Big Daddy

Bao Xishun, 57, a 7-foot, 9-inch Inner Mongolian herdsman listed by the Guinness World Records as the tallest living man, became the world's tallest father this week with the birth of his son at a hospital in Zunhua, Hebei province Oct. 2, 2008.

The boy's whose initial height seems a compromise between his gigantic dad and average-sized mom (22 inches).

Bao had briefly lost his title as tallest man, but regained it in August when his successor, Ukrainian Leonid Stadnyk refused to be measured.

Mystery meat on beaches

Officials in New Jersey are trying to work out why large chunks of mystery meat have been washing ashore in the American state.

Bob Schoelkopf of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center noted: 'The largest piece that we found intact was 5 feet... Almost as if someone had blown up an animal and it floated to shore.'

Experts from the center, who were called in to investigate the meat, say that it was actually internal organs from a large marine animal – possibly a whale or a shark. However, they're unable to pin down exactly what species might have been – or exactly how it got broken up into meat lumps.

To add to the mystery, it's not just New Jersey that's being inundated with innards. When the center officials contacted the National Marine Fisheries Service to let them know about the meat, they discovered that the beaches of neighboring Delaware had also been hit by a meat influx.

The meat is now undergoing DNA tests to discover what animal it used to belong to – bit it could be months before the results are back. By which time, residents must hope, their beaches will no longer be covered in meat.

World Stone Skimming Championships

More than 200 people are expected to compete in the World Stone Skimming Championships being held on the Scottish island of Easdale on Sunday.

The event is open to anyone, with heats in four categories: adults over 16, over 60s, girls and boys aged 10 to 15 and the under-10s.

Stones must be no more than 3in, formed of Easdale slate and bounce no less than three times within the boundary.

Skims are judged on the distance thrown rather than the number of bounces.

The World Stone Skimming Championships were started up in 1983 by Albert Baker.

It was not held again until 1997, when it was resurrected by the Easdale Island Trust as a fundraising event.

Tea and biscuits for all arrivals

Every person flying into Britain will be offered a free cup of tea and a biscuit in an ambitious, if eccentric, plan to make the country more cheerful.

The hope is that tourists, and travellers returning from holidays, will be able to banish dark thoughts of a delayed flight, poor weather, and global financial meltdown if confronted with a free cup of English Breakfast tea and a plate of Jammie Dodgers.

The man behind the idea is Mark Price, the managing director of Waitrose.

He has persuaded airports operator BAA to run a week-long trial in November at Terminal 5, offering 5,000 cups a day to travellers in the arrivals hall. Visit Britain – the tourism agency – has agreed to back his campaign, which could see all airports across the UK offering the traditional British mix of milky tea and quirky biscuits in time for the London 2012 Olympics.

Mr Price said: "What could be more welcoming that a cuppa and jammie dodger or Garibaldi? When everyone seems so miserable about the economy, I am sure a cup of tea would put things in perspective."

Before the plan goes ahead, Waitrose needs to decide which style of biscuit they will offer to in-bound travellers. "I am very fond of a Garibaldi, or bourbon, but neither is a very good dunker."

Human Jet crosses Channel

Swiss adventurer Yves Rossy successfully crossed the English Channel using his homemade jet-propelled wing Friday, the first man to perform the feat. Rossy leapt from a plane more than 8,800 feet or a mile and a half from the ground, before firing up his jets.

He made the 22-mile trip from Calais in France to Dover in England in a little under 15 minutes.

He began the Friday flight just before 1207 GMT; by 12:15 GMT, Rossy was above British soil and looped over onlookers before opening his parachute, with his wings still strapped to his back. He touched down in a field near the famous white cliffs of Dover.

"It was perfect. Blue sky, sunny, no clouds, perfect conditions," Rossy said. "We prepared everything and it was great."

The trip across the Channel was meant to trace the route of French aviator Louis Bleriot, the first person to cross in an airplane 99 years ago.

The lighthouse was the site of Guglielmo Marconi's experiments with radio telegraphy in 1898. Bleriot used the white building as a target during his pioneering flight, the building's manager, Simon Ovenden, said.

Several hundred spectators rushed to greet the pilot, trying to take photographs with cameras and cell phones.

"It's a remarkable achievement, we saw the climax of his attempt as he came down to earth with his parachute. It's been an exciting afternoon," said Geoff Clark, a 54-year-old onlooker from Chatham, in Kent.

The carbon composite-wing weighs about 121 pounds (55 kilograms) when loaded with fuel, and carried four kerosene-burning jet turbines that kept him aloft. The wing had no steering devices -- Rossy moved his body to control its movements.

Warner Bros lose Hari Puttar case

A court in the Indian capital Delhi has rejected a lawsuit filed by Hollywood company Warner Bros against the makers of a Bollywood film Hari Puttar.

The makers of the blockbuster Harry Potter films said the title of the Indian movie was too similar. The court said Warner Bros could have brought the case three years ago and said readers could easily distinguish Hari Puttar from Harry Potter.

The court decision means the film can now be released in India. Mirchi Movies, the makers of the Bollywood film, said Hari Puttar had no connection with the Harry Potter movies.

Mirchi told the court that Hari was a popular Indian name, and Puttar meant "son" in Hindi and Punjabi.

Goggle ban

A swimmer has been banned from his local pool because of his unusual goggles.

Roland Grimm, right, in his late 60s, said: “I’m very upset because it seems mad. I’ve used these goggles in more than 100 pools and no one else has ever complained. After you’ve been swimming for 40 years all over the world you know what works best for you and what’s safe.”

Gary Dark, manager of the leisure centre in Swiss Cottage, northwest London, said the goggles were a health and safety risk because the glass was not shatter-proof and the nosepiece could cause breathing difficulties.

Spell Eucalyptus

The Front Fell Off

Jet-pack cow

LOGAN, Utah --Bessie is cleared for takeoff. A sculpture of a cow wearing a jet pack and leaping over a crescent moon will go on display this month in front of the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in downtown Salt Lake City.

Artist Michael Bingham won a $3,000 commission last summer to create a "flying object" and decided on the airborne bovine.

"I read about the commission in the paper and was thinking about things that I could make fly," Bingham said. "I saw these cows and thought, 'These are the least likely animals or objects to fly.' Then, I pictured the jet pack and that was it."

Bingham is shuttling the sculpture around the city of Logan before it goes on display in Salt Lake City.

"I'm on a local board for public art and we're hoping this will be a good conversation starter about public art in the valley," Bingham said.

The cow is life-size and has a jet pack -- complete with flames shooting from it -- on the animal's back. It will be perched on a 15-foot pole when it goes on display in front of the downtown Salt Lake City theater.

"Most people will walk by and go, 'Oh look, a flying cow,'" he said. "They won't realize the thousands of hours it took to make this cow fly."

Hendrix guitar fetches $500,000

The first guitar torched on stage by Jimi Hendrix has been sold for £280,000 a London auction of rock memorabilia.

The Fender Stratocaster, burnt at the end of a show in north London in 1967, was bought by collector Daniel Boucher from Boston, Massachusetts.

"It was something I wanted to have," he told the BBC after the sale. "I decided I would go the distance to get it."

The instrument was only recovered from a garage last year and still bears the scorch marks of Hendrix's performance.

