Free Republic

German driver's car directs him into toilet 23 October 2006 BERLIN: A German motorist followed the command "Turn right now" from his navigation system and crashed into a small toilet hut by the side of the road - about 30 metres before the crossing he was meant to take. The overly obedient 53-year-old from Freiburg drove his sport utility vehicle off the road onto into a building site, up a stairway and into the small toilet shack, police in the eastern town of Rudolstadt said on Sunday. It caused 2000 euros ($NZ3843) worth of damage to the stairway, 100 euros...

LONDON (Reuters) - A Briton arrested amid a massive U.S. security alert two years ago admitted in a London court on Thursday to plotting to blow up the New York Stock Exchange and carry out "dirty bomb" attacks in Britain. Dhiren Barot, a Muslim convert, admitted to plotting to blow up the stock exchange and other U.S. financial hubs including the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Citigroup and Prudential in Washington, New Jersey and New York. "Explosions at these premises were clearly designed to kill as many people as possible," said prosecuting lawyer Edmund Lawson. Amid tight...

TAMPA, Fla. -- Investigators believe botulism toxin from bottled carrot juice paralyzed a woman, the fourth person thought to be poisoned by bacteria in the drink. The unidentified woman is unresponsive and has been hospitalized since mid-September, said Jylmarie Kintz, epidemiologist for the Hillsborough County Health Department. Three people in Georgia also became ill after drinking the bottled juice made by Bolthouse Farms, according to the Food and Drug Administration. In a dispatch issued Friday, the Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the three were from Washington County, Ga., and shared a meal, which included carrot juice...

CHARLESTON, S.C. - A City Council member, reacting to a video store holdup believed to have been carried out by children, says parents who can't properly care for their kids should be sterilized. "We pick up stray animals and spay them," Larry Shirley said in a story published Saturday by The Post and Courier of Charleston. "These mothers need to be spayed if they can't take care of theirs. Once they have a child and it's running the street, to let them continue to have children is totally unacceptable." Shirley's comments come after police say a video store was held...

NORWICH (Reuters) - Many people have experienced the phenomenon of receiving a telephone call from someone shortly after thinking about them -- now a scientist says he has proof of what he calls telephone telepathy. Rupert Sheldrake, whose research is funded by the respected Trinity College, Cambridge, said on Tuesday he had conducted experiments that proved that such precognition existed for telephone calls and even e-mails. Each person in the trials was asked to give researchers names and phone numbers of four relatives or friends. These were then called at random and told to ring the subject who had to...

MANILA (Reuters) - Thousands of prisoners have been shaving their heads and chests to donate hair to help mop up the Philippines' worst oil spill, officials said Wednesday. The collection was in response to a nationwide drive by the government to amass tonnes of hair and feathers to absorb more than 200,000 liters of industrial fuel that leaked from a tanker when it sank off the central island of Guimaras on August 11. A Japanese salvage ship was expected to arrive later on Wednesday to help determine the exact location and condition of the 998-tonne Solar 1 under about 640...

A 14-year-old Nepali has been registered in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's shortest man. With 20 inches height and 4.5 kg weight, Khagendra Thapamagar of Baglung, western Nepal, had his name registered in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's shortest man leaving behind his competitor, a Jordanian, with 25.5 inches height, The Himayan Times daily said. "The Guinness Book people sent us information that Khagendra contested for the title with Jordan's Yoyansvans, who is 25.5 inches tall and weighed 10 kg, but Khagendra came out as the winner," the daily quote, Min Bahadur...

NEW ORLEANS A New Orleans man may have thought he'd get a thank-you for rescuing more than 200 people from Hurricane Katrina floodwaters. Instead, he got a lawsuit. John Lyons Junior is suing Mark Morice (mohr-EES') for taking his boat without permission and not returning it. Lyons' lawyer says Morice made no attempt to return the boat. Morice says he left it for other rescuers to use. Lyons' 18-foot boat was one of three Morice said he commandeered after water started rising. Morice said one of the other boat owners told him he was glad he'd been able to hot-wire...

BLACKSTONE, Massachusetts - A man who retrieved a $1 million lottery ticket from the trash reached a settlement with the family of the man who claimed he accidentally threw it away. Edward St. John, 83, agreed to give up $140,000 of the winnings because he wanted to enjoy the windfall before he died, his attorney said. St. John was sued after finding the "Hold 'em Poker" scratch ticket in October 2005 while searching through the trash at a local convenience store for discarded winning tickets, something he regularly did. Kevin Donovan, 49, who said he had bought every "Hold 'em...

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai police said on Tuesday they had detained 169 North Koreans in a raid on a house in a Bangkok suburb after neighbors became suspicious of the number of people in it. "This is the biggest single arrest of North Koreans" in Thailand, Police Major General Pramoj Pathumwong told Reuters. The North Koreans, mostly women and children, had entered Thailand illegally and were staying in the house with 16 compatriots who had travel documents from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, police said. The 16 had been due to leave on Tuesday night for South Korea,...

