Really odd news!

[samanthajane13]

Suit against God thrown out over lack of address
Wed Oct 15, 2008 2:39 PM EDT

LINCOLN — A judge has thrown out a Nebraska legislator's lawsuit against God, saying the Almighty wasn't properly served due to his unlisted home address. State Sen. Ernie Chambers filed the lawsuit last year seeking a permanent injunction against God.

He said God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents in Omaha, inspired fear and caused "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants."

Chambers has said he filed the lawsuit to make the point that everyone should have access to the courts regardless of whether they are rich or poor.

On Tuesday, however, Douglas County District Court Judge Marlon Polk ruled that under state law a plaintiff must have access to the defendant for a lawsuit to move forward.

"Given that this court finds that there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant this action will be dismissed with prejudice," Polk wrote.

Chambers, who graduated from law school but never took the bar exam, thinks he's found a hole in the judge's ruling.

"The court itself acknowledges the existence of God," Chambers said Wednesday. "A consequence of that acknowledgment is a recognition of God's omniscience."

Therefore, Chambers said, "Since God knows everything, God has notice of this lawsuit."

Chambers has 30 days to decide whether to appeal. He said he hasn't decided yet.

Chambers, who has served a record 38 years in the Nebraska Legislature, is not returning next year because of term limits. He skips morning prayers during the legislative session and often criticizes Christians.

http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/10/15/2001786-suit-against-god-thrown-out-over-lack-of-address

[samanthajane13]

Fri Oct 17, 12:51 am ET

CLEARFIELD, Pa. – It took Brad Sciullo 4 hours and 39 minutes to finish a marathon. A meat marathon, that is. The 5-foot-11, 180-pound western Pennsylvania chef is the first person to eat a monstrosity called the Beer Barrel Belly Bruiser: a 15-pound burger with toppings and a bun that brought the total weight to 20.2 pounds.

The mountain of beef is the product of Denny's Beer Barrel Pub, about 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in Clearfield.

Sciullo, 21, of Uniontown, said he was surprised he finished the sandwich Monday. "About three hours into it, things got tough," he said.

When asked what possessed him to eat a burger that big, Sciullo said: "I wanted to see if I could."

The burger included a bun, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, onions, mild banana peppers and a cup each of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard and relish, pub owner Dennis Liegey said.

For completing the challenge in the under-five-hour time limit, Sciullo won $400, three T-shirts, a certificate "and a burger hangover, as I call it," Liegey said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081017/ap_on_fe_st/odd_big_burger;_ylt=AtV11XWmb4XOsgY3S15Mrniek3QF

[samanthajane13]

LONDON (Reuters) – A man discovered making kebabs near a corpse has been banned from managing food businesses and fined 3,800 pounds, Wolverhampton City Council said Tuesday.

Jaswinder Singh, 45, was found by police making kebabs at Pappu Sweet Center and Catering in Wolverhampton in August in a kitchen where a dead man was lying on a sofa.

As well the corpse, the policeman discovered another man smoking and spitting repeatedly on the floor, while in a room near the kitchen, a defrosting chicken, oozing blood and juices, was covered with flies.

Environmental health officers had visited the shop over a number of months previously where they had warned Singh to improve his food hygiene standards after finding rat droppings as well as a dead rat beneath a pot.

"We were called to reports of a sudden death," said West Midlands Police spokeswoman Joanne Hunt. "A post mortem was carried out, but found the death was not suspicious, so the matter was referred to the coroner."

Wolverhampton's city council's chief environmental services officer Nick Edwards said: "The council will not tolerate those who put the public at risk by preparing food in insanitary conditions.

"We are pleased that the council's actions have resulted in the courts banning this individual from ever running a food business again."

(Reporting by John Joseph; Editing by David Clarke)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081015/od_nm/us_kebab_corpse;_ylt=AgeFSIcO8nmo7VfxNq_pKA_tiBIF

[samanthajane13]

World record sandwich? Iranians eat evidence
Fri Oct 17, 8:46 am ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran failed Friday to register what it said would be the world's largest sandwich in the Guinness book of World Records after people rushed forward and began eating it -- before it was measured.

Event organisers had planned to stuff the 1,500-metre-long sandwich with 700 kg of ostrich meat and 700 kg of chicken, and display it in a park in the capital Tehran.

But as the sandwich was being measured, chaos ensued. The giant snack was gone in minutes, a Reuters witness said, leaving the three Guinness representatives present with a dilemma.

One of the event's organisers said video footage of the sandwich would be sent to Guinness officials.

"We still think the sandwich will be recorded in the Guinness book because of all the evidence and footage that we will send them," Parvin Shariati said.

(Writing by Zahra Hosseinian; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081017/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_iran_guinness_sandwich;_ylt=AjlgBeJKB0nP6 J3g.IHqD_XtiBIF

[samanthajane13]

"Trash bin bears" seek space in Romania
By Luiza Ilie Luiza Ilie – Fri Oct 17, 3:16 am ET

BRASOV, Romania (Reuters) – Sprawled on the side of a narrow road that winds up the Carpathian mountains in central Romania, a brown bear buries its snout in a paw, eyes peeking playfully at cars passing by.

As drivers pull over to take pictures, the bear strolls towards the cars, striking cute poses and hoping for food.

A few yards down the road, a large billboard urges tourists not to feed bears but across the street, open trash bags are scattered carelessly -- and invitingly -- across pine needles.

With half of Europe's brown bears -- roughly 6,000 -- living in the largely unspoilt Carpathian mountains, environmentalists and authorities are struggling to keep the wild animals and residents in mountain towns like Brasov safe from each other.

Several people, including foreign tourists, have been mauled to death in recent years by hungry or irritated animals, who come daily to towns and villages in the southern Carpathians in search of food.

The most recent death came in August when the torn body of a local man was found some 500 metres from the centre of Brasov. Officials say bear sightings have risen in the past few years.

Bears forage through trash cans, nap in apartment buildings and have even broken into the grounds of pubs and hospitals.

The bears' natural habitat is being destroyed and increasingly fragmented by rampant construction for Romania's fast-developing tourism industry. And their feeding habits are changing as they become a high-adrenaline tourist attraction.

"Each evening, there is a show, a circus," said Flavius Barbulescu, an animal control official in Brasov. "People sit on fences or in cars, and they watch. You cannot fine a person for standing on the sidewalk and watching."

"TRASH BIN BEARS"

Mountain towns such as Brasov want to keep the bears away from inhabited areas: they empty trash bins three times a day, have relocated scavenging bears to wilder areas and fine people caught feeding or photographing the wild carnivores.

But the tourists still come to places like the Racadau neighbourhood, a grim cluster of grey apartment blocs that seems to be the bears' preferred hang-out spot.

"They come late at night. I saw one ... by the bus stop where I live," said Vasile Kolumban, 57.

Wildlife experts say the animals, dubbed "trash bin bears," will continue to scavenge in cities as urban sprawl eats into their habitat, and if people continue to feed them.

"Restaurants should not leave food out," said Victor Watkins, a wildlife adviser with British World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA).

"The public should not encourage bears. If they want to see the animals, they should come to a bear sanctuary," said Watkins, who has worked in sanctuaries around the world, including in Zarnesti near Brasov.

In one part of Racadau, apartments rise up right at the edge of the forest, separated by a narrow meadow from a fenced-in area that holds four overflowing trash containers. The meadow is often used, particularly in the summer, by sunbathers and people barbecuing or roasting eggplants.

While these activities are all traditional past-times in Romania, the smells and carelessly discarded trash are the kinds of things that attract some bears to towns like Brasov.

HUNTING TROPHIES

Romania's lush mountains have been home to brown bears for centuries. The numbers surged in 1970s and '80s when communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu banned hunting for all but himself.

Ceausescu, who was executed by firing squad in 1989 during Romania's violent anti-communist revolution, used to invite friends and foreign dignitaries to lavish hunting parties, sometimes bagging dozens of bears in one day.

Ceausescu won many world bear-hunting trophies, and after his death, hunting parties remained popular with some politicians, like former prime minister Adrian Nastase, a leader of the ex-communist Social Democrat Party.

Now, the law limits bear-hunting to around 300 animals a year, which officials say is needed to maintain their population.

Not far from Brasov and its posh tourist lodges, perched on the hills around Zarnesti village, lies Romania's first bear sanctuary, an isolated spot with only the cawing of crows to break the silence.

Nearly 40 bears live here. They were rescued from ramshackle zoos or cages at roadside inns and restaurants, where they were used as entertainment. Most bears being relocated from Brasov also stay here, before they are taken to remoter parts.

"Even if we took all bears living near Racadau, other bears would still come because it's the cause that must be removed, not the effect," said sanctuary manager Cristina Lapis.

Romanian officials and authorities from other Carpathian states are considering plans to open up mountain pathways used by bears for centuries that would help them move more freely through the Carpathians and find food.

But until such time, the bears will be part of Brasov.

"Bears make the law here. Good thing they're not (as big as) grizzlies," said Kolumban.

(Editing by Clar Ni Chonghaile)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081017/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_romania_bears;_ylt=Ap78x20pbtCRMij5KlY1TQ _tiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Secret London wartime tunnel complex for sale
Thu Oct 16, 12:11 pm ET

LONDON (Reuters) – A once-secret 1940s tunnel complex under the centre of London that housed military intelligence and linked the cold war hot line phone between Washington and Moscow has been put up for sale.

Former state telephone monopoly BT says the one mile long network of tunnels below Chancery Lane underground station is now surplus to requirements.

The complex was dug in 1942 as a bomb shelter for 8,000 during World War Two but was taken over by military authorities as a communications and intelligence centre.

The Public Records Office used the site, known as Kingsway Tunnels, after the war to store historic documents.

The Post Office later took over the property as a more secure location for its long distance phone exchange, including the 1950s hot line directly connecting the White House and the Kremlin.

When telephony was split from the Post Office, the tunnels passed to British Telecom, now privatised and known as BT.

In the 1980s the government used part of the complex as a temporary backup for its top secret Pindar war control bunker.

Sales agent Farebrother said there had already been a lot of interest in the now disused property.

It has a total floor area of around 7,100 sq metres but can only be reached by two street-level lifts, restricting its potential use.

Farebrother partner Niall Gallagher said there had been an "eclectic" mix of enquiries.

"Private individuals, companies, corporations, government departments -- we've got the whole spectrum at the moment," he added.

(Reporting by Tim Castle)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081016/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_britain_tunnel_toronto_online;_ylt=AmA1DM kmbKL.ViSDlq3HmGjtiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Don't eat those nuts, police warn thieves

BERLIN (Reuters) – Thieves who stole 660 pounds of hazelnuts in Germany have been urgently warned not to eat them.

Hamburg police spokesman Holger Vehren said the sacks containing the nuts were full of poisonous hydrogen phosphate gas, used to extend their shelf life. The nuts must first be treated to make them safe for consumption.

"We're looking for the perpetrators because they could face a very serious health risk if they eat these hazelnuts," he said. "The gas is even lethal if they inhale it."

(Reporting by Josie Cox, editing by Mark Trevelyan)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081014/od_nm/us_hazelnuts;_ylt=AgG5j6YdY7GF.NJwFDrnm5kSH9EA

[brandy]

Suit against God thrown out over lack of address
Wed Oct 15, 2008 2:39 PM EDT

LINCOLN — A judge has thrown out a Nebraska legislator's lawsuit against God, saying the Almighty wasn't properly served due to his unlisted home address. State Sen. Ernie Chambers filed the lawsuit last year seeking a permanent injunction against God.

He said God has made terroristic threats against the senator and his constituents in Omaha, inspired fear and caused "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants."

Chambers has said he filed the lawsuit to make the point that everyone should have access to the courts regardless of whether they are rich or poor.

On Tuesday, however, Douglas County District Court Judge Marlon Polk ruled that under state law a plaintiff must have access to the defendant for a lawsuit to move forward.

"Given that this court finds that there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant this action will be dismissed with prejudice," Polk wrote.

Chambers, who graduated from law school but never took the bar exam, thinks he's found a hole in the judge's ruling.

"The court itself acknowledges the existence of God," Chambers said Wednesday. "A consequence of that acknowledgment is a recognition of God's omniscience."

Therefore, Chambers said, "Since God knows everything, God has notice of this lawsuit."
Chambers has 30 days to decide whether to appeal. He said he hasn't decided yet.

Chambers, who has served a record 38 years in the Nebraska Legislature, is not returning next year because of term limits. He skips morning prayers during the legislative session and often criticizes Christians.

http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/10/15/2001786-suit-against-god-thrown-out-over-lack-of-address

:confused: This guy is a piece of work. I must admit I did have a laugh- "the Almighty wasn't properly served due to his unlisted home address.":tongue:

[samanthajane13]

More than 100 sick as too many cooks spoil broth
Mon Oct 13, 2:54 pm ET

BEIJING (Reuters) – Some 170 wedding banquet guests were rushed to hospital in north China when powdered rust remover was added to the pot instead of salt after they all decided it needed added flavor, Chinese media said.

In a bizarre coincidence, 61 wedding guests were taken to hospital with similar symptoms a day earlier after a duck-and-donkey-meat banquet in northwest China.

In the rust remover case, the bride's proud father invited 170 friends and relatives to the wedding banquet at a village in northern Hebei province on Friday, the night before the nuptials, the Beijing News said.

"All food was stewed in a big pot but after dinner started, all of them felt the taste was too bland," the newspaper said.

Someone added what he or she thought was salt -- several times. An hour later, the guests were being rushed to hospital.

"When I arrived at the hospital, the observation room was packed with people vomiting, with stomach pains and with diarrhea," a doctor was quoted as saying.

The symptoms were short-lived and all the victims were released by the next day.

A day earlier, 61 wedding guests suffered food poisoning at a banquet in impoverished Gansu province, local authorities said.

"Currently, 17 people have been discharged but 44 are still in the hospital. No one has died," Xinhua news agency quoted an official as saying.

Duck, donkey meat, chicken and shrimp were the main dishes served at the dinner.

China has been hit by a series of food-safety scares in recent years, most recently when thousands of infants fell sick from contaminated milk powder. At least four died.

(Reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Nick Macfie and Paul Tait)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081013/od_nm/us_feast;_ylt=AlzjvT.nIglny2riO1XhIncSH9EA

[samanthajane13]

Note to self: Taser no good on wild boars
Wed Oct 15, 8:42 pm ET

BROOKSVILLE, Fla. – While normally effective on people, a Hernando deputy learned the hard way that Taser stun guns do not work very well on wild boars.

The sheriff's office reported that Deputy Joseph Tibor responded to complaints of an "extremely large pig" tearing up a resident's yard in a Brooksville neighborhood Tuesday morning. He quickly found a 450-pound boar rooting up shrubbery and threatening a water fountain.

The animal then flashed his tusks toward onlookers. Tibor tried to stop it with his Taser, but the 50,000 volts had no effect on the animal.

The boar was eventually corralled into a neighbor's trailer.

___

Information from: St. Petersburg Times, http://www.sptimes.com

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081016/ap_on_fe_st/odd_boar_taser;_ylt=AviUrtBarP0iz2DEoMJ.sessQE4F

[samanthajane13]

Suspected man-eating croc to be put out to stud in Australia

SYDNEY (AFP) – A giant crocodile believed to have eaten an Australian holidaymaker will spend the rest of its life on a farm, breeding more crocodiles, an official said Thursday.

Human remains thought to be those of Arthur Booker, 62, who disappeared last month while holidaying with his wife in north Queensland, have been discovered in the stomach of a 4.5-metre (15-foot) crocodile captured in the area.

A spokesman for the state's Environmental Protection Agency said that because of the reptile's size it was a protected animal that could not be killed.

It would also not be released and under Queensland state law it cannot be displayed in a zoo or wildlife facility with any sign indicating it had eaten somebody, so a breeding programme was the only alternative.

"Any crocodile four metres or over is under the conservation plan an iconic crocodile, so it needs to go into a facility where it can be used in a way that benefits crocodile conservation," Michael Devery told national radio.

Booker disappeared on September 30 after he went to check crab pots in a river near Cooktown, in the so-called "Cape Crocodile" region of far north Queensland.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081016/od_afp/australiaanimalcrocodileoffbeat_081016022557;_ylt= AloG7XRSdYX8G0NmCTBOLgqgOrgF

[samanthajane13]

Greek nun hands hefty labour bill to ex-sisters
Tue Oct 14, 2:25 pm ET

SALONIKA, GREECE (AFP) – A Greek nun ousted from a nunnery in the north of the country has demanded over 240,000 euros (326,000 dollars) in arrears for 23 years of hard labour, a justice source said on Tuesday.

The unidentified 45-year-old nun filed a complaint with a court in Salonika demanding the sum, plus another 54,349 dollars she had allegedly donated to the convent, the justice source said.

She claims to have worked as a full-time labourer at the nunnery, building, digging and carrying heavy loads in a job description which would have earned at least 30 euros daily in the outside world.

The nun said she was ousted from the nunnery in Koufalia, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of Salonika, after publicly disagreeing with the mother superior.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081014/od_afp/greecereligionorthodoxoffbeat_081014182500;_ylt=Al Ob0ajYhjEl.3b7vxQQaqGgOrgF

[samanthajane13]

Nervous anteaters at Bangkok zoo evacuated after protests

BANGKOK (AFP) – Two anteaters at Bangkok's main zoo have been given a three-month holiday to recover after violent clashes between police and protesters erupted near their enclosure, the zoo director said Sunday.

The four-year-old male and female anteaters were moved to a zoo in Chonburi province east of Bangkok soon after Tuesday's protests, when tear gas and loud bangs rang through the streets around parliament next to their enclosures.

"A pair of anteaters had come from the United States about a year ago. This animal is sensitive about noise, and they have not yet got used to loud noises," Dusit Zoo director Kanchai Sanwong told AFP.

The other animals in the park, however, had been there a long time and are used to Thailand's shaky political situation, with noisy protests often held in the Dusit government district, he said.

"The kangaroos and elephants who live near the wall opposite parliament were excited and acted a little jumpy, but they have lived here for a long time and it is easy for people who take care of them to calm them down," Kanchai said.

"The deer and birds who also live next door have been little impacted."

Zoo employees sprayed water around the animals' enclosure to help alleviate the lingering tear gas, he added.

Two people were killed and more than 400 injured when the anti-government protesters tried to surround parliament, prompting police to try and break up the rally with tear gas.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081012/od_afp/thailandpoliticsprotestanimaloffbeat_081012051707; _ylt=AuFsqdOKwHV4ru_mVlkUSeagOrgF

[samanthajane13]

In September, Switzerland enacted a comprehensive list of animal rights, improving life for dogs, cats, goldfish, even rhinoceroses

Chuck Shepherd Chuck Shepherd – Sun Oct 12, 1:00 am ET

The world's most extensive array of animal "rights" took effect in Switzerland in September.

Dog owners must take, at their own expense, classes in pet care (and anglers must take a class in humane treatment of fish).

Animals listed as "social" (including goldfish, hamsters, sheep, goats, yaks) must be kept with or near another of their species.

Goldfish must have some "privacy," e.g., no completely transparent tanks, and can only be killed humanely (never flushed alive).

Even mud-loving pigs are entitled to showers.

Yet, Swiss animal rights activists complained that the country still permits trading in cat fur (supposedly a pain-reliever for rheumatism), and that some new protections (for example, for rhinoceroses) are still inadequate. [Agence France-Presse, 9-1-08; The Times (London), 4-26-08]


http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20081012/od_notw/nwx081012xml

[delaineyrae]

well god did know of the lawsuit, haha but what does this guy hope to gain? i dont get it. if he wins i think i might take god t small claims court and sue him for pain and suffering.

[samanthajane13]

Police arrest Mich. man for car wash vacuum sex
Sat Oct 18, 7:56 pm ET

THOMAS TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Police say a Michigan man has been arrested after "receiving sexual favors from a vacuum" at a car wash.

The Saginaw News reports the 29-year-old Swan Creek Township man was arrested Thursday in Saginaw County's Thomas Township, about 90 miles northwest of Detroit.

Police Sgt. Gary Breidinger says a resident called to report suspicious activity at the car wash about 6:45 a.m. An officer approached on foot and caught the man in the act.

The suspect, whose name wasn't immediately released, is being held in the Saginaw County Jail.

___

Information from: The Saginaw News, http://www.mlive.com


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081018/ap_on_fe_st/odd_vacuum_sex;_ylt=AvJUiKcERY3vSazwA6Dc4vntiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Wallet missing for 6 decades returned to family
Sat Oct 18, 7:51 pm ET

MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. – More than 60 years after Mary Ruth Justice's wallet disappeared, her family returned to Georgia College & State University to claim it.

Her niece, Majorie Williams, and nephew, Sterling Justice, went to campus Thursday to get the alligator-skin wallet of their aunt, who died two decades ago.

Construction crews renovating the university's theater found the wallet a few weeks ago on the ledge of a wall in the basement. It contained five black-and-white photographs, a Social Security card and a Georgia state employment card bearing the woman's name.

Campus officials tracked down her family and told them about the wallet, which disappeared in the 1940s.

Jutice was born in 1920 in Sparta, but eventually moved to Buffalo, N.Y., where she died in 1978. She is buried in Milledgeville.

___

Information from: The Union-Recorder, http://unionrecorder.com

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081018/ap_on_fe_st/odd_missing_wallet;_ylt=AjTQA9jRnzayGi0XU6BI6IjtiB IF

[samanthajane13]

Bold thief leaves police red-faced
Sat Oct 18, 1:24 am ET

PERTH (Reuters) – Australian police have been left embarrassed after a man stole a large quantity of seized drugs from a police station.

More than 2,000 ecstasy pills as well as small amounts of cocaine and amphetamine, with a street value of about A$27,000 (10,700), were stolen from an exhibit room of the Maroochydore police station in the northeastern state of Queensland, police spokesman Ben Tracey said.

A small amount of the stolen drugs has since been recovered but most of the drugs are still missing, police said.

A 36-year-old tradesman, who was given unsupervised access to the room which contained the drugs, will be charged next week on 10 charges including drug theft.

(Reporting by Fayen Wong)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081018/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_australia_drugs_odd;_ylt=Aif4cPUorXczA8Qj s.q2OrntiBIF

[samanthajane13]

British burglar says 'sorry' with flowers
Fri Oct 17, 8:03 pm ET

LONDON – A repentant robber in England sent his elderly victim a bouquet of flowers to apologize for frightening her, police said Friday. A 91-year-old woman received the flowers and a note after confronting a burglar in her home around 4 a.m. on Oct. 9, police said.

The card explained that the burglar thought the property in Halifax, about 200 miles north of London, was empty and apologized for breaking in.

Police said the woman was "very shaken" by the confrontation.

"Whoever did this has a conscience, and feels guilty for what he has done," West Yorkshire Police Det. Insp. Tony Nicholson said in a statement.

Police said the burglar fled the house empty-handed and appealed for him to come forward.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081018/ap_on_fe_st/odd_thoughtful_burglar;_ylt=AiPAn_E2JzEjcfcU4vwnte ztiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Texas Zoo says camel and pony sidekick are missing
Fri Oct 17, 9:20 pm ET

CEDAR CREEK, Texas – A 6-foot-tall camel named Moses and his pint-size pony sidekick Coco are missing from a small Texas zoo. Officials at Capital of Texas Zoo in Cedar Creek, about 15 miles southeast of Austin, have reported the theft of the kid-friendly creatures.

Zoo founder Michael Hicks says that the 3-year-old, 500-pound camel and the nearly quarter-century old pony are "best friends" and follow each other.

"The staff and I are heartbroken," Hicks said. "We raised Moses on a bottle. He thought he was a person, loved everybody....It was comical; they went everywhere together. Coco is over 20 years old, and she mothered the camel like he was her baby."

Hicks, who lives on the grounds of the zoo, told The Associated Press that both animals were wearing halters when he last saw them in a front pasture Tuesday night.

He discovered the one-hump camel and the female Shetland/Welsh mix pony were gone Wednesday morning. Hicks says overnight rain washed away any potential vehicle tracks.

Hicks has offered a $400 dollar reward for information leading to the safe return of his animals.

