FROM NEW ZEALAND - Originator of the 'Birthday Season'
Currently in Auckland: NZDT
Tuesday, 31st of December 2024
This is where you will find out what's happening around Wilderness Wally's World that doesn't make the front page.
On Monday, 12 Dec, at 5:00PM a man in his 20s reportedly shot another man in his 20s just outside the In-N-Out Burger driver thru in Pinole, California.The shooter ran away and was not caught but the victim suffered injuries serious enough that he had to be airlifted to a regional trauma center and is in critical condition.
All the while, burger-lovers waited for their food shortly after the shooting took place.
It wasn't until 7:15 p.m. that officers officially closed the restaurant to investigate the shooting that patrons abandoned the drive thru window.
Police said cars continued to go through the drive thru, around the scene of the shooting, until it they shut it down. Officers were still looking for the shooter Monday evening, according to police reports.
A man is recovering after being shot by his dog.
A 46-year-old Brigham City, Utah man and a friend were duck hunting Sunday about 8:30 a.m. on the north end of the Great Salt Lake near the bird refuge, about 10 miles west of Brigham City.
The two had their canoe-like boat in a shallow marsh area when the man got out of the boat to either set up or collect decoys. He laid his 12-gauge shotgun across the bow of the boat, said Box Elder County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Kevin Potter.
After the man got out of the boat, a dog inside the vessel jumped up on the bow and stepped on the gun. The gun fired and shot the man in the buttocks.
Medical crews later removed 27 pellets of birdshot.
"(The dog) did something to make the gun discharge," Potter said. "I don't know if the safety device was on. It's not impossible the dog could have taken it off safety." (I'm not kidding!)
The men called 911 and walked to the main road to wait for emergency crews. The fact the man was wearing waders likely helped prevent a more serious injury, Potter said. The gun was fired from approximately 10 feet away, he said.
Nine Amish men were ordered to jail for not paying a fine for refusing to display an orange reflective triangle on their horse-drawn buggies, the Courier-Journal reports.
The men, who owed $158 in fines and court costs, said paying the fines would amount to complying with a Kentucky law they believe violates their religious strictures against wearing bright colors or trusting in man-made symbols for their safety, the newspaper says.
District Judge Deborah Hawkins Crooks ordered the nine to serve three to 10 days in jail. The Mayfield jail had special-ordered dark-colored jumpsuits out of respect for the men's likely aversion to wearing the usual orange jumpsuits, says the Courier-Journal.
A Saudi restaurant has started fining diners if they order more than they can eat.
Fahad Al Anezi, owner of the Marmar Restaurant in the city of Dammam, said he wanted to avoid wasting food.
He also wanted to encourage customers to be less extravagant with their orders, reports Gulf News.
"There are many clients who make large orders in order to impress the people around them and boost their social prestige," he said.
Diners were made to pay an extra charge which was decided depending on how much food they left, he added.
BANANA ATTACKS GORILLA THEN SPLITS!
I'm just going to report this the way I found it.
By Melissa Reid Fox 8 News Reporter
STRONGSVILLE, Ohio : There is a banana at large in Strongsville.
Police say that someone dressed up as a banana and attacked the Wireless Center's mascot, a gorilla, last week.
"I noticed a kid in the bushes. Then he just emerged, dressed up as a banana, and sprinted as fast as he could at our gorilla," said Brandon Parham, the manager. "The kid just speared our gorilla."
Parham and another employee witnessed the attack. "The kid was in mid-air, flying. He just looked like a Spartan from that movie '300,' except he was a banana," added Parham.
The Wireless Center uses the gorilla as an advertising tool on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
"After he got tackled, the gorilla just got back up and adjusted his head. He kept on waving his sign around," said Parham.
Police say the person dressed up as a banana split and headed south on Pearl Road.
According to Parham, the person who was wearing the gorilla costume will recover.
"This is just bizarre. It's really not normal of the food chain. That's not really how this works. The gorilla should have won," said Parham.
Police were unable to locate the banana. They believe it was prank.
A Florida man is facing a battery charge for allegedly shoving his ex-girlfriend's mother inside a fold-out couch, police charge.
Mark Foreman, 53, was arrested Tuesday evening on a felony charge in connection with the incident at the home of the 66-year-old victim.
According to a Palmetto Police Department report, Foreman arrived at the woman's home and asked to use the bathroom. The victim, who had been lying on a fold out couch, told cops that Foreman said, "What is this?" He then allegedly "pushed victim onto the fold out couch and folded victim inside of the couch."
The report does not indicate how long the woman was entombed inside the piece of furniture. The victim, who suffered an injury to her right wrist and complained that her back hurt, was transported to a local hospital by emergency service workers.
Foreman was booked into the county jail, where he is being held in lieu of $2500 bond.
Felony Stupid!
A shoplifter stole a television from the Warehouse - but was caught when he returned to steal an aerial.
Dunedin police Senior Sergeant Craig Brown said CCTV showed the 35-year-old visited the South Dunedin store six times on Friday evening.
He was noticed by store security staff on the sixth visit when he left with the television aerial. The man then left in a vehicle, but was stopped by police soon after. The aerial and stolen 21-inch LCD television were found in the back of his car.
Sergeant Brown said: "He's not the sharpest tool in the shed. He should have quit while he was ahead."
15-year-old Alex Good from Hillsboro, Oregon is suing a local golf course for negligence after he hit himself in the eye with his own golf ball while on the driving range last year. The controversy centers around a rain tent, and a metal pole, placed on the practice tee:
According to court documents, Good and his teammates were using the practice range. It was raining and the staff at Pumpkin Ridge put up an awning. When Good teed off his ball hit a metal post that was holding up the awning just inches in front of his driving mat. The ball ricocheted off and hit him in the left eye.
HELENA, Montana - A Montana Department of Transportation public safety video that features a horse picking up a rider at a bar is intended as a metaphor to encourage drinkers to get a ride home.
But it is being taken literally by some in a state well known for its horse culture.
Helena Police Chief Troy McGee says he's received many calls from residents wanting to know if riding a horse while under the influence is legal. McGee tells the Independent Record newspaper that it is.
