Today's Odd News - Reuters News Headlines - Yahoo! News:
|
|
American, Iraqi "lawn chair" balloonists lift off
Sat,14 Jul 2012 12:41 PM PDT
Reuters - BEND, Oregon (Reuters) - Two men sitting in lawn chairs tied to a cluster of 350 helium-filled balloons lifted into the Oregon sky on Saturday in a bid to break the Guinness World Record for the longest two-man cluster balloon flight. A crowd estimated at more than 1,000 people watched as Kent Couch and his flying companion Fareed Lafta, of Iraq, lifted off from the parking lot of Couch's Stop & Go Mini Mart in Bend, Oregon at 10:21 a.m. local time Saturday. They soared into clear skies with light winds. ... Full Story | Top |
Berlin gripped by family feud over sausages
Thu,12 Jul 2012 03:26 AM PDT
Reuters - BERLIN (Reuters) - Call it the battle of the bangers. A family feud over sausage succession rights is adding some spice to Berlin's summer. This week, after months of bitter legal wrangling with his mother, Mario Ziervogel opened a fast-food outlet serving Berlin's famous dish, the currywurst - fried pork sausage sliced up and smothered in ketchup and curry powder. His shop is just a few blocks away from his family's restaurant, Konnopke's Imbiss, one of the city's most famous eateries because it was the first to introduce the currywurst to then-communist East Berlin in 1960. ... Full Story | Top |
New app rescues people from bad dates
Tue,10 Jul 2012 02:16 PM PDT
Reuters - NEW YORK (Reuters) - Most people have been there, trapped on an awkward date that is going nowhere. But relief could be on the way with a new app that provides an incoming rescue call. The Bad Date Rescue app, which was launched by the dating website eHarmony.com this week, lets users arrange for a call to appear on their iPhone to graciously allow them to bow out if a date isn't going well. "There are all sorts of reasons for why people would want to get out of a date," said Arvind Mishra, director of product management at eHarmony. ... Full Story | Top |
EU farmers deliver moo-ving "milk lake" protest
Tue,10 Jul 2012 12:14 PM PDT
Reuters - BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Dairy farmers sprayed thousands of liters of milk outside the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday, creating a "milk lake" to protest against low prices. Protesters from around Europe, including Italy, Germany, Ireland and France blocked off a square with tractors and statues of cows brightly painted in the national colors of EU member states. One milk producer perched on a haystack and used an industrial-sized hose to spray the contents of a milk truck into a makeshift tarpaulin pool, splashing demonstrators, spectators and reporters. ... Full Story | Top |
Batman could fly, but he'd crash and die
Mon,9 Jul 2012 11:21 AM PDT
Reuters -  LONDON (Reuters) - Holy crash landing Batman! The crime-fighting caped crusader could fly but if he did, he would smash into the ground and probably die, a group of British physics students have calculated. Dashing the dreams of comic fans across the world, four students from the University of Leicester said that while Batman could glide using his cape as he does in the 2005 film "Batman Begins", his landing would almost certainly prove fatal. ...
Full Story | Top |
On a New York island, firefighters set homes ablaze
Fri,6 Jul 2012 12:49 PM PDT
Reuters -  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Firefighters will spend the next two weeks setting homes ablaze on a small island in New York Harbor for one purpose: Saving lives. Eighteen abandoned townhouses on New York City's Governors Island, formerly housing for members of the Coast Guard, have been turned into a setting for roaring fires in experiments aimed to develop new strategies firefighters can use to save lives. In one on Tuesday, a match was lit near newspaper in the basement of a fully-furnished home. ...
