Man won't give up his short shorts

KAMLOOPS, British Columbia (UPI) -- A Canadian yoga instructor says he will give up working out at a gym in Kamloops, British Columbia, sooner than give up his short shorts.

Mohd Abdullah, 48, told The Province he has received two warnings about his shorts since he joined the Tournament Capital Center a year ago. Officials at the gym said other patrons have complained Abdullah's attire is too short, too loose and shows a bit too much.

"I think it is discriminating and at the same time, I think it is a double standard," he said. "Here you have women that are wearing shorts that are half my size and with, excuse my lingo, the boobs half falling out -- and that's acceptable."

Abdullah teaches computer science at Thompson Rivers University and is also an instructor in pilates and yoga.

He said he owns six to eight pairs of shorts, one of them bought at Wal-Mart more than 10 years ago.

"I'm not going to change my style, not when I'm half a century old," he said. "I'm just going to keep wearing what I wear."



Copyright 2009 by United Press International

Man crosses tracks during live safety spot

LANGLEY GREEN, England (UPI) -- The makers of a BBC TV spot about crime and safety on British railways said the live special accidentally featured a man running across the path of a train.

BBC reporter Richard Westcott had been delivering the message at a Langley Green, England, railroad crossing when a man appeared over his shoulder, ducked under the lowering level-crossing barriers and walked across the tracks in the path of the oncoming speeding train, the Daily Mail reported.

A Network Rail spokesman said people running across the tracks while fast-moving trains approach is far from uncommon in Langley Green.

"Youngsters and adults alike break the law jumping over the barriers," he said.

The spokesman reiterated that ignoring barriers and warning lights is a dangerous pursuit.

"Trains in this country can run as fast as 125 mph and take up to half a mile to come to a halt," he said.



Copyright 2009 by United Press International

Lost tortoise found nearly a mile away

NORTH LINDEN, Ohio (UPI) -- An Ohio couple said their beloved pet tortoise is home again after almost a week of wandering following its escape.

Lisa Dupler and Nicole Zahrndt of North Linden said they tirelessly covered the neighborhood in more than 100 "missing-tortoise" signs and offered a $100 reward for the safe return of Ophelia -- a male African Spur Thigh tortoise -- after the tortoise tunneled underneath their backyard fence Wednesday, the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch reported.

The pair said their lucky break came when they got a phone call from Stacy Sturgill, whose boyfriend, Louis Maher, had seen a story in the Dispatch about a missing tortoise and spotted the animal outside Sturgill's apartment, nearly a mile from the tortoise's home.

Dupler and Zahrndt said they were so delighted by Ophelia's return they upped the finder's fee to $120, which Sturgill and Maher said they plan to spend on an air-conditioner.

Ophelia's family said they plan to make their fences deeper because African Spur Thigh tortoises can burrow up to 30 inches deep and make tunnels up to 10 feet long.



Copyright 2009 by United Press International

Police: Man tried to sell fake TV

SAN LEANDRO, Calif. (UPI) -- Police in California, acting on a tip that a man tried to sell a flat screen TV for $100, said they detained a man and found a TV box containing an oven door.

San Leandro police said the man was pulled over last week and officers noticed a box in his car purporting to contain a brand-new, 37-inch Sony TV -- but all they found inside the box was a glass oven door disguised as a television, the Oakland (Calif.) Tribune reported.

Police said they pulled the man over because of an anonymous call from someone who said a man tried to sell him a TV for $100 out of his car in a Wal-Mart parking lot and gave police a description of the beige 1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass.

The man, Anthony Myles, 52, was arrested on a charge of driving on a suspended license. Police said no other charges were filed.



Copyright 2009 by United Press International

Boy, 9, lands 150-pound shark

BURIEN, Wash. (UPI) -- A 9-year-old Washington state boy said it took him almost an hour to land a 150-pound sixgill shark while fishing with his grandparents near Burien.

Cosmo Miller, 9, said he used a 30-pound test line to reel in the shark while fishing last week with his grandparents in Puget Sound, The Seattle Times reported.

"It was really hard," Cosmo said, "but I had a really big fishing pole."