Montana law carefully defines a vehicle, and excludes those running under animal power.
The popular 30-second video titled Sober Friend shows a savvy horse carefully obeying traffic laws on a nighttime journey through town before stopping in front of a bar to pick up a rider.
I'm Here to Help Senor! - A chihuahua named Momo (Peach)has passed the exam to become a dog in the police force in western Japan, in what seems to be a first.
The 3kg (6.6lb) dog is set to become part of a search-and-rescue team used for disasters such as earthquakes.
Its small size means it will be able to squeeze into places too narrow for dogs such as German Shepherds. Chihuahuas, named after a Mexican state, are one of the the smallest breeds of dog.
"It's quite rare for us to have a chihuahua work as a police dog," said a police spokeswoman in Nara, western Japan. "We would like it to work hard by taking advantage of its small size." Momo, aged seven, will begin work in January.
Suspect Sean Cullen, 25, entered the Hillsborough, New Hamshire Market and passed a note to a shopkeeper reading: "Give me your money, or you're going to die." At that moment, good Samaritan Greg Geden walked into the store and pulled the would-be burglar to the ground. While the store owner called police, the suspect allegedly attempted to make a run for it.
But that's when a quick-thinking food deliveryman entered the shop, grabbed a large squash and smashed it over the suspect's head -- shattering the fruit and leaving behind a mess of seeds on the floor. Police arrived and placed Cullen under arrest, charging him with felony unarmed robbery.
"The fact that this robber was held at bay with a squash is sort of comical, but at the same time it worked out well and we were able to arrive and take him into custody," Manchester Police Department Lt. Peter Bartlett said.
Loud snorer wins siesta champs
An unemployed security guard has won Spain's first national siesta championship by sleeping for 17 minutes in a busy shopping centre.
Pedro Soria Lopez, who is from Ecuador, was praised by judges for the volume of his snoring, which won him extra points.
The contest in Madrid was part of a campaign to revive the Spanish tradition of an afternoon nap, which is seen as threatened by the pace of modern life.
As the champion, Mr Soria collected a prize of 1,000 euros.
Rescuers free man with arm stuck down toilet
Chinese rescuers have freed a man after he got his arm stuck in a toilet pipe in an attempt to retrieve his mobile phone.
Emergency workers in eastern China say they found the man crouched over the toilet with his entire arm submerged in the drain.
They broke the porcelain bowl with crowbars and hammered the pipes, taking care not to injure the man. They also managed to find the man's phone, but it no longer works.
It is not clear how the man managed to call for help.
(Oct. 15) - Moments after passing his driving test, a Pennsylvania man mistakenly crashed his car into a department of motor vehicles building, smashing through a window and plowing into a waiting room. Four people were injured, none seriously.
The man's license ended up being revoked before he even got it.
Robert Keller, 34, of Carnegie pulled into a parking spot outside the DMV in Collier, Pa., on Wednesday after successfully completing his driving test. Police say he thought the car was in park rather than drive, and then got the accelerator and brake pedals mixed up. (Yeah, right)
VINELAND, New Jersey - Authorities say a New Jersey woman told them she was carjacked to cover up the fact that her car crashed because she was having sex.
The 23-year-old had initially told police she got lost on Sunday and asked a man for directions. Police say she told them the man pulled her out of the car at gunpoint and threw her to the ground.
Police told The Daily Journal that she later admitted she picked up a man and let him drive, and the car crashed into a tree while they were engaged in a sex act. Officers say the car had been set on fire.
The woman is accused of filing a false police report. She has refused to identify the man. (What happens in Vineland, stays in Vineland.)
A drunk driver trapped after overturning his car cracked open another can of beer while he waited for emergency crews to rescue him, a New Zealand court was told.
Paul Nigel Sneddon, 47, pleaded guilty to careless driving and drunken driving after being nearly three times over the legal alcohol limit in a district court in the city of Palmerston North, the Dominion Post newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Police found Sneddon, a former baker, trapped in his overturned Ford Laser on June 1, drinking a can of beer after he failed to take a corner properly and crashed through a wooden barrier, flipping his vehicle.
Defense lawyer Peter Young said that when Sneddon found he could not open the doors, "he had nothing else to do at that point, so he had another beer."
When asked by police how much he had consumed, Sneddon replied: "Plenty, I've been drinking for four days straight."
Sneddon, who is estranged from his wife, told the Wellington- based newspaper that he went on a drinking binge after losing his job at a bakery on the same day that he heard his father was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Judge Gregory Ross fined him NZ$1,100 and disqualified him from driving for 10 months. It was his first offense
A council has admitted accidentally mowing down one of Britain's rarest orchids - for the third year running.
Hampshire County Council has again mowed a grass verge containing endangered narrow-leaved helleborines. The mistake has astonished and angered conservationists and wildlife enthusiasts who fear the orchids may never recover at the site.
Narrow-leaved helleborines are officially classed as one of the world's most vulnerable flowers, reports the Daily Mail.
For more than 50 years, the orchids have grown on a road verge at Mascoombe Bottom in the Meon Valley, Hampshire.
But three years ago Hampshire County Council changed its roadside mowing routine and cut down the flowers before they could seed.
The charity Plantlife contacted the council and was given a guarantee the mistake would not happen again. But it was repeated last year and again this year.
From The Virginian-Pilot:
SUFFOLK, Va. - An alleged ill-timed potty break has landed a man accused of robbing a Suffolk convenience store behind bars. Police said 43-year-old Sean Almond was found urinating behind a Kangaroo Mart minutes after a clerk reported the store had been robbed Thursday night. Police said Almond was carrying the stolen cash.
Almond was charged with one count of armed robbery. Charges of assault and urinating in public are pending. Almond was being held at Western Tidewater Regional Jail without bond. It was not clear if he has an attorney.
Too hot to handle
A man's night in a tran-sexual brothel turned out hotter than he'd bargained for when a fire swept through the place trapping him naked on the balcony.
The horrified customer risked burning to death rather than reveal his face once he realised TV crews and cameramen were watching the blaze in Basel, Switzerland.