Full Story | Top |
Fetish fashion takes over the Berlin underground
Fri,6 Jul 2012 06:15 AM PDT
Reuters - BERLIN (Reuters) - Riders of the Berlin subway have been taking trips this week that go far beyond the hip German capital's already outlandish standards, as models in latex wear, fetish gear and "spirit hoods" staged a fashion show on a train. Girls wearing all-leather sado-masochist bodysuits tottered through the train car, followed by male models wearing nothing but ornamental metallic sculptures around their groin. Models in neon tulle dangled from the subway poles. ... Full Story | Top |
Four held over Spanish medieval manuscript theft
Wed,4 Jul 2012 09:34 AM PDT
Reuters - MADRID (Reuters) - A former church caretaker, his wife, son and another woman have been arrested in connection with last year's disappearance of a priceless medieval text from the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in northwest Spain, police said on Wednesday. The Codex Calixtinus, a 12th century collection of sermons and liturgical passages, vanished from a safe deposit box in the cathedral, the endpoint of the ancient pilgrimage route the Camino de Santiago. ... Full Story | Top |
Doctors remove 51-pound tumor from New Jersey woman
Tue,3 Jul 2012 04:05 PM PDT
Reuters - NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Jersey surgeons removed a rapidly growing, 51-pound (23-kg) cancerous tumor from a woman who had delayed treatment for more than a month until she became eligible for health insurance, her doctor said on Tuesday. "She was a skinny lady with a huge belly. I mean it looked like she was literally pregnant with triplets," said Dr. David Dupree, who led the surgery on the 65-year-old woman, at Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, New Jersey. ... Full Story | Top |
Brazilian club asks fans to give blood
Mon,2 Jul 2012 03:17 PM PDT
Reuters - SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian football club Vitoria has removed its trademark red hoops from its shirt and told supporters it will add the color back gradually as fans donate blood. The campaign, entitled "My Blood is Red and Black", is named after the club's traditional colors and comes amid a nationwide drive to get more Brazilians to give blood for transfusions. "We wanted to do more than just ask fans to give blood," said Vitoria's president Alexi Portela Junior. ... Full Story | Top |
Fed-up Lebanese protest against protests
Fri,29 Jun 2012 04:06 AM PDT
Reuters - BEIRUT (Reuters) - If you can't beat them, join them. Dozens of Lebanese, exasperated by rampant tire-burning protests across the country, rolled out tires and stopped traffic in the capital Beirut on Thursday. Police armed with automatic rifles quickly deployed down the street, looking baffled at the small crowd raising the banner "We are tired", and blocking traffic with colorfully decorated tires. Angry motorists honked their horns. ... Full Story | Top |
Korean shamanism finds new life in modern era
Thu,28 Jun 2012 09:20 PM PDT
Reuters - INCHEON, SOUTH KOREA (Reuters) - Colorful flags snapped in the sea breeze as more than a dozen Korean shamans, dressed in bright colors, danced and chanted prayers in front of a huge cow's head stuck to a trident. The ceremony on a ship was designed to exorcise demons that threaten fishermen and bring good luck to everybody on board. The presence of several hundred spectators underlined how the ages-old trance rituals were going strong again, having been shunned as recently as 30 years ago. "People are trying to understand more, learn more, and see more. ... Full Story | Top |
Wandering Cape Cod bear captured in Boston suburb
Wed,27 Jun 2012 04:11 AM PDT
Reuters -  BOSTON (Reuters) - He's baaack: A male black bear captured on Cape Cod earlier this month, where it was tranquilized and moved to central Massachusetts, showed up again on Tuesday just six miles from downtown Boston. State officials said they had captured the bear in a tree in the Chestnut Hill area of Brookline, just west of Boston, and confirmed it was the same bear which roamed the Cape for about two weeks before being captured and relocated on June 12. The bear was identified by a tag placed in its ear. It had probably traveled about 100 miles. ...
Full Story | Top |
Venezuelan tribe angry at "sacred" stone in Berlin
Tue,26 Jun 2012 11:29 AM PDT
Reuters -  BERLIN (Reuters) - Wolfgang von Schwarzenfeld's sculptures in a Berlin park were meant to promote world peace, but the 79-year-old German now finds himself at war with a Venezuelan tribe which accuses him of stealing a sacred pink stone known to them as "Grandmother". The Venezuelan government is championing the Pemon Indians of the "Gran Sabana" region by demanding the return of the polished stone from Berlin's Tiergarten park - putting the German government in something of a dilemma. ...
Full Story | Top |
Reading offers Brazilian prisoners quicker escape
Mon,25 Jun 2012 09:26 AM PDT
Reuters - BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil will offer inmates in its crowded federal penitentiary system a novel way to shorten their sentences: four days less for every book they read. Inmates in four federal prisons holding some of Brazil's most notorious criminals will be able to read up to 12 works of literature, philosophy, science or classics to trim a maximum 48 days off their sentence each year, the government announced. ... Full Story | Top |
Spaniards stomp their heels at bailed-out bankers
Fri,22 Jun 2012 08:27 AM PDT
Reuters -  MADRID (Reuters) - A flamenco troupe bursts into a bank branch in Seville in southern Spain, lampooning bankers in dance and song. Further north, in Galicia, 50 men dressed in prison garb march into a bank shouting slogans against costly state bailouts for lenders. In Barcelona and Madrid, a growing organization of elderly protesters stage regular "occupations" of bank branches, wearing reflective vests and carrying signs decrying the bailouts. ...
