WhiteBoard News for Friday, January 16, 2004

Medellin, Colombia: (Radio Cadena Nacional):

A Colombian man faked his own kidnapping to see whether his wife still loved him or not.

Jorge Giovanni Bravo Morales left his home in Medellin after a fight with his wife.

A week later, letters began arriving to say that he'd been kidnapped, Radio Cadena Nacional reports.

The letters demanded a £700 ransom but police investigated and found that Mr Morales was the one sending the letters.

Mr Morales admitted: "I wanted to know if she still cared for me. I've always loved her but things were bad and I wanted her to notice me. I beg for her forgiveness."

Mr Morales is facing extortion charges and is still unaware of his wife's true feelings for him since she refused to comment.
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Edogawa Ward, Japan (Kyodo News):

A group of professional Sumo wrestlers has started a neighbourhood watch scheme in a crime-stricken district in Tokyo.

The 15 wrestlers from the Isenoumi stable pound the streets of Edogawa Ward, eastern Tokyo, in pairs or groups of three from 11pm until dawn, reports Kyodo News.

Local shop owner Kazuo Ishizuka, 55, said: "Thanks to this patrol, I feel safe and can sleep well every night. I don't think anyone would commit a crime if they encounter a big sumo wrestler."

Toshio Seki, a 57-year-old resident, said, "I don't know to what extent the neighbourhood watch has contributed to crime prevention. But I'm sure it serves as a deterrent."

The wrestlers take a different route each night, taking notes of findings and events.

They carry whistles, torches and wooden clappers to alert residents of the presence of prowlers.

In 2002, recorded criminal cases in Japan hit a post-war high, having doubled in just 10 years.
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Madison, Wisconsin (AP):

A researcher from the University of Wisconsin at Madison has figured out a better way to slice cheese _ just use a laser. 

"At any other university, people would have just laughed. But this is Wisconsin. It's cheese. And this is no laughing matter," said Xiaochun Li, a mechanical engineering professor and laser expert. 

Traditional cheese processing has a number of shortcomings, he said. 

Large cutting machines require considerable care to keep cheese from becoming contaminated by bacteria. And it's impossible to slice cheese very thin because it tears or sticks to the cutting blade. 

But now Li, working with engineering graduate student Hongseok Choi, has adapted the same kind of laser used for eye surgery to slice Wisconsin's most famed food product. 

At first, Li tried using a traditional commercial laser that uses heat to cut by melting or evaporating; it fried the cheese. 

"It smelled really bad," he said. 

Li tried again using a new class of laser that emits light in ultraviolet, and therefore shorter, wavelengths. That laser, known as a cold laser, cuts by blasting apart the molecular bonds that hold materials together. 
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Rotterdam, Amsterdam (Ananova):

A Dutch magician had to cancel his new trick with a burning cigarette because of new laws banning smoking in public.

Kortini, from Rotterdam, had hoped to make an impression with the trick which involves making the cigarette disappear and then reappear again.

But he said: "I light the cigarette, make a few movements with my fingers and the cigarette disappears. I make another snap with my finger and there it is again. Quite innocent and the audience liked it."

Kortini told Algemeen Dagblad he agreed to scrap the trick rather than cause any problems for agents who book him.

But he added: "It's a ridiculous law. If you do a difficult trick like that, you get a lot of respect from the audience and colleagues. And that's why I do this job."
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Gibbstown, New Jersey (Ananova):

A US man who stole two exotic snakes from a pet shop came unstuck after one of them bit him in the scrotum.

The 20-year-old, from Gibbstown, New Jersey, slipped two tiger python snakes into the pockets of his canvas trousers.

He left the shop, got into his car and was driving away when one of the snakes suddenly sank its fangs into his groin, reports the Courier-Post.

The snake wasn't poisonous, and the 20-year-old man, who police did not identify, declined to go to hospital.

Detective Sgt Joseph Giordano Jr said the man told police he had rigged canvas bags to the pockets of his trousers to conceal the snakes.

"As he was returning home, one of the snakes got out of the bag and wrapped itself around his leg and began to squeeze it before biting him," he said.

Police officers later turned up at his home to question him about an iguana he bought from the store on the same day the snakes were stolen.

He was not home when police arrived but a female friend let officers into the home where they recovered the snakes.

Police also found two iguanas, a corn snake, and several lizards and frogs. The man was charged with receiving stolen property and faces further charges of theft.
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San Francisco, California (Reuters):

A federal contractor must pay for an artificial hip for an employee battered in a bar bet gone bad because it dispatched him to a place where he had to make his own fun -- a remote Pacific Ocean atoll used as a U.S. chemical and nuclear arms dump, a court ruled on Thursday. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld disability payments to a Hawaii man hurt in a barroom incident involving U.S. soldiers on Johnston Atoll, a U.S. possession some 700 miles west of Hawaii. 

The San Francisco-based court backed decisions by an administrative board and judge granting disability benefits to Michael Ilaszczat, who required hip surgery after crashing to the floor of a social club on the atoll after he bet soldiers $100 that one of them could not high-kick over his head without touching him. He won the bet but got kicked to the floor. 

The appeals court agreed with the earlier ruling that the two-mile-long atoll is a "zone of special danger" because of its isolation and limited recreational opportunities. 

"We agree that, under these circumstances, horseplay of the type that occurred here is a foreseeable incident of one's employment on the atoll," wrote Judge Barry Silverman. 

Ilaszczat's former employer, Kalama Services Inc., and CIGNA Property and Casualty Insurance Co. contested the awarding of benefits. 

Kalama had fired Ilaszczat, who had worked as a store manager for the company, after Johnston Atoll's U.S. military commander barred him from returning because of the barroom hijinks. 
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Spokane, Washington (Ananova):

Three men who went streaking through a restaurant watched in horror as a thief drove off in their getaway car.

Naked in -19 degree (F) temperatures, the three youngsters huddled behind cars in a car park in Spokane, Washington until police arrived.

"I don't think they were hiding. I think they were just concealing themselves," police spokesman Dick Cottam said.

The three entered the restaurant early on Wednesday morning wearing only shoes and hats. They left their car running so they could make a quick escape.

But the streakers watched as a man who had been eating inside the restaurant drove off in their car.

No charges were brought against the streakers.

"I think it was just three kids who decided to fool around," Cottam said.

He added: "We always tell people to not leave their car running."
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