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29 March 2024

Crazy World: Refused a kiss, woman, 92, shoots

Published
By Staff & Agencies

Refused a kiss, 92-year-old woman fires gun 

(AGENCIES)
 
ST. PETERSBURG: Helen Staudinger, 92, wanted a kiss, and authorities say she wouldn't take no for an answer.

The central Florida woman fired a semi-automatic pistol four times at her 53-year-old neighbor's house after he refused to kiss her, police said on Tuesday.

"If my head would have been over just a little bit further, (a bullet) probably would have hit me in the back of the head," the neighbor, Dwight Bettner, told Reuters.

Staudinger was in jail on Tuesday, a day after being arrested on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and shooting into a dwelling.

According to a police report, Staudinger told deputies she went to Bettner's house in Fort McCoy, Florida, and refused to leave until he gave her a kiss.

When he said no, they argued and she left angry, the report said.

Bettner said he was on the phone with his father moments later when he heard gunshots. One bullet went through a window, spraying him with glass.

The former law enforcement officer said his elderly neighbor had seemed attracted to him since he moved in six months ago.

"I've taken her trash out for her, just neighborly stuff," Bettner said. "I guess she just took that as something else." 

New bus lane just right for a bike

(AGENCIES)

UK: A UK council is under fire for spending £1.5 million ($2.5 million) on a bus lane, only for drivers to find it is not wide enough for buses.

Residents of King's Lynn in Norfolk, eastern England, branded the project "farcical" after drivers discovered they have to navigate the route at walking pace because it is so narrow, Lynn News reported.

The road has not been used since it was unveiled earlier this month because the drivers will need special training to use it, and there is no one available to train them.

Brian Lake, 63, cycles along the route each morning. He said, "It's a farce. It took a driver and someone standing in the footwell to see the driver through the pinch point on the trial run. There are tyre marks on the kerb where it has squeezed through."

Lee Stevens, the principal of nearby Whitefriars Primary School, added, "It's ludicrous. That's the busiest point in terms of pedestrian crossings. It's not fit for [the] purpose."
 
Flying School runs without aircraft

(AGENCIES)

Jaipur: Rajasthan Flying School could hold the key to the mystery of many dubious pilots who are flying you around.The flying school was closed in 2008 because the only aircraft it had was grounded. Just to reiterate, it does have an aircraft to train pilots.The same government-run flying school gave flying hours to students till six months back - offcourse for a price.

Two students of the institute Captain Anuj Choudhary and Co Pilot Amit Mundra, arrested by the Rajasthan Anti Corruption Bureau, were flying Spice Jet aircrafts till last week.

Both face charges of exaggerating their flying hours to fraudulently obtain Commercial Pilot licenses.

Out of the 200 mandatory flying hours, Amit forged 147 and Anuj 136. The actual hours flown by them were just 53 and 64 respectively.

"When they were training for their commercial pilots' license from the Rajasthan Flying School, they fudged their flying hours entries in order to be eligible for the license," said Rajasthan Anti Corruption Bureau AGDP Ajit Singh.

Rajasthan anti corruption bureau stumbled upon the shocking facts in July last year. The first give away was that they were issuing flying hours without consuming fuel. That got the cops suspicious.

The flying school then worked around this by buying fuel and then burning it just like that. The pilots will wants us to believe that they have been taken for a ride.

"We've paid a lot of money to the flying school to get these licenses. We did not understand the details of the transactions. We've never failed any skill test in the last four and a half years," said Captain Anuj Choudhary.

"We were young when we arrived, we did not understand the scam that was taking place here. This was a government approved institute, shouldn't we be able to trust the government?" said Captain Amit Moondra.

The ACB has made nine arrests including the Chief Flying Instructor Mohinder Kumar of the Rajasthan Flying School, the Chief Flying Instructor of Hissar in Haryana, the Assistant ATC of the Sanganer Airport in Jaipur and an assistant from the flying school.

Another pilot, Rajesh Yadav the son of Assistant Director DGCA who was flying Air India aircrafts was also arrested.

As the investigations proceed, the ACB, which has also written to the CBI to look into the DGCA's role in the scam, is hopeful of making more arrests in the case soon.
 
Woman, 90, marries man aged 73

(AGENCIES)

BRITAIN: A 90-year-old woman and a 73-year-old man, whose relationship blossomed since they met seven years ago in Britain, have finally married.

Betty Erskine met her 'toyboy' Robin Tremayne when they lived in the same block at the Trafalgar Court retirement home in Uffculme in Devon county.

Robin, whose wife died in 2004, would regularly check on Betty. As time went on, the relationship grew. Two years ago, Robin proposed they marry.

Robin said: "I love Betty, and it just seemed the right thing to do.

"I thought we may as well get married - we get on so well. We never argue and agree on practically everything. So it seemed like the right thing to do."

The couple married before friends and family in Davon Saturday.

Betty and Robin will go on honeymoon later this year. Betty has two daughters, a son and six grandchildren and Robin has a son and a daughter each, three grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

Facebook bans 20,000 underage users a day

(AFP)

MELBOURNE: Facebook has revealed that about 20,000 children are kicked off the social networking site every day for lying about their age to join the site.

The social networking giant admitted it had to do more to stop young people using Facebook, as it revealed about a third of Australia's population uses the site every day, reported the Herald Sun.

The chief privacy adviser of Facebook, Mozelle Thompson, said many Australian children under the age of 13 were trying to access the site by lying about their age.

"It's something that happens on a regular basis," the Courier mail quotedhompson as saying.

Globally, about seven million children who lie about their age are blocked from the site each year.

- All pictures used for illustrative purposes only