Mahatma Gandhi's family is pleading with the Indian government to force an Australian food take-out restaurant called Handi Ghandi -- "Great Curries. . . No Worries" -- to stop using the vegetarian pacifist to sell its food. According to its Web site ( www. handighandi. com ), the company sells a range of meat and vegetarian curries -- including beef, which is sacred to Hindus and forbidden.

In the midst of a Toronto neighborhood rests a 13-1/2 foot bronze and granite monument depicting Alexander Wood, famous for both owning the land on which the community now sits, and for being run out of town due to sexual scandal in the early 1800s. The statue of a hero in Toronto's gay community is the cause of concern both for the actions of the man it depicts and for the somewhat graphic description of the 19th-Century sex scandal that made him famous.

On Saturday, someone dressed up as Darth Vader robbed The Showplace Eight Theater in Springfield, Illinois. According to police, the unarmed man blended in with moviegoers, pushed an employee away from the register, grabbed the cash inside and ran into the woods.

Mary Kay Letourneau and her former sixth-grade student got married in a hush-hush ceremony. 43-year-old Letourneau was imprisoned in 1997 for raping her 22-yaer-old student Fualaau. But she was released last August.

Japanese men must work less to assist at home more, reported The Associated Press referring to a survey published on Sunday. The survey was conducted by Rengo Soken, a research institute associated with Japanese trade unions.