`An 82-year-old woman received a $114 ticket for taking too long to cross a street. Mayvis Coyle said she began shuffling with her cane across Foothill Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley when the light was green, but was unable to make it to the other side before it turned red.
She said the motorcycle officer who ticketed her on Feb. 15 told her she was obstructing traffic.
“I think it’s completely outrageous,” said Coyle, who described herself as a Cherokee medicine woman. “He treated me like a 6-year-old, like I don’t know what I’m doing.”‘
`A Malaysian man said he nearly fainted when he recieved a $218 trillion phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution, a newspaper reported Monday.
Yahaya Wahab said he disconnected his late father’s phone line in January after he died and settled the $23 bill, the New Straits Times reported.
But Telekom Malaysia later sent him a $218 trillion bill for recent telephone calls along with orders to settle within 10 days or face legal proceedings, the newspaper reported.
It wasn’t clear whether the bill was a mistake, or if Yahaya’s father’s phone line was used illegally after after his death.’
‘This one is actually pretty funny. Check out these two head bangers. One of them bangs his head so hard he faints. Try and pick which one. I had my money on the wrong dude.’
(2.5meg Windows media)
see it here »
`An argument at a baby shower escalated into a brawl in which one man was shot and the pregnant guest of honor was beaten with a stick, police said.
Three people were arrested after the fight, described by police as a “baby shower gone bad.”‘
Authorities said the shooting victim, Aristotle Garcia, got into a fight with a man who is dating his ex-girlfriend. The argument, over whether the woman let their 5-year-old daughter drink beer, escalated and drew in two other people — Jazz Rivas and Juan Velazquez, said Police Lt. Cheryl C. Claprood.
When the baby shower’s hostess tried to intervene, Rivas began hitting some of the guests, including the 22-year-old mother-to-be, with a large stick, she said.’
`In their quest to seize the ill-gotten gains of suspected drug dealers, federal prosecutors have targeted cash, jewelry, cars and even homes.
You can now add gold-capped teeth to the list.
A defense expert and the attorneys for two men facing federal drug charges in Tacoma are crying foul over efforts by federal prosecutors and officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to have the gold-capped teeth — commonly called “grills” or “grillz” — removed from their clients’ mouths.
“I’ve been doing this for over 30 years and I have never heard of anything like this,” said Richard Troberman, past president of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and an expert on forfeiture law. “It sounds like Nazi Germany when they were removing the gold teeth from the bodies, but at least then they waited until they were dead.”‘
`A 5-year-old boy called 911 to report that his mother had collapsed in their apartment, but an operator told him he should not be playing on the phone, and she died before help arrived. [..]
Turner’s son, Robert, placed two calls to 911 after his mother collapsed Feb. 20 on the kitchen floor. During one of the calls, an operator said: “You shouldn’t be playing on the phone.”
In a tape of the call, parts of which were broadcast by Detroit-area television stations, the operator said: “Now put her on the phone before I send the police out there to knock on the door and you gonna be in trouble.”‘
`Talk radio and blogs are taking aim at a University of Texas biology professor because of a published report suggesting he advocates death for most of the human population as a means of saving the Earth.
However, Eric Pianka says his remarks about his beliefs were taken out of context, that he was just raising a warning that deadly disease epidemics are a threat if population growth isn’t contained.
“What we really need to do is start thinking about controlling our population before it’s too late,” he said Monday. “It’s already too late, but we’re not even thinking about it. We’re just mindlessly rushing ahead breeding our brains out.”‘
Followup to Meeting Doctor Doom.
Those Germans definately know how to fly model helicopters.
‘Oh sheisse..’
(4.4meg Flash video)
see it here »
`A preimiership star had to miss a match – after scalding his privates with boiling water.
Sunderland and Scotland striker Kevin Kyle was feeding eight-month-old son Max when the accident happened.
He had the youngster perched on his knee, while holding a jug of hot water to warm up a bottle of milk. But Max slipped and booted the jug – splashing water in his dad’s lap.
