Pink dolphin a standout in La. shipping channel

NEW ORLEANS – What's pink, has red eyes and leaps around a Louisiana shipping channel long enough for you to believe your eyes? A rare albino bottlenose dolphin. Bottlenose dolphins are common in the lower Calcasieu Ship Channel, feeding in the deep water and riding on top of boats' waves. And when the pink one jumps amid four dark gray dolphins, it's easy to spot.

The albino is just the 14th reported worldwide, and the third in the Gulf of Mexico, according to biologist Dagmar Fertl of Plano, Texas.

It was first reported by Wesley Lockard of Rayville, La., as a small calf in June 2007. Lockard, 26, said he and family members were fishing when they were stunned by the sight. "Something comes up and you say, `Wow! Did I just ...?' Then he comes up again and you say, `Yeah! I just saw a pink dolphin!'" he said.

Now, the mammal is as much a part of the channel south of Lake Charles as boats and fishermen.

"We see him on a pretty regular basis," said Roddy Blackburn, crewman and relief captain of a boat that ferries pilots to ships.

But spotting the pink one, believed to be about 2 1/2 years old, does take time. Michael Harbison, a state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries biologist, has seen it several times, but only when he wasn't looking for it. He spent two trips — one for 10 hours — trying to locate it but didn't see the dolphin.

The albino is usually seen with four adults, and probably splits time between the Gulf and the lower 10 miles of the ship channel, said Harbison. Typically, dolphins surface for a second or so to breathe, then dive for up to 10 minutes, moving a half-mile or more, he said.

Five days after the initial sighting was reported nearly two years ago, the dolphin was seen again.

For 90 minutes, fisherman Randy Smith watched the dolphin leap alongside an adult they assumed was its mother.

"It was unbelievable," said Smith, who was returning from a Gulf fishing trip with friends when he saw the dolphin.

Many people refer to the dolphin as a male, though its sex is unknown.

Biologist Mandy Tumlin of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries hopes more people will report sightings and give officials as much detail as possible. But they should stay at least 50 yards away and limit themselves to a half-hour of watching to keep the animals from getting too comfortable with people and boats, she said.

No specific studies are planned, but sightings will help the department track the animal.

"As rare as this is, we're trying to get as much as we can (about) this one individual," she said. "We definitely want to protect it and keep it safe."

On the Net:

NOAA albino dolphin fact sheet: http://tinyurl.com/pmvdds

Marine mammal viewing guidelines: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/education/viewing.htm

http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/

Fertl: http://www.ziphiusecoservices.com/

Stupid News-Iowa man charged after allegedly eating bag of pot

IOWA CITY, Iowa – A man has been arrested in the Iowa City area after police say he tried to eat a bag of marijuana to avoid drug charges. University Heights police said the man was pulled over early Sunday for a traffic violation. Police said the officers noticed a marijuana odor on his breath, and a green, leafy substance on his shirt.

Police Chief Ron Fort said the officers then discovered the man had a partially eaten plastic bag in his mouth.

Fort said the suspect eventually gagged, and a medium sized bag came out of his mouth.

The man was charged with preventing apprehension and obstructing prosecution and third-offense drug possession.

Information from: The Gazette, http://www.gazetteonline.com/

Bodybuilders flee drug testers; event canceled

BRUSSELS – The Belgian bodybuilding championship has been canceled after doping officials showed up and all the competitors fled.

A doping official says bodybuilders just grabbed their gear and ran off when he came into the room.

"I have never seen anything like it and hope never to see anything like it again," doping official Hans Cooman said Monday.

Twenty bodybuilders were entered in the weekend competition.

Cooman says the sport has a history of doping "and this incident didn't do its reputation any good."

During testing of bodybuilding events last year, doping authorities of northern Belgium's Flanders region found that three-quarters of the competitors tested positive.

Stupid News-Deputies: Banana used as gun in holdup, then eaten

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Authorities in North Carolina say a store owner and a patron thwarted a teen accused of trying to carry out a robbery by concealing a banana beneath his shirt to resemble a gun.

Winston-Salem authorities say 17-year-old John Szwalla entered the Internet cafe Thursday and demanded money, saying he had a gun.

The owner, Bobby Ray Mabe, said he and a customer jumped Szwalla, holding him until deputies arrived. While they waited, Mabe says the teen ate the banana.

Mabe says deputies took pictures of the peel. Forsyth County Sheriff's office spokesman Maj. Brad Stanley says deputies joked about charging Szwalla with destroying evidence.

Szwalla faces a charge of attempted armed robbery. Jail officials say he doesn't have an attorney.

Stupid-Man tried to hire prostitute for his son, 14

LONDON (Reuters) – A man who tried to hire a prostitute to take his 14-year-old son's virginity as a present was spared jail by a court on Friday.

