'Vatican sex parties', murder, gangsters, kidnapping, missing schoolgirl, exorcism, Harry Potter AND yoga – all in one story. Phew!

An exorcist in the Catholic Church claims that a missing schoolgirl who is thought to be buried in a murdered mobster's grave was kidnapped for sex parties at the Vatican.

The priest, Father Gabriel Amorth, 85, made his claims to Italian newspaper 'La Stampa' as police try to find missing schoolgirl Emanuela Orlandi.

Father Amorth weaves a story of sex and crime at the Holy See that should raise a few eyebrows. Mind you, the priest, who has carried out 70,000 exorcisms (yes, that's 70,000, according to the Mail), has previously said that Harry Potter and yoga are the 'work of the Devil'.

Mail Online makes the most of it with the web headline: Missing girl 'buried in murdered mobster's tomb was kidnapped for Vatican sex parties', claims Catholic Church's leading exorcist priest.

That's some SEO for one story!

MAIL STORY

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That's a zebra and a parrot in the passenger seat – man arrested for drink-driving

When police were told that a zebra and a parrot were sitting in a pick up truck outside a bar in Iowa, USA, you'd probably forgive them for being skeptical – especially as the establishment was called the Doghouse Bar and Lounge.

Yet, sure enough, when officers arrived they found the truck and its strange occupants being driven away by Jerald Reiter. The driver failed a number of sobriety tests and was arrested.

Wonder who the passerby was who had the courage to ring the police and report he had seen a zebra and a parrot in the passenger seat outside a bar.

According to the Mail, it's not the first time someone has taken their pet zebra to a bar. British racehorse owner Bill Turner used to take his to the pub.

MAIL STORY

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Facebook, Twitter, texting and email can kill – thousands use their smartphones while driving

Thousands of people admit to putting lives at risk as they log on to social networking sites and email while driving.

According to the RAC, offences involving mobile phones while driving, and even being under the influences of drugs, do not have the same social taboo as drink-driving.

And insurers say that using a mobile phone while driving means you are twice as likely to have a crash. Police stats suggest that mobile use is a contributing factor in two per cent of road deaths.

A driver who kills someone while they are using a mobile phone could be jailed for 14 years.

MAIL STORY

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Ronald Reagan blood auction row – vial taken after assassination attempt on President

A British company is auctioning a vial of President Ronald Reagan's blood, which was taken after the attempt on his life in 1981. And it has caused outrage at the Ronald Reagan foundation.

PFC Auctions, of Guernsey, said the online auction of the blood will end on Thursday. The latest bid stands at £6,270.

TELEGRAPH STORY

ONLINE AUCTION

UPDATE: latest bid is £7,587. Amazing what a little publicity can do!


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Man survives Niagara Falls jump – failed 'suicide' attempt over Horseshoe Falls, Canada

A man has survived jumping 180ft over Niagara Falls in what police believe was a suicide attempt. He is only the third person known to have survived after going over the falls without a safety device.

The Niagara Parks Police said the man climbed over a rail and jumped above the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. He apparently surfaced in the Niagara river and waded ashore.

MAIL STORY


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Woman stunned by Taser – shock video of alleged robbery in subway

A mother of two children was alleged to be trying to rob a subway sandwich shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when an employee stunned her with a Taser. And it was all caught on video by surveillance cameras.

Amazing how she just drops like a stone.

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Mini Run pictures 2012 - London to Brighton Fun Run images from Madeira Drive

I was on Brighton seafront for the London to Brighton Mini Fun Run today.

Managed to get some good shots with the Olympus OM-D E-M5, which is proving to be a very useful, portable camera system with some top notch results.

The last picture of spare exhausts for Minis I have called 'The Italian Job Lot'. I must confess that I had not spotted the green paint on the road where these exhausts were placed until after I had processed the picture.

Then it twigged: green, white, red – the Italian flag, Italian Job film... geddit? Some times you need a little bit of luck to get a different picture.

The rest of my pictures will be on the website (UKpix.com) very soon.

UPDATE: PICTURES NOW READY

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US Singer Donna Summer dies

American singer Donna Summer, famed for the hit 'Love to Love You Baby',  has died at the age of 63.

She was huge on the disco scene and had a big influence on pop and dance.

BBC STORY

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Cow-racing in Indonesia – great pictures

Cow-racing in Indonesia, a traditional harvest event, produces some brilliant pictures of farmers hanging on to the beasts by their tails as they storm through the mud of rice fields.

SUN PICTURE STORY

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Fantastic pictures of Aurora Borealis – by photographer who chases the Northern Lights

 The Mail has some superb pictures by a Norwegian photographer who spends his nights chasing around after the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights.

Tommy Eliassen, of Mo i Rana in Norway, has spent years taking pictures of the natural phenomenon.

They are truly spectacular…

MAIL PICTURE STORY
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Norman the cycling dog – amazing YouTube video from South Carolina, America

Check out this video of Norman the cycling dog from South Carolina, USA.

Norman, a Briard, took 10 weeks to learn to ride his special blue bike around the block, watched by his owner Karen Cobb.

He is already a YouTube star, and this latest exploit adds to his other talents of riding a scooter, closing the door behind him and wiping his face with a bowl.
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Rare US coin could be worth $4 million – gold $3 found in book now up for auction

A rare American $3 gold coin could be worth about $4 million when it is sold at auction next month – and, amazingly, it was found in 1997 by a tourist inside a souvenir book at a shop in San Francisco.

Only two 1870-S coins were made by the San Francisco mint – to be placed at the cornerstone of a public building. The coin up for sale was made from a special cast that had an 'S' carved into it, which is why the $3 piece is so rare.

MAIL STORY
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Kenny Dalglish leaves Liverpool FC after meeting with US owners in Boston

Kenny Dalglish has left Liverpool FC as manager after talks with the club's American owners in Boston and many fans are in a state of shock.

He had delivered an end-of-season report, according to the Guardian, to Fenway Sports Group, including the owner and chairman. The group was not happy with Liverpool's 8th position in the league and the FA Cup Final defeat.

GUARDIAN STORY

UPDATE:

Club statement:
"Fenway Sports Group (FSG) and Liverpool Football Club announced that Kenny Dalglish is to leave his post today as Manager after having his contract terminated.
After a careful and deliberative review of the season, the Club came to the decision that a change was appropriate. It is not a decision that was reached lightly or hastily."

ITV NEWS


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World's largest chocolate sculpture – Mayan temple creation with 18,239 pounds of chocolate

The world record for the largest chocolate sculpture has been smashed by the Qzina Institute of Chocolate & Pastry with a replica Mayan temple in Mexico.

An extraordinary 18,239 lb of chocolate went into the 10ft square temple, which beats the previous record in Italy of 10,736.5 lb set in 2010. Staff at Qzina Specialty Foods in Irvine, California, spent 400 hours making the sculpture.

Should keep a chocoholic like me going for a bit.

DAILY MAIL STORY

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Michael Caine locked in dressing room overnight – falls asleep on movie set

Veteran actor Sir Michael Caine was locked in his dressing room overnight as he fell asleep on the set of his latest movie.

Sir Michael, 79,  star of numerous films including 'The Italian Job', was trapped when he went for a nap and staff, who thought he had left for the day, locked up a disused theatre in New Orleans – the set of a new thriller.

He spent the night in total darkness, until a carpenter heard his cries the next morning.

The story has produced the inevitable headline: 'Blow the bloody doors off'!


DAILY MIRROR STORY
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Whoops: Lamborghini driver crashes £140,000 car after racing from lights - video

An impatient driver lost control of his £140,000 Lamborghini after he sped away from traffic lights and crashed in Chicago – and it was all captured on video.

Now the footage has become a hit on YouTube.


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Leica 0-Series camera sells for 2.16 million euros

A Leica 0-Series camera has sold for 2.16 million euros (about £1.74m) at auction, setting a new world record for a camera. It was bought by an anonymous bidder in Vienna, Austria.

