NYC bans smoking OUTSIDE.

From Huffington Post:

New York City's parks, beaches and even Times Square will be off-limits to smokers under one of the nation's toughest anti-cigarette laws passed Wednesday by the City Council.

"This summer, New Yorkers who go to our parks and beaches for some fresh air and fun will be able to breathe even cleaner air and sit on a beach not littered with cigarette butts," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said after the 36-12 vote.

The smoking ban will cover 1,700 parks and 14 miles of public beaches plus boardwalks, marinas and pedestrian plazas like the one in the heart of Times Square. The ban goes into effect 90 days after Bloomberg signs the bill; the mayor has 20 days to do it.

States and cities from Maine to California have banned smoking in public parks and beaches, but New York is pursuing one of the widest-reaching urban bans. Smoking is also prohibited in Los Angeles city parks and in Chicago parks with playgrounds.

Supporters of the New York ban said exposure to secondhand smoke poses health risks.

"The statistics don't lie: Secondhand smoke kills," Council Speaker Christine Quinn said. "With this bill, all New Yorkers can now breathe easier and breathe cleaner air."

A law banning smoking in New York City bars and restaurants went into effect in 2003.

Half the world covered in snow.

At first glance it looks like a graphic from a Discovery Channel programme about a distant ice age. But this astonishing picture shows the world as it is today - with half the Northern Hemisphere covered with snow and ice.

The image was released by the National Oceanic And Atmospheric Association (NOAA) on the day half of North America was in the grip of a severe winter storm.

The map was created using multiple satellites from government agencies and the US Air Force.

That Antarctica, the Arctic, Greenland and the frozen wastes of Siberia are covered in white comes as no surprise. But it is the extent to which the line dips down over the Northern Hemisphere that is so remarkable about the image.

The shroud of white stretches down from Alaska and sweeps through the Midwest and along to the Eastern seaboard. The bitter cold has reached as far as Texas and northern Mexico where in Ciudad Juarez temperatures today were expected to dip to minus 15C.

In the U.S. tens of millions of people chose to stay at home rather than venture out. In Chicago, 20in of snow fell leading to authorities closing schools for the first time in 12 years. The newspaper for Tulsa, Okalahoma, was unable to publish its print edition for the first time in more than a century.

More here.

Father of murdered children arrives at court in horror clown mask.

This guy's got problems. From Daily Mail:

A father whose cheating allegedly drove his partner to start a fire which killed two of their three children bizarrely arrived at court yesterday wearing a grotesque clown mask.

James Maynard donned the disguise, which stunned onlookers, as he attended the murder trial of his former partner Fiona Adams.

He grinned as he removed the mask before entering the courtroom. He offered no explanation as to why he chose to wear the disguise, which is reminiscent of the red-haired clown in Stephen King's horror novel 'It'.

Ms Adams, 23, is alleged to have started the fire to ‘create a drama’, but the blaze took a ‘rapid and devastating hold’ on the semi-detached home she shared with her family.

Although she managed to escape and throw her youngest son Kiernan, now 18 months, to safety, her daughter Niamh, five, and son Cayden, two, died.

Yesterday Nottingham Crown Court heard that her relationship Mr Maynard, 28, had been ‘volatile’ since they met when she was just 17.

WikiLeaks: World on brink of nuclear terror attack.

From Daily Mail:

Al Qaeda is attempting to stockpile ‘dirty’ radioactive explosives that could be used to target British troops or for a larger urban attack, it has emerged.

New diplomatic documents released by WikiLeaks show that U.S. intelligence personnel have been informed of terrorist attempts to acquire dangerous amounts of uranium and plutonium.

The cables warn of a large trafficking operation of chemical weapons material and threats of a ‘nuclear 9/11’ unless the West intervenes swiftly.

Security chiefs briefed a Nato meeting in January 2009 that Al Qaeda was planning a programme of ‘dirty radioactive improvised explosive devices (IEDs)’.

The IEDs could be used against coalition forces in Afghanistan but would also contaminate the surrounding land with nuclear waste for years to come.

In a separate development, the cables quoted in the Telegraph reveal that the FBI is tracking down a team of Qatari men suspected of providing assistance to the 9/11 bombers.

U.S. officials were warned by an Indian national security adviser that terrorist organisations now ‘have the technical competence to manufacture an explosive device beyond a mere dirty bomb’.