"It's one of a kind from one of a kind," said Mr Boucher, who described Hendrix as a "unique person" who "changed the game".

Water theft

A 26-year-old forklift operator at Zephyrhills Water Company, Florida, was arrested Saturday at work, accused of stealing $50,000 worth of bottled water from his employer.

Over a six-week period, Michael Gordon Fernandes and another man who has not been arrested yet, swiped five truckloads of bottled water from Zephyrhills Water, a division of Nestles Waters North America Inc., according to an arrest affidavit.

Fernandes would load pallets intended for the warehouse at 4330 20th St. onto a tractor-trailer owned by the co-defendant who would take the water to an "unknown destination," according to a report.
Zephyrhills Police Officer Timothy Claussen said Sunday he couldn't reveal where the water ended up or any other details of the case since the investigation is ongoing.

Fernandes, of 5442 Braddock Drive, reportedly told police he was paid $500 per truckload and he did it to help support his family.

He was booked into the Land O' Lakes Jail on a grand theft charge but was released later Saturday after posting $10,000 bail.

Coach Obama?

A London businessman has bet 10 pounds ($18) that Barack Obama will replace Alan Curbishley as manager of the West Ham football team.

British bookmaker William Hill agreed to offer odds of 10,000-1 to the unidentified customer despite no one really believing the potential 100,000 pound prize will ever eventuate.

One possible reason the bet was laid lies in rumours that Obama has been a fan of the club since visiting Britain five years ago.

However, William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe told AP that the bettor simply wanted to show his American friends and clients a betting slip with the US presidential candidate's name on it.

"We offered 10,000-1 as he is probably more concerned with winning a slightly higher profile job for himself at the moment," Sharpe said. "But if he loses out on that one and the position is still up for grabs, you never know."

Fake surgeon sentenced

A French court has sentenced a doctor to three years in jail for posing as a plastic surgeon and endangering patients by operating on them illegally in a derelict Marseille clinic.

Michel Maure went on trial in June accused of luring hundreds of patients to the dirty premises under false pretences between 2002 and 2004 and carrying out painful, unhygienic operations on them.

Maure was also sentenced to pay a €75,000 fine and to compensate his victims, about 100 of whom had complained of disfigurement and permanent damage to their health.

He went on the run while the court prepared its ruling and was arrested in Spain on August 19 after being spotted on a luxury yacht. Spain is expected to hand him over to France within days.

Maure was a qualified doctor but not a trained plastic surgeon. He was struck off the list of recognized French doctors in 2007 over his activities at the Marseille clinic.

French media have reported that the disgraced doctor had proclaimed himself "one of the greatest surgeons in the world."

A Right Balls Up!

New Zealand - A blooper that saw a misspelled Wellington street sign become a national laughing stock has resulted in city council staff drawing up a "red list" of possibly naughty street names.

Residents of the suburb of Highbury managed to see the funny side when a new footpath sign for Old Bullock Rd was erected, mistakenly calling it Old Bollock Rd.

Wellington City Council spokesman Richard MacLean said the error was astounding, but feedback had indicated that "everyone had a right old laugh".

"Of course we'll change it ... Clearly our proof-reading and English standards have fallen here."

Mr MacLean said a couple of people, including residents of the wrongly named street, had wanted to buy the sign.

The council had opened the street directory and done an "informal check" of street names that could be easily altered by the misplacement of a a few letters. They included Dorking Rd, Volga St, Wanaka St and Virginia Grove.

The embarrassing blunder came less than a year after a sign for Prince of Wales Park in Mt Cook turned it into Prince of Whales Park.

A Highbury resident said locals were "all for better signage for footpaths", but the name should be spelled right. This is a real balls-up."

Wheelchair robbery

Dallas police today are searching for a man who robbed a 7-Eleven convenience store in his wheelchair, stealing 10 boxes of condoms and an energy drink before rolling himself out the door, authorities said.

The man wheeled into the store in the 8400 block of Park Lane in northeast Dallas around 2 a.m. Wednesday clutching a baseball bat and a knife, said Senior Cpl. Kevin Janse, a Dallas police spokesman.

The man, who appeared to be in his 30s, went straight to the cash register and began beating it with the bat until it opened, Cpl. Janse said.

But he didn’t steal any money.

Instead, he wheeled himself past other customers around the store, grabbing boxes of condoms and an energy drink before leaving, Cpl. Janse said.

By the time police arrived, the man was nowhere to be found. He is described as a black male, 5-10, weighing about 170 pounds.

Police do not have any suspects, but they believe he may be homeless.

Cpl. Janse said he couldn’t recall another robbery involving a person in a wheelchair. He believes the culprit was probably intoxicated at the time.

“This certainly isn’t something we see everyday,” Cpl. Janse said.

Little Gordon

From Little Gordon . com

Collectors Tramp

People calling a federal phone number to order duck stamps are instead greeted by a phone-sex line, due to a printing error the government says would be too expensive to correct.

The carrier card for the duck stamp transposes two numbers, so instead of listing 1-800-782-6724, it lists 1-800-872-6724. The first number spells out 1-800-STAMP24, while the second number spells out 1-800-TRAMP24.

People calling that second number are welcomed by "Intimate Connections" and enticed by a husky female voice to "talk only to the girls that turn you on," for $1.99 a minute.

Duck stamps, which cost $15 a piece, are required to hunt migratory waterfowl. The government uses nearly all the revenue to purchase waterfowl habitat for the National Wildlife Refuge System. In 2006-2007, the latest figures available, duck stamp purchases brought in nearly $22 million.

This year's stamps, which feature a pair of northern pintail ducks, went on sale July 1 and are good through June 30 of next year. The error will not be corrected until next year's duck stamps.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers the program, printed about 3.5 million duck stamps attached to cards with the wrong number. An agency spokeswoman, Rachel Levin, said it would cost $300,000 to reprint them.

"I don't know that it would be worth it to do a reprint," she said Thursday. "That's a lot of money we can be using for wildlife conservation. With all of the needs for conservation, it doesn't make sense to divert money away from an important cause." For those people who like to dial by letter, the card does include the proper 1-800-STAMP24.

"As best we know, it was a typographical error that was not caught," Levin said, stressing that the stamps are still valid.

The agency first learned of the mistake a few days ago, when a duck stamp owner informed them about the glitch. Levin said the agency has not received any complaints.

The error, which was first reported Wednesday by Denver TV station KUSA, is limited to self-adhesive versions of the stamps. The moistened version, which is printed in much smaller numbers, does not come with a carrier card.

The government uses a contractor, Ashton Potter Security Printers of Williamsville, New York, to print the duck stamps. Levin said she did not know whether the error was made by the government or by the company.

Ashton Potter's president and chief executive, Barry Switzer, said that the company was provided with the wrong telephone number.

"We reproduced the wrong number correctly," he said. "We regret this whole situation happened, but we did our job properly."

Drunk bus driver

Hawaii -- Police arrested a Honolulu city bus driver on Thursday night on charges he allegedly drove the bus while drunk with passengers on board. Searle Pestana, 61, has been a driver with TheBus for 36 years. He has two prior drunken driving convictions -- one in 2000 and another in 2002.

There were seven people on board the bus when Searle Pestana was on his final run near the end of his shift in Waimanalo. Honolulu police received a call about a bus driver who was driving erratically and had sideswiped a tree.

