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911 caller allegedly wanted woman for sex

TAMPA, Fla., Aug. 25 (UPI) -- A Florida man has been charged with abusing the 911 system by making repeated calls requesting a female deputy to come to his home for sex.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said Joshua Basso, 32, made at least seven calls between Wednesday and Friday. Basso was arrested at his home in Dover, Fla., on Friday morning.

"The suspect misused the 911 system to request female deputies to respond to his residence for sexual gratification," the sheriff's office said in a news release.

Man awakes from dream to find bear

TWO HARBORS, Minn., Aug. 25 (UPI) -- A Minneapolis man says he awoke from a nap in a park in northern Minnesota face-to-face with a bear.

John Steitz, 26, and his hiking partner, Samuel Roberts, 25, also of Minneapolis, started hiking along the Superior Hiking Trail around 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune reported.

The pair stopped to rest at a camp site at some point in the afternoon, Steitz said.

"I was just on top of my sleeping bag, in the shade by Penn Creek," Steitz said. "In my dream, I was playing with a dog. The dog was jumping on me, scratching me, licking my face -- the playful puppy thing."

Steitz said he then woke up from his dream to find a very real black bear on top of him.

"I opened my eyes, and there was a bear on top of me with its face in my face," Steitz said. "I kind of opened my eyes and gave a, 'What-the-expletive?'"

Steitz said he sat up and the bear moved back about five feet. He then woke up Roberts and the two began banging on pans with a hatchet and the bear moved further away.

"He didn't turn around and bolt," Steitz said. "He walked slowly and stopped every few feet to look back."

Flamingo on the loose in Japan

ASAHIKAWA, Japan, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Officials at the Asahiyama Zoo in Japan were trying to track down a flamingo that escaped a month ago before it flies south for the winter.

The flamingo flew over the nearly 4-foot-high fence around its enclosure July 18. Zoo staff had clipped the bird's wings to prevent it from flying, but they said they didn't realize its feathers had grown back, The Yomiuri Shimbun reported Saturday.

The bird's whereabouts were unknown until it was seen in waters near Otaru, about 75 miles southwest of the zoo in Asahikawa. On July 28, it was seen in Lake Komuke in Monbetsu, about 142 miles northeast of Otaru.

Unable to use tranquilizer guns because they could be fatal to the bird, zoo staff devised a plan to use other caged flamingos -- which prefer to remain in groups -- to bait the escaped bird, The Yomiuri Shimbun reported.

The staff later found one of the caged birds missing and another dead, possibly from a fox attack.

"It's the same issue as with pets. The escaped flamingo can't survive without an owner," Zoo Director Gen Bando said.

Zoo officials hope to catch the bird by next month when temperatures cool in the area dip, possibly causing the bird to fly south to warmer areas.

Women suing doc over surgery video

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Two Swedish women are suing a plastic surgeon who put videos of their breast augmentation surgeries on YouTube.

While the women agreed to let to the surgeon film their operations for use on the clinic's Web site, they did so under the condition that their names, voices and any identifying features be taken out of the videos, TheLocal.se reported Saturday.

"Some six months later XX (surgeon's name) uploaded these films WITH our voices and visible features on the Nacka clinic's Web site and on Youtube. Youtube was never mentioned in our agreement, and we were very careful to point out that voices and any visible features should be cut out, so that no one would recognize us in the films," wrote the women in their suit.

In seeking compensation, the women said they have been recognized and questioned by friends, the lawsuit states.

"The thought of knowing that very many in our age group have seen the film causes us great frustration and panic," the suit states.