CALGARY - No, Chicken Little, the sky isn't falling, but poultry parts may be.
Chicken feet have been showing up on the lawns, decks and front step of yards in Calgary's Ramsay Park neighborhood and residents say they are fed up.
After some investigation, homeowners now believe the chicken feet are falling from the sky and are blaming the nearby Lilydale poultry plant.
"They have this giant loading bin filled up with chicken parts and it's wide open on top," said Todd Keating.
"The magpies think it's a free-for-all. They fly over Ramsay and they drop them on the ground. Then I come home and I shake my fist."
Neighbor Todd Ford agrees.
"It shouldn't be happening," said Ford, who has had chicken parts appear on his property four times. "The magpie population is out of control."
No one from Lilydale could be reached for comment, but an official with Calgary's bylaw department says the city will look into the matter.
Alvin Murray said there's no bylaw against magpies, but there may be restrictions under a waste bylaw that apply to containers or bins holding animal parts.
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) - A police chase came to an abrupt end when the suspect's car struck a deer, Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger said. Sheriff's deputies arrested Videll A. Hicks, 57, of Chiloquin after she passed semi-trucks in a no-passing zone before dawn Sunday, Evinger said.
Hicks, who was driving a Chrysler LeBaron on Highway 97, failed to yield to lights and a siren. She continued driving to Lakeport Boulevard before hitting a deer near the Jeld-Wen plant.
"She had no explanation of why she did not stop," Evinger said, adding that the deer was later killed in a humane manner.
Hicks faces charges of eluding a police officer in a vehicle and by foot and resisting arrest. She was being held in lieu of $15,000 bail.
Evinger said alcohol did not appear to be a factor.
CROMWELL, Ind. (AP) - A thief with a taste for pork put a damper on a fundraiser for scholarships by making off with nearly 350 pounds of porkburgers and hot dogs, police said.
Cromwell Town Marshal Rich Snyder said the 300 pounds of porkburgers and 48 pounds of hot dogs were taken either late Saturday or early Sunday from the Cromwell Community Center's walk-in freezer in the town about 35 miles northwest of Fort Wayne.
The theft was discovered Sunday morning when members of the Cromwell-Kimmell Lions Club went to pick up the meat. The group had planned to sell porkburgers and hot dogs Sunday at the Stone's Trace festival to raise money for scholarships for West Noble High School students.
Snyder said Monday that an investigation is under way into the burglary but that there were no suspects yet in the heist.
Lions Club members were able to borrow some porkburgers from the Ligonier Lions and operated their festival food stand on Sunday, after a successful day on Saturday.
But a club member said the stolen meat will have a negative impact on the amount of money raised for the scholarship fund during the two-day festival.
GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) - A driver has been charged with leaving the scene of an accident with injuries after her car hit a bicyclist who was in the road waiting on an ambulance to treat him for injuries after being hit by another car.
Shannon Harris of Anderson turned herself in to investigators Sunday night after initially leaving the scene of the accident, said Lance Cpl. Kathy Hiles, a spokeswoman for the Highway Patrol.
The bike rider, whose name has not been released, was in serious condition at Anderson Area Medical Center, Hiles said. He was not wearing a helmet and his bike lacked proper lighting, Hiles said.
The bicyclist was hit first by a Nissan driven by Erin Hartness of Anderson, Hiles said. No charges were filed in that case.
While he was waiting in the road for an ambulance, the bicyclist was hit by the second car, whose driver stopped for a moment before leaving the scene.
LARGO, Fla. (AP) - Stephanie King had to tell her music teacher that a raccoon was to blame for her missing homework. "I explained that the raccoon fell from the ceiling in my bathroom and it ran into my bedroom," the 13-year-old seventh grader at Osceola Middle School told the St. Petersburg Times.
"Animal control came out to get it and they couldn't catch it and they said we couldn't go in my room."
Stephanie's grandmother vouched for her story Friday with school officials. "I told them she can't get her homework, her books, because everything is locked in the bedroom," Natalie King said.
