An unusual lawsuit is asking a New York judge to decide if puppies have souls.

In her civil suit, dog owner Elena Zakharova contends that pets — considered “property” under state law — are much more than that: living creatures that feel love and pain.

Zakharova says the upper New York pet store that sold her a pooch with bad knees and hips should be liable for the pup’s pain and suffering, as if it were a person.

She also wants compensation for her astronomical vet bills: $4,000 so far, with another $4,000 on the horizon — a total of about $1,000 a pound for the year-old Brussels Griffon she named Umka.

“Pets must be recognized as living souls, not inanimate property,” said Zakharova’s lawyer, Susan Chana Lask. “Umka feels love and pain like any human being whose pain and suffering would be recognized in a court.”

Amid the proliferation of shady puppy mills that churn out “purebred” dogs with congenital heart and joint problems, New York State has a “Puppy Lemon Law” that lets buyers return a sick animal in 14 days.

But Lask says it took months for Umka’s problems to surface. The 2-month-old puppy, Zakharova bought last February for $1,650, didn’t start limping and whimpering until July.

Despite extensive and painful surgery, the dog will never walk or run properly.

“Umka suffers a disorder causing her pain, her legs hurt, she cries when she is in pain, she drags herself with her front paws, she cannot run like other puppies,” the suit reads.

“She should not have been sired by dogs with genetic disorders,” it says.

If the judge won’t recognize Umka’s suffering, Lask said she will argue the dog should be subject to the Uniform Commercial Code that gives a buyer four years to return a “defective product.”

A PE class at Galashiels Academy, Scotland had to run for cover as it started raining worms.

The teacher and pupils were out playing football when they had to quickly abandon their lesson when worms fell out of the cloudless sky.

The teacher, 26 year old David Crichton said: “We went out to one of our outdoor areas – an all-weather Astroturf pitch.

“We were out playing football and had just done our warm-up and were about to start the next part of the lesson.

“We started hearing this wee thudding noise on the ground.

“There were about 20 worms already on the ground at this point. Then they just kept coming down.

“The kids were laughing but some were covering their heads and others were running for cover for a while.

“They just scattered to get out of the way.”

Following the incident, teachers went out to the football pitch and nearby tennis courts and picked up more than 120 of the worms.

“I spoke with the science department here but none of them had any explanation for it,” Mr Crichton said.

“One of them thought maybe it was a freak weather thing.

“But it was such a clear, calm day.”

Kenny McKay, headteacher at Galashiels Academy, said: “The event does coincide with a significant change in the weather in recent days and so could be the result of an unusual meteorological event.

“The students and staff of Galashiels Academy are rightly proud of their school for many reasons, including its record in sport and its beautiful environs.

“However, we never thought we’d be famous for such a strange event.”

“None of the students were hurt, although they did find the experience quite bizarre.

“None of them will ever forget the day at school when worms fell out of the sky.”

Weird rain is not that rare. There have been reports of falling frogs, fish and even snakes before.

Events involving worms were also recorded in 1872 in Somerville, Massachusetts, in 1877 in Christiana, Norway, and in 1924 in Halmstad, Sweden.

Be careful what falls from the sky!

The Chinese government has been left severely embarrassed following a CCTV broadcast which was meant to show fighter pilots of their new J-10 aircraft shooting down another jet.

The footage which was aired extensively on CCTV before suddenly being yanked was exposed by Chinese bloggers. They compared the footage to scenes from the 1986 film, Top Gun, which starred Tom Cruise.

The Wall Street Journal has since created a video which compares the news clip with the famous film scene… and there are uncanny similarities:

This is not the first time that Chinese media have flouted copyright laws, but it is the first time that they have tried to pass it off as original.

You can read about the possibility that China faked their first spacewalk HERE

Only the highest order of idiots are nominated for the uncoveted Darwin Awards.

The Darwin Awards are awarded each year to the people who die in the most idiotic, weird, bizarre or perculiar ways possible.

According to Wendy Northcutt, the founder of the Darwin Awards: “The awards honour people who ensure the survival of the human race by removing themselves in a sublimely idiotic fashion.”

In order to be eligible for a Darwin, the nominee must be dead or rendered sterile, they must have demonstrated “astoundingly stupid judgment”, caused their own demise and been over the legal driving age and free of any mental impairments.

2010 has had its share of weird deaths, but top of the list is the South Korean man who used his wheelchair as a motorised battering ram against a lift door only for it to give way, allowing him to fall down the shaft and to his death.

Police say that this was an unfortunate accident caused by Mr. Lee’s anger at the elevator’s occupant not holding the door for Mr. Lee.

You can check out all the action here:

The one who came second place is called the ‘Textbook Double Double Darwin’:

Who would park the car on a busy freeway in heavy fog, for a quickie?

That’s the whole picture: A young couple, driving along Via Dutra, the largest freeway in Brazil with tons of heavy traffic, at 6AM under heavy fog.

The couple decided that this was the time to park (for “dating” according to the charming Google translation) and, yes, they parked on the freeway in the right-hand lane, not on the shoulder, the median, or at a gas station.

Naturally, given time a cargo truck encountered a “speed bump,” instantly killing both — during the act of procreation — double-double Darwin Award! (1) people making (2) obviously bad decisions, and natural selection acts at the very moment the two are reproducing. Textbook!

The third place winner is an unconfirmed story called ‘Glacier Erasure’:

In the late fall and early winter months, snow-covered mountains become infested with hunters. One ambitious pair climbed high up a mountain in search of their quarry. The trail crossed a small glacier that had crusted over. The lead hunter had to stomp a foot-hold in the snow, one step at a time, in order to cross the glacier.

Somewhere near the middle of the glacier, his next stomp hit not snow but a rock. The lead hunter lost his footing and fell. Down the crusty glacier he zipped, off the edge and out of sight.

Unable to help, his companion watched him slide away. After a while, he shouted out, “Are you OK?”

“Yes!” came the answer.

Reasoning that it was a quick way off the glacier, the second hunter plopped down and accelerated down the ice, following his friend. There, just over the edge of the glacier, was his friend…holding onto the top of a tree that barely protruded from the snow.

There were no other treetops nearby, nothing to grab, nothing but a hundred-foot drop onto the rocks below. As the second hunter shot past the first, he uttered his final epitaph: a single word, which we may not utter lest our mothers soap our mouths.

For more Darwin Award 2010 goodness, head on over to the Darwin Awards site