Strange News - AP
Bank Asks Robbers to Doff Masks
Mon Sep 30, 8:28 AM ET
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) - To reduce crime, banks in the area are trying to unmask robbers before they come in.
Officials of several financial institutions in the Springfield area, seeking to stem a rise in robberies, will post polite signs asking visitors to doff their hat and sunglasses as they enter.
The goal is to get customers — and the criminal-minded who might be moving among them — to remove items that hide their faces.
Twenty-six banks and credit unions with 141 locations in the Ozarks have joined the sign-posting initiative, which was announced last week by the Springfield Police Department and modeled on a Massachusetts program.
Managers of still other banks are considering it in light of the 14 robberies so far this year in the Springfield area, about double the annual average.
"I think it would make all tellers feel safer," said Jeannie Ewing, a branch manager of a Telcomm Credit Union branch, who says an unfamiliar face can make her wary these days.
FBI Special Agent Dave Burlew said it could make some robbers think twice and could give authorities a full view of a robber's face from security images.
"I think it's a simple request," said James Holstein, president and chief executive officer of Old Missouri National Bank. "Customers will complain. But serious complaints? No. When they realize we are doing it for their safety as much as our safety, I think they will cooperate."
Strange News - AP
2 Charged in Bid to Steal From Cop
Mon Sep 30, 8:25 AM ET
CHICAGO (AP) - It was hard to say if the cops or the robbers were more shocked when two men tried to burglarize a minivan that was occupied by a police officer on an undercover surveillance.
"They were really surprised to see each other," said Robert Byrd, police chief for the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, which operates the South Shore Railroad.
The incident happened last week in a commuter parking lot for the railroad. Transit police were watching the lot after commuters reported having stereos, cash, cell phones and CDs stolen from their cars.
The officer watched as the men got out of their car, looked in the windows of parked cars and pulled on door handles.
"The officer inside the minivan stayed really still, so they couldn't see his silhouette moving," Byrd said.
When the pair opened the van's sliding side door, Officer Jessie Watts Jr. jumped out with his gun drawn and told them to get down. Police said they later found stolen stereo equipment and burglary tools in the men's car.
Robinson Morales, 25, and Fiore Petrassi, 20, were charged with theft, attempted theft and criminal trespass.
"We've been successful in setting up surveillance and arresting people for car theft," Byrd said. "But I don't think we have ever had them come into our car."
Oddly Enough - Reuters
Texas Man Charged for Using Stungun on Stepson
Sat Sep 28, 2:58 PM ET
SWEENY, Texas (Reuters) - Police arrested a Texas man on child abuse charges on Friday after he allegedly used a 100,000-volt stun gun to discipline his 8-year-old stepson for missing the school bus.
Theodore Moody, 27, was charged with two counts of felony injury to a child and faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. The boy's mother, Tsianina Moody, was charged for failure to report the abuse, for which she could be jailed for up to two years, said Brazoria County Sheriff's Investigator Buck Henson.
Moody, a stay-at-home father who quit his job as a truck driver this year, allegedly walked behind the child all the way to school on Monday and zapped him with the stun gun.
The device is sold as a self-defense tool and designed to incapacitate attackers with an electrical charge. Police said Moody's stun gun delivered a shock akin to a bad bee sting.
Moody told the Houston Chronicle he found it the only effective method of discipline with the boy.
"The belt didn't work; this did. It hurts much less than the belt. I've whipped his ass so hard that it left marks. That just didn't send the message and this did," he told the paper.
Clad in a sleeveless T-shirt, two-tone sunglasses and a cap that read "Marriage: the Leading Cause of Divorce," Moody appeared on TV news shows holding a stun gun he purchased after police took the original one and a paddle he said he used on the boy so much that it cracked.
Investigators were delighted with his comments. "He's pretty well used the right of free speech here, didn't he? The news media helped and awful lot on this one," said Henson.
Moody was being held in lieu of $15,000 bond, and his wife, in lieu of $4,000. Neither could be reached.
All four of the Moody's children were placed in foster care, after the stun gun incident, said Child Protective Services spokeswoman Estella Olguin. The couple have two children together, ages 2 and 3, and Mrs. Moody has a daughter, 11, and the boy. A judge is set to decide on Tuesday whether the children will remain in state custody.
Sweeny is about 65 miles southwest of Houston.
Yahoo! News - Man Survives Garbage Truck Compactor U.S. National - AP
Man Survives Garbage Truck Compactor
Sun Sep 29, 2:27 AM ET
Northeastern Indiana police said a Noble County man is lucky to be alive after being compacted inside a garbage truck — twice.
Police said Chad Dillon, 24, of Avilla apparently fell asleep in a trash bin that was picked up Friday by a garbage truck in Auburn, a city about 30 miles north of Fort Wayne.
Witnesses told police they heard screaming inside the back of a Waste Management garbage truck as the driver was collecting trash at the DeKalb County Fairgrounds.
Auburn Police Chief Martin McCoy said the driver told officers he did not hear Dillon's calls for help and had crushed the trash in the back of the garbage truck twice before bystanders alerted him to the screams.
After being pulled from the garbage truck, Dillon was taken to Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne. He was treated for head, chest and arm injuries and released later Friday, hospital officials said.
Although Dillon could not remember where he had been prior to ending up in the back of the garbage truck, he told police he had been out drinking at a local bar the night before, McCoy said.
Yahoo! News - Drug-stuffed teddy nabs robber Oddly Enough - UK Reuters
Drug-stuffed teddy nabs robber
Mon Sep 30,10:03 AM ET
VIENNA (Reuters) - Traces of DNA on a cocaine-stuffed teddy bear helped bring charges against a man who got away with a bank robbery five years ago, police say.
The main post office in the Upper Austrian city of Linz intercepted a teddy bear with a 200-gram (seven ounces) belly-full of cocaine in July, and traced the recipient to a 40-year-old man.
The Austrian said he had the drug sent from Brazil "for his personal use", and was released after five weeks in custody.
But tests on the furry toy matched DNA evidence found at the scene of a botched bank robbery in 1997, when two thieves threw their booty out of the window of the getaway car after an alarm went off in the money bag.
The man admitted to the robbery on questioning, and said his then accomplice was his brother. Both were in custody on Monday.
Oddly Enough - UK Reuters
Sore head for bungee daredevil
Mon Sep 30, 6:02 PM ET
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - A man has been charged with criminal mischief after he attempted, unsuccessfully, to bungee jump from a Vancouver bridge to the deck of a passing cruise ship.
William Dean Sullivan miscalculated the ship's speed and suffered minor head injuries on Sunday when he bounced off its tennis court, volleyball net and a deck railing, before being left dangling in mid-air as the ship sailed away, Vancouver Police said.
Police said Sullivan has planned to bungee jump from the Lions Gate Bridge, which spans the entrance to Vancouver harbour, stopping just above the passing ship so he could then lower himself a short distance to the deck.
"There were shrieks of horror from down below. I guess the people saw him coming, you know, on the ship. I guess he missed," witness Kate Hill told the Vancouver Sun newspaper.
After failing to land on the ship, Sullivan, of Nanaimo, British Columbia, rappelled himself down to the water where he was rescued by a passing water taxi, which turned him over for arrest, according to police.
Sullivan's motive remained unknown, although his friends told local media he was an aspiring stunt man. Sullivan was released on bail on Monday on the condition he promise not to attempt any more jumps pending a trial.
A police spokesman said they were taking the incident seriously because of the danger it posed. "The individual himself could have been killed," Detective Scott Driemel said.
Oddly Enough - Reuters
Chewing Gum Back in Castro's Cuba-Just for Show
Mon Sep 30, 9:30 AM ET
By Anthony Boadle
HAVANA (Reuters) - M&M's are back in Cuba.
So is Wrigley's Spearmint gum, and a host of American products -- from Kellogg's Corn Flakes to Uncle Ben's rice and Sara Lee cakes -- not sold on the Communist-run island since the 1950s.
So far, however, they are just on show, tantalizingly close for many Cubans who recall the days of American influence before Fidel Castro ( news - web sites)'s revolution turned to the Soviet Union and Washington slapped trade sanctions on Cuba.
Classic American household names and the fast food king -- the burger -- went on display on Thursday at the first trade fair by major U.S. food companies trying to take advantage of new rules and recover a market they lost four decades ago.
"As kids, we would fight for M&M's," says Cuban journalist Enrique Lopez Oliva, 65, for whom the little candies are a symbol of his generation. "We ate them at the cinema, watching films of cowboys and gangsters."
