No image available
/ 10 January 2006
A mouse took fiery revenge on a man who threw it into a pile of burning leaves by burning his house down. The flaming mouse ran back into the wooden house of 81-year-old Luciano Mares, in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, setting it afire and virtually destroying the building.
United States Vice-President Dick Cheney was expected to be released from hospital on Monday after being taken in for treatment overnight suffering shortness of breath, his office said. Cheney was retaining fluid in connection with medication he was taking for a foot problem, a spokesperson said.
First came the cracking noise, then a bit of dust from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Paul Cunha’s ”magnificent morning” on Africa’s highest peak was over. ”We started hearing some yelling,” he recalled. ”You could see some rocks starting to fall,” the 45-year-old said on Sunday from his bed at Massachusetts General Hospital. ”People were yelling ‘rock, run, watch out!”’
Having waged a long and largely successful war against its prolific graffiti artists, New York is seeking to disarm the city’s hold-out "spray-painting punks" once and for all. Since January 1, a raft of new restrictions have come into force, including raising from 18 to 21 the age at which it is legal to possess "graffiti instruments".
An American teenage amputee whose prosthetic leg was stolen has recovered the artificial limb after it was apparently placed in her yard by a remorseful thief, police said on Friday. In November, burglars broke into the Los Angeles area home of 16-year-old Melissa Huff, stealing money and other valuables, including her prosthetic leg.
Microsoft released a security fix for a recently discovered flaw in its Windows operating system several days early, in a bid to foil hackers trying to exploit the vulnerability. The software giant released the security ”patch” on Thursday, ahead of its original plan to distribute the update on January 10.
Motorola will soon begin selling web-enabled cellphones that feature easy access to Google’s search engine by clicking on an icon, the world’s second-largest maker of cellphones said. The company said it will integrate a Google icon on to certain internet-optimised handsets that will be distributed starting in the first quarter of this year.
An ordinary fruit sticker that mysteriously ended up on a bill could spur currency collectors to bid up to 1 000 times the bill’s face value at an auction on Friday. The flawed bill bears a red, green and yellow Del Monte sticker next to Andrew Jackson’s portrait.
The pace of China’s economic growth poses a dire threat for the planet unless Beijing and other industrial countries change their outdated model of production and consumption, an environmental activist warned. ”Our global civilisation today is on an economic path that is environmentally unsustainable,” said Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute.
Wal-Mart Stores is shutting down the system that creates movie recommendations on its shopping website after it linked a Planet of the Apes DVD to films about famous black Americans, including Martin Luther King Jr. Under a ”similar items” section, the DVD set’s page linked shoppers to four films about the lives of King, actress Dorothy Dandridge, boxer Jack Johnson and singer Tina Turner.
World computer chip leader Intel unveiled on Thursday a new processor designed to turn a personal computer into a living room multimedia centre. Intel’s dual-core Viiv processor will be installed in PCs by leading producers including Dell, Sony, LG and Acer, ”from today and in the coming weeks,” said Intel chief executive Paul Otellini.
Zeta again strengthened into a tropical storm on Thursday and could break the record for the storm lasting the longest into January since record keeping began in 1851. Zeta is the 27th and final named storm in a tumultuous, record-breaking hurricane season that officially ended more than a month ago.
Producers of half the world’s greenhouse gases are angling for more private investment to create cleaner energy technologies and help slow global warming. The White House said its talks with Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea will enhance rather than replace the Kyoto climate treaty that President George Bush rejected because of its mandatory cuts in carbon dioxide, methane and other gases.
While video, especially the portable kind, is expected to make the big splash at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, there is also a lot happening with devices that combine satellite radio and portable music players. Pioneer Electronics and Samsung Electronics introduced MP3 players that also include satellite radio service from XM Satellite Radio Holdings.
Rival Google may be nipping at its heels, but Microsoft wasn’t flashing any defeatist signs as it showcased its latest plans to help make living in the digital world safer, easier and more fun. ”Consumers are getting more and more connected, and software is at the centre of that,” Gates said on Wednesday.
The case has it all — money, power, an international manhunt and a hit by a killer carrying a gun along with a dozen long-stemmed pink roses. On Thursday, nearly 19 years after Lita Sullivan was fatally shot on the doorstep of her townhouse in a wealthy neighbourhood, her husband, James Sullivan, once one of the FBI’s ”Most Wanted” fugitives, will go on trial for murder.
