Stubbs the cat, Alaska town mayor, mauled by dog

stubbs-the-cat-mayor-of-talkeetnaHe’s a beloved mayor, who’s held the top office in Talkeetna, Alaska, for 16 years. So imagine the townfolks’ shock when he was attacked.

Brutally mauled.

By a dog.

Oh, did we mention, this mayor’s a cat?

Mayor Stubbs, a yellow tabby with more responsibility than your average cat, survived — but is in bad shape.

A punctured lung. A fractured sternum. A 5-inch gash on his side.

Doctors took out a chest tube Tuesday, and he was breathing on his own for the first time since the weekend attack.

The story of how Mayor Stubbs rose to power made international news after he was found in a box full of kittens in front of Nagley’s General Store in town.

Stubbs was strolling about the town Saturday night as he does every night, when an unleashed dog came running across the street and bit into him.

Stubbs’ medical bills could top $2,000, Stec said.

 

South Africa President Pleased Mandela Is Home

mandelaSouth Africa’s president said Tuesday that he was pleased Nelson Mandela had gone home from a hospital, saying it indicated the progress that the anti-apartheid leader had made even though he remains in critical condition.

An ambulance returned 95-year-old Mandela to his Johannesburg house on Sunday, and the office of President Jacob Zuma said he will receive the same level of care there that he did in the hospital, administered by the same doctors.

“He remains critical but stable, responding to treatment,” Zuma said in a meeting with journalists in Pretoria, the South African capital. “I think we feel very good that he reached a point where the doctors who were treating him felt he could now leave the hospital to his home, which indicates the progress he had made.”

Mandela was admitted to the hospital on June 8 for what the government described as a recurring lung infection. Legal papers filed by his family said he was on life support.

 

The ultimate skywalkers: Daredevil pair conquer 12 cities across seven countries in just a month in quest to scale world’s most famous buildings

Daredevil pair 6Daredevils Vitaliy Raskalov, 20, and Vadim Makhorov, 24, have scaled some of the most recognisable tourist attractions on the planet and captured every moment.

Fed up with queues and typical tours, the thrill-seeking duo have taken to the rooftops of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia, Cologne’s Cathedral, and the EiffelTower and Notre Dame in Paris.

Also taking on Giza’s pyramids and Dubai’s latest skyscrapers, the Russian travellers have been labelled ‘The Skywalkers’.
In just one month the pair, from Novosibirsk and Moscow, conquered 12 cities in seven countries including Stockholm, Warsaw, Prague, Frankfurt, Cologne, Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Benidorm, Lisbon, Porto and Madrid and have seen the world like no one else.

Mr Raskalov said: ‘We are just chasing the dream and always looking to go to the next highest point to see the things no one else gets to see.

The pair regularly stake out locations in the early hours of the morning, waiting for guards and security staff to turn their back.

 

Report: 49 Tunisia Prisoners Break out of Jail

prisonTunisia’s state news agency says 49 inmates broke out of jail in a southern coastal town after staging a prison uprising to escape.

Monday’s report quoted a security official saying police and soldiers are searching the area around the city of Gabes and have recaptured 13 inmates.

The escape took place in the early hours of the morning, the report said, adding that the prisoners were mostly young people and common criminals.

Inmates broke out of the same prison in 2011 during the month-long uprising that overthrew Tunisia’s president and kicked off the Arab Spring.

 

Woman left in tears after getting stuck on Coney Island Ferris wheel for 30 MINUTES… because Beyoncé was ‘doing her make-up’

Beyoncé has been accused of reducing a woman to tears3A woman was left in tears after Beyonce Knowles accidentally trapped her on the top of a ferris wheel for half an hour. The incident began when the 31-year-old diva filmed her new music video at Coney Island amusement park earlier this week.
According to Splash, Beyonce decided to shoot some footage on a ferris wheel. Her team then closed the wheel for public, but failed to notice that the poor woman and her companion were still inside one of the pods.
While the woman and her man were freaking out on the top, Beyonce was below and getting her make-up done.
When they finally made it back down, the couple were visibly shaken.

