Thursday 29 October 2015

Social media is helping fangirls find acceptance for their wild obsession with boy bands

SHE thought it was the type of behaviour you would expect from a teenage girl, but Jessica Leski would soon discover being a fangirl has no age limits.

The year was 2012 and the then-31-year-old had become madly obsessed with English-Irish pop boy band One Direction.

“I would describe it as the feeling you get when you first start really liking someone or falling in love,” she told news.com.au

“It was completely unexpected, I had never liked the whole boy band thing and I certainly wasn’t the demographic they were targeted at.”

Yet, Ms Leski found herself developing an obsession for the group, much to distaste of all those around her.

Afghanistan's female marathon runner defies danger to go the distance

The sole Afghan woman who took part in the Bamiyan race hopes others follow in her footsteps despite expectations that girls forgo sport and stay indoors

ven if chasing her athletic ambitions were only a matter of physical ability, odds would already be stacked against Zainab*. For two months leading up to Afghanistan’s first official marathon in Bamiyan this month, her fitness regime was limited to jogging laps in her family’s small backyard because running outside was unsafe.

Toyota chief sports car engineer Tetsuya Tada talks the future of sports cars

THERE’S nothing quite like the thrill of driving a good sports car. And one man knows how to make them better than just about anyone else.

Tetsuya Tada devotes his life to putting a smile on their face through the thrill of sports cars. He’s the chief engineer of Toyota’s sports division and has developed an almost cult-like following across the world for being the ‘godfather of 86’, and bringing the fun back into driving.

Slap on wrist for racist South Australian police officer

A South Australian police officer who threatened to tie a noose around an Aboriginal man’s neck, set him on fire and drag him through the streets was sent to cultural sensitivity training, the state’s police ombudsman has revealed.

The officer had admitted to racially abusing and threatening the man in Adelaide in 2013.

Nigeria rescues hundreds of women and children from Boko Haram

Military says 338 captives have been rescued in raids on group’s Sambisa Forest stronghold, with 30 militants killed

Nigerian troops have rescued 338 captives, almost all women and children, fromBoko Haram camps in a forest in the north-east of the country, the military has said.A defence headquarters statement on Wednesday said 30 extremists were killed the previous day in raids on two camps on the fringes of the insurgents’ stronghold in Sambisa Forest.

World's Longest Snake Has Virgin Birth—First Recorded in Species
An 11-year-old reticulated python produced six babies without mating in 2012.
Virgin birth has been documented in the world's longest snake for the first time, a recent study says.An 11-year-old reticulated python named Thelma produced six female offspring in June 2012 at the Louisville Zoo in Kentucky, where she lives with another female python, Louise. No male had ever slithered anywhere near the 200-pound (91-kilogram), 20-foot-long (6 meters) mother snake.

They Kill. They Joust. They Heal. Reptiles in 10 Awesome Photos
On Reptile Awareness Day, photos of albino alligators, chameleons who fight with their noses, and one hungry snake.

It’s tough earning people’s sympathy when a lot of them are afraid of you.

That might explain why reptiles don’t get the same conservation attention as cute and cuddly-looking mammals. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t need it—a third of the reptile species evaluated by theIUCN Red List of Threatened Species are recognized as vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered.

Should cyclists be allowed to run red lights?

Cyclists in Paris are now allowed to ride through red lights, and San Francisco is mulling a similar move. With the four main candidates for mayor considering just such a radical rewriting of the rulebook, could London be next?

Mamdouh Habib and his wife have been detained for questioning

FORMER Guantanamo Bay inmate Mamdouh Habib and his wife Maha have left Turkey after being taken in for questioning.

It is understood Mr Habib was detained in Istanbul on Thursday morning and asked about past allegations raised against him that he was an al-Qaeda terrorist trainer.

It is unclear who detained him.

A friend of the family told AAP the couple had departed Turkey for Lebanon.

“They are safe now,” the source said.

Syrian refugee children work Beirut streets to support families

On a Friday night in Beirut, tiny figures weave in and out of the traffic between moving cars. They stand on tiptoes to peer through vehicle windows in an attempt to charm drivers out of a dollar or two.The children are Syrian refugees, often the sole breadwinners for their families, working through the night selling flowers and shining shoes. They come from families stuck in limbo in Lebanon, and whose parents desperately want to go back to Syria.

Tiny Island Nation's Enormous New Ocean Reserve is Official
The nation of Palau in the western Pacific just protected 80 percent of its ocean.

An island nation in the Pacific Ocean that's smaller than New York City has created an ocean reserve that's bigger than California.
The president of Palau signed legislation Wednesday designating a reserve that's about 193,000 square miles (500,000 square kilometers) in size. This makes it one of the five largest fully protected marine areas in the world. (Read about Chile's newest marine reserve.)

What’s It Like to Have Refugees Stream Into Your Town?
Residents of a tiny Slovenian town are welcoming but have mixed emotions as tens of thousands of migrants flood into local roads and fields.
Rigonce, Slovenia was a quiet, bucolic town on the border with Croatia where farmers tended crops and neighbors greeted each other warmly in the street. That changed last week.

