Record 251 lb whopper!
A woman who took up fishing to see more of her angling-mad boyfriend has become a record holder after catching a 215lb catfish.
Alexa Turness, from Holland Park, West London, landed the giant while on holiday in Spain after battling to reel it in for half an hour.
It was more than 1.5 times the 28-year-old's weight and 8ft 4in long.
The fish was so big her boyfriend and tour guides feared she might get dragged into the river, and were ready to grab her as she fought to land it.
It is the biggest freshwater fish caught by a British woman anywhere in the world and beats the previous record by a pound.
Miss Turness easily outdid her boyfriend Kim Hamilton, who could only muster a fish weighing 189lbs during their trip on the River Segre in northern Spain.
Miss Turness, an events director, said: ‘My boyfriend is really into fishing so when we got together seven or eight years ago I got into it too. It was a case of go fishing with him or don’t see him.’
She said the catfish took the bait at about 11.30pm on the third night of the trip.
‘I just had to hold on for my life,’ she said. ‘It took about 30 minutes, but I wasn’t going to give up. I was amazed when I saw how big it was.’
She added: ‘My boyfriend is quite gutted. We took it in turns on the rods, and this just happened to be my turn.’ After Miss Turness posed with her catch and returned it to the water, the couple celebrated her achievement with a glass of Spanish brandy on the river bank.
Mr Hamilton, also 28, said: ‘It was Lex’s turn on the rod – just luck of the draw.
‘We were all going to sleep when suddenly we heard the line stripping from the spool and we knew it was going to be a monster.
‘We were all stood around Lex ready to catch her in case the fish pulled her in. Now I have to accept that my missus has caught a bigger one than me.’
The previous record for the biggest freshwater fish caught by a British woman was held by Sheila Penfold, 56, from Wandsworth, South London, who caught a 214lb catfish in Spain last year. - dailymail
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Bride beat up pagan neighbour for being ‘white witch who cursed groom’s dad’
A bride spent her wedding night in the cells in a bloodied gown after turning up on her neighbour’s doorstep and attacking her.
Imogen Hope, 37, was found guilty of assaulting Samantha Pilling by Calderdale magistrates yesterday.
The court was told she and her new husband Keith, known as Homer, were on their way back from their reception when they confronted Mrs Pilling next door but one.
They had earlier married at Calderdale Register Office, Spring Hall, Halifax, before spending the evening drinking lager and spirits at The Shears Inn nearby.
Mrs Pilling told the court how she heard Hope drunkenly shouting abuse at her in the early hours of July 19 before coming up the path and banging on her door.
When she opened it, she said Hope tried to force her way into the hallway and punched her in the face around three times.
“I thought personally it wasn’t a way for a bride to behave on her wedding night. You don’t turn up at someone’s house and beat them up,” she said.
Mrs Pilling, a practising pagan, was accused of cursing the bridegroom’s parents, who live in the terraced house in between the two couples.
Mr Hope branded the mother-of-three a “white witch” who had given his father cancer.
Rubbishing the claim, Mrs Pilling said: “I don’t deal in curses. I work with crystals and herbs.
“In our belief system it’s the law of threefold - whatever you do will come back to you three times worse.”
When asked why she didn’t fight back, Mrs Pilling, who was in the Army before enrolling as a student nurse, told the court: “I am trained to kill.”
Her husband Stuart called police and when officers arrived to arrest Mrs Hope, she refused to change out of her wedding dress.
PC Stephen Young said: “It was suggested to her that she get changed out of her wedding dress. That was the initial agreement. She then changed her mind and decided to attend the custody suite as she was.”
He added: “There was a little bit of amazement from the lady and quite understandably on her wedding day. Her husband was obviously disappointed.”
Mrs Hope told officers she had bloodstains on her dress because she had earlier tripped on cobblestones and broken a nail, causing a cut to her finger.
She said she had confronted Mrs Pilling because she had been making her mother-in-law’s life hell by playing loud music and allowing her cats to breed “uncontrollably”.
The court heard there had also been a long-running dispute over a fence.
Mrs Hope was not allowed to return to her marital home in Clough Lane, Mixenden, for two weeks after her arrest due to her bail conditions.
Tearfully, she told the court she regretted the drunken confrontation but denied any violence.
“I was taken from my home for two weeks, I couldn’t see my kids, my husband, my dogs, for something I haven’t done, and it’s upset me,” she said.
She claims Mrs Pilling started the altercation by shouting insults from her bedroom window as she and her husband walked home.
Mr Hope told the court neither he nor his wife were violent and would not have started trouble on their big day without being provoked.
It was not the way they had planned to start their marriage, he added.
He said: “I remember her getting into the back of the police car. I said to the police officer: ‘Please don’t, it’s my wedding night.’”
Mrs Hope, a trainee nursery nurse’s assistant with no previous convictions, was sentenced to a 12-month conditional discharge.
She was also ordered to pay £300 prosecution costs and £75 compensation to her victim. - halifaxcourier
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Police hunt for Amish haircutting gang
A group of Amish men is being investigated for allegedly breaking into Ohio family homes and chopping their victims' hair and beards off, The Wheeling Intelligencer reports.
The Amish hair-cutting gang is being investigated by four different sheriff departments in Ohio. They face charges of burglary and felonious assault.
The group refers to itself as part of the Bergholz clan, a nearby Amish community led by bishop Sam Mullet, which was the subject of a disputed child custody raid in 2007 amid allegations of sexual abuse.
The spate of attacks began around three weeks ago and targeted other Amish community members, the newspaper said.
One of the victims in Holmes County described how the gang of between 20 to 30 men dragged him from his house by his beard. Others said they were accosted inside their homes before their hair was cut off.
Holmes County sheriff Timothy Zimmerly told reporters the victims also included a 13-year-old girl and a 74-year-old man.
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The gang's alleged getaway vehicle - a truck and horse trailer - was searched for evidence by police in Jefferson County.
Clumps of hair from the victims were sent to the sheriff's office for analysis. - heraldsun
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Green glowing disc observed in Chicago
Date: Saturday October, 01, 2011
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Time: 23:00 (approximate)
How many witnesses: 2
My boyfriend and I were out for a late night stroll along the lakeshore, it was about 11:30 and we were headed back home along the Montrose Beach waterfront. As we headed toward the tunnel that leads us under Lake Shore Drive and our condo, a bright light caught our attention and we stopped and walked off the path toward the lake shore.
There about 200 yards from shore was a green glowing disc, it looked like a discus that you use during track and field events, except it was slowly oscillating and glowing green.
If I had to estimate, the object was roughly 40-60 feet across and maybe 12-15 feet in height, the object was totally silent and effortlessly hovered about 6-10 feet above the water.
As we watched, the object slowly drifted to the east for about 30 feet, again totally silent.
As we watched this object drifted over, a bright light began to emanate from the water and to our utter amazement/horror, a SECOND object arose out of the water!!
Both objects hovered above the water for about 45 seconds, then both objects suddenly changed color to a burnt orange and then suddenly shot off to the west, they both rose suddenly and were out of sight within a few seconds. My boyfriend and I were both left there with our jaws on the floor, we stared out over the water for about a minute, before we both looked at each other and tried to make heads or tails of what just happened.
We both sat down at a nearby bench and talked about what we had both seen, my boyfriend telling me about a couple of UFO sightings he had as a child, eventually we made our way to our condo.
Ever since, I catch myself looking out over the lake from our living room window, hoping to catch a glimpse of something again. - ufoclearinghouse
