Jockstrip: The world as we know it

Trash cans could heighten bomb blasts

NEW YORK, April 3 (UPI) -- Whistleblowers say that garbage cans in New York's train stations that are supposed to contain the effects of explosives might actually make bombs worse.

The New York Post reported that the cans are made by Mistral, an Israeli company. The newspaper talked to a former maker of the cans and to a distributor who has stopped selling them.

Bill Green, who told the Post he used to build cans in Alabama for Mistral, said that in tests by the Mobile Bomb Squad, the tops blew off when a company representative packed C4 explosive. In tests with TNT, the performance was even worse, with the cans shattering.

Green claimed that Mistral told representatives to pack the C4 loosely and only in the center of the can to improve test results.

Eyal Banai, Mistral's chief executive, defended the cans and sent the Post three test reports. All three had whited-out C4 results, supposedly for security reasons.

Lakshmi Mittal richest in Britain

LONDON, April 3 (UPI) -- U.K. steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal saw his wealth quadruple last year, making him the Britain's richest man, according to the Rich List of the Sunday Times.

The London-based businessman's personal fortune is estimated at $26 billion from his 88 percent stake in the newly enlarged Mittal Steel, the Scotsman reported.

Last February, Mittal received a $260 million dividend from shareholdings in the steel group controlled by his family.

Mittal, who was born in a village in India with no electricity, bought what what is believed to be the world's most expensive house -- a 12-bedroom, $131 million property in Kensington Palace Gardens in London.

Last month, Forbes magazine estimated Mittal was the third richest man in the world, after Microsoft's Bill Gates and investment manager Warren Buffet.

Reward offered for Tasmanian tiger

SYDNEY, April 3 (UPI) -- A German tourist's claim to have seen a Tasmanian tiger in Australia -- an animal declared extinct in 1986 -- has generated a $2 million reward.

Australian magazines and travel companies are offering a combined bounty of $2.2 million to anyone who can prove the animal still exists.

Although the German tourist has returned home -- after leaving behind two blurry photographs of what is supposed to be the cat -- the claim has sparked enormous interest across Australia, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

The Tasmanian tiger, or Thylacinus cynocephalus, measured six feet from nose to tail and had brown-black stripes, a heavy, stiff tail and a big head, which led it to be also known as the Tasmanian wolf.

"If the tiger has somehow managed to cling to survival, proving its existence would be one of the greatest scientific stories of the century," said Garry Linnell, editor of Bulletin magazine, which has offered part of the reward. "It's unlikely that it exists, but I want to believe that it does."