AUSTRALIA
Beer, bees, ladder don’t mix
An Irishman who decided to climb a ladder and move a beehive after downing a few beers has paid the price, being stung more than 60 times. Andrew Short, an amateur beekeeper, returned home from the Melbourne Comedy Festival on Monday evening in high spirits and thought he’d move a hive from his backyard to the roof of his house. He figured that as it was past midnight, the bees would be asleep. Instead, they attacked him. “A few beers maybe and a ladder, it’s a bad combination,” Short told reporters after hospital treatment for stings to his face, chest, neck, arms and abdomen. His main worry was being too scared to call his wife, who was away with their two young daughters. “She was away, so I thought it was the perfect night to do it, because you can’t ask the missus to get involved in lifting beehives, oddly,” he said.
JAPAN
Oldest man celebrates
The world’s oldest man is celebrating his 114th birthday with a traditional Japanese meal. Jirouemon Kimura began his new year with a breakfast of grilled fish with steamed rice and red beans, a typical meal on special occasions in Japan. Kyoto official Toru Okubo says Kimura was celebrating yesterday at his home, which he shares with the 82-year-old widow of his eldest son and the 58-year-old widow of a grandson. Okubo says Kimura had seven children, five surviving. He also had 14 grandchildren, 25 great-grandchildren and 11 great-great--grandchildren. The Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group lists Kimura, born in 1897, as the world’s oldest man. The previous title holder was Walter Breuning of Montana, who died earlier this month.
AUSTRALIA
Swan’s killer avoids jail
A teenager who used a personal watercraft to deliberately run down a black swan that later died from horrific injuries avoided jail yesterday, but was fined A$11,000 (US$11,500). Kale Falchi, 19, was caught on video running over the bird at Mermaid Waters on the Gold Coast in December last year. The court heard that he boasted to his passenger to “watch this” before mowing down the animal, later telling police he did not turn back to help because he was running late for lunch. The swan survived and a sanctuary spent four months trying to save her before she was eventually put down. Southport Magistrate Brian Kucks said Falchi showed a “callous disregard” for the swan and owed a debt to society, but rejected prosecution calls for a three-month jail term. He was fined and ordered to perform 180 hours of community service.
MALAYSIA
Branson to auction leg hair
Not only will British billionaire Richard Branson dress and serve as a stewardess on Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia X on May 1, but you can shave his legs — for a price. AirAsia founder and Team Lotus co-principal Tony Fernandes, having won a bet with Branson at last year’s Bahrain Formula One GP, said the business magnate would shed his leg hair if someone paid at least £400,000 (US$650,000). “As an AirAsia flight attendant, Richard would have to comply to our grooming standards, and that includes shaving his legs,” Fernandes said in a statement late on Monday. “Rather than shave him myself, Richard and I thought we could have a bit of fun, engage with our guests and raise more money for charity if we opened up the opportunity to the highest bidder,” he said. “It’s the first time we’ve both agreed on anything so that in itself is worth the price of the opening bid.”
ROMANIA
Politician moonwalks
A moonwalking politician might not be the best reason to pay attention to politics, but his antics seem to be working. Edmond Talmacean, a 40-year-old Bucharest politician, has inspired national headlines with his Michael Jackson-inspired moonwalk on a television show and his impersonations of the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. His impersonation of a well-known sports commentator during a serious political debate also stunned other lawmakers into silence. “Dancing is another kind of political message to appeal to the younger generation, that it is good to have fun ... that you can go to a disco and dance,” Talmacean said on Monday. Party bosses, however, say enough is enough and have ordered him to tone down. Despite the official disapproval, Talmacean is trending big time, gossiped about in coffee bars and hairdressing shops. “I think he expressed the way he felt which is good,” said Valentina Tudor, 25, a sandwich vendor in Bucharest. “It’s not as if he stole or did something bad. He is talented. I can’t imagine [President Traian] Basescu doing the moonwalk.”
SPAIN
Fire at Barcelona landmark
Police in Barcelona say a suspected arsonist started a small fire inside the Sagrada Familia basilica and forced the evacuation of hundreds of tourists, but the blaze has been extinguished and no one was hurt. A Catalan regional police official says about 1,500 people were evacuated yesterday from Antoni Gaudi’s unfinished masterpiece. It is one of the most popular tourist sites in Spain’s second-largest city. The official said some tourists saw smoke coming from inside the sacristy and alerted authorities, and that the suspected arsonist was arrested. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.
