Bold bite

Lima, May 14 (Reuters): A Peruvian woman sank her teeth into the testicles of a man who broke into her property to steal cattle and tried to rape her, leaving doctors no option but to lop one off, police and officials said yesterday.

“It looked like a dog bite. The man arrived with his right testicle dead and hanging by a thread ... there was nothing to do but cut it off,” said Hugo Jaime, a surgeon in the regional hospital in Huanuco in the Andes northeast of Lima.

The incident happened on Monday night in a remote village when Hermogenes Meza and 10 men broke tried to steal Elizabeth Coz’s cattle. Coz was not arrested because she acted out of self defence, the officer added. The men ran away when Coz and relatives started stoning them.

Brian brew

Dublin (Reuters): They’re better known for taxing it than drinking it, so Ireland’s Brian Cowen may be the first finance minister in the world to have a beer named after him. “Brian’s Brew” ? created by the Irish Craft Brewers' Guild -- was made especially for the minister after he promised tax changes to give smaller brewers a boost. The guild did not say what kind of beer “Brian’s Brew” would be, but the minister is believed to drink stout. Cowen has offered tax breaks to microbreweries ? small operations producing hand-crafted drinks ? to encourage investment, lift employment and spur competition in a country famous for one tipple: Guinness.

Finger fit

San Jose, California (Reuters): The finger a Nevada woman claimed she bit into while eating fast-food chili in March came from a male acquaintance of her husband who lost it in an industrial accident, police said on Friday. Police arrested Anna Ayala of Las Vegas last month on charges her false claim had cost restaurant chain Wendy’s International Inc. millions of dollars in lost sales, but the origin of the floating human fingertip at the centre of the case had remained a mystery. “The jig is up,” San Jose police chief Rob Davis said. “The puzzle pieces are beginning to fall into place.” He said the acquaintance of Ayala’s husband, who lives in Nevada, lost the finger in an industrial accident in December and provided it to Ayala’s husband, Jaime Plascencia. Ayala filed a complaint about biting into the finger after spooning up a mouthful of chili at a Wendy’s outlet in San Jose on March 22.