www.yahoo.com

If you had almost five billion dollars, what would you do? For Karl Wlaschek, the answer is marry a lot.

Forbes is reporting via Vienna News that Austrian retail tycoon Wlaschek will wed for the fifth time at the ripe old age of 94. His bride-to-be, girlfriend Friederike ‘Ricki’ Schenk, won’t reveal her age, but is likely a good three decades behind her groom. That means Wlaschek, a self-made mogul, has defied stereotypes by proposing to a woman who’s closer to his age than the average Hef-to-twin-sisters ratio.

Still, the billionaire with the prolific marriage history is a plot-line we’ve seen over and over again. Revlon honcho Ron Perelman wed number five two years ago, shortly after the ink dried on his brutal divorce from actress Ellen Barkin. Larry Ellison and T. Boone Pickens are up to number four and the night is still young.

Five-timer Wlaschek earned his $4.7 billion dollar bank account by founding Billa, a European supermarket chain. He’s since become one of the biggest real estate magnates in Austria. He announced his engagement at one of his own properties, a sprawling five star hotel in his native country, where he once played as a struggling young jazz pianist, back when the musical genre was in its infancy.

The groom met his future bride at a Vienna event a few years back, and soon realized somewhat touchingly or morbidly depending on your vantage point, that they’d both lost their last spouses on the very same day.

The couple’s wedding is set to take place in a few days, according to Forbes (although some German gossip pages are saying the big day already happened this past Saturday).

The self-made Wlaschek already has four kids but still wants “another five or six children, at the very least.” His bride laughed that comment off, saying “I am not so young any more.”

Two large quakes strike western Mexico within 12 hours, shaking buildings in the capital more than 200 miles away

www.guardian.co.uk

Reuters in Mexico City
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 April 2012 04.28 EDT
Article history

Two large earthquakes have struck western Mexico, shaking buildings as far away as the capital and sending people rushing out of offices on to the streets.

There were no reports of major damage after the first of the two tremors.

The the US Geological Survey said the first quake, on Wednesday evening in the western state of Michoacan, had a magnitude of 6.5 and was recorded at a depth of 12.4 miles.

The second, in the early hours of Thursday off Baja California, was stronger and shallower. It had a magnitude of 6.9 and a depth of 6.2 miles.

Mexico City mayor Marcelo Ebrard, writing on his Twitter account after the first quake, said there were no initial signs of serious damage. Key services in the capital, including its underground system and the international airport, were operating normally.

“There was a nasty crunching sound in my bathroom and everything moved,” said Adela Arceo, who was looking after two young children in the central Roma neighbourhood of Mexico City.

There were no initial reports of casualties. Emergency services in Michoacan and in the neighbouring state of Guerrero, which has been hit by a series of recent quakes, reported no significant problems.

“You could feel it, but there’s no major damage. There are no reports, no emergency calls,” said Agustin Lule, a spokesman for the fire services in Uruapan, a town in Michoacan near the epicentre.

Reuters reporters in coastal areas of Guerrero and neighboring Oaxaca state said there was no damage.

The Honolulu-based Pacific tsunami warning centre said it had issued no warning, but oceanographer David Walsh noted the quake was close to water, big enough and potentially deep enough to cause one.

The quakes followed two others in Mexico within the past month. A 7.4-magnitude shock struck on 20 March, damaging hundreds of buildings in the south-west. It was followed by dozens of aftershocks.

An 8.6-magnitude earthquake also struck off Indonesia on Wednesday, raising fears of a tsunami similar to the one that devastated the Indian Ocean rim in 2004. Authorities, however, said there were no reports suggesting a major threat.

www.reuters.com

(Reuters) – A six-foot alligator which showed up at the front door of a Baton Rouge-area motel on Wednesday might have departed without incident had it not been for an overly helpful guest, who later checked out of the motel with puncture wounds.

A housekeeper at the Super 8 Motel just off Interstate 10 in Port Allen, Louisiana, spotted the gator as it crossed the driveway toward the motel at about 3 p.m. She called a maintenance worker, who called the hotel manager to come take a look.

“He came up right by our front door to the lobby,” Assistant Manager Tiffany Dunnam said. “He was just hanging out there.”

