Global Oddities

Police in Florida say a burglar who made off with a man’s valuables returned to the home later while investigators were there and snatched what he couldn’t carry on his first trip: a 100-pound (45-kilogram) plasma-screen TV.

The burglar had left the TV in the backyard and investigators were going to dust it for fingerprints.

But hours after the first burglary and with a Pensacola Police investigator still at the home, the robber came back and took the TV.

“They were all very embarrassed,” the man who lived at the house, Steve Fluegge, told the Pensacola News Journal.

Police searched the neighbourhood with dogs, but couldn’t find the burglar or the TV.

Police have offered to pay for the TV.

Source: AP, August 30, 2009

Three female gorillas at London Zoo are waiting for their new French lover — and were given a sneak preview of the Gallic stud coming their way this week.

Mjukuu, 10, Effie, 16, and Zaire, 34, were left bereft after their silverback mate Bobby died in December.

But the wait is almost over, as 12-year-old stud Yeboah, from La Boissiere Du Dore zoo in western France is due to join them in the next few months in the British capital.

And in an unusual experiment, the three singletons were this week given pictures of the 20 stone (125 kilo) French gorilla — while Yeboah was shown images of his three lady friends.

“It would be nice to think they’ll recognise him. I wouldn’t be surprised if the penny drops when he arrives,” said the British zoo’s Tracey Lee.

Mjukuu is the biggest flirt of the trio, and hopes are high she will get pregnant fairly quickly.

“Mjukuu was holding the picture as if she was reading a newspaper. We think Yeboah will go for her first because she’s very pretty, very social and she’s a terrible flirt,” said Lee.

“She used to hug Bobby and sit on his knee all the time, while looking over her shoulder at the others.”

Source AFP, August 28, 2009

A great-grandfather has avoided jail despite admitting poisoning his wife’s tea with mercury in a bizarre bid to win back her love.
William Dowling, 69, married his wife Maureen in the 1970s but after three decades of marriage they separated.
Although Maureen moved out of the family home in Colne, Lancashire, she would often pop back for a meal or a cup of tea with her husband.
On Friday February 13 this year, she noticed once again that there were silver globule-like formations in her white china cup.
They looked like ball bearings and her husband tried to pass it off as a problem with his old kettle.
He later claimed it could be the teabags. He was in fact slipping mercury into her cuppa.
Maureen, 64, had been suffering mysterious symptoms for some time – she would be forgetful and often had pins and needles.
When her doctor sent her for hospital tests it was confirmed she had been poisoned and police were alerted.
Despite the regular visits, the couple’s relationship was crumbling and Dowling claimed he wanted to make his wife ill so she would be dependent on him – and that would rekindle their love.
In a statement read out at Preston Crown Court, Maureen Dowling said the episode had a “devastating” affect on her health, self-confidence and independence.
Detectives believe he added the poison to his wife’s tea on at least five occasions between January and April this year.
Dowling has always refused to say where he got the mercury from.
He received a 350-day prison sentence, suspended for two years, at Preston Crown Court.
Judge Robert Brown also imposed an 18-month supervision order.
Source: Skynews online, August 28, 2009

A girl abducted in 1991 as an 11-year-old has been found alive in California, the El Dorado County sheriff’s office said Thursday.
Jaycee Dugard is in good health, the office said in a statement, but provided no details.
Jimmy Lee, a spokesman for the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department, confirmed that a man and a woman have been arrested in connection with the case, but could provide no other details.
Earlier Thursday, Carl Probyn, Dugard’s stepfather, told CNN that an FBI agent had called his wife, Terry, on Wednesday afternoon to tell her that Dugard had been found.
The girl was last seen walking to her bus stop in South Lake Tahoe, California, on June 10, 1991, according to the FBI.
At the time, “it was reported that a vehicle occupied by two individuals drove up to Jaycee Dugard and abducted her in view of her stepfather,” the El Dorado County sheriff’s office said Thursday.
Despite extensive investigations, no sign of her or her possible abductors was ever found, authorities said.
Probyn said Dugard walked into a police station in Northern California earlier Wednesday. He said the FBI agent told his wife that authorities had “Jaycee and the people who she was with.”
He said no further details were provided, and that the conversation with the FBI agent was brief.
“It was short and sweet, and ‘Can you fly up here?’” he said.
The El Dorado County Sheriff’s office has scheduled a news conference for 3 p.m. (6 p.m. ET) to discuss the case.
Probyn said his wife, who is flying Thursday from Southern California to meet with Dugard, spoke to her on Wednesday.
“Jaycee remembers everything,” he said. “They talked back and forth and she had the right answers to all my wife’s questions.”
He said, “I’m feeling great! … It’s like winning the lotto.”
Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said the reappearance of Dugard is “absolutely huge.”
“One of the things that we preach to searching families all the time … is that even in these long-term cases there’s hope,” he said.
“Even in these long-term cases … it’s important that we not let the world forget.”