___

On the Net:

Capital of Texas Zoo, http://www.capitaloftexaszoo.org

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081018/ap_on_fe_st/odd_missing_camel;_ylt=AnbsEl2rJxU8LM1LJfnC3DPtiBI F

[samanthajane13]

Mom who joined cheerleading squad pleads insanity
Fri Oct 17, 6:26 pm ET

GREEN BAY, Wis. – A 33-year-old woman accused of stealing her daughter's identity to attend high school and join the cheerleading squad has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Wendy Brown faces a felony identity theft charge after enrolling in a Wisconsin high school as her 15-year-old daughter, who lives in Nevada with Brown's mother.

According to a federal complaint, Brown attended one day of classes, practiced with the cheerleading squad and went to a party at the coach's house.

Brown also faces theft and forgery charges from an unrelated case, where she is accused of collecting money for an apartment she didn't have authority to rent.

She could face up to nearly 13 years in prison if convicted of all charges.

___

Information from: Green Bay Press-Gazette, http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081017/ap_on_fe_st/odd_cheerleading_mom;_ylt=AlBzK_GBNl42TJ48zg4aTSws QE4F

[samanthajane13]

Women ride Vienna dancing horses after 436 years
By Alexandra Zawadil Alexandra Zawadil – Wed Oct 15, 1:49 pm ET

VIENNA (Reuters) – An Austrian and a Briton have made history at Vienna's Spanish Riding School by becoming the first female riders to pass the entrance exam and trial period in 436 years.

The women rode the school's white Lipizzaner horses in public for the first time Wednesday and now have the chance to train for five years to become part of the official performing troupe at the school, which was founded in 1572.

The school did not ban female riders previously but has a masculine image because of its military background.

"Today both men and women need to equally earn their daily bread and prove their worth," said Elisabeth Guertler, who became the school's first female director a year ago, and said it needed to keep up with the times.

The horses, which are trained to perform complex moves such as springing from their hind legs, draw sell-out crowds in Vienna and on tour abroad.

But the new recruits have to do some unglamorous stable work before performing difficult manoeuvres on the white stallions.

"We have to feed and groom the horses and clean the stables," said 21-year-old Austrian recruit Hannah Zeitlhofer.

"I always wanted to work directly with horses. I didn't want a purely theoretical job."

The school has been on the lookout for riders with short torsos and long legs, suited to the physique of the smaller horses. In terms of character, riders have to be tough and persistent, Guertler said.

"I think (the horses) are wonderful," said 17-year-old British trainee Sojourner Morrell, who grew up in the United States. "I thought a barn full of stallions was going to be a lot of work but no, they are very calm and beautiful."

(Writing by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Jon Boyle)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081015/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_austria_horses;_ylt=AhUTnNwWY9Lmy_Drr9fuc LOdk3QF

[samanthajane13]

British granny gives thieves a run for their money: reports
Tue Oct 14, 9:31 pm ET

LONDON (AFP) – British youths who tried to snatch a grandmother's purse got the fright of their lives when she turned out to be a former cross-country champion and chased after them, according to report.

Janet Lane, 68, was waiting for a friend on a park bench in Torquay, in the southwestern English county of Devon, when one of three young men grabbed her bag containing her pension payment in cash, the newspaper reports said on Wednesday.

"I think those boys saw a little old lady and thought I was easy pickings, but there was no way I was going to sit there and let them get away with it," she said.

"Without thinking I jumped up and ran after them as fast as I could. I was screaming at them too. I felt outraged."

She followed them to the grounds of a nearby hotel and caught one of them by the collar.

"He was so afraid he dropped my bag but then managed to wriggle free," said Lane, who was a junior athlete for her county in the 1950s.

The retired nurse, who keeps herself in shape by swimming and walking, reportedly added: "I was delighted to get it back. I haven't run like that since I was a girl. It must have been a bit of a sight."

Police said they were investigating the incident but recommended members of the public do not follow Lane's example.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081015/od_afp/britaincrimeoffbeat_081015013156;_ylt=AqCqbmr.n7Q6 eL46XYc.MzmgOrgF

GOOD FOR YOU, GRANDMA!!!

[Super Volcano]

well god did know of the lawsuit, haha but what does this guy hope to gain? i dont get it. if he wins i think i might take god t small claims court and sue him for pain and suffering.

The real kicker is when God judges HIM for his deeds come judgment day. The guy is a TOTAL idiot.

[Super Volcano]

Mom who joined cheerleading squad pleads insanity
Fri Oct 17, 6:26 pm ET

GREEN BAY, Wis. – A 33-year-old woman accused of stealing her daughter's identity to attend high school and join the cheerleading squad has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Wendy Brown faces a felony identity theft charge after enrolling in a Wisconsin high school as her 15-year-old daughter, who lives in Nevada with Brown's mother.

According to a federal complaint, Brown attended one day of classes, practiced with the cheerleading squad and went to a party at the coach's house.

Brown also faces theft and forgery charges from an unrelated case, where she is accused of collecting money for an apartment she didn't have authority to rent.

She could face up to nearly 13 years in prison if convicted of all charges.

___

Information from: Green Bay Press-Gazette, http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081017/ap_on_fe_st/odd_cheerleading_mom;_ylt=AlBzK_GBNl42TJ48zg4aTSws QE4F

Man, where do you get these gems? Very interesting, (sometimes frustrating) read. Thanks!!! :D

[delaineyrae]

[QUOTE=samanthajane13;9132668]Mom who joined cheerleading squad pleads insanity
Fri Oct 17, 6:26 pm ET

GREEN BAY, Wis. – A 33-year-old woman accused of stealing her daughter's identity to attend high school and join the cheerleading squad has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Wendy Brown faces a felony identity theft charge after enrolling in a Wisconsin high school as her 15-year-old daughter, who lives in Nevada with Brown's mother.

According to a federal complaint, Brown attended one day of classes, practiced with the cheerleading squad and went to a party at the coach's house.

Brown also faces theft and forgery charges from an unrelated case, where she is accused of collecting money for an apartment she didn't have authority to rent.

She could face up to nearly 13 years in prison if convicted of all charges.

___
its always wisconsin. and that side of the state, no offense to my new bf (who lives over there) but those ppl are just strange. does anyone else remember hearing about the groupof teens who dug up a schoolmates grave withthe intention of sleeping with her? that was another messed up Wisconsin crime

[samanthajane13]

Maybe it's all the cheese and cows...LOL!!!

[SaraSidle]

Maybe it's all the cheese and cows...LOL!!!

LOL You sure can find the stories!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[samanthajane13]

Thanks bushels, Sara.

We all need a good laugh now and then, considering the type of message board this is.

If this thread brightens somebody's day, my work was work it.

[sharlock]

Detoxed elephant unfit for the wild


October 20, 2008 - 12:20PM
Source: ABC

An elephant once addicted to heroin-laced bananas in China has kicked his habit, but in the process has become unfit for the wild, state media have said.
The four-year-old bull elephant, referred to alternately as "Big Brother" or "Xiguang", went through a lengthy rehab course after traders captured him in south-west China in 2005 and used heroin-spiked bananas to control him.
"Three years of domestic life and a huge amount of rehabilitation medicine have changed the physical situations, odours and habits of Xiguang," a Yunnan Wild Life Park manager was quoted as saying.
Xiguang will divide his time between two wildlife parks in the south-western province of Yunnan.
-Reuters

[sharlock]

Stayin' Alive could save your life: doctors


October 18, 2008 - 10:03AM
Source: ABC

US doctors have found the Bee Gees' 1977 disco anthem Stayin' Alive provides an ideal beat to follow while performing chest compressions as part of CPR on a heart attack victim.
The American Heart Association calls for chest compressions to be given at a rate of 100 per minute in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
Stayin' Alive almost perfectly matches that, with 103 beats per minute.
- Reuters

[sharlock]

Prince Philip leaves Google red-faced


October 17, 2008 - 11:00PM
Source: ABC

Britain's Prince Philip, who has a long history of provoking embarrassing moments, unintentionally left Google chiefs red-faced this week, a report said.
The 87-year-old was visiting the online giant's London headquarters on Thursday (local time) with Queen Elizabeth II, and its bosses were giving them a presentation of the signature Google Earth application.
Using Buckingham Palace as an example, they demonstrated how it could zoom in close to show astonishing detail of buildings, streets and even vehicles from a bird's eye view.
Philip, always ready with polite questions at such functions, asked if it could beam in on Google's own offices, the plush but relatively new buildings in which they were all gathered.
"Do you know where it is?" he asked, according to the Times account of the incident.
With a few mouse clicks, the computer screen scanned across the few hundred metres from Buckingham Palace to Belgrave House, Google's HQ in nearby Buckingham Palace Road ... but it wasn't there.
While surrounding streets could be seen, the space where Google should be was an empty site.
"It is just that the picture came from a time when it was a piece of land," said Nikesh Arora, Google's president for Europe, Middle East and Africa, refusing to show embarrassment.
Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, has long been notorious for outspoken comments and plain gaffes.
At one point during Thursday's tour he asked a Google worker, dressed casually in hooded top, slacks and running shoes like many of his colleagues: "Just come back from jogging?"
- AFP

[samanthajane13]

Scholars say movie theater debuted here
By Mark Sommer NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 10/19/08 7:01 AM

About 35 people on Saturday celebrated the site where, according to some film scholars, the world’s first purposely built motion picture theater once stood.

Mitchell and Moe Mark opened Vitascope Hall in the basement of Ellicott Square 112 years ago, with the entrance through the Marks’ first-floor Edisonia Phonograph Parlor, an early penny arcade that featured the inventions of Thomas Edison.

The theater is believed to have been in the basement, in what is now a carpenter’s shop beneath Crinzi & Gullo Jewelers.

The Mark Brothers operated the 72- seat Vitascope Hall — also known as Vitascope Theater — for two years. They went on to become movie impresarios, opening more and larger theaters in Buffalo as projection technology improved. In 1914, they opened the first movie palace, the Mark Strand Theater, on New York’s 47th Street and Broadway.

“Mitchell and Moe Mark of Buffalo . . . were clearly the visionaries who saw the future of motion pictures and motion picture exhibition,” said Edward Summer of the Buffalo Film Festival. “They vanished from history for all sorts of reasons, but they’ve been rediscovered and we think their place, and Buffalo’s place, will be restored.

“And hopefully someday the Vitascope Theater itself will be restored.”

The building’s owner, developer Carl Paladino, has said he wants to commemorate the groundbreaking theater through a window display in the building’s atrium and possibly a plaque outside.

Summer said the Buffalo Film Festival is exploring the possibility of purchasing a rare, original Vitascope movie projector, which it would use to screen a film at a later birthday commemoration in Ellicott Square.

Buffalo artist Scott Alexander Wood produced a limited number of fine prints to celebrate Vitascope Hall. The celebration also featured a birthday with candles and the reading of a mayoral proclamation.

msommer@buffnews.com

http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/buffaloerie/story/467613.html

[samanthajane13]

Hertel Avenue icon vanishes
Note, theft of statue bear earmarks of possible hate crime
By Gene Warner NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 10/18/08 6:51 AM

A smiling chef who had become a sidewalk fixture in front of an Italian restaurant disappeared this week from the Hertel Avenue scene — replaced by a nasty, hate-filled note.

The owner of Filippo’s, at 1264 Hertel, reported Thursday that someone had stolen the 6-foot statue of a chef arrayed in the colors of the Italian flag from in front of the establishment.

“I was mad,” Filippo Inglima said Friday. “That statue has been with me for 10 years. It became a symbol for Hertel Avenue.”

He was even more disturbed by the note that the same thieves apparently left in a nearby flower pot, saying: “[N-word] Lover.”

Inglima said he has little doubt about the note’s intent: He supports State Sen. Antoine M. Thompson and Mayor Byron W. Brown.

With Thompson, he held a fundraiser for Roswell Park Cancer Institute, and he has photos of both politicians in his restaurant.

“That’s the idea I have — that it’s because we support these two people,” Inglima said. “It’s all political.”

But Inglima remained perplexed Friday that someone could have left such a note.

“They’ve got to be out of their minds,” he said. “To think that there are still people like this, it blows my mind.”

He was especially surprised that such a message could be left on Hertel Avenue, a melting pot of sorts in North Buffalo.

His friends, he said, include Italians, blacks, Poles and members of other ethnic groups.

He also said he has a reputation for helping people with donations and by feeding the hungry.

“I’m surprised to see this on Hertel,” he said. “I’m not blaming the community. It must be one bad apple, or a few bad apples, on a tree. That bothers me a lot.”

The Buffalo police report lists the crime as a grand larceny and harassment.

Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark said the charges could be upgraded.

After consulting the state Penal Law, Clark said he thought the note itself would justify a charge of second-degree aggravated harassment, a Class A misdemeanor.

Under the state’s hate-crime law, signed in July 2000, certain specified offenses, including that harassment charge and the grand larceny of the statue, would be upgraded to a more serious level if they are deemed hate crimes.

So the fourth-degree grand larceny charge would rise from a Class E felony to a Class D felony.

The harassment charge would rise from a Class A misdemeanor to a Class E felony.

“Obviously, you would have to make the connection between the note and the theft, but once you do that, is there any question that it’s a hate crime?” Clark asked. “Absolutely not.”

The brief racial slur qualifies as almost a definition of a hate crime, he suggested.

“It’s as textbook as a burning cross or a swastika,” Clark added.

Inglima said he was convinced that at least two people, with a truck, stole the plaster statue of the colorful chef, which weighs about 150 pounds.

What is message for the thieves?

“I hope they grow up or get some brains,” he replied. “It’s insane.

“To me, they are cowards.”

gwarner@buffnews.com


http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/buffaloerie/story/466951.html

[samanthajane13]

Hey! Who Put the Caffeine in My Soap?
By JOHN CLOUD John Cloud – Mon Oct 20, 11:10 am ET

Most adults know how many cups of coffee we can have before we get twitchy. We're a race of well-practiced, high-functioning junkies. After all, regular human consumption of caffeine began at least 2,000 years ago, and until recently there was no reason to think our little global addiction posed any threat.

But recently companies began unleashing a barrage of unfamiliar products packed with extreme amounts of caffeine. The trend started with super-caffeinated energy drinks in the '90s, but more recently scientists and marketers have created caffeinated foods and even personal-hygiene products. In the past five years, according to the market research giant Mintel, firms have launched at least 126 caffeinated food products for sale in the U.S. Twenty-nine such products have been introduced this year alone. The offerings include things like Morning Spark oatmeal, NRG potato chips, and - my favorite, if only for the brazen attempt to draw kids into caffeine culture - Jelly Belly's Extreme Sport Beans, which call themselves "Energizing Jelly Beans." You can also now buy caffeinated toiletries like Bath Buzz Caffeinated Lotion.

Public-health officials are worried about the new products for two reasons: first, people might simply add the new products to their typical ration of coffee or tea. That could increase their risk for caffeine intoxication, a condition that causes symptoms like nervousness, insomnia, tachycardia and psychomotor agitation. Caffeine intoxication is not uncommon: according to a 1998 study in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 7% of caffeine users have experienced it. The symptoms usually abate quickly when people quit caffeine, but in rare cases the symptoms can lead to death.

The larger problem with the new caffeinated inventions is that their labels don't typically disclose how much caffeine they contain. And yet some of them are crammed with the drug: Sumseeds, a brand of caffeinated sunflower seeds, contain 120 mg of caffeine per packet, 16% more than in a typical 6-oz serving of coffee. Shower Shock soap is designed to deliver a crackling 200 mg of caffeine when lathered into the skin, twice the amount in that same cup of coffee.

Earlier this month, a Johns Hopkins neuroscience professor named Roland Griffiths, one of the world's leading caffeine experts, sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration urging it to require specific caffeine labeling in light of all the strange new caffeinated products. Nearly 100 fellow scientists and public-health advocates signed the letter. Griffiths reminded the FDA that it has yet to decide on a 1997 petition filed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) requesting caffeine labeling.

The FDA has not yet responded to Griffiths. FDA spokesman Michael Herndon told me in an e-mail that the CSPI petition is still "active and pending." When I asked why it has taken 11 years - so far - to review it, he replied, "Some petitions may take longer depending on agency workload and complexity of the issue."

But caffeine labeling is not a complex issue. Consumers should be able to make informed choices; people should know that a Starbucks venti drip coffee can have as much as 400 mg of caffeine.

Griffiths says there's no good epidemiological data yet to show whether the new caffeinated food and hygiene products are affecting public health. But he does worry about one group that can readily access these products: kids.

Doctors recommend that pre-pubescent kids not have any caffeine, and yet caffeinated candies and gums and chips have strong appeal for kids. Earlier this year, four middle-school boys in Broward County, Fla., had to go to the hospital after drinking energy drinks. The boys were sweating so much that school officials thought they might be having heart attacks.

That's an extreme but not isolated case. Those boys probably wouldn't have paid much attention even if labels did include caffeine content, but the rest of us should be able to calibrate our addictions with more information.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20081020/hl_time/heywhoputthecaffeineinmysoap;_ylt=AkVXUXUms4JkA2XJ kHVl.jQR.3QA

[samanthajane13]

89-year-old charged with keeping kids' ball
Mon Oct 20, 3:07 pm ET

BLUE ASH, Ohio – Police in Ohio say an 89-year-old woman is facing a charge of petty theft because neighborhood children accuse her of refusing to give back their football.

Edna Jester was arrested last week in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash.

Police say one child's father complained that Jester kept the youngsters' ball after it landed in her yard. Police Capt. James Schaffer says there has been an ongoing dispute in the neighborhood over kids' balls landing in the woman's yard.

Jester said Monday she has received many calls and didn't have time to discuss the matter any more.

Jester is to appear in court next month. The maximum penalty for a petty theft conviction in Ohio is six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.

___

Information from: The Cincinnati Enquirer, http://www.enquirer.com


If I were the one kid's grandma, I'd slap the Hell out of my SON for letting this thing escalate, not teaching the kids respect, being a bad example to the kids, and for taking this poor old lady to court!

[samanthajane13]

Pa. woman ordered out of chemical-free 'bubble'
By MICHAEL RUBINKAM, Associated Press Writer Michael Rubinkam, Associated Press Writer – 6 mins ago

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Ten hours a day, every day, Elizabeth Feudale-Bowes confines herself to a galvanized-steel-and-porcelain shed outside her house. Inside are a toilet, a metal cabinet, a box spring with the metal coils exposed, and a pile of organic cotton blankets. Aluminum foil covers the window. The place is as austere as a prison cell — but it's also her sanctuary from an outside world that she says makes her violently ill.

She and her husband call the structure "the bubble."

This bubble, though, may be about to burst: A judge has ordered it taken down by the end of the month.

Some of the couple's neighbors in suburban South Whitehall Township complained that the 160-square-foot building is unstable and so unsightly it could drag down their property values. The couple also hooked up electrical, water and sewer service without securing permits.

"For the wife's medical problems, there is sympathy. For the owner's defiance of the township's lawful directives, there is no excuse," Judge Carol McGinley ruled earlier this month.

Feudale-Bowes, 52, says she was diagnosed several years ago with "environmental illness," described as extreme sensitivity to everyday substances.

Some doctors question whether environmental illness is a genuine physical disorder and suggest it is psychological. Feudale-Bowles says she was diagnosed by Dr. William Rea of Texas, who has been accused by the Texas Medical Board of promoting "pseudoscience." He vigorously disputes the charge and continues to see patients.

Feudale-Bowes says fabric softener, nail polish, perfume, new sneakers, upholstery and many other items can make her body go haywire. She says she has suffered from a range of chronic ailments, including migraines, joint pain, bladder inflammation, seizures and temporary paralysis. Her insides, she says, have sometimes felt like "fire with ground glass in it."

A couple of years ago, the couple settled in South Whitehall, moving into a Lustron house, a 1940s-era prefabricated home made of porcelain-enameled steel that serves as their main residence. They paid an additional $10,500 for the bubble.

The zoning board has recommended the couple explore other options, such as an addition to their house.

"We're just asking them to comply with the same safety codes that every other person in the community has to comply with," said Township Manager Jerry Gasda.

The couple are threatening to sue the township under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.

"My wife's not a lawn mower, and I didn't put up an illegal shed just to mess with the township," said Craig Bowes, 52, who owns a company that cleans supermarket floors.

Some neighbors question whether her ailment is genuine. But they and others say the main issue is the couple's disregard of the zoning rules.

Thomas Kelly, 53, who lives across the street, said that while he feels sorry for Feudale-Bowes, her husband "just did whatever he pleased."

"We don't live like that," he said. "We live in a society governed by laws."

But Feudale-Bowes said: "If I don't live like this, my pain level is so severe that I can't function, I can't live, I can't survive. It's excruciating."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081020/ap_on_re_us/steel_shed_allergy

[samanthajane13]

Fla. woman chooses to go jail over $7.45 bill
Tue Oct 21, 12:12 am ET

FORT PIERCE, Fla. – A woman decided to go to jail rather than pay her bill at a Fort Pierce Waffle House restaurant. The total she went to jail over: $7.45. According to a police report, Maryanne O'Neill, 66, ordered coffee and a sandwich at a Waffle House restaurant on Saturday but refused to pay the bill.

The report said an officer asked her to pay or go to jail and she refused.

A jail official said she was released Monday from the St. Lucie County Jail. She was charged with obtaining food or lodging with intent to defraud, a second degree misdemeanor.

If convicted of a second degree misdemeanor she could face up to 60 days in jail and a fine of $500.

___

Information from: Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers: http://www.tcpalm.com

[samanthajane13]

Drug suspects kept lions and tigers at mansion
Mon Oct 20, 2:14 pm ET

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Suspected drug smugglers kept lions, tigers and panthers in the garden of a Mexican mansion where a Colombian-led gang was arrested at the weekend on drugs charges, police said on Monday.

Police found two adult African lions, two white-coloured tigers and two black panthers in cages in the grounds of the plush, wood-panelled house where the drug suspects were holding a party.

The house also boasted a suit of armour and a pond with what appeared to be a live hippopotamus, according to a video shot by Reforma newspaper.

"The animals are endangered species," said a spokesman for Mexico's federal police. Police raided the house in misty hills on the edge of Mexico City on Saturday.

The big cats appeared to be in good physical condition.

The 11 Colombians, lead by kingpin Teodoro Mauricio "The Dove" Fino, are accused of shipping cocaine to Mexico for powerful drug lords the Beltran Leyva brothers to sell in the United States. Two Mexicans, an American, and a Uruguayan were also arrested.

Drug violence over smuggling routes is spiralling in Mexico, with some 3,700 people killed this year.

Six soldiers were killed in the northern city of Monterrey over the weekend, Mexican media said on Monday, in a spurt in violence following police raids in the city last week.

(Editing by Sandra Maler)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081020/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_mexico_drugs;_ylt=At8gYm77QIGLdoOU0ItJTqz tiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Great Dane gives birth to great litter: 16 puppies
Mon Oct 20, 9:02 pm ET

FRUITVALE, Colo. – Stephanie Pino was expecting her Great Dane to give birth to about a dozen puppies, but instead she got 16. Pino's dog, Kyla, had the doggy baby boom in 20 hours of labor on Sept. 11. She had 19 in all but three died.

The frisky survivors now weigh 12 to 15 pounds each. Pino plans to offer them for sale when they reach 10 weeks.

Pino said even her vet was surprised at the size of the litter.

"They just kept coming and coming and coming, and we were like, 'Oh my gosh,'" Pino said.

___

Information from: The Daily Sentinel, http://www.gjsentinel.com

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081021/ap_on_fe_st/odd_doggy_baby_boom;_ylt=AtF2DP4SAYVEIxHFHMR7hH3ti BIF

[samanthajane13]

Snake spoils woman's fashion contest fun
Mon Oct 20, 9:52 am ET

CANBERRA (Reuters) – A woman voted best-dressed at an Australian fashion contest was unable to collect her prize after she was bitten by a deadly snake, local media said on Monday.

Megan McDonough won the best-dressed contest at a horse race meeting at Hamilton in country Victoria state on Saturday, but was bitten by a Tiger snake before she could collect her prize.

"The judging had just been concluded. They were just giving them a final parade. And unfortunately Megan got bit on the foot," Hamilton Racing Club Secretary Manager John Donnelly told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.

Tiger snakes are common in southeastern Australia during warm months and are among the world's deadliest snakes. Symptoms of a bite include localized pain, numbness and sweating, followed rapidly by breathing difficulties and paralysis.

Of the world's 10 most deadly snakes, all are found in Australia, and the country has around 100 venomous varieties.

Donnelly said the woman was taken to hospital and was recovering well.

"I've knocked around race courses a long time, and seen lots of things happen, but this is a first for me," he said.

