Rare lions killed by fence

Sometimes, I really loathe humans...

AHMADABAD, India (AP) — Five rare Asiatic lions were found electrocutedFriday on the edge of western India's Gir National Park, authorities reported.

Pradeep Khanna, Gujarat state's chief wildlife warden, said the lions were killed by an electrified fence that he alleged was put up illegally by a farmer to protect crops near the sanctuary.

"The carcasses bore the marks of electrocution," Khanna said.

He said police had arrested the farmer, who faces seven years in prison if convicted of building an unauthorized fence that killed animals.

Such lions once roamed much of Asia, but only about 350 are known to remain — all in Gujarat.

The lions often wander outside park boundaries to seek food and water, sometimes falling prey to poachers. The Wildlife Protection Society of India says their bones are highly prized in traditional Chinese medicine as are their claws, which are sometimes used for amulets in India.

The society said the latest deaths raised to 32 the number of the park's Asiatic lions lost this year. Eight died at the hands of poachers, six were killed by electrified fences, five died from falling into wells, one was hit by a vehicle and 12 died of unknown causes, it said.

credit:AP

19th-Century Weapon Found in Whale

BOSTON -- A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt -- more than a century ago. Embedded deep under its blubber was a 3 1/2-inch arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale's age, estimated between 115 and 130 years old.

Of course, they know this, because they KILLED THE WHALE.

The whale harkens back to far different era. If 130 years old, it would have been born in 1877, the year Rutherford B. Hayes was sworn in as president, when federal Reconstruction troops withdrew from the South and when Thomas Edison unveiled his newest invention, the phonograph.

The 49-foot male whale died when it was shot with a similar projectile last month, and the older device was found buried beneath its blubber as hunters carved it with a chain saw for harvesting.

I fucking hate people.

Mutant ::: Super strong

Teacher With 'Superhuman Strength' Arrested By Cops

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A high school physical education teacher was relieved of duty Monday after police arrested him over the weekend for allegedly creating a scene outside of a downtown bar and fighting several officers who tried to arrest him.
Police first saw David McCann, 30, standing in front of a bar Saturday at 2 a.m., shirt unbuttoned and yelling he was "Luke Skywalker" at passers-by, according to the incident report. An officer asked him to leave after McCann allegedly got into a verbal confrontation with two women.
McCann then allegedly charged the officer, who sprayed him in the face with an irritant. Two officers tried unsuccessfully to handcuff him as McCann wildly swung his fists, the report says.
The incident further escalated, with McCann continuing to allegedly attack officers after he was repeatedly kicked and struck with a baton. Officers also used a stun gun to attempt to subdue him.
"He continued to attack with super human strength and made no attempt to escape," according to the report.
McCann was finally brought under control when two responding officers struck him three times with a Taser and another hit him four more times with a baton, according to the report.
He was arrested on charges of battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest with violence and disorderly conduct. Three officers received bruises and other minor injuries, the incident report said.
The Orange County School District said McCann had worked there for two years, but the district already decided before the arrest not to renew his annual contract for next year.

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press.

Swallowed up by shit

Man, son, neighbor swallowed by cesspool

Associated Press

HUNTINGTON, N.Y. - A 71-year-old man who went outside in the rain to pick up the Sunday newspaper plunged into a cesspool in his front yard, and his son and neighbor were sucked in when they tried to help.

The victims escaped, two with the help of firefighters, covered in raw sewage but not badly hurt.

Andrew Palladino said the soggy ground, soaked by two days of rain, gave way outside his Long Island home: "I walked across the lawn, and all of a sudden I disappeared."

He yelled to his wife for help, and she threw a rope and called their son, Dan, who lives with them. The son said the scene "was like a horror picture."

A neighbor who heard the commotion ran over to help - but the ground gave way again, swallowing him and the son. The neighbor crawled out and passers-by tried to hold onto the others until the Huntington Fire Department arrived.

Firefighters secured the ground, lassoed Palladino and his son and dragged them out.

It's not the first time a cesspool - a pit that collects waste from toilets and sinks - has swallowed someone in Huntington.

In 2001, a man practicing archery in the backyard with his two children died when his cesspool caved in and consumed him. And in 1998, a Huntington Station man was rescued after he fell 65 feet into one.

Central Park Coyote

A wily coyote led sharpshooters armed with tranquilizer guns on a merry chase through New York's Central Park before being captured. The hunt had been on since Tuesday afternoon when Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, among others, spotted the animal in the southeast corner of the park, not far from the tony Upper East Side.

(AP Photo/ Dima Gavrysh)
Mar 22, 2006

It's a world gone mad

Police: Man Angry About Slamming Door Killed Neighbor

BELLEVIEW, Fla. -- It's an unusual motive for murder. Investigators in Belleview said slamming the door drove a man to kill his next-door neighbor in Marion County.
Investigators believe Betty Shepperd was murdered over something that sounds extremely trivial. They said 45-year-old Vito Loiacono was irritated that Shepperd was slamming the door at night and waking him up.

Vision of murder turns out to be true

{Spotted on CNN Web site}

Political whodunit takes an eerie twist

Police: Candidate's charge opponent killed wife was right

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (AP) -- More than five years ago, Rod Spraggins made a sensational charge at a candidate forum, publicly accusing a political opponent of murder with nothing to back up the allegation except, it turns out, a vision.

Now police say Spraggins was right.

Barry Waites, Spraggins' opponent in the 2000 race for Lanett City Council, was arrested this week on murder charges in the 1998 slaying of his wife, who was found dead in their split-level home in this sleepy town of 8,000 along the Georgia line.

In 2000, Spraggins, a bail bondsman, stunned a crowd of 100 when he accused Waites of killing his wife and dared the man to sue him for slander if he was wrong.

Waites was not at the forum, never responded publicly to the accusation and never sued.

In an otherwordly turn to the saga Friday, Spraggins disclosed that he never had any evidence to make the accusation and that it was based entirely on Mrs. Waites' appearing to him in a series of dreams.

"She started appearing to me within the first weeks of her death," said Spraggins, adding that the dreams prompted him to enter the City Council race for the sole purpose of making the accusation.

Both he and Waites lost their bids for the City Council amid the controversy, but Spraggins said he got what he wanted in the end.

"I hate it for his family. ... I hate it for Charlotte's family. But I'm glad justice is finally going to be served," he said in a telephone interview.

Waites, 58, was arrested Thursday at a clothing store he runs with his current wife. He was jailed on $150,000 bail. It was not immediately known whether he had hired a lawyer.

Police Chief Ron Docimo would not comment on exactly what led to the arrest, saying only that it was a "culmination of years of following up on leads and tips."

Waites was serving as interim mayor when 49-year-old Charlotte Waites was found strangled and with a blow to the head.

The victim's brother, Gene Brown, said police told him within a week of the slaying that Waites was the prime suspect.

Brown said that the couple had numerous financial problems during their 28-year marriage and that he believes an argument over money resulted in her death.

In 2002, Waites was sentenced to six months in jail after pleading guilty in an ethics case that was uncovered during an investigation of his wife's killing. He admitted taking money from a National Guard armory where he worked.

Brown credited Spraggins with keeping up public pressure on police to solve the murder case.

"Rod had it pegged from the beginning," Brown said. "I had doubts about his methods. But he's got guts."