‘How do you get rid of the body of a dead astronaut on a three-year mission to Mars and back?
When should the plug be pulled on a critically ill astronaut who is using up precious oxygen and endangering the rest of the crew? Should NASA employ DNA testing to weed out astronauts who might get a disease on a long flight?
With NASA planning to land on Mars 30 years from now, and with the recent discovery of the most “Earth-like” planet ever seen outside the solar system, the space agency has begun to ponder some of the thorny practical and ethical questions posed by deep space exploration.’
‘This real estate agent will likely do a house check before letting her prospective customers tour on their own from now on, after a couple happened upon a homeowner dead in bed.
Linda Chabucos-Galow, a real estate agent with Shorewest, stood in the dining room while Justin and Colleen McKeen walked through a house Monday night.
Before long, she heard Colleen scream as the couple stood at the doorway.
“I thought, ‘What’s wrong?’ Maybe it was a dead mouse or something,” Chabucos-Galow said.
But then she peered into the bedroom and saw the body of Linda L. O’Leary, 55, the owner of the home. She had been dead for about two weeks, officials say.
“It looked like a Halloween prop,” Chabucos-Galow said.’
‘A Chinese judge charged with corruption died in his cell from “adult sudden death syndrome”, Xinhua news agency said today.
Investigators said Li Chaoyang, 38, had been unco-operative while in detention in Xing’an county in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southwestern China.
“Cuts on his face and other injuries” had been caused by a fall during an escape attempt, they said. [..]
“Li Chaoyang’s sudden death conforms with adult sudden death syndrome,” said Mr Shi, citing a forensic report.’
‘From the moment of birth, we begin the battle against death — against the inevitable. Statistics say that a newborn child can expect to live an average of 76 years. But averages may not be what they use to be.
In 1786, life expectancy was 24 years. A hundred years later it doubled to 48. Right now, it’s 76.
“Over half the baby boomers here in America are going to see their hundredth birthday and beyond in excellent health,” says Dr. Ronald Klatz of the American Academy of Anti-Aging. “We’re looking at life spans for the baby boomers and the generation after the baby boomers of 120 to 150 years of age.”‘
‘An employer in eastern India beheaded one of his workers for failing to milk his cows, police said on Saturday.
Neighbors watched in horror as Upendra Yadav was dragged out of his house in Jharkhand state on Friday by his angry employer.
The employer’s father and brother held Yadav down before he was beheaded with a sword, police said.
The employer has been charged with murder.’
‘Police apologised to the family of a decapitated motorcyclist on Sunday after photographs of the biker were shown without their consent.
There have been calls for North Wales Police Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom to resign after he used images of 40-year-old Mark Gibney, who died in a crash in 2003, in a private briefing to journalists to back up his anti-speeding policy.
One picture showed Gibney’s headless torso, while another showed his severed head, in a helmet, on a grass verge.’
‘A church organist was found dead at his Teesside home naked inside a giant plastic bag.
Ian Kemp, 48, from Stockton, was found alone in his house bound by his wrists and shins, an inquest heard.
A vacuum cleaner was also connected to the bag and it is believed Mr Kemp died after the machine had sucked all the air out of the bag.
The inquest heard there were no suspicious circumstances but Teesside Coroner Michael Sheffield said such incidents were sometimes connected to sexual gratification.’
‘On the afternoon of July 8, 2006, four private security guards rolled out of Baghdad’s Green Zone in an armored SUV. The team leader, Jacob C. Washbourne, rode in the front passenger seat. He seemed in a good mood. His vacation started the next day.
“I want to kill somebody today,” Washbourne said, according to the three other men in the vehicle, who later recalled it as an offhand remark. Before the day was over, however, the guards had been involved in three shooting incidents. In one, Washbourne allegedly fired into the windshield of a taxi for amusement, according to interviews and statements from the three other guards.’
‘Authorities tried Friday to sort out the strange case of a letter demanding that a St. Louis television station pay a woman $10,000 or she would kill her children and possibly her ex-boyfriend.
The 29-year-old woman whose name was signed to the note denied writing it, Franklin County Sheriff Gary Toelke said. She was arrested on unrelated traffic warrants and released on bond while state officials took temporary custody of her two children. The sheriff said a handwriting expert will be consulted.
“The whole thing is pretty weird,” Toelke said.’
‘Olga Sanchez thought her 15-year-old son had stopped using “cheese,” a heroin mixture making its way across the Dallas area.
But this spring, Oscar Gutierrez’s brother found him dead in bed.
“He was very purple. He was very cold, cold,” said Sanchez, who had been attending drug counseling with her son since discovering his cheese habit last fall.