(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Valerie Lee)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081020/od_nm/us_snake;_ylt=Ai0pDLtA7_fn6wLw0.61JRESH9EA

[samanthajane13]

Japanese climbers say find footprints of abominable snowman
By Gopal Sharma Gopal Sharma – 1 hr 32 mins ago

KATHMANDU (Reuters) – Japanese climbers returning from a mountain in western Nepal said on Tuesday they had found footprints they think belonged to the abominable snowman or Yeti.

"We saw three footprints which looked like that of human beings," Kuniaki Yagihara, a member of the Yeti Project Japan, said in Kathmandu, after returning from the mountain with photographs of the footprints.

The climbers, equipped with long-lens cameras, video cameras and telescopes, said, however that they did not see or take any photographs of the creature.

The Yeti is said to live in the Himalayan regions of Nepal and is largely regarded by the scientific community as a mythical creature.

Yagihara, 61, said the creature's footprints were found on snow at an altitude of about 4,800 metres (15,748 feet) in the Dhaulagiri mountain range in western Nepal.

"We know how the footprints of bear, deer and mountain goat look like and it was none of that," he said. "We believe it is that of Yeti."

Yagihara and his team, supported by Sherpas, spent six weeks on the lower reaches of the 7,661-metre (25,134-ft) Dhaulagiri IV looking for evidence of the beast's existence.

Sherpas narrate tales of a wild hairy creature roaming the Himalayas, capturing the imagination of foreign climbers of Mount Everest since the 1920s. Those stories prompted many, including Sir Edmund Hillary, to carry out yeti hunts.

In August, two men in the United States claimed they had found the remains of a half-man, half-ape Bigfoot, which actually turned out to be a rubber gorilla suit.

Some other climbers have also claimed to have found Yeti footprints, but no one has yet actually seen it or produced irrefutable proof.

Yagihara, the manager of a mountain museum in Japan, said he believes the creature exists. "If I don't believe on Yeti I would never come."

(Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Valerie Lee)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081021/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_nepal_yeti

[samanthajane13]

Geologists discover `dinosaur dance floor'
By MIKE STARK, Associated Press Writer Mike Stark, Associated Press Writer – 7 mins ago



SALT LAKE CITY – Geologists say they have discovered prehistoric animal tracks so densely packed on a 3/4-acre site that they're calling it a "dinosaur dance floor."

The site along the Arizona-Utah state line offers a rich new set of clues about the lives of dinosaurs 190 million years ago.

Back then, large stretches of the West were a Sahara-like desert. More than 1,000 tracks were found in what would have been a watery oasis nestled among towering, wind-whipped sand dunes.

The footprints could provide fodder for researchers trying to understand dinosaurs that survived in what many considered a "vast, dry, uninhabitable desert," said Marjorie Chan, professor of geology at the University of Utah and one of the authors of a new study of the site.

"Maybe it really wasn't as lifeless as we think," Chan said Monday.

The discovery adds yet another site to the region's long list of dinosaur hot spots. The difference, though, is sheer numbers. Scientists estimate there are more than 1,000 tracks at the site, which is in a protected area of Vermilion Cliffs National Monument.

In some places, there are a dozen footprints in a square yard.

"It was a place that attracted a crowd, kind of like a dance floor," Chan said.

Researchers identified four different kinds of tracks in the rock but haven't determined the specific species that left them behind.

Some of the footprints — once thought to be potholes formed by erosion — measure 16 inches across and have three toes and a heel. Others are smaller and more circular.

The area also includes what researchers think are rare tail drag marks.

Winston Seiler, who studied the site for a master's thesis, said the area might have been a popular gathering spot for adults and youngsters alike. It could have been one of many where Early Jurassic dinosaurs stopped for refreshment before moving along.

Seiler imagines dinosaurs were "happy to be at this place, having wandered up and down many a sand dune, exhausted from the heat and the blowing sand, relieved and happy to come to a place where there was water."

The study's findings were published in the October issue of the journal Palaios.

"It's an exciting site and deserving of a lot more work," said Jim Kirkland, Utah's state paleontologist, who was not involved with the study.

He hopes paleontologists begin a large-scale survey of the site to better understand what's there and what stories the tracks might tell.

Dinosaur tracks can provide important insight about dinosaur behavior and movements across the landscape, said Andrew Milner, paleontologist at the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm in southwestern Utah.

The newly discovered site, about three miles from the nearest road, is part of a protected wilderness area that also includes a geologic formation called "The Wave" — a gallery of striped, twisted sandstone.

Twenty permits are issued each day to enter the area. Linda Price, the monument's manager, expects interest in the area will jump with word of the dinosaur track site.

___

On the Net:

http://www.utah.edu

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081021/ap_on_sc/sci_dinosaur_dance_floor

[samanthajane13]

US scientists find oldest fossil tracks of legged animal
Sun Oct 5, 6:09 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US scientists have found the oldest fossilized tracks of a tiny legged animal, from 570 million years ago, that push back the advent of more complex creatures on Earth by some 30 million years, a report said Sunday.

The fossilized trails, thought to belong to a centipede or a leg-bearing worm that lived in the water, were found in sedimentary rocks in the US state of Nevada, said Ohio State University geology professor and the study's chief author Loren Babcock.

The finding, as reported to the Geological Society of America meeting Sunday in Houston, Texas, shatters the belief that pre-Cambrian life on Earth was restricted to microbes and simple, multicellular organisms.

The tracks, two parallel rows of small dots, each about two millimeters in diameter, date back some 570 million years, to the Ediacaran period (630-542 million years ago).

They suggest that animals walked using legs at least 30 million years earlier than had been thought.

The Cambrian period (543-490 million years ago) saw an evolutionary explosion that produced most of the major animal groups we know today.

"We keep talking about the possibility of more complex animals in the Ediacaran -- soft corals, some arthropods, and flatworms -- but the evidence has not been totally convincing," Babcock said.

"But if you find evidence, like we did, of an animal with legs -- an animal walking around -- then that makes the possibility much more likely," he added.

He said he was "reasonably certain" the the trails were made by a centipede-like arthropod or a leg-bearing worm with a centimeter-wide body.

A fossil of the actual animal would be more definitive, so Babcock said he would continue searching the area of Nevada that was covered by a shallow sea 570 million years ago, where the "accidental discovery" of the ancient trails was made.

He said other potential sites for similar Eciacaran fossils include the White Sea area of Russia, South Australia, Newfoundland and Namibia.

In 2002, other researchers found a similar fossil trail from Canada that dated back to the middle of the Cambrian period, about 520 million years ago.

Another set of tracks found in South China date back to 540 million years ago


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081005/sc_afp/ussciencepaleontologytracks_081005220900

[samanthajane13]

Man nabbed with frozen shrimp bags down his pants
Mon Oct 20, 9:02 pm ET

BRADENTON, Fla. – Authorities said a man tried to steal several bags of frozen shrimp from a supermarket by hiding them down his pants. The Manatee County Sheriff's Office reported that an off-duty detective was shopping at a Sweetbay supermarket Sunday when he noticed what appeared to be a man with groceries stuffed in his pants.

The detective approached the 32-year-old man and ordered him to stop. Authorities said the man then removed several bags of shrimp from his pants and promised to put them back.

When the man fled for the store's exit, the detective tackled and restrained him until patrol deputies arrived.

The man was charged with shoplifting, battery on an officer and resisting arrest. He was being held on $2,600 bail.

___

Information from: The Tampa Tribune, http://www.tampatrib.com

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081021/ap_on_fe_st/odd_shrimp_pants;_ylt=AlBAmwZI3gYxASncdtTMBXPtiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Scouts to get advice on safe sex
Mon Oct 20, 12:37 pm ET



LONDON (AFP) – The Scouts, the youth movement best known for its focus on bracing outdoor activities such as camping, hiking and fishing, is to arm its teenage members with practical advice about sex.

The movement, whose motto is Be Prepared, has issued new guidelines aimed at Explorer scouts between 14 and 18 in a bid to help them better understand some of the realities about sexual relationships.

The Scouting Association, which celebrated its 100th anniversary last year, says the main aim is for leaders to encourage young people "to resist pressure to have early sex".

But, acknowledging that many youngsters are already sexually active from the age of 16 and younger, the movement is hoping to provide help and support to enable teenagers make safe and informed choices.

The advice even allows for Scout leaders to arrange a visit to a sexual health clinic or to hand out condoms if they believed a youngster was "very likely to begin or continue having intercourse" without protection.

Chief Scout Peter Duncan said: "We must be realistic and accept that around a third of young people are sexually active before 16 and many more start relationships at 16 and 17.

"Scouting touches members of every community, religious and social group in the country so adults in Scouting have a duty to promote safe and responsible relationships and, as an organisation, we have the responsibility to provide sound advice about how to do that."

The average age for British youngsters to start sexual activity is 16, and Britain has the highest teenage birth rate in western Europe.

Dr Karla Bee who helped draft the guidelines, said: "At a time when 10 percent of sexually active teenagers are estimated to have a sexually transmitted infection and 50 percent of teenagers say they do not use contraception, it is absolutely right that The Scout Association gives its young people the information they need."

Young People's Minister Beverley Hughes welcomed the move.

"While our teenage pregnancy rates are coming down and are at the lowest rate for over 20 years, there is much more to do to ensure young people have the knowledge they need to prevent early pregnancy and look after their sexual health," she said.

The Scouts Association


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081020/od_afp/britainchildlifestylesexscout_081020163704;_ylt=Ar byiOs0dzBGDc2KTwqGpA6gOrgF

[samanthajane13]

British spinster jailed after breaking neighbour's arm with spade
Mon Oct 20, 8:52 am ET

LONDON (AFP) – A 72-year-old British spinster was sentenced Monday to 24 weeks in jail for breaking a neighbour's arm by hitting him with a spade in a row over a strip of land.

June Iddon, who suffers from a terminal case of cancer, yelled "I'm innocent!" as she was led away by two security guards in Preston Crown Court, northern England.

Last November, Iddon, a former civil servant, hit 62-year-old Jeffrey Grundy as he met with a builder to discuss where to place a fence between their two properties.

Iddon raised her spade over her head to strike Grundy, who managed to block the blow but broke his right arm.

"Notwithstanding your age and physical frailty a message needs to be sent to you that your behaviour cannot be acceptable," Judge Lesley Anderson said.

The judge noted that a previous civil case had found in favour of Grundy, subsequent to which he invited the builder to his property, and added that Iddon had ignored that ruling.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081020/od_afp/britaincourtretiree_081020125228;_ylt=AulDIiBLRnZY gp7nHWjVMyugOrgF

[samanthajane13]

From Wall Street to monastery: trader finds wealth in spirituality
by Maureen Cofflard Maureen Cofflard – Mon Oct 20, 4:09 am ET



MARSEILLE, France, (AFP) – Henry Quinson was only 28 years old when he abandoned life as a high roller on Wall Street to join Trappist monks at a cheese-making monastery in the French Alps.

Now nearly 20 years later, he works as a schoolteacher, lives among the poor in France's multi-ethnic city of Marseille and looks at the financial crisis convulsing markets worldwide with detached amusement.

"I told everyone who asked me a year ago to get out of stocks. I don't know if they listened to me," Quinson said during an interview in the apartment he shares with one of the other four monks who work in the neighbourhood.

"Today, my annual teacher's salary is about the same as a monthly bonus I was earning as a trader," he recalled.

"But I have much more power as a teacher than as a trader. Education is the only true wealth."

Born to a French mother and American father, Quinson made millions as one of French bank Indosuez's golden boys on the trade floor.

But he said he decided to turn his back on a high-powered career after having a vision.

"I saw myself in Marseille, where I had never been and knew no one, surrounded by north African children whom I was teaching," he said.

When Quinson broke the news to his bosses that he was leaving Wall Street, they were stunned and did not believe him.

Many thought it was ruse to hide the fact that he was joining a rival firm that had offered him a lucrative package.

The young trader spent six years at the Cistercian abbey of Tamie, praying and making its famous cow's milk cheese, before helping to found the Saint-Paul community in Marseille.

In the meantime, Quinson said he "got rid" of his millions which he donated to various organisations, but oddly enough, not to the Catholic Church.

"It's good to talk about helping the poor, but it's better to be with them," he said.

Among Marseille's poor, he spends his days praying, offering English classes, remedial lessons, counselling and even help drafting requests for student loans.

"If a kid comes here three times a week for ten years, he will not only have made progress in his education but his view of the world will have been transformed," said Quinson.

Money, he declared, "corrupts relations between people."

Quinson said he doesn't miss money, nor does he pine for the adrenaline boost from the trading floor, but he does feel deprived of female companionship.

"It's my greatest source of suffering," he said.

The global financial crisis is like a "major cold for the markets," he opined. "There have always been crises even though this one is particularly serious."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081020/od_afp/financebankingfrancereligion_081020080903;_ylt=Agd Au.AYU_b6IJQzk_VVOlmgOrgF

[samanthajane13]

Britain releases secret UFO files


LONDON (AFP) – Britain's Ministry of Defence on Monday made public its secret files on UFO sightings, with the dossier including a range of reports from a close encounter with a UFO over Kent and a letter from a woman claiming to be an alien warrior.

The 19 different incidents were recorded between 1986 and 1992, and published on the National Archives website.

Among the recorded incidents was a letter dated March 1990 from a woman who claimed she was an alien whose spaceship had landed during World War II and was recovered by the military.

"The crashed vehicle contained two males from Spectra, a planet orbiting the star Zeta Tucanae, and a female from one of the two inhabited planets in the Sirius system, Amazon the planet of warrior women," she wrote in the letter, which also included sketches of herself and of Spectrans.

"That female was me," she wrote.

Though the letter did not spark an investigation, another report from an Alitalia pilot did.

On April 21, 1991, the captain of an Alitalia plane was en route to Heathrow Airport when it had a close call with a UFO over Kent, the newly-revealed documents showed.

"At once I said, 'Look out, look out,' to my co-pilot, who looked out and saw what I had seen," Achille Zaghetti said in a report on the incident.

"As soon as the object crossed us I asked to the ACC (area control centre) operator if he saw something on his screen and he answered 'I see an unknown target 10nm (nautical miles) behind you'."

Meanwhile, a local television station had broadcast a story of a 14-year-old boy who said he had seen a low-flying missile disappear that same evening.

Radar images at that time initially labelled the object "Cruise missile??", but it was later confirmed that it was not a military weapon.

By July 2, however, a defence ministry inquiry found the UFO had not come from any Army firing ranges, and added there had not been any "space-related activity" that night.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081020/od_afp/britainmilitarydefenceufooffbeat_081020121039;_ylt =AplGkA4AQMUfeVgUDjy1xAigOrgF

[samanthajane13]

Melamine risk spreads, so to speak...
By Laura MacInnis – Mon Oct 20, 9:51 am ET




GENEVA (Reuters) – Chocolate-flavored body spreads sold in British sex shops have been found to be tainted with melamine, the chemical that made thousands of babies ill in China, food safety authorities said Monday.

The British Food Standards Agency (FSA) said melamine had been found in Chinese-made "I Love You" sets, sold at Ann Summers sex shops, containing chocolate and strawberry body pens and chocolate-flavored penis and nipple spreads.

"This is a first. We've never had to put out an alert before on 'willy spread' -- chocolate-flavored or otherwise," the FSA said on its Web site, www.foodstandards.gov.uk.

It said the health risk from the affected products was low.

At least four children died in China and thousands of others were treated in hospital after consuming milk powder containing melamine, an industrial compound added to cheat quality tests.

Dozens of countries have since banned imports of Chinese dairy ingredients and recalled products ranging from cookies to herbal drugs and octopus dumplings.

Peter Ben Embarek, a food safety expert at the World Health Organization (WHO), said national authorities needed to widen their checks and tests.

"Milk powder is a very common ingredient in a very large range of products, from candies to biscuits, chocolates, drinks, and so on and so on," he said.

The levels of melamine detected in the "I Love You" sets, manufactured in China by Le Bang and imported into Britain by Scobie (Llarn) Ltd, ranged from 126 milligrams per kg to 259 milligrams per kg, the FSA said.

European Union rules require that products with more than 2.5 milligrams per kg must be withdrawn and destroyed.

Embarek said adults may be less at risk of illness from consuming melamine than infants whose only food source was tainted formula.

"It is not an acute public health danger if you eat one contaminated biscuit," he said.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081020/od_nm/us_melamine_sex_odd

[samanthajane13]

U.S. pilot was ordered to shoot down UFO
By Peter Griffiths Peter Griffiths – Mon Oct 20, 10:32 am ET



LONDON (Reuters) – Two U.S. fighter planes were scrambled and ordered to shoot down an unidentified flying object (UFO) over the English countryside during the Cold War, according to secret files made public on Monday.

One pilot said he was seconds away from firing 24 rockets at the object, which moved erratically and gave a radar reading like "a flying aircraft carrier."

The pilot, Milton Torres, now 77 and living in Miami, said it spent periods motionless in the sky before reaching estimated speeds of more than 7,600 mph (12,000 kph).

After the alert, a shadowy figure told Torres he must never talk about the incident and he duly kept silent for more than 30 years.

His story was among dozens of UFO sightings in defence ministry files released at the National Archives in London.

In a written account, Torres described how he scrambled his F-86 D Sabre jet in calm weather from the Royal Air Force base at Manston, Kent in May 1957.

"I was only a lieutenant and very much aware of the gravity of the situation. I felt very much like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest," he said.

"The order came to fire a salvo of rockets at the UFO. The authentication was valid and I selected 24 rockets.

"I had a lock-on that had the proportions of a flying aircraft carrier," he added. "The larger the airplane, the easier the lock-on. This blip almost locked itself."

At the last moment, the object disappeared from the radar screen and the high-speed chase was called off.

He returned to base and was debriefed the next day by an unnamed man who "looked like a well-dressed IBM salesman."

"He threatened me with a national security breach if I breathed a word about it to anyone," he said.

The documents contain no official explanation for the incident, which came at a time of heightened tension between the West and the Soviet Union. Planes were on constant stand-by at British bases for a possible Soviet attack.

The files blame other UFO sightings on weather balloons, clouds or normal aircraft. Torres said he had been waiting 50 years for an explanation.

"I shall never forget it," he told the Times. "On that night I was ordered to open fire even before I had taken off. That had never happened before."

UFO expert David Clarke said the sighting may have been part of a secret U.S. project to create phantom aircraft on radar screens to test Soviet air defences.

"Perhaps what this pilot had seen was some kind of experiment in electronic warfare or maybe it was a UFO," he said. "Something very unusual happened."

The files are online at: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos

(Editing by Steve Addison)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/oukoe_uk_britain_ufo;_ylt=Au90.dH8bGvCgP4xiLG_S4zt iBIF

[samanthajane13]

Man charged with DWI twice in same night
Mon Oct 20, 9:01 pm ET

MILLBROOK, N.Y. – A man has been charged with driving while intoxicated twice in the same day in upstate New York. The first arrest occurred after the man drove to state police headquarters in Millbrook early Sunday to ask for directions. Police said Joseph S. Kelley, of Canton, Mass. had a blood alcohol content of .17 percent, twice New York's legal limit.

After processing, troopers sent Kelley to sleep it off at a hotel. Police said Kelley made the cabbie stop at an ATM to get money for the fare, and ran back to the parking lot and took his SUV.

Kelley was stopped in the town of Stanford. Troopers said his blood-alcohol level was .14 percent. He was arraigned on DWI and sent to Dutchess County Jail on $5,000 cash or $10,000 bond.

Kelly has a court date Wednesday. The name of his attorney was not yet on record.

___

Information from: The Journal News, http://www.thejournalnews.com

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081021/ap_on_fe_st/odd_charged_twice;_ylt=AtZA6pv_Hd4eV_VxbAd0IAPtiBI F

[sharlock]

Alleged burglar arrested, naked in chimney


October 22, 2008 - 10:15PM
Source: ABC

A naked man was arrested in Britain on suspicion of burglary after getting stuck in the chimney of the Tesco store he was allegedly trying to steal from, police said.
Greater Manchester Police said officers were alerted to the Tesco Express store in the Pemberton area of Wigan at 5:30am (local time) after receiving a report of "concern for a man".


When police arrived at the scene, they found a man trapped in the chimney breast.
The 22-year-old was freed by firefighters and after it was discovered he was naked, officers took him to hospital. He was later discharged and is now in police custody.


"It is believed some of his clothes came off as a result of him struggling to get out of the chimney," police said in a statement.
- Reuters


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© 2008 Australian Broadcasting Corporation

ABC Disclaimer (http://www.bigpond.com/news/ABCTermsOfUse.asp)



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[samanthajane13]

Woman arrested 73 times since '71?

Posted: Oct 22, 2008 01:43 PM

NEW YORK (AP) - A 70-something woman who gave her address as 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. was arrested for the 73rd time, accused of stealing a police decoy wallet and stuffing it in her bra.

The woman, who prosecutors say has used 36 different names, was indicted Tuesday as Katherine Kelly.

A criminal complaint charged Kelly with grand larceny and attempted grand larceny after her arrest in a Manhattan supermarket Oct. 15. It said she took a wallet, left by police as bait, from a shopping cart. An officer recovered the wallet from Kelly's "bra area," it said.

Undercover police also saw her trying to steal from several shoppers by reaching inside their bags, the complaint said. A judge scheduled a Nov. 17 arraignment.

Kelly's lawyer, James Neilson, stressed that she not been convicted in this case and wouldn't comment on her past arrests. Asked if he thought Kelly was mentally disturbed, Neilson replied, "that's something we're going to find out."

The district attorney's office said Kelly's criminal record dates from Dec. 21, 1971, when she was arrested as Charlotte Martinelli and charged with forgery.

Office spokeswoman Tracy Golden did not know how the case was resolved but said the various arrests, most of them in Brooklyn, have resulted in at least 16 convictions over the years. Most of the charges were felonies that were pleaded down to misdemeanors, she said.

Prosecutors are investigating the woman's true identity, Golden said. Although Kelly has given police 26 birth dates, her office is listing her as 76 because that conforms to the date she gave with her latest arrest.

Kelly gave her address as 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Golden said. That's the address of the White House in Washington, but she gave the city as Brooklyn, where there is no such street address.

Golden noted that the woman has been arrested under 36 names, including Robin Shapiro, Antoinette Lombardi, Mildred Friedman, Sylvia McGuire, Victoria Velloti and Charlotte Petrovas. The aliases tend to be old-fashioned - no Tracys, Whitneys or Britneys.

http://www.wivb.com/Global/story.asp?S=9220943

[delaineyrae]

Grave of infant apparently robbed

By Leader-Telegram staff
CAMERON - The Barron County Sheriff's Department is investigating a possible grave-robbing incident.

A 1925 grave marked "Baby Locke" was unearthed likely sometime between Sunday night and Monday morning, said Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald.

The infant's grave was in Bandli Park Cemetery, also known as Pioneer Rest Cemetery, in the unincorporated town of Canton, southeast of Rice Lake.

The hole was approximately 20 inches wide, 54 inches long and 48 inches deep. The incident was reported at about 11 a.m. Tuesday.

"We found remains of the casket," Fitzgerald said. "But we found no remains. We're under the impression the remains were taken."

The incident could have been visible from a nearby road, he said.

Fitzgerald said no other damage was done in the cemetery.

[delaineyrae]

Brother describes grave robbers as 'low-life'
Associated Press - October 31, 2008 11:25 AM ET

WEYERHAEUSER, Wis. (AP) - The younger brother of the baby whose 1925 grave was dug open and casket and remains stolen says the robbers are pretty low-life.

Don Locke of Weyerhaeuser says he has no idea why someone would have dug up the remains of his older baby brother identified at the grave as "Baby Locke." He says the crime is just strange.

Investigators believe some teens opened the grave at a cemetery near Cameron sometime late Sunday or early Monday perhaps to recover a skeleton or some bones for Halloween.

Seventy-8-year-old Don Locke says the Baby Locke grave is in the family plot at the cemetery where his parents are also buried. He wants the remains returned and reburied.

He says he believes his brother was a full-term baby and may have died of diphtheria.

[samanthajane13]

Preacher with 86 wives gets court reprieve
By Tume Ahemba Tume Ahemba – Thu Nov 13, 11:52 am ET



LAGOS (Reuters) – A Nigerian court said an 84-year-old Islamic preacher with 86 wives should be released from jail after he was held for failing to heed a call by local leaders to divorce all but four of the women, his lawyer said.

