Nigerian cook survives two days under sea in shipwreck air bubble

By Joe Brock

WARRI, Nigeria (Reuters) - After two days trapped in freezing cold water and breathing from an air bubble in an upturned tugboat under the ocean, Harrison Okene was sure he was going to die. Then a torch light pierced the darkness.

Ship's cook Okene, 29, was on board the Jascon-4 tugboat when it capsized on May 26 due to heavy Atlantic ocean swells around 30 km (20 miles) off the coast of Nigeria, while stabilizing an oil tanker filling up at a Chevron platform.

Of the 12 people on board, divers recovered 10 dead bodies while a remaining crew member has not been found.

Somehow Okene survived, breathing inside a four foot high bubble of air as it shrunk in the waters slowly rising from the ceiling of the tiny toilet and adjoining bedroom where he sought refuge, until two South African divers eventually rescued him.

"I was there in the water in total darkness just thinking it's the end. I kept thinking the water was going to fill up the room but it did not," Okene said, parts of his skin peeling away after days soaking in the salt water.

"I was so hungry but mostly so, so thirsty. The salt water took the skin off my tongue," he said. Seawater got into his mouth but he had nothing to eat or drink throughout his ordeal.

At 4:50 a.m. on May 26, Okene says he was in the toilet when he realized the tugboat was beginning to turn over. As water rushed in and the Jascon-4 flipped, he forced open the metal door.

"As I was coming out of the toilet it was pitch black so we were trying to link our way out to the water tidal (exit hatch)," Okene told Reuters in his home town of Warri, a city in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta.

"Three guys were in front of me and suddenly water rushed in full force. I saw the first one, the second one, the third one just washed away. I knew these guys were dead."

What he didn't know was that he would spend the next two and a half days trapped under the sea praying he would be found.

Turning away from his only exit, Okene was swept along a narrow passageway by surging water into another toilet, this time adjoining a ship's officers cabin, as the overturned boat crashed onto the ocean floor. To his amazement he was still breathing.

FISH FEASTED ON THE DEAD

Okene, wearing only his underpants, survived around a day in the four foot square toilet, holding onto the overturned washbasin to keep his head out of the water.

He built up the courage to open the door and swim into the officer's bedroom and began pulling off the wall paneling to use as a tiny raft to lift himself out of the freezing water.

He sensed he was not alone in the darkness.

"I was very, very cold and it was black. I couldn't see anything," says Okene, staring into the middle distance.

"But I could perceive the dead bodies of my crew were nearby. I could smell them. The fish came in and began eating the bodies. I could hear the sound. It was horror."

What Okene didn't know was a team of divers sent by Chevron and the ship's owners, West African Ventures, were searching for crew members, assumed by now to be dead.

Then in the afternoon of May 28, Okene heard them.

"I heard a sound of a hammer hitting the vessel. Boom, boom, boom. I swam down and found a water dispenser. I pulled the water filter and I hammered the side of the vessel hoping someone would hear me. Then the diver must have heard a sound."

Divers broke into the ship and Okene saw light from a head torch of someone swimming along the passageway past the room.

"I went into the water and tapped him. I was waving my hands and he was shocked," Okene said, his relief still visible.

He thought he was at the bottom of the sea, although the company says it was 30 meters below.

The diving team fitted Okene with an oxygen mask, diver's suit and helmet and he reached the surface at 19:32, more than 60 hours after the ship sank, he says.

Okene says he spent another 60 hours in a decompression chamber where his body pressure was returned to normal. Had he just been exposed immediately to the outside air he would have died.

The cook describes his extraordinary survival story as a "miracle" but the memories of his time in the watery darkness still haunt him and he is not sure he will return to the sea.

"When I am at home sometimes it feels like the bed I am sleeping in is sinking. I think I'm still in the sea again. I jump up and I scream," Okene said, shaking his head.

"I don't know what stopped the water from filling that room. I was calling on God. He did it. It was a miracle."

(Editing by Tim Cocks and Giles Elgood)

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You’re doing it wrong: Only 5 percent wash hands the right way, study says

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Gold extended losses into a second session on Friday as strong U.S. data stoked uncertainty over the outlook for the Federal Reserve's massive bond-buying stimulus. A pull back in bond purchases would hurt gold, seen as a hedge against inflation. Bullion, down 17 percent for the year, has been hit by investor outflows in gold exchange traded funds and signs of softening demand in key buyers India and China. "There is uncertainty about the Fed tapering," said Brian Lan, managing director of Singapore-based dealer GoldSilver Central Pte Ltd. ...

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Pa. man finds reptile near sewer, offers gator aid

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Philadelphia man has offered a little gator aid — calling animal control authorities to help rescue a juvenile alligator he found near a sewer grate on his street.

Joe Malseed saw the 18-inch reptile this week in the city's Fishtown neighborhood and snapped its photo before calling for help. He says the alligator was in a puddle and appeared to be emerging from a nearby sewer. He says it was docile until a man tried to get a closer look and it hissed.

Police took the reptile to the city's Animal Care & Control Team. The reptile has been named Allie-Gator.

The animal control team said Wednesday despite the name it hasn't determined the alligator's gender because, "Who's going to do that job?"

Allie-Gator will remain with the team until a permanent home is found.

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Chinese farmer gets 5 days in jail for his story on alien invasion

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Gold extended losses into a second session on Friday as strong U.S. data stoked uncertainty over the outlook for the Federal Reserve's massive bond-buying stimulus. A pull back in bond purchases would hurt gold, seen as a hedge against inflation. Bullion, down 17 percent for the year, has been hit by investor outflows in gold exchange traded funds and signs of softening demand in key buyers India and China. "There is uncertainty about the Fed tapering," said Brian Lan, managing director of Singapore-based dealer GoldSilver Central Pte Ltd. ...

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Boston woman pays $560,000 for 2 parking spots

BOSTON (AP) — Parking is such a precious commodity in Boston that one woman was willing to pay $560,000 for two off-street spaces near her home.

Lisa Blumenthal won the spots in the city's Back Bay neighborhood during an on-site auction Thursday held in a steady rain by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS had seized the spots from a man who owed back taxes.

Blumenthal, who lives in a multimillion-dollar home near the parking spaces, tells The Boston Globe (http://b.globe.com/13KqntI ) she didn't expect the bidding to go quite so high for the spots she says will come in handy for guests and workers.

The record for a single spot in Boston is $300,000.

The median price of a single-family home in Massachusetts is $313,000.

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Information from: The Boston Globe, http://www.boston.com/globe

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NJ town OKs boardwalk ban on saggy pants

WILDWOOD, N.J. (AP) — Hindsight will soon be punishable by a $25 fine in this Jersey Shore resort.

Wildwood passed a law Wednesday night banning overly saggy pants on the boardwalk, prompted by numerous complaints from longtime visitors about having to see people's rear ends hanging out in public.

Subsequent violations of the law, which could take effect as early as July 2, could result in fines as high as $200, and 40 hours of community service.

Civil libertarians say the law is unconstitutional and predict it will be overturned if challenged in court.

But Mayor Ernest Troiano Jr. said the issue is simple.

"This is just adding a little bit of decency to our town," he said. "It's amazing — and this is a pun — how far decency has fallen through the cracks."

Wildwood is a resort town near the southernmost tip of New Jersey. It is famous for its doo-wop '50s musical culture, its neon art-deco motels, and ridiculously wide beaches that are free — a rarity in New Jersey, which forces most other beachgoers to pay for the privilege.

The law passed unanimously, and no one spoke against it. Several residents strongly supported the law.

"It's long overdue," said Mary Erceg. "People who choose to dress like that offend any person. There has to be some common standard of decency. It offends all of us."

"We need it," added resident Dennis Flynn. "This is our city. You have to respect it."

Known popularly as "sagging," the trend originated in the U.S. prison system, where inmates are not allowed to wear belts. It was popularized by hip-hop artists and embraced by youths.

Authorities in suburbs of New Orleans, Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit, Miami and Jacksonville, Fla., are among those who have passed laws banning overly droopy pants.

Bathing suits are already prohibited for both sexes on the Wildwood boardwalk, unless covered up by other clothing.

City Commissioner Pete Byron said the city is not trying to be the fashion police.

"There's a line that gets crossed between being a fashion statement and being obnoxious," he said. "Families can feel threatened."

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey has declined to take a position on the law, but other ACLU chapters around the country have said such laws are unconstitutional.

Troiano said he hopes no one will have to be cited by police for violating the ordinance. Rather, he said, a well-placed word from an officer should suffice to convince boardwalk patrons with overly low-slung jeans to hike them up.

Police Chief Steven Long said his officers will respond appropriately when they see violations.

"The ultimate goal is compliance," he said. "We're just trying to make the city a better place to visit."

"The city is not going to be out hunting these kids down," the mayor said. "We're not going to be out there with a tape measure. But we know what's right and not right. If we don't make an attempt to clean our town up, who's going to?"

___

Follow Wayne Parry at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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NJ town approves boardwalk ban on saggy pants

WILDWOOD, N.J. (AP) — Wearing your pants too low in one New Jersey shore resort town is about to get expensive.

