News 1st Look: Mid Day International News

Monday, August 1, 2011

Mid Day International News

Alert train driver saves 300 lives in Australia
Burqa painted on ads showing scantily-clad women
Meet the US woman who lives with 700 cats on her 12-acre sanctuary!
World record attempt for longest bra chain called off
UK Strip club set to release book on stripper slang

Alert train driver saves 300 lives in Australia

Posted:

An alert train driver in Australia averted a disaster and saved at least 300 lives when he stopped the train just 20 metres ahead of a break in the rail track, officials said

Investigations are on into the incident to determine why the Melbourne-Sydney train was incorrectly routed to a track undergoing maintenance, the Herald Sun reported.

The passenger train was travelling at about 80 km per hour when the driver saw a maintenance vehicle. He managed to apply the brakes and the train came to a halt.

"It wouldn't have stopped. People would have lost their lives," said Mark Marotta of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union.

The driver and maintenance crew were badly shaken by the incident, officials said.

The Australian Rail Track Corporation has initiated a full internal investigation.

Burqa painted on ads showing scantily-clad women

Posted:

Two Muslim teenagers in London painted burqas over advertisements that showed scantily-clad women, saying it was sin for women to be exposed, a court has heard

Mohammed Hasnath and Muhammed Tahir - both 18 - were spotted defacing advertisements of a deodorant and of a film actress at a bus stand. They were arrested after being found painting over female faces outside a shop, The Sun reported.

"They said the way the women had been photographed was against their religion. They said it was a sin in Islam for a male to look twice at an uncovered woman," prosecutor Taiwo Akinrowo told the Thames magistrates' court.

Hasnath said: "The pictures - that is someone's daughter. We were just trying to do good."

Both the teenagers were told to pay 283 pounds in costs, and were later freed.

Meet the US woman who lives with 700 cats on her 12-acre sanctuary!

Posted:

Lynea Lattanzio of Parlier, California, lives alone with 700 cats on her 12-acre spread, where she runs a huge cat sanctuary, and yet insists that she is not crazy

The divorcee rescues cats from around the world in California's largest no-cage, no-kill cat sanctuary The Cat House on the Kings, and aims to place them into permanent homes to prevent overpopulation by spaying and neutering.

"If I were a cat, this is where I'd be," the Daily Mail quoted her as telling the New York Post.

Lattanzio insists that she's no crazy cat lady.

"I prefer to say I'm eccentric or masochistic," she said.

This masochist has rescued almost 19,000 felines since her divorce in 1981, with the sanctuary being run by generous donations.

At present, Lattanzio also has 15 dogs under her care.

World record attempt for longest bra chain called off

Posted:

The attempt to create a world record for linking thousands of bras has been called off by the organisers, as the lingerie became too tangled at the time of display

The organisers had hoped to beat the record of 1,66,625 bras linked together that would stretch more than 100 miles, several times around Worcester racecourse.

They claimed that the bras had been packed very neatly into boxes but could not be separated quickly enough when they tried to pull them.

"We couldn't get the bras out quick enough," the BBC quoted Karen Tomalin, one of the founders of the Bra Chain group was quoted as saying.

"Like Christmas lights you put them away nicely but when you go to get them they don't come out," she added.

Tomalin even claimed that the lack of volunteers for clipping up the bras within the stipulated time was one of the reasons behind their failure, with high hopes of setting the record within six to eight weeks from now.

The good part about the attempt is that all the bras were sponsored and will either be given to Women's aid or recycled.

UK Strip club set to release book on stripper slang

Posted:

A lapdancing club in Britain is set to release a book on stripper slang

The guide, which will help shed light on the lingo used in the world of strip clubs, includes BT, to describe a punter who is good to talk to, and See You Later, to describe an ugly customer.

"It's a really different world inside lapdancing clubs but it's a lot of fun," the Daily Star quoted a spokesman for London club Secrets, who are making the book, as saying.

"This guide will give people a little taste of what the stripping world is like," he stated.

The following terms are included in the book the strippers mostly use:

Bernie - An old, unattractive guy who has lots of money.

Bulb - A dull customer.

Fox - A very attractive customer.

Greyhound - A winner.

Leash - A customer with his wife or girlfriend is "on a leash".

Marsh - To not look your best. Named after Jodie Marsh.

Peking Duck - A stingy customer, as in "tight as a duck's arse".

Scherzing - If a dancer looks amazing then she is Scherzing. Named after pop star Nicole Scherzinger.