Kmart’s “light bulb” drink jar taken off the shelves

A Kmart drinking glass has been removed from the store following complaints it replicated a meth-smoking device.

A mother of an ex-ice addict slammed the retail giant earlier this week and told WAtoday she was “appalled” by the product.

“Thousands and thousands of families in regional WA are being torn apart because of meth use,” Lina Pugh said.

“It is absolutely appalling that they are trying to make money out of something that is destroying lives.”

Some meth users will smoke the drug out of a light bulb, and Kmart’s drink jar has striking resemblance to the homemade apparatus.

WAtoday reports the retail store has removed the product from its website and said the drink jar was sold as a novelty item and was only meant to be used as a drinking glass.

“We would never encourage the use of this item for anything else other than it being used as recommended,” A spokesman told WAtoday.

Kmart was slammed for this drinking jar.Source:Supplied

Toddler shoots sister in the face

A one-year-old girl is in a critical condition after her two-year-old brother shot her in the face while they were in a parked car outside a Louisiana strip mall.

The children’s mother, 23-year-old Crystal Kinchen, was arrested on Wednesday and faces a charge of second-degree cruelty to a juvenile.

Online jail records do not list a lawyer for her.

Sgt. L’Jean McKneely says the shooting happened on Tuesday night while Kinchen and the two children were in a car that was parked at a strip mall.

Police say the two-year-old boy picked up a gun that was left in the vehicle, and it accidentally discharged and struck the one-year-old girl.

McKneely says the family drove the child to the hospital rather than waiting for an ambulance.

The one-year-old is in critical condition.

— AP

A toddler shot is sister in the face while in a parked car. Picture: iStockSource:istock

Human smuggling ring exposed

A human smuggling ring that charged thousands of dollars to move people across the Mexico-US border and into New York City and other locations has been exposed with charges against 10 defendants.

Six defendants arrested in Texas and another arrested in Brooklyn were held for initial appearances in federal courts on charges they conspired to accept money to take people across the border and relocate them in the United States.

Three defendants remain fugitives.

Prosecutors said the smuggling scheme operated from June 2015 until last month.

Those arrested in Texas had residences in San Antonio, Laredo, McAllen and Round Rock.

According to papers filed in Manhattan federal court, the defendants carried out various roles in the conspiracy, including finding places to stay for people being smuggled into the country and transporting them across the border.

One defendant rented vehicles to move the people around the United States, an indictment naming eight defendants said.

Two defendants were identified in a criminal complaint signed by a Department of Homeland Security agent.

The agent, Luis Santana, wrote in the court papers that the arrests stemmed from a broader investigation that began in June 2014 into an international criminal organisation suspected of smuggling previously deported people back into the United States from the Caribbean and Central and South America.

He said the smuggling organisation is believed to have smuggled people from the Dominican Republic and other countries through Guatemala and Mexico, among other places, and across the Texas border before they were moved to New York and other US destinations.

Santana said the smuggled people are frequently required to make separate payments to smugglers to progress to further destinations.

— AP

Witness says Lizard man killed his ex-girlfriend

Gold Coast criminal dubbed “Lizard Man” was discovered dead with his ex-girlfriend in his Southport unit last week.

A witness has now spoken out claiming Lizard Man, Bronson Ellery, killed his ex Shelsea Schilling in a murder-suicide.

The Courier Mail reports a woman claiming to be inside Ellery’s apartment during the killing saw it unfold.

The witness claimed Ellery was alive when she left the unit.

Police ruled out anybody else being involved earlier this week and confirmed a suicide note was found in the unit.

The witness was interviewed by police.

Shelsea Schilling, 20, and Bronson Ellery, 24, were found dead in a Southport apartment. Picture: AAP Image/TwitterSource:AAP

Grandma invites wrong person to thanksgiving dinner

A man accidentally intruded on a family’s thanksgiving plans after he received a text message by mistake. A woman claiming to be “grandma” sent a text to who she thought was her grandchild, inviting them over for the holiday dinner.

But Jamal Hinton, 17, who received the text by mistake, did not know who it was and asked his “grandma” to send him a picture.

She did, and he replied with a photo of himself and said “you (sic) not my grandma”.

He then asked if he could however still get a plate of food.

The grandma said he could as it was a grandma’s job to feed everyone.

According to Mashable, Jamal’s friend Robert shared screenshots of the texts, and grandma’s number, on Twitter.

Teens were all requesting dinner invitations and Mashable reports she has had to disconnect her number.

Donald Trump points to Australia latest Twitter rant

President-elect Donald Trump has hit out at reports world leaders can’t reach him in Trump Tower, pointing to his phone calls with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and New Zealand’s John Key.