A sold-out Hurricane Katrina bus tour, promising passengers a look at some of the city’s most misery-stricken spots, was to make its inaugural run on Wednesday morning. Passengers were told the bus would take them past the Superdome, the Convention Centre and neighbourhoods damaged by Katrina and the subsequent flooding.
Cheerleaders catapult in the air, climb human pyramids and catch their tumbling teammates as they fall to the ground. They also make lots of emergency room visits. A study published on Tuesday in the journal Pediatrics indicates cheerleading injuries more than doubled from 1990 until 2002.
Jailed former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein told two of his lawyers that if he is sentenced to death for war crimes, he would rather die by firing squad than by hanging, The Washington Times said on Tuesday. ”I don’t value this life that much. Every human being has his time to go,” Saddam was reported as saying.
A new security flaw exposing hundreds of millions of Windows PCs to easy infiltration by hackers worsened over the New Year weekend, with Microsoft failing to issue an official patch on Monday. The flaw stems from the way the Windows operating system treats image files.
Reigning Olympic champion Tristan Gale and other members of the United States women’s skeleton team have accused US coach Tim Nardiello of sexual harassment, The New York Times reported on Saturday. Nardiello denied the claims but the US Bobsled and Skeleton Federation has decided that Nardiello will remain as coach through the Torino Winter Olympics in February.
Revellers around the world rang in the New Year with the usual fireworks and fanfare accompanied by calls for peace from the United States and Iraqi presidents. Hundreds of thousands crowded amid tight security into New York’s Times Square and paid special tribute to those who brought relief to the hurricane-devastated city of New Orleans.
No image available
/ 29 December 2005
Tiger Woods makes the turn on Friday onto the back side of 30, celebrating his landmark birthday with 10 major titles and a fighting chance at surpassing Jack Nicklaus’ career record in the next decade. World number one Woods, in the midst of a six-week break until late January, has practically owned the golf world since turning professional in 1996, a decade of dominance unmatched in the history of golf
No image available
/ 29 December 2005
Distinguishing fine wine from plonk is usually left to connoisseurs and winemakers, who rely on their senses, rough chemical measurements and the whims of nature to produce an exceptional tipple. But a professor, working with industry scientists in Chile, is hoping that computer models will identify the traits of good wine — eventually helping vintners produce more of it.
No image available
/ 26 December 2005
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has become the most popular member of the Bush administration and a potential candidate to succeed her boss in the White House, even as Americans lose confidence in the president she serves and patience with the Iraq war she helped launch.
No image available
/ 24 December 2005
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed on Friday to offer Iraq -million to help its post-war economic recovery, the first loan of its kind for the conflict-torn country. The loan is designed to support the Iraqi government’s economic programme over the next 15 months.
No image available
/ 24 December 2005
The new year has been postponed — but not for long. A leap second will be inserted in the world’s clocks just before midnight — Greenwich mean time — on New Year’s Eve, the United States Naval Observatory reported on Friday. That means midnight GMT will occur one second later than it would have otherwise.
No image available
/ 24 December 2005
A Manhattan man’s holiday spirits soared to celestial heights on Friday when a judge gave him permission to change his name to Jesus Christ. Jose Luis Espinal (42) said he was ”happy” and ”grateful” that the judge approved the change, effective immediately.
No image available
/ 23 December 2005
The city’s subways rumbled to life just after midnight on Friday, ending a crippling, three-day strike that brought the nation’s largest public transportation system to a standstill. Faced with mounting fines and the rising wrath of millions of commuters, the city transit union on Thursday sent its members back to work.
No image available
/ 23 December 2005
A teenager can get a new nose, a woman a more ample cleavage or become a virgin again — virtually any operation can be supplied for this year’s holidays. While the United States is a very religious country, it is also the one that lives up to a reputation of Christmas extravagance.
No image available
/ 22 December 2005
New York transit worker union leaders could face jail time on Thursday if they don’t call off their strike and a judge makes good his threat, as New Yorkers brave yet a third day of long, cold walks and traffic jams. The Transport Workers’ Union is already being fined -million for each day of the action.
No image available
/ 22 December 2005
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday agreed to cancel ,3-billion owed by 19 of the world’s poorest countries, after reports that it was back-tracking on the debt-relief plan sparked an outcry. The IMF had previously said it wanted one last ”spot check” of the nations’ economic policies.