British officials have also expressed fears of covert weapons development in Pakistan.

A leaked document regarding official defence discussions in 2009 highlighted 'deep concerns' that a rogue scientist could 'gradually smuggle enough material' out of the Pakistani nuclear programme to construct a weapon.

Cuckoo's Nest hospital discovers 3,500 cremated remains in "room of forgotten souls."

From Daily Mail:

The mental hospital which was used in the 1975 cult film that helped launch Jack Nicholson's career, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, has unearthed the remains of 3,500 people.

Politicians visiting in the dilapidating, 128-year-old hospital discovered the cremated ashes in 2004 in a number of corroding copper cannisters in the storage area they dubbed 'the room of forgotten souls'.

Now, in an attempt to find out who the thousands of ashes belong to, Oregon State Hospital has published online the names, birthdays and dates of death of patients who passed away between 1914 and the 1970s.

Some of the copper canisters had fused together after years of neglect, making it even more difficult to match the remains to the deceased.

When One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest screened it caused an outrage, leading many to question the state of psychiatric help in America.

The movie was filmed at Oregon State Hospital because that had been the setting of the 1962 novel, written by Ken Kesey.

Coozer-Bits.

Awesome: Baseball-loving nuns sell Honus Wagner baseball card for $220K.

Hero: Cool profile on Dos Equis' "Most Interesting Man."

Sad: Mass slaughter of dogs after Vancouver Olympics revealed.

Yipes: US president may gain power to shut off Internet.

Spain's unemployment rate surges to 20%.

From Yahoo! News:

Spain announced Friday its jobless rate surged to a 13-year record above 20 percent at the end of 2010, the highest level in the industrialised world, as the economy gasped for air.

It was more bad news for an economy fighting to regain the trust of financial markets and avoid being trapped in a debt quagmire that has engulfed Greece and Ireland and now menaces Portugal.

Another 121,900 people joined Spain's unemployment queues in the final quarter of the year, pushing the total to 4.697 million people, said the national statistics institute INE.

The resulting unemployment rate was 20.33 percent for the end of the year -- easily exceeding Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's target of 19.4 percent.

Spain appears to be stuck in a rut of staggeringly high levels of unemployment.

After posting a jobless rate of 18.83 percent in 2009 and now 20.33 percent in 2010, the government is forecasting 19.3 percent for 2011 and 17.5 percent in 2012.

The Spanish economy, the European Union's fifth biggest, slumped into recession during the second half of 2008 as the global financial meltdown compounded the collapse of a labour-intensive construction boom.

Brazilian Charles Bronson turns self in.

From Huffington Post:

SAO PAULO — Brazilian authorities says a former fire chief has turned himself in to face allegations he killed at least eight drug users in the neighborhood where his son was killed by robbers.

Jorge Luiz Thais Martins commanded the Parana state firefighters' department from 2007-2009,

Police had issued an arrest warrant for Martins for his alleged involvement in the killings that happened after his son's unsolved death in October 2009.

A spokesman for the state public safety department says police are investigating the possibility the crimes were committed as vengeance.

Spokesman Giovani Santos says Martins made no comment when he turned himself in Friday.

Chick-Fil-A is anti-gay.

This reminds me of when Grimace and the Fry Guys helped me pray out the gay. From Daily Mail:

A fried chicken chain run by a devout Christian family has been branded homophobic for backing a group which campaigns against gay marriage.

Chick-Fil-A, which says its corporate purpose it to ‘glorify God’, was savaged when it emerged one branch was providing food for the anti-gay Pennsylvania Family Institute.

Blogs immediately lit up with criticism with calls for for a nationwide boycott while students at some universities attempted to get it thrown off campus.

On the Chick-Fil-A official Facebook page the debate got so intense that moderators had to step in to remind people to ‘be respectful of others’.

The row exploded after the New York Times revealed that Chick-Fil-A sandwiches would be used to feed those attending a seminar called ‘The Art Of Marriage: Getting To The Heart Of God's Design’ in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The same piece pointed out that a few years ago the firm had given away CDs of a Bible-themed radio show with kids meals, which was produced by the Christian organisation Focus On The Family, which is against gay marriage.

