Burger King Twitter account hacked, defaced

Burger King's hacked Twitter account (click to enlarge).

(Credit:
Screenshot by Steven Musil/CNET)

The Twitter account associated with the fast-food chain Burger King was suspended after an apparent hacking that defaced the page with messages that the account had been sold to rival McDonald's.

The @BurgerKing account name was changed today to "McDonalds" and the Golden Arches' familiar logo was added to the page, as was a message that the account had been sold to McDonald's "because the whopper flopped."

The page has since been taken down, but images of the defacement are still visible on Web cache.

Before the feed's suspension, hackers posted messages to Burger King's some 83,000 followers that included racial epithets.

The online hacktivist collective Anonymous appeared to take responsibility for the hack in a tweet that mentioned a new operation dubbed #OpMadCow, although it was not immediately clear what the aim of that campaign was.

CNET has contacted Burger King and will update this report when we learn more.

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Confirmed: Dogs Sneak Food When People Aren't Looking

Many dog owners will swear their pups are up to something when out of view of watchful eyes. Shoes go missing, couches have mysterious teeth marks, and food disappears. They seem to disregard the word "no."

Now, a new study suggests dogs might understand people even better than we thought. (Related: "Animal Minds.")

The research shows that domestic dogs, when told not to snatch a piece of food, are more likely to disobey the command in a dark room than in a lit room.

This suggests that man's best friend is capable of understanding a human's point of view, said study leader Juliane Kaminski, a psychologist at the U.K.'s University of Portmouth.

"The one thing we can say is that dogs really have specialized skills in reading human communication," she said. "This is special in dogs." (Read "How to Build a Dog.")

Sneaky Canines

Kaminski and colleagues recruited 84 dogs, all of which were more than a year old, motivated by food, and comfortable with both strangers and dark rooms.

The team then set up experiments in which a person commanded a dog not to take a piece of food on the floor and repeated the commands in a room with different lighting scenarios ranging from fully lit to fully dark.

They found that the dogs were four times as likely to steal the food—and steal it more quickly—when the room was dark. (Take our dog quiz.)

"We were thinking what affected the dog was whether they saw the human, but seeing the human or not didn't affect the behavior," said Kaminski, whose study was published recently in the journal Animal Cognition.

Instead, she said, the dog's behavior depended on whether the food was in the light or not, suggesting that the dog made its decision based on whether the human could see them approaching the food.

"In a general sense, [Kaminski] and other researchers are interested in whether the dog has a theory of mind," said Alexandra Horowitz, head of the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard University, who was not involved in the new study.

Something that all normal adult humans have, theory of mind is "an understanding that others have different perspective, knowledge, feelings than we do," said Horowitz, also the author of Inside of a Dog.

Smarter Than We Think

While research has previously been focused on our closer relatives—chimpanzees and bonobos—interest in dog cognition is increasing, thanks in part to owners wanting to know what their dogs are thinking. (Pictures: How smart are these animals?)

"The study of dog cognition suddenly began about 15 years ago," Horowitz said.

Part of the reason for that, said Brian Hare, director of the Duke Canine Cognition Lab and author of The Genius of Dogs, is that "science thought dogs were unremarkable."

But "dogs have a genius—years ago we didn't know what that was," said Hare, who was not involved in the new research. (See pictures of the the evolution of dogs, from wolf to woof.)

Many of the new dog studies are variations on research done with chimpanzees, bonobos, and even young children. Animal-cognition researchers are looking into dogs' ability to imitate, solve problems, or navigate social environments.

So just how much does your dog understand? It's much more than you—and science—probably thought.

Selectively bred as companions for thousands of years, dogs are especially attuned to human emotions—and, study leader Kaminski said, are better at reading human cues than even our closest mammalian relatives.

"There has been a physiological change in dogs because of domestication," Duke's Hare added. "Dogs want to bond with us in ways other species don't." (Related: "Dogs' Brains Reorganized by Breeding.")

While research reveals more and more insight into the minds of our furry best friends, Kaminski said, "We still don't know just how smart they are."

