truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

Magistrates in Sunderland, England, accepted a guilty plea in June from Samantha Pearson and David Step for animal cruelty. The couple had relocated quarters last October but left behind a pet, Milly, to starve to death. Milly was a pet rat.

China continues to prepare for the Olympics: Officials have issued a standard chanting routine that all Chinese spectators should employ during competitions (translated as "Olympics! Add fuel!" with two claps and then both thumbs up, then "China! Add fuel!" with two more claps and raised fists, according to a June Reuters dispatch). ("Add fuel" is apparently a traditional motivational chant in China.)

Methane's longstanding menace as a climate-altering greenhouse gas is closer than ever to being controlled, said New Zealand scientists in June after genome-mapping found the source of flatulence in ruminant animals, and the researchers said they thought they could vaccinate against it. While livestock accounts for only 2 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas, it causes over half of New Zealand's. Unless the vaccination is successful, farmers will face a huge tax on methane by 2012 brought on by the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol.

Also preparing was Dr. Wei Sheng, the Chinese man who holds the Guinness Book record of sticking 1,790 needles in his head at one time. In June he stuck himself with 2,008 pins in the Olympic design and colors.

The government of France announced that, starting next year, it will regulate the booming business of country-western line dancing, by, among other measures, requiring licenses of teachers, after 200 hours' instruction. Inexplicably, at least 100,000 people in the country line dance weekly, and the popularity is growing, according to a May dispatch in The Times of London. A French Dance Federation official said he guesses the preference of line dancing over square dancing is the French preference for no physical contact.

The most popular UK Hindu temple east of London appears to be the spare bedroom of Sushila Karia and her husband, Dhirajlal, in a quiet, residential neighborhood in the resort town of Clacton-on-Sea. On holy days, the line of pilgrims extends down the hall and stairs, through the living room, out the door and across the lawn, according to a May report in London's Daily Mail. The temple, inaugurated 29 years ago to save Hindus the 90-mile round trip to London, contains 17 marble gods that were specially blessed for the occasion by priests in India.