The female raccoon and its babies crashed to the Kings' bathroom floor Wednesday night. Until that moment, the family didn't know the roof was leaking, much less that a family of raccoons was living in their ceiling.
The mother raccoon escaped into Stephanie's room. It finally made its way Thursday night into the trap set by Pinellas County Animal Services officers, who picked up the critter the next morning.
LONDON (AFP) - The BBC has voiced regret over a spoof pop video making light of the conflicts in the Middle East, which was made as a joke by London news staff but leaked to a newspaper.
The film features members of the BBC London team prancing around in tea towel head dresses and fake beards in front of a news footage backdrop of tanks, missile launchers and soldiers in gas masks.
It was only intended to be seen at the leaving party for assistant editor Simon Torkington, who is moving to Qatar-based pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera.
However, one irate BBC insider leaked it to London's Evening Standard newspaper -- leaving those behind the video facing a roasting from BBC bosses.
"Having viewed the video, I believe it should not have been made and was completely ill-judged," said Andy Griffee, the controller of BBC English Regions.
He asked the head of BBC London for some explanations on the circumstances concerning the making of the video.
The sing-along clip is a send-up of one made by British soldiers in
Iraq itself a joke version of the video for Tony Christie and Peter Kay's 2005 hit "(Is This The Way To) Amarillo", which featured comedian Kay marching about as various famous faces leapt into frame.
The joke new lyrics begin: "When the day is dawning / On a muggy old Doha morning / How I long to be there / With Osama who's waiting for me there."
They end: "Just beyond the sand dunes / There's a world so new / Oh jilbabs and palm trees / And there's camel p**."
Television crews often make humourous private videos when a staff member leaves, just as newspapers often produce a mock-up front page.
A BBC source told AFP: "These tapes are entirely private, light hearted and don't cost the public anything.
"They would have used their cameras but in their own time.
"We do have a sense of humour here but the BBC thinks that given there were news reporters involved, it was not the best-judged material, even for a leaving do -- although there's nothing of religious offence in it.
"They don't want to be seen as killjoys but it is a sensitive issue.
"The BBC spent the day talking to everyone involved so they can learn their lesson from it."
HANOI (Reuters) - A Vietnamese man who once appeared on national television to demonstrate his ability to resist electric shocks has been electrocuted while repairing a generator, an official said on Tuesday.
Nguyen Van Hung, aged in his early 40s, was killed in Tay Ninh province near the Cambodian border while repairing the generator without first cutting the power supply, a local official said.
"When alive, he used to demonstrate at our office how he would insert two fingers into the electrical plughole without problems," the official said.
Hung, nicknamed "Hung Electric", had appeared on television's "Strange Stories of Vietnam".
A life-size replica of a Guantanamo Bay detainee has been placed in Disneyland by "guerrilla artist" Banksy.
The hooded figure was placed inside the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at the California theme park last weekend.
It is understood to have remained in place for 90 minutes before the ride was closed down and the figure removed.
A spokeswoman for Banksy said the stunt was intended to highlight the plight of terror suspects at the controversial detention centre in Cuba.
Banksy is notorious for his secretive and subversive stunts - such as sneaking doctored versions of classic paintings into major art galleries.
In 2005, he embarrassed the British Museum by planting a hoax cave painting of a man pushing a supermarket trolley, which he said went unnoticed for three days.
Last week, he smuggled 500 "alternative" versions of Paris Hilton's album into record shops around the UK.
The artist replaced Hilton's songs with his own remixes, which were given titles such as Why am I Famous?, What Have I Done? and What Am I For? He also changed the artwork to show the US socialite topless and with a dog's head.
The Bristolian is most famous for his graffiti artworks, which are often created in prominent public places.
Last year, he produced nine stencil sprays on the Palestinian side of the West Bank barrier.
The satirical images showed images of life on the other side of the barrier.
One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another showed a mountain landscape.