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Dr. Drew: McCready Was 'Fearful of Stigma'

Troubled country singer Mindy McCready was "devastated" after the January death of her boyfriend and "fearful of stigma and ridicule," according to Dr. Drew Pinsky, who treated her in 2009 on "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew."

McCready died Sunday of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at her Arkansas home, police said. She was 37.

The country singer who soared to the top of the charts with her debut album, "Ten Thousand Angels," struggled with substance abuse, served time in jail and fought a lengthy battle with her mother over custody of her son.

The singer appeared on the third season of Dr. Drew's VH1 show. She is the fifth person who has appeared on the show to die.

"I am deeply saddened by this awful news," Dr. Drew said in a statement posted in a VH1 blog. "My heart goes out to Mindy's family and children. She is a lovely woman who will be missed by many."

Dr. Drew said that he had not treated McCready for a few years, but "reached out to her recently" after her boyfriend and father of one of her two children David Wilson, died in January of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

"She was devastated. Although she was fearful of stigma and ridicule she agreed with me that she needed to make her health and safety a priority," Dr. Drew said. "Unfortunately it seems that Mindy did not sustain her treatment."

SEE PHOTOS: Notable Deaths in 2013

Ron Galella/WireImage/Getty Images

Country Singer Mindy McCready Dead at Age 37 Watch Video

Mindy McCready Details Moment Cops Found Her, Son Watch Video

"Mental health issues can be life threatening and need to be treated with the same intensity and resources as any other dangerous potentially life threatening medical condition," the doctor's statement said. "Treatment is effective. If someone you know is suffering please be sure he or she gets help and maintains treatment."

Deputies from the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to a report of gun shots fired at McCready's Heber Springs, Ark., home at around 3:30 p.m. on Sunday.

There they found McCready on the front porch. She was pronounced dead at the scene from what appeared to be a single self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to a statement from the sheriff's office.

When reached by phone today, the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office said the sheriff would be responding to questions later in the day.

RELATED: Mindy McCready: Police Take Son

McCready was ordered to enter rehab shortly after Wilson's death, and her two children, Zander, 6, and 9-month-old Zayne were taken from her. She was released after one day to undergo outpatient care.

McCready scored a number-one Billboard country hit in 1996 with "Guys Do It All the Time," but in recent years, the country crooner has received more media attention for her troubled personal life than her music.

McCready reportedly had a decade-long affair with baseball star Roger Clemens that began when she was a teen, the New York Daily News reported in 2008. Clemens' attorney at the time denied any improper relationship, but McCready discussed details of the relationship on television.

"This is sad news," Clemens said in a statement today, posted on the Houston Astros website. "I had heard over time that she was trying to get peace and direction in her life. The few times that I had met her and her manager/agent they were extremely nice."

She has been arrested multiple times on drug charges and probation violations and has been hospitalized for overdoses several times, including in 2010, when she was found unconscious at her mother's home after taking a painkiller and muscle relaxant.

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Football: Coutinho shines on debut as Liverpool rout Swansea

LIVERPOOL: Liverpool ended a winless run of five games in impressive fashion on Sunday as they whipped an under-strength Swansea 5-0 in their Premier League clash.

Victory saw Liverpool leapfrog Swansea into seventh spot and give former Swans manager Brendan Rodgers something to smile about at the end of a week that saw defeats by West Brom and then Zenit St Petersburg in the Europa League.

A penalty from Steven Gerrard got them on their way and three goals early in the second-half from impressive debutant Philippe Coutinho, Jose Enrique and Luis Suarez wrapped up the points against a side seemingly distracted by the League Cup final with Bradford next Sunday.

Daniel Sturridge, who like Coutinho missed the Europa League match, added a fifth from the penalty spot.

Swansea manager Michael Laudrup was made to regret sending out a starting line-up shorn of several first choice players, including leading scorer Michu, preferring to give the 15-goal Spaniard time on the bench.

Rodgers was delighted with the reaction of his players to the poor results in the week.

