Bill Clinton longs to become granddad!
New York: Bill Clinton has revealed that his wife Hillary would prefer being a grandmother than President, but daughter Chelsea is too busy to have time to raise a child with husband Marc Mezvinsky.
The 67-year old former US President confessed during an interview with ‘CBS This Morning’ that he and his wife are looking forward to become grandparents but their 33-year old daughter is busy helping the family foundation, the New York Daily News reported.
The 42nd President of the United States admitted that his “goal is to live to be a grandfather” but added that “it’s best not to discuss the issue”. (ANI)
Pak university fines girls for wearing jeans
Islamabad: A Pakistani university has fined girl students for wearing jeans on the campus, a media report said Wednesday.
The National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) made it compulsory for female students to wear dupatta and imposed a ban on wearing jeans in the university premises, the Dawn reported citing sources.
The NUST authorities, however, denied the report, saying they only instructed the students to wear “decent” dresses, the report added.
According to a notice posted on the university notice board, at least seven students were fined for not wearing dupatta or wearing jeans.
Some girls were fined Pakistani Rs.500-Rs.1,000 for the offence, the report said.
It added that the university’s style of functioning was very strict as all important administrative posts were held by retired army officers.
“Male and female students are not allowed to sit together and they are fined for violation.
Teachers and students know that they will be fired and rusticated if they do anything against the will of the administration,” the Dawn report quoted a faculty member as saying on condition of anonymity. (PTI)
World’s first attention-powered car tested
Melbourne: Researchers claim to have developed the world’s first attention-powered car – a pioneering vehicle that uses a headset to monitor brain activity and slow acceleration during periods of distraction.
The car commissioned by the The Royal Automobile Club of West Australia (RAC) was tested in Perth in a bid to prevent road accidents due to inattention. The makers describe it as a “car that goes when you’re paying attention, and slows when you’re not.”
The technology behind the vehicle uses a neuro headset that connects to brain activity linked to the car’s engine via customised software, ‘PerthNow’ reported.
The software communicates with the car and slows the vehicle when the driver’s level of concentration lapses. The headset measures the electrical activity in a person’s brain and feeds it into an algorithm that determines if the driver is paying attention or not. When a person is not paying attention, the software sends a cut-off signal to the car and the accelerator switches to idle safely slowing the car down.
The car loses power to the accelerator when one or a combination of three things happen: you switch tasks ie your attention goes from the road to the radio; your neural activity dips, or your blink and eye scan rate slows significantly when you are tired; or the Gyroscope detects that you’ve significantly turned your head away from the road. (PTI)
Only one in five Brits knows Shakespeare wrote Hamlet
London: Only one out of five Britons knows that William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet and the majority also struggles to name Charles Dickens as the author of Great Expectations, a new survey has found.
The study also found that one in nine Britons has not read a book in the past year. When they do pick up a book, one in ten men and one out of 30 women reads while on the loo. Nearly half of them read just before they go to sleep.
The reasons people skip reading classic literature beyond the school include lack of time and preferring to watch film versions of books.
“Unfortunately, for many people, reading is now a luxury and something they cannot commit a great deal of time to,” said James Endersby, managing director of Opinium Research, which conducted the poll.
“What would be great is if everyone decided to pick one classic book to read during the winter months,” he said. (PTI)
George Orwell’s bloodstained scarf to be auctioned
London: A bloodied, bullet-holed scarf that ‘1984’ author George Orwell was wearing when he was shot in the throat during the Spanish Civil War is going up for auction in the UK.
The collection going under the hammer at Bloomsbury auction house, on October 3, includes four scarves and neckerchiefs owned by Orwell and is expected to fetch up to 1,200 pounds.
Orwell was wearing one of the scarves, with anti-fascist images and colours, when he was shot in the neck by a sniper during a battle near Barcelona in the Spanish Civil War in May 1937. Although Orwell survived the neck wound, it ultimately contributed to his early death, 13 years later, ‘BBC News’ reported. He described the experience of being shot as “very interesting…roughly speaking it was the sensation of being at the centre of an explosion”.
