Mexicans Kiss Off Smooching Ban

Outraged Mexicans joined forces—and lips—to kiss away a city's efforts to ban public smooching, the Los Angeles Times reports. Guanajuato's law drew national ridicule and protesters soon started kissing en masse in front of city hall. Newspaper columnists and politicians lined up to defend the kiss as a treasured national institution.

The city council, which said it had been trying to stamp out Olympian feats of fondling rather than plain old kissing, repealed the law within days and declared Guanajuato the "Capital of the Kiss" but it did little to cool the passionate national protests. Officials in Mexico City are hoping a Valentine's Day kiss-a-thon in the city's main plaza will make it into the record books. (More kiss stories.)