The children of a British farmer and his wife grew up “looking at straw out of the windows of the house,” and one son was even kept from school on the day his classmates were to paint pictures of their houses. Why? Because they lived in a mock Tudor castle hidden behind a giant screen of hay bales and didn’t want anyone else to know.

Two Georgia schools have begun a 15-week pilot program that pays public school students struggling in math and science $8 an hour to attend study hall four hours per week. The privately funded “Learn & Earn” initiative, an idea from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, is touted as the first of its kind in the state and one of a few similar programs nationwide.

After finding alcohol in her son’s car, Jane Hambleton decided to sell the car and share her 19-year-old’s misdeed with everyone by placing an ad in a newspaper. The ad reads: “OLDS 1999 Intrigue. Totally uncool parents who obviously don’t love teenage son, selling his car. Only driven for three weeks before snoopy mom who needs to get a life found booze under front seat. $3,700/offer. Call meanest mom on the planet.”

In Sydney, Australia, those who don Santa costumes were told they couldn’t use St. Nick’s traditional “ho ho ho” greeting because it may be offensive to women. Instead the Father Christmases from Down Under were instructed to say “ha ha ha,” the Daily Telegraph reported. One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use “ho ho ho” because it could frighten children and was too close phonetically to the American slang term for a prostitute.

Two hugs equals two days of detention for 13-year-old Megan Coulter. The eighth-grader was punished for violating a school policy banning public displays of affection when she hugged two friends recently. “I feel it is crazy,” said Megan of the Mascoutah (Illinois) Middle School. “I was just giving them a hug goodbye for the weekend,” she said.

Heather Mills, the former model and former wife of Paul McCartney, recently urged people to drink milk from rats and dogs to help save the planet. Mills started off by storming out of a radio interview in London, then drove a gas-guzzling Mercedes 4x4 to Hyde Park to speak about ecological matters—and kept the engine running for part of the morning.

When a man dressed in black and wearing crosses said to charge his groceries to St. Rocco’s Roman Catholic Church, clerks at a West Pittston, Pennsylvania, store obliged. St. Rocco’s has a tab at the Gerritys Supermarket.

The Rev. Ann Holmes Redding, a Seattle-based Episcopal priest who announced she is both Muslim and Christian, will not be able to serve as a priest for a year, according to her bishop.

It seems innocuous enough: The Bible Society in Australia converts Scripture into audio files, e-mails, and text-message bursts: “In da Bginnin God cre8d da heavens & da earth. Da earth waz barren, wit no 4m of life.”