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Bear Ransacks Kitchen as Paralyzed Man Lies in Bed
 Thu Sep 30, 8:47 AM ET DENVER (Reuters) - It's a tale of man against nature. A paralyzed man in Aspen, Colorado lay helplessly in bed for two hours while a black bear known as "Fat Albert" went through his kitchen breaking dishes and looking for a tasty snack.
"I had four pounds (2kg) of chocolate from a ski trip. He ate it all -- it's war," Tom Isaac said, recounting with a sense of humor how the 500-pound (230-kg) bear made himself at home at his house on Sept. 20.
"I could hear things breaking for two hours," he said of the bear's "visit" to his home. Isaac's bedroom was only about 10 to 15 feet from the kitchen and he feared the bear would come in and attack him.
This time of year bears are busy fattening up before going into hibernation and residents in mountain towns often recount stories of rummaging bears.
In Fact, Isaac, who has been paralyzed since a skiing accident in the early 1980s, says his home has been invaded nearly a half dozen times by the bear Aspenites call "Fat Albert."
"The next afternoon the wildlife agents found him sleeping in my dining room," Isaac said.
Isaac, who holds elective office as the Pitkin County assessor, said he does not want to see the bear shot, but he is worried about how the needs of residents can be balanced against the needs of wildlife.

Fishermen Net Hashish Worth $1.2 Million
 Thu Sep 30, 8:23 AM ET

MADRID (Reuters) - A small Spanish fishing boat netted more than it bargained for this week when it hauled up 23 bales of hashish instead of the usual batch of anchovies.
The catch off the Mediterranean port of Sant Carles de la Rapita Wednesday was worth more than 1 million euros ($1.2 million), Civil Guards said Thursday.
Two other boats separately found two bundles each. The guards said the haul, weighing nearly a ton in total, could be part of a consignment thrown overboard by traffickers interrupted by a patrol boat earlier this month as they were preparing to land.

Railway Gets Damages from Man Run Over by Train
 Tue Sep 28,11:23 AM ET

By Nathaniel Espino

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's state railway PKP is claiming compensation from a man who caused delays to its services by being run over by a train -- but said it may forgive the debt after learning the man's house had burned down.
"We are acting in accordance with article 415 of the Civil Code, seeking damages from a person who caused delays in rail traffic," PKP spokesman Krzysztof Lancucki said on Monday.
He said 19-year-old Pawel Banaszek, who was paralyzed in the incident in August 2003, caused 2,058 zlotys ($580) worth of losses due to delays.
Half the amount was written off and Banaszek was paying the rest in 80-zloty monthly installments from his 600-zloty disability pension. Lancucki said he had made three payments so far.
Earlier, Poland's daily Gazeta Wyborcza reported that Banaszek's house had recently burned down, and Lancucki told Reuters that PKP would most likely write off the remaining debt if Banaszek made a formal request.
Accounts of how Banaszek ended up lying on the tracks vary.
Wyborcza said he was beaten up in a bar fight in his home village of Stare Bosewo, central Poland, and left for dead on the rails, though a local prosecutor told Reuters there was no conclusive evidence a fight had taken place.
Wyborcza quoted Banaszek's father as saying his son's attackers had dragged him onto the tracks to try to fake a suicide.
But regional prosecutor Robert Strzeminski said: "We didn't have any evidence of a beating ... so we had to treat it as a simple train accident."
Lancucki said it was not the railway's responsibility to determine how Banaszek got onto the rails.
"We are the guardians of public property, not a charitable institution, and we have an obligation to seek compensation in the name of the taxpayers," Lancucki told Wyborcza.
"Mr. Banaszek could have turned to a court, but he didn't. He would lose, and the whole affair would cost (him) many times more."

