NYC Couple Hail Cab For 2,400-Mile Ride

(AP) Betty and Bob Matas have retired and are moving to Arizona, but like many New Yorkers they don't drive, and they don't want their cats to travel all that way in an airliner cargo hold.

Their solution: "Hey, cabbie."

They met taxi driver Douglas Guldeniz when they hailed his cab after a shopping trip several weeks ago.

They got to talking about their upcoming move, and "we said 'Do you want to come?'" said Bob Matas, 72, a former audio and video engineer for advertising agencies. "And he said 'Sure.'"

It was initially a gag, Matas said, but as they talked over the ensuing weeks it became reality.

They plan to leave Tuesday on the 2,400-mile trip to Sedona, Ariz., with Guldeniz driving his yellow SUV cab 10 hours a day for a flat fee of $3,000, plus gas, meals and lodging.

They're getting a break. The standard, metered fare would be about $5,000 _ each way, according to David Pollack, executive director of the Committee for Taxi Safety, a drivers' group. But city Taxi and Limousine Commission rules direct drivers and passengers to negotiate a flat fare for trips outside the city and a few suburban areas.

It's also a good deal for Guldeniz.

"This job is not easy, and I want to do something different," said Guldeniz, 45, who has been driving a taxi for two years. "I want to have some good memories."

The Matases will ride in relaxed comfort in Guldeniz's sport utility vehicle while their cats ride in the back in their travel cases. A mover will haul their belongings.

"It's a little unusual, but it will be fun," said Betty Matas, 71, a retired executive administrative assistant.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

Hook Up Fratello

One Country Makes Adultery A Crime

Unfaithful spouses in Cambodia face up to a year in prison after the country's lower house of parliament passed a law that bans adultery as well as polygamy and incest.

The law would punish Cambodians for extra-marital relations or incest with between a month and a year in prison, plus a fine of up to 250 dollars.

Formally marrying a second spouse would be punishable by between six months and one year in prison, plus the same fine.

The Senate still must approve the law, which then goes to King Norodom Sihamoni for signing, but both are considered formalities.

The law was approved by 64 of Cambodia's 123 MPs, with opposition parties boycotting the vote on a law they consider to be draconian.

"This law will be good only on paper, but it won't be properly enforced," opposition party leader Sam Rainsy told reporters.

"The real aim is that they will use this law as a tool against people they want to politically mistreat."

Royalist lawmaker Monh Saphan warned the law would "interfere in the private lives of individuals," and said the nation would be better served by toughening anti-corruption laws.

But national assembly president Heng Samrin said the law would help strengthen the kingdom's morals.

"This law can also help to reduce corruption, because if a government official has many wives or mistresses, he will become greedy for the state's money," he said.

The opposition has denounced the law as a throwback to the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime that ruled the country from 1975-1979, when extra-marital affairs were punished by execution.

Prime Minister Hun Sen proposed the law five months ago, after he publicly grumbled about government officials bringing their mistresses instead of their wives to official functions.

Although polygamy is a common practice in traditional Khmer families, the law would notably affect the leader of the royalist FUNCINPEC party, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, who is often seen in public with his mistress.

Prince Ranariddh was the president of parliament until early this year, when it changed the requirements for a parliamentary majority and handed control of the legislature over to Hun Sen's party.

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse.

Lady chimpanzees love forbidden fruit

PILFERED fruit brazenly plucked from under the farmer's gaze may be the secret to stolen love, at least for wild male chimpanzees and their consorts, British researchers say.

Wild chimps in West Africa pinch fruits from local farms to impress the lady chimps, and it seems to pay off, said Dr Kimberley Hockings of the University of Stirling's department of psychology.

"The adult male who shared most with this female engaged in more consortships with her and received more grooming from her than the other adult males, even the alpha male," said Hockings, whose study appears in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS One.

"Such daring behavior may be considered an attractive trait," Hockings said.

She and colleagues studied crop-raids made by wild male chimpanzees in the West African village of Bossou in the Republic of Guinea. The study is the only recorded example of routine sharing of plant foods by chimps who are not related, the researchers said.

The favored fruit was typically papaya, which is large and easy to share, but oranges and pineapple also scored.

Hockings said possessing a desirable food item may draw positive attention to an individual and help establish or cement an adult male chimpanzee's relationships.

Adult males were most likely to share such foods obtained in exposed locations and in the presence of local people.

"Crop-raiding adult males may be advertising prowess to other group-members," she said.

Hockings said the males showed signs their risky behavior was nerve-racking, as evidenced by rough self-scratching, a behavior pattern involving large movements of the arm that suggests anxiety. Rough self-scratching levels were more than four times higher when adult male chips stole and ate cultivated food compared with wild food. Nevertheless, stolen foods were shared much more frequently than wild plant foods.