Homeless man shoeless again

A tourist in Manhattan's Times Square took this heartwarming picture of New York policeman Larry DePrimo giving homeless man Jeffrey Hillman a pair of boots and thermal socks. Picture: Facebook Source: Supplied

THE homeless man who was given a pair of socks and boots by a police officer in New York is shoeless once again.

Jeffrey Hillman was given a pair of $100 ($96) boots on November 14 by police officer Lawrence DePrimo, in a random act of kindness. But he was spotted on Sunday night in New York's Upper West Side walking barefoot, The New York Times reports.

Mr Hillman said he still had the boots but had hidden them for his own safety.

"Those shoes are hidden. They are worth a lot of money," Mr Hillman told the newspaper. "I could lose my life."

The 54-year-old said he was grateful for the kindness shown by officer DePrimo on that cold winter's night.

"I want to thank everyone that got onto this thing. I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart. It meant a lot to me. And to the officer, first and foremost."

But he admitted he was rather taken aback by the attention given to the story around the world - particularly by the media.

"I was put on YouTube, I was put on everything without permission. What do I get?" he said. "This went around the world, and I want a piece of the pie.

"I appreciate what the officer did, don't get me wrong," he said. "I wish there were more people like him in the world."

Police Officer Larry DePrimo gave a homeless man in Times Square a warm pair of boots and socks in an act of kindness.

Mr Hillman, from South Plainfield, New Jersey, told The New York Times he joined the Army in 1978 and served as a "food service specialist" in the United States and Germany. He said he was honourably discharged after five years and worked in kitchens in New Jersey before becoming homeless.

He told the newspaper he had moved to New York about 10 years ago and had been living on the streets for most of that time.

During rained, he often seeks refuge on a train, he said.

The New York Times reports Mr Hillman has two children - Nikita, 22, and Jeffrey, 24 - but has had little contact with them since a visit three years ago.

He was reluctant to talk about how he ended up on the streets. After a long pause, he shook his head and said, "I don't know," according to the report.

Meanwhile, Mr Hillman's family say they had no idea the vagrant in the touching photograph that made headlines around the world was their relative.

Jeffrey Hillman's brother Kirk was stunned when he read about the tourist's photograph of New York City police officer Lawrence DePrimo giving new all-weather boots and thermal socks to a barefoot homeless man in Times Square. 

Kirk and his wife Tish told The New York Post  they didn't recognise the bedraggled man in the photo and had no idea the homeless man was Kirk's brother Jeffrey.

"The last time we heard from him was maybe a year ago on New Year's Day," sister-in-law Tish Hillman said.  "Once a year, he calls us to let us know he's OK."

The three Hillman brothers grew up in New Jersey with Kirk and younger sibling Alfred both graduating from college before moving into white-collar professions. 

Neither brother heard much from Jeffrey who they say has been poor for years, unemployed since the 1980s and was declared bankrupt in 1993. While his brother were forging careers in academia, Jeffrey moved around New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York, recently staying in homeless shelters in Harlem and Hell's Kitchen.

Jeffrey's friends told the Post he's always on the move and often buys vodka from a store on 9th Avenue in New York, though he hasn't been seen much lately.

Jeffrey's family insist that they never shut the door on him and he knows he always has a place to say if he needs it.

"Jeffrey has his own life, and he has chosen that life, but he knows that our hearts and home are always open to him," his niece Alegra Hall said.

"He knows that, he's well aware of that."

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says his staff have not been in touch with Jeffrey since Officer DePrimo kindly gave Jeffrey the boots on a cold night.

"We're not looking for him," Kelly added. "He has shoes now. He's much more difficult to spot."

Officer DePrimo last week told Newsday that Jeffrey "smiled from ear to ear" after getting the boots.

"It was like you gave him a million dollars," he added.

The 25-year-old told The New York Times that he keeps the receipt for the boots in his vest to remind him "that sometimes people have it worse".

-with wires

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Air NZ 'joke' an Olympic balls-up

Belarus' Nadzeya Ostapchuk takes a throw in the women's shot put final during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Picture: AP Source: AP

AIR New Zealand's latest promotion has bombed, with the airline accused of transphobia over a "joke" suggesting disgraced female Belarusian shot putter Nadzeya Ostapchuk has testicles.

