SLEEPY HOLLOW, N.Y. — A church made famous by Washington Irving’s short story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” has rejected a couple’s request to hold a Halloween-themed wedding.

Lisa Panensky and Jim Nieves signed a contract 13 months ago to get married on Halloween at the Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y.

Church officials balked at the couple’s plans to wear costumes and include theme music from “The Addams Family” and “The Munsters.”

The Rev. Jeff Gargano said he only recently learned of the Halloween theme. He offered instead to marry them in the cemetery of the 17th-century church, but the couple declined.

The church has offered to refund their deposit. The couple say they may get married at home.

SOURCE: WFAA.COM

EVERMAN – A growing colony of South American parrots has drawn curious bird watchers to the little town of Everman. But, now the lime green parrots’ nests have started to become a pricey problem for the small city located south of Fort Worth.

The parrots don’t talk, but they’ve clearly charmed their earthbound neighbors.

“They’re pretty birds and we’re proud to have them,” said Chief Rander Sanders, with the Everman Police Department.

Called Quaker Parrots, they were imported as pets from South America decades ago. Legend has it an Everman couple turned their parrot loose during a quarrel, but no one really knows the true back story.

Sanders said he remembers seeing the first pair in 1992. The nest grew like nothing anyone had ever seen, he said. Then, more nests started to appear.

The nests are parrot condos, and some are the size of refrigerators. Hanging off power poles and wrapped around transformers, the nests have started to become a city problem.

One of the biggest nests is just a few feet from the rear area of Everman’s police station. The chief said patrol cars often get washed once a day.

Wild parrot colonies are growing in New York, New Jersey and Illinois. North Texas has several.

Officials in some states worry the parrots will become agricultural pests as they hunt for buds and berries to eat.

But, for now, they’re Everman’s biggest and only tourist attraction, drawing bird watchers green with envy.

SOURCE: WFAA.com

CARROLL, Iowa —Police say guilt was written all over their faces.

Police received a call Friday night that two men with hooded sweatshirts and painted faces had tried to break into a man’s home in Carroll, Iowa.

When police stopped a vehicle matching the caller’s description blocks away, they were stunned by the men’s disguises.

There were no ski masks or stockings pulled over their heads; instead, Matthew Allan McNelly, 23, and Joey Lee Miller, 20, streaked their faces with permanent black marker.

Carroll Police Chief Cayler said the strange disguises made it easier for his officers.

“We’re very skilled investigators and [their] faces gave them right away,” Cayler said jokingly. “I have to assume the officers were kind of laughing at the time. I’ve never heard of coloring your face with a permanent marker.”

SOURCE: CNN

Researchers have simulated a mini black hole in the lab, though luckily not the kind that could swallow up the Earth.

This pseudo black hole captures only light, not mass.

“The device we created is not a real black hole, but only a device to mimic the black-hole effect,” said researcher Tie Jun Cui, a professor at Southeast University in China. “Actually, the device can trap and absorb the electromagnetic waves which hit the device. Hence we call it as the Electromagnetic Black Hole.”

Cui’s creation, first reported by Wired Science, is a far cry from the average cosmic variety of black hole, which is an object so dense it absorbs any mass or light that comes within a certain radius of it. The mini black hole in the lab is not nearly so powerful, though it can simulate a black hole’s effects when it comes to swallowing light, also known as electromagnetic radiation.

Cui and colleague Qiang Cheng built their ersatz black hole out of circuit board, by linking 60 concentric circular layers of board etched with copper patterns that interact with electromagnetic waves. The result is a device that absorbs all incoming light in the microwave range of the spectrum.

“The electromagnetic black hole can only trap and absorb the incoming electromagnetic waves,” Cui wrote in an e-mail. “It cannot trap and absorb other matters as the real black hole.”

Another facet of a real black hole that the simulated one does not share – thankfully – is the ability to eat up the Earth: Any true black hole of considerable mass created in a lab could pose a serious risk.

“The device does not have any danger,” Cui reassured.

The scientists suggest their invention might be used to harvest energy from the sun by absorbing light rays.