Full Story | Top |
Pakistan cracks down on pot-bellied police
Fri,22 Jun 2012 06:14 AM PDT
Reuters - ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan is cracking down on portly policemen after only a quarter of the 19,000 officers in the Punjab province passed a fitness test. Policemen in the South Asian nation are widely seen as corrupt and ineffective. Now their weight is coming under the spotlight as well. The plump police, responsible for safeguarding the most populous province, were warned in letters to trim their waist-lines to the regulation 38 inches by the end of the month, local newspapers said on Friday. Those who fail may be removed from field duties, The News reported. ... Full Story | Top |
Zimbabwe MPs surrender to scalpel in AIDS fight
Fri,22 Jun 2012 06:12 AM PDT
Reuters - HARARE (Reuters) - Forty-four members of Zimbabwe's parliament were circumcised on Friday as part of a national HIV/AIDS awareness campaign. In a rare show of political unity, the MPs from President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's rival MDC camp chatted calmly with reporters as they queued at a clinic set up inside the parliament complex. "When I went in there I was a bit scared but after they had explained the process I felt at ease," 53-year-old Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) MP Blessing Chebundo told Reuters within minutes of the operation. ... Full Story | Top |
Breast cancer survivor wins right to swim topless in Seattle
Thu,21 Jun 2012 09:38 PM PDT
Reuters - SEATTLE (Reuters) - A woman who survived a double mastectomy and says wearing a bathing suit covering her chest causes searing pain has won a battle to swim topless at Seattle's public pools. Jodi Jaecks, a 47-year-old fitness buff who had surgery to remove both breasts last year to treat cancer, was initially denied permission this year to swim topless by staff at Seattle's Medgar Evers pool. According to city spokesperson Dewey Potter, a sign at the pool stated, "This is a family recreation facility. Please dress and act accordingly. ... Full Story | Top |
U.S. close to seizing disputed dinosaur skeleton
Thu,21 Jun 2012 05:41 AM PDT
Reuters -  (Reuters) - U.S. authorities said they expect this week to seize a 70-million-year-old dinosaur skeleton that was discovered in Mongolia more 65 years ago and now is stored in New York and at the center of an international legal dispute. A federal judge in New York has signed a warrant that allows the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to seize the skeleton of the Tyrannosaurus bataar - an Asian cousin of the North American Tyrannosaurus rex - from Dallas-based Heritage Auctions. "We should have it by the end of the week," said Luis Martinez, a spokesman for U.S. ...
Full Story | Top |
Norway men asked to don condoms for "Sex Hour"
Thu,21 Jun 2012 05:11 AM PDT
Reuters - OSLO (Reuters) - A Norwegian sexual health charity has asked the men of the country to don condoms for a "sex hour" on Thursday evening to raise public awareness about safe-sex. Non-profit sex education organization RFSU would like Norwegian men to tear themselves away from the television coverage of the Euro 2012 soccer quarter final game between Czech Republic and Portugal for an hour of prophylactic-protected pleasure with a willing partner starting at 1900 GMT. ... Full Story | Top |
World's largest lasagne marks Italy visit
Wed,20 Jun 2012 12:57 PM PDT
Reuters - KRAKOW, Poland (Reuters) - A Polish restaurant in Krakow has set a Guinness World Record for cooking the biggest ever lasagne in honor of the Italy soccer team staying nearby. Italy are in Poland for the 2012 European soccer Championship and have reached the quarter-finals. The lasagne weighed in at more than 4.8 metric tons (5.29 tons) and took 10 hours to bake before being sliced into 10,000 portions. ... Full Story | Top |
Same-sex couple wed to mark comic book superhero marriage
Wed,20 Jun 2012 12:43 PM PDT
Reuters -  NEW YORK (Reuters) - A same-sex couple tied the knot at a comic-book store in New York on Wednesday to celebrate the first gay nuptials in the superhero world in a new edition from Marvel Comics. Midtown Comics delayed the opening of its downtown store for the wedding of Scott Everhart, a healthcare site manager from Columbus, Ohio, and 33-year-old architect Jason Welker. ...