It is understood to have burnt Kyle’s testicles and his inner thigh.
He went to hospital and was kept in overnight for observation.’
`A naked man suffered burns to one-fifth of his body when he tried to set fire to a spider at a nudist resort in the NSW southern highlands.
The 56-year-old Sydney man tried to kill what he thought was a funnel web spider by pouring petrol down the spider’s burrow and igniting it with a match, the NRMA CareFlight service said.
But the fuel exploded and the man was left with burns to 18 per cent of his body, on the upper leg and buttocks.’
`Part of a teacher’s hand was blown off when a 40 mm round the instructor used as a paperweight on his desk exploded in his classroom.
Robert Colla struck the round with an object Monday afternoon while teaching 20 to 25 students at the Ventura Adult Education Center on Valentine Road.
Part of Colla’s right hand was severed and he suffered severe burns and minor shrapnel wounds to his forearms and torso, fire Capt. Tom Weinell said. No one else was injured. [..]
Colla found the 40 mm round while hunting years ago, Huston [another teacher] said. He used it as a paperweight and “obviously he didn’t think the round was live,” Huston said.’
`A hooker who bit her client’s penis reportedly so hard that he required an operation has denied grievous bodily harm with intent, according to a report from the UK.
Prosecutor Matthew McNiff told the jury Louise Jowett carried out the attack because Brett O’Leary told her he had no additional money to dispense after already paying her for sex, reports the Cambridge News.
It was alleged that afterwards she asked O’Leary for more cash, becoming more aggressive as her requests continued. While performing a sex act on O’Leary he told her he did not have any more cash.
McNiff said she grabbed his penis and took it in her mouth and gripped it between her teeth. He said: “She bit hard. She bit very hard. This caused what Mr O’Leary described as indescribable pain.”‘
`A rash of oven-door thefts may be linked to a recent case in which a woman bought what she thought was a flat-screen television, only to discover that the package held an old oven door, police said.
South Bend detective Sgt. Jim Walsh said police arrested a suspect Thursday they believe sold the appliance door to the woman. According to police reports, officers found an oven door and packaging materials inside the trunk of the man’s car.
Oven doors are an increasingly hot item in burglaries targeting vacant properties. Walsh said police have investigated five recent burglaries where oven doors were among the items stolen.
Police have had two reports of the doors being sold as flat-screen televisions, and it’s likely that others went unreported by the embarrassed dupes, Walsh said. Officers continue to investigate at least two other suspects who may be disguising oven doors and selling them.’
`A woman whose 457-pound body sat in a morgue for more than a month during a dispute over the cost of her cremation will be cremated within the next few days, officials said Thursday.
Charlotte Ann Blue died Feb. 6, but she wasn’t immediately cremated because Dallas County and the crematorium it contracts with disagreed over the extra dollar per pound charged for bodies weighing more than 300 pounds.
Blue’s son, Sam Roberts, said he believed his mother had been cremated under a county indigent plan until he called to get a death certificate.
“That’s when I was informed that for the last two months she’s been sitting in the deep freeze at the medical examiner’s office because the crematorium that does business for the county says, ‘Oh well, she’s too big (and) too fat,” he told WFAA-TV on Wednesday.’
`An incinerator, where one of Africa’s biggest hauls of narcotics is being burnt in Kenya, has exploded, delaying the process, police say.
No-one was hurt in the blast but it will now take 11 hours – three more than initially expected – as only one incinerator is working.
Police seized the 1.1 metric tons of cocaine worth $88m in December 2004.’
`Two teenage girls face child pornography charges after posting sexually explicit photographs of themselves on the Internet.
The pornographic pictures of Elizabeth Muller, 19, of North Smithfield, and an unidentified 16-year-old Lincoln girl were discovered on MySpace.com, a social networking Web site, said a spokesman for the attorney general’s office.
The photos of the two teenagers together were posted on each of their respective Web site accounts, spokesman Michael Healey said. The 16-year-old was arraigned before a Family Court judge Monday on a charge of child pornography and violating a court-ordered curfew, Healey said.’