"It was a brilliant performance and the players' attitude was tremendous. It was important to get a clean sheet today," said the Northern Irishman.

"It's always been the case at Swansea that you can change players and still be strong."

Laudrup for his part apologised to the fans who had made the trip and said the players on the pitch should have performed better.

"I wanted to leave a few out but that's not an excuse, we could have lost 10-0," he said.

"We are all to blame, starting with me and the players. You can't play like that. It wasn't what we wanted in the build-up to the final but now we have to get back on the horse."

Liverpool, who in three previous Premier League meetings with Swansea had failed to score, made all the running from the kick-off with Suarez looking particularly sharp.

However, he should have done better after Sturridge had done all the work in beating two defenders and then goalkeeper Michel Vorm before going to ground, but with the goal at his mercy the Uruguayan put the ball wide.

Liverpool's appeals for a penalty for a foul on Sturridge fell on deaf ears.

However, the hosts did get a penalty in the 34th minute as Suarez was needlessly pushed by Kemy Agustien and Gerrard, who had missed a penalty in the defeat by West Brom last Monday, made no mistake from the spot.

The hosts doubled their lead almost immediately from the second-half kick-off as Coutinho, taking advantage of the Swansea defence not going in for the tackle, saw his shot go under Vorm and into the net.

The hosts added a glorious third in the 50th minute as Luis Enrique finished off a beautiful passing move involving Coutinho, Suarez and Sturridge.

Swansea had completely capitulated and Suarez added a fourth six minutes later with a brilliant individual effort and soon after Rodgers decided Coutinho had done more than enough on his debut and took him off.

Sturridge was also a vibrant presence and Vorm had to be at his best to keep out a stinging effort but he deservedly did get his name on the scoresheet with a penalty in the 71st minute awarded for a handball by Wayne Routledge.

The hosts were reduced to 10 men for the last 10 minutes of the match, not that it mattered much to the outcome, after Fabio Borini, who had just come on as a substitute, was taken off in agony with what looked like a dislocated shoulder.

"He will probably be out for the season. It looks like he has dislocated his shoulder. It's a big blow for us," Rodgers said.

-AFP/ac

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The making of Bungie's Halo successor: Destiny

Halo's Master Chief watches over Bungie headquarters in Bellevue, Wash.

(Credit:
Bungie)

BELLEVUE, Wash.--Halo, the multibillion-dollar-grossing video game franchise, set an incredibly high bar for its creator, Bungie, to meet with its next title.

"After Halo, a bunch of us thought, 'What comes next?'" Bungie co-founder Jason Jones told a group of journalists visiting Bungie's Bellevue, Wash., headquarters Wednesday.

Jones and Bungie's leadership, who sold the company to Microsoft in 2000 and then spun it out of the software giant in 2007, wanted to find a project worthy of the groundbreaking work in Halo. They wanted to come up with not just a new game, but a new model for gaming, something that could change the way gamers play.

Jones thinks Bungie's Destiny is exactly that. Destiny is something of a first-person shooter with bits of massively multiplayer online role-playing gaming mixed in. Bungie, which has kept mum about the title while gamer sites fulminated for the last two years about what it might be, is beginning to rev up the hype machine for its next title.

Eric Hirschberg, the chief executive of Activision, which will publish Destiny, said the game defied typical genres, giving it a new one -- "shared-world shooter." Even so, there are plenty of parallels with the Halo franchise, particularly that you're still shooting up aliens. Players guard the last city on Earth, while exploring the ruins of the solar system, moving from Mars to Venus, in order to defeat Earth's enemies.

One of the big differences this time is that the game is a persistent online universe, where players come across others, matched to their skills. They're encouraged to work together to rout evil, visit new worlds, and earn rewards.

"This is one of those areas (collaborating with strangers) where I was most skeptical," said Hirschberg, whose company has also published such franchises as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft.

Bungie concept art for its next game, Destiny.