Full Story | Top |
Indonesia special forces to toughen up tax collectors
Tue,19 Jun 2012 09:41 PM PDT
Reuters - JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian tax collectors will get three weeks of military physical training from the president's security forces in an effort to build up the muscles and moral fiber of an organization seen as ineffective and corrupt. Indonesians were shocked last year by revelations of tax official Gayus Tambunan, who bribed his way out of jail while awaiting conviction for taking kickbacks to cut companies' taxes. "It is very important to build character," said Dedi Rudaedi, a spokesman at the tax office. ... Full Story | Top |
Erotic hotel's guests oblivious to G20 summit stress
Tue,19 Jun 2012 08:24 PM PDT
Reuters - LOS CABOS, Mexico (Reuters) - Just a few hundreds yards from where global powers worked around the clock this week to ease Europe's debt crisis and revive the world economy, the customers at one hotel were oblivious to the stress and letting it all hang out. The adults-only Desire Resort and Spa combined business and pleasure as usual, even as leaders from the world's biggest economies took over Mexico's Los Cabos beach resort, troops patrolled the streets and beaches and Navy vessels sat just off the coast. ... Full Story | Top |
U.S. sues to return Tyrannosaurus skeleton to Mongolia
Tue,19 Jun 2012 06:27 AM PDT
Reuters - NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. authorities filed a lawsuit seeking to return to Mongolia a 70-million-year-old piece of its cultural heritage - fangs and all. The skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus bataar - a smaller Asian cousin of the Tyrannosaurus rex - has been the subject of a months-long legal battle and is now being sought by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who announced the federal government's lawsuit on Monday. ... Full Story | Top |
Mexico ruling party candidate floats new vote ploy: sex
Mon,18 Jun 2012 07:46 PM PDT
Reuters -  ATLIXCO, Mexico (Reuters) - Sex sells - at least that's what the ruling party candidate is hoping as she seeks to rescue her fading chances in Mexico's upcoming presidential election. Sitting well behind the frontrunner, Josefina Vazquez Mota of the National Action Party (PAN) has appealed to women voters to use their wiles to ensure their husbands vote on July 1. First she urged them on her Twitter account to withhold "cuchi cuchi", or hanky panky, for a month if the husbands don't vote. Then, challenged by a disgruntled man, she upped the ante on Monday. ...
Full Story | Top |
Wolves kill worker at Swedish wildlife park
Sun,17 Jun 2012 09:22 PM PDT
Reuters - STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A pack of wolves attacked and killed a worker in their enclosure at one of Sweden's most popular wildlife parks on Sunday, said police, who did not know what had triggered the attack on the 30-year-old woman. "She was so badly hurt in the attack that she died of her injuries," said a police spokesman for the Ostergotland district, where the Kolmarden park is located. "We do not know why they attacked." Police remained on the scene to investigate the incident at the biggest wildlife park in the Nordic region, located around 150 km (93 miles) south of Stockholm. ... Full Story | Top |
"Forest boy" made up story: German police
Fri,15 Jun 2012 09:17 AM PDT
Reuters -  BERLIN (Reuters) - A young English-speaking male who showed up in Berlin last year saying he had lived in woods for five years with his father and knew only his first name and age has now acknowledged making up the story, German officials said on Friday. The case made international headlines and the young male was dubbed "forest boy" when police first released his story. ...
Full Story | Top |
Bulgaria backs battered Brussels with metro stop
Fri,15 Jun 2012 04:46 AM PDT
Reuters - SOFIA (Reuters) - The European Union's reputation may be taking a battering from the debt crisis, but Brussels can at least be grateful for a vote of confidence from its newest and poorest member, Bulgaria. Sofia's city council voted to rename one of the stops on a new metro line through the capital "European Union" in a gesture of thanks for helping with financing the project. The EU is paying more than 80 percent of the 1 billion levs ($644 million) costs for the second line of the Sofia underground, said Malina Edreva, who heads the ruling GERB party's group on the city council. ... Full Story | Top |
Kozlowski's $6,000 shower curtain to find new home
Fri,15 Jun 2012 02:44 AM PDT
Reuters - NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dennis Kozlowski's infamous $6,000 shower curtain will soon have a new home. The custom gold-and-burgundy curtain, which helped turn Kozlowski into a poster boy for corporate greed, has been held in storage by prosecutors since before his conviction in 2005. On Thursday, a New York judge ruled it should be released to Tyco International Ltd, the firm Kozlowski, as chief executive, looted of more than $100 million. ... Full Story | Top |
Arizona fights highway dust storms with haiku
Fri,15 Jun 2012 02:42 AM PDT
