It was a terrible day to be a horse in Melbourne – An LA-to-Sydney flight is called back on account of stinkiness – Relax, the world’s largest nuclear arsenal is run by goofballs – And more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:

The favorite horse to win the Melbourne cup, Admire Rakti, came in last and later collapsed and died in its stall.  A postmortem will be performed at the University of Melbourne Veterinary Hospital, which might confirm speculation the horse died of a massive heart attack.  The 7th place finisher, Araldo, is fighting for its life after being spooked by a flag, crashing into a steel fence, and breaking its cannon bone.

Virgin Airlines is denying that human waste ran down the aisles of a Sydney-bound plane that was forced to return to Los Angeles three hours into it flight.  A Kiwi on Flight VA2 told a New Zealand radio station that the bathroom “exploded”, and waste had apparently soaked into the carpets.  She said that passengers had been offered masks to deal with the stench.  Virgin claims it wasn’t the toilets but the sinks that overflowed.

US investigators say an air safety device deployed on Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo earlier than it was supposed to, but the cause of last week’s deadly crash isn’t clear.  Air safety chief Christopher Hart of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the fuel tanks and engine had both been found intact, contradicting earlier speculation about a volatile new experimental fuel system being the cause.  Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson accused a “handful of British newspapers” of publishing “wild accusations”.

At least 22 immigrants from Syria and Afghanistan drowned when their boat sank just north of the Bosphorus Strait near Istanbul.  Turkish Coast guard vessels and local fishing boats rescued at least six people.  The migrants might have been trying to bypass Turkey and get into Europe via Romania.

The British banker suspected of murdering two sex workers whose bodies were found in his Hong Kong apartment had set his email to make an unusual automated reply:  Rurik George Caton Jutting’s auto-reply reads, “I am out of the office. Indefinitely. For urgent enquiries, or indeed any enquiries, please contact someone who is not an insane psychopath.”  Alrighty then.  Jutting is charged with murdering Sumarti Ningsih and Jesse Lorena, both of Indonesia.

New York City’s new World Trade Center is open for business, more than 13 years after the original twin towers were brought down in the 9/11 attacks.  Publishing giant Conde Nast is among the first clients to move into the 104-storey One World Trade Center, which was built over eight years and cost US$3.8 Billion.

Cuba is looking for international partners.  Havana is inviting corporations to invest more than US$8.7 billion in the island as it attempts to kick-start its moribund, centrally planned economy.  Cuba is offering different investment suggestions, including a pig farm, an auto plant, and a deep-water port and special trade zone west of Havana. 

A Chinese-led consortium will build Mexico’s planned high-speed railroad.  The plan is to connect Mexico City with the north-central industrial hub of Queretaro, a distance of about 210 kilometers, at a cost of US $3.7 billion.  Once completed, the train would shorten travel times from about 2.5 hours to less than one hour.  And once it’s completed, it means that even Mexico gets high-speed rail before the supposedly developed nations of Australia, the US, and Canada.

Speaking of extraordinary incompetence, the US Air Force fired two more nuclear commanders and disciplined a third.  It’s a sign of ongoing troubles in the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.  Last March, nine officers were fired at America’s third-largest nuclear base in an exam cheating scandal.  Last year, a General was fired for binge drinking and other misconduct on a visit to Russia; and the number-two nuclear commander, a Navy Admiral, was sacked after getting caught gambling at a Native American casino using counterfeit chips.