M&Ms and chewing gum were part of the U.S. influence in Cuba, along with baseball, basketball and the American cars of the 1950s still chugging along dilapidated Havana streets.
"Gum was chewed here until 1961. It was sold at the cinema entrance in those days, and popcorn too," recalls Angel Tomas Gonzalez, another Cuban reporter. Castro banned gum in 1959 as ideologically unacceptable in the new socialist workers' state.
It wasn't until 1993, when Cuba was forced to accept the inevitable and legalize the dollar, the currency of its main political foe, that chewing gum reappeared.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Castro -- an avowed enemy of capitalism -- has allowed a limited opening to a free market and flirted with foreign investors. Late last year, Cuba started buying U.S. food -- wheat, corn, rice, chicken, apples -- after Washington eased its trade embargo under pressure from farm states and agribusiness eager to return to a traditional nearby market.
Chewing gum is among items classified as food.
HAVANA AS PLAYGROUND
Back in the 1950s, when Havana was a playground for Americans and Mafia bosses, supermarkets sold meat that was cut and packed in the United States, ready for the Cuban consumer, Oliva said.
Today, young Cubans have no "chewing gum culture," said Gonzalez, and fast food joints that arrived in the 1940s to replace the Spanish cafes disappeared.
Since opening up to tourism and the U.S. dollar in the last decade, Cuba has created fast food outlets -- some called El Rapido -- that are a pale imitation.
The Castro government is now seeking to improve the quality of food products in Cuba by turning to the old enemy.
' Earlier this year, Marsh Supermarkets of Indiana became the first U.S. company to sell branded products to Cuba in 43 years. Marsh soda bottles are now sold in dollar-priced shops in Havana.
At the five-day U.S. Food and Agribusiness Exhibition, chief sponsor Archer Daniels Midland erected a 1950s diner, the icon of American cuisine, complete with stools and Wurlitzer juke box. Cuban officials will get to taste soy burgers and vanilla shakes mixed with Cuban bananas.
Master Foods Interamerica, subsidiary of Mars Inc., makers of M&Ms, Milky Way and Mars bars and Uncle Ben's rice, does not expect to land an enormous quantity of contracts.
So far the company goods are only sold in duty-free shops at Cuba's airports. "We are looking at Cuba's 1.8 million tourists a year, who know our products," said Master's international marketing manager, Philippe Belland.
Oddly Enough - UK Reuters
Two scoops and a pack of smokes?
Fri Sep 27, 7:53 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The heady days when a kid could score a pack of smokes along with his Pink Panther bar are gone -- thanks to a police crackdown in Los Angeles on ice cream truck drivers.
Police swept down on the musical vendors after parents in a south Los Angeles neighbourhood complained that their grade-school children were coming home with cigarettes, city officials said.
The sweep netted 31 packs of contraband cigarettes and five ice cream truck drivers whose "Pop Goes the Weasel" music signalled more than a sugar rush, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo said on Friday.
The piles of contraband cigarettes displayed at Delgadillo's news conference on Friday included flavours especially tempting to young palates -- chocolate and cherry-flavoured smokes.
"The joy of an ice cream cone and the innocence of childhood should not go up in smoke because of those who prey on our children for profit," Delgadillo told reporters. "The music signalling the arrival of the ice cream truck should make children think of ice cream, not cigarettes."
Noting that illegal cigarette sales deprive the state of $400 million (256 million pounds) each year in tax revenues earmarked for health and children's programs, Delgadillo said the ice cream vendors were ordered to pay their fines to tobacco prevention programs.
Yahoo! News - Thief Uses Vacuum to Steal Jewelry World - AP Europe
Thief Uses Vacuum to Steal Jewelry
Fri Sep 27,12:43 PM ET
With vacuum cleaner in hand — and an extension cord for good measure — a thief made off with more than $12,800 in jewelry.
Police in Kolding, Denmark, about 145 miles west of the capital, Copenhagen, said Friday that the thief drilled a small hole in the window of Lykke's Gold and Silver store Wednesday night, stuck in the tip of the vacuum's hose, and sucked out several items, including rings, necklaces and earrings.
"We discovered it when we came to work in the morning," Kirsten Lykke Salling, the store's owner, said. "It was terrible, but at the same time funny because who would have thought of doing it that way?"
Police said the burglar used a power socket at a nearby construction site for the electricity. They found the vacuum cleaner abandoned by the shop, but empty.
"The thief slipped in the extremity of the vacuum cleaner through the window and therefore the alarm didn't go off when he vacuumed the displayed jewelry," said Carsten Thostrup, a Kolding police officer.
No one has been arrested, he said.
Yahoo! News - U.N. Upholds Ban on 'Dwarf Throwing' Oddly Enough - Reuters
U.N. Upholds Ban on 'Dwarf Throwing'
Fri Sep 27,10:57 AM ET
GENEVA (Reuters) - A tiny stuntman who protested against a French ban on the bizarre practice of "dwarf throwing" lost his case before a U.N. human rights body, which said the need to protect human dignity was paramount.
Manuel Wackenheim had argued the 1995 ban by France's highest administrative court was discriminatory and deprived him of a job being hurled around discotheques by burly men.
In a statement Friday the U.N. Human Rights Committee said it was satisfied "the ban on dwarf-tossing was not abusive but necessary in order to protect public order, including considerations of human dignity." The committee also said the ban "did not amount to prohibited discrimination."
The pastime, imported from the United States and Australia in the 1980s, consists of people throwing tiny stuntmen as far as possible, usually in a bar or discotheque.
The stuntman wears a crash helmet and padded clothing which has handles on the back to facilitate throwing the human projectile.
The Frenchman, who measures 1.14 meter (3 ft 10 inches), filed his case in 1999 with the U.N. committee made up of 18 independent experts who examine states' compliance with the 1976 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Must remember to turn off those vibrators!!
Yahoo! News - Ladyshaver Sets Off Bomb Alert Oddly Enough - Reuters
Ladyshaver Sets Off Bomb Alert
Thu Sep 26,11:11 AM ET
HELSINKI (Reuters) - A buzzing ladyshaver in the luggage of the Finnish prime minister's wife set off a bomb alert near the European Union ( news - web sites)-Asian summit in Copenhagen earlier this week, Finnish media reported on Thursday.
The Danish police's bomb squad was called in after the driver of the car carrying the luggage of Paivi Lipponen heard a suspicious sound coming from one of her bags. The area was sealed off but did not disrupt the EU-Asia (ASEM) summit.
"It was suspected that there might be a bomb in my bag. But there was no bomb," she told tabloid Iltalehti.
Security was extra tight in Copenhagen for the meeting of representatives from 25 European and Asian countries, including many leaders.
Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen said police overreacted.
"Over-zealous policemen checked our bags with bomb sniffing dogs. Instead of using their sense they used something else," Paavo Lipponen told Ilta-Sanomat.
Yahoo! News - Street Vendor Sets Cop on Fire Oddly Enough - Reuters
Street Vendor Sets Cop on Fire
Thu Sep 26,11:25 AM ET
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - A street vendor in the busy center of Rio de Janeiro set fire to a police officer in broad daylight after his umbrellas were confiscated, police said on Thursday.
"The vendor ran after the police car, poured alcohol on one officer through the open window and threw a match," a duty official at the municipal police force said.
The officer suffered severe burns to his face and chest, and another one inside the car was lightly injured. The vendor fled in the mayhem that followed, police said.
The violence occurred on Wednesday during a routine police clampdown on illegal street vendors swarming in the city center. Some shots were fired in the air during the operation and some vendors were arrested.
Yahoo! News - 'Rampant Rabbit' Sex Toys Recalled in Safety Scare Oddly Enough - Reuters
'Rampant Rabbit' Sex Toys Recalled in Safety Scare
Thu Sep 26,11:25 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - A rabbit-eared sex toy was recalled on Thursday by British retailer Ann Summers out of concern it could cause injury to an unsuspecting user.
The lingerie and sex toy chain said a batch of about 150,000 of the top-selling "Rampant Rabbit" vibrators were found to have defective seals that might allow the spillage of tiny beads contained in the shaft.
The firm warned in newspaper advertisements and on its Web Site it was recalling those vibrators sold between May and September 2002 "in the interest of public safety."
"It is a precaution -- the chances of anything going wrong with it are actually minuscule," Ann Summers spokeswoman Rebecca Franklin told Reuters.
She said the company checked its stocks after a customer wrote to say she was unhappy with the quality of the seven-inch device, which contains pearly colored beads and is topped with two attachments resembling rabbit ears.
The Rampant Rabbit has been flying off store shelves since a character praised it in the hit U.S. television series "Sex and City."
