Woman stabs roommate for playing Eagles songs
New York: A drunk US woman allegedly stabbed her roommate multiple times with a 14-inch serrated bread knife after he refused to stop playing music by The Eagles.
Vernett Bader, 54, from South Carolina faces domestic violence charges, police said. Bader was at her North Charleston home on Monday while her 64-year-old roommate watched TV and listened to a loop of classic rock tunes by the “Hotel California” Grammy winner.
Another man, who was with the couple told police the victim had several cuts on his arms and hands and all of them were caused by Bader, ABC affiliate WCIV-TV reported. The victim said he had been listening to The Eagles when Bader told him that she did not want to hear the classic rock band’s songs. The man apparently did not entertain her wish.
Bader responded by allegedly getting a 14-inch serrated bread knife and swung it at the man repeatedly. The victim wrestled the knife away from her, but she came back with another knife before he could run and lock himself in the washroom. The victim said he and Bader used to date, but while the relationship had ended they still lived together. (PTI)
Woman finds ‘brain-like’ object in tomato sauce
London: A woman from the British city of Worcester found a ‘brain-like’ object in a packet of a tomato passata sauce, a media report said Tuesday.
Julleen Marter, 47, discovered the object when she poured the sauce into a pan last Thursday and noticed chunks of grey matter floating in it, the Daily Mail reported.
The brain-like object measured 10 cm in diameter, the report said.
“After pouring the tomato passata in, I noticed the consistency was not as it should be. I also noticed the normally bright red sauce was turning a really horrible black colour,” the Daily Mail quoted Julleen as saying.
“I realised that there was something in the bottom of the carton so proceeded to cut it open with scissors and to my horror discovered something which I can only describe as strange,” she added.
Julleen, a mother of three, said she was waiting for the Environmental Health Office for testing the alien object.
“I am not sure if it was animal or plant but it looks like a brain-type material. At the moment it is frozen because that is what Environmental Health told me to do. I’m waiting for them to come back to me to take it away and have it tested,” Julleen said.
“I have examined the object and it certainly isn’t a tomato. It’s spongy and looks like a small brain,” she added. (IANS)
China to make amusement rides safer
Beijing: In a bid to ensure safer amusement rides for public, the Chinese authorities have decided to stiffen security measures by holding the companies accountable for their equipment and machinery’s quality.
The country’s leading quality watchdog — General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine — Tuesday unveiled a set of rules to improve supervision of large amusement rides, such as roller coasters, Xinhua reported.
The new regulations, to be effective from Jan 1, 2014, will hold the companies manufacturing, installing, renovating or repairing large rides as liable for the quality of equipment and machinery.
While making the operating companies responsible for the safety of the rides, the new rules also require the operators to apply to inspection authorities for regular safety checks in a timely manner.
It also makes it mandatory for the operators to make emergency response plans for each ride and hold an emergency rescue drill at least once a year.
The rides refer to those with a designed speed or two metres per second or quicker, or those at heights of no less than two metres, according to the rules.
On Sunday, three people were seriously hurt after being thrown out of a spinning machine in an amusement park in Shaanxi province’s Xi’an city in northwest China. (IANS)
Mt. Zion dig reveals mansion possibly from Jesus` time
Washington: An archaeological dig on Jerusalem’s Mt. Zion has revealed the well-preserved lower levels of what the archaeological team believes is an Early Roman period mansion, possibly belonging to a member of the Jewish ruling priestly caste.
If the mansion is an elite priestly residence, the team hopes the relatively undisturbed nature of the buried ruin may yield significant domestic details concerning the rulers of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus.
Particularly important in the season’s discoveries were a buried vaulted chamber that has proven to be an unusual finished bathroom (with bathtub) adjacent to a large below-ground ritual cleansing pool (mikveh) — only the fourth bathroom to be found in Israel from the Second Temple period, with two of the others found in palaces of Herod the Great at Jericho and Masada.
Shimon Gibson, the British-born archaeologist co-directing the University of North Carolina at Charlotte excavation, said that the bathroom is very important because hitherto, except for Jerusalem, it is usually found within palace complexes, associated with the rulers of the country.
Gibson said that the building that they are excavating is in the shadow – immediately to the southeast – of the very, very large palace of Herod the Great, his compound and the later seat of the Roman governors and whoever lived there would have been able to pop into the palace.
Sig co-director James Tabor, a UNC Charlotte scholar of early Christian history, said that if it a priestly residence of a wealthy first century Jewish family, it immediately connects not just to the elite of Jerusalem — the aristocrats, the rich and famous of that day — but to Jesus himself.
He said that these are the families who had Jesus arrested and crucified. (ANI)