India's government has backed off asking female civil servants questions that the women said were too nosy and had nothing to do with job performance. At issue was a new form requiring female government employees to disclose all details about their monthly menstrual cycles as well as when they had last requested maternity leave. There was no comparable survey form for male civil servants. Almost 10 percent of India's 4,000 civil servants are women and many of them had vocally objected to a gender-specific appraisal form.

A gray Volkswagen Golf once owned by Pope Benedict XVI is up for sale on e-Bay, with the current highest bid at $202,750. Proceeds from the auction will go to Habitat for Humanity Great Britain. The Pope's private secretary bought the car from a dealer in Siegen in 1999 and sold it back to the dealer in 2004. In 2005 a young German student bought the car unaware of its previous owner, but later found out and sold it on eBay to the online casino Golden Palace for $245,000.

A 40-year-old man who went to his old high school to get a copy of his transcript was told he couldn't have it unless he paid a physical education fee of $5 and $7. 95 for an algebra book he lost while a student there. Jeff Rolson, who graduated from Superior High School in 1977, needed to get a copy of his transcript for a plumbing apprenticeship when he stopped by the school last week, but the school secretary told him he needed to pay off that $12. 95 first. AP quotes Rolson as saying, "I told her, 'Do you realize this was 30 years ago?'"

In his first response to U. S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's last week testimony, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez remarked on Valentine's Day that he misses Rice's verbal attacks. "It had been days since she had given me any attention. How are you, Condoleezza?" Chavez asked in a speech Wednesday. Last week Rice testified to U. S. congressional committee that the Venezuelan leader was "destroying his own country" economically and politically.

All it needs is an unfortunate slip of stroke to transform the name of America's most wanted man to one of its most respected personage. Yes, that is what happened with a major new channel when a bad typo replaced "Osama" with "Obama. " The CNN new channel on Tuesday sought apologies from Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for what is said was a "bad typographical error. "