Inglês

Police Kill Man Holding Knife

To Woman He Had Wounded

    A Brooklyn man was shot and killed by the police lost night as he held a knife to the throad of a woman inside an east Flatbush apartment, the authorities said.

    The woman, who had already been stabbed at least onde before the police arrived on the scene, was listed in stable condition last night at Kings Country Hospital Center, the authorities said.

    They would not identify the woman and the man, but neighbors said both were in their 20´s.

    The police said that the man was arrested on Saturday on charges that he violated an order of protection that had been obtained by the woman.

    Four officers  went to theVandeerver Houses, a public housing complex on New York Avenuewhere the woman lived, about 8:30 p.m last night, after the police received an anonymous 911 call from someone describing screams coming from the woman´s fifth-floor apartment, according to investigators at the scene.

    When the officers apporached the apartment, the woman opened the front door and screamed for help, the investigators said. But the man pulled her back inside and immediately shut the door, according to the police.

    The police responded by kicking the door open. The man was holding a knife to the woman´s throat, and she was already bloody from a stad wound, the authorities said.

   After the man ignored several warnings to put down his knife, one of the officers fired a shot, striking the man in the head, the police said. He was declared dead at the scene.

The Largest Italian Community Outside Italy

    Neither New York, nor Buenos Aires. The  largest Italian commnity outside Italy is located in São Paulo, the wealthiest and biggest city in South America. According to the Italian embassy, more than 3 milion Italian imigrants and descendants live in the city.

    The community in São Paulo is so vast that it outnumbers the traditional Italian colony of New York, wich counts as many as 2 milion people. However, the Italian-Americans are much better organized, wich makes then known all around the world.

    The Italian residents of São Paulo love to boast about the huge size of their community. To show off, they usually mention population numbers of Italian cities. Rome, for example, capital of the country, has 2,7 milions inhabitants where as more than 5 milon people of Italian ascendancy live in the State of São Paulo.

    During The main years of immigration (1870 till 1920), 1,3 milion Italians arrived in Brazil. Appoximately 70% of them came to work and stay in São Paulo. The first ones to arrive in the country expecting to accomplish the prosperity dream were the venetians and Lombardians. Citizens from Naples, Calabria and Sicily followed suit.

    The precarious working conditions in Brazil, however, made 510,000 return to Italy. Even so, the immigration flow continueduntil the mid 50´s. The Italians established themselves in old labourer neighbourhoods such as Mooca, Brás and Bexiga, still significant strongholds of the community.

   The truth is that Italians easblished in the city and influenced its inhabitants with their culture and joyful way of living. Good antines and Italian resturants are a trademark of São Paulo..

    Those places are just great to celebrate the victories of Palmeiras – or of its biggest oppeonent, Corinthians – soccer teams that came out from Italian roots. It is easy to perceive the Italian accent of São Paulo natives during those parties.

Bumper Stickers for Ladies

    Behind every successful woman is herself.

    Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels.

    A woman is like a teabag...you don´t know how strong she is until you put her in hot water.

    I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.

    So many men, so few who can afford me.

    God made is sisters, Prozac made us friends.

    Coffee, chocolate, men. Some things are just better rich.

    Don´t treat me any differently than you would the queen.

    I´m out of estrogen and I have a gun.

    Warning: I have an atitude and I know how to use it.

    Of course I don´t look busy... I did it right the first time.

    Do not start with me. You will not win.

    All stressed ou and no one to choke.

    I can be one of those bad things that happens to bad people.

    How can I miss you if you won´t go away?

    Don´t upset me! I´m runing out of places to hide the bodis.

    And my favorite!

    If you want  breakfast in bed, sleep in the kitchen.

The Best Companion

    ROBERT FOSTER is 24 and cannot feed himself. He is paralysed from the shoulders down, the result of a car accident. Hellion is four, o capuchin monkey who has been trained to act as Robert´s arms and legs. When Robert makes clicking sounds with his tongue, or gives verbal commandsm Hellion feeds him. She also fleches and carries his fodd, opens the refrigerator, takes out prepared meals and clears the dishes afterwards. The white stickers in the refrigerator indicate areas which the monkey recognises as forbidden´.

    Each morning Hellion tidies Robert´s hair with a soft-bristled hair brush. He rewards her with banana pellets which are dispensed from a device attached to his wheelchair.

    This is the result of a long training programme which did not always go so well. Early on, Hellion stuck her tongue out and threatened her trainers and robert. She had to have all her teeth talen out to make sure she did not give anyone a dangerous bite. Even without teeth, qhen she bit the photographer who took this photo, it was unpleasant enough. Once, Hellion unscrewed a fuse in the electric motor on Robert´s wheelchair, and she expressed her disapproval in many other ways.

    She has adapted now and actually seems to enjoy looking after Robert: and he would now be lost without her.

With a Honey of a Pair

    When Rachel Anderson, then 13, was featured in a May 1993 GEOGRAPHIC article about her family´s life as traveling beekeepers, a frined teased her: “Some guy will read this, come to work with you, and fall in love with you.” Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, Melody Drake saw the story and pointed it out to her 13-year-old son, Richard, who was interested in bees and had been begging for a hive of his own. “Look,” she told him, “these beekeepers have a daughter you age.”