The authorities in central Niger state had charged Mohammed Bello with "insulting religious" creed and "unlawful marriages" after local chiefs and Muslim leaders gave him a September 7, 2008 deadline to comply with sharia, Islamic law, which allows a man to have no more than four wives.

He was jailed after he failed to comply.

"The Federal High Court granted Bello unconditional release yesterday," defense lawyer David Ikotun told Reuters by phone from Abuja.

Niger is one of 12 predominantly Islamic northern states that started a stricter enforcement of sharia eight years ago.

Bello, who lives with his wives and about 170 children in the town of Bida, had pleaded not guilty to the charges at an Upper Sharia Court in the state capital Minna. But the judge refused him bail and ordered he be remanded in prison.

Before his detention, the preacher had filed a petition at a Federal High Court in the Nigerian capital Abuja seeking to enforce his rights and to be protected from local chiefs and Muslim leaders who threatened to banish him if he failed to divorce 82 of his wives.

"The judge also ordered that the inspector general of police provide him with adequate protection to ensure that his fundamental human rights are not infringed," Ikotun said, adding that Bello was still in custody.

The Niger state government said it will appeal the judgment, the lawyer said.

The court adjourned Bello's hearing to December 12.

His case has stirred controversy in Africa's most populous country of 140 million people, roughly half of whom are Muslims.

The preacher had received a number of death threats after Nigerian media began reporting on his situation in September, his spokesman said.

(Editing by Randy Fabi and Matthew Jones)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081113/od_nm/us_nigeria_polygamist1;_ylt=Aty9MwcPUEMM9X_qaLSRjp 7tiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Resort plans nude "anything goes" party


CANBERRA (Reuters) – An Australian holiday resort will hold a month-long, nude "anything goes" party to combat an expected economic downturn, media reports said on Thursday.

"Tough economic times call for stiff measures," Tony Fox, the owner of the White Cockatoo resort in Mossman, in tropical Queensland state, told the Courier-Mail newspaper.

"It will be a hedonism resort, where anything goes for a month. It doesn't take rocket science to work out what it means," Fox said, naming March as the risque party month.

The controversial "clothes optional" resort made headlines three years ago when police were called to end partner-swapping parties after a swathe of public complaints.

"You've got to wonder what sort of people go and why. Where is the moral code of behavior and how do you stop jealousies and fights?" Cairns Catholic Bishop James Foley said after Fox's announcement.

But local regional Mayor Val Schier said she was not opposed to the event as long as no laws were broken.

"People in tropical north Queensland are extraordinarily creative," Schier said. "It is tough economic times and as long as it is with consenting adults, then there is no problem."

Australia's tourism in industry is being hit hard by global economic turmoil with official figures showing a 7.6 percent decline in overseas visitors in September.

Industry leaders expect holiday bookings may drop by up to a third in early 2009 and are planning a new international advertising campaign to coincide with the movie "Australia" starring Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman.

Fox said his resort was almost fully booked for the month-long rainforest party.

(Reporting by Rob Taylor, editing by Miral Fahmy)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081113/od_nm/us_resort;_ylt=AtScR8KqJp5hucNSBzoCwLvtiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Top Japan anti-drink cop caught drunk driving
Tue Nov 18, 6:15 am ET

TOKYO (Reuters) – A senior Tokyo police official tasked with keeping the city's roads clear of drunk drivers has been arrested for driving under the influence, police said on Tuesday.

The deputy inspector, on his way home from a camping site, was caught late Monday after bumping into another car and veering off the road, said a police official in Ibaraki.

"He smelled of alcohol and he couldn't walk straight," the official said.

Local media said the arrested official had been in charge of a campaign to stop drunk driving, handing out stickers to bars and restaurants around the city.

"It is inexcusable for a member of the police to have caused this case and we plan to deal with it strictly," Tsutomu Sato, the head of the National Public Safety Commission told reporters.

(Reporting by Chisa Fujioka' Editing by David Fox)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081118/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_japan_drunkdriving;_ylt=ApVE1IxZ04YbG82kB Oo92TrtiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Couple pays $200 for "special" samosas
Mon Nov 17, 1:18 pm ET


NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A Dutch couple on a visit to the eastern Indian state of Bihar paid 10,000 rupees ($204) for four samosas, a spicy deep-fried snack that usually doesn't cost more than a few rupees, a newspaper reported on Monday.

After the tourists ate the snacks, a stall owner at the Sonepur cattle fair last week told them his "special" samosas cost more because they were made of herbs and had aphrodisiac qualities, the Hindustan Times said.

After an argument, the couple paid the shopkeeper. But they later complained to a policeman.

Police forced the shopkeeper to return the change -- 9,990 rupees.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081117/od_nm/us_samosa;_ylt=Ao1NKAtLRQAsp4dC6fSLsuCek3QF

[samanthajane13]

Kangaroo genes close to humans
Tue Nov 18, 1:19 am ET

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Australia's kangaroos are genetically similar to humans and may have first evolved in China, Australian researchers said Tuesday.

Scientists said they had for the first time mapped the genetic code of the Australian marsupials and found much of it was similar to the genome for humans, the government-backed Centre of Excellence for Kangaroo Genomics said.

"There are a few differences, we have a few more of this, a few less of that, but they are the same genes and a lot of them are in the same order," centre Director Jenny Graves told reporters in Melbourne.

"We thought they'd be completely scrambled, but they're not. There is great chunks of the human genome which is sitting right there in the kangaroo genome," Graves said, according to AAP.

Humans and kangaroos last shared an ancestor at least 150 million years ago, the researchers found, while mice and humans diverged from one another only 70 million years ago.

Kangaroos first evolved in China, but migrated across the Americas to Australia and Antarctica, they said.

"Kangaroos are hugely informative about what we were like 150 million years ago," Graves said.

(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by David Fox)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081118/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_australia_kangaroos;_ylt=AilCOAak_EbqE2R_ QfnFI1ftiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Skull with built-in sauna turns heads in Austria
Mon Nov 17, 3:59 pm ET

VIENNA, Austria – An oversize skull with a built-in sauna is turning heads in the Austrian capital. The white walk-in structure — situated near a busy Vienna intersection — is known as the "Wellness Skull" and also boasts a bathtub and shower. On either side of the neck, that is.

The eye-catching installation, which stands about 15 feet tall and is made of wood and synthetic material, is the brainchild of Dutch artist Joep van Lieshout.

Van Lieshout said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that his 2007 creation was part of a series of pieces linked to body parts.

"It's really a piece that has many different interpretations," van Lieshout said when asked about the skull's deeper meaning. "Like a painter uses paint, I use design."

Tourists and locals alike appeared astounded by the skull on Monday, two days before it officially goes on display as part of an effort by Public Art Vienna to revitalize and enhance urban space around the capital.

"It's the most random thing I've seen in Vienna," said 27-year-old Nick Abrahams from London as he walked it Monday afternoon.

"It's really strange," echoed Nick Trute, 29, from Sydney, Australia.

Although the skull was built to be fully functional, visitors won't be able to try it out or witness steam emanating from its eye sockets — something that only happens when the sauna, which fits eight people, is in use.

Visitors will be able to go inside every first Saturday of the month or by appointment through March 15.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081117/ap_on_fe_st/odd_skull_sauna;_ylt=AuFBtmi7y2rSN1xdA7sWtTIsQE4F

[samanthajane13]

Mon Nov 17, 7:26 pm ET

GLEN CARBON, Ill. – It took some fancy footwork, but a Goodwill store in Illinois has found the owner of $7,500 in cash mistakenly donated with old shoes.

A newcomer to the United States from Bulgaria found the money this month on her first day at the Goodwill store in Glen Carbon. Teodora Petrova turned over the money to management.

The cash was found in a shoebox, bundled in large denominations.

Goodwill found the family through hints on scraps of paper left in the box. The donor apparently also called the Goodwill office, figuring he was the source of the cash.

The shoes belonged to the man's recently deceased parents. The store said he didn't want to be identified.

The family has offered Petrova a gift for turning over the money.


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[samanthajane13]

Woman accused of forging her parents' checks again
Mon Nov 17, 3:57 pm ET

BURLINGTON, Iowa – A Burlington woman awaiting a court of appeals ruling on an earlier conviction for forging her mother's checks has been arrested for allegedly doing it again. The woman, 43, was sentenced last summer to 15 years in prison but is free on bond while the case is being reviewed by the Iowa Court of Appeals.

Last week, she was arrested again on charges she stole checks from her parents. She also was accused of stealing another woman's credit card.

Police say the woman took at least 15 checks and wrote them out for about $850.

___

Information from: The Hawk Eye, http://www.thehawkeye.com


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081117/ap_on_fe_st/odd_daughter_forgery;_ylt=Ao60uo7eWXRqUEe8QNxikKIs QE4F

[samanthajane13]

Desert park closed to stop summer deaths

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia's harsh Simpson Desert conservation park will be closed during the southern hemisphere summer to prevent tourists dying in the outback, authorities said on Tuesday.

Temperatures in the Simpson Desert are forecast to reach 40 to 50 degrees Celsius (104-122 Fahrenheit) and authorities said it would be too dangerous for people to try and cross the desert.

The Simpson Desert Conservation Park and Regional Reserve, covering more than 3.6 million hectares (8.9 million acres) in the middle of Australia, will be closed from December 1 to March 15, said the South Australia state department for environment.

"During this period, dunes are soft and constantly changing shape, increasing the chance of vehicles becoming bogged and people becoming stranded. High temperatures also lead to an increased chance of vehicle failure," said Trevor Naismith.

The Simpson Desert has no official roads, just tracks which criss-cross some of the world's longest sand dunes.

(Reporting by Mchael Perry; Editing by David Fox)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081111/od_nm/us_desert_closed;_ylt=AsVPfJmeEihffMuqTAl16PkSH9EA

[samanthajane13]

Police chief arrests 48 relatives
Tue Nov 11, 9:03 am ET

BEIJING (Reuters) – A police chief in a remote county of southwestern China has taken down 48 of his relatives, including brothers, cousins and a number of his wife's family, for various crimes, local media said on Tuesday.

Laobulaluo, a police chief in Heizhugou township, Sichuan province, had seen 25 relatives either jailed, sent for "re-education through labor," or punished in other ways, according to a report posted on state news portal Chinanews.com ( http://www.chinanews.com.cn ).

The police chief, who is in his 30s, is a member of China's Yi ethnic minority. Over a 10-year career, He had personally arrested a brother and two cousins after finding they had beaten local teachers at a primary school while drunk.

Other family members were arrested after stealing a woman's handbag.

The policeman's sense of duty had inflamed his relatives, some of whom had taken turns threatening his parents, and had "even secretly cut off the tails and slashed the legs of their cows," the report said.

"In the first few years, I did not dare head back to my hometown to pass the New Year holiday, but now it's all right. Everyone understands and supports what I was doing at the time," the report quoted him as saying.

(Reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing by Ken Wills and Sanjeev Miglani)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081111/od_nm/us_crime;_ylt=AkmPti3Tu0Dg2KjBYJCjUO8SH9EA

[samanthajane13]

Canadian prisoner, too fat for cell, released early
Wed Nov 12, 2:13 pm ET

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canadian prison authorities were forced to release a 450-pound (205 kg) drug gang member this week because he was too large for his cell, the Journal de Montreal newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Michel Lapointe -- known as Big Mike -- was arrested in September 2006 and received a five-year sentence in May this year. The paper said he could not fit on the chair in his Montreal prison cell and when he went to bed, his body protruded six inches on either side.

A letter from the authorities to Lapointe said: "You have been detained for more than 25 months and your prison conditions are difficult because of your health".

The authorities also cited the refusal of two other facilities to accept the 37-year-old. He was freed late on Tuesday.

"I'm going to have a proper bed and finally have a chair I can sit in," he told the paper outside the prison.

"I want a normal life. I've done some stupid things and I've paid for them," he said.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Frank McGurty)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081112/od_nm/us_fat;_ylt=AsrtbM68MwyJIf5KGbPfXhoSH9EA

[samanthajane13]

Man in wheelchair allegedly hides cash in leg
Mon Nov 17, 9:41 pm ET

MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. – Authorities on Florida's east coast have arrested a man in a wheelchair who they say robbed a credit union on Merritt Island and hid the money in his prosthetic leg.

Brevard County deputies say a 45-year-old man was caught Friday afternoon about 10 minutes after they say he robbed Space Coast Credit Union. The man is a paraplegic who uses a motorized wheelchair.

Investigators said he came into the credit union about 4 p.m., told a teller he was armed with an explosive and demanded money. He left with an undisclosed amount of cash.

The man told deputies that two people had threatened him with a gun, told him to commit the robbery and were going to take the money for themselves.

He was charged with robbery, grand theft, threatening to use a hoax explosive device and aggravated assault.

___

Information from: Orlando Sentinel, http://www.orlandosentinel.com


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[samanthajane13]

Man accused of dousing neighbor for a 'confession'
Mon Nov 17, 9:33 pm ET

ROCHESTER, Pa. – Police said a Pennsylvania man bound his neighbor with duct tape, doused him with gasoline and threatened to set him on fire unless the neighbor confessed to burglarizing his house. John Black, of New Sewickley Township, was charged with burglary, aggravated assault, unlawful restraint and related crimes.

Police said that on Thursday, Black accused Henry Schmitt Jr. of burglarizing his home earlier this month before eventually letting him go. Police said they have no evidence Schmitt burglarized Black. Schmitt lives in a camper on Black's property.

A listed number for Black couldn't be located and it was unknown if he has an attorney.

___

Information from: Beaver County Times, http://www.timesonline.com/


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[samanthajane13]

Iowa zoo recaptures flamingo that flew the coop
Tue Nov 18, 9:07 pm ET

DES MOINES, Iowa – An Iowa zoo has recaptured a flamingo that flew over a Des Moines neighborhood, a golf course and the entire zoo during a 7-hour freedom flight.

Blank Park Zoo workers clipped the adult Chilean flamingo's wings a second time after it was recaptured.

The zoo's flamingos usually don't fly because their wings have been clipped. But zoo spokesman Terry Rich says the birds can molt and regrow those feathers, enabling them to fly.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081119/ap_on_fe_st/odd_flying_flamingo;_ylt=AnjFYyGEIpkiy5B3f_.cwGzti BIF

[samanthajane13]

Norway's police headquarters robbed


OSLO (AFP) – Thieves broke into the Norwegian criminal police's headquarters in Oslo, making off with several computers, police said on Monday.

"I can confirm that we were the victim of a robbery overnight Saturday to Sunday," Pia Solhaug, a spokeswoman for Norway's criminal police Kripos, told AFP.

"Several computers were taken," she added.

According to tabloid Verdens Gang (VG), the intruders smashed a window to gain entry into the building. The robbery was discovered three hours later.

Oslo police have launched an investigation.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081117/od_afp/norwaypoliceoffbeat_081117151929;_ylt=AmfvQWm4.IOq QzgLOkwEQFugOrgF

[samanthajane13]

'Meh': new word for indifference enters English dictionary
Mon Nov 17, 7:44 am ET

LONDON (AFP) – "Meh", a word which indicates a lack of interest or enthusiasm, became the latest addition to the Collins English Dictionary on Monday.

The word, which beat hundreds of other suggestions from members of the public, will feature in the 30th anniversary edition of the dictionary, which is to be published next year.

Though the word apparently originates from North America, Collins said it was now widely used on the Internet, and was increasingly seen in British spoken English.

The dictionary entry for "meh" will say it can be used as an interjection to indicate indifference or boredom, as an adjective to describe something as boring or mediocre, or to show an individual is apathetic or unimpressed.

The word was popularised by the US comedy animation series "The Simpsons", where characters Bart and Lisa use it to express indifference when their father Homer suggests a day trip.

It was submitted by Erin Whyte from Nottingham, central England, and a panel of Collins language experts singled it out from the hundreds of other submissions because of its frequency of use in modern English.

"This is a new interjection from the US that seems to have inveigled its way into common speech over here," said Cormac McKeown, head of content at Collins Dictionaries.

"It shows people are increasingly writing in a register somewhere in between spoken and written English."

Other words submitted to Collins's campaign -- which was launched in June and called on members of the public to suggest words they used in everyday English -- were jargonaut (a fan of jargon); frenemy (an enemy disguised as a friend) and huggles (a hybrid of hugs and snuggles).


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[samanthajane13]

Malaysian activists threaten naked protest over rent hikes
Tue Nov 18, 10:39 am ET

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Malaysian activists have threatened to stage a naked protest over a sudden hike in rental rates for government housing, drawing criticism from Muslim leaders and police Tuesday.

Ramlan Abu Bakar of the Malaysian People's Reform Movement said its members were prepared to strip off outside the offices of the chief minister of Selangor state, after it more than doubled the cost of low-income housing.

"Protesting naked is our final act of desperation as the state government is literally stealing the clothes off our backs with this price increase," Ramlan told AFP.

"They are not helping the poor people here who barely make enough to afford the present rental of 124 ringgit (34 dollars per month) so how can we afford to pay 250 ringgit?" he said.

The hardline Islamic party PAS, which is part of the opposition alliance, criticised the plans, with its spiritual leader Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat saying only "uncivilised" people would resort to such an act.

"Even an animal like a cow which is stark naked, God created a tail to hide its genitals and here we are talking about human beings who have been given a mind," he told state news agency Bernama.

Ramlan said his group would submit a memorandum to opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, whose alliance runs Selangor state, and that if it failed to bring about any change they will push ahead with the nude protest.

State police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said action will be taken against anyone staging an illegal assembly.

"We will take firm action against any NGO (non-governmental organisation) that holds a gathering without a permit, and even more so if they are nude," he told Bernama.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081118/od_afp/malaysiapropertyprotestoffbeat_081118153929;_ylt=A gwEOBXLs2DvhjiCxshZSkGgOrgF

[samanthajane13]

Austrian woman finds dead frog in spinach: newspaper
Tue Nov 18, 11:26 am ET

VIENNA (AFP) – Whoever said spinach was good for you? Even Popeye's stomach would probably have churned at the grisly find made by a 32-year-old mother from Vienna who decided to cook frozen spinach for her family's evening meal, the daily Oesterreich reported Tuesday.

Martina R. told the newspaper she thought the spinach was a bit "lumpy" as it bubbled in the saucepan.

But it was only when she went to dish out a serving for her young daughter that she noticed there was a dead frog in it.

"My stomach turned. It was almost whole, except for a missing leg which I probably knocked off when I stirred the spinach," the shocked housewife said.

She complained to the supermarket where she had bought the spinach and the manager presented her with a free packet of coffee as compensation, Oesterreich reported.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081118/od_afp/austriafoodretailoffbeat_081118162615;_ylt=Av1X5Ey 6DJgwMjhU9fq9tmGgOrgF

[samanthajane13]

Rats return to Hamelin, no sign of Pied Piper
Tue Nov 18, 12:08 pm ET

BERLIN (AFP) – Just ahead of the 725th anniversary of the Pied Piper reputedly banishing a plague of rats from Hamelin, there has been an "explosion" in the German town's rodent population, officials said Tuesday.

The spokesman for the northern town, known as Hameln in German, said the sharp rise at an abandoned garden allotment site on the edge of the town was because the rats had a plentiful supply of food from an adjacent rubbish dump.

According to legend, a colourful or "pied" rat catcher lured all the rats out of town in 1284 by playing his pipe. When the townspeople refused to pay him, he did the same with Hamelin's children and they were never seen again.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081118/od_afp/entertainmentgermanyratsoffbeat_081118170801;_ylt= AhpPZ.f.sl2R8l9wWqhvSWigOrgF

[samanthajane13]

Taiwan man with eight "wives" thrilled with shopping vouchers


TAIPEI (AFP) – A Taiwanese man with eight "wives" and 32 children said Wednesday he expected to collect 4,500 US dollars in shopping vouchers to become the largest beneficiary of the new scheme.

"It seems that my family will benefit the most from the programme. I am very grateful, it will help us a lot," a smiling Liu Ho-mu told local television.

Liu, a self-proclaimed "spiritual teacher," has for more than 20 years lived with eight women who have borne him 32 children in central Changhua county.

He attracted attention four years ago when women's rights groups urged prosecutors to look into his multiple relationships, as bigamy is a criminal offense in Taiwan punishable with a maximum five-year prison term.

But Liu has claimed that all his wedding ceremonies were presided over by "gods, ghosts and Buddha" and that he broke no law because he did not officially register any of the relationships as formal marriages.

His 41-member family is entitled to 147,600 Taiwan dollars (about 4,500 US) under a shopping vouchers scheme unveiled by the government on Tuesday in a bid to stimulate spending and boost the economy.

Under the scheme, the island's 23 million people regardless of age or wealth will be given 3,600 Taiwan dollars (109 US). The programme is expected to cost some 82 billion Taiwan dollars and contribute a 0.64 percent increase in the 2009 GDP, officials said.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081119/od_afp/taiwanstimulusshoppingoffbeat_081119051505

[samanthajane13]

Purified urine to be astronauts' drinking water
By Irene Klotz Irene Klotz – Fri Nov 14, 11:36 am ET

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – As NASA prepares to double the number of astronauts living aboard the International Space Station, nothing may do more for crew bonding than a machine being launched aboard the space shuttle Endeavour on Friday.

It's a water-recycling device that will process the crew's urine for communal consumption.

"We did blind taste tests of the water," said NASA's Bob Bagdigian, the system's lead engineer. "Nobody had any strong objections. Other than a faint taste of iodine, it is just as refreshing as any other kind of water."

"I've got some in my fridge," he added. "It tastes fine to me."

Delivery of the $250 million wastewater recycling gear is among the primary goals of NASA's 124th shuttle mission, which is due to launch at 7:55 p.m. EST on Friday (0055 GMT on Saturday) from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

Meteorologists predicted a 70 percent chance the weather would be suitable for launch.

With no technical issues, NASA managers told the launch team on Friday morning to fuel the shuttle for liftoff, a three-hour operation to pump 500,000 gallons (1.9 million litres) of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen into the spaceship's tank for the 8.5-minute climb into orbit.

If the shuttle lifts off on time, it would arrive at the space station on Sunday so astronauts could begin 11 to 12 days of home improvements.

In addition to the water recycler, Endeavour carries two small bedrooms, the station's first refrigerator, new exercise gear, and perhaps most important for a growing crew -- a second toilet.

"With six people you really do need to have a two-bathroom house. It's a lot more convenient and a lot more efficient," said Endeavour astronaut Sandra Magnus, who will take over as a space station flight engineer from Greg Chamitoff.

Chamitoff has been aboard the outpost since the last shuttle flight in June.

NASA wants to make sure the water recycling system is working well before adding another three astronauts to the station's crew.

SHUTTLE SUPPLIES DRYING UP

Reusing water will become essential once NASA retires its space shuttles, which produce water as a byproduct of their electrical systems. Rather than dumping the water overboard, NASA has been transferring it to the space station.

But the shuttle's days are numbered. Only 10 flights remain, including a final servicing call to the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA is preparing to end the program in 2010, after which Russian Soyuz spacecraft will be the only way to ferry crew to the space station.

"We can't be delivering water all the time for six crew," said space station flight director Ron Spencer. "Recycling is a must."

NASA expects to process about six gallons (23 litres) of water per day with the new device. The goal is to recover about 92 percent of the water from the crew's urine and moisture in the air.

The wastewater is processed using an extensive series of purification techniques, including distillation -- which is somewhat tricky in microgravity -- filtration, oxidation, and ionization.

The final step is the addition of iodine to control microbial growth, Bagdigian said.

The device is intended to process a full day's worth of wastewater in less than 24 hours.

"Today's drinking water was yesterday's waste," Bagdigian said.

(Editing by Jim Loney and Anthony Boadle)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081114/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_space_shuttle;_ylt=Atyx4uWzjl1uzeKGyH6bjI ydk3QF


EEEEEEEWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!

[samanthajane13]

Man returns stolen relics to Russian monastery
Thu Nov 13, 12:57 pm ET

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A man Thursday returned relics to a Russian Orthodox monastery in Moscow eight days after they were stolen and then turned up in an antiques store, church officials said.

The relics of six saints were in a silver reliquary that went missing on November 5 after an evening mass at the 16th-century Donskoi monastery in central Moscow.

Many of Russia's prominent citizens are buried there, including Nobel Prize-winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Thursday a man in his 30s wearing a black jacket and whose head was covered with a hood handed the relics back to the monks, police said.