The Polish national took the boy out in his car and allowed him to pick out the prostitute, who was standing at the side of the road in the red-light district of Nottingham.

But the 42-year-old father was arrested because the teenager had chosen an undercover police officer, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was handed a 10-month prison sentence, suspended for a year, after he admitted a charge of trying to solicit a woman to have sex with a child, the Press Association reported.

The court heard that the father, who came to Britain eight years ago, was arrested last July during an undercover operation by the city's vice squad.

Prosecutor Adrian Harris said the man and his son had approached the undercover officer whose code name was Sarah and beckoned her over .

He asked "Sarah" how much it would cost for her to have sex with his son and they agreed on a 20 pound fee. However, when the car pulled over, the man was arrested by plainclothes police officers.

"The boy said that they had driven past the girl and his dad pointed to her and said 'will she do?'" Harris said.

"He said 'yes' and they had turned round. He said his dad did this because he was still a virgin and he was taking care of that for him."

Judge Jonathan Teare said he would spare the father jail because of his excellent character and that he believed he did not mean any harm to his son.

"You have a duty of care to your son and that is to look after his moral welfare, not as you might think to break him in to the ways of sex through a prostitute," he said.

The court was told the boy would continue to live with his father.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Steve Addison)

Weird Spider Facts

Certain female species of spiders such as the Australian crab spider, sacrifice their bodies as a food source for their offspring.

Some male spiders pluck their cobwebs like a guitar, to attract female spiders.

Fried spiders taste like nuts.

The largest spider ever was the Megarachne which had a diameter of 50 cm. The fossil was found in Argentina.

The bite from a black widow spider is not automatically fatal. In fact, less than 1% of all people bitten by this spider run the risk of dying, and most of them are saved with the use of antivenin.

The skeleton of a spider is located on the outside of the body.

Spiders usually have eight eyes, but still they cannot see that well.

There are about 34,000 species of spiders.

Spiders have claws at the ends of their legs.

Only the female black widow spider has a poisonous bite. The male spider's venom is not poisonous and it does not attack its prey.

Of the 35,000 species of spiders, only 27 species are known to have caused human fatalities.

Busty Sexy mascot can stay at eatery if curves covered

Restaurant owner Kenny Tessel, who runs a Reading, Ohio barbecue restaurant, KT's Barbeque, speaks during a board meeting in Reading, Ohio, Thursday, May 14, 2009. The life-size mannequin stands as a busty beacon outside the restaurant. He told zoning officials at a hearing Wednesday night that the advertising gimmick has boosted business 40 percent.

Mad about MAD, LA man builds a dream out of CDs

LOS ANGELES - It's always been a mad MAD world for Neil Cuadra. The 55-year-old Internet entrepreneur has photographed a portrait he made of MAD magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman's head using junk mail CDs and DVDs and sent it to the magazine, a feat that landed him in the magazine's 500th issue, published in April.

Police: 'Nicotine Ninja' prefers brand-name cigs

GOLDEN, Colo. – Jefferson County authorities are looking a man they've dubbed the "Nicotine Ninja" believed to be responsible for stealing $120,000 worth of cigarettes. Authorities said the suspect is completely clad in dark clothing and covers half his face with a black cloth when he breaks into liquor stores in the middle of the night. The man is believed to be responsible for 118 burglaries across the metro area during the last two years.

Authorities said he usually only takes brand-name cigarettes and ignores the generic brands.

Information from: KDVR-TV, http://www.kdvr.com

Surgeon allegedly operates on wrong part of mouth

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Officials at a Providence hospital group said an oral surgeon began operating on the wrong part of a patient's mouth this week before discovering the error. It's the fifth wrong-site surgery in the last two years in the Lifespan hospital chain.

Timothy Babineau, president of Rhode Island Hospital, said that the mistake occurred Monday at Hasbro Children's Hospital.

Babineau said Wednesday the surgical team was able to perform the correct procedure with "good results." He said the patient is in good condition and no complications are expected.

A hospital spokeswoman said the state Department of Health is investigating.

Basketballs launching on space shuttle mission

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The Harlem Globetrotters will soon have a presence way above the globe.

Space shuttle Atlantis will carry a pair of basketballs when it rockets away on a repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Liftoff is scheduled for Monday afternoon.

One of the balls belongs to the Globetrotters. It was deflated to save room inside the shuttle, which is jammed with spacewalking gear and new telescope parts.

The other is a century-old ball on loan from the University of Chicago that was once handled by the man the Hubble Telescope is named after. Astronaut John Grunsfeld, an alumnus who will serve as the chief telescope repairman, is taking it up.