He was only persuaded to leave the balcony when firefighters promised to let him cover his face. "I just hope people can't tell who I am from my bottom," explained the punter, identified only as Memeth J by police to spare his blushes.
"I'm gay and was visiting a friend but my family don't know about me so I couldn't show my face."
An elephant hired for a Hindu wedding in India caused over $200,000 in damage after trying to reach an in-heat female.
The turned-on mammal crushed 20 limos trying to get to the female in a nearby sugar cane field in the Indian capital New Delhi.
He then mounted and attempted to mate with a truck, and smashed through a shopping mall in a 15-hour rampage, reports the Metro.
Wildlife experts managed to finally bring him down with a tranquiliser gun to end the elephant's chaotic adventure.
One expert said: "It is a very powerful urge."
The Peso stops here!
The general manager of the Chilean mint has been sacked after thousands of coins were issued with the name of the country 'Misspelled'.
The 50-peso coins - worth about 6p - were issued in 2008, but no-one noticed the mistake until late last year, reports the BBC.
Instead of C-H-I-L-E, the coins had C-H-I-I-E stamped on them.
The coins have since become collectors' items and the mint says it has no plans to take them out of circulation. People have reportedly been hoarding the coins in the hope their value rises.
But the mistake has cost the mint's general manager, Gregorio Iniguez, and several other employees, their jobs.
It is not the first embarrassing blunder at the Chilean mint. Last October, someone there sold a rare medal, which should have been housed in the institution's museum, to a coin collector.
A month later, another medal - this one bearing the face of the country's then President Michelle Bachelet - was inadvertently sold on the open market.
An Indonesian tobacco company has agreed to pay the medical expenses of a man who lost six teeth when a cigarette mysteriously exploded in his mouth.
Security guard Andi Susanto, 31, told Metro TV in an interview from his hospital bed that cigarette producer PT Nojorono Tobacco Indonesia had offered to pay for his treatment.
"The company's officials have talked to my family and we agreed to settle it amicably, as an out-of-court settlement," he said through bandaged lips. "They will pay all the medical expenses."
The cause of the explosion remains unknown. Mr Susanto says he was not chewing anything when he lit the Clas Mild cigarette and did not notice anything strange about its odour, colour or taste.
He said he would quit smoking after the incident.
A newly trained hypnotist accidentally put himself into a trance for five hours while practising in front of a mirror.
Helmut Kichmeier, 27, was found by wife, Joanna, staring into thin air in their north London home, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Mr Kichmeier, whose stage name is Hannibal Helmurto, had learned to put himself into a trance to help him swallow swords on stage. He had been taught the skill by hypnotherapist Dr Ray Roberts to assist in a new act for the Circus of Horrors show.
But as he practiced the skill in front of the mirror at 10am he set himself into a deep sleep until 3pm, when he was found by his wife.
It was only after she phoned Dr Roberts and put the receiver to Mr Kichmeier's head that he was able to be talked out of the trance. Mrs Kichmeier said her husband had looked just like a zombie when she came into the room to find him.
She said: "I tried to ask him what was wrong but he didn't answer and it was then I looked at the sofa behind him and saw a book named Hypnosis Medicine of the Mind.
"It was opened on page 45 and a chapter named hypnotic anaesthesia and I realised there was something wrong. "It was only then I noticed a letter next to the book a letter from his mentor, Dr Roberts, and I knew what I had to do."
Another Felony Stupid!
A Georgia man, trying to get revenge on his estranged girlfriend by firebombing her home, was being held without bond after he threw the device into the wrong house.
Authorities said a 25-year-old man was charged with arson, aggravated assault and possession of an explosive device - all felonies, a Georgia newspaper reported.
Authorities said no one was injured Sunday night when the man allegedly tossed the Molotov cocktail through the front window of a Thomson home just before 9pm Police arrested the man soon after the incident.
Authorities said the man has been arrested on a variety of charges in recent months, though no further details were given.
The Northern Territory Government says residents of a remote Central Australian community are too scared to leave their houses because it has been overrun by thousands of wild camels.
Local Government Minister, Rob Knight, says the situation is critical. "The community of Docker River is under siege by 6000 marauding, wild camels," he said.
He says in the past few weeks, camels have invaded the town in seach of water. In the process they have trampled infrastructure and invaded the community's airstrip.
A passenger enjoying a civilian joyride accidentally cut the trip short when he ejected himself from the plane after grabbing the eject lever while trying to brace himself.
The passenger, who was flying in a Pilatus PC-7 Mk II with an air force pilot friend, The Daily Mail reported.
He was instantly blasted 320-feet into the sky by the rocket-powered chair, before floating to the ground with an automatic parachute, the paper reported.
Air Force officers quickly deployed a helicopter to retrieve the passenger after his fall 80 miles south of Cape Town, South Africa.
The pilot of the craft, Captain Gerhard Lourens, is a long-time member of the Silver Falcons air force air display team, according to The Daily Mail.
A lazy postman took so long to deliver letters to a village some of the residents had died by the time they arrived.
People in Rzedziny in northeast Poland, couldn't understand why their letters failed to turn up at their destination.
When local resident Stanislaw Shchusev, 80, investigated further he was shocked to discover that the village postbox hadn't been emptied for five years.
He also found out that the local postman had not bothered to deliver hundreds of letters to local residents sent from people outside the village and instead had dumped them in a storeroom at the post office.
He said: "I was sending letters to my family abroad for nearly half a century - Christmas wishes and that sort of thing.
"But in the last few years I was surprised when they told me they hadn't received anything from me. I just assumed the letters had got lost in transit abroad somewhere. I never once realised that they were all still here in my village postbox."
Residents eventually decided to complain. "We checked out complaints from villagers near Szczeczin and, well, it turned out that there are a lot of unsent letters and cards," said Bozena Ziolecka from the regional post office.
When questioned, postman Wieslaw Zawoz, 39, said: "It's not my fault. First, I was on holiday. Another time a trainee lost the key to the postbox and I reported it but no one did anything. Another time I was sick." (... and most of the time I just didn't give a ----!)