"The young man, who introduced himself as Alexei, said the reliquary laid in silver had been brought to one of the city's antique shops where it was to be sold," the Orthodox Church said in a statement.

But the shop workers knew it had been stolen and returned it to the monastery, the church said. It offered no further details.

Police said the monastery's surveillance camera filmed the man as he returned the relics.

Soviet-era dissident writer Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1970. He died in August and was buried at Donskoi.

(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Catherine Bosley)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081113/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_russia_monastery_theft;_ylt=AiXdvFikcL76N 63q3c9O.bGdk3QF

[samanthajane13]

French sheep breeders take flocks to Eiffel Tower
By Sybille de La Hamaide Sybille De La Hamaide – Thu Nov 13, 1:15 pm ET

PARIS (Reuters) – Several hundred French breeders brought sheep to graze near the Eiffel Tower on Thursday to protest what they say is insufficient aid to help revive a sector endangered by surging costs and low selling prices.

Sheep farmers say a 250-million-euro (211 million pounds) government plan unveiled on Wednesday to boost falling farm income, including 50 million euros for sheep breeders, did not go far enough.

"It's a first step, but it doesn't meet our needs," Serge Preveraud, president of French sheep breeders union FNO, told Reuters above the peal of mountain bells.

Between 700 and 800 breeders were at the protest, bringing with them just over 100 sheep.

Like other farmers, sheep breeders said they were being squeezed by rising costs for fertilisers, feed and fuel, and increased pressure from retailers to sell at lower prices.

Nicolas Fanjat, a 27-year-old farmer dressed in a black shepherd's cloak, said breeders were in a critical situation.

"We have a hard time making ends meet. Revenue isn't coming in anymore and costs like fuel have surged," he said, adding that he sold his lamb at 5 euros per kg when it cost him 8 and it was later sold at more than 15 euros in supermarkets.

BELOW POVERTY LINE

France's farm ministry said sheep breeders' incomes, which fell by 32 percent last year, would shed 15 percent in 2008, mainly linked to the rise in animal feed and high energy costs.

The ministry pegged price rises in 2008 of 30 percent for oil products, 25 percent for fertilizers and 15 percent for animal feed. At the same time lamb prices paid to producers was stable as they faced tough competition from massive imports.

"We now live below the poverty line," said Jean-Baptiste Seib, a 24-year-old breeder with 600 sheep.

"If we are not heard, tomorrow there will be no sheep left."

Official data shows that French sheep breeders earn around 8,000 euros a year on average.

The French government already introduced emergency support measures for sheep breeders worth 17 million this year as well as 15 million euros in 2007.

But many breeders said that beyond the French measures what was needed was a substantial rise in subsidies granted under the European Union's farm policy, which is currently being revised.

France receives about 10 billion euros in European aid each year but sheep breeders say they get fewer payments than other farm sectors, notably cattle.

(Editing by Elizabeth Piper)


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[samanthajane13]

Galapagos bachelor tortoise struggles to be a dad
By Alonso Soto Alonso Soto – Tue Nov 11, 1:18 pm ET

QUITO (Reuters) – After stunning conservationists by mating for the first time in decades, a giant tortoise from the Galapagos islands called Lonesome George, who is the last of his kind, still may not become a dad.

George, a 90-year-old conservation marvel and one of the world's rarest creatures, mated this year with two females, but 80 percent of the eggs they laid appear infertile.

The females belong to a different subspecies of giant tortoise.

A Pinta Island tortoise, George had showed little interest in sex during 36 years in captivity. His new-found libido has raised hopes he could save his subspecies from extinction

Ecuadorean scientists are studying the eggs and have not ruled out that George could be sterile.

"We are puzzled. We will leave the eggs in the incubators and try to find answers," said Washington Tapia, a park official in change of George's reproduction programme. "It's too early to say if George is infertile, only genetic research could tell us that."

However, hopes is not lost. Scientists said 20 percent of the remaining eggs could still produce offspring.

George's keepers placed his eggs in incubators decorated with religious images in hopes of a miracle.

Scientists are also searching for distant relatives in a nearby island, hoping to find another male for mating.

Variations in tortoises from different islands were among the features of the Galapagos that helped Charles Darwin formulate his theory of evolution in the 19th century.

Since then, tortoises have been hunted by pirates and sailors for their meat and their habitat has been eaten away by goats introduced onto the islands. George was the last tortoise found on Pinta in 1971.

Ecuador has declared the islands at risk and the United Nations says efforts to protect them should continue. Some 20,000 giant tortoises still live on the islands.

After trying almost everything from artificial insemination to having George watch younger males mate, his keepers had nearly lost hope. At 90 years old George is in his sexual prime and his low libido even raised tabloid-like rumours the 198 pounds (90 kilograms) creature preferred other males.

(Reporting by Alonso Soto; editing by Alan Elsner and Frank Jack Daniel)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081111/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_galapagos_george;_ylt=AhxaRazKBMvue4UssA6 JGdidk3QF

[samanthajane13]

Anything to declare? Kangaroos stopped at Polish border
Wed Nov 26, 12:22 pm ET

DDP/AFP/File – A Red Kangaroo relaxes in the sun with her six month old twins in 2007 at the zoo in Hanover, Germany. …

WARSAW (AFP) – Polish border guards said Wednesday they had foiled an attempt to smuggle kangaroos, miniature ponies and 11 pheasants in a passenger bus across Poland's border with Ukraine.

"It was a regular bus with 30 or so passengers aboard," Poland's national border guard spokesman Andrzej Wojcik told AFP Wednesday.

"Everything seemed to be fine until we opened the baggage hold," he added.

"You can imagine the surprise of the border guards when they found two small kangaroos, five ponies and and eleven pheasants locked up in cages," Wojcik said.

"Both the kangaroos and ponies are miniatures, measuring 50 to 60 centimetres (one foot eight inches to nearly two feet).

"One of the ponies is probably pregnant," he added.

The Ukrainian bus driver had insisted he did not realise he was doing anything illegal, Wojcik said.

He told the border guards the animals had been delivered to him by a stranger in Warsaw and were to be handed over to someone at the final destination in Lviv, Ukraine.

The animals were examined by veterinarians and fed by border guards.

"They are in good health and will be put in good hands," Wojcik said.


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[samanthajane13]

Mon Dec 1, 8:13 pm ET

SEDALIA, Mo. – A hunter bagged a big buck on the second day of firearms season, but the kill caused him a lot of pain. Randy Goodman, 49, said he thought two well-placed shots with his .270-caliber rifle had killed the buck on Nov. 19. Goodman said the deer looked dead to him, but seconds later the nine-point, 240-pound animal came to life.

The buck rose up, knocked Goodman down and attacked him with his antlers in what the veteran hunter called "15 seconds of hell." The deer ran a short distance and went down, and died after Goodman fired two more shots.

Soon Goodman started feeling dizzy and noticed his vest was soaked in blood.

So he reached his truck and drove to a hospital, where he received seven staples in his scalp and was treated for a slight concussion and bruises.

___

Information from: The Sedalia Democrat, http://www.sedaliademocrat.com


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[samanthajane13]

Japan polar bear mating stymied by gender mixup



TOKYO (Reuters) – Handlers of a popular polar bear, brought to mate with a female in a zoo in northern Japan, found their breeding plan was doomed when they noticed that he, in fact, was a she.

Tsuyoshi, a four-year-old, 200 kg (441 lb) cream-colored polar bear, had been living in harmony with a female polar bear since June, the two often playing together, Masako Inoue, a zookeeper at the Kushiro Municipal Zoo, said on Wednesday.

"We thought he was a male, so we never had any doubts as we took care of him," she said.

"But one day we realized that the two bears urinate in the same way, and we thought, is that how males do it? And once we started to look at things that way, we weren't quite so sure."

After two DNA examinations of Tsuyoshi's hair and a manual exam, the Kushiro Municipal Zoo found Tsuyoshi to be a female.

"We do have mixed feelings," said Inoue.

"But because Tsuyoshi was supposed to be a male, she came here, and because she came here, we were able to take care of her since she was very small."

It is not uncommon for the sex of polar bears to be misread, Inoue said, as their long hair makes it difficult to distinguish, especially when the bears are young. Tsuyoshi was pegged as a male three months after birth, Inoue said.

The Kushiro Municipal Zoo will talk with other zoos in the area to see what to do about their breeding plan, she added.

(Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Bill Tarrant)


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[samanthajane13]

Panda attacks man who wanted a cuddle
Mon Nov 24, 12:32 pm ET

BEIJING (Reuters) – A panda at a zoo in southern China attacked a student who snuck into its pen hoping for a cuddle with the endangered bear, state media said Saturday.

The 20-year-old male student surnamed Liu jumped over the fence at the zoo in the tourist city of Guilin, ignoring warning signs not to, Xinhua news agency said.

"The panda, named Yangyang, was wide awake. Apparently scared by the intruder, he bit at Liu's arms and legs," it quoted an unnamed worker as saying after zoo keepers managed to calm the bear and rescue Liu, the report said.

"Yangyang was so cute and I just wanted to cuddle him," Liu was quoted as saying from his hospital bed. "I didn't expect he would attack."

Scientists believe fewer than 2,000 giant pandas live in the wild in China.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Bill Tarrant)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081124/od_nm/us_china_panda;_ylt=AtSfDuJzAn9xBb0.TqJtdvsSH9EA

[samanthajane13]

Taiwan hopes for China panda love affair
Tue Nov 25, 3:10 am ET

TAIPEI (Reuters) – A Taiwan zoo will try to mate a pair of giant pandas from China and may return any cub for tender loving care, a zoo official said on Tuesday, another twist in efforts to improve ties between the two political rivals.

Taipei Municipal Zoo will try over the next two years to mate Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, whose names said together mean "unite," to produce a cub or twins, zoo research officer Chin Shih-chien said.

"We should be breeding pandas," Chin said. "It's something we're supposed to do proactively under international agreements."

China has seen self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory rather than as a separate country since the island broke away from Mao Zedong's Communists amid civil war in 1949. Beijing has threatened to take Taiwan by force, if necessary.

But since taking office in May, China-friendly Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou has resumed formal dialogue with Beijing, contributing to a thaw in relations not seen in 60 years.

China offered the two pandas as a goodwill gift in 2006 and they are expected to arrive next month.

The zoo might return the cub or twins to China for expert care, Chin said, though that decision has not been written down in black and white.

About 1,000 of the endangered animals live in the wild bamboo forests of central and western China. Taiwan will donate a native deer and goat in exchange for the pandas.

(Reporting by Ralph Jennings; Editing by Nick Macfie)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081125/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_taiwan_pandas;_ylt=AhOZk9p27m.awGARecrA9h adk3QF

[samanthajane13]

Man says God ordered him to ram vehicle at 100 mph
Mon Dec 1, 8:13 pm ET

SAN ANTONIO – A man who rammed his truck into a woman's vehicle on a highway early Friday told authorities he crashed into her while going more than 100 mph because God told him "she needed to be taken off the road."

The truck rear-ended the car on U.S. Highway 281, both vehicles spun across a median then came to a stop along a barrier in the opposite lanes. Both drivers suffered only minor injuries.

"He just said God said she wasn't driving right, and she needed to be taken off the road," Bexar County Sheriff's Office spokesman Kyle Coleman said in the online edition of the San Antonio Express-News. "God must have been with them, 'cause any other time, the severity of this crash, it would have been a fatal."

The pickup driver did not tell police how the woman was driving. Police could not find alcohol or drugs in either driver.

A psychiatric evaluation has been ordered for a man.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081202/ap_on_fe_st/odd100_mph_wreck;_ylt=AhJMC7OFCKXv_gt5sU06PnXtiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Man, 80, gets birthday card from former teacher
Mon Dec 1, 8:13 pm ET

NEW ULM, Minn. – Hobart Anderson of New Ulm turned 80 recently and with his birthday came a surprise. He got a birthday card signed by Collette Hartung. She was his teacher — 70 years ago. He says he was very, very surprised.

Here's how it happened. Anderson and his wife, Charlotte, were recently honored by the Wanda Gag House Association for his 20 years of involvement with the group and the house.

Hartung saw an article about the honor in The Journal of New Ulm and mailed the card. She said it was a wonderful opportunity to send a surprise.

Hartung is still living on her own in Hutchinson and is in her 90s. She was in her early 20s when she taught Anderson's third and fourth-grade class.

The association tends to the historic house of Wanda Hazel Gag, author of the classic children's book, "Millions of Cats."

___

Information from: The Journal, http://www.nujournal.com/journal


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081202/ap_on_fe_st/odd_surprise_birthday_card;_ylt=AlSB3bUt6T2RhHtgwq QnZ_TtiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Italian party to pay for babies named after Mussolini

ROME (Reuters) – An Italian right-wing party is offering 1,500 euros ($1,930) to parents who name their babies after wartime fascist dictator Benito Mussolini or his wife Rachele, saying their names are under threat.

The MSI-Fiamma Tricolore party, the descendant of Mussolini's fascist party, said the initiative in the poor, southern region of Basilicata was meant to keep alive names "at risk of extinction" and pay tribute to the movement's roots.

"Benito and Rachele are nice names and I hope our original initiative will get people going," party official Vincenzo Mancusi told Reuters.

The bonus -- intended to pay for baby clothes and food -- applies to babies born in 2009 in five villages where the birth rate is especially low, Mancusi said.

Mussolini ruled from 1922 to 1943 when he was ousted after leading Italy to ruin by entering World War Two as an ally of Germany. He was executed along with his mistress Claretta Petacci in 1945. His widow Rachele died in 1979.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081126/od_nm/us_italy_names;_ylt=Ag33zbnbLSikmjtxblGeQOHtiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Dutch ban on "magic" mushrooms to take effect
By Catherine Hornby Catherine Hornby – Fri Nov 28, 12:06 pm ET



AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The Netherlands will ban the sale and cultivation of all hallucinogenic "magic" mushrooms from next week, the latest target of a country seeking to shed its "anything goes" image.

The Dutch government proposed the ban in April, citing the dangerous behavioural effects of magic mushrooms following the death of a French teenager who jumped from an Amsterdam bridge in 2007 after consuming the hallucinogenic fungus.

"The use of magic mushrooms has hallucinogenic effects. It is proven that this can lead to unpredictable and therefore risky behaviour," the Dutch Health Ministry said in a statement.

A challenge to the ban was rejected by a court in the Hague on Friday. From December 1 the production or sale of fresh magic mushrooms could lead to a maximum jail sentence of four years, a spokesman for the Dutch Justice Ministry said on Friday.

"We are targeting the growers and the shops who are selling the mushrooms," the spokesman said.

The active ingredient in magic mushrooms is psilocybin. Effects last up to about six hours and can include nausea, vomiting, muscle weakness and drowsiness in the early stages after consumption.

The psychological consequences of psilocybin use include hallucinations and an inability to discern fantasy from reality. Panic reactions and psychosis also may occur, particularly if a user ingests a large dose, according to the U.S. Justice Dept's National Drug Intelligence Centre.

Some proponents of magic mushrooms say that their use aids in spiritual awareness, gaining personal insight and meditation.

Selling dried magic mushrooms is already illegal in the Netherlands and carries a maximum jail sentence of eight years, the justice ministry spokesman said, but from next week a new ban will apply to fresh mushrooms which have been previously sold in so-called "smart shops."

Staff in the stores, which stock mushrooms or "paddos" ranging from Thai to Hawaiian varieties for about 15 euros (about $20) a pack, said the ban will put users at greater risk.

"People will just go picking in the forest, and that can be dangerous. Or they will go to street dealers, and get mixed up with hard drugs," said David Henriks from the Tatanka shop.

Posters in shops outlined the effects of different types of mushrooms, such as strong visual experiences or feelings described as "body highs." They also suggested dos and don'ts of consumption, and rated the mushrooms for their intensity.

"It's always safer to have the information before taking drugs," said Roy Williams of the Innerspace shop, adding that in the past few weeks people had increasingly been buying "grow your own" mushroom kits in the lead-up to the ban.

The Dutch association of smart shops (VLOS) had tried to reassure authorities by promising tighter self-regulation and noted that most mushroom-related incidents involved young tourists mixing mushrooms with alcohol and cannabis.

On Friday the VLOS said it was highly disappointed with the court's decision to reject the challenge to the ban.

"Under this government we have had a whole series of bans, and people have had enough of this," said Paul van Oyen from the VLOS, adding that he would advise the board of the association to launch an appeal.

He said some of the 180 or so smart shops in the Netherlands would likely have to close because of falling turnover, and he expected to see a huge discount sale over the weekend as shops tried to get rid of supplies.

Figures from the Amsterdam emergency services show there were 55 call-outs for mushroom-related incidents in 2004, a figure which had more than doubled by 2006 to 128, with the majority of youngsters involved coming from Britain.

In recent years the Netherlands has dropped some previously tolerant policies and has tightened laws on drug use and prostitution.

Several brothels and sex clubs were shut down in 2008, city councils are planning to close marijuana-selling coffee shops near schools, while tobacco smoking and alcohol consumption in coffee shops have also been forbidden.

(Additional reporting by Svebor Kranjc, editing by Paul Casciato)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081128/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_dutch_mushroom;_ylt=AqdBBGQMDuPqOJDlmWRgT wftiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Police: Ohio college adviser ran prostitute raffle
Mon Dec 1, 4:43 pm ET



COLUMBUS, Ohio – An Ohio State University academic adviser and a real estate agent held a $10-a-ticket raffle that offered an evening with a prostitute who is also a child sex-abuse caseworker, police said.

Christopher S. Johnson, 33, an academic adviser at OSU's School of Nursing, organized the raffle through a Craigslist.com chat board, police said. Real estate agent Rusty Blades, 42, held the invitation-only party at his house in October for the participants.

Both Johnson and Blades were charged with promoting prostitution. A judge set bail Saturday at $50,000 for Blades and $25,000 for Johnson.

OSU spokesman Jim Lynch said that Johnson was placed on unpaid leave and that the school will investigate whether he improperly used his computer.

Police Detective Jeffrey Ackley identified Vanise Dunn, 31, as the prostitute involved in the raffle. She has worked at Franklin County Children Services since 2000, and court records show she was charged with prostitution Nov. 12 for allegedly soliciting a vice detective.

Her attorney, Scott Kossoudji, declined to comment. Dunn has been on paid leave since her arrest, said Doris Calloway Moore, spokeswoman for Franklin County Children's Services. The agency is looking into whether Dunn violated any of its policies.

A message seeking comment was left Monday with Blades' attorney Richard Wetzel. A woman who answered the phone at Johnson's home said he was not available.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081201/ap_on_fe_st/odd_prostitute_raffle;_ylt=AqM6Q2z0Sy4knTN3.bP21Hn tiBIF

[samanthajane13]

U.S. cops recover Hitler bookmark stolen in Spain
Wed Nov 26, 6:49 pm ET

PHOENIX (Reuters) – U.S. police recovered a stolen bookmark once reportedly given to Adolf Hitler by his mistress Eva Braun and arrested a man in a sting operation, authorities said on Wednesday.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said officers arrested Christian Popescu, 37, outside a coffee shop in Bellevue, Washington, on November 25, as he allegedly attempted to sell the 18-carat gold bookmark to undercover agents.

The bookmark was reportedly given as a present to Hitler by his long-term mistress in 1943 to console the German dictator after the German defeat at the hands of Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad, ICE said in a news release.

It was among several items that had been due to be sold off by an auction house in Madrid, Spain, in October 2002, which were stolen by thieves.

Popescu made an initial appearance in court on Wednesday, charged with sale or receipt of stolen goods. He faces up to ten years in jail and a $250,000 fine if convicted.

(Reporting by Tim Gaynor, editing by Todd Eastham)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081126/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_crime_usa_bookmark;_ylt=AiPG1npkS8duQMrpb Y5eX8_tiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Coffee stop leads Ark. police to cocaine arrest
Mon Dec 1, 3:45 pm ET

BENTONVILLE, Ark. – Arkansas sheriff's deputies said they arrested a man needing a little bit more of a boost to go with his morning coffee. Deputies said the man parked next to their unmarked cruiser Tuesday outside of a Starbucks in Bentonville.

Deputies said they saw the man take a sniff of a white substance off of a small spoon before going inside the coffee shop.

The deputies confronted the man, who initially denied the substance was cocaine. Later, deputies say he admitted to taking the drug and allowed deputies to search his car. The deputies say they found three grams of suspected cocaine in the vehicle and on him.

The man faces charges of possession of a controlled substance and was taken to the Benton County Jail.

He was later released from custody on a citation.

___

Information from: Benton County Daily Record, http://www.nwanews.com//dailyrecord/


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081201/ap_on_fe_st/odd_cocaine_and_coffee;_ylt=AlghhFPIqe2n.iXc.9BGeP 3tiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Upset over pet, man stabs bureaucrat, wife
By David Dolan David Dolan – Mon Nov 24, 12:33 pm ET



TOKYO (Reuters) – A Japanese man upset by the death of his pet turned himself in after fatally stabbing a bureaucrat and his wife, Japanese police and media said on Sunday.

Police were searching the house of a 46-year-old man who said he murdered a former vice minister for health and welfare, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department said.

Kyodo news said the man also admitted to the fatal stabbing of the 66-year-old bureaucrat's wife, although the police spokesman was unable to confirm that.

Takehiko Yamaguchi and his 61-year-old wife, Michiko, were found dead at their home with stab wounds to the chest on Tuesday, Kyodo News said.

Also Tuesday, the wife of another former health and welfare bureaucrat was seriously stabbed at the entrance to her home by a man pretending to be making a delivery, domestic media reported.

Her husband, who had also been vice minister, was not home at the time, according to media reports.

Japanese police and media originally believed the stabbings may have been a backlash against former employees of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, due to widespread resentment over the government's handling of the national pension system.

However, the man who turned himself in to police said he was upset over the death of a pet, Kyodo said.

"I was angry because my pet was killed in a public welfare center," Kyodo quoted the man as saying.

The police spokesman could not confirm the comment, but did say the found "several" survival knives after searching his car.

While Japan still has relatively low crime rates, the country has been shocked in recent years by several grisly stabbings.

In June, a man who said he was tired of life went on a stabbing rampage in Tokyo's crowded shopping district of Akihabara, killing seven people and wounding a dozen others.

(Editing by David Fox)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081124/od_nm/us_stabbing;_ylt=AizIsIM6.tkFjZgii6oCSj0SH9EA

[samanthajane13]

Bra for the boys an online bestseller in Japan
Tue Nov 25, 10:25 pm ET

TOKYO (Reuters) – Who said bras are only for women? A Japanese online lingerie retailer is selling bras for cross-dressing men and they've quickly become one of its most popular items.

Since launching two weeks ago on Rakuten, a major Japanese web shopping mall, the Wishroom shop has sold over 300 men's bras for 2,800 yen ($30) each. The shop also stocks men's panties, as well as lingerie for women.

"I like this tight feeling. It feels good," Wishroom representative Masayuki Tsuchiya told Reuters as he modeled the bra, which can be worn discreetly under men's clothing.

Wishroom Executive Director Akiko Okunomiya said she was surprised at the number of men who were looking for their inner woman.

"I think more and more men are becoming interested in bras. Since we launched the men's bra, we've been getting feedback from customers saying 'wow, we'd been waiting for this for such a long time'," she said.

But the bra, available in black, pink and white, is not an easy sell for all men.

The underwear has stirred a heated debate online with more than 8,000 people debating the merits of men wearing bras in one night on Mixi, Japan's top social network website.

($1=94.34 Yen)

(Reporting by Toshi Maeda, Editing by Miral Fahmy)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081126/od_nm/us_men_bra;_ylt=AkU_OPuieA4pulnuOI_X6f4SH9EA

[samanthajane13]

Amsterdam closes cannabis shops
By Aaron Gray-Block Aaron Gray-block – Fri Nov 21, 3:19 pm ET

ALMERE, Netherlands (Reuters) – Almost a fifth of Amsterdam's popular marijuana-selling coffee shops will be closed down because they are too close to schools, the city council said Friday.

Of the 228 coffee shops in the Dutch capital, 43 must close by the end of 2011 because they are within 250 meters of a school, the council said.

The Dutch coffee shop policy has come under fresh criticism after the Dutch cities of Bergen op Zoom and Roosendaal, located near the Belgian border, said they will close all their shops within two years to combat drug tourism and crime.

