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DE QUEEN, Ark. (AP) - The guitar-shaped bulge in Morgan Conatser's clothing tipped off a music store owner that there might be a crime in progress. Clifton Lovell, owner of Guitars and Cadillacs on U.S. Highway 71 in De Queen, was talking with a customer last week when he saw Conatser, 29, walking out of the store. "I saw him walking out to his pickup truck and the bulges in his leather jacket. I said, 'Hey what have you got there,'" Clifton Lovell said. He said Conatser, 29, replied, "Nothing." Lovell pointed toward the unnatural shapes in Conatser's jacket and pants and said, "You've got something." Conatser then removed a solid body electric guitar from his pants leg and from underneath his jacket. "The neck of the guitar was almost down to his knee and the back of the guitar was almost up to his neck. It wasn't hard to spot. There was no way he could sit down or get into the pickup," Lovell said. With the guitar back i...

SALEM, Ore. (AP) - Was it a case of cat scratch fever? Or was Tinker, a 14-year-old brown tabby with one eye, just getting back in touch with her wildcat ancestors? Whatever the reason, after a sojourn in Oregon, Tinker is headed back to her Riverton, Wyo., home. In late October, a volunteer for the Salem Friends of Felines shelter found Tinker roaming the state fairgrounds. "She kept coming up to us, purring," Samantha Demchak said. "And Jan (Petree, the shelter's executive director) said she knew the missing eye had been surgically removed, so we knew someone would be looking for her." On Monday, Tinker was reunited with her owners, Carole and Dave Rowlette, who gladly made the two-day drive to pick up their cat. The couple said Tinker wound up more than 1,100 miles from home after the Rowlettes attended a motor-home rally at the fairgrounds in September. Dave Rowlette said the cat slipped out when the door was left open and was "gone in a flash." Th...

The good Lord didn't create anything without a purpose, but mosquitoes come close. Tags: Jokes

South Korea to Kill Cats, Dogs SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea plans to kill cats and dogs to try to prevent the spread of bird flu after an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus at a chicken farm last week, officials said Monday. Animal health experts, however, suggested it was "a bit of an extreme measure" when there was no scientific evidence to suggest that cats or dogs could pass the virus to humans. Quarantine officials have already killed 125,000 chickens within a 1,650-foot radius of the outbreak site in Iksan, about 155 miles south of Seoul, the Agriculture Ministry said. Officials began slaughtering poultry on Sunday, a day after they confirmed that the outbreak was caused by the H5N1 strain. They plan to slaughter a total of 236,000 poultry, as well as other animals, including pigs, and all dogs and cats in the area by Thursday, the ministry said. About 6 million eggs also will be destroyed, it said. The ministry did not say how many dogs, cats and other animals ...

Oregon Man's Prescription Dog Found A three-week search for the companion dog of an Oregon man battling depression has ended happily in Wyoming, more than 700 miles from where the dog went missing in Nebraska. Melody, a 12-year-old border collie mix, was found huddled under a pickup in Sheridan, Wyo. She had been inside a car when it was stolen in York, Neb. The search for Melody had extended from the small Nebraska city across the western U.S., all the way back to her owner's home in Myrtle Creek, Ore. The companion dog has been Bliss Green's remedy for the last 11 years, after he went to a hospital for being depressed and suicidal, Green said. "I brought her old bed from the house," Green said Monday from Idaho, while driving to reunite with Melody at an animal shelter in Sheridan. "There's enough room for her to sit right next to me when we go home." A U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs nurse practitioner wrote a prescription in February 2003, me...

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) - A German Shepherd named Levi may be old, but his hearing is still pretty good, his owner said after the dog helped police collar a burglary suspect. When 11-year-old Levi spotted a couple of prowlers trying to break into parked cars in Augusta at 3 a.m. Thursday, he growled until his owner, Joyce Luce, woke up and got out of bed. When she looked out the window, Luce saw a pair of young men in hooded sweat shirts breaking into cars. Luce called police, who arrived quickly and arrested Nathaniel Provencher, 18, of Limington, on burglary and other charges. Provencher is free on bail and police were trying to find his alleged accomplice. Augusta Police Lt. Christopher Read was glad to get assistance from Luce's pet. "We're very happy her alert dog is on watch," Read said. --- Information from: Kennebec Journal, http://www.kjonline.com/ Tags: News

T-Shirt Turns Air Guitar Into Music CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Scientists announced Monday that they have developed a high-tech T-shirt that turns the strumming of an air guitar into music. The T-shirt has motion sensors built into its elbows that pick up the wearer's arm motions and relay them wirelessly to a computer which interprets them as guitar riffs, said Richard Helmer, an engineer who leads the research team from the government's Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. One arm is interpreted as picking chords while the other strums. The "wearable instrument shirt" is adaptable to both right and left-handed would-be rock stars. "It's an easy-to-use, virtual instrument that allows real-time music making even by players without significant musical or computing skills," Helmer said in a statement. "It allows you to jump around and the sound generated is just like an original MP3," he added, referring to the...

NEW YORK (AP) - In promising new research, stem cells worked remarkably well at easing symptoms of muscular dystrophy in dogs, an experiment that experts call a significant step toward treating people. "It's a great breakthrough for all of us working on stem cells for muscular dystrophy," said researcher Johnny Huard of the University of Pittsburgh, who wasn't involved in the work. Sharon Hesterlee, vice president of translational research at the Muscular Dystrophy Association, called the result one of the most exciting she's seen in her eight years with the organization. Her group helped pay for the work. She stressed that it's not yet clear whether such a treatment would work in people, but said she had "cautious optimism" about it. Two dogs that were severely disabled by the disease were able to walk faster and even jump after the treatments. The study was published online Wednesday by the journal Nature. It used stem cells taken from the affected...