A New Orleans jailer has called game, set and match on six people who tossed drug-filled tennis balls into his prison yard.
Sheriff Marlin Gusman had netting strung up around the recreation yard walls a couple years back to ward off smugglers.
But the tennis balls - which can be hollowed out to hold illegal cell phones, weapons and drugs - kept coming.
"They have all the time in the world to think about how to do things," Sheriff Gusman said. "Our job is to stay one step ahead of them."
So he set up an undercover operation which netted the six civilians and seven inmates captured orchestrating the scheme. They were booked on various charges of introducing marijuana and illegal cell phones into the city's jails.
A Cambridgeshire grandmother has been diagnosed with Britain's loudest snore which is said to be louder than a low-flying jet.
Jenny Chapman, 60, , from Deeping St James, snores at a shocking 111.6 decibels - much to the dismay of long-suffering husband Colin, reports The Sun.
That is louder than an aeroplane - and also easily surpasses the noise of washing machines, tractors, and speeding express trains.
The excessive level of noise was recorded at a two-day snoring 'boot camp' - where Mrs Chapman was the loudest of six chronic snorers.
She said: "I was shocked to hear how loud my snoring was at its peak. I knew I was noisy but not that noisy. "The experts said it was the loudest they had ever experienced. I can sympathise with my husband now - he's always complaining."
Mrs Chapman has tried nose bands, pills and visited her GP countless times. Experts have recommended her to give up alcohol, eat healthily and exercise.
Husband Colin, 62, said: "If I was a betting man I would have put a sweep stake on her coming out on top. To put it bluntly, the snoring is abominable.
"It's been almost 20 years and I've not yet learnt to live with it. I do sympathise because Jenny doesn't only wake me and other people up, she wakes herself up as well."
A German man mooning at railway staff in a departing train got his trousers caught in a carriage door and ended up being dragged half naked along the platform, out of the station and onto the tracks.
The 22-year-old journalism student shoved his backside against the window of a low-slung double-decker train when staff forced him off in Lauenbrueck for travelling without a ticket, a spokesman for police in the northern city of Bremen said.
"It's a miracle he wasn't badly hurt," the spokesman said. "This sort of thing can end up killing you."
Instead, dangling by his trousers, the man got pulled along for about 200 metres, all the while managing to keep his legs away from the wheels of the train.
The ordeal ended when a passenger pulled the emergency brake. Rescues services were called in, causing rail services between Bremen and Hamburg to be suspended for over an hour, delaying 23 trains.
The man - unharmed except for cuts and bruises - now faces charges of dangerous interference in rail transport, insulting the train staff, and may face sizeable a compensation claim for the delays he caused, police said.
"He was full of remorse when I talked to him," the spokesman said. "And he advised others not to try the same thing."
A group of elite SAS-style commandos has apologised after blowing up the wrong house in a training exercise.
The squad - from Sweden's K3 cavalry division - were supposed to attack an unoccupied home bought by the military for attack drills.
Instead they launched a terrifying night assault on another home 200 yards away from their target in Rojdafors, Sweden.
"They were extremely lucky that the couple who own the property were out or they could have been killed," said one neighbour.
The troops blew out both front and back doors and every single window before they realised their mistake.
The K3 unit is considered the most deadly strike force in Sweden and likes to compare itself to the SAS and America's SEALs.
An army spokesman said: "We've already cleaned up after ourselves and we have, of course, contacted the owner. There's no hard feelings between us."
"...cleaned up after ourselves..." What did they do pick up the splintered pieces of wood? Good Grief!
A British prison says a bunch of inmates have been caught using hand sanitising gel to get drunk.
Peter McParlin of the Prison Officers Association says inmates were using it to make illicit alcohol.
The gel had been distributed around the prison to stop the spread of the swine flu virus. McParlin said on Thursday that giving inmates access to a gel with an alcohol content was unwise.
The prison has now banned inmates from using it. McParlin said the use of illicit concoctions made by mixing alcohol with fruit, water and sugar was as bad as drug use - or worse. The claims of prison boozing follow reports of bare-knuckle boxing for money at the facility, the Verne prison in Dorset, in southwest England.
A Pennsylvania history buff who recreates firearms from old wars accidentally fired a 2-pound cannonball through the wall of his neighbor's home in Uniontown, Pa.
William Maser, 54, fired a cannonball Wednesday evening outside his home in Georges Township that ricocheted and hit a house 400 yards away. The cannonball, about two inches in diameter, smashed through a window and a wall before landing in a closet. Authorities said nobody was hurt.
State police charged Maser with reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.
No one answered the phone Friday at Maser's home. He told WPXI-TV that recreating 19th-century cannons is a longtime hobby. He said he is sorry and he will stop shooting them on his property, which is about 35 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
A Tennant Creek man has lost his driving license for riding his horse while drunk.
It is alleged the man had earlier tried to take the horse into a pub.
The ABC understands the 33-year-old man had been told by police not to ride his horse home from a Tennant Creek pub in April. But police say he was hoisted onto the horse by an unknown person and galloped up the street, shouting.
Police again told him to walk the horse home, but he rode off into the night and was arrested the next day. Last week a Tennant Creek magistrate disqualified the man from driving for six months over the incident.
This means he is not allowed to ride his horse in a public place during that period. He was also fined nearly $1,000 over the incident.
A Dutchman and his grandson boarded what they thought was a flight to Australia, but ended up in the wrong Sydney - in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Joannes Rutten, 71, and his 15-year-old grandson Nick booked the trip through a Dutch travel agency with plans to visit relatives, reports the Illawarra Mercury.
They set out from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport with Air Canada - but instead of arriving to views of the Sydney Harbor Bridge and Opera House, they touched down at Sydney in Cape Breton Island, off Canada's north east coast - more than 10,000 miles from their intended destination.
Air Canada organised hotel rooms in the 'alternate' Sydney for the pair, until they could arrange flights on to the right Sydney.
"I think it was quite an adventure for the 15-year-old. They're not seasoned travelers. Joannes was absolutely exhausted when he arrived," said Mr Rutten's cousin, Yvonne Wallace, from Wollongong, south of Sydney.