The camera was one of just 25 prototypes made in 1923 and only 12 are thought to survive.

What am I bid for my Leicas?!

BBC STORY

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Facebook to charge for some posts

Facebook is testing a system that charges users to promote their posts, according to the Telegraph. A pay-to-promote system is on trial in New Zealand.

The social website is about to go public on the stock market with an initial valuation of a whopping $96 billion.

TELEGRAPH STORY

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Police find 49 headless bodies in Mexico

Drug cartel killers are suspected of dumping 49 headless bodies near the city of Monterrey, Mexico. The victims also had their hands and feet chopped off.

The 43 men and six women were found dumped on a highway and have not been identified. Police believe they may have been dead for some time as the bodies showed some signs of decay.

REUTERS STORY

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Cool for cats: a cafe full of felines opens in Vienna, Austria – video

A cafe where customers can indulge a love of cats with a taste for coffee has opened in Vienna, Austria.

Cafe Neko is owned by Takako Ishimitsu, originally from Japan, who moved to the capital city about 20 years ago (Neko means cat in Japanese).

She had to negotiate with health officials for three years before being allowed to open the cafe.

TELEGRAPH STORY
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The things people do when their beloved pets die – cloning and even suicide

Some people it seems will do anything after their much-loved pets die – from spending a fortune on cloning their dogs and cats or, in a more extreme case, committing suicide.

The Telegraph reports on the inquest of a British man who killed himself after he lost his beloved cat.

Michael McAleese, 44, of Poole, Dorset, was so distraught when his 13-year-old tabby cat died that he took a cocktail of drugs. The coroner recorded a verdict that he took his own life.

Meanwhile, in America, a couple paid $155,000 to have their Labrador cloned.

Edgar and Nina Otto wanted another dog just like their dead pet called Sir Lancelot. The replica, Lancelot Encore, is said to share traits with the original. Edgar, the son of NASCAR co-founder Edward Otto, paid the enormous price at an auction.

The Mail Online reports that: 'The cloning itself was done in conjunction with a San Francisco firm called BioArts and the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in South Korea... BioArt suspended their commercial cloning service in September 2009, though the process is still completed in South Korea.'

The first commercially cloned pet was a cat called Little Nicky and cost a woman in Texas $50,000.

TELEGRAPH SUICIDE STORY

MAIL CLONING STORY


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Green hotel with a bicycle-powered TV

A hotel in the New Forest, Hampshire, has installed a bicycle-powered TV as one of its very latest energy-saving schemes.

Guests at Cottage Lodge B&B in Brockenhurst can save the planet, keep fit and watch television all at the same time.

TELEGRAPH STORY

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World's most expensive bicycle – £1.2m Ferrari FXX lookalike – video of supercar bike

 It might look like a 250mph Ferrari FXX, but the world's most expensive bicycle relies on pedal-power and has a top speed of just 10mph.

The two-seater Fahrradi Farfall FXX, designed by Austrian artist Hannes Langeder, would set you back a staggering £1.2 million.

It took Langeder a year to build this amazing bike and it is his second pedal-powered supercar – his first,  a Porsche, was driven by Richard Hammond on 'Top Gear'.

MAIL STORY

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Hit-woman arrested in Mexico – assassin said to have killed 20 people for drug cartel

Mexican police have arrested a hit-woman said to have killed 20 people for a feared drug cartel.

Reuters reports that Maria Jimenez was paid about $1,700 a month to kill rival traffickers and a police officer. She was arrested in the northern city of Monterrey and has, apparently, confessed to the murders and other crimes.

Other female assassins have been arrested in Mexico but few have been implicated in so many killings.

There have been more than 50,000 drug-related murders in Mexico since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon took office and launched an offensive against the cartels.

REUTERS

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Man shot in neck with arrow - video. Inches from death during walk in the park

A man was just inches from death as he was shot through the neck with an arrow as he walked through a park in Russia.

Konstantine Myakush, 38, was near a sports centre in Moscow when he was hit by the 20-inch arrow misfired by a member of an archery club.

