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South Africa: Man Photographs Cheetahs Attacking Wife The photos taken by a tourist from Scotland show his wife on the ground, hair flying, blood on her neck, with two cheetahs nearby (Violet D'Mello poses with a cheetah while being photographed by her husband Archibald during a visit to Kragga Kamma game reserve near Port Elizabeth, South Africa.) JOHANNESBURG — The photos taken by a tourist from Scotland show his wife on the ground, hair flying, blood on her neck, with two cheetahs nearby. The Port Elizabeth Herald reported Friday that Violet D'Mello of Aberdeen, Scotland, was attacked by cheetahs on...

A suspected Southern California copper thief has been electrocuted after climbing a power pole and using bolt cutters on a live wire, which also caused a power outage. The San Bernardino County Sun ( http://bit.ly/IEc5yx) says the body of 26-year-old Robert Buchanan and bolt cutters were found early Monday at the base of a utility pole in an unincorporated area near Fontana. Nearly 3,100 Southern California Edison customers were without power for about 90 minutes. San Bernardino County sheriff's investigators say Buchanan apparently used the bolt cutters to cut live wires from the pole. A sheriff's spokeswoman says Edison wires...

Already they have interrupted Michele Bachmann and drawn a withering putdown from Newt Gingrich as “all noise, no thought.” Now, to the dismay of Iowa Republicans, Occupy activists in Des Moines are vowing to expand their protests as Republican presidential hopefuls converge on the state that speaks first in the race for the party’s presidential nomination. “The 99 percent have woken up, and we’re not going to take it anymore,” Occupy activist Stephen Toothman of Des Moines said as an advance guard met Tuesday to decide which candidates to target in the coming week. Hundreds of Occupy activists from at...

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Rescuers battled high waves Sunday as they searched for 200 asylum seekers still missing after their wooden ship sank off Indonesia's main island of Java. So far only 33 people have been plucked alive from the choppy waters alive. Survivors told authorities they had been trying to reach Australia, said Lt. Alwi Mudzakir, a maritime police official who was heading rescue operations. He blamed Saturday's accident on overloading, saying the vessel - packed with 250 men, women and children from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Turkey - appeared to have been carrying more than twice its capacity....

WESLEY CHAPEL — A 78-year-old man was shot in a bizarre accident early Saturday when a dog bumped a rifle and caused it to fire, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Billy E. Brown of Dade City, a friend and a bulldog set out before dawn to hunt deer, which has been a tradition of theirs for more than 25 years. They were traveling down a bumpy, rocky road in a pickup truck to their hunting stands when the dog got excited and bumped a high-powered Browning .308-caliber rifle. The bullet struck in the right thigh as...

A South African farmer has been killed by the pet hippopotamus he raised from the age of five months, and which he once described as being 'like a son' to him. Humphrey the Hippo gouged owner Marius Els, 41, to death by repeatedly biting him in a vicious attack on Saturday night. The farmer's mutilated body was discovered submerged in a river running through his 400-acre farm in rural South Africa. ... Hippos are considered to one of the world's most dangerous animals. They are, by nature, very aggressive -... They commonly attack humans with no apparent provocation, usually using...

A suspect who was killed in a car wreck following a home invasion on Oct. 4, died of a self-inflicted gun shot, not from the accident, according to Clayton County police. Kenneth Kenard Fortson, 21, died when the pickup truck he and three other suspects were traveling in overturned on Roberts Drive across from Riverdale High School. That accident happened after the three men had allegedly forced entry into a home on Fairway Pointe Drive in Riverdale and demanded money and a video game, according to police. "He was found with a weapon in his hand, after the truck crashed,"...

SAN DIEGO — An autopsy is tentatively scheduled Tuesday on the body of the man who fell to his death from a parking structure at the Community Concourse at City Hall downtown Monday afternoon. Officials with the Medical Examiner’s Office said the man fell after losing his balance while trying to hang flyers on outside walls. San Diego police, however, said Monday that the man committed suicide. Witnesses told police the victim was possibly hanging a sign from the eighth floor of the building structure when he fell about 3:15 p.m. Flyers that said “Important message to intelligent earthlings from...

JENNINGS COUNTY, Ind. -- A southern Indiana woman was seriously injured in an accident police said was caused by car surfing. Investigators said 20-year-old Emily Jackson and a 19-year-old woman were car surfing on the roof of a Subaru station wagon that another 19-year-old was driving. It happened just after 11 p.m. Wednesday at Muscatatuck County Park in North Vernon, Ind. Jackson was flown to an Indianapolis hospital with a serious head injury. The crash is under investigation and police said it will be forwarded to the Jennings County prosecutor’s office for review.

ABBEVILLE, La. — The narrow, brick chimney of a Louisiana bank became his tomb for 27 years and now Joseph Schexnider will be laid to rest Sunday in a proper grave with a proper farewell by his family. Still, his brother Robert wonders, how did he wind up in that chimney? Didn't anyone hear any cries for help? Was it a robbery attempt gone awry, an accident or something more sinister?... [snip] "Everybody has an opinion," said Lt. David Hardy, chief of investigations for the Abbeville Police Department. "But no one has evidence to say one way or another." If...

<p>A Welsh animal lover was blinded in one eye after a seabird he tried to rescue pecked his eyeball out of its socket.</p> <p>Michael Buckland, 38, was walking with his girlfriend on a beach in Gower, South Wales, when the couple spotted a gannet that seemed unable to walk or fly...</p>

Keith Carmickle and his friends had already caught three balls during Major League Baseball's Home Run Derby Monday night and wanted more. He nearly got a lot more: a headfirst fall to a pool deck about 20 feet below. Chasing a home run hit by Milwaukee's Prince Fielder, Carmickle was saved from a long fall when his brother and a friend grabbed him around the legs and arms, then pulled him back as he dangled above the deck area behind the pool in right field at Chase Field.

Darwin Award of the WeekA valuable lesson was learned by a Darwin Award candidate this week. An unidentified Colorado teen had the bright (and explosive) idea to combine a pile of small fireworks into a big one by shredding them up in a coffee grinder. He should be receiving his award after he is released from the hospital. The Fire Marshal postulates that the electric coffee grinder probably caused enough friction to cause the explosion. Comments

ONONDAGA, N.Y. (AP) — Police say a motorcyclist participating in a protest ride against helmet laws in upstate New York died after he flipped over the bike's handlebars and hit his head on the pavement.

A Russian man died after burying himself alive in a friend's garden in the eastern city of Blagoveshchensk in an endurance test that went wrong. "According to his friend, the man, 35, wanted to test his endurance and insistently asked his friend to help him spend the night buried," said Alexei Lubinsky, a senior aide to the region's chief investigator. The two men dug a hole in the garden and put inside an improvised coffin with holes for air pipes. The man also took a blanket, a bottle of water and a cell phone. The victim's friend told investigators he...

A man who was thrown from a skateboard while "hot-boarding" near Santa Clarita has died, sheriff's officials say. Edward Culhane, 35, was cruising along on his skateboard while holding onto a vehicle along Cedarfalls Drive near Urbandale Avenue Saturday evening when he lost his grip and hit his head on the ground. The driver, 33-year-old Ryan Howell, is suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, Los Angeles County sheriff's said. Howell was arrested and booked for felony DUI. 'Hot-boarding' is a dangerous stunt involving a skateboarder being towed behind a moving vehicle. A San Diego County man...

Nato has denied claims that its naval units left dozens of migrants to die aboard another boat in distress. It said it was unaware of the plight of the boat, which reportedly was adrift for more than two weeks. The Guardian newspaper said 61 of the 72 people on board the boat died of hunger or thirst, despite being spotted by a military helicopter and Nato ship.

NORTH CHARLESTON, SC (WCSC) - Police arrested a 41-year-old man last week after he called 911 and told officers that he was not given the correct change after buying crack cocaine from a drug dealer.

The government turned down a U.S. offer of technical help to cool overheating nuclear reactors in Fukushima Prefecture soon after last week's massive earthquake because it believed the offer was "premature," The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. The reactors have since been hit by several explosions and radiation has leaked out. Some observers believe this could have been prevented if the government had accepted the U.S. offer.

SAN YSIDRO, Calif. -- A pedestrian struck by a car and killed just north of the international border was identified Friday as a 31-year-old Tijuana woman. Alma Luz Alfaro Gonzalez was crossing the street in a crosswalk at Paseo de las Americas at Siempre Viva Road when she was hit by a tractor-trailer rig making a right turn just after 6 p.m. Thursday, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office. San Diego police Officer David Stafford said the woman was talking on her cell phone and ignored a red light. Witnesses gave aid to the woman and called...

After breaking into an Oregon residence last night, Timothy Chapek, 24, barricaded himself in a bathroom after the owner unexpectedly arrived home. Chapek, you see, was worried that Hilary Mackenzie might be armed (or that her barking German Shepherds could prove problematic). So he called 911 seeking help. “I just broke into a house and the owner came home,” Chapek told a police operator. “You broke into a house?” the surprised operator responded. “I think she’s got guns,” Chapek added. Simultaneously, Mackenzie called police to report that there was an intruder in her Portland home (she told an operator that...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Authorities say an Alaska-based soldier told police a fellow soldier asked for a bullet to put in a gun's empty chamber before he fatally shot himself during a drunken game of Russian roulette. Jacob Brouch is charged with second-degree murder in the death of his 26-year-old Army friend -- Michael McCloskey of Beverly, N.J. -- following the early Sunday shooting at Brouch's home in Eagle River, an Anchorage suburb.

"The driver of the SUV, Stella Thomas, 42, of Graham, attempted to enter a curve on North Ireland Street near Virginia Avenue when the mattresses became unstable and slid off the roof, police said. Walker then fell off the roof, striking his head on the roadway, police said."

EARLIMART, Calif. — A Lamont man was killed earlier this week by a chicken. Jose Luis Ochoa, 35, was stabbed by a knife attached to the leg of a fighting rooster, the Kern County coroner's office said Friday.

Alleged Bank Robber Takes Hostage - Shot By Police After Slipping And Falling On Ice Updated: Friday, 28 Jan 2011, 10:18 AM EST Published : Friday, 28 Jan 2011, 9:53 AM EST by MYFOXDC TAKOMA PARK, Md. - Dramatic video shows an alleged bank robber being taken down by police after slipping and falling on ice. WARNING – GRAPHIC VIDEO The incident happened at the Capital One Bank in Takoma Park, Md. around 9:00 a.m. on Friday. Police had the bank surrounded when the alleged robber came out of the front door with what looked like a gun to the...

MARION COUNTY, Fla. -- A man who deputies said was breaking into a Marion County home died after a family pet scared him away. Butler suffered cuts from glass shards and collapsed in a neighbor's yard. He later died, according to deputies. "I'm very grateful to my dog for protecting my house," homeowner Angela Wilcox said. "I wish he would not have broken into my home." Wilcox said Butler lived in the neighborhood. She said Butler's girlfriend told her he was hallucinating from drugs at the time he broke in. Deputies said Butler did not steal anything from the home....

SCOTTS VALLEY -- Melissa Martinez, the 17-year-old from Scotts Valley who perished in a warehouse fire in New Orleans on Tuesday morning, could have returned home, but her soft heart led her to stay with friends instead, according to her mother Rebecca Snook. "She compassionately made a choice to join her new friends in their discomfort in the bitter cold," her mother said in a statement from New Orleans, sharing the story with her daughter's friends in Scotts Valley. "In her characteristically powerful way, she was respecting and supporting their lifestyle choice. She was enjoying their company purely for what...

A University Park man who killed a neighbor whose dog urinated on his lawn was sentenced today to four years probation. "This is not justice," said Gail Williams, the slain man's aunt. Charles Clements, 69, a great-grandfather, former Marine and retired truck driver who took great pride in his lawn's appearance, could have been sentenced to as much as 20 years. In declining to send Clements to jail, Will County Judge Daniel Rozak noted the episode was Clements' first contact with the legal system in his 69 years. He also said the slaying wasn't about a dog urinating on a...

Montreal police Const. Anie Lemieux said the initial investigation suggests the youths may have been spray-painting graffiti. It's believed they had parked their cars near the scene before heading to the tracks. Lemieux said they were in an area where it would have been difficult to hear trains approaching.

He developed the idea in the early 1970s on expeditions to the Franconian Jura mountains, when he would paint a red “x” on each piton he could avoid using for a foot- or handhold. Once he was able to complete a route avoiding all of them, he would paint a red dot at the base of the climb so that others could have a go. Albert’s “redpoints” sparked the development of the sport climbing movement and the term “redpoint” is used as a measure of performance.... A turning point in his life came in 1973 during a trip to the...