The boy, who released the shark after taking pictures for posterity, said it wasn't his first encounter with a sixgill shark. He said he broke two poles fishing for sharks before he landed his prize catch using dogfish as bait.

Dave Woltz, his grandfather, said watching Cosmo wrestle with the shark was quite a sight to behold.

"It was quite a thrill watching a 9-year-old kid pull in that fish," he said. "We had been fishing for about four hours and were ready to come in when all of a sudden he hooks this big thing. His face was beet red, and I offered to help him, but he said no."

Cosmo said the shark was the largest fish he had ever hauled in, far surpassing his previous personal record of a 27-pound salmon.



Copyright 2009 by United Press International

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CIARRA ALEXANDRIA

Like any proud Grandma, today I take time to say Happy Birthday to my granddaughter, Ciarra Alexandria Thompson on her 7th Birthday.

My little Princess Aurora II is 7 years old and following in her grandma´s steps by being a dancer, a talker and a very intelligent little girl.

I love you baby girl.

From Princess Aurora I
(Grandma Brenda)

Clinton, 2 journalists depart NKorea for US

By JEAN H. LEE, Associated Press Writer Jean H. Lee, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 48 mins ago
SEOUL, South Korea – Former President Bill Clinton brought two freed U.S. journalists out of North Korea early Wednesday following rare talks with reclusive leader Kim Jong Il, who pardoned the women sentenced to hard labor for entering the country illegally.

Euna Lee and Laura Ling were heading back to the U.S. with Clinton, his spokesman Matt McKenna said, less than 24 hours after the former U.S. leader landed in the North Korean capital on a private, humanitarian trip to secure their release.

The women, dressed in short-sleeved shirts and jeans, appeared healthy as they climbed the steps to the plane and shook hands with Clinton before getting into the jet, APTN footage in Pyongyang showed. Clinton waved, put his hand over his heart and then saluted.

North Korean officials waved as the plane took off. McKenna said the flight was bound for Los Angeles, where the journalists will be reunited with their families. The White House had no comment.

Their departure was a jubilant conclusion to a more than four-month ordeal for the women arrested near the North Korean-Chinese border in March while on a reporting trip for Current TV, the media venture founded by former Vice President Al Gore. They were sentenced in June to 12 years of hard labor for illegal entry and engaging in "hostile acts."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had urged North Korea last month to grant them amnesty, saying they were remorseful and their families anguished.

North Korean media characterized the women's release as proof of "humanitarian and peace-loving policy."

Their families said they were "overjoyed" by the pardon. Lee, 36, a South Korean-born U.S. citizen, is the mother of a 4-year-old. Ling, a 32-year-old California native, is the younger sister of Lisa Ling, a correspondent for CNN as well as "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and "National Geographic Explorer."

Clinton's landmark trip to Pyongyang also resulted in rare talks with reclusive Kim Jong Il that state-run media described as "wide-ranging" and "exhaustive." The meeting was Kim's first with a prominent Western figure since reportedly suffering a stroke nearly a year ago.

While the White House emphasized the private nature of Clinton's trip, his landmark visit to Pyongyang to free the Americans was a coup that came at a time of heightened tensions over North Korea's nuclear program.

State media said Clinton apologized on behalf of the women and relayed President Barack Obama's gratitude. The report said the visit would "contribute to deepening the understanding" between North Korea and the United States.

The meeting also appeared aimed at dispelling persistent questions about the health of the authoritarian North Korean leader, who was said to be suffering from chronic diabetes and heart disease before the reported stroke.

Kim smiled broadly for a photo standing next to a towering Clinton. He was markedly thinner than a year ago, with his graying hair cropped short. The once-pudgy 67-year-old, who for decades had a noticeable pot belly, wore a khaki jumpsuit and appeared frail and diminutive in a group shot seated next to a robust Clinton.

The journalists' release followed weeks of quiet negotiations between the State Department and the North Korean mission to the United Nations, said Daniel Sneider, associate director of research at Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

Clinton "didn't go to negotiate this, he went to reap the fruits of the negotiation," Sneider said.