Surgeons removed the arrow and Konstantine is expected to make a full recovery.

MAIL STORY
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Gas from dinosaurs 'warmed Earth'

Dinosaurs produced so much gas that their flatulence was a key factor in warming up the planet 150 million years ago, according to scientists.

The BBC reports that British researchers estimated the population of dinosaurs around that time and scaled up the wind produced by cows today.

"Cows today produce something like 50-100 [million tonnes of methane] per year. Our best estimate for Sauropods is around 520 [million tonnes methane]," said Dr David Wilkinson from Liverpool John Moore's University.

Phew, that's a lot of gas!

BBC STORY

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Student hit by bus on Texas university campus, video – survives with minor injuries

An extraordinary video shows the moment a student called Nick was hit by a bus on the campus of the University of Texas, USA.

TELEGRAPH STORY


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America's tallest man, more than 7ft 8in, measured for huge trainers – amazing video

Amazing video of the tallest man in the USA being measured for size 21 trainers by Reebok.

Igor Vovkovinskiy is seven feet, eight-and-a-third inches tall and flew across America to Reebok's headquarters in Massachusetts for the fitting.

The Ukrainian-born man, aged 29, has pituitary gigantism and moved to Minnesota in the US with his mother for treatment when he was seven. He was six feet tall at the time.

Turkish-born Sultan Kösen holds the 'Guinness World Record' for the tallest living male at 2.51 m (8ft 3in). (Wikipedia)

The tallest man known to have lived was Robert Wadlow (8ft 11in), seen with his father, Harold Wadlow (5ft 111/2 in), in an amazing picture on Wikipedia

TELEGRAPH STORY on Igor Vovkovinskiy
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'Second gunman' in Kennedy assassination – witness tells CNN about RFK shooting

There was a second gunman involved in the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, according to a witness to the murder in 1968.

In an exclusive interview with CNN, Nina Rhodes-Hughes, who is now 78, says she heard two guns firing and authorities altered her account of the crime.

A federal court is preparing to rule on a challenge to Sirhan Sirhan's conviction in the Bobby Kennedy killing and Rhodes-Hughes says she wants the world to know that he was not the only gunman when RFK was shot a few feet from her.

"What has to come out is that there was another shooter to my right," she says in the CNN interview. "The truth has got to be told. No more cover-ups."

Fascinating story… even 'Homeland' couldn't keep up with the twists, turns and conspiracies in the Kennedy assassinations.

CNN STORY

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Titanic II – Australian billionaire wants to build a luxury liner just like the original ship

An Australian billionaire wants to launch another Titanic and has commissioned a Chinese company to build it, according to the BBC.

Clive Palmer, who made his fortune from mining, says the luxury liner will be based as far as possible on the original design and specifications – but with modern technology.

"It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st Century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems," he said in a statement.

Hopefully, the "technology" will be good enough to dodge a few icebergs.

BBC STORY

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Cannabis cafes for Brighton? Yet another potty idea from a Green politician

The Green Party's Home Affairs spokesman in Brighton wants cannabis cafes in the city to cash in on the tourists who will shun Amsterdam when Holland bans foreigners from smoking pot in their coffee shops.

In a Telegraph report, Councillor Ben Duncan says: "Think of all the millions our shops and hotels would make if all those tourists being turned away from Amsterdam by the Dutch Tories came here to spend their holiday cash instead!"

It's yet another potty idea from the Greens in Brighton, of course. And if they really wanted to promote tourism, they would not have increased parking charges on the seafront to such ridiculous levels that tourists are shunning the resort in their droves.

There again, I suppose it wouldn't be a good idea to encourage the sort of tourists Coun Duncan wants in the city to drive – especially if they are as high as kites.

Coun Duncan needs to go to Amsterdam to ask why they are reversing their pot policy. But then, maybe the idea came to him when he was in one of their coffee shops.

So, what next from the Greens? A wind farm in the Pavilion gardens?

TELEGRAPH STORY


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