‘An Australian state has banned the video Web site YouTube from government schools in a crackdown on cyber-bullying, a minister said Thursday.
Victoria, Australia’s second most populous state, banned the popular video-sharing site from its 1,600 government schools after a gang of male school students videotaped their assault on a 17-year-old girl on the outskirts of Melbourne.
The assault, which is being investigated by police, was uploaded on YouTube late last year.’
‘A 4-year-old Redwood City boy was struck and killed by a sport utility vehicle after sledding down a driveway and into traffic in Truckee, police said today.
Kunal Mohindroo was playing with his parents in the snowy driveway Saturday when he slid into the street and was struck by the SUV, which was driven by a 38-year-old Burlingame man, said Lt. Randy Fenn of the Truckee police.
“As I understand it, they’d been doing this for a while and there had been no problems,” Fenn said. “He was riding the sled up and down the driveway. At one point, he slid out in the street and got past his parents.”‘
‘Just when you think were past the white guys cant jump stereotype this happens. Actually, if you think about it shoving your junk in a hot chicks face in front of thousands of people deserves a perfect 10!’
(3.4meg Windows media)
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‘A barrage of runaway barrels caused carnage after a brewery lorry dropped its load in a quiet Somerset village.
About 100 metal kegs, barrels and bottles rolled into gardens in Pecking Mill, near Shepton Mallet, battering flower displays and spraying beer over nearby homes.
The accident is thought to have caused damage worth thousands of pounds, and left residents in shock.’
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‘Significant new capabilities have been added to the US Air Force’s latest superfighter, the F-22 “Raptor”. The USAF’s Raptors cost more than $300m each, and are generally thought to be the most advanced combat jets in service worldwide. However, until recently they were unable to cross the international date line owing to a software bug in their navigation systems.
A group of F-22s heading across the Pacific for exercises in Japan earlier this month suffered simultaneous total nav-console crashes as their longitude shifted from 180 degrees West to 180 East.
Luckily, the superjets were accompanied by tanker planes, whose navigation kit was somewhat less bleeding-edge and remained functional. The tanker drivers were able to guide the lost top-guns back to Hawaii and the exercises were postponed.’
‘A race car is travelling at over 180 MPH when a seagull crashes into and breaks his windshield.’
(2.1meg Windows media)
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‘It was only meant to be a safefy drill but dozens of children were left in tears after an animal escape drill at a zoo went hilariously wrong.
Check out the gallery for more pictures
As acting goes, it was a little too convincing.
The idea was to test the readiness of zoo staff for the escape of a dangerous animal.
But despite the ludicrously obvious disguise of the runaway beast, its pre-ordained destiny – to be shot with a tranquilliser gun – had children in tears. [..]
The ordeal of the zoo visitors began immediately when the fancy-dressed ape jumped out and frightened a school party.’
‘Exterminators began sweeping a Kansas City neighborhood infested with rats after one of the rodents crawled into a baby’s crib and severely disfigured the girl’s face.
Authorities said the girl’s parents put her in a crib next to their bed early Sunday and awoke a few hours later, when a heart and breathing monitor alarm went off. The 4-week-old baby, which had been born prematurely, was lying in a pool of blood with her nose and part of her upper lip chewed off.’
‘Japan’s whaling fleet has cut short its hunt in the Antarctic after a fire two weeks ago crippled the main boat.
The controversial annual hunt, which Japan says was carried out for research purposes, was meant to continue until the end of March.
But Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research said the Nisshin Maru boat could not be fully repaired at sea.’
‘A 330-foot-deep sinkhole killed at least two teenagers as it swallowed about a dozen homes early Friday and forced the evacuation of nearly 1,000 people in a crowded Guatemala City neighborhood. Officials blamed the sinkhole on recent rains and an underground sewage flow from a ruptured main.
The pit emitted foul odors, loud noises and tremors, shaking the surrounding ground. A rush of water could be heard from its depths, and authorities feared it could widen or others could open up.’
with good images of the sinkhole. It’s large.
Update: now with video
see it here »
‘Pakistani police have arrested two men after a village woman complained that her husband and relatives had sold one of her kidneys in order to buy a tractor, police said on Tuesday.
Although her kidney had been removed 18 months earlier, the woman, named Safia, only learnt it was missing after seeking treatment for a urinary tract problem in January.
“She has said that she was three months pregnant when her husband, Shakeel Ahmed beat her and then took her to the hospital for treatment,” said Mohammad Akram, duty officer at Noushera Jadeed police station in Punjab province.
“But at the hospital her husband, in connivance with three other people, sold her kidney to buy the tractor,” he said.’
‘The illegal trade of elephant ivory has reached such unprecedented levels in Africa that the authors of a U.S. report published Monday are urging western nations to provide more aid for better enforcement.