Amsterdam, home to a quarter of the nation's cannabis coffee shops that are a big draw for tourists, joined with 32 other Dutch mayors or city council representatives Friday to back a continuation of the Dutch "soft drugs" policy of toleration.

But the mayors also called for better rules on the sale and trade of cannabis. They stressed that while a ban on marijuana use was not a solution to the problem, the use of the drug should be discouraged.

The policy on soft drugs in the Netherlands, one of the most liberal in Europe, allows for the sale of marijuana at coffee shops, which the Dutch have allowed to operate for decades, and possession of less than 5 grams (0.18 oz).

But the cultivation or supply of the drug to the coffee shops, the so-called "back door" of the business, is banned.

Annemarie Jorritsma, Almere Mayor, said mayors agreed to push for a system of "heavily regulated toleration."

"Make it transparent who is dealing, who is delivering it to the coffee shops and take care that there are no criminals entering there, which they are at the moment," she said.

Gerd Leers, Mayor of Maastricht which earlier angered Belgian authorities by proposing to move its city center coffee shops to the edge of the city, said 60 percent of the people who visit the city's coffee shops each year are French or Belgian.

He added that the problem is not the fact the Netherlands has coffee shops, the problem is that other countries don't.

Arjam Roskam, a spokesman for the Cannabis Retailers Association which represents 100 members, said the proposals from the mayors were a step in the right direction.

The government will finalize next year an evaluation of its soft and hard drugs policy and a Justice Ministry spokesman said the proposals from the mayors may be taken into consideration.

(Editing by Diana Abdallah)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081121/od_nm/us_dutch_marijuana

[samanthajane13]

Top 10 stupid gifts from chickens to toilet golf



NEW YORK (Reuters) – Short of gift ideas for that person who really does have everything? Then how about an underwear repair kit or maybe a Barack Obama "Yes, We Can" can opener?

Web site Stupid.com, which claims finding a truly stupid gift is an art form, on Tuesday unveiled its second annual list of the top 10 "stupidest" holiday gifts for 2008.

"2008 might have been a bad year for the economy, but it was a great year for stupidity," said Stupid.com's founder Gary Apple. "Weird products seemed to come out of the woodwork this year. There was almost too much stupidity to choose from!"

Last year the list featured a Hillary Clinton nutcracker, a Mother Teresa breath spary, and portable mistletoe with a suction cup to attach to your forehead.

Here is New York-based stupid.com's top 10 list for 2008 (http://www.stupid.com/fun) which is not endorsed by Reuters:

1. Screaming Chicken, The World's Most Annoying Toy:

This rubber chicken doesn't squeak or squawk. It screams.

2. Wealth Redistribution 2008 Holiday Ornament:

This tree ornament announces that the ornament that used to be there has been removed and given to someone who needs it more. The Redistribution Holiday Ornament will let everyone know you're spreading the wealth whether you want to or not.

3. Mini Guitar Hero:

This miniature version of that mega-hit game is barely 6-inches long but you can still rock out to songs by Queen, Cheap Trick, Nirvana, and The Police.

4. Potty Putter:

Why waste time on the toilet, when you can use it to get ready for the fairway? Potty Putter contains everything you need for an exciting round of golf without leaving your seat including a putting green for around the toilet, mini putter, flag stick and two golf balls.

5. Wasabi Flavored Gumballs:

These potent little green confections offer an intense explosion of wasabi. Strangely, the gum is actually delicious.

6. Men's Underwear Repair Kit:

In this troubled economy, don't throw away your old underwear but repair it with the Men's Underwear Repair Kit. This handy, inexpensive kit provides everything you need to get your unsightly undershorts back into presentable shape.

7. Obama "Yes We Can" Opener:

Every election spawns some interesting products, but this has to be one of the stupidest. To Obama fans, the "Yes, We Can" opener, seizing on his campaign refrain, could be a treasure.

8. "How To Tie A Tie" Tie:

Still struggle with your tie? This stylish tie has simple knot-tying instructions printed right on the front. Just follow the six step-by-step diagrams and you'll look as dashing as George Clooney in seconds.

9. 2009 Dog Poop Calendar:

Each month features a spectacular landscape or breathtaking tableau, but somewhere in every shot there's a pile of dog poop. Distasteful? You bet it is, but the contrast between the beautiful photography and dog poop is remarkable.

10. Pole Dancer Alarm Clock:

When the alarm goes off, dance music plays and disco lights flash. At the same time, a buxom blonde dancer gyrates around a pole under the spinning disco ball.

(Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081202/od_nm/us_stupid;_ylt=AlS.a_aRIOHJUua_C.d3hHcSH9EA

[samanthajane13]

Mexican transvestite fiesta rocks indigenous town
By Mica Rosenberg Mica Rosenberg – Sun Nov 23, 3:14 pm ET

JUCHITAN, Mexico (Reuters) – Attaching flowers to a ribbon headdress, pulling a lace slip under an embroidered skirt and draping a necklace of gold coins over his head, Pedro Martinez puts the finishing touches on the traditional costume of Zapotec women in southern Mexico.

"When I get all dressed up like this my father always says, 'Oh Pedro! You look just like your mother when she was young," beams Martinez, 28, gluing on fake eyelashes in front of a mirror.

Martinez spent two hours in the hair salon he owns getting ready for this weekend's festival of the "muxes," indigenous gays and transvestites in the town of Juchitan who have found a haven of acceptance in Mexico's macho society.

The muxes (pronounced moo-shes), mostly of ethnic Zapotec descent, are widely respected in the southern town where a dance and parade that crowns a transvestite queen and celebrates the harvest has been held annually for the last 33 years.

Anthropologists say the tradition of blurring genders among Mexico's indigenous population is centuries old but has been revived in recent decades due to the gay pride movement.

Several dozen muxes were blessed by a Catholic priest at a mass before joining visiting transvestites and other townsfolk at a raucous party on Saturday night. The muxes wore either traditional local costumes or ball gowns and high heels.

The beer-fuelled fiesta continued into Sunday at a parade through town.

Some of the muxes, a Zapotec word derived from the Spanish for woman, or "mujer", dress as women year round and others are gays who only don women's clothes at the annual party, or not at all.

The area around Juchitan, a laid-back town near the Pacific, has a history of women playing leading roles in public life.

"The legend here is that mothers pray for a gay son who can take care of them when they are old," theatre director Sergio Santamaria, 56, said over a traditional breakfast of iguana soup and sweet corn tamales.

DUAL-GENDERED GODS

Native people in the Americas with ambiguous gender were often regarded as wise and talented, said Rosemary Joyce, a professor of anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley.

"They were seen as have having a kind of spiritual power that comes from being more like the ancestors who are mothers and fathers at once, and more like the divinities who may be dual gendered," Joyce said.

Anthropologists have found evidence of mixed gender identities across Mesoamerica, from Mayan corn and moon gods that are both male and female and Aztec priests who ritually cross dressed.

The Spanish conquest in the 16th century and the Catholic Church snuffed out much of that tolerance.

"The colonizing power was very rigid about sex. They came in and rapidly suppressed all these practices, which doesn't mean they went away. It means they went underground," Joyce said.

While homosexuality has long been accepted in Juchitan, it is only recently that muxes feel secure enough to cross-dress and they have taken on causes like AIDS education, since the region has one of the highest HIV rates in the state of Oaxaca.

"There have always been muxes, but before they would wear just a dress shirt with a feminine touch, like gold buttons. The transvestites are the new generation," said Santamaria.

(Editing by Kieran Murray)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081123/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_mexico_transvestites;_ylt=AoEQBkjK3tbcTbi 9YeOSjnedk3QF

[samanthajane13]

Ugandan men warned of 'booby trap'
Fri Nov 28, 2:04 pm ET

KAMPALA (AFP) – Uganda's police warned male bar-goers to keep their noses clean after a probe found a gang of robbers had been using women with chloroform smeared on their chests to knock their victims unconscious.

"They apply this chemical to their chest. We have found victims in an unconscious state," Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) spokesman Fred Enanga told AFP.

"You find the person stripped totally naked and everything is taken from him," he said. "And the victim doesn't remember anything. He just remembers being in the act of romancing."

Enanga, who explained that several types of heavy sedatives had been used, said he first came across the practice last year when an apprehended thief named Juliana Mukasa made a clean breast of the matter.

"She is a very dangerous lady," the official said.

While early investigations suggest that the gang may consist of dozens of members, the source of the sedatives remains unknown.

"We don't know exactly how they get these materials," Enanga added. "That is something that our investigations must crack."

He called on men, particularly travelling businessmen who tend to carry a lot of cash, to take caution.

"It's a serious situation and people have to be aware."



http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081128/od_afp/ugandacrimeoffbeat_081128190419;_ylt=AtoS4w.jjC68u RT2D.hGGt2gOrgF

[samanthajane13]

French say they need biggest condoms
Fri Nov 28, 8:41 am ET

BERLIN (Reuters) – The French say they need the largest condoms in Europe while Greeks get by on smaller ones, according to a Europe-wide study by a German consultancy that provides advice on condoms.

The study by the Singen-based Institute of Condom Consultancy was done by asking 10,500 men in 25 countries to measure their penis and enter the number into a database.

The results show Frenchmen on average claim to need 15.48-cm (6.09-inch) long condoms, about 3 cm longer than Greeks, whose condom-size requirement was the most modest.

Jan Vinzenz Krause, the institute's director, told Reuters Friday the data was collected over a period of eight months.

He did not want to comment on how honest he thought the Frenchmen had been in reporting the data.

The survey was aimed at educating youngsters about the importance of effective contraception.

The institute also offers online condom-size advice and hosts "**** Your Condom" -- an annual fair organised in cooperation with the national Aids Trust -- with the aim of educating teens about sexually transmitted diseases.

Krause was in the spotlight in the past when he produced a prototype of the "spray-on condom" -- an aerosol can which contains latex that creates a perfectly fitting condom. But the idea was not developed further.

(Reporting by Josie Cox; editing by Michael Roddy)



http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081128/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_germany_condoms;_ylt=AoXTQ_dlpVoRniGi0gK4 9VntiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Message in bottle tossed off NJ in '69 found in NC
Tue Dec 2, 9:19 pm ET

NORTH HALEDON, N.J. – A message in a bottle tossed into the ocean off Barnegat Bay has turned up in North Carolina — 39 years later. The note was sealed in a Schaefer beer bottle. It was dated Aug. 17, 1969 and read: "If found notify the North Haledon Fire Co. 2."

Mark Ciarmello and his 3-year-old daughter found the bottle along a beach in Corolla, N.C., in October. That's about 400 miles from where it was released.

The Downingtown, Pa., resident said he got on his cell phone, called North Haledon and e-mailed photos of the bottle to the firefighters.

No one is sure who tossed the bottle. But firefighters suspect it was during one of the many fishing trips that they used to take years ago.

___

Information from: The Record of Bergen County, http://www.northjersey.com


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081203/ap_on_fe_st/odd_message_in_bottle;_ylt=AjJX1WQ..vpAgbD8vnnyMO_ tiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Ohio artist offers legless Santa and crazed tree
Wed Dec 3, 5:03 pm ET

OBERLIN, Ohio – A northern Ohio artist known for envelope-pushing holiday displays is back — with Santa Claus in a wheelchair being pushed down stairs by a crazed tree.

The Santa in Keith McGuckin's installation at the Oberlin Public Library has no legs because of an accident involving alcohol and some power lines. An accompanying narrative explains that the tree later goes off to a strip club with money from Santa's Salvation Army kettle.

McGuckin's holiday creations have been raising eyebrows for years. His 2006 gingerbread Nazis drew so many complaints he was forced to remove them from a hardware store window.

Library director Darren McDonough said the latest display is staying. He jokes that if a library doesn't have something that offends, it's not doing its job.

___

Information from: The Chronicle-Telegram, http://www.chronicletelegram.com


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081203/ap_on_fe_st/odd_holiday_display_artist;_ylt=AricQRuqYBTWI09ZF3 Bp64LtiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Read my lips... China again orders no lip-synching
Thu Dec 4, 1:33 am ET

BEIJING (Reuters) – China has told artists on its annual top-rating TV gala show on Chinese New Year's Eve not to lip-synch their songs, local media reported on Thursday, a controversy that overshadowed the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.

A mainstay of state-run programming since the 1980s, "CCTV Spring Festival Gala" attracts hundreds of millions of viewers to watch hours of comedy sketches and kitsch song-and-dance acts often heavily imbued with patriotism and themes emphasising national harmony.

But the show has also come under heavy criticism in recent years for being overcommercial and not keeping up with the times, and for trotting out presenters who fluff their lines and celebrities who do a poor show of miming their way through songs.

Officials from China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) had demanded producers pick "real" singers, along with other directives about arranging songs with "healthy" lyrics, a report posted on web portal China.com.cn said.

"Firstly, make real singing as the benchmark, and choose talented performers who can truly sing. Firmly put an end to 'miming'," Zhao Huayong, a SARFT official, said in a notice posted on the watchdog's website (http://www.sarft.gov.cn ).

Zhang Ziyi, one of the few Chinese actresses to break into Hollywood, came under fire from Internet users and local media for doing a shabby job of miming on the last show in February.

The SARFT notice follows a move by China's Culture Ministry to formally ban lip-synching and to revoke the performance licences of repeat offenders, local media reported earlier this month.

Chinese Olympic organisers were also lambasted after they admitted a nine-year-old girl lip-synched during the opening ceremony of August's Beijing Olympics in place of the real singer who was rejected because of her appearance.

(Reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing by Nick Macfie)


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[samanthajane13]

Iran cracks down on "satanic" clothes
Thu Dec 4, 5:47 am ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Police have arrested 49 people this week in a northern Iranian city during a crackdown on "satanic" clothes, IRNA news agency reported on Thursday.

The measures are the latest in a country-wide campaign against Western cultural influence in the Islamic Republic, where strict dress codes are enforced.

"Police confronted rascals and thugs who appeared in public wearing satanic fashions and unsuitable clothing," Qaemshahr city police commander Mahmoud Rahmani told IRNA.

Rahmani also said that five barber shops were shut and 20 more warned for "promoting Western hairstyles."

In the past, such crackdowns have lasted a few weeks or months, but the current campaign was launched in 2007 and has not let up.

It includes measures against men sporting spiky "Western" hairstyles or women wearing tight trousers and high boots.

Women are supposed to wear clothing that covers their hair and disguises the shape of their bodies. But some, particularly in cities, wear headscarves pushed back well beyond their hairlines and sport tight-fitting outfits.

Some analysts say the authorities fear such open acts of defiance against the Islamic Republic's values could escalate if they go unchecked. This worries them when Iran is under pressure from the West over its disputed nuclear work, they say.

"Some individuals, not knowing what culture they are imitating, put on clothing that was designed by the enemies of this country," Rahmani said.

"The enemies of this country are trying to divert our youth and breed them the way they want and deprive them of a healthy life," he added.

Rahmani did not say how the offenders would be punished. Usual penalties are a warning or a fine.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has in the past suggested Iran's enemies may try to stage a "soft" or "velvet" revolution by infiltrating corrupt culture or ideas.

(Reporting by Hashem Kalantari, Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Catherine Bosley and Kevin Liffey)


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[samanthajane13]

Mexican sits in truck 14 hours as refuses cop bribe

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) – A Mexican motorist staged a 14-hour sit-in protest in his truck after police tried to make him pay a huge bribe for driving through a red traffic light, rather than impose a smaller official fine.

Jesus Martinez said police tried to extort 8,000 pesos (400 pounds) from him after he ran a red light in the early hours of Wednesday in the northern city of Monterrey, Mexican media reported. The official fine for failing to stop at a red light in Monterrey is about $30 (20 pounds).

Martinez, who denied being drunk, sat in his truck and refused to budge until cops gave in and issued him with a formal ticket on Wednesday afternoon. He stayed put even when his Hummer was towed to a police vehicle pound.

Officers eventually issued him with a series of traffic fines including one for refusing a drink-driving test, but local government lawyers agreed Martinez could lodge a formal complaint.

"I asked for my ticket and the officer asked me for 8,000 pesos, told me I was drunk, I was missing documents, that I needed a medical exam," Martinez told El Norte newspaper.

"The officer saw my Hummer and said to himself 'I'll get thousands of pesos out of this one'."

While Martinez sat in his truck, relatives and friends blocked one of Monterrey's main avenues for about 90 minutes to protest at rising police corruption in Mexico.

Badly-paid Mexican police have long supplemented their incomes with traffic bribes but Mexicans say corruption is now out of control as many police are in the pay of drug gangs.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott, Editing by Sandra Maler)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081204/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_mexico_police;_ylt=AsZxcN36QhEkgX.4bqVbZn ftiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Aussies mull breath-test before voting
Thu Dec 4, 1:38 am ET

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Politicians in Australia's most populous state could be breath-tested for alcohol before voting on laws after a series of late-night incidents that have embarrassed the centre-left government.

New South Wales state lawmaker Andrew Fraser resigned from his conservative opposition frontbench role after shoving a female colleague in the wake of Christmas party celebrations.

"Breath test this mob," said a front page headline in Sydney's mass-selling Daily Telegraph newspaper. State police minister Matt Brown was dumped from his portfolio in September after allegedly "dirty" dancing in his underwear over the chest of a female colleague after a drunken post-budget office party.

Conservative Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell said he would support alcohol breath tests for drunkenness for lawmakers before they entered parliament, while Green MPs John Kaye and Lee Rhiannon also backed the plan, along with the parliament's speaker.

"Honestly, if you are going to have breathalysers for people driving cranes you should have breathalysers for people writing laws," Kaye told the Telegraph.

(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Valerie Lee)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081204/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_australia_breathtest;_ylt=Apieusc2_Bbbn_p fycrrE6HtiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Customer spots cook butchering deer in pizzeria
Wed Dec 3, 9:26 pm ET

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A Pennsylvania pizzeria insists venison is not on the menu — despite the impression a customer may have gotten when she saw one of the cooks butchering a deer in the shop's kitchen.

The manager of Stromboli Pizza in Allentown says a customer saw one of the restaurant cooks carving up a deer Tuesday. But John Okumus says the venison was not intended for the store.

He says he shot a doe during a hunt and left the carcass in the store's kitchen for pickup by a friend. Okumus says a customer complained to the city health department after seeing a cook mistakenly butcher the deer.

The department investigated the incident but did not issue a citation.

___

Information from: The Morning Call, http://www.mcall.com


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[samanthajane13]

The one that didn't get away yields long-lost ring
Wed Dec 3, 9:37 pm ET

BUNA, Texas – The one that didn't get away held an unlikely surprise for a Texas man. The blue-stoned class ring of Joe Richardson, engraved with his name, turned up inside an 8-pound bass 21 years after he lost it while fishing on Lake Sam Rayburn.

"My first reaction was — you gotta be kidding," he said Wednesday.

The fisherman who discovered the tarnished ring inside his catch contacted Richardson on Nov. 28 in Buna, about 100 miles northeast of Houston, after tracking him down with help from the Internet.

His fisherman hero asked to remain anonymous.

Richardson, 41, said he lost the ring about two weeks after his 1987 graduation from Universal Technical Institute in Houston. His mom had bought it for about $200 and wasn't pleased when it went missing.

As a mechanic, Richardson said he doesn't wear jewelry so he tucked the undamaged ring away.

"I have not cleaned it," he said. "I told my wife I don't want to clean it."

___

Information assist from KFDM-TV: http://www.kfdm.com


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[samanthajane13]

Woman accused of stealing neighbor's decorations
Tue Dec 2, 9:19 pm ET

MANCHESTER, Md. – A woman was facing misdemeanor theft charges for allegedly swiping Christmas decorations from her neighbor's lawns. The county sheriff's office said a 51-year-old woman was found Monday in her Manchester home with decorations from at least three area homes.

Authorities said the investigation began about 4:30 a.m., after a woman reported a loud noise and discovered her 4-foot-tall Santa and snowman had been taken from her yard.

After deputies went to her home, another neighbor who was walking her dog reported that she, too, had been targeted.

The woman was awaiting a bail review hearing.

___

Information from: Carroll County (Md.) Times, http://www.carrollcounty.com/

[samanthajane13]

NJ woman sues Pa. sports bar for toilet seat break

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A New Jersey woman is suing a Pennsylvania sports bar and restaurant, saying she got stuck inside a toilet bowl for 20 minutes when the seat broke. Kathleen Hewko, of Delran Township, said she was in the bathroom at Starters Pub in an Allentown suburb when the handicapped toilet seat she was sitting on cracked and dumped her into the bowl.

Hewko claims in the lawsuit filed in November in U.S. District Court in Allentown that she had hip surgery prior to the Nov. 19, 2006 incident and was re-injured when the seat broke.

Her Philadelphia attorney, John Cirrinicione, says Hewko is not obese — she weighs 130 to 140 pounds.

The suit names Starters and Kohler Co., which made the toilet seat.

Representatives from both companies said they couldn't comment.

___

Information from: The Morning Call, http://www.mcall.com


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081204/ap_on_fe_st/odd_stuck_in_toilet

[samanthajane13]

Paris gripped by 'SarkObama' poster mystery
Tue Dec 2, 12:21 pm ET



PARIS (AFP) – Mysterious posters of French President Nicolas Sarkozy inspired by an iconic Barack Obama election image have sprung up across Paris, sparking a media guessing game about the origin of the campaign.

Modelled closely on a pop-art design by the US street artist Shepard Fairey in support of the Democrat's presidential bid, the dozens of posters pasted up in Paris last week show Sarkozy against a red, white and blue backdrop.

Each spells out a progressive policy goal -- "Making polluters pay?", "Producing clean and sustainable energy for Europe?" or "Saving each household 1,000 euros a year?" -- above Obama's slogan "Yes, We can".

Suspecting a pro-Sarkozy publicity stunt, French news website L'Express has launched a reader appeal to try to identify the poster gang, who responded with a trail of online clues.

They have posted photo galleries of themselves -- faces masked behind the "SarkObama" images -- plastering the posters at emblematic sites across Paris, on the file sharing websites FlickR and Dailymotion.

Both Sarkozy's office and the governing right-wing UMP party deny being behind the poster campaign.

"We would have liked it to be us, because we like the message," said the head of the UMP's youth section, Benjamin Lancar.

Several members of Sarkozy's camp have sought to draw a parallel between the election of a black president in the United States and the French vote for Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant.

The French leader has repeatedly sued media and commercial outfits over unlicensed use of his image -- most recently when he tried unsuccessfully to block the sale of a Nicolas Sarkozy voodoo doll.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081202/od_afp/franceuspoliticsoffbeat_081202172123;_ylt=AtmIpQHK obpfcxVxDlqsNXegOrgF

[samanthajane13]

Greenpeace behind Paris 'SarkObama' poster mystery
Wed Dec 3, 9:12 am ET

PARIS (AFP) – Greenpeace admitted Wednesday it was behind a mystery poster campaign that saw walls across Paris plastered with pictures of President Nicolas Sarkozy modelled on an iconic Barack Obama election image.

The campaign sought to raise awareness of UN climate talks under way in Poland and the imminent adoption by the EU of plans to fight global warming which, "unfortunately, does not interest many people," the environmental group said.

Modelled closely on a pop-art design by the US street artist Shepard Fairey in support of the Democrat's presidential bid, the dozens of posters pasted up in Paris last week show Sarkozy against a red, white and blue backdrop.

Each spells out a policy goal -- "Making polluters pay?", "Producing clean and sustainable energy for Europe?" or "Saving each household 1,000 euros a year?" -- above Obama's slogan "Yes, We can".

Suspecting a pro-Sarkozy publicity stunt, French news website L'Express launched a reader appeal to try to identify the poster gang, who responded with a trail of online clues.

They posted photo galleries of themselves -- faces masked behind the "SarkObama" images -- plastering the posters at emblematic sites across Paris, on the file sharing websites FlickR and Dailymotion.

Greenpeace France head Pascal Husting said Sarkozy, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, was failing to push through an adequate European climate change package.

"He is letting (EU) member states get bogged down in the defence of their short-term national interests instead of emphasising the collective interests and the imperatives in the struggle against climate change," he said in a statement.

Among rich regions, the European Union has set down the most ambitious plan to fight climate change, saying developed economies should cut their emissions by 25-40 percent by 2020 over 1990 levels.

It has already promised to unilaterally reduce its own contribution of greenhouse gases by 20 percent by 2020, but this plan has been weakened by objections within its own ranks, with Poland and Italy fearing it will inflict too high an economic price.