Dunnam said guests were more interested than frightened as they gathered around.

“If it had been a 10- or 11-foot gator, it might have been a different story,” she said.

A front-desk clerk called the West Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office and the animal control authorities, but before help arrived a motel guest from Mississippi decided to take matters into his own hands.

“He said he had experience with gators and would try to immobilize it,” Dunnam said.

The guest may have exaggerated his expertise.

“The gator snapped at him and caught his arm,” Dunnam said.

Bleeding from stab-like wounds from the alligator’s teeth, the guest drove himself to a nearby hospital, Dunnam said. The guest checked out of the hotel on Thursday morning.

The gator was released Wednesday into a large canal in the northwestern part of West Baton Rouge Parish, said Richard Summers, animal control director for the parish.

When Summers arrived at the scene at the motel, a bit of a crowd had gathered, and the alligator was not in a good mood, he said.

“Apparently people had been fooling with him for 45 minutes before we got there, and he wasn’t happy,” Summers said.

He said he had no difficulty getting control of the alligator and maneuvering it into his truck. At this time of year, he said, gators sometimes wander away from their habitat and “they just get lost.”

(Editing By Corrie MacLaggan)

usnews.msnbc.msn.com

Serial killer David Alan Gore, who admitted killing four women and two teenage girls in the 1980s to satisfy his sexual urges, was put to death by lethal injection in Florida on Thursday, Reuters reported. He was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1983 murder of Lynn Elliott, 17, whom he kidnapped when she was hitchhiking to the beach.

Elliott was Gore’s final victim. The others were Hsiang Huang Ling, 48, and her daughter Ying Hua Ling, 17; Judy Kay Daley, 35; Angelica LaVellee, 14; and Barbara Ann Byer, 14.

After a series of delays, the execution went forward before two dozen relatives and law enforcement personnel, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

In his final statement on Thursday, Gore apologized to Elliott’s parents and said he prayed they would find peace.

“I wish above all else my death could bring her back,” Gore said, according to a record of the statement provided by corrections officials.
Gore, 58, was pronounced dead at the Florida State Prison near Starke at 6:19 p.m., governor’s spokeswoman Amy Graham said. He spent 28 years on death row.
Gore shot Elliott, 17, as she ran outside naked and screaming in an attempt to escape after being repeatedly raped, according to court documents cited by the news agency.
The teen’s murder, witnessed by a passing boy, led to Gore’s arrest.
The case led to discovery of a series of earlier rapes and murders committed by Gore and his older cousin, Fred Waterfield.

Criminal psychologists testified that the pair formed a morbid alliance, hunting young women at beaches and along stretches of roadways in and around Indian River County, a rural citrus-growing area about 150 miles north of Miami, Reuters reported.
Gore received life sentences for the deaths of the other five women and in 1984 was sentenced to death for Elliott’s murder. After the initial sentence was overturned, he was again sentenced to death in 1992.
He was the fourth inmate put to death since Florida Gov. Rick Scott took office in January 2011, and the 13th executed in the United States this year, Reuters reported.
“This was an individual whose crimes were heinous,” Scott said earlier Thursday, according to the Times. “He was convicted and sentenced to death.”
Waterfield is serving two life sentences at a Florida prison.

www.freep.com

LOS ANGELES — California employers must schedule breaks for workers but cannot be held liable if employees decide to work instead of rest, the California Supreme Court decided Thursday.

The ruling came amid a proliferation of lawsuits that workers brought against a range of employers, particularly in the restaurant industry, that had sparked anxiety among U.S. business owners.

Tens of thousands of workers have said companies evade state labor law requirements by making it impossible to take scheduled breaks. Employers have countered that they should not be forced to police their workers as long as breaks are scheduled and made available.

“We conclude an employer’s obligation is to relieve its employee of all duty, with the employee thereafter at liberty to use the meal period for whatever purpose he or she desires, but the employer need not ensure that no work is done,” Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar wrote for a unanimous court.

Jot Condie of the California Restaurant Association, said litigation has been so heavy that employers “have been taking drastic measures” to try to avoid suits, including laying off workers who refused to take breaks.

