A 55-YEAR-OLD man has been charged with making a bomb hoax to a Burleigh Heads shopping centre.
The Burleigh Heads man was charged following investigations into a telephone call received at a West Burleigh Road shopping centre on Thursday morning, police said.
He is expected to appear in the Southport Magistrates Court on January 30.
US readers are increasingly opting for digital books instead of ink-and-paper editions, according to a Pew Research Centre study.
The share of US adults reading electronic books rose to 23 per cent in November from 16 per cent the same time last year, according to the Pew study.
Meanwhile, ranks of people age 16 or older turning to pages of printed books fell to 67 per cent from 72 per cent, the findings indicated.
Overall, 75 per cent of US adults read books in one form or another in a slight slip from the 78 per cent figure seen late in 2011, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
The growing popularity of e-books was in step with the hot trend in tablet computers, whether they are dedicated reading devices such as Kindles or Nooks or multi-purpose Internet portals such as Apple iPads or Google Nexus devices.
The portion of US adults with some kind of tablet jumped to 33 per cent late this year, as compared with 18 per cent as 2011 came to an end, according to the Pew study.
Understandably, the number of people borrowing e-books from US libraries also rose, findings indicated.
People in higher education and income brackets were more likely to be e-book readers, as were those between the ages of 30 and 49, according to Pew.
The findings were based on a survey taken between October 15 and November 10.
A NUMBER of sheds and fences have been destroyed in a bushfire east of Perth.
The fire in Chidlow was reported shortly before 8pm (WST) on Thursday and took several hours to bring under control.
Fire and Rescue Service and Bush Fire Service firefighters remained on the scene overnight strengthening containment lines.
Firefighters say they are being helped by an easing of the wind.
The cause of the fire is unknown.
FONTELLA Bass, a St. Louis-born soul singer who hit the top of the R&B charts with "Rescue Me" in 1965, has died
The singer's daughter, Neuka Mitchell, says Bass died at a St. Louis hospice Wednesday night of complications from a heart attack suffered three weeks ago. She was 72. Bass had also suffered several strokes since 2005.
Bass was born into a family with deep musical roots. Her mother was gospel singer Martha Bass, one of the Clara Ward Singers. Her younger brother, David Peaston, had a string of R&B hits in the 1980s and 1990s. Peaston died in February at age 54.
Her surviving family includes four children. Her husband, jazz trumpeter Lester Bowie, died in 1999.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
APPLE CEO Tim Cook got a relatively modest $US4.2 million ($4 million) in pay for the latest fiscal year, after the company's board set him up with stock now worth $US510 million for taking the reins in 2011.
Mr Cook's pay for fiscal 2012, which ended in September, consisted of $US1.4 million in salary, a bonus of $US2.8 million, and $US17,000 in company contributions to his 401(k) account and life insurance premiums, according to a filing.
Apple's board saw no need to grant Mr Cook additional shares in 2012 after the sign-on grant of 1 million shares in 2011. Half of those shares vest in 2016 and the other half in 2021.
Mr Cook did vest into shares worth $US140 million in 2012. Those shares were granted earlier, when he was chief operating officer.
EGYPT'S public prosecutor has ordered a probe into the top three leaders of the opposition on suspicion of trying to incite followers to overthrow President Mohamed Morsi, a legal source says.
The prosecutor, Taalat Ibrahim Abdallah, who was appointed by Morsi late last month, signed the order against the leaders of the opposition National Salvation Front, which led protests against Morsi's drive to have a new constitution adopted.
The probe targets Mohammed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace prize laureate, Amr Moussa, former chief of the Arab League, and Hamdeen Sabbahi, the leader of the nationalist left wing. Moussa and Sabbahi were presidential candidates in June elections that Morsi won.
The National Salvation Front alleged frauds and irregularities in the December 15 and 22 split referendum on the new charter, which Morsi signed into law this week.
It accuses Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood of wanting to use the constitution to introduce creeping strict Islamic sharia law.
Abdallah called on Justice Minister Ahmed Mekki to name an investigating magistrate for the probe, which would examine suspicions of "inciting for the overthrow of the regime".
Morsi on Wednesday hailed the adoption of the new constitution with 64 per cent of the votes in the referendum, though turnout was a low 33 per cent.
Within two months, Egypt has to hold legislative elections to choose a parliament to succeed the one dissolved by the constitutional court in June. The opposition parties in the National Salvation Front coalition are considering competing in the elections on the same ticket.
SOUTH African President Jacob Zuma got himself into a spot of bother when he suggested that owning a dog was not African and belonged to white culture.
Local media reported that Zuma had remarked that buying a dog, taking it for walks and paying for veterinary care belonged to "white" culture.
Not able to let sleeping dogs lie, Zuma went on to say that pet ownership was part of a worrying trend of black Africans trying to be white.
That prompted howls of protest from South African pet owners of all hues and mottles.
Criticism of Zuma littered social networking sites like Twitter, where one user tweeted: "Zuma says owning dogs is un-African. Unlike those old African traditions of owning German cars, Italian suits, and Irish whiskey."
The presidency later tried to fend off some of the criticism, insisting Zuma had been trying to "decolonise the African mind".
"The message merely emphasised the need not to elevate our love for our animals above our love for other human beings," said spokesman Mac Maharaj.
"He made the well-known example of people who sit with their dogs in front in a van or truck with a worker at the back in pouring rain or extremely cold weather.
"Others do not hesitate to rush their dogs to veterinary surgeons for medical care when they are sick while they ignore workers or relatives who are also sick in the same households."
