Horsemeat could have been in British beef burgers for a year -

Horsemeat could have been in British beef burgers for a year - 

Katherine Brown, chief executive of the Food Standards Agency, told MPs that the Polish supplier at the heart of the scandal has been selling beef "filler" to an Irish meat processor for over a year.

Anne McIntosh, the chairman of the committee, said: "How do we know that this horse meat has not been in beef burgers for months if not years?"

Mrs Brown said: "It is possible that these burgers have been on sale in this country for a year. This filler had been used for a year. And therefore when the Polish get to the bottom of this we will hope to know whether it's likely that this has been going on for a year."

Mrs Brown told MPs that the FSA had not identifies horse meat as a risk in the past, which is why it was not tested for.

But they hope that investigations in Ireland and Poland will get to the bottom of the situation.

Meat from a plant in Ireland was supplied to food companies including Tesco, which withdrew from sale all products supplied by Silvercrest in County Monaghan.

The Irish Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Simon Coveney announced earlier this week that their tests had shown that the horsemeat was probably being imported from Poland.

The result showed “significant levels” of equine DNA in imported “raw material,” amounting to 20 per cent horse DNA content relative to beef.

Read more - 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/9837420/Horsemeat-could-have-been-in-British-beef-burgers-for-a-year-FSA-confirm.html

High School To Collect Students’ Hair For Mandatory Drug Testing -

High School To Collect Students’ Hair For Mandatory Drug Testing - 


A Kansas City high school will begin collecting hair from students to conduct mandatory drug tests.

KHSB-TV reports that Rockhurst High School will start the random drug testing during the 2013-14 school year.

“Our point is, if we do encounter a student who has made some bad decisions with drugs or alcohol, we will be able to intervene, get the parents involved, get him help if necessary, and then help him get back on a path of better decision making, healthier choices for his life,” Rockhurst Principal Greg Harkness told the station.

The school will collect 60 strands of hair from the student and test for several types of drugs, including marijuana and cocaine. If a student comes back with a positive drug test, that student will have 90 days to get drug-free. The station reports the file will be destroyed for a student who tests positive after graduation and colleges and universities will never know about the failed test.

Matthew Brocato, the school’s junior class president, told The Kansas City Star that the mandatory drug testing is not to punish students who fail.

Read more - 
http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2013/01/30/high-school-to-collect-students-hair-for-mandatory-drug-testing/

U.S. Navy minesweeper to be dismantled after running aground off Philippines -

U.S. Navy minesweeper to be dismantled after running aground off Philippines - 


A U.S. Navy minesweeper that ran aground on a reef off the coast of the Philippines two weeks ago will be cut up and removed in sections, officials said.
The 224-foot USS Guardian got stuck Jan. 17 on the Tubbataha Reef, in the Sulu Sea, after leaving a port in Subic Bay. The crew of 79 was evacuated the next day, while Navy brass considered options for dislodging it. Pacific Fleet spokesman Lt. Anthony Falvo told Stars and Stripes they concluded it could only be dismantled and removed in pieces in a process that will take at least a month.

“Our naval architecture and salvage experts have reviewed all possible alternatives, and our only supportable option is to dismantle the damaged ship and remove it in sections,” Falvo wrote in an email to the military news website.
“We have the right team of experienced professionals to conduct this complex operation and to ensure that it is done safely while minimizing damage to the surrounding marine environment. We expect the first floating crane to arrive in a few days and the dismantling to take over a month — we will work to conduct the operation as quickly as safety, weather and environmental protection allows.”
No one was injured when the ship, one of  the Navy's 14 Avenger-class mine countermeasure ships in service, ran aground about 400 miles southwest of Manila.
The ship's hull was scored  in the accident and it has since been shifting on the reef, causing damage both to the reef, which is recognized as a United Nations World Heritage Site, and to the ship. Some 15,000 gallons of diesel have spilled into the sea, though the rest of the ship's fuel was removed.


