Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S

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I didn't see it, says mugged psychic

Psychic Carole Peach, who foretells the future for other people "through a Red Indian guide", could not see it coming that she was about to become another crime statistic.

She had no forewarning that a mugger would reach through the open passenger window of her husband's car, punch her in the face and grab her bag containing two wallets, R2 500 in cash, bank cards, her telephone and ID books, two cellphones and her heart tablets.

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Another Hogzilla caught near Atlanta

FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. - A giant wild hog boasted to be bigger than the near-mythical "Hogzilla" caught in southern Georgia a few years ago has been killed in a suburban Atlanta neighborhood.

The hog hung snout down from a tree Friday in William Coursey's front yard, not far from where the avid hunter said he shot the beast. He said he hauled it to a truck weight station, which recorded the hairy hog at 1,100 pounds.

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Pa. man gets letter postmarked 1954

FERNDALE, Pa. - A western Pennsylvania man is trying to solve a mystery that recently landed in his mailbox: a letter mailed more than 50 years ago and addressed to a Frederick Zane Yost.

The letter, with a 3-cent stamp and postmarked Oct. 26, 1954, was encased in a large Postal Service window envelope. There is a return address - in nearby Richland Township - but no sender's name.

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Bangkok office introduces daily nap time

BANGKOK, Thailand - A Bangkok municipal office has launched a new program to increase productivity: Lights go out just past noon and civil servants are invited to take an afternoon nap.

Seeking to infuse city workers with a bit more pep, the Pathumwan district office in central Bangkok has set up a lunchtime "nap room" with soft music, sweet-smelling flowers and strict rules barring mobile phones and talking, said Surakiet Limcharoen, the district's top official who started the program.

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Arizona residents see rats in toilets

TUCSON, Ariz. - Residents of a neighborhood next to the University of Arizona say small white rats have been swimming through sewer pipes and into their toilets.

Laura Hagen Fairbanks, spokeswoman for the county's Wastewater Management Department, said she doesn't know where the rodents come from, however they are the kind that researchers use in labs.

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Couple sell snow on eBay

A couple are selling snow on eBay after their house was covered following two blizzards.

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Tuscan church reveals answer to mystery of Medici deaths - Poisoned!

Picking through centuries-old rubbish, masonry and discarded body parts beneath an abandoned Tuscan church, an Italian historian believes she has solved one of history's great crime mysteries.

For more than four centuries, researchers have puzzled over the fact that Francesco I Medici, the son of the first Grand Duke, Cosimo, died within hours of his wife in October 1587. Legend had it they were poisoned by his brother and successor, a cardinal.

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Painter prodigy says God showed her anything is possible

BOISE, Idaho She's just 12, but prodigy Akiane Kramarik (AH-key-ah-nuh KRAM-uh-rik) is already winning laurels for her work as a little painter and poet.

Akiane, who lives in Post Falls with her family, says her realistic images are inspired by spiritual dreams and prayer. She says God appeared to her when she was just four.

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Handwriting Analyst: Jack The Ripper Not Jewish

Using the conclusions from her personality analysis, Dresbold dismantles some of the long-standing theories about the identity of Jack the Ripper. One, which was put forth at the time of the murders by the then-Assistant Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police, was that the Ripper "and his people were low-class Jews." Dresbold, however, contends that the letter's spelling errors were actually phonetic spellings of Cockney- or Irish-accented English. Further, she says, in 1880s London most "low-class Jews" would have spoken primarily Yiddish and very little English - not enough, in any case, to produce a letter from Hell.

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Thoughts on Gary McKinnon - The Computer Hacker and His Likely Fate

The news that British-based computer-hacker Gary McKinnon may be facing up to 70 years in a U.S. prison (or, worse still, in Guantanamo Bay) for hacking 97 American military and NASA computers between 2001 and 2002 as he searched for secret information on UFOs, is unfortunate.

Earlier this year, Gary lost his first appeal against extradition to the States in a High Court Hearing. And what may be his last appeal to ensure he stays a free man (or at least that he doesn't serve a sentence in a U.S. jail) will be heard in February. And if that fails, his only hope is an appeal to the British Government's House of Lords.