Behavior

People in this town know the man with the stooped, halting walk and the burning eyes. They point out his house, and they talk about "what he did" and about how they admire "what he did" and wonder if they too would have the strength to do "what he did."

The man did not seem to be a serious student of wine. Disheveled, unshaven and reeking of booze, he demanded a glass, rested his head on the tasting-room counter and loudly moaned. Knocking over a "wet floor" sign and lurching into displays, he stumbled into eight wineries in one afternoon last week, and six refused him service.

A small-town mayor accused of secretly keeping her neighbors' dog after telling them the pet died has resigned, and a judge is set to decide custody of the Shih Tzu. Mayor Grace Saenz-Lopez apologized Friday to Alice residents and said she acted in the dog's interest: "I am sorry for the division that the events of these last few weeks have caused. It was never my intention to bring any negative exposure to our city." A hearing Monday is expected to decide who gets Puddles, whom Saenz-Lopez renamed Panchito.

Some people think Sam Zell should reread his new employee handbook. During a meeting last week with Orlando Sentinel employees, the Tribune Co. chairman ended his answer to a photographer's questions about hard news coverage by directing a two-word obscenity at her. A video of the meeting made its way to YouTube and on Monday was on the media gossip website Gawker, which described Zell as a "salty billionaire."

As they seek to document and demystify one of life's great thrills, scientists have run across some real head-scratchers. How, for example, can they explain the fact that some men and women who are paralyzed and numb below the waist are able to have orgasms? How to explain the "orgasmic auras" that can descend at the onset of epileptic seizures -- sensations so pleasurable they prompt some patients to refuse antiseizure medication?

Sun Valley legal secretary James Eric Freedner got fed up with high gasoline prices. He put his 2003 Toyota Tacoma truck in the garage and switched to a Honda Nighthawk motorcycle for weekday commutes to Beverly Hills. He stopped driving to the beach on weekends and cut back on trips to Hanford and Fresno to check on properties he manages. He began grouping errands into one trip each Saturday.

Sen. John McCain strongly denied allegations Thursday that he was warned during his first White House campaign, in 2000, to avoid meetings with a female telecommunications lobbyist who allegedly claimed to have special access to the senator and his aides. McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, denied any improper relationship with the woman, Vicki Iseman, whom he called a friend.

A controversial New York Times story accusing Sen. John McCain of an untoward relationship with a Washington lobbyist set off a furor among readers and journalists, and seemed to unify conservative commentators around the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. For much of Thursday, a debate raged across the Internet, cable television and talk radio about the Times story, "For McCain, Self-Confidence of Ethics Poses Its Own Risk."

The New York Times had just hammered John McCain with a story about his relationship with a female lobbyist, and the perpetually gregarious candidate was not happy. He arrived for a flight from Indianapolis to Washington offering none of his usual jocular greetings ("Hey, jerks!") for the news corps. Had the notoriously press-friendly Republican presidential candidate finally been chastened? Hardly.

It's a risky world out there for married folks who are friends with a member of the opposite sex. Just ask U.S. Sen. John McCain. The Republican presidential candidate's relationship with a female lobbyist was the subject of a recent New York Times story and, as a result, subsequent newspaper articles, blog posts and radio commentary across the nation. He has firmly denied the relationship was anything other than simple friendship.