Bus Stops - November 9

Singing bus driver silenced by OC Transpo (Ottawa Citizen) 

(Despite a chorus of approval over the years, OC Transpo bus operator Yves Roy — known as The Singing Bus Driver — has been asked to stop crooning while at the wheel. Passenger Eddie Vasblom, who travels from downtown to Barrhaven every evening after he finishes work, had noticed Roy’s silence over the past couple of weeks and asked him why he’d stopped singing. Roy said he’d been called in to his supervisor’s office where he was read some of the 12 complaints that have come in since January.)

Baytown dad encouraged son to beat up fellow student at bus stop (KHOU) 

(A local dad is facing charges after investigators say he encouraged his son to beat up another boy at a bus stop. Jorge Paredes, 30, is charged with injury to a child. According to court documents Paredes drove his son to a bus stop at Gentry Junior High, located in the 4700 block of Ripple Creek Drive, around 8:15 a.m. on November 4, 2011. Police said Paredes and his 11-year-old son got out of the truck, and his son confronted the victim, 13, who was waiting at the bus stop.)

School Bus Incident Leads To Protection Order (WFIN) 

(Officials in the Lakota School District have filed a civil protection order request against the parent of a student. The Review-Times reports the district petitioned for the order after 38-year-old Dawn Quinlin of Bradner allegedly boarded a school bus last Wednesday and threatened the driver. Lakota Superintendent Rebecca Heimlich says the alleged threats were made after the woman's child was taken off the bus for five days.)

DNA tests eyed to identify and prosecute loose cannon bus and subway riders who spit on transit workers (NY Daily News) 

(Law enforcement may use DNA to help identify and prosecute low-life straphangers who spit on MTA bus drivers and other transit workers. "We're going to look into it and talk to the NYPD about it," Jerry Schmetterer, spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes, said Tuesday. Bus and subway workers were spat upon 145 times between January and October — about 14 times a month, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.)

3-alarm fire reported at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch (LA Times) 

(A three-alarm fire has been reported at director George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch near Nicasio, according to the Marin Independent Journal. The fire was reported at 5:34 p.m. at the more than 5,000-acre ranch on Lucas Valley Road, Marin County firefighters told the Journal. The fire is believed to have begun as a chimney fire in the main house on the property.)

USF Poly pays $10,000 for ‘Star Wars,' Captain Kirk and E.T. replicas (TampaBay.com) 

(Darth Vader has come to the University of South Florida Polytechnic. For $10,000, the school that is making a bid to become an independent university bought a life-sized statue of Star Wars' dark lord, along with an Imperial Stormtrooper, E.T., and the chair of Star Trek's Capt. James T. Kirk.)

Kelly Osbourne out of hospital after head injury (Yahoo) 

(Media personality and reality star Kelly Osbourne says she has been released from a Miami hospital after being treated for a head injury. The 27-year-old E! Fashion Police co-host Tweeted on Sunday that she was given the "all clear" and was released from Mercy Hospital, which declined comment Monday.)

Five Arrested for Trying to Steal Lion Carcass in Ohio (Fox News) 

(Five men were charged Monday with trying to steal a lion's carcass in Ohio. The group had loaded the body of the lion into a Jeep when they were arrested, WOIO-TV reported. The animal was one of dozens shot dead by sheriff's deputies after exotic zoo owner Terry Thompson opened the animals' cages and killed himself last month.)

Troll-attack campaign goes viral (The Age) 

(A campaign to highlight the abusive misogyny of anonymous posters online has gone viral on Twitter. Under the hashtag #mencallmethings, female bloggers, columnists and Twitter regulars have started reprinting some of the threats they say they receive daily from anonymous emailers, posters and other trolls.)

Boss of budget airline plans to screen in-flight pornography (Daily Mail) 

(The boss of budget airline Ryanair wants to launch a pay-per-view pornography service for passengers to watch during flights, it has been claimed. Ryanair chief Michael O'Leary said he hopes to launch an app for the airline where travellers can watch sex scenes on their iPads or smartphones while in the air.)

Rodney King pleads not guilty in DUI case (LA Times) 

(Rodney G. King pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of driving under the influence, according to court documents. King, 46, was arrested in July by Riverside County sheriff’s deputies. He was charged with misdemeanor counts of driving under the influence and driving with a blood-alcohol content above the legal limit of 0.08%, according to online court records from the Superior Court in Riverside.)

Stickering campaign in cemetery to warn relatives of possible eviction (EITB) 

(The cemetery, in the Spanish city of Torrero, has begun placing stickers on thousands of burial sites with lapsed leases as a warning to relatives that their ancestors face possible eviction. Pushed for space, a Spanish cemetery has begun placing stickers on thousands of burial sites with lapsed leases as a warning to relatives that their ancestors face possible eviction.)

