One-legged man held after one shoe goes missing from shop
November 3, 2009
Police say a one-legged suspect was caught after only one shoe went missing in a store in Belgium.
An amputee was an immediate suspect when a store attendant found one shoe missing from a shop in the western Belgian town of Maldegem.
Police spokesman Rik Decraemer said Monday authorities were alerted and quickly found the man who fit the description by shopkeepers. The shoe was also recovered.
// The suspect, a Russian asylum seeker, faces possible charges and was handed over to judicial authorities.
Hungry bears love minivans, says study
November 2, 2009
Bears in California’s Yosemite National Park might have a reputation for rummaging through visitors picnic baskets – but scientific research has shown they’re actually most attracted by minivans.
A study published this month in the Journal of Mammalogy says that the bears’ favourite target is minivans driven by families with children – who leave behind a trail of spilled juice boxes, Cheerios and coolers carrying other snacks.
Park scientists have found that the bears tore into minivans more frequently than other types of vehicles.
// It found that minivans represented 29 percent of the 908 vehicles targetted by bears between 2001 and 2007, even though they made up just 7 percent of the cars that visited Yosemite.
The researchers investigated the relationship after noticing that bears seemed to focus on that particular vehicle type more than any other.
Non-zombie accused of being zombie, punched
November 1, 2009
A man who was innocently trying to order a late-night meal in an Iowa City restaurant was attacked by a man who accused him of being a zombie.
Iowa City police are investigating the early morning assault, in which a man called the restaurant-goer a zombie, then punched him twice.
Police said the assault occurred at 1:17 a.m. on Sunday at a restaurant south of the University of Iowa campus.
// The man was ordering food when he was approached by the other man, who told him that he was a zombie, then hit him in the eye.
When the victim tried to call police on his cell phone, the would-be zombie-fighter punched him again, breaking his nose, and then ran out a back door.
The victim was taken by ambulance to a hospital. He is not believed to be a zombie.
Dog-woman scares off burglar
October 31, 2009
A woman in Georgia scared off a burglar who was trying to break into her home – by pretending to be a large dog.
The attempted break-in occurred at around 11pm on Saturday night in Athens, Georgia, when the woman spotted a suspicious man trying to turn the doorknob of her front door.
Thinking quickly, the woman dropped to the floor, and started scratching at the door and imitating a dog – although, as the Athens Banner-Herald newspaper reports, ‘what dog-like behaviors she specifically mimicked remains unknown.’
// The woman said the man quickly ran away when she began her dog impersonation. Police searched the neighbourhood for the man, but did not find him; the investigation continues.
The Incredible Dog leads the way at the Halloween Parades
October 30, 2009
The trend this Halloween seems to be for proud owners to splash their costume cash on their pets. This weekend saw a host of pooch parades in cities around the world from New York to Tokyo.
The 19th Annual Dog Halloween Parade attracted large crowds to NYC’s Tompkins Square Park. With over 500 dogs in costume and 2,000 spectators, this is one of the world’s biggest dog shows with treats, cookies and iPod on offer to the winners.
In Tokyo, 1,000 children took part in the colourful Harajuku Omotesando Hello Halloween Pumpkin Parade 2009. They were joined by hordes of four-legged friends wearing witches hats, capes and charming pumpkin booties
Elsewhere a dog done up as Batman stole the show at the Family Pet Festival in Cali, department of Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Although he had tough competition from a four-legged Rastafarian.
Latvia meteorite claims crash to earth as hoax is revealed
October 29, 2009
Scientists have announced that a large crater in Latvia that was claimed to be the results of a meteorite crashing to earth is, in fact, a hoax.
Experts had rushed to the site after reports that a meteorite had landed late on Sunday in Latvia’s Mazsalaca region, near the Estonian border, and footage of the flames caused by its landing were widely shown after being posted on YouTube.
Unfortunately, it turned out it was just a hole someone had dug in the ground. The video (see below) was shot by a group of film-making students, which might be seen as something of a gievaway.
// ‘This is not a real crater. It is artificial,’ Uldis Nulle, a scientist at the Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Center, said after inspecting the site on Monday.