Labor activists expressed fears that it would embolden unscrupulous managers.

dawn.com

ISTANBUL: Western powers and Iran are meeting again Saturday to hash out Tehran’s promised “new initiatives” on its nuclear activities, albeit with little hope in the West for a breakthrough in the deadlock.

“The Iranian delegation will have new initiatives and we hope that the other party will have a constructive approach,” said Iran’s top negotiator in nuclear talks Wednesday, raising hopes that Tehran might have a plan to change dynamics.

What Tehran will bring to the table Saturday, however, remained unclear after Saeed Jalili’s words, but the fact that the talks were starting again after a 15-month break is seen in its own right as a crucial opportunity to lower the tension.

But do not get too many illusions, warns a senior European diplomat, pointing to a lack of “positive signals” from Tehran that compromises will be made to finally lift off Western fears surrounding Iran’s nuclear activities.

The so-called P5+1 powers, permanent UN Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany, suspect that Iran’s nuclear programme is aimed at concealing its real purpose of producing atomic weapons.

They have imposed increasingly severe economic sanctions on the Islamic republic to pressure it to halt activities, notably uranium enrichment, moves that instead pushed Iran to accelerate its nuclear pursuit, which it says has no military dimensions.

Angered by the pressure, Tehran announced on Wednesday that it was halting oil exports to EU nations, a move that was portrayed in Iran as pre-emptive punishment against the West for imposing an oil embargo on the Islamic republic that is to come into full effect on July 1.

Earlier this week, Washington noted that they have no problem with Iran’s production of peaceful, civilian nuclear power, as long as it can prove that and satisfy the world that it does not intend to make weapons.

“From our perspective, it’s relatively straightforward, if in fact their program is purely peaceful, for them to be able to demonstrate it to everybody’s satisfaction,” State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland stated.

For Iran’s part, the aim of the talks was that “Iran gain its rights and the P5+1 have its stated concerns alleviated” over Tehran’s nuclear programme, according to Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi.

Those rights include access to peaceful nuclear energy for Tehran, which sees uranium enrichment as a “right” that cannot be taken away, and wants to keep its military sites off-limits to atomic energy inspections, triggering fears that Iran is indeed trying to produce nuclear warheads.

Regarding the Western imposed pressure, Jalili spelled out clearly that more pressure “only reinforces the determination of the Iranian people,” in pursuing their nuclear project.

As for the P5+1, what brought Iran to resume diplomacy was nevertheless the pressure itself, according to the European diplomat.

“The fact is that every time we take another step in sanctions against Iran, they suddenly wake up and say they are ready to discuss,” he told AFP on condition of anonymity. “There has got to be a link between the two.”

The Western powers want Iran to stop enriching uranium to 20 per cent and ship out its existing stocks, and open itself up to more intense inspections by the UN nuclear watchdog.

In response, Tehran says the target should be a nuclear weapon-free Middle East, a clear reference to the undeclared arsenal of its arch-enemy Israel, which it says should be subject to the same inspections.

The antagonism between the Jewish state and the Islamic republic also gets its share from the nuclear negotiations, according to the senior diplomat.

“Many believe that, at least, as long as negotiations continue it will be difficult for Israel to launch a military offensive against Iranian nuclear facilities,” he said.

“But then again, if Israel decides to go there nothing will stop it from doing so.”

Israel, which sees a possible Iranian nuclear weapon as a threat to its very existence, claims Iran may be on the cusp of “break-out” capability, when it could quickly build a nuclear weapon, and does not rule out a pre-emptive strike of its own.

The last round of talks between Iran and P5+1 was held in Istanbul January, 2011, considered neutral ground by all parties, but failed to produce results.

The White House wants us to know something important about Iran—but what is it? Today, the Obama administration leaked a major scoop to The Washington Post’s David Ignatius, its favorite repository of previously unreported information. In his Friday column, Ignatius divulges that President Obama will allow Iran’s civilian nuclear program to exist on one condition: “Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei [must] back up his recent public claim that his nation ‘will never pursue nuclear weapons.’” Ignatius writes that the bargain came straight from Obama and was transmitted to Iran via Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who traveled to Iran last week.

