Polar bear mauls to death British teenager
London: A British teenager was Friday mauled to death by a polar bear at a campsite in Norway, a media report said.
Four others were seriously injured when the animal attacked the group of 13 young explorers at 7.30 a.m., while they were sleeping on the Norwegian island of Svalbard on a dream wildlife trip, Daily Mail reported.
The 17-year-old victim was among a group of 80 wildlife enthusiasts aged between 16 and 25 from the British Schools Exploring Society (BSES).
The organisation, which is based in Kensington, west London, has not released the name of the dead person.
“There were about 80 people all told in the expedition. The young people are all between 16 and 23,” the Mail quoted a BSES spokeswoman as saying.
The wildlife enthusiasts were camping on the Von Postbreen glacier in the remote region which is inaccessible by roads and heavily populated with bears.
Tragically, just days before the attack the group on July 27 posted a message on their blog in which they were delighted at having seen a polar bear in the region. (IANS)
Pedigree pets held hostages in Australia
Melbourne: Business rivals hit a trader in Australia in a bizarre fashion by taking hostage his four pedigree fluffy canines for a USD 322,000 ransom over a multi-billion dollar deal gone sour.
The colourful businessman Ian Lazar found ten days ago that his four lapdogs had been snatched from his home in Sydney.
The dogs — Goldberg, a miniature poodle, Max, a Maltese terrier, and Bella and Lilly, Maltese shih-tzus — were taken from Lazar’s north shore home on July 21, Sydney Morning Herald reported.
Since then Lazar has been approached through third parties to buy them back or their throats would be slit one by one.
The business executive, who so far is refusing to cave in, believes that his pooches are being held by his two business rivals who claim that he owed them money over business deals.
He has so far refused to pay more than one million Australian dollars for business deals to the two men during the past year and hopes that the police or a hefty reward would ensure the safety of his dogs.
“They knew that my dogs are my kids. They get dressed every morning, have pyjamas and I fought for them in my divorce as one does with kids,” Lazar said. (PTI)
Child left alone in school bus, dies
Beijing: A three-year-old girl died of heat stroke in China as the driver and teacher didn’t notice she was still on the school bus and locked it up.
The driver and a teacher have been detained in Anqing city after the girl, Zhu Yan, died after being locked in the school bus for eight hours.
The girl didn’t get off the school bus Tuesday morning after the bus reached the kindergarten.
The teacher and driver didn’t notice her and locked the vehicle unintentionally, reported Shanghai Daily citing Oriental Morning Post.
Zhu had passed out by the time she was found at the end of school hours. She was taken to a hospital where she died. (IANS)
US mum charged for killing baby with meth-laced breast milk
Sydney: A Northern California woman has been slapped with murder charges after she fed her newborn son methamphetamine-laced breast milk last year.
Maggie Jean Wortmon, 26, has been facing second-degree murder charges punishable by 15 years to life in prison, along with child abuse and involuntary manslaughter.
The charges emerged after Wortmon’s six-week-old son, Michael, was found dead.
The baby, who as found unresponsive in last November in the town of Loleta, was pronounced dead at a hospital with methamphetamine in his system.
Prosecutors said that Wortmon had shown ‘conscious disregard’.
“I think that her conduct is, or was, so intentionally reckless that it rises to the level of implied malice,”” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Ben McLaughlin, a deputy district attorney in Humboldt County, as saying.
“And I think that a mother who is breast-feeding using the quantity of methamphetamine she did, I think that rises to a second-degree murder charge,” he added. (ANI)