The shanty home of Slumdog Millionaire child star Rubina Ali (pictured, left) has burned down in a fire that raged through a crowded slum in the Indian city of Mumbai.

Rubina said most of the awards that she received for her role as a poverty-stricken child in the Oscar-winning film have been destroyed in the blaze that erupted in the Garib Nagar slum on Friday night.The 12-year-old star said she and other members of her family were watching television when they heard shouts of a fire and ran out of their tin-roofed shanty.

Rubina said the family is waiting to move into a new apartment paid for by a trust set up by the film’s director Danny Boyle.

Bus/lumber truck crash kills 25 in Brazil

A passenger bus collided head-on with a lumber truck in the southern state of Santa Catarina, killing at least 25 people, Brazilian police said. More than 20 were seriously injured.

Highway police officer Rosangela Ogioni said the accident happened early this morning near the town of Descanso.

She said the driver apparently lost control of the truck on a curve and slammed into the bus, which was carrying 47 passengers.

Six people killed in Russian test flight

Six people are reported to have been killed in Russia after an Antonov-148 airliner crashed during a test flight.

Reports say the crash took place yesterday morning in the Belgorod region about 560 km south of Moscow.

The two pilots are understood to have been from Burma. The Interfax-AVN news agency said the Burmese air force has ordered two An-148s, though it was not immediately known if the plane that crashed was to be delivered to the country.

The An-148 is a regional high-wing jet with a maximum range of about 4,800 km and passenger capacity of 99. There was no information on the cause of the crash. State airline Rossiya criticised the An-148 last year for door lock and engine problems.

Abraham Lincoln’s ‘secret UK race talks’

Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address has inspired Americans for generations, but a new book claims to show startling racial contradictions on the part of the president, including covert colonisation talks with Britain.

As the nation celebrated the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s first inauguration last Friday, the book by a researcher at George Mason University in Fairfax said Lincoln was even more committed to colonising blacks than previously known.

Colonisation After Emancipation is based in part on newly-uncovered documents that authors Philip Magness and Sebastian Page found at the British National Archives outside London and in the US National Archives.

Dog eats three toes of diabetic owner

A dog ate three of his diabetic owner’s toes as he slept, probably out of instinct to help remove diseased flesh, animal experts said.

James Little, 61, of Roseburg, Oregon, made an emergency call last Tuesday to say his dog had eaten the toes while he was sleeping and he is now “doing fine”.

Mr Little suffers from diabetes, of which one symptom is numbness in the hands or feet. The dog, a Shiba Inu, was acting on its instinct to remove diseased flesh and did not appear to be dangerous, said Douglas County animal control deputy Lee Bartholomew.

Arquette jokes after car crash

Actor David Arquette joked yesterday about the car crash in which his Cadillac crashed head-on with another vehicle in Beverly Hills.

Arquette, 39, who was not seriously hurt, was “OK” after Friday’s crash, and was on his way to being treated, publicist Cindy Guagenti said.

“I got into a car accident but I’m fine. Luckily I have dragon’s blood running through my veins,” Arquette quipped on his Twitter account about two hours after the accident. “Haha. Thank you for all your concern.”

In another Tweet, he said: “Remember to wear your seatbelt – wish I was.”

Former Nepal PM Bhattarai dies at 87

Nepal’s former prime minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, who led a popular movement to restore multi-party democracy in 1990, has died at 87.

His doctor, Bharat Rawat, said he died in the capital Katmandu, following multiple organ failure. He had suffered mainly from kidney problems.

Mr Bhattarai was admitted to Norvic hospital in Katmandu last month with health complaints.

He was appointed prime minister of the Himalayan nation twice – first in 1990 and again in 1999.

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