Clare MacDougall, who works for Air Canada, was at Nova Scotia's Sydney Airport to meet the aircraft.
"When the door opened, the flight attendant said: "You're not going to believe it but we have two people who thought they were en route to Sydney, Australia," she said. "They arrived with no Canadian money - just Australian money."
A Chinese lorry driver jumped into a fast-flowing river because he couldn't take his wife's nagging anymore.
Zhou and his wife were on a ferry on the Yangtze River when it all became too much for him, reports the Chongqing Evening Post.
Members of the ship's crew saw the man suddenly run out of his cabin with his hands covering his ears, and shouting: "I can't stand it any longer." They initially thought he was suffering from an ear injury and went to help him but found he was unhurt. (Of course it 'was' an ear injury!)
"While we were still puzzling over the this, his wife ran up and continued nagging him," said one crewmate. "The husband covered his ears again and said: 'I need a break' before jumping over the side into the rushing river.
"We immediately found lamps to light up the water but found nobody. The possibility of survival can be zero."
However, later that night, police found the man who had managed to swim more than a mile across across the broad river.
"I felt I was dying, but even that's better than my wife's nagging," he reportedly told the police. The couple were reunited the following morning at the local police station where Zhou's wife promised to give up her habit of nagging him.
(Somehow I doubt the reunion was his idea!)
No End To Dumb
A Los Angeles suburb has stripped its mayor of some of his power, after he ordered the US flag flown at half-mast to honour Michael Jackson.
Carson Mayor Jim Dear lowered the City Hall flag on July 7, the day of Jackson's funeral, calling the pop star an African-American success story and a world-renowned idol.
Military veterans were upset and the decision sparked critical emails, letters and phone calls to Dear.
Dear then submitted the issue to the city's Veterans Affairs Commission and hammered out a change to the city code that strips him of authority to lower the flag. The City Council approved that change on Tuesday.
Dear says if he had another chance, he would lower the city flag for Jackson - not the national flag.
Hoisted by my own petard
Today, part of the Wilderness clan decided to have lunch at our favourite, nearby Japanese restaurant. Mother-in-law Wilderness, Mrs Wilderness and I decided to order a glass of wine with our lunch.
After giving us some time to make our selections from the wine list, the waiter came over to take our order. The list was numbered and when I told him I wanted a particular sauvignon blanc he said, "Number 10."
Many years ago, while sailing the ocean blue with Uncle Sam's Navy, I ended up in Japan and managed to memorize a few Japanese words and phrases.
In a 'vain' attempt to show off my cosmopolitan and very sophisticated experience, I said, "Ju" which is Japanese for the number 10.
He looked at me for a moment, nodded his head and said in a very serious, and I might add suspiciously South Korean accent, "Oh yes, you are from Israel?"
LONDON - The government says an illegal immigrant sneaked into the U.K. by smuggling himself aboard a bus full of British border agents.
Britain's Home Office says the man hid in the small space between the bus's chassis and its fuel tank as it traveled through the Channel Tunnel from the French town of Coquelles to the British coastal city of Dover.
The Daily Mail newspaper reported Saturday that the bus carried at least 20 Border Agency staff, whose job it is to keep illegal immigrants out. The newspaper says the man was spotted dropping from the bus on to the road but ran away before he could be caught.
The Home Office said the incident occurred within the last week but could not immediately give a precise date. It said the man has not been caught.
(I'd check British Border Patrol Headquarters if I were them.)
A Chinese bus company is equipping its vehicles with bricks for passengers to use to break windows in an emergency.
The bricks, painted yellow with "emergency use" written on both sides, are stored under the driver's seat and under a rear seat.
"It's easy for passengers to spot them, and use them to break the window if something happened," said a spokesman for the Harbin Public Transport Company.
The company had stopped providing passengers with safety hammers to break windows as they were always being stolen.
"We don't think anybody will be interested in stealing bricks," the spokesman added.
Bricks have so far been installed on several bus routes in a pilot scheme in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, reports Northeast Network.
But the company says it will equip all 700 of its buses with the bricks if feedback from passengers is positive. (Ir the feedback is negative, they will probably throw bricks at the company!)
A German man's love of beer proved his undoing after he fell into an open drain - and couldn't get out because of his beer belly.
Gerhard Wilder, 46, from Bochum in western Germany, was wedged so tightly in the drain that he had to be freed by firefighters.
He has now pledged to stay off beer and go on a diet after embarrassing pictures of the incident were shown all over German media. A motorist raised the alarm after he went to move a car parked next to the drain and spotted the trapped man.
He said: "I heard a voice saying help and at first I didn't see him. "Then I tried to pull him out but he was wedged tight. He didn't see that jokers had removed the drain cover as he staggered home."
Firemen spent an hour removing part of the drain before they could pull the man free. A fire brigade spokesman added: "He did not know how the drain cover had got removed - and denied doing it himself.
"After he was freed he walked home on his own - I think he was very embarrassed by it all and promised he would never drink again. He also said he planned to lose weight."
A bullet from a gun that was accidentally dropped injured a Florida woman sitting in a bathroom stall.
Police said the bullet hit 53-year-old Janifer Bliss in the lower left leg. She was taken to a hospital with minor injuries. (I'm not kidding!)
Bliss was sitting on the toilet in a hotel bathroom when a woman in the next stall accidentally let her handgun slip out of her waist holster. The weapon discharged when it hit the ground.
Police said the gun belonged to a 56-year-old woman who has a concealed weapons permit.
The case has been referred to the State Attorney's Office to determine if any charges will be filed.
Indian scientists are to put one of the world's hottest chilli powders into hand grenades.
They say the devices will be used to control rioters and in counter-insurgency operations.
Defence researchers say the idea is to replace explosives in small hand grenades with a certain variety of red chilli to immobilise people without killing them, reports the BBC. The chilli, known as Bhut Jolokia, is said to be 1,000 times hotter than commonly used kitchen chilli.
Scientists at India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) are quoted as saying the potent chilli will be used as a food additive for troops operating in cold conditions.
