Drugs stash falls from lady in cell

An inmate caused a bizarre scene at Albany County Correctional Facility on Tuesday when a condom full of prescription drugs and heroin she was carrying inside her split open, spilling a cache of painkillers, anti-anxiety and sleeping pills onto the floor of a holding cell, Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple said.



Before she was to begin a six-month sentence for a probation violation, Andrea Amanatides, 38, filled a condom with 256 prescription pills — 90 pills of Lyrica, 37 Adderall pills, 50 Valiums, 43 Trazadones, 10 Ambiens, 26 Oxycontins — and four bags of heroin and put the condom in her vagina, Apple said. As Amanatides waited in her holding cell, one of the pills fell out, Apple said.

Amanatides then tried to "adjust herself," Apple said, but the 255 other pills and heroin simultaneously fell to the floor. The entire sequence was captured on video. Amanatides, of 245 Manning Blvd., was charged with five misdemeanor counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance and felony promotion of prison contraband. She was arraigned in Colonie Town Court and sent back to county jail. Apple said the incident underscores the need for his jail to be able to strip search all inmates.


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In April, the Supreme Court ruled that jails may perform strip searches on inmates regardless of the gravity of their offenses. Jails had previously needed reasonable suspicion, a restriction Apple said made it hard to regulate drugs and weapons that came into his jail. Drugs smuggled into the jail not only promote drug use, but violence, Apple said. "If she's selling this stuff, people are going to find out who she is and beat her up for it," Apple said. "It leads to a whole cycle of serious problems."

Rare parrot stuck in tree after flying for first time

A rare 3-year-old parrot that had never flown before was startled by fireworks and flew high up into a tree in its Oak Cliff neighbourhood, where it remains. The Catalina Macaw named Samba belongs to Giulio Ferrari.

"It's obvious from his pacing that he just can't come down," Ferrari said. "He doesn't know how to and he doesn't know how to fly down. He didn't know how to fly up until yesterday." Ferrari said the bird was scared by fireworks on Wednesday and escaped his backyard, where he had been getting sun.


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Samba speaks several dozen words in English and Portuguese, Ferrari said. "He says, 'Hello,' every morning (and) every night. (He) says, 'I love you' every day, every time he sees me. My wife doesn't do that," Ferrari joked. On Thursday, Dallas firefighters tried to rescue the bird, but it didn't work.

"They did what they could," Ferrari said. "But as soon as they hit the tree, it flew from a 30-foot tree to a 60-foot tree." That is where the bird remained on Thursday night. Ferrari said he isn't sure what to do to get the parrot down, but he said he would return to try to coax him to safety. "He's hungry; he's scared," Ferrari said.

Paralysed rat walks, giving hope for humans with spinal cord injuries

Paralysed patients have been given new hope of recovery after rats with severe spinal injuries regained the ability to walk, run and even climb stairs following a groundbreaking new treatment. The rodents were able to gain "100 per cent recuperation" just weeks after a therapy which helped them grow new nerves in their spine that bypassed their injury, researchers said. Their brains were once again able to take control of their limbs, with the help of chemicals and electric currents to stimulate the nerves which control their leg muscles.



Scientists in charge of the trial said a similar approach could be used on human patients with spinal injuries, with a clinical trial possible within one to two years. The study, published in the Science journal, is the first to demonstrate that a severely damaged spinal cord can adapt and recover enough to allow the brain to regain control of the legs. Researchers from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in France experimented on rats with severed sections of spinal cord, which paralysed them by stopping their brain from sending signals to the nerves controlling their legs.

Previous experiments had shown that chemicals and electrodes implanted in the spine could take on the role of the brain and stimulate these nerves, causing the rats' legs to move involuntarily when they were placed on a treadmill. The new study went a step further by teaching the rats to walk voluntarily on solid ground, allowing the brain to grow new nerve connections down to the lower, electrically-stimulated part of their spinal cord below the injuiry. They did this by placing the rats in a special harness which held them upright, tricking their brains into thinking their spines were perfectly healthy, and putting a piece of fine Swiss chocolate a short distance away as an incentive to try to walk.


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Attempting to move towards the chocolate forced the rats' brains to grow new nerve connections to their limbs, and after two to three weeks they were able to walk on their two hind legs while held upright by the harness. Five to six weeks later, the rats had improved so much that they could run, climb stairs and even move around obstacles on two legs while using the harness - a sure sign that their movement was voluntary and therefore being controlled by their brain. Researchers said they were hopeful the same method could be applied to human patients with similar spinal cord injuries and that the first clinical trials could begin at a Zurich clinic within a year or two.

Man fined for thinking dynamite was sausage

A Swedish man charged for possessing several sticks of dynamite claimed in court he was innocent as he thought the explosives were sausages. The 50-year-old man was on trial on Malmö on charges of possessing illegal explosives.

The charges were filed after police came across four kilogrammes of dynamite hidden in a plastic bag in the man's flat. The man claimed, however, that the bag wasn't his but had instead been left by an acquaintance.



Furthermore, the man explained, he figured the long, cylindrical items contained in the plastic bag were simply sausages. Police bomb experts, however, deemed the bag's explosive contents to be a serious danger to the man and his neighbours. Had the dynamite detonated, it could have been devastating for the entire area, according to police.