It was a concerned bus passenger who called 911 at about 8 p.m. Police pulled over Pestana in a parking lot, performed a sobriety test and arrested him.

Pestana blew 0.18 on his blood-alcohol test. That is more than twice the legal limit. He also allegedly had an open container of alcohol on board the bus when police pulled him over.

"I'm not only surprised, I'm shocked," Oahu Transit Services President Roger Morton said. OTS runs the city's bus system. Morton said the company was aware of Pestana's 2002 DUI conviction, but allowed him to drive again after he successfully completed rehab.

"Both in terms of customer contact and safety and showing up for work and attendance and all of those things, he's a good employee," Morton said. Morton said his company performs random drug tests on employees. Drivers are subjected to inspection before starting their shift, he said.

Just how long Pestana had been drinking while behind the wheel is unclear.

"Public safety is our first concern. We take drugs and alcohol very seriously. We don't tolerate their use in the workplace," Morton said.

OTS suspended Pestana without pay. He is scheduled to appear in District Court on Sept. 26.

Holy Cow!

A cow had to be freed by the RSPCA after getting her head stuck in a fly-tipped washing machine drum. The lucky cow escaped injury after her ordeal - but the animal charity warned today that fly tipping can cause animals harm.

The RSPCA was called to rescue the heifer from a field at Higher Fraddon, St Columb, Cornwall.

'It is one of the more unusual things we had had to rescue an animal from,' said RSPCA spokeswoman Jo Barr.

'Young cows are quite curious, and she probably thought there was some food inside the drum,' she added.

A member of the public spotted the frustrated animal trying to free herself from the metal drum. RSPCA inspector David Hobbs rescued the heifer on 19 August, and she has since returned to her herd unharmed.

Mushroom soup halts plane

A Ryanair plane was forced to land in Germany after a passenger had an allergic reaction to mushroom soup. The soup leaked onto the man from a jar in an overhead locker on a flight from Budapest to Dublin on Monday, the airline said.

His neck reportedly swelled up and he struggled to breathe, forcing the plane to divert for emergency medical help. On the same day, another Ryanair flight had to make an unscheduled landing in France after losing cabin pressure.

A spokeswoman for Ryanair said the jar contained "a vegetable oil/mushroom soup type substance". "It is procedure when a passenger requires medical attention to divert to the nearest airport," she said. "The cabin crew and pilot take that decision."

The Boeing 737 landed at Frankfurt Hahn Airport where the man was treated by doctors.
The plane was delayed for two hours before continuing its journey to Dublin.

The episode was one of a series of high-altitude incidents in recent days. On Monday, oxygen masks were deployed on a Ryanair flight from Bristol to Barcelona Girona when the cabin depressurised. The plane was forced to land at Limoges Airport in central France and 16 people were taken to hospital suffering from ear pain.

Then on Tuesday, a Thomsonfly plane to Gatwick had to turn back to Croatia just seven minutes after take-off when a fire broke out in an oven. A spokesman said the fire was "immediately contained" and there was "no danger to passengers or crew".

Passengers were delayed for eight hours while a replacement plane was flown from Manchester.

Military Humor

Mourning Gorilla :(

A gorilla at a zoo in the German city of Muenster is refusing to let go of her dead baby's body several days after it died of unknown causes.

Allwetter Zoo spokeswoman Ilona Zuehlke says the 3-month-old male baby died on Saturday but its 11-year-old mother continues to carry its body around. Zuehlke says such behavior is not uncommon to gorillas.

Zuehlke says the mother "is mourning and must say goodbye." The mother gorilla is named Gana.

Signs were posted near Gana's enclosure Wednesday to explain the situation to visitors. A staff member is also present to answer questions.

The baby was named Claudio and was Gana's second baby. She had a female baby in 2007 that now lives at the Stuttgart Zoo.

Wild dolphins tail-walk on water

A wild dolphin is apparently teaching other members of her group to walk on their tails, a behaviour usually seen only after training in captivity. The tail-walking group lives along the south Australian coast near Adelaide.

One of them spent a short time after illness in a dolphinarium 20 years ago and may have picked up the trick there. Scientists studying the group say tail-walk tuition has not been seen before, and suggest the habit may emerge as a form of "culture" among this group.

"We can't for the life of us work out why they do it," said Mike Bossley from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS), one of the scientists who have been monitoring the group on the Port River estuary.

"We're doing systematic observations now to determine if there's something that may trigger it, but so far we haven't found anything," he told BBC News.

In the 1980s, Billie, one of the females in the group, spent a few weeks in a local dolphinarium recovering from malnutrition and sickness, a consequence of having been trapped in a marina lock.

She received no training there, but may have seen others tail-walking. Now, other females in the group have picked up the habit. It is seen rarely in the wild, and the obvious inference is that they have learned it from Billie.

"This indicates that they do learn from each other, which is not a surprise really, but it does also seem that they exhibit elements of what in humans we would call 'cultural' behaviour," said Dr Bossley.

Baby whale thinks yacht is it's mom

Australian media say a lost humpback whale calf has bonded with a yacht it seems to think is its mother.

The 1- to 2-month-old calf was first sighted Sunday in waters off north Sydney, and on Monday tried to suckle from a yacht, which it would not leave.

Rescuers towed the yacht out to sea, and the calf finally detached from the boat but still swam nearby, Australian Broadcasting Corp. and Channel 10 television news reported.

The calf appears exhausted but rescuers hope it will continue out to sea and search for its mother or another pod of whales.

"The outlook is not good, but we are giving the calf its only option. It can't be fed, and in fact we wouldn't know what to feed it" because it is not weaned, National Parks and Wildlife regional manager Chris McIntosh told ABC radio.

Congratulations!

Phelps has now won 10 13 Olympic golds.

Michael Phelps equals Mark Spitz's 1972 record of seven golds in one Olympics, while Britain's Rebecca Adlington takes a second gold in the pool.

If Phelps was a country, he'd be 4th on the medals table :)

WANTED: Hagrid lookalike

WELLINGTON, N.Z. - Police hunting a teen burglar in the New Zealand city Christchurch have circulated a mug shot of 58-year-old British actor Robbie Coltrane who, they say, has a strong resemblance to their young suspect.

Posters bearing a photograph of Coltrane, who portrays the giant Hagrid in the "Harry Potter" movie series, were dropped by police this week in mailboxes around the city centre where the burglar has been most active.

"Robbie Coltrane is not the burglar," the poster says.

"But imagine him aged 16 with lank, greasy hair and you have the picture."

Barred by New Zealand law from publishing or circulating pictures of juvenile offenders, police hit on the idea of using a photo of Coltrane, who they say is similar in appearance to the burglar.

Fake or real?

The photographed remains of a mysterious "creature" washed up on a beach near New York has led to a frenzy of online speculation.

Hot on the heels of claims from an ex-NASA astronaut about aliens visiting Earth and supposed hair of a yeti undergoing DNA tests, news of the find has excited conspiracy theorists around the world.

Dubbed the Montauk Monster after the Long Island town where it was found, the creature has prompted speculation it was part of a secret mutant breeding program undertaken by the US Government.

The Huffington Post has even given the creature its own blog.

Meanwhile, gawker.com, which helped break the story, has sought to explain the phenomenon as a viral marketing stunt for a new US TV cartoon series.

Digit-al plus

Pianists, typists and tailors might all look on green with envy at Haramb Ashok Kumthekar, of Goa in India, who has six digits on each hand and seven digits on each feet.

But for Heramb, 22, it means he cannot even wear a pair of simple flip-flops, nor can he find a pair of gloves that fit his hands in the winter.

Even more frustrating is the fact that Heramb does not even hold the official Guinness world record for most digits on a person because some of his fingers are technically attached, even though they have separate bones.

The official Guinness honour belongs to his fellow countryman Devendra Harne, a 13 year old boy from Kolkota, who has 12 fingers and 13 toes on his feet.

However, there is some consolation for Heramb as he is included in the Indian equivalent of the Guinness Book of Records, the Limca Book of Records.

Heramb, who is currently studying for a Masters in Business Management at his college in the western Indian town of Pune, has always seen his extra digits as something to be proud of.

"I am happy about it because I have something that others don't have," says Heramb.

And showing a full understanding of that old maxim 'Use what you've got' , Heramb goes on to say, "I never had a problem with it and after I get publicity I will be famous because of it."

Lord for sale

An eccentric British millionaire has put his entire life up for sale on the Internet -- including his title of Lord of the Manor of Warleigh -- in the hope of converting his assets into cash.

David Piper, a hotelier who made headlines six years ago after advertising for a wife to become his "lady of the manor," wants to sell his west of England existence on the auction site eBay and move to London to be closer to his children.

He is selling two hotels, two Bentleys, a collection of paintings and his title of Lord of the Manor -- which he bought along with a large estate for one million pounds ($2 million).

"This sale is brought about as the present lord has been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer," the advertisement for the sale explains.

"For sale as a whole or in part... Can include David, the existing eccentric lord of the manor, physically as well to a suitable purchaser."

Piper, who is well known in his hometown of Plymouth for his antics, is hoping to raise up to 4 million pounds, although he estimates that the total value of the estates was as much as 6 million before property prices fell.

More than 100 bids have been received so far, with the current offer standing at 10 million pounds. Bidding closes on August 15.

Piper's move follows that of Ian Usher, a British-born man living in Perth, Australia who earlier this year auctioned off all his worldly goods, including his home. He ended up raising much less than he had hoped -- barely making $380,000.

Piper's attempt six years ago to find a bride ended in minor disaster. More than 2,000 young women answered his advertisement in the International Herald Tribune newspaper and he chose a 32-year-old American divorcee to try out to be his lady.

She arrived with her two young children, but fled the manor after only a few days, unable to go through with the union.

As part of his new venture, Piper said he was offering to introduce whoever purchased his life to some of the women whose applications he turned down.

Homer Coin

A one euro coin has turned up in Spain bearing the face of cartoon couch potato Homer Simpson instead of that of the country's king, a sweetshop owner told Reuters on Friday.

Jose Martinez was counting the cash in his till in the city of Aviles, northern Spain, when he came across the coin where Homer's bald head, big eyes and big nose had replaced the serious features of King Juan Carlos.

"The coin must have been done by a professional, the work is impressive," he told Reuters.

The comical carver had not taken his tools to the other side of the coin displaying the map of Europe. So far, no other coins of the hapless, beer-swilling oaf have been found in circulation.

"I've been offered 20 euros for it," said Martinez.

8lbs 8, Born 8:08 on 8/8/08

Talk about a memorable birthday: A Fergus Falls family is welcoming a baby girl born at 8:08 a.m. on the eighth day of August, weighing in at eight pounds, eight ounces.

Lindsay Hauer’s cesarean section was scheduled for 8 a.m. Friday morning at Lake Region Hospital and began right on the dot. When hospital staff told her the time of her daughter’s birth, Hauer thought they were pulling her leg.

“I thought they were just joking,” she said. “I didn’t believe them when they told me.”

“The time was to the minute,” said Hauer’s husband, Joe.

Imagine Hauer’s surprise when, still in the operating room, she received a call from staff in the hospital’s birthing suite, where Hailey Jo Hauer was being measured and weighed.

“I had the scale on grams at first,” said Jenny Harstad, Hauer’s nurse. Based on the baby’s weight in grams, Harstad estimated Hailey would weigh-in within the eight-pound range. She later joked she’d hoped to find significance in the baby’s length as well.

“I was trying to shrink her down to 18 inches,” Harstad said. Instead, Hailey measured 19.5 inches.

Back in the operating room, hospital staff resolved to buy lottery tickets later in the day.

Close call

Video footage has captured the moment a New Zealand man narrowly escaped the crushing force of a 30m falling tree on the South Island city of Nelson. The anticipation of witnesses can be heard on the video as the pine tree crashed to the ground just centimetres behind Paul Thomas’ car as he drove along the street during a raging storm on Wednesday night.

But the Nelson resident said his brush with death, which snapped his car's aerial, was a "buzz", according to TVNZ.

"I saw through my front windscreen above me that the tree was coming down, so I just had to keep going there's nothing else I could do," he said.

Police had been concerned about the swaying tree and closed off surrounding streets. But Mr Thomas was unknowingly driving inside the restricted area.

The camera man said he couldn’t believe how lucky Mr Thomas was. "It's just so unbelievable that he made it through," he said.

The savage storms which ripped through Marlborough, Nelson and West Coast have been reported as the biggest event to hit the region in the last 20 years, and left one person dead.

AMI Insurance Tasman district manager Graeme Duncan said it would spark millions of dollars worth of insurance claims. More than 10,000 homes and businesses lost power on Wednesday and hundreds of were still without power or water supplies on Friday.

Russia wipes California from map

California will no longer exist on the Russian map. Russia's north-western region of Nizhny Novgorod has decided to eliminate the tiny village of California due to the lack of inhabitants, Itar-Tass news agency reported on Thursday.

The village was set up in the 19th century by a Russian landowner as a snub to the government for selling Alaska to the United States in 1867, Tass said.

The once vibrant village has been in decline since the Soviet collapse, with the last of its residents leaving in 2000 to seek better lives elsewhere.

It will now officially cease to exist as a geographical unit but it was unclear if its buildings, including a school, would also be destroyed.

Thousands of villages, abandoned by people moving to cities, are scattered across Russia, many in ruins but some frozen in time, their wooden huts unchanged for decades.

Proposal rescue

Two lovers were rescued as they drifted out to sea following a romantic marriage proposal in a rowing boat. The couple were dressed in full evening wear and had enjoyed a champagne picnic as they set out from Cromer in Norfolk, coastguards said.

But the alarm was raised on Friday night after onlookers from Cromer Pier saw the boat more than a mile from the beach in windy conditions. The couple were rescued and brought back to shore by a small fishing boat.

"The inshore lifeboat was launched but, fortunately, there was a small fishing boat nearby and they brought them back safely," said a coastguard spokeswoman. "The coastguards were quite surprised when they met the couple. "Instead of the normal garb, they had evening wear on. It wasn't quite what they expected to find.

"He had a black bow tie and a waistcoat and she had a flowy dress. "It had been a romantic trip - he had proposed and she had accepted. Obviously, congratulations are in order. He had done the full works - picnic, champagne, flowers - but in the meantime they had got a mile-and-a-half out to sea."