Scorpion Queen Sets New World Record
 Wed Sep 22, 8:46 AM ET

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Malaysian woman on Wednesday set a new world record for living in a room full of scorpions, having spent 33 days in a glass box crawling with 6,000 of them.
But Nur Malena Hassan, nicknamed "Scorpion Queen," wants to stretch her feat to 36 days and plans to remain inside the box, measuring 12 feet by 10 feet, until Saturday, when she hopes to have put the record beyond reach for some time to come.
The 27-year-old moved into the box in a shopping mall in Kuantan, about 250 km (160 miles) east of Kuala Lumpur, on Aug. 21. She has only left the box for a daily 15-minute bathroom break, even though she has been stung several times.
Nur Malena, who set a world record by spending 30 days with 2,700 scorpions in 2001, won back the title from Thailand's Kanchana Ketkaew, who lived in a glass room with 3,000 scorpions for 32 days in 2002, according to Guinness World Records.
Nur Malena, who watches DVDs to pass the time, lacks sleep because the scorpions crawl over her body. She has been warned she could pass out if stung three times within a short time. Officials from Guinness World Records are monitoring the attempt.

Man Shoots Wife, Mistakes Her for Monkey
 Wed Sep 22, 8:44 AM ET

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Malaysian man shot and killed his wife after he mistook her for a monkey picking fruit in a tree behind their house, the New Straits Times said on Wednesday.
The man, 70, is being held by police for causing death through recklessness after he fired a shotgun at what he thought was a monkey in a mangosteen tree on Monday, the newspaper said.
His wife, 68, had used a ladder to climb into the tree and was picking the tropical fruit when she was shot. She was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital, the paper said. The couple lived in central Malaysia and had raised 13 children.

Japanese Kids Having Too Much Sex
 Wed Sep 22, 8:35 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Parents in Tokyo would be legally responsible for keeping school-aged children from having sex if the city's top law and order official gets his way.
The feasibility of such a step, proposed by Tokyo Vice Governor Yutaka Takehana, will be one of the topics discussed when a panel of experts meets on Wednesday to try to figure out how to deal with Japan's increasingly sexually active youth.
Takehana, the city's first vice governor in charge of law and order, was quoted by Kyodo news agency as saying that such a rule "would convey the determination of adult society" to prevent youth sex, even if no penalties were imposed.
A Tokyo government official acknowledged that enforcing such a law would be difficult. "If this sort of topic were to emerge at the meeting, we could not ignore it," he said.
"Certainly enforcement would be difficult," he added. "I imagine that the idea of a law will be vetoed."
The concerns behind the proposal are real, however.
The legal age of consent in Tokyo is 18.
Some 20 to 30 percent of Japanese 16-year-olds have had sex and nearly a quarter of these have four or more partners, according to Masako Kihara, an AIDS (news - web sites) expert and associate professor at Kyoto University.
As a result, both AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases -- such as chlamydia, which can cause infertility -- are on the rise among young people.
Of new HIV cases in 2003, at least 33 percent were in people under 29.

Boss, Maybe You Should Use My Phone for a Minute...
 Wed Sep 22, 8:33 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German telecommunications company said on Tuesday it is developing the first mobile phone that will alert users when their breath is bad or if they are giving off offensive smells.
The phone will use a tiny chip measuring less than one millimeter to detect unpleasant odors, a spokeswoman for Siemens Mobile said. A research team in the southern city of Munich is developing the device using new sensor technology.
"It examines the air in the immediate vicinity for anything from bad breath and alcohol to atmospheric gas levels," the spokeswoman said. "Some people take smelling good rather seriously."

Falling Crucifix Kills Woman
 Wed Sep 22, 8:21 AM ET

ROME (Reuters) - A 67-year-old woman was killed when a three-meter tall metal crucifix fell on her head in a small southern Italian town on Wednesday, police said.
The cross, which has been in the main square on Sant'Onofrio for decades, fell on Maddalena Camillo while workers were setting up lights for an annual religious festival.
Italy, home to the Vatican City, is a predominantly Roman Catholic country where crucifixes and religious icons and effigies are a common sight in most towns and villages.

What Are the Odds of a Ghost Closing Your School?
 Tue Sep 21, 8:07 AM ET

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Fear of a ghost who knocks on doors and wafts the scent of aftershave lotion along corridors has forced a prestigious college for statisticians in the Indian capital to close.
Students of the Indian Statistical Institute said the ghost of a dead classmate had knocked on doors, jostled them on staircases and left traces of aftershave lotion and cigarette smoke, the Times of India said.
Students linked the aftershave aroma to a first-year student who died last month of a rare heart condition.
"A fear psychosis had gripped some students. We thought it was best to allow them to go home if they wanted to," the newspaper quoted Rajeev Karandikar, head of the prestigious institute, as saying.

