.| UrbanNerd |.

BOGOTA, Colombia – Watch out Fido, your days on the force may be numbered. Police in Colombia are training Lola and Espejo, two whiskered, red-eyed rats, to sniff out bombs and land mines.

The rodents are part of an experimental six-rat squadron that police are preparing for dangerous missions to defuse the more than 100,000 land mines that litter Colombia’s countryside after four decades of war between the government and leftist rebels.

Unlike dogs, rats weighing less than half a pound each and “don’t trigger any explosions when they walk on a mine,” said Col. Javier Cifuentes, director of the Sibate police academy, where basic training is taking place.

To earn their stripes, the rats have spent the past year undergoing a daily training regimen in which they are placed in a maze with C-4 explosives and other bomb-making materials. When they detect the target, they’re rewarded with a cracker.

Trainers estimate it could be six months before the rats are pressed into active duty.

Cifuentes said he believes Colombia is the first country to use rats to conduct police work, though larger rodents are being employed for similar purposes in Sudan, he said.

BERLIN – A retiree in northern Germany flushed some 30,000 marks (euro15,300, US$18,900) down the toilet, believing the old bank notes were worthless, police said.

Officials were alerted by a blocked pipe in the northern city of Kiel. A cleaning company employee extracted soggy bundles of bank notes, but more money got away as the water started flowing again.

Investigators then discovered that the retiree had reported a blocked pipe at his house the same day. They visited the “slightly bewildered” man at his apartment and he confirmed that he had flushed the money away, a police statement issued late Wednesday said.

The 64-year-old “was of the opinion that mark notes no longer had any value,” it added. He still had another 30,000 marks at the apartment, as well as euro14,000 (US$17,300) in euro bills.

Police accompanied the retiree to a bank, where he deposited the money.

Euro notes and coins replaced 12 national currencies in 2002. Europeans can still exchange the old money at their central banks.

Language experts are amazed Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have named their baby daughter Suri–because there is no record of the name meaning “Princess” in Hebrew.

According to Hebrew linguists, Suri has only two meanings–one is a person from Syria and the other “go away” when addressed to a female.

Hebrew expert Jonathan Went says, “I think it’s fair to say they have made a mistake here. There are variations of the way the Hebrew name for princess is spelled but I have never seen it this way.”

Suri can also be translated into a Hindi boy’s name, and it also means “pointy nose” in some Indian dialects and “pickpocket” in Japanese.

JERUSALEM – He never got an invitation and he certainly didn’t R.S.V.P., but that didn’t stop Will Smith from crashing Atir Cohen’s bar mitzvah at Jerusalem’s Western Wall.

Cohen, 13, was deep into his Torah reading Thursday when he heard shouting and saw girls pushing against the barrier separating men from women at the holy site to catch a glimpse of the Hollywood superstar.

“At first I didn’t know who it was,” Cohen said. Smith compensated for the interruption by shaking the bar mitzvah boy’s hand and posing for a picture with him.

Surrounded by a security detail, Smith approached the wall and put a note in the cracks in keeping with tradition.

Smith and his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, then took a tour of an excavated tunnel alongside the wall. The tour leader was Shmuel Rabinovitch, chief rabbi of the holy site, who said the couple took notes and spent several minutes praying.

“He is a very nice man, he was very excited and showed his emotions,” he said.

Smith and his wife later visited the nearby Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built on the site where many Christians believe that Jesus was crucified

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – For 84-year-old Josephine Crawford, the golden years just got a lot more golden. About to call it quits after a night playing slot machines, the Galloway Township widow hit a $10 million jackpot late Tuesday, the biggest in the history of casino gambling here.

The retired waitress knew when the nickel slot machine’s bells went off that she’d won something but didn’t know what. When a slot attendant at Harrah’s Atlantic City casino told her it was $10,010,113.48, she didn’t believe him.

“I said, ‘Oh, come on.’ But he just stood there and I figured, why is he staying there?” she said Wednesday.

Crawford, who has been gambling in Atlantic City casinos since the first one opened in 1978, had never won more than $1,000 at a time before. She still hadn’t decided Wednesday whether to take the money in a 25-year annuity or in a lump-sum payment of more than $5.5 million, but she has 21 days to make that call.

Either way, she’s not planning a spending spree.

Crawford, a petite, gray-haired great-grandmother, lives with her daughter, drives a 2006 Honda Civic and has no plans to buy a new car or a new house. But she’s always wanted to see Italy, where her parents grew up, and she wants to share the wealth with her two daughters, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

“Somehow, I’ll spend it. I’ll spend it at the casino, and I might go to Vegas,” said Crawford, who spent 27 years waiting on tables before retiring in 1992.

The jackpot was won on Megabucks, a progressive slot machine linked to hundreds of others in Atlantic City’s 12 casinos. With progressive slot machines, a portion of each bet goes toward the citywide jackpots, which start at $1 million.

The previous biggest Atlantic City jackpot was $8.5 million in 1994.

Crawford, who gambles in Atlantic City casinos twice a week, had never won more than $1,000 before.

She was playing alongside granddaughter Alicia Weeks, 27, when they tried to find an open Wheel of Fortune machine. They couldn’t, and were headed to their hotel room when Weeks saw the red numbers on a Megabucks machine’s jackpot marquee blinking $10 million. She suggested they try it.

“She said, `Oh, that’s a nickel machine. I don’t want to play,’” the granddaughter recalled.

But they did. After spending about $20 with no luck, Weeks suggested they move on. Crawford said no, she wanted to play $20 more. She was down to her last $5 in credits when she hit.