Pardoning Ling and Lee and having Clinton serving as their emissary served both North Korea's need to continue maintaining that the two women had committed a crime and the Obama administration's desire not to expend diplomatic capital winning their freedom, Sneider said.

"Nobody wanted this to be a distraction from the more substantially difficult issues we have with North Korea," he said. "There was a desire by the administration to resolve this quietly and from the very beginning they didn't allow it to become a huge public issue."

Speaking out for the first time since their capture, Gore said in a joint statement with Current co-founder Joel Hyatt that everyone at the media outlet was overjoyed by the prospect of their safe return. "Our hearts go out to them and to their families for persevering through this horrible experience," it said.

The Lee and Ling families thanked Obama, the secretary of state and the State Department.

"We especially want to thank President Bill Clinton for taking on such an arduous mission and Vice President Al Gore for his tireless efforts to bring Laura and Euna home," it said. "We are counting the seconds to hold Laura and Euna in our arms."

The Committee to Protect Journalists also welcomed their release.

In North Korea, Clinton was accorded honors typically reserved for heads of state. Senior officials, led by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, who also serves as the regime's chief nuclear negotiator, met his private unmarked plane as it arrived Tuesday morning.

Video from the APTN television news agency showed Clinton exchanging warm handshakes with officials and accepting a bouquet of flowers from a schoolgirl.

Kim later hosted a banquet for Clinton at the state guesthouse, Radio Pyongyang and the Korean Central Broadcasting Station reported. The VIPs and Kim posed for a group shot in front of the same garish mural depicting a stormy seaside landscape that Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, posed for during her historic visit to Pyongyang in 2000.

North Korean state media said Clinton and Kim held wide-ranging talks, adding that Clinton "courteously" conveyed a verbal message from Obama.

In Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs denied Clinton went with a message from Obama. "That's not true," he told reporters.

In the past, envoys have been dispatched to Pyongyang to secure the release of Americans. In the 1990s, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a congressman at the time, went twice on similar missions: in 1994 to arrange the freedom of a U.S. pilot whose helicopter strayed into North Korean airspace and again two years later to fetch an American detained for three months on spying charges.

Richardson, Clinton and Gore, Clinton's vice president, had all been named as possible envoys to bring back Lee and Ling.

However, the decision to send Clinton was kept quiet, revealed only when he turned up Tuesday in Pyongyang accompanied by John Podesta, his one-time White House chief of staff, who also is an informal adviser to Obama.

The trip was reminiscent of one 15 years ago by former President Jimmy Carter when Clinton was in office, also at a time of tensions over North Korea's nuclear program.

Carter's visit — he met with Kim Jong Il's father, the late Kim Il Sung — helped thaw the deep freeze in relations with the Korean War foe and paved the way for discussions on nuclear disarmament. Clinton later sent Albright to Pyongyang for talks with Kim in a high point in the often rocky relations with North Korea.

Discussions about normalizing ties went dead when George W. Bush took office in 2001 with a hard-line policy on Pyongyang. The Obama administration has expressed a willingness to hold bilateral talks — but only within the framework of the six-nation disarmament talks in place since 2003.

North Korea announced earlier this year it was abandoning the talks involving the two Koreas, Japan, Russia, China and the U.S. The regime also launched a long-range rocket, conducted a nuclear test, test-fired a barrage of ballistic missiles and restarted its atomic program in defiance of international criticism and the U.N. Security Council.

Last month, the U.S. Navy tailed a North Korean cargo ship as it sailed south suspected of carrying cargo banned under a U.N. resolution on board until the vessel turned around and returned to port.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry recently had harsh words for Clinton's wife, describing her as "a funny lady" who sometimes "looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping."

Kim inherited leadership of impoverished North Korea upon his father's death in 1994, 20 years after being anointed the heir apparent. Kim has not publicly named his successor but is believed to be grooming his third son, 26-year-old Jong Un, to take over.

___

Associated Press writers Anne Gearan in Washington, Samantha Young in Sacramento, Calif., Lisa Leff in San Francisco and AP researcher Jasmine Zhao in Beijing contributed to this report.