Here's wishing everyone a happy, healthy 2009

Now seems as good a time as any to mention that there are going to be some changes around here.

To cut a long story short, I've been taken under the wing of Old Mr Anorak and his hugely talented team.

I will continue to run the page, but with the added benefit of a lot of technical and creative experience who'll develop it.

The changes and new features will begin soon.

Happy New Year!

Strange little worm

I like to move it

Woman, 88, gives naked intruder the squeeze

It seems some criminals have a problem of underestimating their victims. Police say that today at 6:30 AM, an 88-year old woman in her bathrobe was confronted by a naked man who had entered her home in the 2500 block of SE 287th Avenue through an unlocked sliding door.

Deputy Paul H. (Mac) McRedmond with the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, says the man, saying nothing, backed her into the living room of the house and pushed her face down onto a chair. "Before whatever plans the suspect might have had, the woman reached behind her and grabbed the man by the crotch, 'giving him a good squeeze', McRedmond said. He added, "The man tore free and ran back out the way he had come in."



McRedmond says a Multnomah County Code Enforcement Officer just happened to be in the area and heard the call come out over his radio.

"He parked at SE 287th and Division and saw two cars drive by him. The officer got the license plate information that allowed Troutdale officers to locate the car in the vicinity."



The driver, identified as 46-year old Michael G. Dick of Gresham, who matched the description of the suspect, was detained, questioned by Multnomah County detectives and then booked on charges of burglary, harassment and private indecency charges, with bail currently set at $110,000. The victim was quite shaken up, but not injured and wishes to remain anonymous.

McRedmond says other charges are pending.

2 face charges for penis tattoo on fellow inmate

Lempira Norman had a lousy Christmas. Not only was he housed at the Volusia County Branch Jail on Dec. 25, he also, by force, got a penis tattooed on his back by two fellow inmates.

Norman told sheriff's deputies that Justine Harris and Ryan Collina had been harassing him all day because they wanted him to join a club they were forming. An annoyed Norman refused and went back to his room.

A few minutes later though, Harris and Collina showed up with a blanket and ordered Norman to get on the floor. They threw the blanket on his head and began pummelling him.

The men threatened Norman, saying he would get a worse beating unless he allowed them to apply a tattoo. Harris told Norman the tattoo would be of a capital and lowercase B.

But instead, as Collina held Norman down, Harris - equipped with a makeshift tattoo kit - applied a drawing of a penis on the back of the victim's right shoulder.

When Norman reported the ordeal, the tattoo kit was confiscated, and Harris and Collina were charged with aggravated battery to a detainee, by a detainee.

Woman arrested after hitting self with frying pan

Kelley J. Lemay first reported that her estranged husband had punched her in the face.

Then, as he was about to be taken away in handcuffs, she changed her story. Actually, she told police, she hit herself in the face with a frying pan to get him in trouble because he had thrown her cell phone out the door. Lemay, 29, of Ocklawaha, was arrested at 12:04 a.m. Wednesday and charged with filing a false report, according to the Ocala Police Department.

An officer first went to an apartment complex in the 1500 block of Northeast 39th Avenue and met Lemay's estranged husband, William Bowden. Bowden told the officer Lemay had slapped him and that he threw her cell phone outside the apartment. He lives there, he said, but she lives elsewhere.



When he went to retrieve the phone, she locked the door of his apartment and refused to let him in. In his report, the police officer noted that he didn't see any marks on Lemay or Bowden.

However, when another officer arrived on scene and talked with Lemay, he noticed that her right eye was swollen. The woman told the second officer that Bowden had punched her. An evidence officer was called to record the injury but Lemay refused to be photographed.

Officers handcuffed Bowden and were about to leave, when Lemay had a change of heart and told them she used a frying pan to smack herself in the face. Then Lemay was then taken to the Marion County Jail.

Prisoner sues after pet parrot dies

A dead parrot named Freddy is the focus of a US lawsuit after his ex-con owner claimed prison guards denied him a phone call that would have saved the bird's life.

Thomas Goodrich is seeking a total of $500,000 (£347,000) in punitive damages from the Delaware Department of Correction Commissioner and a warden at the correctional institution where he was held for 12 days over an outstanding arrest warrant and an expired driving licence. The 48-year-old claimed he was denied any contact with the outside world, meaning he was unable to contact a friend to feed Freddie, a £15,000 gold and blue macaw which had been his beloved pet for 20 years.

Mr Goodrich said when he was finally released on December 19, he found Freddy dead. Two other parrots, both Amazons, survived. "They apparently had enough food in their cages," he said. In court papers submitted to the local federal court, Mr Goodrich said he was given a code number to operate a prison phone that did not work, and he was told he would have to wait eight days for a replacement number. He alleges that prison officials lacked compassion and acted "irresponsibly" when such "animal cruelty was taking place".


US legal experts insist it raises the serious issue of the rights of an accused to secure his or her freedom, most commonly through a phone call.

One, criminal defence attorney Joe Hurley, said that inmates sent to Young prison tended to go missing for days while staff processed the paperwork created by their arrival. "That is the way it is," he said, adding that Mr Goodrich was lucky his situation involved a parrot "and not his child".

Martin Mersereau, from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said that if true, the situation was "absolutely appalling" and "horrific", and that prison officials should be held accountable.

US officials crack down on Chinese 'honey laundering'

US officials are grappling with a sticky and unusual problem thanks to a new type of smuggling aimed at exploiting America's high demand for imported honey.

So-called "honey laundering" involves elaborate schemes in which cheap, diluted or contaminated honey from China is brought in after being "laundered" in another country to disguise its origin and evade tariffs and health inspections.