'And Up Through the Ground Come A-Bubbling Crude'
 Mon Sep 20, 9:06 AM ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Crude oil stirred by geological rumblings has bubbled up into homes and alleyways in the southwest Iranian city of Masjed Soleiman, state television and officials said Monday.
Masjed Soleiman was Iran's first oil town, lying in the arid oil heartlands on the Iraqi border. Iran holds the world's second biggest reserves of oil and natural gas.
An oil official from the city said he had no details of the scale of this particular seepage but said two neighborhoods had been regularly blackened by treacly crude eruptions for the last 20 years.
"The thing that is really bothering people at the moment is the smell of the gas seeping out," he told Reuters.
Oil was driven to the surface by underground tremors, experts were quoted on state television as saying. Dozens of small earthquakes jolted the region in January.

Couple Fined $94,000 for One-Child Rule Lapse
 Mon Sep 20, 9:03 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - A court in China's southern boomtown of Shenzhen has fined a couple 780,000 yuan ($94,250) and sealed off their house for having more than one child, the Beijing Morning Post said Monday.
The pair were among nine couples who were fined "social fostering fees" for their extra children, the newspaper said. They had their first boy in 1997 and last year had twin boys, the newspaper said.
With approximately 1.3 billion people, China is the world's most populous nation. It has stringent rules on family planning that allow couples usually to have just one child, at least in cities, and limit numbers elsewhere.
The couple's house had been sealed up "according to the law," the paper said, or until they pay the fine which was unusually large. A house is sealed with a white paper bearing the stamp of a local court pasted across the front door.
Punishment for having more than one child can include having the power to the offending couple's house or to the houses of relatives being cut off.

Police Seize 388 Guns from One Man
 Mon Sep 20, 9:02 AM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Los Angeles police seized 388 guns from one man, more than were recovered in the city all last year, a police spokeswoman said on Saturday.
Police seized 11 guns on Thursday from the car of Wayne Wright, 56, along with another he had illegally sold to an undercover officer. After his arrest, police searched his home in the nearby suburb of Simi Valley and found 376 more firearms.
"Last year there were 348 firearms seized (in Los Angeles). This year there have been 411, including the 388 that were seized from Wayne Wright," Officer Sandra Escalante said.
"There were rifles, shotguns, handguns and assault weapons" recovered from Wright's home, Escalante said.
A silencer and thousands of rounds of ammunition, including armor-piercing rounds, were also recovered from Wright's home, Escalante said. Possession of a silencer and armor-piercing bullets are felonies in California, she noted.
Wright is not a licensed gun dealer and may have been engaged in illegal gun trafficking, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

Man Tries to Sue Wife for 5-Day Sex Denial
 Fri Sep 17,11:11 AM ET

MADRID (Reuters) - A Spanish man tried to have his wife charged with domestic abuse because she refused to have sex with him on five consecutive days, Spanish newspaper El Sur reported on Friday.
The middle-aged man from Seville -- the city of Don Juan and Carmen -- said her refusals amounted to "degrading treatment" and domestic abuse, a term used more often to describe wife-battering.
The judge shelved the case, Andalusia-based El Sur reported.

Thieves Rob Bus Full of Policemen
 Thu Sep 16, 9:22 AM ET

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Forty-six Brazilian policemen traveling to a sports competition were caught with their guard down this week when four Brazilian thieves robbed the bus carrying them to the event.
The bus with 46 unarmed policemen from northeastern Paraiba state was headed to the city of Salvador in Bahia when two cars with armed robbers forced them to stop on the country's main interstate highway on Tuesday.
"The robbers took their cameras, cellular phones, wallets and even the sports uniforms and sneakers," a police spokesman said.
The suspects, who escaped, apparently did not know the bus was full of police when they stopped it, he said.
"We are looking for them, but I cannot say there's any particular ardor here due to the fact that policemen have been robbed."