Wildwood has passed a law banning overly saggy pants, providing for fines of between $25 and $200 for violators.

The law was passed Wednesday. It prohibits pants that droop 3 inches below the waist, exposing skin or underwear.

Mayor Ernest Troiano (troy-AHN'-oh) says many longtime visitors to the popular shore town have complained about having to look at people's rear ends "hanging out" while walking the boardwalk.

Visitor Frank Krueger says he wants a "family atmosphere" in Wildwood. His wife, Denise, says saggy pants are "disgusting."

Civil libertarians say the law is unconstitutional and likely will be overturned if it's challenged in court.

The ban takes effect July 2 and applies only to the boardwalk.

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Texas gun range offers target practice from a helicopter

A rifleman demonstrates the helicopter target practice course. (helicoptersniper.com)The gun debate went to new heights in one Texas town, where the owners of a gun range are letting customers take part in a target practice from inside a helicopter.

"It's like the ultimate video game," Dan Claassen of Helicopter Sniper Adventure told local ABC affiliate WFAA.

And while the concept may sound extreme to some, Claassen says a number of safety precautions have been put into place.

"It's not like we're endangering anybody's life with our flight patterns or our techniques," he said. "Everything is totally safe in that regard."

It’s also entirely legal under Federal Aviation Administration and local county regulations.

Customers pay $795 to take part in the firefight flight, which includes a safety training class, awards ceremony and lunch. Well, and unlike an actual firefight, no returning fire. The individual flights are relatively short, lasting about 15 minutes per person. Still, that’s enough time to fire off an estimated 500 rounds of .233 semiautomatic rifle ammunition.

On the company's website, a video advertising the service says, "This weekend, have a few rounds with the boys."

A safety officer is onboard all flights.

"It's not like we're hitting this every day," Claassen told the station. "So it's not noise pollution. So there is no noise. It's the world safest and quietest helicopter."

Still, some neighbors in the small North Texas town of Aubrey say they were unaware of the airborne shoots until they literally heard the assault rifle fire raining down from above.

"The first time they were hovering right over our two acres, shooting at whatever," said local resident Michael Lauer. "You really didn't know were they shooting at me."

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Guide dog saves man and woman from swerving vehicle (VIDEO)

An alert guide dog saved a California man and woman on Monday from an out-of-control vehicle swerving backward down a public sidewalk at high speed.

Todd Jurek and Danielle Alvarado are both employees of Guide Dogs for the Blind, a company that trains service dogs to assist visually impaired individuals. They were taking a O’Neil, an 18-month-old Labrador retriever, out for a training walk in San Rafael, Calif., on Monday morning when the near-death experience occurred.

The San Jose Mercury News reports that a 93-year-old woman was reportedly trying to parallel park her vehicle when she lost control and began driving the car in reverse, smashing a store window.

"It was just an unbelievable sight to see something going backwards, barreling down the sidewalk," Jurek told the paper.

Jurek and Alvarado, who was blindfolded as part of the exercise, did not see the car barreling down the sidewalk behind them. But O’Neil sensed something was going on and jerked his head backward. The motion caught Jurek’s attention who then also looked backward just in time to see the car.

The entire incident was captured on a security camera from a local business.

"He probably heard the commotion before the window popped," Jurek said of O’Neil’s timely response.

Amazingly, no one was hurt in the incident, including the driver, who reportedly hit a street bench and stop light before coming to a stop.

Despite everyone walking away unharmed, San Rafael Police Sgt. Raul Aguilar said his department is requesting that the Department of Motor Vehicles conduct a re-examination of the driver to make sure she is qualified to operate a vehicle.

Jurek said O’Neil underwent a series of tests on Tuesday to ensure he was not traumatized by the incident. Guide Dogs for the Blind says it hopes to have the courageous pup placed with an individual sometime in the coming weeks.

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Group wants to knit cover for Pa. Warhol bridge

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Andy Warhol's art doesn't often conjure warm and fuzzy images — but a proposed tribute to him just might.

An arts group wants to cover a downtown Pittsburgh bridge named for Warhol with knitted blankets.

Allegheny County Council must sign off on the plan. But if it goes forward, the Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh will use machine-knitted blankets to cover the bridge's towering superstructure while individual blankets knitted by more than 1,200 volunteers will be used to cover its walkways.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (http://bit.ly/11yVnv0) hopes to cover the bridge in mid-August and leave the blankets in place for about a month.

After the blankets are removed, they'll be washed and distributed to homeless shelters, nursing homes and animal shelters.

Knit-the-Bridge leader Amanda Gross says, "The point is to knit stronger communities."

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New diet craze offers five days of feasting for two days of famine

By Constance Watson

LONDON (Reuters) - Forget abandoning carbohydrates or detoxing. The new dieting craze sweeping Britain and taking off in the United States lets people eat whatever they like - but only five days a week.

"The Fast Diet", also known as the 5:2 diet, is the brainchild of TV medical journalist Michael Mosley and journalist Mimi Spencer and allows people to eat what they want for five days but only eat 600 calories a day on the other two.

Their book, "The Fast Diet", has topped bestselling book lists in Britain and the United States this year and been reprinted more than a dozen times.

Mosley said the diet is based on work by British and U.S. scientists who found intermittent fasting helped people lose more fat, increase insulin sensitivity and cut cholesterol which should mean reduced risk of heart disease and diabetes.

He tried this eating regime for a BBC television science program called "Eat, Fast, Live Longer" last August after finding out his cholesterol level was too high and his blood sugar in the diabetic range. He was stunned by the results.

"I started doing intermittent fasting a year ago, lost 8 kgs (18 pounds) of fat over 3 months and my blood results went back to normal," Mosley told Reuters.

Mosley said he had been amazed at the way the diet had taken off with a list of websites set up by followers of the 5:2 diet or variations of the eating regime to share their experiences.

Following the success of "The Fast Diet", Spencer joined forces with dietitian Sarah Schenker to bring out "The Fast Diet Recipe Book" in April which has topped amazon.co.uk's food and drink list with 150 recipes containing under 300 calories.

Eating a 600 calorie daily diet - about a quarter of a normal healthy adult's intake - could consist of two eggs for breakfast, grilled chicken and lettuce for lunch, and fish with rice noodles for dinner with nothing to drink but water, black coffee or tea.

ONE DAY AT A TIME

Mosley put the diet's success down to the fact it is psychologically attractive and leads to steady drop in weight with an average weekly loss of 1 pound (0.46kg) for women and slightly more for men.

"The problem with standard diets is that you feel like you are constantly having to exercise restraint and that means you are thinking about food all the time, which becomes self-defeating," said Mosley.

"On this regime you are only really on a diet two days a week. It is also extremely flexible and simple."

Britain's National Health Service (NHS) initially expressed doubts about the diet and its longterm effects, saying side effects could include sleeping difficulties, bad breath, irritability, anxiety, and daytime sleepiness.

But as the popularity of the 5:2 diet has grown and become one of the most searched diets on the Internet, the NHS has started to look again at the diet and its effects.

On its website last month the NHS said the British Dietetic Association (BDA) reviewed a 2011 study by researchers at the UK's University Hospital of South Manchester that suggested intermittent fasting could help lower the risk of certain obesity-related cancers such as breast cancer.

"The increasing popularity of the 5:2 diet should lead to further research of this kind," the BDA said in a statement.

Schenker, a sports and media dietitian who works with football clubs and food companies, said it was a shame that the NHS had criticized the eating regime that had proved such a success with so many people.

"We are in the midst of an obesity crisis and you need to balance up which is worse - intermittent fasting of staying obese?" Schenker told Reuters.

Despite concerns raised by the NHS, the 5:2 diet has been widely praised by those who follow it.

Deb Thomas, 50, a management coach from London, said she has followed the diet for six months and dropped a couple of dress sizes. This has also inspired her husband to join her in fasting two days a week.

"It is such an easy diet to follow that fits into my way of life," Thomas said. "You have a tough day of not eating but you know the next day you can eat normally again, and that keeps you going."

(Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

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NJ Transit probes bizarre bus trip into New York

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Some New Jersey bus commuters apparently have gotten an unexpected tour of the New York metro area they'd rather forget.

New Jersey Transit is investigating why a trip that normally takes about 45 minutes took nearly two hours more Thursday when the driver took a circuitous route into Manhattan's Port Authority bus terminal.

A passenger on the ill-fated trip tells Newark's The Star-Ledger newspaper (http://bit.ly/162JhxE ) the driver seemed lost and passed the Secaucus (sih-KAW'-kuhs) train station several times, drove past outlet stores and eventually crossed the George Washington Bridge. Normally, the bus would go through the Lincoln Tunnel, several miles south.

Aileen Iosso tells the newspaper when passengers asked to be let off after the driver passed the bus terminal the driver yelled at them.

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Information from: The (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger, http://www.nj.com

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'Desperate father' spray paints British queen's portrait

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) - A man defaced a portrait of Britain's Queen Elizabeth with paint at London's Westminster Abbey on Thursday, with a campaign group for fathers' rights saying he was one of its members making a "desperate" plea to the monarch for help.

