British ‘Batman’ turns out to be a delivery man
It wasn’t Batman, it was a joker. A day after making headlines around the world for handing over a suspect to police dressed as Batman, the identity of Britain’s mysterious caped crusader has been revealed as Stan, a takeaway food delivery man. Police in Bradford, northern England,
were baffled when a portly figure in an ill-fitting Batman costume brought them a 27-year-old man wanted for burglary in the early hours of February 25 before disappearing into the night.
They released closed-circuit television footage of the incident and after much speculation, the masked hero disclosed his true identity to media. He was not Batman’s alter ego Bruce Wayne, but driver Stan Worby, 39. He also said he had not brought the man in as part of any crime-fighting crusade. He had simply agreed to accompany a friend to the police station to offer him moral support, and had decided to wear the Batman suit as a practical joke.
“Obviously it was done as a joke,” he told ITV’s Daybreak programme, saying he was “gobsmacked” by the attention. (Reuters)
Getting kidnapped to avoid lover
A New York City man was arrested and charged with faking being kidnapped to avoid telling his girlfriend why he was gone for two weeks. Rahmell Pettway, 36, was discovered by passersby on a recent morning between two cars parked on a street in Brooklyn, the New York Post reported.
His hands, legs and mouth were covered with duct tape, and he complained of pain in his ribs, police said. When being questioned by police, Pettway said he had been kidnapped by two men in a blue minivan on February 19. They then held him captive for about two weeks, driving him around from place to place, Pettway said.
However, authorities became suspicious of Pettway’s story and he soon confessed that the kidnapping was a hoax, saying he had been avoiding his girlfriend for a couple of weeks and was terrified of facing her. (UPI)
Iran’s capital launches war on freakishly big rats
Tehran has a rodent problem. A big one. Rats not only easily outnumber the city’s residents (an estimated 25 million versus 12 million, respectively), they’re monstrously large. According to NPR, these vermin can weigh up to 11 pounds-more than some cats.
The city has always had a problem with rats; every spring, the water from snow melting off the Alborz mountains flushes the rats out of their underground lairs. Way back in 2000, NPR noted, the BBC reported that poisoning the rats, which makes them thirsty and forces them underground as they search for water, didn’t work. If anything, it seemed to make the rats stronger.
An environmental adviser to the city council, Ismail Kahram, told the website Qudsonline.ir, “They are bigger now and look different. These are changes that normally take millions of years of evolution.”
So now, in addition to chemicals, officials have deployed sniper teams equipped with infrared lights for nighttime hunting. So far, the teams have succeeded in taking down only 2,000 of them. (Yahoo News)
German job centre posts prostitute opening
A German job center apologised for putting up a posting from a prostitution website seeking a “hostess” skilled at “communicating their zest for life to men.”
The Federal Employment Agency said its Dusseldorf centre posted the ad on the agency’s website before discovering it originated from www.escort.de, a prostitution website, The local.de reported.
The posting promised “lucrative pay” and specified no previous experience was necessary. “We normally carry out checks on all the companies offering positions,” agency spokesman Paul Ebsen said. “We regret that this advertisement slipped through and have arranged for it to be removed.” (UPI)
Woman without arms is now a pilot
Earning a black belt in the marital arts or being issued a pilot’s license are both substantial accomplishments that take years to achieve. But 30-year-old Jessica Cox has achieved both despite being born without arms.
Cox first rose to fame in 2008 when the Guinness World Records recognised her for becoming the first person without arms to fly an airplane. And now, the Arizona native is the subject of a new documentary, Rightfooted, which Cox says she hopes will serve as an inspirational and teaching tool to disabled youth around the world.
“Had I watched a film similar to this one earlier in my life, I know it would have made a difference,” Cox says in a trailer for the film. The International Documentary Association is sponsoring the production of Rightfooted, which has already surpassed its $30,000 fundraising goal posted on the crowd-funding site Indiegogo.
Cox says her current goal is to become a motivational speaker, particularly for other children born without arms. (Yahoo News)