The woman involved was seen in tears as she stepped out of her pod and she and her companion hurried off.

After the incident, Beyonce continued filming her music video. She was seen riding Cyclone roller coaster, Spook-a-Rama ghost train and the Eldorado bumper cars.

Zuma’s office denies reports Nelson Mandela home from hospital

mandela2The South African president’s office said Saturday that Nelson Mandela remains hospitalized, contradicting earlier reports that he had returned home.

Two sources close to Mandela had told CNN Saturday that he had returned to his Johannesburg home after a long hospital stay.

After similar reports by various media outlets, the president ‘s office issued a statement.

“The presidency has noted incorrect media reports that former President Nelson Mandela has been discharged from hospital,” the statement said. “Madiba is still in hospital in Pretoria, and remains in a critical but stable condition. At times his condition becomes unstable, but he responds to medical interventions.”

Mandela, 95, was hospitalized June 8 because of a lung infection. He marked his July birthday at the Pretoria hospital where he has been surrounded by relatives.

 

5.9-magnitude earthquake strikes southwest China; 4 dead

china3A 5.9-magnitude earthquake killed at least four people Saturday morning in southwestern China, state media reported.

Officials reported 10 injuries as emergency teams began to respond, the Xinhua News Agency said.

The state-owned news agency quoted Yunnan provincial officials as saying that 600 residential units collapsed. An additional 55,000 residential units were damaged, and 9,200 people had been forced to relocate, Xinhua reported.

The quake — with a depth of 10 kilometers — hit in remote areas near the border of the Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Roads were blocked in some villages by boulders rolling down mountains, and 17 people on three tourist buses were trapped by landslides, Xinhua said.

The Civil Affairs Ministry in Yunnan province was sending tents and clothing, Xinhua said.

On Wednesday, a 5.1-magnitude earthquake hit the same region.

 

Venezuelan president ridiculed after accidentally saying Christ multiplied bread and penises instead of fish

Nicholas MaduroVenezuelan president Nicolas Maduro appeared to make a mistake of Biblical proportions this week – when he muddled a well-known religious quote and said Christ multiplied loaves and ‘penises’.
Maduro made the unfortunate error during a speech on education at the
Miranda stadium, in the country’s capital, Caracas.
Referring to the iconic story of when Christ multiplied fish and loaves to feed the populace, Maduro said his government would help expand education in the country, ‘school by school, child by child, high school by high school, community by community — to embed ourselves in there.
‘To multiply ourselves like Christ multiplied the penises — sorry, the fish — and the bread.’
The Spanish word for ‘penises’ (penes) is just one letter away from the word for ‘fish’ (peces).
Maduro took over as interim president of Venezuela following the death of Hugo Chavez on March 5.
Despite only being in power for five months, Maduro has courted controversy on more than one occasion.
He has been blamed for a toilet paper shortage throughout the country, apparently slept in Chavez’s mausoleum, has made a number of anti-gay slurs and offered asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

Terminally-ill Simpsons creator who has vowed to GIVE AWAY his fortune to charity before he dies tells how he has been inundated with time wasters

Sam Simon1The producer of The Simpsons who revealed in July that he is dying of colon cancer has received countless offers from people interesting in his money.

Since word got out about Sam Simon’s cancer and his desire to give away his vast fortune he has heard from countless people online asking to help rid him of his sizable wealth.

‘Some people just want a million dollars. Or help with college tuition. And the rest have business propositions,’ he laughed. ‘Like that should be my legacy: to lose money on your movie or your moisturizer line.’

Simon created the hit cartoon alongside Matt Groening in 1991. He technically retired from The Simpsons in 1993, but still receives tens of millions in royalties every season.

In November Simon was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer after a year of inconclusive tests and mysterious discomfort.

Having defied that diagnosis’ original death sentence – he was given three to six months to live – Simon continues to push ahead with no whiff of ‘Why me?’

The 58-year-old fervent philanthropist is spending his final months funding projects that feed homeless people and save animals from being killed in animal shelters.

‘I’m supporting the charities that I supported during my lifetime,’ he states, ‘and I want to continue to do that.’

Although Simon remained the least-known of the three creators, by many accounts he was the most hands-on.

Among his charitable efforts, he established the Sam Simon Foundation, which rescues dogs from animal shelters and trains them to assist disabled veterans and the hard-of-hearing.

Simon’s largesse carries over to humans, too, including a Los Angeles food bank feeding 200 families each day in Simon style: with a vegan menu.

Hong Kong phooey! Region’s smog is so bad, desperate tourism chiefs set up posters of sunny skyline so holidaymakers can take some nice photos

Hong Kong 7The air pollution in Hong Kong has gotten so bad that tourism officials have put up a banner displaying what the skyline looks like on a clear day.

This week, Hong Kong’s Air Pollution Index’ reached ‘Very High’ in Central and Western District, Causeway Bay and Mongkok, with ‘very high’ levels of toxic ozone and nitrogen dioxide recorded at roadside monitoring stations.

Smog is a big problem in China were it was recently reported life expectancy has been by five-and-a-half years for those living in its polluted north.
Researchers estimate that the half-billion people who lived there in the 1990s will live an average of 5 and a half years less than their southern counterparts because they breathed dirtier air from coal burning.

China itself made the comparison possible: for decades, a now-discontinued government policy provided free coal for heating, but only in the colder north.

Earlier this year, air quality in Beijing reached ‘worst on record’ following a sand storm which led to pollution in the city rising to 30 to 45 times above recommended safety levels.

Mugabe orders 300 giraffes, zebras and other animals to be shipped to national zoo to impress visitors during UN tourism summit

elandHundreds of safari animals have been transported across Zimbabwe to a poaching-prone nature reserve ahead of a UN meeting to make the area appear populated.

The decision to move the animals from a private conservancy in southeastern Zimbabwe to Victoria falls is to ‘repopulate’ the preserve before the United Nations world tourism body’s meeting for the benefit of visiting delegates.

151 wildebeests, 100 impalas, 60 zebras, 25 eland and ten giraffes have been transported for over 400 miles, the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force of independent environmentalists said.

The animals have been released in the five sq mile ZambeziNational Park overlooking the ZambeziRiver and the Victoria Falls.

The decision to hold the six-day summit at Victoria Falls, on the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia, was met with raised eyebrows, as President Mugabe’s recent election victory was marred with accusations of vote rigging.

The UN World Tourism Organization announced on Sunday that it has chosen Zimbabwe to lead its Commission for Africa, the continent-wide group for tourism development for the next two years.

The U.N. World Tourism Organization, meanwhile, advised participants at Victoria Falls that no conference documentation will be distributed on paper to save trees ‘in compliance with the United Nations system’s environmental protection policy.’

The six-day general assembly was formally opened by the two countries’ presidents, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Michael Sata of Zambia.

The two host nations automatically take over the presidency of the U.N. tourism organization during the summit, which is expected to be attended by about 1,200 delegates from governments and tourism enterprises worldwide.

 

Very chilly for Chile! The world’s driest hot desert is hit by SNOW – and now there are fears it could FLOOD

Arctic in the Atacama1It is known as the driest place in the world where some weather stations have never recorded any rain.

So visitors to Chile’s Atacama desert could be forgiven for being just a little surprised to find snow there in recent days.

Residents of San Pedro de Atacama, around 750 miles from the capital Santiago, say the downfall was the heaviest in three decades for the area, described as the driest hot desert on Earth.

Now there are fears the melting ice and accompanying rainfall could cause some rivers to flood as has previously happened.

The national tourism office says the road to the city was blocked temporarily because of the unusual weather, it was reported by Sky News.

Officials expect more rain in the coming days, but have not ordered any evacuation.

The Atacama desert, which spans from Chile to Peru, is made up mostly of salt lakes, sand and felsic lava and receives an average rainfall of just 15mm (0.59 in) per year.

A few areas get as little as 1mm and some weather stations have never had any at all.

