California mulls digital number plates with adverts to tackle deficit California is considering using digital car number plates, which would switch to advertisements when vehicles were stuck in traffic, as a way to raise money to tackle its $19 billion (£12.8 billion) budget deficit. By Nick Allen in Los Angeles Published: 11:34PM BST 22 Jun 2010 David Hasselhoff’s car number plate Photo: REX The electronic plates would look like standard plates when the car was in motion, showing the registration number. But when a car stopped for more than four seconds, in a jam or at a red light, scrolling … Continue reading California – digital number plates?

Booker Prize winner Yann Martel says ‘Jews don’t own the Holocaust’ Yann Martel, the Booker prize-winning author, has said that “Jews don’t own the Holocaust”. By Laura Roberts telegraph.co.uk Yann Martel: ‘As an artist I can understand through the imagination, and this is my attempt at understanding the Holocaust’ Photo: ANDREW QUERNER The Life of Pi writer, whose latest novel is about the Holocaust, claimed that he should be able to write about the period in history even though he is not Jewish. His fictional work, Beatrice and Virgil, follows a blocked writer who meets a taxidermist writing a play … Continue reading Yann Martel says ‘Jews don’t own the Holocaust’

Jesus will return by 2050, say 40pc of Americans More than 40 per cent of Americans believe Jesus Christ will return to Earth by 2050, according to a poll. telegraph.co.uk A statue of Jesus in Sydney, Australia. 40 per cent of Americans believe He will return by 2050. Photo: REUTERS Americans are largely optimistic about the future, according to the poll from the Pew Research Center For The People and The Press/Smithsonian Magazine. By mid century, 71 per cent believe cancer will be cured, 66 per cent say artificial limbs will work better than real ones and 81 per cent … Continue reading Sarah Palin is Jesus! say 18% Americans!

Google ‘to launch music download store in 2010’ to rival Apple’s iTunes Google is planning to launch a music download service linked to its search engine later this year in a bid to up the ante against Apple, according to a report. By Emma Barnett, Technology and Digital Media Correspondent telegraph.co.uk Photo: Google/Yann Arthus-Bertrand, GoodPlanet Foundation Photo: Google/National Geographic The Wall Street Journal report states that the search giant is preparing to launch the music download offering in 2010, followed by an online subscription service in 2011. The newspaper cites “people familiar with Google’s discussions with the music industry” as … Continue reading Googles will rival and surpass Apple’s iTunes

Palin has called for divine intervention to end the oil spill crisis in the Gulf. So, how does prayer-based politics work, exactly? Amanda Marcotte guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 June 2010 11.14 BST Article history Sarah Palin wants God on her side. So could we be headed for prayer-based administration in 2012? Photograph: Public domainAs the broken well under the Gulf of Mexico continues to gush oil with no signs of slowing, some politicians have started to move towards magical solutions – literally. Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin tweeted “Gulf disaster needs divine intervention as man’s efforts have been futile. Gulf … Continue reading Sarah ‘Drill Baby! Drill!’ Palin: livin’ on a prayer

Both countries deny any Iraqi state involvement in anti-gay militias, but LGBT supporters suggest otherwise Paul Canning guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 June 2010 11.38 BST Article history Last week, 12 Iraqi police officers burst into a house in Karbala, beat up and blindfolded the six occupants and bundled them off in three vans, taking the computers they found with them. The house was then burned down by unknown people. The six included two gay men, one lesbian and two transgender people, and the house was a new “emergency shelter” run by the Iraqi LGBT organisation. Two days later, one of the … Continue reading US and UK failing to take Iraq’s gay pogrom seriously

My campaign has helped expose ‘Project Champion’ for what it really is: ill-conceived, botched and potentially counterproductive Steve Jolly guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 June 2010 11.59 BST Article history A surveillance camera in Birmingham. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the GuardianThe row over hundreds of surveillance cameras quietly installed to spy on whole communities in Birmingham – including my own – has grown louder and louder, forcing a halt to the scheme that now hangs suspended, dangling in mid-crisis just like the unwanted cameras. “Project Champion” now looks like a real loser. The offending lenses will be covered over with bags, we … Continue reading Birmingham’s spy-cam scheme has had its cover blown