Forward Ever Forward

Muggers leave their own pictures behind
Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:13 AM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) – Two German teenagers robbed a girl but accidentally left their own pictures behind for police on a discarded mobile phone.

After stealing a 15-year-old’s shoes, money and mobile phone, the two older girls gave her an old mobile phone, police in the western city of Bochum said on Wednesday.

But the two 17-year-olds had forgotten the phone had their own photos, striking smiley poses, which police published online on Tuesday in an effort to find the culprits.

The two muggers turned themselves in almost simultaneously when the pictures appeared on the evening news.

“One girl was brought down by her father after he saw her on the television,” said police spokesman Frank Plewka. “Today the pictures were in the papers, so the father’s phone has been ringing all day, because everyone recognized them.”

Neither of the two had been in trouble with the law before.

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Barber stabs second client with scissors
Mon Jun 25, 2007 9:42 AM ET

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – An Amsterdam barber has been arrested for stabbing a client with scissors, the second such incident involving the barber, Dutch police said on Saturday.

The client was stabbed and seriously wounded after a fight broke out earlier this week at the barber’s shop, police said.

The barber stabbed another client with scissors in 2000. The man later died of his wounds, although the barber was cleared of any charges after a court found he had acted in self-defense.

Police said they were holding the man, 42, and investigating whether attempted manslaughter charges should be brought against him.

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NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) – An India couple have been accused of trying to get their 15-year-son into the Guinness Book of World Records by allowing him to perform a caesarean operation, local newspapers reported on Thursday.

The parents, both doctors from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, screened a video recording of the operation on a 20-year-old woman to other doctors in the hope of attaining the record as the world’s youngest surgeon, newspapers reported.

Family members said the boy was only helping out in the operation, handing his father medical instruments. Indian medical authorities are investigating the case and could revoke the couple’s medical licenses.

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Does any one else remember this game?

I think these folks spent way to much time playing it:

PROVO, Utah (AP) – A man accused of planning to rob a credit union and get away by floating down the Provo River was sent to prison for 27 months. “What in the world were you thinking?” U.S. District Judge Dee Benson asked Patrick Burr, 46.

Patrick and Heather Burr had acquired large tire tubes as they planned to rob Utah Community Credit Union on Dec. 1, federal prosecutors said.

But the car with the tubes inside was impounded for an insurance violation days earlier.

While discussing other ways to rob the credit union, their conversations were recorded by an informant.

The Burrs pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit bank robbery. Heather Burr will be sentenced next week.

It turned out that one of the tubes had a hole. A getaway car would have been faster. The Provo River in late fall was flowing at 4 mph.

“You should write a book on this,” the judge said.

Good call judge.

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All of those wasted oreos could have been avoided. If I just had this information sooner!

Five-second rule for dropped food? Try 30

CTV.ca News Staff

Updated: Tue. Jun. 12 2007 10:16 PM ET

A man drops a brownie on the floor. If he picks it up within five seconds, should he still eat it? Two U.S. students claim the answer is yes.

In fact, they say he could wait half a minute.

The students, who are seniors at Connecticut College, studied the five-second rule as part of their microbiology class.

“It is an eye-opener,” student Molly Goettsche told ABC News. “There may be a little more time than just seconds.”

First they dropped Skittles candy and apple slices on the school’s dining hall floor for different lengths of time.

Then they swabbed the food for samples and checked for any bacteria.

Their conclusions may be a relief to those who rescue fallen food: it took more than 30 seconds for bacteria to cultivate on the apple slices, which represented wet food.

As for the Skittles, which stood in for dry food, it took longer than a minute.

But despite their findings, the students said they would never eat anything that’s hit the ground.

“I don’t know if I would ever eat off that floor,” said Goettsche.

High school student Jillian Clarke conducted a more exhaustive study in 2003, and her research earned her an Ig Noble award — a parody of the Nobel Prize — the following year.

She traced the five-second rule to Genghis Khan. But the Mongol leader, known more for his military tactics than passion for science, thought food could be left on the floor for half a day.

Like the Connecticut College students, Clarke found that dry food dropped on clean floors did not pick up a noticeable amount of bacteria.

However, when she dropped food on floors contaminated with E. coli, the bacteria latched onto the food in less than five seconds.

