Crazy World: Snapper goes nude in New York...

Photographers are often said to bare their souls through their pictures.
 
But Parisian Erica Simone has taken this to the next level by literally laying herself bare - she has photographed herself in nothing but her birthday suit on the streets of New York.
 
The 25-year-old has turned doing daily routines in the city to works of art simply by removing her clothes.
 
And Simone made the daring decision to step out from behind the camera and go au naturel in a series of self-portraits taken in and around the Big Apple.
 
Speaking to the Daily Mail she said: "At first it was like, 'Can I really do this?' I was into the idea, but I didn't totally have the [nerve] to do it - I'm not totally an exhibitionist."
 
"But I managed to do it on my first day of shooting in the West Village and I didn't even get arrested."
 
"I think that was just a combination of good timing and luck, and it is not as if I just spent the whole day walking around naked. I was fully clothed until I was ready to take the shot."
 
"It's not about sex. It's crazy that it's illegal to be naked. The whole process was really liberating and it made me feel freer and more comfortable in my own skin and not be ashamed of my body."
 
In the pictures, she rides the subway, checks out library books and shovels the snow on the sidewalk outside her apartment - all in the nude.
 
The 20 shots are part of Simone's new exhibit Nue York: Self-Portraits of a Bare Urban Citizen, which opens next month at the Dash Gallery in Tribeca.
 
Simone said the inspiration for the exhibition came to her during Fashion Week two years ago.

Burglar’ calls 999 for rescue

(AP)

YORKSHIRE: A suspected burglar who was chased away from the scene of a break-in was caught by police after he fell 30ft down a well, a senior officer said today.

The 21-year-old from Halifax, West Yorkshire, called the emergency services himself after he fell down the uncovered, 5ft-wide hole at around 5.20am.

Minutes earlier residents in nearby Bell Street, Boothtown, had called police to report a break-in at a house, and said locals were giving chase.

Inspector David Whitehouse of West Yorkshire Police said: 'It would appear that the man who fell down the well was one of the burglars who was fleeing the scene.

'He was chased by a neighbour, climbed a small wall, dropped down a banking approximately 20ft before falling down a 30ft-deep well.

'The well, it would appear, was uncovered and hidden from view to the fleeing suspect.'
 

Russia stops clock change: it stresses the cows

(REUTERS)

RUSSIA: Russia has permanently switched its clocks to summer time in a change backed by President Dmitry Medvedev, who has said people and even cows suffer stress from getting up at a different time.

The move, which came into force today, means that Moscow will be permanently four hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), but experts said people suffer no ill-effects from changing clocks and questioned the need for the reform.

Medvedev announced in February that Russians would not put their clocks back this northern autumn, saying that the change from daylight saving time caused "stress and illness" and "disturbs the human biorhythm".

Somewhat bizarrely, he also voiced concern for farm animals, talking of "unhappy cows or other animals who don't understand the time change and don't understand that the milkmaid is going to milk them at a different time".

However, experts said research had not proved any ill-effects to human health.

Research commissioned by the health ministry did not come up with any evidence to back the move, the acting director of Serbsky Institute psychiatric hospital, Zurab Kekelidze, told the Echo of Moscow radio station.

"The changes that were found were not reliable, that is they were not statistically significant. Therefore the change to winter time does not affect human health," the psychiatrist said on Sunday.

"There has not been any proof that people suffer health problems," sleep disorders expert Sergei Yarosh told the RIA Novosti news agency.

A survey by the Levada independent polling agency published on Friday found that a majority of Russians supported the reform, however, with 63 per cent describing it as "positive".

The Soviet Union started switching to daylight saving time in 1981, with the aim of saving energy.

The country had already switched all its time zones one hour ahead under Stalin in 1930, meaning that Russia will now be permanently two hours ahead of its original time zones.

Medvedev has sought to leave his mark as president by making sweeping changes to the country's time zones.

Last year he abolished an entire time zone in central Russia and moved time back in the country's easterly-most region of Kamchatka, so that it is now eight instead of nine hours ahead of Moscow, prompting street protests.
 
'Hello police? There's a croc in my pool'

(AGENCIES)

DARWIN:  2m crocodile has been found swimming in the pool of a Darwin city home.

But mystery surrounds how the 1.8m freshie got into the pool, which was fully fenced off, The Sunday Territorian reports.

Matt Lynch, 22, yesterday said he thought someone had put a fake croc in the pool of his home at Larrakeyah.

"Then we poked it with a pole," he said.

"And it was real."

Resident Josh Jeffries, 20, said he was going to start charging Sammy rent to reside in their saltwater pool.

Mr Jeffries said the croc must have got into the pool some time between 4am and 9am.

"Two girls went swimming at 4am ... and they don't think the croc was in there," he said.

"(But) where would it have come from?"

Scott Forsyth, 25, said: "I reckon it jumped off the balcony."

But croc catcher Joey Buckerfield said the reptile had most likely burrowed under the fence because his scutes were damaged.

Mr Lynch led the attempt to catch the wild croc using pool equipment, a rope and a mesh sack.

Once Sammy was all tied up, fellow resident Bianca Adams called police.

But she said they didn't believe her.

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