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Man delivers baby with help of iPhone

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A man who was stuck at his snowed-in home in Britain helped deliver his girlfriend's baby by checking the internet on his iPhone.

Chris Corfield used his phone to look online for tips on how to deliver a baby when his girlfriend Jenni Visser went into labour at their home in Southport, Merseyside, Daily Express reported on Friday.

Medical help wasn't able to reach them due to the inclement weather.

Chris then turned to his iPhone and was able to help Jenni safely give birth to baby Freija.

"It all happened so quickly, I didn't have time to think about it or get nervous.

"Everyone has been saying how well I've done but really it was Jenni who did all the hard work," he was quoted as saying. 

Saudi women learning how to drive abroad

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Saudi women, banned from driving vehicles at home, are increasingly going abroad to get driver's licences, local daily Arab News reported on Friday.

Women learn to drive in remote areas outside of cities within Saudi Arabia and then go to countries such as Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates to get a licence, according to the newspaper.

“I actually learned how to drive in the Kingdom with the help of my elder brother who used to take me far away from the city and give me intensive lessons. A year later I got a driving license from Lebanon,” Noor Badr, 26, told Arab News.

Women want to get a licence so they how to drive in the case of an emergency, according to the newspaper.

 
'Terminator cat' survives being shot and run over

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A pet cat named Tinsel has been renamed The Terminator – after surviving a peppering with air rifle pellets and being run over by a car.

The four-year-old moggy miraculously survived being hit more than 10 times with an air rifle outside her home in Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire.

Just one month after vets saved her life in the 'drive-by shooting,' the brave puss was then flattened by a car and had to have metal plates put into her pelvis last month.

Owner Tim Gamble, 55, said pals suggested he change Tinsel's name to The Terminator because of her ability to survive a gun attack and road accident – much like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the hit 1984 movie.

She has now been dubbed the 'hardest cat in Britain' by her owner, who said she never expected his beloved moggy to survive.
 
 

 Executions fall due to cost 

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The United States executed fewer people this year, in part because there is a shortage of the drug used in lethal injections and because executions are too expensive in tough economic times, a report released on Tuesday said.

The Death Penalty Information Center said in its annual report that executions decreased 12 percent this year and new death sentences stayed near the lowest level since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.

Texas led the nation with 17 of the 46 executions carried out this year in the United States. The total is down from 52 in 2009 and less than half the number put to death in 1999.

"Whether it's concerns about the high costs of the death penalty at a time when budgets are being slashed, the risks of executing the innocent, unfairness, or other reasons, the nation continued to move away from the death penalty in 2010," Richard Dieter, the center's executive director and author of the report, said in a statement.

One factor reducing or delaying executions is difficulty obtaining sodium thiopental, one of the drugs used in lethal injection executions, the Washington-based group said.

Executions were postponed or canceled in five states due to a shortage of the drug, it said. Arizona imported some from Britain, where executions have been abolished, but Britain is now restricting the drug's exportation.

New death sentences in 2010 will total 114, near the lowest level since 1976 when executions were authorized by the U.S. Supreme Court, and down two-thirds from their peak in 1996.

There have been 1,234 executions in the United States since 1976, nearly half of those carried out in Texas and Virginia.

 
Santa given security pat-down

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A Christmas mission to deliver cheer to three Outback Australian communities proved that even Santa is not above the law.

Waiting to greet Santa at Maningrida airport Tuesday were two police officers, The Northern Territory News reported.

The police searched every bag and passenger getting off the plane, including Santa, to make sure he was not carrying any contraband alcohol under his red suit.

Constable First Class Fiona Codrington said alcohol was banned without a permit in Maningrida, about 310 miles (500 kilometers) east of the Northern Territory capital Darwin.

"People try to conceal spirits and beer in their luggage, wrapped in clothing amongst foodstuff," she said.

After a quick pat-down and check under his white beard, Santa was given the all clear to carry on his merry way.

The woman alleged she was raped four times over October 16 and 17 last year at Ubirr Rock and the man's Jabiru home 40km southwest of the tourist attraction.

Officer in charge of the investigation Detective Sergeant Ian Young told the committal hearing the case was thrown away, but he fished it out of the rubbish in August this year.

"It was sitting in the administration bin of Katherine investigations and I picked it up out of there," Det Sgt Young said.
The court heard the woman met the man when he offered to fix her tyre.

Doctor Tracey Johns, who later examined the woman, told the court her patient said he had manipulated her into staying at his house while he fixed her tyre by talking about the dangers of camping in Kakadu.

 
 
The smartphones that are too clever for their owners

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With hundreds of thousands of ‘apps’ available, smartphones allow users to do anything from checking their bank balance to booking a flight.

But 71 per cent of owners use them simply to make a call, text or check Facebook, research shows, claims Daily Mail.

The study revealed that a typical person exploits only 10 per cent of their phone’s functions.

The survey of 2,000 users in the UK also found more than half had felt ­pressured to get the latest or most ­popular smartphone, such as Apple’s iPhone4 or a BlackBerry.

The devices are really pocket computers. As well as the capacity for the downloadable programs known as ‘apps’, they can browse the internet and send and receive emails, said the newspaper.
 
 

Want Kate's engagement ring? Just three bucks in China

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Chinese vendors looking to cash in on the frenzy over the April wedding of Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton are selling copies of her engagement ring for as little as three dollars.

Knock-offs of the 45,000-dollar sapphire-and-diamond ring that the prince gave to Middleton and once worn by his mother, Princess Diana are on offer at various shops on Taobao.com, China's largest online mall.

Most are selling for less than 100 yuan (15 dollars), with the cheapest allegedly made of zircon and unspecified alloys -- available for just 19.9 yuan, or about three dollars, according to Taobao pages searched by AFP.

The original item was given to Diana by William's father, Prince Charles, when they were engaged in February 1981. Charles and Diana divorced in 1996 and she was killed in a car crash in Paris the following year.

Chinese media said this week that factories in Yiwu, east China, the world's largest wholesale market for small products, were ramping up output of royal wedding souvenirs, from fake rings to cups to dolls.

The producers, wary of finding themselves in a copyright lawsuit, say they are making minor changes to their bogus engagement rings, reducing the number of "diamonds" surrounding the "sapphire", according to the reports.

"I believe other company owners are the same as me -- none of us would like to run the risk" associated with making exact replicas, one report quoted Zhou Mingwang, a businessman in Yiwu, as saying.

Cheap imitation rings have also flown off shop shelves in Brazil, reports said.

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