■ UNITED STATES
Musician named top thinker
The US' Greatest Thinker is not a famous philosopher, an award-winning mathematician or internationally known astrophysicist. He is a musician and arts administrator from Minneapolis, Minnesota, according to this year's Great American Think-Off, in which ordinary people debate perplexing questions. Joe Kaiser won the title and a gold medal on Saturday after the Think-Off audience decided he was most convincing when debating the question: "Which should you trust more -- your head or your heart?" Kaiser argued a person should trust the heart more than the head. His friend and debate opponent, Episcopal priest Paul Allick of Burnsville, took the silver medal by arguing that one's head should be used in making decisions.
■ GERMANY
Cash offered to move
In a desperate attempt to counter the exodus of young women from the former communist east, a small town is trying to lure them back with cash. Freital Mayor Klaus Mattig has promised a "relocation bonus" of 2,000 euros (US$2,670) to women between 18 and 39 who move to the small town, which is near Dresden. "We have fewer and fewer young women who can have babies -- that's a big problem for the future of our town," he told the Bild tabloid. He said the number of births in the town had halved. Mattig has also promised to help women arriving in Freital to find a job or training.
■ GERMANY
Gift gets grandson in trouble
A grandmother landed her 19-year-old grandson in trouble by sending him a fake 100 euro note, police in the northwestern town of Oberhausen said yesterday. Police descended on the student in a shop after a cashier spotted the counterfeit note, sent him by his grandmother to congratulate him on passing his school exams. "The young man was quite surprised and said he had received it by post from his granny. He couldn't believe she had been involved in counterfeiting money," the police said.
■ IRAN
MP receives death threats
One of the country's most outspoken MPs has received a death threat after suggesting that the country's supreme leader is a weaker figure than the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, spiritual head of the 1979 Islamic revolution. The threat appeared amid abusive text messages sent to Emad Afrough, a fundamentalist critic of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, after he described Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as "more expediency-seeking than the late imam."
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