(Credit:
Bungie)

But gamers don't have go through the awkward dance of hooking up in a lobby before setting out on their adventure. They naturally come across allies and, if Bungie and Activision succeed, feel entirely comfortable teaming up with complete strangers to set out on the next adventure. While Bungie didn't share how those interactions come about, it could be similar, perhaps, to the wildly popular indie title Journey for the Playstation 3, which did away with the premise of playing with your friends in favor of encountering others randomly.

"It almost feels scripted," Hirschberg said.

Gamers also will be able to play solo. But Bungie Chief Operating Officer Pete Parsons said the goal for Bungie is to get gamers working together.

"If you want to do it yourself, that's totally OK," Parsons said. "We want to slope the floor and prove to you that there are a bunch of cool things you can do with others."

One thing gamers won't be able to do is play Destiny without an Internet connection, a bold move for the console gaming crowd that expects to be able to play offline. Even so, Activision has no plans to charge subscription fees to play the game. And while he wouldn't talk about a release day, Hirshberg told analysts on the company's earnings call earlier this month that the new Bungie game was not factored into the company's 2013 guidance, implying that the game won't likely arrive until 2014. It will be available on both the
Xbox and Playstation platforms.

Bungie showed no game play during the presentation and gave little detail about how far along the development actually is. Instead, executives talked in sweeping themes about the new universe Bungie created, while highlighting production art, engineering details, and some of the music in its plans for its first post-Halo effort.

It's not just the first time Bungie has talked about the new game; it's really the first time Bungie has given a glimpse into its post-Microsoft life. Two years ago, the company moved from Kirkland, Wash., to an old movie theater and bowling alley in the Bellevue Galleria retail complex. It rebuilt the site, adding a theater, a fireplace, and a climbing wall. Bungie also added a motion-capture studio dubbed Spandex Palace, as well as a massive production floor where 280 of the companies 360 employees work on game development and design.

It's one of those new-age workplaces, where every desk has wheels, so that teams can be reconfigured on the fly as problems or opportunities emerge. The floor has a neon blue glow and is eerily quiet as the crew develops Destiny. Nothing on the floor is more than 6-feet high, so that everyone can see where the action is, where they might be needed. "This is a great space for making a great universe," Bungie's Parsons said.

The main production space at Bungie's Bellevue, Wash., headquarters.

(Credit:
Bungie)

There's little doubt, when you walk in the door at Bungie, that this is the company that Halo built. A giant Master Chief, the hero of that series, stands watch in the hallway. And a massive trophy case, brimful of awards for the Halo series, with a few other titles sprinkled in, greets every visitor.

The company is focused solely on Destiny now. The Halo franchise is now entirely handled by Microsoft Studios. And Bungie has cast its lot with Activision.

Last year, the Los Angeles Times dug out details of the deal with Activision from a legal dispute between the publisher and Call of Duty developers Jason West and Vincent Zampella. Activision's contract with Bungie, unsealed in that suit, calls for Bungie to develop four "sci-fantasy, action shooter games," under the code-name Destiny, released every other year, starting in the fall of 2013. The deal also called for Bungie to release four downloadable expansion packs every other year starting in the fall of 2014.

Under the terms of that contract, which may have been modified since it was unsealed, Bungie was to receive royalties of 20 percent to 35 percent of operating income from the game. Activision was also to pay Bungie $2.5 million a year in bonuses between 2010 and 2013 for meeting quality and budget milestones. And the deal called for Activision to pay Bungie $2.5 million if the first Destiny game scores 90 or higher on GameRankings.com.

The executives didn't address the unsealed contract, except for a few passing quips during a question and answer session. But there's little doubt that much is riding on Destiny for both companies.

And Bungie is putting its resources, much more considerable now with its Activision partnership, behind the new title. Its audio director, Marty O'Donnell, is working with Paul McCartney on the music for Destiny. O'Donnell played a few of the pieces recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London with a 106-piece orchestra and a choir of more than 40 singers.