Edwin Hubble — the astronomer for whom the space telescope is named — tossed the ball around in a 1909 victory against Indiana University. The 6-foot-2 Hubble was a star forward on the University of Chicago's Big Ten champion teams of 1907-1908 and 1908-1909.

Because the old ball did not have an air valve, Grunsfeld cut it open and discovered it was filled with fiber packing material. The stuffing was removed so the ball would take up as little room as possible aboard space shuttle Atlantis.

The Globetrotters, coincidentally, have ties to Chicago. That's where they were founded in 1926.

After traveling to 120 countries and six continents, the Globetrotters wanted to expand into space.

"It is only fitting that the team that has seen more of the world than any other in history would have a presence beyond the stratosphere," Globetrotters chief executive officer Kurt Schneider said in a news release.

After Atlantis returns to Earth, the Globetrotters will put their red, white and blue space ball on display at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. The Hubble ball will go back to the University of Chicago.

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

Cow may get new home after slaughterhouse escape

NEW YORK – A cow nicknamed Molly who escaped from a New York City slaughterhouse may have a new lease on life. New York police said the all-black cow got out from Musa Hala, Inc. about 1 p.m. Wednesday, a slaughterhouse where animals are butchered according to religious restrictions.

She wandered nearly a mile before she was corralled and captured by Emergency Services Unit officers. She was darted and delivered to the city's Animal Care and Control, where she was nicknamed Molly.

Officials there are looking into whether Molly the cow can be placed at a farm sanctuary to live out her life or if she must be returned for slaughter. It depends on whether anyone comes forward to claim her. Animal care officials said a handful of cows in the past decade have escaped to the city streets.

Fun Disease Facts & You Are Scared Of The Swine Flu

People that use mobile phones are 2.5 time more likely to develop cancer in areas of the brain that are adjacent to the ear they use to talk on the mobile phone.

Over 90% of diseases are caused or complicated by stress.

Over 436,000 U.S. Troops were exposed to depleted uranium during the first Gulf war.

On average, 90% of the people that have the disease Lupus are female.

Many cancer patients that are treated with chemotherapy lose their hair. For some when the hair grows back, it can grow back a different colour, or be curly or straight.

Diabetes is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S., accounting for about 180,000 deaths per year.

Chances of a women getting breast cancer are increased by excessive use of alcohol.

A popular superstition is that if you put a piece of bread in a baby's crib, it will keep away diseases.

A person that is struck by lightning has a greater chance of developing motor neurons disease.

Every year in the U.S., there are 178,000 new cases of lung cancer.

Every three minutes a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer.

Asthma affects one in fifteen children under the age of eighteen.

Every eleven minutes in the U.S., a woman dies of breast cancer.

Due to eating habits in the USA, one in three children born in the year 2000 have a chance of getting type II diabetes.

The oldest known disease in the world is leprosy.
...More-SongsforAmerica.com

Cool Animal Facts

The chameleon has a tongue that is 1.5 times the length of its body!

Squirrels can't remember where they hide half of their nuts.

Only male crickets can chirp.

A rabbit's teeth never stop growing.

Alligators cannot move backwards.

Texas horned toads can shoot blood out of the corners of their eyes.

The faster kangaroos hop, the less energy they use.

An okapi's tongue can grow to be 17 inches long.
An owl's eyes are bigger than its brain.

Salamanders breath through their skin.

The guanaco of South America, a cousin of the camel, has pads on its feet to keep its feet from burning on desert sand or freezing in mountain snow.

Foxes sometimes nip at the heals of cattle so the stomping of the cattle makes mice and other rodents come out of the ground, for the fox to eat.

Salamanders are known to come out of wood when it was burning inside a fireplace, this is because Salamanders hibernate in wood.

Whether an alligator is a male or female is determined by the temperature of the nest where the egg is hatched – 90 to 93 degrees will make it a male; 82 to 86 degrees will turn it into a female.

Some animals produce their own lights, called bioluminescence. The Brazilian railroad worm has a red light on its head and green lights down its side. All it needs to drive on the street is a turn signal.

You may have heard someone say, "It’s raining cats and dogs." There have been actual documented cases from all over the world of fish, frogs, dead birds, snakes, snails, beetles, worms and jellyfish raining down from the sky in great numbers, but no reports of showers of cats or dogs.

Be sure to cancel your credit cards before you die.

This is so priceless, and so easy to see happening, customer service being what it is today.

