of flashers, and he has heard of at least one accident blamed on flashers.
Marine commissioner Mark Lancaster of Iredell County confirmed Jones' report. He said he was in the area setting up for the July 31 Lake Norman Raft-Up, when he heard the honking of tractor-trailers and saw stopped traffic. Then he saw three naked women in a boat near the causeway. The raft-up drew more than 1,400 boaters who tied their vessels together to create a new world record for such things.
Marine commission Chairman Randy Reece said the N.C. Highway Patrol had asked the commissioners to consider moving the Raft-Up to a less visible spot next year. But marine commissioners and law enforcement said the traffic problem wasn't limited to the Raft-Up or naked people. Drivers reported a southbound traffic jam Sunday caused by drivers watching boaters on the lake.
"I've seen traffic jams looking at the sunset," Reece said. Reece said traffic problems started when the N.C. Department of Transportation took down the causeway fence and started trimming the weeds and underbrush that once obscured views of the lake. Boats gathering at the causeway are a fairly recent phenomenon because boaters have had to leave an area in Iredell County where they once gathered, known as Cocktail Cove. Homeowners had complained about nudity and obnoxious behavior from partying boaters who tied their craft together. 
