In the News, June 11th, 2008

Those darn storms in the Midwest keep on kicking!

AP photo

Officials in Des Moines, Iowas saythat a sandbagged levee prevented a swollen river from spilling its banks and flooding a northeastern Iowa city, but they asked for additional volunteers to help shore up the wall as more rain loomed.
Rising rivers wiped out an Iowa railroad bridge Tuesday, flooded Illinois farmland and forced residents along the Mississippi River to prepare for what could be the worst flooding in 15 years.

In Cedar Falls, Iowa, officials were readying residents and downtown business owners to evacuate as the Cedar River threatened to spill over a levee. In Waterloo, fast-moving water swept away a railroad bridge used to transport tractors from a John Deere factory to Cedar Rapids. It also prompted the city to shut its downtown and close five bridges.

Levee breaks Tuesday in southeastern Illinois flooded 50 to 75 square miles of farmland along the Embarras River, forcing the evacuations of homes northeast of Lawrenceville.

The forecast? Rain...

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Back to the Austrian case involving a daughter and her children, fathered by her father, living in a basement.

The 19-year-old girl (daughter/grandaughter?) whose hospitalization exposed a shocking Austrian incest case is recovering well, according to her doctors and a family lawyer.
She and other children who were held captive, sometime for decades, are also slowly adapting to modern life, they said. The girl suffered from multiple organ failure, is now well enough to speak, stand and walk with assistance, her doctors said.

The two parts of her family -- those who were locked in a basement, like Kerstin, and those who lived above ground, apparently unaware of the abuse of their mother and siblings -- are getting to know each other again, the doctors and lawyer said.
The girl is the oldest daughter of an incestuous relationship between her mother,and grandfather /father . Police say the grandfather confessed to holding her mother captive since 1984 and raping her repeatedly, fathering seven children with her. Six of the children survived.

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Too FAT to Fly???
Flight attendant Sheela Joshi is 5 feet, 4 inches and 148 pounds.
Her employer, Air India, says she is too fat to fly.
Joshi, 50, has been an air hostess -- as they are still called in India -- for the national airline for 26 years. But she's been grounded because the airline has done away with its wiggle room on weight. The airline says that someone who is Sheila's age, height and weight should weigh 143 pounds (65 kilograms). She misses the mark by 5 pounds.

Joshi and 12 other grounded attendants sued the airline for weight discrimination. Air India fought back, saying the employees knew the job requirements when they signed up and didn't express concern. In addition, Air India's lawyer, sites a safety concern "Because it's a high action job. And in case of emergencies, the person has to accelerate and move at a very, very fast pace."
Are you kidding me?

The attendant's attorney contends the move is actually about getting rid of older, well-compensated women in favor of younger ones who will do the job for less money.

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While we are on the subject of diets, remember this guy?

Manuel Uribe, who once weighed a half-ton but has slimmed down to about 700 pounds, celebrates his 43rd birthday with a simple wish for the coming year: to be able to stand on his own two feet to get married.

Manuel Uribe and Claudia Solis have been dating for two years and are ready to get married.

At his home in northern Mexico, where he can still do little more than sit up on a bed, Uribe said that more than two years of steady dieting have helped him drop about 550 pounds from his Guinness record weight of 1,235 pounds.

He hopes Guinness representatives will confirm in July that he holds a second title: the world's greatest loser of weight.But Uribe is still unable to walk with his fiancée, Claudia Solis, down the aisle.

"We are a couple," Uribe said. "We have sex, and in the eyes of God we are already married."

Proudly showing off her sparkling engagement ring, Solis said that life with a heavyweight is not always easy.

"I bathe him every day, and we get along very well," she said. "At times, yes, people say things ... that it's a fake relationship, but what we have is real."

A botched liposuction that damaged his lymph nodes left him with giant tumors on both legs weighing a total of 220 pounds. The tumors are the main reason he is unable to walk.

"It is all because of the junk food," he said.

Today he says he eats small portions of food five times a day, including chicken, ham, egg-white omelets, fruit and vegetables.

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Yes- The English Heir to the throne has paid off his family debt!
Prince Charles on paid off a family debt incurred more than 350 years ago. Unlike the rest of us, he was spared the accumulated interest that could have run into tens of thousands of pounds.
Charles handed over 453 pounds and 15 pence (572 euros and 20 euro cents, 885 dollars and four cents) which King Charles II failed to pay to the Clothiers Company in Worcester, central England, in 1651.

"It seems that members of the Clothiers Company have a long memory," he said. "By long I mean nearly 400 years. Nevertheless, as a gesture of good will I come today prepared to honour this debt of 453 pounds and three shillings.

The high commissioner of the Clothiers Company, Philip Sawyer, accepted the money and gave the future king a receipt.

If interest was taken into account, 453 pounds and three shillings in 1651 would have been worth approximately 47,500 pounds in 2007, the BBC website said, citing the Institute for the Measurement of Worth.