The spokeswoman said the couple, from Cromer, who both described themselves as strong swimmers, had not realised how far out they had drifted. "They were under the assumption that they were absolutely fine," she said. "Apparently the gentleman said: 'It's ok, I'm a surfer, I know about these things'. They were brought ashore and they then decided to go on up the beach to have a picnic. They were quite relaxed about it."

Torta record

Mexican caterers have made what they say is the longest sandwich in Latin America, throwing together a 48-yard "torta" in five minutes.

Dozens of people from sandwich outlets in Mexico City came together to produce the monster baguette at the start of a three-day torta fair in the capital. Each section of the 600kg (1,320lb) sandwich had a different flavour and 30 ingredients went into the mix.

It pipped a similar super snack made at last year's fair by one metre. The record attempt took place in the city's Venustiano Carranza district with the help of local authorities and 45 torta outlets.

Thousands of pieces of bread, lettuce, onion and tomato were mixed with hundreds of litres of mayonnaise, mustard and spicy sauces, Reuters news agency reports.

"We broke our own record today," said Jose Antonio Arellano, a torta fair organiser.

The fair is aimed at boosting the torta which has taken a back seat to other fast food in recent years, Reuters notes. Fair organisers expect more than 160,000 visitors during the fair and hope to sell upwards of 200,000 tortas.

Balloon priest's body found

The body of a Brazilian priest who floated out over the ocean suspended by hundreds of helium-filled party balloons, has been found off the coast of southeastern Brazil, police have confirmed.

The corpse of Father Adelir Antonio de Carli was spotted by a tugboat at sea near the city of Macae, three months after he disappeared while flying a contraption buoyed by balloons over the Atlantic Ocean in a fund-raising stunt.

"We were almost certain that it was the priest due to various elements, such as the clothes and material used in the balloon trip," Macae's chief of police, Daniel Bandeira, said on Monday. "The DNA only confirmed our suspicions."

The priest disappeared on April 20 after he called friends from his mobile phone to say he was about to crash into the ocean.

He staged the stunt to help raise money for a chapel for truckers in his highway parish.

Ruff Justice

A dog has appeared in court in the eastern Indian state of Bihar accused of breaching the peace. Police demanded severe action against the dog for biting people. Its owner says it has only attacked burglars.

The dog, named Chhotu, has been in trouble with the law before. In 2003, a magistrate sentenced Chhotu to death. Neighbours complained he had gone mad and bitten several people. But animal rights activists managed to get the decision reversed.

Chhotu made his latest appearance in a crowded court on Thursday in the town of Purnea.

"The court was compelled to issue a summons to the dog since the police found that it was a threat to peace and feared that it might create a law and order problem," district official Rajiv Ranjan said.

In court Chhotu appeared to have been on best behaviour. "Despite the presence of so many people in the courtroom the dog did not bite or bark at anyone," the canine's lawyer Dilip Kumar Deepak said in defence of his client.

The case continues and Chhotu has been ordered to appear in court again on 5 August, together with his owner, childless widow, Rajkumari Devi.

Got change for $10bn?

Zimbabwe's central bank has said it will introduce a new currency on 1 August as part of efforts to fight the effects of hyperinflation.

The bank's governor, Gideon Gono, has announced zeros will be lopped off the Zimbabwe dollar, making 10bn dollars one dollar.

Only last week, the government introduced the Z$100bn note.

Cute

Dwarf in suitcase stunt

Swedish airport staff were not amused when a team from a TV comedy show tried to check in a suitcase with a dwarf inside.

Employees at Bromma airport called police when the dwarf hopped out of the suitcase at the check-in counter.

Police soon found that it was a stunt being filmed by a hidden camera for a program on private TV network Kanal 5. Police spokesman Mats Eriksson says airport staff decided against filing charges even though they were "shocked and humiliated" by Wednesday's stunt.

Kanal 5 spokesman Dan Panas told Swedish news agency TT that the show was meant to be "provocative and entertaining."

He said the stunt was not meant to make fun of little people, but to make entertainment out of "extreme situations."

Chocolate tart wins Edible boat race (Update)

An edible boat race which is believed to be the first of its kind in the UK has been won by a chocolate tart.

About 30 contenders sent their vessels out to sea in the event at Eyemouth in the Scottish Borders. The race was not without controversy as a number of entrants - including melon skin boats - had to be ruled out for not being entirely edible.

Head judge Steven Walter said he had been highly impressed by the entrants for the race. A prize for the best design went to a "pepper outrigger". The most seaworthy was judged to be a coracle of slow-baked lasagne sheets.

In the battle to be crowned the overall best boat, the healthy option of an apple raft, with cabbage leaf sail, narrowly lost out to the chocolate tart filled with sweets.

Mr Walter said: "I don't think anybody expected the number of exhibits that turned up. And I don't think anybody expected the originality of many of the designs, indeed all of the designs."

The Eyemouth Herring Queen committee - which organises an annual festival in the town - wanted an event to commemorate the seafaring traditions of the area.

The overall winner, schoolboy Toby Smith, was delighted with his victory. "My mum gave me a bit of help with it because I couldn't really do the cooking," he admitted. But I thought I wasn't going to win - because it tipped over half way through."

Piggin' marvelous!

Two men on a tandem towing a giant blue pig are due to end their epic ride from Glasgow to London at 1200 BST today. Steve Hunt, from Chippenham in Wiltshire, and Glaswegian Gordon McKirdy set off with the pig in tow on 6 July, collecting money along the way.

The pair cycled for nine hours a day and visited about 50 towns and cities. They had to be rescued by the AA near the start of their ride when the pig - which is the size of a small car - broke free from its chassis.

The cyclists had already raised £87,000 for Cancer Research UK by running marathons and the idea for the giant piggy bank on wheels came up during a "think tank" in a pub after a race. They hope to raise a further £60,000 thanks to their, and the pig's, efforts.

Mr Hunt, 46, said: "We thought our legs and knees would suffer the most as cycling uses a completely different set of muscles. "But actually it is our backsides which have taken the battering. We are rather saddle sore."

When Mr Hunt was nine he lost his father to cancer and Mr McKirdy, 33, who now lives in Loughton, Essex, has lost close friends and relatives to the disease.

"Everyone is touched by cancer at some point so we all have a responsibility to do something to help," Mr McKirdy said. "This is our way of doing it." He added: "We had a few early mishaps, not least with the pig breaking loose from the chassis. But since then he has behaved himself. And he is built to last. We'll crumble away before he does."

The pig - which is bright blue, weighs 77lbs (35 kilos) and is 6ft (1.82m) tall - does not yet have a name and they are encouraging people to come up with ideas.

Man shoots mower

A 56-year-old man from the Midwestern US state of Wisconsin has been arrested after shooting his lawn mower in his garden because it would not start. Keith Walendowski was charged by police in Milwaukee with disorderly conduct and possession of a sawn-off shotgun.

He could face a fine of up to $11,000 and a maximum prison sentence of six-and-a-half years if convicted.

Police officers said Mr Walendowski had told them: "It's my lawn mower and my yard, so I can shoot it if I want." Police found the shotgun, a handgun and a stungun, as well as ammunition, when they detained Mr Walendowski in the basement of his house.

Witnesses told police that he appeared to have been drinking.

The lawn mower was found sitting outside Mr Walendowski's house, which he shares with his mother, with the rubbish on Friday.