And the powder will also be spread on the fences around army barracks in the hope the strong smell will keep out animals.
A python stolen from a Perth wildlife centre has been found by using the tracking device on the animal it ate.
The two-metre carpet python swallowed a woylie, a small endangered marsupial, near Narrogin in Western Australia's south.
The snake was taken to the Department of Environment and Conservation's (DEC) Woodvale research centre for treatment because the marsupial was still wearing a wristwatch-sized radio at the time it was swallowed.
It is alleged two people stole the python from the centre on Monday.
The DEC used a plane to locate the radio collar and found the snake, with the collar still inside it, at a house in Heathridge. John Angus from the research centre says they were lucky to find the python. "There's obviously a lot of hard work in relocating any stolen items," he said.
"The fact that we were able to pinpoint this animal ... we probably would have never of recovered it otherwise." The python is recovering at the centre. It is understood two men have been taken into custody.
Porn star stories are everywhere! This time it's a very popular bus driver facing the sack over too much exposure!
A bus driver is facing the sack in Belgium after it emerged that she is a porn star.
The driver, the reigning Miss Nude Belgium 2009, passed all her driving tests following a six week intensive course, reports The Sun. But the model, called Audrey, was ordered to choose a career after bus bosses spotted revealing pictures of her on a website.
Audrey, 24, said: "I was hauled before the director of human resources and he asked me to choose between my erotic career and my new career on the buses. "He said that I had to sign a form pledging that I wouldn't do any more nude pictures."
Carine Zanella, spokesperson for bus company TEC, said its treatment of Audrey was nothing to do with morality.
She said: "We don't wish to see a member of our staff finishing a show in the middle of the night and then picking up a bus at six in the morning." (Yeah, right!)
But Mrs Zanella admitted that Audrey was one of the most popular drivers in the history of the company. (Her picture is in everybody's locker!)
On April 16, 1890, a gentleman named N. Grigsby passed away. His tombstone reads:
N. Gridgsby
Died
Apr, 16,1890
Aged
78 Yrs, 6Ms, 5D,
2nd Lieut.Co.G.
10th Ind.Cavy.
He asked that an inscription be put on his marker and it was. The inscription reads:
Through this inscription I wish to enter my dying protest against what is called the Democratic party
I have watched it closely since the days of Jackson and Know that all the misfortunes of our nation has come to it through this so called party therefore beware of this party of treason.
Put on in fullfillment(sic) of promise to Deceased.
A scientist reckons that long-distance space travel will leave us short, fat and bald.
Astrobiologist Dr Lewis Dartness revealed at the Cheltenham Science Festival that living without gravity would cause space travellers' bones and muscles not to develop properly, leaving them stunted and weak.
Meanwhile, the lack of effort needed to move around in low gravity and a temperature-controlled environment would mean that "future spacemen and women are likely to become pretty chubby."
And it gets worse. "Without gravity, fluid would float up to pool in the skull, which would cause the head to look permanently swollen out of proportion", Dr Dartness added.
Warming to his subject, he continued: "Also, with no need for hair to insulate the head or eyelashes to flick dust from their eyes, future humans may become completely hairless."
The Kepler space telescope, which was launched earlier this year, is expected to find a number of fertile Earth-like planets dotted around the cosmos. However, while some of them may be capable of hosting complex life, the astronomical distances mean that boldly going where no man has gone before could take generations.
By the same token, many of us look like we have been 'spaced out' already ... not to mention those that still seem to be out there somewhere!
A shoe-maker and a technology company are teaming up to develop footwear with a built-in GPS device that could help track down "wandering" seniors suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
"The technology will provide the location of the individual wearing the shoes within 30 feet, anywhere on the planet," said Andrew Carle, an assistant professor at George Mason University who served as an adviser on the project.
"Sixty per cent of individuals afflicted with Alzheimer's Disease will be involved in a 'critical wandering incident' at least once during the progression of the disease - many more than once," he said.
The shoes are being developed by GTX Corp, which makes miniaturized Global Positioning Satellite tracking and location-transmitting technology, and Aetrex Worldwide, a footwear manufacturer.
Mr Carle says embedding a GPS device in a shoe was important because Alzheimer's victims tend to remove unfamiliar objects placed on them but getting dressed is one of the last types of memory they retain.
He said a "geo-fence" could be placed around a person's home and a "Google Map" alert sent to a cell phone, home or office computer when a programmed boundary is crossed.
"The shoe we intend on developing with Aetrex should help authorized family members, friends, or caretakers reduce their stress and anguish by enabling them to locate their loved ones instantly with the click of a mouse," said Chris Walsh, chief operating officer of GTX Corp.
The companies said they plan to begin testing the product by the end of the year.
The Russian navy has admitted that one of its anti-submarine ships fired at a village by mistake.
The navy said no-one was injured when a small anti-submarine ship opened fire on a village in the Vyborg region of St Petersburg.
"On the 28 May, a small anti-submarine ship from the Baltic fleet was working on a host of exercises in the gulf of Finland, including artillery fire at aerial targets," RIA quoted a navy spokesman as saying.
"No-one was injured."
Which means they couldn't even hit a village!
SPRINGDALE, Ark. - Michael Henson left the auto parts store with more problems than when he arrived. For that, he can thank his dog.
Henson, whose truck had a sticking throttle, brought his dog along for company when he drove to O'Reilly Auto Parts store in Springdale on Sunday.
"He'd left the truck running and the dog jumped over and knocked the truck into gear," Springdale police Sgt. Billy Turnbough said.
The truck raced into the building, stunning Henson and clerk Josh Hopper. "The guy said he was standing there, looked up, and saw his dog driving his truck through the building," Turnbough said.
Hopper said he heard the crash and looked up from the transaction. "His truck was in the window," Hopper said. "I thought, 'Oh no.' Everybody was fine. His front left tire just made it onto the brick wall."
No one was hurt and no humans (or animals) were cited, police said.
A would-be gangster shot himself in the crotch when his gun went off half cocked in his pocket.