The painting of the 87-year-old monarch, "The Coronation Theatre: Portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II" by London-based artist Ralph Heimans, had been part of a display marking the 60 years since the queen's coronation in 1953.

"In an incident at lunchtime today, a visitor to the Abbey sprayed paint on the Ralph Heimans portrait of the queen presently on display in the Chapter House," an Abbey spokesman said.

"Until work can be done to remedy the damage, it will, very regrettably, not be possible to have the painting on public view."

London's Metropolitan Police said security guards had detained a suspect at the scene. Officers arrested the 41-year-old man on suspicion of criminal damage and he has been taken to a central London police station for questioning.

Fathers4Justice (F4J), a group which supports divorced fathers seeking greater access to their children, said one of its members had carried out the attack to bring attention to his plight ahead of Father's Day on Sunday.

"We understand that a desperate father belonging to Fathers4Justice has attempted to write the word 'help' on a portrait of the queen in Westminster Abbey," the group said in a statement, adding it was not directly involved.

F4J named the man as Tim Haries from Doncaster in northern England. "Tim Haries has lost all contact with his children and felt he had nothing to lose by appealing directly to the queen for help by spraying his plea onto her portrait," said Campaign Director Jolly Stanesby.

F4J gained notoriety in 2004 when a campaigner dressed as Batman climbed the queen's Buckingham Palace residence and another threw purple flour bombs at former Prime Minister Tony Blair while he addressed parliament.

In 2006, two of its members were arrested after scaling London's Westminster Abbey with a crucified dummy Jesus Christ. Earlier that year, the campaign group said it had decided to disband after reports that police had foiled a plot to kidnap Blair's five-year-old son Leo.

A new official campaign group reformed some years later.

Last week, the queen and senior members of the royal family attended a service of celebration at the Abbey to mark the diamond anniversary of her coronation.

(Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

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Animal clinic rescues 6 squirrels with tails fused together

(Animal Clinic of Regina/Facebook)
It was a strange sight: six otherwise adorable squirrels with their tails fused together. The “squirrel kings” formation, as it’s called, resulted in the rodents connected to each other from behind, unable to escape their bonds and headed for death or dismemberment.
The squirrels were lucky to be discovered by a caring individual who brought them to the Animal Clinic of Regina in Regina, Saskatchewan, where employees were able to methodically separate the squirrels from each other without permanently damaging them.
“It just doesn’t happen too often,” Dr. Steven Kruzeniski told Metro Canada. “It’s a pretty rare thing to see, but I have seen it happen once before.”
So how exactly did the young squirrels end up physically bound to each other? Kruzeniski said they were likely all resting near each other in a pine tree when sap dripped onto their tails and fused them together as it hardened and grafted with their fur.
After the squirrels were brought into the clinic, the team of veterinarians sedated them and removed their matted tail fur. During the procedure, the squirrels appeared to rest peacefully, with their mouths hanging open and their forearms curled up. The entire procedure reportedly lasted about 20 minutes.
After the successful separation, the squirrels were given antibiotics and monitored for a few days. The vets fed and hydrated the animals to make sure they were nursed back to full health and had not suffered any infections as a result of the procedure. Finally, they were all released back into the city’s green space.
"If they get really tangled up, they generally can't feed as effectively, and their tails can become infected and have to be amputated," Kruzeniski said. "In this case their tails were a bit raw, but they weren't too bad and we were able to save all of them."
(Regina Animal Clinic/Facebook)
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NY librarian back on job after storm-forced firing

ROUND LAKE, N.Y. (AP) — A librarian in a small upstate New York village is back on the job two weeks after she was fired for closing the library 40 minutes early amid a tornado warning.

Theresa Marchione (mahr-shee-OHN') shut down the Round Lake Library on May 29 as nasty weather headed her way. Meteorologists later confirmed a tornado touched down 13 miles away.

The library's board fired Marchione two days later, and people in the village 20 miles north of Albany protested loudly.

On Wednesday night, seven of the eight library board members quit. A new board quickly reinstated Marchione with back pay. The decision was met with a standing ovation from the crowd gathered at the meeting.

Marchione hasn't spoken publicly and didn't attend the meeting.

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Irish PM says received letters in blood over planned abortion law

By Padraic Halpin

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's prime minister said he had been sent letters written in blood and been branded a murderer by opponents of his government's plans to allow limited access to abortion, an issue that has polarized the country for decades.

Enda Kenny's government agreed draft legislation in April to allow for limited access to abortion where a woman's life is in danger, including the threat of suicide, following months of protests from both sides of the debate.

Ministers signed off on the completed legislation at a meeting on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the government said, and it hopes to enact it before parliament adjourns in July.

After about 40,000 people massed outside government offices in Dublin on Saturday in the largest anti-abortion demonstration in traditionally Roman Catholic Ireland's history, Kenny delivered a trenchant defense of the plans.

"I am now being branded by personnel around the country as being a murderer, that I am going to have on my soul the death of 20 million babies," Kenny told parliament on Wednesday, detailing how he had been sent items of Catholic regalia and threatening messages.

"I'm getting medals, scapulars, plastic fetuses, letters written in blood, telephone calls all over the system, and it's not confined to me."

A two-decade debate over how Ireland should deal with a Supreme Court ruling that abortion be permitted when a woman's life was in danger was re-opened last year after the death of a woman who was denied an abortion of her dying fetus.

Successive governments had sidestepped acting on the ruling, the result of a challenge by a 14-year-old rape victim in the so-called "X-case" of 1992 to a constitutional amendment nine years earlier that intended to ban abortion in all instances.

"LURID CLAIMS"

Kenny has been met by resistance from some among his conservative Fine Gael party as well as a concerted campaign by Ireland's once powerful Catholic Church which is putting pressure on lawmakers.

Kenny, midway through his five-year term, has kept all but one of Fine Gael's 76 members of parliament on side, even as he pushes through tough austerity measures required under an EU-IMF bailout. He has said he expects the government to vote as one on the issue, signaling any defectors could be expelled from his party.

In a strongly worded statement on Tuesday, the Catholic Bishops of Ireland accused the government of misleading people on the abortion legislation and said every citizen "should be deeply concerned" by the changes proposed.

Rocked by a series of child abuse scandals, the church's influence over society has waned since the 1980s and a younger, secular generation wants to end the practice of Irish women travelling to nearby Britain to terminate their pregnancies.

Kenny, a regular Mass-goer who delivered a once-unthinkable rebuke to the Vatican over its handling of the abuse scandals two years ago, said he did not agree with many of the statements that the bishops had made.

"My job as taoiseach (prime minister) is to lead the government in governing for the people of the country. That is not confined to any sector of the people, it is for all of the people," he said to applause from some members of parliament.

"Therefore I am proud to stand here as a public representative, as a taoiseach who happens to be a Catholic but not a Catholic taoiseach."

Opponents said Kenny's allegations of unpleasant behavior by critics of the government's abortion proposal were aimed at discrediting the anti-abortion movement.

"The taoiseach is making lurid claims again - just after the largest ever pro-life demonstration in Ireland, the National Vigil for Life last Saturday," Cora Sherlock, spokeswoman for anti-abortion group Pro Life Campaign, said in a statement.

"This is nothing more than spin designed to distract from the Bill. It's a disgusting attempt to demonize the pro-life movement rather than debate the proposed legislation."

(Editing by Pravin Char)

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Danish supermarket got drugs instead of bananas

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Drug traffickers back in Colombia must be going bananas over how their shipment ended up at Danish supermarkets and not on the streets.

Police say employees at the supermarket chain Coop got a big surprise when they opened banana boxes from the South American country and found about 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of what police believe is cocaine.

The powder was discovered last week in Aarhus, western Denmark, when employees noticed that some of the boxes were heavier than others.

Coop spokesman Jens Juul says more bags with white powder were found Wednesday in a separate shipment from Colombia at a central dispatch facility in suburban Copenhagen.

Juul told the Danish news agency Ritzau the company has contacted their Colombian supplier.

Police are investigating, but haven't made any arrests.

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N.J. express bus gets lost on regular route to NYC

Which way to the Big Apple? (photo: Thinkstock) It was supposed to be just another morning bus ride in the great state of New Jersey. Instead, an "express" bus went on a Homeric odyssey after the driver got lost, reports NJ.com.

Depending on where they board, passengers on NJ Transit’s No. 113 express bus can normally expect a roughly 45-minute commute to New York City, covering about 23 miles. On Thursday, the bus arrived at its New York destination nearly two hours late.

This misadventure was summed up nicely by a delightfully cryptic text from passenger Aileen Iosso to her boss, according to NJ.com: "I don’t know where I am and I don’t know when I’ll be in."

So, what the heck happened? It appears the driver, whose name was not released, simply got lost. When passengers tried to assist the driver, she became upset, according to NJ.com.

From the site:

During the convoluted trip, Iosso said, the bus was on Route 3, went by the Secaucus Junction train station on the Turnpike "three or four times," passed the Secaucus outlets and pulled over before the entrance to the George Washington Bridge.

"People were trying to help her, but she wouldn’t listen," Iosso said of the driver.

