A compulsive gambler who wagered close to $1.4 billion (€1.548 billion) during a 16-month betting spree lost his lawsuit against Australia's largest casino yesterday when a judge ruled he was not exploited.
High-flying property developer Harry Kakavas claimed Melbourne's Crown Casino facilitated his pathological betting, despite knowing he had a problem that was so severe he had already been banned from one establishment.
Mr Kakavas, 42, who police had barred from entering Sydney's Star City casino, had sued Crown, claiming it "lured" him with gifts and free flights on a private jet to bring him to Melbourne.
But judge David Harper ruled the casino had not preyed on the baccarat-loving Mr Kakavas and ordered him to repay one million dollars (913,347 US) in debts.
"He was not a person so helplessly entrapped by his love of cards that he found it impossible to resist Crown's attentions," Judge Harper told the Victorian Supreme Court.
"He was the highest of this country's high rollers," added the judge.
"He enjoyed some spectacular wins. In the end, however, he lost all he won, and more."
Forecasters blamed over snowfall
Moscow's outspoken mayor yesterday blamed meteorologists for failing to predict thick snowfall that paralysed the city's road network this week.
"Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov is extremely displeased by the work of the Metereological Centre, which couldn't even give an accurate short-term forecast," his spokesman said yesterday, the Interfax news agency reported.
Weather forecasts predicted one centimetre (0.4 inches) of snow on Monday evening, but in fact 12 to 15 centimetres of snow fell, the spokesman for Mr Luzhkov, Sergei Tsoi, said.
"To err by a factor of 10 is unacceptable," he added.
The snowfall came after a month of abnormally warm temperatures in Moscow. On December 2, the day-time temperature was 8.1 degrees celsius, breaking a record of 7.1 degrees set in 1898 and preventing the brown bears in the city zoo from going into hibernation.
Scrambling to react to the sudden snowfall, the city authorities failed to clear roads promptly and traffic jams on Monday evening stretched over 900 kilometres, traffic websites reported.
Finds snake in hired car
A Swedish motorist fled terrified from his hired car after a snake suddenly slithered out from behind the dashboard onto the steering wheel, German police said yesterday.
The 33-year-old Swedish man ran to safety late on Monday at traffic lights in Hamburg, and the snake, who had lurked undetected all the way from Sweden, then darted out of the open door into nearby trees.
The reptile was then recovered by staff from a local animal rescue centre, and turned out to be a non-venomous corn snake. Police said it was unclear how it had come to be in the vehicle.
'Wig-snatcher' indicted
A politician in Taiwan has been charged with defamation after pulling off the wig of a rival lawmaker and then boasting about the incident on his name cards, an official said yesterday.
The public prosecutor in south Taiwan's Tainan city issued the indictment on Monday against Huang Yong-tian, of the Democratic Progressive Party, who last year snatched the wig off Chiu Yi, a legislator of the ruling Kuomintang party. Mr Huang printed a photo of the wig incident on name cards he used when running for Tainan city councillor in April this year, leading to an indictment for defamation, a spokesman for the local prosecutors' office said.
Mr Huang was sentenced to five months in jail in October for the actual act of grabbing the wig. He claimed it was a mistake.
Coin tosses can be easily rigged
The ubiquitous coin toss is not so random after all, and can easily be manipulated to turn up heads, or tails, a Canadian study has found.
Used for centuries to settle feuds, start sporting matches, decide an uncertain course of action, and even as a randomisation tool in some research studies, coin tosses were thought to be impartial arbiters.
Not so, say researchers at the University of British Columbia in westernmost Canada who found that the outcome of a coin toss can actually be influenced with minimal training.
They asked 13 ear, throat and mouth (otolaryngology) residents in Vancouver to each flip a coin 300 times to see if they could bring up heads. All of the participants achieved more heads than tails, with 7 of the 13 coming up with "significantly more heads" than tails, said the study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ).
Success depended on how high a coin was tossed, how quickly it was tossed it, how many times it was spun and how it was caught.
"This study shows that when participants are given simple instructions about how to manipulate the toss of a coin and only a few minutes to practice this technique, more than half can significantly manipulate the outcome," the researchers wrote.
Caught smuggling lizards in pants
A German visitor was caught trying to leave New Zealand with 23 geckos and 20 skinks hidden in his underwear, a court was told.
Hans Kubus, 58, was stopped at Christchurch Airport on Sunday after checking in, and was searched by customs staff.
A small package containing the reptiles was found in his underwear, prosecutor Mike Bodie told the Christchurch District Court on Monday.
"The package contained eight separate compartments separating various gecko and skink species," he said.
Mr Kubus's luggage also contained a single gecko in a rolled up sock. A total of 24 geckos were found from five different species, as well as 20 skinks from two species.