Writing in his Homage to Catalonia, Orwell’s personal account of the war, he said he had been “about 10 days at the front when it happened”. He continued: “Webb, our stretcher-bearer, had brought a bandage and one of the little bottles of alcohol they gave us for field-dressings. The doctor re-bandaged the wound, gave me a shot of morphine, and sent me off.” (PTI)
Prince Charles claims sons owe their dancing skills to him
London: Prince Charles has claimed that his sons, the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry, have inherited their dancing skills from him.
The Prince of Wales, 64, made this revelation to Australian Women’s Weekly Magazine, the Daily Star reported.
Charles added that his sons are great dancers and make him laugh every time they take to the floor. (ANI)
Boy released after he called Kenyan mall attacker ‘very bad man’
Washington: One of the militants behind the Nairobi mall massacre pleaded for forgiveness and gave a four-year-old British boy chocolates after he called him ‘a very bad man’.
Elliott Prior, from Berkshire, England, stood up to the gunman to protect his sister Amelie, 6, and his mother Amber, who was shot in the leg in the attack on the Westgate mall, CBS News reports.
‘You’re a bad man, let us leave’, Elliott shouted at the gunman, the youngster’s uncle, Alex Coutts, said.
The militant from the al Qaeda-linked Somali terror group al-Shabab allegedly gave him a couple Mars chocolates and asked for forgiveness from the family before letting them escape. (ANI)
Beijing baby-killer sentenced to death
Beijing: A man who killed a two-year-old girl by throwing her to the ground was sentenced to death by a Beijing court Wednesday.
The Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court handed the death sentence to Han Lei, 39, on charges of intentional homicide, Xinhua reported.
According to the details of the case, Han grabbed the girl from her carriage and hurled her to the ground in Daxing district of Beijing July 23 after an argument with the toddler’s mother over a parking space.
Han fled the scene but was captured the next day.
The girl was severely injured and died days later despite treatment.
Han said at the court Wednesday that he would appeal the death sentence.
Han committed the crime within a year of being released from prison, and be given the death sentence, prosecution said. (IANS)
New Indian school to open in Dubai
Dubai: A new Indian school is going to come up in Dubai next year with an intake capacity of 3,000 students.
The Credence High School will follow India’s Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) curriculum and initially accept first phase registration from kindergarten one to grade seven and later up to grade 12, local media reported on Tuesday.
Annual fees in this school will range from 15,000 dirhams ($4,083) to 29,000 dirhams.
Premium schools in Dubai charge fees in the range of 20,000 dirhams to as much as 100,000 dirhams.
According to reports, Dubai-based healthcare major DM Healthcare chairman Azad Moopen, UAE-based investment company Jaleel Holdings managing director Sameer Mohammed and Nalapad Group overseas managing director Abdulla Nalapad Ahmed will develop the school at a cost of 50 million dirhams.
“We want to build a school where parents have a say in the way the school is structured and developed,” Khaleej Times quoted Moopen as saying.
“Their feedback will form the core DNA of the school and it will help shape the learning and teaching.”
Admissions will be open in November, 2014, and recruitment for teaching jobs will also begin during the same period.
Senior teaching staff for the school have already been recruited from India.
“We have travelled all across north India to find some of the best educators for our school and we will shortly announce the academic core of our school,” Moopen said.
All modern facilities such as a library with a museum ambience, IT rooms, dance and drama hall with wooden flooring, indoor auditorium and sports facilities featuring a tennis court, badminton court and an athletic-sized swimming pool will be provided in the school.
Sports facilities will also include a FIFA-approved football pitch.
The school’s promoters will reportedly build a chain of Indian schools across the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
There are around two million expatriate Indians in the UAE. (IANS)