UNITED KINGDOM
Artwork a health hazard
Art museum Tate Modern says an exhibit involving 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds can only be viewed to visitors because it is a potential health hazard. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未) filled a giant hall at the London museum with a carpet of the imitation seeds, made by thousands of workers over a two-year period. Visitors had been invited to walk across the surface when the show opened earlier last week. However, the gallery said on Friday that the “enthusiastic interaction of visitors” was causing a dust cloud that could be harmful if inhaled over a long period.
IRELAND
‘Tomato’ compensated
Belfast’s mayor was sure he could jump over the giant tomato, but his efforts bore no fruit. Belfast City Council confirmed on Friday it has paid a former employee more than £24,000 (US$38,000) after former mayor Jim Rodgers tried to leap over her in front of press photographers three years ago. The victim, Lorraine Mallon, was dressed as a tomato to promote a city food fair and was sitting on the grass. She suffered a blow to the back of her head as Rodgers ran up from behind to try to leapfrog her, but slipped at the last moment.
UNITED STATES
Cannibal ‘T Rex’ indicated
A team of researchers reported on Friday that huge tooth marks on Tyrannosaurus rex bones indicate the ancient giant dinosaurs may have cannibalized one another. “They’re the kind of marks that any big carnivore could have made, but T rex was the only big carnivore in western North America 65 million years ago,” Nicholas Longrich of Yale University said. His team found 17 fossils with deep V-shaped gouges of a type identified as being made by T rex. Of those, four were remains of T rex themselves. It seems likely the marks were made during scavenging from a dead dinosaur, they said.
UNITED KINGDOM
‘Titanic’ exhibit to open
The legend of the Titanic lands in London next month with a 300-item exhibition featuring 14 new artifacts from the sunken transatlantic liner and video footage from the site of the wreck. Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition opens on Nov. 5 at the O2 Arena, and focuses on the human stories behind the liner’s 1912 collision with an iceberg that killed 1,517 people. The exhibit will share new footage of the latest expedition, along with relics like perfume bottles from a manufacturer traveling to New York to hawk his wares and the pocket watch of a wealthy passenger. The new items include postcards, sheet music and stamps. The exhibition will display more than 300 artifacts in all, as well as recreations of the ship’s rooms, and galleries showing how the sinking of the liner resonated in London at the time.
GERMANY
Hepburn stamps for sale
A rare sheet of 10 stamps showing film star Audrey Hepburn smoking is expected to fetch at least 400,000 euros (US$564,000) at an upcoming charity auction in Berlin. The postal service printed 14 million of the stamps in 2001. They show Hepburn as Holly Golightly from the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s with a cigarette holder between her lips. Hepburn’s son Sean Ferrer initially refused to grant copyright for the stamps and suggested using another photo. The government ordered the stamps destroyed, but a few sheets survived. Five of the stamps, presumed stolen from the postal service, have been sold previously, with one fetching 173,000 euros.
UNITED STATES
Granny doubles speed limit
Oregon State Police gave an 82-year-old woman a ticket for driving twice the posted speed limit of 55mph (88kph). KVAL-TV reported that a trooper spotted Marcia Brandon’s car going 177kph on Thursday on Highway 26 west of Gresham. She said she was on her way to an appointment and wasn’t aware she was going that fast. Brandon was given a ticket for US$1,103.
UNITED STATES
Man gets strip club payout
A South Florida attorney says his client will get US$650,000 after a dancer’s platform shoe shattered his eye socket at a strip club. Attorney Lake Lytal III says the Cheetah club’s insurance company agreed earlier this month to pay Michael Ireland for the injury. Lytal says Ireland has had eye problems since the 2008 incident at the West Palm Beach club. He says the dancer claimed in a deposition she was walking on the bar, felt someone touch her and swung around. Lytal says her metal heel went into Ireland’s eye socket and shattered it, requiring extensive surgery.
UNITED STATES
Bathroom assaulter charged
A man is facing an assault charge for allegedly hitting a town hall custodian on the back of the head with a roll of toilet paper because he was angry the cleaning man was whistling while he worked. Framingham police say 55-year-old Allen Kerner was in town hall on Wednesday using the bathroom.The custodian told police he was in a stall when he was struck. Kerner yelled at him about whistling and fled. The custodian pursued him, and Kerner was apprehended by police outside. Police told the MetroWest Daily News that Kerner would be summoned to court to face an assault and battery charge.
UNITED STATES
‘Moss Man’ arrested
Deputies investigating a possible break-in at a rock museum near Portland, Oregon, were surprised when they stumbled upon a man concealed on the ground by a moss-like camouflage outfit. Sergeant David Thompson of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office said the hidden suspect cried out when a search dog bit him before daylight hours on Thursday outside the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals. Police identified the man, dubbed “Moss Man” on the Internet, as 36-year-old Gregory Liascos of Portland. They arrested him on burglary and criminal mischief charges. Sheriff’s officials say nothing was stolen, but allege Liascos cut a hole in a museum wall and was trying to gain entry.
UNITED STATES
Burger suit finally settled
A man who claimed he bit into a Burger King sandwich and found an unwrapped condom has settled his lawsuit out of court, his lawyer said on Friday. The attorney, Devin McLaughlin, said that the details of the settlement are confidential and would not be disclosed, but the owner-operator of the Rutland, Vermont, restaurant says forensic analysis of the object and surveillance video prove it did not originate in the Burger King. “They agreed to drop their claim and we agreed to drop our counterclaim. The parties agreed to pay their own legal costs, so you can draw your own conclusions,” said Joseph Zirkman, vice president and general counsel for Carrols Restaurant Group Inc. In 2007, Van Miguel Hartless sued the store’s owners, who denied the claim and filed a countersuit. At the time, Hartless was a student at Green Mountain College.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion