In this Aug. 2010 photo provided by the Olmstead family, Jessica Olmstead, 17, of Battle Creek, Mich., is shown with the 448-pound black bear she killed in Oba, Ontario, Canada. Olmstead killed the bear with a Matthews Passion bow and arrow set, designed for women, from a little over 16 yards away. The black bear was the young hunter's first big game take and she currently holds the Pope and Young Bowhunting record for the trophy bear.
Halifax, part of Lloyds Banking Group, said average pocket money fell to 5.89 pounds ($9.23) a week in 2010 from 6.24 pounds in 2009. The new figure is the lowest weekly sum since 2003 when parents paid an average of 5.79 pounds.
Children's pocket money has fallen despite a small rise in their parents' wages over the past year. Average weekly pay in Britain in the three months to July was 431 pounds excluding bonuses, 1.8 percent more than a year earlier.
Parents paid daughters less pocket money than sons, in a parallel to the gender gap in the earnings of grownups.
Girls received an average 5.70 pounds a month, compared to 6.08 pounds a month for boys, a difference of around 6 percent compared to 12 percent between men and women in full-time work.
Halifax based its data on a survey of 1,204 children aged between 8 and 15 conducted from August 26 to September 2.
Killing a single bedbug can be as easy as rolling on top of it in your sleep. Ridding a home or hotel of its siblings and cousins on the other hand, is an exhausting and expensive task.Nearly eliminated a few decades ago, bedbugs are back with a vengeance.
They've overtaken college dorms, military barracks, apartment complexes, office buildings and even forced the closure of Niketown's flagship New York store Monday.
And they are big business: 258 million dollars in the United States last year, according to the National Pest Management Association.
Leading experts gathered in a Chicago suburb Tuesday for a two-day summit on eradicating the hardy critters, which can live a year without feeding and like to explore at night, often catching rides to new homes in luggage, handbags and clothing.
"It's easy to come in and kill bedbugs with insecticide, but it's much harder to get to the point where you can be confident that they're gone," Kenneth Haynes, an entomologist with the University of Kentucky, told AFP.
Bedbugs are very good at hiding, he explained, and the problem is finding a poison which is powerful enough to kill all the bugs and their eggs but safe enough to be used indoors.
The summit's showroom was filled with potential solutions: massive room heaters to bake the bugs, carbon dioxide sprayers to freeze the bugs, high powered steamers to boil the bugs, plastic moats and barriers to block the bugs from getting into beds, tight-fitting mattress protectors, and even specially-trained dogs to sniff out their hiding spots.
"There's so much bedbug hysteria and 75 percent of it is well-founded," said David James, whose company Packtite sells portable heating chambers designed to kill any critters that crawl into luggage or non-washable possessions like books and shoes.
"They're so bad out there and they're so hard to kill," James said as he manned a busy display at the sold-out show.
"I've had people call me and say they've gone bankrupt trying to get rid of them because they keep replacing their clothes and furniture."
There is unfortunately no silver bullet for eradicating bed bugs, said Phillip Cooper, president of BedBug Central, a for-profit educational organization which hosted the conference.
"Nothing works on its own," said Cooper, who also runs a pest-control company founded by his father in 1955.
The best thing to do is try to keep bed bugs out of your home by carefully inspecting hotel rooms, washing all clothes taken on a trip in hot water and vacuuming or treating your luggage.
If you end up picking up the critters at work, a movie theatre, church or work, hope that you find them quick and call a professional right away.
A moderate infestation can be eradicated with a single, properly-applied treatment of insecticide, Cooper said. But serious infestations can require several treatments and a multiprong approach costing thousands of dollars.
One way large hotel and apartment complexes are cutting their costs is hiring sniffer dogs to pinpoint exactly which units are affected and find the nests.
A property manager at a large apartment complex outside Chicago, Shellie Beno, got into the business last year after residents started bringing her bags filled with bedbugs.
Pest controllers would spend hours tearing an apartment apart looking for nests. Her three dogs can search a typical unit in about five to seven minutes. And their noses can sniff out places people can't, like behind the walls.
Another advantage is the dogs are much less intrusive and residents don't have to worry that their neighbors will know they've got bugs.
"Would you rather have me going through your dresser drawers or my dogs?" said her Detective Bedbug partner David Bohannan.
Donald Duck, the king and God are among those who snagged votes in the Swedish general elections, a final list of hand-written votes published Thursday by the election authority showed.Hand-written ballots are allowed in Swedish polls. Voters normally use them to write down the name of the established party they wish to vote for, but random options also pop up on ballots.
More than 120 people wanted to see Donald Duck, the Walt Disney Company's cartoon character, get elected in Sunday's vote.
"My party" meanwhile garnered four votes, while "Myself" got two, the same amount as Jesus, Jesus Christ and God.
"The king" meanwhile won three votes, one more than "common sense in Sweden" -- written in English on the ballot.
"Harry Potter", "Mickey Mouse" and "Couch potato party" each got one.
Aside from such very personal picks, a number of smaller parties not represented in parliament also garnered support on Sunday.
The two largest were the pro-file-sharing Pirate Party and the Feminist Initiative, which both raked in less than one percent of votes.
Among others, was the Pensioners Party with 0.1 percent of the vote, the Hard Alcohol Party with 237 supporters and the Healthcare Party with 185.
Photo of Jonny Roxx: Facebook
It is a chocolate lover's dream. Armenian company Grand Candy on Saturday unveiled the world's largest-ever chocolate bar -- a 25-centimetre-thick (10-inch-thick) slab weighing in at 4,410 kilograms (9,720 pounds) and measuring 5.60 metres (18.4 feet) by 2.75 metres (nine feet).In a televised ceremony, representatives of Guinness World Records measured the dark-chocolate bar and handed a document to company managers certifying it as the new record-holder.
As striking hotel staff rolled out a red carpet for film festival fan photo opportunities Sunday, one besieged big inn manager said he hopes contract talks resume soon. Nine days after workers launched rotating picket lines in time for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), both sides issued statements accusing each other of delaying negotiations.
“We continue to be treated like second-class citizens by the Hyatt owners,” hotel room attendant Althea Porter-Harvey said in a Unite Here statement. “We deserve better than that,” she stated. “We’re joining the street party today.”
The union claims Toronto hotel owners cite recession issues for seeking to boost work hours without pay hikes, but insisted Canadian and U.S. guest bookings are “rebounding.”
Hyatt Regency general manager Bruce Flyer said his hotel, which remains open to guests as a TIFF centre, has sought to settle with the union since January.
“During this period, we have honoured the terms of our expired agreement,” Flyer said in an e-mail, adding Hyatt wants a deal “appropriate for these economic times that is fair to all parties.”
Flyer claimed the union delayed talks more than six months and chose “to demonstrate and strike rather than continue our work towards finding solutions.”
Hotel negotiators agreed to meet again Sept. 23, “but have not received final confirmation from union leadership,” he said.
Unite Here staged its first pre-festival walkout Sept. 3 at the Hyatt on King St. W., followed by a return there last Friday, during a day-long strike outside the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. Workers picketed the Holiday Inn on Bloor St. on Saturday and two hours Sunday at the Hyatt Regency.
Since its first walkout 10 days ago, the union claimed Hyatt “made no move to address any of the hotel worker concerns.”
Ever get that feeling that you left the keys in your police cruiser? Or that you left that burglar unattended in the back seat? At least you remembered to close the rear seat divider... right?
DAKAR (Reuters) - Senegalese security forces have arrested seven Koranic teachers for forcing children to panhandle, a police official said on Friday, days after the West African state announced a crack down on public begging. The predominately Muslim country is under mounting international pressure to end the use of children by Koranic teachers to collect money, rice and sugar after a prominent rights group said the practice was similar to slavery.