The New York Times claimed Mr Trump’s transition plans were in disarray and American allies were scrambling to figure out how and when to contact Mr Trump since last week’s election victory.

At times world leaders were patched through to Mr Trump in his luxury Manhattan office tower with little warning, the newspaper quoting a Western diplomat, reported.

In what is a positive sign for nervous US allies like Australia and New Zealand, Mr Trump announced he is “always available to” foreign leaders.

The New York Times have since responded to the tweets, denying the accusation.

“The Times never said Mr. Trump hadn’t spoken to foreign leaders,” it claimed.

“On the contrary, the report said that he had, but that some allies were having to reach him by calling the switchboard at Trump Tower.”

It was earlier reported that Mr Turnbull had been in contact with Mr Trump, calling him after last week’s election win. Mr Trump has also reached out to Mr Key after this week’s devastating Kaikoura earthquake.

“He was very knowledgeable about what was going on, he offered his condolences and support for the people of New Zealand,” Mr Key said.

Mr Trump has been highly-critical of the New York Times’ coverage of his election campaign and win.

Apocalypse could be on the way

Are we on the verge of being wiped out?

According to a new report, doomsday is on its way and could happen at any time.

The Sun reports University of Barcelona statistics guru Fergus Simpson has found there is a one in 100 chance of the human race being wiped out within the next year.

He claimed there is a 0.2 per cent chance of an apocalypse any year this century.

Simpson said in his paper, published on Arxiv, “in a year when Leicester City F.C. were crowned Premier League champions, we are reminded that events of this rarity can prove challenging to anticipate, yet they should not be ignored”.

True, Donald Trump was elected to office and Brexit happened this year, so we can’t really rule anything out.

Simpson told The Sun humans were reproducing at a rapid rate, meaning we were accelerating towards our demise at a terrifying pace.

“It is quite worrying that we are producing so many people, because it implies our time is limited if we keep it up,” he said.

Previous research suggested humans had a 50 per cent chance of surviving the 21st century, but Simpson said there was an 87 per cent chance of us holding on until at least the year 2100.

Simpson told The Sun humanity needed to look at what it could change.

“We should try and make an effort to be a long-lived civilisation, just as individuals try to be a longer-lived person,” he continued.

“We should look after our civilisation in the same way people look after their health.”

Slow internet bugging Aussies

Sluggish internet speeds are driving more complaints from Australians than those about patchy mobile services.

Internet-related complaints to the industry ombudsman have hit a five-year high, surging by more than a fifth between July 2015 and June 2016.

More than 112,000 new complaints were lodged with the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman during the year about landline, mobile and internet services.

Complaints about mobile services fell by more than a quarter to their lowest level in nine years, but it was a different story for internet services with complaints up 22 per cent.

“Consumers told us that slow data speed was the biggest problem with internet services,” Ombudsman Judi Jones said on Thursday.

“New complaints about internet data speed increased by 48 per cent.”

Complaints about the NBN more than doubled during the year and made up 12 per cent of the total complaints lodged with the ombudsman.

“Delays in connections to the network, faults including unusable services, and dropout of services were regularly reported, which is of concern,” Ms Jones said.

But she said the number of complaints were not growing at the same rate NBN was adding customers.

Despite the jump in internet-related complaints, most issues raised with the ombudsman still concerned mobile services, which accounted for more than a third of all complaints.

“Complaints about mobile services have reduced due to better product offerings from telcos including higher data allowances and increased investment in mobile infrastructure,” said Ms Jones.

Across landlines, mobiles and internet services the main reasons for complaints were billing, customer service, faults, complaint handling and contracts.

—AAP

Ash Ibrahim, director at Oscillosoft, is frustrated at the speed of the internet.Source:News Corp Australia

Oxford Dictionaries reveals word of the year

The international word of the year really shows what happened in 2016.

At least politically anyway. Oxford Dictionaries announced the winner was “post-truth”.

The concept of “post-truth” has been around for decades, it’s when facts are less influential in shaping public opinion about issues and emotion and personal belief becomes more important.

It makes sense this would be the word of the year when you look at Brexit and US President-elect Donald Trump.

Adulting and Brexiteer, a person in favour of the United Kingdom withdrawing from the European Union, were also competing for word of the year.

Oxford Dictionaries said use of the word “post-truth” increased by about 2000 per cent since 2015.

There has been a spike in the use of the word due to the decision on Brexit and the presidential vote in the United States, which saw Donald Trump elected to office.

“It’s not surprising that our choice reflects a year dominated by highly-charged political and social discourse,” Oxford Dictionaries president Casper Grathwohl said.