Reuters - PHOENIX (Reuters) - Dust storms that turn day into night are a hazard to Arizona drivers. But this year, authorities are throwing down a novel literary challenge to raise awareness of the dangers. The Arizona Department of Transportation is inviting budding poets to take to Twitter and pen haikus - a concise Japanese literary form consisting of 17 syllables - to highlight the peril from the summer storms, known as haboobs. ... Full Story | Top |
Public swearing outlawed in Massachusetts town
Wed,13 Jun 2012 12:47 AM PDT
Reuters - (Reuters) - Lobbing F-bombs and other curses across the leafy streets of Middleborough, Massachusetts is now an offense punishable by a $20 ticket. The ordinance outlawing public swearing, approved by town residents on Monday night, was the brainchild of Mimi DuPhily, a member of the town's beautification committee. She pushed for the law after becoming upset over loud swearing by teenagers hanging around the small town about 50 miles south of Boston. "We're not talking about just conversation but screaming it across the street," DuPhily, 63, a former selectman, said in an interview on ... Full Story | Top |
Lungs found on L.A. sidewalk not human: coroner
Tue,12 Jun 2012 08:46 PM PDT
Reuters - LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A pair of lungs found on a Los Angeles-area sidewalk over the weekend came from an animal and were not human as initially feared, authorities said on Tuesday. The lungs were discovered by a woman walking in an area just outside the city limits on Sunday night, a Los Angeles County Sheriff's spokeswoman said. The woman alerted police, who turned the organs over to the Los Angeles County Coroner for analysis. "We have examined the lungs and determined that they are not human and not of forensic value," coroner's investigator Lieutenant Fred Corral told Reuters. ... Full Story | Top |
Australian court rules dingo killed baby, ends 32-year mystery
Tue,12 Jun 2012 04:00 AM PDT
Reuters - CANBERRA (Reuters) - A 32-year legal mystery over the death of a baby in Australia's outback came to an end on Tuesday when a coroner found a dingo was responsible for killing infant Azaria Chamberlain, a case that split national opinion and attracted global headlines. The coroner's finding ends a three-decade fight for justice by Azaria's parents, Michael Chamberlain and Lindy Chamberlain, who was jailed for three years over her daughter's death before she was later cleared. ... Full Story | Top |
Bulgaria puts "vampire" skeleton on display
Mon,11 Jun 2012 09:36 AM PDT
Reuters -  SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's history museum plans to display a "vampire" skeleton next week after unearthing the 700-year-old remains of two men stabbed through the chest with iron rods. Archaeologists, excavating a monastery near the Black Sea city of Sozopol, discovered the skeletons which were buried in a pagan ritual that they said was aimed at keeping the men from turning into vampires. "This was a pagan belief widespread in the Bulgarian lands in the 12th to 14th centuries. People were very superstitious then," National History Museum head Bozhidar Dimitrov said. ...
Full Story | Top |
Cameron left 8-year-old daughter in pub
Mon,11 Jun 2012 08:44 AM PDT
Reuters -  LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron accidentally left his daughter behind in a country pub after Sunday lunchtime drinks with friends following a mix-up over which car she was meant to be going home in, his Downing Street office said on Monday. Cameron was swiftly reunited with 8-year-old Nancy, one of his three young children, but the incident will add fuel to critics who accuse him of being overly fond of relaxing, or "chillaxing" as he has called it, when not dealing with affairs of state. ...
Full Story | Top |
Can bolting bovine replace Germany's oracle octopus?
Mon,11 Jun 2012 06:58 AM PDT
Reuters - BERLIN (Reuters) - Could a runaway celebrity cow replace the late Paul the "oracle" octopus as the next animal with the ability to foretell the fortunes of Germany's national soccer team? German football fans were delighted that Yvonne the cow's decision to tip Portugal to beat Germany at the Euro 2012 soccer championship in the Ukrainian city of Lviv on Saturday turned out to be wrong. ... Full Story | Top |
Blow darts just a breeze for Japanese old folk
Sun,10 Jun 2012 07:39 PM PDT
Reuters - TOKYO (Reuters) - In the concrete jungle of Tokyo, some 600 retirees have gathered to fight for supremacy - with blow darts. The ancient Borneo rain forest tradition of blow darting is picking up new fans thousands of kilometers away in Japan, where it is a rapidly growing sport among the nation's elderly. In just five years, nationwide membership in a blow dart club has tripled, on target to hit 30,000 members this year. The average age of enthusiasts is 70. ... Full Story | Top |
Corrected: On U.S. car license plates, DAMNIML8 is OK, TOILET is not
Fri,8 Jun 2012 03:01 PM PDT
Reuters -  (Reuters) - When Whitney Calk sought a personalized license plate from a Tennessee state agency to tout her vegetarian ideals, she was annoyed when she was told no. Turns out the letters ILVTOFU can be construed to mean more than enjoying bean curd. "When I see T-O-F-U, I see tofu," says Calk, who requested the so-called vanity plate from the Tennessee Department of Revenue last September. "I can't control the way anyone else interprets that," said Calk, 26, an animal rights activist from Murfreesboro, Tennessee. ...
Full Story | Top |
| |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment