Saturday, May 25, 2013

Wake up it's the weekend

Safari park animals joined in with fun runners

Zebras and ostriches at Fota Wildlife Park in County Cork, Ireland, joined in with a group of runners during the Cheetah Run 4 mile race last week, gambolling alongside in their enclosure.


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Agile pigeon played chicken with racing car

This pigeon pulled off a backflip in order to get out of the way of a speeding GP2 race car as Brazilian driver Felipe Nasr rounded the exit at the famous swimming pool corner in Monaco on Thursday.


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Man threatened neighbour with AK-47 in dispute over rabbits

What started with one man shooting at rabbits in his back yard with an air gun turned into a threat by his neighbour with an AK-47, police said. According to the arrest report, the incident began when a man was shooting an air gun from his back porch at rabbits that were damaging his garden in Louisville, Kentucky.



His next-door neighbour, Rodney Wold, saw him shooting at the rabbits, went inside his home and came back out with an AK-47, according to the report. “He loaded the magazine with, I believe it was, 19 rounds and went back outside and pointed it at his neighbour and said, ‘If you want to hunt something, hunt men,’” police spokeswoman Carey Klain said.

When police arrived, Wold let them search his home and the AK-47 was found between the mattress and box spring of a bed. According to police, Wold admitted to arming himself and confronting his neighbour. “This guy has no record whatsoever,” said Klain.


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The man's wife witnessed the incident. She said they had previous problems with Wold. Judge Donald Armstrong reduced his bond from $5,000 full cash, allowing him out of jail on his own recognizance, but ordered him not to possess any weapons. “It is never OK to resolve any type of argument with a weapon of any sort, much less a gun,” Klain said.

Council members abstained from voting on resolution to prevent abstention

Three Ypsilanti City Council members in Michigan abstained from voting on a resolution on Tuesday that would have prevented them from taking that very action in the future when considering issues.

Council member Pete Murdock proposed a resolution that would have required council members to only vote yes or no on each issue facing council unless they had a financial or professional conflict of interest.



Mayor Paul Schreiber, Council members Susan Moeller and Brian Robb abstained from the vote to show their disapproval of the resolution brought forth by Murdock.

Mayor Pro Tem Lois Richardson and Council Member Ricky Jefferson voted no, while Murdock and Council Member Daniel Vogt voted yes. The resolution failed.

Man angered over bathroom fan request went on defecation spree in house and car

Back on 10th March, James V. Palmieri, 59, of Syracuse, New York, was suffering from severe diarrhoea. His roommate, David Utt, asked him to use the bathroom fan to reduce unnecessary odours. Palmieri found the request objectionable, thinking Utt, 62, could have been more sympathetic to his plight. I asked him to use the bathroom fan so that it wouldn't smell up the house," Utt said in a written statement. The request upset Palmieri.



"Thanks for the sympathy," Palmieri said, according to Utt. "It's common courtesy," Utt replied. Palmieri then vowed to "crap all over the house, the bathroom and my car," Utt told police. Palmieri got into his pyjama bottoms, then went outside, Utt told police. Utt was suspicious because Palmieri doesn't smoke. During the night, Utt discovered Palmieri had defecated "all over the floor in the bathroom and in the hallway near the bathroom," Utt's statement said.

"He clearly did this deliberately," Utt said. The next morning, Utt opened the door to his 1997 Lincoln and saw "that Palmieri had, in fact, defecated over the back seat of his car, on the leather seats," a police report said. Utt had to drive the faeces-laden car because he had to get to a doctor's appointment that morning, he said. When he got home, he gave Palmieiri five minutes to start cleaning it all up. "How does it feel to be (expletive) on?" Palmieri asked, Utt told police. Then Palmieri punched him in the face, Utt said.



Utt told police he doesn't know how much it will cost him to have the car professionally cleaned, the report said. Palmieri told police in a phone interview that he didn't want to give his version of the story or return to the scene, "adding that he has diarrhoea," said the report written by Officer Shawn Prue. Palmieri was charged with second-degree harassment and fourth-degree criminal mischief. The charges are pending before Syracuse City Court Judge James Cecile.

Surgeons removed 4-pound hairball from 400-pound tiger

A 28-stone tiger has gone under the knife in Florida to remove a 4lb hairball. Veterinary surgeons in Tampa Bay were called in after Ty the tiger failed to cough up the monster obstruction all by himself.



Understandably, the 17-year-old big cat had been off his food for nearly two weeks. The vets initially performed an ultrasound and took X-rays before using a endoscope with a camera to gauge the size of the hairball.



But it was so big, they determined there was no chance of retrieving it that way and an operation would be needed. Ty is cared for by Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation in Seminole. "He's sort of like my biggest baby. This is my kid. This tiger means more to me than any cat that I have," founder Vernon Yates said.


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"I'm very thankful that we found what it is. That it's not some tumour, cancerous ... because he'll recover from this and I can't thank enough the surgeon and doctors from BluePearl that's worked on him," he added. The non-profit animal rescue group generally assists Florida law enforcement with animals that have been seized.

Crane driver mistake cut power to one-third of Vietnam

A mistake by a crane operator caused a 10-hour blackout over about a third of Vietnam and parts of neighbouring Cambodia, officials say. Vietnamese state electricity company EVN said in a statement that the blackout happened on Wednesday when he was in the process of lowering a a 10-metre-long tree into a garden when it struck the cable.



It hit the main north-south high voltage power transmission line. Electricity supplies in Ho Chi Minh City and in Phnom Penh were affected before power was restored on Thursday. About 22 of Vietnam's 63 provinces were blacked out, officials say, and most of the south-east of the country was without power.

