Bumpy road ahead: Mexican coastal highway cracks up and slides 300ft down mountainside into sea after earthquake

A cement truck driver is lucky to be alive after the coastal highway he was driving on in Mexico cracked and sunk some 300 feet down a mountainside into the sea near the U.S. border.

The driver was rescued by heavy machinery before his truck, along with a 300-yard section of the road, which leads to port city Ensenada on the Baja California peninsula, slid into the Pacific Ocean.

While it remains unclear what caused the landslide, fractures in the Tijuana-Ensenada toll road were seen after several small earthquakes ranging from 1.3 to 4.3 in magnitude shook the area on December 19, according to some media reports. By Saturday morning huge cracks appeared in the cliff-side, exacerbated by heavy rain, before it slid into the sea.

The landslide caused gaping holes, one more than 40 feet deep and 200 feet long.

The collapse occurred about 58 miles south of the American border, closing the scenic road near the San Miguel toll booth.

Some media reports suggest that the road may remain closed for up to a year with vehicles advised to use a smaller, alternate freeway.

Gilberto Hirata, the mayor of Ensenada, has blamed the national road authority CAPUFE for not closing the road sooner after pictures and reports of fractures were posted on social media according to SanDiego6.com.

He also said that discussions were underway to build a replacement highway after years of recurring damage on the route.

The day before the landslide, the road authority and the Ministry of Communications and Transport announced that work to strengthen the asphalt had begun on sections of the troublesome highway in sloped areas according to El Mexicano.

The road closure could prove devastating for Ensenada which is home to the third busiest cruise ship terminal in Mexico and the major access point to Baja by sea.

Father, son die in Christmas Day diving accident

A FATHER and his 15-year-old son died while they were testing new diving equipment they received as Christmas presents.

The bodies of Darrin Spivey, 35, and his son Dillon Sanchez were found on Christmas night in an underwater cave they were exploring in Hernando County, Florida, according to the Tampa Tribune.

The newspaper said the pair arrived at the Chassahowitzka Wildlife Refuge around 11am on Wednesday to dive into the 300-foot (91-metre) Eagles Nest Sink – a deceivingly complex cave system which was not recommended for novices.

Spivey’s fiancé Holly King first became concerned that afternoon, when the two had failed to return and she couldn’t reach Spivey on his mobile phone.

Ms King drove herself to the dive site and found their empty car. She alerted the authorities around 7pm.

Recovery divers began searching the waters an hour later and found both bodies by midnight. Sanchez’s body was discovered just inside the cave at 67 feet and his father’s further at 127 feet.

"It was very unfortunate," Assistant Hernando County Fire Chief Kevin Carroll told the Tribune. "Our hearts and prayers go out to the family and friends."

Kiki Lin stuffed cat in jar, posted picture on Facebook and now faces animal abuse charges

A UNIVERSITY student has been charged with animal abuse after punishing her cat by stuffing her in a jar and then posting it on Facebook.

Kiki Lin from Taiwan, posted the image of her cat, which is also named Kiki, saying she did it because it was a "punishment for misbehaving".

In one of the worst cases of animal cruelty, the cat is pictured with its face pushed against the sides of the jar and in distress. It is not known whether the cat could be heard crying for help from inside the jar.

Those who saw the image on Facebook slammed Miss Lin as an animal abuser. But she defended her actions saying they all had "too much time on their hands".

Miss Lin, who attends Taichung's Providence University, told The China Post that she has put her pet in the jar to experiment with different ways of taking it out with her. She claimed that she had only tried it once, but it didn't work because the trapped feline would not fit into a bag.

She told The China Post that her cat weighs in at 4kg, which was too heavy for her to put the cat in her handbag. She claimed that her experiment in using the large jar was reasonable and legitimate.

But when asked by the paper what she would say to her Facebook critics, she said: "I only have three words for them, ha ha ha."

After an investigation, the Taichung City Animal Protection and Health Inspection Office charged Miss Lin with animal protection law violations. If found guilty she could face a fine, and a year in jail.

The case has been referred for further investigation to the Taichung District Prosecutor's office. Lin, currently a Junior university student currently majoring in English, claims to love her cat more than her life. VIA

Flush with love: Wife returns to husband after he promises divorce court that he will build her a toilet

A wife has agreed not to divorce her husband after he promised a court he would get a proper toilet for their home. Savita Malviya, 27, is set to be reunited with her husband in the village of Mundlaana in India, along with her two children.

She and her husband Devkaran, 30, had been married for seven years, but a divorce court heard that Mrs Malviya had moved out to go back to live with her parents.

Mrs Malviya blamed the breakdown of the relationship on the lack of lack of toilet facilities, which she said gave her a 'deep sense of shame'.

Without a fully functioning toilet, the court heard that the family had been forced to answer the call of nature in the open, and that this became unbearable for Mrs Malviya. She filed a case with a local court seeking monthly maintenance for her children, and said that she would not go back to the house unless a toilet was installed.

Mr Malviya assured the court that he would provide a proper toilet in time for the next hearing on January 10. His wife agreed to return home as long as her conditions were met. The couple will now live together again, despite being separated for three years. Via

California Father pumps up the Boobs of both of his Daughters

Daddy's girls Charm and Brittani Niccole have both been given boob jobs - by their plastic surgeon father.

Brittani, 25, first had breast surgery for her 18th birthday and three years later her proud father gave her a new nose for her 21st.

Shockingly, Charm first went under her dad's knife at the tender age of ten when she had her protruding belly button reshaped.

And last month the marketing manager, also 25, had her first boob job taking her from a B to a full C.

The girls from fashionable Orange County on the outskirts of Los Angeles, California, are walking advertisements for their famous father, Dr Michael Niccole.