ITALY
Scheme aims to feed hungry
From sushi to pizza or spicy chicken curry, favorite meals are being transformed into cash for school dinners to feed the world’s hungry in a new social networking scheme from the World Food Programme (WFP). The wefeedback campaign has provided 110,000 meals to children in 60 countries, WFP’s Web representative Pierre Guillaume Wielezynski said. The new Web community (www.wefeedback.org) uses a calculator to work out how many children could be fed if users donated the money they usually spent on their favorite meal to feeding those less fortunate. Users can donate the cost of their meal online and spread the world through social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The price of a luxury 22 euro (US$31.40) chocolate Easter egg would feed another 110 children. “If you do the calculations, chocolate and sweets sales in Britain and the United States over the Easter period are worth US$2.1 billion, the amount necessary to fund our programme for two years,” Wielezynski said.
UNITED STATES
Toothache an old problem
Missing teeth and the decayed jawbone of a 275-million year old reptile have pushed back the earliest evidence of tooth decay 200 million years, according to a study published yesterday. Researchers analyzed a jaw of a Labidosaurus hamatus — a fat-headed, omnivorous reptile about 75cm long — found near Coffee Creek, Texas using CT-scan technology. They found evidence of massive infection, likely resulting in the loss of several teeth and bone destruction in the jaw in the form of an abscess. The study was published in the journal Nature of Science.
CANADA
Webcam captures attack
A Webcam may have captured the likely murder of a Chinese student while she was chatting online with a friend in Beijing, police said on Monday. An assailant was seen through the lens of the Webcam struggling with the 23-year-old woman in her basement apartment near York University in Toronto at about 1am on Friday, hours before her body was discovered by police. The online witness in Beijing told police there had been a knock at the door. A man in his 20s with a muscular build and medium-length brown hair asked the victim to use her cellphone. A skirmish erupted. The witness saw part of it, but some of the action took place out of the camera’s scope. The man then turned off the laptop computer, which is now missing. Public broadcaster CBC said the victim’s mother contacted the Chinese consulate in Toronto, which alerted local authorities. Police said there were no signs of “substantial trauma” to the body that could identify the cause of death, nor any “obvious” signs of sexual assault. However, she was unclothed from the waist down. An autopsy was scheduled for this week.
UNITED STATES
Teen arrested for murders
A 16-year-old boy is accused of killing two British tourists in a high-crime neighborhood of a Florida city better known for its white beaches and waterfront condominiums. James Cooper, 25, and James Thomas Kouzaris, 24, were found shot to death around 3am on Saturday. The boy has not identified because he is a juvenile. Prosecutors have until May 8 to decide if he will be charged as an adult. The slayings occurred near a public-housing complex north of downtown Sarasota. Investigators were trying to determine why the men were in the neighborhood, which doesn’t have any of the usual tourist attractions and is a few kilometers away from Longboat Key, the oceanfront island where they were staying.
UNITED STATES
Man proposes in crossword
The Washington Post crossword puzzle had special meaning last weekend for one couple. With the complicity of the newspaper, Corey Newman, 28, of Alexandria, Virginia, proposed to his girlfriend, Marlowe Epstein, 31, through clues buried in a specially crafted puzzle. The clue for 37 Across, for example, asked for the name of a role in the movie Shakespeare in Love. The answer — Marlowe. Thirty-nine Across asked for the name of a Casablanca screenwriter. The answer — Epstein. The clincher was 51 Across: “Words with a certain ring to them.” As soon as Epstein came up with the answer — “Will you marry me” — Newman got down on one knee, whipped out a diamond ring and repeated the question, the Post reported. “Yes, of course!” Epstein said. “I was sort of blown away,” she told the paper. “I was so impressed that he managed to pull that off!”
UNITED STATES
McDonald’s opposes suit
A lawsuit that seeks to stop McDonald’s from selling Happy Meals must be dismissed because parents can always prohibit their children from eating them, the hamburger giant said in a court filing on Monday. The lawsuit claims McDonald’s unfairly uses toys to lure children into its restaurants. The plaintiff, Monet Parham, a Sacramento, California mother of two, claims the company’s advertising violates California consumer protection laws. Should Parham’s lawsuit be allowed, it would spawn a host of other problematic legal proceedings, McDonald’s said.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was