“Fuelled by the rise of social media as a news source and a growing distrust of facts offered up by the establishment, post-truth as a concept has been finding its linguistic footing for some time.

“We first saw the frequency really spike this year in June with buzz over the Brexit vote and again in July when Donald Trump secured the Republican presidential nomination. Given that usage of the term hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down, I wouldn’t be surprised if post-truth becomes one of the defining words of our time.”

Oxford Dictionaries announces its word of the year. Picture Mark CallejaSource:News Corp Australia

Fast food bizarrely helping police fight crime

Pizzas are helping police solve crimes.

It may sound bizarre, but the greasy junk food is leading police to crims.

The New York Post reports in the US state of Illinois, the mugging of a pizza man led detectives to three alleged murderers.

“Pizza hunger trumps better judgment,” says Candice DeLong, a former FBI criminal profiler and host of “Deadly Women” on Investigation Discovery.

“Because none of these people would have been in prison today if they hadn’t picked up the phone and called up for a Domino’s pie.”

Napoleon Harris III, a former linebacker for the Minnesota Vikings, opened two pizza shops in Illinois and on September 6, some crims messed with the wrong guy.

Harris went to deliver the pizza and while a man was waiting for him on a porch, three others jumped out and tried to choke him to death.

Harris got away but his wallet and of course, the pizza, we stolen.

According to the New York Post, Harris called the police and chased the muggers to a lumberyard.

The muggers were gone when police arrived but they found blood in their abandoned car, which belonged to Lester Roy Jones, whose body was found in a deserted house in Georgia just days later.

Investigators found three of them men who mugged Harris used Grindr, a gay dating app, to lure Mr Jones. They allegedly murdered him and dumped his body before fleeing to Chicago, where it was time to order a pizza.

Pizzas are helping police fight crime. Picture: Daniel Acker/BloombergSource:Supplied

Search for Matthew Leveson’s body enters final days

The hunt for a young man’s remains, and a family’s search for solace, is believed to be entering its final stages. Search crews are expected to return to a bush site south of Sydney on Thursday after a full week of scouring dense scrub and earth for traces of missing man Matthew Leveson.

Police have indicated the search may wrap up within days if nothing of significance is found.

Mr Leveson’s loved ones have watched over the search effort in the Royal National Park near Waterfall and on Wednesday afternoon, for the first time, they were led through the site by detectives. The coronial inquiry into the 20-year-old’s disappearance will resume next year.

“Coronial investigations are continuing for the purpose of attempting to locate and recover the remains of Matthew Leveson,” a NSW Coroner’s Court spokesman said on Wednesday.

“Yesterday Deputy State Coroner Elaine Truscott visited the Royal National Park to observe the progress of police investigations at the site.

“The inquest into the death of Matthew Leveson has been adjourned until 6 March 2017.”

Investigators were taken to the site late last week by Mr Leveson’s former boyfriend Michael Atkins, who was acquitted of the younger man’s murder in 2009.

In the nine years since the 20-year-old’s disappearance, Mr Atkins had given no indication of where the missing man’s remains could be found.

However he led detectives to the potential burial site after he was offered immunity from prosecution for perjury and contempt of court in return for providing police with information after giving evidence at the ongoing inquest.

A white sneaker unearthed at the site on Friday is still being examined by forensics to determine whether it had any connection with Mr Leveson.

— AAP

Search for body of Matthew Leveson enters final days.Source:Supplied

‘I thought it was the last day on earth’

Lindt Cafe Siege survivor John O’Brien still has flashbacks to Sydney’s 2014 hostage crisis, that left Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson dead.

It’s almost been two years since lone gunman Man Haron Monis held hostage 10 customers and eight employees in a 16-hour standoff in the Martin Place cafe.

It was a harrowing event Mr O’Brien is still suffering from, but now he is facing another traumatic battle — aggressive prostate cancer.

The 84-year-old was the first hostage who managed to flee from Monis and reflected on the lucky escape while appearing on A Current Affair.

“I think about it quite often and have flashbacks on it and just think how lucky I was to get out, because I really thought it was the last day on earth,” he said.

According to A Current Affair, he is also a fulltime carer for his wife and his family is what pushed him to risk his life and flee the cafe.

“I thought, ‘he’s going to kill everyone there and my family can’t afford to be without me, they rely on me a lot for everything,” he said.

Now not even two years since the traumatic terrorist attack, Mr O’Brien is bravely preparing to battle cancer and receive Brachytherapy, where radioactive seeds are inserted into the prostate gland. It is expected his cancer cells will be killed over the next several months.