A lady died this past January, and Citibank billed her for Feburary and March for their annual service charges on her credit card, and added late fees and intrest on the monthly charge. The balance had been $0.00 when she died, but now it is somewhere around $60.00. A family member placed a call to Citibank.
Here is the exchange:

Family member: I am calling to tell you she died back in January.
Citibank: The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.
F.M.: Maybe you should turn it over to collections.
Citibank: Since it is two months past due, it already has been.
F.M.: So, what will they do when they find out that she is dead.
Citibank: Either report her account to frauds division or report her to the credit bureau, maybe both!
F.M.: Do you think that God will be mad at her.
Citibank: Excuse me?
F.M.: Did you get what I was telling you, the part about her being dead.
Citibank: Sir, you'll have to speak to my supervisor.
F.M.: I'm calling to tell you, that she died back in January with a $0.00 balance.
Citibank Supervisor:
: The account was never closed and late fees and charges still apply.
F.M.: You mean you want to collect from her estate?
Citibank: Are you her lawyer?
F.M.:No, I'm her great nephew.
Citibank: Could you fax us a certificate of death?
F.M.: Sure.
After they get the fax.
Citibank: Our system isn't set up for death. I don't know what more I can do to help.
F.M.: Well if you figure it out, great. If not, you could just keep billing her. She won't care.
Citibank: Well, the late fees and charges will still apply.
(whats wrong with these people?!?)
F.M.: Would you like her new billing address?
Citibank: That might help......
F.M.: Odessa Memorial Cemetery, Hiway 129, Plot Number 69.
Citibank: Sir, thats a cemetery!
F.M.: And what do you do with dead people on your planet???

(Priceless) You wondered why Citibank is going broke and needs the Feds to bail them out.

Flush with class: Tenn. bathroom voted best in US

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Hermitage Hotel has afternoon tea in the grand lobby. Down-filled duvets (that's a fancy word for comforters). A presidential suite with 2,000 square feet. And a really nice toilet.

So nice, in fact, that it's been voted (drum roll please) America's best restroom.

Flush in the middle of downtown Nashville, the luxury hotel and its ground-floor men's bathroom are definitely the head (so to speak) of the class.

The redoubtable restroom is art-deco style with gleaming lime-green-and-black leaded glass tiles, lime-green fixtures, terrazzo floor and a two-seat shoeshine station.

"You just can't find anything like it anywhere else," says Janet Kurtz, director of sales and marketing at the hotel.

The restroom won the honor in online voting sponsored by Cincinnati-based Cintas Corp., which supplies restroom hygiene products and services. The company says "tens of thousands" of people voted over two months last summer. Precise numbers are kept, well, private.

Criteria were hygiene, style and access to the public. The highfalutin honor has earned the restroom entry to "America's Best Restroom Hall of Fame."

"People see it and fall in love with it," Kurtz said.

It has four stools, three urinals, four sinks, spotless mirrors and a Sultan telephone that connects to the front desk.

And, (how do you put this delicately?) women seem attracted to it.

Lita Esquinance of Bradley County, Tenn., guides friends to the restroom for a discreet peek just about every time she visits Nashville. One of them, Sonja Luckie, jokingly summed up her visit with this discerning observation:

"For men, it's very stimulating."

The hotel, built in 1910 and renovated in 2003, has 122 guest rooms and suites. The restroom, down the hall from the hotel bar and restaurant, dates back to 1939.

Do they leave the light on for you? Not necessarily, but the famous restroom is cleaned hourly.

In her six years at the hotel Kurtz has never used the men's restroom. But just wait.

"I hope they have a ladies' night sometime."

On the Net:

The Hermitage Hotel: http://www.thehermitagehotel.com/site/

America's Best Restroom: http://www.bestrestroom.com/

PANDEMIC WARNING-Swine flu prompts EU warning on travel to US

The Begining Of The End....

MADRID – The top EU health official urged Europeans on Monday to postpone nonessential travel to parts of the United States and Mexico because of the swine flu virus, and Spanish health officials confirmed the first case outside North America.

Russia, Hong Kong and Taiwan said they would quarantine visitors showing symptoms of the virus amid a surging global concern about a possible pandemic.

World stock markets fell as investors worried that the deadly outbreak could go global and derail any global economic recovery. Airlines took the brunt of the selling.

The virus was suspected in up to 103 deaths in Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak with more than 1,600 cases suspected, while 40 cases — none fatal — were confirmed in the United States and six in Canada, the World Health Organization said.

"Today we've seen increased number of confirmed cases in several countries," WHO spokesman Paul Garwood told The Associated Press. "WHO is very concerned about the number of cases that are appearing, and the fact that more and more cases are appearing in different countries."

President Barack Obama said the threat of spreading infections is cause for concern but "not a cause for alarm."

The WHO set its pandemic alert level at level 3, which means there is an animal virus that occasionally causes human cases but that doesn't spread well between people. If the WHO raises it to 4 or 5, that signals that the swine flu virus is becoming increasingly adept at spreading between humans. That move could lead governments to set trade, travel and other restrictions aimed at limiting the disease's spread.