`A four-year-old girl has been airlifted to hospital after a savage rooster attack left her with a collapsed lung.
“She had been pecked quite savagely on the face, the neck and it appears it did pierce her windpipe,” said NRMA CareFlight helicopter spokesman, Ian Badham.
Grace Angel, who lives on a farm near Mudgee, was airlifted to Orange Base Hospital last night before being flown on to Westmead Children’s Hospital in Sydney.
Her uncle, Ben Angel, told smh.com.au that Grace and her two sisters were “feeding the chooks” when the rooster went “berko”.’
`There is a small town in Pennsylvania called Ashland where Route 61’s northbound traffic is temporarily branched onto a short detour. Exactly what the detour is circumventing is not immediately clear to travelers, however few passers-by pay it any mind… a detour is nothing unusual. But anyone who ignores the detour and ventures along the original route 61 highway will soon encounter an abrupt and unexplained road closure. Beyond it lies a town filled with overgrown streets, smoldering earth, and ominous warning signs. It is the remains of the borough of Centralia. [..]
In 1962, workers set a heap of trash ablaze in an abandoned mine pit which was used as the borough’s landfill. The burning of excess trash was a common practice, yet at that particular time and place there existed a dangerous condition: an exposed vein of anthracite coal. The highly flammable mineral was unexpectedly ignited by the trash fire, prompting a quick effort to put it out. The flames on the surface were successfully extinguished, but unbeknownst to the fire fighters, the coal continued to burn underground. [..]’
`A Littleton man who admitted breaking into homes and masturbating was bound over for trial in Jefferson County Tuesday on charges of burglary with intent to litter, the Rocky Mountain News reported.
Robert Kent Peterson, 45, is free on a $50,000 bond, until his trial.
The Lockheed Martin employee was arrested last on Feb. 3 after a woman said she found him hiding her daughter’s bedroom closet in the 9600 block of West Chatfield Avenue. He allegedly told the woman that he worked for a plumbing company.’
`Microsoft is moving full steam ahead with a plan to permanently modify the way Internet Explorer renders multimedia content on Web pages, but in what amounts to an admission that the changes could be disruptive, the software maker plans to give Web developers an extra 60 days to continue making preparations. [..]
“Despite what Microsoft says about minimal impact, it makes it much harder to use an application that has a lot of ActiveX or Applets. Each time you load a page with a control, you have to activate it. So if the user goes to PageA with a control and activates it, then goes to PageB with a control and activates that one, if they then go back to PageA again then have to activate it again,” said the source, who requested anonymity.
He said software vendors and sites that use ActiveX, Flash and Applets “will get a lot of howls” from users when the update ships on April 11.’
`A cranky koala achieved what an angry croc couldn’t – it beat off thieves.
The bizarre incident began when Rockhampton police in Queensland received a tip-off that someone had a crocodile in their possession.
“The police came to the zoo, checked out our exhibit and we were down a female freshwater crocodile,” said Tom Wyatt at Rockhampton City Council. [..]
The thieves originally planned to take one of the zoo’s koalas and only changed tack after it proved too vicious, 21-year-old zookeeper Wil Kemp told smh.com.au.
He had been told by police that four people were involved in the wildlife heist, which allegedly involved stealing a koala and swapping it for drugs.’
`An exasperated father has discovered to his cost that cyberspace is not the ideal arena for family feuds. Two weeks ago Steve Williams became so fed up with his daughter’s messy bedroom that he built a website featuring pictures of his slothful offspring’s lair in an attempt to shame her into action.
But the public humiliation proved a short-lived victory. While it did spur his daughter, Claire, into tidying up her room, it also whet her appetite for revenge. With the help of her father’s friends, the 20-year-old business student has now set up a rival website that displays photos of him in a variety of compromising situations.
“All my friends feel sorry for Claire so they’re ganging up on me,” said Mr Williams, of Whitehaven, Cumbria. “They’ve managed to dig out photos of me drunk and dancing round with a handbag at a party, and also put pictures of my garage on to show it’s not just Claire who’s untidy.
“The boot’s on the other foot now, but I suppose I deserve it.”‘
`An Olympic gold medallist could not catch up with a gang of teenage robbers after they made off with her cash-stuffed purse.
Romanian Doina Melinte, who still holds the European record for the 1,500 metres, was attacked at a petrol station just outside Bucharest.
Three teenagers took her purse which had £17,000 pounds in it she was carrying to make a down payment on some land.
Melinte, who won gold in the 800 metres and silver in the 1,500 metres at the 1984 Olympics, gave chase but lost the trio after about half a mile.’
`Homeowners in an Orange County, Fla., neighborhood claim their community has been overrun by rats big enough to pick fights with small dogs, according to a Local 6 News report.
Residents in the Conway Acres neighborhood in Orange County said the rats are scurrying around their neighborhood 24 hours a day.
Homeowners said they have seen the rats running on power lines into homes. [..]
Neighbors said a home that was left in deplorable condition after Hurricane Charley provided a structure for the rats to multiply unnoticed. The rats then apparently spread throughout the neighborhood, according to the report.’
`Reebok is recalling 300 000 children’s charm bracelets after a four-year-old died from lead poisoning after swallowing a piece of the jewellery, the US government said.
The silver-coloured bracelets, bearing heart-shaped charms engraved with the “Reebok” name, were given away with the purchase of children’s shoes in major shoe stores across the country.
The bracelets contain high levels of lead, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said.’
`Thousands of calls to Chattanooga’s 911 call center have been going unanswered, according to records examined after a caller was unable to report a kitchen fire because three of four dispatchers were taking breaks at the same time.
Stacey Hunter and her family members called 911 from her home phone and cellular phones Monday afternoon when the fire broke out, but the calls went unanswered. Finally, Artterius Bonds, and 14-year-old nephew, Quayshaune Fountain, ended up running a half mile to get help from the fire station. No one was hurt.’
`A Pierce County man is in jail for a botched attempt at kidnapping a young girl. It happened March 8th on a rural road near Yelm.
According to court documents, a 12-year-old girl was walking home after getting off the school bus when a man wearing a camouflage mask grabbed her from behind and tied a towel around her head to keep the girl from seeing his face. [..]
The blindfolded victim apparently recognized the phone’s unique ringtone and said, “Jimmy you are scaring me. If it’s you Jimmy, stop it.”
The startled attacker ran off, leaving the girl bound and alone in the woods. She managed to free herself and ran home where she reported the attack to her dad, who called police.’
`Seven Sierra Leonian Commonwealth Games athletes were reported missing to Victoria Police last night.
Their disappearance added to a growing list of absent-without-leave Games athletes, following the disappearance of a Tanzanian and a Bangladeshi athlete earlier this week.
Sierra Leone officials reported the absences of the four male and three female team members to the Department of Immigration before notifying the police. The Sierra Leone team has been under more scrutiny than most coming into the Melbourne Games, following the disappearance of 70 per cent of their team at the 2002 Games in Manchester, England.’
`Signs warning of bird droppings were posted along a stretch in downtown Orlando this week after cars, benches, sidewalks, plants and even people are hit and covered by the white bird waste, according to a Local 6 News report.
The problem began when city workers removed cypress trees on “bird island” at Lake Eola in Orlando.
The trees had to be removed because the bird droppings were polluting the water, according to the report.
Now, the birds have moved into the city and are covering anything and anyone between Lake Eola and Central Avenue with droppings.’
`The Ottawa Police Firearms Task Force yesterday swooped down on a Navan Rd. homeowner suspected of having a cache of illegal weapons, shot him and his dog with a Taser and left without finding any weapons.
Yvon Richer says he was returning from an early-morning snowmobile ride on his 50-acre property in the city’s southeast end at around 9:15 a.m. when a vehicle pulled into the driveway and a voice behind him screamed, “Get on the ground!”
He looked back at a police officer with his weapon drawn and as many as 40 others, some of them in tactical gear, lining the street.’