Charges Against New York Diner Dropped
 Thu Sep 16, 9:20 AM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Normally a bad tip results in nothing more than grumbling waiters, but one New Yorker's gratuity ended up costing him a bundle in legal fees.
Humberto Taveras of Roslyn Heights, New York, was arrested and charged with theft of services after failing to pay an 18 percent tip at Soprano's Italian and American Grill in Lake George, N.Y. on Sept. 5.
Taveras said he left a 10 percent tip because the food was not very good.
Now it seems the tempest in a teapot has been resolved.
According to a report in Wednesday's New York Times, Warren County, New York, prosecutors have dropped the charges against Tavares.
Warren County District Attorney Kathleen Hogan said the man could not be forced to pay a gratuity even though the restaurant said tips of 18 percent were mandatory for parties of six or more.
"A tip or gratuity is discretionary, and that's what the courts have found," Hogan told the newspaper.
Tavares told the Times the case cost him several hundred dollars in legal fees.

Jailsick Jailbird Tries to Return to Prison
 Wed Sep 15, 7:50 AM ET

ROME (Reuters) - What's a jailsick jailbird who is under house arrest to do when he feels homesick for prison?
Go back to jail, or at least try his hardest.
A 34-year-old man on the island of Sardinia who was released from prison and put under house arrest felt uneasy without bars around him.
So, according to the Italian news agency Ansa, he "escaped" from house arrest in Sassari on Wednesday and knocked on the door of the city's San Sebastiano prison, where he had done time for vandalism.
When guards there refused to let him back in, he complained to police, who arrested him. A judge will decide the man's next address.

XXL Bra Sparks Hunt for Heavy Crooks
 Wed Sep 15, 7:42 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - Police in the western German city of Aachen are searching for an obese couple who have been sneaking into an apartment building to use a woman's private dryer.
The only evidence police found was an oversized XXL bra and a jumbo pair of men's underpants left behind in the dryer. The owner had been on alert for the intruders since receiving a 500-euro ($600) electricity bill, police said.
Then one night she heard the dryer on and went into the basement to investigate. There was no one in sight but she found the bra and shorts left in mid-cycle. "The clothes are XXL so we are looking for a culprit of that size," a police spokesman said.

Car Thieves End Up Behind Bars... at the Zoo
 Tue Sep 14,11:34 AM ET

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Two Brazilian car thieves started their life behind bars while still on the run when they chose a cage in a Rio de Janeiro zoo to hide from police, officials said on Monday.
A zoo keeper told Reuters the pair were found hiding in an enclosure where deer and tapir are kept after police chased the fugitives into the zoo on Sunday.
"Apparently police thought that the bandits were going to take the animals hostage, but, thank God, that did not happen. They just wanted to hide," the keeper said.

Boiler Kills on Impact After Sauna Launch
 Mon Sep 13, 8:48 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) - A boiler that exploded at a Chinese sauna sailed over a six-story building and landed on an old man crossing the road, Xinhua news agency said.
The 63-year-old pedestrian was killed instantly and three people injured in Sunday's bizarre accident in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, Xinhua quoted local police as saying.
"A passerby tried to escape when he saw the large object flying toward him, but he was hurt in his leg," Xinhua said. "Two workers in a restaurant next to the bathhouse were also injured after a wall of the restaurant collapsed."
The explosion of the boiler, measuring two-meters (six-and-a-half-feet) across, is under investigation.

Man Exhumes and Eats Grandson's Corpse
 Mon Sep 13, 8:41 AM ET

LUSAKA (Reuters) - Zambian police have arrested a man who exhumed, cooked and ate part of his grandson's corpse, police said Monday.
Police spokeswoman Brenda Muntemba said a hunter found the man eating pieces of flesh in a graveyard in Milambo, 600 km (370 miles) north of the capital Lusaka.
"The man exhumed a corpse and cut off some flesh which he cooked in a pot and started eating ... we went to the grave of his grandson and verified that he had exhumed the body," Muntemba told Reuters.
Muntemba said police had no idea why the man, who had no history of madness, had started eating his grandson, who died in July. The man was charged with interfering with a dead body and also for trespass in the graveyard.

