Small Bits of News You Didn’t Know you Needed

Colleges ban jeans to 'protect' girls
Colleges in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh said that female students would be banned from wearing jeans and other Western clothes to halt sexual harassment by male classmates.
"Girls who choose to wear jeans will be expelled from the college," Meeta Jamal, principal of the Dayanand girls' college in Kanpur city told AFP. "This is the only way to stop crime against women."
A growing number of colleges in Uttar Pradesh have decided to outlaw jeans, shorts, tight blouses and miniskirts on campus in an attempt to crack down on "Eve-teasing" -- as sexual harassment is known in India.
But many of the students, who are aged between 17 and 20, said the new rules punished innocent females rather than tackling the men who treated women badly.
"Banning any clothing will certainly never solve the issue of sexual harassment," said Uzma, a graduate student from Lucknow University who declined to give her full name.
Hindu extremist groups have in recent months attacked women drinking in pubs and threatened couples who make public displays of affection.
The vigilantes claimed they were acting to protect India's conservative values against the spreading influence of Western culture.
Some colleges elsewhere in the country have previously banned the wearing of jeans, but protests from students forced the dress regulations to be reversed.
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Funny Money: Argentine court forgives forgery
An Argentine man who tried to use two counterfeit bills has been found innocent, by reason of incompetence.
A federal court in Buenos Aires says the forged bills presented by Marcos Ribles were "so clumsy and crude" that "they could not be accepted by most people."
The court says the 65-year-old man tried to pass a false 100-peso Argentine note, nominally worth about $26, as well as a false U.S. $50 bill.
Judges say the counterfeit bills had such shoddy printing and poor-quality paper that nobody could be fooled.
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Hummingbirds 'faster than fighter jets'
Male hummingbirds, swooping in an effort to impress females, achieve speeds "faster than fighter jets", according to a study.
A US researcher has captured the birds' dives with super-fast cameras. He lured them into their impressive displays using stuffed models of female birds.
The feathered acrobats reached speeds of almost 400 body lengths per second.
Christopher Clark from the University of California Berkeley filmed the courtship dives of male Anna's hummingbirds on cameras able to capture 500 frames per second.
When measured relative to the length of their bodies, the birds' top speed, he said, was "greater than [that] of a fighter jet with its afterburners on, or the space shuttle during atmospheric re-entry".
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Sex workers learn karate
Prostitutes in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu have begun taking karate lessons to protect themselves from violent customers and pimps.
The women say they were so fed up with abuse that they approached a local community group for help.
The organizers hope the course in the ancient self-defense technique sends a message that violence against sex workers must stop.
India is thought to have nearly three million sex workers.
The first 75 women to take the karate course in the coastal city of Madras (Chennai) had to brave intense heat as they practice their moves.
They trained together for nearly five hours a day, mostly learning how to fight. Now the women say they feel more able to protect themselves.
"I think I can easily handle one man at any given time. I face physical abuse on a daily basis and have been abused and been beaten up by my clients many times.
"A thug once stripped me of my clothes and told me to run naked. From now on, I think nobody can do that to me. I will kick him."
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Amazing 1970's SOFA converts to POOL / SNOOKER TABLE

. You have never seen the like - a truly unique sofa that converts into a 6ft pool table! Produced as a collaboration between Pierce upholsterers of Accrington and Riley, the famous pool and snooker table manufacturers, this is an exceedingly rare piece, and if not a prototype, then it was produced in a very limited quantity. It looks like a very ordinary neutral brown dralon upholstered sofa, then the back flips round and turns into a pool table.

There are two leveling adjustable feet underneath.

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Look no farther E-bay

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Illegal immigrant loses his arm in bakery accident

A 33 year old illegal immigrant from Bolivia is considering taking action against his employers after losing his arm in an accident at the bakery where he worked in Gandia. It happened when a kneading machine tore off his left arm and would have been investigated as an accident at work if the worker, named by El Mundo as Franns Rilles, had been legally employed by the company.
He’s understood to have worked there for two years without a contract or social security, and was paid 23 € for a 12-hour shift. The prosecution service is reported to be investigating a possible crime on the part of the company.
Frans Rilles had no chance of his severed arm being reattached as, according to the CCOO union, it was thrown out with the rubbish by his employer. It was later recovered by Civil Guard officers, but was too badly damaged by that stage to be reattached.
The union also claims the victim was dropped some 200 meters from the local hospital by the factory manager, and was left to make his own way to the emergency department. Still bleeding profusely, he is reported to have been picked up by a passerby and taken the rest of the way.
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The dog who swallowed 12 fishing hooks

X-ray images have been released of a dog that wolfed down 12 razor sharp fishing hooks after pulling them from his owner's tackle bag. The hooks had not caught on the dog's throat but had passed safely through to his stomach
Brian Sales, 57, had placed the equipment on a shelf in his garage 6ft out of the lurcher's reach, before going to work.
However, while he was out Toby managed to pull everything on to the floor with his teeth and get to the containers where the hooks were ready with bait.
When Mr Sales returned he realized what must have happened and rushed Toby for urgent medical attention.
Mr Sales, said he was astonished when he saw the hooks on the X-ray screen.
"After they discovered the hooks they stayed with him until they safely passed through. They did a brilliant job and I've got no doubt they saved his life.
"I've now made sure all the bait is now locked away in a freezer where even Toby can't get to it."
Toby, who is a rescue dog, was found after his previous owner left him for dead after throwing him out of a moving car.