Yahoo! News - Justin Timberlake Makes A Very Personal Admission Entertainment - LAUNCH Music
Justin Timberlake Makes A Very Personal Admission
Thu Sep 26,10:57 AM ET
(9/26/02, 10 a.m. ET) -- * NSYNC singer Justin Timberlake--who is prepping for the November 5 release of his debut solo album, Justified--recently admitted that he performed oral sex on his ex-girlfriend Britney Spears. The pop singer made the admission while visiting New York radio hosts Star And Buc Wild during the WQHT-FM morning show on Monday (September 23).
Timberlake was pressed into making the admission after Star offered to provide the singer's latest single, "Like I Love You" featuring Clipse, with 30 additional spins a week in exchange. When asked if he performed oral sex on Spears, Timberlake begrudgingly responded, "OK, I did it...I'm in so much damn trouble."
Justified was produced by the Neptunes, Timbaland, and Brian McKnight.
-- Yves Erwin Salomon, New York
She LIED... Damm her!!!
Justin: I 'did it' with Britney Justin: I 'did it' with Britney
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Sept. 25, 2002 04:09 AM
Justin Timberlake has confirmed what many have long suspected about his relationship with Britney Spears: Pop music's biggest couple got it on, reports the New York Daily News.
When the 'N Sync singer stopped by New York radio station Hot 97, the station's morning DJ, Troy Torain (aka Star), promised he'd play Timberlake's new single, "Like I Love You," 30 times a week if he'd tell just one secret.
Which was?
Star asked Timberlake if he had ever shared a certain bedroom intimacy with ex-girlfriend Spears.
After much hemming and hawing, Timberlake broke down.
"I did it," Timberlake said. "I'm dirty. I'm in so much damn trouble, man. I'm gonna get calls from my mother!"
No word yet on Britney's reaction.
Meanwhile, Timberlake will write, produce and serve as spokesman for public service radio and TV ads on behalf of Recording Artists, Actors and Athletes Against Drunk Driving (RADD). His new duties arrive in the aftermath of the Sept. 9 death - caused by an allegedly drunken truck driver - of one of his fans, Anna White, 21, while she was waiting for a glimpse of the singer outside a Southern California radio station.
Strange News - AP
Hungry Eagle Snares Plastic Duck
Tue Sep 24, 9:49 AM ET
OSLO, Norway (AP) - An eagle that spotted an easy meal got the shock of its life this month when it swooped down on a nice plump duck floating in a lake.
The duck was plastic. It was also anchored by rope to an iron plate, furthering the eagle's bewilderment.
"It was fascinating to watch," said Ole H. Hjartoey by telephone from the Arctic town of Bodoe on Tuesday, when his experience made national news.
The duck decoy was one of two Hjartoey, 47, had placed in the water in front of his lakeside cabin.
"I had my back turned when I heard a big splash behind me. I turned and saw the eagle trying to sink its claws into the plastic duck," said the management consultant.
He said the eagle clung to the decoy and took off, only to have the prize wrenched from its claws when the rope ran out.
"The eagle landed in a tree, and stood on an angled branch looking down at the duck," said Hjartoey. "It seemed to be thinking, "what in the world just happened here?'"
Hjartoey said the eagle took off, leaving the decoy with "claw marks that looked like razor cuts."
The misguided attack took place on Sept. 7, but only made news after someone tipped the local newspaper in Bodoe, about 55 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
Yahoo! News - Brothel Found at Car Repair Shop Strange News - AP
Brothel Found at Car Repair Shop
Wed Sep 25, 8:01 AM ET
SPRINGFIELD, Va. (AP) - Police in Virginia say a car repair shop was doing more than fixing cars.
They say they've uncovered a brothel operating out of the body shop, which is in a Springfield industrial park.
Police arrested eight people over the weekend and charged them with prostitution and keeping a bawdy house.
It's not clear how long the alleged brothel had been operating out of the car repair shop.
The building's owner says he had no idea what was allegedly going on there.
Oddly Enough - Reuters
Hold the Phone! Copper Wire Theft Soars
Tue Sep 24, 7:43 AM ET
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Half a million Argentines have been robbed of phone service in 2002 amid the nation's worst-ever crisis as thieves have stolen 500 tons of copper wire, one phone company said on Monday.
The local unit of Spain's Telefonica said 125,000 miles of its copper wires -- a distance equal to five times the circumference of the planet or 16 times Earth's diameter -- have been stolen so far this year.
"The theft of wires, a long-standing problem in this country, has been on a growing and irreversible trend," Telefonica said in a statement.
"At the start of 2002, what was an occasional and controllable problem has become a massive and structural one, putting at serious risk the continuity of service," it added.
Utility firms said service outages have multiplied in 2002 as scrap-metal scavengers strip phone lines, transformers and electric wires in and around Buenos Aires as well as the Andean city of Mendoza and deep in sparsely populated Patagonia.
One newspaper last month reported $195 million-worth of copper has been exported in the first half of 2002, when Argentina has never before exported the base metal.
A recession in Argentina since mid-1998 forced the government to default on part of its $104 billion debt and devalue the peso currency in January, leading many people to take drastic measures to make ends meet.
With half of Argentina's 36 million people unable to meet basic food needs and one-fifth of the work force out of a job, some have sold their hair to a wig factory while one woman placed an ad to sell her kidney to pay for her mother's health care.
Yahoo! News - Many Sports Teachers Overweight? Oddly Enough - Reuters
Many Sports Teachers Overweight?
Tue Sep 24, 7:53 AM ET
MANAMA (Reuters) - Nearly half of Bahrain's sports teachers are overweight, making them poor models of healthy living for their students, according to a study cited in the Al-Ayam newspaper on Monday.
The report quoted a study of 243 teachers that found more than 35 percent of physical education instructors were overweight, while nearly nine percent were obese.
"Teachers of sports are a model to their students, so it is important to discuss their health and convince students about the importance of losing weight," Shaikha al-Jeeb, the researcher who compiled the report, was quoted as saying.
Yahoo! News - Pa. Fire Crew Accused of Frolicking U.S. National - AP
Pa. Fire Crew Accused of Frolicking
Wed Sep 25, 6:44 PM ET
UPPER DARBY, Pa. (AP) - Volunteer firefighters allegedly commandeered a ladder truck without permission, took it to a Rolling Stones concert and allowed a female concertgoer to climb aboard the rig and display her thong underwear.
The incident was caught on film by free-lance photographers, and seven of the photographs were published in Wednesday editions of the Philadelphia Daily News.
Upper Darby Township has launched an internal investigation, said Thomas Judge Jr., the township's chief administrative officer.
"We are extremely disappointed," he said.
The incident happened about 12:30 a.m. Monday, about an hour after the end of the Stones' show at the Tower Theater. Judge said "it appears these firefighters were not at this location on official township firefighter business."
Upper Darby, on Philadelphia's western border, has 33 paid firefighters and 150 volunteers.
Uhh
Yahoo! News - Coffee Can Kill Pain... but Only in Women Oddly Enough - Reuters
Coffee Can Kill Pain... but Only in Women
Wed Sep 25,10:58 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Coffee can kill pain, but only in women, a British newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The London Times said researchers in London had asked a sample of men and women to plunge their arms into buckets of freezing cold water and keep them there as long as they could.
They then gave the volunteers coffee in the expectation that it would ease the pain. Caffeine increases blood pressure which usually, according to the paper, leads to a lowering in the perception of pain.
The study found that while the caffeine did little for the men it had "a strong impact" on the women.
"A double espresso probably would make the pain of something like leg-waxing more bearable," the paper quoted one of the researchers as saying.
Here is an IDIOT!!!
Yahoo! News - Drink Sends Bank Robber to Sleep on Heist Oddly Enough - Reuters
Drink Sends Bank Robber to Sleep on Heist
Wed Sep 25,11:03 AM ET
GRAZ, Austria (Reuters) - A man went to rob a bank in the Austrian city of Graz but was found by police asleep in his car after downing a bottle of schnapps for courage, police say.
A passer-by alerted the police after noticing that the parked car had different number plates at the front and back, a police spokesman told Reuters Tuesday.
On the seat next to the slumbering driver police found a balaclava, a pistol and an empty bottle of high-proof schnapps.
The 33-year-old man admitted he had planned to rob the bank but had drunk the schnapps to calm his nerves. He was arrested for questioning and will have to answer charges of attempted robbery in court.
Oddly Enough - Reuters
Alleged 'Bumfights' Video Makers Arrested
Wed Sep 25,11:03 AM ET
SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - Two men who allegedly paid street people to fight each other as part of the Internet video sensation "Bumfights" have been arrested in San Diego, police say.