The company launched a Christmas Cracker promotion on its Grabaseat site on Monday, giving people the chance to win prizes.

Those who don't win a prize get a consolation joke instead - with one reading: "What large heavy ball was responsible for Valerie Adams' gold medal? The Belarusian's left testicle."

The so-called joke is a reference to Ostapchuk winning - and later being stripped of - the shotput gold medal at the Olympics earlier this year after testing positive for a banned steroid.

The medal was later awarded to Kiwi shotputter Adams.

Air NZ has taken a hammering on social media, with Twitter users calling on it to apologise for the "unbelievably offensive" joke, and pledging to boycott its services.

Rather than apologise, Air NZ responded by tweeting: "not everyone likes our xmas cracker jokes so tell us your tacky kiwi jokes & we'll add our favourites into the cracker".

Air NZ is not the first company to face a backlash over mocking Ostapchuk's gender and fall from grace.

Sandwich chain Habitual Fix took a hammering in August after creating a poster with a picture of Ostapchuk to sell its "manwich", featuring the catchlines "no added hormones or steroids" and "no hidden a-genders".

The latest Air NZ blunder comes just a month after the airline made headlines by giving spooky names to its domestic destinations for Halloween, with the South Island's Blenheim becoming Beastheim'.

The town - where serial sex offender Stewart Murray Wilson committed crimes over 26 years that saw him dubbed "the Beast of Blenheim" - was not amused.

Air NZ axed Beastheim from the promotion.

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Israeli envoys summoned over settlers

Israel is pushing forward with its E1 project, building more settlements such as Maaleh Adumim which the Palestines say threaten their hopes of statehood. Picture: AP Source: AP

ISRAEL'S envoys in Paris and London were called in for consultations on Monday as the Jewish state came under huge diplomatic pressure over its settlement activities which the UN chief warned could wipe out peace hopes.

It was the latest in a series of top-level diplomatic protests over Israeli plans to build 3000 settler homes in east Jerusalem and the West Bank that emerged on Friday with an official source confirming it was payback for the Palestinians winning the rank of a UN non-member observer state a day earlier.

Some of the construction is to take place in a controversial corridor of land east of Jerusalem, called E1, sparking a storm of protests from Washington and Brussels as well as from UN chief Ban Ki-moon, who on Sunday warned it would deal an "almost fatal blow" to the prospects of resolving the conflict.

Experts warn that Israeli construction in E1 would completely block the narrow corridor of land running east of Jerusalem, cutting off the northern West Bank from the south.

On Monday morning, Britain's Foreign Office confirmed it had summoned Israeli Ambassador Daniel Taub for talks over new settlement plans, shortly after warning it was weighing a "strong reaction" to the proposals.

And in Paris, Ambassador Yossi Gal was also summoned for consultations at the French foreign ministry, an embassy source told AFP.

Earlier, Israel's left-leaning Haaretz newspaper said the two governments were considering recalling their ambassadors for consultations over the plans to build in E1, which the newspaper said they considered a "red line."

"This time it won't just be a condemnation, there will be real action taken against Israel," a senior European diplomat told the paper, which also quoted another diplomat as saying: "London is furious about the E1 decision."

Quoting diplomatic sources, the paper said Britain and France were coordinating their moves and had "discussed the extraordinary step of recalling their ambassadors from Tel Aviv for consultations" and with a final decision to be taken later on Monday.

E1 is a highly contentious area of the West Bank that runs between the easternmost edge of annexed east Jerusalem and the Maaleh Adumim settlement.

Palestinians bitterly oppose the E1 project, as it would effectively cut the occupied West Bank in two, north to south, and sever it from Jerusalem, making the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state almost impossible.

The summoning of the two ambassadors came a day after a strongly-worded warning from Mr Ban, saying he viewed the plans "with grave concern and disappointment."

"This would include reported planning in the so-called E1 envelope, which risks completely cutting off east Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank," his spokesman said in a statement.

"Settlements are illegal under international law and, should the E1 settlement be constructed, it would represent an almost fatal blow to remaining chances of securing a two-state solution."

It followed a protest on Friday by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a strongly-worded statement from EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Sunday, in which she urged the Israeli government to cancel its plans.

