■MALAYSIA
Boy rescued from hot curry
A two-year-old boy suffered severe burns on his body after he tripped and fell into a large pot of piping hot curry, a news report said yesterday. Mohamad Adib Alif Asrie was walking backwards outside a shop in the northern Kedah state when he tripped and fell into the pot of freshly cooked beef curry, the Star daily reported. Mohamad Adib’s screams of pain alerted his parents who were cooking nearby, and he was immediately sent to a nearby hospital. The boy suffered burns on 50 percent of his body, but was reported to be in stable condition.
■AUSTRALIA
Man strangles wife over dog
A man strangled his nagging wife after she upset his beloved pet dog as he tried to rock it to sleep, a prosecutor told a local court. Anthony Sherna, 42, then left his dead wife’s body on her bed for a few days, but not wanting his dog traumatized by the sight of a decomposing body, he took the Jack Russell to a pet resort. Sherna pleaded not guilty on Monday in Melbourne’s Magistrates Court to murdering his wife, Susanne, local media reported yesterday. The prosecutor told the court that Sherna and his wife lived in isolation in rural Victoria state, with no friends, no social life and just their Jack Russell Maltese terrier cross, Hubble, for company, the Herald Sun reported. Each night, Sherna rocked Hubble to sleep in his arms while listening to the radio, but one night in February his wife began shouting at him as he cuddled the dog. “I reached the threshold of the horrible life that we had together,” Sherna allegedly told police in an interview. Sherna put his dog to bed, grabbed a dressing gown cord and strangled his wife, the prosecutor said. Sherna told police his wife was agoraphobic and that both of them drank each day and argued constantly. He said they slept in separate rooms for a decade and had not had sex in three years. Sherna said his wife would not give him any money to spend and that life was a “pressure cooker.”
■AUSTRALIA
Fast food delivered too fast
A pizza delivery man gave fast food a new meaning when he was caught, and fined, for driving 53km over the speed limit. The 20-year-old man, driving on a provisional driver’s license, said he was speeding because he was 20 minutes late with his delivery in the northern town of Townsville. Police clocked him driving at 131kph in an 80kph zone on Saturday, but waited for him to deliver his pizza before booking him. On his return journey to the pizza shop, he was caught speeding at 133kph in the same zone. The delivery man, who was not named, was fined A$1,520 (US$1,226) and lost his license for 15 months.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Pink Floyd’s Wright dies
Richard Wright, the keyboardist whose somber, monumental sounds were at the core of Pink Floyd’s art-rock, died on Monday in London at age 65 of cancer. Wright was a founding member of Pink Floyd, and his spacious, enveloping keyboards, backing vocals and eerie effects were an essential part of its musical identity. Though Syd Barrett and then Roger Waters wrote most of the group’s songs, Wright shares credit on the improvisatory psychedelic studio works the band composed collectively, and he sang a few lead vocals, including on Astronomy Domine from the band’s debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Wright was the sole songwriter on The Great Gig in the Sky, a hymn-like track with a soaring, wordless female vocal at the center of The Dark Side of the Moon, the blockbuster 1973 Pink Floyd album that has sold some 40 million copies. Wright is survived by three children, Benjamin, Gala and Jamie and a grandchild.
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