Mon Jul 30, 2007 6:07PM EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York man has been charged with beating his mother to death with a barbell after losing his temper while watching a baseball game on television.

Michael Anthony, 25, was watching the New York Mets lose a game on Saturday from his home in the borough of Queens when he began furiously banging on the walls, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said in a statement on Monday.

His father Fred Fischman shouted at him to stop, but Anthony punched him in the face and threw him to the ground, according to the criminal charges.

When Anthony's mother, Maria Fischman, 61, tried to intervene, prosecutors said he stabbed her once in the head with a knife before chasing her into a bedroom where he struck her several times with the 20 pound (9 kilogram) barbell.

"It is difficult to imagine a crime more heinous than that of a son viciously attacking his parents and, in the process, fatally beating his mother to death," Brown said.

Anthony has been remanded in custody and faces a maximum of life in prison if convicted.

Its where the term fanatic applies to the extremest.Red Sox fans don't kill their Mamas. BC

Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:05 PM ET

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - The light from the cell phone screens allowed surgeons to complete an emergency appendix operation during a blackout in a city in central Argentina, reports said on Saturday.

Leonardo Molina, 29, was on the operating table on July 21, when the power went out in the Policlinico Juan D. Peron, the main hospital in Villa Mercedes, a small city in San Luis province.

"The generator, which should have been working correctly, didn't work," a hospital spokesman, whose name was not given, told TN television news station.

"The surgeons and anesthetists were in the dark... A family member got some cell phones together from people in the hallway and took them in to provide light," he said.

Ricardo Molina, 39, Leonardo's brother, told La Nacion newspaper that the lights were out for an hour and his brother's anesthesia was wearing off.

Hospital Director Dario Maurer told La Nacion the surgery was without light a maximum of 20 minutes.
***finally the phones are used for something other than running over at the mouth whilst driving, etc. BC

BC enjoy!
Make your own Fortune Cookie!

Thu Jul 26, 2007 6:13 PM ET

BERLIN (Reuters) - Police called to investigate a supermarket theft were surprised to discover the culprit had left his contact details with a shop assistant.

The 30-year-old thief, who was born in Liverpool, England, passed a note to the assistant which read in German: "Call the police, I've just stolen," a spokesman for the police in the town of Nienburg in Lower Saxony said Thursday.

He left the premises carrying a full bag of shopping in one hand and a pack of toilet paper under his arm.

When officers called at his address, the man admitted his crime. He justified the act by saying he and his pregnant girlfriend were having cashflow problems because of a mistake by the social security office.

"You don't come across criminals like this every day," the spokesman said. "The man wouldn't say why he tipped us off."
Truly an oxymoron...an honest thief...kinda cool. BC

Thu Jul 26, 2007 9:48 AM ET
By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - When Oscar the Cat visits residents of the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, the staff jumps into action -- Oscar can sense within hours when someone is about to die.

In his two years living in Steere's end-stage dementia unit, Oscar has been at the bedside of more than 25 residents shortly before they died, according to Dr. David Dosa of Brown University in Providence.

He wrote about Oscar in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"It's not that the cat is consistently there first," Dr. Joan Teno, a professor of community health at Brown University, who sees patients in the unit. "But the cat always does manage to make an appearance, and it always seems to be in the last two hours."

Raised at the nursing home since he was a kitten, Oscar often checks in on residents, but when he curls up for a visit, physicians and nursing home staff know it's time to call the family.

"I don't think this is a psychic cat," said Teno. "I think there's probably a biochemical explanation," she said in a telephone interview.

While pets are often used to bring comfort to the elderly in nursing home settings, Oscar's talent is special, though not unexpected.

"That is such a cat thing to do," said Thomas Graves, a feline expert and chief of small animal medicine at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine.

Graves said there is no evidence to suggest cats can sense death, but he doesn't discount it for a minute.

"Those things are hard to study. I think probably dogs and cats can sense things we can't," he said.

On a particular day detailed by Dr. Dosa, Oscar settled onto the bed of a patient in room 313.

His presence sent staff off to make calls and set up vigil.

When a grandson asked why the cat was there, his mother explained: "He is here to help Grandma get to heaven," according to Dosa's account.

She died a half an hour later.
***something to think about... BC