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Two jailed after bridge built by blind man collapses
Mon Jun 11, 2007 8:41 AM ET

BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese court has jailed two officials after they let a blind contractor build a bridge which collapsed during construction and injured 12 people, the official Xinhua news agency said Monday.

Huang Wenge, township head of Bujia in the southeastern province of Jiangxi, and colleague Xia Jianzhong were sentenced to 18 months and one year in jail, respectively, for not stopping the project, Xinhua said.

“Huang Wenge and Xia Jianzhong, who were in charge of road management and supervision, did not ask the contractors to provide certificates guaranteeing their proficiency,” it said, citing the court ruling.

“When they knew the bridge was being built by a blind contractor, they did not stop it,” it said, adding the contractor had changed the blueprint without getting a professional to look at the design.

“After the blind contractor changed the blueprint, he carried out the work only using a roughly drawn draft of the plan, which caused the bridge to collapse,” the report said.

Xinhua did not explain how the contractor was able to run the project considering his inability to see.

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German vandal, 70, nabbed spraying rude graffiti

BERLIN (Reuters) – A German pensioner has been arrested for vandalism after being caught spraying the word “Puff” (whorehouse) on houses in the Bavarian town of Hof, near the Czech border, a police spokeswoman said on Monday.

The 70-year-old had sprayed at least two houses with graffiti when a young man saw him in action with his spray can and challenged him, the spokeswoman said.

The elderly vandal dropped the can and ran, but the younger man caught up with him and held him down until police arrived. The spokeswoman said the houses he had sprayed were just people’s homes and his motive was unclear.

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Indian lawyers tie man to tree, beat him
Thu May 31, 2007 2:32 PM ET

LUCKNOW (Reuters) – Lawyers tied a young man to a tree and beat him outside a court in India for refusing to marry one of their relatives, an official said on Wednesday.

They rounded on the victim when he arrived at a court in the Taj Mahal town of Agra to settle a dispute over marrying the niece of one of the lawyers.

Indian TV channels showed the abusive lawyers tearing off the man’s shirt, tying him to a tree trunk and cutting bald patches into his hair. The 22-year-old victim was then beaten up.

Local official K. Chandramauli said he ordered police to file a case against the lawyers. The Agra Bar Association said it was investigating the attack.

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The horn curves downward and looks like the stalk of a pumpkin, reports the Yangcheng Evening Post.

Granny Zhao, 95, of Zhanjiang city, Guangdong province, says it first appeared three years ago.

“At first, it was only a mole, but it gradually grew and became like a horn,” she said.

Zhao says the horn causes her little trouble except to affect her vision slightly: “It causes me no discomfort, but blocks part of my view.”

But her family are hoping that medical experts can explain the phenomenon.

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Lion Mutilates 42 Midgets in Cambodian Ring-Fight

BBC News

Monday, 2 May, 2005, UK

Spectators cheered as entire Cambodian Midget Fighting League squared off against African Lion

Tickets had been sold-out three weeks before the much anticipated fight, which took place in the city of Kâmpóng Chhnãng.

The fight was slated when an angry fan contested Yang Sihamoni, President of the CMFL, claiming that one lion could defeat his entire league of 42 fighters.

Sihamoni takes great pride in the league he helped create, as was conveyed in his recent advertising campaign for the CMFL that stated his midgets will “… take on anything; man, beast, or machine.”

This campaign is believed to be what sparked the undisclosed fan to challenge the entire league to fight a lion; a challenge that Sihamoni readily accepted.

An African Lion (Panthera Leo) was shipped to centrally located Kâmpóng Chhnãng especially for the event, which took place last Saturday, April 30, 2005 in the city’s coliseum.

The Cambodian Government allowed the fight to take place, under the condition that they receive a 50% commission on each ticket sold, and that no cameras would be allowed in the arena.

The fight was called in only 12 minutes, after which 28 fighters were declared dead, while the other 14 suffered severe injuries including broken bones and lost limbs, rendering them unable to fight back.

Sihamoni was quoted before the fight stating that he felt since his fighters out-numbered the lion 42 to 1, that they “… could out-wit and out-muscle [it].”

Unfortunately, he was wrong.

http://www.fmft.net/archives/BBC_NEWS.htm

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