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29 March 2024

Bizarre: Cops mistaken for strippers by women

Published
By Agencies

AUSTRALIA: Police narrowly escaped an undressing after stumbling into a rowdy hens' night in northern Australia where they were mistaken for strippers by the bride-to-be and her friends.

The male officers attended Darwin's Humpty Doo Tavern after reports of a disturbance and were greeted by an enthusiastic group of women who shouted that the strippers had arrived and tried to pull their shirts off.

"The girls were in fine form," Northern Watch Commander Louise Jorgensen told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "They were most excited about the police presence.

"There were various shouts about how the strippers had arrived."

Jorgensen said the men "nearly had their shirts torn off, but they managed to escape with their dignity intact". (AFP)

 


Official dismissed after Facebook photo spills the beans

MANILA: A Philippine official has been dismissed after Facebook photos showed him attending a high school reunion at an island resort when he was supposed to be at work.

Nueva Ecija provincial information officer Maynardo Valdez was accused of gross misconduct and dishonesty.

Philippine Information Agency chief Jose Fabia said Wednesday that Valdez closed his office for four days last year without permission and did not respond to calls and texts from his superiors.

Fabia said officials tried contacting Valdez through his Facebook account and instead saw pictures of him at the reunion on Boracay Island.

He alleged Valdez neglected his other duties like producing daily reports and surveying the sentiments of the people in the province.

Valdez says he will appeal the decision. (AP)

 


Fireworks malfunction in big, fast flash


SAN DIEGO: The San Diego Trolley was packed. Hotel rooms facing the bay were sold out. And local radio was set to simulcast a patriotic score for the Fourth of July show.

But instead of 20 minutes of fireworks, the crowd in San Diego got about 20 seconds of giant, deafening booms after a computer mishap sent multiple bulb-shaped explosions over the bay.

The show's producer blamed a "technical glitch" Thursday, saying an error in its computer system caused tens of thousands of fireworks on four barges to go off simultaneously with a single command.

"It was like a giant, serious bomb went off," said Mike Newton, 29, a photographer who watched from a friend's 28th-floor apartment. "That's what it looked like and felt like. It hit you right in the chest."

There were no reported injuries and Garden State Fireworks, based in Millington, N.J., apologized and vowed to determine precisely what went wrong. The 122-year-old company produced hundreds of other shows across the country Wednesday night.

August Santore, part-owner of Garden State Fireworks, said the company felt terrible, but the mood was unforgiving among many of the hundreds of thousands of people who witnessed the explosions before they could get off their first "ooh" or "ah."

A patriotic score was set to be simulcast on a local radio station. The show was set to stream live on the Web.

The crowd stood in quiet disbelief, with many wondering what just happened to a show billed as the Big Bay Boom. Word went out on the radio about 20 minutes later that it was over.

Bre Nelson, a 26-year-old wedding planner, watched from a hillside street packed with "tons and tons of people and cars."

"It was really neat to see the entire sky light up but then we just waited there," said Nelson. "Everyone was just sitting around."

By late Thursday afternoon, the fireworks flop had become a hit online with about 2 million views of the footage on YouTube.

Sponsors contributed about $380,000 to host the show, said Sandy Purdon, owner of a bay marina and the chief organizer. The Port of San Diego contributed $145,000 as title sponsor, with hotels and restaurants giving much of the rest.

The port district gave an additional $50,000 worth of services, including traffic control, portable toilets and cleanup.

The fireworks cost $125,000 and the barges and tugs cost $45,000, Purdon said. After permits, publicity, buses and other costs, there was about $50,000 left, which was earmarked to help young military families though the San Diego Armed Services YMCA.

The port district said in a statement that it was "very disappointed" in what it described as an apparent technical error.

It was unclear if anyone will get reimbursed. Purdon, who witnessed the explosions from his home with his sponsors, said he had discussed with Garden State Fireworks the possibility that it foots the bill for next year's Fourth of July show.

Garden State Fireworks has staged pyrotechnic displays for the 1988 Winter Olympics, the Statue of Liberty Bicentennial Celebration and New Year's Eve in Central Park in New York.

"We are a good strong company, and we rely on technology. We'll take the ridicule as long as no one was injured," Santore said.

The debacle will likely fuel a long-running controversy in San Diego about damage that fireworks displays inflict on marine life. Environmental attorney Marco Gonzalez has repeatedly challenged shows that take place over water, inviting ire and ridicule from critics including San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders.

Gonzalez recently prevailed in court decisions but decided against trying to block this year's show in La Jolla Cove. Still, organizers of a fireworks show over San Diego's Lake Murray canceled this year's show, saying they feared a lawsuit.

"The notion that fireworks are critical to Independence Day celebrations has just been blown out of proportion with these large shows," Gonzalez said. (AP)

 


Football club asks fans to give blood

BRAZIL: Brazilian football club Vitoria has removed its trademark red hoops from its shirt and told supporters it will add the color back gradually as fans donate blood.

The campaign, entitled "My Blood is Red and Black", is named after the club's traditional colors and comes amid a nationwide drive to get more Brazilians to give blood for transfusions.

"We wanted to do more than just ask fans to give blood," said Vitoria's president Alexi Portela Junior. "With this initiative, fans of the red and black can participate more actively in the campaign and they will see the importance of a gesture like this that can help save countless lives."

The club normally plays in a red-and-black hooped shirt, with white shorts and red-and-black socks. At its most recent game, players wearing black-and-white hooped shirts carried a banner onto the field reading: "Vitoria has always given its blood for you. It's time for you to give yours."

Portela Junior said the club plans to add a red hoop back after each game, starting with next weekend's match. The club has four red and four black hoops on its jersey.

"In this novel way we are making our fans aware of the importance of giving blood," Portela Junior said.

The campaign comes just a few weeks after Sao Paulo, one of Brazil's biggest clubs, put the slogan "Give Blood" on its shirts for a game.

Brazil's Health Ministry and blood banks often launch campaigns during school holidays as donations fall by as much as 25 percent. Officials said that although Brazil has invested heavily in the area, only around two percent of Brazilians give blood regularly. The World Health Organization recommends that number should be three percent.

Vitoria, which is based in Salvador in the northeastern state of Bahia, was founded in 1899 and is one of Brazil's oldest clubs. It is famous for having launched the careers of World Cup winners Bebeto and Vampeta, and current Chelsea defender David Luiz.

It currently sits in fourth place in the Serie B after eight games and is one of the favorites to gain promotion. The give blood campaign already seems to have brought them luck on the pitch. In their first red-less shirt, they beat Avai 2-0.