    Sue enough, Rachel and richard both ended up at Weimar College, a tiny Seventh-day Adventist school in California. She mentioned that she was beekeeper´s daughter – “it´s a great conversation starter,” she says, later his mother said to him, ´I bet she´s that girl from the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC article.´ “Rachel and Richard (in the photo) began dating, and he eventually did work for her father, tending the family bees. Things took their natural course, and the two were married on April 8, 2001.

Clearing the Roads – Traffic

    The streets of London are rocking – or at least rolling – again. Last week the traffic-clogged metropolis began demanding a £5 ($8) congestion charge from all daytime motorists entering the busiest areas of the city. The result: a drop of nearly 25 percent in traffic.

    The descongestant scheme employs some 700 cameras. Any driver who enter the zone – a patch of around eight square miles – between 7 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. has until 10 p.m. that same day to pay the charge. (You can pay by telephone, over the Internet or in certain shops. Season passes are also available.) The cameras check the registration plate of every car against the payment records, and failure to cough up the cash lands one an £80 fne. The extra revenue from the charge and fines, estimated at up to £150 milion a year, will go toward the improvement of public transport.

    The idea is catching on. Britain alone, at least 30 other towns and cities are contemplanting the tactic. Similar setups are already in operation in Singapore and Norway. But although all flowed smoothly last week, questions remain. Will the decrease in traffic hurt local business? Will traffic jams start up outside the zone? For now, all that´s certain is that the 15,000-plus Londoners who´ve already been fined will be the unhappiest new *stranhangers come Monday.

     Don´t Give “A-OK” Sign in Tunisia – it´s a Death Threat

    Forming a circle with your thumb and forefinger means “A-Ok” in America. But do this in Tunisia and you could be in hot water – because there it menas “I´ll kill you!”

    Our “A-OK” sign also means “warthless” or  “zero” in France... and if you make this gesture in Japan, the Japanese will think you´re begging for money.

    Common gestures mean surprisingly different things in diferent cultures, according to world-famous antropologist Desmond Morris, author of the book “Manwatching”.

    “Sometimes when you´re making a normal, unconcious gesture you can get yourself in trouble if you don´t know  what you´re doing”, warns Morris.

    “During conversation it´s common for people to touch or pull at an earbole. But be careful about doing that in Italy – because if you´re talking to a man you´re making a big sexual insult.”

    Shaking your head from sirde to side means “no” in the U.S. But it means “yes” in Bulgaria and parts of Greece, Cyprus and Turkey.

    Different cultures also have their own gesture for the same thought, Morris added.

    For example, we signify a beautiful girl by making an exagggrtsted outline of the female figure with our hands. In Greece, however, a man gently strokes a cheek with one hand.

Text 1 – TV Togetherness

    “Together, for ever.” This expression takes on a whole new meaning, thanks to a new controlled-viewing-angle LCD screen currently available only in Japan. This new example of high technology created bby Sharp allows two people viewing the same scren at the same time to see  two entirely different images depending on the angle of vison. For more information, visit wwww.sharp-wold.com.

Text 2 – Water-free Washing

    A washing machine that leans clothes without water or detergent. That´s what may be in store thanks to the Airwash Washing machine (left), wich uses negative ions compressed air and antibacterial deodorants to clean clothes. This device has one drawback however: only on article can be cleaned at a time.

Text 3 – Cyberspace Recycling

    www.freecycle.com is a new website that helps people find new owners for things they don´t wnat anymore. Simply post your object on the local Freecycle website and wait for the e-mails to come in. All objects are given away at no cost to the person chosen by its owner. With obvious environmental benefits, this site is just one solution to the growing problem fo the waste of useful goods.

Helpfulness

    These days we all know which nation is the most powerful in the world. But power isn´t everything. If tou´re looking to escape the arrogance, why hot head to the frindliest nation in the world? According to a study recently published in American Scientist, that would be Brazilm thanks to the super Samaritans of Rio de Janeiro. The study´s author, psychology professor Robert Levine of California State University in Fresno, ranked 23 different cities in the world based on three “trials of helpfulness” – helping a blind person cross a busy intersection, assisting an injured person in picking up a magazine from the ground and returning a dropped pen to its rightfull owner – to see how many strangers would take on the role of DoGooder.

    The results: Latin America rules. Four of the world´s 11 friendliest cities – Rio de Janeiro; San José, Costa Rica; Mexico City, and San Salvador – are in the region. And in both Rio and San Josém strangers escorted the experimenters (who feigned blindness) 100 percent of the time. (In all, more than 1,000 people were subjected to the trials.) What´s nicest to know is that those friendly folks in Latin America are not alone. In Prague, too, all “blind” people were escorted. (Only half the strangers there would stoop to recover a fallen pen, though. Perhaps Czechs prefer pencils?) Oh, and in case you were wondering where to avoid on your next holiday, New Yorkers came in second to last.  Only 30 percent of the rotten bunch in the Big Apple picked up the pen, and even fewer helped the injured person. But at least Nwe Yarwkers did assist three out of every four blind people. That´s better than the folks in Kuala Lumpur. The best Levine could conclude about them was that they were “ not helpful at all.”