The high cost of lawyers' fees has resulted to a rise of Americans handling their own court cases, with assistance from legal self-help sites and groups. The kind of self-handled cases has gone beyond civil cases involving small amounts of money to domestic problems, divorces and child custody matters, according to the National Center for State Courts.

Riders of the London Underground will hold cocktail parties inside rear cars of subway lines at 9 p. m. on Saturday to mark the end of Britons' drinking tradition on public transports. Drinking, and drunkenness, will be banned on trains and buses starting June 1 for a safer and more pleasant travel, a regulation introduced by new London Mayor Boris Johnson on May 7.

To boost the Labor Party's dwindling popularity, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has resorted to various methods of wooing Britons, including calling them at 6 a. m. to check their concerns. One recipient of his calls was Stephen Carter, who was on overtime work when Brown called. Carter was one of many Britons who had written to the prime minister. Brown responded to their letters by personally calling to look into their concerns.

A birthday party invitation posted on the popular social websites Facebook and Bebo attracted some 400 guests and gatecrashers, who destroyed and robbed the plush celebration venue in Spain. The birthday celebrator, British 16-year-old Jodie Hudson, and her mother Amanda learned too late the disaster the online invitation would cause to their luxurious Marbella vacation villa, which suffered ruined walls, destroyed carpets, and broken banisters, doors and furniture.

After his diplomatic faux pas in Afghanistan which revealed Canadian meddling into Afghan internal politics, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier is hogging the headlines again. This time over a former girlfriend who has been linked to a biker gang. Bernier's ex was Julie Couillard, a former model and aspiring actress, who had relationships with two men linked with the Hells Angels biker gang.