World News joined 1

[Black Widow]

Marine experts believe 26 dolphins who died in Cornwall became stranded after being frightened by an underwater disturbance.

A number of theories have been forwarded to explain the deaths, one of the worst mass strandings ever in the UK.

It had been thought the striped dolphins came inland to chase fish and then became beached along the Percuil river, near Falmouth.

But Tony Woodley, spokesman for British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR), said: "Very few had anything in their stomachs.

"That adds weight to the theory that they were scared ashore.

"It is another unusual factor in this extremely unusual stranding."

Attention has now switched to the Royal Navy, which was carrying out exercises in Falmouth Bay with ships and a submarine.

The Ministry of Defence said a survey vessel had been using low power, high frequency, short range equipment to map the sea bed about 12 nautical miles off the coast of Falmouth at the time.

A spokesman said: "It is considered extremely unlikely that this operation could have affected the mammals in any way."

He also confirmed that live firing exercises had been carried out off Eddystone Light, south of Plymouth, on Friday.

But the dolphins were found dead early on Monday morning, 60 nautical miles away.

A Royal Navy spokesman added: "There has been no evidence of any of our vessels' sonar ever playing a part in beaching incidents like this.

"The Royal Navy takes take its environmental responsibilities very seriously and always carry out environmental assessments before putting energy in the water."

He said no vessel in the South West had been using low frequency sonar at the time and the submarine's sonar had not been transmitting.

Alan Knight, chairman of BDMLR, said: "I have never heard of anything like this, certainly not in the UK and possibly not anywhere.

"My own personal conclusion is that there was some sort of disturbance that has caused the animals to panic."

Another theory was that a pod of 15 dolphins became stranded, issued distress calls which were picked up by others who followed the signal and also became stuck.

The Natural History Museum said its zoologists from the National Whale Stranding Scheme were working with vets from the Zoological Society of London to unravel the mystery.

It said marine strandings occurred for a number of reasons, including sickness, disorientation, natural mortality, extreme weather conditions or injury.


Sky News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the interesting story.

[scorpionf]

Such a sad story, the poor dolphins

[Black Widow]

48 people injured; 2 others die in Kansas twisters, and area could see more

NBC News and news services
updated 11:54 a.m. ET June 12, 2008

BLENCOE, Iowa - The Midwest remained on the lookout for more tornadoes Thursday, after two twisters Wednesday killed six people — four of them Boy Scouts at an Iowa camp where Gov. Chet Culver described the devastation as "horrific."

"The devastation was massive through the campgrounds," Culver told NBC's "TODAY" show.

The twister Wednesday night set off a frantic search to reach others in the piles of debris and downed trees in the hills of western Iowa. Forty-eight children and adults were injured.

"All four of the young men who were killed were Scouts," Culver said. Three of the victims — Josh Fennen, 13; Sam Thomsen, 13; and Ben Petrzilka, 14 — were from Omaha. Officials said the fourth victim was Aaron Eilerts, 14, of Eagle Grove, Iowa.

Culver paid tribute to the Scouts who came to the aid of their injured colleagues, describing them as "the real heroes of this story."

"I'm very proud of the young men who were up there who were able to help the Scouts in need," he told TODAY. "I think lives were saved."

Tornadoes also raked Kansas on Wednesday, killing at least two people, destroying much of the small town of Chapman and causing extensive damage on the Kansas State University campus.

NBC's WeatherPlus service warned that "more tornadic activity is possible especially later in the day," adding that "the storms will gradually shift into the Ohio Valley as we work our way into Friday."



Tornado siren

Lloyd Roitstein, an executive with the Mid America Council of the Boy Scouts of America, said a tornado siren went off at the camp.

The boys had been in two groups when the storm hit the Little Sioux Scout Ranch in the remote Loess Hills. One group managed to take shelter, but the other was out hiking.

At least 42 of the injured remained hospitalized Thursday morning, with everything from cuts and bruises to major head trauma, said Gene Meyer, Iowa's public safety commissioner. At least four of the injured were airlifted from the camp, he said, refusing to elaborate on their conditions or identify the dead.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the families of the victims," Culver said. "We continue to do everything we can to make sure those injured are going to recover."

All the scouts and staff were accounted for, Meyer said, adding that searchers were making another pass through the grounds to make sure no one else was injured. The camp was destroyed.

Thomas White, a scout supervisor, said he dug through the wreckage of a collapsed fireplace to reach victims in a building where many scouts were seeking shelter when the twister struck at 6:35 p.m.

"A bunch of us got together and started undoing the rubble from the fireplace and stuff and waiting for the first responders," White told KMTV in Omaha. "They were under the tables and stuff and on their knees, but they had no chance."

The nearest tornado siren, in nearby Blencoe, sounded only briefly after the storm cut power to the town, said Russ Lawrenson of the Mondamin Fire Department.



Sounded like a jet

Taylor Willoughby, 13, said several scouts were getting ready to watch a movie when someone screamed that there was a tornado. Everyone hunkered down, he said, and windows shattered.

"It sounded like a jet that was flying by really close," Taylor told TODAY. "I was hoping that we all made it out OK. I was afraid for my life."

Ethan Hession, also 13, said he crawled under a table with his friend.

"I just remember looking over at my friend, and all of a sudden he just says to me, 'Dear God, save us,'" he told TODAY. "Then I just closed my eyes and all of a sudden it's (the tornado) gone."

Ethan said the Scouts' first-aid training immediately compelled them to act.

"We knew that we need to place tourniquets on wounds that were bleeding too much. We knew we need to apply pressure and gauze. We had first-aid kits, we had everything," he said.

