Funny But True News Stories #3 - An ongoing series

[totalmotorcycle]

Mystery shoe saga stumps couple


The council is looking into the shoe mystery

Pairs of shoes are being left in mysterious circumstances outside a remote farmhouse in Lincolnshire.

Jason and Claire Foster, who live near Market Rasen, do not know who is doing it or why they have left as many as four pairs of shoes at one time.

The family have video footage, which shows an elderly couple driving by in a green vehicle depositing the shoes.

Mrs Foster said that although it was scary at first, she was rather hoping some of the pairs might fit.

Fly tipping

Some of the shoes are cheap, with price labels of £1.99 attached and some are more expensive designer brands.

They have been left on a regular basis since December, often on a Sunday.

Mrs Foster added: "The biggest question is why? We would love to know why."

East Lindsey District Council are investigating the incident as a case of fly tipping.

"Sometimes it's odd ones, sometimes it's a couple of pairs. But they're of all shapes and sizes. There has even been pairs of roller blades," a council environment official said.

"There must have been more than 30 pairs so far - it's been going on for months."

He said the maximum penalty for a first offence of fly-tipping was £20,000, but it depended on its severity.

[totalmotorcycle]

Heat wave melts snow festival
Tue Mar 15, 2005



COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - While most of Europe has shivered through an unusually cold March, a snow festival in Arctic Greenland has been postponed indefinitely because of a "heat wave".

The 11th annual international Snow Sculpture Festival in Nuuk was scheduled for March 18-21, when the average temperature in Greenland's capital would usually be well below freezing.

"The snow has been melting because of the mild weather and last week we had several days of rain," Nuuk Tourism manager Flemming Nicolaisen said.

The festival is a popular attraction and more than 20 teams had been scheduled to take part. Nicolaisen said the artists needed plenty of fine new snow to sculpt.

Greenland's climate is usually harsh and about 80 percent of the semi-autonomous Danish province is covered by ice, but February brought record-high temperatures above 15 degrees centigrade.

The Danish Meteorological Institute blamed the weather on the Foehn, a warm, dry wind.

[totalmotorcycle]

Lucky Chrams Leprechaun: I'm NOT Irish!

By BUCK WOLF

March 15, 2005 — First, I hear rumors about SpongeBob's sexuality. Now, I learn the truth about another Saturday morning TV legend: The Lucky Charms leprechaun is not Irish. Someone get my shillelagh!

Cynic that I am, I never should have trusted a mischievous little man in less-than-masculine attire who dances a merry jig and tells kids that he's on the run because "they're always after me Lucky Charms!"


Lucky Charms Leprechaun: 'I'm Not Irish'

Let us just pray that when he extolled Lucky Charms he wasn't referring to anything but a "magically delicious" frosted cereal. You can't even trust a leprechaun anymore.

Not that Arthur Anderson, the voice of Lucky the Leprechaun for 29 years, ever claimed to hail from the Emerald Isle. People just assumed.

"People have expectations," says Anderson, 83. "I just have an Irish-sounding name."

That chuckling Irish brogue — one of the many voices Anderson honed on old-time radio shows such as the 1940s series "Let's Pretend" — turned out to be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, providing a steady income for nearly 30 years.

Nobody asked for Anderson's nationality in 1963 when he auditioned, not even the president of General Mills. He was so perfect, it was either assumed he had a touch of the Blarney — or it didn't matter.

Now, after six decades in show business, with credits in radio, TV and film, Anderson has good reason to pull on a green tie, like so many New Yorkers who head off to the St. Patrick's Day Parade. It's an annual event that draws more than a million spectators, many of whom, like Anderson, have no ethnic ties to Erin.

"I have reason to celebrate," Anderson says. "I had the luck of the Irish to get that part."

Being a TV leprechaun up until 1992 helped pull the actor through some lean years. After radio theater, he worked on stage and took small parts in episodes of "Law & Order" and such films as "I'm Not Rappaport" and "Green Card."

"I never got free cereal," he says. "But they gave me lots of green money. And it was a fun character to play. Hardly a day goes by when somebody doesn't ask me to sing the Lucky Charms jingle, and I'm proud of that."

[totalmotorcycle]

Michael Jackson jurors defy judge's 'diet,' take a pizza break
Canadian Press - Tuesday, March 15, 2005



SANTA MARIA, Calif. (AP) - The Michael Jackson trial judge was overruled by the jury Tuesday when they extended their 10-minute snack break because of an unexpected bonanza: free pizza.

Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville has been running an unusually rigid schedule with no lunch hour, just three quick snack breaks during six hours of testimony - a hunger-inducing regimen he calls "the Melville diet."

When jurors took an extra 15 minutes getting back into their seats, he offered an explanation.

"The Olive Garden heard a CNN report that the jurors were starving to death," he announced. "So they sent over a bunch of pizzas."

He said the jury "sent out an attack squadron" with word that they wanted time to eat their pizzas. "So now they're full, and they can thank CNN," he said.

[totalmotorcycle]

China parks to curb throwing horses to the lions
Wed Mar 16, 2005



BEIJING (Reuters) - Safari parks in China have agreed to stop feeding their lions and tigers large live animals such as horses -- at least in public.
The gory eating habits could lead visitors to believe that animals, both hunter and prey, were only human playthings, Xinhua news agency on Wednesday quoted Xie Youxin, the deputy general manager of the Wild Animal World in Chengdu, as saying.

"The bloody scene could also have implanted violent tendencies in youngsters," he said. Chengdu is the capital of southwestern Sichuan province.

Managers of 22 of 30 safari parks nationwide who signed an agreement last week said they acknowledged that wild animals had the same sense of "agony, terror and annoyance" as human beings.

Animal rights activists have criticised the state of China's zoos and the mistreatment of wild animals captured for their fur, or in the case of bears, for the healing power of their bile.

But the safari park agreement only restricts the release of large domestic animals, such as oxen and horses, during the presence of visitors, the agency said.

"Feeding when the park is not open is permitted. Parks are allowed to continue to sell small birds for visitors to feed the wild beasts."

[totalmotorcycle]

Marmite ads banned



TV adverts featuring a giant blob of Marmite have been banned after "terrifying" children.

In one commercial people run away from the blob before a woman turns back and jumps in.

Six viewers said their kids, aged two and three, either refused to watch TV after seeing it or had nightmares.

The Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre argued the ads featured only "very mild horror that was clearly comical".

But the Advertising Standards Authority ruled they should no longer be screened during kids' shows.

[totalmotorcycle]

Malawi ghost story lands journalists in jail



Two journalists have been arrested in the east African nation of Malawi after reporting that their president had left his palace due to a fear of ghosts.

The Malawian journalists, who work for the BBC and Reuters, were arrested along with the personal assistant to the vice-president.

All three have been jailed and the journalists have been charged with reporting news likely to cause fear and alarm in the community.

President Bingu wa Mutharika has denied the reports that he left his palace because he believed it was haunted.

He says he is not afraid of ghosts and believes one of his rivals is behind the story.

The president's religious adviser now denies telling journalists that priests were being used to cleanse the building of evil spirits.

[totalmotorcycle]

Woman sues over clown accident




VANCOUVER (CP) - A Vancouver woman has filed a lawsuit against Cirque du Soleil alleging one of its clown's acts went terribly wrong.

Maria Miller had a stage-side seat at the July 2003 performance of Alegria Cirque du Soleil. Her lawyer, Val LeBlanc, said a clown tumbled across the stage towards the audience and was meant to stop. "It was supposed to thrill the audience, but a tether either broke or wasn't attached properly," he said Tuesday.

The lawsuit claims the burly performer tumbled into Miller, causing her numerous soft-tissue injuries.

She alleges negligence on the part of two performers and the circus.

Miller is suing for her personal injuries, income loss and expenses because of the incident.


The circus hasn't filed a statement of defence.

[totalmotorcycle]

Court: Birds, crabs can't sue

By MARI YAMAGUCHI




TOKYO (AP) - A Japanese court threw out a lawsuit against a land reclamation project after taking a close look at the plaintiffs - which include mudskippers, fiddler crabs and Dunlin birds.

The suit, filed by residents on behalf of animals living in Isahaya Bay wetlands in southern Japan, claimed the project was destroying the critters' habitat. The Nagasaki District Court, however, ruled that nature itself has no rights under the law, and therefore cannot act as plaintiffs in a lawsuit, said court spokesman Michiharu Kawasaki.

"It is difficult to find the basis for nature's rights under the current law," Kyodo News quoted Judge Joji Ito as writing in his ruling.

Five plaintiffs argued that a seven-kilometre-long dike built across the Isahaya Bay wetlands on Kyushu island harmed the mudskippers - fish that can breath air and walk on land using their fins as legs - as well as other animals that inhabit the area.

The project to reclaim 700 hectares of the bay for farmland was already suspended last year after the Saga District Court ruled in favour of fishermen and seaweed farmers who had filed another lawsuit, saying it disrupted the tides and hurt their livelihoods.

The government is challenging the Saga ruling, arguing the land reclamation was necessary for flood control.

The plaintiffs in the Nagasaki case claimed they had the right to sue on behalf of Isahaya Bay and the creatures that lived there. They also argued that the project was destroying nature and that the rights of the environment were being infringed upon.

Isahaya Bay is an important habitat for a number of endangered migratory birds.

Critics say the dike has changed weather and water conditions in the area, resulting in a poor seaweed harvest.

The Sierra Club in the United States appealed to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to halt work on the dike three years ago, saying it could endanger wildlife in nearby wetlands.

[totalmotorcycle]

Homeless man sues New Jersey Transit




NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - A homeless man who sued and received $230,000 US after being ejected from a library in northern New Jersey is suing NJ Transit for kicking him and other homeless people out of train stations.

Richard Kreimer, 55, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Monday seeking at least $5 million in damages against the transit agency, the city of Summit, nine police officers and several other defendants, claiming he and other homeless people have been unlawfully thrown out of train stations since August.

He also wants a federal judge to decide whether the stations are public or private property, and whether people who are not ticketed passengers have the right to be in them.

"As soon as you walk into a train station and you look like a bum, the cops come right over to you," said Kreimer, who is acting as his own lawyer.

A NJ Transit spokeswoman and Summit's city attorney both said they had not seen the lawsuit Monday and declined to comment on it.

Kreimer garnered national attention in 1991 after suing Morristown, the Morris Township public library and the police department over his treatment there. The library threw him out at least five times, claiming his body odour and the way he looked at library patrons offended them.

Kreimer received $230,000 from the harassment suit. A federal judge ruled the library's rules on hygiene were unconstitutional. That ruling was later overturned, but not before Kreimer had been paid.

About half the money went to pay lawyers in the case; the rest is gone, spent on living expenses in Lakewood, Colo., where Kreimer rented a town house from 1993 until 2000, and in Woodbury, where he lived from 2000 until 2003.

He suffers from ailments including diabetes, heart and kidney problems, and nerve damage, and says unpaid medical bills caused him to lose the apartment two years ago, making him homeless again.