Earlier this summer, a piece of Banksy's graffiti art on a Bristol building was allowed to remain in place by the city council after the public voiced overwhelming support.
The stencilled image, which showed a naked man hanging onto a window ledge, won a 97% approval rating from residents on an internet discussion forum.
Banksy is due to hold what is billed as a "three day vandalised warehouse extravaganza" in Los Angeles this weekend.
RED BANK Tenn. (AP) - Police are investigating after a man wrote about launching a "feline jihad" to rid his Chattanooga suburb of stray cats.
Max Gerskin wrote a two-part series in the Chattanooga Pulse weekly publication, the first of which was published Aug. 9 and titled, "Madder Max: The Cat Lady and My New Dog." The second installment was published Wednesday and titled, "Feline Jihad: The Cat Lady, Part II."
In his commentary, Gerskin said the strays fed by a "neighborhood cat lady" have brought filth and disease to his home, and local Humane Society officials haven't been able to stop it.
As a result, he wrote, "I've officially become a trapper and it's time to take a walk to the river."
A neighbor, Jean Watts, said she feeds about 10 local strays and is the "cat lady" in the articles. She said Gerskin has set traps in his yard and posted signs in the neighborhood alluding to dead cats.
Watts also said some of the strays she normally sees have gone missing in recent weeks.
She believes the problem has more to do with a conflict with Watts about him setting off fireworks than about the cats.
"This is just as much about me as it is about them," she said. "He's mad at me, and he's taking it out on the cats."
Gerskin did not respond to requests for comment, but he posted an online response Sunday at . He wrote that he has not been trying to kill the cats and was using Humane Society traps to help get them to safe homes.
http://www.chattanoogapulse.com
But Humane Education Society of Chattanooga director Guy Bilyeu said Monday there was no record that Gerskin was in possession of any of the organization's traps.
Bilyeu said he planned to meet with Gerskin to discuss the issue further.
"We can't pass judgment on a written article," he said. "This could just be somebody bragging. We don't know."
Red Bank police said Monday that they were investigating.
DALLAS (AP) - A former city official who is under investigation in an FBI corruption probe was arrested for public intoxication after claiming he was robbed by naked and scantily clad attackers at a male strip club, authorities said.
Police arrested D'Angelo Lee early Sunday outside Club Knubian Fantaciez, a dance club that becomes an all-nude male revue after midnight. Police said he told them he was attacked by three men, one naked and another in only a towel.
Lee told police the men threw him out of the club, broke his glasses and stole his wallet, though he later found the wallet. Club employees told police they removed Lee, who said he was there picking up women, because he was causing a disturbance. Lee later called the incident "just stupid, just really frivolous" and said he was only trying to get his wallet back.
Lee resigned from the City Plan Commission last year after being targeted in the FBI's corruption investigation into Dallas City Hall. Lee has been accused of voting on zoning cases where he was a paid consultant and not reporting gifts.
GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) - A woman admitted to smoking marijuana daily with her 13-year-old son to reward him for completing his homework. Amanda Lynn Livelsberger, 30, pleaded guilty to several charges Monday and will be sentenced Nov. 27.
Livelsberger, of Conewago Township, admitted in Adams County court that she had been smoking marijuana with her son since he was 11, and that she often gave it to him as a reward.
The boy told police that he was required to do his homework as soon as he got home from school, and then was allowed to smoke marijuana with his mother, according to court documents.
Livelsberger pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of corruption of minors, possession with intent to deliver drug paraphernalia, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of a small amount of marijuana and possession of a small amount of marijuana with intent to distribute.
The plea did not stipulate a sentence.
The woman also said she also smoked marijuana with two of her son's friends, ages 17 and 18, police said. The 18-year-old also told investigators he had also bought heroin from Livelsberger.
DURHAM, N.H. (AP) - Police thought the young man found in a video store wearing nothing but a pair of women's underwear was the victim of a college prank.
