Europeans — especially the French — aren’t too keen on digital rights management (DRM) with their music. Still, the German market for legitimate music downloading grew by a third in the past year, according to new data from BITKOM.

New research at the University of Maryland looks at why kids decide to include – and exclude – other kids from their group of friends. It turns out the decision making process is much more complex than previously believed, and could even provide insights into how to intervene when children are rejected by their peers. [...]

Some great photo work on Malgusto this week.  You’ll love these latest pics.

Dozens of women staged a breast-feeding protest at the Berkshire, PA Mall on Saturday to protest a security guard’s recent action in telling a nursing mother to use a blanket or stop. Sure to be a real suckfest.

International courier UPS receives an average of more than one San Francisco parking ticket every hour, giving the company the unenviable distinction of being the city’s No. 1 parking violator.

For more than 150 years, messages of joy, sorrow and success came in signature yellow envelopes hand-delivered by a courier. Now the Western Union telegram is officially a thing of the past.

Retailers had very happy holidays. US retail e-commerce sales (excluding travel) for the fourth quarter of 2006 were the highest they have been in four years, according to the US Census Bureau.

Elitist takes croquet and transforms it to ‘Toequet,’ a soccer-croquet version of the sport.

An Egyptian court this week sentenced blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman to four years in prison. He is the first person in Egypt to be jailed for internet-based journalism.

Deaths and injuries on Britain’s roads cost the NHS £470m every year and the economy £8bn as well as destroying families, according to a Government watchdog.

Judges in Utah are warned to quit sleeping during court. Judges warn lawyers to quit being so boring.

IRS goes after eBay, wants info on seller earnings.

When a teacher took a week off school to have eye surgery, his students thought they’d combine their STD presentation and get well gift. What better way to express warm wishes for a teacher than to give him this Gonorrhea plush doll?

Surprisingly, these are un-photoshopped images of real trees.

You too can play out your own war machine debacles with these funky figures.

Drinking caffeinated beverages may protect the elderly against heart disease death, New York researchers have found.

Some nutrition experts say Americans preoccupied with trans fats in their diet are replacing one unhealthy oil with another.

Yamaha employees have been arrested for selling remote controlled crop dusting helicopters to China.

It’s billed as "luxury living" for DePaul University students, but some residents of the new Loft-Right apartments in Lincoln Park say the building hasn’t lived up to their expectations — especially not at $4,200 a month and up.

As another example of having way too many police on duty, Alaskan police arrest man in parking lot for using a public library’s wireless access after hours.

Social networking websites are being used by young gang members, fuelling fears they are being used to recruit impressionable youths.

Madonna’s preferences might be surprising, but they are clear: "Shoes are better than sex because they last longer." But, according to the latest research, surprisingly large numbers of men and women see no reason to separate the two.

Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody seems to do anything about it. Well, not really. Long ago, to make it rain the Chinese fired rockets into the skies and sacrificed virgins by throwing them into rivers. Of course Native Americans have rain dances. But there’s one man near Fresno, who’s waging his own war [...]

Cigarette sales have plunged in a range from 30 percent to 60 percent in South Dakota since the $1 a pack increase in the state tax went into effect at the start of the year, tobacco dealers say.

Junk mail seems harmless enough. Maybe you’ll find something useful there. If not, you’ll just toss it out, right? But there are plenty of people who simply don’t want to fool with the stuff at all. Here are ways to get rid of 90% of the junk.