‘The Government has warned people to throw away two brands of Chinese-made toothpaste after it was found to contain a toxic chemical.
Chris Pearce, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, said today that two brands of toothpaste, Mr Cool and Excel, were being withdrawn from sale after being found to contain diethylene glycol (DEG).
“However, there could well be other brands that have not yet been identified,” he said.
The chemical, diethylene glycol, is used in antifreeze and as a solvent. The chemical is a central nervous system depressant and potent kidney and liver toxin.
Mr Pearce said no Australian-made toothpaste contained DEG.’
Followup to US warns over Chinese toothpaste.
Make sure your bolts are all tightened up before you go drifting. You think it’d go without saying, but nah.. :)
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‘An astonishing attempted escape from the police in the Bronx Wednesday morning left a suspect dangling from the side of a high-rise, 23 stories above the ground.
It wasn’t a typical sighting for New Yorkers walking outside or living across from the Soundview apartment tower.
“I started to think, ‘What’s wrong? Is he trying to commit suicide or something?'” said Alex Morales, who, along with his wife Patricia witnessed the suspect’s crazy antics.
But Francisco Correra Jr. wasn’t trying to kill himself. Instead he was trying to escape from police investigating an assault complaint.
“His foot was on the ledge of the window and he was hanging on a childproof bar,” Patricia Morales said.’
‘A boy of six was sent a letter by police urging him to confess to being a career criminal.
Peter Akers was advised to admit any unsolved crimes so he could make a “fresh start”. He was even offered treatment for drugs addiction.
The letter – sent to Peter by mistake – was one of scores of warning messages posted to repeat offenders.
It read: “We are giving the opportunity for you to come forward and notify us of any offences you have committed but have never been dealt with.”
Suggesting a confession might see Peter spared jail, it added: “We will offer all the help and support we can to assist you in making a fresh start.”
Peter, from Derby, could only recall one crime however – stealing sweets from his sister Phoebe, aged nine.’
‘Iran’s parliament on Wednesday voted in favor of a bill that could lead to the death penalty for persons convicted of working in the production of pornographic movies.
With a 148-5 vote in favor and four abstentions, lawmakers present at the Wednesday session of the 290-seat parliament approved that “producers of pornographic works and main elements in their production are considered corrupter of the world and could be sentenced to punishment as corrupter of the world.”
The term, “corrupter of the world” is taken from the Quran, the Muslims’ holy book, and ranks among the highest on the scale of an individual’s criminal offenses. Under Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, it carries a death penalty.
The “main elements” referred to in the draft include producers, directors, cameramen and actors involved in making a pornographic video.’
Once again the Japanese are on the cutting edge of science related television.
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‘A Brisbane man bullied for wearing bright yellow thongs to a backyard barbecue stabbed the host in the face before killing one of the guests, a court has heard.
Benjamin Haydn MacRae, 28, used a paring knife to stab neighbours Ian Macdonald and James Croker after being dubbed a “gaylord” by one of the men over his choice of footwear.
Mr Macdonald later died as a result of his injuries. [..]
“Ian Macdonald had suggested on a number of occasions that Benjamin MacRae was a gaylord because of the colour of his thongs. The mood was a good one, but it deteriorated.”‘
‘Feast your eyes on the result of weeks of work using the various remains of over a dozen cars — from 80’s BMW’s to a 1990 Toyota Tercel — it’s the glorious Turbo II Junkyard Boogaloo boombox. For those of you who want the gearhead nitty-gritty, the full “How To” is here. For those who just want to see this baby in all of its radical goodness, below you’ll find some documentation of what the Turbo II is and does …
Ninety-two pounds of plywood and car parts joined together as an homage to the homemade car-battery boomboxes used by first-generation break dancers; if you’ve watched the video above you’ve already got the general idea of the Turbo II Junkyard Boogaloo’s features. Read on and we’ll fill you in on the details [..]’
‘A surgeon amputated a 17-year-old boy’s arm on the Palmetto Expressway after a Saturday morning crash involving a cement truck, police said. Police flew the surgeon in by helicopter after the 8 a.m. wreck in the northbound lanes near South River Drive.
Police said the boy was a passenger in his father’s cement truck and the two were headed for work when his father lost control and the truck flipped on its right side.
Rescuers worked to free the boy without success after the crash, finally determining the only solution was field amputation. A surgeon from the Ryder Trauma Center was flown in and about 50 firefighters worked to get him access to the boy.’
‘A man was cited for drunken driving twice in the same day, by the same officer, and jailed after authorities said he showed up drunk for his arraignment.
Court records said Adam T. Lundgren, 42, was cited for misdemeanor drunken driving after being spotted driving erratically at 5:30 p.m. Monday.
He was later released to a sober friend, but jumped from the friend’s car and returned to downtown Missoula, where he continued drinking, court records said.
At about 10 p.m., Lundgren drove into a bridge railing and started to run away. Witnesses captured him and held him until police arrived.’