In Luxembourg, European Union Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou urged Europeans to postpone nonessential travel to parts of the United States and Mexico affected by swine flu, toning down earlier comments referring to all of North America.

"I meant a travel advisory, not a travel ban, for travel to Mexico City and those states in the United States where we have outbreaks" of swine flu, he said.

The EU health commissioner only makes recommendations to the 27 member countries; they must make a final decision to set travel advisories through their foreign ministries.

Dr. Richard Besser, acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said the EU recommendation was not warranted. "At this point I would not put a travel restriction or recommendation against coming to the United States."

A top German holiday tour operator said it was suspending charter flights to Mexico City.

"These are early days. It's quite clear that there is a potential for this virus to become a pandemic and threaten globally," WHO spokesman Peter Cordingley told AP Television News.

Spain's first swine flu case — confirmed by the WHO — was a young man in the town of Almansa who recently returned from Mexico for university studies and is responding well to treatment, said Health Minister Trinidad Jimenez. Neither the young man nor any of the 20 other people under observation for the virus were in serious condition.

Cordingley singled out air travel as an easy way the virus could spread, noting that the WHO estimates that up to 500,000 people are on planes at any time.

New Zealand was testing 13 students, their parents and teachers who were showing flu-like symptoms after returning from Mexico, said Health Minister Tony Ryall. Britain, Israel, France, Brazil, Switzerland and Sweden were also conducting tests.

At Germany's bustling Frankfurt Airport, people suspected of having the disease are being examined before getting off planes, said the health minister for Hesse state, Juergen Banzer. This policy has been in effect since Saturday at continental Europe's second-busiest airport, after Charles de Gaulle in Paris.

Governments in Asia — with potent memories of SARS and avian flu outbreaks — heeded the warning amid global fears of a pandemic.

Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines dusted off thermal scanners used during the 2003 SARS crisis and were checking for signs of fever among passengers arriving from North America. South Korea and Indonesia introduced similar screening.

In Malaysia, health workers in face masks took the temperatures of passengers as they arrived on a flight from Los Angeles.

Russia, Hong Kong and Taiwan said visitors returning from flu-affected areas with fevers would be quarantined.

Australian Health Minister Nicola Roxon said pilots on international flights would be required to file a report noting any flu-like symptoms among passengers before being allowed to land in Australia.

China said anyone experiencing flu-like symptoms within two weeks of arrival had to report to authorities.

India will start screening people arriving from Mexico, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Spain, Britain and France for flu-like symptoms, said Vineet Chawdhry, a top Health Ministry official. It also will contact people who have arrived from Mexico and other affected countries in the past 10 days to check for the symptoms, he said.

Some officials cautioned that the checks might not be enough.

The virus could move between people before any symptoms show up, said John Simon, a scientific adviser to Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection.

Thomas Tsang, controller for Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection, said the government and universities aim to develop a test for the new flu strain in a week or two that will return results in four to six hours, compared with existing tests that can take 2-3 days.

China and Russia banned imports of pork and pork products from Mexico and three U.S. states that have reported cases of swine flu, and other governments were increasing their screening of pork imports.

Indonesia, which was hit hardest by bird flu, said it was banning all pork imports.

Lebanon's agriculture ministry also banned all imports of pork and pork products, excluding some canned products. It also says it will destroy any pork shipments to have entered Lebanon from a country declared infected with the swine flu virus by the WHO or countries with suspected cases.

The CDC says people cannot get the flu by eating pork or pork products.

Germany's largest tour operator, the Hannover-based TUI, suspended all charter flights to Mexico City through May 4. The suspension includes flights operated by TUI itself and also through companies 1-2 Fly, Airtours, Berge & Meer, Grebeco and L'tur.

TUI said other holiday trips to Mexico would continue to operate but would not make stops in Mexico City "for the next few weeks." Japan's largest tour agency, JTB Corp., suspended tours to Mexico at least through June 30.

Russian travel agencies said 30 percent of those planning to travel to Mexico in early May had already canceled.

At Madrid's Barajas International Airport, passengers arriving from Mexico were asked to declare where they had been and whether they had felt any cold symptoms. They were told to leave a contact address and phone number.

"Where we were, there was no real alarm but we followed what was happening on the news and we're a little bit worried," said Spaniard Filomeno Ruiz, back from vacation in Cancun.

Passengers were also urged to contact health authorities if they notice any symptoms in the 10 days following arrival.

In the airport's baggage claim area, ground crews and police wore surgical face masks. Some travelers took precautions even though they had not been in Mexico.

"Nobody has recommended it, but I've put the mask on out of precaution," said Roger Holmes of Britain, who was traveling to Tunisia from Madrid. "I'm not afraid, but it costs nothing to be careful."