Smarty Ring Sends Smartphone Updates to Your Finger

One ring to rule them all — or at least manage all of your incoming smartphone alerts. That's the idea behind Smarty Ring, a Bluetooth-enabled wearable gadget that allows users to check smartphone alerts and manage incoming calls right from their finger.

Users can manage the settings for their Smarty Ring from a mobile app, and can even use the device as a watch, timer or phone finder. If a user walks more than 30 feet from his phone (sadly, a rare occurrence these days), the ring will beep to alert him that he's left something behind.

The stainless-steel ring has a 24-hour battery life. Android and iOS devices are all compatible, as long as they have Bluetooth 4.0 capabilities, according to Smarty Ring's Indiegogo page.

Users can manage the settings for their Smarty Ring from a mobile app, and can even use the device as a watch, timer or phone finder. If a user walks more than 30 feet from his phone (sadly, a rare occurrence these days), the ring will beep to alert him that he's left something behind.

The stainless-steel ring has a 24-hour battery life. Android and iOS devices are all compatible, as long as they have Bluetooth 4.0 capabilities, according to Smarty Ring's Indiegogo page.

A beautiful mind: Being attractive can give you better grades and more success at high school

Not being attractive as a teenager may have consequences far more reaching than a bruised ego and scribing the occasional bad poem.

A new study suggests that a pretty face can be a source of lifelong advantage - beginning at secondary school - according to a report prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families.

The report, 'In School, Good Looks Help and Good Looks Hurt (But They Mostly Help)' says that from high school onwards, people rate better-looking people higher in intelligence, personality, and potential for success — and this often creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The sociologists behind the study, Rachel Gordon (University of Illinois at Chicago) and Robert Crosnoe (University of Texas at Austin) also say women gain an eight per cent wage bonus for above-average looks and pay a four per cent wage penalty for below-average looks.

For men, the bonus is only four per cent. But the penalty for below-average looks is even higher than for women – a full 13 per cent.

Gordon and Crosnoe argue that 'lookism' creates inequalities comparable to those created by racism, sexism, and family background.

They wrote: '(In high school) youth rated as better looking get higher grades and are more likely to attain a college degree than their peers, setting the stage for better economic outcomes through adulthood.

In fact, the difference in GPA (grade point average) and college graduation rates between youth rated by others as attractive versus average in looks is similar to the differences in academic achievement between youth raised in two-parent versus single-parent families.'

Gordon and Crosnoe’s research suggests that there is a cumulative advantage to being considered attractive that continues to operate long after people’s high school cliques have dissolved.

They find that even when people are listening to phone calls, they tend to 'hear' more warmth and sociability from individuals they have been primed to think are attractive than from individuals who have been portrayed as unattractive.

However, the authors acknowledge that there are some disadvantages to the popularity that comes with being seen as attractive. For instance, they note: 'Youth rated as more physically attractive are more likely to date, have sexual partners, and drink heavily.

'These factors, in turn, have negative consequences for immediate grades and later college completion.'

They concede that a few studies have identified a beauty penalty for women in certain male-dominated occupations.

All in all, they maintain, above-average looks provide people with long-term advantages, while being unattractive is a source of disadvantage.

They suggest that parents and schools should pay more attention to countering the effects of lookism.

However, while sociologist Barbara Risman (University of Illinois/Chicago) applauded the quality of the research, she objected to any equation of lookism with racism.

She said: 'Although looks are in part inherited, babies who are eventually labeled unattractive children do not begin life with the same cumulative disadvantages of, say, African-Americans, who are disproportionately likely to grow up in impoverished communities with inferior schools.'

Ms Risman also reminds us that for men in particular, the disadvantages of being unattractive are often outweighed by other achievements as they age, while even the most attractive women face unfavorable comments on their looks as they age.

Justin Timberlake helps man propose at Louisville concert

Justin Timberlake helped a man propose to his girlfriend during his concert in Louisville last night (December 15). The 'Mirrors' singer invited Josh and Kim to join him on stage after he performed 20/20 Experience track 'That Girl' at the city's KFC Yum! Center.

"Josh called me earlier, he's got something he wants to tell you," Timberlake said, before Josh got down on one knee to propose to Kim.

She accepted his proposal, to the delight of the 22,000-strong crowd. Timberlake is currently taking his '20/20 Experience World Tour' around North America, before heading to the UK and Europe in 2014.

Jessica Biel recently said that she and Timberlake would like to have children "at some point".

Deep fried fish fingers? Chef plunges his hands into a vat of 200C boiling oil

When Prem Singh was asked to lend a helping hand frying fish at his family restaurant he took it rather too literally. The chef, 65, has become famed in the backstreets of Old Delhi for his unique ability to plunge his bare hands into searing cooking oil.

He regularly dips his fingers into a bubbling vat of oil, which is heated up to 200C, to pluck out the fried fish. But incredibly, the veteran fryer says he has never suffered any burns, blisters or ill affects.

Prem Singh said: 'I have been doing this for 25 years. It is just about experience. 'I put my hand into hot oil once. Later I did it again. I soon realized that the hot oil did not do me any harm.'

Each evening Singh's Ganesh eatery has as many onlookers as it does customers.  Singh said: 'Everyone wants me to dip my hand into hot oil. They want to see how I do it.' Singh's father started the small shop called Ganesh in Old Delhi in 1960.

They sold just fried fish, but over the years, Singh has moved to cooking other Indian delicacies too. Singhsays he sells over a hundred kilograms of fried fish each day, thanks to the demand to see him hand fry them.

He also serves other popular Indian delicacies such as tandoori chicken, mutton tikkas and kebabs. Over the years, Singh's appetising fried fish has earned him a fan following, with visitors travelling from across the region to sample it.

Frequent customer, Dipesh, said: 'This is the first thing I do when I land in Delhi for business - I come straight here to eat the fish. It is something I look forward to. 'I am always amazed with the way he pulls the fish out of the pan - you have to see it to believe it. And I must tell you that there is something good about the taste too.'

With the business thriving, Singh's two sons are now chipping in and taking care of the business. Singh's eldest son, Deepak, said: 'We have been here for almost 60 years. Our father ran the business with our grandfather. Now, we are taking it forward.

'We are hoping to expand now, and take the rich history further.' And Singh now hopes his sons will keep up the eateries tradition of the hand fryer. He added: 'They can do it too. It is just about practice. If they keep trying and experimenting, they will get there.'

Mega Millions could break $656M record jackpot after no winners in Friday drawing

Some lucky American is likely to have a very green Christmas this year after the Mega Millions jackpot climbed to $585million when no one matched the winning numbers in Friday's drawing.

Lottery officials say Tuesday's drawing could break 2012's $656million record to become the largest jackpot in world history.

No ticket matched the six numbers needed to win Friday's $425 million prize. The jackpot was raised Saturday to $585 million for Tuesday's drawing - the fourth largest in U.S. history.

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Paula Otto, executive director of the Virginia Lottery and Mega Millions' lead director, told the Associated Press that sales were up by as much as 20 percent in states that reported their weekend numbers.

Sales were expected to spike on Tuesday, the day of the drawing.

'I think we'll be very close to the record, and maybe even surpass it,' Otto said.

'The challenging part in predicting is that so many of the sales happening on the day of the drawing.

But lotto players are procrastinators. They tend to buy on the day of the draw.'

As of Friday, players had bought enough tickets to cover roughly half of the 259 million possible number combinations, Otto said.

The March 30, 2012 Mega Millions jackpot was the largest lottery payout in world history - $656million. Three winners split $474million cash.

In May, grandmother Gloria McKenzie became the biggest single lottery winner ever when she alone won a $590.5million Powerball jackpot in Zephyrhills, Florida.

She took home an estimated $266million lump sum after taxes.

The next Mega Millions drawing will be 11pm EST on Tuesday.

Players must buy tickets by 10.45pm EST Tuesday to be eligible for the drawing.

Source

Woman who snared murderer with cigarette DNA trick nominated for bravery award

A fearless young woman who tricked a murderer into leaving DNA evidence on a cigarette butt after he tried to strangle her has been nominated for a national bravery award.

Jessica Price was attacked by Carl Powell in an alley in Nottingham in 2011 after he pounced on her while she walked home from a night-out with friends.

But the 23-year-old's bravery meant police were able to use the discarded cigarette to charge him, with the evidence also tying him to a brutal murder just a month earlier.

She has now been nominated for the Cosmo Ultimate Survivor category of the Cosmopolitan Ultimate Women of the Year Awards because of her actions.

On the night last year, evil Powell wrapped his hands around her neck after jumping her from behind and started choking her before dragging her through the gates of a college and pushing her onto the ground.

Chilling CCTV images show the moment Powell dragged Jessica by the arm on a deserted street moments before he forced her hand down his pants.

But, despite her terrifying ordeal, Miss Price managed to remain calm and persuaded Powell to let her go and even pretended to like him so he would let his guard down.

Incredibly, Miss Price, who waived her anonymity, managed to charm Powell by pretending she liked him. She managed to persuade him to smoke a cigarette which she knew would contain his DNA. After he dropped the butt on the ground, Miss Price made a mental note where it was.

As the pair were getting closer to Miss Price's parent’s home in Carlton, Nottinghamshire, Powell was distracted by a phone call and he said he had to leave. When the attacker disappeared she called police and told them where to find Powell’s cigarette butt.

The DNA matched that of Powell and he was arrested and charged three days later. Not only did the police charge Powell for the attack on Miss Price but also of the murder of Caroline Coyne, in Thorneywood, Nottinghamshire, whose body was found in an alley a month earlier.

The 28-year-old care worker had been strangled then bludgeoned and left to die from head injuries. As a result of Miss Price's brave actions, last October Powell was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 20 years after being convicted at Nottingham Crown Court.

He was also jailed for a total of five-and-a-half years for the false imprisonment and sexual assault on Miss Price, a sentence which will run concurrently with his life term.

Miss Price who now teaches full-time in Italy, recalled the attack after she was nominated for a national bravery award. She said: 'I couldn’t breathe - I thought he was going to kill me. 'But something told me I had to be calm and reach out on a human level.

'I managed to get his hands from my throat and said, ‘I promise I won’t scream, just let me catch my breath’. 'I think he was so shocked by my reaction that he let me go. I reassured him I wouldn’t make a sound. He took a step back and I knew my plan was working.

'Inside, I was terrified I asked him how his night had been and said, "You’re heading in the same direction as me. Let’s walk together".' She said: 'At the time, I just reacted. Nobody knows what they are going to do in that situation. It is really amazing to be nominated.

'It is a really nice feeling and it would be so nice to be the winner. It would make me feel better about the situation. 'People have said that I was brave and that I did really well to stay calm. 'Hopefully, it will make people think twice about how they react, and mainly just make them think about staying calm.'

Detective Chief Inspector Tony Heydon, of Nottinghamshire Police, said: 'Jessica is simply an astonishing young lady. She had periods where the events of that night caused her real issues. 'To have the strength of character to put that to one side and give valuable evidence at court is nothing less than inspirational.

'Add to that what she did to probably save her own life, words are hard to find to describe how much I admire her.' The winner will be announced at the Cosmopolitan Ultimate Women of the Year Awards 2014 on December 5 at the London Victoria and Albert Museum.a

Parents forced daughter into sex with 80-year-old

A couple from Enna, a town in central Sicily, forced their 15-year-old daughter to have sex with an 80-year-old man in a bid to overcome their money problems.
The pair are now on trial in Sicily after setting up sexual encounters between the girl and their former employer in exchange for “a few hundred euros” at least twice a month, ArticoloTre reported. The court in the nearby town of Caltanissetta heard that the couple had "severe financial problems".

The girl fell pregnant and gave birth to a son, fathered by the 80-year-old, in 2008. The case later came to the attention of the social services, which conducted an investigation, including a DNA test proving the elderly man was the child’s father.

A report by the Italian unit of Ecpat, the international child protection agency, earlier this month found that up to 11,000 children are forced into prostitution in Italy.

The financial crisis is partly to blame, with an increasing number of women, faced with unemployment, turning to sex work, both on the street and online.

A woman and her daughter, from Rimini, reportedly became prostitutes in a bid to support their struggling family. Meanwhile, five people were arrested in Rome in late October in connection with a prostitution ring that involved two girls aged 14 and 15. The mother of one of the girl's was also arrested for pimping her daughter.

White supremacist Craig Cobb who was told he has black ancestry arrested

He came, he saw, he tried to conquer. Instead, he got arrested: Craig Cobb's attempts to turn Leith, N.D., into a white-supremacist enclave have hit a wall now that he's in a local jail, accused of terrorizing townsfolk.

But there's a new, ironic twist to his thwarted takeover attempt. You might even call it a case of reverse racism.

The Los Angeles Times has previously cataloged Cobb's plot and the repeated stumbles he's faced -- first running afoul of local health rules, then discovering on a nationally syndicated talk show that a DNA test showed he was actually 14% sub-Saharan African.

Then, over the weekend, Cobb, 62, was arrested after going on an ill-advised armed patrol of the town, population 16, with a fellow white supremacist, Kynan Dutton, 29.

Before their arrest, Cobb had texted the Bismarck Tribune about his motive: "Because of the many violences and harassments against we and the children, we have commenced armed patrols of Leith."

There's a little more to the story than that: Cobb, it seems, had felt the sting of his own brand of racial prejudice turned against him.

The local prosecutor says a fellow white supremacist had apparently targeted Cobb with racial graffiti after he'd found out that Cobb's DNA results said he was part black.

Man Leaves $250,000 and Mansion to his Cat instead of 5 Children

Two Mid-South cats are living the last of their nine lives in luxury after an estate was left behind for them by their owner.

Some might call them fat cats, because their house is in a gated community. Their owner, Leon Sheppard, Sr., left his 4,270-square-foot house and $250,000 for the care of his cats in his will.

His will states the money should be used for the care of Frisco and Jake and the maintenance of this house they live in.

"If their owner sees fit, they can create a trust for the welfare and benefit of the cats and their care," said attorney Randy Fishman, who has practiced law for almost 35 years.

He says it is rare, but it's not unheard of as New York hotel heiress Leona Helmsley left $12 million for the care of her dog, Trouble.

"I don't know [if] I've ever come across one," said Fishman.

Leon Sheppard's daughter said by phone that the family did not want to talk about it. Neighbors said Sheppard loved his cat.

Sheppard was president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1529 before he retired. He died at the age of 79.

Fishman says Sheppard's will is all legal. According to the will, when Frisco dies whatever is left of the estate including the house can be passed to Sheppard's human heirs. However, Jake must be cared for. The heirs will be allowed to move Jake out of the house.

20-Year-Old Girl Tweets '2 drunk 2 care’ Shortly Before Driving On Wrong Side Of Road And Killing Two Women in Florida

A self-styled "pothead princess" tweeted she was "2 drunk 2 care" less than three hours before driving the wrong way down a road and killing two young women in a deadly smash, police said.

Kayla Mendoza, 20, from Hallandale Beach in Florida, was allegedly heading east in the westbound lane on the Sawgrass Expressway at 1:45 a.m. Sunday morning.

She reportedly crashed her Hyundai Sonata - head-on - into a Toyota Camry being driven by Kaitlyn Nicole Ferrante, who had her pal Marisa Caran Catronio in the passenger seat.

The pair, both 21, had been heading home to Coral Springs after a night on the town celebrating Catronio's landmark birthday.Catronio was pronounced dead at the scene, while Ferrante was rushed to Broward Health North hospital - but died from her injuries on Thursday morning.

T-Mobile sales associate Mendoza was also taken to the same ER, where she is said to remain in a serious condition.Since the fatal crash, it has emerged that Mendoza has repeatedly boasted online about taking drugs and drinking alcohol.

Under the user name "Kaila Mendoza," the Miami New Times revealed that the Broward College graduate had fired off dozens of tweets about getting high."Car permanently smells like weed," she wrote in the days leading up to the incident."Rolling a blunt in the airport parking lot," she added, also once saying: "Can't sleep without my bedtime blunt," and "I really am so baked right now."

And, less than three hours before the crash, she wrote: "2 drunk 2 care."2 drunk 2 care.

Kaitlyn Ferrante, 20 (left) and Marisa Catronio, 21, were killed in the crash.

Kayla Mendoza

12-Year-Old Girl Gives Inspiring Political Speech That Could Shame Most Politicians Today

North Carolina has found a new source of political inspiration in a seemingly rather unlikely person. Then again, that could be the secret weapon that 12-year-old Madison Kimrey brings to the podium at a political demonstration in the aforementioned state.

She is trying to make young people aware of the restrictions certain politicians are trying to create against them in trying to preregister for voting.

Apparently, in the state there exists a voter ID bill that “[prohibits] 16 and 17-year-olds from preregistering,” MSN reports.

Kimrey splits this issue wide open, speaking more eloquently and logically than most politicians in our government today, all of which have at least 30 years on her.

