Etc...

Come sit on Mummy's lap

Amanda Webster might have anticipated trouble when she caught her young son teething on her electronic car key. But at least the policeman she asked for help when the vehicle wouldn't start on a shopping trip in London was alert enough to figure out the problem. He noticed that the trans-ponder in the key was missing and suggested that the child might have swallowed it. Solution: put his tummy against the steering wheel, with the key in the ignition. Voila! The engine fired up for the ride home, where the chip was recovered when nature took its course.

Speaking of England and cars, a publisher has a big hit on its hands with its 2003 calendar. No photos of elegant Rolls Royces or Jaguars, though. As a joke, the company hit on the idea of using 12 traffic circles in Redditch, a town that otherwise attracts little attention. But orders have poured in from as far away as Australia. Said company officials: "We'd been trying to think of the nerdiest thing we could come up with, and this was it.... We can't believe they've sold so well."

'It's not the men's tournament anymore, because Mommy's playing there.'

Eight-year-old Jennifer Whaley responding to the news that her golf-pro mother, Suzy Whaley, will be competing in a men's tournament. Whaley has accepted an invitation to play in the Greater Hartford Open, a decision that will make her the first woman to play in a PGA Tour event.

source: AP

Fast-growing cities in the West and South - which drew residents to neighborhoods built after passage of fair-housing laws - are among the US's most racially diverse, according to a Census Bureau report. Still, it found that many urban centers remain highly segregated, with blacks more likely to live in isolation than other ethnic groups. The top areas in each category:

Most integrated

1. Orange County, Calif.

2. San Jose, Calif.

3. Norfolk, Va.

4. Tampa, Fla.

5. San Diego

Most segregated

1. Milwaukee

2. Detroit

3. Cleveland

4. St. Louis

5. Newark, N.J.

- Associated Press