John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!" He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?" He replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or ... you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood." Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or...I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or... I can point out the posi...

Nov 9, 8:51 PM (ET) WASHINGTON (AP) - Medicare officials have agreed to lessen the proposed cuts in reimbursement rates for power wheelchairs and scooters, particularly for equipment used by the most severely disabled. The new rates announced Thursday will take effect Nov. 15. The changes are part of an effort to combat fraud and ensure Medicare beneficiaries have access to the appropriate wheelchair or scooter, said Jeff Nelligan, a spokesman at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Many had complained that the original cuts went too far and would drive some suppliers out of business. CMS then made several refinements and, as a result, reimbursement rates for some wheelchairs will go up by hundreds of dollars. Sharon L. Hildebrandt, executive director of a trade association representing makers of rehabilitation equipment, said suppliers will still face significant cuts. For example, she said Medicare had paid $7,137 for one particular type of wheelchair, but that amount will...

Feds Probe Care at Ore. Mental Hospital PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Federal investigators are looking into patient care at the hospital made famous in the movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," where there have been reports of abuse, short staffing and overcrowding. The Oregon State Hospital is one of the oldest and most dilapidated state mental institutions in the nation. The movie was filmed there in 1975. Justice Department officials are expected to visit the hospital next week. The department alerted Gov. Ted Kulongoski in June that it would investigate whether patients' constitutional rights were violated. The facility is at the center of discussions about reforming mental health care in Oregon. Reports of abuse and other problems led lawmakers to reassess the hospital's future. Lawmakers have proposed replacing it with two separate hospitals and two residential facilities at an estimated cost of at least $324 million. It's unclear how long the investigation ...

Filed under: Funny

Beijing Issues 1 Dog Per Family Rule By SCOTT McDONALD BEIJING (AP) - First it was one child. Now authorities say Beijing families will be allowed only one dog. The restriction is part of efforts to stamp out rabies, state media said Wednesday. It follows a campaign in August in which thousands of dogs were killed in order to fight the disease. China's capital will institute a "one dog" policy for each household in nine areas, the official Xinhua News Agency said. "Only one pet dog is allowed per household in the zones, and dangerous and large dogs will be banned. Anyone keeping an unlicensed dog will face prosecution," Xinhua said. It said rabies killed 318 people nationwide in September. Rabies is on the rise in China, with 2,651 reported deaths from the disease in 2004, the last year for which data were available. Only 3 percent of China's dogs are vaccinated against rabies, which attacks the nervous system and can be fatal. China has limited most urban c...

I often get asked these questions: Why don't I get a Service Dog from an organization instead of training my own? Why use 2 years (per dog) of my life to train my own Service Dogs? Why hassle with all the time involved, the housebreaking, the socialization, and everything else? I actually have a very simple answer for that: because I can. But the other answer is because I work my Service Dogs only a few times a month. I would rather see an organization dog go to a person who's working full-time, or to a kid who needs the dog at school every day. This weekend I was at our local grocery store and I met a girl in a motorized wheelchair. As I wheeled by her, I said "nice wheels". She and her mom asked what Frankie's name was and where I got him. I told them my hubby and I trained him ourselves because the waiting lists are so long. And because we were dog trainers and could do the training required. The mom said her daughter was on a waiting list for an organizat...

Chris Rose, a journalist for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, was an avid disbeliever in anxiety disorders and depression. He had the classic reaction other folks have... why can't you just get over it. That is, until Katrina hit. After chronicling the many heartbreaking stories of survivors, he began to experience for himself the devastating effects of severe depression. Here's his story . Filed under: News Coping

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Christopher Reeve's children are carrying on their dad's crusade: finding a cure for paralysis. Alexandra and Matthew Reeve both serve on the board of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, which Reeve established to fund research for therapies and a cure, People magazine reports in its Nov. 13 issue. "Our dad's accident really did connect us to this community: 4 million people in the U.S. who are suffering from paralysis," Alexandra Reeve, 22, tells the magazine. "We understand how important it is not only to find a cure but also to improve quality of life." She and brother Matthew will join their half brother, Will Reeve, 14, at the foundation's annual gala on Nov. 6 in New York. Christopher Reeve was paralyzed in 1995 in a horse-riding accident. He died in 2004 at age 52. His wife, Dana Reeve, died of lung cancer earlier this year. Asked about her half brother, Alexandra responded, "Will's doi...

MALDA, India (Reuters) - An Indian policeman charged with guarding industrial plants in the state of West Bengal has had his salary cut for failing to stop his guard dog from becoming pregnant, officials said Thursday. Authorities at a steel plant in Malda, southwest of Kolkata, took a dim view of constable Sunil Kumar's oversight after the dog mated with a stray and gave birth to 10 puppies. "It is a very sensitive issue in our department," S. Bhatnagar, the deputy inspector general of the state's Central Industrial Security Forces, told Reuters. "The Labrador could not carry out her duties properly during her pregnancy and at time of delivery she was on leave." Kumar, whose pay has been cut from 3,540 rupees ($77) a month to 3,295 rupees, Wednesday appealed against the decision in the Kolkata high court. "When an animal experiences the urge to mate, it does not pay heed to its trainer," he told reporters in his defense. But his boss is sticking t...