The deaths of at least 18 teenagers, ranging from ages 15 to 18, have been linked to the mixture of black tar heroin — a less refined form of the drug — and Tylenol PM tablets ground into a powder. [..]
Several factors appear to be driving the popularity of cheese. Kids often buy the drug from other kids. It’s affordable, selling for about $2 a dosage. And it is usually snorted rather than injected.’
‘A schoolboy who climbed over a fence into a crocodile enclosure and taunted the animals with sticks and a catapult was dragged into the water and eaten.
The nine-year-old, whose family name was given as Liu, and three friends sneaked into the crocodile park at the Silver Beach holiday resort at Beihai in the southwestern Guangxi region on Friday.
The children shot at the animals with catapults and beat them with sticks.
The official Xinhua news agency said: “One of the irritated crocodiles bit Liu’s clothes and dragged him into the water where he was eaten by a swarm of crocodiles.” His companions then raised the alarm.’
‘Boris Yeltsin was always good for a laugh, which is probably why on the occasion of his death people outside of Russia are not calling him words like scum and monster, but instead recalling him fondly, with a smile, as one would a retarded nephew who could always be counted on to pull his pants down at Thanksgiving dinner. [..]
He’s been on the verge of death so many times…His doctors themselves are in shock that he’s still alive. Half the blood vessels in his brain are about to burst after his strokes, his intestines are spotted all over with holes, he has giant ulcers in his stomach, his heart is in absolutely disgusting condition, he is literally rotting…He could die from any one of dozens of physical problems that he has, but contrary to all laws of nature — he lives.’
‘It’s got suicide bombers, political kidnaps and intercontinental war. It’s got filthy propaganda, rampant paranoia and secret treaties…
… and the Axis of Evil is a spinner in the middle of the board. You can fight terrorism, you can fund terrorism, you can even be the terrorists. The only thing that matters is global domination – err, liberation.’
‘An owner of an exotic animal farm has died after being kicked and then sat on by a camel.
Cathie Ake and the 4-year-old camel were being filmed by a local television station on Sunday when the camel kicked her and then sat down during a break in filming. The station was doing a story on Mini-Akers Exotic Animals, the 15-acre farm Ake owned with her husband.’
‘A human rights watchdog group says that two Chinese provinces that have come under fire for forcing Christian women there to have abortions are continuing the campaign. The China Aid Association reports that a total of 61 women and their unborn children became victims of the campaign in Guangxi province.
The group tells LifeNews.com that 41 women were forced to have abortions on Tuesday and another 20 more pregnant women were forcibly aborted on Wednesday.’
‘A man fleeing security drowned early Saturday after he leaped over a railing into a moat surrounding a casino, authorities said.
Police said the man, identified as Anthony D. Swopes, 21, of Kansas City, fled while being questioned about his identification at the Isle of Capri casino. A check of the card revealed an outstanding bench warrant. [..]
Moats are common fixtures at Missouri casinos. Casino gambling in the state initially was restricted to floating riverboats, but the state’s constitution was amended to allow riverboat casinos to float within manmade moats.’
‘Two teenagers who murdered their friend and buried her body in a shallow grave beneath her West Australian home said they just woke up and decided to do it, a court was told today. [..]
The court was told they strangled the girl with cable in a premeditated and unprovoked attack, 200km southwest of Perth. [..]
“Sunday morning me and (her) woke up, and we were just talking, and for some reason we just decided to kill her,” one of the girls told police in her interview.
Mr Stone said that the girls knew it was wrong to kill.
“(One of them) told police that while she knew it was wrong to kill a person it did not feel wrong at the time,” Mr Stone said.’
‘The Taleban in Afghanistan have used a boy of around 12 to behead a man they accused of spying for the US.
Parts of a video of the beheading were broadcast on the Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV network.
The Taleban said the dead man, Ghulam Nabi, had given the US information which led to an air strike in which a senior Taleban commander died.
The video footage shows Mr Nabi being blindfolded with a chequered scarf and making what is said to be a confession.
The boy, wearing a camouflage jacket and wielding a large knife, denounces him as a spy and then cuts off his head.’
(19.2meg MPEG)
see it here »
‘A 16-year-old Russian boy found a hospital halfway around the world willing to remove his brain tumor for free. His father says there was one condition – that his treatment could be filmed for a feel-good story by a local television station about the charitable operation.
But the positive story St. Anthony Hospital and neurosurgeon Paul Francel hoped to tell became tragic when the surgery left David Kurbanov brain dead. Now his anguished father is lashing out at the hospital and hoping for a miracle recovery.
Sabit Kurbanov said he had been led to believe that his son would fully recover, and he accused St. Anthony Hospital of performing experimental surgery.’
‘An armed man killed a hostage, then himself, at Nasa’s Johnson Space Centre, the latest incident to rattle the United States after the shooting massacre this week at Virginia Tech university.
Another hostage, a female co-worker, was found bound with duct tape, but unharmed, police said.
“Apparently there was some type of dispute between the suspect and the victim,” Houston police chief Harold Hurtt said.’
‘The Roman Catholic Church has effectively buried the concept of limbo, the place where centuries of tradition and teaching held that babies who die without baptism went.
In a long-awaited document, the Church’s International Theological Commission said limbo reflected an “unduly restrictive view of salvation.” [..]
“The conclusion of this study is that there are theological and liturgical reasons to hope that infants who die without baptism may be saved and brought into eternal happiness even if there is not an explicit teaching on this question found in revelation,” it said.
“There are reasons to hope that God will save these infants precisely because it was not possible (to baptize them).”‘
‘A drama teacher at a suburban Vancouver elementary school is expressing regret for having her students re-enact the Virginia Tech massacre.
The principal at South Park elementary school in Delta says the teacher has used topical news events as the basis for her plays in the past.
But this time Doug Thomson agrees with some students and parents who say she went too far.
The Grade 6 and Grade 7 students were asked to play roles from Monday’s massacre in which a mentally ill student gunned down 32 students and teachers at the U.S. college before killing himself.’
‘Crematoria are struggling to deal with spiralling rates of obesity.
Expanding waistlines are forcing many councils to spend thousands widening their furnaces, the Local Government Association has warned.
In some cases grieving relatives have to travel hundreds of miles to find crematoria that can accommodate over-sized coffins.
Standard coffins range from 16-20 inches, but coffins up to 40 inches are becoming increasingly common.’
‘Cho Seung-Hui said Monday’s massacre on the Virginia Tech campus could have been avoided and said “you forced me into a corner,” in a videotaped message he mailed to NBC News.
NBC News reported that Cho mailed the package at 9:01 a.m. Monday — during the two hours between the shootings at the West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory and Norris Hall, which left 33 people dead, including Cho, who took his own life.
“You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today,” Cho said in one of the videos that aired Wednesday night on NBC. “But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off.”‘
followup to: Viginia Tech School Shootings.
(3.7meg Windows media and 7.0meg asf)
see it here »
‘At least 32 people have died at a steel factory in China, after being showered with molten metal.
The accident happened at a plant in Tieling, in the north-eastern province of Liaoning, according to the state news agency Xinhua.
A container of steel split in two and spilled the metal onto workers who had gathered for a meeting, Xinhua said.
Rescuers were unable to get close to the scene, because of the intense heat radiated by the liquid metal.’
‘Eating large quantities of cured meats like bacon could damage lung function and increase the risk of lung disease.
A Columbia University team found people who ate cured meats at least 14 times a month were more likely to have COPD – chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
COPD, which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, kills around 30,000 people in the UK each year.’
‘The college student responsible for yesterday’s Virginia Tech slaughter was referred last year to counseling after professors became concerned about the violent nature of his writings, as evidenced in a one-act play obtained by The Smoking Gun. The play by Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old English major, was submitted last year as part of a short story writing class. Entitled “Richard McBeef,” Cho’s bizarre play features a 13-year-old boy who accuses his stepfather of pedophilia and murdering his father. A copy of the killer’s play can be found below. The teenager talks of killing the older man and, at one point, the child’s mother brandishes a chain saw at the stepfather. The play ends with the man striking the child with “a deadly blow.”‘
followup to: Viginia Tech School Shootings.
‘A murder suspect surrendered to police following a three-hour standoff at an apartment complex that was complicated by a crowd of bystanders who threw rocks at police, authorities said. [..]
Walton said officers were first called to the scene about 9 p.m. and encountered neighborhood opposition.
“They were met by a large group — over 100 people — that made an effort to assault officers by throwing rocks at their vehicles and the officers themselves,” Walton said. “There were shots fired, and the officers had their hands full trying to contain the crowd.”
The officers called in reinforcements to help disperse the crowd. Some of the additional police wore riot gear and carried batons.’
‘Police have arrested a 16-year-old from Shreveport who is accused of paying another teen $5 to kill his father. Cops are still looking for the youth allegedly hired for the hit.
The teenager didn’t want to be told where he could live and was tired of having to live by rules, according to Det. Michael Escude of the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Department.
The boy had moved from his father’s to his mother’s house a day or two before the attempted hit on Wednesday, because the father said he couldn’t deal with him any longer, Escude said.
The youth was arrested Wednesday night on one count of solicitation for murder and remains in the Caddo Juvenile Detention Center, the sheriff’s office said.’
