FROM ALASKA comes confirmation (if such were needed) that teenage marriage based on an unplanned pregnancy is not, after all, such a good wheeze.
Bristol (18), daughter of governor and failed US vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and Levi Johnson (19) have split. They ain’t gettin’ hitched, as hockey Mom might put it, but remain, as one does in these situations, good friends and deeply devoted to their son, Tripp (two months), whose upbringing they are determined to share.
The blogosphere has it that there was no going back when Bristol allegedly referred to Johnson’s family as “white trash”.
It may be to this that Bristol was referring when she issued a statement this week (through Mom’s political action committee) saying: “Unfortunately, my family has seen many people say and do many things to ‘cash in’ on the Palin name. Sometimes that greed clouds good judgment and the truth.”
It has all come crashing down so quick. In a recent (pre-break up) interview with Fox News, Bristol said she and Levi would marry after they both finished secondary school.
“Eventually, we’d like to get married. We’re focusing on, like, getting through school and just getting an education and stuff, getting a career going,” she said.
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STAFF AT a Philadelphia pet shop expecting a shipment of tropical fish and salt water were shocked when they instead received a coffin containing a body. “At first when I looked at it, I said, ‘fish never come this way’,” said owner Mark Arabia. He eventually learned that the body inside was that of a 65-year-old man from San Diego, California, who died of early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. The body was supposed to go to a laboratory in Allentown, Pennsylvania, but there was an “unfortunate mix-up” at Philadelphia airport, said US Airways.
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HEALTH AND safety rules have been introduced at the London Fields lido in Hackney, north London, for the protection of the pool’s users. The result is that swimmers have been warned that they might have to leave the water during heavy rain.
A spokeswoman for Hackney council said: “Very occasionally extreme weather can impair visibility for our lifeguards. We make no apology for providing protection for swimmers from drowning.”
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POLICE IN Germany have rescued a woman driver from a roundabout after other drivers said she had gone around in circles at least 50 times and appeared unable to exit.
They used two police cars to guide her off at one of the exits of the roundabout in Braunschweig.
“I was breaking in a new car to see how it does in traffic and I couldn’t seem to get to one of the exits,” Andrea Zimmer (62) told police, “but I have to admit I got a very good feel for my new car and its handling. I think I can safely say it takes roundabouts pretty well.”
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IF YOU thought the Australian island caretaker job was a good opportunity, what about this? Yeh Chien-wei of Taiwan has won the use of an uninhabited tropical island, with white sandy beaches and clear turquoise waters.
Officials of the Taiwanese lottery say Yeh will get exclusive rights to the tiny plot in the Taiwan Strait from May through to September. Penghu County, an offshore archipelago, will provide food, drinks, water and electricity for Yeh, who is aged 4.
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THE BRITISH National Party has left itself open to ridicule by using a Polish Spitfire to front a campaign calling for eastern European immigrants to be barred from Britain.
The party’s 2009 European Elections poster depicts a second World War fighter plane under the slogan: Battle for Britain. But RAF history experts have identified the iconic Romeo Foxtrot Delta aircraft as belonging not to Britons but to a group of Polish pilots instead – the celebrated 303 squadron of the RAF, made up of Polish airmen rescued from France shortly before Nazi occupation.
What’s the Polish for Oops!