SOURCE: Space.com

LAUDERHILL, FL. — The five-ton ball of rubber bands groaned and swayed as the crane lifted it from the driveway. A small frog hopped out from underneath.

“Let’s cross our fingers and hope we don’t see if it bounces,” said Edward Meyer, who bought the ball for an undisclosed sum for Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

Then he called to Joel Waul, the ball’s creator. “Pretty exciting, right?” Mr. Meyer said.

“Yeah,” said Mr. Waul, 28, the soft-spoken son of a surgical administrator and Jamaican musician. “Cool.”

That was enough for him. After five years and 730,000 rubber bands, his baby — Nugget, as he used to call it — was moving on. And so was he. Mr. Waul, who works at the GAP, said he would use his Ripley’s money for stuntman school next year.

His neighbors, however, were not quite as thrilled to see it go. Here in a town where ’50s Florida homes are peeling and too many people are out of work, the giant rubber orb was a quiet comedian that could always get a laugh. No one ever tried to roll it away or deface it in the five years it took to build. Everyone seemed to enjoy watching it grow into the size of a small hatchback.

“I’m going to miss it,” said Letitta Bush, 30, one of about 20 neighbors who gathered to watch its departure. “When I give directions, I can’t say anymore that I live next to the big blue ball.”

Mr. Waul’s mother, Maureen Latham, 50, saw something even more meaningful in her son’s creation: independence and hard work. And this act of endurance did not even include pain. It was far better, Ms. Latham said, than the time he attached 76 clothespins to his face, or an incident with acupuncture that she is still too afraid to ask him about.

SOURCE: NY Times

Sawe was leading countryman David Tuwei by 10 seconds when, after a left turn onto the final stretch on Southwest Fourth, he stared right at a train passing on the road.

“Nobody is prepared for that scenario,” said Sawe, the inaugural champion in 2002. “I couldn’t believe it. It was a long train.”

Tuwei caught the 40-year-old Sawe and the two waited … and waited … and waited for the train to pass. Third-place Geoffrey Birgen had nearly caught the two leaders when the train finally crossed the street about 40 to 50 seconds later.

A 26.2-mile race came down to a 400-meter sprint, and Sawe used his speed as a former 1,500-meter runner to pull away and win the $3,000 top prize in 2 hours, 24 minutes, 50 seconds. Tuwei finished 5 seconds back.

“When you have to wait, you think about crazy things,” said Sawe, who indicated for a fleeting moment he thought about jumping onto the train. “Usually you don’t get me at the end when you give me a chance.”

The train apparently was operated by Iowa Interstate Railroad. Tom Bernau, the president of the company that puts on the marathon, produced an e-mail thread from Sept. 15 that showed race director Chris Burch had detailed the course map and marathon dates to the railroad.

Mick Burkart, vice president of the Iowa Interstate Railroad, responded to Burch that “this should not be a problem.”

Burkart responded in an e-mail late Sunday night that his company was at fault.

“I sincerely apologize for this happening,” Burkart wrote. “We were well aware of the race and our agreement to refrain from operating through this area during the race. Due to some miscommunication a train was allowed into the race area before it was supposed to. There is no excuse for this happening.”

Creigh Kelly, the Des Moines marathon announcer who travels to road races across the country, said trains impact races more than people realize. He said marathons in Portland and Akron have been interrupted by trains. The Midnight Madness race in Ames also has been stopped by a train.

SOURCE: USA Today

Musicians intent on rock stardom can now turn to a simple file scan that uses an algorithm to improve odds at scoring a chart-topper.

That’s the idea behind Music Intelligence Solutions’ Hit Song Science (HSS) technology located on uPlaya.com. The technology mathematically analyzes the underlying patterns in a track, including harmony, chord progression and lyrics.

The computer then compares the song’s mathematical characteristics against past successful recordings from multiple genres and languages and maps the data on a multidimensional grid.

This matrix, dubbed the uPlaya Music Universe, is populated with “hit clusters,” or compact constellations of popular tracks, as well as lone pinpoints of musical obscurity.