Uldis and other experts who examined the hole in daylight said it was too tidy to have been caused by a meteorite.
‘It’s artificial, dug by shovel,’ said Girts Stinkulis, a geologist at the University of Latvia.
Earlier Uldis had said his first impression of the 27 foot wide and nine foot deep crater was that it had indeed been caused by a meteorite. He said there was smoke coming out of the hole when he arrived.
Dainis Ozols, a nature conservationist, said he thinks the perpetrators tried to make their freshly-dug hole look like a meteorite crater by burning some kind of pyrotechnic compound at the bottom. He added he would analyze some samples taken from the site.
Inga Vetere of the Fire and Rescue Service said they received a call about the alleged meteorite on Sunday evening from an eyewitness. She said a military unit was dispatched to the site and found that radiation levels were normal.
Experts outside Latvia said it would be unusual for such a large meteorite to hit the Earth. The planet is constantly bombarded with objects from outer space, but most burn up in the atmosphere and never reach the surface.
Asta Pellinen-Wannberg, a meteorite expert at the Swedish Institute of Space Research, said she didn’t know the details of the Latvian incident, but that a rock would have to be at least three feet in diameter to create a hole that size.
Henning Haack, a lecturer at Copenhagen University’s Geological Museum, said when it comes to alleged meteorite crashes, ‘there always is a pretty large margin of error.
Mystery party guests don’t spot real-life crime
October 28, 2009
Guests at a murder mystery party spent several hours playing detective in a church – but completely failed to notice that a real crime had taken place.
The eight people who took part in the party spent the evening looking for fictional clues, but didn’t spot the signs that a burglary had taken place the night before.
The Elim Pentecostal church in Yeovil, Somerset, had been broken into, with the thieves stealing a large TV, laptop computer and the contents of a raided safe.
// But it was only as the vicar, Reverend Howard Davenport, came to open the church for the Sunday service that the break-in came to light.
Rev Davenport said: ‘You’d have thought that eight wannabe detectives might have noticed a real crime a few metres from them only hours earlier.’
Avon and Somerset Police said they are investigating the burglary and are appealing for witnesses.
Man paid for five years by company he didn’t work for
October 27, 2009
A man has admitted banking more than £285,000 in pay over five years – from a company he never worked for.
Anthony Armatys accepted a job with Avaya Inc., a New Jersey-based telecommunications company, in September 2002 – but then changed his mind.
That change of mind never quite filtered through to the company’s computer system, however, which never removed his name from the payroll.
// Paycheques were deposited into his bank account until February 2007, when Avaya’s auditors discovered the mistake. Over the course of nearly five years, Armatys had been paid over $470,000 by the company he didn’t work for.
Thirty-five-year-old Armatys, of Palatine, Illinois, pleaded guilty on Monday in New Jersey Superior Court to one count of theft as part of a plea bargain.
Prosecutors are seeking a six-year prison term for the crime, plus restitution.
Man charged after getting puppy drunk on vodka
October 27, 2009
Man charged after getting puppy drunk on vodka
A man in America is facing charges after he allegedly got a puppy drunk on vodka.
According to authorities, 28-year-old Jared Levi Colony of Iowa City was looking after the dog on behalf of its owner for about half an hour. While the owner was gone, Colony poured some flavoured vodka into the dog’s bowl, and encouraged it to drink.
When the owner returned, the dog – named Pip – was unresponsive and had its tongue hanging out.
// ‘Pip’s just a little drunk right now,’ Colony is reported to have said.
Pip was treated for alcohol poisoning at the local at Bright Eyes and Bushy Tails veterinary hospital, and survived.
Sergeant Troy Kelsay of the Iowa City police told the Press-Citizen newspaper: ‘I don’t know what Colony was thinking. I suspect he thought it was funny… It isn’t humorous at all.’
Colony has been charged with animal abuse, and could face up to two years in prison if convicted.
Look son, it’s a massive inflatable penis
October 27, 2009
This large inflatable has been, um, erected in Hangzhou, in China’s Zhejiang Province, to promote the upcoming ‘Masculine Health Day’.
We’ll be honest, we don’t really have any comment about this picture beyond that, other than to say that it clearly looks like a fun day out
