An attendant at a Canadian restaurant who was sacked for giving a bite-sized doughnut, worth 16 cents, to an agitated toddler was given her job back on Thursday after the case received wide media attention.

Nicole Lilliman, a single mother, said she was dismissed from a London, Ontario, outlet of the Tim Hortons coffee and doughnut chain after video cameras captured the 27-year-old giving a Timbit to a toddler.

"It was just out of my heart, she (the toddler) was pointing and going 'ah, ah' I should have gone to my purse and got the change, but it was busy", Lilliman told the Toronto Star newspaper.

Tim Hortons said on Thursday that the firing was a mistake. "It was the unfortunate action of one manager who unfortunately made an overzealous decision, and thankfully we were able to rectify the situation", said company spokeswoman Rachel Douglas.

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The head of Germany's Social Democrats, who has ambitions to be his country's next leader, is thinking about donating his beard to charity, but is not quite sure.

Kurt Beck, who as party leader has a strong claim to lead the SPD into next year's national election, said in a panel discussion in Mainz that he might shave off his beard to raise 1 million euros ($1.5 million) for charity, the newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported.

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Some residents on the Greek island of Lesvos say they are the only true Lesbians and they want gay groups to stop using the word.

Several residents have begun legal proceedings and pending a ruling have asked a court to ban the Gay and Lesbian Community of Greece from using the word lesbian in their title. Plaintiff Dimitris Lambrou says the dispute is over identity and not sexuality. "We must protect our identity, the name that defines our origin from being stolen", he told Reuters TV on Friday. "Our legal actions have nothing to do with the sexual orientation of our adversaries".

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Hundreds of villagers have flocked to a remote Indian village to see a baby girl who was saved by stray dogs after she was abandoned in a mound of mud by her mother, officials said on Tuesday.

Villagers in the eastern state of Bihar saved the newborn on the weekend after they saw three dogs barking near a baby covered with mud.

"The dogs removed the soil around and began to bark and the baby started crying which drew attention of the local villagers," Ram Narayan Sahani, a senior government official, said on Tuesday from Bihar's Samastipur district.

"The girl is crying but is safe in the lap of a childless couple who have adopted her." Police said they were looking for the girl's mother, who they think had left the girl to die.  (Read more!)

A Japanese high school pleaded for a regional game to be abandoned after surrendering 66 runs in less than two innings, local media reported on Thursday.

The coach of Kawamoto technical high school threw in the towel to spare his pitcher's arm with his team losing 66-0 with just one batter out in the bottom of the second.

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Stoil Panayotov, a Bulgarian farmer who was luckless in love and had divorced his third wife, got married to a goat last March at a market in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, according to the Sun online newspaper.

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Car cleaners at a Russian firm got a surprise when they cleaned out a vacuum cleaner this week: a diamond pendant worth up to 300,000 euros
($475,400).

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Harry's Bar, the famed Venice watering hole where Ernest Hemingway held court over hearty food and stiff martinis, is offering a discount to "poor" Americans suffering from a weak dollar and subprime blues.

The decision by the owner of the restaurant, one of the most expensive even when the U.S. currency is strong, underscores the growing concern about the weak dollar among tourism operators in Italy and elsewhere in Europe.

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A Serb farmer used a grinding machine to cut in half his farm tools and machines to comply with a court ruling that he must share all his property with his ex-wife, local media reported.

Branko Zivkov, 76, told Belgrade daily Kurir he had been ready to give his wife Vukadinka her equal share of everything earned during their 45-year marriage, but was furious at being asked to give away half his farming equipment.

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Thailand's health chiefs barred hospitals and clinics on Wednesday from castrating would-be "ladyboys" amid growing concern about the operation being seen as a cheap and quick alternative to a full sex-change.

In a letter to 16,000 private health units, the Public Health Ministry said doctors performing the operation outside formal sex-change therapy -- which requires rigorous physical and mental evaluation of the patient -- faced up to six months in jail.

However, senior health official Tara Chinakarn admitted that policing the temporary ban might be difficult as cosmetic removal of the testicles was such a quick operation and easy to conduct in secret.

"It's hard to track them down as it takes only 15-20 minutes to have the surgery," Tara told Reuters.

Thailand is home to a large number of "ladyboys," or "katoey" in Thai, a term that covers anything from a transvestite to a man who has undergone a full sex change.




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