Odds

"Cremated" father reunited with family

Sat, 6 Sep 2008 14:30:40 +0000

A father mistakenly declared dead after going missing eight years ago has been reunited with his family after his son spotted him on television, police said on Thursday.

The family of John Delaney thought he had died when he disappeared in April 2000. They held a funeral and cremation after police found what they thought was his body three years later.

But Delaney, 71, from Oldham, Greater Manchester, had in fact been admitted to hospital in a confused state 10 days after he was reported missing.

Suffering from amnesia caused by a head injury, he couldn't give police any clues about his name, address or family.

When further police checks failed to uncover his identity, he was given the new name David Harrison and handed over to social services. They put him in a care home where he stayed for the next eight years.

Meanwhile, a badly decomposed body found in the grounds of Manchester Royal Infirmary in 2003 was mistakenly identified as that of Delaney. His family was informed and they arranged a funeral and cremation later that year.

The truth of what happened to Delaney only emerged earlier this year when he appeared on a daytime television show about missing people.

His son John Renehan, 42, happened to be watching TV after working a night shift. He recognized his father and the pair were reunited after DNA tests confirmed they were related.

"I was in shock. We thought we had cremated my Dad. But I knew it was him," Renehan told the Manchester Evening News.

In a statement, Greater Manchester Police said it had made mistakes and the family had been through a "traumatic" ordeal.

"At that time, only paper records of people reported missing from home existed," it said. "Today, Greater Manchester Police has advanced systems in place to ensure that mistakes of this nature are not made. "Robust checks are made to establish the identity of people who cannot immediately confirm who they are

Police are trying to establish the identity of the man who was cremated in 2003. The officer who initially dealt with the case has since retired.

Hundreds of dogs get married in New Delhi

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:31:44 +0000

Hundreds of dogs were united in wedlock at a mass dog wedding ceremony organized in New Delhi on Saturday.

The event, held for the first time in India, had more than 100 canine participants - all dressed up for the occasion. The couples selected for marriage by their owners walked the aisle as they were showered with flower petals.

Australian woman takes revenge on her cheating husband through eBay

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:38:07 +0000

Australian woman has taken revenge on her cheating husband by putting a photograph of his lover's underpants up for sale on the auction site eBay.

In the listing the woman says she is selling a picture of a pair of lacy black knickers and an empty condom wrapper "size small" found in her bed after her husband had an affair with another woman.

Doctors remove 17 metal objects from a man's innards

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 11:27:57 +0000

Doctors in a coastal town in northwestern Peru have rescued the innards of a 38-year-old man by removing 17 metal objects -among them nails, a watch clasp and a knife- that he ate.

Man ties balloons to chair to float from Oregon to Idaho

Sun, 6 Jul 2008 16:54:26 +0000

Kent Couch, a 48-year-old petrol station owner in the US, flew a lawn chair rigged with helium-filled balloons more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) across the Oregon desert on Saturday, landing in a field in Idaho.

Couch covered about 235 miles (378 kilometres) in about nine hours after lifting off at dawn from his petrol station in Bend, Oregon riding in a green lawn chair rigged with more than 150 giant party balloons.

He eventually used a BB gun, a type of air gun designed to shoot pellets, to shoot some of the balloons to reduce his altitude, landing in the tiny farming community of Cambridge, Idaho. The "balloon chair pilot" as he has been dubbed by friends, kissed his wife, children and the family dog, a Chihuahua named Isabella, before taking off in his chair.

Couch got a push from the ground crew so he could clear light poles and soared over across US Highway 20 into a bright blue sky. "I would say the best thing is just the peace, serenity of the trip. It's just so quiet", Couch said before embarking on his trip. "I'd do this every weekend if I had the time and the money and the people. So it's just a fun trip. Mostly it's just about having a good time while I'm floating around up there", he added.