Music Intelligence Solutions CEO David Meredith insisted that the technology tends to elevate tracks that break free from established musical trends.

“The songs that score the best include a certain amount of unpredictability in the music,” Meredith told Discovery News. “Norah Jones is a great example of an artist who pulled from jazz and pop to create a sound that was different from other artists at the time, but the underlying pattern of her music was strong and the music scored very well.”

If a song scores a 7.00 or higher, its creator has a possible hit. Think of the technology as the artificial intelligence counterpart of Simon Cowell, except with more stats and less sarcasm. - – ->MORE

SOURCE: Discovery News

BEIRUT — Lebanese chefs prepared a massive plate of hummus weighing over two tons Saturday that broke a world record organizers said was previously held by Israel – a bid to reaffirm proprietorship over the popular Middle Eastern dip.

“Come and fight for your bite, you know you’re right!” was the slogan for the event – part of a simmering war over regional cuisine between Lebanon and Israel, which have had tense political relations for decades.

Lebanese businessmen accuse Israel of stealing a host of traditional Middle Eastern dishes, particularly hummus, and marketing them worldwide as Israeli.

“Lebanon is trying to win a battle against Israel by registering this new Guinness World Record and telling the whole world that hummus is a Lebanese product, its part of our traditions,” said Fady Jreissati, vice president of operations at International Fairs and Promotions group, the event’s organizer.

Hummus – made from mashed chickpeas, sesame paste, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic – has been eaten in the Middle East for centuries. Its exact origin is unknown, though it’s generally seen as an Arab dish.

“If we don’t tell Israel that enough is enough, and we don’t remind the world that it’s not true that hummus is an Israeli traditional dish, they (Israelis) will keep on marketing it as their own,” he said Saturday.

Some 300 chefs were involved in preparing Saturday’s massive ceramic plate of hummus in a huge tent set up in downtown Beirut. The white-uniformed chefs used 2,976 pounds (1,350 kilograms) of mashed chickpeas, 106 gallons (400 liters) of lemon juice and 57 pounds (26 kilograms) of salt to make the dish, weighing 4,532 pounds (2,056 kilograms).

It was not clear what the former Israeli record was, and organizers gave conflicting reports on when it was made.

SOURCE: KING TV

GOLDEN NUGGET, Las Vegas, Nevada

Why It’s Cool: You’ll swim with five species of sharks (16 sharks in all) at the Nugget’s $30 million pool complex. The Tank, as it’s called, houses a three-story waterslide, waterfalls, and the pool’s pièce de resistance, the 200,000-gallon shark tank. You’re in more danger at the Golden Nugget’s roulette wheel: The sharks, stingrays, massive Queensland grouper, and silvery jack crevalle are separated from the swimming pool by a four-inch clear acrylic wall.

SOURCE: Budget Travel

PARIS — The French branch of the Church of Scientology was convicted of fraud and fined nearly $900,000 on Tuesday by a Paris court. But the judges did not ban the church entirely, as the prosecution had demanded, saying that a change in the law prevented such an action for fraud. The church said it would appeal.

The group is regarded by the Internal Revenue Service as a religion in the United States but has no similar legal protection in France where it is considered a sect. The sect says it has some 45,000 adherents in France, out of some 12 million worldwide. It was the first time here that the church itself had been tried and convicted, as opposed to individual members.

The case was brought by two former members who said they were pushed into paying large sums of money in the 1990s, pressed to sign up for expensive “purification courses” and harassed to buy a variety of vitamins and other forms of pharmaceuticals, plus electronic tests to measure spiritual progress. One woman said she had been pressed into spending more than $30,000.

The major fines were rendered against the Scientology Celebrity Center in Paris and a Scientology bookstore. Six group leaders were convicted of fraud, with four given suspended sentences of 10 months to two years. One of them, the group’s leader in France, Alain Rosenberg, was given a two-year suspended sentence and fined $44,700. Two others were given only fines, of $1,490 and $2,980.

The judges said the individuals had avoided jail in part because of efforts by the church “to change its practices.”

SOURCE: New York Times