Bank Gives Beggars Phones Instead of Cash
 Mon Sep 13, 8:36 AM ET

DHAKA (Reuters) - Grameen Bank, famous for pioneering micro-credit programs in Bangladesh, has launched a new idea to empower the poor: arming beggars with mobile phones so they can sell a roving service for cash.
"Beggars are the one group so far left out of the bank's lending program and they deserve to be part of our network," said Dipal Chandra Barua, deputy managing director of Grameen Bank
The bank, a brainchild of renowned Bangladeshi professor Mohammad Yunus, has been awarded many international awards for helping millions of poor with small loans to start income-generating programs, such as poultry and cattle breeding, and handicraft-making, and also helping to educate their children.
"Lives of these people have dramatically changed with each of the borrowers becoming self-reliant in a few years and living a decent life in their rural surroundings," he told Reuters Saturday.
"Now for the beggars," said Barua.
Beggars would need to be a member of a Grameen Bank project to be eligible to get a mobile phone. Each mobile phone will cost them 8,500 taka ($143), repayable over two years in interest-free installments. They also are responsible for paying a subsidized monthly service charge of 152 taka.
The bank charges up to 10 percent interest on other credits.
"We won't ask them to stop begging immediately but would encourage them to ask people they stretch hands to if they need to make a phone call," Barua added.
"The money the beggars will get from calls would give them an extra income -- from which they will use a part to reimburse the cost of the cellphone to the bank."
The cellphone project would primarily target beggars in the rural areas where they earn much less than beggars in the cities, he said.
Grameen Bank believes its latest venture will be widely accepted and could change the lives of many of the country's beggars.
"We intend not only to help the old, homeless, jobless and people abandoned by their children, but also want to clean the streets of the sad scenes we see every day," he said.
"With the cell phones in hands, the beggars will ultimately give up their age-old profession on their own," the bank official said.
The bank will also provide 500 taka ($8.41) in cash to each "cell-class" beggar so they can sell snacks, chocolates, cookies and nuts for additional income.
Earlier the bank offered mobile phones to rural wives and mothers for commercial use that not only assured them enough money to survive but enabled some to earn an equivalent of $300-$400 a month, enough to buy land and even buy vehicles and start cattle farms.
Currently, there are 75,000 women, known as "phone ladies," with Grameen mobile phones across the country.
Ownership of mobile phones is still low in impoverished Bangladesh, a country of 130 million with per capita income of $444.

Dog Walker Discovers a Penny Worth Thousands
 Fri Sep 10, 8:40 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - A routine walk with his dog turned into a profitable excursion for one man, who discovered a 1,200-year-old gold penny during the stroll and now expects to sell it for thousands of pounds.
The coin was discovered on a public footpath beside the River Ivel in Bedfordshire, England. It is the first new Anglo-Saxon gold penny to come to light in nearly a century and the only known gold coin with the name of Coenwulf -- a king who ruled over the central English region of Mercia.
London auctioneers Spink estimate the coin will sell for 120,000-150,000 pounds ($214,100-267,700) when it goes under the hammer in October. But Richard Bishop, an auctioneer at Spink, said the coin's excellent condition might help the price rise beyond the top estimate.
"It's obviously going to be far in excess of anything that the average guy would expect to find when he's out walking his dog," said Bishop.

Having Sex Until the Cows Come Home
 Fri Sep 10, 8:35 AM ET -- Reuters

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - What's a big cud-chewing Scottish cow have to do with preserving public decency?
According to the mayor of a small Dutch town, allowing Highland heifers to graze in a nearby nature reserve will help deter couples who have scandalized the upright citizens of Spaarnwoude with their open-air sex antics.
Mayor Ellen van Hoogdalem-Arkema said the brazen behavior of amorous outdoor enthusiasts has angered and embarrassed people walking their dogs in the reserve or taking their grandchildren for a stroll.
"Visitors experience great annoyance from people having sex in public and apparently the presence of the cows turns the people off having sex," the mayor said.
The idea of using cows to cool passions in the park originated from another nature reserve south of Amsterdam, which saw an unexpectedly serendipitous reduction in sex prowlers after allowing the cows to graze in its fields.
Van Hoogdalem-Arkema said that the reserve's status as public land made problem tricky to solve and urgent.
"I just got off the phone with a man who was cycling in the area with his children, when suddenly two naked men came running across the road." she added with a sigh.

 

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