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[samanthajane13]

Malaysian state chief to face nude stalkers over rent upset: report
Tue Dec 2, 12:27 pm ET

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Malaysian activists are threatening to strip naked and "stalk" a state chief minister in protest against a hike in public housing rental rates, drawing criticism from Muslim leaders, reports said Tuesday.

Ramlan Abu Bakar of the Malaysian People's Reform Movement (Reformis), whose members are men aged between 33 and 50, said they have formed a "Dare to be Nude Squad" to carry out the protest, the Star daily reported.

"We wanted a police permit to strip in front of the state secretariat as a sign of protest but we were denied it, so now we will stalk the (chief minister) and go butt-naked when we get the chance," Ramlan told the paper.

He said the group was protesting the state government's decision in July to more than double the rental of low cost housing in Malaysia's opposition-controlled Selangor state, from 124 ringgit (34 dollars per month) to 250 ringgit, saying most families could not afford the rental hike.

Conservative Islamic groups in this Muslim-majority nation have slammed the nude protest plan.

The hardline Islamic party PAS, which is part of the opposition alliance, criticised the plans earlier this month, with its spiritual leader Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat saying only "uncivilised" people would resort to such an act.

"Even an animal like a cow which is stark naked, God created a tail to hide its genitals and here we are talking about human beings who have been given a mind," he told state news agency Bernama.

Ramlan said his group had also filed a police report and lodged a complaint with the state's graft busters over the chief minister's hosting of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's Keadilan party congress in the state last weekend.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081202/od_afp/malaysiapropertyprotestnudeoffbeat_081202172750;_y lt=Au6orpDfLY5f17yyMYiEu0egOrgF

[samanthajane13]

Thief offers damages for stolen moped... 25 years on


VIENNA (AFP) – An anonymous thief in western Austria has offered 1,400 euros (1,770 dollars) in damages to the former owner of a moped they stole... 25 years ago.

Police in Bregenz said they had received an anonymous letter and 1,400 euros in cash from a person asking them to deliver it "to the victim, in a penitent bid to make amends."

"In 1983, I stole a moped from outside the Metro cinema," the letter said.

"I wasn't aware at the time of the psychological and material consequences of such a crime," it added, requesting the police "to kindly find the details of the victim of this crime in their files."

If this was not possible, the money should go to a local social service, added the letter, which arrived in the police station mailbox Tuesday morning.

Police said they kept their files for at least 40 years and hoped to able to bring the former moped owner a surprise present for Christmas.


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[samanthajane13]

Egypt police in dark after 400 lamp posts stolen
Tue Dec 2, 12:27 pm ET

CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian police are trying to track down hundreds of street lamps worth almost a million dollars after they were stolen from a road in the north of the country, local media reported on Tuesday.

The 400 lamp posts, worth five million Egyptian pounds (905,000 dollars), were stolen from a motorway outside the Mediterranean city of Alexandria where they were waiting to be installed, the Egyptian Mail daily said.

A security official described the theft as unprecedented and police have asked for workshops to report anyone trying to sell the lamps as scrap in the hope of shedding light on the disappearance.


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[samanthajane13]

Jordanian duped into paying $1.2 mln in 'magic' gold trick
Wed Dec 3, 11:43 am ET

AMMAN (AFP) – Three Jordanians duped a man into paying them more than one million dollars to extract gold from his Amman farm by "using magic", police said on Wednesday.

"The three men were arrested two weeks ago. One of them claimed he was a magician from another Arab country, and even used a non-Jordanian accent," police spokesman Mohammed Khatib told AFP.

"They have deceived the poor old man into believing that large amounts of gold could be found in his farm by using magic."

During the past two years, he paid the three more than 1.2 million dollars, "thinking that his money was going to be more than doubled after the alleged gold extraction," according to Khatib.

"He complained to police after the suspects, who are currently being prosecuted, disappeared and stopped contacting him."

Khatib did not say whether the victim would get his money back.


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[samanthajane13]

Orthodox priests join Russian cops in fighting traffic violations
Wed Dec 3, 9:56 am ET

MOSCOW (AFP) – Orthodox priests are teaming up with Russian traffic police to lecture sinful drivers and even pour holy water on dangerous intersections, the Noviye Izvestia daily newspaper reported on Wednesday.

In the town of Kuznetsk in Russia's Penza region, 700 kilometres (430 miles) southeast of Moscow, an Orthodox priest accompanies traffic police on patrols and gives violators spiritual advice instead of fines, the paper said.

"The effect has exceeded all of our expectations," Sergei Logov, head of the Kuznetsk traffic police, was quoted as saying. He added that accidents had been reduced by a third since the programme began.

Separately, in a campaign organised last month in the east Siberian city of Chita, priests gave drivers icons of St. Nicholas, considered to be the protector of travelers.

Noviye Izvestia also reported that priests on Russia's far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula had sprinkled holy water at dangerous intersections as part of a road safety campaign called "You're Never Late for a Date with God."

Religion is kept separate from the state under Russia's constitution but the historically dominant Orthodox Church has emerged as a powerful political force since the collapse of the officially atheist Soviet Union.


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[samanthajane13]

Towering fraud: newspaper steals Empire State Building
Wed Dec 3, 12:06 pm ET

NEW YORK (AFP) – City crime is one thing, but a New York tabloid upped the ante Wednesday -- stealing the entire Empire State Building.

The Daily News claimed it had pocketed the 102-storey Art Deco icon by filing fraudulent documents with the city register to expose New York's dangerously lax system for recording property.

According to the News, the "heist" took just 90 minutes. They then returned the building to its real owners, Empire State Land Associates.

The phoney documents were made even more laughable by appearing in the names of legendary bank robber Willie Sutton and original King Kong movie star Fay Wray.

"The massive ripoff illustrates a gaping loophole in the city's system for recording deeds, mortgages and other transactions," the News said.

"Of course, stealing the Empire State Building wouldn't go unnoticed for long, but it shows how easy it is for con artists to swipe more modest buildings right out from under their owners. Armed with a fraudulent deed, they can take out big mortgages and disappear," the News warned.


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[samanthajane13]

Lawmaker red-faced after hanging up twice on Obama



WASHINGTON (AFP) – A top Republican lawmaker was left red-faced after twice hanging up the phone on president-elect Barack Obama -- fearing he was a prank caller trying to catch her out on a radio show.

"Unfortunately, yes, I did hang up on president-elect Obama twice," Florida congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs committee told ABC television.

"This was pretty embarrassing -- it took two hangups on my part. Whoops. Sorry about that."

Ros-Lehtinen twice put the phone down on Obama, then also snubbed the president-elect's incoming White House chief of staff and former House of Representatives colleague Rahm Emanuel.

Obama finally got through to congratulate Ros-Lehtinen on her reelection after a fellow congressman was asked to phone her and alert her to her mistake, she said.

The congresswoman said that she had been mindful of what happened to Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who was deceived by a famed radio trickster in Quebec claiming to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

She said she told Obama when he finally got through that South Florida radio stations were famous for such pranks.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081204/od_afp/uspoliticsobamacall_081204194513

[samanthajane13]

Want jail credit? Just clean up blood, vomit, etc.
Wed Dec 3, 9:11 pm ET

MILWAUKEE – Milwaukee County jail inmates can knock an hour off their sentence for each hour they spend on some dirty work — cleaning up blood, feces, saliva and other bodily fluids at the House of Correction and Criminal Justice Facility.

Sheriff David Clarke said it's a common-sense approach to clean-up chores no one is eager to take on.

"Look, somebody has to do it," Clarke said. "It's cost effective because the alternative is to pay a county worker to do the job. With pay and benefits, that comes to $30 an hour."

Those who volunteer get biohazard training and protective gear.

"This isn't heart surgery and it's not like we're asking them to handle nuclear waste," Clarke said. "It's janitorial work and they do have to be trained properly because of AIDS and hepatitis."

Records show two inmates have earned time off under the program.

A 33-year-old-West Allis man convicted of fraud on a taxicab driver, disorderly conduct and criminal damage to property worked nearly 13 days off his sentence.

A 29-year-old Greenfield man convicted of fraudulently obtaining a prescription drug worked off almost 11 days.

The program has been approved by the county's judges and the state jail inspector.

The union for county workers has no objections.

"It's not a job we're going to fight to keep," said union president Kurt Zunker.

___

Information from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, http://www.jsonline.com

[samanthajane13]

Thu Dec 4, 3:07 am ET

LONDON (Reuters) – A rubbish collector in central England could have a very good Christmas if he can solve one of the biggest jigsaw puzzles going -- 10,000 pounds-worth of torn up bank notes.

Graham Hill found the large bundle of cut up 10- and 20-pound notes while emptying bins in Lincoln last May, according to the Lincolnshire Echo newspaper.

He handed the package to police, but after six months no one had claimed the notes and investigators could find no evidence that it was stolen or linked to criminal activity.

The Bank of England said it would exchange the notes for new ones if Hill could piece the money back together again.

"Providing the bank notes meet the evidence requirements, then an application for reimbursement should be successful," a central bank spokeswoman said. "In particular we look at the two serial numbers on the front of the notes."

Colleagues of Hill's are hoping he gets to work quickly.

"I just hope he pieces enough of the notes back together to get a round of drinks in at the works Christmas do," a co-worker was quoted as saying. "Christmas is only around the corner, so any bonus will be welcome."

(Reporting by Luke Baker; Editing by Ralph Boulton)


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[samanthajane13]

Eiffel Tower staircase fragment fetches half a million euros

PARIS (AFP) – A piece of the original staircase of the Eiffel Tower fetched 553,000 euros (710,000 dollars), 10 times its estimated price, in a Paris auction on Wednesday.

The 2.7-metre (nine-foot) high chunk, the third of its kind sold in a year, went to private US buyer after a tense battle between him and another interested party who both placed bids by phone, said Sotheby's auctioneers.

The spiral section was part of the flight leading from the second to the third levels of the tower. It was scaled by Gustav Eiffel himself at the inauguration in 1889, when the lift was not yet in service.

Some descendents of Eiffel were present at Wednesday's auction.

"What we are selling is a symbol," said Cecile Verdier of Sotheby's Paris. "It's more than an object, it's a piece of Paris - of the Eiffel Tower and that's the stuff of dreams."


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[samanthajane13]

A Honolulu landlord with deformed hands is accused of pressuring eviction-fearing tenants to let him administer mysterious, experimental injections.

When a four-bedroom house inhabited by 50 tenants partially collapsed in October in Honolulu, at least 10 of the residents said they had been pressured to let the property manager give them experimental "stem-cell" injections. Manager Daniel Cunningham, 56 and a de-licensed chiropractor, said he has been injecting the substance, phenol, into himself for years, to treat gnarled hands (though the hands appeared to a Honolulu Advertiser reporter to be deteriorating to the point where Cunningham wears socks over them). One man said Cunningham injected him directly into the eye, and others complained of various side effects. Cunningham ran for mayor of Honolulu this year and in the September primary received 737 votes on a platform of complaining about government's meddling into health care. [Honolulu Advertiser, 10-29-08, 11-4-08; KGMB-TV (Honolulu), 11-2-08]


http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20081123/od_notw/nwx081123xml;_ylt=AiOU_sr9TGDxgYrGHs3OrN43AIZ4

[samanthajane13]

Helicopters fly to the rescue of Swedish beetles

STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Sweden will use helicopters to come to the rescue of a small beetle thought to have disappeared but recently discovered in the northeast, regional officials said Thursday.

"About 50 burnt pine stumps, which this species of beetle is particularly fond of, will be transported by helicopter and released ... in the national parks in the region where it was observed," Tomas Rydkvist, a wildlife official in the Oesternorrland region, told AFP.

The beetle, a flatheaded pine borer or Chalcophora mariana, is shiny black and copper in colour and is about three centimetres (about an inch) long.

Rydkvist said the beetle's natural habitat is made up of open, sparse forests with lots of dead trees. Ideally the trees would have burned in a forest fire.

"We thought the species had disappeared from Sweden, as fires are better controlled nowadays. But in the summer of 2007 several specimens were observed" in Oesternorrland, Rydkvist said.

The total cost of the helicopter rescue is expected to amount to around 100,000 kronor (9,800 euros, 12,533 dollars), Rydkvist said, adding that was "not a lot of money."

"If the species disappears, we could spend all the money in the world but it wouldn't help bring it back," he said.

Rydkvist said it was hoped the operation would help to firmly reestablish the beetle in these areas.

The effort is part of government programme aimed at reducing the number of threatened species by 30 percent by 2015, Rydkvist said.


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[samanthajane13]

Cat lost in Yellowstone returned to Texas family
Tue Dec 2, 5:24 pm ET

BOZEMAN, Mont. – A cat lost in Yellowstone National Park in August has been returned to her family in Houston with the help of some West Yellowstone residents. Philip Wattenbarger and his family were camping in a trailer in the West Yellowstone area when their long-haired tabby, Fluffy, went missing on Aug. 1.

Elizabeth Ayers said the family figured the cat had been caught by a coyote. Her three young daughters, 6-year-old twins Tamara and Evelyn and 8-year-old Marisa, were sad about losing the cat.

"Tamara in particular had been very upset," Ayers said. "Every day she'd say, 'Mom, is Fluffy coming back?"

Fluffy somehow survived for about three months despite the coyotes, foxes, owls, hawks, eagles and grizzly bears that frequent the West Yellowstone area.

"It's pretty amazing," said Rick Armstrong, a West Yellowstone school guidance counselor, whose family lives north of town. "There's plenty of predators that would want to eat a little cat."

Residents in the Horse Butte area, about a mile from the campground, noticed the stray cat and started leaving food out for her. She had a harness and tag, but wouldn't let anyone get close enough to her to read it, Armstrong said.

Fluffy was apparently finding shelter in a garage.

With cold weather approaching in mid-November, Armstrong's parents, Norval and Shirley Armstrong, borrowed a live trap and baited it with cat food. Fluffy took the bait on Nov. 15.

"Five minutes later, my mother called the people in Houston," Armstrong said. "They couldn't believe it."

Ayers says Fluffy "wasn't the smarter of our two cats, so we were quite surprised. She has more skills than we expected."

Anne Kinney, a Horse Butte-area resident and retired Delta Airlines flight attendant, volunteered to accompany Fluffy home.

On Nov. 18, Kinney and Fluffy flew to Houston and met Ayers, who paid the cat's vet bill and $150 air fare.

"We were all thrilled when she got home," Ayers said. "She's my snuggle-bud. She loves to be held like a baby. She snuggles down and purrs."

___

Information from: Bozeman Daily Chronicle, http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081202/ap_on_fe_st/odd_yellowstone_cat;_ylt=AkM0bV72c7UjWXvfJnV9RkosQ E4F

[samanthajane13]

Forgot socks, adopt a koala for Christmas
By Pauline Askin Pauline Askin – Wed Dec 3, 2:54 am ET

SYDNEY (Reuters) – They're cute, they're cuddly and, in these times of financial woe, they make an affordable festive gift that's also good for the soul -- adopt a rescued koala.

The "Adopt a Wild Koala Program" has been in operation for 15 years and is a major source of funding for The Koala Hospital, the world's only medical facility dedicated to the care and preservation of the animals.

The annual cost of adopting a koala is A$40 (17 pounds) within Australia and A$50 (21 pounds) from overseas, which the hospital said goes towards the rescue and treatment of sick and injured koalas, the release of treated animals back into the wild, as well as the preservation and expansion of their habitat.

Adopters receive a certificate, a photograph of the animal, the story of how it ended up in the hospital as well as stickers and booklets about koalas and the hospital.

"It's an ideal gift, and particularly these days when kids have everything," Anne Walsh a volunteer at the Port Macquarie-based hospital told Reuters by telephone.

"I had a phone call from a lady in Singapore today who wanted to adopt five koalas for her relatives for Christmas. I've been delighted with the amount of people wanting to adopt."

Walsh said the rescued koalas are usually named after the area they were found in and the person who helped rescue them.

"We've got Westhaven Barry, Kempsey Carolina and Bonny Fire, she was caught up in a bushfire," she added.

Once they have recovered from their injuries or ailments, and are able to live in their natural habitat, the koalas are released back into the wild.

Koalas are native to Australia and are found in coastal regions of the east and south. Their staple diet is eucalyptus leaves.

(Editing by Miral Fahmy)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081203/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_koala;_ylt=ApSTZGKzH6APARrmAVHgVWLtiBIF

[samanthajane13]

RI man bags mutant, 4-clawed lady lobster
Wed Dec 3, 3:28 pm ET

NEWPORT, R.I. – A lady lobster with four claws was pulled from the deep this week in the waters off Newport. With a large crusher claw and three pincher claws — instead of the usual one — the crustacean was unlike anything 39-year-old lobsterman Patrick Marks had ever seen in his 14 years catching the creatures.

All of the lobster's excess appendages worked.

Marks trapped the mutated animal about 60 miles south of Newport and hauled her up on Monday.

Marks told the Newport Daily News he sometimes lets lobsters go out of guilt when they look at him funny.

So after showed off the multi-clawed lobster for most of the day, he let her go. She weighed 1.5 pounds and could have sold for $7.50 retail.

___

Information from: The Newport Daily News


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[samanthajane13]

Do not disturb eggs: MP reveals Britain's oddest laws
Thu Dec 4, 8:33 pm ET

LONDON (AFP) – Britons are forbidden from disturbing packs of eggs and from selling game killed on a Sunday, it was revealed Thursday by an opposition MP who condemned ministers for introducing ridiculous laws.

The day after Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government laid out its legislative agenda for the coming year, Liberal Democrat lawmaker Chris Huhne noted the stream of sometimes "completely bizarre" new offences it had created.

Since the Labour party took power in 1997 under then prime minister Tony Blair, it has created 3,600 new criminal offences, Huhne said -- adding this was "massively complicating" the job of police and the criminal justice system.

"Some of these offences are completely bizarre -- for example, the offence of causing a nuclear explosion," he told members of parliament (MPs).

"The idea that anyone might cause a nuclear explosion without killing anybody, and therefore being subject to a possible charge of murder, is extremely far-fetched."

Other new offences include "wilfully pretending to be a barrister", "disturbing a pack of eggs when instructed not to by an authorised officer" and "offering for sale a game bird killed on a Sunday or Christmas day", he said.

Huhne accused the government of doing nothing to repeal these laws. Justice minister Jack Straw asked for a full list of the ones the MP wanted removed from the statute books so that he could review them.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081205/ts_afp/britainpoliticslawoffbeat

[samanthajane13]

Tortoise thieves make quick getaway

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Ten rare and expensive tortoises have been stolen from a private museum in Singapore, its third theft in two years, local media reported on Monday.

The thieves struck on Saturday, escaping with tortoises worth S$75,000 ($49,730) that were on display at the Live Turtle and Tortoise Museum.

Three endangered radiated tortoises, one of the rarest tortoises in the world, and seven Indian star tortoises were stolen, owner Danny Tan told local media.

"I opened the tortoise museum to educate the public about tortoises, yet thefts happen. Of course I feel disappointed," Tan said.

Trade in radiated tortoises is illegal due to their endangered status, while Indian star tortoises are banned as pets in Singapore.

Police said they were investigating.

(Reporting by Kash Cheong; Editing by Alex Richardson)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090202/od_nm/us_tortoise;_ylt=ApRD4HGpPVpSyTAzkIo5oGQSH9EA

[samanthajane13]

Students fail to engineer car-dangling prank

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) – A botched university prank to suspend a car from a Vancouver bridge on Monday has left five engineering students facing criminal charges.

The University of British Columbia students were caught as they tried to lower the shell of a Volkswagen Beetle from the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge during the night.

However, the cables eventually failed, sending the car plunging into the waters of Vancouver harbor.

There were no injuries, but the students were arrested, with police recommending they be charged with criminal mischief causing more than C$5,000 in damages.

The dangling-car prank has become an annual tradition to publicize the university's engineering week. In one incident in 2001, a car was secretly suspended from San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, causing a massive traffic jam.

(Reporting Allan Dowd; editing by Rob Wilson)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090203/od_nm/us_prank;_ylt=Alwbsiv4VOZgcZLnZKhBnakSH9EA

[samanthajane13]

Dung it! Who threw away my 7-year collection?

LONDON – A British university has apologized to a Ph.D. student for throwing away his treasured, seven-year collection of lizard dung. Daniel Bennett has told Times Higher Education magazine that he had collected the dung in the Philippines while studying the rare butaan lizard, a relative of the Komodo dragon. The material was to be studied as part of his doctoral research.

Bennett said the 77-pound bag was thrown away by cleaners at his lab at Leeds University in northern England. He says the dung represented seven years' worth of field work, and its loss "left me reeling."

The university said Friday it had apologized.

Bennett says he rejected the university's compensation offer of 500 pounds ($750) and will "see them in court."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090207/ap_on_fe_st/odd_britain_lizard_excrement;_ylt=AvE6ZyOweA6uOVZ9 _HlDU83tiBIF

[samanthajane13]

British R coming — but beware of road work ahead

LUBBOCK, Texas – A hacked electronic highway sign in northwestern Texas carried an international message that seemed to predate, well, the use of electricity.

The sign Friday briefly flashed: "OMG The British R coming. They R watching you."

KCBD-TV reports the sign was in a construction area in southwest Lubbock.

A statement from Austin Bridge & Road says someone "with a questionable sense of humor" accessed the password on the message board. The portable sign that was hacked has since been removed, since a permanent exit sign has been installed.

No word yet on the culprits. Similar pranks in other states have transportation authorities worried that drivers may miss important information about upcoming road conditions.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090207/ap_on_fe_st/odd_hacked_sign;_ylt=Ami.tPnka0zdCrZGAGVeK1DtiBIF

[samanthajane13]

Fla. man issued 50 traffic citations in 1 day

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – Elvis has left the vehicle. A man was arrested on more than 50 traffic citations — all in one day. Police said Elvis Alonzo Barrett, 46, fled from police trying to stop him for a traffic violation Thursday morning. Police said he ran through red lights, crashed into another car and a fence. Police said they found crack cocaine and a crack pipe in his car.

Barrett faces several charges, including fleeing and eluding and reckless driving.

He was also issued more than 50 traffic citations on charges including speeding, running red lights, and not wearing a seat belt.

Police said Barrett has a lengthy criminal history and his driver license was suspended.

A phone number listed for him was not in service Thursday night.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090207/ap_on_fe_st/odd_bad_driver;_ylt=AtTS52SEyBMdLDWY30_iIODtiBIF

[samanthajane13]

New York's maple syrup mystery smell solved

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A mysterious, maple syrup-like odour that has periodically wafted over New York City since October 2005 has been linked to New Jersey fragrance processing plants, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Thursday.

Fragrance and food additive factories in nearby New Jersey where fenugreek seeds are processed are the "probable source" of the odour, Bloomberg told a news conference at City Hall.

The odour has attracted media attention and hundreds of complaints from city residents.

"Given the evidence, I think it's safe to say that the 'Great Maple Syrup Mystery' has finally been solved," Bloomberg said.

The city had assured residents that the odour was not harmful, but it was not able to explain its source until now.

The mystery was solved after city agencies matched complaints by their geographic location against information about winds and atmospheric conditions.

"The health department confirmed that the odour does not pose a health risk, but I am pleased to know that our ... smelling sleuths got to the bottom of this mystery," Bloomberg said.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Eric Beech)


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[samanthajane13]

UK milkman delivered cannabis with bottles of milk

LONDON – A British prosecutor says an elderly milkman supplied customers with cannabis as well as bottles of milk.

Robert Holding, 72, delivered marijuana as he made his daily rounds in the town of Burnely, in northwestern England.

Prosecutor Sarah Statham said Friday that Holding offered the drug to elderly customers suffering from aches and pain. She says the customers left Holding notes on their doorsteps to order the drug.

According to Britain's dairy industry, around 1.5 million British homes have milk delivered by a milkman. Deliveries have declined over the last 20 years.

Holding pleaded guilty to supplying the drug and was given suspended jail sentence of 36 months.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090207/ap_on_fe_st/odd_britain_marijuana_milkman;_ylt=Alzh39ly4zFuOF4 VvgeDXgrtiBIF

[samanthajane13]

60-year-old gives birth to twins?

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – A 60-year-old woman in the Western Canadian city of Calgary has given birth to twins after going to India for fertility treatments, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp reported on its website on Thursday.

The report said the twins, both boys, were seven weeks prematurely delivered by caesarean section. Though one is breathing with the help of special equipment, doctors said the twins are doing well but will be kept in hospital until they gain weight and both can breathe on their own.

