Feds Bust Man With 51 Turtles in His Pants

Feds Bust Man With 51 Turtles in His Pants. THEY SPOTTED 'IRREGULAR BULGES'

A Canadian man caught at a border crossing with 51 turtles taped to his body pleaded guilty Tuesday to smuggling or attempting to smuggle more than 1,000 of the reptiles out of southeastern Michigan. Kai Xu, 27, would order turtles online, travel to the US to pick them up, and then ship them to China or bring them back to Canada. He pleaded guilty to six crimes in federal court in Ann Arbor and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. It's illegal to export wildlife from the US without a permit from the government. Xu "regularly deals in turtle shipments worth $30,000, $80,000, or $125,000," Assistant US Attorney Sara Woodward said in a court filing. "In China, the turtles he smuggles are worth two to three times the amount he pays here."

Xu has been in custody since his arrest in September 2014. Weeks before his arrest, he was under surveillance in Detroit. After picking up a box at a UPS site, he hid behind trucks and emerged with "irregularly shaped bulges" under his sweatpants, per a wildlife agent. Xu returned to Ontario but was stopped by Canadian border authorities, who found 51 live turtles in plastic taped to his legs, including box turtles and terrapins. Despite the bust, "he did not cease smuggling turtles. He did not even slow down," Woodward said. (Another smuggler was caught at LAX with 450 pork tamales.)

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Matthew Jackson, Oceanside: 'Pay It Forward' Inspired By Good Samaritan Who Died Days After Good Deed

Matthew Jackson, a generous stranger paid for a mother's groceries, but when she went to track him down, Jamie-Lynne Knighten discovered he had passed away. A "pay it forward" movement has begun in his memory.

A California man's good deed is inspiring thousands after a woman he had helped tracked him down only to discover that he had died in a car accident, according to ABC News. Matthew Jackson, 28, made Jamie-Lynne Knighten's day on Nov. 10 by covering her and her young son's grocery bill when she realized that she had left her debit card at home, taking a "pay it forward" approach.

Knighten recounted the story on her Facebook account. Jackson politely offered to cover the $200 bill for her and her five-month-old son, Wyatt, at the Trader Joe's in Oceanside, Calif. "I would be glad to take care of your groceries as long as you promise to do it for someone else," Knighten wrote that Jackson told her. Knighten "came to realize how much it would mean to him if I humbly accepted. So I did."

Days after their encounter, Knighten tried to contact Jackson through the gym he mentioned he worked at, but was shocked to discover that he had passed away. Jackson's manager, Angela Lavinder, took the call at the time. "When she said 'I just wanted the manager to know what kind of a beautiful person they get to work with,' my heart broke and the tears just started coming," Lavinder said, according to CBS News.

Lavinder told Knighten that the good Samaritan had been killed in a car accident which had actually occurred as Jackson was performing another one of his good deeds - he was driving a co-worker whose car had broken down - according to CBS. The accident occurred just the day after Jackson's favor for Knighten.

"His boss explained to me how amazing this young man was in his every day life and that what he did for me was just who he was as a person," Knighten wrote on her Facebook page. She has since set up a Facebook page called "MatthewsLegacy" to commemorate Jackson and to carry on his legacy of "paying it forward" by performing good deeds for strangers.

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Mark Zuckerberg Vows to Donate 99% of His Facebook Shares for Charity

SAN FRANCISCO — Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and chief executive of Facebook, announced on Tuesday that he and his wife would give 99 percent of their Facebook shares “during our lives” — holdings currently worth more than $45 billion — to charitable purposes.

The pledge was made in an open letter to their newborn daughter, Max, who was born about a week ago.

Mr. Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, said they were forming a new organization, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, to manage the money, through an unusual limited liability corporate structure. “Our initial areas of focus will be personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities,” they wrote.

Mr. Zuckerberg’s charitable plans are the latest indication of a growing interest in philanthropy among Silicon Valley’s young billionaires, who unlike previous generations of business tycoons, appear eager to spread their wealth while they are still young. Mr. Zuckerberg is 31, and Dr. Chan is 30.

Yet they are entering largely uncharted waters with a charity effort of such scale. They have not yet detailed how the money will be spent and the pace at which the money will be given out indicates they plan to take their time.

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Man Lost Job And Could Face Jail Time For MeMe Comparing Turkey's President to Gollum

TURKEY — Ah, the decisions that judges must make. 

A Turkish judge must decide if Gollum, the character from "The Lord of the Rings" films, is a good guy or a villain.

A man's freedom hinges on that decision, The Telegraph reported.

Bilgin Ciftci, a Turkish doctor, stands accused of sharing a meme that compared Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Gollum, The Telegraph reported.

Bu fotoğrafları paylaştığı için memuriyetten atılan Dr. Bilgin Çiftçi yalnız değildir! İlle bir işlem yapmak istiyorsanı...

