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Their weapons may not sound like much: two belts, a newspaper and a rose-pattern blanket. But six Chinese immigrants from Chamblee all but gift-wrapped an international fugitive for authorities recently, ending a five-month manhunt for a self-described martial arts expert twice featured on "America's Most Wanted." Nai Yin Xue had sought cover in Atlanta's Mandarin-speaking community. There, he encountered a scrappy band of cooks and deliverymen whose possessions, though few, include a good memory and a keen sense of justice. Now the "Chamblee Six" await final details of a sizable reward from New Zealand police. Today, the five men and...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Chinese-language magazine publisher accused of killing his wife in New Zealand and abandoning his daughter at an Australian train station was captured Thursday in an Atlanta suburb, authorities said. Nai Yin Xue was caught after residents of a Chamblee, Ga., apartment recognized him from pictures published in the media and called police, U.S. Marshals Service Chief Inspector Thomas Hession said. Hession said that when the residents, who were of Chinese descent, confronted Xue about his identity, he tried to leave the building but they detained him until police arrived. "They did a great job," he...

Cannot post content. Iowa has decided pumpkins are decorations not food, and as such need to be taxed. www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071031/NEWS/710310383

DES MOINES, Iowa - The Iowa Department of Revenue is taxing jack-o'-lanterns this Halloween. The new department policy was implemented after officials decided that pumpkins are used primarily for Halloween decorations, not food, and should be taxed, said Renee Mulvey, the department's spokeswoman. "We made the change because we wanted the sales tax law to match what we thought the predominant use was," Mulvey said. "We thought the predominant use was for decorations or jack-o'-lanterns." Previously, pumpkins had been considered an edible squash and exempted from the tax. The department ruled this year that pumpkins are taxable — with some...

The record was shattered today in the Half Moon Bay World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off, with the winning gourd weighing in at 1,524 pounds. The grower, Thad Starr, takes home the first prize of $9,144 or $6 per pound. The 40-year-old from Pleasant Hill, Ore., beat more than 70 competitors, including three-time winner Joel Holland, who came in second with a 1,384-pound pumpkin.

TACOMA — The FBI checked out a report of an atomic bomb in Tacoma and found it had turned into a pumpkin. The Port of Tacoma called the FBI after the deputy director received a phone message Sept. 21 from a port commission candidate, Bill Casper. He said he knew how to make an atomic bomb that could elude security devices. An FBI spokeswoman in Seattle, Robbie Burroughs, says four agents went to Casper's office Sept. 26 to question him. He says he spent an hour with the agents showing them a pumpkin and another squash similar in size to...

Giant-pumpkin growers at the Topsfield Fair broke the world record this weekend for heaviest pumpkin - twice. For just a moment, Bill Rodonis, of Litchfield, N.H., held the title with a 1,566-pound pumpkin. Then Joe Jutras, of Scituate, R.I., crushed it with a pumpkin weighing 1,689 pounds. Both men beat last year's record of 1,502 pounds, but only Jutras will make it in the Guinness Book of Records. "To be that much over the world record from last year is incredible," Jutras said. He also received a $3,500 check for first place and he will probably make double that amount...

It's a True Crime update and let's begin with these out-of-control cops. One we featured last week has been fired and now we have two excessive tazering incidents. Plus the Jena 6 fake drama and an armless man fights for a lady and causes a heart attack in his challenger. We've got a Hsu update, new info on the tragedy of the abandoned child known as "Pumpkin" and how about the nut wearing a fake bomb vest at Logan airport?

GREENFIELD – It was a rough ending to the first weekend of the annual pumpkin flinging season by the Yankee Siege when one of the medieval weapon's main operators was injured in an accident. Chuck Willard of Hancock, who climbs the 55-foot high boom on the trebuchet dozens of times a day during the fall-flinging season, was knocked unconscious about 2:30 p.m. yesterday when the boom from the trebuchet, a catapult-like device that uses counterweight to hurl pumpkins nearly 300 yards, struck him in the chin. "He was out for about two minutes," said an employee at the Yankee Siege...

Father 'abandoned' girl, 3, in Melbourne train station By Sally Peck and agencies Last Updated: 2:34am BST 19/09/2007 Police in three countries are hunting for the parents of a three-year-old girl who was apparently abandoned by her father at a Melbourne railway station. Xue Qianxun Staff at the Southern Cross train station discovered Xue Qianxun, from New Zealand, crying and confused on Saturday. Authorities said they have grave fears for the mother of the 3-year-old girl. Australian police said they believe Xue Naiyin, a Chinese-language magazine publisher in New Zealand, flew to the US after dumping his daughter at the...

VICTORIA, New Zealand and US police are involved in the search for the parents of 'Pumpkin', the little girl abandoned at a Melbourne train station. New Zealand police hold grave fears for the mother, Annie Xue, also known as Anan Liu, who has not been heard from. Pumpkin's father, New Zealand magazine publisher, Nai Xin Xue, flew to the US two hours after dumping his daughter at Southern Cross Railway Station on Saturday morning. "There are concerns we haven't heard from her at all," head of Auckland CIB, Detective Inspector Dave Pearson, told NZPA. He would not say if police...