It turned out that Joseph Greenquist, 18, of Londonderry, was later arrested on charges of breaking into apartments near the University of New Hampshire campus, stealing underwear and attempting to assault a woman. Police said a knapsack full of lady's undergarments was stashed nearby.
In one of the apartments, a woman was awoken by the intruder, police said.
"She was awoken by a male climbing on top of her while she was in bed," Deputy Chief Rene Kelley said. "She confronted this man, and after a short conversation, he fled the apartment."
Police said they don't know how Greenquist wound up in the video store.
"And they found the gentleman asleep on our couch, wrapped up in a pair of our drapes and basically naked except for a pair of women's underwear," store employee Maureen Paquette said.
Greenquist was scheduled to be arraigned in Dover District Court on Wednesday.
EPHRATA, Wash. (AP) - After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Gary Weddle began following the news so closely he forgot to shave. After a week he decided not to shave until Osama bin Laden had been caught or killed.
Nor has Weddle, 46, who expected the al-Qaida leader to be caught within a month or so, trimmed his facial hair in the succeeding five years as he went from substitute teacher to science instructor at Ephrata Middle School.
At the start of each school year he gives students a brief explanation of his beard, which stretches more than a foot long and has started turning gray.
"I still get emotional over the families who lost loved ones. I just don't feel there's any closure on this until they get that guy," Weddle told The Wenatchee World for an article published Monday. "I don't have to know anyone personally who lost family in 9/11 to understand the devastation that he's responsible for."
His wife Donita hates the beard, while their three daughters, who attend Eastmont High School in East Wenatchee, don't mind and "mostly their boyfriends think it's cool," Weddle said.
He said he would keep the beard, untrimmed, as long as bin Laden remains at large - "even if I get buried with it."
MADRID, Spain (AP) - Spanish police officers settling in for a video presentation on how to get promoted to sergeant were instead shown footage from a hard-core pornographic film, officials said Tuesday.
Howling laughter rippled through the auditorium where 120 Madrid city police officers had gathered Monday to see the video on operations at an academy where they are to study, the Madrid regional justice and interior ministry said.
A ministry official said computer technicians have blamed the glitch on a Trojan Horse computer virus that activated when the computer containing the video was turned on.
"It was just bad luck that the virus activated right then," said the official, who could not be named because of department rules.
The person operating the computer stopped the video and turned it back on several times but each time the porno movie came back on, so the operator eventually just shut the computer off altogether, the official said.
TEXARKANA, Texas - Poisoned pigeons began nose-diving into pavement and dying on downtown sidewalks, marring the city's annual festival.
Authorities cleaned up more than 25 sick or dead birds that apparently had eaten poisoned corn from the roof of a nearby bank branch.
"The death of these pigeons was more than an unfortunate accident," local CapitalOne Bank President Lacy McMillen said in Tuesday's online edition of Texarkana Gazette. "It was not the intention of the bank to harm any of these birds."
McMillen said the bank hired an exterminator to handle its pigeon problem after a bird entered the bank and defecated on a customer.
The company hired, Anti-Pest Co. Inc. of Shreveport, La., said its goal with the treated corn was to sicken pigeons so they would leave the rooftop. Death was sometimes an unfortunate side effect, company president Jarrod Horton said.
A similar pigeon control effort at a hospital in Schenectady, N.Y., led to a hazardous materials incident in July. Emergency workers spent hours searching the hospital grounds and putting dead birds in red hazardous-waste bags after an exterminator use a pesticide to get rid of pigeons on the roof. Fire Chief Robert Farstad had described the scene as birds "coming down like dive bombers."
Vera Martin, working at Texarkana's weekend Quadrangle Festival, said the poisoning in the Texas-Arkansas border city sends a bad message to children.
"I think it's cruelty to animals," she said. "What other animals could be killed in the process of doing this?"
MONTREAL - Sentencing arguments will begin in November for a woman who followed in the footsteps of Lorena Bobbitt, the Virginia woman who gained infamy in 1993 for slicing off her husband's penis.