Michigan man claims he found Osama bin Laden in 2003, wants to collect $25M awards

A Michigan man claims he tipped federal investigators to the location of Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan eight years before his killing and has hired attorneys to help him collect the $25 million reward.

The Al Qaeda leader was killed in May 2011 during a Navy SEAL raid on the three-story compound. U.S. officials have said the house wasn’t built until 2005, and Pakistani officials have said they believe he moved there in the summer of that year.

A letter obtained Friday by The Associated Press from a Chicago-based law firm representing Grand Rapids resident Tom Lee says the 63-year-old gem merchant reported the location of bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad in 2003. The letter sent by the Loevy & Loevy law firm to FBI Director James Comey in August says a Pakistani intelligence agent told Lee that he escorted bin Laden and his family from Peshawar to Abbottabad.

The AP made a request to speak with Lee and Michael Kanovitz, the attorney who signed the letter, through the law firm. The FBI didn’t immediately comment.

According to the letter, Lee, a U.S. citizen of Egyptian heritage, shared the information with customs and FBI agents. Lee reported that the Pakistani agent “was a member of a family that Mr. Lee had done business with for decades,” the letter said, and the agent and his family opposed bin Laden.

The letter said Lee, who lives in Grand Rapids, made “numerous attempts” to claim his reward but received no responses.

“Mr. Lee precisely identified the whereabouts of the most notorious terrorist of our era, a man responsible for the World Trade Center attacks, the most devastating act of terror committed on American soil, and numerous other assaults on Americans,” the letter said.

Lee told The Grand Rapids Press in an email Friday that he couldn’t understand why the government waited to act.

“It disturbs me, and it should disturb every American, that I told them exactly where bin Laden was in 2003, and they let him live another eight years,” he said in the email.

Bin Laden had slipped away from U.S. forces in the Afghan mountains of Tora Bora in 2001, and the CIA believed he had taken shelter in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. The U.S. was eventually able to find bin Laden by tracing his courier, Ibrahim al-Kuwaiti.

92 Niger Migrants Die of Thirst in Desert After Bus Breaks Down

Rescue workers in Niger say they have found the bodies of 92 people who died of thirst after their vehicles broke down as they tried to cross the Sahara.

Rescue worker Almoustapha Alhacen said the corpses were in a severe state of decomposition and had been partly eaten, probably by jackals.

Those found are thought to be migrant workers and their families. Most were women and children.
Niger lies on a major migrant route between sub-Saharan Africa and Europe.
But among those who make it across the desert, many end up working in North African countries.

New face grown from Xu Jianmei's breast attached in Fuzhow, China

A TEENAGE girl who suffered horrendous burns has been given a new face grown from one of her breasts.

Xu Jianmei, 17, who was horrifically disgured by the fire when she was five, has been able to smile properly for the first time in 12 years.

The pioneering eight-hour operation, which used tissue grown on her breast, was carried out earlier this month by surgeon Jiang Chenhong in Fuzhow, capital city of Fujian province in the southeast of China, BBC News reported.

Miss Xu woke up from the operation - which follows a similar operation to give a car accident victim a new nose by growing it first on his forehead - with a new chin, eyelids and an ear.

"First, we took a piece of blood vessel fascia from her thigh and implanted it in her chest. Then we inserted a skin expander beneath the part of skin where the blood vessel fascia was planted, so that the part could expand and produce enough skin for her new face," Jiang told Chinese news agency Xinhua.

Doctors believe that the wounds left by the surgery will heal over the next several weeks.

"With her new face, she will be able to express herself in a more precise way. She will even be able to blush when her emotions change", said Jiang, "but it may take a long time."

China's first donor face transplant recipient, farmer Li Guoxing, received his new face in 2006 - less than a year after the world's first successful face transplant recipient, Isabelle Dinoir, in France. Mr Li died less than two years later after stopping his anti-rejection medication. Since then 10 surgeries of this kind have been performed in China. VIA

Chinese barber still practising rare art where hair is burned off with hot tongs

When it comes to creating stylish designs Chinese hairdresser Wang Weibu is quite literally hot stuff.

The traditional barber is one of the last still practicing the ancient art of Dahuojia hairdressing, which involves using a pair of red hot metal clamps to burn hair off rather than cut it.

If the hair is too long, the clamps are used like a pair of scissors to cut it to the desired length and then the expert slides the burning hot metal over the rest of the hair to create a perm which he claims lasts up to three months.

This traditional method of cutting hair was widespread in China until it went out of fashion in the 1980s. Now hardly anybody wants a haircut using the unusual method.

Mr Weibu, 73, said: 'It's not just a shortage of hairdressers offering the method, there are also not very many customers that are interested in it any more. It is mainly older people that come to my shop nowadays. And like me one day they won't be here any more either.' 

Vampire dad eats young daughter

A PAPUA New Guinea man described as a vampire has been arrested after allegedly murdering his young daughter by biting her neck, eating her flesh and drinking her blood, a report said today.

Police called the grisly incident that occurred on Wednesday at a settlement near Lae "an act of cannibalism''.

The PNG Post Courier cited local councillor John Kenny, who was one of the first on the scene, as saying the three-year-old child and her mother were visiting the father when he grabbed the girl and ran off into nearby bushes.

Suspect had the perfect cover in vampire murder case

Satanic lesbian vampire killer terrorised Australians in 1990s trial
Kenny said the man allegedly held the toddler close to him, bit deep into her neck, ate the flesh and sucked her blood.

Two boys who were climbing a coconut tree nearby saw him and ran quickly to raise the alarm.
"He was just laughing at the boys and continued eating the flesh and sucking the blood,'' Kenny told the newspaper.

"The boys were scared and ran quickly to alert the people.''
When people arrived to investigate the man reportedly dumped the body in the bushes and ran away before being caught and turned over to police.