"We have arrested seven Koranic teachers who have sent children to the streets to beg," police spokesman Mbaye Sady Diop said. "They were handed over to the prosecutor to do his job."
Parents in Senegal have been entrusting their children to traditional Muslim schools, called daaras, for centuries, expecting them to receive food, shelter and teachings from the Koran, and to work on communal farms.
But forced begging began to emerge in the 1970s when crop failures led schools to move into cities and boarding students were called upon to panhandle to cover costs.
Human Rights Watch said in April at least 50,000 children in the country of 12 million were living in conditions "akin to slavery," facing severe beatings from unscrupulous teachers if they did not collect enough money.
Some of the religious leaders -- known as marabouts -- make as much as $100,000 per year on the proceeds while cutting back hours in the classroom, according to the report.
Senegal announced last week it would enforce an existing ban on public begging, "under threat from partners."
But opponents of the crackdown say with little formal employment and a virtually non-existent welfare system, many adults and children in the impoverished country have little choice but to beg.
| ADVERTISEMENT |
NEW YORK, N.Y. - The Black Widow of eating contests gobbled up nearly 181 chicken wings in 12 minutes, devouring the national championship record in Buffalo on Sunday.
"I'm so happy!" said Sonya Thomas, who ate 4.86 pounds (2.2 kilograms) of chicken wings to win the contest, besting world eating marvel Joey Chestnut at the ninth annual National Buffalo Wing Festival.
Buffalo, about 300 miles (480 kilometres) northwest of New York, is said to be the birthplace of the wings, typically fried and covered in tangy vinegar and hot sauce.
Chestnut, America's No. 1 professional eater, was favoured to win Sunday's competition. He came in second after eating 169 chicken wings, or 4.55 pounds (2.06 kilograms).
This was the first time Thomas, of Alexandria, Virginia, and Chestnut, of San Jose, California, faced off in a chicken wing eating contest. They went at it "neck and neck," said Drew Cerza, the founder of the festival, which was inspired by the 2001 Bill Murray comedy "Osmosis Jones," about a compulsive eater.
"They pushed each other really hard," Cerza said. "Joey is so strong. He's got great jaw strength. But Sonya's so fast with the hand."
Thomas, who's 5 feet (1.52 metres) tall and weights 105 pounds (47.6 kilograms), calls herself the Black Widow because she often defeats bigger male competitors — Chestnut is 6-foot-2 (1.87-meter) and weights 230 pounds (104.3 kilograms) — in eating contests. She set the previous wings record in 2005, when she ate 174 in 12 minutes.
She also previously set eating records for oysters, hard-boiled eggs, cheesecake and jalapeno peppers. She won her first competitive eating event in 2003.
The sprightly 43-year-old said she owed Sunday's triumph to her fancy finger work.
"Sometimes if I try to chew too much I slow down," she said. "I used my hands more than the mouth."
During the public contest, in front of thousands of people, she twirled the wings in her small fingers while quickly tearing off the meat with her teeth and lips.
Her cheeks were covered in a sheen of orange Buffalo sauce by the end.
But she said she was still hungry afterward, calling the wings "an appetizer." About an hour later, she made a guest appearance in the Ridiculously Hot Buffalo Wing Eating Contest and ate 20 more.
"The hottest wings!" she said. "I had to drink a lot of water."
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson found some time to hit an L.A. gym in between shooting scenes for "The Fast and the Furious 5" -- and from the looks of this photo .... he's playing the role of a diesel truck.
As for the Miami shirt -- dude used to play football for The U back in the day ... and was a member on the 1991 National Championship squad.
Outside of court, Horwitz and Slater's publicist Howard Bragman wouldn't comment on the possible plea bargain ... but did say Slater "resigned voluntarily" from JetBlue.
Rapper Eminem has vowed to stop taking aim at his rumoured ex-girlfriend Mariah Carey in his songs following their public bust-up last year, insisting he's "done" with the topic. The Not Afraid hitmaker waged a war of words against Carey and her husband Nick Cannon after the R&B beauty disputed his claims that they'd previously been romantically involved.
