A local Swiss government plans to take action against a sudden and apparently unwelcome phenomenon – naked hikers.

Authorities in the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden plan to introduce fines for anyone found walking in the picturesque mountain region without any clothes.

They decided to act before this year’s hiking season began, after noticing a sudden influx of nudists last year – many of them from Germany.

"FKK", or "free body culture", is a popular pastime in Germany.

But Appenzell Innerrhoden is not keen to encourage its spread.

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The ban on smoking in public has failed to increase the number of people quitting, a report revealed yesterday.

The proportion of men who smoke has actually risen since the ban in July last year while there was no change at all among women.

The figures, coming after years of declining smoking rates, are a massive blow to Labour’s public heath policy.

A survey of almost 7,000 across all age groups found on average there was no change in the number of cigarettes that smokers said they had.

But in men aged 16 to 34, the number rose, by one and a half cigarettes a day.

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Newly single superstar Madonna has been spotted out with the hot Brazilian model she is rumoured to be having a passionate fling with.

The Kabbalah-loving Material Girl was pictured leaving a restaurant in Sao Paolo with Jesus Luz last night..

The pair avoided being pictured alongside each other after enjoying dinner with the singer’s entourage by keeping a few metres apart.

Madonna is said to be smitten with her younger man after meeting him while shooting a spread for W magazine.’

‘She was very interested in him,’ sources told a U.S. newspaper, insisting the pop singer made her interest extremely clear.

In fact she was so interested she reportedly asked Jesus to follow her, as her tour moved to Sao Paolo.

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They are the pearls of wisdom that have been handed on from one generation to the next.

But many accepted medical ‘facts’ are actually myths, scientists have revealed.

Mothers who have made their children wear a hat when it is cold with the warning that ‘you lose most of your body heat through your head,’ are plain wrong.

Eating close to bedtime won’t make you fat and giving children sugar won’t make them hyperactive.

And if you think you can survive the party season with a cure for hangovers then you’re mistaken – there isn’t one.

The findings were revealed by U.S. scientists who looked at some common myths and examined the available evidence to see which were true.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, they found no evidence that more heat escapes from the head than any other part of the body.

The U.S. army field manual for survival states that ‘40 to 45 per cent of body heat’ is lost through the head, but this is simply untrue, the experts said.

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A woman who had suffered severe facial trauma received, essentially, a new face in an operation that goes further than any previous face transplant, hospital officials at the Cleveland Clinic disclosed.

Only the woman’s upper eyelids, forehead, lower lip and chin were left – the remaining 80 per cent of her face was replaced with one donated from a female cadaver during 22 hours of surgery performed about two weeks ago at the clinic.

After the transplant, "I must tell you how happy she was when, with both her hands, she could go over her face and feel that she has a nose, feel that she has a jaw," said lead surgeon Maria Siemionow.

It was the first face transplant performed in the United States and the fourth worldwide, though the others were not as extensive as this one.

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David Tennant’s future as Hamlet looked uncertain today, as it was announced the actor may not return to his role in the theatre production.

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) initially said the Doctor Who star would not return to play Hamlet before Christmas, but today a spokeswoman said it was not known if he would return at all.

Tennant spoke of his frustration and impatience at being laid up following surgery for a prolapsed disc, as the show went on without him.

The RSC said in a statement that it was not ruling out a return from Tennant before the end of the show’s run at London’s Novello Theatre on January 10.

The actor is due to start filming next year’s Doctor Who episodes just days later, and the show’s writer Russell T Davies has already said he is hopeful he will be ready.

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Ernest the cat has had his sight restored by contact lenses in what is believed to be a medical first.

The 15-year-old black and white moggy was suffering from entropion, which meant his lids turned inwards and scratched his eyeball.

Vets suggested the innovative solution because the cat was too old to risk a general anasthetic.

Staff at the Godshill RSPCA on the Isle of Wight – Ernest’s home of 13 years – said they had never heard of a cat wearing contact lenses before.

"He’s much more comfortable. Previously his eyes were shut, now they are open," branch administrator Les Burrows told Sky News Online.

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Up to 1,950 people have won a share in the world’s richest lottery – Spain’s El Gordo, or "Fat One".

The lottery has a total prize fund of $3.2bn (£2.14bn; 2.3bn euros), some 100m euros more than last year.

The winning tickets bear the numbers 32365. The numbers were sung as a Gregorian chant by Madrid schoolchildren during a televised draw.

Tickets have been sold online to more than 140 countries and were purchased by four out of five Spanish residents.

Many punters had queued for hours in the capital to buy what organisers are calling "a slice of hope" in these troubled economic times.

With the country on the edge of recession, ticket sales have been slightly down on last year.

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