Before the men’s 4x200-meter track relay in the afternoon, two bombs were thrown onto the track and exploded instantly. An Outgames athlete was taken to a local hospital with injuries to his right hand from flying shrapnel. He has since been released.
Participants on the field were unharmed but shaken by the incident.
Less than an hour later, a second bomb was thrown in another stadium. Luckily, no one was injured, but track events were delayed for 90 minutes.
Police now have a 31-year-old male suspect in custody.
This is the second violent incident in less than a week for the Outgames.
Three men -- from England, Sweden, and Norway -- had been attacked in the Danish capital following opening-night ceremonies over the preceding weekend. All three victims were taken to a local hospital with minor injuries and were later released. In that incident police arrested two men whom witnesses reported shouted antigay phrases before beating the men. Both suspects, who were believed to have been inebriated at the time, held criminal records and were expected to remain in custody for the remainder of the event.
Police in Moscow have broken up a gay pride rally that was banned by city authorities. About 30 activists gathered Saturday morning near a university in southwestern Moscow to denounce what they say is discrimination against gays and lesbians in Russia.
After one minute, as demonstrators unfurled banners calling for gay rights, police charged into the group, grabbed about 20 people and dragged them into police cars and vans.
Among those detained were British activist Peter Tatchell and American activist Andy Thayer of Chicago, co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network.
Thayer said Russia's gays and lesbians are engaged in a fight "for the soul of Russian democracy."
"If … the right to assemble is taken away from lesbian and gay people here in Russia, then other Russians have to fear for their own freedom," Thayer said shortly before he was hauled away.
Moscow's mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, has described homosexuality as "satanic."
Mikhail Nalimov, leader of the United Orthodox Christian Youth, said his group would not tolerate any gay pride rallies in Russia.
"The aim of the gay movement is to destabilize the country and society and we will not let that happen," he said in a BBC interview earlier in the week.
Ontario passes law to ban hand-held devices while driving A new law that bans using hand-held devices to talk, email, or send text messages while behind the wheel has been passed by the Ontario legislature.
The new rules, which don't come into effect immediately, include a fine of up to $500 as the province joins other jurisdictions in cracking down on drivers using the devices.
The law doesn't affect the use of hands-free devices such as Bluetooths or using cellphones for 911 calls, but it does include portable video games, MP3 players and DVD players.
Global positioning systems will be allowed, as long as they're properly secured to the dashboard.
There are no demerit points attached to the bill, unlike in other provinces. But drivers who place others at risk by using one of the banned devices can also be charged under existing careless driving laws.
Ontario is the fourth province to enact such a ban, following Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec and Nova Scotia.
In a position paper submitted by the Anglican Church of Nigeria to a parliamentary committee, a new law is being proposed to punish gay couples who get married with five years in jail, while groups of witnesses to the marriage may be sentenced to one year in jail.We are especially concerned about those who are using large sums of money to lure our youth to see homosexuality and lesbianism as normative. We must consistently and faithfully teach about God’s commands on this ungodly practice and help those with such orientation to seek deliverance and pastoral counsel.
27 year old Isaac Ali Dani Peréz Triviño (left) was born in Spain. 32 year old Julio Anderson Luciano (right) was born in Brazil. They lived together in the Spanish province of Vigo and were planning to get married.
It is well-known that the cigarette pack has been the standard currency for inmates in U.S. Federal prisons. But in 2004, when legislation prohibited smoking in prison, another currency soon took its place - the "mack" - that is a can of mackerel."It's the coin of the realm," says Mark Bailey, who was serving a two-year tax-fraud sentence in connection with a chain of strip clubs he owned. His 'in-house' lawyer, Mr. Levine, who was serving a nine-year term for drug dealing, says he used his macks to get his beard trimmed, his clothes pressed and his shoes shined by other prisoners. "A haircut is two macks," he says, as an expected tip for inmates who work in the prison barber shop.
Prisoners need a proxy for the dollar because they're not allowed to possess cash. Money they get from prison jobs (which pay a maximum of 40 cents an hour, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons) or family members goes into commissary accounts that let them buy things such as food and toiletries. After the smokes disappeared, inmates turned to other items on the commissary menu to use as currency.
Outrageous comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen has found himself in hot water again, after storming onto the catwalk at a fashion show in Milan. Cohen, in costume and in character, leaped onto the runway during Spanish designer Agatha Ruiz De La Prada's show in Milan and strutted around before security chased, captured and turned him over to police,.
The Cambridge University-educated star was detained at a police station for about half an hour, during which someone fetched his passport to vouch for him. He was released without charge.
The British star is filming a new movie based on another of his over-the-top characters: Austrian fashion reporter Bruno. The mockumentary Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt is slated to hit theatres in May 2009.
Vancouver police say they are treating an attack in the city's West End as a hate crime, after a 27-year-old man was struck in the face while walking hand-in-hand with another man. Early Saturday morning, a group of four young men approached the pair, calling out gay slurs. One of the men then hit him in the face with enough force that he fell back on the sidewalk and was knocked unconscious.
Smith's jaw was dislodged and fractured in a number of places, and he's scheduled to go in for surgery Monday, which will leave his jaw wired shut for six weeks.