Read more: - 
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/01/30/moored-naval-minesweeper-to-be-dismantled-and-swept-off-reef/?test=latestnews

Japan's airlines replaced 787 batteries 10 times in brand new planes -

Japan's airlines replaced 787 batteries 10 times in brand new planes - 


U.S. regulators said Wednesday they asked Boeing Co. to provide a full operating history of lithium-ion batteries used in its grounded 787 Dreamliners after Japan's All Nippon Airways revealed it had repeatedly replaced the batteries even before overheating problems surfaced.
National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson said the agency made the request after recently becoming aware of battery problems at ANA that occurred before a Jan. 7 battery fire in a 787 parked at Boston's Logan International Airport. Boeing has already collected some of the information, he said.
ANA said it had replaced batteries on its 787 aircraft some 10 times because they didn't charge properly or connections with electrical systems failed, and informed Boeing about the swaps. Japan Airlines also said it had replaced 787 batteries. It described the number involved as a few but couldn't immediately give further details.
All 50 of the Boeing 787s in use around the world remain grounded after an ANA flight on Jan. 16 made an emergency landing in Japan when its main battery overheated.
The 787 is the first airliner to make wide use of lithium-ion batteries. They are prone to overheating and require additional safeguards to prevent fires. However, ANA spokeswoman Megumi Tezuka said the airline was not required to report the battery replacements to Japan's Transport Ministry because they did not interfere with flights and did not raise safety concerns.
Having to replace batteries on aircraft is not uncommon and was not considered out of the ordinary, she said.
Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, said in Washington that the agency was checking whether the previous battery incidents had been reported by Boeing.
Boeing in Japan said it couldn't comment while the NSTB investigation is underway. GS Yuasa, the Kyoto, Japan-based manufacturer of the batteries, said it could not comment.
With 17 of the jets, ANA was Boeing's launch customer for the technologically advanced airliner. The airline has had to cancel hundreds of flights, affecting tens of thousands of people, but has sought to minimize disruptions by switching to other aircraft as much as possible.
The battery problems experienced by ANA before the emergency landing were first reported by The New York Times.
Japanese and U.S. investigators looking into the Boeing 787's battery problems shifted their attention this week from GS Yuasa to the manufacturer of a monitoring system. That company, Kanto Aircraft Instrument Co., makes a system that monitors voltage, charging and temperature of the lithium-ion batteries.
On Tuesday, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it was conducting a chemical analysis of internal short circuiting and thermal damage of the battery that caught fire in Boston.
The probe is also analyzing data from flight data recorders on the aircraft, the NTSB said in a statement on its website.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/01/30/japan-airlines-replaced-787-batteries-many-times/?test=latestnews

Man 'follows GPS directions to wrong house'; shot dead... -

Man 'follows GPS directions to wrong house'; shot dead... - 


According to friends of Rodrigo Diaz, they were all going ice skating. Diaz was driving the car, and they were going to pick up one more skater.
They pulled into a driveway, which their GPS -- at least, according to one of the friends -- told them was their destination.
Then, as WSB-TV Atlanta explains, this tale took a troubling turn.
According to Yeson Jimenez, 15, one of the passengers, Diaz pulled into a driveway; then 69-year-old Phillip Sailors peered out of a window of the house.

He allegedly came out, went back inside, then emerged again, firing a gun into the air.
Jimenez says Sailors said nothing to them but "Shut up!"
Jimenez insists they tried to drive away and that as they did, Sailors fired his .22 gun and shot Diaz fatally in the head.

Sailors has been charged with murder with malice.
Lilburn, Ga., Police Chief Bruce Hedley told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "At this point we have established probable cause to charge Mr. Sailors."
Sailors' lawyer, Michael Puglise, told the Journal-Constitution: "He is very distraught over the loss of life from the defense of his home. This incident happened late in the evening hours when he was home with his wife and he assumed it was a home invasion and he maintains his innocence."



Read more - 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57566488-71/man-allegedly-follows-gps-directions-to-wrong-house-shot-dead/

Husbands who do housework 'have less sex' -

Husbands who do housework 'have less sex' - 

Joe Six Packs take heart.
Married men who shirk traditional “female” housework have more sex with their wives than those who willingly pitch in with the cooking or cleaning, a new study says.
The research, out of the University of Washington, shows that couples who keep to traditional household chores – where men rake leaves or fix the car and women tidy up or shop – have significantly more carnal encounters than their more egalitarian counterparts.
“Where the male is doing the male tasks and the female is doing the female tasks, those are the couples (who) are having more sex,” says Julie Brines, a sociologist at the Seattle school and a study co-author.
The study was released Wednesday by the journal American Sociological Review.
It found that couples spend an average of 34 hours a week on so-called “female” chores and 17 hours on more traditional male tasks. It also found that couples overall reported about five sexual encounters a month.
But households where Dagwood-like dreamboats preformed none of the “women’s work” reported 1.6 times more sexual encounters than those in which men took on the bulk of cooking and cleaning chores.
That increase in sexual frequency went down in an inverse proportion to the amount of traditional “women’s work” a husband took on.
Households where husbands claimed 40 per cent of that housework reported almost one less sexual encounter a month than those in which the males took on none of those chores.