A five-month investigation by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper found the international honey trade rife with criminal enterprises designed to take advantage of the demand for imports created by the mysterious collapse of bee colonies across America.

According to the paper, large shipments of tainted honey from China have recently arrived at Western US ports after being repackaged as a product of Russia. Tens of thousands of tons of honey also enter the US each year from countries with few bees and no record of exporting honey such as Singapore and the Bahamas. Other shipments have come via India, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand and even Poland.

The smugglers aim to avoid the health checks, tariffs and import fees imposed on foreign food products that deliberately undercut US domestic prices.

The US Food and Drug Administration is cracking down on honey launderers amid fears that dangerously contaminated honey could slip into the US market and harm consumers. Efforts to tackle honey laundering have also been launched in Russian, India and Australia.

Björk on a mission to save Icelandic economy

As a million bankers flee the plunging markets, one brave Icelandic singer – known for coos, shrieks and a swan dress – is proudly taking their place. Björk has turned venture capitalist, with a new fund that aims to revive Iceland's economy.

Björk is working with Audur Capital, a Reykjavik-based investment company founded and managed by women. Audur Capital will oversee the fund's day-to-day dealings, directing an initial investment of 100m Icelandic krona (£575,000) toward sustainable, environmentally-friendly businesses.



"The fund will invest in sustainable businesses that create value through the country's unique resources, spectacular nature, vibrant culture and green energy," the Audur Capital website explains.

The company seeks to raise as much as 1.5bn krona before new investors begin to contribute to the fund at the end of March. "We are attracting a lot of interest from Iceland and abroad as increasingly more people are looking for investments whose returns aren't only financial," Halla Tomasdottir, Audur Capital's executive chair, told Bloomberg. Björk's fund will be called, Björk.

Mystery over pink bra deliveries

About a dozen householders in a village in Cumbria received an extra present on Christmas Day - pink bras, which were posted through their letter boxes.

Dougie Hill, of the Hope and Anchor pub in Port Carlisle, said the lingerie had "completely surprised" villagers.

He has now put the bra he received in pride of place on his bar in the hope someone will come and claim it.



"It would have been nice if it had come with a lady attached to it obviously, but that didn't happen," Mr Hill said.

"It's not in the wife's size so I couldn't even give it to her as a Christmas present.

"I'm stuck with it - so if there is an owner out there they are more than welcome to come and collect."

Video.

Deputy mayor asked mixed-race teenager which tribe he was from

A deputy mayor is facing calls to resign for asking a mixed-race teenager "What tribe are you from?" Roger Kimber was judging a pupils' business competition when he asked the 16-year-old public schoolboy the question.

Barrie Phillips, the boy's father, said he was "disgusted" by Mr Kimber's attitude and called on him to step down from his post as deputy mayor of Rushmoor Borough Council in Hampshire. Mr Phillips said: "These are not words you expect to hear these days. It is like something from a bygone age. I am disgusted by it.

"The deputy mayor was there as an official person speaking to schoolchildren. People look up to people like that in a position of responsibility. It is completely unacceptable. He should resign."



The deputy mayor has since apologised for his comments, which were made at an inter-school Young Enterprise competition. He said he did not intend to offend the boy, a pupil at £7,800-a-year Salesian College, an independent Catholic school in Farnborough, Hants.

In a statement issued by the council, Mr Kimber said: "I would like to offer my sincere apologies to Mr Phillips and his son. It was not my intention to cause offence or to upset anyone in any way. I am very sorry if I have done this and I have written to Mr Phillips to offer a personal apology."

The council deemed the situation so serious that its non-political chief executive Andrew Lloyd even stepped in to defend the 69-year-old Conservative councillor, who has sat on the council since 1982. Mr Lloyd said he thought Mr Kimber had possibly mistaken the teenager for a boy from a Nepalese family, in which different religious castes are sometimes referred to as tribes.

Couple defy odds with second pair of black and white twins

A couple who took doctors by surprise seven years ago by having one black twin daughter and one white have defied "million-to-one" odds by doing it again.

When Dean Durrant, 33, and Alison Spooner, 27, of Fleet, Hampshire, were told they would be having twins in 2001 they imagined that they would look similar even if they knew they would not be identical.

But when they arrived one, Lauren, proved to take after her mother with blue eyes and red hair while her sister Hayleigh resembles her father who is of West Indian origin.



Friends were stunned last month when Alison gave birth to another set of twin daughters each of a different skin colour.

This time baby Miya has her father's darker skin and Leah is white like her mother.

"We didn't think it was even possible when we had Lauren and Hayleigh - and it didn't cross our minds that it could happen again," said Mr Durrant. "But we are just delighted that it has."

With more photos.

Giant turquoise flying rabbit sparks police alert

A giant turquoise flying rabbit was at the centre of a major police alert after it broke free from its moorings and crashed into a bridge over the River Thames.

A helicopter, paramedics, fire crews and several police patrols rushed to Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, after a local resident dialled 999 claiming a man had been riding the rabbit and could be seriously injured.

The alarm was raised by a woman living near Walton Bridge, who told police that she had spotted the colourful creature drifting past her house and could have sworn it was carrying a passenger on its back.

A spokesman for Surrey Police said that numerous emergency crews arrived at the scene and discovered the mystery flying object was in fact a deflated helium balloon in the shape of a rabbit.

"It was turquoise in colour and was entangled in the trees alongside Walton-on-Thames bridge," the spokesman said.

"Fortunately there was no-one with the balloon which appears to have broken free from its moorings and taken off. We are trying to trace the owner."