The arrests of Las Vegas residents Zachary Bubeck, 24, and Ryan Edward McPherson, 19, followed a three-month probe by the La Mesa Police Department into the "Bumfights" tapes, Lt. Raul Garcia said. La Mesa is a suburb of San Diego.
Bubeck surrendered on Monday and detectives arrested McPherson in La Mesa two weeks ago, Garcia said Tuesday.
Police said they were still looking for two other Las Vegas residents, as well as others who may have been involved in the production of "Bumfights."
Producers claim to have sold more than 300,000 copies of "Bumfights" over the Internet for $19.99 each.
"Bumfights, Vol 1" -- touted by its producers as "the fastest-selling independent video" featuring "drunks" and "crackheads" -- shows bedraggled men engaging in fistfights and acts of self-abuse, such as running headlong into steel doors and leaping off bridges.
Police say the "Bumfights" producers persuaded street people to fight for the camera in exchange for cash payments, food, liquor and hotel rooms but warned the participants not to tell authorities about the remuneration.
One person broke his leg during a taping session in La Mesa, and producers threatened another witness in the case, police said.
Bubeck and McPherson were charged with conspiracy, solicitation of a felony crime and illegally paying people to fight.
They are due in court on Oct. 10 for a preliminary hearing.
Yahoo! News - Rejected Lottery Ticket Is a Winner Strange News - AP
Rejected Lottery Ticket Is a Winner
Tue Sep 17, 8:21 AM ET
POCONO PINES, Pa. (AP) - One person's reject can be someone else's fortune. Just ask newly rich deli clerk Paula Buckley.
The 21-year-old clerk at Pen Mart bought a $10 Power Play ticket because it was rejected by a customer — and then hit the $400,000 jackpot.
Powerball tickets can't be reissued the way other lottery tickets can, said Sally Danyluk, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Lottery Commission.
Buckley, whose mother is the store's manager, learned she had won Monday morning.
"I ran the ticket through the machine and it said, 'Do Not Pay' because it was a $400,000 winner, and we cannot pay those out at the store," she said.
The numbers were chosen by the machine at random.
"The first thing Paula said was she was going to pay off her mother's car. Her mom was hysterical, crying," said Georgene Pechette, who works part-time at the store.
Yahoo! News - Woman Finds Stolen Car Aimed at Her Strange News - AP
Woman Finds Stolen Car Aimed at Her
Sat Sep 21,11:37 AM ET
SEATTLE (AP) - It didn't take long for Barb Trenchi to spot her car after she reported it stolen: It was speeding toward her, with police in hot pursuit.
"I guess it missed me by about 4 inches," she told The Herald of Everett.
Trenchi reported the stolen car Thursday morning and then took the bus to her job in downtown Seattle.
After getting off the bus, she was crossing the street when she spotted a car barreling toward her, followed by police cars, their lights flashing.
Trenchi said she barely stepped out of the way of the speeding car when she noticed the Vanderbilt sticker in the window and recognized it as her own.
Police said the car ran a red light, swerved onto a sidewalk, hitting a woman, and then crashed into cars in a parking lot.
The injured 67-year-old woman was taken to Harborview Medical Center with a broken leg and other injuries.
Police arrested the driver and two other young men in the car.
Trenchi said the heavily damaged car was being held by police for their investigation.
Strange News - AP
Consumer Help Number Is Sex Hotline
Sat Sep 21,11:35 AM ET
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) - Alice Morrison was looking for a better way to seal her pickles. What she heard made her want to seal her ears.
The 71-year-old Sunday school teacher was unhappy with the canning lids on her sweet pickle jars. So she reached for her box of Kerr mason lids and called the consumer help number printed on the side.
Instead of advice for her lids, she was greeted by a recorded, raspy voice that she was about to hear "sexy introductions from callers" and that for $1.99 a minute she could "join the fun."
"I assure you, I wasn't looking for any hotline," Morrison said.
It isn't the first time people seeking information about canning have discovered themselves hooked up to a phone sex line.
Officials with the company that makes the lids have fielded plenty of confused and sometimes angry calls from across the country, said Judy Harrold, manager of consumer affairs for Alltrista Consumer Products Co.
Harrold said that about a year and a half ago, Alltrista decided to consolidate two canning companies, Ball and Kerr, under one helpline. Kerr's old 800 number was returned to the phone company, she said, and the phone company assigned it to a phone sex company.
"We attempted all we could to get that number back," Harrold said. "But once it was released, there was nothing we could do."
Kerr's new packaging is printed with the consolidated 800 number. Morrison wasn't sure she would try the other number.
"I might just put everything in the refrigerator and eat it now rather than messing with another number," she said.
Yahoo! News - No Sex Please, We're Soldiers Oddly Enough - Reuters
No Sex Please, We're Soldiers
Fri Sep 20, 9:22 AM ET
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germans mulling joining the army may think twice now thanks to a new regulation banning soldiers from having sex while in active service.
The Defense Ministry said on Friday it had issued a decree stating that sleeping with fellow soldiers of either sex, or indeed their partners, would be bad for morale, threatening "mutual trust and soldiers' willingness to help each other."
The army originally laid out a series of proposals on how to behave with female colleagues when women were first allowed into active army service at the beginning of 2001. Now they have set them in stone.
Women soldiers will also have to take down their favorite pin-ups, as one clause, expressly formulated to include both men and women, prohibits them from hanging up pornographic images that might offend others.
Yahoo! News - Man Arrested for Harassing Dog AP - Feature Stories
Man Arrested for Harassing Dog
Mon Sep 23, 8:08 AM ET
HASTINGS, Neb. (AP) - Teasing a dog can get you more than a nasty bite. A 21-year-old man ended up in jail Friday when he messed with the wrong canine.
The man was gesturing at officers trying to tow a vehicle, said Hastings Police Sgt. Dan Losada. He said the man also barked at a police dog named Wojo.
The dog began to bark back, and officers warned the man to stop. He refused, and ran when officers tried to arrest him.
Officers caught up to the man and arrested him for harassing a police dog and obstructing a police officer.
Yahoo! News - KFC Customer Gets Pot With Chicken AP - Feature Stories
KFC Customer Gets Pot With Chicken
Mon Sep 23, 8:13 AM ET
MILL VALLEY, Calif. (AP) - A Mill Valley KFC restaurant employee was arrested after a customer received a little something extra with his chicken dinner.
This customer received two bags of marijuana Friday, instead of the extra biscuits he had requested.
The customer gave the marijuana back to the employee, got his extra biscuits and called police.
Police arrested Carlos Ayala, 26, of Vallejo, shortly after the customer complained about the pot.
Marin County Sheriff's deputies said they found Ayala with a small amount of marijuana, a handgun and about $500 in his possession.
Ayala often worked the drive-up window at the restaurant and authorities say he may have been selling the marijuana to customers who used the right secret word as a code.
Yahoo! News - Woman, 92, Given 30-Year First Home Loan Oddly Enough - Reuters
Woman, 92, Given 30-Year First Home Loan
Mon Sep 23,10:05 AM ET
SYDNEY (Reuters) - A 92-year-old Australian woman has become the nation's oldest first-time home buyer after securing a housing loan she does not have to pay off for another 30 years.
Her local financial institution is banking on the mother-of-five living to 122 under the terms of the loan.
Margaret Cole, who grew up in a poor coal-mining town in Wales, Britain, decided concerns among the nation's traditionally risk averse banks about her age would not stop her embracing the "great Australian dream" of home ownership.
"She has been a battler all her life and was not taking no for an answer," James Hunt, her real estate agent at First National Wyong, told Reuters on Monday.
She also bagged a A$7,000 ($3,850) grant from the government for first-time homebuyers, an incentive normally aimed at the young.
Cole, who emigrated to Australia in 1976, has had a little help from her daughter and brother-in-law, whose names are also on the ANZ Bank mortgage as co-guarantors.
She plans to move into her A$198,000 three-bedroom home at Watanobbi, a suburb north of Sydney on the New South Wales central coast, later this week.
Yahoo! News - Three Times Unlucky for Drunk Driver Oddly Enough - Reuters
Three Times Unlucky for Drunk Driver
Mon Sep 23,10:08 AM ET
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish police caught a drunk Norwegian driver three times in as many hours over the weekend, a Swedish newspaper reported on Monday.
Police pulled the man over after spotting him hitting speeds of 140 km per hour (85 miles per hour) on a stretch of road where the limit varies between 50 and 70 km per hour, the daily Aftonbladet said.