Turner Broadcasting is scouring more than 1,500 classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons, including old favourites Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo, to edit out scenes that glamorise smoking. The review was triggered by a complaint to media regulator Ofcom by one viewer who took offence to two episodes of Tom and Jerry shown on the Boomerang channel, part of Turner Broadcasting which itself belongs to Time Warner Inc. "We are going through the entire catalogue," Yinka Akindele, spokeswoman for Turner in Europe, said on Monday. "This is a voluntary step we've taken in light of the changing times," she said, adding...

Norway reporter admits faking interviews A Norwegian journalist has admitted he fabricated interviews with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and talk show host Oprah Winfrey, media reports said Monday. Freelance writer Bjoern Benkow said in a statement that the interviews, published in Norwegian and Swedish media, were partially concocted because of financial "desperation," newspaper Verdens Gang reported. "I have met and talked to these global celebrities," Benkow was quoted as saying. "But the circumstances and times have not always been as I described." The acknowledgment came after Microsoft Norway said last week that an interview with Gates, printed in the Norwegian...

OSLO, Norway - A bus carrying 40 elderly French tourists toppled into a ditch by a motorway in central Norway on Tuesday after passengers demanded the driver get closer to a moose grazing by the roadside so they could take snapshots, police said. One woman suffered minor injuries in the accident on the motorway about 174 miles north of Oslo, the Norwegian capital. Eager to photograph the moose "in its natural environment," the tourists had asked the driver to get closer to the animal, after which the bus skidded off the edge of the motorway, district police officer at Gudbrandsdal,...

DETROIT - An online game that poked fun at the FBI's hunt for Jimmy Hoffa's remains was shut down after a Florida-based discount airline received dozens of complaints from customers who felt the flight promotion was distasteful. Spirit Airlines launched "The Hunt for Hoffa" on Tuesday, based on the unsuccessful search for the remains of the missing Teamsters president at a Milford Township farm. But hours after the game debuted, it was stopped and the promotion was changed to "Happy Sale." "We never set out to offend anybody," Spirit spokeswoman Lynne Koreman told The Detroit News. "It was done all...

A CHINESE entrepreneur who once tried to sell land on the moon is hoping to cash in on China's obsession with the World Cup by offering fans bags of stadium air. Li Jie, who describes himself as chief executive of the Lunar Embassy to China, is selling his "World Cup air" for 50 yuan ($8.60) a bag. "The air was packed at the World Cup venues while the workers were cutting the grass before matches," Mr Li told the Beijing Daily Messenger. "You can still smell the grass." Mr Li suggested soccer enthusiasts unable to make the trip to Germany...

Pupil kills family to hide failure... A teenager who lied about his grades set his house on fire to avoid a scolding from his father A 16-YEAR-OLD Japanese boy, pushed to the limits of academic effort and dreading a parental scolding, has admitted starting a house fire that killed his stepmother, five-year-old sister and seven-year-old brother. The boy, who has not been named and is now under arrest on suspicion of arson and murder, has described a long-simmering "vendetta" against his results-obsessed father, and admitted to previous attempts to kill him.... His stepmother and siblings burnt to death as they...

Worm lures victims with 'Naked World Cup'- World Cup malware targets English speakers By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service June 20, 2006 Soccer purists can breathe a sigh of relief. There is no Naked World Cup. IT professionals, on the other hand, may want to be a little more vigilant, as a new e-mail worm is on the loose that preys on the intense worldwide interest in the international sporting event. Called Sixem-A, the worm began circulating earlier this week, and has just recently been blocked by antivirus vendors. So far, the worm has been detected at only a handful...

Yearbook photo causes impromptu editing PHILLIPSBURG, N.J., June 13 (UPI) Officials at a New Jersey high school have begun editing this year's yearbook by removing a page in which a female student's underwear is partially visible. The Asbury (N.J.) Express-Times reports that the school's decision to remove the page from the Phillipsburg High School yearbook has been met with criticism from its student body. "First of all, people paid for these. They belong to the students," Katie Rockware, a Phillipsburg senior, said. "They are expensive. It's like them saying 'Excuse me, can I just destroy your personal property.' I thought...

Our Condolences 12/06/2006 Tariq Alhomayed Clearly, many in the Arab world were shocked by the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the "Boss of all evils" in Baghdad. The murderer of women, children, young and old, Sunnis and Shiites, Sayyids and Sheikhs, Arabs as well as foreigners.The masterminded responsible, for last year's bombings in Amman that killed sixty innocent people in three weddings., the man who couldn't tell the difference between bird hunting and cold blooded murder. His role as a corruptor was well documented, bearing in mind that his last message to the world encouraged civil war in Iraq. Yet...

Heather Mills a 'working girl' June 12, 2006 A FRESH torrent of sex claims has emerged about Sir Paul McCartney's estranged wife, Heather Mills, as the fallout from their breakup continues. The allegations, including that Mills was once a high-class prostitute who specialised in lesbian and group sex, appeared in yesterday's British newspapers. News of the World said it had compiled a dossier detailing years of vice, including callgirl sessions Mills had with an arms dealer and an Arab prince for fees as high as $12,500 a session. The paper quoted a former prostitute who claimed to have had a...