On the Net:

WHO swine flu page: http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov

Box of "scorpions" failed to shield smuggler

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. Border Patrol agent who tried to import rare tortoises in a box labeled "scorpions" pleaded guilty on Tuesday to animal-trafficking charges, the Justice Department said.

It turns out that scorpions also draw an extra look from federal agents.

Rene Soliz faces a maximum one-year sentence and will resign from the Border Patrol after entering his guilty plea in Texas on charges that he illegally attempted to receive 15 Tanzanian leopard tortoises, the department said.

Under an international treaty on trade in endangered species, the tortoises are considered potentially threatened and cannot be traded without an export permit.

But they are often sold as pets and carry a market value of about $50 each, Justice Department spokesman Andrew Ames said.

Soliz in 2006 contacted a leopard tortoise dealer in Tanzania and asked to buy eight of the animals as the first deal in a long-term relationship.

In April of that year, however, a U.S. Customs inspector at New York's Kennedy Airport intercepted a package bound for Soliz, the department said, citing court statements.

"The package was labeled as containing 50 live scorpions. When a U.S. Fish and Wildlife inspector opened the package, he found 14 live leopard tortoises and one dead leopard tortoise."

The shipment lacked the required export permit, and Ames said it was clearly meant for resale: "One tortoise is a pet, 15 are not."

There are three species of scorpions also subject to trade restrictions, Ames said, meaning imported scorpions often bear scrutiny from customs agents.

(Reporting by Randall Mikkelsen, Editing by Sandra Maler)

Man jailed for urinating on woman during flight

HONOLULU – A 28-year-old man has been sentenced to three weeks in jail for urinating on a 66-year-old woman during a Continental Airlines flight last month from Los Angeles to Honolulu. Jerome Kenneth Kingzio, a resident of the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, was sentenced after pleading guilty Tuesday to assault charges in federal court in Honolulu.

The victim was headed to Hawaii on March 21 for a scuba diving vacation and was watching an in-flight movie when Kingzio stood up and began urinating on her. He had been drinking on the flight.

U.S. Attorney Edward Kubo Jr. said the woman reported that not only was her entire vacation ruined, but she continues to suffer emotionally from the incident.

The case was investigated by the FBI.

Burger King to scrap ad after complaint

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Fast food giant Burger King apologized Tuesday for an advertisement featuring a squat Mexican draped in his country's flag next to a tall American cowboy and said it would change the campaign.

Mexico's ambassador to Spain said posters released in Europe for Burger King's new Tex-Mex style "Texican whopper," a cheeseburger with chile and spicy mayonnaise, inappropriately displayed the Mexican flag, whose image is protected under national law.

The ambassador wrote a letter complaining to Burger King and requested the ad campaign be discontinued.

Burger King said the ads were meant to show a mixture of influences from the southwestern United States and Mexico, not to poke fun at Mexican culture, but said it would replace them "as soon as commercially possible."

"Burger King Corporation has made the decision to revise the Texican Whopper advertising creative out of respect for the Mexican culture and its people," it said in a statement.

"The existing campaign falls fully within the legal parameters of the United Kingdom and Spain where the commercials are being aired and were not intended to offend anyone," the company added.

A TV version of the ad shows the strapping cowboy and the pint-sized Mexican wrestler -- nicknamed "Just a Little Bit" -- living together as roommates. At one point, the American lifts up the Mexican to help him put a trophy on a high shelf.

Mexico was involved in another controversial ad campaign last year when Absolut vodka posted billboard ads in Mexico with an early 19th century map showing chunks of the United States as part of Mexico.

The campaign angered many U.S. citizens and was later dropped.

Police nab Norwegian pair during high-speed sex

OSLO (AFP) – A Norwegian man faces a heavy fine and a driving ban after police caught him having sex with his girlfriend while speeding on the motorway, police said Monday.

The unnamed couple, a 28-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman, were caught in the act late on Easter Sunday by traffic police on the E18 highway, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Oslo.

Officers who clocked the couple's silver Mazda 323 racing at 133 kilometres per hour in a 100 zone realised they were doing more than just breaking the speed limit, police told AFP.

"It was veering from one side to the other because the woman was sitting on the man's lap while he was driving and doing the act, shall we say," said Tor Stein Hagen, a superintendent with Soendre Buskerund district police.

"He couldn't see much because her back was in the way," he added.

"Why they did it on a highway with such a high risk we don't know."

After following the couple for nearly a kilometre, officers pulled the car over at a service station.

"We have taken away his driving licence because of the danger that he caused," Hagen said.

Prosecutors will decide within the next week what his punishment will be, with police having filmed the incident to use as evidence against the driver.

Hagen said he expected the man to face a fine of "several thousand Norwegian crowns" and a lengthy driving ban.