O'Donnell, whose music is as responsible for the tone of Halo as the graphics and gameplay itself, gushed about collaborating with McCartney. Rather than dictate the way a piece should work, McCartney has shared ideas with O'Donnell and left it up to him how the final arrangements should work.

"He said, 'Some of my melodies, some of your spooky bits, it's going to be great,'" O'Donnell said. "So far, he's been really happy with it."

Bungie Audio Director and Computer Marty O'Donnell

(Credit:
Bungie)

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Pictures: What the Presidents Brought Home

Photograph by Bill Ray, Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

When paleontologist Paul Olsen (pictured left, in 1970 at 17 years old) first started looking for dinosaurs in 1967, he never dreamed that he'd end up the subject of White House memos between President Richard Nixon and his senior advisers.

Or that one of the dinosaur footprints he discovered would find its way into a presidential collection.

But that's exactly what happened when Olsen and his friend Tony Lessa (right) successfully lobbied for the creation of a park in 1970 near Livingston, New Jersey (map).

The future park, located in a quarry owned by Walter Kidde Precision Instruments, was a budding paleontologist's dream.

The area was covered in dinosaur footprints, such as ones made by Eubrontes gigantis (pictured), and some of them were more than 200 million years old.

"The footprints are very well preserved in that particular spot," said Olsen, now at Columbia University in New York. And the arrangement of some of them—many small footprints associated with one larger set—indicated behaviors that included parental care, he said.

It took Olsen and Lessa two and a half years to get the area designated as a park, but once they did, an Olsen family friend started writing letters to the White House to see if the boys could meet the President.

"[Presidential speechwriter] William Safire said he didn't want President Nixon to be associated with the concept of a dinosaur," said Olsen. The White House staff discussed this while dealing with the Vietnam War, going so far as to write memos on the situation, he said.

Olsen and Lessa never got their meeting with the President. But Nixon ended up sending the teenagers presidential commendations.

Olsen sent the President a cast of the E. gigantis footprint as a thank you. The cast now resides at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California.

The actual footprint fossils, stored in a shed at the park, have walked off. "No one knows what happened to them," Olsen said.

February 17, 2013

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White House: Leaked Immigration Bill Draft Is Plan B

Feb 17, 2013 11:48am

Leaked draft legislation reportedly authored by the White House would be used as a backup proposal should negotiations fail in Congress over comprehensive immigration reform, administration officials said today.

White House Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough was asked about the USA Todaystory on political talk shows this morning. On ABC’s “This Week,” McDonough told Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl lawmakers would have to “make sure that it doesn’t have to be proposed.”

“Let’s make sure that that group up there, the ‘Gang of Eight,’ makes the good progress on these efforts as much as they say they want to,” McDonough said, referring to efforts of the Senate’s bi-partisan working group.

The president has previously stated that his administration would be prepared to offer their own bill should Congress fail to reach consensus. Some details of the draft, which has not been finalized or released to Congress, match previous White House proposals including a 2011 immigration blueprint.

Also appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host David Gregory asked him whether the draft signaled President Obama would drive any potential reform, over ongoing bipartisan work on Capitol Hill.

“The fact of this report, David, I think all it says to me is that we’re doing exactly what we said we’d do,” McDonough replied. “Which is that we’ll be prepared, in the event that the bipartisan talks going on on the Hill — which by the way we are very aggressively supporting — if those do not work then we’ll have an option that we are ready to put out there, as the president said in Las Vegas.”

The newspaper says it obtained the unfinished bill from an anonymous administration official, one not authorized to disclose the information.

Analysis: Leaked immigration proposal puts pressure on Senate.

Among its particulars, if passed, would be the creation of a “Lawful Prospective Immigrant” status, that could be applied for by the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented residents. The new visa would allow its holders to legally live and work in the United States, as well as leave the country for short periods of time. After eight years visa holders who passed the program would be allowed to apply for full citizenship.

Earlier this month Democratic Gang of Eight members Sen. Richard Durbin and Sen Bob Menendez indicated the group was weighing similar a proposal that would extend the wait to 10 years. But Saturday a leading Republican in the group, Sen. Marco Rubio, immediately lambasted the White House version as “dead on arrival” in Congress.

