Small Bits of News You Didn’t Know you Needed

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Policeman refused to pose on bicycle because he hasn't passed his cycling proficiency test
Policeman Tony Cobban refused to pose for a picture sitting on his new patrol bike - because he has not passed his cycling proficiency test.Community officer Tony told a photographer who wanted to snap him during the handover of the mountain bike at Halfords that he had been banned by bosses from sitting on the cycle even while it was stationary.
Tony said: "It was a health and safety thing. In this day and age you have to cover all bases. I could get on the bike but I'm not massively proficient." Inspector Nick Emmett said Tony was right not to saddle up in Preston. He added: "Our officers are required to be trained prior to using bikes."
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Mother's Tip Helps Bust Phoenix-Area Ecstacy Ring
A mother's tip to a police drug force helped put at least 10 dealers behind bars for peddling Ecstasy to teenagers and college students, police said.
The unidentified woman's call to the Maricopa County Methamphetamine Task Force last week helped detectives find the drug ring, which was coordinated and advertised through the social networking Web site MySpace, sheriff's deputy Lt. Steve Bailey said.
At least 10 of the dealers were arrested by Tuesday.
Bailey said the woman looked at her 17-year-old son's Internet activity and realized he was probably purchasing a drug. Investigators said the seller's MySpace profile included a price list and product review.
"She figured out it was Ecstacy, and put that together with how he was acting, lethargic and spacey, and called us," he said.
Detectives said they were able to buy the drug from dealers in Mesa, north Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe and Fountain Hills in parks, restaurants and other public places. They said they purchased more than 200 hits in their investigation and that the sellers had a combined client list of nearly 500 area high school and college students.
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Greek man comes home...to find it stolen
Police in Athens, Greece say robbers near Athens have got away with everything including the kitchen sink, lifting a prefabricated home off its foundation and spiriting it away.
Police say the owner went to visit his 70-square meter vacation home on Monday in the coastal area of Rafina, 25 kilometers east of Athens, and discovered it was missing, along with its contents.
Police said on Wednesday they think the thieves used a crane to load the structure onto a trailer. They have been unable to locate the missing building.
Thousands of Athenians, including Greece's prime minister, Caskets Karamanlis, have vacation properties in Rafina.
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UAE fines mother over baby death that she didn't do
A court in Dubai has found a woman who lost her unborn child in a traffic accident guilty of manslaughter in what is said to be an unprecedented ruling.
The Lebanese woman, who was nine months pregnant at the time, was also ordered to pay blood money. She said she had not caused the accident.
The judge based the ruling on Islamic law. The court said the rights of unborn babies needed to be protected.
Prosecutors had argued that the verdict should act as a deterrent.
The accident happened in October last year. The court found that she had failed to keep a safe distance from the car ahead of her.
Several cars were involved in the accident, English-language daily The National reports. The paper says the woman's vehicle was hit by the car following hers when she braked suddenly.
The female foetus died after the umbilical cord was cut.
Dubai's traffic court ordered the bereaved mother to pay US$5,450 in blood money and fined her for "unintentional homicide".
Salah Bu Farousha, head of traffic prosecution, said women in the third trimester of pregnancy should avoid driving altogether to protect their own and their fetuses lives.
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