Chinese man held for posting ‘rumours’ on foreign website
Beijing: A 62-year-old Chinese man was today detained by police for posting “rumours” on a foreign website for monetary considerations, state media reported.
Xiang Nanfu has published lots of false stories on the website “Boxun” since 2009, with his username “Feixiang” — “flying” in Chinese, the report said.
His allegations included “Chinese government harvested organs from living humans and buried people alive, causing mass protest outside United Nations organisations in China. According to Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, he also posted another allegations saying “more than 1,000 policemen expropriated land with violence, beating a pregnant woman to death,” as well “a petitioner was beaten to death with the body abandoned in street”. Xiang’s actions were instigated and highly paid with US dollars by a man surnamed Wei who was in charge of the website, police said. (PTI)
Woman bitten by 6-foot python hiding in toilet bowl
Singapore: A 34-year-old woman in Singapore was bitten by a 6-foot python that emerged from the toilet bowl in her home while she was using it and sank its fangs into her leg.
Noraslinda Asat was using the bathroom in her Eunosville home when she felt a sharp pain. She stood up and found the jaws of a 6-foot python clamped on the back of her right thigh. After several attempts at grabbing the snake, she managed to pull it off.
Asat was taken to a hospital where she received an injection and was discharged, ‘The New Paper’ reported.
The incident happened earlier this month and the snake has not been caught. The woman is so traumatised that she has refused to use the toilet at home, preferring to go to public ones instead. (PTI)
Gay couples marry in US state, most clerks sit out
Little Rock (US): More than 200 gay couples obtained marriage licenses in the conservative southern state of Arkansas after a judge tossed out its 10-year-old same-sex marriage ban, but only at a handful of courthouses as an overwhelming majority of county clerks said they first wanted the state Supreme Court to weigh in.
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel who recently announced his personal support for same-sex marriage rights but said he would defend the law filed paperwork on Monday to at least temporarily preserve the ban, which voters approved by a 3-to-1 margin. In other states that have seen gay-marriage bans overturned, judges either issued stays with their orders or state lawyers sought them with some immediacy.
McDaniel’s office requested a stay from the local judge Friday night but had to wait until the full court record was available yesterday before going to the state Supreme Court, under the justices’ rules. Justices gave both sides until midday today to file arguments. Seventy of the state’s 75 clerks have not granted licenses. A handful of clerks, including one who granted licenses on Monday, filed a stay request saying the judge’s decision didn’t address a law that threatens clerks with fines for “wrongful issuance of a marriage license.” With the weddings Saturday and today, Arkansas became the 18th state to allow same-sex marriages, and the first among former states of the old Confederacy, which broke away from the US during its Civil War in the 1860s. (AP)
Beatles themed cafe makes 7000 calorie tower sandwich
London: A Beatles-themed cafe has created an epic 7000 calorie snack sandwich and has challenged fans to consume it. The sandwich was prepared with 30 rashers of bacon, 20 slices of bread, six tomatoes, two lettuces and a pound of butter, the Daily Star reported.
According to the challenge, the winner who devours the whole sandwich while listening to the Fab Four’s hits will be offered free breakfast for the entire week at Cafe 23 on Liverpool’s famous Penny Lane. (ANI)
Meet couple who created their own solar panel driveway
Washington: A US couple has covered their office driveway with impact-resistant, honeycomb-shaped solar cells to make it environment friendly.
Julie Brusaw and Scott Brusaw, from Idaho, started the ‘Indiegogo campaign’ with a vision to wrap the roads across America with solar cells so they started with their surroundings first, Wired news reported. The prototype shows the panels with heating elements to melt snow and ice with five-color LED lighting to create road lines and corridors for storing stormwater. (ANI)