Volunteers help salamanders avoid roadway massacre

NEW HAVEN, Vt. – The black salamander with yellow spots sat on the roadside in the dark, ready to make a go of it.

But it was not on its own. It got help from an escort — one of 45 people who volunteered on a recent night to carry salamanders, frogs and newts across the road during their annual migration to mate.

On rainy nights in early spring, roads between forests and vernal pools are hopping and crawling with activity. On some nights, hundreds of amphibians cross small stretches of asphalt to mate. But many don't make it.

From rural Vermont to urban centers like Philadelphia, human escorts, called bucket brigades in some places, help amphibians make it to their mating areas without getting squashed by cars. It's part education, part conservation, and part science.

"It's an extraordinary thing and people deserve to know about it," said Warren King, a member of the Otter Creek Audubon Society, who organizes a crossing in Salisbury. "And it needs to be protected. There are sites where many of the critters that are crossing never make it."

On a recent night, University of Vermont student Kaitlin Friedman walked with other volunteers along the asphalt with flashlights and clipboards, moving wood frogs, peepers, blue-spotted, red-backed and four-toed salamanders across the road, while jotting down how many they saw. They also kept count of vehicles, and the amphibians that didn't make it, trying to identify the flattened carcasses.

"It's pretty much the one time of year where you get to see a lot of salamanders in abundance and it's just really cool," said Friedman, 20, of Long Island, New York. "Plus, you know you help them across the road, you feel like maybe you're making a small reduction in their mortality rates, maybe, just for that hour or so."

John Kart, of Richmond, and his family have been helping salamanders cross the road for five years. On a recent evening, he said his 5-year-old daughter and two friends were as excited as the salamanders as they peered into a watery ditch.

"We're a little early this year but often you come and it is just loud as all get out from all the peepers and wood frogs screaming down in the pond below," he said.

The half dozen cars that passed in an hour slowed down through the stretch of road dotted with flashlights, some stopping to ask what was going on. After two hours, the group had spotted 589 amphibians, and 97 dead ones.

But a few miles ahead, on a busier road in Monkton, the scene wasn't pretty. It was more of a slaughter. The escorts were finding more dead amphibians than live ones.

Within the first half hour they counted 20 dead spotted salamanders and 18 live ones, eight dead and four live wood frogs, seven dead peepers and one live one, four dead and one live eft or immature newt and 23 cars, said Steve Parren, a member of the Monkton Planning Commissioner, who works for the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department.

Two and half hours later, the tide turned — they had counted 205 live and 98 dead amphibians — but the numbers still troubled Parren.

"I don't think the area can persist with the level of mortality that we're seeing," Parren said.

The state is considering installing tunnels under the road for amphibians and other animals to use. The town has received a $25,000 grant to pay for the engineering. The full project could cost up to $350,000, said Parren.

Similar tunnels were installed in Amherst, Mass., in 1987, and have proved 70 to 80 percent effective, said Scott Jackson, a wildlife biologist at the University of Massachusetts.

But some wonder why anyone would go to such lengths to help salamanders.

The red-backed salamanders are the most abundant backboned animal in the forest, said Jackson.

"Even if don't know what would happen if they all died out at once, we could imagine some kind of ripple effect on the rest of the ecosystem because they serve as both predator and prey and are probably very important in terms of nutrient cycling in the forest floor," he said.

For Parren it's about preserving what is there.

"For me it's more we're losing the national heritage that belongs there," he said.

Police: Woman drugs boss's coffee so he'll 'chill'

BRYANT, Ark. – Police said a woman has been arrested for allegedly slipping some tranquilizers into her boss's coffee because she felt "he needed to chill out." Police said the 24-year-old woman admitted to detectives that she slipped the drugs into veteranarian John Duckett's drink. Officers said Duckett knew something was wrong shortly after drinking some of the coffee Tuesday morning.

Officers said the woman cleaned the cages at the the Reynolds Road Animal Clinic.

A judge set bond at $25,000 Friday and a jailer said the woman was still being held Friday. Her next court appearance is scheduled for April 21.

Information from: KLRT-TV, http://www.fox16.com

High prevalence of child marriage in India

HONG KONG (Reuters) – A large proportion of women in India were married when they were still children, a study has found, and researchers warned that such unions carried higher risks of unwanted pregnancies and female sterilization.

Nearly all the women who were married before they reached the legal age of 18 reported that they used no contraception before they had their first child, according to the study, which was published in The Lancet.

UNICEF defines child marriage as marriage before 18 years of age and such a practice has been increasingly viewed as a violation of human rights.

Marriage at a very young age carries grave health consequences for both the girl and her children and it is well documented that adolescent mothers are more likely to experience complications such as obstetric fistula.