PNG is a sprawling nation where black magic, sorcery and cannibalism sometimes occur.

Last year police arrested dozens of people linked to an alleged cannibal cult accused of killing at least seven people, eating their brains raw and making soup from their penises.

There have been several other recent cases linked to cults, witchcraft and cannibalism, with a man in 2011 reportedly found eating his screaming, newborn son during a sorcery initiation ceremony.

University students check their phones 11 times per Lecture and 80% admit the it affects their grades

The rise in smartphones among young people may be having a direct affect on how successful they become as adults.

Research from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has discovered the average university student checks their phones 11 times per lesson, and more than 80 per cent believe this tech obsession is interfering with their learning.

A quarter of students across five U.S states also blamed poor grades in exams specifically on the fact they used mobile devices when they should have been concentrating and revising - and these grades could determine the jobs they end up going into.

Barney McCoy, an associate professor of broadcasting at the university, surveyed students at six universities across five states about how they used digital devices in the classroom.

The students were from UNL and the University of Nebraska at Omaha in Nebraska, Morningside College in Iowa, the University of North Carolina, the University of Kansas and the University of Mississippi.

Around two thirds said they used phones, tablets and laptops for 'non-classroom purposes' up to ten times during a typical university day, while 15 per cent admitted this figure was closer to 30 times.

Among the top reasons why students checked their devices so regularly were staying connected and fighting boredom, at 55 per cent. Less than half said the devices were used for classwork.

Texting was the most popular distraction technique at 86 per cent, while 68 per cent said they used their phones to check personal emails.

Two thirds used social networks, 38 per cent surfed the web and eight per cent admitted to playing games when they should have been studying.

Despite eight out of ten students admitting their devices were distracting, fewer than five per cent considered it to be a 'very big' distraction.

'I don’t think students necessarily think it’s problematic,' said McCoy said. 'They think it’s part of their lives. 'It’s become automatic behaviour on the part of so many people - they do it without even thinking about it.'

He continued: 'They’ve got their laptops open, but they’re not always taking notes. Some might have two screens open - Facebook and their notes.'

A 2012 study showed that two thirds of students aged 18-29 own a smartphone, while a study by Experian Marketing Services earlier this year found 18- to 24-year-olds send and receive an average of 3,853 text messages per month.

NECROPANTS made by Skinning a Dead man supposed to bring Luck

Many people will be planning scary costumes for Halloween, but nothing is likely to compare to this pair of macabre trousers.

In 17th century Iceland, sorcerers wore 'trousers' made of a dead friend's skin that were said to bring them wealth.

According to legend, a morbid deal was struck between two friends to arrange who became the trousers or 'necropants,' which were used for purposes of traditional magic at the time.

The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery & Witchcraft in Holmavik, Iceland, houses the only known intact pair of necropants, that were meant to be worn day and night by their owner.

In order to make the necropants (called nábrók in the naive tongue) an individual had to get permission from a living man to use his skin after his death.

The surviving member of the pact had to dig up his dead friend's body and peel off the skin of the corpse from the waist down in one piece without any holes or scratches, to make the magical trousers.

As soon as they stepped into the pants, the skin of the corpse stuck to theirs own, according to the museum, which documents 17th century occult practices.
A spokeman for the museum told MailOnline: 'They would immediately be stuck with your own flesh and be part of your body.'

To make the grim garment, the wearer of the pants had to steal a coin from a poor widow at Christmas, Easter or Whitson and place it in the scrotum of the trousers, along with the magical sign called nábrókarstafur, which is drawn on a piece of paper.

The coin is a 'tool to gather wealth by supernatural means,' according to the spokesman.
It drew money into the scrotum from living people so 'it will never be empty' as long as the original coin is not removed, according to folklore.

The spokesman told the wearing of the necropants was 'unusual behaviour' and reports are 'pure folklore' but the stories say that people could wear them for as long as they lived - but had to pass them on to a willing recipient before they died.

If the sorcerer wearer of the pants did not pass them on before his own death, it was said that his body would be infected with lice as soon as he passed away, but if the trousers were passed on, they could bring wealth to future wearers.

To ensure the transmission of fortune, the future wearer of the pants had to put his leg into the right leg of the necropants before the original owner stepped out of the left one.

According to the legend, the necropants would keep the money-gathering nature for generations and produce an endless flow of coins.

The spokesman said: 'People would be able to use them as long as they lived, but they would have to get rid of them before they die. If they would find someone to take them over the could last forever.'

17th century Iceland was a tough place as it suffered harsh trade restrictions from Denmark as well as natural disasters including a huge volcanic eruption that killed half of the country's livestock in years that followed and led to widespread famine.

Coastal settlements were also raided by pirates, locals sold into slavery in the Arab world, while a giant smallpox epidemic in the 18th century wiped out a third of the struggling population.

17 year old College student hanged herself after parents banned her from Facebook

A 17-year-old Indian girl has hanged herself after her parents banned her from Facebook to make her spend more time concentrating on school.

Aishwarya S. Dahiwal, a second year college student from Parbhani in western India, asked her parents for permission to log onto Facebook but was denied, police told.

She then got into an argument with her mother and father, who said she was paying too much attention to social media and not enough to her studies, a police officer added.

Authorities say Dahiwal was found hanging in her room the next morning and left a note that said her parents’ decision to ban her from Facebook led to her death.

“We still can’t believe it. We are in deep shock,” her father, Sunil, told. “We just wanted her to focus on her studies. We never thought she would ever take such a harsh step.”

An investigation into the death is ongoing.

Azerbaijan releases election results 1 Day before voting even started

Azerbaijan's big presidential election was anticipated to be neither free nor fair.  President Ilham Aliyev, who took over from his father 10 years ago, has stepped up intimidation of activists and journalists. 

