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Madeleine
quinta-feira, 5 de fevereiro de 2009
quarta-feira, 4 de fevereiro de 2009
Man found stuck in chimney
A man found stuck in a chimney claimed he could not remember how he got there.
Police in Burlington, Vermont, in the US received a report of a man crying for help and went to investigate.
They followed the sound until they found footprints in the snow on the roof of a building.
The footprints led to a chimney where officers found a man stuck inside, local media reported.
The man did not live in the building. He was conscious and told police he had been stuck for several hours.
The man told police he had no idea how he got there.
Firefighters had to dismantle the chimney to free him.
Witnesses said the man was covered in soot when they finally pulled him free.
"They smashed it and then took a ladder up the side and had to break in through the side of the building," said Michael Woodhouse, a witness.
"The whole time, they were screaming to get the furnace turned off."
He added: "He said he'd been drinking with his brother and didn't know how he got on to the roof."
The man has not been charged with a crime.
Thief suffers frozen chicken injury
A thief who used a frozen chicken as a tool to break into a cafe was caught after he cut his wrist and was forced to phone an ambulance, Australian police said.
The man stole the chicken during an earlier break-in at a butcher's shop at Macksville, north of Sydney, but came off second best when he tried to use the frozen bird and some rocks to break into a cafe, slashing open his wrist.
"He thought he was dying," a police spokesman who would not be named told Reuters from Macksville police headquarters.
The 20-year-old man dialled an emergency 000 number to call an ambulance and was arrested shortly after being treated by paramedics, he said.
The man was charged with breaking-and-entering and was due to face a local court in nearby Kempsey later on Wednesday.
terça-feira, 3 de fevereiro de 2009
Lost thief holes up in French bank toilet
A bank robber failed to find any loot in a toilet
A would-be thief's plan to drill his way into a bank backfired when he missed the safe and emerged in the toilet.
The hapless thief was promptly arrested when he got through into the lavatory, French newspaper La Provence reported.
The 21-year-old, who was not named, broke into a building adjoining a branch of Banque Populaire in Marseilles in the early hours.
The man, who came from Belgium, planned to drill his way through to a room housing safe deposit boxes.
Alarms were triggered when he broke through the wall and police caught the man when they arrived on the scene.
Porn film interrupts Super Bowl
Super Bowl viewers were shocked when the game was interrupted by porn
When viewers in Arizona tuned in to watch American football's Super Bowl this weekend they ended up watching porn after the channel was disrupted by an erotic film.
The fans were told by KVOA-TV that they were "dismayed and disappointed" by the incident and the company said that although it only happened on one cable network, it will be investigated to find answers.
Complaints flooded in from angry viewers as their game was replaced with a woman unzipping a man's trousers, before a graphic scene unraveled.
Road sign warns of dinosaurs ahead
A road sign warned of 'dinosaurs ahead' after pranksters hacked into the programmable sign.
The sign in Carmel, in the US state of Indiana, warned of "Raptors Ahead Caution, local media reported.
One motorists who saw the sign said: "It's kind of crazy. I'm totally confused. I'm kind of expecting ... dinosaurs to run down the road, or something."
Nancy Heck, a spokeswoman for the city of Carmel, said the sign is owned by contractor Highway Technologies, which operates the programmable signs in the construction area.
The apparent prank comes after a road sign near the University of Texas was similarly hacked with the messages "Caution! Zombies Ahead!" and "Nazi Zombies! Run!!!"
Man caught with pigeons in his trousers
Is that a pair of pigeons in your pants, or are you just pleased to see me?
An Australian traveller was caught with two live pigeons stuffed down his trousers following a trip to the Middle East, customs officers said today.
The 23-year-old man was searched after authorities discovered two eggs in a vitamin container in his luggage, said Richard Janeczko, national investigations manager for the Customs Service.
They found the pigeons wrapped in padded envelopes and held to each of the man's legs with a pair of tights, according to a statement released by the agency. Officials also seized seeds in his money belt and an undeclared eggplant.
The alleged bird smuggler, who arrived in Melbourne on Sunday on a flight from Dubai, was being questioned.
Australia has very strict quarantine regulations on the importation of wildlife, plants and food to protect health, agriculture and the environment of the isolated island nation.
Charges of wildlife smuggling - which carry a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment and a fine of 110,000 Australian dollars (£48,600) - could be brought against the man.
Janeczko said the pigeons were not endangered and that the case - as well as the birds, eggs and seeds - had been turned over to the Quarantine Service to assess the health risk associated with bringing the birds into the country.
The Quarantine Service would not comment on the continuing investigation.
segunda-feira, 2 de fevereiro de 2009
Man 'rides white horse through snow while drunk'
A white horse. Drunken guy not pictured. Snow also not pictured
A man has been accused of public intoxication while riding a white horse during a snowstorm in the northern Wyoming town of Cody.
Police say they cited 28-year-old Benjamin Daniels after they received a call on Sunday afternoon from a motorist concerned that a man was creating a road hazard by riding his horse on a street in conditions with poor visibility, the Billings Gazette reported.
Cody Assistant Police Chief George Menig says officers noticed Daniels was intoxicated after they stopped him to explain that drivers were having difficulty spotting his slow-moving white horse.
Menig said Thursday that Daniels was detained Sunday and released the following day. He will go before a municipal judge later. A friend of Daniels picked up the horse.
sexta-feira, 30 de janeiro de 2009
Fire breaks out at fire station
We didn't start the fire... Oh hang on, we did
A blaze broke out at a fire station in Japan after a firefighter left a cooking stove burning as crew members left the station to respond to emergency calls.
Most of the duty staffers were out on a call when their colleague, alone at the station and cooking dinner for the crew, was himself called out.
In his haste to respond to the call, he forgot to turn the stove off, said Seiji Hori, a Nagoya City Fire Department official. Ten fire trucks from other stations put out the fire, Hori added.
"We are an institute that should be in a position to educate people about fire, so we are extremely sorry that such an incident happened," Hori said, adding that they would consider ordering-in for dinner from now on.
Vicars hit the catwalk for Christian fashion show
Vicars are turning to the catwalk to show off their clerical couture
Forget Christian Dior and say hello to Christian gear.
Vicars have taken part in a catwalk show to model a new range of clerical couture.
As Kanye West and Mischa Barton took in Jean-Paul Gaultier at Paris fashion week, members of the Christian Resources Exhibition watched colleagues strut their stuff in formal wear by the likes of J Wippell Ltd and Shinglers of Sutton.
There was also a 'leisure section' featuring socks embossed with the holy lamb.
'Women clergy have brought a fresh look,' said designer Juliet Hemingway at the Exeter show.
Dolphins 'are the chefs of the sea'
Now sir, how would you like that cooked?
Dolphins are the chefs of the seas, having been seen going through precise and elaborate preparations to rid cuttlefish of ink and bone to produce a soft meal of calamari, Australian scientists say.
A wild female Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin was observed going through the same series of complicated steps to prepare cuttlefish prey for eating in the Spencer Gulf, in South Australia state.
"It's a sign of how well their brains are developed. It's a pretty clever way to get pure calamari without all the horrible bits," Mark Norman, the curator of molluscs at Museum Victoria and a research team member, told the Canberra Times newspaper.
The research team, writing in the science journal PLoS One, said they repeatedly observed a female dolphin herding cuttlefish out of algal weed and onto a clear, sandy patch of seafloor.
The dolphin, identified using circular body scars, then pinned the cuttlefish with its snout while standing on its head, before killing it instantly with a rapid downward thrust and "loud click" audible to divers as the hard cuttlebone broke.
The dolphin then lifted the body up and beat it with her nose to drain the toxic black ink that cuttlefish squirt into the water to defend themselves when attacked.
Next the prey was taken back to the seafloor, where the dolphin scraped it along the sand to strip out the cuttlebone, making the cuttlefish soft for eating.
Norman and study co-author Tom Tregenza, from the University of Exeter, said the behaviour exhibited between 2003 and 2007 was unlikely to be a rarity.
"In addition to our observations, individual bottlenose dolphins feeding at these cuttlefish spawning grounds have been observed by divers in the area to perform the same behavioural sequence," they said in the study.
"The feeding behaviour reported here is specifically adapted to a single prey type and represents impressive behavioural flexibility for a non-primate animal."
A separate 2005 study provided the first sign dolphins may be capable of group learning and using tools, with a mother seen teaching her daughters to break off sea sponges and wear them as protection while scouring the seafloor in Western Australia.
The mammals used the sponges "as a kind of glove" while searching for food, University of Zurich researcher Michael Krutzen told New Scientist magazine.
Other researchers have observed dolphins removing the spines from flathead fish prey and breaking metre-long Golden Trevally fish into smaller pieces for eating.
Death faker foiled by traffic cop
If one of these pulls you over, you'd better hope you haven't been dead for 20 years
A man who faked his death 20 years ago off has been found after he was stopped for having a faulty number plate.
Bennie Wint admitted he staged his drowning death in Daytona Beach, Florida, in 1989.
He left a grieving fiancée and a daughter from a previous marriage. Since his faked death, he has remarried and had another child in North Carolina.
Wint told police he faked his death because he was "paranoid" about his drug-related activity.
He was pulled over because the lights on his licence plate was not working.
He gave a false name to the police officer that did not come up on databases.
Police sergeant Stacy Wyatt said: "I found it suspicious and believed it to be a false name."
He listed Wint as a "John Doe", but Wint soon opened up and admitted he had been on the run since 1989.
Man 'rides white horse through snow while drunk'
This is a man in the snow, minus a horse
A man has been accused of public intoxication while riding a white horse during a snowstorm in the northern Wyoming town of Cody.
Police say they cited 28-year-old Benjamin Daniels after they received a call on Sunday afternoon from a motorist concerned that a man was creating a road hazard by riding his horse on a street in conditions with poor visibility, the Billings Gazette reported.
Cody Assistant Police Chief George Menig says officers noticed Daniels was intoxicated after they stopped him to explain that drivers were having difficulty spotting his slow-moving white horse.
Menig said Thursday that Daniels was detained Sunday and released the following day. He will go before a municipal judge later. A friend of Daniels picked up the horse.quinta-feira, 29 de janeiro de 2009
Cigarette burns home while owner at quit smoking meeting
Smoking is bad for you
A lit cigarette burned a home to the ground while its occupants were attending a meeting to help them quit smoking.
Officials have ruled that a blaze that destroyed a mobile home in San Luis Obispo, California was caused by a cigarette.
The mobile home was owned by 68-year-old Bill Lewis who lived there with his mother Chessie, who's in her 80s.
The fire was started by a cigarette left behind by Chessie on a table of a porch before the pair left for a meeting at the County Public Health Department to help her quit smoking.
No one was injured in the fire, which caused $200,000 worth of damage.