Officers found he had an alcohol level of 0.66 parts per thousand, or more than three times the maximum allowed under Swedish law.
Police confiscated the man's driver's license, but set him free.
Undeterred, he drove on toward Norway but was caught, and released, a second time.
The Norwegian tried his luck a third time but was caught yet again, and this time a prosecutor confiscated his car.
Yahoo! News - Man Dies After Detergent Mistaken for Hummus Oddly Enough - Reuters
Man Dies After Detergent Mistaken for Hummus
Mon Sep 23,11:58 AM ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A 91-year-old Israeli died after his caregiver spread a paste-like dishwashing detergent on his bread instead of hummus, police said on Monday.
The caregiver, who had worked for the old man for five years, told police he could not read the Hebrew writing on the detergent's container and served it up when the man asked for some hummus, a chickpea spread popular in the Middle East.
Police said the caregiver called an ambulance when his employer fell ill on Saturday but the man died in the hospital.
"We are checking to see whether there was criminal intent or whether it was a negligent homicide," a police spokesman said.
Health - Reuters
Smokers More Likely to Quit if Spouse Does
Thu Sep 19,10:36 AM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - With a little help from their spouses, even the most stubborn of smokers can quit, study findings show.
Researchers found that middle-aged smokers married to other smokers--generally among the most unwilling to kick the habit--are more likely to quit when both spouses make the attempt together.
Past research has highlighted the importance of a supportive spouse during a smoker's quit attempt. The new study shows that for both men and women, having a smoking spouse join them in the attempt may boost the odds of its success--regardless of other factors that affect smokers' ability to kick the habit, such as age, income and education.
Middle-aged smokers married to the same may be the toughest to convince of the benefits of giving up smoking, having long resisted the numerous health arguments for quitting. But a spouse's willingness to quit, along with growing concerns about health in old age, may be what some of these smokers need, according to the study authors, led by Dr. Melissa M. Franks of Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.
They reported their findings in a recent issue of the Journal of Aging and Health.
In the study, the researchers followed nearly 1,400 married smokers in the US between 1992 and 1994. Of the 450 married pairs of smokers in 1992, the large majority were still smoking 2 years later. But in just over 5% of these couples, both spouses quit during the study. And, the researchers report, having a spouse who quit had a "large effect" on the odds that a smoker, man or woman, would quit.
According to Franks and her colleagues, such combined quit efforts may help by removing "smoking cues" from the home or by boosting spouses' support for each other. And a spouse who's trying to quit may also pester his or her smoking spouse more.
However, the researchers point out, although this study found a "potential incentive" for married smokers to quit, it also found that most of these smokers remain stubborn in their habit.
SOURCE: Journal of Aging and Health 2002;14:336-354.
Technology - Internet Report
Online 'Smiley Face' :-) Turns 20
Thu Sep 19,12:57 AM ET
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It was 20 years ago today that Scott Fahlman taught the 'Net how to smile.
The IBM researcher has devoted his professional life to artificial intelligence, the practice of teaching computers how to think like humans.
Fahlman is known for his work with neural networks -- a computer technique designed to mimic the human brain -- and helping develop Common Lisp, a computer language that uses symbols instead of numbers, but the bearded scientist is perhaps best known for a flash of inspiration that helped to define Internet culture, in all of its ungrammatical glory.
On Sept. 19, 1982, Fahlman typed :-) in an online message.
The "smiley face" has since become a staple of online communication, allowing 12-year-old girls and corporate lawyers alike to punctuate their messages with a quick symbol that says, "Hey, I'm only joking."
Fahlman's innovation has since inspired countless other "emoticons" like ;-) to signify a wink or :-0 to show surprise.
"I've certainly spent 10 times as much time talking with people about it as I did coming up with it in the first place," Fahlman said from his Pittsburgh home. "Hopefully my actual research career will add up to more in the long run."
In the early 1980s, computer networks were rarely found outside university science departments and secretive government facilities.
But even then, discussions on primitive online "bulletin boards" could quickly turn nasty when touchy users misinterpreted remarks meant to be taken lightly.
After a particularly tangled joke about mercury contamination in an elevator, users of a Carnegie Mellon University bulletin board proposed a variety of markers for humorous comments, including *, %, &, (#) and \__/.
Fahlman suggested :-), along with the admonition to "read it sideways." Before long, other bulletin board users were placing the smiley face in their messages. The practice spread as Internet users found the symbol useful as a rough approximation of a twinkle in the eye.
A FEW FROWNS
Predictably, the smiley face encountered a few frowns as the online population exploded.
"Humans have managed to communicate with the written word for thousands of years without strewing crudely fashioned ideograms across their parchments. It is as if the written word were a cutting-edge technology without useful precedents," groused Neal Stephenson in the New Republic in 1993.
Fahlman stands by his creation. "If Shakespeare were tossing off a quick note complaining about the lack of employee parking spaces near the Globe Theater, he might have produced the same kind of sloppy prose that the rest of us do," Fahlman writes on his Web site.
Yahoo!, Microsoft and America Online all incorporate emoticons into their instant-messaging systems, while telecom firms, jewelry makers and online retailers have filed trademark applications for products and slogans that incorporate Fahlman's smiley face.
But Fahlman has never seen a dime from his creation.
"If it cost people a nickel to use it, nobody would have used it. This is my little gift to the world, for better or worse," he said.
Yahoo! News - Man Leaves His Snake on a Bus Strange News - AP
Man Leaves His Snake on a Bus
Wed Sep 18,12:34 PM ET
BERN, Switzerland (AP) - A snake-lover has been reunited with his boa constrictor two days after he left it on a bus in the Swiss capital, police said Wednesday.
The 34-year-old owner, whom police refused to identify, said he was carrying several bags and failed to notice the snake's escape from one of them.
Surprised passengers discovered the 3-foot snake curled up behind a bus seat Monday night, police said. Veterinary authorities called in to capture the boa said it was not dangerous.
Police said that after media reports about the capture, three other people also came forward claiming to have lost the boa.
AP - Feature Stories
Animal Lovers Protest Horse Diapers
Thu Sep 19,12:33 PM ET
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Animal lovers and horsemen are protesting a plan by Vienna's leaders to diaper carriage-drawing horses in order to keep city streets clean.
Donning diapers themselves, animal rights activists on Thursday lined up at Heroes' Square in front of the former imperial Hofburg palace to protest the plan.
The protesters claim that the proposal — meant to keep horse droppings from sullying the streets of the historic capital — would inflict unnecessary suffering on the animals.
"The diapers would restrict the horses' movement and would rub, causing wounds," said Attila Cerman, a spokesman for Four Paws, the group that organized the protest.
Some of the 20 activists who came out to protest stood side-by-side with their rears in the air to spell out their slogan — "Stop Pooh Bags."
The drivers of the traditional carriages, whose rides through the city's historic downtown streets are popular with tourists, said they, too, were opposed to the diapers.
Members of the pro-environment Greens party have also spoken out against the plan, noting that the bag-like diapers would prevent the horses from being able to flick away flies with their tails.
The animal rights activists urged city officials to instead try to reduce the number of horse-drawn carriages and to deploy more cleanup teams armed with brooms and scoops to clean up the droppings.
They also claimed that the diapers would do nothing to fight the main source of horse-caused stench, urine.
Yahoo! News - Robber Steps in Dog Poo, Lands in Jail Oddly Enough - Reuters
Robber Steps in Dog Poo, Lands in Jail
Thu Sep 19, 9:43 AM ET
SYDNEY (Reuters) - A glob of dog excrement on a Queensland robber's shoe has been used as evidence to identify him, landing him with a 10-year stretch for a betting shop hold-up on Australia's Gold Coast.
Police said Thursday they had used enhanced photos from a security camera to match the pattern of excrement found at the crime scene to that on 26-year-old Jacob Smith's shoe.
"It's not rocket science. It's as plain as poo on your shoe," police sergeant Alan Piper, a veteran scientific officer, was quoted by local media as saying.
"It could have been one of a thousand or ten thousand shoes, but because that poo was there it was creating a great big feature that allowed us to go to a positive identification."
"I'd say there has been some more poo on the shoe but it has worn away," said Piper, who admitted to also doing a smell test.
Smith, who had wrapped a sheet around his face to hide his identity during the heist, was jailed in June for 10 years and 10 months on charges of robbery, being armed and in company and unlawful use of a motor vehicle.
AHHH!! WHY???
Yahoo! News - Man Slices Off Four Body Parts Oddly Enough - Reuters
Man Slices Off Four Body Parts
Thu Sep 19, 9:43 AM ET
SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man cut off the little finger on his right hand, then his scrotum, then his penis and finally his left hand in a drug-induced act of self-mutilation after arguing with his wife.
