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The skinny: Swedish train drivers bare legs, protest policy

 
Published June 12, 2013

Skirting the rules

Train drivers bare their legs, protest policy

Commuters on a train line in northern Stockholm were met with an unusual sight this week: male train drivers and conductors wearing skirts to work. Train driver Martin Akersten says he and more than a dozen others at the Roslagsbanan line have started wearing skirts in the summer as a protest against the train company's uniform policy, which doesn't allow shorts. The 30-year-old Akersten said Sunday the response from customers has been only positive. Arriva, the company that runs the train line, hasn't stopped the drivers. Arriva spokesman Tomas Hedenius says the company wants its staff to look "nice and proper," but can't stop men from wearing "women's clothes" if that's what they want because it would be discrimination. He didn't rule out a change of the company's uniform policy.

A day to remember

Police: Wedding guest stole cards

A Pennsylvania woman has been charged with stealing money from cards brought to a wedding reception she was attending — and trying to hide the loot in her bra. State police say 40-year-old Jennifer Ann Martz of Chicora attended Saturday's wedding with her boyfriend, who was an invited guest. The Butler Eagle reports guests found 11 cards missing from a gift table and noticed Martz heading to the ladies room. Police say Martz ripped up the cards and tried to flush them down a toilet, while stuffing $475 in cash and $80 in checks into her bra. The groom's brother, Jeremy Scherer, says Martz "ruined the whole time for everybody."

Capitol conquest

Couple completes political bucket list

A Texas couple has fulfilled a lifelong dream by visiting Maine to watch the state Legislature at work. Seriously. The Portland Press Herald reports that 86-year-old Marcine Webb and his wife, 81-year-old Nita Lou Webb, were in Augusta last week to complete their quest to visit every state capitol. Maine's was the last one. When House Speaker Mark Eves announced the reason for their visit, the state representatives stood and cheered. The trip for the San Angelo, Texas, couple was a 65th wedding anniversary present from their children.

Heady discovery

Two-headed piglet donated to science

A northwestern Pennsylvania woman has donated an unusual body to science: the carcass of a two-headed piglet she found preserved in a jar dug up outside her mother's home. Sharon Reagle tells the Meadville Tribune she unearthed the jar while planting shrubs at her mother's home in Saegertown on Sunday. Reagle calls the find "unique, pretty neat really." But she felt it was better to donate it to the biology department at nearby Allegheny College in Meadville. Reagle says her parents didn't raise pigs in the 56 years they lived on the property, so she has no idea how it got there.

Compiled from wire services and other sources.