Bad shot

OOPS

A Texas insurance-company worker accidentally discharged his gun in his office cubicle, shooting himself in both legs, police said. The unidentified man, 47, had put his .45-caliber gun into his jacket pocket and draped the jacket on the back of his chair Tuesday, said Lake Worth Police Chief Brett McGuire. The gun discharged as the man settled into his chair. Police said they have no record of the man having a license to carry a concealed weapon.

LET'S EAT

Past the sell-by date

A historian has discovered the oldest known recipe for German sausage, a list of ingredients for Thuringian bratwurst nearly 600 years old. According to the 1432 guidelines, Thuringian sausage makers had to use only the purest, unspoiled meat and were threatened with a fine of 24 pfennigs — a day's wages — if they did not, a spokesman for the German Bratwurst Museum in Berlin said Wednesday.

NEW BEGINNINGS

Church trip

A Romanesque-style stone church arrived Wednesday at its new home in eastern Germany after being evicted from the spot it had occupied for at least 700 years. The 65-foot-tall, 750-ton Emmaus Church in Heuersdorf, near Leipzig, was loaded Oct. 25 — in one piece — onto a flatbed trailer for a 7.5-mile trip to Martin Luther Square in Borna.

ROMANCE

Not-too-friendly skies

Singapore Airlines, the first operator of the new Airbus A380, has dashed the hopes of sexual thrill-seekers planning to engage in amorous activity aboard the world's biggest jumbo jet. The carrier said it would ask passengers to refrain from sex while ensconced in one of the A380's 12 first-class suites, which boast the world's first airborne double beds. "All we ask of customers, wherever they are on our aircraft, is to observe standards that don't cause offense to other customers and crew," the company said in a statement. "Nothing different applies for our Singapore Airlines Suites customers."

PASSAGES

Peter Hoagland, 65, a Nebraska Democrat who served three terms in Congress, died Tuesday in Washington, D.C., of complications of Parkinson's disease.

Bernice Lavin, 81, who co-founded beauty-products business Alberto-Culver with her husband, Leonard, died Monday in the Chicago suburb of Glencoe.

TODAY IN HISTORY

1512:Michelangelo finished painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican.

1936: In a speech in Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini described the alliance between his country and Nazi Germany as an "axis" running between Rome and Berlin.

1950: Two Puerto Rican nationalists tried to force their way into Blair House in Washington, D.C., to assassinate President Truman. The attempt failed, and one of the pair was killed, along with a White House police officer.

1952: The United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS

Magazine publisher Larry Flynt, 65. Country singer Kinky Friedman, 63. Country singer Lyle Lovett, 50. Actress Rachel Ticotin, 49. Rock singer Anthony Kiedis (Red Hot Chili Peppers), 45. Singer Sophie B. Hawkins, 40. Actress Toni Collette, 35. Actress Jenny McCarthy, 35. Actress Aishwarya Rai, 34. Rock singer Bo Bice ("American Idol"), 32.

Seattle Times news services