Researchers analyzed data from a national family health survey that was conducted from 2005 to 2006 in India. The survey involved 22,807 Indian women who were aged between 20 and 24 at the time of the survey.

Of these, 22.6 percent were married before they were 16, 44.5 percent were married when they were between 16 and 17, and 2.6 percent were married before they turned 13.

"Women who were married as children remained significantly more likely to have had three or more childbirths, a repeat childbirth in less than 24 months, multiple unwanted pregnancies, pregnancy termination, and sterilization," wrote the researchers, led by Anita Raj at the Boston University School of Public Health.

India introduced laws against child marriage in 1929 and set the legal age for marriage at 12 years. The legal age for marriage was increased to 18 years in 1978.

While the practice of child marriage has decreased slowly, its prevalence remains unacceptably high, and rural, poor, less educated girls and those from central or eastern regions of the country were most vulnerable to the practice, the researchers wrote.

Such findings indicate that child marriage affects not only adolescents aged 16 to 17 years, but also large numbers of pubescent girls aged 14 to 15 years, and show that existing policies and economic development gains have failed to help rural and poor populations, the researchers wrote.

They attributed the high numbers of sterilization in young women married as children to them having their desired number of children at an earlier age.

But it was also indicative of inadequate fertility control, which was evident from the high numbers of unwanted pregnancies among these women.

They also warned that sterilization might reduce condom use in such couples, which would heighten the risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

Child-marriage prevention programmes should be broadened to include interventions for women married as children and men who might pursue children for marriage, the researchers added.

(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

Mich. woman marks her 108th or 111th birthday

FLINT TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Don't ask Mattie Caldwell how many candles go on her birthday cake. "I don't remember," she said. Medicare records indicate Caldwell's birth date is March 5, 1901. An old family Bible gives the same date but three years earlier, in 1898. And there's no legal record of her birth because she was born at home.

In any case, Caldwell is celebrating this week with friends and family at her home in Genesee County's Flint Township, about 55 miles northwest of Detroit.

"It's special," she said.

The great-great-great-grandmother to at least seven — she stopped counting a while ago — grew up on a farm in rural Mississippi and relatives say she never learned to read or write. She was the oldest of seven children, and the only one still alive.

"They didn't send us to school too much," Caldwell told The Flint Journal. "Father had us working in the fields."

She later moved to Gary, Ind., with her husband and had one daughter, both of whom are deceased.

Caldwell uses oxygen, and a hip injury in 2005 left the avid dancer using a wheelchair. She says she has one more dance left in her, but won't break it out yet.

"I don't know when the Lord will be ready for me, but when he gets ready, I've got to move," she said. "I'm going to dance for him, too."


Information from: The Flint Journal, http://www.mlive.com/flint

No $#$%##! LA County tries for cuss-free week

$#$%##! LA County tries for cuss-free week

LOS ANGELES – Pay no attention to that eerie silence in the nation's most populous county this week; it will simply be the sound of 10 million people not cussing.

At least that's the result McKay Hatch is hoping for once his campaign to clear the air is recognized by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

On Tuesday, the board is scheduled to issue a proclamation by Supervisor Michael Antonovich making the first week in March No Cussing Week.

That would mean no blue language from the Mojave desert, where it gets hot as $&# in the summer, to the Pacific Ocean, where on a winter's day it can get colder and nastier than %$#!

Not that 15-year-old Hatch expects complete compliance. When his No Cussing Club meets at South Pasadena High School on Wednesdays it's not unusual for a nonmember to throw open the door and fire off a torrent of four-letter words. He's also been the target of organized harassment by pro-cussers.

And Antonovich's county motion carries no penalties.

"But it's a good reminder for all of us, not just young people but everybody, to be respectful to one another and watch the words we use," said the supervisor's spokesman, Tony Bell.

The county isn't the first entity to try to put the lid on swearing. Hatch's hometown of South Pasadena declared itself a cuss-free zone for a week last March, and two years ago a high school in Canada threatened to suspend repeat cussers.

Hatch has lofty goals.

"Next year I want to try to get California to have a cuss-free week. And then, who knows, maybe worldwide," said the 10th grader, who believes if people treat each other with more civility they can better work together to solve bigger problems.

He said his campaign began to form about the time he hit seventh grade when he noticed his friends beginning to swear, something his family didn't allow.

He formed the No Cussing Club and invited others to join. Soon the group had a Web site, bright orange T-shirts, a hip hop theme song and inquiries from all over from people interested in joining. He estimates 20,000 people have formed similar clubs.

"It's not about forcing anyone to stop, just to bring awareness," he says of the movement. "If you can do a week without cussing, maybe you can do two weeks. And then maybe a month."

No Cussing Club: http://www.nocussing.com/