She said the bus crossed the bridge and the driver was directed down the West Side Highway in Manhattan, but stopped to ask where she could find the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Later, according to NJ.com, when a passenger asked to be let off the bus, the driver allegedly asked, "Are you threatening me?"

Nancy Snider, spokeswoman for NJ Transit, apologized for the snafu. "We apologize to our customers for their experience and we plan on reaching out to them," she said. "Appropriate action will be taken pending the outcome of the investigation."

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Lawsuit: Man allowed to curse on NY ticket payment

LIBERTY, N.Y. (AP) — A 22-year-old Connecticut man who wrote obscenities and "Tyranny" on his speeding ticket payment claims in a federal lawsuit that his free speech rights were violated when he was arrested.

William Barboza is suing two police officers in the Catskill-area village of Liberty over the arrest.

Barboza had replaced the word "Liberty" with "Tyranny" and added an obscenity-laced insult on the payment form accompanying an August 2012 ticket.

The lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union says the Fairfield County man was ordered to town court, where he was handcuffed and arrested for aggravated harassment. He posted $200 bail that day. The charge was dismissed in March.

The NYCLU argues that offensive language is protected speech.

There was no immediate comment from Liberty police.

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Arizona nonagenarian sets weightlifting world record

By David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) - A barrel-chested 91-year-old strongman from Arizona shattered the world record for the bench press in his dwindling age group, with a lift of 187.2 pounds - some 50 pounds more than the previous record.

Sy Perlis bested the record of 135 pounds set in 2005 during a national competition last weekend in Phoenix as the lone participant in the 90-year-old and over division, competition officials said.

"He's pretty amazing, there's no doubt about it," said Gus Rethwisch, president of the World Association of Benchers and Deadlifters, who witnessed Perlis' record lift. "He looks like he could be in his 70s. He's in great shape."

Perlis, who won world titles in 2010 and 2011 in the 85-year-old to 89-year-old division, told the Arizona Republic newspaper that he started hitting the weights when he was 60 years old. He did not enter a championship competition until five years ago at the suggestion of his trainer.

"It gave me the opportunity to do something to test myself for one thing, and I didn't have to run around to do it as you would in some other sports," Perlis told the newspaper.

"I got a lot of satisfaction out of it and it made me feel good and it was good for me."

Perlis said he trains five days a week with a regimen that includes weightlifting and cardiovascular work.

Perlis told the newspaper that his doctor is aware of his competitive pursuits, and has said, "If you can do it, do it."

Rethwisch said the record lift qualified Perlis for the world championships on November 5 in Reno, Nevada. Perlis has told tournament organizers he will compete.

(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Bill Trott)

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'Happy Birthday to You' belongs to us all, lawsuit says

By Bernard Vaughan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - "Happy Birthday to You," the ditty sung around the world in tribute to everyone from toddlers to centenarians, belongs to the public, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday.

The proposed class action asks a federal court to declare the song to be in the public domain and that Warner/Chappel Music Inc, the music publishing arm of Warner Music Group, return "millions of dollars of unlawful licensing fees" it has collected for reproductions and public performances of the song.

"More than 120 years after the melody to which the simple lyrics of 'Happy Birthday to You' is set was first published, defendant Warner/Chappell boldly, but wrongfully and unlawfully, insists that it owns the copyright to 'Happy Birthday to You,'" the lawsuit said.

A representative of Warner/Chappell was not immediately available to comment on the lawsuit.

The plaintiff is Good Morning To You Productions Corp, a New York company that says it is making a documentary about the song. Facing a penalty of $150,000 if it used "Happy Birthday" without permission, the company said it paid a $1,500 licensing fee in March.

Warner/Chappell has collected at least $2 million annually in licensing fees for the song, according to the lawsuit.

The song was first published in 1893 as "Good Morning to All," and was written by sisters Patty and Mildred Hill, according to the lawsuit. The public began singing the words to "Happy Birthday to You" soon after.

Warner/Chappell's copyright claim stems from its acquisition in 1998 of Birch Tree Ltd, a company that traces its roots to Clayton Summy, according to the lawsuit. Summy bought the rights to "Good Morning to All" from the Hill sisters in 1893.

Robert Brauneis, a professor at George Washington University Law School, said he searched nationwide for evidence of a copyright for a combination of the melody for "Good Morning to All" with the lyrics for "Happy Birthday to You" for an article published in 2009 but did not find any.

Investors led by Edgar Bronfman Jr. bought Warner Music Group from Time Warner Inc in 2004 and sold it to its current owner, privately held Access Industries Inc, in 2011.

(Reporting by Bernard Vaughan; Editing by Bill Trott)

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Could school gate politics replace mommy porn for women readers?

By Belinda Goldsmith

LONDON (Reuters) - A British writer whose debut novel about mothers at the school gate sparked a seven-way bidding war between publishers has attributed the overnight success of her book to striking a chord with women used to negotiating the politics of female groups.

The hype around "The Hive" led to Gill Hornby being described as publisher Little Brown's "most important new author of 2013" and NBC Universals' arthouse Focus Features snapped up the film rights even before the book's release on May 23.

Hornby said she was slightly bemused by all the attention for her book which hit the top 10 bestselling fiction list in the UK in its first week, drawing comparisons to the huge success of EL James's "Fifty Shades of Grey" series last year.

After all it is Hornby's first novel although she is far from new to publishing. She is married to Robert Harris, best-selling author of thrillers like "Enigma" and "Archangel" and her brother Nick Hornby wrote "High Fidelity" and "Fever Pitch".

Hornby, who has four children aged 12 to 22, said the book took her two years to write but was in her head for years.

"I've always been very conscious about the groups girls and women make but I was too busy living the life to write about it," Hornby told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"This book is based at a school but really it is about women and their relationships .. about ordinary, domestic life."

"The Hive" is based at a fictional school, St Ambrose Primary, in a smart English rural town, which has a new headmaster and a group of mothers committed to raising funds for his plan to build a new school library.

The fund-raising is led by the undisputed queen bee Beatrice while Heather desperately tries to be more popular and other mothers steer clear or unintentionally fuel the rivalries, one-upmanship and smugness that comes with mother-led school group.

As the cliques swerve the lunch ladder and car boot sale, the school year becomes the backdrop of various life-changing events from broken relationships, depression, to cancer scares.

Hornby, a columnist with the Daily Telegraph until 2010, said the characters were based on the six roles outlined in Rosalind Wiseman's 2002 book "Queen Bees and Wannabes" that dealt with girls' friendships and conflicts.

The six are the Queen Bee, the sidekick, wannabe, floater, target, and torn bystander.

"The book is not autobiographical and not revenge against anybody. I've always been an amused observer," said Hornby,

Hornby is working on her second book about another group of women in the same town who are 15 years older with departed children and downplays "The Hive" being hailed as starting a new genre for women who are the main buyers of fiction.

Publishers have been trying to second guess the next big trend among women readers after the phenomenal success last year of "Fifty Shades of Grey" which appealed to a wide group of older women no longer interested in the shelf loads of chicklit.

"After mummy porn, mumlit?" asked the Guardian newspaper.

"I do worry about people comparing it to "50 Shades" because there is no sex at all in my book," said Hornby.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Two-faced kitten born in Oregon

Deucy, the two-faced kitten (Guardian)

You're not seeing double. Again.

A rare, two-faced kitten was born in Amity, Ore., on Tuesday. Stephanie Durkee, the owner of both the female kitten and its mother, took the two-faced cat to a vet, who say she's in good health. (She meows "loudly from both mouths," according to the Guardian.)

Durkee told Portland's KGW-TV the kitten—named "Deucy"—has been rejected by her mother, so she's been feeding her warmed kitten formula from a syringe.

"The kids ... came in and said, 'Mom there's a kitty with two heads,'" Durkee told Portland's NBC affiliate. "And I said, 'I think you guys are just tired, you're crazy, that doesn't happen.'"

Durkee, who plans to keep Deucy, says the kitten was born at "6:11 a.m. on 6/11 under the 'Gemini' astrological sign." Durkee said she "can’t help but wonder at the 'double' coincidences surrounding Deucy’s birth."

Two-faced cats—known as Janus cats, for the two-faced Roman god who also gave us the word "January"—are unusual but not unprecedented.

In 2012, a Port Charlotte, Fla., couple's cat gave birth to a two-faced male kitten. (They named him Harvey Dent, after the two-face "Batman" character.)

Harvey, though, died after two days.

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Long-lost diary of top Hitler aide offers window into Nazi soul

By Myles Miller

WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) - U.S. officials on Thursday unveiled the 400-page diary of Alfred Rosenberg, a top aide to Adolf Hitler, who oversaw the genocide against Jews and others during World War Two.

The diary disappeared after the Nuremberg trials in 1946, sparking a nearly 70-year hunt that ended on April 5 in the upstate New York town of Lewiston, at the home of an academic named Herbert Richardson.

The diary pages, hand-written in German and not yet completely translated into English by scholars, offers a broader look at the Third Reich's policies and practices, as well as an unvarnished account of a Nazi leader's thoughts, authorities said at a news conference on Thursday.

