McDonalds has been a favorite whipping boy of health buffs and nutrition experts, with its French fries and Quarterpounders being blamed for obesity among Americans. A Virginia man, however, credits the fastfood outlet for his losing about 80 pounds. But Chris Coleson, who was 278 pounds in December, did not gorge on McDonald's fattening offers. Rather, he feasted on the hamburger chain's healthy menu such as salads, wraps and apple dippers, less the caramel sauce.

A 12-year-old girl was stung by a scorpion at a Wal-Mart store on Sunday while trying to pick out a watermelon from a bin. The scorpion was around an inch long and must have got caught in the shipment from Mexico. The girl, Megan Templeton, was taken to the hospital immediately and made a full recovery.

Two residents of Hawaii have asked a district court in Honolulu to stop the Department of Energy and its partners from constructing a particle accelerator facility on the border between France and Switzerland. Walter F. Wagner and Luis Sancho's federal lawsuit filed Monday also seeks to delay the opening of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) pending its safety inspection on grounds that the gigantic atom smasher that physicists will use to study the origin of the universe could accidentally create "strangelet," an unknown matter, or an expanding black hole that both could destroy the Earth.

Days after obtaining an Illinois-shaped cornflake from an Internet auction, a man announced that he will be taking the prized item on the road to be part of his traveling road show. After paying $1,350 for the flake, Jon Wolf, the curator of triviamania. com, is planning to include the flake to his exhibit of American oddities.

Jerry Morgan noticed that the front windows of his neighbor's house in Parker City was shattered, and was shocked to see blood all over the walls. Thinking that a murder had occurred, Morgan phoned the local authorities for assistance.