‘Obama says graying hair is genetic, not stress related’
New York: US President Barack Obama has revealed that the reason for his graying hair was genetic and not stress.
In an interview with ABC News, the US President said that his maternal grandfather was gray by 29.
“It just happened to coincide with the presidency,” the New York Daily News quoted the president as saying.
Obama, 50, also denied dyeing his hair, saying that the gray goes away whenever he gets a haircut. “It depends on where the lights are hitting it,” “Sometimes it shows up, sometimes it doesn’t.” (ANI)
Armoured vehicle sold for scrap in Russia
Vladivostok: Military investigators are probing a former army officer from a unit based in Vladivostok in Russia’s Primorye region who is suspected of selling off an armoured vehicle as scrap metal.
“In May 2011, the commander of the detachment illegally took the armoured vehicle using false documents and sold it for scrap metal, for which he earned 135,000 rubles ($4,355),” military prosecutors from the Pacific Fleet said.
“According to our information, the suspected officer is no longer in the military and is a deputy in the village of Razdolnenskoye in Primorye,” a source said. (IANS)
China cracks down on pornography
Beijing: Police in China have launched a crackdown in different parts of the country as part of their anti-pornography drive, arresting 69 people and seizing thousands of video discs.
In the latest action against pornography and illegal publications, Chinese police have investigated five major cases of production and distribution of pornographic publications in Beijing, Chongqing, Guangdong, Xinjiang and Shanghai, Xinhua news agency reported.
According to a statement issued Thursday by the National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications, Beijing’s police Sep 27 busted a ring for producing and selling pornography, arresting 54 suspects and confiscating more than 35,000 pornographic books and around 100,000 other illegal books.
On Sep 28, police in Yuzhong District of southwest Chongqing Municipality busted a pornographic discs wholesale ring, arresting 12 suspects and confiscating more than 62,000 discs.
On Aug 22, police in Huizhou City of southern Guangdong province discovered a secret site for distributing pornographic and pirated discs and confiscated some 100,000 discs.
Police in Urumqi, capital of western Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, in a raid on a storehouse confiscated over 23,000 discs containing illegal content, including 19,100 pornographic discs. On Sep 20, police in Putuo District of eastern Shanghai Municipality arrested three people for distributing pornographic discs and confiscated more than 20,000 discs. (IANS)
9,000-year-old tools found in Mexico
Mexico City: A team of Mexican archaeologists has discovered hundreds of rudimentary man-made tools and artefacts that date back between 8,000-11,000 years in the northwestern state of Baja California Sur.
The objects were found at an archaeological site known as El Coyote, located in the Los Cabos region, the National Anthropology and History Institute, or INAH, said.
It added that they “bolster the hypothesis” that the first colonists of the hemisphere populated the region via watercraft migration, following coastlines from northeast Asia southward into the Americas.
The researchers found cut and polished seashells, fishing devices and stone tools used for cutting and scraping (choppers, percussive devices, planes, scrapers and knives) that date back between 8,600 and 9,300 years.
Those tools were used to work with plant fibres and wood, as well as for prying open mollusc shells.
Archaeologists have found similar artefacts in that region over the past three years, leading them to believe that the first settlers of the Americas moved down the coast and arrived what is today known as the Baja California peninsula during the latter part of the Early Holocene era.
Human skeletons have not yet been discovered and therefore it is “impossible to know to which ethnic group (the inhabitants of El Coyote) belonged”, the INAH said. (IANS)
Minister accidently tweets wife to come to bed
London: A French minister was left red faced after asking his wife to go to bed with him through an accidental post on Twitter that was read by thousands of people.
Industry Minister Eric Besson, 53, meant to send the saucy tweet privately to stunning student Yasmine Tordjman – who is 29 years his junior. But instead it was flashed on the internet to more than 14,000 Twitter followers, the Daily Mail reported.
The minister sent the message to Tunisian-born Yasmine at 11 a.m. Thursday, saying: “When I come home I’m going to bed. Too exhausted. With you?”
He deleted the message within minutes, but not before it had been ‘re-Tweeted’ tens of thousands of times.
Besson later tried to make light of the gaffe, posting up: “That will teach me to manage my lists and not hit the send button by mistake. I’m not going to bed!”
Besson married Tordjman, 24, last year after divorcing his wife of 25 years Sylvie Brunel.
After the split, Brunel branded the politician a “serial cheat with inter-changeable mistresses”.
She stated at the time: “I have been dumped for a woman as young as our eldest daughter.” (IANS)
Dog, trapped for five days in tunnel, saved
London: A runaway dog in Britain, stuck underground in a pipe for five days, survived by drinking water from a drain filter next to where her head was trapped.
Jess, the Jack Russell dog, was found stuck fast in a nine-inch wide drainage tunnel following a massive rescue operation by fire crews, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), local villagers and an inshore rescue team, the Daily Express reported.
They used heat-sensor equipment and sent cameras down the 650-yard pipe to try to find her.
Jess disappeared while chasing a rat, when owner Chris Lancaster, from Aldbrough, East Yorks county, had taken her three dogs for a walk last week.
The ordeal felt traumatic for Chris who had lost her husband Shaun 10 years ago, when he was killed in an explosion in a field while smoking rats out of holes.
She said: “I hate rats now – it’s so strange that they were the reason I lost Shaun and now the reason I almost lost Jess.” (IANS)
Michelle Obama wears what she loves
Washington: Michelle Obama has revealed that when choosing her daily looks, she depends on practicality rather than going for labels. While speaking to reporters during a roundtable at the White House for her Let’s Move1 campaign, the 47-year-old first lady of the United States said that it is essential for her to love what she wears. “I have to wear what I love,” People magazine quoted her as saying.
“Everything in my closet is something that I love, so that I can make choices based on what makes sense, knowing that I’m going to love whatever it is. I think that tends to be my philosophy.” (ANI)