Source: CNN news online, August 27, 2009

Spanish police said Wednesday they had smashed an international drug-trafficking ring which smuggled cannabis by hiding it in prams under newborn babies.

Twenty-one people from Spain, France, Britain, Morocco and Chile have been arrested, police said in a statement.
Thirteen have been charged with drug smuggling after the police operation in the southern Spanish regions of Malaga and Cadiz, and the Spanish territory of Ceuta in Morocco.
Police said members of the gang concealed hashish in the mattresses of prams and then placed a baby — often a newborn — inside.
This was to avoid arousing the suspicion of customs officials as the drugs were taken into Spain, police allege.
Once the drugs arrived in Spain, they were placed in cars and transported to France, the statement added.
Members of the gang are also accused of smuggling cocaine by disguising it as chocolate bars, which were sent in the post.
Others allegedly stole cars and sold them in Morocco.
Source: AFP, August 26, 2009

Tests have revealed Caster Semenya’s testosterone level to be three times higher than those normally expected in a female sample, BBC Sport understands.
Analysis prior to the World Athletics Championships and the 18-year-old’s big improvement prompted calls for a gender test from the sport’s governing body.
It was made public only hours before the South African, who has been backed by her nation, won the 800m in Berlin.
A high level of the hormone does not always equate to a failed drugs test.
But the news will only increase speculation surrounding Semenya, who arrived back in South Africa to a rapturous welcome on Tuesday.
Hundreds turned out in Johannesburg to greet the teenager, who has stunned the athletics world with her performances this season.
She ran a time of one minute, 56.72 seconds in Bambous in July to smash her previous personal best by more than seven seconds.
She also broke Zola Budd’s long-standing South African record and arrived at the World Championships as the newly crowned African junior champion.
Then in Berlin she left her rivals trailing to win gold in a time of 1:55.45.
Defending champion Janeth Jepkosgei was second, a massive 2.45 seconds adrift, with Britain’s Jenny Meadows taking the bronze medal.
Only hours before the race, it leaked out that the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) had demanded Semenya take a gender test amid fears she should not be allowed to run as a woman.
It has since emerged that news of the test only became public knowledge because a fax was sent to the wrong person.

It has also been revealed that following the findings of initial tests, the South Africans were asked by the IAAF to withdraw her from the team at the World Championships.

Source: BBC news online, August 25, 2009

Pop star Michael Jackson had lethal levels of the powerful anaesthetic propofol in his body when he died, coroner’s office documents show.
The findings were contained in a previously sealed search warrant which has been made public in Houston.
The singer died on 25 June at the age of 50 after suffering a cardiac arrest at his home in Los Angeles.
Jackson’s doctor Conrad Murray has been interviewed twice by police but has not been named as an official suspect. Details of the LA county coroners’ findings were revealed when a search warrant affidavit was made public in Houston, Texas, where Dr Murray has offices.
Dr Murray’s offices were raided last month as part of the police investigation into the singer’s death.
The Associated Press news agency quoted an unnamed police source as saying the coroner had ruled Jackson’s death was a homicide.
Addiction fears
According to the affidavit, the LA chief coroner “had reviewed the preliminary toxicology results and his preliminary assessment of Jackson’s cause of death was due to lethal levels of propofol”.
The documents go on to say that Dr Murray told police he had been giving Jackson propofol as part of his treatment for insomnia.

But, he said he had been concerned Jackson was becoming addicted to the drug and had begun to lower the dosage.
On the morning of the singer’s death, Dr Murray is reported to have given Jackson a lower dosage of propofol after a number of other drugs had not worked.
He left the star alone to make some telephone calls and when he returned Jackson was not breathing, the LA Times reports.
Dr Murray is known to have performed CPR on his patient while the paramedics were called, but Jackson was declared dead when he arrived at hospital.
Earlier this month, Dr Murray – who was employed as Michael Jackson’s personal physician for a tour in London that had been scheduled for July – posted a video message of YouTube to thank his supporters.
“I told the truth and I have faith the truth will prevail,” he said in the short one-minute clip.

Source: BBC news online, August 24, 2009

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At least two stolen dogs were found in an operating room used for dissections at the medical school of South America’s oldest university, but its dean denied relying on dognappers to collect specimens for classes.

The University of San Marcos does not have access to enough human cadavers for its students, so they sometimes cut open dogs instead.

Carmen Valverde’s dog Tomas was stolen by two men while she was walking in the working-class Brena district of Lima, and a friend who works at the school’s teaching hospital spotted him by chance in a surgery room where dogs are dissected.

Valverde donned a lab coat and snuck into the hospital to rescue Tomas. Video her friend shot a week ago, aired on local television, shows him sedated, splayed, and strapped to a stainless steel table — just moments away from the knife.

After local newspapers published the story, other people missing dogs rushed to the hospital’s door and one owner found her dog Chico.

“The University of San Marcos still hasn’t apologized for what it has done,” Valverde told Reuters Thursday.

Ricardo Rubios, dean of the medical school, acknowledged that stolen dogs had wound up in the surgery room, but said the school only uses strays for classes.

“I assure you we would have returned the dog. All our experimental surgeries are done to dogs that don’t have owners,” Rubios told Reuters.

Romila Briones, a member of ASPPA, a Peruvian animal rights group, said the law does not protect strays.

“In Europe, they don’t kill animals for education, they use dummies. Unfortunately, animals are just property in the eyes of the law here, like furniture,” Briones said.

Source: Reuters, August 21, 2009

Former London mayor Ken Livingstone — a keen newt-fancier — is to get married at the city’s zoo, he told a newspaper.

Livingstone, 64, told London’s Evening Standard he would tie the knot with Emma Beal, 41, next month — and vowed to set the gorillas on any uninvited guests.

Well-known for his love of newts, Livingstone and his long-term partner are will exchange vows in the Mappin Pavilion which houses wallabies and emus and stands next to the reptile house.

Newly-wed couples can choose to have their pictures taken in a range of romantic locations including the Bird Pavilion and the Butterfly House.

“We are getting married and it will be in London Zoo,” said Livingstone, dubbed “Red Ken” for his socialist views.

“It’s not a media event — if you try and get in I will set the gorillas on you. We have been looking to get married for years. We decided to do it when we had time, and this seems to be the ideal period.”

Livingstone has five children, including two with Beal, whom he met in 1996.

“A wedding can be quite boring for young kids. But they can go and look at the animals. I know the place — I just like it,” he said.

Livingstone was the first mayor of London, but after eight years in office he was ousted in 2008 by Conservative challenger Boris Johnson.

In his first job application he unsuccessfully sought to become a zookeeper, the Evening Standard said.

Source: AFP, August 21, 2009

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8213421.stm

Caster Semenya – who won the women’s 800 metres at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin – is definitely a girl, her mother Dorcus insists.

The South African athlete, who is 18, has been asked by the International Association of Athletics Federations to undergo a gender test.

Her mother told the BBC’s Jonah Fisher in South Africa: “It’s my girl… I gave birth to that girl from my womb.”

Click on the link here and watch the video interview with the girl’s mother.

Source: BBC news online. August 21, 2009