news stories
Stripper Wins Damages After Tiger Attack
Fri Jan 28, 3:13 PM ET
TORONTO (Reuters) - A stripper mauled by a tiger in an Ontario safari park has won C$800,000 ($650,000) in damages because her scars meant she could no longer work, Canadian media said on Friday.
Jennifer-Anne Cowles was driving through the park nearly nine years ago with her then boyfriend when a tiger jumped into their car and tried to drag them away. The two insisted their windows had been shut when the tiger charged, although the park had challenged that.
The judge accepted the couple's testimony that the power windows had been inadvertently lowered when one of the big cats bumped against the car, frightening them.
In a ruling delivered on Thursday and reported in a number of Canadian newspapers, Justice Jean MacFarland said she could only imagine the "stark terror experienced by these young people during this horrendous event."
She awarded Cowles over C$800,000 in damages, almost half of it to compensate for income she would have made as a stripper.
Her musician boyfriend, David Balac, won C$1.7 million, because his injuries left him unable to work as an accordion player.
African Lion Safari, near Hamilton, Ontario, west of Toronto, said it is reviewing the ruling, but it insisted the park was safe.
"Hundreds of millions of people drive through safari style parks worldwide every decade and there are very few incidents causing injury," it said in a statement. "It is one of the safest activities you can do with your family."
my dad gave me this one when i had a very large phone bill for text messaging..
ROME - Excessive text messaging may be bad for you, or at least for your fingers.
That's what some Italian doctors think. They are telling people, particularly the young, that furious typing on mobile phones could lead to acute tendonitis.
Italian newspapers La Repubblica and Il Messaggero dedicated about half a page each to the problem Monday. A 13-year-old girl in the northern Italian city of Savona needed treatment from an orthopedic specialist after typing at least 100 short message services (SMSs) a day.
She was prescribed anti-inflammatory medicine and ordered to rest her hands.
According to a recent study conducted for children's rights group Telefono Azzurro, some 37 percent of Italian children are "cell phone addicts." Irritability and mood swings were other symptoms linked to very frequent cell phone use among the young.
The message is clear: MayB U shd stop B4 its 2 L8.