He hit out at the couple in tunes like Bagpipes from Baghdad and The Warning, in which he threatened to release voicemail messages he alleged Carey had left for him during their brief fling, while the singer retaliated by mimicking Eminem in the video for her single Obsessed and dubbing him "delusional" in the track's lyrics.
Eminem mentions Carey in passing once more on Cold Wind Blows from his latest album Recovery, but he insists that will be the last he ever raps about the voluptuous star.
He tells Vibe magazine, "I really don't want to talk about her anymore only just because it's kind of like the last thing I said about her was on Cold Wind Blows. I made the comment. I don't want to keep beating a dead horse. I'm not even going to comment about it. I'm done with that whole situation. I said what I had to say. I'm done."
NEW YORK -- Hip-hop star Kanye West is still feeling the pain over his ambush of Taylor Swift last year -- and he's expressing his pain all over Twitter. West unleashed a torrent of emotions on his official Twitter account Saturday, acknowledging once again that he was wrong for jumping on stage, grabbing the microphone from Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards and saying her trophy should have gone to Beyonce.
But the rapper-producer said that he has experienced enormous pain, been the subject of death wishes and suffered tremendous setback to his career.
"How deep is the scar ... I bled hard ... cancelled tour with the number one pop star in the world ... closed the doors of my clothing office," he tweeted.
The multiplatinum, Grammy-winning superstar had been one of the decade's most successful and critically acclaimed stars, despite sometimes boorish behavior and meltdowns at other awards shows when things did not go his way.
However, when he upstaged Swift -- the then-teenage darling of pop and country music worlds --the public had had enough. There was tremendous backlash against West -- even President Barack Obama was caught calling him a "jackass."
At the time, he went on Jay Leno's prime-time show to apologize and said he still had not recovered from his mother's death two years prior. He said he would be taking time off from the public eye.
That time off came sooner than expected. He canceled a joint tour with Lady Gaga that fall, apparently due to low ticket sales. On Twitter, West talked about the backlash.
"I'm the guy who at one point could perform the Justin Timberlake on stage and everyone would be sooo happy that I was there," he wrote.
After the incident, he said, "People tweeted that they wish I was dead ... No listen. They wanted me to die people. I carry that. I smile and take pictures through that."
West said he's now "ready to get out of my own way. The ego is overdone."
He also apologized to Swift again, and said he has written a song for her that he hopes she will perform.
"If she won't take it then I will perform it for her," he said.
West is working on a new album that is supposed to come out sometime this fall. A recent member of Twitter, West has been an active user, posting not only his feelings, but new songs and other updates. He has over 900,000 followers since he joined earlier this summer.
"Man I love Twitter ... I've always been at the mercy of the press but no more ... The media tried to demonize me," he tweeted Saturday.
The Ryanair flight from Liverpool to Poznan made the unscheduled landing in the northwestern city of Bremen on Tuesday, local police said.
The British woman was treated for scalding at the airport and released -- but not before the plane resumed its journey without her. She later took a train to Poland, police said.
(Reporting by Michelle Martin; editing by Paul Casciato)
BEAVERTON, Ore. - A homeless man who called 911 from the hot tub of a suburban Portland, Oregon home and asked for towels, hot chocolate and a hug.
He didn't get any of those items — he got arrested for trespassing instead.
Beaverton police say Mark Eskelsen called 911 from his cellphone, identified himself as "the sheriff of Washington County," and asked for medical help.
He later admitted he wasn't the sheriff but informed the dispatcher he'd been in the water about 10 hours and his towels had gotten wet.
As he put it, "I just need a hug and a warm cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows in it."
The Oregonian newspaper says arriving officers arrested Eskelsen for investigation of second-degree criminal trespass and improper use of 911.
The UK Border Agency said it stopped a passenger travelling through London Heathrow Airport with his pet snake concealed as part of its crackdown on smugglers bringing in animals illegally.
