In a move to protect their business, Australian brothel proprietors want the country to adjust its anti-smoking laws so that sex workers and their clients can smoke while fornicating. The Australian Adult Entertainment Industry wrote to the authorities, requesting that a law which bars smoking at work places be exempted for brothels.

A hospital patient being treated with a flammable gel for a skin condition dies after catching fire as he lit a cigarette. According to the BBC, the 60-year-old was smoking on a fire escape at Doncaster Royal Infirmary on Monday.

Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock is still in the business of shocking people. The director who ate nothing but McDonald's meals for his Oscar-nominated film, "Super Size Me," gave a profanity-laced, politically incorrect speech at a suburban Philadelphia high school. His lecture was part of Hatboro-Horsham High School's first-ever health fair. During his speech, Spurlock joked about the intelligence of McDonald's employees, about "retarded kids in the back wearing helmets" and teachers smoking pot in the balcony.

The Detroit Institute of Arts is stuck having to repair a painting worth $1. 5 million. It has to remove a stain left by a wad of gum stuck on the painting by a 12-year-old visitor. Museum officials say the boy was with a group from Holly Academy in Oakland County, Mich. , when he took the gum out of his mouth and stuck it on Helen Frankenthaler's 1963 abstract painting "The Bay. "

Michael Garby, 34, was arrested early Friday morning after attempting to sell cocaine to a sheriff's deputy - who was in uniform and seated inside a marked patrol car. According to The Smoking Gun Web site, Garby parked his car directly behind Deputy Edward Johnson's cruiser at about 1 a. m. Friday. He approached the officer and began chatting with him. After a few minutes, he asked, "Do you want to buy cocaine?" Johnson, who thought the man was kidding, responded, "Yes. "