“This legislation is half baked and seriously flawed,” he said in a statement last night. “It would actually make our immigration problems worse.  If actually proposed, the president’s bill would be dead on arrival in Congress, leaving us with unsecured borders and a broken legal immigration system for years to come.”

Rubio said Republicans had not been consulted regarding the hypothetical legislation. On ABC, McDonough denied the claim.

“We’ve been working with all the members up there [of the Gang of Eight.] We have our staff working this very aggressively with their staffs and with the members, and we’re working this very aggressively, as you think we would with such a high priority for the country,” he said.

USA Today’s article states that immigrants who seek citizenship under the White House draft would first have to submit to biometric screening, pass a criminal background check, and pay fees for the visa. Successful bids could still be disqualified for crimes, including those that would equal one year in prison, or three separate 90-day sentences.

Also included in the document are undisclosed increases to the Border Patrol, expansion of Homeland Security technologies along the border, and the hiring of an additional 140 judges to handle immigration violations.

As of press time White House officials have refused to comment directly on the specifics of the report. On NBC another Republican on the Gang of Eight, Sen. John McCain, suggested the leak might have been planned as a bargaining position.

“I believe we are making progress on a bipartisan basis. I believe we can come up with a product,” McCain said. “Leaks don’t happen in Washington on accident. This raises the question many of us continue to worry about. Does the president want a result? Or does he want another cudgel to beat up Republicans so that he can get political advantage in the next election?”

ABC-Univision’s Jordan Fabian contributed to this report.

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False memories prime immune system for future attacks

IN A police line-up, a falsely remembered face is a big problem. But for the body's police force – the immune system – false memories could be a crucial weapon.

When a new bacterium or virus invades the body, the immune system mounts an attack by sending in white blood cells called T-cells that are tailored to the molecular structure of that invader. Defeating the infection can take several weeks. However, once victorious, some T-cells stick around, turning into memory cells that remember the invader, reducing the time taken to kill it the next time it turns up.

Conventional thinking has it that memory cells for a particular microbe only form in response to an infection. "The dogma is that you need to be exposed," says Mark Davis of Stanford University in California, but now he and his colleagues have shown that this is not always the case.

The team took 26 samples from the Stanford Blood Center. All 26 people had been screened for diseases and had never been infected with HIV, herpes simplex virus or cytomegalovirus. Despite this, Davis's team found that all the samples contained T-cells tailored to these viruses, and an average of 50 per cent of these cells were memory cells.

The idea that T-cells don't need to be exposed to the pathogen "is paradigm shifting," says Philip Ashton-Rickardt of Imperial College London, who was not involved in the study. "Not only do they have capacity to remember, they seem to have seen a virus when they haven't."

So how are these false memories created? To a T-cell, each virus is "just a collection of peptides", says Davis. And so different microbes could have structures that are similar enough to confuse the T-cells.

To test this idea, the researchers vaccinated two people with an H1N1 strain of influenza and found that this also stimulated the T-cells to react to two bacteria with a similar peptide structure. Exposing the samples from the blood bank to peptide sequences from certain gut and soil bacteria and a species of ocean algae resulted in an immune response to HIV (Immunology, doi.org/kgg).

The finding could explain why vaccinating children against measles seems to improve mortality rates from other diseases. It also raises the possibility of creating a database of cross-reactive microbes to find new vaccination strategies. "We need to start exploring case by case," says Davis.

"You could find innocuous pathogens that are good at vaccinating against nasty ones," says Ashton-Rickardt. The idea of cross-reactivity is as old as immunology, he says. But he is excited about the potential for finding unexpected correlations. "Who could have predicted that HIV was related to an ocean algae?" he says. "No one's going to make that up!"

This article appeared in print under the headline "False memories prime our defences"

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Football: Schalke stumble again as Galatasaray loom

BERLIN: Schalke 04's poor Bundesliga form continued on Saturday as the Royal Blues had to twice come from behind for a 2-2 draw at Mainz ahead of their Champions League trip to Istanbul's Galatasaray.