Lukas Neuhardt, 27, had forgotten to put the safety catch on when he stuffed the gun into his trouser pocket to impress pals in Saarbruecken, Germany.
He told paramedics that a masked mugger had blasted him in the crotch in a bungled robbery. But police found a hole in his statement when they saw that the gunshot had miraculously left his trousers intact.
"Instead there was a charred hole in his pocket so either it was the shot of the century or he did it himself," said a police source.
Now - after surgeons stitched his manhood back together - he's facing up to three years in jail for breaching Germany's tough new anti gun laws.
Wow, the only luck this guy has is bad!
Ohio Dad calls police because his 28-year-old son wouldn't clean his bedroom.
Andrew Mizsak, of Cleveland, Ohio, called 911 after a domestic argument got out of hand. His son, also called Andrew, had thrown a plate of food across the kitchen table and clinched his fist at his dad when told to clean his room.
Andrew junior, who serves on the local school board, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "I know this looks bad." (Ya Think?)
Mr Mizsak, who lives with his parents and also works as an independent political consultant, was "crying uncontrollably" after being told to clean his room, according to a police report.
His 63-year-old father decided against pressing charges and told police: "I don't want to ruin his political career." (Do you mean the the political career that is now in the toilet?)
He later told reporters: "I overreacted. No big deal." His son said he was embarrassed to have taken police away from more important work. "My dad and I love each other very much," he said, promising to keep his basement room clean. "I'm lucky to be living in their house."
Not much of an investigation into this bank robbery, just check the thief's ID ... in his wallet!
Albert Vincent Perkins was charged with robbing First Federal Bank in Kansas City on Thursday last.
US police said he walked into the bank, handed the teller a plastic bag and ordered her to give him all of the $100 bills. Then he walked out of the bank - but left his wallet sitting on the counter.
The US attorney's office said the teller and a customer in the bank identified the photo on the driver's license and another photo in the wallet as the robber.
Perkins was arrested Thursday night. Police say he took about US$3,100.
(I may have to re-title this page "Felony Stupid!")
DENVER - One Colorado woman's love for tofu has been judged X-rated by state officials.
Kelly Coffman-Lee wanted to tell the world about her fondness for bean curd by picking certain letters for her SUV's license plate.
Her suggestion for the plate: "ILVTOFU."
But the Division of Motor Vehicles blocked her plan because they thought the combination of letters could be interpreted as profane. Says Department of Revenue spokesman Mark Couch: "We don't allow 'FU' because some people could read that as street language for sex."
Officials meet periodically to ensure state plates stay free of letters that abbreviate gang slang, drug terms or obscene phrases.
The 38-year-old Coffman-Lee says tofu is a staple of her family's diet because they are vegan and that the DMV misinterpreted her message. (I thought nothing wrong until the DMV called my attention to it!)
A Norwegian man faces a heavy fine and a driving ban after police caught him having sex with his girlfriend while speeding on the motorway.
Police say the 28-year-old man and 22-year-old woman were caught in the act late on Easter Sunday by traffic police on a highway 40km west of Oslo.
Officers clocked the couple's silver Mazda 323 racing at 133kmh in a 100kmh zone, veering from one side to the other. They say he couldn't see much because her back was in the way.
The man's licence has been suspended and further punishment will be decided next week... (After Police have a chance to review the video!)
Teen gets $5000 bill, dad 'Modifies' phone with hammer!
A cell phone used by a Wyoming 13-year-old to run up a nearly US$5,000 phone bill will text no more thanks to her angry father and his hammer.
Dena Christoffersen of Cheyenne sent or received about 20,000 text messages over about a month, and her parents' phone plan didn't cover texting.
Gregg Christoffersen told KUSA-TV of Denver this week that he thought texting had been disabled on her daughter's phone, which he smashed hours after getting a phone bill for more than US$4,750.
The family said Verizon has been willing to knock the bill down to a reasonable level. Dena has been grounded until the end of school. She said she feels bad and has learned her lesson.
An aircraft took off on its own when the pilot could not get into the cockpit in time after starting the propellor manually.
Hundreds of visitors to an air show at Goodwood airfield watched in horror as the runaway biplane took off, soared into the air and then crashed into trees, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Had it cleared the trees it is believed the plane, which was headed towards nearby Chichester, West Sussex, could have flown for around 150 miles on a full tank of fuel.
The small plane had just been refueled before the incident and its pilots had 'swung' the propellers to restart the engine before getting inside to fly it.
But the aircraft - a 1940 model built in the style of a Tiger Moth - began moving before the pilot had a chance to board it.
Retired aircraft engineer Malcolm Phillips, 67 of Emsworth, Hants, said: "There were hundreds of people there watching as the plane ran amok, haring round in circles.
"We didn't know which way it was going to go and it was worrying that it could head towards the crowd, other planes or the clubhouse."
Mr Phillips added: "Normally the idea is that you swing the propellers and have the handbrake on and chocks under the wheels. You also need to make sure the throttle is only set at low revs.
"Something clearly went wrong and it jumped over the chocks - I suspect what might have happened is that the throttle became loose."
(Or the plane got sick and tired of waiting around!)
MAGNOLIA, Ark. - Sheriff's deputies said a Texas woman started a brawl at a wake in Arkansas when she arrived with a beer can in her hand. (I guess this isn't normal in Magnolia!)
The woman, 52, faces a third-degree domestic battery charges, as does another woman, 46, over the March 29 fight.
Deputies said the first woman arrived at the Christies Chapel Church with a beer can in hand and that she refused to leave.
The first woman then allegedly grabbed a man by the face, leaving scratch marks on his lower right cheek and causing him to bleed. The man's mother, then allegedly slapped the woman and kicked another woman in the chest.
A sheriff's report claimed the woman with the beer became "passively aggressive" with deputies and said that "no backwood country cop" was going to take her to jail.
(All of this at a wake for whom we know not! Could it have been an ex-boyfriend?)
Police say inmates are using carrier pigeons to smuggle cellphones onto a prison farm in southeastern Brazil.