For competitive national security writers, the scoreboard for strategically-leaked Ignatius scoops is now three since February. So it’s clear the administration is content with the way Ignatius is conveying its message. Thus, as Politico’s Austin Wright observes, this raises the question: “Why does the administration want us to know this?” Here are a few ideas:

Obama is telling his base he’s not jumping head first into war It’s no secret that large swaths of the Democratic base (and the country for that matter) aren’t thrilled about the prospect of engaging in another war in the Middle East. At a campaign event last month, the president witnessed the reluctance first-hand when he was interrupted by a woman calling for “no war in Iran.” To reassure some members of his base (especially after his hawkish address to AIPAC last month), he may be conveying to voters that he’s actively working to avoid a war.

He’s making this public because he wants Iranian citizens to know the ball’s in their court Another possibility is this message isn’t for Americans, it’s a message for Iranians. People of Iran, the President of the United States says your civilian program is OK. Simply pressure your leader to fully-cooperate with the IAEA and this nightmare will be over. Of course, who knows if they’re reading The Washington Post.

He thinks war with Iran is inevitable and wants the record to show he gave the country one final chance As a war simulation demonstrated last month, as reported in The New York Times, many U.S. military officials believe that if Israel strikes Iran, the U.S. will inevitably get drawn into the war. Since Israeli officials have made it clear they don’t have a whole lot of qualms about striking Iran, Obama may want to shape his image for posterity’s sake. One would assume being compared with President George W. Bush for overseeing another American war in the Middle East would displease him.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com

A paleontological surprise may be hiding in your Easter basket. New research indicates that some grocery-store candy eggs are remarkably similar in shape to a newly discovered dinosaur egg, instead of the traditional chicken egg.
“Where do Easter eggs come from? At face value this is a simple question, but any parent trying to provide an answer this Easter might struggle to come up with a satisfactory response,” Mark Purnell, a researcher at the University of Leicester, said in a statement. “According to many, the eggs are delivered by the Easter Bunny, but that doesn’t really address the question: Where does the Easter Bunny get them from?”

Mark Purnell / Univ. of Leicester
The pale gray eggs are from birds, and the darker gray eggs are from dinosaurs. Most Easter eggs, as shown on the right, are similar in shape to bird’s eggs, but some are closer to the eggs of dinosaurs. The Easter egg on the left is particularly close to the newly described Sankofa dinosaur egg.
The research started as an analysis of a newly discovered 70-million-year-old egg, one that would’ve been laid by a mama dinosaur during the Late Cretaceous when Tyrannosaurus rex walked the earth. The researchers named the new species, whose egg was discovered in the Pyrenees, Sankofa pyrenaica. (Sankofa is an Ashanti word meaning “learning from the past.”)
To figure out if the egg belonged to an ancient bird or its dinosaur relatives, the team compared the shapes of eggs from birds and dinosaurs. They came up with a mathematical formula to determine and describe all possible egg shapes; next they plotted real eggs, based on size and shape, into this “egg morphospace.”
“We found that different species have different-shaped eggs, and that the eggs of dinosaurs are not the same shape as the eggs of birds,” study researcher Enric Vicens, of the Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona, in Spain, said in a statement.
In general, birds’ eggs tend to be more rounded than dinosaur eggs, which are more elongated, the researchers found. Dinosaur eggs “also tend to be more symmetrical with less distinction between the blunt and the more pointed end,” Vicens said.
They found the new Sankofa egg fell somewhere between dinosaur eggs and bird eggs. It’s oval-shaped than teardrop-shaped. There are no other eggs like it, the researchers said.

A second, smaller study compared the sizes and shapes of these bird and dinosaur eggs with that of eggs sold in stores in the United Kingdom. They found that dinosaur eggs are closely related, in shape, to some of the modern Easter eggs in the store. The Sankofa egg looks a lot like the Lindor Easter egg chocolate, and less like the Cadbury Creme Egg, which is shaped more like a chicken egg.