U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) (L) carves a Halloween pumpkin as U.S. Congressman Martin Meehan (D-MA) (C) and Senator Kennedy's wife Victoria look on during a visit to the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, Massachusetts October 18, 2006. Senator Kennedy is running to be re-elected to a eighth six-year term in November. REUTERS/Brian Snyder (UNITED STATES)

President Bush examines a pumpkin which he later purchased during an unscheduled stop while campaigning for Sen. George Allen, R-Va., in Richmond, Va., Thursday, Oct. 19, 2006. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Practice your technique on line

Indian policeman stand gaurd outside of the Durgiana Temple in Amritsar. Indian police shot dead an Islamic militant suspected of links to a triple bombing that killed 23 people in Hinduism's holy city of Varanasi and sparked a nationwide alert.(AFP/Marinder Nanu)

It's Halloween and I thought it would be a festive ocassion to freepers, to post there Halloween experiences as a Kid.

It's not newsworthy, but I still thought a lot of Freepers would find this wonderful to see.

Everyone has a Halloween dream: A frightening fantasy of goblins and ghouls or a fond recollection of jack-o-lanterns, scarecrows, and crepe paper cats. No matter the dream, each one stems from a tale handed down... or a childhood memory, long past and fading. My dream is of a perfect place at a perfect time.

HALF MOON BAY, Calif. - A retired Washington firefighter won the annual Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off on Monday, presenting a gigantic pumpkin that weighed 1,229 pounds. Joel Holland said the pumpkin could make roughly 600 pumpkin pies but instead will be displayed in a parade in Half Moon Bay this coming weekend, then carved into a jack-o'-lantern for Halloween.

According to a Ukrainian custom, a woman rejects an unwanted suitor by handing him a pumpkin. So it was that pro-democracy supporters said "no" to corruption and autocratic rule by dumping pumpkins on a street in Kiev Sunday - and voting for the reform-minded Viktor Yushchenko for president. These pumpkin-rolling Ukrainians, along with 52 percent of their fellow citizens, succeeded in overturning a rigged election Nov. 21. In backing Mr. Yushchenko in a vote that this time was far fairer, they have proven to the world that they want to join the march of newly free nations. And it is...

Howell pumpkin hurler loses title This year's winner of 'ugliest trophy in the world' shoots gourd 4,224 feet across field Monday, November 8, 2004 By The Associated Press HOWELL - A Howell businessman's effort to defend his mechanical pumpkin-hurling championship literally fell short. Bruce Bradford and his nine-ton contraption, Second Amendment, held the World Championship Punkin Chunkin title for two years until Sunday. Old Glory claimed the crown by shooting a gourd that soared 4,224 feet before a crowd of about 40,000 in Sussex County, Del. Second Amendment finished second in the field of 100, sending an 8- to 10-pound...

Well, Halloween is approaching, and for some of us maybe the pumpkin hasn't been carved yet (or even ourchased...Oops!). But, either way, here are some handy tips on how to carve a pumpkin, with all those cool designs. Just click on the source link. There's a little training session to go with it too. I don't know what it is, but the song playing in the background (of course, Monster Mash) is one of those songs that always bring me back to my days of trick-or-treating. Give it a listen, they have it playing in the background.

After you submit your vote, you will see the up to the second results, and have the opportunity to download some Free Political Pumpkin Patterns!

Wednesdays WSJ Opinionjournal reports that Theresa Heinz's Pumpkin Spice Cookies are back in the news. Reader Ruth Papazian has a theory about John Kerry's change of color, which we noted yesterday: He's been eating too many of his wife's pumpkin spice cookies. Family Circle sponsored a contest asking readers to bake, then vote on, cookie recipes submitted by Laura Bush (oatmeal-chocolate chunk cookies) and by Teresa Heinz Kerry. and thatOr it may be that Kerry has chosen a Halloween costume that reminds us he by the way served in Vietnam. (Did you know?) That is to say, perhaps he's supposed...

'Orange' you glad you're not this guy?  Sept. 28, 2004... Looking suddenly very orange, John Kerry's new look just prior to the debate is more than a little too.... fake. As in spray tan fake. Not that the presidential candidate will ever admit such an attempt at insta-tanning -- his suddenly gone facial wrinkles earlier this year prompted cries of "BOTOX!", which Kerry denied too.   This is an email-able, copyright-ready cartoon you can use in emails, on blogs, in flyers, on posters... anything that's noncommercial.

John Hawkins at Right Wing News has just released the 2003 Warblogger Awards, and I am flattered that his panel of voters selected me for top spot in the category "The Best Original Content For A Blog". I don't think I should have won. Quite frankly, I think that Wretchard at Belmont Club is producing better material than I am. He is writing as consistently as I have (perhaps more so, given that I've been less consistent lately) and his material is more focused and more cogent. I'm a bit surprised that Wretchard didn't show up as one of the...

The finished product The pattern (print out on 8"x11" paper):

ELLETTSVILLE, Ind. -- When Jim Bristoe told his wife he wanted to build a cannon that would shoot a pumpkin a mile, she told him he wasn't all there. But he built one anyway, with a 30-foot-long barrel. It is powered by a 700-gallon air tank and is appropriately named "Ain't All There." It looks much like a mobile anti-aircraft gun. "You don't need to cover your ears, but you're going to know I shot it," the 42-year-old electrician and mechanic said during a demonstration on Wednesday. When Bristoe fires the cannon, a 10-pound pumpkin is hit with 11,300 pounds...

PENDING WORLD RECORD October 5, 2002 Pumpkin grown by Charlie Houghton of New Boston, New Hampshire In 1984 sixteen pumpkin growers from Massachusetts and Connecticut entered their pumpkins in the first Topsfield Fair Giant Pumpkin Contest. The winning pumpkin weighed in at 433 pounds. In 2001 there were over eighty entries from all over New England. The winner was an Atlantic Giant pumpkin weighed in at 1,260.4 pounds. This was an all time New England record bettering the old record by two hundred fifty pounds. As is customary, the winner was displayed in a climate controlled case for the ten...