Plans to link Jerusalem with the Maaleh Adumim settlement, which lies some five kilometres from the city's eastern flank, has long been espoused by Israeli hardliners, but were put on hold in 2005 following strong opposition from Washington.

But they were resurrected last week following the Palestinians' ultimately successful attempt to win the rank of a non-member state at the UN, dealing a harsh political blow to Israel, which vowed to "act accordingly."

Israel has also said it would not transfer this month's tranche of millions of dollars worth of tax and tariff funds it collects for the Palestinians.

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Leveson's cut-and-paste faux pas

Lord Justice Leveson, pictured, has been accused of cutting and pasting false information from Wikipedia. Source: Getty Images

LORD Justice Leveson has been accused of making a journalistic faux pas by "borrowing" a phrase or two from Wikipedia including republishing a glaring error.

As the man behind the push to reform the British media to improve ethics, accuracy and culture, Lord Leveson bemoaned inaccuracies in journalism as a "significant concern".

But an online service designed to detect plagiarism has highlighted a number of passages in his report which appeared to be the same as on Wikipedia.

"A social network service essentially consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links and a variety of additional services. Most social network sites are web-based," says one passage that features verbatim on both in Wikipedia and Lord Leveson's 200-page report.

The report also inaccurately describes the wrong name of the founder of The Independent newspaper, replicating an error that appears on the online encyclopedia.

Lord Leveson is currently enroute to Australia to talk about the challenges of journalism in the modern era.

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Phantom island blamed on whalers

A screen grab of a Google Map which shows a red arrow pointing at what used to be marked as Sandy Island. Source: Supplied

A New Zealand researcher Monday claimed to have solved the riddle of a mystery South Pacific island shown on Google Earth and world maps which does not exist, blaming a whaling ship from 1876.

The phantom landmass in the Coral Sea is shown as Sandy Island on Google Earth and Google maps and is supposedly midway between Australia and the French-governed New Caledonia.

The Times Atlas of the World appears to identify it as Sable Island, but according to Australian scientists who went searching last month during a geological expedition it could not be found.

Intrigued, Shaun Higgins, a researcher at Auckland Museum, started investigating and claimed it never existed, with a whaling ship the source of the original error.

"As far as I can tell, the island was recorded by the whaling ship the Velocity," Mr Higgins told ABC radio, adding that the ship's master reported a series of "heavy breakers" and some "sandy islets".

"My supposition is that they simply recorded a hazard at the time. They might have recorded a low-lying reef or thought they saw a reef. They could have been in the wrong place. There is all number of possibilities," he said.

"But what we do have is a dotted shape on the map that's been recorded at that time and it appears it's simply been copied over time."

News of the invisible island sparked debate on social media at the time, with tweeters pointing out that Sandy Island was also on Yahoo Maps as well as Bing Maps.

On www.abovetopsecret.com, discussions were robust with one poster claiming he had confirmed with the French hydrographic office that it was indeed a phantom island and was supposed to have been removed from charts in 1979.

Google told AFP last month it always welcomed feedback on maps and "continuously explore(s) ways to integrate new information from our users and authoritative partners into Google Maps".

It appears that Sandy Island has now been taken off its map.

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Two die in freak elevator accidents

Two people have died in separate lift incidents in Japan.
Source: Herald Sun

TWO people have died after separate lift incidents in Japan, with a restaurant worker trapped in a dumbwaiter and an office worker caught half-way through the doors when an elevator suddenly dropped.

A 28-year-old woman died after getting trapped in the dumbwaiter at a restaurant in the central city of Nagoya late on Sunday, police said. The lift, reportedly just 70 centimetres (28 inches) high by 60 centimetres wide, was designed to carry dishes between floors of the restaurant.

"An assistant manager found her stuck in the door after she didn't reply to his call," said a police spokesman in Aichi prefecture. The injured woman was rushed to hospital but died early Monday morning, according to authorities.

Broadcaster Nippon Television reported that the machinery involved in Sunday's accident was built by a Japanese manufacturer.

In a separate accident in Himeji in western Japan, a male office worker died on Monday afternoon "after getting stuck in a lift that suddenly descended", a police spokesman said.

The 64-year-old was making a delivery to another company when an object became wedged in the crack between the lift and the first floor, broadcaster NHK reported.

The man was standing with one foot in the elevator and one outside when the machinery made a sudden lethal move, NHK said.

The fatal accidents came about a month after a hotel cleaner in Kanazawa was crushed to death in front of her colleague when she stepped into a moving elevator, made by Switzerland-based Schindler.

One of the Swiss firm's lifts was also involved in a fatal incident in 2006 when a 16-year-old schoolboy in Japan was crushed to death.

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New chiefs named as News empire splits

Australian Robert Thomson is to take charge of the new publishing business created by News Corp's split. Picture: James Croucher Source: News Limited

RUPERT Murdoch has put the future of his newspaper and publishing empire in the hands of a fellow Australian as he set in motion the split of the media-entertainment conglomerate.

Mr Murdoch also announced the shutdown of the pioneering iPad newspaper The Daily due to a lack of readers.

The moves came as Mr Murdoch prepares to break the conglomerate into two separate companies, with one in charge of the fast-growing film and television operations, to be named Fox Group, the other to manage the news and publishing businesses (including this publication), which will retain the name News Corporation.

In a statement, News Corp said Robert Thomson, 52, editor-in-chief of the News Corp-owned Wall Street Journal, will take the helm of the global publishing entity as chief executive officer on New Year's Day.

A soft-spoken Australian and one-time China correspondent, Thomson is a longtime close confidant of Mr Murdoch, 81, and a former editor of The Times of London.

In a statement, News Corp also said Mike Darcy, a former chief operating officer of BSkyB, will replace Tom Mockridge as chief executive officer of News International. Mr Mockridge leaves the company at the end of the year.

News International is publisher of The Sun and the defunct News of World, tabloid newspapers that have been at the centre of a firestorm in Britain over the hacking of mobile phone voice mails.

"This is an incredibly exciting time for me personally, and for our companies' ambitious futures," said Mr Murdoch, 81. "The challenges we face in the publishing and media industries are great, but the opportunities are greater."

News Corp also announced that it will cease publication of its iPad app The Daily from December 15, adding however that "the brand will live on in other channels."

Some staff from the virtual newspaper, launched in February 2011, will shift to the New York Post, it said.

Mr Murdoch called The Daily - exclusively designed for touchscreen tablets - "a bold experiment," but acknowledged that it was unable to find enough paying readers to sustain it.

As previously announced, Mr Murdoch will serve as chairman of the new News Corporation and chairman and CEO of Fox Group. Chase Carey will be president and chief operating officer of Fox Group, with Mr Murdoch's son James continuing in his capacity as deputy chief operating officer.

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Duchess of Cambridge pregnant

Kate Middleton is expecting a baby, St James Palace says. Source: The Daily Telegraph

• Kate in hospital with acute morning sickness
• Child may one day be Australia's monarch
• Gallery: the engagement
• Gallery: the wedding

KATE Middleton is expecting her first child and has been admitted to hospital with acute morning sickness, St James's Palace has announced.

St. James's Palace said on Monday that the Duchess of Cambridge - formerly known as Kate Middleton - has a severe form of morning sickness and is currently in a London hospital.

The palace said that since the pregnancy is in its "very early stages," the 30-year-old duchess is expected to stay in the hospital for several days and will require a period of rest afterward.

In recent days, Middleton has kept up royal appearances - recently playing field hockey with schoolchildren at her former school.

The confirmation of her pregnancy - following intense speculation ever since their lavish Westminster Abbey wedding last year - was greeted with congratulations.

Prime Minister David Cameron wrote on Twitter that he was "delighted by the news," saying the royals "will make wonderful parents."

Not only are the attractive young couple popular - with William's easy common touch reminding many of his mother, the late Princess Diana - but their child is expected to play an important role in British national life for decades to come.

As the first-born to William - who is second in line for the throne after his father, Prince Charles - the couple's child stands an excellent chance of one day becoming monarch.

Whether boy or girl, the child will be next in line behind William in the line of succession to the throne, Cabinet Office officials have said.

Leaders of Britain and the 15 former colonies that have the monarch as their head of state agreed in 2011 to new rules which give females equal status with males in the order of succession.

Although none of the nations had legislated to make the change as of September 2012, the British Cabinet Office confirmed that this is now the de-facto rule.

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