Within hours an online petition asking Chick-Fil-A to stop supporting such groups had got 25,000 signatures.

On top of that customers such as Ryan Luzzi vented their anger at the company’s Facebook page and said: ‘I used to love you guys. That is until I found out how backwards and hateful your organisation is! I will NEVER EVER patronise any of your stores again!’

Others came out in support, however, such as Thelma Jean Zeigler Waldroup who posted: ‘From now on my family will be eating more Chick-Fil-A food.

‘I will support all Christian companies. I like that they honour God on the Sabbath.
‘If the gays don't like it then is just too bad.’

Chick-Fil-A later backed down and said it was dropping its support of any such groups.

The company’s president Dan Cathy said in a statement: ‘Chick-Fil-A's corporate purpose is 'To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us, and to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-Fil-A.'

‘As a result, we will not champion any political agendas on marriage and family. This decision has been made, and we understand the importance of it.’

He did however add that the company would ‘continue to offer resources to strengthen marriages and families’.

‘To do anything different would be inconsistent with our purpose and belief in Biblical principles’.

House GOP plan to redefine "rape."

From Mother Jones:

Rape is only really rape if it involves force. So says the new House Republican majority as it now moves to change abortion law.

For years, federal laws restricting the use of government funds to pay for abortions have included exemptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. (Another exemption covers pregnancies that could endanger the life of the woman.) But the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," a bill with 173 mostly Republican co-sponsors that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has dubbed a top priority in the new Congress, contains a provision that would rewrite the rules to limit drastically the definition of rape and incest in these cases.

With this legislation, which was introduced last week by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Republicans propose that the rape exemption be limited to "forcible rape." This would rule out federal assistance for abortions in many rape cases, including instances of statutory rape, many of which are non-forcible. For example: If a 13-year-old girl is impregnated by a 24-year-old adult, she would no longer qualify to have Medicaid pay for an abortion. (Smith's spokesman did not respond to a call and an email requesting comment.)

Given that the bill also would forbid the use of tax benefits to pay for abortions, that 13-year-old's parents wouldn't be allowed to use money from a tax-exempt health savings account (HSA) to pay for the procedure. They also wouldn't be able to deduct the cost of the abortion or the cost of any insurance that paid for it as a medical expense.

There used to be a quasi-truce between the pro- and anti-choice forces on the issue of federal funding for abortion. Since 1976, federal law has prohibited the use of taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions except in the cases of rape, incest, and when the pregnancy endangers the life of the woman. But since last year, the anti-abortion side has become far more aggressive in challenging this compromise. They have been pushing to outlaw tax deductions for insurance plans that cover abortion, even if the abortion coverage is never used. The Smith bill represents a frontal attack on these long-standing exceptions.

"This bill takes us back to a time when just saying 'no' wasn't enough to qualify as rape," says Steph Sterling, a lawyer and senior adviser to the National Women's Law Center. Laurie Levenson, a former assistant US attorney and expert on criminal law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, notes that the new bill's authors are "using language that's not particularly clear, and some people are going to lose protection." Other types of rapes that would no longer be covered by the exemption include rapes in which the woman was drugged or given excessive amounts of alcohol, rapes of women with limited mental capacity, and many date rapes. "There are a lot of aspects of rape that are not included," Levenson says.

As for the incest exception, the bill would only allow federally funded abortions if the woman is under 18.

The bill hasn't been carefully constructed, Levenson notes. The term "forcible rape" is not defined in the federal criminal code, and the bill's authors don't offer their own definition. In some states, there is no legal definition of "forcible rape," making it unclear whether any abortions would be covered by the rape exemption in those jurisdictions.

The main abortion-rights groups despise the Smith bill as a whole, but they are particularly outraged by its rape provisions. Tait Sye, a spokesman for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, calls the proposed changes "unacceptable." Donna Crane, the policy director of NARAL Pro-Choice America, says that making the "already narrow exceptions for public funding of abortion care for rape and incest survivors even more restrictive" is "unbelievably cruel and heartless."

"This bill goes far beyond current law," says Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), a co-chair of the congressional pro-choice caucus. The "re-definition" of the rape exception "is only one element" of an "extreme" bill, she adds, citing other provisions in the law that pro-abortion rights groups believe would lead to the end of private health insurance coverage for abortion.

"Somebody needs to look closely at this," Levenson says. "This is a bill that could have a dramatic effect on women, and language is important. It sure sounds like somebody didn't want [the exception to cover] all the different types of rape that are recognized under the law."

Banned energy drinks converted to ethanol.

Item here.

Truckloads of Four Loko and other alcohol-laced energy drinks are being recycled into ethanol and other products after federal authorities told manufacturers the beverages were dangerous and caused users to become "wide-awake drunk."

Wholesalers from Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland and other East Coast states started sending cases of the high-alcohol, caffeinated malt beverages to MXI Environmental Services in Virginia after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a crackdown on the sale of such beverages in November.

Brian Potter, vice president of operations at MXI's facility in Abingdon, Va., said about a couple of hundred truckloads of the drinks would be coming to the plant. Each truck holds 2,000 cases of the 23.5-ounce cans.

MXI Enterprises is one of three facilities in the U.S. that recycle ethanol, according to the American Coalition for Ethanol, an industry group. Potter said Thursday that his competitors also are taking shipments of the drinks.

"We're equipped to process four truckloads a day, and we're at full capacity," he said. "There are about 30 different products involved, and we've only seen a couple of them at this point. It could go on for several months."

The FDA issued warning letters to four companies on Nov. 17 saying the beverages' combination of caffeine and alcohol can lead to a "wide-awake drunk." The agency called the caffeine an "unsafe food additive." Warning letters were sent to Phusion Projects, Charge Beverages Corp., New Century Brewing Co. and United Brands Company Inc.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said at the time that consuming the drinks has led to alcohol poisoning, car accidents and assaults.

Health experts have raised concerns that the caffeine can mask a person's perception of intoxication, leading them to drink more than they typically would before passing out. Many of those who consume the drinks are college-age and underage drinkers.

The four companies decided to pull their beverages from stores or reformulate them to remove caffeine or other stimulants after the FDA's ruling. Under pressure from states' attorneys general, Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors removed their Bud Extra, Tilt and Sparks drinks from the market two years ago.

Race to drill mystery lake in Antarctica.

Isn't this how every horror movie from the '50s started? From BBC:

With only about 50m left to drill, time is running out for the Russian scientists hoping to drill into Vostok - the world's most enigmatic lake.

Vostok is a sub-glacial lake in Antarctica, hidden some 4,000m (13,000ft) beneath the ice sheet.

With the Antarctic summer almost over, temperatures will soon begin to plummet; they can go as low as -80C.

Scientists will leave the remote base on 6 February, when conditions are still mild enough for a plane to land.

The team has been drilling non-stop for weeks.

"It's like working on an alien planet where no one has been before," Valery Lukin, the deputy head of Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) in St Petersburg, which oversees the project, told BBC News.

"We don't know what awaits us down there," he said, adding that personnel at the station have been working shifts, drilling 24 hours a day.

But some experts remain concerned that probing the lake's water - thought by some to be isolated from everything else on Earth - could contaminate the pristine ecosystem and cause irreversible damage.

The sub-glacial lake is located underneath the remote Vostok station in Antarctica.

Overlaid by nearly 4km of ice, it has been isolated from the rest of the world for millions of years. Some scientists think the ice cap above and at the edges has created a hydrostatic seal with the surface, preventing lake water from escaping or anything else from getting inside.

And if the Russian team gets through to the pristine waters, they hope to encounter life forms that have never been seen.

Movie popcorn has fat of 12 hamburgers.

From HealthZone.ca:

Let's cut straight to the facts: A medium-sized bag of popcorn with butter could get you up to 97 grams of fat, depending on how liberally the topping is applied.

That's more than what most men should consume in a day, and is between 130 and 200 per cent of the average woman's daily allotment.

Cineplex Odeon disputes the 97-gram tally. Nutrition sites estimate a medium bag of popcorn without butter rings in at 60 grams of fat. Adding butter (especially without tracking the amount) sends the snack into the stratosphere.

For some people, 97 grams is almost two days worth of fat — in a snack.

“I almost fell off my chair,” says registered dietitian Shannon Crocker, who provided comparisons to underscore just how much fat movie goers could consume while munching handfuls of popcorn.

“That amount of fat is the same as what's found in 12 hamburgers from McDonalds. Or in 10 slices of sausage mushroom melt pizza from Pizza Pizza. Or in five large hot fudge sundaes from Dairy Queen.”

Cineplex Entertainment, which runs the Queensway Cinemas from which we purchased this bag of popcorn, is the largest movie theatre chain in the country with 132 theatres and 1,366 screens that entertain more than 70 million people a year. In 2010, Cineplex sold 7 million pounds (kernel weight) of popcorn.

Bon Appetit says "Bite Me."

From The Food Section:

To generate some buzz for its makeover under new Editor-in-Chief Adam Rapoport, Bon Appétit is launching "Bite Me," an "irreverent and unexpected ad campaign" starting January 31.

According to a PR email from the magazine, the campaign will run for four to six weeks in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. The campaign will also include an interactive website with URLs customized to each of the markets (BiteMeNY.com, BiteMeSanFran.com, BiteMeLOSANGELES.com, BiteMeCHI.com).

"With this campaign, we are having fun with a play on words, inviting the advertiser and consumer to take a bite out of Bon Appétit,” says William Wackermann, Executive Vice President, Publishing Director of Glamour, W, Details, Bon Appétit and the Gourmet brand. “If they haven’t tasted it lately, they will be in for a wonderful surprise, thus conveying a new energy and enthusiasm at Bon Appétit under the new Editor-in-Chief Adam Rapoport."

Utah army base loses vial of military's most lethal nerve agent.

It's still legal to use weaponized nerve agents? From the NY Daily News:

The Army gave the all-clear Thursday after loosing track overnight of a vial of lethal VX nerve agent at a Utah base.

An emergency lockdown went into effect around 6 p.m. Wednesday at the sprawling Dugway Proving Grounds when the vial turned up missing during a routine inventory check.

More than 1,000 employees were held at the base southwest of Salt Lake City as military officials launched a frantic search.

The missing vial was found on the base around 3 a.m.

A military spokesman said "all personnel are uninjured and safe. The public is safe as well."

The vial contained less than 1 milliliter, or roughly a quarter-teaspoon, of the VX, considered the deadliest agent in the military's arsenal.

Earlier in the day, military officials mysteriously said the shutdown went into effect amid a "serious concern."

Armed sentries blocked the entrances while Army officials refused to say what prompted the lockdown.

"No one is in immediate danger but these steps are required," Col. William King IV, the base commander, said at the time.

Dugway is used by the Army Reserves and the U.S. National Guard for training, and the base also serves as a bombing range.

The Army Test and Evaluation Command center also conducts training and tests of defenses against biological and chemical weapons attacks.

Girl Scouts to phase out unpopular cookies.

Just don't touch my Samoas. From the Chronicle of Philanthropy:

As the Girl Scout cookies selling season gets under way, chapters in several states are phasing out some varieties in a bid to cut costs and boost revenue, according to The Wall Street Journal.

A dozen Girl Scouts councils will eliminate new flavors of cookies that have failed to gain traction with consumers, such as Dulce de Leche and Thank U Berry Munch, as part of a “Super Six” test to focus sales on the most iconic brands, including Thin Mints, Do-Si-Dos, and Samoas.

Cookie sales bring in $714-million a year for the Girl Scouts and account for up to two-thirds of many local councils’ annual budgets. In recent years the organization has taken other steps to increase profits, such as reducing package sizes and raising prices of some cookies.

Lab releases 6,000 genetically engineered mosquitoes.

We're all DOOOOOMED! From Yahoo! News:

Malaysia released about 6,000 genetically modified mosquitoes into a forest in the first experiment of its kind in Asia aimed at curbing dengue fever, officials said Wednesday.

The field test is meant to pave the way for the use of genetically engineered Aedes aegypti male mosquitoes to mate with females and produce no offspring or ones with shorter lives, thus curtailing the mosquito population. Only female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes spread dengue fever, which killed 134 people in Malaysia last year.

A similar trial in the Cayman Islands last year — the first time genetically modified mosquitoes have been set loose in the wild after years of laboratory experiments and hypothetical calculations — resulted in a dramatic drop in the mosquito population in a small area studied by researchers.

The plan has sparked criticism by some Malaysian environmentalists, who fear it might have unforeseen consequences, such as the inadvertent creation of uncontrollable mutated mosquitoes. Critics also say such plans could leave a vacuum in the ecosystem that is then filled by another insect species, potentially introducing new diseases.

Government authorities have tried to allay the concerns by saying they are conducting small-scale research and will not rush into any widespread release of mosquitoes.

The Malaysian government-run Institute for Medical Research said it released about 6,000 sterile male lab mosquitoes in an uninhabited forest area in eastern Malaysia on Dec. 21. Another 6,000 wild male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were also placed in the area for scientific comparison, it said in a statement.

More US troops lost to suicide than combat.

From Congress.org:

For the second year in a row, the U.S. military has lost more troops to suicide than it has to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The reasons are complicated and the accounting uncertain — for instance, should returning soldiers who take their own lives after being mustered out be included?

But the suicide rate is a further indication of the stress that military personnel live under after nearly a decade of war.

Figures released by the armed services last week showed an alarming increase in suicides in 2010, but those figures leave out some categories.

Overall, the services reported 434 suicides by personnel on active duty, significantly more than the 381 suicides by active-duty personnel reported in 2009. The 2010 total is below the 462 deaths in combat, excluding accidents and illness. In 2009, active-duty suicides exceeded deaths in battle.

Last week’s figures, though, understate the problem of military suicides because the services do not report the statistics uniformly. Several do so only reluctantly.

Figures reported by each of the services last week, for instance, include suicides by members of the Guard and Reserve who were on active duty at the time. The Army and the Navy also add up statistics for certain reservists who kill themselves when they are not on active duty.

But the Air Force and Marine Corps do not include any non-mobilized reservists in their posted numbers. What’s more, none of the services count suicides that occur among a class of reservists known as the Individual Ready Reserve, the more than 123,000 people who are not assigned to particular units.

Suicides by veterans who have left the service entirely after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan also are not counted by the Defense Department. The Department of Veterans Affairs keeps track of such suicides only if the person was enrolled in the VA health care system — which three-quarters of veterans are not.

But even if such veterans and members of the Individual Ready Reserve are excluded from the suicide statistics, just taking into account the deaths of reservists who were not included in last week’s figures pushes the number of suicides last year to at least 468.

Air Canada forced to ship monkeys.

From The Toronto Star:

The arrival of 48 monkeys on a flight from China this weekend has brought Air Canada under fire for shipping primates destined for research laboratories, but the airline says it is obliged by federal law to accept monkeys as cargo.

A Pearson International Airport employee tipped off the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection that a shipment of monkeys destined for Montreal was being held at the Toronto airport after arriving from China on Saturday.

Sarah Kite, director of communications and special projects for the BUAV, said monkeys destined for research facilities are usually transported in cramped wooden crates in the plane’s cargo hold, where they can be subject to fluctuations in temperature, stopovers and in some cases long delays.

“I think most people would be alarmed to know that monkeys could be travelling alongside their luggage in a cargo hold,” Kite said. She said these monkeys, typically macaques, are often factory farmed for research purposes in countries such as Laos and Mauritius.

Air Canada is one of a small number of airlines that continues to transport these primates, Kite said. Under pressure from animal rights groups and the public, many airlines have banned the practice. British Airways, for example, has a policy of “not carrying live animals that are for use in any laboratory, or for experimentation or exploitation,” according to media liaison manager Sophie Greenyer.

But Air Canada has its hands tied because of an old squabble with a customer. In 1994, the airline refused to carry a shipment of monkeys from Barbados because they were destined for a lab.

The Primate Research Center and Wildlife Reserve of Barbados filed a complaint with the Canadian Transportation Agency, which ruled in 1998 that Air Canada could not refuse to carry the monkeys because they were not a nuisance to passengers in flight. According to the ruling, the “opinion” that the monkey shipment was offensive on “humane or moral grounds” wasn’t good enough.

“We cannot by law refuse the carriage of animals for the sole reason that they could ultimately be destined to a laboratory or for research,” said Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick in an email.

Man dies after falling into tortilla-mixing machine.

Holy guacamole! Item!

New York City police say a man was killed after falling into a commercial-size machine used for mixing tortillas.

Police say they received a 911 call at 2:30 a.m. Monday of an unconscious man at the commercial site in Brooklyn. When they arrived they discovered that the 22-year-old victim had fallen inside the waist-high machine. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police say no criminality is suspected.