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News, Politics & Sports
Take That’s Mark Owen owns up to string of affairs
Mar 11th
Take That star Mark Owen said he was “deeply sorry” today after admitting a string of affairs behind his wife’s back.
The 38-year-old singer acknowledged the “pain” he had caused to his wife and friends through his flings with as many as 10 women.
Owen, who won Celebrity Big Brother in 2002, is known for his boyish charm but has often been seen as a “squeaky clean” member of the reunited group.
Owen and his wife Emma, who have two children, married only last October but have been an item for five years.
But in a confession to The Sun newspaper, the chart star said he had seen a number of women over the years during his relationship.
Laptops banned from lectures in US universities
Mar 11th
American lecturers have started to ban their students from using laptops during classes, claiming the devices were too much of a distraction.
Professors across the country believe that the temptation of logging on to check Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or the latest sport scores – rather than take notes on the lecture – was too great for many students, and their studies were suffering.
David Cole, a law lecturer in Washington, has banned laptops from his lectures.
CIA used LSD to make French lose the loaf
Mar 11th
IN 1951, a quiet, picturesque village in southern France was suddenly and mysteriously struck down with mass insanity and hallucinations. At least five people died, dozens were committed to asylums and hundreds afflicted.
For decades it was assumed that the local bread had been unwittingly poisoned with a psychedelic mould. Now an even more extraordinary explanation has emerged, with evidence suggesting the CIA peppered local food with the hallucinogenic drug LSD as part of a mind-control experiment at the height of the Cold War.
Devil is at work in Vatican, says church’s top exorcist
Mar 11th
The growing clerical sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof that the Devil is at work inside the Vatican, according to the Holy See’s chief exorcist.
Father Gabriele Amorth said the Pope “fully believes in liberation from evil, because the Devil lodges in the Vatican. Naturally it is difficult to find proof, but you can see the consequences”. Fr Amorth (85) has been the Vatican’s chief exorcist for 25 years and says he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession.
‘Stressed men make odd sexual decisions’, study suggests
Mar 10th
Opposites really do attract in people, according to scientists who researched the psychology of sexual attraction.
Researchers in Germany discovered that stressed men made unconventional choices in sexual preferences.
Scientists at the University of Trier found that young men who were under pressure preferred erotic pictures of female nudes who were had the opposite facial expressions to themselves.
The study, reported in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, also found that other participants who were more relaxed were attracted to females who had similar features.
Miss me yet? George Bush advertising board stirs US public debate
Mar 10th
A billboard with a picture of former President George W Bush and a caption asking “Miss me yet?” that mysteriously appeared at an American roadside has stirred public debate in the US.
The sign, which was first dismissed as an internet hoax, occupies a prominent spot by the I-35 motorway in Wyoming, Minnesota.
The sign was erected early last month and since then speculation has been mounting as to its provenance.
Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni ‘both having affairs’
Mar 10th
Rumours that French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy are both having affairs are gaining momentum in France.
The suggestion that the couple were both committing adultery first emerged onTwitter, the microblogging website. It was followed by a report in the Sunday newspaper le Journal du Dimanche.
Rare ’solar corona’ caught on camera
Mar 10th
The elusive ’solar corona’ – a plasma gas atmosphere around the sun where temperatures reach two million degrees – visible only during a total eclipse, has been captured on camera.
The pictures were taken during an eclipse over the isolated Marshall Islands, near Papua New Guinea in the Pacific Ocean.
Ten times as dense as the centre of the sun, the corona only produces about one-millionth as much light – meaning that it can only be seen when ‘lit up’ during an eclipse.
Romanian street sign warns drivers of ‘drunk pedestrians’
Mar 9th
Street signs warning Romanian drivers to be careful of drunken pedestrians lying on roads were erected by road safety chiefs worried about the “despairing” levels of accidents.
Officials in Pecica, a village town about 13 miles from the Hungarian border in the country’s west, ordered the bright red signs, complete with the phrase “Attention – Drunks”.
The 10 road signs, which also show a person crawling on their knees while clutching a glass in one hand, were erected in popular nightspot areas close to the city’s bars and restaurants.
Bottled ‘ghosts’ fetch £1300 at New Zealand auction
Mar 9th
Two bottled “ghosts” have sold for NZ2830 (£1305) in an online auction in New Zealand.
The ghosts, supposedly trapped inside two glass vials, were put up for bidding by Avie Woodbury from the southern city of Christchurch. She said they were captured in her house during an exorcism.
The spirits were trapped inside the vials with stoppers and then dipped in holy water, which she says “dulls the spirits’ energy.”
She said they were the spirits of an old man who lived in the house during the 1920s, and a powerful, disruptive little girl who turned up after a session with a spirit-calling Ouija board.