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'Angry birds' strike fear in Swedish golfers

Angry Birds
A golf club in southern Sweden is planning to hunt the crows on their course after a violent spate of attacks and thieveries have left golfers in fear.

Golfers at the Rya Golf Club in Rydebäck, southern Sweden, have been subjected to a swarm of attacks from angry birds which are both hungry and breeding.

"This year, they actually attacked our guests for the first time," the club's receptionist, Annika Hermansson, told The Local.

"The crows have always come down looking for people's food, but they are getting vicious this year."

Hermansson claims that around 10 people have complained of attacks, one of whom compared his ordeal to a horror film.

Pistol

U.S. Border Patrol: Agents Fire Shots After Rock Attack

U.S. Border patrol
© Spencer Selvidge
San Antonio, Texas - U.S. Border Patrol agents opened fire Saturday along the Rio Grande on the Texas-Mexico border after being pelted by rocks and having a gunman point a weapon in their direction on the Mexican side of the river, an agency spokesman said.

Spokesman Henry Mendiola said no Border Patrol agents were injured in the incident Saturday near Brownsville. He did not know if anyone else was hurt. He said the Mexican government had been notified and was responding to the area. The FBI also was investigating.

The Border Patrol released little details about the morning gunfire, including what the suspects were doing on the river.

Mendiola said several people had been taken into custody but that he could not provide details about the suspects or charges they face.

Che Guevara

Thousands protest in Mexico City against president-elect, alleging vote fraud

Image
© Marco Ugarte /The Associated Press
Wearng a Guy Fawkes mask, a protester holds a banner that reads in Spanish, "No to another fraud," during a march in Mexico City on Saturday.
Thousands of protesters marched through the Mexican capital on Saturday against President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto, accusing him of buying votes and paying off TV networks for support.

The demonstrators, including students, leftists, anarchists and union members, shouted slogans criticizing Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and the electoral authority.

Pena Nieto won Sunday's election by almost 7 percentage points, according to the official count, returning the PRI to presidential power after 12 years in the wilderness.

The PRI previously ruled Mexico for seven decades, during which time it was accused of rigging elections and repressing protesters.

"The PRI threatens many people and buys others with a couple of tacos," said Manuel Ocegueda, a 43-year-old shop worker participating in the march.

Pena Nieto is due to take power in December, replacing Felipe Calderon of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN.

The constitution barred Calderon from running for a second term. The PAN candidate, Josefina Vazquez Mota, finished third, with many voters dissatisfied over relentless drug violence and sluggish growth.

Arrow Down

Foreign National Sentenced in Vancouver Human Smuggling Case

Image
© The Canadian Press
Mikael Prone was arrested at Vancouver International Airport in November .
Canada, British Columbia - A French citizen convicted of human smuggling offences in Vancouver has been sentenced to four years in prison.

Mikael Prone was arrested at Vancouver International Airport in November after escorting two Iranians, a brother and sister, into Canada from China. The pair paid $90,000 to get into Canada illegally using forged Israeli passports.

Border officers say Prone helped the pair get on the plane with the passports, and planned to leave them for customs officials to deal with.

Prone was found guilty on May 31 of five counts involving human trafficking.

Info

Head Found in Park Belonged to Victim of Canadian Porn Vampire Killer

Jun Lin
© unknown
Jun Lin
A human head found in a park belongs to a Chinese student who was killed and dismembered in May by a Canadian porn actor, Montreal police have confirmed.

The head was the last missing body part belonging to Jun Lin.

Luka Magnotta is accused of dismembering Lin - his lover - and mailing the body parts to Canadian political parties and schools. He pleaded not guilty to murder charges last month. Police confirmed on Wednesday that the head was Lin's.

Lin's head was missing until Sunday, when Lemieux said investigators found it in Park Angrignon after the major crimes unit received a tip. The park is a few kilometres south of Magnotta's apartment.

"It had been there for quite some time, but we won't go into details, partly out of respect for the family and friends of the victim," said Montreal police spokesperson Anie Lemieux.

"What is important is what we were looking for has been found and the rest of the investigation can continue."

Coffee

TSA: Is That A Bomb In Your Coke...?

The morons at the airport in charge of our pretend security are now dipping something into travelers' drinks -- when they're well-past security. Janelle Ericsson reports at KJCT8 News, and Lisa Simeone blogged it at TSANewsBlog that passengers could be asked to let the TSA test their drink:
Yes, dear reader, that water or coffee or soft drink in your cup, the one you bought after you passed through the checkpoint, in the so-called sterile area? That could contain a bomb! And you didn't even know it!

Thank heavens the TSA is here to save the day. As they dip their little Magic Bomb-Detecting Stick into your beverage, be sure to smile and thank them. After all, they're Keeping You Safe.

It's telling that this article from KJCT in Colorado has elicited, as of this writing, over 1,800 comments, most of them assailing the TSA for the idiocy of this policy, and many of them relating readers' stories of their own about having their drinks "tested." Yet compare that to the response when a story is published of people getting assaulted by the TSA. The outrage exhibited over the latter pales in comparison to that over the former.

"Strip me, grope me, abuse me, molest my children -- just don't touch my drink!"

Ah, ain't it grand living in the Land of the Free?

Wolf

Bizarre Burglar Sneaks into Woman's Bed and Strikes Up Conversation... at 5 a.m.

Florida police are looking for a man they say has been creeping into women's bedrooms for a late night chat.

The burglar has broken into numerous homes in nearby apartment complexes, crawling into residents' beds and starting up a casual conversation.
Image
© Orlando Police
Sought: Florida police are looking for a man they say has been creeping into women's bedrooms for a late night chat
Victims say he takes nothing, but the frightened women are worried he might become more brazen as time goes on.

'He just walked in and laid in bed with me and started talking to me and having a normal conversation with me, like (it was) nothing,' said one victim to WFTV.

She agreed to speak to the newstation on condition of anonymity.

Green Light

Broke California OKs Funding for High-Speed Rail Line

Image
© The Associated Press/Rich Pedroncelli
Gov. Jerry Brown, left, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, center, and Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, chair of the Senate Budget Committee smile for the camera after the Senate approved funding for a high-speed rail system at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Friday, July 6, 2012.
California lawmakers gave the green light to start building the nation's first dedicated high-speed rail line, a multibillion dollar project that will eventually link Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The move marked major political victories for Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and the Obama administration. Both have promoted bullet trains as job generators and clean transportation alternatives.

In a narrow 21-16 party-line vote that involved intense lobbying by the governor, legislative leaders and labor groups, the state Senate approved the measure marking the launch of California's ambitious bullet train, which has spent years in the planning stages.

"The Legislature took bold action today that gets Californians back to work and puts California out in front once again," Brown said.

Brown pushed for the massive infrastructure project to accommodate expected growth in the nation's most populous state, which now has 37 million people. State and federal officials also said high-speed rail would create jobs.

"No economy can grow faster than its transportation network allows," U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. "With highways between California cities congested and airspace at a premium, Californians desperately need an alternative."

Sherlock

Natalie Wood's Death No Longer 'Accident'

Natalie Wood
© unknown
Natalie Wood
U.S. actress Natalie Wood's drowning 30-plus years ago has been changed from "accidental" to "undetermined" on her death certificate, members of her family say.

The entertainment news Web site TMZ reported Friday its law enforcement sources say the Los Angeles County coroner filed documents making the change late last month and members of Wood's family told it county sheriff's deputies paid them a visit to inform them of the change.

Sheriff's investigators have reopened the investigation into the death of Wood, who was 43 and married to actor Robert Wagner when she fell off a boat anchored off Catalina Island in November 1981 and drowned, TMZ said. There had been a party aboard the boat earlier. Actor Christopher Walken also was on the boat that night.

The relatives detectives told them the change was made, in part, because some of the bruises on Wood's body were inconsistent with death by drowning, TMZ said. The family members also said authorities can't prove definitively whether Wood died accidentally or was the victim of foul play, though they were told she definitely drowned.

Family

People Power! Major Rent Strike Against Millionaire Slumlord Catches Fire in Brooklyn

renter strike brooklyn
© Diego Ibanez
Tenant Sara Lopez marches on Thursday
As foreclosures continue to put historic pressure on the nation's rental market, slumlords now have more opportunity than ever to prey on the most vulnerable of tenants.

The electrical box in the basement of multifamily brownstone on 46th Street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, looks like a middle-school science fair project gone horribly wrong. The door to the box is ajar and a cheap plastic fan, positioned only inches from the fuses, desperately tries to keep the wiring from catching fire when it sparks and overheats, plunging the building's 51 apartments into darkness and threatening to set the entire structure ablaze.

"Last night was so bad, the lights were going on and off every ten minutes," said 20-year-old Riccey Trelles, a recent college graduate who lives with her family on the first floor. "It was pitch-black; I couldn't see the person across from me."

Despite the darkness, Trelles was up until almost two a.m. making posters and banners for the following day's protest to expose her building's slumlord, Orazio Petito, and implore city officials to intervene in a case of housing violations that tenants are now describing as human rights abuses.

As foreclosures continue to displace millions and put historic pressure on the nation's rental market, slumlords now have more opportunity than ever to prey on the most vulnerable of tenants. The problem is especially bad in an owner's market like New York City, where average rent price increased more in the second quarter of 2012 than in any other city in the country, sending landlords into a frenzy to evict old tenants--especially those with stabilized rent--and jack up the prices for newcomers. But despite a vicious landlord and a city that prefers aiding the housing market's rise than enforcing tenants' rights, Trelles and her neighbors are fighting back: speaking out, occupying an assemblymen's office and launching a rent strike that tenants hope will spread across Brooklyn.

Comment: This situation would not be possible without the complicity of New York City government. There is apparently plenty of money to clean up and maintain the tourist areas, but none to devote to keeping the city livable for the residents.