"These 400 pages are a window into the dark soul of one of the great wrongs in human history," said John Morton, director of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, which investigates cases of missing cultural property. "It's significant because, as time marches on, there are fewer living witnesses of what happened during the Holocaust. We still don't know the full extent."

Pages of the diary, which will eventually be turned over to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., were shown to reporters, including one entry dated April 1941.

Rosenberg describes walking alone after "an important meeting" with Hitler, who told him: "Your great hour has come."

Museum senior adviser Henry Mayer, who had been searching for the diary for 17 years, noted Rosenberg did not elaborate in the entry.

"What Hitler described was so great, he couldn't put it down," Mayer told reporters.

U.S. officials have long suspected that a prosecutor, Robert Kempner, smuggled the diary back to the United States after the Nuremberg trial.

Born in Germany, Kempner fled to America in the 1930s to escape the Nazis, only to return for post-war trials. He is credited with helping reveal the existence of the Wannsee Protocol, the 1942 conference during which Nazi officials met to coordinate the extermination of the Jews, which they termed "The Final Solution."

Kempner cited a few Rosenberg diary excerpts in his memoir and in 1956 a German historian published entries from 1939 and 1940. But the bulk of the diary never surfaced.

After his death in 1993, heirs to his estate agreed to forfeit his possessions to the U.S. holocaust museum, but that agreement hit road blocks and the diary was never found.

However in 1999, when cleaning out Kempner's home in suburban Philadelphia, a man found 40 boxes of documents, including papers outlining the Nazi's "aggressive war against and the plundering, spoliation and the economic exploitation of the Soviet Union by the Nazi regime," according to a 2003 court filing. But the diary was not among the materials.

"That was what we were looking for, that's what was so frustrating," said Robert Wittman, the founder of the FBI's Art Crime Team, and now a private art security consultant.

In recent months, Wittman and his son, Jeffrey, helped ICE locate the diary in New York.

The diary offers Rosenberg's recollections from the spring of 1936 to the winter of 1944, according to an analysis by the Holocaust museum. Most entries are written in Rosenberg's looping cursive, some on paper torn from a ledger book and others on the back of official Nazi stationery, according to a U.S. government analysis obtained by Reuters.

"Although it is a reminder of a dark time, the Rosenberg Diary is important to our understanding of history," said U.S. Attorney Charles M. Oberly. "Our hope is that it will provide valuable insight to historians."

(Additional reporting by John Shiffman in Washington.; Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Andre Grenon)

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'Happy Birthday to You' copyright suit filed in NY

NEW YORK (AP) — A production company making a documentary about the song "Happy Birthday to You" is challenging the copyright to the famous jingle.

Good Morning To You Productions Corp., which is working on a film tentatively titled "Happy Birthday," argues in a lawsuit filed Thursday that the song should be "dedicated to public use and in the public domain." The company is seeking monetary damages and restitution of more than $5 million in licensing fees collected by Warner/Chappell Music Inc. from thousands of people and groups who've paid it licensing fees.

"More than 120 years after the melody to which the simple lyrics of Happy Birthday to You is set was first published, defendant Warner/Chappell boldly, but wrongfully and unlawfully, insists that it owns the copyright to Happy Birthday to You," the lawsuit states.

Warner/Chappell, based in Los Angeles, claims exclusive copyright to "Happy Birthday to You," which Guinness World Records has called the most famous song in the English language. The company, whose artists include Aretha Franklin, Barry Gibb, Rob Zombie, Madonna and Michael Jackson, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Good Morning To You Productions argues that evidence dating to 1893 helps show the song's copyright expired around 1921. It says four previous copyrights to the melody of the similar-sounding song "Good Morning to All," filed in 1893, 1896, 1899 and 1907, have expired or been forfeited.

The class action lawsuit says that Warner/Chappell claims the exclusive copyright to the song based on piano arrangements published in 1935 but that the copyright applies only to the piano arraignment and not to the melody or lyrics.

The film company filed the lawsuit after having to pay Warner/Chappell a $1,500 licensing fee and sign an agreement to use the song in a scene — or face a $150,000 penalty.

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Sebastien De La Cruz brushes off the racism

Sebastien De La Cruz, 11, performed the National Anthem at Game 3 of the NBA Finals in San Antonio on Tuesday night, filling in for country crooner Darius Rucker, who had to cancel at the last minute.

By all accounts, Sebastien, a former "America's Got Talent" performer, brought the house down with his rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Some viewers, however, fired off racist comments on social networks like Twitter following the performance.

The young singer spoke with KENS-5 about the backlash.

"With the racist remarks, it was just people how they were raised. My father and my mama told me you should never judge people by how they look," Sebastien said.

The singer specializes in mariachi-style singing and performed the National Anthem in a black-and-silver suit, inspired by his hometown Spurs.

"When I started mariachi, I knew there was gonna be a lot of politics," Sebastien told KENS-5. "And I'm just a proud American, to be honest."

San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro tweeted his support for Sebastien.

Sebastien de la Cruz, your rendition of the national anthem was spectacular! Don't let a few negative voices get you down. @selcharrodeoro

— Mayor Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) June 13, 2013

Sebastien posted his own tweet, letting his supports know that he wasn't paying attention to the haters.

Please do not pay attention to the negative people. I am an American living the American Dream. This is part of the American life.

— Sebastien De La Cruz (@selcharrodeoro) June 12, 2013

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Lions among Blackhawks fans in Stanley Cup finals

CHICAGO (AP) — The Chicago Blackhawks can boast of some mighty beasts among their supporters: two massive bronze lions that guard the Art Institute of Chicago.

The lions started sporting Blackhawks helmets on Wednesday, the day of the first Stanley Cup finals game between the Chicago team and the Boston Bruins. The museum says the helmets are "custom-made," which makes sense given that each lion weighs about three tons.

It's not the first time the statues posted outside the museum's Michigan Avenue entrance have touted their apparent support for local teams; They wore Chicago Bears and Chicago White Sox helmets when those teams made their championship runs.

They also celebrate the holiday season, when they're each decorated with wreaths.

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No butts: NJ town bans saggy pants on boardwalk

WILDWOOD, N.J. (AP) — Hindsight will soon be punishable by a $25 fine in this Jersey Shore resort.

Wildwood on Wednesday passed a law banning overly saggy pants on the boardwalk, prompted by numerous complaints from longtime visitors about having to see people's rear ends hanging out in public.

Subsequent violations of the law, which takes effect July 2, could result in fines as high as $200 and 40 hours of community service.

Civil libertarians say the law is unconstitutional and predict it will be overturned if challenged in court.

But Mayor Ernest Troiano Jr. said the issue is simple.

"This is just adding a little bit of decency to our town," he said. "It's amazing — and this is a pun — how far decency has fallen through the cracks."

The law passed unanimously, and no one spoke against it. Several residents strongly supported the law.

"It's long overdue," said Mary Erceg. "People who choose to dress like that offend any person. There has to be some common standard of decency. It offends all of us."

"We need it," added resident Dennis Flynn. "This is our city. You have to respect it."

The trend, known popularly as sagging, originated in the U.S. prison system, where inmates are not allowed to wear belts. It was popularized by hip-hop artists and embraced by youths.

Authorities in suburbs of New Orleans, Chicago, Atlanta, Detroit, Miami and Jacksonville, Fla., are among those who have passed laws banning overly droopy pants.

Bathing suits are already prohibited on the Wildwood boardwalk, unless covered up by other clothing.

City Commissioner Pete Byron said the city is not trying to be the fashion police.

"There's a line that gets crossed between being a fashion statement and being obnoxious," he said. "Families can feel threatened."

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey has declined to take a position on the law, but other ACLU chapters around the country have said such laws are unconstitutional.

Troiano said he hopes no one will have to be cited by police for violating the ordinance. Rather, he said, a well-placed word from an officer should suffice to persuade boardwalk patrons with overly low-slung jeans to hike them up.

Police Chief Steven Long said his officers will respond appropriately when they see violations.

"The ultimate goal is compliance," he said. "We're just trying to make the city a better place to visit."

The mayor said the city isn't going to be out "hunting these kids down."

"We're not going to be out there with a tape measure," he said. "But we know what's right and not right. If we don't make an attempt to clean our town up, who's going to?"

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Wayne Parry can be reached at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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No joke: Jester wanted at Austrian hotel

VIENNA (AP) — Wanted: A jester. Wallflowers need not apply.

It's no joke. An Austrian hotel is advertising for a modern-day court fool, who is communicative, extroverted, musical, creative and imaginative.

Applicants are asked to bring — and play — their musical instrument during the job interview. Also welcome: creative costumes. The successful candidate will earn 1,400 euros — around $1,900 — a month.

Hotel director Melanie Franke says those interested should not think they're on a fool's errand in applying. She says the idea is to treat guests like royalty, noting that "jesters were a luxury that royal families indulged themselves in."

The hotel in Austria's Styria province was designed by famed Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Franke says the jester concept fits its hotel's colorful appearance.

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9-year-old girl passes through airport customs with fake unicorn passport

Emily Harris, 9, and unicorn passport (Caters)Breezing through airport security? For some, it’s about as likely as seeing a unicorn.