They said they regularly come across efforts such attempts, as they lifted the lid on their "weirdest finds".
One was a briefcase full of dead, plucked pigeons, leading to suspicions they may have been bound for a restaurant.
Officials at London Gatwick Airport were equally puzzled by the pair of old boots they found alongside them. The briefcase remains unclaimed.
Another discovery involved what looked at first like a tiger skin, but turned out to be that of a domestic dog that had been painted.
Other finds include: two highly venomous snakes -- a puff adder and a gaboon viper -- in a parcel from Tanzania; 1,000 live spiders, individually boxed, in a suitcase; and 26 rare birds of prey stuffed into plastic pipes flown in from Thailand.
At Gatwick, three rare Copes Alligator lizards were discovered inside a video tape.
Meanwhile at Heathrow, one passenger tried to smuggle in 40 rare and endangered parrot eggs, in a specially-made vest under his shirt.
And a sniffer dog found 42 dried seahorses, destined to be ground up and used as Chinese traditional medicine, on a passenger from Shanghai
Asked to identify himself, the man got off his bike and started to kick and bite the officers, police said Thursday. The man was taken to the police station and was released after questioning.
(Reporting by Marcel Michelson, editing by Paul Casciato)
Tsutomu Mizumoto, 31, was arrested early Wednesday on the northern island of Hokkaido, the Mainichi daily reported.
Police said they responded to an emergency call about 5:45 a.m. about a car driving the wrong way on a motorway near the city of Otaru. They spotted the vehicle 15 minutes later and pursued the driver, ordering him to stop.
Mizumoto ignored them and drove on, smashing through five emergency blockades and passing through a tollgate. He finally stopped at about 7:15 a.m. when police detained him.
"I was sad that my pet cat died," he was quoted as telling police. "I wanted to do something
crazy."
If a serious person puts their money where their mouth is then Mark Boyle is the world's most serious man.
Inspired by Gandhi's famous words to be the change you wish to see in the world, the economics graduate from the U.K. has been living entirely without money since 2008.
He has written a book about the experience titled 'The Moneyless Man: A Year of Freeconomic Living' in order to share both the philosophy which led to his drastic decision and the tactics he has used to survive.
Living in a trailer given to him for free by someone on freecycle.org, Boyle cooks food which he either grows himself, barters for or forages from the land. He bathes in a solar shower, uses a compost toilet and even makes his own paper.
Despite his challenging lifestyle, Boyle has no plans to return to civilzation. He says the time he has spent away from money has been the happiest of his life.
Learn more about a moneyless life from Boyle himself in the video below.
Ardi Rizal shocked the world when a video of him drawing heavily on cigarettes appeared on the Internet in May and drew attention to Indonesia's failure to regulate the tobacco industry.
"He has quit smoking and the most important thing is he doesn't ask for cigarettes anymore," national commission for child protection secretary-general Arist Merdeka Sirait told AFP.
Six months after his father gave him his first cigarette, the overweight boy was smoking two packs a day and threw violent tantrums if his addiction was not satisfied.
Accompanied by his mother, the boy left his village on Sumatra island in July to undergo treatment in the capital.
"He received psychosocial therapy for one month, during which therapists kept him busy with activities and encouraged him to play with kids of the same age," Sirait said.
"We diverted his addiction from cigarettes to playing."
Ardi's case has highlighted the tobacco industry's aggressive marketing to women and children in developing countries like Indonesia, where regulations are weak and many people do not know that smoking is dangerous.
Sirait said the government had given financial support to Ardi's parents, who were ignorant of smoking's dangers and used cigarettes to keep the toddler happy as they worked long hours at a street market.
"Ardi was very happy when he left Jakarta this morning as he has really missed his father in the village," Sirait said.
Cigarette consumption in the Southeast Asian archipelago of some 240 million people soared 47 percent in the 1990s, according to the World Health Organization.