At night, temperatures can drop to as low as −25C in the zone of Ollague, while during the day it can reach between 25-30C in the shade.

 

Melbourne makes it three years in a row as world’s most liveable city

melbourne-bayMelbourne made it three years in a row as the world’s most livable city, according to the 2013 Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Global Livability Survey.

The top cities and indeed much of the rankings remained similar to last year, with Australian and New Zealand cities landing five of the top 10 spots. Canadian cities made up another three of the top 10 positions.

Vienna came a close second while Canadian cities Vancouver and Toronto stayed at third and fourth; Calgary tied with Adelaide for fifth place.

The top spots are mostly “mid-sized cities in wealthier countries with a relatively low population density,” said the EIU.

At the bottom of the list, due to ongoing civil conflict in Syria is Damascus — dropping 10 rankings.

A total of 140 cities were surveyed under five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Scores in each category and sub-category are compiled and weighted to give a total out of 100. 100 is considered ideal and 1 intolerable.

The report noted a few major changes. Madrid dropped five spots to 44th due to “unrest and protests,” but remains in the top tier of livability. The Slovakian capital of Bratislava moved into the top tier (a score of 80 or above), now at 63rd place in the ranking.

Tehran, Douala (Cameroon), Tripoli, Karachi, Algiers, Harare, Lagos, Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea), Dhaka (Bangladesh) and Damascus (are at the bottom of the list with conflict responsible for many of the lowest scores, the report stated.

Top 10 most livable cities (unchanged in 2013 from 2012):

1. Melbourne, Australia, 97.5

2. Vienna, Austria, 97.4

3. Vancouver, Canada, 97.3

4. Toronto, Canada, 97.2

=5. Calgary, Canada, 96.6

=5. Adelaide, Australia, 96.6

7. Sydney, Australia, 96.1

8. Helsinki, Finland, 96.0

9. Perth, Australia, 95.9

10. Auckland, New Zealand, 95.7

 

Mudslides kill 13 after Fernand hits Mexico

storm-fernandMudslides killed at least 13 people after Fernand slammed into the east of coast of Mexico, state media reported Monday.

Fernand was a tropical storm when it made landfall late Sunday, bringing heavy rains. The storm quickly fizzled into a tropical depression and had dissipated by Monday afternoon, forecasters said.

But even as it weakened, authorities in the state of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico said the storm brought heavy rains that caused deadly mudslide in several locations.

All of the deaths were caused by mudslides that buried homes, Veracruz Gov. Javier Duarte said, according to Mexico’s state-run Notimex news agency.

The storm was expected to dump between 4 and 8 inches of rain over the states of Veracruz, Hidalgo, northern Puebla, southern Tamaulipas and eastern San Luis Potosi, with more than 15 inches of rain in some places.

Forecasters warned that more life-threatening mudslides were possible.

Keep your eyes up, Mr Mayor! The moment a Canadian journalist took off her top while interviewing local government leader

cnadian journalistA Canadian radio host and newspaper columnist took off her top during an interview with her local mayor this week and continued asking him questions bare-chested.

Lori Welbourne, who hosts the radio show On The Rocks and writes a column for the Province newspaper, was talking to Walter Gray, mayor of Kelowna in

British Columbia, about whether it was legal in the town for women to bare their breasts in public.

‘What if I went walking down the street topless?’ she asked in the recorded interview.

But before Gray could answer her question, Welbourne handed him her microphone and undid the strap on her dress, exposing her breasts.
‘What are you doing,’ he asked, to which she replied, ‘it’s really hot in here.’

After regaining his composure, Gray explained that while someone may be tempted to call the police there is little authorities could do because it is in fact entirely legal for a woman to be topless anywhere a man can be.

Public toplessness is not illegal anywhere in Canada unless it’s deemed to be indecent.

Groups of women turned out shirtless in cities including New York on August 25 to celebrate a women’s right to bare her breasts in public. The annual event was started in 2007.

 

China’s Internet hit by biggest cyberattack in its history

china-ddosInternet users in China were met with sluggish response times early Sunday as the country’s domain extension came under a “denial of service” attack.