Andree Rene's weapon of choice was fondue fuel.
Following an argument in April, 2001, the woman set her boyfriend's penis on fire as he slept.
The 52-year-old man suffered third-degree burns in the pelvic area and on his chest. He spent a month in hospital.
Rene was found guilty of aggravated assault last year.
Sentencing arguments begin Nov. 21.
It's not clear why so much time elapsed between conviction and sentencing.
The maximum sentence is 14 years in prison.
The Crown attorney said he will ask for a jail term, but wouldn't elaborate on how many years in prison he will seek.
Rene remains free on bail until sentencing.
Legal analyst Steven Slimovitch said Rene could avoid a jail sentence, unless she acted with premeditation.
WHITEHORSE, Yukon Territory (AP) - A woman let her dog out and heard the low growl of a wild mountain goat that decided to take refuge in her back yard on Wednesday.
"I certainly wasn't expecting that when I got up this morning," said Jennifer Moorlag. She said the terrified animal was less than two feet away.
Moorlag took her barking dog to a neighbor who contacted a friend at the Department of Environment. The friend contacted a conservation officer and at around 7:30 a.m. officials arrived at the house.
The goat continued to stand still for close to 1 1/2 hours as seven environment staffers launched a net from the roof of the house. The animal was caught in the net, placed in a crate and relocated.
Mountain goats weigh up to 300 pounds.
Moorlag said she heard coyotes the previous night and suspects they were chasing the goat.
The animal managed to get up on her garbage can, denting the top, and jumped over her fence.
"How he got here is anybody's guess," said Dennis Senger, a spokesman for the Department of Environment.
Several residents reported seeing the goat Tuesday.
Initially, conservation officers didn't seem to believe John Wright, principal of Elijah Smith elementary school, when he called to let them know a goat had just made its way across the parking lot.
"He said, 'You sure it was a goat?'" Wright said.
While he's seen coyotes on the school property before, he's never seen a goat and wonders where it came from.
LANTANA, Fla. (AP) - It seems a father's plan to cure his daughter's fear of heights fell short. Troy Stewart and his 10-year-old daughter were on their daily bike ride about 7:45 p.m. Monday when Stewart, 31, suggested they jump off a 15 foot bridge. Stewart held his daughter Meagan Stewart's hand as they jumped off the bridge into the Intracoastal Waterway, authorities said.
"At first he said, 'Do you want to do it or not?'" Meagan said. "I thought, 'It's kind of high,' and then he's like, 'Trust me.'"
Meagan made the jump safely, but her father ended up with a broken leg. She rode her bike half a mile home and told her mother, Mandy Potter. Potter called authorities who found Stewart waiting on the edge of Lantana Bicentennial Park.
"In his mind, he was playing," Potter, 32, said of her partner of 10 years. "But I don't condone his child's play."
Stewart was not charged since Meagan jumped willingly. Officials from the state Department of Children & Families planned to interview Potter.
"This is an example of what not to do as a parent," police Capt. Andy Rundle said. "And let this be a lesson to everybody: Somebody's tried it, and it's not a good idea."
Meagan said she was not upset with her father, but she planned to have a talk with him when he returned home from the hospital.
"I'm going to tell him I don't think he should have done that and you should have learned your lesson," she said.
A 22-year-old woman was arrested after authorities say she tried to hire someone to kill another woman whose photo appeared on her boyfriend's MySpace.com Web page.
Heather Michelle Kane was booked Tuesday for investigation of conspiracy to commit murder, Mesa Detective Jerry Gissel said.
She was arrested after she met an undercover Mesa police detective at a grocery store, gave the officer $400 and offered to pay an additional $100 once the woman had been killed, according to court records.

The records say Kane gave the undercover officer photographs taken from her boyfriend's social networking Web page of the woman she wanted killed. She also requested a photo of the woman's dead body.
It wasn't clear if the boyfriend and the targeted woman were romantically involved, Gissel said.