The woman, originally from India, traveled back to that country for in vitro fertilization using donor eggs after being refused the treatment in Canada because of her age. The CBC said she had tried for years to get pregnant but had miscarried three times, even after surgery to correct a problem with her womb.

While unusual, a 60-year old woman giving birth is nowhere near a record. ABC News reported in July that a 72-year-old woman in India, who already had five grandchildren, gave birth to twins after in vitro fertilization, making her the world's oldest mother.

The CBC report said the Calgary woman's obstetrician thought it was a joke when she was referred to him before she showed up at his office. He is still questioning the implications of someone having children at an advanced age.

"I couldn't imagine if I was 65 having two five-year-olds running around crazily. The energy to do that is incredible," the CBC quoted the doctor as saying.

(Reporting by Scott Haggett; editing by Peter Galloway)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090205/od_nm/us_twins_odd;_ylt=AiKP5SxbydQtr1mO6SOMJbXtiBIF

[samanthajane13]

MELBOURNE (AFP) – An Australian man was caught with two live pigeons stuffed in his trousers as he got off a flight from the Middle East, authorities said Tuesday.

Customs officers body-searched the 23-year-old after he was allegedly found with two bird eggs in a vitamin container in his pocket during baggage checks at Melbourne Airport on Sunday.

"The man was taken to a private interview room and Customs and border protection officers found he was wearing tights with a live pigeon concealed in each leg," Customs said.

The man, who had come off a ten-hour flight from Dubai, was also allegedly carrying plant seeds in a money belt and eggplant samples in his bag.

"Wildlife smuggling is not only cruel to the animals involved, it poses a severe risk to the Australian environment and the health of the Australian community," said Customs wildlife spokesman Richard Janeczko.

The offences carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail and a 110,000 dollar fine (70,000 US dollars).


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090203/od_afp/australiacrimeoffbeatpigeons_20090203075118;_ylt=A rQpZXP7w60nq9UC0aRMbjigOrgF

[samanthajane13]

NY runners race to top of Empire State Building

NEW YORK (AFP) – More than 300 people from all over the world skipped the elevator at the Empire State Building Tuesday and ran up the stairs -- all 1,576 steps.

Runners competed in several groups racing from the lobby to the observation deck on the 86th floor of the iconic landmark, the tallest skyscraper in New York.

The men's winner was German Thomas Dold, 24, champion for the fourth time in a row, while Suzy Walsham from Australia won her third race in the women's category despite cutting open her lip in an accident on the ground floor.

Runners burst from the final flight of stairs onto the observation deck to find the famous view of Manhattan almost obscured in a snow storm.

But they weren't complaining.

Dold, who also claims the speed record for running backwards over 1,000 meters, collapsed joyously onto the snowy platform.

Competitors describe the annual extravaganza as a unique challenge in one of the world's most glamorous buildings.

Apart from the strain of climbing, they face the hairy initial prospect of squeezing through the doorway into the stairs at the same time as dozens of others, all of them trying to be first.

Walsham, dressed in a bright green running vest, was one of the first from the start line to the door, but got caught in the crush of women behind her and was slammed face first into a marble wall, before falling to the ground.

Once on the stairs, which are painted battleship grey and have no windows, the lack of space makes it difficult for faster runners to pass slower ones.

Scott McTaggart, from Australia, said the race is not just about running, but "staying on your feet, getting quickly into the stairwell, and then finding ways to overtake."

At the start McTaggart, 31, saw "a friend who was practically on the floor and almost trampled. I picked him up."

The race, organized by the New York Road Runners, also features a colorful cast of amateurs.

The oldest participant, 75-year-old French immigrant Ginette Bedard, wore blue eye shade and mascara and had her hair done up in a tuft for the occasion.

"I'm so happy I'm alive. I made it!" she laughed, blowing a kiss at a reporter.

"I wanted to show you could do it, no matter how old you are. Life's not sitting around on a couch and watching TV. You have to earn it."

She added with a cheeky wink: "And you know? I'm never going to get fat."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090203/od_afp/usoffbeatsportsathleticsarchitecturenewyork_200902 03230056;_ylt=Ah3FuiQa8W9fZEWXeZOqlTKgOrgF

[samanthajane13]

Australian floods wash crocodiles into streets
by Amy Coopes Amy Coopes – Wed Feb 4, 6:34 am ET



SYDNEY (AFP) – Floods ravaging northern Australia have washed crocodiles onto the streets, where one was hit by a car, authorities said in a warning to residents Wednesday.

More than 60 percent of the vast northeastern state of Queensland has been declared a disaster area, and flooding after two recent cyclones has affected almost 3,000 homes, they said.

The army has been called in to help with rescue and recovery efforts, while three reports of large crocodiles washed up from flooded rivers have come in from homes in the Gulf of Carpentaria region.

"I'm not sure if it's the same crocodile moving around -- on the three sides of Normanton there's been a large croc seen right up close to the water's edge," said mayor Joyce Zahner.

"Hopefully he'll stay in the water and the kids will stay on the land," Zahner told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

A crocodile measuring 1.6 metres (5.3 feet) long was run over by a car on a street in the city of Townsville on Tuesday, wildlife rangers said.

The croc lost a few teeth and suffered bruising but was receiving medical attention, they said.

Four Chinese tourists were rescued after their camper van was swept from a remote causeway in far northern Queensland into high waters, police said.

None of the group, which included a 75-year-old, could swim and they huddled on the vehicle's roof for more than an hour before being winched to safety suffering mild hypothermia.

In the worst flood-affected town of Ingham 2,900 homes were hit, including 50 which were totally swamped, emergency authorities said.

Dozens of people had been evacuated to emergency accommodation in a nearby school as more than 360 millimetres (14 inches) of rain fell in the 24 hours from Tuesday morning.

The damage bill is estimated at 110 million dollars (76 million US) and growing, said Neil Roberts, Queensland state's emergency services minister.

"But we won't really know the full extent of the damage until the water subsides, so that figure could double, it could treble," he said, adding that it was the worst flooding he had seen in the area in 30 years.

Fresh food supplies were flown into the westerly townships of Normanton and Karumba, which had been cut off by flood waters for a number of days.

The region is bracing for further floods, with a tropical low pressure system threatening to develop into a cyclone about 150 kilometres (93 miles) off Queensland's north coast, forecasters said.

"The conditions -- as far as meteorological conditions are concerned -- are quite favourable for the system to once again develop into a tropical cyclone," a weather bureau spokesman said.

The floods came amid a record once-in-a-century heatwave in south-eastern Australia, in which 29 houses were razed by major wildfires and up to 35 people died.

Meteorologists have warned the extreme temperatures and downpours -- a common feature of Australian summers -- would only increase as a result of climate change.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090204/od_afp/australiaweatherflood_20090204113617;_ylt=AsykTQUx PwLbTdzMGJKsW2KgOrgF

[samanthajane13]

Mystery man gives away cash in New York
by Sebastian Smith Sebastian Smith – Wed Feb 4, 8:37 pm ET



NEW YORK (AFP) – He won't say his name, hides his face, and hands cash to anyone who asks in the middle of New York.

The mystery benefactor known only as Bailout Bill sat Wednesday behind a counter in the heart of Times Square giving money to hundreds of people waiting in temperatures well below freezing.

The well-built man protected by plainclothes guards wore wraparound black glasses and a wool hat pulled low over his head.

Some people waited for more than five hours to reach a makeshift window marked "Bailout Booth" where they received at least 50 dollars, sometimes much more.

Many of those queuing were victims of the severe US economic downturn. Tens of thousands have lost their jobs in New York alone.

"I'm very appreciative. I might give some to my mother," said Leon McNeil, 25, after being handed 50 dollars. He was laid off by troubled department store Macy's last December.

News of the giveaway spread fast by phone. McNeil said that at first he couldn't believe the story.

Then he thought, "it's New York and it's Times Square."

Bailout Bill's idea is partly a publicity stunt for a new website, www.bailoutbooth.com, where you can post videos advertising possessions, services, and personal messages.

But the idea is also to help ordinary people in the same way that the US government is bailing out banks and other corporations, a spokesman, Drew Tybus said.

About 500,000 dollars will be dished out in several US cities, he said.

"Rather than getting a TV commercial during the Superbowl, the idea was to give people a chance to make some money. We all know someone who's been affected."

All people had to do was tell their problems to an assistant standing in the street with a microphone and camera.

"My mother is dying in bed," said Mario, a frail man who wore cowboy boots and carried a walking stick.

"Let's see what Bailout Bill says," the assistant replied, hugging Mario.

Bailout Bill announced: "I'm going to give 150 dollars."

A man named Curtis told Bailout Bill he was an Iraq war veteran who owed 500 dollars in rent and was unable to pay for stress medication. Both his parents were recently hospitalized, he said.

He walked off with two 50 dollar bills.

Homeless man Juan Vasquez, 45, said he was grateful for his 100 dollars.

"That should last me three days for washing my clothes, food, cigarettes. To a person who's got nothing, that's a lot," he said.

Tuesday was the "Bailout Booth's" second and last day in New York. Next it goes to Washington, Boston and Philadelphia, Tybus said.

Just who is this mystery man with the deep pockets? "Bailout Bill can't tell you his real name," Tybus said.

"We assume there's too much of a risk. Everyone knows he's got money, so, well, something could happen."

But for anyone thinking of taking the money-for-nothing concept a bit further and robbing that cash-filled booth, Tybus had a warning.

"Those guys standing around here and also in the booth -- they're off-duty cops. And they're armed."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090205/od_afp/useconomyoffbeatmoney_20090205013925;_ylt=AhGIRwrC MbSaWHHu9npw62agOrgF

[samanthajane13]

SKorean granny fails driving test 771 times

SEOUL (AFP) – A dogged South Korean grandmother has failed her driving test 771 times, police said Thursday, but a local newspaper reported she will keep trying.

The 68-year-old, identified only by her last name Cha, has taken the test almost every working day since 2005 in the southwestern city of Jeonju. She failed again Monday for the 771st time.

"It was a record-breaking number here," Choi Yong-Cheol, a police sergeant supervising the test in the city's Deokjingu district, told AFP.

"I wonder if she will try it again for a 772nd time."

The Korea Times said Cha will in fact be back for another attempt.

Choi said that Cha cannot pass the preliminary written section of the test, averaging scores of 30-50 whereas the pass mark is 60 out of 100.

Local media said that Cha sells food and household items door to door at apartment complexes, carrying the items in a handcart, but wants to get a car for her business.

Police estimate she has spent almost five million won (3,600 dollars) to take the written test, with each test costing 6,000 won in addition to other expenses.

"I feel sorry every time I see Cha fail. When she passes, I'll make a commemorative tablet myself and give it to her," one officer was quoted as saying.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090205/wl_asia_afp/skoreamotoringoffbeat_20090205024909;_ylt=AjsicG2c lkfbh.lv2ddWcjmgOrgF

[samanthajane13]

Irishman runs seven marathons in five days around globe

DUBLIN (AFP) – An Irish long-distance runner has completed a gruelling seven marathons on seven continents in less than six days, a charity chief said Thursday.

Richard Donovan, 42, from Galway in the west of Ireland, began his challenge in numbing sub-zero temperatures in Antarctica on January 31 and finished in Sydney just five days, nine hours and eight minutes later.

"What he did was staggering, quite remarkable," John O'Shea, founder and chief executive of third world charity GOAL, told AFP, adding that the money raised would help the charity's work in Sudan's Darfur region.

"It is extraordinary given the conditions and the time scale involved. I can't believe he managed it. I am in awe of what he achieved to bring attention to the tragedy of Dafur and to alleviate the suffering there.

After starting in the Antarctic, Donovan got on a plane to South Africa and completed a marathon in Cape Town. He then flew to Dubai and did another one, completing three marathons in two days.

Braving snow storms that shut down London on Monday, Donovan completed his fourth marathon there before going to Toronto in Canada for his fifth. Then it was on to Chile for a Santiago marathon and finally to Australia.

Over 129 hours Donovan endured extreme temperatures and only slept in the economy class seats of airplanes between continents, said O'Shea.

In total he ran 295 kilometers (183 miles) and flew tens of thousands of kilometres (miles).

"It brings into focus how little the world does and how much one man does for Dafur. He feels almost as strongly as I do about the lack of an adequate international response in Dafur where 400,000 people have died," O'Shea said.

GOAL has been working in Sudan since 1985 and spent about 18 million euros (23 million dollars) there on aid in 2007.

In 2002, Donovan became the first person in the world to run a marathon at both the North and South Poles.

He now organises the northernmost marathon on earth, the North Pole Marathon, and the southernmost marathon on earth, the Antarctic Ice Marathon.

Donovan has won the South Pole Marathon, the Inca Trail Marathon, the Everest Challenge Marathon, the Antarctic 100km and the Himalayan 100-Mile Stage Race.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090205/od_afp/irelandmarathonsportdarfurcharityaid_2009020520221 2;_ylt=Ag_oKF_VGBVVaTEDfMcG82OgOrgF

[samanthajane13]

Bangladesh crowns champion rat killer

DHAKA (AFP) – A poor farmer from northern Bangladesh was crowned the country's rat killing champion on Thursday with a final score of 39,650 dead rodents after a year-long hunt.

Binoy Kumar Karmakar, 40, used traps, poison and flooding to kill his quarry, and collected their tails to prove his success rate and claim a prize from the government.

Karmakar collected a 14-inch Sony colour television for winning the competition for 2008, which was part of a nationwide drive to stop food supplies being eaten up by rats.

"During the year, our farmers killed around 25 million rats," agriculture department spokesman Abdul Halim told AFP. "Binoy Kumar Karmakar has been declared the champion for killing 39,650."

Officials estimate that up to 10 percent of Bangladesh's crops -- mostly rice, wheat and potato -- is devoured by millions of rats every year.

Last year an invasion of rats in Bangladesh's southeastern Chittagong hill tracts region wiped out crops and caused a famine in some remote villages.

The UN's World Food Programme distributed food aid to 120,000 people for four months after the invasion forced affected tribal people to live on wild roots.


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[samanthajane13]

Magic cheese scam stinks up rural Chilean town

CANTAUCO, Chile (Reuters) – It was supposed to be a magic recipe for instant riches, but instead hundreds of residents in this sleepy town in central Chile are up in arms over a "magic cheese" scam that has left many deep in debt.

Chilean housewife Erica Pavez was one of around 300 residents taken in by the pyramid scheme, buying kits to make "magic cheese" said to be used in beauty products like luxury shampoo and moisturizers.

Lured by the scheme, Pavez and her family spent about 25 million pesos (27, 745 pounds)) on the kits, which they believed contained special ingredients to produce the "magic cheese" but in fact turned out to be boxes of crystallized bacteria worth around $4 each (2.7 pounds). The kits cost nearly $400 a piece.

"We are modest people here, casual workers and we got more and more into debt so that we could get into the business," she told Reuters as she prepared to file her claim with visiting French investigator and examining magistrate Sylvie Gagnard.

"I am very disappointed," she said in tiny Cantauco, 75 miles south of the capital Santiago. "We have nothing."

She produced the cheese at home following instructions to mix the ingredients with milk and ferment them for two weeks. The small, round cheeses she believed would be turned into expensive beauty products ended up on the scrap heap.

Frenchwoman Gilberte Van Erpe, arrested and placed under investigation in France last year, is suspected of setting up a vast pyramid scheme, telling buyers the fermented mass produced by the kits could be sold to cosmetics companies in France.

A French newspaper reported Van Erpe made about 30 million euros (26.25 million pounds) from her activities. She could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

(Reporting by Ariel Miranda; editing by Simon Gardner and Todd Eastham)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090206/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_chile_france_scam;_ylt=Am2PTu3gWJnFLp24as zw3didk3QF

[samanthajane13]

Putin 'jiggles to ABBA hits' at gig



MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia's hard man Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has revealed a weakness for 1970s super-group ABBA at a concert performed by lookalikes and cloaked in secrecy last month, an organiser said on Friday.

The ABBA tribute band Bjorn Again was paid 20,000 pounds (29,000 dollars, 23,000 euros) for the January 22 gig performed before a tuxedo-wearing Putin, Bjorn Again manager Rod Stephen told AFP.

"He was definitely seen dancing and getting into the show because Bjorn Again is a very interactive show. He was dancing along.

"In 'Super Trouper' there's time to move your hands in the air and 'Mama Mia!' starts with finger pointing. He was yelling out 'Bravo! Bravo!' after quite a few songs," commented Stephen, referring to some of the band's best known hit numbers.

Putin was joined by about seven male companions, he said. There was also an unidentified lady sitting with the prime minister, "who may well have been his wife".

Stephen described the concert at a heavily guarded location near Lake Valdai, where the band were screened off behind thick gauze curtains, as "bizarre" and "a bit cloak-and-dagger."

The band were warned in advance not to try to speak with the audience and, besides applauding, Putin made no attempt to speak to them, going off to watch fireworks afterwards.

While not previously known to like ABBA, Putin is well known as an admirer of the Beatles and has hosted ex-Beatle Paul McCartney in the Kremlin.

President Dmitry Medvedev, who took Putin's place as president last May, is a fan of British heavy rockers Deep Purple and revelled alongside other top officials in a specially ordered concert by the band last year.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090206/od_afp/russiapoliticspeopleoffbeat_20090206132433;_ylt=Au iKWe0L9NgPZTv7gi2gfGOgOrgF

[samanthajane13]

Pollution source is a source of embarrassment
04/11/09 07:01 AM

VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — Washington state environmental regulators said they have finally found the source of pollution that has been fouling a creek near Vancouver Lake: the agency’s own sewer pipes.

City workers have discovered that an office building’s sewer line was mistakenly connected to a storm drain, rather than to the municipal sewer main.

The 1970s-vintage building houses Washington state Department of Ecology regional offices, as well as those of the Department of Fish and Game and U. S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Sewage from the building has been making its way into Burnt Bridge Creek and eventually into the lake. Jay Manning, the environmental agency’s director, said the discovery was “embarrassing and upsetting.”

The building owner is paying for repairs.


http://www.buffalonews.com/nationalworld/national/story/636582.html

[samanthajane13]

Man jailed for spraying urine, feces on food in UK

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Writer Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 43 mins ago

LONDON – An unemployed chemist was jailed Tuesday for spraying a mix of urine and feces on food, wine and children's books in several British stores. Sahnoun Daifallah was sentenced to nine years in prison after being found guilty of four counts of contaminating goods.

The 42-year-old Algerian carried a mix of his waste in a container of weed killer concealed in a laptop bag, a court found. Using the nozzle, which poked out of the bag, Daifallah was able to spray large areas, leaving a powerful stench and causing tens of thousands of pounds (dollars) worth of damage.

Daifallah's first target was The Air Balloon pub and restaurant near Cheltenham in western England, which he visited around lunchtime on May 14. Kate Rochead, on duty that day, told The Associated Press she didn't know exactly what area he sprayed.

"All we know was that it was a horrendous smell that was left behind," she said.

Daifallah next visited a bookstore in neighboring Cirencester, dousing hundreds of books — most of them in the children's section.

Two days later he struck in the nearby suburban area of Quedgeley, where a customer spotted him squirting the frozen french fries at a supermarket. Daifallah then drove four miles (six kilometers) to another supermarket, where an employee in the wine section noticed him acting suspiciously and reported an overpowering stench. Both supermarkets were closed for two days for cleaning. Shoppers reported suffering from rashes and nausea.

Local police said the products weren't handled by customers, but Morrisons, one of the supermarkets targeted, said a small number of goods were returned as a precaution. Tesco, the other supermarket hit by Daifallah, declined comment.

Police were able to identify Daifallah using security camera footage. When they raided his home, they found a stockpile of the substance and plans to spread it. Plastic bags containing excrement were marked with the names of cities on them.

Daifallah represented himself at Bristol Crown Court, where he pleaded not guilty.

Judge Carol Hagen said Britain's security agencies had labeled him a high risk to public safety. Authorities have already begun deportation proceedings.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090415/ap_on_re_eu/eu_britain_contamination

[One2Snoop]

http://i40.tinypic.com/2s15eh1.gif

[grneyes]

http://i40.tinypic.com/2s15eh1.gif

Double http://i40.tinypic.com/2s15eh1.gif

I could have done without reading that one. *lol*

[samanthajane13]

Snake Head Found in Food at Upstate NY T.G.I. Friday's
Story Published: May 7, 2009 at 3:19 PM EDT
Story Updated: May 7, 2009 at 3:19 PM EDT
Posted by Joe Maxfield

CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. - A diner at a T.G.I. Friday's in Upstate New
York says he got a little something extra with his broccoli - a
severed snake head.

Jack Pendleton says he was at the restaurant in Clifton Park on
Sunday when he spotted something grey mixed in with his vegetables.

He realized it was a snake head the size of his thumb, with part of
the spine still attached.

Pendleton says he snapped a photo with his cellphone camera and
called the waiter over. He says he has no plans to sue.

A spokeswoman for the Carrollton, Texas, chain says it's
investigating. It wasn't immediately known what kind of snake it
was.

Pendleton and his girlfriend weren't charged for their meals.


http://www.wkbw.com/news/weird/44541922.html

[samanthajane13]

Snake head likely was ‘planted’ in food

CLIFTON PARK (AP)— T. G. I. Friday’s said a severed snake head found in a dish of broccoli at its restaurant here was likely planted in the meal.

Diner Jack Pendleton of Ballston Lake said he found a snake head the size of his thumb mixed in with his vegetables on Sunday.

“I certainly didn’t place it there,” Pendleton said Friday.

Friday’s spokeswoman Amy Freshwater said the snake head was sent for testing at an independent laboratory that confirmed it had never been cooked and was added to the cooked broccoli. She said Friday’s has asked state police to open a criminal investigation into product tampering.


http://www.buffalonews.com/nationalworld/state/story/665990.html

[samanthajane13]

Bear Facts of 400 Expressway Collision

We sometimes hear of potentially dangerous collisions between cars and deer on area roadways. But 20 year old Eric Vedder of Yorkshire in Cattaraugus County had an even more extreme encounter Friday night on the 400 Expressway. He struck a bear with his car.

Vedder says he was enroute to the movies with his girlfriend when the bear suddenly appeared on the roadway in front of them at the Maple Road exit near East Aurora. The bear was killed by the impact but fortunately Eric and his girlfriend were not hurt.

Vedder estimates the bear weighed around 300 pounds and there was substantial damage to his car. He called 911 and had to convince the dispatcher that he actually hit a bear. That brought a number of police officers to the scene who had to see it for themselves.

Vedder is now having the bear mounted by a taxidermist so it will become a real conversation piece in his home.


http://www.wgrz.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=66861&catid=37

[samanthajane13]

Woman spots man in bra rummaging through her car
The Associated Press

A man has been charged after a neighbor said she found him wearing a purple bra and boxer shorts while rummaging through her car. Jacob Andrew Fast, 20, was arraigned Wednesday on charges of first-degree home invasion and resisting and obstructing a police officer. Lisa Collins told WZZM-TV she found Fast rifling through her car on Tuesday afternoon and called the police. The car keys were missing from her house.

Collins said the bra he was wearing wasn't hers.

Fast will be back in district court in Rockford on June 19 for a preliminary exam.

He was ordered held on $20,000 bond and has requested a court-appointed attorney.


http://www.buffalonews.com/513/story/701706.html

[samanthajane13]

Mass. yellow lobster is a 1 in 30 million rarity
The Associated Press


http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p273/samanthajane13/stuff/capte19d2d26afc048acbddbe1ffb749e85.jpg


This lobster will catch your eye, but not because you're imagining its tail dipped in butter. It is bright orange and yellow, even though it's never been near a boiling pot.

Specialists tell The Boston Globe it's called a "yellow lobster" and it's one in 30 million.

The lobster now named Fiona was recently caught off Canada. It was given by a friend to Nathan Nickerson, the owner of Arnold's Lobster and Clam Bar in Eastham, on Cape Cod.

New England Aquarium director of research Michael Tlusty says a rare genetic mutation produces yellow lobsters.

Life isn't easy for such animals. Their bright colors make it easy for predators to spot them.

Nickerson said the human predators at his restaurant will never get Fiona. He said it would be like steaming a Rembrandt.


http://www.buffalonews.com/513/story/701707.html

[Marian Paroo]

Man, have I just got a craving for lobster!!!!:hat: