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A senior official of the Hezbollah militant group was killed on Monday evening when an explosion rocked a house apparently serving as a munitions bunker in south Lebanon. At least five other people were killed in the blast, which took place in a three-story building in the southern Lebanese village of Tayr Filsi, on the southern bank of the Litani River. The identity of the militant has not yet been confirmed, but security sources listed his son among the fatalities. The area was cordoned off and Hezbollah could not be reached for comment.

UNIONTOWN, Pa. -- State police have charged a self-proclaimed Civil War buff with accidentally firing a 2-pound cannonball through the wall of a neighbor's home. Fifty-four-year-old William Maser says he was firing a cannon Wednesday evening when the ball ricocheted and hit the house about 400 yards away.

WASHINGTON - The explosion of a star halfway across the universe was so huge it set a record for the most distant object that could be seen on Earth by the naked eye. The aging star, in a previously unknown galaxy, exploded in a gamma ray burst 7.5 billion light years away, its light finally reaching Earth early Wednesday. The gamma rays were detected by NASA's Swift satellite at 2:12 a.m. "We'd never seen one before so bright and at such a distance," NASA's Neil Gehrels said. It was bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. However, NASA...

LEESBURG, Va. A 28-year-old woman crashed into the Department of Motor Vehicles during a driving test Saturday morning in Leesburg. Nita Sureka of Ashburn was attempting to park a 2000 Volkswagon at 9:35 a.m. when she accidentally accelerated into the side of the building while attempting to park. The building at 945 Edwards Ferry Rd. sustained damage and was closed for the reminder of the day. There were no injuries inside the building and a passenger in the vehicle was treated for minor injuries on the scene. -snip-

Well, as the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change met in Valencia, Spain, last week to contemplate the supposedly catastrophic warming of the planet, Switzerland to the east received the most snow for this early in the season since 1952.

The ex-newspaper editor took great delight in making fun of President Bush for falling off a Segway - the two-wheeled, motorised, gyroscopically balanced scooter that, its makers promise, will never fall over. However, he was bitten by karma and suffered the same fate as Bush.

Britney Spears booed for lip-synching at Florida concert 10:00AM Tuesday May 22, 2007 Britney Spears was booed by fans after being caught out lip-synching during a 'live' performance. The troubled singer was performing at the House of Blues in Florida on Saturday night when technical glitches saw her backing CD skip repeatedly, exposing her miming. A source is quoted by gossip website TMZ.com: "It was an ugly scene. The crowd started jeering and heckling her. Britney looked absolutely devastated." "When the CD started skipping during the song Do Somethin', Britney hid her face and turned her back. Then, when it...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch police station trying to help Muslim detainees face Mecca for their prayers painted arrows in cells pointing in the wrong direction...

POMONA -- A suspected burglar using a chain and pickup truck to steal an ATM from a market this morning failed to escape capture when his prosthetic leg fell off. Gregory Daniels, 48, was arrested on suspicion of burglary. A second man fled the scene and was not in custody. The pair smashed a large glass window of the Pomona Ranch Market at 2277 N. Garey Ave. about 3 a.m., police said. They used a chain and a truck to yank a bolted-down ATM from a concrete floor. Police came to the area and spotted the getaway car. Officers followed...

GENEVA - A 43-foot-long magnet for the world's largest particle collider broke "with a loud bang and a cloud of dust" during a high-pressure test, and officials said Tuesday they are working to find a replacement part. The part that failed March 27 was in a super-cooled magnet designed to focus streams of protons so that they collide and allow scientists to study the results of the collision, giving them a better understanding of the makeup of matter, according to Fermilab, based in suburban Chicago, which has an accelerator of its own and is helping build one deep beneath the...

House Committee Hearing on 'Warming of the Planet' Canceled Because of Snow/Ice Storm

The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing scheduled for Wednesday, February 14, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2123 Rayburn House Office Building has been postponed due to inclement weather. The hearing is entitled “Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?” The hearing will be rescheduled to a date and time to be announced later. DC WEATHER REPORT: Wednesday: Freezing rain in the morning...then a chance of snow in the afternoon. Ice accumulation of less than one quarter of an inch. Highs in the mid 30s. Northwest winds around 20...

A man was fatally shot Wednesday evening in southwest Houston while eating crawfish at a Cajun restaurant, the Houston Police Department said. The 29-year-old man was seated while eating in the Cajun Kitchen at 11900 Bellaire around 9 p.m. when two men entered and shot him in the head, police said. The owner of the restaurant chased the suspects and fired several shots at the gunmen before they escaped. The victim was taken to Ben Taub Hospital where he was pronounced dead. His identity is pending verification by the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office.

LONDON — A 22-year-old man suffered internal injuries after lighting a small firecracker he had inserted into his buttocks, paramedics said Thursday. The incident took place Sunday, when Britain celebrated Bonfire Night, traditionally marked with fireworks to celebrate the Guy Fawkes' gunpowder plot to blow up Parliament in the 17th century. The man suffered burns and other unspecified internal injuries in the incident in Sunderland, 275 miles north of London. Katherine Shenton, a spokeswoman for the North East Ambulance Service, said a caller had phoned in that the victim was bleeding after the firecracker exploded. Several of the man's friends...

Just a shot of a dude in Phoenix threatening cops with a "pipe bomb" More to come.

A teenager who put her bra on a car antenna before it flew off and led to a highway accident will be charged with littering, a prosecutor said. Emily Davis, 17, of Bowling Green, told investigators she took her bra off while her friend was driving on I-75. James Campbell, who was driving behind the girls, said he swerved to avoid the bra and his car flipped several times. Campbell, 37, broke a vertebra in his neck during the accident on Sept. 26. His passenger, Jeff Long, 40, broke several ribs. A State Highway Patrol crash report said that the...

Millions of anchovies — a protected species in Europe — have died in northern Spain after an unexplained mass beaching, officials said Friday. The fish, all juveniles, were found stranded along large stretches of Colunga beach, 35 miles east of the port city of Gijon, a normally pristine seaside landscape in the verdant province of Asturias. "More than three tons have been found so far, and our main — untested — hypothesis at the moment is that they tried to flee from predators and accidentally beached," said Luis Laria, chief coordinator of a marine protection unit working with the government....

Track and field line judge Lia Mara Lourenco is helped after a javelin hit her in her foot during 'Brazil Trophy,' a national track and field competition, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2006. (AP Photo/Jonne Roriz, Agencia Estado)

A western Iowa woman is recovering from the shock of finding a drowned bat in her tea mug - after she sipped from the cup all day. The brown bat, about the size of two tea bags, was found a few weeks ago by a 60-year-old Woodbury County woman, said Chuck Cipperley, an environmental director for the Siouxland health office in Sioux City. "I knew the person, so I knew it was no joke," said Cipperley, who took the call from the woman. The woman, who declined to identify herself, told Cipperley she found the bat when she was cleaning...

Chinese surgeons have performed the world's first penis transplant on a man whose organ was damaged beyond repair in an accident this year. The incident left the man with a 1cm-long stump with which he was unable to urinate or have sexual intercourse. Doctors spent 15 hours attaching a 10cm penis to the 44-year-old patient after the parents of a brain-dead man half his age agreed to donate their son's organ. Although the operation was a surgical success, surgeons said they had to remove the penis two weeks later. "Because of a severe psychological problem of the recipient and his...

Segway is recalling all 23,500 of the self-balancing scooters it has shipped because of a software glitch that can make its wheels unexpectedly reverse direction, throwing off the rider -- and in at least one incident, break some teeth. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on Thursday said consumers should stop using the vehicles immediately. Segway is cooperating on the voluntary recall.

Police in Lawrence arrested two people following the discovery of more than $1 million in cocaine in a rental van. Investigators found even more cocaine in a Methuen home along with $120,000. Workers at a car rental agency found the drugs inside two liquor boxes in the back of the van on Tuesday morning. The cocaine was covered in transmission fluid to mask the scent. The van was rented to 30-year-old Nicole Paquette of Haverhill. A detective posed as a car rental employee, called Paquette and told her to come pick up the boxes. Paquette arrived at the store at...

CORAM, N.Y. - A car hit a dirt hill at high speed and flew 200 feet into the second story of an apartment building on Tuesday, killing the driver, police said. Two people in separate apartments at the time of the 9 a.m. crash escaped injury, and there were no injuries on the street. Investigators did not know what led the driver, Vincent Pontillo Jr., to speed down a dead-end street. His 2004 Honda Accord, which was launched from a 4-foot dirt hill, penetrated the building up to its rear bumper, police spokesman Officer William Fairchild said. An autopsy was...

A stray bullet from an upstairs room wounded a Buffalo man Sunday morning while he was using the toilet in the Buffalo Tourist Lodge, 1159 Main St., police said. Walter Her, 68, who had been living at the hotel for several months, was treated in the intensive care trauma unit of Erie County Medical Center for a wound to the lower left side of his back. His condition was unavailable late Sunday, but his injuries are not believed to be life-threatening. "Two guys and a girl were upstairs partying, and they say they found a gun in the room when...

Stephanie King had to tell her music teacher that a raccoon was to blame for her missing homework. "I explained that the raccoon fell from the ceiling in my bathroom and it ran into my bedroom," the 13- year-old seventh grader at Osceola Middle School told the St. Petersburg Times. "Animal control came out to get it and they couldn't catch it and they said we couldn't go in my room." Stephanie's grandmother vouched for her story Friday with school officials. "I told them she can't get her homework, her books, because everything is locked in the bedroom," Natalie King...

An Amtrak passenger traveling with her ailing father waited nearly 23 hours and about 1,000 miles to tell authorities he had died so she could avoid the cost of shipping the body home, police said. The train had reached Chicago when Daniel Stepanovich's daughter told officials that he had died in a sleeper car on Sunday evening, about the time the train was pulling into Glenwood Springs, Colo., said Chicago Police spokeswoman Jo Ann Taylor. The woman told police she couldn't afford to ship his body home. She said Stepanovich, 80, suffered from lung and brain cancer. Stepanovich was pronounced...

Paraglider lands in minefield 1 hour, 30 minutes ago JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli man was stuck in the middle of a minefield near the Syrian border Saturday after crashing his paraglider and severely injuring himself. The unidentified man took off from a peak in the Golan Heights and drifted east toward the Syrian and Jordanian borders before crashing in the minefield, injuring his legs and breaking several bones, rescue services said. "He's in the process of being rescued," an army spokesman said. Paragliding, in which participants jump off tall peaks or cliffs with a parachute strapped to their back,...

Wife Runs Over Husband Sleeping In Driveway Man Says He'd Been Drinking Alcohol POSTED: 8:44 am EDT August 24, 2006 ROGERS, Ark. -- An Arkansas man who fell asleep in his driveway woke up when his wife came home and turned into the driveway to park the car and ran over him. Kristine Bolson told the Benton County Sheriff's Office that she drove into her driveway shortly after midnight Tuesday and heard a loud cracking sound. She said that when she got out of her vehicle, she heard moaning and found her husband, Richard Gonzalez, on the ground near her...

A fierce group of raccoons has killed 10 cats, attacked a small dog and bitten at least one pet owner who had to get rabies shots, residents of Olympia say. Some have taken to carrying pepper spray to ward off the masked marauders and the woman who was bitten now carries an iron pipe when she goes outside at night. "It's a new breed," said Tamara Keeton, who with Kari Hall started a raccoon watch after an emotional neighborhood meeting drew 40 people. "They're urban raccoons, and they're not afraid." Tony Benjamins, whose family lost two cats, said he got...

A 21-year-old man was trapped in a tank of chocolate for about two hours early Friday, police said. Capt. Randy Berner said the worker said he got into the tank at the Debelis Corp. to unplug it and became trapped waist deep in the chocolate. "It was pretty thick. It was virtually like quicksand," Berner said, and co-workers, police and firefighters were not able to get him out until the chocolate could be thinned out. "It's the first time I've ever heard of anything like this," the police captain said. The worker said his ankles were sore after the incident,...

A BRITISH swimmer who felt the pinch after losing his wallet during a late-night dip in the sea was convinced it had vanished - until it turned up clamped between a lobster's claws. The wallet was recovered by a diver who caught the crustacean red-handed on the sea bed. After picking up the offending lobster, he pried the wallet from the creature's claws and after finding a business card inside, handed it into a hairdressing salon. Swimmer Paul Westlake, 30, from Plymouth on the southwest English coast, received a surprise telephone call from a staff member at the salon he...

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Paris Hilton got no love this week from her pet kinkajou Baby Luv - in fact, the racoon-like animal bit her. The heiress was not badly hurt but did visit a hospital emergency room to receive a tetanus shot, her publicist, Elliot Mintz, told The Associated Press on Friday. Hilton was frolicking with her exotic pet early Tuesday morning "the way some people play with their cats and dogs" when the animal became excited, Mintz said. "Baby Luv bit her. It's a superficial bite on her left arm," he said. Hilton, concerned that she was bleeding,...

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Woman Arrested In Connection With Death STRASBURG, Colo. -- Authorities have arrested a woman in connection with the discovery of a baby's decomposing body found in the back of a truck in Arapahoe County, Colo.

Judge: Lawyer is too drunk to argue case 1 hour, 9 minutes ago LAS VEGAS - A judge ordered a blood-alcohol test for a defense lawyer whom she said smelled of alcohol, then declared a mistrial after declaring him too tipsy to argue a kidnapping case. "I don't think you can tell a straight story because you are intoxicated," Clark County District Judge Michelle Leavitt told defense lawyer Joseph Caramango as she declared a mistrial for Caramango's client, Dale Jakuchunas. Caramango told the Las Vegas Review-Journal for a Tuesday report that he was not drunk, and had been ready to...

NORTHAMPTON, Pa. - Enjoying a relaxing 54th birthday in the yard, Mike Colwell went to move the sprinkler, backing up momentarily to avoid the spray, toward a horseshoe pit with a 1-inch-thick rusty steel stake. "My two heels hit the back wall of the pit. The next thing I know, this thing just tore through me," Colwell said. As he fell on the stake, it pierced into his buttocks, fractured his pelvis, and came within a millimeter of his iliac artery, which carries blood to the body's lower extremities. "I just felt something tearing right through my leg for 5...

SUFFOLK - A naked man clutching a pigeon was arrested over the weekend after beating the bird against a car. Two Whaleyville residents had just pulled into their driveway Friday night when Juan Lopez, 30, of Kellam Road in Virginia Beach came up and repeatedly pounded the pigeon on the car, police said. The people got out of the car and went to a neighbor's house, where they called the police.

LITCHFIELD -- A landlord's complaint about marijuana plants on a tenant's porch led police to discover the plants, crack pipes and a nude babysitter asleep with a toddler. Ednamae Trinidad, 41, who lives at 78 Thomaston Road with her husband, two sons and 2-year-old daughter, was charged Wednesday with risk of injury to a child and possession of drug paraphernalia in a drug factory. Litchfield Superior Court Judge Richard Marano ordered Trinidad, who has an arrest record in three states, held on $15,000 bond. Trinidad's sons, and the juvenile babysitter, were arrested earlier this month, after a call from their...

America's Mattress co-owner Jim Sather is left puzzled after a rustler stole Serta Mattresses' inflatable 14-foot sheep from their store here. "I can't figure out what someone would do with a 14-foot sheep," Sather said. "It can't go in your basement and if it's in your back yard, your neighbor will notice. If it's target practice, it only lasts once." All the thief or thieves left was a handwritten note at the scene of the crime that read: "For the sheep, bring peace to the earth." Sather said their mascot is missed. "He's the granddaddy of all sheep and there's...

An indigenous man in Malaysia's Sabah state on Borneo Island was fined a buffalo and a pig for breaking a tribal custom by secretly marrying a second wife, a tribal court official said Wednesday. ADVERTISEMENT The 39-year-old man was asked to compensate his first wife and children with a buffalo and a pig even though he agreed to dissolve the second marriage and return to his first wife and family, Kota Kinabalu Native Court chief William Majimbun told The Associated Press. The court handles cases only relating to laws of the native indigenous people in Sabah. Majimbun said the man,...

AN INQUIRER READER attending a conference in Japan was sat just feet away from a laptop computer that suddenly exploded into flames, in what could have been a deadly accident. Gaston, our astonished reader reports: "The damn thing was on fire and produced several explosions for more than five minutes". Should you witness such an event, his advice is, "Don't try anything courageous/stupid, stay away, away, away!" "For the record, this is a Dell machine," notes Gaston. "It is only a matter of time until such an incident breaks out on a plane," he suggests. Our witness managed to catch...

A Massachusetts man whose family traveled all the way to India to check out a possible bride for his son is suing the woman’s relatives because she was too ugly and unpolished for his baby boy. In his lawsuit, Dr. Vijai Pandey of Belchertown claims his wife, son and daughter were “shocked” to discover the Indian woman was “ugly with dark complexion and protruded bad teeth and couldn’t speak English to carry on conversation.” Pandey then called off the arranged marriage, according to the lawsuit posted on the Web site thesmokinggun.com “I felt cheated, really, and there was no remorse...

MOUNT ORAB, Ohio -- A former National Guard captain whose military service was supposed to end seven years ago was sent to Iraq for a year by mistake because of an incorrect discharge date in his records. Jim Dillinger was 43 when he received a letter from the Defense Department in May 2004 saying he was one of 5,600 members of the Individual Ready Reserve being sent to Iraq. The IRR is a component of the Army made up of retired soldiers who agree to be subject to recall to active duty for a defined time. When Dillinger signed up...

A Norwegian who thought he'd be spending a quiet weekend at his cabin near Kongsvinger ended up battling an angry moose with the first weapon that came to mind - his slipper. Ivar Smedstad was relaxing at his holiday cabin (called a hytte in Norwegian) when his uninvited visitor suddenly appeared on his property. "The moose was furious," Smedstad told local newspaper Glåmdalen. "Its ears were pulled back, the moose was snorting loudly and seemed to rear back on its legs." The object of the moose's anger was Smedstad's dog, a seemingly innocent Leonberger named Shiba. Smedstad had no idea...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- A marriage-minded man ran naked through his Michigan neighborhood, trying to show his hesitant girlfriend that taking risks is important. However, he got more than he bargained for when he ended up being chased and shot at. Police in Ann Arbor, Mich., said it all started when the couple was discussing marriage Wednesday morning and the woman said she wasn't sure she was ready. Her boyfriend tried to make his point about taking risks by jumping out the window and running naked through the neighborhood. But after jumping out of the window and running across the...

Michigan City police on Tuesday arrested Kristopher Ray Horton, 26, 1009 Manhattan St., for indecent exposure after he allegedly tried to urinate on a neighbor's dog. Police received a call from Horton's neighbor, Joshua Brooks, at about 8:45 p.m. Brooks, a reserve officer on the LaPorte City Police Department, reported that Horton had just tried to urinate on his dog. Brooks told police he heard a commotion in his yard and went to investigate and saw Horton with his pants down. “I yelled at him, ‘What are you doing? Put you pants back on,'” Brooks told police. He said Horton...

Two police officers patrolling the beach in an SUV ran over and killed a sunbather Monday, authorities said. The officers in the patrol vehicle did not immediately realize they ran over the woman and continued driving, police Cmdr. Tom Chronister said in a statement. A witness called the Oxnard Fire Department to report the woman was bleeding on the beach just south of the Embassy Suites Mandalay Beach Resort. The woman appeared to be in her 30's and carried no identification, said Ventura County senior deputy medical examiner Mike Feiler. The officers, who were not immediately identified, had stopped on...

A Houston police officer found himself chasing two escaped bulls on I-45 Sunday night, according to a report this morning by KHOU. The driver was getting onto the I-45 ramp from the North Loop around 11:30 p.m. when the bulls apparently got out of their trailer. One of the animals ran through a neighborhood before a police officer was able to stop his car on the rope it was dragging, according to KHOU. But the bull got angry and began ramming the officer's squad car until it was finally captured. The other bull that escaped was hit by a pickup...

A black bear picked the wrong yard for a jaunt, running into a territorial tabby who ran the furry beast up a tree - twice. Jack, a 15-pound orange and white cat, keeps a close vigil on his property, often chasing small animals, but his owners and neighbors say his latest escapade was surprising. "We used to joke, 'Jack's on duty,' never knowing he'd go after a bear," owner Donna Dickey told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Friday's editions.

ST. PETERS, Mo. (AP) -- A woman angry that her new puppy had died pushed her way into a dog breeder's home and repeatedly hit her on the head with the dead Chihuahua, authorities said. The 33-year-old woman told police she had taken the puppy to a veterinarian, who said it was only 4 weeks old and needed to be returned to its mother. But before she could return the puppy, it died. Early Wednesday, the woman went to the breeder's home, pushed her way inside and began fighting with the breeder as she tried to make her way to...