A local retailer said that Mr Walendowski might now have difficulty getting his lawn mower repaired. "Anything not factory recommended would void the warranty," said Dick Wagner, of Wagner's Garden Mart in Milwaukee.

Scrabble champ disqualified

A young Scrabble champion from Senegal has been stripped of his title at the Francophone World Championships (French Scrabble) for lying about his age, local media say.

Mamadou Youck had been named winner of the "blitz" competition for 14-15 year-olds before officials discovered he was 16, Senegal's APS news agency reports. In the "blitz" category, players have just one minute to complete each move.

The 37th Francophone Scrabble World Championships are taking place this week in Senegal's capital, Dakar.

The country's Sports Ministry, which accords Scrabble the same importance as football, has declared the competition a national priority.

About 600 competitors from 21 countries are participating.

Despite having a literacy rate of just 40%, Senegal's holds nine world titles in Scrabble.

Oldest bible goes online

The oldest known surviving copy of the New Testament gets the modern touch Thursday when parts of it go online for the first time. The British Library plans to begin publishing the Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th century text handwritten in Greek, on its Web site. The Gospel of Mark and the Book of Psalms go online Thursday. The full manuscript is to be online in a year.

Translations of the Codex Sinaiticus have long been widely available, but publishing images of the manuscript online will let anyone see pages that, until now, have been viewed in detail mainly by academia.

As the Web site becomes operational, it will show photographs of each page of the text, with links to translations in English and German. There will also be a search function.

"It contains the earliest complete copy of the New Testament," said Scot McKendrick, the head of Western Manuscripts at the British Library.

While the Codex contains all of the New Testament, it also includes part of the Old Testament and originally contained the entire text of the Christian Bible. The manuscript also includes the Apocrypha, 14 disputed books of the Old Testament that are usually omitted from the Protestant Bible. It also includes two early Christian texts: the "Epistle of Barnabas" and the "Shepherd of Hermas."

The library announced plans three years ago to digitize the 1,600-year-old book, a tough job since pieces of the manuscript reside in four countries.

Bug-ger!

A New Jersey man trying to exterminate insects in his apartment blew it up instead, the New York Daily News reported on Monday.

Isias Vidal Maceda was unhurt in the incident, but 80 percent of his apartment was destroyed, Eatontown, New Jersey police told the newspaper.

The accident occurred as Maceda was spraying for pests in his kitchen. Somehow the bug spray ignited a blast that blew out the apartment's front windows and triggered a fire that quickly spread, the newspaper said.

Police told the newspaper that the Saturday blaze also caused smoke damage to the apartment above.

Plane Stupid

A campaigner against Heathrow Airport's third runway has attempted to glue himself to Gordon Brown at a Downing Street reception. Dan Glass, a member of Plane Stupid, was about to receive an award from the prime minister when he stuck out his superglued hand and touched his sleeve.

Plane Stupid says Mr Glass, from north London, then "glued his hand" to Mr Brown's jacket as he shook his hand. But Downing Street said there had been "no stickiness of any significance".

Plane Stupid recently gained publicity by mounting a protest on the roof of Parliament.

Spokesman Graham Thompson said Mr Glass - a 24-year-old post-graduate student at Strathclyde University - had smuggled a small amount of glue through Downing Street security checks in his underwear at about 1700 BST.

He met the prime minister during the reception at about 1830 BST. Mr Thompson said his organisation was attempting to make Mr Brown "stick to his environmental promises".

Sand Castle Hotel

The world's first ever sand hotel has been made in Dorset and is accepting its first guests for £10 a night. It took 1,000 tonnes of sand and a team of four sculptors working 14 hours a day for seven days to build the structure on Weymouth beach.

Guests can book to stay in the hotel, which includes beds made out of sand, until the rain washes it away. The structure was created by a hotel company to celebrate a resurgence of holidaymakers flocking to the seaside.

Research by Laterooms.com predicts 37 million people will enjoy British beaches this year and some won't.

The beds are made of sand so it can get everywhere, especially between the toes
Mark Anderson, sand hotel sculptor. The sand hotel offers a twin and double bedroom, while the roofless structure gives guests the chance to "star-gaze" at night, the firm said.

But there are no toilet facilities and people were warned the sand "gets everywhere".

There's a BBC video HERE

Bridge opens after 55 yrs

Driving along India's eastern National Highway 31 got easier last week when a bridge was opened across the Torsha river near the Ghoksadanga-Pundibari area. There were celebrations at its inauguration in the state of West Bengal. But not many people were aware that it had taken 55 years for the 454-metre long bridge project to be realised.

The delay has been blamed on red tape, litigation and natural disasters.

A junior engineer, Kripasindhu Rakshit, made the first survey of the area for the bridge in 1953. "The survey for the bridge over Torsha and the approach road was my first assignment as a junior engineer in the Development (Roads) Directorate - after the year I joined service in 1952," Mr Rakshit recently wrote.

Apparently nothing more happened until the 1980s when "the central government asked us to go for another set of survey, soil testing, design and give a cost estimate".

To his surprise he discovered that another team had prepared a fresh design and estimate for the bridge about 10 years back.

Heavy Metal Monk

At first glance, Cesare Bonizzi looks like the archetypal Capuchin monk - round-faced, stout, with twinkling eyes and a long flowing white beard. But beneath his robes beats a heart of metal.

Brother Cesare is the lead singer in a heavy metal band which has just released its second album. A former missionary in the Ivory Coast, he lives in a small friary in the Milan hinterland.

The 62-year-old monk's love affair with heavy metal began when he attended a Metallica concert some 15 years ago.

"I was overwhelmed and amazed by the sheer energy of it" he says.

Hard rock and heavy metal have, over the years, been criticised as the work of the devil. Its a claim which Brother Cesare, also known as Brother Metal, says is nonsense.

He started playing and recording cassettes, firstly with "lighter" metal music, but gradually he realised that what really moved him was the hard core.

The members of his band were at first sceptical at the idea of teaming up with a Capuchin monk but their doubts soon evaporated.

"Five minutes after meeting Brother Cesare I decided to go ahead, because he manages to convey so much energy, that other musicians and youngsters often don't manage to express," lead guitarist, Cesare Zanotti, told Reuters.

There's a BBC Video HERE

NEW York maze

A recreation of the Statue of Liberty 10 times bigger than the original has been unveiled in North Yorkshire. Farmer Tom Pearcy cut the image of the New York landmark in fields a few miles from York, the city after which the American metropolis was named.

The 1,300ft (400m) long maze has been made using more than a million living maize plants and covers about 18 acres. The original statue is just more than 111ft (34m) tall, from the heel to the top of the head.

Mr Pearcy has been creating mazes every summer for the past five years on land just off the A64, near York. His previous creations have included a Viking long ship, the Flying Scotsman and Big Ben.

This year the farmer has moved his attraction to a new location near the Yorkshire Air Museum, at Elvington.

He said: "As a 'new' York Maze it seemed appropriate to base this year's design on New York. I also wanted to mark the links between York and New York.

Trashy prize

A French air hostess will become one of Europe's pioneer space tourists after picking a chocolate wrapper out of the rubbish and finding a winning number in a competition to fly to the upper reaches of the earth's atmosphere.

