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The St. Louis County Sheriff's Office says a man with a self-professed sexual fetish for slashing rubber balls was arrested and has appeared in court. Police started looking for 31-year-old Christopher Bjerkness after surveillance tape allegedly showed him breaking into a fitness clinic in May and slashing exercise balls. Duluth Police said Bjerkness was arrested after he called them from Holiday Mall to surrender and that he now faces burglary charges. Authorities are familiar with the Bjerkness. A criminal complaint released last week says he was convicted in 2005 of breaking into a sports facility at the University of Minnesota...

Chuck Obama displays the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: no one knows when Change will come. But it will come. As a Fist of Hope. Chuck Obama doesn't evolve. He mutates for a Change. Chuck Obama is no mix. He is pure awesomeness for change. I need not your gifts of thoughts. I do not have thoughts. I have inspirations of awesomeness that change the world. There is no Barack. There is only Chuck.

PHOENIX -- Officers dispatched to what they thought was a domestic disturbance Monday night discovered a lone Mesa man fighting with himself, authorities said. Though the original call reported a verbal argument between a man and a woman, police said they found the 21-year-old man arguing with himself, changing the pitch of his voice as he acted out each part. The man was also destroying the inside of the apartment, officers said. He broke the front window as officers tried to calm him down and coax him out of the home, according to authorities. A crisis team decided the man...

MANCHESTER — - Drivers along I-291 had quite a sight Saturday, as a man wearing nothing but a thong, fake breasts and a wig sauntered along the side of the highway. Police said they received several calls about the man, which prompted an hour-long search. Police said they found the man, fully clothed and collecting cans behind a business on Batson Drive in Manchester. Police said they found a wig and fake breasts in the man's car. David Gebhardt, 42, of Manchester, was charged with disorderly conduct and simple trespass and was released on $2,500 bail.

Click on the link for a BBC News video of the event. Hundreds and hundreds of Irish folk posing nude at a castle.

ANCOUVER — Mike Ladislaus knew something was wrong even before he felt the awful weight of the sneaker in his hand. At this time of year, the Fraser River is swollen and running fast. Its grey-green waters leave all manner of detritus, collected throughout a 1,400-kilometre journey from the headwaters to the shores of Kirkland Island. Two weeks ago, Mr. Ladislaus was patrolling the dikes on the island with his dog, Sophie. It's a familiar routine and Sophie is trained to ignore the debris as she sniffs out beavers that might harm the protective banks on this sliver of farmland...

Like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, large groups of ravens are flocking together to attack defenceless victims and eat them alive. Throughout the country, farmers have reported a rise in the number of calves, lambs, and sheep pecked to death. Animals not killed have been left in agony as the birds eat their eyes, tongues and the soft flesh of their underbelly. Farmers are demanding the right to destroy the protected birds, but the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says it does not see any need for a change to legislation.....

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A mother who was videotaped while spraying her 2 1/2-year-old daughter with a high-pressure water hose at an Orlando car wash told authorities she did it because the child was throwing a tantrum. She told authorities she did not have the hose on full blast, and she said that it isn't as bad as it looks. The mother said she had used this type of punishment before with a spray bottle. The mother saw herself on TV late Thursday afternoon and called deputies. She called deputies and said they could come to her apartment to speak with...

Spectators giggle as prosecutor points out dangers of operating fake BuickThe prosecutor's case began to unravel when he turned his attack to the tea light-candle headlights. Up until that point, Daniel Lerner had argued that the car in question was unsafe because of its dangerous braking system. Granted, classifying the hollowed-out Buick a car is a bit of a stretch. It's actually a piece of art made to look like a car by Montreal artist Michel de Broin. More than anything, it's a four-seater bicycle, propelled entirely by pedalling. At top speed, the Buick can hit 15 km/h. It has...

GALLUP, N.M. -- Gallup police reported a bizarre set of circumstances following a recent emergency call to the home of Roman Catholic Bishop Donald Pelotte. The most recent event happened Thursday when Gallup police reported receiving an emergency call from Pelotte, 62. An incident report from the McKinley Metropolitan Dispatch Authority reported that Pelotte told operators "...gentle little people, about 3 to 4 feet tall, and wearing Halloween masks" were in the hall. The dispatch log reported that Pelotte said he hid in a closet while the people were in his home. The report said Pelotte offered conflicting information about...