Blowfish testicles hospitalise diners
This is fish and chips. Not blowfish. And that thing you clicked on the last page was a jellyfish. We do have pictures of blowfish but we just don't want to use them
Blowfish testicles prepared by an unauthorised chef have made seven diners ill in Japan, and three remained in hospital after eating the poisonous delicacy.
The owner of the restaurant in Tsuruoka city, who is also the chef, had no license to serve blowfish and was being questioned on suspicion of professional negligence.
Blowfish, while extremely poisonous if not prepared properly, is considered a delicacy in Japan and is consumed by thrill-seeking gourmets.
The seven men ordered sashimi and grilled blowfish testicles at the restaurant on Monday night.
Shortly after, they developed limb paralysis and breathing trouble and started to lose consciousness - typical signs of blowfish poisoning - and were rushed to a hospital for treatment.
A 68-year-old diner remained hospitalised in a critical condition with respiratory failure and two others, aged 55 and 69, were in serious condition.
"It's scary. If you go to a decent-looking restaurant that serves fugu, you would assume a cook has a proper fugu license," police official Yoshihito Iwase said, using the Japanese term for blowfish.
Blowfish poison, called tetrodotoxin, is nearly 100 times more poisonous than potassium cyanide, according to the Ishikawa Health Service Association.
It can cause death within an hour and a half after consumption.
Three people died and 44 others were sickened by blowfish poisoning in 2007 - most of them after catching the fish and cooking it at home - according to the Health Ministry.
Armed robber foiled by spoon
This is what a spoon looks like, for anyone in the world who was in doubt
A robber has been foiled by restaurant employees who were armed with a spoon.
The workers used their might - and the might of the spoon - to subdue Joey Geracy, 39, who has been charged with armed robbery. He is accused of entering Williams Supper Club in Muskego, Wisconsin through a kitchen door and grabbing a teenage girl who worked there. He then demanded money.
Police said Geraci wore a motorcycle helmet and claimed he had a weapon. But his plan collapsed when a chef hit him with a large serving spoon before putting him in a headlock.
Postman delivers...a baby
Postmen deliver letters...and children
A postman was forced to make a special delivery when his wife went into labour.
Graham Proctor was upstairs when Elena began having contractions at their home in Brentwood, Essex.
The sorting officer then single-handedly delivered baby Isabel on the bathroom floor.
'I am so proud,' said his wife.
Handcuffed prisoners foil their own escape
The prisoners ended up in a heap
It was less than a Great Escape. Two New Zealand prisoners who were handcuffed together as they fled a courthouse foiled their own getaway when they ran to opposite sides of a light pole, slammed into each other and fell to the ground.
Jailers nabbed them as they struggled to their feet.
Their escapade on Wednesday was captured by a CCTV camera at Hastings District Court on New Zealand's North Island.
The footage shows the two men trying to make a break for it - but apparently forgetting they were joined at the wrist.
Hastings police Senior Sgt. Dave Greig said one inmate, Regan Reti, 20, had just been sent to prison for more than two years after being convicted of assault.
The other inmate, Tiranara White, 21, was in custody for allegedly stealing a car and violating parole.
"As they were being led from the Hastings police cells ... they made a bolt for freedom," Greig said.
"They fell over and they were sprayed with pepper spray. But they got up and ran out of the court onto the street, across the road to a car park," he said. "That's where they met the pole - it was all over, rover."
The pair were back in court Thursday, facing fresh charges of escaping from custody. Police said Reti, who pleaded guilty to the charge, had a month added to his prison term.
White did not enter a plea. He will remain in police custody while a psychiatric evaluation is carried out.
Grainy footage of the escapade shown on TV One News was billed as "one of the worst escape attempts ever seen."
quarta-feira, 28 de janeiro de 2009
Pair arrested after returning to crime scene
A police car. Who's driving that thing?! No one. It's parked
Two people have been arrested for allegedly stealing tyres and rims from a car.
Nothing strange in that, you might think. Except that this pair went back to the scene to check if they had been spotted.
John T West, 20, from Sacramento and Ashley Sorensen, 20, from Auburn are accused of stealing two tyres and rims off of a Toyota parked in a driveway.
They put the tyres on their own car and then drove back to the scene of the crime. They told authorities they wanted to "see if the lady had called the cops".
Well, their hunch was right. The victim had called the police and an officer was in the driveway when he noticed the vehicle drive by.
After searching the area he found the car at a mobile home park, sporting two Toyota tyres and rims.
The pair have been charged with theft.
Defendant smears lawyer in faeces
A mistrial was declared at a court in San Diego after a suspect in a robbery smeared human faeces on his lawyer's face and then threw more at the jury.
Weusi McGowan, 37, became enraged when Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser refused to remove Deputy Alternate Public Defender Jeffrey Martin from the case.
During the break, McGowan produced a plastic bag with fecal matter and smeared it on Martin's hair and face. He then flung the bag towards the jury, hitting the brief case of juror No. 9.
"That juror didn't even see it coming," said prosecutor Christopher Lawson.
After lunch, the judge dismissed the jury and said the defendant would have to find a new lawyer.
McGowan's bail was raised from $250,000 to $1 million, as he was branded a danger to the community.
The prosecutor said the defendant had wiped human faeces on himself in the past.
McGowan is charged with kidnapping for robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and other counts and could face assault charges in connection with the attack on his lawyer and the jury.
McGowan is accused of hitting a man with a rock in a sock in October 2007.
Blowfish testicles hospitalise diners
This is fish and chips. Not blowfish. And that thing you clicked on the last page was a jellyfish. We do have pictures of blowfish but we just don't want to use them
Blowfish testicles prepared by an unauthorised chef have made seven diners ill in Japan, and three remained in hospital after eating the poisonous delicacy.