Mathilde Epron, 32, said she had bought a Kit Kat chocolate bar at her local supermarket but initially threw the wrapper in the bin, telling herself that "it's only others who win."

Two hours later, thinking back to the competition, she decided to try her luck and fished the wrapper out of the bin, only to find a code marked inside.

"For someone who works in air travel it's really a dream come true," she told France Info radio.

A spokeswoman for Nestle in France confirmed that Epron had won the prize to take a flight on a four-seater, fighter-sized aircraft built by Rocketplane, a company that builds aircraft intended to provide cheap flights into space.

She will receive four days of astronaut training in Oklahoma City in the United States before boarding the Rocketplane XP aircraft which will reach an altitude of 100 km (60 miles) and allow a five-minute experience of weightlessness.

Cardboard Gandhi

An American artist has made a 17ft cardboard statue of Mahatma Gandhi – and published step-by-step instructions on the internet to help others do the same. The over-size sculpture of the Indian icon - complete with glasses and walking stick - has been unveiled at the Eyebeam gallery in New York.

The model is a tribute to Gandhi’s 248 mile Salt March across in India in 1930 in protest against British taxes. Artist Joseph DeLappe built the statue after recreating the march with the help of a treadmill and the online world Second Life earlier this year.

DeLappe spent 26 days walking with a digital Gandhi character across the game’s virtual landscape. The steps he took on the treadmill powered his Gandhi avatar's progress through Second Life.

"After walking with Gandhi for 240 miles I decided it would be interesting to recreate him in monumental scale,” he said.

The cardboard Gandhi, which is the same height as Michelangelo’s David sculpture, took 24 days to build and is held together with glue alone.

DeLappe created the sculpture in pieces so it could be taken apart and stored, or shipped to new venues.

Unfortunately DeLappe's made a blog about it HERE

Burnt lot

The first guitar to be burnt by Jimi Hendrix onstage is set to fetch £500,000 at auction. Hendrix's 1965 Fender Stratocaster, which was famously set alight on stage during a performance at London's Finsbury Astoria in 1967, is going under the hammer with other historic artifacts from the world of music.

Among these are Jim Morrison's final notebook of poetry and musings before his death from Paris in 1971 and the last surviving drum-kit of Led Zeppelin's John Bonham.

The Doors lead singer's manuscripts are likely to sell for up to £100,000 while Bonham's drumkit could go for as much as £20,000.

But the pick of the musical collection will be Hendrix's guitar, from the opening night of the Walker Brothers tour on March 31 1967.

At the end of his show Hendrix set fire to the base of his Fender Stratocaster – as the astonished audience looked on and petrified venue staff ushered the performer off.

While Hendrix was being treated for minor hand injuries, his guitar was retrieved by his roadies, and eventually returned to Garland's London offices.

The guitar was then kept at the home of Noel Redding - bass player with the Jimi Hendrix Experience - before Garland collected the guitar and stored it at his parent's garage in Hove.

From Here to There

Biggest family tree

A British pensioner believes he has produced the world's largest family tree after tracing nearly 10,000 relatives. Roy Blackmore, 76, has spent the past 28 years and £20,000 scouring census registers, cemeteries and archives to find the names of 9390 family members.

Included among them are Alfred the Great and William the Conqueror as well as a Wild West cowboy, Civil War soldiers and a former French king.

Blackmore has applied to the Guinness Book of World Records in the hope of claiming the title of having the world's largest documented family tree.

"When I started I never planned to go back that far but the more I looked the more interested I became," he told The Daily Telegraph newspaper in Britain.

"There have been some very frustrating times when I seemingly hit a brick wall.

"But there is always a way around or over an obstacle but I think I'll leave it as it is."

Blackmore's interest in exploring his heritage stemmed from being an orphan as a child.

He has now been able to trace his relatives back to the Cerdick family in AD500.

Edible boat race

Preparations are under way for what is believed to be the UK's first edible boat race later this month. The event will be held at Eyemouth beach in the Scottish Borders with the winning boat being the one which manages to float the longest.

The competition is open to all ages but all the vessels must be made entirely out of edible materials.

The event is backed by Eyemouth Herring Queen Committee and the St Abb's and Eyemouth Voluntary Marine Reserve. The seafaring challenge takes place on 23 July.

Liza Cole, National Trust for Scotland ranger for the marine reserve, explained how the surprising idea had come about. She was approached by the organisers of Eyemouth's annual celebration - the Herring Queen Festival - to discuss the possibility of a paper boat release.

Ms Cole said: "I was really pleased that the committee had thought laterally rather than just going for a balloon release, as these result in burst balloons littering our beaches and choking marine wildlife.

"However, I had reservations as paper only biodegrades in seawater very slowly, and I had visions of incoming tides of papier-mache. So, it was my turn to think laterally, and that's when I came up with the idea of an edible boat race."

She said she believed the event was the first of its type.

"I have put the word out with all my contacts around the country and as far as I am aware there has never been a boat race of this kind before," she said. "So we will be making history as well as having a bit of ecologically-friendly fun."

Bug Jewelry

SANDWICH, Mass. - Two 17-year-old jewelry makers from Cape Cod, Massachusetts are hoping swarms of customers will want their latest creations: earrings and necklaces made from dead bugs.

Katheryn Maloney and Brady Cullinan are selling jewelry made out of the cicadas that swarmed their town of Sandwich this summer.

The pair charges $10 for earrings or necklaces made out of the bugs' lacquered carcasses.

They tell the Cape Cod Times that some people find the jewelry gross, but others are impressed with its uniqueness.

Maloney and Cullinan began making the bug jewelry in mid-June after Cullinan's mother suggested the idea.

Scilly job advert

To be an air traffic controller you need many talents, including quick decision-making skills, calmness under pressure and – crucially – good eyesight.

But at one airport with a vacancy, application forms are being offered in Braille – despite stating the job r­equires 20/20 vision. St Mary's airport, on the Isles of Scilly, says it must include the small print for its equality policy.


'It is just common sense that you would not employ an air traffic controller who is blind or partially sighted,' said one aviation insider. 'It's just one of those things they have got to put on forms. It's got to go on everything these days, whether it's relevant or not.'

All air traffic controllers have to meet international standards and pass a medical, including a stringent eye test.

'They would have to meet the same requirement as an airline ­pilot,' a Civil Aviation Authority spokesman said. 'They would need good 20/20 vision.'

The new post touts a salary of up to £36,000 for the right candidate. Yet, at the bottom it adds: 'If you require this in larger text, Braille, or in audio format, contact the community relations officer.'

'The islands are always at the cutting edge of innovation,' said Radio Scilly controller Keri Jones. 'So it would certainly be something to have the world's first blind air traffic controller.'

Finnish wife carrying

Inviting dead voters

England - South Cambridgeshire District Council sent out 7,500 ballot papers for tenants to vote for representatives on a housing association committee.

Among those were 533 papers for people who had died.

"We apologise in particular to the relatives of those people for any distress this caused," a spokesman for the council said.

"Due to an administrative error some voting papers... have been sent out to a number of people who are no longer tenants of the council either because they have moved away, given up their tenancy, or regrettably, have passed away," the spokesman said.

Officials said the voting papers would be reissued and a new election held.

Beggars' fortune

When 60-year-old Laxmi Das recently deposited her earnings in an Indian bank in Calcutta, it was a bit more than the usual mundane money transfer. Ms Das handed over 91kg (200lb) of coins - the produce of 44 years of hard begging - enabling her to open an account and qualify for a credit card.

Laxmi began begging near Hatibagan, a busy road junction in northern Calcutta, at the age of 16. Officials say she could have saved as much as 30,000 rupees ($692).

"She would spend frugally from her daily collection and save the coins. She was very possessive about them," says her sister Asha.

Ms Das saved the coins in iron buckets covered with jute bags at her home in a shanty town near the crossing. In all, she collected four buckets of coins - of all denominations - some even minted as far back as 1961 and now clearly out of date.

"But we will accept those coins as well because she is poor and needs all our support," said Central Bank of India spokesman Shantanu Neogy. He says there is a directive from India's Reserve Bank to accept all such outdated coins and reimburse the depositor in full.

She chose to ignore - or did not know about - a thriving racket in this part of the world in which old Indian coins are smuggled and melted down in Bangladesh to make razor blades that sell for up to seven times their value as coins. The practice has caused an acute coin shortage in eastern India, forcing government mints to cut down on the amount of metal they use to make the coins.

Drunk ref helped off field

MINSK, Belarus -- Referee Sergei Shmolik was helped off the field with back pain while officiating a Belarus league match, but later was shown to be drunk.

In TV footage shown Wednesday on Russian television, Shmolik staggered as he was helped off the field at the end of Saturday's match.

The Belarusian sports Web site Presball reported that the crowd in Vitebsk stadium, where the local team was hosting Naftan, was amused with the referee's strange behavior through the second half.

Shmolik was hardly moving by the end of the match, which ended in a 1-1 draw, officiating from the central circle by the end of the game.

Presball said Shmolik got help after the match but later was taken to the hospital for a test, which showed high levels of alcohol in his system.

The Belarus football federation said Shmolik's case will be subject to a disciplinary committee.

Cat adopts Panda

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands- A zookeeper's house cat has adopted a baby red panda abandoned by its mother and is nursing the cub along with her own kittens, the Artis zoo said Wednesday.

The panda's mother rejected her two cubs after they were born on June 30. "She left them there, lying in the cold," said zoo spokesman Bart Kret.

The zoo initially kept the cubs in an incubator. But a keeper's tabby cat had just given birth to four kittens, and let the two panda cubs join the crowd.

One of the cubs was too weak and died Thursday :(

The surviving cub is still smaller than the kittens, who were born three days before her. However, if she survives to be an adult, she will be slightly larger than a cat.

Kret said the cub will drink milk for about three months, after which she can start eating bamboo and fruit.

The cub doesn't have a name yet, but the zoo says that, through its adoption program, anyone willing to sponsor her will be allowed to name her.

Fake FBI agent

When Bill Jakob, a federal officer specialising in drug enforcement, offered his services to a tiny town in Missouri that was struggling with a wave of methamphetamine use, the local officials couldn't believe their luck.

Here was a man who was the image of the tough but reliable FBI agent - stocky build, close-cropped hair, military boots and trousers and a determination to get results. He came sporting a badge, federal ID and a gun at his side.

He said he would not cost the local community of Gerald a penny - he was a gift from the Drug Enforcement Agency in Washington to help the town clean up its drug problems. As an added incentive, he arrived in town driving an unmarked police car, equipped with siren and police radio, that he promised to leave behind him when the job was done.

There was only one problem: "Sergeant Bill", as he came quickly to be known by the 1,200 townspeople of Gerald, was not a federal agent, and never had been. He was in fact unemployed, a former truck driver with a criminal record who had fallen into debt and filed for bankruptcy.

But for almost five months from the day he showed up in town in January, he built himself up to be the policing king of Gerald. He led the town's existing five officers in numerous raids against suspected drug users. Wearing a black T-shirt with "Police" emblazoned on it, he took part in the arrest of the local pharmacist and in a series of at least 17 raids. He cut corners, brushing aside demands for an arrest warrant with the boast that as a federal agent he didn't need one.

And the results followed. Mayor Otis Schulte had dubbed Gerald "a meth capital of the United States," but he watched as the problem was brought under control.

But there were doubts too. Linda Trest, a reporter with the local paper, the Gasconade Country Republican - where news coverage normally involves rodeos and school sack races - grew suspicious.

She began making inquiries. Was it true federal agents had no need of search warrants? Had Jakob been security cleared? An hour's research on her computer was enough to throw up the incriminating evidence - of a sex abuse conviction against him when he was 22, his $180,000 debt and bankruptcy, and the fact that he held no police credentials at all.

He did, it transpire, come from Washington - though not DC but Washington, Missouri, just 30 miles away. And his police car was indeed a police car, though he had bought it from a used car dealer.

The town was in shock. "He was everything that you'd think a federal officer would be," said Schulte. "This guy just really screwed this town up."

In the fallout, three of the town's five police officers, including the chief, have been sacked. Seventeen residents have issued federal lawsuits claiming up to $11m (£5.5m) each for violations that included being kicked in the head, threatened at gunpoint, and, in the case of one elderly woman, forced into a psychiatric hospital after refusing to cooperate.

Mike Withington says Jakob raided his house, pounding on his door and throwing him in handcuffs on to his front garden. "[Jakob] was definitely in charge - it was all him," he told the New York Times.

Angry townspeople have organised a petition of 159 names to have the mayor removed, complaining that "this incident has made Gerald the laughing stock of the whole state".

Rescuer rescued

A woman who climbed 20ft up a tree to help a trapped cat had to be rescued by firefighters after getting stranded. The woman, aged in her 20s, went to help feline Mercedes who had been trapped in a neighbour's tree for almost two days.

But a branch broke beneath her and she was also left stranded in the tree in Colchester, Essex. Fire crews helped the woman down from the tree using ladders, while the cat eventually made its own way down.

Local resident Elly Hinkins said she had called the RSPCA after she heard a cat's cries for help and spotted Mercedes up a tree in her driveway. Ms Hinkins, who is not Mercedes' owner, was told to inform the fire brigade if the cat remained trapped after three days.


But she called them a day earlier after spotting the would-be rescuer stuck up the tree along with the cat.

Ms Hinkins said: "She (the woman) got up there and was quite a confident climber but the branch she was standing on broke. She didn't want me to call the fire brigade but I said there was no way I was having her falling out of the tree and she just couldn't get down. I think she was actually quite chuffed to be rescued by some hunky fireman."

The woman, who has not been named, was led down to safety by a firefighter using a triple extension ladder on Monday night, a fire service spokesman said.

Drunk attempts to row home

A last drink proved one too many for a 78-year-old Swede who fell asleep while trying to row home - from Denmark. Reports say the man had been drinking in the Danish town of Helsingor but found he did not have enough money for the ferry home to Sweden.

Instead of waiting until morning, he stole a dinghy and tried to row the 5km (three miles) across the Oresund Strait to Helsingborg, police said. But he fell asleep half way and drifted until he was rescued by the coastguard.

The man, who has not been named, was found still asleep in the bottom of the boat, and towed back across the strait - a busy shipping lane - to Denmark.

He was put on the next ferry home after he had sobered up, writes the Danish news service Ritzau. Police said the owner of the dinghy had decided not to press charges.