At least four culinarily daring food emporiums in the U.S. serve deep-fried pizza, including the takeout Pizza Snobz in Wilson, Pa., though owner David Barker admits the specialty is more common in Scotland. The key point, he said, is to begin only with frozen pizza; otherwise, the cheese soon slides off into the fryer.

When a supporter of the animal-rights organization PETA contributed, for a fund-raising auction, a towel that had recently been used by actor George Clooney, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk had what she thought was a better idea: extracting Clooney's perspiration from it and using the sweat to flavor a tofu dish. "I can see people having parties to try CloFu," she said. (Clooney rejected the idea, according to a March Washington Post report.)

In February, Britain's Southwark Crown Court ordered so-called "countess" Eida Beguinua to give back the equivalent of $1.2 million to investors who had believed her story that she could recover treasures in the Philippines but needed money for expenses. Despite the setback, she told the judge that she was sticking with her story and begged him for more time to look for the "22 caves," protected by "10,000" guards, containing tons of jewelry and gold worth "300 followed by 41 zeros" (presumably in British pounds).

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