The owner of the restaurant in Tsuruoka city, who is also the chef, had no license to serve blowfish and was being questioned on suspicion of professional negligence.
Blowfish, while extremely poisonous if not prepared properly, is considered a delicacy in Japan and is consumed by thrill-seeking gourmets.
The seven men ordered sashimi and grilled blowfish testicles at the restaurant on Monday night.
Shortly after, they developed limb paralysis and breathing trouble and started to lose consciousness - typical signs of blowfish poisoning - and were rushed to a hospital for treatment.
A 68-year-old diner remained hospitalised in a critical condition with respiratory failure and two others, aged 55 and 69, were in serious condition.
"It's scary. If you go to a decent-looking restaurant that serves fugu, you would assume a cook has a proper fugu license," police official Yoshihito Iwase said, using the Japanese term for blowfish.
Blowfish poison, called tetrodotoxin, is nearly 100 times more poisonous than potassium cyanide, according to the Ishikawa Health Service Association.
It can cause death within an hour and a half after consumption.
Three people died and 44 others were sickened by blowfish poisoning in 2007 - most of them after catching the fish and cooking it at home - according to the Health Ministry.
Armed robber foiled by spoon
This is what a spoon looks like, for anyone in the world who was in doubt
A robber has been foiled by restaurant employees who were armed with a spoon.
The workers used their might - and the might of the spoon - to subdue Joey Geracy, 39, who has been charged with armed robbery. He is accused of entering Williams Supper Club in Muskego, Wisconsin through a kitchen door and grabbing a teenage girl who worked there. He then demanded money.
Police said Geraci wore a motorcycle helmet and claimed he had a weapon. But his plan collapsed when a chef hit him with a large serving spoon before putting him in a headlock.
terça-feira, 27 de janeiro de 2009
White House e-mail service crashes
Dear Mr Obama, my computer sucks
So the new White House finally gets its e-mail up and running smoothly, and then what happens? The entire system crashed on Monday morning.
The last e-mail from the White House press office before the breakdown arrived just before 9am on Monday, advising that President Barack Obama's event on energy independence in the East Room would be open to all media, instead of just the smaller group of reporters and photographers that typically follows the president.
The malfunction left inboxes in the White House complex and across town eerily empty.
Several hours later, at his briefing for the news media, press secretary Robert Gibbs apologized for being out of electronic touch.
"Our apologies if you've e-mailed any of us in the last two-and-a-half hours," he said. "Our e-mail system is not working so well.
So our apologies on that, and we'll endeavor to get you information from earlier in the day, hopefully in a little bit more of a timely manner, if we can get the e-mail to work."
Gibbs' assistants ultimately got the information out the old-fashioned way: on paper.
It was unclear if the system would be working again on Tuesday.
Jailed killer attempts to post his finger
The inmate cut off the digit in his cell
A notorious Australian serial killer who is serving a life sentence for the slayings of seven backpackers cut off his little finger in his prison cell and attempted to mail it to the country's top court.
Ivan Milat, 64, who was convicted in 1996 of murdering the young travelers, used a serrated plastic knife that came with his meal to sever the finger from his left hand on Monday, a spokesman for the New South Wales state Department of Corrective Services said.
Milat, who is housed in a maximum security cell at Goulburn Correctional Centre, 125 miles south of Sydney, then placed the severed digit in an envelope addressed to the High Court of Australia and handed it to an officer.
He was rushed to a hospital, but surgeons were unable to reattach the finger, the spokesman said.
The killer was returned to prison later Monday and appeared in good health, though he was refusing to eat.
Milat offered no clues as to what his motive was, the spokesman said, adding the incident is under investigation.
"It's the work of a desperate man and Ivan Milat is in the top echelon of desperate people," John Dunthorne, the department's southwest region assistant commissioner, told Australia's 2UE radio Tuesday.
Milat has attempted to mutilate himself before. In 2001, he swallowed three disposable razor blades, and later that year swallowed a spring from the toilet in his cell.
Milat killed three Germans, two Britons and two Australians between 1989 and 1992. Their bodies were later found in shallow graves in a remote forest southwest of Sydney.
Star Trek couple's space race
It's death Jim but not as we know it
The creator of "Star Trek" and his wife will spend eternity together in space.
Celestis, a company that specialises in "memorial spaceflights", has said that it will ship the remains of Gene Roddenberry and Majel Barrett Roddenberry into space next year.
The couple's cremated remains will be sealed into specially made capsules designed to withstand the rigors of space travel.
A rocket-launched spacecraft will carry the capsules, along with digitised tributes from fans.
The Roddenberrys' remains - and the spacecraft - will travel ever deeper into space and will not return to earth, company spokeswoman Susan Schonfeld said.
After Gene Roddenberry died in 1991, his wife commissioned Celestis to launch a part of his remains into space in 1997. She died on December 18, 2008.
Car not built to fly, flies onto roof
Emergency services had to rescue a man from his car after he managed to crash it into a church roof in Limbach-Oberfrohna, Germany, today.
The 23 year-old from Chemnitz was severely injured in the accident.
According to the police the driver missed a turn, ploughed on up a sloping field and then finally 'took off' to land in the church roof.
segunda-feira, 26 de janeiro de 2009
Goat arrested for Mazda robbery
A goat arrested? No kidding - it's the nanny state gone mad
Police in Nigeria are holding a goat on suspicion of the attempted armed robbery of a Mazda 323.
Vigilantes took the animal to the police, claiming it was a criminal who had used black magic to transform himself into a goat to escape arrest after trying to steal the car.
Police have detained the goat in custody while they ponder what to do next.
Kwara state police spokesman Tunde Mohammed said: "The group of vigilante men came to report that while they were on patrol they saw some hoodlums attempting to rob a car.
It is something that has to be proved scientifically, that a human being turned into a goat
"They pursued them. However, one of them escaped while the other turned into a goat.
"We cannot confirm the story, but the goat is in our custody. We cannot base our information on something mystical.
"It is something that has to be proved scientifically, that a human being turned into a goat."
Belief in witchcraft is widespread in parts of Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation.
Curious locals have rushed to the police station to see the goat, photographed in one national newspaper on its knees next to a pile of straw.
The campervan that turns into a two-seater
The German-designed Colim campervan can turn into a sleek city car
A new motorhome may be ideal for those trying to skimp on holiday costs during the credit crunch.
The vehicle doubles as a two-seater city car so tourists can cruise around town, and it's more fuel efficient than a traditional motorhome.
The Colim vehicle sleeps four people and has a top speed of 90mph. German designer Christian Susana hopes the 'sleek curves will appeal to women buyers'.
He is now looking for a firm to make the vehicle.
Cleaners find $100,000 in tyre
Three road cleaners picking up litter on an Indiana highway found an abandoned tyre - and discovered about $100,000 (around £73,000) inside.
Indiana state police suspect the cash, in denominations of $5 to $100, may be drug money. State Police spokesman Mike Burns says a drug-sniffing dog found the scent of drugs on the bills.
Police said the workers found the tyre on Friday in a ditch along Interstate 70 just east of Indianapolis.
Police say the tyre appeared to be from a large truck. It isn't clear how long it was in the ditch.
Detective Sgt. Keith O'Donnell commended the workers for their 'honesty and professionalism' in contacting police.
111-year-old reptile becomes a dad
A reptile in New Zealand has unexpectedly become a father at the ripe old age of 111 - after receiving treatment for a cancer which had made him hostile toward prospective mates.
The centenarian tuatara, named Henry, was thought to be long out of the mating game, until he was caught canoodling with a female named Mildred last March.
That consummation that resulted in 11 babies being hatched on Monday.
Tuatara are indigenous New Zealand creatures that resemble lizards, but are actually descended from a seperate lineage of reptiles that walked the earth with the dinosaurs 225 million years ago.
An endangered species, the hatchlings born at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery will provide a badly needed boost to the tuatara's genetic diversity, said the gallery's tuatara curator, Lindsay Hazley.
Henry was at least 70 years old when he arrived at the museum, 'a grumpy old man' who attacked other reptiles, including females. He stayed that way until a cancerous tumor was removed from his genitals in 2002, said Hazley.
'I went off the idea he was good for breeding,' Hazley told The Associated Press, but once the tumor was removed, 'he was no longer aggressive.'
The museum now has 72 of the reptiles after 42 hatchings in the past two years.
Hazley hopes to use Henry regularly in the breeding program that is helping expand tuatara numbers, after their population had been dramatically reduced by predators.
Tuatara are estimated to number about 50,000, most of them living in predator-free sanctuaries, including offshore islands.
A male Tuatara takes 70 years to fully mature but reaches sexual maturity about age 20.
While there's no scientific data on the life span of the ancient reptiles, 'they go beyond 100 well and truly,' Hazley said. 'They can be around for 150 to 250 years.'
Mexico creates record-setting cheesecake
If you've been trying to cut down on the calories in a New Year healthy-eating effort, then you might want to avoid Mexico City, where they've just made the world's largest cheesecake.
Chef Miguel Angel Quezada says 55 cooks spent 60 hours making the massive cheesecake - a 2-ton tribute to calorific excess, topped with strawberries.
The monster cake used nearly a ton of cream cheese, the same amount of yogurt, 350 kilograms of pastry, 250 kilograms of sugar and 150 kilograms of butter.
Carlos Martinez of Guinness World Records declared the cheesecake the world's largest on Sunday at an event sponsored by Kraft Foods.
While we don't want to take away from Mexico's fine achievement, it should be pointed out that there wasn't much competition for the title of world's biggest cheesecake - Guinness had no previous record for cheesecakes.
Organizers gave out 20,000 slices around Mexico City.
sexta-feira, 23 de janeiro de 2009
Old woman throws TV out of window
What the TV may have looked like
A 64-year-old woman in China has been arrested after she allegedly threw a television out of her window to get her son's attention.
Several cars were damaged in the TV-chucking incident.
According to authorities, the woman has a history of throwing objects out of windows - this is the fourth time she has caused damage to cars below.
Lost dog man in key-lock metly ice car-plunge nightmare
Ice: has a tendency to melt
A man's search for his lost dog ended in funny disaster on Tuesday, as he managed to lose a borrowed car in a frozen river.
Things started to go wrong when Nathan Seely drove the Buick onto the frozen surface of Black River, in Port Huron, Michigan. The river is often used by cars and snowmobiles when iced over in winter, local police said.
Unfortunately for Seely, he managed to lock his keys inside the car.
This would have been frustrating enough, but the problem was compounded by the fact that the engine was still running. E was forced to watch as the heat from the engine slowly melted the ice beneath the car, sending it crashing through into the river.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the car wasn't even his – it was on loan from a local garage while his own car was in for repairs.
Seely now has a deadline to get the car out of the river, or he could face a fine.