The man later admitted that recognized the charges were dynamite because he had, on previous occasions used dynamite to "blow holes in the ice" when going fishing during the winter. However, the Malmö district court didn't buy the man's explanation for why he had the explosives in his flat and never contacted police. The man was found guilty of illegal possession of explosives and fined the equivalent of 60 days' pay.

Dutch crown prince 'ashamed' over toilet-throwing contest

Crown Prince Willem-Alexander has spoken at his shame of taking part in a traditional Dutch toilet-throwing contest. The heir to the Dutch throne was in the small eastern village of Rhenen on Queen's Day, April 30, where he entered – and won – a traditional village game of toilet-bowl tossing.



But speaking at a function in Rotterdam on Wednesday, the prince admitted he felt ashamed when hurling the orange-coloured ceramic potty given the lack of proper sanitary conditions in the developing world. "Here in the Netherlands there are towns that take part in the throwing of toilet-bowls for a laugh," he said.

"I participated with a smile, but not without shame in thinking about the some 2.6 billion people around the world that do not have this most basic infrastructure to fulfil a daily need with dignity." But competition organiser Jakob Buitenhuis said he found the prince's attitude "childish".


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"Because he won, we even gave him a cup with a little toilet on top with a string you can pull to flush it," Buitenhuis added. Hundreds of thousands of Dutch take to the streets on April 30 every year in orange wigs and bizarre hats to celebrate Queen's Day, a national holiday and annual festival to mark the birthday of Queen Beatrix's mother Queen Juliana.

Trapped kitten saved by earthquake rescue team

A six-week-old kitten was rescued with specialist earthquake search and rescue equipment after it became trapped in a wall cavity. Six-inch-long, tortoise-coloured Curious George got stuck in the the bathroom in a house in Abraham Street, Blackburn, which was being renovated. He was eventually pulled to safety by firefighters two-and-a-half hours after they were called.



Owner Lisa Browning, 37, said: “We only got him on Sunday and we called him Curious George because he was in and out of everything – and he’s certainly lived up to his name. I was frantic when I first discovered he’d gone.” Lisa could hear him crying, but even after removing the skirting board and calling a builder to take out a window sill, she could not find him, so she called the fire brigade.

But they couldn’t find George because their thermal imaging equipment was being disturbed by the heat of the sun. “That’s when they had to bring in the search and rescue team,” said Lisa. “I was so relieved when they got him out and even though it’s caused a lot of damage, I’m happy George is OK. Afterwards he went to sleep like nothing had happened.”



The Urban Search and Rescue team, drafted in from Leyland, has been sent to earthquake disaster zones to pull out survivors from rubble. The team and the equipment has been used in natural disasters in Pakistan, Haiti, Turkey and Japan. Crew manager David Widdop said: “We have never used the equipment before to find a cat. It was six weeks old and was only six inches long so the equipment lent itself very well because it was quite a complex situation.”

Council tells man to take his full wheelie bin to the tip himself by bus

A man whose wheelie bin was deemed too heavy for the dustcart was told to take it to the tip on the bus instead. David Bridgman, 25, was stunned when a council contractor made the suggestion after he phoned to complain his rubbish had not been collected. He said: "I heard binmen clattering about at 8am, but when I looked out of my window mine hadn’t been moved. I went down to check and sure enough it was still full, yet everyone else’s had been emptied." The dad-of-one, of Wrentham Avenue, in Greenhill, Herne Bay, phoned the council’s refuse contractors Serco and was left stunned when told his wheelie bin was too heavy.

Mr Bridgman said: "The lady said the dustmen had been afraid it might break the lorry, but it was just full of normal household waste, like it has been every other time. I’m sorry, but if a wheelie bin full of old food and dirty nappies can break a rubbish truck then it can’t be a very good truck. I told her if they collected the rubbish every week instead of every other week then it wouldn't be so heavy, but she wasn’t having any of it." Frustrated, he gave up and rang off, but called back later and spoke to the same woman. He said: "The bin was full, already starting to smell and I wasn’t going to wait another two weeks for them to decide it was still too heavy.


Photo from SWNS.

"But again the lady was really rude and said she’d already told me it was too heavy and it wasn’t her problem. I explained it was her problem since I pay the council to take away my rubbish, but she insisted I’d have to take it to the tip myself. I then said ‘well I don’t drive - what do you want me to do, take it on the bus?’ to which she replied ‘well if needs must, you’ll have to take it on the bus’. I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be really angry – it’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard. I’m now stuck with a full bin that’s fast becoming a health hazard with the heat."

Canterbury City Council spokesman Rob Davies said: "The bin was not emptied because it was judged to be too heavy for the dustcart’s lifting mechanism to take. A council officer will be visiting Mr Bridgman to check the bin and resolve the problem. We’re sorry that Mr Bridgman feels he was spoken to inappropriately and that his situation was not taken seriously when he called to register his missed bin." Whether or not Mr Bridgman would be allowed to travel on a bus with his wheelie bin is another question. A Stagecoach spokesman said: "There is no specific reference to wheelie bins in our terms and conditions of carriage but the size and instability of a bin and the likely contents, would constitute a health and safety risk to passengers."