‘US President George W Bush put his wristwatch in his pocket while greeting a crowd during his visit to Albania, the White House said Tuesday in an effort to end a two-day long mystery over the disappearance of the timepiece.
Bush was mingling with a very enthusiastic crowd – to put it mildly – in the small Albanian town of Fushe Kruja on Sunday when the saga began. Cameras captured the watch on his arm, but moments later images showed the leader of the free world’s wrist was bare.
Since, various media in Albania and other countries have speculated that someone might have snatched the First Watch, or the president may have lost it. The White House, however, offered a rather boring conclusion to the tale.
“The president put it in his pocket and it returned safely home,” spokesman Tony Snow said.’
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‘Everybody is using it, but (almost) nobody really knows how it works. Google PageRank is probably one of the most important algorithms ever developed for the Web. With billions of existing pages and millions of pages generated every day, the search issue in the Web is more complex than you probably think it is. PageRank, only one of hundreds of factors used by Google to determine best search results, helps to keep our search clean and efficient. But how is it actually done? How does Google PageRank work, which factors do have an impact on it and which don’t? And what do we really know about PageRank?
In this article we put the facts straight.’
‘A new report puts Google in last place when it comes to privacy protection. Despite recent moves to anonymize server logs and other pro-privacy gestures, Privacy International called the company “an endemic threat to privacy.”
Only Google earned the dismal “black” color bar from the group, which has just issued a report on Internet privacy that took six months to assemble [..]. The current report is preliminary; final results will be released in September.
The report rated top Internet companies on privacy issues and distilled the various results into a single color bar. Microsoft was two ranks up from Google, earning a curry-colored “serious lapses” rating. Amazon scored one level higher with its yellow “notable lapses” rank, and eBay did even better, earning a coveted blue bar. No company earned a top mark, however.’
‘The Church of England today asked entertainment giant Sony to apologise and contribute a large donation for featuring a prominent British cathedral in a violent video game.
Church officials had earlier accused Sony of using the historic interior of Manchester Cathedral, where memorials for gun crime victims have been held, as the backdrop for parts of the new Playstation 3 game, Resistance: Fall of Man without permission.
David Marshall, the cathedral’s spokesman, said the church had received many emails supporting its stance and added that officials were set to meet tomorrow to discuss further action against Sony.’
‘China said Monday it was investigating the sale of fake blood protein, a potentially dangerous and widespread practice that underscores the country’s problems with product safety.
State media reported one death from use of the counterfeits, but authorities have not said whether anyone has fallen ill.
A shortage of albumin, a blood protein that chronically ill people often lack, triggered a countrywide investigation in March into whether fakes were being sold, China Central Television said.
The report centred on an inquiry in the northeastern province of Jilin, where 59 hospitals and pharmacies were sold more than 2,000 bottles of counterfeit blood protein. It did not say what the products were made of, but said they could “make a patient’s condition worsen and could cause death.”‘
‘An Australian man who didn’t notice he lost part of a finger in a bar fight has had the missing digit re-attached.
A Sydney police spokesman said the man left the pub after being involved in a fight and was walking down the street before realizing the top knuckle of his ring finger was missing.
Inspector Mark Kellert told The Sydney Morning Herald the 42-year-old man went to a nearby hospital while the missing finger was located in the pub’s bathroom. The body part taken to the hospital where doctors later re-attached it.
Kellert said no arrests had been made although “police are continuing their inquiries.”‘
‘More than a million animals, including elephants, buffaloes, ostriches, lions, giraffes and a rare type of stork, have been unexpectedly seen living and migrating across Southern Sudan, where no surveys of wildlife had been conducted for the past 25 years due to civil war in the region.
Decades of war wrought significant damage to the region, along with excessive hunting, desertification of the land and periodic droughts, so wildlife numbers were declining in the stricken country. Based on observations in other war-torn nations, conservationists thought the wildlife in Southern Sudan would be wiped out, but it wasn’t.
Officials told scientists they had seen herds of animals in the region.
“Although we were telling people that wildlife was still present in southern Sudan, nobody believed us,” said Maj. Gen. Alfred Akwoch, undersecretary of the Ministry of the Environment, Wildlife Conservation and Tourism for the government of Southern Sudan.’
‘Chicago Attorneys for a man who says he was beaten by a Chicago Fire Department paramedic two years ago released a videotape Monday that shows the man cowering as he takes blows to his face.
Other Fire Department personnel allegedly stood and watched throughout the beating, which happened in July 2005 outside Roseland Community Hospital.
The paramedic on the tape was reportedly upset that Robert Cole, 43 — who had called for an ambulance after feeling dizzy — changed his mind on the way to the hospital and decided he didn’t want medical attention.’
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‘A woman today recalled her “shock and embarrassment” at being flashed on a crowded train by a man she later identified as a senior judge.