Read more - 

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/01/30/less_housework_equals_more_sex_for_married_men_study.html

Woman ‘tried to kill husband with poison in her private parts’ -

Woman ‘tried to kill husband with poison in her private parts’ - 

A WOMAN is accused of trying to kill her husband by putting poison inside her private parts – then asking him to perform a SEX ACT on her.
The shocked 43-year-old hubby is now suing her for the alleged attempted assassination.
The woman, from Sao Jose do Rio Preto in Brazil, planted a toxic substance in her genitals then lured her husband to bed, local reports say.
But when she asked him to give her oral sex, he is said to have fled after noticing a strange smell.
The suspicious husband then took his wife, who has not been named, to hospital where doctors carried out tests and found she had ingested a poisonous substance.


Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4766891/woman-tried-to-kill-husband-with-poison-in-her-private-parts.html

Thieves ditch Corvette carjacking after not being able to figure out how to drive it -

Thieves ditch Corvette carjacking after not being able to figure out how to drive it - 


A Florida Corvette owner said he was almost carjacked at gunpoint, but the would-be thieves ran away because they couldn't figure out how to drive his car.
Randolph Bean was sitting in his bright yellow Corvette when two men took him by surprise, MyFoxOrlando.com reports. It was parked outside Orlando Regional Medical Center in downtown Orlando.
Bean said the two came from behind, and he "barely caught them in the mirror."
According to the police report, one of the men had a gun. 
"He started yanking on the door and made me open the door. He kind of flung it open and dragged me out and demanded that I get on the ground... face down, so I couldn't look at him, of course," Bean told MyFoxOrlando.com.
Bean, 51, said one of the thieves pointed a gun at him while asking how to use the car.
"They apparently couldn't start it," Bean said. "I had to tell him four different times to push in the clutch, because it's a standard transmission."
The suspects reportedly gave up and ran away, leaving Bean on the ground. Police tried searching for the suspects, but they took off.
"My first thought was I guess we don't have driver's ed in school anymore because no one knows how to drive a stick," Bean said. "And my second thing was, don't shoot me because you can't start the car. I'm trying to help you out here."
Though the thieves left the Corvette, they still made off with Bean's phone, keys and wallet.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/01/29/stick-shift-baffles-would-be-car-thieves-in-florida/?test=latestnews

That Cuddly Kitty Is Deadlier Than You Think -

That Cuddly Kitty Is Deadlier Than You Think - 


For all the adorable images of cats that play the piano, flush the toilet, mew melodiously and find their way back home over hundreds of miles, scientists have identified a shocking new truth: cats are far deadlier than anyone realized.

In a report that scaled up local surveys and pilot studies to national dimensions, scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that domestic cats in the United States — both the pet Fluffies that spend part of the day outdoors and the unnamed strays and ferals that never leave it — kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles rather than introduced pests like the Norway rat.

The estimated kill rates are two to four times higher than mortality figures previously bandied about, and position the domestic cat as one of the single greatest human-linked threats to wildlife in the nation. More birds and mammals die at the mouths of cats, the report said, than from automobile strikes, pesticides and poisons, collisions with skyscrapers and windmills and other so-called anthropogenic causes.

Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and an author of the report, said the mortality figures that emerge from the new model “are shockingly high.”

“When we ran the model, we didn’t know what to expect,” said Dr. Marra, who performed the analysis with his colleague, Scott R. Loss, and Tom Will of the Fish and Wildlife Service. “We were absolutely stunned by the results.” The study appeared Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

The findings are the first serious estimate of just how much wildlife America’s vast population of free-roaming domestic cats manages to kill each year.

Read more - 

Nursing home defends prostitutes’ visits -

Nursing home defends prostitutes’ visits - 


Helena Barrow, the former manager of the Chaseley Nursing Home in Eastbourne, England has been forced to defend the unusual “holistic care” offered to her residents by prostitutes.

Care workers would take the prostitutes to a resident’s room, put a special red sock on the door and check on them every 15 minutes, reports The London Times.

The nursing home, which cares for disabled ex-servicemen, has long had a policy of allowing sex workers.

However, a spokesman for the East Sussex city council said that it was unaware of the practice and was investigating.

Barrow said: “Sex workers are allowed by law to sexually enable people, but care workers are not."

On one occasion, strippers even made a visit to the nursing home.

Tuppy Owens, of the Sexual Health and Disability Alliance, said: “Many disabled people are living in perpetual frustration. What’s illegal is for disabled people to be denied their human rights.”

Read more - 
http://www.opposingviews.com/i/health/health-care/nursing-home-allows-prostitutes-visit-residents