... Finally Friday ... 4-4-2008

Slide 2: 12-year-old stripper prompts Dallas to reconsider rules for sex businesses March 28, 2008 The Dallas Morning News Dallas city officials are looking into ways to revise an ordinance regulating sexually oriented businesses after it was reported that employing someone under the age of 18 isn't enough to shut down a strip club. WFAA-TV and The Dallas Morning News reported the existence of the loophole this week after it came to light that a 12-year-old girl had danced nude at a northwest Dallas strip club. "We have to protect the safety of minors," Mayor Pro Tem Elba Garcia said Thursday. "Who would have thought that we would find a 12-year-old in one of those places?" The sixth-grader danced at Diamonds Cabaret over a two-week period late last year, police said. They also say they found a 17-year-old girl working in the club in January. Demonica Abron, 27, who worked as a stripper in the club, and David Bell, 22, are facing charges in connection with the 12-year-old girl's dancing in the club. Mr. Bell does not appear to have been employed by the club. According to court documents, the 12-year-old told club employees that she was 19, but couldn't give them identification and didn't know what year she was born if she were that age. Still, she was allowed to dance in the club, records show.

Slide 3: Bridge-building Vladimir Putin wants tunnel to US VLADIMIR PUTIN, the Russian president, is to raise plans for a tunnel to link his country with America when he meets his US counterpart, George W Bush, next Sunday. The 64-mile tunnel would run under the Bering Strait between Chukotka, in the Russian far east, and Alaska; the cost is estimated at £33 billion. Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea football club and governor of Chukotka, has invested £80m in the world’s largest drill but has denied that it is linked with the development. Proposals for such a tunnel were approved by Tsar Nicholas II in the early 20th century but were abandoned during the Soviet era. If finally built, the tunnel would allow rail connections between London and New York. A Kremlin spokesman confirmed last week that Putin seeks to build “a real bridge” between Russia and America when he meets Bush at the Black Sea resort of Sochi. Timesonline

Slide 4: Court Asked To Stop Building Of Atom Smasher, Plaintiffs Fear It Will Create Black Hole That Will Suck Earth Redmond, WA (AHN) -- Two residents of Hawaii have asked a district court in Honolulu to stop the Department of Energy and its partners from constructing a particle accelerator facility on the border between France and Switzerland. Walter F. Wagner and Luis Sancho's federal lawsuit filed Monday also seeks to delay the opening of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) pending its safety inspection on grounds that the gigantic atom smasher that physicists will use to study the origin of the universe could accidentally create "strangelet," an unknown matter, or an expanding black hole that both could destroy the Earth. According to MSNBC, representatives of Fermilab in Illinois and the Center for Nuclear Energy Research (CERN) in Geneva said the LHC will not cause a cosmic catastrophe. Fermilab and CERN, together with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Science Foundation in Virginia are defendants in the case. The LHC is scheduled for opening in May. It can produce incredible energies to recreate short-lived particles that will give physicists clues on what existed when the universe was formed, the nature of dark matter and extent of space.

Slide 5: Marine threw himself onto grenade A Royal Marine who threw himself onto an exploding grenade to save the lives of his patrol has been put forward for the UK's highest military honor. Lance Corporal Matt Croucher, 24, a reservist from Birmingham, survived because his rucksack and body armour took the force of the blast. He was part of a reconnaissance troop in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in February, when the incident happened. The Ministry of Defence said he could be considered for the Victoria Cross. Bloodied nose A spokesman said L/Cpl Croucher's comrades had made a citation to their commanding officer and officers were now considering whether to put his name forward for the honor. L/Cpl Croucher, a member of 40 Commando, had been searching a compound south of Sangin which was suspected as being used for making bombs to attack British and Afghan troops. When a Taleban booby-trap grenade was tripped, L/Cpl Croucher jumped on to the device to absorb the force of the explosion with his backpack as his comrades dived for cover. The blast blew his rucksack more than 30ft away but he remarkably suffered only severe shock and a bloodied nose in the incident.