(07-01) 14:12 PDT New York (AP) -- A peacock that roamed into the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant was attacked by a man who vilified the bird as a vampire, animal-control authorities said. Beaten so fiercely that most of his tail feathers fell out, the bird was euthanized, said Richard Gentles, a spokesman for the city's Center for Animal Care and Control. "It's just unbelievable that someone would do something to a poor, defenseless animal and do it in such a cruel fashion," he said. The peacock, a male several years old, wandered into a Burger King parking lot...

BEIJING - Tears, wild hair and unhealthy songs are banned when China's latest version of "American Idol" goes on the air next month. "No weirdness, no vulgarity, no low taste," the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television said Friday in a notice to the producers of "Happy Boys Voice," according to the official Xinhua News Agency. The talent show, to be broadcast beginning May 1, is a sequel to the hugely popular TV contest "Super Girls Voice" in 2005, which drew more than 400 million viewers. The woman who won that contest became a popular singer in China. But...

WASHINGTON - Rudolph Giuliani's own campaign once called it the "weirdness factor." In 1993, aides fretted that voters would look askance at him for his 14-year marriage to his second cousin, later annulled. Then last week, the latest Mrs. Giuliani injected a twist into his White House campaign, with revelations of a "secret" third husband.

University of Wisconsin marching band members routinely engaged in hazing involving alcohol and sexual behavior, the school said Thursday in explaining its decision to put the band on probation. UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley said a band member was pressured into shaving his head in a hazing incident and other members danced seminude during the band's trip to the Sept. 23 University of Michigan football game. Wiley said those behaviors, the latest after several years of reported misconduct, prompted him to warn the band's 300 members to shape up or risk losing their travel and performance privileges. Other behaviors attributed to...

Hewlett-Packard Co. may be the world's largest technology company, but the superlative that better suits it these days is Provider of the World's Strangest Corporate Drama. For two weeks, almost every day has brought revelations of questionable tactics that HP investigators used this year and last to root out who had been describing boardroom deliberations to the media. Corporate intelligence is an old and frequently practiced art, but HP's efforts feel more Watergate than Wall Street. Not only did investigators impersonate board members, employees and journalists to obtain their phone records, but according to multiple reports, they also surveilled an...

(08-16) 13:55 PDT Turner, Maine (AP) -- Residents are wondering if an animal found dead over the weekend may be the mysterious creature that has mauled dogs, frightened residents and been the subject of local legend for half a generation. The animal was found near power lines along Route 4 on Saturday, apparently struck by a car while chasing a cat. The carcass was photographed and inspected by several people who live in the area, but nobody is sure exactly what it is. Michelle O'Donnell of Turner spotted the animal near her yard about a week before it was killed....

The Continuing Campaign to Make Everything Perfect (1) The principal of Liberty Elementary School in Colleyville, Texas, authorized an enlarged photo of a nickel on this year's yearbook cover, but with "In God We Trust" deleted so as not to cause offense -- but then handed out stickers with those four words so that students could place them on the cover photo if they wished. (2) A British government agency recently decided to spend the equivalent of $33 million over 10 years to encourage women and minorities to become fishermen (or fisherwomen) because too many anglers are white, male and...

MARCH 24--Meet Natalie Peterson. The 23-year-old Utah woman was arrested yesterday afternoon when she showed up naked to take a shower in a stranger's home. According to cops, prior to Peterson wandering into the home in Roy, she had been in an argument at a relative's house. There, she stripped off her clothes and jumped into her '98 Ford Escort and drove off. A half mile away, Peterson walked into a house occupied by three young siblings, who she ordered to leave "her home." Peterson told the trio she was going to take a shower and headed for the basement....

TOKYO - Single or lonely Japanese men may get lucky this Christmas. One popular item for holiday shoppers is the “lap pillow,” with skin-coloured polyurethene calves folded under soft thighs -- a comfy cushion for napping, reading or watching television. The 9,429 yen ($90) pillow, which comes with one red and one black skirt, went on sale in late November and maker Trane Co Ltd says shipments have reached 3,000 in just a few weeks. “We created this item to help tired people relax,” said Makoto Igarashi, Trane’s managing director. Care was taken with details such as the softness of...

Grass Valley , Nevada County -- He's no longer Ricky Williams the football player. He plans to become Ricky Williams the holistic healer. It's been more than 10 months since Williams, one of the premier running backs in the National Football League, last ran off tackle for the Miami Dolphins and four months since he suddenly announced his retirement at age 27. Then he dropped from sight. But now Williams has turned up about as far away from professional football as you can get, as a student of the ancient Indian medical system known as Ayurveda. In the Sierra foothills,...