Police divers said they haven't yet been asked to help remove the car, according to the Port Huron Times Herald. They're quite experienced at retrieving vehicles from the river, St. Clair County Sheriff's Lt. Matt Paulus noted. 'We usually get a couple a year. We already had two snowmobiles go in last week,' he told the Detroit Free Press.
Reports do not indicate whether Seely ever found his dog.
quinta-feira, 22 de janeiro de 2009
Naked Tesco chimney burglar sentenced
Silly Naked Stock Photography Guy: you're not Santa, get out of that chimney
A would-be-burglar who managed to get stuck, stark naked, in the chimney of the supermarket he was robbing was yesterday sentenced to two months in a Young Offenders' Institution.
Daniel Davies, 20, was found by firefighters after a delivery driver heard someone shouting 'help me' from the chimney stack of the Tesco Express store on Ormskirk Road, Wigan, in October last year.
Davies told police that he had been on the roof trying to escape drug dealers he had seen and owed money to, Liverpool Crown Court heard.
Harry Pepper, prosecuting, told the court unemployed Davies of Smethurst Lane, Wigan, said he 'fell' into the chimney and it appeared his clothes came off as he tried to wriggle free.
He was freed by firefighters who used lump hammers to dismantle the chimney breast on the first floor of the building which was the site of 'disused offices,' Mr Pepper told the court.
Passing sentence, Judge Bruce Macmillan noted that: 'Were this matter not so serious the facts would be decidedly comic.'
Judge Macmillan said Davies gave an 'unbelievable explanation' of why he was on the roof. He added that he hoped the 'singularly inept attempt' would deter Davies from further similar crimes.
'In the circumstances I think the appropriate sentence is two months in a Young Offenders' Institution,' he added.
But Judge Macmillan said as Davies had served 62 days on an electronic tag, 31 days would count towards today's sentence and it should result in his 'immediate release' as he had served the sufficient time for the offence.
Under section 240 A of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 a person who wears an electronic tag for nine hours a day serves the equivalent of half a day in prison'Apocalyptic' pigeons strike fear in town
Birds of a feather: The pigeons roost in their hundreds in the branches of a tree in Kingswinford, near Dudley
It was a moment when the sky turned black. Some described it as a scene from the end of the world.
Others feared their quiet town had been invaded by a swarm of giant locusts.
In actual fact, they were witnessing nothing more terrifying than a flock of pigeons coming in to roost, albeit a pretty large flock.
Avid bird watcher Terrence O'Dell said he couldn't believe his eyes when he opened his curtains one morning and saw the surreal spectacle.
'The sky was black and I thought maybe it meant an earthquake was going to happen,' he said.
One feathered fiend looks on as the birds flocked to the sky
'I would describe the sight as lie a swarm of grey locusts. I have been here 20 years and my neighbour has lived here for 50 years and neither of us has ever seen anything like it before.'
But it turns out the world isn't about to end.
Instead, a flock of pigeons has merely set up roost in Kingswinford, Staffordshire.
Experts have been left scratching their heads at the sudden infestation but believe it could be lack of food in the countryside.
Louise Pedersen from the RSPB, said that although wood pigeon numbers have increased 665 per cent in the last three decades, this amount of the birds in one place was virtually unheard of.
'Flocking at this time of the year is not uncommon – however, it is very rare that you see this number,' she said.
'One thousand is definitely a large number, some of them will be continental, probably from Europe and other parts of Scandinavia.'
Ms Pedersen said she wanted to assure people they had nothing to fear from the large flock of pigeons.
'It does look like something from a Hitchcock film but they are totally harmless,' she said.
Shoplifter gives cop fake address - the cop's house
A German teenager caught shoplifting tried to dupe police by lying to them about where he lived. Sadly for him, he ended up in even more trouble... when the address he gave turned out to be the home of an investigating officer.
The 18-year-old from Achim, a town of 30,000 in northern Germany, admitted he had lied when the officer explained that the address belonged to him, said police in nearby Verden.
'It was complete coincidence,' said a police spokesman.
Man run over by hiding place
A suspect who fled from police after his car was pulled over decided to hide under a nearby truck – and was promptly run over when the truck drove off.
The 26-year-old man was stopped by police in Phoenix, Arizona on Wednesday after he drove through a red light. After handing his driving license over to the officer (probably his first mistake if he wanted to escape the law) he decided to run away.
After vanishing behind a convenience store, he decided to slip under a nearby removals truck. Unfortunately for him, while the police officer was searching for him, the truck driver returned, got into the cab, and pulled away, driving over the suspect in the process.
The police officer stopped the truck, and summoned medical help for the suspect, who was complaining of 'back pain'. Unsurprisingly.
The suspect, whose driving license was suspended, is expected to be charged after he's been treatedquarta-feira, 21 de janeiro de 2009
Angry husband throws cat at wife
A man in New York state is facing charges after throwing a cat at his wife during an argument.
The cat-throwing occurred when 25-year-old Paul A. Wood, of Palmyra, Wayne County, got into a domestic dispute with his wife at about 5.30am last Friday.
In addition to chucking the cat at his wife, Wood also punched a hole in the wall of their trailer park home.
The cat – which wasn't declawed, struck his wife on the back. Neither the cat nor the woman were injured in the cat-throwing, according to authorities.
He now faces charges of fourth-degree criminal mischief, second-degree harassment, and cruelty to animals.
Mayor gives smooching ban the kiss-off
A mayor has declared his Mexican city the world's "kissing capital" - in a bid to refute rumours he wanted to fine people for puckering up in public.
Eduardo Romero, leader of Guanajuato in central Mexico, has been forced to put on hold an anti-obscenity law after protests about its supposed anti-kissing stance.
And he has now unveiled huge adverts featuring a couple locking lips on one of the city's winding, cobbled streets - with the slogan: "Guanajuato, the kissing capital".
His authority has denied wanting to ban public kissing, but agreed to suspend the new legislation to review its wording.
A local legend of forbidden love gives the city claim to the "kissing capital" title.
It tells of a young woman whose father banned her from seeing her lover because he was too poor.
But the couple lived across from each other in a street so narrow they could lean out their windows to kiss in secret.
That street remains known as the "kissing alley."
Perhaps appropriately, the name Guanajuato translates in the local indigenous P'urhépecha language as "hill of frogs".
Thousands scammed by 'magic cheese' con
Magic cheese is not magic
A French woman scammed thousands of people in Chile by selling them kits for producing 'magic cheese', according to French officials.
Gilberte Van Erpe told buyers that the fermented end-product of her kits could be sold for large amounts of money to French cosmetics companies, in what French authorities suggest was actually a huge pyramid scheme.
Van Erpe was arrested in France last year, accused of fraud and money laundering.
Van Erpe claimed that the 'magic cheese' was in high demand in France for use in fancy moisturisers and shampoos, and sold the kits – which had an actual value of about £2.80 – for €300 (£280).
Of course, the magic cheese was never sold to cosmetics companies, and investors lost their money.
An examining magistrate, Sylvie Gagnard, is to fly from France to Chile to register the lawsuits of Van Erpe's alleged victims.
Media have reported that she ran a similar scheme in Peru in 2003 to 2004 before moving on to operate in Chile from 2004 to 2006. It is thought that as many as 5,000 Peruvians and 4,500 Chileans have filed lawsuits against Van Erpe, who may have netted up to €30million (£28million) from the scam.
Face impaled with tap after slip in bath
It's that sinking feeling. A tap accident to make the eyes water
Yi Zhao, 57, had slipped in the bath impaling his left eye on the tap at his home in Chongqing, central China
These amazing X-rays show how a man arrived with a tap and 16 inches of pipework stuck in his eye at a hospital's casualty unit.
But the terrified patient was forced to pull the tap out himself - because surgeons took three hours to send for a plumber to get it out.
Yi Zhao, 57, had slipped in the bath impaling his left eye on the tap at his home.
After firemen had cut the water pipe paramedics rushed him to hospital with the faucet still in place.
But while the doctors dithered for three hours over surgery, fed-up Zhao reached up and simply pulled out the tap himself.
I was tired of waiting and all they wanted to do was talk
"That caused him too much pain so we had to change the plan and first take an X-ray," said Dr. Hu Zhao of Daping Hospital in China.
"I felt I could stand the pain, and it wouldn't be a problem. It didn't look too complicated," said Zhao, who made his decision after studying the X-ray with his good eye.
Shamefaced medics immediately took a CT scan, which showed that Zhao had a fractured nose and facial bones, while amazingly his brain and his vision were not affected.
Doctors told Zhao he will make a full recovery but lectured him on the dangers of DIY surgery.
"I was tired of waiting and all they wanted to do was talk," he explained.
terça-feira, 20 de janeiro de 2009
Brazilian pole dancers invade street signs
A group of Brazilian women are trying to promote pole dancing by hopping onto traffic signs in the streets of Sao Paulo, South America's biggest city.
Nearly 20 women jumped onto street and traffic signs at a popular Sao Paulo square on Saturday to try to attract attention to what they call 'pole dance street.'
Dance professor Renata Wilke, who wants pole dancing to become an Olympic sport, told the Diario de Sao Paulo newspaper that it's just like pole dancing, but 'much more fun'.
Rescued boatmen were adrift for 25 days
The south-east Asian nation of Myanmar, were spotted by a routine customs service flight that patrols for far larger craft.
Two desperate, dehydrated men found bobbing in an ice box off Australia have revealed they spent 25 days adrift after their fishing boat sank.
But despite their rescue, officials today said there was no sign of 18 other crew members.
Authorities were amazed that the men, from the south-east Asian nation of Myanmar, were spotted by a routine customs service flight that patrols for far larger craft.
Monsoon rains in recent weeks may have prevented the pair from dying of thirst.
The men, 22 and 24, were rescued from the Torres Strait by a helicopter on Saturday and flown 106km south-east to a hospital on Thursday Island off Queensland state.
A photograph taken from the patrol plane shows both men waving frantically while standing shirtless in their pink ice box - a waist-high container barely larger than a bathtub and often used to store freshly-caught fish.
Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman Tracey Jiggins said: "These two people being spotted is miraculous in itself in the huge expanse of ocean after drifting for 25 days."
Authorities have not said what the men ate or drank during their ordeal.
Some reports have said they survived on fish chunks that had been stored in the cooler before the boat sank and rainwater that pooled on the floor.
Greg Edwards, a Thursday Island commercial boat operator, said there had been a lot of rain in Torres Strait since Christmas, and 5093kph gusts.
"It's been pretty miserable weather," he added.
The rescued men told police they had been aboard a nine-metre wooden fishing boat that sank on December 23 with a total of 20 crew from Thailand and Myanmar.
One of the rescuers, pilot Terry Gadenne, told how each man drank about four pints of water within seconds of being hoisted aboard the helicopter.
"They were dehydrated, there's no doubt about it, and very keen to get out," Gadenne said.
Immigration Department spokesman Sandi Logan said the men would be kept under department supervision while officials determined their identities.
