Paul McCartney will be at Piedmont Park this summer
June 25th, 2009very impressive
June 18th, 2009Ever wonder what someone with a “bunny obsession” looks like? ..meet Miriam Sakewitz
June 18th, 2009
PORTLAND, Ore. - Washington County’s “Bunny Lady” is back in the hutch after violating a court order banning her from owning animals for five years.
Miriam Sakewitz, 47, was arrested Tuesday at a hotel in the Portland suburb of Tigard after an employee reported finding rabbits hopping around in her room.
Problems for Sakewitz started in October 2006 when police in Hillsboro, about 15 miles west of Portland, found and confiscated nearly 250 rabbits in her home, including about 100 dead ones in freezers and refrigerators.
Police said she broke into the facility where the survivors were being cared for in January 2007 and stole most of them back.
Authorities found her a few days later in Chehalis, Wash., with eight live rabbits and two dead ones in her car.
Another 130 rabbits were recovered at a nearby horse farm. Sakewitz was sentenced in April 2007 to five years probation and was banned from owning or controlling animals.
She also was told not to go within 100 yards of a rabbit.
That summer, Sakewitz was ordered to spend three days in jail for violating her probation by keeping a rabbit in her house.
County probation officer Susan Ranger also said Sakewitz had canceled counseling sessions and refused to open the door for unannounced visits. Ranger said she found no rabbits when she finally got inside but did find a half-empty 10-pound bag of carrots.
Since then, Sakewitz has remained “pretty quiet” — until this week, said Washington County probation officer Bob Severe.
“We hadn’t heard much further from her,” he said, adding she was thought to be living in Clackamas County.
On Tuesday, Washington County animal control officers removed eight adult rabbits, five young ones and a dead one from Sakewitz’s hotel room, Tigard police spokesman Jim Wolf said.
Sakewitz was in custody Wednesday, and Wolf said he did not know if she had an attorney.
She was to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon on animal neglect charges.
Another British toddler with an IQ to match Bill Gates and Steven Hawkings
June 16th, 2009She’s 2. She plays with dolls and draws with chalk. And apparently, she’s one of the smartest people in Britain.
Most little girls of Karina Oakley’s age are chatterboxes, just like her. But few can talk as much sense.
The toddler has just been found to have an IQ of 160 - the same as Stephen Hawking and six points higher than Carol Vorderman - which makes her eligible to join Mensa.
Experts say that she is particularly imaginative and gifted with words.
Karina, who is almost three, is in the top 0.03 per cent of children her age, placing her on a par with a four or five-year-old.
Her mother Charlotte Fraser says she knew her daughter was bright, just not that bright.
She decided to have Karina tested by Professor Joan Freeman, a specialist education psychologist, after watching a TV show about child geniuses.
‘Quite a lot of people had said to me that Karina is quite smart, quite bright, quite clear with her speech and quick to pick things up,’ she said.
Karina, who turns three this summer, undertook a 45-minute IQ test in which she was asked to complete challenges in verbal ability, memory, handling a pencil and numbers and shapes.
At the end, the professor found that she had a special bias towards words, with a ‘wonderful imagination’.
‘Karina is a lovely, responsive and friendly little girl,’ said Professor Freeman. ‘She is more than very bright and capable, she is gifted.’
The professor noted that Karina gave imaginative responses to questions. For instance when asked, ‘What do you use your eyes for?’ she answered, ‘You close them when you go to sleep’ and then also said, ‘You put your contact lenses in them’
As for where her intelligence comes from, Miss Fraser said: ‘I have stayed at home with her for almost three years, I have always talked to her a lot, always tried to answer her questions.
‘We do a lot of things, we go to the park and we are part of various groups. I don’t know whether it’s that, combined with something that she was born with.’
Miss Fraser used to work in marketing while Karina’s father Nick is a computer programmer. They live in Guildford, Surrey.
Two months ago the Mail told how Elise Tan-Roberts became the youngest member of Mensa, the international society for the gifted, with an estimated IQ of 156.
She was two years, four months and two weeks.
To be eligible for Mensa, candidates must in the top 2 per cent for intelligence.
June 14th, 2009
Police Arrest Suspect In Cat KillingsPALMETTO BAY, Fla. — Police have arrested the man they say is responsible for a string of cat killings in South Florida.
Tyler Weinman, 18, lives in the area and is now in police custody, police said. He is charged with 19 counts of animal cruelty, four counts of burglary and 19 counts of improper disposing of an animal body. “Our communities of Palmetto Bay and Cutler Bay have been on edge for many weeks now because of the horrific and unspeakable slaughterings of many of their beloved feline pets. I sincerely hope that with his arrest, the residents will feel relieved and their cats will be safe once again. It is expected that the vicious crimes that have plagued these communities will not be repeated,” said Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. “I commend the police officers of the Miami-Dade Police Department and senior trial counsel Michael Von Zamft who worked tirelessly and exhaustively with our law enforcement partners in order to put an end to these acts of cruelty. My heart goes out to the pet owners who have suffered such a great loss,” Fernandez Rundle said. On Saturday, Miami-Dade police issued arrest warrants for suspects and said they were working to make arrests in the case. Circuit Judge Darryl Trawick signed the arrest warrant for Weiman. Miami-Dade police said that since April, 33 cases involving dead cats have been reported. Eighteen of the cases, which involved a total of 19 dead cats, have been confirmed as animal cruelty, police said. Those cases happened in Palmetto Bay, Cutler Bay and Kendall. Palmetto Bay officials said police plan to serve warrants to multiple suspects, but they did not say how many. Palmetto Bay resident Wayne Edwards transformed his backyard into a playground for his cats. He had 17 of the animals, but he is down to 16 after one was found slain and mutilated in a neighbor’s front lawn. “Why come here in this area and kill innocent cats? They are not doing anybody any harm,” Edwards said. More than 150 residents gathered at a town hall meeting Saturday morning to discuss the cat killings. “This terrible time has drawn us together as a community, further emphasizing the importance of knowing our neighbors, communicating with each other and always staying vigilant to suspicious activities whenever or wherever they may occur in our village,” Palmetto Bay Mayor Eugene P. Flinn Jr. said in the news release.