Officials say it was one of the worst power cuts in Vietnam's history. Vietnam provides Cambodia with about 40% of its national electricity supplies. Local media in Phnom Penh said that the entire length of the city's popular riverfront area lay in darkness, as crowded restaurants served tourists by candlelight and water supplies - that rely on electricity - began to dry up.



Correspondents say that the outage caused scores of garment and seafood factories to close and exposed the fragility of Vietnam's power grid. In addition there were heavy traffic jams in many other cities and towns as traffic lights failed. Vietnamese state-owned newspaper Thanh Nien reported that the incident cost EVN $700,000 (£465,000) in lost revenue.

Man arrested for having sex with inflatable doll on back row of the movies

Mexican romeo Omar Cano Adrian Pacheco, 24, was arrested after he took his sex doll on a date to a local cinema - and was caught having sex with her on the back row.

The angry manager at the cinema in Guadalupe, a city in Nueva Leon in northern Mexico, called police about a couple making love inside - and they discovered him with his inflatable girlfriend.



The manager of the shopping centre cinema complex said: "It is not unheard of that a couple will go to the cinema for a bit of privacy, but in this case he didn't even buy a second ticket - he had his girlfriend hidden under his jacket and only blew her up when he got inside."

Cano was arrested and fined 300 pesos for disorderly conduct.

Prisoner who tried to sneak phone into jail got it stuck in his bottom

A prisoner who tried to sneak a mobile phone into jail was left in discomfort after it got stuck up his backside. Roderick Bambury was caught trying to take the phone into maximum security Perth Prison. He set off a metal detecting seat when he sat down, but then needed emergency surgery because he could not get the phone back out of his body. Bambury paid tribute to the medical staff who helped him as was sent back to prison for four and a half months at Perth Sheriff Court on Thursday.

The 36-year-old, of Lansdowne Court, Dundee, admitted having a personal communications device in Perth Prison on 1 June last year. Fiscal depute Charmaine Gilmartin said: "As part of the procedure for entering the prison he was required to sit on a metal chair. He said something would be detected when he sat on it because he has a metal plate fitted. Prison officers checked his medical records and found that wasn't true. When he sat on the chair something was detected. Officers inquired what he could be concealing and he said he had a mobile telephone concealed within his back passage.



"Things got worse from there for him, because he was unable to have the telephone removed by himself and was in considerable discomfort. He had to go to hospital to have surgery to remove the phone." Solicitor Larry Flynn, defending, said: "His position was that he was confronted by a group of individuals who were conscious he was going back to prison. They put it upon him that this phone would be inserted in him and if he didn't do that then he would be met with violence. He said to staff he had a metal plate which would set the chair off but clearly that was a lie. He was in a degree of discomfort.

"He is very obliged for the way he was treated at hospital. He wishes to extend his thanks to those individuals at Perth Royal Infirmary for the way they deal with this. He has been a pain in the neck to the prison and authorities. He is resigned to receiving a custodial sentence." Sheriff Alastair Brown told Bambury: "It sounds as though it was really quite unpleasant. You could have suffered significant injuries and goodness knows what."

Police officer’s son broke into woman’s home to steal her underwear and sex toys

A police officer’s son with an underwear fetish broke into a woman’s house to steal her knickers and sex toys, a court heard. Mark Cox, 22, pocketed a set of house keys belonging to former school friend Emma Pinches, 21, after going to a party at her home in February. The hospital porter then used the keys to let himself in to the property while Emma was out – to steal her underwear and dildos. Magistrates heard she became suspicious when items of lingerie and sex aids started to go missing over the next few weeks.

Prosecuting Julie Costello said: “The day after the party the victim noticed a set of house keys were missing. Over the next few days she started to notice that items of her underwear were going missing as well as her sex toys.” Emma suspected Cox may be responsible when she received a text from him in March to ask whether she would be out with her boyfriend that evening. Police then searched Cox’s home and found a large quantity of women’s underwear, sex toys and lubricant. When asked why he had a large sized bra he told them it was because he was a “large size”.



Officers also discovered CS gas spray as well as a police helmet, handcuffs, jacket and stab vest in his bedroom. Cox claimed he had bought the police uniform items off eBay to use for kinky role-playing sex romps with his ex-girlfriend. At Northampton Magistrates Court on Monday Cox pleaded guilty to two counts of burglary, one count of possessing a weapon designed for the discharge of CS gas and possessing a police uniform. Defending Alistair Evans revealed his client had taken the items at a time when he was being “driven by a fetish” for women’s underwear.

He said his client had bought the police uniform as “memorabilia” because his father and grandfather were both police officers. He added: “He accepts he had taken the items of underwear from the victim’s house but there was no element of vandalism and he had caused no form of damage to the woman’s house. The CS spray was bought from a garage in France. It has never been used.” The court was told Cox has since undergone counselling in a bid to overcome his underwear addiction. He will be sentenced at Northampton Crown Court next month.

Eccles cake warning issued after spate of fires

A spate of fires on Merseyside have been triggered by Eccles cakes, firefighters have said. The small round pastries have caused at least three blazes in recent weeks after attempts to warm them up went wrong.

Putting the cakes, which are sold ready to eat, in to microwave ovens is causing the sugar on top to catch light. Ovens, kitchen areas and Eccles cakes themselves were damaged in the fires.



Householders were warned never to try to heat an Eccles cake using a microwave, with fears growing they could cause a more serious incident.

Watch manager James Murphy, based at Crosby fire station, said: “The sugar in the Eccles cakes can ignite if cooked for a little too long.” The Crosby station alone has dealt with three incidents directly involving Eccles cakes recently.