Tweed got off lightly says cabbie

Tweed, 21, from Buckhurst Hill, Essex, was locked up on Tuesday for assaulting Stephen Wilkins following a night out in nearby Epping last May.

Mr Wilkins, 54, told the Daily Mirror: "If he had been Joe Bloggs he would have got what he deserved - it's because of who he is and who he married he got off lightly."

Mother-of-two Goody, who married Tweed in February, died last month following a battle with cancer. Her husband was convicted last month for assaulting Mr Wilkins following a trial in Epping.

He picked up Tweed, another man and two women in Epping in the early hours of May 5.

Mr Wilkins said Tweed became aggressive after being asked to pay the fare in advance, grabbing him from behind in a headlock and threatening to stab him.
Source:uk.news.yahoo.com

Monster Crocodile' Bites Girl's Head Off

A crocodile has bitten off a 10-year-old girl's head after knocking over the canoe she was travelling in.
She was on her way to a floating school on the Agusan Marsh in the Philippines when the huge reptile capsized the boat, the provincial government said.

The girl fell into the water during the attack on Saturday, but her headless body was not discovered until two days later.

A classmate who was with her was rescued by a man who had been escorting the pair in another boat, said Ruel Hipulan, head of the private group which runs the school.

"It's a monster crocodile," he said. Witnesses said the crocodile was about 30ft (nine metres) long.

The floating school has been temporarily closed while a search for the crocodile is under way.

Around 100 members of the Manobo tribe have been forced to leave their houses, which sit on the lake on stilts, amid fears of another attack.

Source

NYPD Officer Arrested In Brutal Bat Attack

CBS reports "An off-duty NYPD officer was among four men arrested in a brutal baseball attack on Long Island
"They Called Me A N*gger & Told Me To Go Back TO Africa"

Indian boy weds dog

A toddler has reportedly been married off to a dog in eastern India in a bid to prevent his predicted death by a tiger.
The ceremony, at a Hindu temple in Orissa state's Jajpur district,was conducted with all the rituals observed at traditional weddings.

It included a dowry for the bride - the village bitch.

The dog sported two silver rings and a silver chain, the UNI news agency reported.

Parents of the groom, 18-month-old Sangula, were advised to arrange the marriage when they noticed a tooth growing from their infant son's upper gum.

The growth was considered to be a bad omen in the boy's tribal community.

Village elders believed it would lead to him being killed in a tiger attack - a fate preventable, according to tribal tradition, by marrying a dog.
Source

8 People Charged in Michael Phelps 'Bong' Incident

Michael Phelps says it's going to take him two or three months to decide if he's going to compete at the 2012 Summer Games in London, The Baltimore Sun reported.

"It will take a few months," Phelps said in a post-practice interview Monday outside the pool where he trains, the newspaper reported. "I'll give it 30 or 60 days. I think it will be better. I'm already happier now than I was, just having some part of my life back to normal, being able to swim again, having fun, joking around."

Eight people have been arrested since a photo of Phelps with a marijuana pipe was published in a British tabloid earlier this month, a Columbia, S.C., television station reported Tuesday. Seven people have been charged with drug possession and one person with distribution, WIS-TV reported.

The television station also reported that police confiscated the bong Phelps allegedly used after tracking it down when its owner, who is one of the eight people charged in the case, attempted to sell it on eBay for $100,000.

Phelps apologized for a lapse in judgment, lost a sponsor in Kellogg Co. and was suspended for three months by USA Swimming. But he's no longer waking up to people shouting outside his apartment, and the paparazzi aren't dogging him with the same vigor, according to the report.

"I'm not feeling too good physically," Phelps said, according to the report. "But I'm actually able to sleep now. I had a real hard time sleeping over the last two weeks or so. Just swimming and thinking about everything going on. Everything is back to what I call normal, I guess."

Phelps, the winner of a record-breaking eight gold medals at Beijing last summer, said he called every one of his sponsors to apologize and spoke to everyone except Kellogg, according to the report.
Source

Man Killed By "Exploding Mobile Phone

A man has died after his mobile phone exploded, severing a major artery in his neck, according to reports.

The man, thought to be a shop assistant in his twenties at a computer shop in Guangzhou, China, died after he put a new battery in his phone. It was believed that he may have just finished charging the battery and had put the phone in his breast pocket when it exploded.
According to the local Chinese daily Shin Min Daily News, the accident happened on January 30. An employee at the shop told Chinese media that she heard a loud bang and saw her colleague lying on the floor of the shop in a pool of blood. The employee said the victim had recently changed the battery in his mobile phone.

Chinese authorities have yet to determine the make and model of the phone and its battery. Police were investigating whether the phone and battery were counterfeit.

Local reports said that this was the ninth recorded cellphone explosion in China since 2002. In the most high profile recent incident, in June 2007, a 22-year-old welder, Xiao Jinpeng, died from chest wounds when his mobile phone exploded while he was at work at an iron mill in Gansu province.

Lithium batteries are widely used in mobile phones - but if they are overcharged or exposed to heat, the inflammable liquid inside can explode.

Source

Goat detained over armed robbery

LAGOS (Reuters) – Police in Nigeria are holding a goat on suspicion of attempted armed robbery.

Vigilantes took the black and white beast to the police saying it was an armed robber who had used black magic to transform himself into a goat to escape arrest after trying to steal a Mazda 323.

"The group of vigilante men came to report that while they were on patrol they saw some hoodlums attempting to rob a car. They pursued them. However one of them escaped while the other turned into a goat," Kwara state police spokesman Tunde Mohammed told Reuters by telephone.

"We cannot confirm the story, but the goat is in our custody. We cannot base our information on something mystical. It is something that has to be proved scientifically, that a human being turned into a goat," he said.

Belief in witchcraft is widespread in parts of Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation. Residents came to the police station to see the goat, photographed in one national newspaper on its knees next to a pile of straw.

Source