The man, believed to be high on amphetamines, attacked himself with a carving knife Tuesday in the town of Inverell 400 miles north of Sydney, police said Thursday.
"It is the most bizarre thing I have seen in 16 years in the police force," Inverell inspector Dave Harrington told Reuters.
Harrington said the 38-year-old man cut off his little finger while arguing with his wife inside their Inverell house and then chased her outside.
"He then proceeded to dismember his member," he said.
Police said the man was lucky ambulance officers witnessed the attack and prevented him from bleeding to death, adding that police recovered several body parts and packed them in ice in the hope they could be reattached.
The man was flown to Sydney for emergency microsurgery and was now in a stable condition, police said.
Yahoo! News - Mexico City Cops to Wear Sombreros Strange News - AP
Mexico City Cops to Wear Sombreros
Fri Sep 13, 3:23 PM ET
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico City police are trading in their bulletproof vests and drab brown uniforms for sombreros and mariachi suits in a bid to draw visitors.
Starting Nov. 1, 70 officers will fight crime in Mexico City's historic center dressed in authentic "charro" outfits, the capital's public safety director, Marcelo Ebrard, said Thursday.
Charros are Mexico's original cowboys, and their outfits include spurs, guns and pointy-topped, broad-brimmed hats known as sombreros.
The proposal was put forth by tourism officials who believe the costumes will help draw visitors while still allowing them to fight rising crime.
If the program is successful, officials plan to increase the number of charro police to 80 officers after two months, then 120 officers at the beginning of next year.
Yahoo! News - Report: Suitcase Thrower Sentenced Strange News - AP
Report: Suitcase Thrower Sentenced
Sat Sep 14,11:16 AM ET
SINGAPORE (AP) - A 43-year-old British expatriate who flung an empty suitcase out her condominium window has been sentenced by Singapore's subordinate court to three weeks in jail, a newspaper reported Saturday.
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The Straits Times said the housewife, Michelle Dawn Mcmillan, was drunk and arguing with her husband when she flung the empty suitcase out of her ninth-floor apartment window.
The valise landed on the walkway leading to the condominium's lobby, but caused no injuries, the paper said.
Mcmillan's 17-year-old son summoned police immediately after the incident and the woman was charged with committing a rash act, police spokesman Ang Poon Seng confirmed Saturday.
The woman, who was sentenced Friday, had faced a maximum sentence of three months in jail and a 250 Singapore dollar fine ($143), the paper said.
Strange News - AP
School Won't Allow Patriotic Hair
Fri Sep 13, 8:24 AM ET
ASHTABULA, Ohio (AP) - Seventh-grader Josie Kmiec's patriotic ponytail caused school officials in this northeastern Ohio town to see red.
The 12-year-old was sent home Wednesday from West Junior High School by her principal for spray painting her hair red, white and blue with temporary coloring.
"I thought it was a good way to show my patriotism because it's Sept. 11," Josie said about the anniversary of last year's terrorist attacks. "But the principal got upset about my appearance and told me to call my mother to come pick me up."
Her mom, Janis Kmiec, arrived at 8 a.m. and said Principal Sherry Cooley told her that Josie violated the student handbook, which states that clothing should not distract from the learning environment.
"I'm very upset and disappointed because Josie was really excited about going to school like that and then she ended up missing class," she said. "They squashed her right to self-expression."
Superintendent William Licate said Thursday the discipline code says students can't attract undue attention to themselves.
"That code is a district-wide policy but sometimes it is how you interpret it," Licate said. "(The principal) thought it caused undue attraction to wearer."
Licate said Cooley told him the girl washed the color from her hair and was back in class by third period.
A message seeking comment was left at Cooley's office Thursday.
Josie's 15-year-old brother, Jake, sprayed red, white and blue hair color on his head in the shape of the American flag.
"Lakeside High didn't have a problem with it," he said.
Ashtabula is 53 miles northeast of Cleveland.
Strange News - AP
Calif. Libertarians Drop Spitter
Sun Sep 15, 9:31 AM ET
LOS ANGELES (AP) - California's Libertarian Party voted to drop its candidate for governor because he spat on a radio talk show host.
The party's 15-member executive committee voted Saturday to rescind its endorsement of Gary Copeland's campaign and to censure him for "repugnant" and unprofessional conduct.
The Libertarian Party has about 98,000 registered members in California.
The committee's resolution also called on Copeland to apologize and to withdraw from the campaign. The state Legislature was urged to allow the party to remove his name from the November ballot.
"There was just a lot of anger over what he did," party chairman Aaron Starr said. "Everybody was quite appalled."
Copeland, 46, said he will continue to run. The radio host "deserved to be spat upon," he said, and discounted the committee's resolution.
"It means absolutely nothing. They were not the people who voted for me in the primary. They were not the people ... who nominated me," he said in a telephone call Saturday night from his Orange County home.
Copeland said he spat on KABC-AM radio host Brian Whitman after a Sept. 8 interview at the station's Los Angeles studio. Copeland said Whitman had applauded U.S. immigration control efforts, and that the host turned off the mike when Copeland was recounting past abuses of immigrants. Copeland got up to leave, heard several on-air comments from Whitman, then turned and spat on him.
"He had just stepped over my line," Copeland said.
The executive committee's resolution asked voters to cast write-in votes for former Bellflower mayor Art Olivier. The state Legislature also was asked to allow the party to choose future candidates at its annual convention rather than through a primary election.
___
On the Net: http://www.ca.lp.org/
Oddly Enough - Reuters
Fifty Percent of Stalkers Are Ex-Partners
Fri Sep 13, 9:42 AM ET
LEICESTER, England (Reuters) - Fifty percent of stalkers are former partners who harbor a bitterness or hatred for their victims and are likely to use violence and threats, a British psychologist said on Thursday.
They tend to be hostile, hot-headed and impulsive and may recruit friends and families in their campaign, Dr. Lorraine Sheridan said in a report presented at a science conference.
The professor of psychology at the University of Leicester in central England compiled personality profiles of stalkers, who fall into four types, for law enforcement officials after studying 124 stalking cases.
"It can help investigators to prioritize from the large number of potentially important factors present in any given case," she said in the report.
Sheridan found that 50 percent of stalkers are ex-partners, 18.5 percent are infatuated with their target, 15.3 percent are delusional and do not respond to reason or rejection and 12.9 percent are sadistic and obsessed with their victim.
The popular perception of stalkers is of mentally ill people following celebrities, royalty or strangers. But research has shown that many stalkers know their victims.
Sheridan said the profiles are important because they can enable police and legal officials to understand the motivations behind various stalking activities.
"This is especially important given that the same behaviors may present different levels of danger when perpetrated by different stalker types," she explained.
An infatuated stalker and a sadistic stalker may both send flowers and letters to get information about their victims.
"However, the motivations for these acts differ markedly," Sheridan added.
A U.S. study estimated that eight percent of women and two percent of men have been stalked at some time during their lives.
UHHH??
Oddly Enough - Reuters
City Officials to Hand Out Marijuana
Fri Sep 13, 9:49 AM ET
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (Reuters) - Santa Cruz city leaders plan to take part in a public pot giveaway next week to protest a recent federal raid of a medicinal marijuana cooperative that served mostly terminally ill members.
City Councilman Ed Porter said on Thursday he wants to show solidarity with residents in the beach community located some 70 miles south of San Francisco who are outraged at the federal raid last week that occurred without the support or knowledge of local officials.
Federal agents also arrested the cooperative's owners Michael and Valerie Corral, who were instrumental in drafting the trailblazing 1996 California law that allowed patients and their care-givers to grow marijuana for their own medicine.
"Terminally ill people are being denied the use of marijuana even though they have prescriptions because the Feds came in here and make a bust," Porter said. "I wouldn't be surprised if most of the city council participates because the whole community is up in arms about this."
The event, which is not sponsored by the city, is expected to take place outside City Hall on Tuesday. Those wishing to pick up marijuana will need to show a prescription for the drug which is legal in California for medical use, Porter said.
Richard Meyer, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said he was "appalled" by the plan but declined to detail whether federal agents would be at the event to make arrests.
"We are in shock, we are appalled and dismayed that elected officials would flaunt a federal law that way," Meyer said. "To us it is saying in Santa Cruz you are only entitled to obey the laws you agree with."
California is one of nine U.S. states where voters have passed laws allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana to patients suffering from illnesses ranging from AIDS and cancer to glaucoma and multiple sclerosis.
Federal law enforcement authorities, however, have taken a far more severe view of medical marijuana than their local counterparts in the nation's most populous state and have recently been cracking down on the patient clubs.
The U.S. medical marijuana movement, which gained strength in California during the height of the AIDS epidemic, also received a setback in 2001 when the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the federal ban on marijuana.
But California's own state Supreme Court recently took an opposite tack, ruling for the first time that ailing Californians who use or grow marijuana with a physician's approval cannot be prosecuted in state courts -- currently the venue for most marijuana cases.
Yahoo! News - Missile-Shaped Soft Drink Blasts Off Oddly Enough - Reuters
Missile-Shaped Soft Drink Blasts Off
Fri Sep 13, 9:56 AM ET
SOFIA (Reuters) - Sales of a new Bulgarian soft drink have rocketed since its launch two weeks ago, with consumers snapping up the bottles shaped like the ex-Soviet missiles which the country is now seeking to destroy.
The destruction of NATO hopeful Bulgaria's ballistic missile arsenal has been a hot topic of conversation in the small Balkan country amid fears that dismantling the rockets could trigger radiation leaks or even earthquakes.
One company seeking to capitalize on the issue has produced a new line of fruit-flavored soft-drink and packaged them in rocket-shaped silver bottles.
Nikolina Alendarova, manager of the private firm in the southern town of Stara Zagora, said it was now producing some 30,000-40,000 bottles a day since launching the product about two weeks ago.
Bulgaria safely destroyed the first of its Soviet-made missiles on Monday. The country has pledged to destroy its arsenal of 100 missiles by the end of October.
Strange News - AP
People Find $10 Bills in Mailboxes
Mon Sep 16, 8:08 AM ET
TURON, Kan. (AP) - White envelopes containing $10 bills have been arriving anonymously in the mailboxes of residents of this small, south-central Kansas town.
The mystery surrounding the sender's identity has confused and delighted residents of Turon, population 436.
"My first thought was that I had a birthday recently," said resident Markoleta Padgett, who found hers in the mail Wednesday. "But I thought, 'Who the tar would send me something for my birthday and not put a name on it?' "
By Thursday, 38 people had called or stopped by the post office, seeking an explanation for the envelopes with no return address. The recipients' names are typed on each envelope, but no specific street address is provided. The letters note only that the addressees live in Turon.
Postmaster Trudy Risley, who also received a letter Wednesday, said the Turon Post Office is investigating.
The recipients range from a Baptist minister to a local retiree to the director of the area's Friendship Meals program. Some of the recipients aren't listed in the phonebook.
The arrival of the envelopes on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has made some who received the letters anxious. But Risley said the envelopes contain no suspicious substances, and she hasn't contacted authorities.
Some residents figure the anonymous gift-giver was looking to brighten a gloomy Sept. 11.
"There's no crime being committed," Risley said.
Yahoo! News - 'Mile High Club' Forces Airplane Refit Oddly Enough - Reuters
'Mile High Club' Forces Airplane Refit
Mon Sep 16,10:25 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Virgin Atlantic Airways is to replace tables in its newest planes because passengers have broken them during illicit trysts, the Sun newspaper said on Monday.
The $200 million Airbus A340-600, which was introduced several weeks ago, has a "mother and baby room" with a plastic table meant for changing diapers. But passengers have destroyed them by using them for love making.
"Those determined to join the Mile High Club will do so despite the lack of comforts," a Virgin spokeswoman was quoted as saying.
"We don't mind couples having a good time, but this is not something that we would encourage because of air regulations."
Oddly Enough - Reuters UK
Levi Strauss unveils "anti-radiation" trousers
Thu Sep 12,12:33 PM ET
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. jeans maker Levi Strauss has denied it is playing on consumer fears by launching a line of trousers fitted with "anti-radiation" pockets for mobile phones.
The trousers, with a lining which the makers say shields against radiation, are designed by Dockers, a brand name of Levi Strauss -- famous for its classic "501" jeans.
Retailers were currently viewing the new line, called Icon S-Fit, with an eye to sales from next spring, a Levi's spokesman said.
"We're not implying in any way that mobile phones are dangerous," Levi's European communications manager Cedric Jungpeter told Reuters on Thursday.
"Our intention is not to cash in on consumer fears but provide the consumers with what they want," he said from Levi's European headquarters in Brussels.
The finished design was the fruit of extensive market research showing that the fashion conscious were also health conscious, Jungpeter said.
"The debate is open. Although no study has proved mobile phones are harmful, no study has proved the contrary either," he added.
Officials from Dockers, which announced the launch of its new line in July, were not immediately available for comment.
Worldwide studies into the possible dangers of mobile phones produce often conflicting conclusions.
A recent one carried out by Australian researchers over a three-year period showed that radio emissions from mobile phones did not trigger the growth of tumours in mice, and therefore probably did not do so in humans either.
That research followed another Australian study on mice five years ago that concluded cellular phones could foster tumour growth.
Swedish research published in August concluded that long-term users of first generation mobile phones faced an up to 80 percent greater risk of developing brain tumours than non-users and the World Health Organisation said last year more research was needed.
But a Danish study last year of 400,000 mobile phone users showed no increased cancer risk.
OK This is weird!!
Yahoo! News - NY Lottery Draws 9-1-1 on 9/11 Strange News - AP
NY Lottery Draws 9-1-1 on 9/11
Thu Sep 12, 5:21 AM ET
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - On the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks, a date known as 9-11, the evening numbers drawn in the New York Lottery were 9-1-1.
"The numbers were picked in the standard random fashion using all the same protocols," said lottery spokeswoman Carolyn Hapeman. "It's just the way the numbers came up."
Lottery officials won't know until Thursday morning how many people played those numbers or the total payout, she said.
For the evening numbers game, the New York Lottery selects from balls numbered zero to nine circulating in a machine at the lottery office. Three levers are pressed, and three balls are randomly brought up into tubes and then displayed.
Related Links
•New York Lottery Results (Lottery.com)
Oddly Enough - Reuters
Politicians May Be Asked for Mental Exams
Thu Sep 12, 9:25 AM ET
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - Argentine politicians, blamed by voters for leading the country to its worst economic crisis, would have to undergo psychiatric tests to ensure they are mentally fit to hold office if a bill before Congress is approved.
Sen. Jorge Capitanich, a former Cabinet chief, has submitted a bill that would require all congressional and presidential candidates to take mental as well as physical exams, a spokesman for the legislator said Wednesday.
The bill, possibly due for debate this week, would also require future leaders to present any criminal records and proof they have paid taxes in a country where half of potential revenues are lost to evasion.
Politicians are increasingly the target of public anger among voters fed up with a recession now in its fifth year. Few lawmakers can venture out in public without being insulted or spat on in the streets.
As March presidential elections approach, the most common popular street slogan is "Get Rid of Them All!" Soaring poverty and unemployment have sparked food riots over the last year and forced four presidents since December 2001 to leave their posts.
ApeChild.com - For the Primate in All of Us
Ok this is sad but when I saw it I busted up laughing!!
A count down to when the Olsen twins turn 18.
Oddly Enough - Reuters UK
Cook book gets Koreans in hot water
Wed Sep 11, 6:56 AM ET
SEOUL (Reuters) - They didn't reveal any top secret recipes, but two junior aides to South Korean President Kim Dae-jung have been sacked after publishing a book entitled "What do people eat at the Blue House?"
The low-ranking staffers, a nutritionist and a secretary for civil affairs, were dismissed for divulging security secrets in their book about daily life in South Korea's ornate blue-tiled presidential mansion, Kim's spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
"This government cooperates to the fullest extent possible every time there is a media request to cover aspects of the president's life or the Blue House which citizens are curious about," presidential spokeswoman Park Sun-sook told reporters.
"Every government in the world treats as important secrets select information about its highest leaders," she told a news conference.
Without repeating what was divulged, Park said the book contained a number of secrets of various degrees of classification on security facilities and procedures at the Blue House, where the president both lives and works.
She said the book also contained "not a few accounts of past presidents' eating habits, favourite foods and dining information about foreign guests".
The health of the 77-year-old Kim had been a subject of intense speculation after a recent bout of pneumonia
Yahoo! News - Suspects Pretend to Be Hostages Strange News - AP
Suspects Pretend to Be Hostages
Tue Sep 10, 7:40 AM ET
BOSTON (AP) - Two armed suspects in a pizza parlor heist tried to pretend to be hostages as police closed in, but were outfoxed by restaurant employees.