As she glanced down at the bottom of her newspaper she noticed the “very kind looking” gentleman had exposed himself.
The woman spotted the man on four separate occasions on the rush-hour trip from Raynes Park, south-west London, to Waterloo, and later identified him by video as Lord Justice Richards, one of Britain’s most senior judges.’
‘With more than a billion people now sharing just 100 surnames, Chinese authorities are considering a landmark move to try to end the confusion, state media reported Tuesday.
Current Chinese law states that children are only allowed take the surname from either their mother or father, but the lack of variety means there are now 93 million people in China with the family name Wang. [..]
Under a new draft regulation released by the ministry of public security, parents will be able to combine their surnames for their children, a move that could open up 1.28 million new possibilities, the China Daily reported.’
‘New research shows that Australian children are becoming more anxious about themselves and the future of the planet.
The Australian Childhood Foundation survey of 600 children shows that more than half are scared there will not be enough water in the future.
The report also showed that more than a third of children were anxious about terrorism, were worried that one day they will have to fight in a war, and one in four believed the world will end before they reached adulthood.
The head of the foundation, Dr Joe Tucci, says this insecurity could have consequences for society.’
‘Threatened with a poisonous snake. That’s what police say happened during an argument in Sumter.
Now, the snake is missing and four people are under arrest. [..]
Police say the assault happened in the parking lot of Shuckers Grill and Bar in Sumter. They say the four men surrounded the victim and threatened him with the snake. Investigators say one of the men was bitten, but the victim went unharmed. The four men were later arrested.
Timothy Farmer, the man that was bitten, was treated at the hospital and released. He and two other men are being charged with second-degree lynching.’
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‘A would-be murderer who defecated on trains to “purge” himself of inner voices urging him to kill has been detained indefinitely in a secure mental hospital.
Over several months Bonney Eberendu, 36, ran up a £50,000 damages bill as teams of “specialist cleaners” were forced to withdraw rolling stock from service and spend hours cleaning up after him. [..]
Eberendu, of no fixed address, who has a previous conviction for blackmail involving threats to cut off his victim’s fingers, later told police he had spent years hearing “voices in his head”.
They caused him “such distress he wanted to murder a woman or a child by frenziedly stabbing them”.
[..] “But he didn’t carry out an act of murder because by defecating and smearing his excrement he purged himself of the urge to kill.”‘
‘The US military has embarked on a new and risky strategy in Iraq by arming Sunni insurgents in the hope that they will tackle al-Qaida operatives in Iraq.
The US high command this month gave permission to its officers on the ground to negotiate arms deals with tribal elders and other local leaders. Arms, ammunition, body armour and other equipment, as well as cash, pickup trucks and fuel, have already been handed over in return for promises to turn on al-Qaida and not attack US troops.
The US military in Baghdad is trying to portray the move as arming disenchanted Sunnis rising up in their neighbourhoods against their former allies, al-Qaida and its foreign fighters. But the reality on the ground is more complex, with little sign that the US will be able to control the weapons once they are handed over.’
‘Surgery was performed on Sunday to remove a coconut from the body of a man who was sodomised with the fruit during an attack by a gang of men.
Ste Madeleine police are now investigating the case, in which the 27-year-old victim was found at the side of a canefield road at Golconda Village, near San Fernando.
Police were told that the man was seen drinking alcohol in the hours before he was found, and a group of men who picked him up are being sought.’
‘Most people know that nerves work by passing electrical currents from cell to cell. But you might be surprised to learn that no one knows exactly how anesthetics stop nerves from carrying pain signals.
That’s why two scientists believe that we really don’t know how nerves work after all.
According to their controversial theory, electricity is just a side effect of how nerves really operate: by conducting high-density waves of pressure that resemble sound reverberating through a pipe. [..]
The theory has not been well received. [..]’
‘Middle School student Kyleray Katherman had a hunch something was amiss with the school’s drinking fountain water. And right he was.
For an English assignment, he tested the bacteria content at four water fountains and one toilet to challenge a ban on students from bringing bottled water to class. It seems some were using it to sneak in alcohol.
Guess which was cleaner? It wasn’t the water fountains.
He then asked students where they would prefer to get their water. That wasn’t the fountains, either.
Classmates, teachers, administrators and board members said they had no idea.’
‘Calgary police handed jaywalking tickets to homeless people evacuated from a shelter Thursday morning, upsetting residents and the centre’s executive director.
People inside the Drop-In Centre were told to leave after the discovery of an electrical problem. Executive director Dermot Baldwin estimates about 50 residents were given tickets after they exited the building.
“You’ve got hundreds of people who’ve been evacuated from the building and the police are giving out jaywalking tickets,” he said. “It’s not a helpful thing. It’s not a service to the people, that’s for sure.”
He said many of those ticketed, especially the mentally ill, won’t be able to afford to pay the $57 fine and will likely have to go to jail.’