Couch's wife, Susan, said called him crazy, telling reporters: "I just want to make sure he's safe and nothing happens up there". This was Couch's third balloon flight. He said the idea occurred to him after watching a television show about the 1982 lawn chair flight over Los Angeles of truck driver Larry Walters, who gained folk hero fame but was fined 1,500 US dollars for violating air traffic rules.

In 2006, Couch had to parachute out after popping too many balloons. Last year he flew 193 miles (311 kilometers) to the sagebrush of northeastern Oregon, short of his goal.

Each of the 150 balloons could lift four pounds (1.81 kilograms), with the chair weighing about 400 pounds (181 kilograms), and Couch and his parachute adding another 200 pounds (91 kilograms). Couch estimated the rig cost about six-thousand US dollars, mostly for helium. Costs were defrayed by corporate sponsors

New York hotelier leaves billions to the care of dogs

Wed, 2 Jul 2008 16:43:44 +0000

New York hotelier and real estate magnate Leona Helmsley left millions to her beloved dog, Trouble, but she has left billions for the care of dogs in general, The New York Times said on Tuesday.

Helmsley left instructions that an entire charitable trust valued at $5 billion to $8 billion and amounting to virtually all of her estate, be used for the care and welfare of dogs, the newspaper said, citing two people who had seen the document and described it on condition of anonymity.

The two people who had seen the document said Helmsley signed it in 2003 to establish goals for the trust that would disburse assets after her death.

The first goal was to help indigent people and the second to provide for the care and welfare of dogs, the newspaper said. But a year later, she deleted the first goal. But all the money may not go to the dogs, the article said. It said the mission statement also has a provision that Helmsley's trustees may use their discretion in distributing the funds, and some lawyers say the statement may not mean much, given that it was not incorporated into her will or the trust documents.

Helmsley, who was known as "the Queen of Mean" because of the way she dealt with her employees, had a soft spot for her dog. But a New York court last month lowered the dog's inheritance to $2 million from $12 million on grounds that Helmsley was mentally unfit when she made her will.

A spokesman for the executors of Helmsley's estate told the Times they did not want to comment on the statement because they were still working to determine the trust's direction.

Helmsley died in August 2007 at age 87. She amassed a fortune in real estate and hotels with her husband, Harry Helmsley, who died in 1997. Famously quoted as having said "only the little people pay taxes", Helmsley spent 18 months in federal prison for evading $1.7 million in taxes in 1989.

Couple caught having sex in a church confessional box repent

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:05:49 +0000

An Italian couple who were caught having sex in a church confessional box while morning Mass was being said have repented and made peace with the local bishop.

British man collects nearly $10000 after betting his life against cancer

Mon, 2 Jun 2008 08:34:38 +0000

A British man who bet on his chances of beating his terminal cancer prognosis walked away with five-thousand pounds (9895 US dollars) in winnings on Sunday, according to a report by British broadcaster Sky News.

Jon Matthews, 58, was diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer, called Mesothelioma, in April 2006, according to the report. At the time doctors predicted that he would not live until Christmas of that year. After beating those odds, Mathews decided to place a bet with bookmakers, that he would survive until June 1 2008 - a full 25 months after his diagnosis. "I had lasted six months more than they said I would. And I thought, well why not?" Matthews told Sky.

Homeless woman lives undetected in a man’s house

Fri, 30 May 2008 12:31:25 +0000

A homeless woman who sneaked into a man's house and lived undetected in his closet for a year has been arrested in Japan after he became suspicious when food mysteriously began disappearing.

Police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from southern Kasuya town said Friday that police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man's closet and arrested her for trespassing.

The resident of the home installed security cameras that transmitted
images to his mobile phone after becoming puzzled by food disappearing from his kitchen.

One of the cameras captured someone moving inside his home Thursday after he had left, and he called police.

The woman told police she had no place to live and first sneaked into the man's house about a year ago when he left it unlocked.

Watch calculates death date based on health factors

Sat, 24 May 2008 11:31:37 +0000

This watch has been created by Timex technology company .

According to Tecnomagazine online magazine (text in Spanish), its basic function is to keep us constantly informed about how many days of life we have left.