Rights groups are complaining about free speech restrictions and one-sided state media coverage. Azerbaijan's election authorities released vote results – a full day before voting had even started.

The vote counts – spoiler alert: Aliyev was shown as winning by a landslide – were pushed out on an official smartphone app run by the Central Election Commission. It showed Aliyev as "winning" with 72.76 percent of the vote. That's on track with his official vote counts in previous elections: he won ("won"?) 76.84 percent of the vote in 2003 and 87 percent in 2008.

All this dying Chinese boy wants is to see his beloved mother one more time

A 7-year-old Chinese boy dying from cancer and abandoned by his mother says he wants to see her one more time before he loses his sight.

Ren Shihao, who has a brain tumour, told a local reporter in China's southwestern Sichuan province that he doesn't blame his mother for leaving the family, but added: 'I want to say I miss her. I want to say I love you mum. And I want her to hug me.'

Ren can only see a few centimeters in front of his face as the growth puts pressure on his optic nerves.
The boy was diagnosed with cancer in September after his father, Cheng Li Ren, 35, took him to hospital when he began to feel ill.

Cheng said: 'I took him to the hospital where they diagnosed him as suffering from a medulloblastoma, a kind of malignant cancer on the brain, in September. 'He had been feeling ill from September and in May he began to stagger. But hospital visits are hard for us to manage, we only took him there in September and the cancer was diagnosed.

Doctor's in the regional capital of Chengdu operated on the growth, but by then it had already spread too far. After the failed operation Ren was sent back to his home in Yangyi village where local hospitals said they couldn't do anything for him and sent him home.

His father added: 'He is starting to lose his sight, he thinks he will go blind, but he does not know he will die eventually. He wants only one thing, to see his mother before he loses his sight.'

Ren's mother, Li Sun, left the household after arguments about money following his birth. Both parents had been forced to leave their village to work in the city, and Ren was raised by his grandmother, Zhao Yonglian.

But the strain that put on the relationship was too much, and eventually Li kissed him goodbye and left. Cheng has since tracked her down, but she is in a new relationship and refuses to come back to see her dying child.

He said: 'I never married her, and I left my son and managed to track her down, and discovered she now has a new life with a new man where she is married, so she has refused to come and see her son that we had.

'I guess her new family do not know of her previous life.'

Man caught driving without steering wheel

An Australian man has been remanded in custody after police found him driving without a steering wheel. 

The 38-year-old was pulled over in the Adelaide suburb of Gilles Plains on Monday morning for dangerous driving with two blown tyres.

On closer inspection police discovered that the white Holden sedan was being controlled with a set of pliers, which had been attached to the steering column.

The driver was charged with this and a string of other violations including driving an uninsured, unregistered vehicle whilst being disqualified and breaching his terms of bail.

In addition to this the Northfield man tested positive for methyl amphetamine and cannabis in a drugs test.

Police have hinted that they believe the same vehicle was also involved in a hit-and-run collision, in which there were no casualties, just moments before it was pulled over.

70 year old man Hospitalized after inserting a Fork in his Penis for sexual gratification

Doctors in Canberra, Australia have removed a 10-centimetre fork from the penis of a 70-year-old man who inserted it into his uretha in an attempt to achieve sexual gratification.

The case was so unusual, it was written up by three doctors and entered into the International journal of Surgery Case Report.

According to the report, the man arrived at Canberra Hospital complaining of excessive bleeding from genital area. An X-ray performed a short time later revealed that a fork had been fully inserted into the urethra of his penis.

Doctors removed the fork using forceps and "copious lubrication" while the patient was under general anaesthesia.

The journal submitted manuscript, which includes photographs showing the removal of the fork from the man's penis.

Japanese Fast Food restaurant comes with the Everything Burger for only $11

"Everything Burger" at the fast-food chain Lotteria literally has everything on it.

For $11, you get lettuce, cabbage, egg, a slice of cheese, a cheeseburger, a rib patty, a fried shrimp patty and a beef patty not to mention a variety of sauces like ketchup, mayo and teriyaki.

Groom proposes to and marries girlfriend on same day using her Pinterest page

Romantic Ryan Leak made sure his wedding to Amanda Roman was the social event of the year. The 27-year-old proposed and married his partner on the same day after secretly planning their wedding using her ideas on photo-sharing website Pinterest.

She ‘repinned’ more than 220 images on a page called ‘My Dream Wedding’. Mr Leak heard his partner, 25, tell a friend she wanted to be engaged and married at the same time. ‘Amanda basically planned her dream wedding without even knowing it,’ the motivational speaker said.

‘Planning a whole wedding is unbelievably daunting, so Pinterest was amazing as it enabled me to pick exactly what Amanda would have liked.

‘I always knew I wanted an extravagant wedding, but I never anticipated doing anything this drastic.’

He whisked his fiancee to Miami for a ‘holiday’ and got down on one knee to propose. After she accepted, he took her to a lounge in a hotel where 100 friends and family were waiting with a banner that said ‘today’ before they all went to a register office.

Her favourite make-up and hair stylist was flown in to get her ready. And Mr Leak, from Dallas, even bought her dream dress.

Amanda said: ‘I never thought I would be able to pull off some of the things I saw on Pinterest. Ryan is a risk-taker and didn’t settle for my watered down version of my “dream wedding” – he went for the gusto.’ Source: metro.co.uk

'We're hiring!' Now boss of video editor who quit her job by dancing around the office at 4am bites back

Remember the woman who quit her job through an interpretive dance? Well now her former bosses and colleagues have responded with a version of their own.

Marina Shifrin decided to leave her role at Next Media Animation by releasing a sub-titled clip of her dancing to Kanye West’s song Gone.