They say the trade has increased despite an international ban on ivory imposed in the late 1980s.
“Poaching right now has reached its worst levels in history,” said Samuel Wasser, one of the report’s authors and director of the University of Washington’s Center for Conservation Biology in Seattle.’
‘To cut down on costly imports of petroleum, of which Myanmar does not have much, its ruling generals want every vehicle in the country to run on natural gas, of which it has plenty.
Since 2005, the junta has managed to get around 11,000 taxis and buses in Yangon [..] to convert to compressed natural gas (CNG).
Unfortunately, during this time it has installed only 20 filling stations for a city of 5 million people.
More unfortunately, the CNG pumps they have installed are so archaic they can take 30 minutes to fill up one vehicle.
Even more unfortunately, every time a power blackout strikes — which is at least once a day — the pumps grind to a halt.’
‘This is probably the best sledding wipeout I have ever seen. These guys get launched off a jump and take out people with them on the wipe.’
(790kB Windows media)
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‘A teenage girl in southern Pakistan, whose late father lost her in a poker game when she was 2 years old, has asked authorities to save her from being handed over to a middle-aged relative.
Rasheeda, 17, said she has filed applications with the police and a local councillor asking them to prevent Lal Haider, 45, from taking her to his home.
Her mother, Nooran said her husband racked up a debt of 10,000 rupees ($151) to Haider playing cards.
“My husband didn’t have money to pay, and instead he told Lal Haider that he could take Rasheeda when she grows up,” she said.’
‘This is the last haunting self- portrait of Andrew McAuley, a man and his kayak, alone. All around, a vast seascape of emptiness. The green-grey Tasman Sea heaving, the horizon a cruel circle.
For 30 days and nights, wherever the Australian adventurer turned his salt-rimmed eyes, he understood his aloneness.
“I never once doubted he would do it,” his wife, Vicki, said yesterday. And he almost did.
[..] At 7.15pm, the New Zealand Coastguard picked up an almost indecipherable distress signal from a vessel that identified itself as Kayak 1. There were two clear words: “help” and “sinking”. Then silence.’
‘Most US intelligence on Iran shared with the International Atomic Energy Agency has proved to be inaccurate and failed to lead to discoveries of a smoking gun inside the Islamic Republic, The Los Angeles Times reported on its website on Saturday.
Citing unnamed diplomats working in Vienna, the newspaper said the CIA and other Western intelligence services have been providing sensitive information to the IAEA since 2002.
But none of the tips about Iran’s suspected secret weapons sites provided clear evidence that the Islamic Republic is developing a nuclear arms arsenal, the report said.
“Since 2002, pretty much all the intelligence that’s come to us has proved to be wrong,” the paper quotes a senior IAEA diplomat as saying.
Another official described the agency’s intelligence stream as “very cold now” because “so little panned out,” The Times reported.’
‘A middle school teacher trying to buy pot was arrested after she sent text messages to state trooper instead of a dealer, police said.
Trooper Trevor Pervine was at dinner with his wife and parents celebrating a birthday when his phone started buzzing with messages about a marijuana purchase.
At first, Pervine thought the messages were from friends playing a joke, Kentucky State Police spokesman Barry Meadows said. But a couple of phone calls put that idea to rest, and Pervine responded to set up a meeting, Meadows said.
Authorities say Ann Greenfield, 34, arrived at the meeting point and found Pervine and other law enforcement officers waiting for her.
“She learned her lesson. Program your dealers into your phone,” Meadows said.’
‘Next Friday, substitute teacher Julie Amero of Norwich, Connecticut, will receive her sentence — up to 40 years in prison, the press repeats with a mixture of horror and glee — for exposing children to pornography in the classroom.
It could be worse. Had some charges not been dropped, she could have faced 10 felony charges instead of four.
The prosecution claims she deliberately visited porn sites from the class computer and allowed the 12- and 13-year-olds to view the content. She claims — and evidence proves — the school computer got hit with a pop-up frenzy she didn’t know how to stop.’
‘Welcome to the new world of border security. Unsuspecting Americans are turning up at the Canadian border expecting clear sailing, only to find that their past — sometimes their distant past — is suddenly an issue.
While Canada officially has barred travelers convicted of criminal offenses for years, attorneys say post-9/11 information-gathering, combined with a sweeping agreement between Canada and the United States to share data, has resulted in a spike in phone calls from concerned travelers.
They are shocked to hear that the sins of their youth might keep them out of Canada. But what they don’t know is that this is just the beginning. Soon other nations will be able to look into your past when you want to travel there.’
‘Thousands of Melbourne commuters were last night sent a chilling SMS from Connex telling them that ticket inspectors loved killing people and would help bomb a train.