“Many of the smaller eggs to be found commonly on the UK High Street are very similar in shape to hen’s eggs, providing strong clues to their original source. Others are more similar in shape to condor eggs,” Purnell said. “Perhaps more surprisingly, a few eggs are closer in shape to those of dinosaurs, with one in particular being the same shape as the 70-million-year-old dinosaur egg.”
The study was published in the March 2012 issue of the journal Palaeontology.

http://m.ctv.ca

Both pilots of a U.S. Navy fighter jet that crashed into a densely populated Virginia Beach, Va. neighbourhood were released from hospital Saturday as officials worked to recover the aircraft’s electronic data record.

The F-18 Hornet, similar to fighter aircraft flown by the Royal Canadian Air Force, burst into a ball of flames in the courtyard of an apartment complex Friday destroying up to 40 units. But, in what some have called a miracle, only seven people including the pilots were injured.

The airmen were from Naval Air Station Oceana, less than 20 kilometres away from the scene of the crash. Both pilots lived in Virginia Beach.

A senior Navy officer thanked city officials, emergency responders and citizens at a media briefing near the crash site Saturday.

“It was a pretty amazing display in Virginia Beach of what citizenship really means and it came from an awful lot of people who didn’t have an awful lot . . . so I stand in awe of the people here,” said Admiral John Harvey, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command based in Norfolk.

Harvey was commending residents who helped pull the pilots to safety and assist emergency responders battle the blaze that followed.

Three people missing from the complex were found safe Saturday morning and fire crews say they aren’t looking for anyone else at this point.

Harvey said the Navy is coordinating with local officials to get into the crash site to begin an investigation into what happened.

Experts will also begin work to recover the equivalent of the aircraft’s “black boxes,” which monitor the plane’s mechanical functions and conversations in the cockpit.

What remains of the aircraft will be removed from the site and taken to a hangar on the naval base for a detailed examination, Harvey said.

“We’ll get the data recorders from the aircraft . . . it’s going to take weeks to put this all together as you might expect . . . a lot of those parts are scattered around and are very, very small and we have to examine all of them,” he said.

Harvey also expressed confidence in the skills and knowledge of the aircraft crew, whose names haven’t been released.

“They hung with that aircraft until the last possible moment trying to recover the aircraft and get it to safety,”

he said. “We’ll find out whatever happened and we will fix whatever went wrong,” he added.

The fighter jet was being piloted by a student and a trainer when the aircraft lost power over Virginia’s most populated city. The men ejected moments before the jet crashed.

“Catastrophic engine system failure right after takeoff, which is always the most critical phase of flying, leaves very, very few options,” aviation safety expert and decorated pilot J.F. Joseph told The Associated Press.

“You literally run out of altitude, air speed and ideas all at the same time,” he said.

The two-seat jet had dumped loads of fuel before crashing, though it wasn’t clear if that was because of a malfunction or an intentional manoeuvre by the pilots, said Capt. Mark Weisgerber with U.S. Fleet Forces Command.

Witnesses saw fuel being dumped from the jet before it went down, and that fuel was found on buildings and vehicles in the area.

The plane not having as much fuel on board “mitigated what could have been an absolute massive, massive fireball and fire,” Virginia Beach EMS division Chief Bruce Nedelka said.

“With all of that jet fuel dumped, it was much less than what it could have been.”

While Joseph agreed the fuel loss could have been tied to the malfunction, he added, “I would say every action they took was an attempt to mitigate damage on the ground, up to and including the loss of life.”

The aircraft can carry up to 3,640 kilograms (8,000 lbs) of jet fuel, Joseph said.

The crash happened in the Hampton Roads area, which has a large concentration of military bases, including Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval base in the world.

Residents of the apartment complex described a confusing scene and an apologetic pilot following the crash.

Colby Smith said his house started shaking and then the power went out, as he saw a red and orange blaze outside his window. He ran outside, where he saw billowing black smoke and then came upon the pilot as he ran to a friend’s home.

“I saw the parachute on the house and he was still connected to it, and he was laying on the ground with his face full of blood,” Smith told WVEC-TV.

“The pilot said, ‘I’m sorry for destroying your house’.”

Smith said he and another man helped the pilot onto the street.

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Here’s a good reason to do some low-cost redecorating: The choices you make can result in enhanced mood, less stress, and better sleep. To turn your space into a healing haven, follow these easy 10 decorating tips for a stress-free home.