The 25-year-old was unhappy her bosses only ‘cared about YouTube views and not content’ at the Taiwanese company famous for making animated reconstructions of real-life events, such as the Charlie Sheen meltdown.

And the company now appears to be trying to capitalise on the success of Shifrin’s video, which has gained nearly 10million views.

Just like in the disgruntled worker’s clip, her former colleagues dance along to the song Gone but instead of being angry at her accusations, they instead wish her good luck.

The company also boasts it has a rooftop swimming pool and employees can pretend to shoot their boss and he’ll play dead. At the end the video it reminds everyone the company is now hiring following Shifrin’s departure . Source: metro.co.uk

Little man, big claim: Man with 40cm tall, makes bid to be world’s shortest

A Nepalese man has staked his claim to be the world’s shortest. Master Nau was measured at 40cm (16in) tall when he travelled from his remote village south-west of Kathmandu to the capital.

The 73-year-old, who is confined to a wheelchair, is bidding to be recognised by Guinness World Records as the shortest man in the ‘immovable category’.

Speaking to the AFP news agency after returning to his village of Bhairahawa, Master Nau said: ‘I am very happy.’

His niece Seema Sheikh said her uncle leads an active life. ‘He is fond of travelling and likes to meet people and talk about life,’ she said.

‘He also likes hot and delicious food and loves to listen to Hindi and Nepali songs. We often hire a rickshaw to take him to the market because he loves it.

‘But whenever he goes out, people stop to look at him. Soon a small crowd would gather, which makes it difficult.’

Another Nepalese man, Chandra Bahadur Dangi, 74, holds the record for the world’s shortest man in the ‘movable’ category at 54.6cm. Source: metro.co.uk

Injured dog ran straight to hospital emergency department following attack

When a large aggressive dog attacked little Bella the Snorkie at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa, Canada on Friday, the bleeding and injured animal knew exactly where to go. 

She ran straight to the emergency department of The Ottawa Hospital’s Civic Campus. Bella, a 17-month-old Miniature Schnauzer-Yorkshire Terrier mix known as a Snorkie, was walking with owner Bruce Simpson in the Experimental Farms’s corn and bean fields at about 5:30pm when they encountered a woman and her dog, a German shepherd mix.

Neither animal was on a lead, despite a long-standing policy that dogs on the farm’s property must be restrained. The snarling dog ran directly at Simpson and poor Bella, who weighs just 14 pounds.

Before either Simpson or the other dog’s owner could react, it had grabbed Bella in its jaws and given her several vigorous shakes.

The attack lasted just a few seconds. Simpson jumped at the large dog to separate it from Bella, and the woman managed to get her dog on a lead. “I was just screaming at her, very upset,” a still-shaken Simpson recalled.

The angry exchange continued for several minutes as Simpson called 911. “She was saying, ‘I didn’t know anyone was here. I came because I didn’t expect anybody else to be around,’” Simpson said. After refusing to give him her name, she turned and walked away. 

Still on the phone with 911, Simpson began a frantic search. It wasn’t until he returned to his car, where the 911 operator had told him to wait for police, that he noticed the voice-mail message on his cellphone.

It was from Josh Picknel, a medic with the Ottawa Paramedic Service. Despite several deep bites and a three-to-four-inch flap of skin torn from her back, Bella had managed to make her way through the corn field, cross six lanes of rush-hour traffic, and present herself at the Civic’s emergency department.

Buchanan joked that Bella’s appearance at the emergency department was a sign of “animal intelligence. If you’re hurt, the first one you want to call is a paramedic. Dogs just instinctively know that.” Simpson was impressed, too. “What a smart dog!” he exclaimed.

“That’s pretty much the best place she could have gone. Which is weird.” After paramedics ferried Simpson and Bella to the Ottawa Veterinary Hospital on Boyd Avenue, Bella underwent three hours of surgery to stitch her together again.

She was released late Saturday to her owners, though there’s some concern that the strip of torn skin might not re-attach and heal properly. He’s still upset that the woman allowed her large dog to run free. “If she knew there was a potential for that to happen, the dog should never have been off lead and should have been muzzled,” he said.

Simpson has been in touch with city bylaw officers and has filled out a report on the incident. He’d like the woman to cover his veterinary bills, but most of all, he wants to make something is done so her dog doesn’t attack another defenceless animal. “I just don’t want it to happen to somebody else.”

Indonesian woman spends 19 years hiding behind a head scarf because she grew a beard after birth of her first child

Agustina Dorman found it unbearably painful to shave her goatee so was forced to let it grow - and now she is showing it off in newly released photos. After years of hiding her thick black facial hair under a hijab, Agustina Dorman, 38, has stepped proudly out and embraced her condition.
The Indonesian woman first noticed the hair sprouting on her face when she was 25, just days after the birth of her first child. Dismayed at what she saw in the mirror, she hid away and refused to see her friends and neighbours in her small village of Penaga, Indonesia.

But the brave woman has decided to ditch the clothing - regardless of the stares and unwanted attention she now attracts. Agustina said that whenever she tried to cut or shave her beard she experienced excruciating pain, so in the end she let it grow.

But scared that her children - aged 19 and three - would be bullied, Agustina hid away under the hijab. The unlucky woman also has a mild moustache and facial hair, and she at last felt she could hide it under the thick clothing.

But she says her eldest child began to get teased from others who found out about her unfortunate condition. It led her to confront her children's tormentors by unveiling herself and freely walking around their village for the first time.

She still gets taunted by some but others have accepted her in to the community whole-heartedly.She hopes that through education about her condition, people will become accepting of her appearance.

Earlier this year, German bearded lady Mariam appeared on Daytime TV to reveal she still felt sexy with her stubble.

SOURCE