Peace.

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A Chinese college professor has been jailed for running a sex club, whose members were the first to be convicted of “group licentiousness” in 20 years, media reported on Friday.

Ma Yaohai, a 53-year-old computer science professor, was jailed for three and a half years after pleading not guilty to holding orgies and said he would appeal against his sentence, the official China News Service said.

“What we did, we did for our own happiness,” Ma told media at a news conference in April at his home, where 14 of his 18 orgies, or “swinging games” as he called them, were held.

“People chose to do it of their own free will and they knew they could stop at any time,” he said at the time. “We disturbed no one.

“Marriage is like water. You have to drink it. Swinging is like a cup of wine. You can drink it if you like. If you don’t like it, don’t drink it.”

Eighteen people charged with taking part in the orgies were jailed for up to two and half years.

“Ma received a more severe punishment because he did not admit the malicious and illegal nature of his conduct,” the court in eastern Nanjing said.

Ma started his online group in 2007. Participants included office workers, taxi drivers and sales clerks. They were arrested after five were caught having a “party” in a hotel room last August.

Ma’s case has sparked debate on whether group licentiousness should be scratched from the law books.

“If no one is being harmed, people’s privacy should be protected,” one sociologist was quoted as saying.

Others felt Ma’s conduct was outrageous.

“Law is based on respect for traditional customs and civilized ethics,” said a columnist named Zhi Feng on Xinhuanet.com. “They confounded right and wrong and poisoned the social atmosphere. How dare you say they did no harm to others?”

A pair of Houston men taking watermelon into Mississippi remain in custody after authorities found about $100,000 worth of marijuana in their truck.

The driver, Gregory Thrasher, 49, and co-driver Ivan Bravo, 27, were arrested about 7 a.m. Monday at a truck inspection station in Pike County, Miss., authorities said.

The inspectors became suspicious of the pair because they didn’t know each other, said officials with the Mississippi Department of Transportation.

They searched the watermelon-filled trailer and also found six large bundles near the front containing about 100 pounds of marijuana, officials said.

Thrasher and Bravo were taken into custody and charged with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver and conspiracy to deliver marijuana.

They are being held without bond at the Pink County Jail, authorities said Tuesday.

Two Dallas police officers are on administrative leave, facing charges for driving while intoxicated last weekend.

Police said Officer Manuel Romani was arrested in Forney on Saturday. He is a four-year veteran of the department.

Senior Cpl. James Rucker was arrested in Rockwall on Sunday, Dallas police said. He works with the Helicopter Unit and has been on the force for 26 years.

Each man faces both administrative and criminal investigations.

A former Justice of the Peace in Culberson County is charged with money laundering and mail fraud.

The FBI arrested Oscar Espinoza, Sr. and during his initial court appearance in El Paso, bond was set at $10.000.

A grand jury indicted Espinoza on evidence that he cashed check and money orders totaling more than $1,000 and used the money for personal benefit.

Espinoza is scheduled for arraignment next week.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – A Saudi court has sentenced a man to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes for boasting about his sexual exploits on television, in a case that has divided public opinion in the conservative Islamic kingdom.

Abdul-Jawad, a divorced father of four, was arrested in August after discussing his premarital sexual encounters, showing off his pick-up techniques and displaying some sex toys and lubricants on a Lebanese TV program.

His comments caused a public outcry in Saudi Arabia, where the religious elite has vast powers over society and religious police enforce the segregation of men and women in public.

King Abdullah has begun to reform education and the judiciary in recent years, partly to discourage Islamic militancy. But he faces resistance from clerics and conservative princes and analysts say the case gives fresh momentum to some clerics’ calls for strict curbs on social freedoms.

Three of Abdul-Jawad’s friends who appeared on the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) were sentenced to two years in jail and 300 lashes each.

LBC is a popular channel in Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s most conservative societies, and many Saudis tune into its Western-style entertainment programs and talk shows.

Abdul-Jawad, 32, spoke from his bedroom on an episode of “In Bold Red.” He was shown driving his red convertible to a shopping mall where he said he used his mobile phone to pick up girls.

A court official said that, on top of the lashings and jail sentence, Abdul-Jawad’s phone and car would be confiscated and he would be banned from traveling after completing his term.

“Dont push! Don’t push,” a distressed Abdul-Jawad yelled as he struggled in the grasp of two policemen escorting him out of the judge’s office in Jeddah Wednesday.

Lawyers say Abdul-Jawad could have been given the death penalty. Judges, who are clerics of Saudi Arabia’s strict Wahhabi school of Islam, have wide powers of discretion.

Abdul-Jawad’s brother said it would be difficult for him to be accepted back into society.

“Now he has been fired from his job and after his jail term it won’t be possible for him to get a job in government or the private sector because he was charged with a case of moral indecency,” the brother, who did not want to be named, told Reuters.

CLEVELAND — A corpse was taken for a ride in Cleveland by thieves who stole a crematory’s hearse, then abandoned it with a note saying where they’d dumped the body.

Police on Wednesday found the woman’s body, in a bag and on a gurney, at the intersection specified.

Computer equipment also was taken from the crematory in the break-in early in the day. Sgt. Sammy Morris says Cleveland police are investigating whether the hearse was stolen to haul the gear away. No arrests have been made.

Funeral director Jim Murphy says the corpse was unharmed. It was scheduled to be cremated Wednesday.

The Greenfield Crematory has apologized to the family. It says it was not unusual for the body to have been left in its vehicle, which was locked inside the building.

Waterloo police arrested two Wisconsin women for prostitution after they allegedly set up shop in a downtown hotel.

Capt. Tim Pillack of the Waterloo Police Department said the two advertised on the Craigslist website. After receiving a citizen’s complaint, investigators sent in an undercover officer, who was offered oral sex in exchange for $200, according to court records.

Officers arrested Connie M. “Milkshake” Christon, 22, and Britney L. “Sparkle” Hyler, 20, both of Milwaukee. Christon was arrested for prostitution and identity theft. Hyler was arrested for conspiracy to commit prostitution.

According to court records, Christon used another person’s identity to rent a room at the Ramada Inn in downtown Waterloo. She allegedly offered the sexual favor in exchange for cash.

Hyler told police she was in the room to assure nothing bad happened to Christon.

A Chinese man who was supposedly hacked to death in a fight has reappeared in his hometown after 10 years, state media said, raising questions about police torture to extract a confession from the alleged killer.

Zhao Zuohai, the supposed killer, was acquitted of the crime and released by a Henan court on Saturday, state news agency Xinhua said, citing a court press conference on Sunday.

He had served 10 years of a 29-year sentence after confessing to killing Zhao Zhenshang in a hatchet fight in central China’s Henan province, the China Daily reported this weekend.

A headless body was found in a village well about a year after the fight, at which point Zhao was arrested and confessed to the killing.

The victim, Zhao Zhenshang, reappeared in the village on May 2 to seek welfare support. He had fled after the fight because he feared he had killed the now-imprisoned Zhao.

Convictions in the Chinese court system are strongly dependent on confessions, motivating police to use force to get a confession and close the case.

A series of deaths in police custody over the last year has emboldened reformers and aided a fight by the Ministry of Justice to wrest control of detention centres from the police.

The courts conducted an audit of all death penalty cases after a woman in Hubei province reappeared over a decade after her husband, She Xianglin, was jailed for her murder, in a case that also rested on his confession to police.

Relatives who maintained She’s innocence were also jailed.

The imprisoned Zhao’s brother told the local Dahe Newspaper that police had forced him to drink chili water and set off fireworks over his head to force the confession.

The imprisoned Zhao narrowly escaped being executed for the crime. His sentence was commuted from a death penalty with two years’ reprieve.

While in prison, his wife left him for another man and three of his four children were given to other families for adoption, the China Daily said.

Don’t let Pearland police find you with a kit to falsify a drug test.

Being in possession of a bladder bag and fake urine can get you charged with a Class B misdeamenor for falsification of drug test results – possession of falsification device or substance.

Separate traffic stops led to two such charges on May 6 when police say they found drug-test-cheating devices in vehicles.

At about 10 a.m. that day, an officer stopped a vehicle and arrested the 22-year-old driver on charges of driving with a suspended license and for an outstanding probation warrant, Pearland police Lt. Onesimo Lopez said.

While conducting an inventory search of the vehicle, the officer discovered a kit for falsifying drug test results consisting of a bladder bag with synthetic urine, an adjustable elastic strap and a temperature strip, police said.

The Pearland resident was then charged for possession of a drug-test falsification device, according to a police report.

At about 12:15 p.m. the same day, an officer pulled over another Pearland driver who is accused of driving with a suspended license.

Police say that a subsequent search revealed a “Number 1 Urine Substitution Kit” that contained a bladder bag with synthetic urine, an adjustable elastic strap, a temperature device, two heating pads and complete instructions.

That led to a charge against the 18-year-old suspect for possession of a drug-test falsification device.

Lopez said there have been five similar cases since 2009 in which the devices were located during traffic stops in which the suspects were arrested on another charge.

“The use of one of these devices is a serious offense, but it is also a violation of trust,” Lopez said in an e-mail. “Employers that use drug testing trust that their employee or prospective employee is going to be truthful for the test. The employers trust the results and use them as a basis for hiring or retaining employees.

“People that use a device to `beat’ a drug test are in effect lying about their drug use,” Lopez stated. “For example, in one of the 2009 cases, the suspect asked not to be arrested as he had just gotten a job as a security guard at a chemical plant. That individual had smoked marijuana earlier in the day and was also charged with possession of drug paraphernalia. How trustworthy would that person be working as a security guard?”