Posted by Ateist Forum on Thursday, October 15, 2015

The judge said he had only seen parts of the movie, Turkish media reported, so he found five experts to help weigh in.

The group, which is said to include two academics, two behavioral experts and a movie and television production expert, will help him decide if Gollum is a good guy or a villain.
They have two and a half months to look at unspecified evidence.

Ciftci lost his job over the trial and could face jail time.
More than 200 people have been investigated for "insulting the head of state" between August 2014 and March 2015, The Telegraph found.

A newspaper editor was arrested in October for insulting Erdogan on Twitter and a former Miss

Turkey was also accused in a different case.

Just ridiculousness

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'Ghost ships' with corpses on them appear off the Japanese coast.

'Ghost ships' with corpses on them appear off the Japanese coast. 

Nearly a dozen wooden boats carrying decomposing bodies have been found in the waters off the coast of Japan over the past two months.

Inside the 11 vessels were at least 25 bodies, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK. Two bodies were headless, and one boat contained six skulls, Singapore's Straits Times newspaper reported, citing the Japanese Coast Guard. The poor condition of the remains suggested that the boats had been adrift for some time, the paper said.

One of the boats had a tattered banner that looked like it could have been part of a North Korean flag. The boat also had a board with Hangul words that said "Korean People's Army," which is the name of the armed forces in North Korea.

A maritime expert said the ships looked like those used by defectors from North Korea.

"They are made of wood and are old and heavy," Yoshihiko Yamada told NHK. "They can't travel very fast and the engines are not powerful enough to turn the ships against the currents."

At least some of the ships also contained fishing equipment. One ship examined by NHK had fish hooks, netting and lights for attracting squid, leading some to think that the ghost ships may have been fishing vessels that ran into trouble. 

But most experts seem to believe the people on the ships were trying to defect.

"I would say that defectors would be the most likely explanation, and the fact that there have been so many cases in such a short space of time is worrying because it suggests there is serious instability just below the surface in North Korea," Jun Okumura, a visiting scholar at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs, told the Telegraph. 

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Sneak-peak at ‘Nemo’ sequel, ‘Finding Dory’

Dory, voiced by Ellen DeGeneres. The character, first introduced in "Finding Nemo, " returns for the sequel, "Finding Dory.” AP Photo/Disney Pixar

Disney has released the video trailer for “Finding Dory,” a sequel to the 2003 film “Finding Nemo.”

Ellen Deneres, who voices the blue fish, tweeted Tuesday that she’d been waiting for 10 years to show viewers the sneak-peek.

In the film, out June 17, the forgetful Dory endeavors to track down her family.
Director Andrew Stanton said recently that even though he thought the story ended with "Nemo," he realized that Dory's character needed more development.

"I wanted to know that if this charming, forgetful fish ever got lost again, that she would be OK," he said.

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Terminally Ill 'Star Wars' Fan Dies Days After Seeing 'The Force Awakens'

LOS ANGELES —Terminally ill "Star Wars" fan Daniel Fleetwood has died, four days after Disney and Lucasfilm granted his wish and allowed him to see an early cut of "The Force Awakens" before its release in theaters.

Fleetwood, who suffered from an aggressive form of cancer known as spindle cell sarcoma, feared he wouldn't live to see the film's official debut on Dec. 18, after being given two months to live in September. The 32-year-old Texas resident said he'd been a big "Star Wars" fan since he was young.

Fleetwood's wife Ashley confirmed his passing in a Facebook post on Monday evening, writing, "Daniel put up an amazing fight to the very end. He is now one with God and with the force. He passed in his sleep and in peace. He will always be my idol and my hero." The post was accompanied by "the last selfie we ever took together," with the hashtag #ForceForDaniel, which helped bring the couple's campaign to the attention of the stars and producers of the sci-fi franchise on social media.

"Force Awakens" star John Boyega shared a message of support for Fleetwood on Twitter after learning of his death.

Fleetwood was shown an unedited version of "Force Awakens" at home on Nov. 5, Ashley Fleetwood announced on Facebook.

"Today the wonderful Disney and Lucasfilms made his final dream come true, in the amazing typical Disney way, they really do make dreams come true!" she wrote. "Daniel just finished watching an unedited version of 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens'!!! We would like to thank the awesomely talented JJ Abrams for calling us yesterday to tell us Daniel was getting his wish granted!"

Stars including Mark Hamill and Peter Mayhew had previously joined with fans on social media to express their support for Fleetwood in the hope his wish would be granted.

This is not the first time Abrams has granted a dying fan's wish to see one of his films ahead of its release date. In 2013, he screened a rough cut of "Star Trek: Into Darkness" for a fan who died days afterward.

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