Police inspector Celso Soramiglio says that guards at a prison near the city of Sorocaba caught a pigeon last Wednesday with components of a small cell phone inside a bag tied to one of its legs. A day later, another pigeon was found with a bag containing a cell phone charger.
The birds apparently were bred and raised inside the prison, smuggled out, outfitted with the cellphone parts and then released to fly back.
Soramiglio noted that pigeons "instinctively fly back home ."
He says police photographed the pigeons and then released them.
Reports indicate that prisoners will be asked to identify the pigeons from their mug shots. Suspect pigeons will be forced to stand in a police line-up.
A desperate husband tried to kill his mother-in-law with an anti-tank missile launcher after claiming she'd turned his wife against him.
Bosnian Miroslav Miljici wanted revenge after blaming his wife's mum for the break-up of his marriage.
And when his mother-in-law survived the rocket attack on her home, he tried to finish her off with a machine gun, a court in Doboj, Bosnia, was told.
Amazingly, she survived both attacks with barely a scratch, judges heard.
In defence Miljici - jailed for six years for attempted murder - told the court he could no longer take his mother-in-law's nagging.
(I wouldn't touch this story with a ten-foot pole!)
A postman in New Zealand has been fired after thousands of undelivered letters and packages were found in his car.
The man began working as a postie in the South Island city of Christchurch about six months ago.
Each morning he set off on his pushbike to deliver letters, cards and parcels. But New Zealand Post spokesman Duncan Burman says customers soon began complaining about missing mail.
Mr Burman said when they looked inside the man's car, they found a stockpile of 3,000 items of post.
"It is really rare when something like this happens," he said. "We like to get on top of it as soon as possible." Mr Burman says some of the items had been opened.
The postie is now out of a job and being dealt with by Christchurch police.
A man who thought he was dying and confessed to killing a man in 1977 has been charged with murder after he got better.
James Brewer could now face the death penalty over the unsolved killing in Tennessee 32 years ago, according to US reports.
Convinced he was dying after a stroke, Mr Brewer reportedly admitted shooting dead 20-year-old neighbor Jimmy Carroll. The 58-year-old, who had fled Tennessee after the killing, was arrested after his condition improved, reports the BBC.
"He wanted to cleanse his soul, because he thought he was going to the great beyond," said police detective Tony Grasso, who interviewed Mr Brewer in an Oklahoma hospital. Mr Brewer had reportedly moved to Oklahoma from Tennessee after jumping bail after he was originally arrested and charged with Mr Carroll's murder in 1977.
The former factory worker changed his name to Michael Anderson and settled down with his wife, Dorothy, in the town of Shawnee. The couple became active members of the local church, where Mrs Brewer established a Bible study group, reports say.
After suffering a stroke, Mr Brewer called police to his hospital bedside earlier this month, where he reportedly made the confession. Detectives said Mr Brewer had admitted killing Mr Carroll, who he believed had been trying to seduce his wife.
A Brighton mum has lodged a complaint after she was sold a foul-mouthed toy parrot for her 11-month-old daughter.
Tina Banks, 44, picked out the parrot from the toy section of a 99p Store for her toddler Roxy, reports the Daily Telegraph.
But when she got outside and handed the stuffed toy to her excited daughter, it squawked: "Oi! What are you looking at ***hole." When she pulled the toy's cord again, (Why, I don't know!) it muttered other four-letter insults including: "I'm going to rip your head off and **** down your neck."
Mrs Banks said: "I bought it because Roxy was throwing a paddy in her pram and I thought the parrot might keep her a little bit quiet.
(I'm sure she was quiet and dumbfounded!)
"But when we got outside and I handed it to her, it came out with these swear words. The worse thing was there was a man in front of us who thought it was aimed at him.
(I wonder what he said back?)
Mrs Banks continued, "I went ten shades of red and have never been so embarrassed in my life. When I bought it I didn't realise it spoke, I just thought it was a cuddly toy."
Hussein Lalani, commercial director of 99p Stores, apologized and said it should not have been sold in the toy section of the store.
"It is quite clearly labelled that the product is not suitable for children and none of the toys we have are suitable for kids under three-years-old," he said.
(They are going to move it to the 'foul mouthed, gadget section' ... and probably double the price.)
A Brighton and Hove City Council spokesman said: "One of our trading standards officers will be visiting the store and advising the staff to ensure that the parrots are displayed away from the children's toys."
A Croatian motorist who crashed through an undertakers' window woke up to find himself in an open coffin.
Radoslav Pokrajac, 30, was thrown from the car through an open window and sailed through the air before landing in a display of the funeral director's special offers in Sibinj.
"He was very frightened," said one rescue worker. "When he woke up he didn't know if he was alive or dead."
And owner Miro Zirdum said it was not the first time a car had crashed into his shop.
"This is third or fourth time I've had a car in my shop," moaned Zirdum. "And none of them have brought me any business."
Police rescued a woman driver from a roundabout in Germany after fellow motorists said she'd done at least 50 circuits.
They used two police cars to guide her off at one of the exits after motorists called them to say she kept going round and round the roundabout in Braunschweig.
"I was breaking in a new car to see how it does in traffic and I couldn't seem to get to one of the exits," 62-year-old Andrea Zimmer told police. "But I have to admit I got a very good feel for my new car and its handling. I think I can safely say it takes roundabouts pretty well."
A police spokesman said: "While we can understand someone may want to perform certain manoeuvres a number of times to get a feel for a car there is a time and a place for doing such things and this was certainly not one of them.
"Our officers guided her off the roundabout and after a short chat with her on a side road with some advice she went on her way."
Sheriff Tommy Gregory said Saturday that 25-year-old Harry Jackson of St. Marys had broken out of the jail, strolled to a nearby convenience store where he broke in and stole about 14 packs of cigarettes. HE THEN RETURNED TO JAIL!
Gregory said authorities at first thought they had separate incidents, a jailbreak and a burglary. The jailbreak was discovered when a door that had been secure earlier was found unlocked. The jail is supposed to be a smoke-free environment.
(If he had stayed out after escaping, he would have had to find food and shelter. He may even have had to find a job ... shudder! The only thing they didn't provide in jail was the smokes .
