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China puts a stop to snake-bitten cock-in-a-pot

BEIJING – Chinese health authorities are putting a stop to restaurants serving chickens which have been bitten to death by poisonous snakes and cooked up for a supposedly detoxing meal.
The dish, served by a small number of eateries in the southern province of Guangdong and the south-western city of Chongqing, has generated a storm of publicity and controversy in the Chinese media and amongst bloggers.
A video showing a cook holding a snake and forcing it to bite a live ...

E3 plans a bigger bash this year

E3, the big boisterous celebration of video games, is back after a quiet retreat the last two years.
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Birdsong radio taken off the air

A digital radio station which became unexpectedly popular with listeners by playing just birdsong is to go off the air on Monday morning.
It is being replaced by an interactive radio station which will play a mix of indie, urban, rock and jazz music by unsigned artists.
The Birdsong channel had been broadcasting for almost 18 months.
It was aimed as a temporary filler after the DAB OneWord station closed, but attracted thousands of listeners.
The recording was made 20 years ...

Susan Boyle ‘admitted to clinic’

Britain’s Got Talent’s star Susan Boyle has been admitted to a clinic, it is being reported.
The Sun said that the singer has been admitted with exhaustion a day after she was runner-up in the final of the ITV1 talent show.
Scotland Yard said that police were called to a London hotel on Sunday at 1800 BST to doctors assessing a woman under the Mental Health Act.
That woman was taken voluntarily by ambulance to a clinic, they said.
At the ...

Last survivor of the Titanic dies, age 97

LONDON — Millvina Dean, the last survivor of the sinking of RMS Titanic, has died, her friend Gunter Babler said Sunday.
Babler said Dean’s longtime companion, Bruno Nordmanis, called him in Switzerland to say Dean had died in her sleep at her nursing home in southern England. He said staff members discovered her in her room Sunday morning. Babler said Dean was hospitalized with pneumonia last week but had recovered and returned to the nursing home.
A staff nurse at Woodlands Ridge ...

Kansas abortion doctor shot to death; suspect arrested

Related story: Recent cases of abortion-related violence

Family axes wedding plans, Egyptian cuts off organ

CAIRO – A 25-year-old Egyptian man cut off his own penis to spite his family after he was refused permission to marry a girl from a lower class family, police reported Sunday.
After unsuccessfully petitioning his father for two years to marry the girl, the man heated up a knife and sliced off his reproductive organ, said a police official.
The young man came from a prominent family in the southern Egyptian province of Qena, one of Egypt’s poorest and most conservative ...

Family axes wedding plans, Egyptian cuts off penis

A 25-year-old Egyptian man cut off his own penis to spite his family after he was refused permission to marry a girl from a lower class family, police reported Sunday.
After unsuccessfully petitioning his father for two years to marry the girl, the man heated up a knife and sliced off his reproductive organ, said a police official.
The young man came from a prominent family in the southern Egyptian province of Qena, one of Egypt’s poorest and most conservative areas that ...

Time Warner CEO hints at online fees for magazines

Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Jeffrey Bewkes chimed in Friday with the chorus of publishers wondering how much longer newspapers and magazines can afford to keep giving away their stories on the Internet.
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Robots with fins, tails demonstrate evolution

Robots wag their tail fins and bob along like bathtub toys in a pool at a Vassar College lab. Their actions are dictated by microprocessors housed in round plastic containers, the sort you’d store soup in.
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