Tuesday bite

24 May 2011

Air France Pilot Wasn’t In The Cockpit: Black Box - Sources close to the investigative team have revealed that the recordings indicate that Marc Dubois, the aircraft’s 58-year-old pilot, was not in the cockpit at the time the trouble began. It is reportedly audible that Dubois rushed back into the cockpit. “He called instructions to the two co-pilots on how to save the aircraft.” But their attempts to save the plane were ultimately in vain. [spiegel]

Trevor Manuel Slams IMF – Trevor Manuel, who earned praise during his 1996-2009 tenure as South Africa’s finance minister, told state TV Monday that developing countries were playing an increasingly important role in the global economy, and that it is “fundamentally wrong” that “birthright is more important than ability” in choosing the IMF chief. Go Trevor! [associated]

DSK’s Semen Found On Maid’s Clothes – Traces of sperm from disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn were found on the clothes worn by the maid who claims she was sexually assaulted inside a Manhattan hotel room. The French website Atlantico.fr reported yesterday that Strauss-Kahn’s DNA was found on the woman’s dress, saying the NYPD notified French authorities of the development. [nypost]

DSK Reveals Frustration In Email To IMF - Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned last week as head of the International Monetary Fund in the face of sexual assault charges, in an email told the fund’s staff of his “profound sadness and frustration in having to leave under these circumstances”. ”I deny in the strongest possible terms the allegations which I now face,” Strauss-Kahn wrote to his former employees. [cnn]

Gauteng Issues R10,000 Speeding Fine – A driver who was caught travelling at 221km per hour was fined R10 000 in the Pretoria North Magistrate’s Court on Monday, the Gauteng high speed unit said. Spokesperson Busapi Nxumalo said Mr T Monametsi, a human resource manager at Ampla mine in Rustenburg, was caught speeding on the N4 platinum highway on January 6. Idiot. [news24]

Apocalypse Has Been Rescheduled For October 21 – Harold Camping effectively pushed back the Rapture and End of the World to October 21, 2011 on Monday, saying a May 21 Doomsday prediction took place “spiritually” on Saturday. He said his calculations had not been wrong, but rather their interpretation, citing “an invisible judgment.” [ibtimes]

Britney Spears Emboerrisses Herself At Billboard Awards - Sunday’s Billboard Music Awards opened with a raunchy performance of “S&M” by Rihanna, during which a bunch of random hands tried to caress her vagina. Then Britney Spears shot up from under the stage! Except that it wasn’t good, because Spears lip-synced (Rihanna sang live), danced like she had arthritis, and even managed to mess up a song-ending pillow fight. [gawker]

Tour De France Cyclist Crushed To Death – Spanish cyclist Xavier Tondo died Monday in a freak accident while at a ski resort in southern Spain. Tondo, 32, was reportedly in his car preparing to leave a Sierra Nevada resort apartment building when he got out of the vehicle and was crushed between the car and an automatic garage door. [huffpo]

New York City’s Outdoor Smoking Ban Begins – Smokers in New York City looking to light up in most public places will not be able to without paying a price after an outdoor citywide smoking ban takes effect Monday. The law will make smoking illegal in New York City’s 1,700 parks and on the city’s 14 miles of public beaches. Smoking will also be prohibited in pedestrian plazas like Times Square. [cnn]

Shriver Pay-Day Could Rival Elin’s - Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver’s worth has been assessed at between $200 million and $400 million. If Shriver decides to divorce her husband of more than two decades, she could walk away with way more than the $100 million slice of Tiger Wood’s fortune that the golf great’s ex-wife, Elin Nordegren, took home in their split last year. Cha-ching! [nypost]

Lady Gaga’s 99c Album Overwhelms Amazon – Lady Gaga fans were delighted Monday to learn that they could download her new album, Born This Way, from Amazon for a mere $0.99 — until, of course, technical difficulties set in. Downloads of the album are delayed, leaving folks unable to get the entire album immediately upon purchase. Naughty. [mashable]

Teen Dies Celebrating The World Not Ending - A Michigan teenager is missing and presumed drowned after he leaped from a bridge with friends to celebrate a day of rapture that never came. Anthony Alexander Johnson, 18, jumped into the Kalamazoo River with four pals, but was quickly overcome by the fast-moving current. [newser]

Dylan Tapes Reveal Heroin Addiction – After a concert late one Saturday night in March 1966 Bob Dylan, while on tour in the US, boarded his private plane in Lincoln, Nebraska bound for Denver with his friend Robert Shelton. Over the next two hours Shelton taped an interview with Dylan which he later described as a “kaleidoscopic monologue”. At one point, the singer, who turns 70 this week, admits he had been addicted to heroin in the early 1960s. [bbc]

116 Killed In US Tornado – Rescue crews dug through piles of splintered houses and crushed cars Monday in a search for victims of a half-mile-wide tornado that killed at least 116 people when it blasted much of this Missouri town off the map and slammed straight into its hospital. It was the nation’s deadliest single tornado in nearly 60 years and the second major tornado disaster in less than a month. [associated]

The Bieb-dog And Selena Gomez Pull-In At Billboard Awards - Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez weren’t afraid to flaunt their affection before a crowd of thousands — and an audience of millions — at Sunday’s Billboard Music Awards. When Bieber, 17, won a a trophy for Best New Artist, his seat mate Gomez, 18, (clad in a sexy Dolce and Gabbana gown) gave him a big wet smooch on the lips and a warm hug. [usmagazine]

Superinjunctions Now ‘Dead In The Water’ - Superinjunctions by the rich and famous – a so-called “rich man’s law” – are all but dead in the water. After a Liberal Democrat peer, Lord Stoneham, named former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Sir Fred Goodwin in the House of Lords last week it was only a matter of time before an MP or peer named Ryan Giggs in Parliament. [skynews]