Family values

. Former British glamour model Jayne Bennington, 31, says she spends the equivalent of $600 a month on treatments and frills to make her daughter Sasha, 11, into the beauty queen she almost was herself, according to a July profile in London's Daily Mail. However, Mom has done such a good job that Sasha can't get work because she no longer looks like a child. Asked her self-assessment by a BBC documentary crew, Sasha responded, "Blond, pretty, dumb (but) I don't need brains." (At that, Mom roared with laughter.)

. In Bihar state, India, a man was charged with having his father killed a day before retirement so that the son might "inherit" his government job via the traditional family-hardship policy. (If Dad had retired, the regular hiring process would have been used to find a replacement.)