While leaders Bayern Munich show no sign of releasing their iron grip on the Bundesliga after picking up their 18th win in 22 matches with a 2-0 win at VfL Wolfsburg on Friday, Schalke's league slump continues.

Schalke face the Turkish league leaders on Wednesday in the Champions League last 16, first-leg clash having dropped from second to eighth with just one win in their last 11 games, conceding 25 goals in the process -- the league's worst record.

Brazil midfielder Michel Bastos scored both Schalke's goals, but his team struggled again having been thumped 4-0 by Bayern last weekend.

The Royal Blues fell behind when Mainz midfielder Nicolai Mueller's run evaded three Schalke defenders before Austria's Andreas Ivanschitz converted his pass on 27 minutes.

Bastos hit his first for Schalke 14 minutes later, but Mainz went 2-1 up on 63 minutes when Czech defender Zdenek Pospech fired home.

The Brazilian again rescued his team's blushes with an 82nd-minute equaliser for his third goal in three games since joining from Lyon in January when he calmly fired home having been left in space.

While Schalke move up from 10th to eighth, the pressure remains on coach Jens Keller, who has just one win in his six games in charge since succeeding Huub Stevens, who was fired in December.

With Borussia Dortmund hosting Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday night, Bayer Leverkusen took the chance to claim second from the defending champions with a 2-1 win at home to relegation-threatened Augsburg.

The three points leaves Leverkusen second, but 16 points adrift of Bayern.

Germany striker Stefan Kiessling scored the opening goal in the first-half to join Bayern's Mario Mandzukic on 15 as the league's top scorer.

Kiessling then turned provider when he set up national team-mate Lars Bender to fire home on 75 minutes for the second.

Second-bottom Augsburg scored a late consolation effort, but the Bavarians remain 10 points from safety.

Dutch midfielder Rafael van der Vaart scored his first goal for Hamburg since May 2008 with a spectacular 24th-minute thunderbolt of a strike from outside the area to secure a 1-0 win over Borussia Moenchengladbach to move his team up to sixth.

Freiburg stay fifth, and amongst the European places, with a 3-2 win at Werder Bremen.

- AFP/fa

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Facebook pic of toy mortar leads to armed cops raid

The picture as it appears on Driscoll's Facebook page. Yes, that's a toy mortar.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

When you make your Facebook profile picture that of Action Man (aka the British G.I. Joe), it can be a clue to your fascination with fantasy.

It also suggests that if there's a toy mortar in the background of the picture, that, too, might actually not be entirely real.

Please try telling that to the five carloads of police who raided Ian Driscoll's house in Tewkesbury, England, armed with guns and a search warrant.

"The Action Man looked a bit like me, so I decided to put it as my Facebook picture. I didn't even notice the mortar in the background," 43-year-old Driscoll explained to the Daily Mail.

The image offered more clues as to the mortar's unreality. There was a TV remote control by its side. It offered what some might call scale and perspective.

Sadly, perspective is not always something the police embrace with anything other than loaded arms.

"It's tiny and quite clearly a toy. I can't stop laughing. I think it's hilarious," Driscoll told the Mail.

More Technically Incorrect

The police did manage to see the funny side, but only after reportedly telling him that he was lucky he was at home, otherwise they would have been forced to break down his front door.

They didn't even seem to have considered that this profile picture had been up for a month.

It isn't clear which wise "friend" of Driscoll's contacted the police to tell them of his arms cache. It might have been polite of this person to at least own up to the marginal over-reaction.

A representative for the Gloucestershire police told the Mail: "We are sure that the community would rather we acted quickly on information given to us of this nature, in case it had turned out to be a weapon."

Many will be glad of the police's confidence in this matter. Perhaps a phone call to Driscoll might have obviated the necessity for a raid.

Still, it is heartening that he has stood his ground and continued to make believe that he is really Action Man.

The profile picture, with mortar in the background, is still on his Facebook page today.

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