Neither man had identity documents.
'Dream job' chiefs admit tattoo ad was phony
A tourism department today admitted faking a video of a "dream job applicant" getting a tattoo to express her love for the Great Barrier Reef.
Thousands of people have submitted video applications for a AU$150,000 contract to relax on Hamilton Island for six months while writing a blog to promote the Australian island.
Among the most popular video entries was footage of an Australian woman walking into a tattoo parlour and walking out with an apparent tattoo on her arm that read: "I ¢¾ islands of the Great Barrier Reef".
But Tourism Queensland's chief executive Anthony Hayes today confessed the video - and another showing a woman singing a song - were both the work of a Brisbane advertising agency that created the job campaign.
The videos - shown on the job advert's website - were intended to serve as guides for prospective applicants and have now been removed, Hayes said.
He added: "We messed up. We should have had the word 'sample' on the videos."
More than 1.8 million visitors have clicked on the job's website since it was launched last week, and the department has received 6,600 applications, Hayes said.
The job is part of a AU$1.7million ($1.1 million) campaign to publicize the charms of north-eastern Queensland state.
Man annoyed his house was demolished by mistake
What a demolished house may look like
Detroit is home to many, many buildings that should be demolished - but one man says that his house wasn't one of them. Unfortunately for him, the city authorities knocked it down anyway.
Eric Roslonski filed a lawsuit against the city on Monday, more than two years after the house he was restoring was suddenly destroyed.
He said he put more than $30,000 (over £21,000) into the property on the east side of Detroit, after buying it for $7,000 (£5,000).
But he says that one day in summer 2006, there suddenly wasn't a building at 13405 Flanders, when previously there had been.
'I drove up and down the street three times - where is my house?' Roslonski said.
His lawyer, Jeffrey Dworin, said the house was originally taken off a demolition list, but then apparently reinstated without Roslonski's knowledge.
'It happens,' Dworin said.
The city's law department has yet to comment on the lawsuit, as it was closed for a federal holiday on Monday.
Roslonski is suing Detroit for his losses under a federal civil rights law. He fixed another house on the same street and sold it for $85,000.
'I see all these boarded-up and burned-out houses. I'm trying to make the city a better place,' he said.
Man in ill-advised shark heist
A man from New York state is facing charges, after he allegedly stole a shark from a pet shop.
30-year-old Elbert Starks is accused of fishing the $350 shark out of an aquarium in the pet store in Lynbrook, in Long Island, on December 12.
He then allegedly smuggled the nurse shark out of the store by hiding it under his jacket, before releasing it into his home aquarium.
Police say that they also found a green moray eel in the aquarium, which he had bought with a stolen credit card on January 2.
'This guy obviously has a thing for fish,' Brendan Jones, a worker at the store the eel was taken from, told the New York Post 'But he obviously made a poor decision.'
The shark and eel were unharmed by their ordeal, and are currently being looked after at a pet store, in a tank marked 'evidence'.
segunda-feira, 19 de janeiro de 2009
Christian refuses to drive athiest bus
A bus in London with the slogan
A Christian bus driver has refused to drive a vehicle which was plastered with an advert saying: "There's probably no God."
Ron Heather, 62, told his bosses he was horrified at the atheist vehicle, before walking out of his shift.
He told the Daily Mail: "I was just about to board and there it was staring me in the face. My first reaction was horror.
"I'd heard about this silly campaign in London but I had no idea it was coming to Southampton."
The First Bus vehicle was one of hundreds put on buses across the UK.
The £140,000 atheist advertising campaign features the slogan: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."
The fundraising drive was prompted by a suggestion from comedy writer Ariane Sherine, who received support from the British Humanist Association (BHA) and atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins.
Ms Sherine had objected to a set of Christian advertisements running on London buses in a piece written for the Guardian's The Comment is Free in June.
Debt collector hires witch
Some witches: 'Pay up, you slaaaaaags'
A Lithuanian debt collector has hired a witch to hunt down companies and individuals who are failing to pay their debts amid the credit crunch.
'Our new employee will help them to understand the situation, reconsider what is right and wrong and act accordingly,' said a company spokesman.
Vilija Lobaciuviene, who describes herself as 'Lithuania's leading witch,' is renowned in the former Soviet republic for providing such 'magical' services as predicting the future and casting spells.
Church unhappy with sexy Virgin Mary fashion
A prominent fashion designer has sparked outrage in Chile by dressing up models like the Virgin Mary - in some cases with ample, near-naked breasts.
One of the models whose attire has sparked complaints
The Roman Catholic Church condemned Ricardo Oyarzun's plans for a show featuring the models, and a conservative group tried unsuccessfully to block it in court.
Oyarzun said he had received telephone threats and had excrement smeared on his doorstep.
There are no virgins menstruating or feeling each other up. This is artistic expression.
'There is no pornography here, there's no sex, there are no virgins menstruating or feeling each other up,' Oyarzun said ahead of the catwalk show set to be held at a Santiago nightclub later on Thursday. 'This is artistic expression.'
He said his designs - which include halos, look as though they come from a nativity scene and include religious icons - were inspired by the Virgin Mary but not intended to represent her.
'We look on with special pain and deplore those acts which seek to tarnish manifestations of sincere love towards the Virgin Mary, which end up striking at the dignity of womankind by presenting her as an object of consumption,' Chile's Episcopal Conference, which includes Catholic bishops, said in a statement.
The show is more evidence that Chile, heavily influenced by the church for decades, is shaking off its reputation as one of the most socially conservative countries in Latin America.
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