Connex says it will prosecute those who hacked into its computer system and texted the message. The rail operator was swamped by calls from subscribers to its SMS which usually informs them when trains are cancelled or delayed. They were surprised to get the message: “ALLAHU AKBR FROM CONNEX!” which flashed across their phone screens about 9.45pm.
This was followed by: “Our inspectors love killing people – if you see one coming, run. Want to bomb a train? They will gladly help! See you in hell!”‘
‘A cab driver arrived home to find his 12-year-old son’s body in a courtyard below their fifth-floor apartment, wrapped in blankets tied together like a rope.
Police said Jonathan Batista’s injuries were consistent with a fall and that the death was not suspicious. The boy had learning disabilities.
Teodoro Batista, 42, had just finished an overnight shift driving a cab on Wednesday when he discovered that Jonathan was missing from the Manhattan apartment where they live with Jonathan’s stepmother.
Jonathan’s bedroom window was open, and the window’s air conditioning unit was gone.’
‘As a child going to the circus, you might expect the clown to throw a bucket of confetti at you, or squirt you with water from the flower on his lapel.
You certainly wouldn’t be prepared for him to grab you by the scruff of the neck, punch and kick you and leave you needing hospital treatment for cuts and bruises.
As these astonishing pictures show, that’s what happened when 12-year-old Amos Lutz met Kaspar the Clown at a circus in Leipzig, Germany.’
‘A giant sinkhole opened before dawn Friday, swallowing several homes and a truck and leaving a father and two teenagers missing in Guatemala City.
Officials said the 100-meter-deep (330-foot-deep) sinkhole in a crowded neighborhood of poor, concrete homes was caused by recent rains and an underground sewage flow from a ruptured main.
National disaster coordinator Hugo Hernandez identified the missing as Domingo, Irma and David Sosyos, ages 53, 18 and 15, respectively. A body appeared in a river of sewage near the sinkhole, but it was unclear whether the corpse was a victim. [..]
The pit was emitting foul odors, loud noises and tremors, and a rush of water could be heard from its depths. Authorities feared it could widen or others could open up.’
The wrong house to go to the toilet in.
(1.9meg Windows media)
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‘An “epidemic” of counterfeit therapeutic drugs is sweeping south-east Asia, costing hundreds of thousands of lives as victims take them under the mistaken belief that they are receiving vital treatment for their illnesses. A British doctor working in the Laotian capital, Vientiane, found that most of the anti-malarial medicines tested in a sample were sophisticated fakes, often displaying holograms on the packaging, originally aimed at making counterfeiting difficult.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 200,000 of the 1m malaria deaths each year would be prevented if all the drugs taken were genuine.
But the epidemic goes far beyond anti-malarials. [..]
Up to 50% of the drugs sold in Asia and Africa are fakes, in a trade estimated by the US Food and Drug Administration to be worth between $35bn and $44bn (£18.5bn-£23.1bn) annually. [..]’
‘ A Marlborough arborist with a broken leg spent 95 minutes stuck in a tree, only to be airlifted by rescuers straight into another tree, giving him more cuts and bruises.
Gavin Finch, 31, of Nelmac Marlborough, was topping a large pine overlooking Picton Harbour when a branch twisted and struck him as it fell yesterday afternoon.
Police, ambulance and fire officers were unable to reach Finch, who was halfway up the 40m tree, perched on a branch.
Nelmac manager Bob Boyes said it was decided to call the Wellington-based Westpac rescue helicopter to lift Finch out.’
‘ What’s the biggest hurdle to setting up a colony on the Moon or getting mankind to Mars and beyond? Aliens? Asteroids? Money? Try: humans themselves. Experts poring over plans to return to the Moon by 2018 and later stride to Mars believe the greatest-ever gamble in the history of space may ultimately depend on keeping the mind and body sound.
Anxiety, loneliness and tensions with crewmates, a daily battle to maintain fitness and avoid accidents, DNA-shredding radiation from solar flares or cosmic rays — all these make mental and physical health the key to whether a long-term mission will succeed or fail catastrophically.
Benny Elmann-Larsen, coordinator of physiology in human space flight at the European Space Agency (ESA), says psychological stress could be the biggest problem of all.’
‘Santa Fe police say an Ash Wednesday service at the cathedral was disrupted by pornographic messages from three CD players duct-taped to the underside of pews.
Santa Fe police Captain Gary Johnson says the CD players had been set to go off at 12:20 pm Wednesday during Mass in the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis.
Johnson says the recordings were full of foul language and pornographic messages.
Cathedral staff members removed the CD players, took them to the basement and called police. Church officials say churchgoers were not evacuated.’
