Nuclear Contaminated Animals in Washington

Just because a mouse has been doused with radiation at a nuclear weapons site doesn't mean that it has acquired superpowers, can shoot laser beams from its eyes and will soon come to subjugate humanity.

But at the same time, it's more than a bit unsettling.

Workers at a former plutonium-production facility in Hanford, Wash., are hunting for a radioactive mouse after finding polluted droppings.

Earlier this month workers also trapped a radioactive rabbit in what is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, according to The Washington Post.

Washington State Department of Health officials told the Tri-City Herald that the atomic-age animals are probably harmless and noted that the suspicious droppings appeared in areas closed to the public.

Anti-nuclear activists at Greenpeace agree that the critters don't pose a direct threat to humans -- even though they're loaded with hazardous waste. However, the organization says the tainted wildlife is evidence that there are long-lasting environmental hazards in the area that must be taken seriously.

"The radioactive bunny is a lead indicator that these site are contaminated," Greenpeace nuclear policy analyst Jim Riccio told AOL News. "I don't know how you put the genie back in the bottle after you contaminated these sites so terribly."

The federal government created the Hanford site in the 1940s as a leading nuclear facility that produced weapons-grade plutonium throughout the Cold War.

In 2008, the federal government launched a $639 million decontamination plan that is expected to take decades to carry out. Workers are demolishing some of the most polluted buildings in the 586-square-mile zone.

About 60 mousetraps are in place, but the two mice snared so far haven't shown traces of contamination.

Last year, 33 contaminated animals popped up in the off-limits area, the Tri-City Herald report said.

VIDEO: Toenail Biter..

she is 98 and still driving

She's almost as old as the automobile itself, but Elza Ronis has no plans to give up driving any time soon.

While the stress of battling Sydney traffic can take years off a normal driver's life, Mrs Ronis - aged 98-and-a-half - says it invigorates her.

'I feel more at home behind the wheel than I do walking down the street. I feel elated when I start my car. I really feel that I'm in control of everything," the Baulkham Hills grandmother said.

Mrs Ronis has been driving since 1949 and is proud she's still on the road, so when another newspaper crowned a 96-year-old Griffith man as NSW's oldest driver, she wrote to The Sunday Telegraph to set the record straight.

She zips around town in her Mazda 121, regularly driving to the Blue Mountains and Nowra to visit family and to the Latvian Club in Strathfield for a night out with friends.

"Distances don't worry me," Mrs Ronis said.

"My car is automatic, air-conditioned with the seating arranged for best possible comfort.

"I have a cushion on my seat and I have a back rest.

It all helps."

She looks forward to her next driving test in March - her 99th birthday - and thinks she will pass with flying colors.

"I believe older drivers should go for driving tests and keep unrestricted licences - that would maintain their independence and well-being," she said.

"To pass the tests all you need is your own determination to succeed and then just concentrate on the driving itself."

Man conned out of $20 million after taking laptop for repair

A New York couple have been charged with defrauding a wealthy musician to the tune of $20 million after he innocently visited their computer servicing company to have a virus removed from his laptop.

The hard-to-believe story started in 2004 when moneyed pianist Roger Davidson asked Mount Kisco computer store owners Vickram Bedi, 36, and his Icelandic girlfriend Helga Invarsdottir, 39, to rid his computer of a virus.

On learning of Davidson's wealth, the pair are alleged to have concocted an elaborate social engineering scam that defrauded him of somewhere between the $6 million the police have been able to confirm with an upper figure of as much as $20 million.

Exactly how they executed the fraud reads like something out of an implausible movie plot.

According to police, the pair were able to convince Davidson that the virus was in fact a symptom of a much larger plot in which he was being menaced by government intelligence agencies, foreign nationals and even priests associated with Catholic organisation, Opus Dei.

So convinced was the victim he is said to have agreed to pay the pair $160,000 per month for 24-hour protection against the fictitious threats, payments which continued until recently.

As book readers will recall, Opus Dei were central to the fanciful plot of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, later made into a high-profile film.

"The suspects were isolating the victim and were basically trying to control every dollar that he had," said Police Chief Anthony Marraccini. "They did it very systematically and infiltrated every aspect of his life. It was almost a brainwashing technique."

Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore concurred.

"These two defendants preyed upon, duped and exploited the fears of this victim with cold calculation and callousness. The systematic method with which they continued the larceny over a period of more than six years is nothing short of heartless," she said.

If convicted, the couple could spend between 8 and 25 years in prison.

Unlikely frauds of this kind are not unheard of. Two years ago, a reverend in Oregon was warned to stop transferring money to Nigerian 419 scammers after giving them $400,000 in compulsively gullible acts.

Body fell from plane in Massachusetts

Authorities are investigating the "remote possibility'' that Delvonte Tisdale's body fell out of an airplane as it passed over Milton when the aircraft prepared to land at Boston's Logan Airport, a Massport spokesman said today.

The body of Tisdale was found Nov. 15, launching an investigation that so far has been unable to answer how the 16-year-old made it from his home in Charlotte, N.C., to an upscale neighborhood in Milton where he had no known ties. Milton police have said his body was mutilated.

Massport spokesman Phil Orlandella this morning said Massport is now checking records to see what flights and what type of aircraft passed over Milton last Monday night. Arriving flights heading to Runway 4R cross Milton, he said.

"We have been requested to look into that possibility,'' Orlandella said today. "It's something that theoretically can happen. It's a remote possibility.''

In a statement, Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating's office said State Police and Milton police are "investigating every possibility regarding how Delvonte Tisdale came to be found dead on Brierbrook Street'' in Milton.

But prosecutors would not explicitly endorse the theory that Tisdale was a stowaway who fell out of an aircraft.

"The office continues to decline to detail specific investigatory measures being taken,'' the statement said. "The investigation remains active and ongoing on multiple fronts.''

One theory being explored is that Tisdale somehow snuck into the wheel well of an aircraft and when the plane prepared to land, the well opened up, sending him plummeting to the ground. Officials said wheel wells on jet aircraft are not pressurized and a stowaway likely would not have survived the sub-freezing temperatures of the upper atmosphere.

Meanwhile, Tisdale's family will meet with reporters for the first time today since the link was made between the body in Milton and the sophomore and at North Mecklenberg High School.