With Canadian consumers postponing major capital purchase decisions, real estate agents have to make their offers sweeter by throwing in freebies. Among the incentives they dangle to potential home buyers are a free car, TV sets and overseas trips. Kelly Collins, chief operating officer of CountryWide Homes, explained to the Toronto Star, "Everyone is doing what they can to attract buyers; there is so much doom and gloom. . . Anything you can do to differentiate yourself from the competition helps. "

Businessman Levi Bussanich, owner of an adult video store in Olympia, Washington, will expand his Desire Video into a sex emporium if city hall fails to give him permission to build a grocery store to be operated by WinCo Foods. He said that he will transform his video store located off Interstate 5 on Pacific Avenue, Centralia into a sex emporium, which will feature female and male strippers, live sex shows, bondage and fetish areas, an adult motel and a drive-up window for customers.

Hundreds of Chinese laborers are holding 12 Israeli staff members hostage on a resort construction site in Turks and Caicos. The workers refuse to let the Israelis, from the Ashtroom real estate company, leave the project site in West Caicos until the Chinese manpower agency that hired them pays their back wages and returns the $15,000 each person invested to be able to work on the island.

Two extra digits are needed by the National Debt Clock on Times Square in New York City as the U. S. ' borrowings reached $10. 2 trillion. With the ongoing credit crunch, it would not be surprising that the national debt would further balloon, which would make it impossible to reflect the accurate figure unless the two additional digits are in place soon.

Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is now an action figure - a 12-inch doll action figure. Online action figure store herobuilders. com on Tuesday unveiled its latest creation, a 12-inch plastic doll of Palin. The doll comes in three outfits, Sarah the Executive in conservative suit, Sarah the Superhero, a gun-toting superhero clad in a rad black-leahter trench coat, and a slightly sexed-up schoolgirl look.