Aussie Escort Agency Causes Outrage Offering Teen Girl's Virginity for Sale (My Fox DC) 

(An Australian escort agency is offering the virginity of a teenage girl for AU$15,000 (US$15,400), prompting outraged community groups to describe the move as "putting women's liberation back centuries." An investigation by sex industry consulting firm Brothel Busters has found that the Sydney agency, MyOutCall Australia, is offering the Chinese 19-year-old student for four days in exchange for the $15,000 sum.)

'Batman' confronts internet predator (MSN News) 

(A man expecting to meet a 15-year-old girl he had groomed online for sex got a rude shock when a web vigilante dressed as Batman confronted him instead, shouting "this man is a pedophile". The real-life Bruce Wayne had posed as a 15-year-old girl named Chwk.Babe95 in an online chat and arranged to meet the man, who went by the name longfellow88, in a local US park.)

(SUBMITTED BY: @JamieWalton)



Just who is your lover losing the weight for? People dieting while in a relationship are preparing to break up with their other half (Daily Mail) 

(Don't feel too flattered if your partner starts losing weight - it might be for somebody else. People who suddenly start fighting the flab while they're in an apparently steady relationship are secretly preparing to drop their other halves, a study claims. Happy couples don't worry about their expanding waistlines because there is less pressure to look attractive, sociologists claim.)

Are birds getting bigger because of global climate change? (LA Times) 

(Birds in central California are significantly larger than they were 25 to 40 years ago, and researchers believe it may be because they are bulking up in body weight to ride out severe storms related to global climate change. Over the last 25 years, a robin, for example, has increased about an eighth of an inch in wing length and about 0.2 ounces in mass, according to a paper published online in Global Change Biology.)

Study Links Bestiality, Penile Cancer (NBC) 

(There are probably a lot of reasons why humans should not have sex with animals, and a new study adds cancer to the list. In a study of 492 men from rural Brazil, 35 percent reprted having had sex with an animal at men who had sex some point in their lives. The report found those men were twice as likely to develop cancer of the penis.)

Are insurance companies spying on your Facebook page? (ABC) 

(The next time you post something on Facebook or Twitter, ask yourself: who else is looking at this besides my friends? That's because your insurance company could be monitoring your accounts, looking for information that could raise your premium or even deny your claim. Kurt Nordland never dreamed photos he posted on his Facebook page would create huge problems.)

Tuesday Night's Asteroid: Why We'll (Almost Certainly) Survive a Close Call (Time) 

(Astronomers have known for several years that Nov. 8, 2011, would end one of two ways: either uneventfully or with a massive global cataclysm that would leave a 4-mile (6.5 km) crater somewhere on the planet, unleash 70-ft. (21 m) tsunami waves and potentially claim tens of thousands of victims. The messiness, they knew, would begin at 6:28 p.m. E.T.)

'Vladimir Lenin' School Wants to Change Name to 'Steve Jobs' (Time) 

(The beatification of Steve Jobs continues. It appears that students in Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second biggest city, might soon be attending class at a school named for the late Apple founder. The technical secondary school is currently named for another guy who has a reputation for being "revolutionary"—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The 50-year-old school obviously is looking to the future, seeing as the school is just now getting access to central heating, according to Novinite.)

Babies on Path to Obesity? Growth Charts May Offer a Clue (Time) 

(Researchers say there's a new way to tell if infants are likely to become obese later on: Check to see if they've passed two key milestones on doctors' growth charts by age 2. Babies who grew that quickly face double the risk of being obese at age 5, compared with peers who grew more slowly, their study found. Rapid growers were also more likely to be obese at age 10, and infants whose chart numbers climbed that much during their first 6 months faced the greatest risks.)

Tower Heist Director Brett Ratner Steps Down As Oscar Producer (Time) 

(Just days after director Brett Ratner quipped that “rehearsal is for fags” at a Q&A session for his new movie Tower Heist, he has resigned as the producer of the 2012 Academy Awards. “[A]s painful as this may be for me,” Ratner said in a released statement Tuesday evening, “it would be worse if my association with the show were to be a distraction from the Academy and the high ideals it represents.” Academy President Tom Sherak accepted his departure saying, “Words have meaning, and they have consequences. Brett is a good person, but his comments were unacceptable.”)

Judge Suspends FDA's Graphic Cigarette Warning Labels (Time) 

(A federal judge has suspended a government plan to require tobacco companies to display graphic anti-smoking warning labels on their cigarette packs by next fall, citing a violation of the First Amendment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the labels in question in June – a series of nine different images with text warnings that convey messages about the health risks of smoking and tobacco use. But U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled on Monday that the labels do far more than merely provide information; rather, they make no secret of their anti-smoking bias: one zooms in on autopsy staples in a dead man's chest; another features a man blowing smoke through his tracheotomy hole.)

HEAVY D Dead at 44 (TMZ) 

(Rap legend Heavy D -- one of the most influential rappers of the '90s -- died earlier today ... TMZ has learned. Heavy D -- real name Dwight Arrington Myers -- was rushed to an L.A. hospital around noon today ... and was pronounced dead at the hospital at 1 PM. He was 44 years old.)