Ethan said one staff member took off his shirt and put it on someone who was bleeding to apply pressure and gauze. Other scouts started digging people out of the rubble, he said.



Agencies praised

At a news conference Thursday, Culver praised the scouts for "taking care of each other" as emergency workers from several state and local agencies cut through debris to reach the camp.

Roitstein reminded reporters at the news conference that the Boy Scouts motto is "Be Prepared."

"Last night, the agencies and the scouts were prepared," he said. "They knew what to do they knew where to go and they prepared well."

The injured were taken to Burgess Health Center in Onawa, Alegent Health Clinic in Missouri Valley and Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha.

Burgess spokeswoman Beth Frangedakis said 19 victims arrived at the hospital around 8:30 p.m. They included children ages 2 months to 15 years, plus three adults.

Frangedakis said four were admitted to the hospital, one was taken by helicopter to Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City, Iowa, and the others were released. She wouldn't release the nature of the victims' injuries.

David Hunt, chairman of the Mid-America Boy Scout Council's Goldenrod District, which covers several eastern Nebraska counties, said he believed the boys were from eastern Nebraska and western Iowa.

The 1,800-acre ranch about 40 miles north of Omaha includes hiking trails through narrow valleys and over steep hills, a 15-acre lake and a rifle range.



'Relieved'

Gayle Jessen of Fremont, Neb., said her 19-year-old son Zach is a staff leader at the camp. He called his parents to say he had a bruise on an arm and was being treated at a hospital.

"I'm so relieved my son is OK," Jessen said. She said her husband was headed to the hospital to pick up their son.

Lawrenson said parents will be reunited with their children at a community center in nearby Little Sioux.

The tornado touched down as Iowa's eastern half grappled with flooding in several of its major cities. The storm threatened to stretch Iowa's emergency response teams even further.

Tack said officials were confident that the state's emergency response teams could handle the crisis because western Iowa had been largely unaffected by the recent flooding.



2 fatalities in Kansas

Tornadoes also touched down in central Kansas, killing two, as well as southern Minnesota and eastern Nebraska.

A tornado caused significant damage in Manhattan and Kansas State University, tossing cars and destroying several businesses.

One person was killed in Chapman, where part of the roof of the high school gymnasium was torn off, emergency officials said.

Sharon Watson, spokeswoman for the Kansas Adjutant General's Department, said a half-mile-wide tornado tore through the town Wednesday night, destroying more than 60 homes and numerous businesses.

Image: Residents look over tornado damage in Chapman, Kan.
Orlin Wagner / AP
Residents look over tornado damage in Chapman, Kan., Thursday.
She said another victim was found dead outside a mobile home in the Jackson County town of Soldier.

A tornado ripped a house from its foundation, leaving a bathtub protruding from a back wall near Fulda, Minn., 140 miles southwest of Minneapolis. A woman inside at the time suffered a knee injury.

Another struck a farm near Springfield, Minn., causing extensive damage to outbuildings, but no injuries to people or livestock.

There were no immediate reports of damage from the Nebraska twisters, though a lightning strike knocked out radar at the National Weather Service's office in Valley, about 30 miles northwest of Omaha.

[JohnCenaFan28]

That's awful to read...

[Black Widow]

An aspiring model rejected by top agencies because her size 12 frame was "too big" has beaten 200 other girls to be crowned Miss London.

Leah Green, 22, will compete for the Miss England title next month against regional finalists from across the country.

Leah, a fashion design graduate who now works as a design assistant at French Connection, decided to try her hand at modelling.

But the striking 5'10" brunette was told she was too fat and "needed to work hard to achieve the gaunt look" and was then turned down.

She said: "I have tried to get into modelling, but I have been turned away as I'm apparently too big to be a regular model."

Leah hopes to be a role model for voluptuous, curvy girls. "I want to show people that you don't have to be a size zero to be beautiful," she said.

One agency that Leah approached agreed that it would not consider girls who were bigger than a size 10, while another said it had not turned her down because of her size, but because she did not have the "look" it wanted.

The winner of the Miss England title goes on to represent the country in the grand finals in Ukraine capital, Kiev - the semi-finalists are having their own competition next week.


Sky News

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.

[scorpionf]

I have seen pictures of this girl, and she is really pretty, and she is the same size as the average person, I really hope she does well, and I think she is a good role model.

You do not have to be as skinny as a rake to be gorgeous!

[Black Widow]

A deer born with a single horn in the centre of its head could expain the centuries old myth of the unicorn.

The animal has been spotted in a nature reserve in Italy.

"This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Centre of Natural Sciences in Prato said.

"The unicorn has always been a mythological animal."

The one-year-old Roe Deer - nicknamed Unicorn - was born in captivity in the research centre's park in the Tuscan town, near Florence.

He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw as his twin has two horns.

Calling it the first time he has seen such a case, Mr Tozzi said such anomalies among deer may have inspired the myth of the unicorn.

The unicorn, a horse-like creature with magical healing powers, has appeared in legends and stories throughout history, from ancient and medieval texts to the adventures of Harry Potter.

"This shows that even in past times, there could have been animals with this anomaly," he said.

"It's not like they dreamed it up."

Single-horned deer are rare but not unheard of but even more unusual is the central positioning of the horn.

"Generally, the horn is on one side (of the head) rather than being at the centre. This looks like a complex case," said Fulvio Fraticelli, scientific director of Rome's zoo.

He said the position of the horn could also be the result of a trauma early in the animal's life.

Other mammals are believed to contribute to the myth of the unicorn, including the narwhal, a whale with a long, spiralling tusk.


Sky News

[JohnCenaFan28]

:o Thanks for the story.