Motorist caught by police driving with car bonnet up

The incident occurred in Weymouth, Dorset, during a county-wide 'No Excuse' safety campaign to educate people about bad driving.

A motorist was caught by police driving with her car bonnet wide open and peering through the tiny gap to see where she was going.

When incredulous officers pulled her over, the 53-year-old woman, who has has not been named, told them the bonnet was faulty and she was on her way to get it repaired.

The incident occurred in Weymouth, Dorset, during a county-wide "No Excuse" safety campaign to educate people about bad driving.

The woman had been using a four inch gap between her dashboard and the bonnet to steer her car through the seaside town.

Police have yet to decide whether they will press charges as they continue their investigations.

Officers in the resort detected 30 offences in just one day, which they say could have led to serious crashes.

Other unusual scenes included one man steering the car with his elbows while using both hands to roll a cigarette and reading from a clipboard placed across the steering wheel.

In total 2,364 driving offences were picked up across Dorset in the first six weeks of the campaign.

Brian Austin, project manager of the No Excuse campaign, said: "The female driver told police that she was on her way to the garage to get the bonnet fixed.

"We have had incidents like this before, not long ago a man had scraped a circle of a few inches in the ice on his windscreen and then was amazed when police stopped him.

"We are determined to make the roads of Dorset safer for residents and visitors."

Robert Smith, head of road safety at Dorset County Council, said: "Our partners in the police aren't having to look too hard to find examples of dangerous driving, from the bizarre to the truly terrifying.

"Around 30 per cent of the offences detected in the campaign's first six weeks involved drivers using a handheld mobile phone or not bothering to put on their seatbelt.

"It shows that there is still a significant number who have yet to get the message that there's no excuse for putting lives at risk through bad and careless driving."

READ MORE - Motorist caught by police driving with car bonnet up

Firefighters rescue homesick Spider-Gran

A homesick grandmother had to be rescued by firefighters in China after she climbed out of the window of a fifth floor flat.

Zhang Yingfeng, 80, had been staying in son Tian Weitao's apartment in Hebi city, Henan province, but wanted to return to her village home.

Tian had locked the door as he was sure she would start to enjoy the benefits of urban living if she stayed with him and his wife a little longer.

But Zhang decided she didn't want to stay another minute and tied a rope around her waist before climbing through the window, reports the Henan Business Daily.

She had intended climbing down to the street below - but underestimated the length of rope and ended up dangling precariously in mid-air.

"I thought the rope was long enough to get me down to the ground but I forgot to allow for the amount I had to wrap around my waist before climbing out," Zhang later admitted.

Luckily she was spotted by neighours who called the emergency services and help was quickly on the scene.

Firefighters managed to temporarily support the grandmother with a shovel from a third floor window while a colleague lowered a rope ladder from the fifth floor to rescue her.

He rigged up a winch and managed to lower Zhang safely to the ground below. She needed hospital treatment for injuries to her fingers caused by rope burns.

READ MORE - Firefighters rescue homesick Spider-Gran

Models pose amongst piles of rubbish

A top fashion photographer has launched a project to illustrate the environmental damage caused by the collapse of Sicily's refuse industry.

Matilde Incorpora has shot top fashion models amongst the growing piles of rubbish in the capital Palermo.

Rubbish collection - which is firmly in the grip of the Mafia - has left trash to rot in the streets of the Cosa Nostra heartland.

Now Incorpora and other fashion leaders have decided to ignore the risks of speaking out, highlighting the problem with a series of snaps of models among the discarded rubbish.

"They look like the world's best dressed down-and-outs but they have a serious point to make," said one fan.

Incoropora explained: "We arranged the photographic set in the streets of Palermo as a form of protest against the environmental damage of this wonderful city with its thousand-year-old history."

The good looks of the models have been posed against some of the city's worst eyesores, looking like a grungy artistic fashion shoot.

Until, that is, the viewer realises that this is no studio set, but instead a real problem afflicting the citizens of Palermo.

Local firefighters have been kept busy as they are called out to extinguish piles of burning rubbish, and there are fears of a health crisis as rotting food and other waste builds up in the streets.

"I hope my photography can help open people's eyes and do something to end this crisis," added Incorpora.

READ MORE - Models pose amongst piles of rubbish

Soggy moggy enjoys swimming pool

A cat in Australia is defying its species' famous dread of water by taking regular dips in a swimming pool.

Prinny the Persian cat regularly joins canine chum Bandit the blue heeler at the Doggy Paddle Swim Centre in Rosebud, Melbourne.

The paddling pooch has regular swimming sessions in order to help treat a bad back.

Prinny, however, has no such ailment and apparently takes to the water simply for the fun of it.

Doggy Paddle owner Jacque Olsen comments: "I've never seen a cat swim before.

"Bandit came here with a bad back and his owner said the cat swims with him at home, so Prinny hopped in the pool with him next time he came."

Jacque originally set up her unique swim centre, which boasts a 8m x 2m lap pool, for her Staffy cross ridgeback Ubud, whose back legs became paralysed after he suffered an embolism.

"After six months of swimming Ubud was walking again," she said.

Today, the Doggy Paddle swim centre has 150 dogs on its books - and one cat.

READ MORE - Soggy moggy enjoys swimming pool

Briton is recognised as world's first officially genderless person

May-Welby said: 'The concepts of man or woman don?t fit me. The simplest solution is not to have any sex identification'

A British expat who claims to have no gender is thought to have become the first person to be officially recognised as neither male or female.

Norrie May-Welby, 48, was born a man but had a sex change operation in 1990, at the age of 28.

After becoming unhappy as a woman, May-Welby decided to become a “neuter”. The 48-year-old is now officially recognised as a person of no specific gender.

May-Welby emigrated to Australia at the age of seven after being born in Paisley, Renfrewshire.

Officials there altered the Briton’s birth certificate to include the new no-gender classification after doctors were apparently unable to determine the sex of the expat’s body.

May-Welby said: “The concepts of man or woman don’t fit me. The simplest solution is not to have any sex identification.”

The UK’s Gender Trust welcomed the case. A spokesman said: “Many people like the idea of being genderless.”

READ MORE - Briton is recognised as world's first officially genderless person

China: girl's boyfriend advert attracts thousands of suitors

Zhang Mengqian

When a Chinese college student posted a message announcing her desire to find a boyfriend she wasn't prepared for the overwhelming response.

After leaving the message, thousands of eager potential boyfriends swarmed to the dormitory building where Zhang Mengqian lives.

The mass gathering occurred after the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in Chengdu, in southwest China's Sichuan province, declared March 7 and 8 as a girls' day for the female students.


The university, which has ratio of male and female students as 25:1, gave each female student a blank card, asking them to write their wish and post onto a special "wish wall".

In her message Miss Mengqian told potential suitors to come to her room on a certain day at a certain time and shout out her name.

When the day and time in question arrived thousands of potential suitors gathered. However, only a few were brave enough to shout out her name.

READ MORE - China: girl's boyfriend advert attracts thousands of suitors

Dotcom at 25: Silver anniversary of the Web's brand name

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

READ MORE - Dotcom at 25: Silver anniversary of the Web's brand name

Microsoft’s Skinput System Turns Skin into a Touchscreen

Touchscreens have revolutionized the way we communicate with electronics, but sometimes they can get a little cramped — wouldn’t it be great if the iPhone’s screen was just a little bit bigger? One creative solution is Skinput, a device that uses a pico projector to beam graphics (keyboards, menus, etc.) onto a user’s palm and forearm, transforming the skin into a computer interface.

The device, built as a collaboration between researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft, uses the different sounds emitted when we tap various parts of our skin (AKA acoustic patterns) to figure out what icon, menu, or key is tapped. Skinput contains five piezoelectric cantilevers to detect sound frequencies and respond to different “skin buttons”. The system is surprisingly on target. It can detect 5 skin locations with 95.5% accuracy–about the same as many actual touchscreen devices.

No word on when Skinput might actually be integrated into electronic devices, but we wonder if the technology could one day eliminate — or at least cut down on — the use of actual touchscreens in mobile devices. Check out the video below.

READ MORE - Microsoft’s Skinput System Turns Skin into a Touchscreen

World's shortest man dies, aged 21

He Pingping

The world's shortest man, He Pingping, who stood just over two feet five inches tall (75 centimetres), has died, Britain's Guinness World Records said on Monday. He was 21.

He - a native of China who had a form of primordial dwarfism and measured 74.61cm - was in Rome taking part in a television show when he suffered chest problems.

He was taken to hospital, where he died over the weekend.

Craig Glenday, editor-in-chief of London-based Guinness World Records, recalled measuring He in the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia in 2008.

"For such a small man, he made a huge impact around the world," Glenday said.

"From the moment I laid on eyes on him, I knew he was someone special - he had such a cheeky smile and mischievous personality, you couldn't help but be charmed by him," he said.

"He brightened up the lives of everyone he met, and was an inspiration to anyone considered different or unusual."

Guinness World Records said it would announce He's successor as the world's shortest man in due course.

Khagendra Thapa Magar, 18, from Nepal, who is reportedly 51cm high, declared in February that he is the rightful holder of the title.

READ MORE - World's shortest man dies, aged 21

South Korean Couple Lets Baby Die While Nurturing Virtual Child

Couple allegedly neglected baby while spending 12-hour gaming sessions at Internet café.

Prius Online

Sometimes, stories about video game addiction are alarmist malarkey to bump up ratings. Other times, they're just flat-out tragic: The Next Web reports that a couple in South Korea has been arrested for allegedly allowing their prematurely born baby to starve to death while they were busy tending to a virtual kid at an Internet café.

The couple reportedly fed their baby only once a day between 12-hour stretches of play-time with a popular role-playing game called Prius Online, in which they were busy raising a virtual kid. The autopsy report of their baby showed the death was a result of a long period of malnutrition.

"The couple seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life, because they didn't have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby," said South Korean police officer Chung Jin-won. "They indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby."

This of course isn't the first report of online and game addiction leading to tragic results in South Korea -- back in 2005, a gamer who played StarCraft for 50 hours straight died after suffering cardiac arrest. They even opened the "Jump Up Internet Addiction" school -- a boot camp of sorts for people suffering online and gaming addiction -- in South Korea in 2007.

READ MORE - South Korean Couple Lets Baby Die While Nurturing Virtual Child

FedEx T-Shirt Illusion

Nice, i think :D

READ MORE - FedEx T-Shirt Illusion

Premature baby 'Tom Thumb' born at 25 weeks weighing half a pound survives

German doctors have revealed photographs of the smallest premature baby boy to have survived against incredible odds after being born at 25 weeks weighing just over half a pound.

A boy weighing only 275 grams after being born at University Hospital Goettingen in Germany is the world's lightest ever to have survived a premature birth

The baby, who doctors dubbed "Tom Thumb" was less than the length of a sheet of A-4 paper and weighed a fraction over 9.7 ounces (275 grams) when he was born by Caesarean section 15 weeks prematurely at the University of Medicine at Göttingen in western Germany in June 2009.

For 24 hours a day, the child was in an incubator and hooked up to feeding tubes, breathing tubes, a heart monitor, a catheter and a plethora of electronic devices to monitor every vital sign as he faced risks of cerebral haemorrhage or organ failure.

In December, the baby was finally pronounced "stable" after achieving a weight of 8.2lbs - considered an average birth weight in Germany.

Now, nine months after his birth, doctors have allowed the unnamed boy's parents to take him to the family home in Eighsfeld, central Germany, after ruling that he is strong enough to survive.

Officials from Göttingen hospital said that, having checked all available records of premature births worldwide, they were unable to find a viable birth of a boy at a lower weight. Three girls - including one born in the US at just 244 grams - had survived lower birth weights. The smallest boy previously recorded weighed 10.4 ounces.

Dr Stephan Seeliger, an expert on premature babies, said: "I spoke to the parents about the birth beforehand - whether we should go for it or not. In the end, I said: 'Good thing we did it!'"

READ MORE - Premature baby 'Tom Thumb' born at 25 weeks weighing half a pound survives

Britain's 'big cat X files' revealed

"There have been more than 100 sightings of exotic and unidentified animals in England since 2005, according to a dossier compiled by Natural England."

Handout photo of a animal, believed to be a big cat, prowling close to a naval base in Scotland

They are the stuff of rural legend – but for decades, alleged sightings of big cats stalking the British countryside have been dismissed as hoax or fantasy.

Yet now the head of a Government agency responsible for investigating such incidents has declared that he believes these mysterious creatures do indeed exist.

His comments follow the release of a dossier by Natural England which lists more than 100 sightings of exotic, non-native and unidentified animals in England since 2005.

Of these, 38 were "big cats". In some cases, members of the public claimed to have seen the creature itself; on other occasions, they reported finding farm or wild animals which had been attacked or killed.

The documents – Britain's "big cats X Files" – show the extent to which Natural England takes the reports seriously.

The agency has launched several investigations, involving site visits by officials and the drafting in of specialist vets to examine injuries.

Big cat sightings have been reported all over England. In some areas they have spawned legends, such as the so-called Beast of Bodmin in the south west.

The investigations have yet to find conclusive proof of the presence of the mysterious creatures but, asked about their existence, Charlie Wilson, who coordinates reports for the Government agency, said: "The evidence is there that there are the odd, escaped, released dumped animals occurring in the wild every now and then.

"We know that. I am quite prepared to believe that. I don't think there are any breeding populations, however.

"If they are there, the numbers are so small that any risk of people encountering them is pretty small and any risks they present are somewhere approaching zero."

He added: "All reports are logged in our system. If there is only a sighting, then there is not usually much more than can be done to follow it up.

"But we are able to do so if there is something a bit more tangible that we could look at, like the carcases of other animals, or tracks. There are reports that turn out to be plausible."

One theory is that several large species, such as panthers, leopards and lynx, were deliberately released into the wild by their owners in the 1970s after the introduction of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act, which placed restrictions on the keeping of certain species.

In one "big cat" investigation, a carcase from an ostrich farm in Cambridgeshire was examined and the site was monitored.

In another, in Surrey, a roe deer was dragged over two fences, had its carcase eviscerated and was left with puncture marks. Natural England was informed by police and its officials studied photographs.

In Lincolnshire, a farmer found several of his sheep killed and eaten. On some of the carcases only the skull and spine were left. The farmer said the attack was down to a big cat and officials visited the site. Photos of the carcases were taken.

In another case, an injured horse was found in a field in Warwickshire, with claw marks scratched in it. In a further report, officials studied photographs of dead foxes, believed to have been scavenged by a big cat in Suffolk.

One big cat, spotted by a roadside between the villages of Mark and Burtle, in Somerset, was said to be as tall as a car. In another sighting in the same county, a motorist on the M5 reported seeing a big cat in an adjacent field.

While many of the investigations have been "inconclusive", others have been resolved. A supposed big cat seen in Norfolk, for instance, turned out to be a badger.

Danny Bamping, from the British Big Cats Society, said the real number of sightings would be even higher.

"Believing in big cats is not like believing in the Loch Ness monster," he said. "There is absolutely no doubt that they are out there.

"The most credible reports are from farmers, and those guys know their stuff. We have also had policemen reporting sightings to us. For every report, there are going to be others who don't bother to report it."

As well as the big cats, the Natural England dossier details other investigations which, in some cases, have found evidence of the presence of exotic species at large.

For instance, raccoon dogs – native to Asia and Russia – were confirmed as living in Oxfordshire and West Berkshire, while Siberian chipmunks, which can carry fatal diseases, have also been confirmed in Berkshire, Wiltshire and Cheshire.

Dead raccoons have been found in Kent and Hampshire, while there has also been a credible – though inconclusive – report of a living one in Surrey.

A snapping turtle, two feet long and 10 to 12 inches wide, was also discovered in Kent. The dossier states that the species "can be dangerous" and says that the animal needed trapping and destroying.

Fourteen coypus were also reported. The large South American rodent was brought to the UK by fur farmers in the 1930s, but some escaped and established wild populations.

These were thought to have been eradicated following a large-scale trapping exercise.

The new sightings could suggest that some remain at large, although none were proved conclusively.

A sighting of a wallaroo – an Australian animal which is smaller than a kangaroo but larger than a wallaby – living in Cornwall was taken as being credible, although not proven.

Other unconfirmed sightings include more raccoons and raccoon dogs, a wolf in Surrey, and a prairie dog in Buckinghamshire.

Twenty-eight of the sightings involved wild boar, which have escaped from farms and become established in some parts of the country in recent years. Sightings in other areas are still closely monitored.

READ MORE - Britain's 'big cat X files' revealed

Mickey Rourke: I had sex with 14 women in 1 night

Mickey Rourke once had sex with 14 women in a night.

The 57-year-old actor claims he managed to entice multiple women into his bed during a marathon evening out in London.

Mickey – who referred to the cheating antics of Cheryl Cole’s husband Ashley Cole – told British interviewer Lizzie Cundy, “Forget Ashley Cole, his behaviour has nothing on a film star. Soccer players’ wives and girlfriends get an easy time – they should try living with Hollywood hell raisers.

“I once spent a weekend in the UK and had 14 women in one night.”

Ashley was recently dumped by his pop star wife following allegations he cheated on her with several different women.

Mickey, who is a regular on the London clubbing scene, was not specific about when the lovemaking marathon happened, but added: “If you wives and girlfriends knew what Hollywood’s stars get up to you’d think you were married to pussycats.”

The ‘Wrestler’ star, who is currently dating 24-year-old Russian model Anastassija Makarenko, was seen partying in the British capital last September and was linked to a string of different women.

However, he has since settled down and has described Anastassija as a “gift from heaven”.

Earlier this year, he said: “Obviously she’s a very beautiful woman. She’s a gift from heaven. But she’s got the biggest heart, she’s got a great family, she’s really close to her mother and father – they’re great people.

“I wouldn’t trade her in for 20 Academy Awards.”

BANG Showbiz

READ MORE - Mickey Rourke: I had sex with 14 women in 1 night

Teacher killed herself after ex-boyfriend posted naked photos on Facebook

Emma Jones, 24, drank poisonous cleaning fluid after confiding in friends that she feared she could be jailed in the Muslim country over the explicit images.

The hearing was told one of Miss Jones’s colleagues had seen the photographs after they were uploaded onto the social networking site allegedly by her former lover Jamie Brayley.

The colleague accused Miss Jones, who was working in an international school in Abu Dhabi, of being a prostitute and she feared he would report her to authorities, the inquest heard.

The coroner ruled that Mr Brayley was not responsible for Miss Jones's death.

Miss Jones's mother, Louise Rowlands, said she had spoken to her on the phone in the days before her death and that she planned to fly home to Britain.

But Miss Jones was discovered collapsed in her home in Khalifa City by a flatmate with her passport in her jeans pocket and her clothes lying on her bed ready for packing.

The flatmate, Mona Moshki, 29, called for an ambulance but paramedics were unable to save the Greenwich University graduate.

Mrs Rowlands, 41, told the hearing in Cardiff: “He (Mr Brayley) put a memory stick in the computer and copied some indecent images of Emma.

"He put them on her Facebook and she said she was accused of prostitution by a man working at the school."

Emma had worked at the International School of Choueifat in Khalifa City in Abu Dhabi since 2008, teaching English to eight-year-old children.

But the inquest heard a man called George, working in the IT department at the school, had seen the pictures.

Mrs Rowlands, a care worker, said: "Emma and George didn't get on at all. She said she had to get away.

"She was crying, she was breaking her heart. I said ‘Emma, whatever it is can't be that bad. Just come home’.”

She added that Miss Jones told her: "I can't leave the country, they will throw me in jail."

Mr Brayley, an IT consultant told the inquest that Mrs Rowlands’s claims were “complete fantasy”.

He admitted he had used her computer but denied ever downloading private photographs of her.

Mr Brayley said: "Emma never sent me any indecent images. She wasn't that type of character."

Deputy assistant coroner Thomas Atherton said he did not believe Mr Brayley was to blame for Miss Jones’s death.

The inquest in Cardiff heard that Abu Dhabi police suspected suicide and ruled out foul play.

Pathologist Dr Thomas Hockey concluded that Miss Jones, of Caerphilly, south Wales, died after drinking a corrosive substance.

Mr Atherton said he could not be sure Miss Jones, a sociology graduate, meant to kill herself and recorded an open verdict.

He said she may have accidentally drunk cleaning fluid from an unlabelled container, mistakenly believing it was water.

He said: "For whatever reason Emma expressed concern she was about to be arrested and put in prison.

"She agreed the best course of action was to leave Abu Dhabi and return to Britain. Her clothes were out and her passport was in her pocket.

“That's not someone who is contemplating suicide."

Speaking at the time of Miss Jones’s death, Mrs Rowlands said: "She was so happy and just wanted to enjoy life.

"Emma loved it there with the children. One of her sayings was ‘There are sayers and doers’, She was a doer."

Neil Smooker, a spokesman for the school, said: "Emma was well liked by her colleagues and the students.

"She was a vibrant and enthusiastic teacher who always strove to ensure her students achieved the best learning outcomes."

READ MORE - Teacher killed herself after ex-boyfriend posted naked photos on Facebook