Princess's "toilet seat" hat sells for $131,000 (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters Life!) – The much-mocked hat worn by Princess Beatrice to Britain's royal wedding last month -- widely described as looking like a toilet seat -- sold for 81,100 pounds ($131,000) on eBay, charities which will benefit from the sale said.

The money will be equally split between UNICEF and Children in Crisis, which posted the auction results on their websites.

The fuss over the hat worn to the royal wedding of her cousin Prince William to longtime girlfriend Kate Middleton seemed to have taken Beatrice -- who is the daughter of William's uncle Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson -- by surprise.

"I've been amazed by the amount of attention the hat has attracted," Beatrice said on the auction site. "I hope whoever wins the auction has as much fun with the hat as I have."

The hat, by milliner Philip Treacy, was given a starting price of 5,000 pounds.

Treacy said he was "delighted, flattered and touched by HRH Princess' Beatrice's decision to donate the hat to charity."

(Reporting by Paul Casciato; Editing by Steve Addison)

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South Africans vote as toilet row grabs headlines (Reuters)

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africans on Wednesday voted in municipal elections in which squalid, open toilets built for the poor have become a potent symbol of local government neglect nearly 20 years after apartheid ended.

The African National Congress, in power since South Africa's first all-race elections 17 years ago, will almost certainly storm to victory given the public support it still enjoys for bringing down white-minority rule.

But the ANC and its leader, President Jacob Zuma, could be embarrassed by any gains for the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), which runs Cape Town and has campaigned as the party that can deliver municipal services.

The DA, a party once associated with white privilege and now trying to reinvent itself as providing good governance for all, said it was confident of securing more votes than in the 2006 local elections, when it took about 14 percent of votes.

What once appeared as a dull race for control of 278 municipalities, including Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria, heated up as a row over toilets whose users are exposed to public view dominated headlines.

The ANC scored political points a few months ago when it found the DA had not built walls around public toilets in shantytowns in an area it controlled.

But it came under fire when it was revealed just before the vote not to have built such walls either in a town it controlled, with a local ANC official being paid state funds despite the shoddy construction.

Zuma wrote in his Twitter microblog that the peaceful election campaigns across the country showed that South Africa's democracy was "maturing in only 17 years."

Balloting stations opened at 0500 GMT (1 a.m. EDT) and will remain open until 1700 GMT (1 p.m. EDT). Results are expected to trickle in from late Wednesday night with the final outcome only due on Friday.

An Ipsos/Markinor opinion poll released on Wednesday found that the ANC would win outright in four of the country's eight biggest metropolitan areas but undecided voters could force the party to enter into coalitions in three other metros.

The poll said the DA would retain Cape Town but it may be forced into a coalition with smaller parties to keep control.

VOTING FOR CHANGE

In a squatter settlement in the Meadowlands area of South Africa's biggest black township Soweto, voters were patiently queuing for hours ahead of the polls opening.

Adeline Ndlanzi, 58, standing outside a voting station in a tent among shacks and piles of rubbish, said she wanted change.

"We are living in a dirty place. I want our place to be nice, I am voting for change. There have been changes since 1994 but not enough," Ndlanzi said.

Since Zuma took power in 2009, the ANC has faced violent protests from its traditional base of poor blacks. In 2010, 111 protests over basic service delivery were recorded by research firm Municipal IQ, compared to 105 in 2009 and 23 so far this year.

Many are frustrated with the slow delivery of electricity, sanitation, functioning schools and basic health care since the ANC came to power in 1994.

"We have to vote for a change in life. Look around, this place is a dump but we live here and our lives have to also get better," said Steven Maluleke, a jobless Meadowlands resident.

Some were likely to show their anger by either not voting or doing what was once unthinkable: casting a vote for the DA.

"This is the first time in the post-apartheid South Africa that our politics appears to be moving toward being about the issues rather than about the identity of the voters," said independent political analyst Nic Borain.

The election may show the ANC is vulnerable, but it could take decades before a viable alternative will challenge it.

"We are too close to the end of apartheid ... to expect a massive transformation of the vote," Borain said.

(Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Writing by Marius Bosch; editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Suspicious white substance on plane turns out to be toilet paper

By the CNN Wire Staff STORY HIGHLIGHTSFlight crew members notice a suspicious white dust in an Alaska Airlines restroomAuthorities are notified, and the descend on the plane after it arrives in CaliforniaThe material was determined to be a "cellulose paper material" -- aka, toilet paper (CNN) -- A suspicious white substance in an airplane bathroom?

It could be anthrax, could be explosive residue or -- as authorities in California learned Friday -- it could be toilet paper.

The white dust appeared in the back lavatory of Alaska Airline's Flight 508 soon after it took off Friday afternoon from Seattle, said Bobbie Eagan, a spokeswoman for the carrier. Sometime during the 1,000-mile flight, the flight's crew notified authorities about the unknown substance and asked for help.

Fire department crews, law enforcement officers and hazardous materials experts circled the plane soon after it touched down shortly after 4 p.m. at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California, according to Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Mike Fergus.

The aircraft's 151 passengers and six crew members deplaned, and authorities climbed on board. They included members of the Orange County Fire Authority, who along with members of the county's sheriff department tested the suspicious substance.

Capt. Greg McKeown, the fire department's spokesman, said that authorities eventually determined that white dust actually was a "cellulose paper material" -- or, in other words, what appeared to be toilet paper.

With that potential mess cleared up, the aircraft went back into service, said Egan.

CNN's Anna Rhett Miller and Marlene Baldacci contributed to this report.

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Maryland man glued to Wal-Mart toilet seat

A man was glued to a toilet seat at a Wal-Mart store in Elkton, Maryland. The store pictured is in Valley Stream, New York. STORY HIGHLIGHTSApparently random victim had to be taken to hospital Wal-Mart incident appeared to be April Fools' Day jokeIf caught, prankster could be charged with second-degree assault (CNN) -- Police in Maryland are on the hunt for the perpetrator of what appears to be an April Fools' Day prank that left a man glued to a toilet at a Wal-Mart store.

If caught, the jokester who doused the seat with glue at the Elkton Wal-Mart on March 31 could face second-degree assault charges, said Lt. Matthew Donnelly of the Elkton Police Department.

Police, along with the Singerly Fire Co. and the Cecil County paramedics, were called to the scene at about 7 p.m.

There, they found the 48-year-old victim, who called for help after realizing the sticky situation he was in when he tried -- and failed -- to stand up and leave the superstore's restroom, Donnelly said.

It took responders 15 minutes to remove the victim from the stall, but they were unable to disconnect the toilet seat from his body, Donnelly said.

Instead, the victim was taken to Union Hospital of Cecil County, where the seat was detached. He left with only minor injuries to his buttocks, Donnelly said.

Police do not suspect that the victim was specifically targeted, but that the incident was a random prank, Donnelly said. They have not received reports of glue-laden toilet seats since.

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