Dubai already has the tallest office building, the tallest residential building and the biggest aquarium in the world and as of this week it can add the longest ambulance to its list of records. The world’s longest ambulance is 18 meters (59 feet) and can hold up to 44 patients at the same time, according to Khalifa bin Darri, head of the Dubai Ambulance Center (DAC).
Projected ’09 new vehicle sales in U.S. the worst in 30 years.
Automakers will sell just 10 million new cars and trucks in the U.S. this year, the worst in at least three decades, respected forecaster J.D. Power and Associates said Thursday as it cut its 2009 prediction by 400,000 vehicles. For the staggering auto industry, “Recovery will not be a quick proposition,” said Gary Dilts, senior vice president of Power’s automotive operations.
Gov. Sarah Palin on Thursday became the only governor to turn down federal stimulus money for energy efficiency, a move that legislators called “disappointing” for a state with some of the country’s highest energy costs. In announcing the veto of $28.6 million in funds, Palin said she wouldn’t accept money tied to adoption of building codes by local governments.
Neighbours of an 18-stone prostitute in the German capital Berlin are trying to force her out of business saying she is a “one woman demolition job” when at work. They complained of crystal glasses falling from shelves, paintings from walls and ornaments from mantelpieces whenever Ilnes Lorbach, 36, was entertaining men in her apartment in the upmarket Charlottenburg district of the city.
Video-sharing website YouTube has removed hundreds of pornographic videos which were uploaded in what is believed to be a planned attack. The material was uploaded under names of famous teenage celebrities such as Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers. Many started with footage of children’s videos before groups of adults performing graphic sex acts appeared on screen.
Texas mayor quits, moves to Mexico to be with his male lover who had been in this country illegally.
J.W. Lown, the mayor of San Angelo in West Texas, recently narrated a video touting his town as a great place to live. Then he left to pursue another passion. Mr. Lown resigned this week — less than a month after winning a fourth two-year term in a landslide — saying he was leaving to carry on a relationship with a Mexican man who had been living illegally in the U.S.
Pipi Quinland made the winning bid on the Kobelco digger with a few mouse clicks at the auction site TradeMe while her parents slept, the Rodney Times newspaper reported in northern New Zealand. “The first I knew about it was when I came down and opened up the computer,” said Pipi’s mother, Sarah Quinlan.
Ohio cop busted for running car theft scam, using police computers improperly.
A Dayton police officer is facing 22 charges after being accused of taking part in an alleged car theft scheme. Officer Phillip Brooks Sr. is charged with seven counts of forgery, eight counts of tampering with records, three counts of unauthorized use of the police LEADS system, two counts of grand theft of a motor vehicle, two counts of attempted grand theft of a motor vehicle, and one count of theft in office greater than $5,000.
Man sentenced to 100 years in prison for poisoning his kid’s soup. He was hoping to sue soup maker.
A Georgia man is sentenced to 100 years in prison for poisoning his children to extort money from Campbell’s Soup Co. William Cunningham was sentenced Thursday after a jury found him guilty on seven counts of aggravated assault for forcing the children in 2006 to eat soup laced with prescription drugs and lighter fluid.
Pregnant teen allegedly pays man to beat her up in hopes of having a miscarriage.
Police in eastern Utah say a pregnant teenager asked a man to beat her up so she would miscarry. The teenager suffered severe bruising around her stomach. The unborn child appears to be OK, but doctors won’t know for sure until it is born, said Naples police Chief Mark J. Watkins. Both the pregnant teenager and the man have been arrested for suspicion of attempted murder against the unborn child.
Meet the Jigsaw Kid, the only one in the world.
A GIRL dubbed the Jigsaw Kid due to her jumbled-up organs has amazed medics by defying the odds against her survival. Brave Bethany Jordan was born with five spleens, a hole in her heart, a diseased and back-to-front liver, two left lungs and her stomach on the wrong side.
In her first public comments since accusing the CIA of lying to Congress about Bush-era interrogation methods, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she stood by her statement. Then she refused to make any more remarks, attempting to tamp down a story that she fueled last week that Republicans now want her to prove.
A Williamson County judge sentenced a Fairview man to 20 days in jail for handling a gun on school property — and said the man might have been better off if he’d pulled the trigger. On Thursday, Tracy C. Clark, 37, told Circuit Court Judge James G. Martin III, that he’d gotten into a verbal altercation at Westwood Elementary School on Jan. 30, 2006 after his 9-year-old son’s basketball game. Clark said the father of rival player came to his truck and held a knife as if threatening to stab him.
Connecticut State Senate votes to abolish death penalty. Bill headed for Governor’s desk.
Following a round-the-clock debate, the state Senate voted early Friday morning to abolish the state’s death penalty and replace it with life in prison without the possibility of release. The 19-17 vote came shortly after 4 a.m., following nearly 11 hours of discussion. It marked the final legislative approval of the death penalty repeal and the first time the General Assembly has passed such legislation.
Quote of the day.
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.
-Thomas Jefferson