Wimbledon flop Maria
Sharapova gets back to fashion
After a disastrous Wimbledon defeat, Maria Sharapova turned her hand to the fashion game in Paris.
The 21-year-old, who opted for ‘menswear‘ shorts on the court recently, decided on a very feminine look for her appearance at a Valentino catwalk show. She turned heads as she arrived at the Palace Vendome in a glamorous coat, pencil skirt and towering heels before taking her seat in anticipation of the show.
The tennis star chatted happily with American actress Camilla Belle before the show started. For her part, Russia’s Kudryaviseva was obviously thrilled at her victory delivering a stinging verdict on her competitor – and her tuxedo-style outfit. She said: ‘It is very pleasant to beat Maria. I don’t like her outfit.’
£8m art waterfalls making a
splash in Manhattan
Water cascades from the Brooklyn Bridge in New York as a spectacular piece of public art is unveiled. The waterfall pouring from one of the city’s most famous landmarks is one of four created by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson in an £8 million
project that was more than two years in the making.
The dramatic installation is expected to generate more than £30 million in tourism and economic activity.
Mayor Micheal Bloomberg, said: ‘New York is a place where big ideas are realised.’
He added that the four sites were ‘the most unexpected and intriguing waterfall destination between Niagara Falls and Victoria Falls’. The other three are at Governor’s Island
and at the end of two
river piers.
Bright object in sky mystery
lever police have solved a man’s bright object in the sky mystery. They discovered it was the moon. South Wales Police were dispatched to a 999 emergency reporting a “bright stationary object” above a caller’s house. Officer released the recording of the astonishing emergency call. But according to the newspaper, police have not revealed the identity of the dim-witted caller except to say he is from the South Wales Valleys.
Row over Hitler waxwork
in Berlin
A plan to display a waxwork of Adolf Hitler has provoked an outcry in Berlin. Madame Tussauds was forced to move the model after a row broke out over its inclusion in its German branch. The waxwork will instead be isolated in a replica of the Fuhrer’s Berlin bunker, where he is assumed to have killed himself in 1945 at the end of the Second World War.
Jewish and anti-fascist groups had criticised the decision to display the model saying it was included ‘merely to generate money’. Under German law, the display of Nazi regalia is illegal. The original plan was to have the dictator placed near his nemesis Winston Churchill. But after the initial outcry it was decided to isolate a dejected looking Hitler in a copy of the bunker.
The row over the Adolf Hitler figure overshadowed the media preview of the new German branch of Madame Tussauds.
Critics say it is inappropriate to display the dictator – the man who started World War • in a museum alongside celebrities, pop stars, world statesman and sporting heroes. Dressed in a grey suit, Hitler gazes downward with a despondent stare, his arm outstretched on a large wooden table with a map of Europe on the wall of his dim lit bunker.
About 25 workers spent about four months on the waxwork, using more than 2,000 pictures and pieces of archive material and also guided by a model of the ‘Fuhrer’ in the London branch of Madame Tussauds where he is standing upright.
Mother gives birth to twins at 70
She was utterly determined to have a son. The fact that to do so would make 70-year-old Omkari Panwar the world’s oldest mother didn’t even cross her mind.
Her resolve was matched by her husband Charan Singh Panwar, 77. To pay for the IVF treatment vital to producing a male heir to the family’s small-holdings, the retired farmer sold his buffalos, mortgaged his land, spent his life savings and took out a credit card lone. And it all paid off when Mrs Panwar gave birth to twins – a boy and a girl – by emergency Caesarean section in hospital in Muzaffarnagar, seven hours drive north of the Indian capital New Delhi.
The twins, born a month premature and weighing 2lb each are healthy, according to doctors. The Panwars already have adult daughters, and five grandchildren, but the latest arrivals are what they have been waiting for – not least because a son will benefit from a dowry when he marries and will be able to work their land. Mrs Panwar said: ‘For eight months the pregnancy was hectic and painful. But I have given birth before, so I knew what to expect. Sometimes, you have to face the pain if you want something good.’ Her husband added:
‘At last we have a son and heir. We prayed to God, went to saints and visited religious places to pray for an heir. The treatment cost me a fortune but the birth of a son makes it all worthwhile. I can die a happy man and a proud father.’
Mrs Panwar, who has no birth certificate, uses the date of India’s independence in 1947 to gauge her age. She remembers being nine when the British left India – meaning she is now 70.
Romanian Adriana Iliescu, who gave birth to a daughter through IVF aged 66 in 2005, was previously the world’s oldest mother. Mrs Panwar was told she had beaten the record as she recuperated on a rusty steel bed in the mud brick home of one of her daughters. Gynaecologist Nisha Malik, who delivered the twins in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Praddesh, said: ‘I was shocked when this old lady told me she was pregnant. I have been in medicine for 20 years and I have never heard of such a case.’n
