Wedding Trend Gathers Speed In Estonia
It started with brides in Serbia, running their frilly gowns off in order to win their dream wedding. Then we read about ‘bride napping’ in Romania, where future wives are stolen by friends and the groom is forced to pay a ‘ransom’ in order to win her back, just in time for some altar action.
After that, we moved onto the annual North American wife-carrying competition, which attracts participants from all over the world (last year’s winners were Finnish). And now we’ve moved on to bride racing.
After all, it’s literally just another reason to don your gown and prove to the world that wedding dresses are basically the funniest outfit to do anything in. (Huffington Post)
Saudi prince sues Forbes after it says he’s only worth $20 bn
Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has sued Forbes magazine for libel in a British court, alleging its valuation of his wealth at $20 billion was short of the mark by $9.6 billion, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported. The prince, a grandson of Saudi Arabia’s founder and nephew of King Abdullah, had attacked the US magazine’s ranking of world billionaires as flawed and biased against West Asian businesses after he was ranked number 26 in this year’s list.
An official at the High Court in london confirmed that Prince Alwaleed had filed a defamation suit against Forbes, its editor Randall lane, and two of its journalists on April 30. Details of the claim were not immediately available.
Through his Kingdom Holding Company, Prince Alwaleed owns large stakes in Citigroup, News Corp and Apple Inc, among other companies. He is also owner or part-owner of luxury hotels including the Plaza in New York, the Savoy in london and the George V in Paris. (Reuters)
Woman discovers online ‘friend’ is actually ex-husband
A divorced Minnesota woman discovered that the man she’d been communicating with online for roughly a year was actually her ex-husband, the St Paul Pioneer Press reports. The woman has since filed stalking charges.
Brian Matthew Cornelius, 36, allegedly created an “elaborate online persona” before communicating with his ex-wife. During the course of their online courtship, his ex-wife revealed many intimate details of her life, including her thoughts and feelings about her ex-husband, according to the Pioneer Press article.
The paper reports that prosecutors claim Cornelius observed his ex-wife’s home through a webcam. He also convinced her to “skip a court appearance in which she was seeking an order for protection against him.” The charge against her ex-husband was then dropped, the Pioneer Press reported. Eventually the woman was able to figure out that “Aaron Carpenter” was actually Brian Cornelius. Cornelius showed up at places where the woman had told Carpenter she would be. The man known as Carpenter also said things to the woman that only her ex-husband could possibly know, according to the paper. Confronted by his ex-wife, Cornelius allegedly admitted to using images he found online to fill out his alter-ego’s profile, according to the complaint cited in the Pioneer Press piece. The two were married for 11 years and have two children. (Yahoo News)
Runner’s pain is no pulled muscle; it’s a baby
An aspiring half-marathon runner in Minnesota attributed her unbearable back pain to a two-hour training session. A day later, she was cradling a newborn. Trish Staine, 33, says she had no idea she was pregnant before the surprise birth. The Duluth mother of three said she hadn’t gained any weight or felt fetal movement in the months before. And besides, her husband had a vasectomy. “I said ‘no, no, that’s impossible,’” Staine said from her Duluth hospital room.
“I definitely thought I was done having kids,” she joked. Staine and her husband, John, have a daughter, 7, and a son, 11. She’s also stepmother to John’s three boys, ages 17, 19 and 20. Staine said she ran for about two hours one recent Sunday in preparation for the Garry Bjorklund half-marathon on June 22. (AP)
Enter The Diplomat: UN’s Ban gets black belt
Representatives at the United Nations may think twice about crossing Ban Ki-moon in future after the Secretary-General was awarded an honorary 10th degree black belt in the Korean martial art of taekwondo.
While it is unclear whether the 68-year-old Ban can break bricks with his bare hands, World Taekwondo Federation president Choue Chung-won said the awarding of the black belt reflected the common goals and values shared by the UN and federation.
South Korean Ban, who succeeded Kofi Annan in the UN’s top job in 2007 and will serve through his second term until the end of 2016, praised the efforts of the federation, founded in 1973, to achieve peace through sport.
While ninth degree is technically the highest level attainable through the ranking system, some honorary 10th degree black belts have been awarded to individuals for their contributions to taekwondo and society in general. (Reuters)