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A mouse was found embedded in loaf of bread

A man got the shock of his life when he opened a loaf of bread and found a whole mouse inside.
North Antrim Magistrates Court heard how a man purchased a Hyndman's malt loaf from a supermarket in the Ballymoney area before Christmas 2007.
When he unwrapped the loaf he discovered the small lifeless mammal embedded in the base of the bread.
The judge fined the company, D Hyndman and Son Ltd, Maghera, £1,000 plus costs for placing unsafe food on the market.
The managing director of the company was present in court to answer the charge.
A defense lawyer told the court that the presence of the mouse was a shock to the company. He suggested it might have been put in the tin to "sabotage" the baker who has been in business for 60 years and has never had any complaints.
The judge was shown pictures of the mouse in the loaf. The court heard that tins in which the bread is baked were oiled the night before they were filled with dough.

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Family outraged after police shot their pet dog

Police officers taser, shot and kill a little boy's 7-pound Chihuahua.

A Blue Ash family is outraged after returning home to find their dog named "Jack" had been shot and killed by a police officer.
When the Bullocks returned home from a family member's funeral on Friday, they found blood and three bullets on their front porch – along with a note to call the Blue Ash Police Department about their dog.
The Bullocks were shocked to learn that Jack had gotten out of the backyard and two officers who tried to catch him, ended up shooting and killing him right on the family's front porch.
"He was cornered on the porch and scared," said Sharon Bullock. "The officer bent down bare-handed to pick up Jack, and Jack bit him." They're wondering why the officers didn't call the SPCA to catch the dog.

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Woman trashes million dollar mattress

Israeli woman discards mattress holding her mother's $1m savings
An Israeli woman mistakenly threw out a mattress she said had almost $1 million inside, setting off a frantic search through tons of garbage at a number of landfill sites yesterday. The woman said that she bought her elderly mother a new mattress as a surprise present on Monday - and threw out the old one.
The next day, she said, she remembered that she had hidden her life savings inside the old mattress. "I woke up in the morning screaming, when it hit me what happened," said the Tel Aviv woman, who asked not to be identified.
She went to look for the mattress, but it had already been hauled away by garbage collectors, she said. Searches at three different landfill sites turned up nothing.
She said the money was in U.S. dollars and Israeli shekels. She refused to say how she acquired such a large sum. "It was all my money in the world," she said. There was no way to verify her claims, and she refused to disclose key details.
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Soccer player has heart attack but survives!

Anthony Van Loo got a heart attack in the 44th minute of the game.

He has a heart condition and he got an implanted defibrillator. This automatically gave his heart a shock after 4 seconds (that's the movement you see) and this saved him.

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Barnaby the Juggler Lights his Cigarette

A cigarette is tossed and caught in the mouth, then a match is tossed and caught in the mouth to light the cigarette.

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Barnaby the Juggler

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Maybe you shouldn't buy that:

The most expensive and most worthless items in the world.

The $2,800 Pizza Royale 007, created by Chef Domenico Crolla, is topped with tomato pizza sauce, smoked salmon, venison medallions, cognac-marinated lobster and champagne-soaked caviar. Oh, and 24-carat gold leaf.
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The Diesel DZ9044 Sideview watch is a snip at a mere $365. Your osteopath's bill will be more than that once you've twisted your arm around a few times to check the time.
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The DualTow watch by Christophe Claret retails for $300,000, but it only displays the time to the nearest five minutes. As the people behind the blog say: "So you’re paying for a, seemingly, needlessly complicated watch that doesn’t actually tell you the correct time"

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Loan shark jailed after charging eight million per cent interest

A loan shark who preyed on alcoholics and drug addicts by charging interest rates of eight million per cent has been jailed.
Ruthless Ian Jenkins, 43, took the Post Office benefit cards and pin codes of 55 homeless victims so he could get their repayments plus extortionate premiums directly from their accounts.
Jenkins, of Abbeymead, Glos, lent them cash to feed their habits. He then took £3 interest for every £10 borrowed.
In one case, a drug addict who was loaned £106 was stung with rolling daily interest of 30%. That worked out at eight million per cent annually if the debt was not settled. Jenkins, a recovering drug addict who has 52 previous convictions for crimes including shoplifting and theft, was caught after an anonymous tip off in June last year.
Undercover agents from the South West Illegal Money Lending Team then filmed Jenkins outside a Post Office making a handover of money.
He was jailed for eight months at Bristol crown court on Monday after admitting one charge of money lending outside the Consumer Credit Act.
Judge Julian Lambert told him: "You acted in total disregard of the law and you kept on and on lending to these poor souls was extensive and cynical."
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