But for 9-year-old Emily Harris of South Wales, it was her toy passport featuring a photo of a pink stuffed unicorn toy that secured her passage through the security line at Turkey’s Antalya airport.

“We saw the funny side, and laughed at the fact that the officer had even stamped the passport,” Emily’s mom, Nicky, told Caters News Agency. “But at the same time, it’s a worry to any parent, how easy it would be to smuggle a child through customs and into another country.”

Emily’s passport was technically a novelty item included with her stuffed animal, which was purchased at the Bear Factory retailer. The cover of the passport reads, "European Union, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland." OK, so far, it's understandable and somewhat official looking. But then, the passport case shows the silhouette of a bear's head with the words, "Design A Bear" written below in childlike, golden colored scrawl.

The inside of the passport is even less authentic looking. Where an individual's personal information and photo would normally be located are instructions for a children's game using letters of the alphabet to designate places the child has visited. There's even another "Design A Bear" logo scribbled across the page. The following page includes space for the child to document "travel adventures."

When Emily passed through the airport’s customs, she emerged with a stamped set of documents in tow. Only thing is, it was the unicorn’s passport that had been given the official stamp of approval.

“I didn’t realise until I was putting the passports away,” Nicky said. “There was a moment of panic when I thought someone would come chasing after us, but nothing.”

The Bear Factory company’s website notes the love and care it puts into each stuffed animal. But how exactly could such an unrealistic looking toy animal pass for a real girl?

“The passport doesn’t even look real?it’s got gold teddy bears on the front and was a completely different size from mine and my husband, Allen’s,” Nicky added.

The inside of Emily Harris' unicorn passport (Caters)

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Charlie Trotter accused of selling bogus $46K wine

CHICAGO (AP) — Award-winning chef Charlie Trotter is being sued by two New York wine collectors who say he sold them a bottle of wine for more than $46,000 that wasn't what it said on the label.

The federal lawsuit filed Thursday in Chicago accuses Trotter and one of his wine experts of duping them into buying what they thought was a magnum of 1945 Romanee-Conti from the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti winery in June 2012.

The collectors, Bekim and Ilir Frrokaj (Beh-KEEM' and ih-LEER' FRO'-kuh), say an appraisal firm concluded the bottle was counterfeit.

They are seeking damages of more than $76,000. They accuse Trotter and his company of violating Illinois consumer fraud laws.

An attorney for Trotter, John Riccione, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Friday.

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Pa. woman using purple toilets to fight cancer

EASTON, Pa. (AP) — A northeastern Pennsylvania woman is using purple toilets to raise money to fight cancer.

The Express-Times reports (http://bit.ly/15elgmY ) Rebecca Szabo-Silfies and her two young sons have been leaving the commodes on lawns around Upper Nazareth Township as part of the "Flush Out Cancer" effort. She chairs Saturday's American Cancer Society Relay for Life event at Nazareth Area High School.

She stakes out a home, leaves a toilet and then waits for the homeowner to find it. The person can then pay $10 to have it taken away, $20 to send it to a friend or $30 to send it to a friend and guarantee it never comes back.

The two purple toilets have made 18 stops so far, raising $400. Szabo-Silfies says she found the idea on the Internet.

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Information from: The (Easton, Pa.) Express-Times, http://www.lehighvalleylive.com

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Commuters say teakettle billboard looks like Hitler

Do you see Adolf Hitler in the shape of this teakettle? (JCPenney.com)A billboard along the 405 Freeway in Southern California is generating all sorts of buzz. But the cause of the attention does not exactly align with the intended effect. That’s because a number of people are saying the new JCPenney teakettle bears a striking resemblance to Adolf Hitler.

The teakettle in question is formerly known as the “Bells and Whistles Stainless Steel Tea Kettle” and is part of JCPenney’s Michael Graves-designed kitchenware line.

CBS LA reports that the billboard has caught the attention of some Reddit users who say the curvature of the handle resembles the hairline of the former Nazi leader.

“I stare at this from my office building every day and now I can tell my co-workers that I’m not the only one who saw the Hitler in the bells and whistles sign!” wrote user Tishacombs.

In fact, a number of comments are actually suggesting that the company intentionally made the teakettle resemble Hitler just to stir up attention. That, of course, makes very little sense. But it hasn’t stopped people from speculating.

“Well, look at us - we're all looking at and sharing a picture of an advertisement,” writes user LevTolstoy. "If it was done on purpose to get people's attention, but keep the ability to deny doing it on purpose, it's brilliant.”

Of course, most people aren’t taking the billboard too seriously. Americablog author John Aravosis says it looks more like the Eric Cartman character from “South Park” dressed as Hitler. Which, given Cartman’s endless series of anti-Semitic commentary, might make more sense.

JCPenney has yet to comment on the advertisement. Perhaps it's letting the product speak for itself. After all, the teakettle is currently getting overwhelmingly positive reviews from customers on the JCPenney website.

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Boy, 10, finds $10,000 in Kansas City hotel room

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A 10-year-old boy who found $10,000 in a drawer at a Kansas City hotel where he was staying with his dad turned the money over to police.

Tyler Schaefer found the neatly stacked bills Saturday in the room where he and his father, Cody Schaefer, were staying at a hotel near the airport, The Kansas City Star reported (http://bit.ly/16sloUJ). Cody Schaefer, a truck driver and mechanic from Rapid City, S.D., meets his former wife in Kansas City every year to get his three children for summer vacation.

Cody Schaefer said Tyler, a Cub Scout, is always on the lookout for clues and treasure.

"He looks for stuff at random," Schaefer said of his son. "He's very observant."

Schaefer said after they checked into their room Saturday, Tyler began opening all the drawers, and it wasn't too long before Tyler announced: "I found money!"

Schaefer thought maybe his son had found a forgotten $10 bill, but when he looked closer he saw the stack of bills totaling $10,000. He wondered if the bills were fake, but saw they had the appropriate watermarks and seemed legitimate.

"We didn't know what to do at first," Schaefer said.

Schaefer told his son they couldn't keep the cash because they didn't know who it belonged to. They handed the money over to two off-duty police officers working security at the hotel. The officers contacted Sgt. Randy Francis, a property and evidence supervisor, who stored the cash at a police facility.

Police said it's unclear how long the money had been there, and they can't track down every guest who stayed in that room recently. Police spokesman Capt. Tye Grant said Thursday no one had claimed the money yet.

According to a Missouri statute, lost money could revert to a finder after about seven months if no one can prove ownership. But the owner then has another year to prove the money is his or hers and claim it from the finder.

"I didn't come there with $10,000 and I didn't leave with $10,000," Cody Schaefer said. "So it was a wash."

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Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com

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German police warn of exploding ticket machines

BERLIN (AP) — German police are warning rail travelers to be wary when using Deutsche Bahn's automatic ticket machines because criminals attempting to break into them may have left them filled with explosive gas.

Hesse state police spokesman Udo Buehler says since April criminals have successfully blown open 10 ticket machines by taping closed all holes, filling them with gas and igniting it. They then steal the money and blank train tickets.

But in six cases the attempts have failed, leaving the explosive gas inside, most recently Tuesday in a train station in the town of Karben, near Frankfurt.

Buehler warns the gas could potentially ignite when an unsuspecting customer uses the machine though so far it has not.

He says incidents have also been reported in neighboring states Thuringia and Lower Saxony.

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China graft buster orders staff to ditch their VIP cards

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's top anti-corruption official has demanded his staffers ditch their VIP cards, commonly given out by Chinese businesses to grant access to discounts or exclusive services, state media said on Monday, as part of the country's push to defeat graft.

VIP cards in China can offer everything from cheap deals at massage parlors to free gifts in department stores and preferential seating at popular restaurants, and hence offer countless opportunities for abuse by corrupt officials and businesspeople.

"Although membership cards are small (objects), they reflect big problems of working style," the official Xinhua news agency cited Wang Qishan, head of the ruling Communist Party's anti-corruption bureau, as saying at a meeting.

Officials and employees working in disciplinary and supervisory departments should discard all their VIP cards by June 20 and follow this order "seriously and earnestly", the report added.

This campaign is a way for graft-busters to act by example for other party members by showing they have high standards, Wang said.

"The demands of the campaign are not onerous, but they have to be followed and are totally doable," he added. "Men of honor need to show that they are honorable."

Since becoming Communist Party boss in November, and president in March, Xi Jinping has made battling pervasive corruption a top theme of his administration, warning the problem is so severe it could threaten the party's survival.

A major theme of that fight has been an austerity drive that has emptied top-end restaurants and dented the sale of expensive food and drink, as the party tries to allay criticism of the extravagant lifestyles of some officials.

However, there has been little apparent progress to get officials to publicly disclose their assets, and the party has given no indication it will allow the establishment of a fully independent judicial body to tackle corruption.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Kim Coghill)

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Bold bear cubs show off their balancing act on residential fence

A pair of bear cubs with acrobatic skills were spotted walking along the top of a residential fence in Washington state.

According to a report from Seattle's KING5.com, Snoqualmie Ridge resident Colin Davis saw the bears and took a few photos of their tightrope-like act.

"I was amazed they were able to walk on the fence," Davis told KING5.com. "I thought they would hop off, but they kept going."

[Related: Grizzly bear puts camera in its mouth]

Davis told KING5.com that he's become accustomed to seeing bears wander near his neighborhood, but never while it's light outside.

So what prompted the morning jaunt?

Davis' theory, according to KING5.com: The irresistible smell of bacon may have inspired the bears to come over for a visit. Davis said a neighbor was cooking breakfast with his door open.

Nobody was hurt, despite the neighborhood being full of kids. "They could have easily crossed paths," Davis said.

Still, Davis said he's OK with the bears because the area is their home, too.

“I have no problem with nature out here. I love it, it’s part of the reason we moved out here,” Davis told KING5.com. “We see deer all the time, all different animals. You don’t expect to see the bears, but it’s their neighborhood.”

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Scientists say newly discovered woolly mammoth blood boosts cloning prospects

A researcher studies a mammoth carcass found on an island in the Arctic Ocean. (Northeastern Federal Universit …A team of scientists says blood recovered from the preserved carcass of a woolly mammoth is reviving hopes that the extinct creature could one day be cloned back into existence.

"When we broke the ice beneath her stomach, the blood flowed out from there. It was very dark," said Semyon Grigoryev, a Russian scientist who led the expedition that found the mammoth, in an interview with Agence France-Presse.

And Grigoryev says the well-preserved state of the mammoth offers new potential for cloning the creature, either directly through its DNA or in conjunction with another closely related mammal, such as an elephant.

"This find gives us a really good chance of finding live cells, which can help us implement this project to clone a mammoth," he said.

In 2012, North-Eastern Federal University, where Grigoryev works as a professor, enlisted the aid of controversial Sooam Biotech Research Foundation researcher Hwang Woo-Suk. In 2005, Woo-Suk made history by creating the world’s first cloned dog, but much of his work was later called into question or discredited.

The website phys.org reports that a Russian expedition discovered the mammoth carcass while conducting research in April on a remote island in the Arctic Ocean. Its body is said to have been preserved for about 10,000 to 15,000 years, roughly the time the mammoth is believed to have gone extinct.

Interestingly, the scientists discovered only the lower half of the mammoth’s body. They believe it was submerged in water at the time of its death. After the water eventually froze, they believe that predators consumed the top half of the mammoth carcass.

In a gruesome but scientifically promising detail, Grigoryev claims that blood seeped from the carcass when his team made an incision in its body.

"This is the most astonishing case in my entire life. How was it possible for it to remain in liquid form? And the muscle tissue is also red, the color of fresh meat," Grigoryev said.

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Trapped horse rescued from well on ranch

A horse was trapped in a brick well and in danger of drowning until rescuers saved the frightened animal with the help of a crane, reports KPIX-5.

The incident occurred Monday at a ranch in San Rafael, Calif., near San Francisco. Nine-year-old Buddy fell into the 20-foot-deep well after a wooden board collapsed under his weight.

A worker on the ranch heard Buddy's panicked cries, and went to get help.

[Related: Photo of dog in warm embrace with woman who saved him goes viral]

Lt. Douglas Pittman of the Marin County Sheriff’s Department told KPIX-5, "We thought we might lose this horse. Specifically when we first arrived and the horse was having difficulty keeping his head above water."

According to KPIX-5, rescuers put Buddy's head in a harness to help keep it above water. They tried adding more water to the well in the hopes that Buddy would climb out.

Eventually, a crane was brought in and hoisted Buddy back onto dry land. KPIX-5 reports that the horse had a few cuts and was being treated with an IV. For the most part, though, Buddy was just fine.

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400-year-old plants show signs of life in lab

Canadian glacier (Getty Images)

Plants dating to the Little Ice Age discovered in the Arctic have come back to life.

These plants are not your typical houseplant. Called bryophytes, the species is known to stay dried-out during long, cold winters and then come back to life after a time.

But weathering 400 years in a frozen glacier—that was the surprise.

Researchers from the University of Alberta discovered the plants in the Canadian Arctic’s Teardrop Glacier, according to BBC News.

The glacier has been receding, leaving these ancient plants visible to scientists, who scooped them up and brought them back to the lab—and to life.

"When we looked at them in detail and brought them to the lab, I could see some of the stems actually had new growth of green lateral branches, and that said to me that these guys are regenerating in the field, and that blew my mind," Catherine La Farge, who wrote a report on the find, told BBC News.

This isn’t the first odd discovery in the Arctic. Scientists revealed last month that they had evidence that a giant ancient camel—yes, like the kind that now is found in the Saharan desert—had roamed the Canadian Arctic 3.5 million years ago.

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Ex-Congressman Weiner gaining ground in New York mayoral race

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Disgraced former U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner is gaining ground on his Democratic rivals in the race for New York City Mayor, according to a new poll.

Weiner, who resigned from office two years ago in a sexting scandal, had the support of 19 percent of Democrats in a Marist poll released on Tuesday. That puts him six points behind early frontrunner City Council speaker Christine Quinn, who had support of 25 percent of Democrats.

A separate poll released on May 22, the day that Weiner formally declared his candidacy, had shown Quinn, who would be the city's first female and lesbian mayor, with a wider 10 point lead.

Another 22 percent of voters told Marist pollsters said they were yet undecided, while 12 percent backed Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and 11 percent were with former city comptroller Bill Thompson, who ran unsuccessfully against Bloomberg four years ago. John Liu, the city's current comptroller, follows with 8 percent.

Weiner, once a popular six-term Congressman representing parts of Brooklyn and Queens, resigned from Congress after admitting he had sent a lewd picture over Twitter and then lied about it repeatedly. He launched his campaign last Wednesday, saying he hoped voters would give him a second chance and pledging to be an advocate for the working class.

More than half of registered voters said Weiner deserves a second chance, while nearly 40 percent said Weiner does not have the character to be mayor, the poll found.

The candidates are due to face off in a Democratic primary in September. If no candidate wins more than 40 percent of the vote, the top two candidates will compete in a run-off election. The winning candidate will face the Republican candidate in November.

"He's a major factor in this race, he's made a run-off all but inevitable and he can't be overlooked," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.

All of the Republican contenders, including businessman John Catsimatidis and Joe Lhota, the former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, are regarded as long-shots.

Miringoff said that voters appear to be open to a Weiner candidacy, though Weiner is still hampered by heavy disapproval ratings. He noted that Quinn is viewed favorably by 60 percent of registered Democrats.

"She remains the most popular of all of the candidates," Miringoff said.

The poll was released hours before Weiner is due to participate in his first mayoral debate. Quinn, who has attended dozens of such forums in recent months, has said she will not attend.

The telephone survey of 1,001 New York City adults was conducted May 22 through May 24. There poll included 810 registered voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points, and 492 Democrats, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Scott Malone and Nick Zieminski)

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China says Xinjiang minorities too busy dancing to make trouble

BEIJING (Reuters) - Ethnic minority people in China's Xinjiang are far more fond of dancing, singing and being good hosts than making trouble, a top official said on Tuesday, dismissing the idea that the far western region is a hotbed of unrest.

Many Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim people who live in energy-rich Xinjiang, chafe at Chinese restrictions on their culture, language and religion, and the region is frequently the scene of deadly ethnic violence.

Last month, 21 people were killed in clashes in the heavily ethnic Uighur part of Xinjiang near the old Silk Road city of Kashgar, the deadliest unrest since July 2009, when nearly 200 people were killed in riots in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi.

China says it offers broad freedoms in Xinjiang, though few Chinese officials make the effort to learn the Uighur language or understand much about Islam in what is officially an atheist country.

Speaking to reporters in Beijing, deputy Xinjiang governor Shi Dagang said he had worked in southern Xinjiang for more than a decade and never had to carry a gun or have a police escort.

This was the common experience of government officials who are members of the majority Han Chinese ethnicity, many of whom work in areas heavily populated by minorities, he said.

"There is mutual respect by Han cadres and ethnic minorities, and we are friends. When we go into their houses as guests we are treated to meat and wine, with song and dance," Shi said.

"The ethnic minorities are simple-hearted and honest, very kind and unaffected. They love guests," he added. "I hope people don't have misapprehensions and go to Xinjiang and see for themselves."

China dismisses accusations its policies are connected to unrest, saying armed Uighur groups have links to Central Asian and Pakistani Islamist militants, and of carrying out attacks to establish an independent state they call East Turkistan.

"Those minority of people, the violent terrorists, ethnic splittists and religions extremists who want to cause trouble, their organizations are all outside the country, as are their backers behind the scenes," Shi said.

"How could we let this minority of people split Xinjiang off from the rest of the country and destroy this peaceful and harmonious society? It's impossible."

Many rights groups say China has long overplayed the threat posed to justify its tough controls in Xinjiang, which lies strategically on the borders of Central Asia, India and Pakistan.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Maryland boy suspended for gun-shaped pastry is now lifetime NRA member

By James Lunt

(Reuters) - An 8-year-old Maryland boy who was suspended from school for nibbling a pastry snack into the shape of a gun has been given a junior membership in the National Rifle Association.

After hearing about Josh Welch's suspension from Park Elementary School in Anne Arundel County, a state legislator paid $550 to buy him a Junior Life Membership in the NRA, Welch's lawyer said on Thursday.

"I was embarrassed that my county would do that to him," said Nicholaus Kipke, leader of the Republican minority in the lower house of the Maryland legislature. He presented the gift to the second-grader Wednesday night.

The boy's lawyer, Robin Ficker, said he is appealing the two-day school suspension that started on March 1 when Welch ate away part of his Pop-Tart during class snack time so that it resembled a gun shape.

In the appeal, Ficker included pictures of the U.S. states of Idaho and Florida because "they look more like guns than Josh's Pop-Tart."

The Anne Arundel County Public Schools spokesman, Bob Mosier, declined to comment on the status of the appeal.

Ficker said the NRA membership gift was a great idea for the boy, who "is a good kid, a little rambunctious," because it would teach him proper handling of firearms. He said the boy's family does not own guns and the boy has never handled a gun.

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg; editing by John Wallace)

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Japanese funeral home ad re-creates skeleton with flowers

(J&S BBDO/Nishinihon Tenrei)It’s common practice to have a floral arrangement at a funeral. But a new ad for a Japanese funeral home is showcasing a unique twist by using pressed flowers to re-create the shape of the human skeleton.

The image, titled Life Is Endless, is composed of a variety of colorful flowers.

“The March 11th earthquake and tsunami had a traumatic effect on Japan. Issues of life and death, hope and despair, beauty and tragedy became an all too real part of people’s everyday lives,” reads a press release from Tokyo-based ad agency J&S BBDO, which created the image for the Nishinihon Tenrei funeral home. “Funerals became a commonplace ordeal as the nation dealt with unprecedented loss.”

J&S BBDO recently debuted the image at a trade show, saying it was created to counter the tradition in Japanese culture of funerals being “somber events accented with black and white.” The company said it was tasked with coming up with a concept that would “bend the tradition without being seen as disrespectful.”

The funeral industry in the U.S. has had some unusual moments of its own in recent years.

For example, in May 2012 a gold-plated coffin was put on sale for $35,000 that was based on the same model used for Michael Jackson after his death. That same month, a New England man was buried in a coffin made from the wood of a 103-year-old tree he had spent decades preserving.

And in March, a Philadelphia couple decided to turn their deceased relative’s funeral into a festive environment by getting married at his wake.

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US Marshals auction scammer's diamond, other loot

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Want to own a 5-carat diamond from a Texas scammer?

The jumbo jewel and other treasures confiscated by the U.S. Marshals Service are up for auction in Las Vegas this weekend.

Buyers can preview the gold and silver bullion, coins, jewelry and watches from federal crime cases between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Friday at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The auction itself starts at 10 a.m. Saturday and will be simulcast on the Internet.

Among the other items are 6.6 pounds of gold pellets from a Southern California resident caught up in a $100 million Medicare fraud scheme. The starting bid for that collection is $120,000.

The Marshals Service auctions items from cases a few times a year. Proceeds benefit victims of crimes and supplement law enforcement programs.

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Missing man walks up to news crew reporting on … missing man

A local television news crew reporting on a missing Maine man found him as they were about to shoot a live update near his home.

Robert McDonough, a 73-year-old who suffers from dementia, had been missing for more than 14 hours when he walked past the WMTW News 8 crew camped out on the side of his road in rural Limington.

News 8 reporter Norm Karkos was preparing to deliver a live report on "News 8 This Morning" early Tuesday when McDonough walked into the frame. Karkos did not immediately recognize McDonough, who then identified himself to the stunned TV crew. They notified the Maine Warden Service, which had been searching for McDonough since late Monday afternoon.

The game wardens said they were just about to ramp up their search for McDonough when he returned home.

The man appeared to be in good condition, although Karkos said he spotted "some blood on McDonough's hand."

Robert McDonough (background) approaches the WMTW News 8 crew. (WMTW)

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Ex-Microsoft manager plans to create first U.S. marijuana brand

By Jonathan Kaminsky

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A former Microsoft executive plans to create the first U.S. national marijuana brand, with cannabis he hopes to eventually import legally from Mexico, and said he was kicking off his business by acquiring medical pot dispensaries in three U.S. states.

Jamen Shively, a former Microsoft corporate strategy manager, said he envisions his Seattle-based enterprise becoming the leader in both recreational and medical cannabis - much like Starbucks is the dominant name in coffee, he said.

Shively, 45, whose six years at Microsoft ended in 2009, said he was soliciting investors for $10 million in start-up money.

The use, sale and possession of marijuana remains illegal in the United States under federal law. Two U.S. states have, however, legalized recreational marijuana use and are among 18 states that allow it for medical use.

"It's a giant market in search of a brand," Shively said of the marijuana industry. "We would be happy if we get 40 percent of it worldwide."

A 2005 United Nations report estimated the global marijuana trade to be valued at $142 billion. http://www.unodc.org/pdf/WDR_2005/volume_1_web.pdf

Washington state and Colorado became the first two U.S. states to legalize recreational marijuana when voters approved legalization in November.

Shively laid out his plans, along with his vision for a future in which marijuana will be imported from Mexico, at a Thursday news conference in downtown Seattle.

Joining him was former Mexican President Vicente Fox, a longtime Shively acquaintance who has been an advocate of decriminalizing marijuana. Fox said he was there to show his support for Shively's company but has no financial stake in it.

"What a difference it makes to have Jamen here sitting at my side instead of Chapo Guzman," said Fox, referring to the fact he would rather see Shively selling marijuana legally than the Mexican drug kingpin selling it illegally. "This is the story that has begun to be written here."

Shively told Reuters he hoped Fox would serve an advisory role in his enterprise, dubbed Diego Pellicer after Shively's hemp-producing great grandfather.

The sale of cannabis or marijuana remains illegal in much of the world although countries mainly in Europe and the Americas have decriminalized the possession of small quantities of it. A larger number of countries have decriminalized or legalized cannabis for medical use.

SKEPTICISM

Shively acknowledges that his business plans conflict with U.S. federal law and are complicated by regulations in both Washington state and Colorado. He said he is interested in buying dispensaries that comply with local and state rules and are less likely to attract the scrutiny of authorities.

"If they want to come talk to me, I'll be delighted to meet with them," he said of federal officials. "I'll tell them everything that we're doing and show them all our books."

Washington state's marijuana consultant, Mark Kleiman, said he was skeptical of Shively's plans, and feared that the businessman is seeking to profit off others' addiction.

"It's very hard for me to understand why anybody seriously interested in being in the marijuana business, which after all is against the federal law, would so publicly announce his conspiracy to break that law," said Kleiman, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle, referred questions to the Department of Justice headquarters. Department officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Washington state Representative Reuven Carlyle, a Seattle Democrat, sees promise in Shively's initiative. Any industry emerging from the shadows will inevitably undergo consolidation - and thereby simplify the task of regulators, he said.

"The fact that an entrepreneur is publicly pushing the envelope around a branding and value-based pricing opportunity, I would say that's in the water in Seattle," said Carlyle, chairman of the House Finance Committee. "That's in our DNA ... We could have predicted that as much as the rain."

Shively said he has already acquired the rights to the Northwest Patient Resource Center, a medical marijuana operation that includes two Seattle store fronts. He added that he was close to acquiring another dispensary in Colorado, as well as two more each in Washington state and California, with the owners given the option to retain a stake in their businesses.

"We've created the first risk-mitigated vehicles for investing directly in this business opportunity," he said.

Shively said he ultimately plans to create separate medical and recreational-use marijuana brands. Shively said he also plans to launch a study of the effectiveness of concentrated cannabis oil in the treatment of cancer and other illnesses.

(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Andrew Hay)

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Some Canadians claim new currency smells like maple syrup

A man sniffs Canada's new $100 bill and says it smells like maple syrup (CTV)To some, the allure of money is irresistible, but even the most frugal spender may be drawn to Canada’s new plastic bills if the rumors are true: A significant number of Canadians claim the currency smells like maple syrup.

The Canadian Press, however, went directly to the source, the Bank of Canada, which says there is no truth to the rumor.

Nonetheless, the news outlet obtained copies of requests sent to the bank that demand to know how the bank managed to add the delicious scent to the bills.

“I would like to know ... once and for all if these bills are in fact scented, as I do detect a hint of maple when smelling the bill,” reads one email.

The new plastic bills were released in November 2011, and rumors about the scent began almost immediately.

Canada has made headlines several times over the past two years with its ever-changing currency, first when it announced plans to pull the penny from circulation back in March 2012, and a month later, when it released a limited edition glow-in-the dark dinosaur coin.

Last year, CTV even did an on-air investigation as to whether the new bills had a noticeable syrup scent:

Still, even if the government didn’t intentionally add the alleged maple syrup scent, it appears not too many citizens would be complaining if it did. In fact, the Canadian Press notes that some emails sent to the government bank actually complain that their bills don’t smell like syrup.

“The note ... lost its maple smell,” said one writer. “I strongly suggest the Bank increases the strength of the ... maple smell,” reads one such email.

For the record, bank official Jeremy Harrison says no scent has been added to any of the new bank notes.

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