IN THE ENTRYWAY
1. Create a feel-good focal point. The first thing you see when you enter your home should be something you love, whether that’s a piece of art, a vase of flowers, or a special souvenir, says Stephanie Roberts, author of Fast Feng Shui: 9 Simple Principles for Transforming Your Life by Energizing Your Home. “A beautiful first impression helps you relax from the get-go.”

2. Organize daily debris. If you see old newspapers on the floor and bags of Goodwill donations waiting to be dropped off, you’re going to think obligation, not relaxation. “Piles of stuff at your entryway send the message that there’s more mess and chaos inside, and who wants to walk into that?” Roberts says. “Have a designated place for every item that enters and exits your house,” recommends Paige Rien, an interior designer in New Jersey appearing on HGTV’s Hidden Potential. She suggests placing a couple of chic containers near the front door, one for outgoing items and one for incoming things.

IN THE LIVING ROOM
3. Create space. “Our anxiety builds in small spaces if there’s too much stuff,” says Rien. To reduce the clutter and make the room feel larger, ask yourself if you really need all those end tables or picture frames, and cut anything deemed nonessential. Consider painting a table or bookshelf the same color (or a similar one) as the wall it’s up against, so it “disappears” into it. Painting walls white or a light color will also make a smaller room feel more spacious.

4. Light up locations, not whole rooms. “Bright overhead light can make it difficult to wind down at the end of the day. Think about how a casino’s lights keep you revved up,” says Katherine Grace Morris, PhD, a psychologist in Maryland who specializes in making over people’s home and work environments. Use spot lighting for areas where you need brightness, such as next to the sofa where you read, and put overhead lights on dimmers. Also, switch to full-spectrum bulbs, which mimic natural light better than standard ones do. “They cost a bit more, but they’re worth it because they create a more soothing natural atmosphere,” says Dr. Morris.

5. Create pedestrian-friendly paths. “If you can barely get into a chair without banging your leg on the coffee table, or if the path from the sofa to the door is cramped, rearrange your furniture,” says Roberts. “Not being able to safely and easily move about produces anxiety–not to mention an easy way to trip or stub a toe.”

6. Simplify your color scheme. Use restraint with patterns and loud colors. If you mix patterns, keep their color schemes similar, and if you like lots of colors, keep patterns to a minimum. “If you have too many bright colors or high-contrast patterns in a room, your eyes are going to be drawn all over the place, making it difficult to relax,” says Dr. Morris. Simple designs and colors, on the other hand, are soothing. “The less-is-more rule applies to shelves and tabletops too,” adds Rien. “Don’t fill them just because they’re there. Instead, display just a few pieces that are meaningful.”

7. Bring the outdoors in. Being surrounded by natural elements encourages friendlier interactions with others, found a University of Rochester study. For a more peaceful home, bring in a couple of houseplants or hang a mirror across from your largest window to maximize outdoor vantage points. If your view includes more buildings than trees, hang landscape photographs on the walls, says Roberts.

IN THE BEDROOM
8. Use soothing hues. “Generally, we find cool shades of blue and green and neutral earth tones to be relaxing because they remind us of nature,” says color expert Leatrice Eiseman, author of Color: Messages and Meanings. If you’re not ready to commit to new paint, incorporate a few accessories, such as throw pillows, a quilt, or lamp shades, in calming colors.

9. Switch off electronics. To rest easier, remove all televisions and computers from your bedroom. The light emitted by these devices signals the brain to stay awake, interfering with a good night’s sleep and leaving you with elevated levels of stress hormones in the morning. If you must keep these gadgets where you sleep, Rien recommends placing the TV in a cabinet and putting a screen between your bed and the computer.

10. Bring your fantasy to life. Think about what paradise looks like to you. If it’s a tropical island, add sand and sea shades and tropical touches, such as wicker side tables or a sea grass rug. Prefer a mountain cabin or country home? Then add colors, textures, and accessories to your bedroom decor that call those settings to mind. “Design is highly individual, so mine your past experiences and flip through design magazines to identify what elements make a room feel relaxing to you,” says Rien.