“I’m just happy I won it, for my family – although they don’t need any help,” said Crawford, who celebrated with family members in a dinner at the casino. She had one glass of wine.

It didn’t take long for word of her luck to spread. Three men proposed to her after she won.

“Their wives were there, too!” said Crawford. “One of them told me, ‘You can have him.’”

SAN DIEGO – Secure Networks USA LLC says it has just the escape route for painful dates: A plea you can prearrange online before your encounter.

Here’s how it works: Before your date, go on the Internet and scribble a message to friends and family. Set the time for the message to be sent – by cell phone, e-mail or instant messaging.

If the date is going well, cancel the message by logging on to the Internet from your cell phone. If you don’t cancel, your friends will spring into action, such as by placing a call that could give you an excuse to say an emergency has come up.

Secure Networks said it introduced the Secure Singles free notification system because it was “alarmed by the prevalence of dating disasters and online predator stories that continue to be reported around the world.”

What if the date is going well and you forget to cancel the SOS?

Jenny Gilcrest, a spokeswoman for the San Diego-based company, said friends would call and learn that it was a false alarm.

Of course, that interruption might have killed that passionate moment.

A 42-year-old Salina woman was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence and other charges after she led Salina police on a slow-speed chase Wednesday evening while riding a motorized scooter.

The chase began at 8:55 p.m. Wednesday in the 100 block of South Kansas Avenue when an officer tried to pull the scooter over because it wasn’t properly registered, according to Barry Plunkett, deputy police chief.

Plunkett said the scooter kept going, at speeds up to 25 miles an hour.

Just as the officer was about to end the pursuit, he said, the scooter rider pulled into a driveway in the 500 block of Russell Avenue, Plunkett said. Kymberly J. Perez, 139 S. Kansas, was arrested without incident.

Story Link

MODESTO, Calif. – An 8-year-old boy swiped his teacher’s car keys and took her minivan for a joyride, cruising safely home and into the record books as the city’s youngest auto thief, police said.

The third-grader told officers he “just wanted to drive around for a while” when he left the James Marshall School on Monday, officer Michael Amarillas said.

The diminutive driver snatched the keys from teacher Caren Brady’s purse when she turned her back to the class. In order to operate the Dodge Caravan, he raised the driver’s seat, lowered the steering wheel, adjusted the rearview mirror and turned off the radio.

“This is the smallest child you can ever imagine,” said Brady, who noticed her vehicle missing a couple hours after school. “I don’t think this kid is 4 feet tall. He’s tiny; he’s the tiniest kid in the class.”

The boy, whose identity was not released, was suspended from school, Brady said. Nothing was damaged and no one was hurt and police said they wouldn’t charge him with a crime.

A neighbor saw the boy driving and called police. Officers found the van parked in front of the house, which is less than a mile from the school. They lectured the boy after interviewing him.

“You can’t do anything but laugh,” said Brady, who spent 90 minutes Tuesday teaching other pupils about the consequences of choices they make. She said she wouldn’t let the boy return to her class.

NEW YORK – A restaurateur who admitted he exposed himself to a woman in a subway car, an act the woman captured with her cellular telephone camera, was sentenced Tuesday to two years probation and ordered to undergo counseling.

Daniel Hoyt, 43, was sentenced in Manhattan Criminal Court on his guilty plea to public lewdness, a misdemeanor. He admitted he exposed himself while on the R train on Aug. 24, 2005.

Hoyt and Tolentin Chan founded the popular Quintessence raw-food restaurants on East 10th Street in the East Village and on Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side.

Judge Alexander Jeong rejected a request by Assistant District Attorney Andrew Zakrocki to follow a Probation Department recommendation and send Hoyt to jail.

“I will impose the sentence promised,” Jeong said. He added that Hoyt has to continue once-weekly psychiatric counseling for the entire two-year probation period. The judge warned that a probation violation could get Hoyt 90 days in jail.

As Hoyt left court, he said, I apologize for my actions and I’m sorry for anyone I may have offended.”

A court complaint says Hoyt committed four similar acts of public lewdness – one on a No. 1 or No. 9 train on Oct. 19, 2004, near West 72nd Street, and three others on R trains in the East Village on July 13, Aug. 19 and Aug. 24, 2005.

While Hoyt was in court, about a half-dozen women marched with signs outside the courthouse, denouncing the defendant. Their demonstration was in response to his alleged comments in a magazine interview, that some women liked what he had been doing and probably would want to date him.

One marcher was Thao Nguyen, 23, the woman who caught Hoyt “in flagrante” with her cell phone camera. She carried a sign that said, “Actually, if I met you in a bar I wouldn’t date you.”

RICCIONE, Italy, April 19 (UPI) — Named for a stinging insect, Italy’s beloved small-wheeled Vespa scooters turn 60 years old this month, with its design almost unchanged.

To commemorate its longevity, an exhibit entitled “Vrooooom” opened in the coastal northeastern Italian city of Riccione this week, whose promotional material describes the little vehicle as an “icon of Italian design,” The Times of London reported.

“The key to the Vespa is that it has a soul,” Roberto Leardi, head of the Italian Vespa Club told the Times. “It is not just a piece of machinery.”

The Vespa, which means “wasp” in Italian, was invented in April 1946 by Enrico Piaggio, an aircraft manufacturer looking for new post-war markets, and Corradino D’Ascanio, an aeronautical engineer and helicopter designer.

Since then, some 17 million of the scooters have been sold and 40 percent are still made at the Piaggio plant at Pontedera in northern Italy.

This story from UPI.
Check out my post on the same subject at Vespaway.com