Armed suspects Johnathan Ortega, 23, and Miguel Angel Correa, 27, allegedly broke into a Pizza Hut restaurant last week, tied up employees in the bathroom and waited for a time-delayed safe to open, police said.
The plan began to fall apart after the duo released one hostage, making him promise not to call authorities. Police arrived minutes later.
The suspects then tied themselves up and pleaded with the hostages to go along with the ruse. Restaurant manager Orlando Reyes, 20, wasn't about to play along.
"I said 'I'm going to go outside and tell police officers the bad guys left and you guys were tied up with us,'" Reyes told the Boston Herald.
The men were charged with kidnapping and attempted robbery.
Strange News - AP
House Arrest in High-Heel Attack
Tue Sep 10, 5:15 PM ET
PANAMA CITY, Fla. (AP) - A former exotic dancer received two years of house arrest for knocking out another stripper's tooth with her high-heel shoes, but her lawyer acknowledged any more trouble would land her behind bars.
Now a nursing student, Kimi Aushabranner, 30, received a five-year suspended sentence Monday. Circuit Judge Clinton Foster ordered her to spend the first two years under community control and the remaining three on probation.
She also faces restitution of about $13,000 for the victim's medical expenses and 300 hours of community service, although Foster said he would waive the latter if she remains in school.
A jury last month convicted her of felony battery for kicking out one of Charlotte Barber's teeth and loosening another with her 6-inch heels. It happened during a fight on Nov. 22, 1997 at the Show N' Tail, a lounge in nearby Panama City Beach.
Aushabranner's lawyer, Waylon Graham, told Foster the sentence would let her to get on with her new career goals but she understood she won't get any more chances.
"If she screws this up there won't be no hemming and hawing at the next sentencing, it's just five years" in prison, Graham said.
Aushabranner was not arrested until almost four years after the fight. A jury last year acquitted her sister, Ginger Aushabranner, also a dancer, for her involvement.
Witnesses said it began when a bartender told Kimi Aushabranner to leave because she had broken a club rule. She threw a drink on the bartender and the sisters then exchanged words with Barber who was knocked off her own 6-inch heels during the melee, witnesses said.
Yahoo! News - Long Toilet Stay Triggers Airplane Security Sweep Oddly Enough - Reuters
Long Toilet Stay Triggers Airplane Security Sweep
Wed Sep 11,10:00 AM ET
BERLIN (Reuters) - A passenger who spent a long time in an airplane toilet Wednesday prompted a security alert and full search of the Lufthansa plane, the airline said.
"It was quite amusing," Lufthansa spokesman Thomas Jachnow said. "He was on the toilet for quite some time. That was enough reason to alert the federal border police."
The man went to the toilet after the plane had landed in Berlin's Tegel airport from Frankfurt. His lengthy stay prompted the flight attendant to alert security officials.
The border police detained the man once he had emerged and conducted a thorough search of the plane which did not produce anything unusual, spokesman Lars Rebel said.
Jachnow said the incident only occurred because of heightened security around the anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States.
"The day put people's nerves on edge. Thank god, it turned out to be nothing," he said.
Oddly Enough - Reuters
D'oh! There's One Tiny Flaw in This Plan...
Mon Sep 9,10:16 AM ET
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish police must wish all criminals were as naive as the Halmstad robber.
The 47-year-old man walked into the post office of the small town in southern Sweden, told the cashier he was armed and demanded a bag of cash -- plus 350 million crowns ($37.2 million) to be paid into his bank account, whose number he handed her on a piece of paper.
Police had no trouble tracking him down and made a speedy arrest, the Swedish news agency TT reported Monday.
Yahoo! News - Fox Steals Golf Balls, No Help from Rule Book Oddly Enough - Reuters
Fox Steals Golf Balls, No Help from Rule Book
Tue Sep 10, 9:13 AM ET
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A fox snapped up two balls hit from the seventh tee on to the fairway by players in a tournament at Gronhogen golf course on the island of Oland off Sweden's southeastern coast, TT news agency said on Tuesday.
The players saw the fox run off into nearby woods and when tournament director Bo Rodensjo consulted the rule book he found no guidance about how to proceed.
He chose to allow the players to drop new balls near where they had stopped. The fox, hoarding food for the winter, had apparently mistaken the golf balls for bird eggs.
Ok this is sad but funny in some sort of sick way!!
Yahoo! News - Man's visit to his future grave kills him Oddly Enough - Reuters UK
Man's visit to his future grave kills him
Tue Sep 3, 3:03 PM ET
LASCARI, Sicily (Reuters) - Giovanni Greco sent himself, literally, to an early grave.
Greco, 63, was so keen that his future mausoleum would be a perfect fit that he liked to visit it ensure the builders were making it just right.
But his latest visit proved to be his last.
According to local media reports, Greco was making his regular trip to the construction site in the small cemetery in his hometown of Lascari at the weekend.
He climbed a ladder to get a better view of the top of the mausoleum when he slipped, hit his head on a marble step, and fell into his own tomb.
Yahoo! News - Feds Mistakenly List Woman As Dead Strange News - AP
Feds Mistakenly List Woman As Dead
Tue Sep 3, 8:44 AM ET
Jackie Turcotte got a surprise explanation when her recent application for a credit card was denied — she's supposed to be dead.
Turcotte, 36, learned that as far as the Social Security Administration ( news - web sites) was concerned, she died in 1986.
"I was in awe when I heard that," the Sanilac County woman told the Times Herald of Port Huron for a story Tuesday.
An apparent typing error led to the mistake. Local Social Security ( news - web sites) officials promised to fix the error.
In the time she was supposed to be dead, Turcotte got married, paid off her student loans and filed tax returns. She wonders why the Internal Revenue Service ( news - web sites) hadn't contacted she and her husband Don to find out why a dead person was listed on their annual joint tax return.
Dennis Crimmins of the Port Huron Social Security office said such mistakes are rare.
"Once is too much," he said.
Crimmins said the best way for people to ensure they're still alive in the Social Security system is to watch the mail for Social Security income statements that are mailed annually before tax time to workers age 25 and older.
Strange News - AP
Hawk Gets Stuck on Wash. Woman's Arm
Mon Sep 9, 5:02 PM ET
By The Associated Press
ARLINGTON, Wash. (AP) - "Call 911! I have a hawk stuck to my arm."
It didn't take long for gas station customers to see Jamie Wing wasn't kidding.
A red-tailed hawk collided with Wing's pickup truck Thursday, and after she freed the bird's wing from the side-view mirror, the hawk invaded the truck, bit Wing's lip and then sank its talons into her right arm.
Wing, 38, said she threw a coat over the bird, tried without success to get it off her arm — and then drove to the nearest highway exit.
"Every time you touched the bird, it gripped harder," she said. "There was a point where it got so painful that I was going to reach down and break its neck myself, but I love animals and I realized the bird was in shock and pain."
Firefighters administered morphine to help ease Wing's pain, and two women from the nearby Sarvey Wildlife Center pulled the hawk off her arm.
Wing was treated at a local hospital for puncture wounds on her right arm, hand and thumb.
"I feel lucky it didn't chew me up more," she said.
The hawk had to be euthanized because both wings were broken too badly to heal or be repaired, said Kestrel SkyHawk, who cares for birds of prey at the center and is on its board of directors.
Yahoo! News - Police investigate road racing rodent Oddly Enough - UK Reuters
Police investigate road racing rodent
Sat Sep 7, 9:37 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Detectives are investigating the mystery of a hamster found driving a toy racing car along a promenade at a northern seaside resort, newspapers say.
The hamster, nicknamed Speedy, was handed in by a member of the public who found him cruising through Cleveleys, near Blackpool in the modified toy, which he powered by a treadmill.
"It is a model hotrod racing car with large wheels at the back and small ones at the front," the Daily Express quoted Constable Quentin Allen as saying.
"In the centre is a typical hamster wheel you can buy at any pet shop... As the hamster went round and round it powered the car along at high speed."
Officers removed Speedy from the car after he made several escape attempts from their front desk, and they took him to a nearby animal sanctuary. Detectives are appealing for the owner to come forward.
Oddly Enough - UK Reuters
Road workers paint over dead badger
Mon Sep 9, 8:36 PM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Local officials are reported to be furious after road workers apparently painted a white line on the side of a road right over the furry body of a dead badger.
The Sun on Tuesday splashed a photo of the badger across half a page, saying the picture was taken by a passerby who saw it on the side of the highway in Somerset.
The freshly-painted white line at the road's edge went right over the dead animal's back.
"This is totally unacceptable and we will be asking for an explanation," the paper quoted a local government spokesman as saying.
The lines were painted by an independent contractor, he said.