Jerome Williams was 12 when he fought a teacher at Northview Heights Elementary School. He was 14 when police accused him of shooting out windows in the Northview Heights housing complex where he lived. At 15, four days after a juvenile detention center released him, he died in a shootout with police officers responding to a home invasion robbery on Monday. "He was always one of those kids who didn't listen," said his mother, Kisha Adams, 34, of Northview Heights. "He had a hard head."

A Berks County man paralyzed in a bicycling accident several years ago was killed Thursday when he collided with an ambulance near his home while riding an adaptive cycle recently donated to him. Stephen B. Johnson, 49, of Exeter Township, was riding the three-wheel cycle modified for people with leg paralysis west on Rugby Road in Exeter Township when he veered into the path of the ambulance, according to police. The ambulance was returning to its station from a call and was not carrying any patients, police said.

POMPANO BEACH — When an angry motorist came rushing up to the window of his pickup truck Wednesday, Cleveland Murdock had a gun and Florida law to back him. The Broward Sheriff's Office said Thursday their case is closed in the road rage incident that left Patrick Lavoie, 33, dead in the middle of a residential street. Murdock acted in self-defense by shooting in the heart the man who approached him, investigators determined. Witnesses told investigators Lavoie jumped out of the Honda Civic his girlfriend was driving, upset that Murdock seemed to be tailgating the couple. Lavoie angrily charged toward...

Handheld laser pointers are commonly used in lecture halls and are considered to be harmless and safe.1 However, laser pointers can cause severe eye injury, as demonstrated by the case of a 15-year-old boy. The boy had ordered a handheld laser pointer with green light on the Internet to use as a toy for popping balloons from a distance and burning holes into paper cards and his sister's sneakers. The boy's life changed when he was playing with his laser pointer in front of a mirror to create a “laser show,” during which the laser beam hit his eyes several...

STATESVILLE, NC (WBTV) - A man who was with about a dozen people who were looking for a legendary "ghost train" in Iredell County was hit by a locomotive and killed early Friday morning. The incident happened on a train trestle at 2:45 a.m. near the 900 block of Buffalo Shoals Road. Robin Chapman, a spokesperson for Norfolk-Southern Railroad, said the eastbound train consisted of three locomotives and no freight cars. The train was rounding a curve and approaching a trestle over Boston Creek just prior to Buffalo Shoals Road when it struck a man on the trestle, Chapman said.

BRUSSELS – The lead singer of a British pop trio climbed a telecommunications mast behind the main stage at a Belgian rock festival and leaped to his death in the parking lot below, police said Saturday. Twenty-two-year-old Charles Haddon of Ou Est Le Swimming Pool died late Friday during the Pukkelpop festival in Hasselt, a town in eastern Belgium. District attorney Marc Rubens said police were treating the death as a suicide.

KIRKLAND, Wash. - Homemade fireworks caused an explosion inside a vehicle on Interstate 405 in Kirkland on Saturday. The Washington State Patrol says a man filled some balloons with welding gas - a combination of oxygen and acetylene gas - which is normally stored in steel cylinders. They rubbed together, causing static electricity, and exploded. Troopers say the blast blew out the back window of the pickup truck. They say the man, woman and 3-year-old girl in the vehicle are lucky they were not injured or even killed in the blast.

Antoine Boutte used to keep a loaded gun at the bottom of his gas stove. That is, until he forgot it was there early Saturday and he and another man decided to cook some food, Fulton County police said Boutte fired up the stove at his College Park home around 3:30 a.m. Saturday -- heating up the .40 caliber Smith & Wesson along with it, a police report said. While the food was cooking, the weapon’s magazine started to melt in the gun well, the police report said. This caused the spring – and bullets – to come out of...

Man dies after jumping from Card Sound Bridge A Miami man is dead and another seriously injured after the two jumped off the Card Sound Bridge "just for fun," Thursday afternoon. Jorge Suarez-Taupier, 24, died from his injuries and his friend, 20-year-old Isaac Morejon, barely survivde the plunge. Card Sound Bridge is a toll bridge in Key Largo and is about 60 feet above the water. Authorities said the two men were drinking beer and fishing befor they made the decision to spice up their evening by jumping into the water.

Abby Sunderland, 16, who is attempting to become the youngest sailor ever to circumnavigate the globe, was feared lost at sea today after her crew lost contact with her boat. Jeff Casher, an engineer on Sunderland's support team, said two emergency beacons on her boat are now signaling she is in trouble. Abby's mother, MaryAnne Sunderland, told ABC News that Abby manually activated two beacons around 6 a.m. Pacific Time Thursday. A beacon designed to automatically go off when it contacts water had not been activated, she said. Abby was in 20-25 foot waves at the time of last contact,...

A man was seriously injured Monday morning after he was trapped in a burning car on the West Side, authorities said. Police said the man, 37, was driving a Cadillac Seville north on Loop 410 near Culebra Road around 8:30 a.m. when he lit a cigarette, igniting a gas can in the passenger seat. The man, who was not immediately identified, lost control of the two-door car, which was on fire, began driving backward and then crashed into another car, police said. The man was trapped inside until San Antonio firefighters arrived. It wasn't immediately clear whether firefighters extinguished the...

Vodka eyeballing. It’s the latest drinking fad on YouTube, and it could cause blindness. Hundreds of online videos that originated in the U.K. show teens pouring vodka directly into their eyes, straight from the bottle. The videos are getting hundreds of thousands of hits, MyFoxDC.com reported. Substance abuse expert Mike Gumbel claims kids aren’t eyeballing to get drunk faster, but do it when the effects of alcohol have already set in and impaired their judgment. Eyeballing is more of a prank than a way to become more intoxicated. “They’re not doing it to get more drunk, they’re doing it as...

<p>Authorities have identified a 47-year-old woman who drowned as her car sunk into a retention pond Friday night after she unsuccessfully tried to save the vehicle from rising water.</p> <p>Cassandra Bryant, of the 1400 block of Blue Bell in north Harris County, was southbound on the North Freeway service road around 10 p.m. when rising water prompted her to maneuver the car inadvertently into the pond.</p>

The use of the drug LSD, or commonly referred to as “acid,” appears to be increasing especially among young adults in Arcata, according to an Arcata Police Department press release issued yesterday. On April 18, officers responded to a residence to assist the Arcata Mad River Ambulance with a 31-year-old male subject who had just castrated himself. Medical personnel and officers were unable to locate the subject’s testicles. He later told officers that he flushed them down the toilet as he feared they contained “monsters.” The victim, who police say had a Tennessee address, was with several friends when he...

The use of the drug LSD, or commonly referred to as “acid,” appears to be increasing especially among young adults in Arcata, according to an Arcata Police Department press release issued yesterday. On April 18, officers responded to a residence to assist the Arcata Mad River Ambulance with a 31-year-old male subject who had just castrated himself. Medical personnel and officers were unable to locate the subject’s testicles. He later told officers that he flushed them down the toilet as he feared they contained “monsters.”

A proposal to grant medals for "courageous restraint" to troops in Afghanistan who avoid deadly force at a risk to themselves has generated concern among U.S. soldiers and experts who worry it could embolden enemy fighters and confuse friendly forces.

In what may be one of the most shocking stories of the year, a man in China died after having an eel inserted into his rectum. Doctors who treated the victim in the Sichuan Province, did not know how the man met his demise until they performed an autopsy and discovered an Asian swamp eel up his backside.

A handyman who was injured in a "Laurel and Hardy moment" after propping his ladder against the tree branch he then sawed off is suing his employers. Peter Aspinall, 64, had been asked to prune a sycamore tree in the grounds of a hotel, but instead of leaning his ladder against the trunk he placed it against the branch he was hacking down. When the branch fell it took Mr Aspinall with it, 14ft to the ground below. He broke his heel, damaged his ligaments and had to spend ten days in hospital recovering from surgery on his injuries. Now...

A young Muslim woman had died after her burkha became snagged in a go-kart. The 24-year-old woman, who has not yet been named, died a terrifying death today when a fluttering part of her burkha became caught in the wheels of a go-kart she was driving near the town of Port Stephens, north of Sydney. The Muslim clothing the woman was wearing flew back as she sped around the track and part of it became entangled in the go-kart's wheels. She was strangled in a second and crashed the vehicle.

CINCINNATI (AP) - A "drunk and belligerent" 17-year-old Notre Dame football recruit was killed in a fall from a fifth-floor hotel balcony during his senior-year spring break in Florida, authorities said Saturday.