Baby dies in Spain on airport luggage belt
Madrid: A five-month-old baby died in a Spanish airport today after being placed on a luggage belt that then started moving without its parents noticing, officials said.
The baby was at the baggage claim with its mother — a US national — and its Canadian father after a flight from London early Thursday morning in the eastern seaside city of Alicante, an airport spokeswoman told AFP.
“The five-month old baby was on the belt. I don’t know if it was placed on it directly, or in a cradle,” she said.
“It was about two o’clock in the morning, on the belt for retrieving special baggage, where children’s push chairs and large items come out,” which was activated when the parents were not looking, the spokeswoman added. “The airport medical service tried to resuscitate the baby but they could not do anything.” (AFP)
US man grows new finger after horse bite
New York: A 33-year-old man in US has undergone a ‘miraculous’ medical procedure to grow back his index finger which was chomped down by an overzealous horse while he was feeding the animal.
Paul Halpern from Florida managed to save the severed digit and take it to the hospital, but doctors told him there was nothing they could do. His insurance company wanted him have the remaining two-thirds of his finger amputated.
Halpern then visited Dr Eugenio Rodriguez, a Deerfield Beach general surgeon who used an innovative procedure called xenograft implantation to regenerate the finger.
Xenograft refers to the transplantation of cells from one species to another. Rodriguez created a scaffold of Halpern’s missing finger, using tissue from a pig bladder, and attached it to the severed portion.
The finger grew into the mold, generating new bone and soft tissue and a new fingernail. According to CBS Miami, Halpern had to apply pulverised pig bladder tissue to his wounded finger each day and cover it with a protective saline sheet. Rodriguez said the powder stimulates stem cells in the finger to regenerate, which causes the growth. (PTI)
Smoking to be banned in English prisons
London: Smoking is set to be prohibited in all prisons in England and Wales over fears of that staff may bring compensation claims, the Times reported on Friday.
A pilot scheme is set to be launched early next year banning all tobacco products in the grounds of jails in south-west England, with a full ban due to be rolled out within 12 months. Senior prison staff were informed of the move in a letter.
“You will no doubt be aware that the decision has been made that the time is right for the prison estate to adopt a tobacco and smoke-free policy to provide a smoke-free workplace/environment for our staff and prisoners,” the letter read, according to the Times. Prisoners are due to be offered nicotine patches as a way of dealing with withdrawal symptoms, which it is feared may lead some inmates to violence. “I am not sure it is the right time,” a prison source told the paper.
“Everything in jails is extremely stretched and more job losses are coming.” Prison Service staff have campaigned for a ban and authorities are worried that officers could bring compensation claims over the effects of passive smoking. (AFP)
Aliens from outer space have landed on Earth in a balloon!
London: A balloon having extra-terrestrial particles landed in West Yorkshire city, Wakefield.
The city, famed for producing the pink vegetable, was the landing site of the balloon, which brought back the extra-terrestrial particles after a trip to the edge of space, the Mirror reported.
Molecular biologist Prof Milton Wainwright, who led the project, said that the findings could be revolutionary.
He said that people may assume that the biological particles went up from Earth but a particle of that size could not have lifted to such heights.
The balloon, which was launched near Chester by the Sheffield University team, was carrying sensors that became exposed only after the balloon reached the height of about 14 – 17 miles above the Earth.
When the balloon touched in Wakefield, it picked up an algae fragment and ‘biological entities’ which is of unusual size. (ANI)
Hundreds of snakes found at man’s US home
Shirley (US): An animal-control officer had hundreds of snakes, including two 6-foot (1.8-metre) Burmese pythons, at his home, where he ran an illegal side business selling them, authorities have said.
There were 850 snakes worth half a million dollars in a detached garage at the Shirley home of Richard Parrinello, including the Burmese pythons, which are illegal in New York state, officials said.
“There is a reason why Burmese pythons are illegal,” said Suffolk County SPCA Chief Roy Gross, citing the deaths of two young boys in New Brunswick, Canada, who were killed by an African rock python while they slept last month. Gross said Burmese pythons can grow to 30 feet (9 meters) long and are “an accident waiting to happen.”
Parrinello has worked on and off as an animal-control officer for the town of Brookhaven since 1988, town spokesman Jack Krieger said. Authorities spotted the snakes during an investigation into whether Parrinello was working while on disability leave from his town job.
During a weeks-long undercover investigation, authorities said, investigators caught Parrinello on camera claiming he had USD 500,000 in inventory including snakes, turtles and turtle eggs stored in a garage he’d converted into habitat space. (AP)
Four sisters commit suicide in Pakistan
Lahore: Four sisters committed suicide in Pakistan’s Punjab province as their father was unable to arrange dowries for them to get married, police said on Friday. After an argument with their father Bashir Ahmed Rajput, the women ended their lives by jumping into a canal in Lodhran district of Punjab yesterday.
A fifth sister, 24-year-old Parveen, also jumped into the canal but was rescued by local residents. The dead sisters, identified by police as Munira, Zenat, Nazia and Faiza, were aged between 23 and 35. The women, all daughters of a poor farmer, were reportedly upset as their father was unable to arrange their marriage.
“Delay in marriage and extreme poverty forced my ill-fated daughters to take the extreme step,” Rajput said in his statement to police. (PTI)