Slide 6: Fawn James, the £650m queen of Soho, hits a club on her manor Scraping together a little extra income to support one's party lifestyle can be a struggle for most hard-up students. But when you are set to inherit the best part of £650million pounds, the drinks are bound to taste a little sweeter. And the party appears to have started in earnest for Fawn James. The 22-year-old granddaughter of porn supremo Paul Raymond, who passed away three weeks ago at 82, has wasted no time hitting London's nightclubs.

Slide 7: Australian lawmaker urges mass toad cull BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- An Australian politician on Wednesday proposed designating a special day for residents to hunt and kill what he called one of the world's most disgusting creatures: the poisonous cane toad. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has said it backs the plan by Queensland state lawmaker Shane Knuth to launch "Toad Day Out," but only if the creatures are killed in a humane way, such as euthanizing them in a freezer. "Obviously we're not idiots. We understand a lot people will be highly reluctant to fill their fridges and freezers with dying cane toads, but at the moment that is the only humane way that we can recommend," said Michael Beatty, the society's spokesman. The toads were imported from South America to Australia's northeastern state of Queensland in 1935 in a failed attempt to control beetles on sugar cane plantations. They now threaten many local species. Knuth said he wanted "a special day that Queenslanders, especially children, could all play their part." "The toad is probably the greatest environmental vermin and probably the most disgusting creature known to man," he said. Knuth has long campaigned against the pests. Last year he suggested a bounty of 36 cents per toad. Queensland's Department of Primary Industries said it was important that native frogs are not mistaken for toads during any hunt. CNN

Slide 8: Forsyth Co. man hits, kills girlfriend with pickup CUMMING - A Forsyth County man is charged with DUI after running over his girlfriend Sunday, but may face more charges now that she has died. Forsyth County Sheriff's Capt. Frank Huggins said 42-year-old Mark Douglas Jones was in an altercation with 34-year-old Christy Lea Newton when she left and began walking down Shiloh Road. "Jones left the house in his Toyota truck," Huggins said. "His truck struck Newton as she walked down the road. She was transported by ambulance to Grady Hospital in Atlanta." Coroner Lauren McDonald said Newton died of extensive internal and external injuries. AccessNorthGa .com

Slide 9: Man Caught Having Sex with a Picnic Table BELLEVUE, OH -- A man in central Ohio is accused of having sex with his picnic table. The investigation began when a tipster gave police three DVDs showing Arthur Price having sexual intercourse with a metal round table on his deck. The incidents occurred between January and March 2008. Police say the DVDs show Price involved in a sex act in his bedroom. He walks out to his deck, tilts the table on its side and has sex with it. Police say Price lives near an elementary school. Price admitted that he had sex with the picnic table when police questioned him. He confirmed to police the incidents caught on the DVDs and said he had also had sex with the table inside the home. Price faces four counts of public indecency. He is free on a $20,000 bond.

Slide 10: Victory for the Topless Front: Women in Copenhagen can now swim and walk around in public pools without their bikini tops Victory: Ladies in Copenhagen will now be allowed to swim and walk around topless in public pools….. The decision is the result of a year-long campaign by a pressure group, the Topless Front, which says women should be treated the same as bare-chested men. Campaign leader Astrid Vang, 20, who took her shirt off with others to protest at a leisure centre at Christmas, said: "We women would like to decide by ourselves when our breasts should be sexual and when not. "In swimming pools they should not and that is why the breasts should not be covered - We will bathe topless just like men." The Danish campaign was inspired by a Swedish group called Just Breasts, which was formed after two women were asked to cover up their breasts by a lifeguard at a public pool near Stockholm. Swedish protesters carried out several full-frontal marches in their country but are still campaigning for bare- chested equality. One of their leaders, 22-year-old Ragnhild Karlsson, said: "We want our breasts to be as normal and desexualised as men's, so that we too can pull off our shirts at football matches." Activists expect a flurry of similar campaigns-across Europe, including in Britain.

Slide 11: Description Photo taken at the instant bullets from a French firing squad hit a Frenchman who collaborated with the Germans. This execution took place in Rennes, France. November 21, 1944.