The attack was the largest of its kind ever in China, according to the ChinaInternetNetworkInformationCenter, a state agency that manages the .cn country domain.

The double-barreled attacks took place at around 2 a.m. Sunday, and then again at 4 a.m. The second attack was “long-lasting and large-scale,” according to state media, which said that service was slowly being restored.

Official state media said the attack targeted websites with the .cn country domain, as well as the popular microblogging site Sina Weibo.

Denial of service attacks aren’t technically “hacks,” since they can be done without breaking into any systems. Typically, DoS attacks overwhelm a website’s servers by flooding them with requests. That makes websites unreachable or unresponsive.

It’s unclear whether the attack is related to political events in China, which appears to be in the midst of carrying out a crackdown on Internet dissent.

 

Write to the Pope and he may call you back: Pontiff has been telephoning people who send him letters

Pope FrancisA word of warning to those who write personal notes to Pope Francis: He might just call you back.

Francis has already charmed the masses with his informal style, simplicity and sense of humour.

But a handful of strangers have gotten the treatment up close, receiving papal phone calls out of the blue after writing him or suffering some personal tragedy.

So the Catholic faithful are being warned: Be ready, especially if the landline rings.

The 76-year-old Francis has a fondness for making calls the old-fashioned way, using land lines and placing the calls himself, often surprising recipients by simply announcing: ‘It’s the pope.’

Francis has since called an Italian man whose brother was killed and a Colombian woman who works in Rome to thank her for a book.

The recipient of this week’s call, a 19-year-old student Stefano Cabizza, was quoted by Corriere as saying that Francis had told him to refer to him with the informal ‘tu,’ noting that ‘Even Jesus and the apostles used the “tu”.’

Mr Cabizza said he received the call after leaving a letter for Francis following his Mass at Castel Gandolfo on August 15.

He declined to say what he had written.

 

Dozens killed in Bolivia prison fire, brawl

bolivia-prisonA prison brawl and fire left 29 inmates dead and dozens injured in eastern Bolivia, state media reported Friday.

The incident at Palmasola prison in Santa Cruz started with a battle between two groups.

A child was among the fatalities, state-run ABI news agency said. At least 50 people were injured.

Bolivia allows children to legally live with incarcerated parents.

President Evo Morales expressed sympathy and solidarity with victims and their families. He demanded an investigation into the incident, which authorities described as the deadliest prison violence in Bolivia.

State media reported that the fire started early Friday with a confrontation between two groups of inmates. One group attacked the other with sharp weapons and firearms, and set two liquid gas cylinders on fire, sparking an explosion.

At least 100 additional troops were dispatched to reinforce security inside the prison, according to state media.

The prison is a maximum security facility.

 

Couple Charged After 40 Pythons Found in Motel

pythonA Canadian couple has been charged with animal cruelty after 40 ball python snakes and five eggs were found in a motel room.

The discovery is sure to stoke fear of snakes in Canada, where a python that escaped from a pet store strangled two young boys in New Brunswick earlier this month.

The reptiles, some of them more than 3 feet (a meter) long, were found last week in plastic storage bins in a motel room in Brantford, Ontario.

The Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said Friday the snakes were dehydrated, and didn’t have enough space. A man and a woman were charged with animal cruelty. Their names have not been released.

 

Floods leave at least 107 dead in China

Flooding hits north, south China2Flooding in China’s north and south caused by heavy rain has left at least 107 dead and inundated roads and farmland, the government and state media said.

Three provinces in China’s northeast bore the brunt of the floods with 85 dead and 105 missing in Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning as of 4pm on Monday, the government said.

A total of 37 million residents in that region were affected by flood waters, Xinhua said, which were described by a local newspaper as the worst in 50 years in Liaoning province.

More than 787,000 hectares of farmland in the region, a major grain growing area, were flooded and pictures showed roads in many urban areas looking more like rivers.

Xinhua said that the People’s Liberation Army had been mobilized to carry out rescue work.

Some internet users criticized the official response to the floods.