Gay priest decries 'inhuman' treatment of homosexual Catholics

A senior priest in the Vatican who was stripped of his post after coming out as gay has launched a scathing attack on the Roman Catholic Church.

In a letter to Pope Francis this month, Krzysztof Charamsa accused the Church of making the lives of millions of gay Catholics globally "a hell".

He criticised what he called the Vatican's hypocrisy in banning gay priests, even though he said the clergy was "full of homosexuals".

Iran on track to kill more than 1,000 this year, UN expert reports

Iran is on track to execute more than 1,000 people in 2015, according to a scathing report from a United Nations analyst studying the rogue nation's actions.

Calling it an "unprecedented assault on the right to life in Iran," Special Rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed described a surge in executions over the past year. He said Iran hanged nearly 700 people since January.

Roe 8: Protests continue as WA Government names key contractor for controversial highway extension

THE WA Government has named Leighton as its key contractor for the controversial Roe 8 project as angry protesters rallied against the highway extension.

The project, a 5km extension of Roe Highway from Kwinana Freeway to Stock Road is expected to cost less than $500 million.

The announcement follows last week’s granting by the Federal Government of conditional environmental approval for the project.

Indonesia's forest fires threaten a third of world's wild orangutans

Fires have spread beyond plantations deep into primary forests and national parks, the last strongholds of the endangered apes

Raging Indonesian forest fires have advanced into dense forest on Borneo and now threaten one third of the world’s remaining wild orangutans, say conservationists.

Satellite photography shows that around 100,000 fires have burned in Indonesia’s carbon-rich peatlands since July. But instead of being mostly confined to farmland and plantations, as they are in most years, several thousand fires have now penetrated deep into primary forests and national parks, thestrongholds of the remaining wild apes and other endangered animals.

South Sudan faces 'concrete' famine risk and needs urgent help, warn experts

Food security analysis highlights need for immediate action to ward off threat of starvation as difficulty of reaching conflict-wracked areas begins to tell

Famine in parts of South Sudan could be just weeks away unless urgent action is taken to address humanitarian needs.

Alleged drug dealer had up to 10,000 stolen shotguns and rifles at his home and in storage unit

WHEN sheriff’s deputies went to serve a subpoena on an alleged drug dealer at his home they discovered up to 10,000 stolen shotguns and hunting rifles.

“We honestly passed guns from one person to the other as fast as you could for nine straight hours,” Chesterfield County Sheriff Jay Brooks told WBTV.

Heartbroken Patti Stevens kills herself two weeks after her husband of 25 years is murdered

WHEN her husband of 25 years Dave Stevens was murdered in a brutal and random attack as he jogged, his devastated wife Patti said he was ‘the love of her life and I’m lost without him’.

Australian navy ships caught up in China-US island tension

AUSTRALIA has delayed a South China Sea naval exercise with Chinese warships until the United States Navy has completed its push against China’s illegal sand islands.

The American Guided Missile Destroyer USS Lassen was supported by US Navy surveillance aircraft yesterday as it cruised inside the 20km ‘exclusion zone’ around the disputed Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands where China has built sand islands and air bases to back its illegal territorial claims over the disputed area.

This Week’s Night Sky: Stellar Ghoul Haunts Halloween Skies
The moon guides the way to a creepy crab, and a monster’s eye appears to wink at Earth.
Hunter’s Moon. Just after local sunset on Monday, October 26, look for the silvery full moon rising in the east, located within the large but faint zodiacal constellation Pisces, the fishes. Native American tribes called this full moon the Hunter’s Moon because it appears during the time when hunters are preparing for winter.

For an added observing challenge, use binoculars to hunt down the ice giant Uranus about 10 degrees to the right of the moon, about equal to the width of your fist at arm’s length.

El Nino brings venomous sea snakes to California's coast

El Nino is bringing more than just rain to California.

A highly venomous sea snake was spotted in Ventura County on Thursday evening.

By Friday, a surfer had captured footage of the sea snake lying on the beach.

"It looked lethargic when I approached," Bob Forbes told CNN. "I touched it lightly and it started to move." Fearing that children might come across the aquatic snake, Forbes placed it inside a five-gallon bucket with some ocean water and alerted local wildlife experts.

At least 311 killed as massive earthquake shakes Pakistan, Afghanistan

Rescuers were struggling to reach quake-stricken regions in Pakistan and Afghanistan on Tuesday as officials said the combined death toll from the previous day's earthquake rose to 311.

Cause of Afghan Quake Is a Deep Mystery
Scientists aren’t sure how earthquakes like Monday's form 130 miles underground.
The magnitude 7.5 earthquake that shook northeast Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday was a type of quake not easily understood by scientists, even though it happened in what the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) calls “one of the most seismically hazardous regions on Earth.”

Update: Boat explodes in Havasu's Bridgewater Channel

Boat was full of spectators watching IJSBA World Finals

A boat explosion in the Bridgewater Channel injured up to 12 people Saturday night.

Witnesses on scene said the boat exploded just after 8 p.m. in front of the condominiums near the Heat Hotel on the Island. The boat was full of spectators watching the International Jet Sports Boating Association World Finals Friday night.

WHO deems processed meats ‘carcinogenic to humans’

WHO deems processed meats ‘carcinogenic to humans’

CARNIVORES everywhere will be crying into their fry-ups this morning as the World Health Organisation has confirmed what we all feared — too much bacon can be really bad for you.

The World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer released its much-anticipated findings into the “carcinogenicity” of red and processed meat overnight.

Five talking points from the second Test – Pakistan v England

England’s middle order blows cold then hot, Wahab Riaz has a good touch for a big man, Buttler’s not coming up with good service and why review a review

Middle order woes

It was a Test that England’s middle order almost salvaged in the second inningsafter that same cluster had all but lost the game in the first. A collapse from 206 for three to 218 for seven instigated by Wahab Riaz proved to be the game. Joe Root’s departure set it off and with Alastair Cook already back in the changing room, there was an inevitability to how things turned out for Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler and Adil Rashid – Jonny Bairstow (46) at least managing his first score of note of the tour in the first innings. That pack of four acquitted themselves decently on day five, taking more than 58 overs out of the day, with Adil Rashid’s 172-ball 61 boosting that number. The run-scoring exploits of Cook and Root are, of course, worthy of praise, but they probably wouldn’t mind a bit.

Wild bear shot dead by police after running through mall in Khabarovsk, Russia

A WILD bear has wandered through a shopping mall in Russia’s Far East before being shot and killed by police. No injuries were reported.

Local TV channel MestoproTV released a video that showed the bear smashing a window and roaming around the mall. It then ran to a nearby playground in the city of Khabarovsk close to the Chinese border.

On exit, the bear pushed open the store’s doors and barrelled down the street. The video showed a camouflaged law enforcement officer pursuing the animal and shooting it dead on the playground.

'They call him an infidel': Pakistan's humble founder of a charity empire

Even in Pakistan a cheap sofa covered with brown plastic is not most people’s idea of throw-restraint-to-the-wind luxury.

But Abdul Sattar Edhi, a legendary charity worker known for his asceticism, is still getting used to the two-seater that recently replaced the hard bench he sat on for decades in the corner of his office.

Husband accused of pimping his wife to more than 2700 men over four years, court told

A FRENCHMAN stands accused of forcing his wife to have sex with more than 2700 men at their home over four years as he pocketed almost $245,000 (€160,000).

The 54-year-old husband, who cannot be named for legal reasons, allegedly started pimping out his wife, the mother of their five-year-old son, in 2011.

He listed his wife, aged 46, on four different websites, a court in Meaux, a town 41km north of the centre of Paris,

Pakistan and Afghanistan rocked by earthquake – as it happened

At least 100 people are reported to have died after a powerful earthquake struck in the far north of Afghanistan

A major earthquake has hit Afghanistan, northern Pakistan and parts of India, with reports that more than 180 have been killed. The magnitude 7.5 quake was centred in the province of Badakhshan in the Hindu Kush mountain range in Afghanistan’s far north, and occurred at a depth of 130 miles (210km). More than two minutes of sustained tremors were felt in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. The quake also hit the cities of Lahore, Faisalabad and the mountainous region of Chitral.

South Asia rocked by earthquake in northern Afghanistan

A STRONG earthquake in northern Afghanistan shook buildings from Kabul to Delhi, cut power and communications in some areas and caused 46 deaths, mainly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Pakistani officials say the powerful earthquake has killed 62 people in northwestern Pakistan, bringing the total death toll from the disaster to 79.

British scientists create supercharged GM tomatoes that could help beat cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease

One GM tomato produces the same amount of genistein - which may help prevent breast cancer - as 2.5 kilograms of tofu

Supercharged GM tomatoes packed with natural chemicals that combat illnesses like heart disease, cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease could soon be on the menu.

British scientists are experimenting with a range of genetically engineered tomatoes.

One contains 50 times the amount of the antioxidant resveratrol as a bottle of wine.

Resveratrol, which is found in red grapes and also peanuts and berries, is believed to protect the heart and circulatory system and lower cholesterol.

Another tomato produced the same amount of genistein - a soybean compound that may help prevent breast cancer - as 2.5 kilograms of tofu.

The key to turning tomatoes into natural medicine factories is a protein called AtMYB12, found in the garden weed thale cress.

Two-metre long shark caught swimming in waters near popular tourist beach in Dorset

Fisherman Jan Davey was startled when he hauled in the shark just 300 yards off the popular Chesil Beach

A two-metre long porbeagle shark - a close relative of the deadly great white - has been caught off the Dorset coastline.

Fisherman Jan Davey was startled when he hauled in the monster shark just 300 yards off the popular Chesil Beach.

Despite the shark being almost too big for his boat, the 39-year-old took the unusual catch back to shore and crowds gathered in awe.

The shark was so big that one passerby thought it was a surfboard - until they opened its massive jaws to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth.