id
stringlengths 40
40
| article
stringlengths 48
15.9k
| highlights
stringlengths 14
7.39k
|
|---|---|---|
1468a9e5187637144eedf51a3934fe2d092d5a82
|
By . Louise Boyle . PUBLISHED: . 14:31 EST, 6 November 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 04:35 EST, 7 November 2012 . A parolee who killed two people and wounded two others on Tuesday at a California chicken processing plant where he worked moved methodically between his first three victims, putting a handgun against their head or neck before pulling the trigger, police said. Lawrence Jones, 42, shot 32-year-old Fatima Lopez in the back as she tried to flee then put the gun to the head of Estevan Catano and pulled the trigger but was out of bullets, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said. Jones, 42, then went outside the Valley Protein plant, where he reloaded his gun, shot himself and died later at a hospital after being found alive outside the factory shortly after 8am, the chief said. Scroll down for video . Attack: Lawrence Jones, 42, killed two colleagues and wounded two others at meat processing plant in Fresno, California before killing himself . ‘He had opportunity to shoot other co-workers that were in the business at this time, but he chose not to,’ Dyer said. ‘He walked around them in order to get very close to the intended targets, place the gun very close and fire a round.’ Salvador Diaz, 32, was pronounced dead at the scene, and Manuel Verdin, 34, died later at a hospital, both from wounds to the head. Arnulfo Conrriguez, 28, was critically injured after being struck in the throat, and Lopez was expected to be released later from a hospital after being struck in the buttocks, Dyer said. Several men tried to stop Jones, but he pointed his gun at their heads, according to the Los Angeles Times. Police said they found 24 rounds of .357 caliber ammunition — the type used in the shooting — and 21 rounds of .38 caliber ammunition at Jones' apartment. About 30 employees witnessed the shooting, and there were a total of about 65 people at work when the gunfire started, police said. The victims inside the plant did not . hear the shooter because it was loud and at least some of them wore . noise protectors, Dyer said. Jones . reportedly arrived for work at 5am before he began shooting with a . handgun three hours later, close to the cold storage area in the Valley . Protein factory. Distraught: A woman on the phone after a shooting at a meat-processing plant in California on Tuesday where two people and the gunman died . Shock: Factory workers embrace outside the plant where a colleague opened fire during a shift this morning in Fresno, California . Rampage: A gunman shot dead two co-workers at a chicken plant in Fresno, California this morning and injured two others before walking outside and shooting himself . Police . received calls from terrified employees at the site around 8.27am, . Police Chief Jerry Dyer said. Officers who arrived on the scene found . Jones in the street with a gunshot wound to the head, according to Fox News. The suspect, who was on parole, had worked at the plant for 14 months, according to colleagues. Jones had an extensive criminal history going as far back as 1991, when he was sentenced to three years in prison for robbery and burglary, police told the New York Times. It . was unclear what had provoked the shooting but one worker told police . that the suspect was acting strangely when he arrived for work. ‘There was something that must have . provoked this incident, perhaps that occurred today, or maybe was . building up to today,’ Dyer said soon after the attack. Valley Protein, formerly known as Apple Valley Farms Inc, is a food service equipment company that opened in 2005 and processes poultry. A call to the company went to a voicemail recording that said: 'Due to an emergency we are closed for the day.' Terror: Two were killed after a shooter opened fire in a factory at 8am in California .
|
Salvador Diaz, 32, killed during attack at meat-processing plant in Fresno .
Manuel Verdin, 34, died in hospital after being fatally wounded .
Lawrence Jones, 42, discovered in the street with gunshot wound to head and later died in hospital .
Jones, who was on parole, had worked at plant for 14 months .
|
146d7365f04ec043707b150022f681d2fe63e3f9
|
The United States hasn't abandoned Robert Levinson, the retired FBI agent described by his wife as the "longest-held American hostage," Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday. "There hasn't been progress in the sense that we don't have him back. But to suggest that we've abandoned him or anybody ... is simply incorrect and not helpful," Kerry told ABC's "This Week." "The fact is that I have personally raised the issue, not only at the highest level that I have been involved with, but also through other intermediaries." Levinson disappeared in Iran in March 2007 during a business trip, purportedly undertaken as a private investigator looking into cigarette smuggling. However, The Associated Press and the Washington Post reported Thursday that contrary to what the State Department and Levinson's family have said for years, Levinson actually was working for the CIA in Iran. And a source involved in the matter told CNN there's proof that Levinson worked for the CIA undercover, and under contract, while also working as a private investigator. White House: Levinson not a government employee when he made Iran trip . That allegation doesn't sit well with Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, who is on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. "What disturbs me is apparently they did not tell the truth to the Congress. The CIA did not tell the truth to the American Congress about Mr. Levinson," McCain said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "If that's true, then you put this on top of things that our intelligence committees didn't know about other activities, which have been revealed by (NSA leaker Edward) Snowden -- maybe it means that we should be examining the oversight role of Congress over our different intelligence agencies." Iran's government repeatedly has said it is not holding Levinson and does not know his whereabouts. During a September interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was asked what he could tell Levinson's family. "We don't know where he is, who he is," Rouhani said. "He is an American who has disappeared. We have no news of him." McCain: CIA did not tell Congress the truth about Levinson . Kerry said the United States is still looking for proof that Levinson is alive. A "number of different channels" are "being worked aggressively," he said. Iran's previous president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said he was willing to help find Levinson, and the family received what then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described in 2010 as "proof of life." In 2011, the State Department said new evidence suggested that Levinson, who has diabetes and high blood pressure, was alive and being held somewhere in southwest Asia. This year, a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN, "We have every reason to believe that he's alive and that the Iranians control his fate." Asked whether he believes the Iranian government is responsible for Levinson's disappearance, Kerry said he thinks the government "has the ability to help us here, and we hope they will." McCain said he was "confident we are doing everything that we can" to get Levinson released from Iran, . He added that any negotiations in Levinson's case should also include attempts to free other Americans who are believed to be in Iranian custody. Report: Iran arrests alleged MI6 spy working for Britain in Iran .
|
Secretary of State John Kerry says he's raised issue of Levinson "at the highest level"
Levinson disappeared almost 7 years ago on an alleged business trip .
Multiple reports this past week suggest Levinson may have been working for the CIA .
McCain: If the government lied about Levinson, it may be time to reassess oversight .
|
146d754e9e45629232e30b48483412d9055e26d5
|
(CNN) -- During the last four months, the people of Ukraine have been fighting for their freedom, independence and European path in a war started by Russia-backed terrorists and their accomplices. Ukrainian military forces suffer heavy losses in battles against terrorists equipped with the newest Russian weaponry. We've seen reports of the pro-Russian thugs shooting women and children, cynically calling it a "protection of the Russian-speaking population." The price we are paying to bring peace back to the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine is too high. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has proposed the decentralization of power as part of his peace plan. It means more freedom, more economic autonomy and more opportunities to use languages spoken in a particular community for every region. How rebels in Ukraine built up an arsenal capable of reaching the skies . Ukraine has also demonstrated its genuine willingness to resolve this crisis through negotiations and compromises. Our armed forces have shown exceptional restraint during their military operations in order to avoid casualties among peaceful civilians and prevent destruction of their towns and villages. Our unilateral cease-fire in the zone of the conflict had lasted from June 20 to June 30, during which 27 Ukrainian servicemen, from all over Ukraine, were killed by the bandits. On July 17 we believe the terrorists fired at the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777, cutting short the lives of almost 300 people. This was a tragic wake-up call to the whole world. From now on Russian exporters of terrorism bring tragedy and tears to people across the planet -- from the Netherlands to Australia. Ukrainians, knowing too well the bitterness of loss, sincerely share grief with the families of the deceased. Our government is conducting, together with a team of international experts, a thorough investigation of the circumstances of this heinous act of terrorism. There is already incontrovertible evidence that the airliner was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile system that had arrived from Russia. When civilian planes are shot down . For the first time since 1983, when a Soviet jet fighter deliberately shot down a South Korean Boeing 747, Russia stands entangled in such a horrendous tragedy. We remember that an objective investigation of that catastrophe was made possible only 10 years later, after the USSR collapsed. We would not like to have to wait that long to learn the truth about the tragedy of MH17. Indeed, the guilty must be promptly punished. We are encouraged with the growing understanding in both the West and the East of the nature of terrorism in eastern Ukraine. While U.S. senators and European Union ministers already consider designating the Donetsk People's Republic and its Luhansk twin as terrorist organizations, we expect Russia to halt its support to terrorists. Since most of them are Russian citizens and "former" security service officers, we also urge Moscow to take them away from Ukraine. They must go home. Russian sponsorship of terrorism in Ukraine amply demonstrates that in the 21st century any regional conflict invariably poses a threat to global security. International and internal terrorism, as well as unbridled export of conventional and high-tech weaponry, have no regard for state borders, national sovereignty or human lives. Ukraine has been consistently advocating not only international control of nuclear weapons, but today we also stand for the creation of a universal mechanism for international control of conventional arms. We strive for a world based on the respect for international law and trust between nations. Join us on Facebook.com/CNNOpinion.
|
Pavlo Klimkin: With downing of MH17, price of peace in eastern Ukraine already too high .
Klimkin: Ukrainians know bitterness of loss, share grief with families of the deceased .
He says the guilty must be promptly punished .
|
146dc1bdc34c96a4b530ad9117c8917e72f1eed2
|
International monitors investigating the Malaysia Airlines crash in eastern Ukraine said Friday the team was not given full access to the site and was greeted with hostility by armed men. "There didn't seem to be anyone really in control," Michael Bociurkiw, spokesman for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe team, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. Armed men, apparently pro-Russia militants, loosely guarded the area but couldn't answer the monitors' questions, he said. Bociurkiw said the group only stayed about 75 minutes and examined about 200 meters at the scene before being forced to leave. Pieces of the airplane and bodies are spread over several kilometers. The OSCE team arrived at the crash site near Torez in a remote section of eastern Ukraine that's controlled by pro-Russian militants battling the Ukraine government. The United States says a surface-to-air missile, possibly fired by the militants, took down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on Thursday as the plane traveled from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. All 298 people on board died. U.N. Under Secretary General Feltman said 80 of the victims were children. Lack of access to the crash site worries U.S. officials, including Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, who tweeted: "Monitors should be able to access the crash site of MH17. US is deeply concerned by reports that separatists are denying access." Bociurkiw said the investigation will be difficult because the plane crashed in a difficult-to-access area in the countryside with no electricity. Many of the victims were on vacation . "I don't think too much of the crime scene has been compromised already," Bociurkiw said. "The bodies are still there. They have not been tampered with. We actually spoke to some civilian emergency workers. They said their job was just to mark where the bodies are." The FBI is sending two investigators to work on the case, a U.S. law enforcement official said, but the Ukraine government will be in charge of the investigation. Obama puts focus on Russia . The location of the flight recorder has not been determined. Ukrainian Economy and Trade Minister Pavlo Sheremeta told CNN's Richard Quest that MH17's black boxes are in Ukraine. Sheremeta would not say, though, whether the government has them. "They are on Ukrainian territory. I don't know whether we have it or the international team has it," he said. Earlier Friday, the adviser to the exiled governor of Dontesk told CNN's Victoria Butenko that the black boxes had been retrieved and were in rebel hands, though the location was not clear. Russia likely bears some of the responsibility for the apparent downing of Flight 17, President Barack Obama said. In the administration's strongest words yet on the downing of the jet, Obama said rebel fighters couldn't have operated the surface-to-air missile believed responsible for the shootdown "without sophisticated equipment and sophisticated training, and that is coming from Russia." In his remarks to reporters, Obama said that he did not want to get ahead of the facts of who may have been directly involved in the airliner's destruction. But he said the United States would work hard to hold accountable those responsible for it. He and other U.S. officials stopped short of publicly placing the responsibility on Russia, which has denied involvement in the destruction of the jetliner. But a senior defense official told CNN that the "working theory" among U.S. intelligence analysts is that the Russian military supplied the Buk missile system to rebel fighters inside Ukraine. The United States believes the missile system was transferred into eastern Ukraine from Russia "in recent days or weeks," a senior administration official told CNN, and that the system was operational at the time. The United States believes pro-Russian separatists could not have operated it without Russian training, the official said, noting that it's unknown whether Russian personnel were on scene when the plane was shot down. U.S. officials believe the plane was "likely downed by a surface-to-air missile ... operated from a separatist-held location in eastern Ukraine," the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, told an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council. If pro-Russian separatists are responsible for shooting down the plane with a missile, investigators can't rule out the possibility that Russia offered help to operate the system, she said. Power also said Russia should take steps to cool tensions in Ukraine. "Russia can end this war," she said. "Russia must end this war. At least one American on board . Obama confirmed that at least one U.S. citizen was aboard the plane; Quinn Lucas Schansman was a student at International Business School Hogeschool van Amsterdam, according to his Facebook page. A majority of the passengers (at least 173) were Dutch. "No one can deny the truth that is revealed in the awful images that we all have seen, and the eyes of the world are on eastern Ukraine, and we are going to make sure that the truth is out," Obama said. He called for an immediate cease-fire in the region and for a "credible international investigation" into what happened. MAPS: What route did the flight take? Among the evidence cited by U.S. officials and others for their conclusions was an audio recording released by Ukrainian intelligence officials which purportedly feature pro-Russian rebels and Russian military officers discussing a surface-to-air strike and the crash of a civilian jetliner. "How are things going there," a man identified as a Russian intelligence agent asks. "Well, we are 100% sure that it was a civilian plane," a man identified as a pro-Russian fighter responds. "Are there a lot of people?" the Russian officer asks. The rebel fighter then utters an obscenity and says, "The debris was falling straight into the yards." CNN cannot confirm the authenticity of this audio, or other similar recordings. Also, in a news conference Friday, the chief of Ukraine's security service, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, said the Buk missile system that shot down the airliner crossed the border from Russia only "right before" the attack. He didn't say how investigators know that, however . Ukraine's Interfax news agency reported claims by an adviser to Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Anton Geraschenko that the launcher, as well as the flight data recorders from MH17, were handed over to Russian agents across the border at a checkpoint in the Luhansk area overnight. A senior Ukrainian official who spoke to CNN also accused Russia of carrying out a cover-up of its role in the shoot-down. He cited video showing a Buk launcher being moved toward Russia overnight. CNN could not independently confirm the claims. Should downed Malaysian jet have flown over Ukraine? Russia-Ukraine dispute . Tensions have been high between Ukraine and Russia since street protests forced former pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych from power in February. Russia subsequently annexed Ukraine's southeastern Crimea region, and a pro-Russian separatist rebellion has been raging in Ukraine's eastern Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Ukraine's government has accused Russia of allowing weapons and military equipment, including tanks, to cross the border illegally into the hands of pro-Russian rebels. While Ukrainian officials implicated pro-Russian fighters and their Russian backers for the jetliner's downing, Moscow argued Ukraine was to blame. "With regard to the claims raised by Kiev, that it was almost us who did it: In fact I haven't heard any truthful statements from Kiev over the past few months," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an exclusive interview with the state-run Russia 24 TV channel. European Union leaders agreed this week to expand sanctions against individuals and entities in response to Russia's actions in Ukraine, with details to be decided by the end of the month. Expanded U.S. sanctions were also announced in Washington. Airspace closed . The Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure announced Friday that the airspace over Donetsk, Luhansk and part of Kharkiv where rebels are operating had been closed indefinitely. Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai defended the routing of the Malaysia Airlines plane over the region, saying other carriers were sending their aircraft through the same airspace. Three months ago, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration prohibited U.S. airlines from flying in areas some way south of where Flight 17 crashed Thursday. Thursday night, the FAA expanded the flight restrictions to all of eastern Ukraine. Airline's troubles . Thursday's crash marks the second time this year that Malaysia Airlines has faced an incident involving a downed plane. In March, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared with 239 people on board. Searchers have found no trace of the Boeing 777 or its passengers despite extensive search efforts. Flight 370 probably flew into the southern Indian Ocean on autopilot with an unresponsive crew, Australian authorities said last month. A new underwater search is expected to begin in August. Did surface-to-air missile take down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17? CNN Flight 17 full coverage .
|
U.N. official says 80 of 298 victims were children .
Monitors say they only spent 75 minutes at crash site .
Rebels couldn't have shot down the jetliner without backing, Obama says .
U.S. envoy to United Nations says pro-Russia rebels likely fired missile at plane .
|
146e16de90a2e5acd15cd5595403688efe9d9e37
|
Englsh football fans are choosing to watch football abroad due to the rising cost of a Premier League match day. Season-ticket holders at clubs like Borussia Dortmund are paying an average of just £9 a match compared to some English fans who regularly have to part at least four or five times that amount to see their favourite team. Alarmingly, the cheapest match-day ticket price across the top four divisions of English football has increased by an average of 4.4 per cent over the last 12 months - nearly three times the rate of inflation - the BBC Price of Football survey revealed. English football fans are flocking to places like Dortmund due to the increase in Premier League tickets . Dortmund's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang celebrates during the Champions League match against Arsenal . The cheapest match ticket across all four English divisions has increased by an average of 4.4 per cent over the last month - nearly three times the rate of inflation . A large number of football fans in England regularly have to pay upwards of £40 to see their club in action . Arsenal £2,013 . Tottenham £1,895 . Chelsea £1,250 . Manchester United £950 . Queens Park Rangers £949 . West Ham £940 . Liverpool £869 . Manchester City £860 . Southampton £853 . Leicester City £730 . Crystal Palace £720 . Everton £719 . Newcastle United £710 . Burnley £685 . Aston Villa £615 . Stoke City £609 . Hull City £574 . Sunderland £525 . Swansea City £499 . West Brom £449 . Source: BBC Price of Football survey 2014 . Buying food and drink at football grounds adds to the high cost of following a team in the Premier League . Arsenal £97 . Chelsea £87 . Tottenham Hotspur £81 . West Ham £75 . Queens Park Rangers £70 . Liverpool £59 . Manchester City £58 . Manchester United £58 . Newcastle United £52 . Southampton £52 . Hull City £50 . Leicester City £50 . Stoke City £50 . Everton £47 . Aston Villa £45 . Swansea City £45 . Burnley £42 . Crystal Palace £40 . Sunderland £40 . West Bromwich £39 . Source: BBC Price of Football survey 2014 . Add the price of food and travel to the initial cost of the matchday ticket and the overall total of following a Premier League team can easily reach three figures for many supporters. Astonishingly, fans can fly out and enjoy a weekend trip to watch one of Europe's powerhouses for roughly the same price it costs to purchase a ticket to a Premier League game. 'We jump on the Channel Tunnel train,' one fan told the BBC. 'We make a weekend of it. With tickets, accommodation, transport, this trip will cost £65. When you think it cost me £51 to see the Arsenal game last season, you can see the benefits.' Some fans can travel abroad - paying for flights, accomodation and a match ticket - for the same price it costs to watch a Premier League match . Dortmund are keen to keep their prices down for fans and even refused PUMA's request to increase the price of the club's replica shirts. While prices continue to rise, Dortmund would prefer to ask sponsors for an injection of cash rather than their loyal followers. The Bundesliga side's marketing director Carsten Cramer said: 'Why are tickets cheap? Football is part of people's lives and we want to open the doors for all of society. We need the people, they spend their hearts, their emotions with us. They are the club's most important asset.' 'What is the economic sense for the club to increase the price by 10 cents? For the overall economic success of the club it is not important to increase the price of a litre of a beer. It is still money, but not a lot to the club. But it does affect our fans, if they are spending their money match after match.' Manager Jurgen Klopp is one of Dortmund's main attractions and has been with the club for the last six years .
|
The cheapest matchday ticket price across the top four divisions has increased by an average of 4.4 per cent over 12 months .
Supporters are choosing to travel abroad to watch affordable football .
Borussia Dortmund season-ticket holders spend an average of £9 a game .
|
146e5334000cf76b9d4191342746646b4ca4f0a5
|
(CNN) -- The World Cup's focus on attacking football has won global praise but a cloud scurried across the tournament Tuesday as match fixing claims surrounding Cameroon's participation in the event emerged. The Cameroon Football Association (Fecafoot) has confirmed it's investigating allegations made in the German media that seven of its players were involved in match fixing during the group stages of the World Cup finals in Brazil. While previous investigations centered on trying to fix international friendlies or low-profile qualifiers, this is the first time since 1982 that World Cup group stage games have come under scrutiny. The "Indomitable Lions" were drawn in the same pool as Croatia, Mexico and host nation Brazil, losing all three games. A convicted match fixer spoke to German magazine Der Spiegel correctly predicting one of the results of the African nation. "We wish to inform the general public that, though not yet contacted by FIFA in regards to this affair, our administration has already instructed its Ethics Committee, to further investigate these accusations," said a Fecafoot statement. Wilson Raj Perumal, who was detained by police in Finland earlier this year on an international arrest warrant, told Der Spiegel that Cameroon would lose to Croatia while also having a player sent off. CNN has not been able to independently verify the Der Spiegel report. Midfielder Alex Song was red carded during the game for lashing out at Croatia striker Mario Mandzukic, while goals from Ivica Olic, Ivan Perisic and a brace from Mandzukic without reply secured a 4-0 victory. The match also saw Cameroon players Benoit Assou-Ekotto and Benjamin Moukandjo aggressively confront each other, with television pictures appearing to show Assou-Ekotto attempting to head-butt Moukandjo. CNN contacted Song's agent although he was not immediately available for comment. The Fecafoot statement continued: "Recent allegations of fraud around Cameroon 2014 FIFA World Cup three preliminary games, especially Cameroon vs. Croatia, as well of the 'existence of seven bad apples (in our national team)' do not reflect the values and principles promoted by our administration, in line with FIFA Code of Conduct and the ethics of our nation." In the Der Spiegel interview, Perumal, who CNN is trying to contact, used the expression "seven bad apples." A FIFA spokesperson told reporters Tuesday that they could not comment on whether an investigation was underway on the manipulation of games. Fecafoot meanwhile added in its statement that "in 55 years of existence, it has never been sanctioned for, involved in, or even linked to match fixing or any fraud of any kind." The investigation marks an uncomfortable end to Cameroon's disastrous World Cup campaign. Players initially refused to board the plane to Brazil until a dispute with Fecafoot over bonus payments was resolved. Although an agreement was eventually reached, the team's departure was delayed by a day. An opening game 1-0 loss to Mexico was followed up by the 4-0 thrashing by Croatia. Hosts Brazil then completed the misery by defeating the four-time African Cup of Nations champion 4-1. In the aftermath of the Croatia defeat, coach Volker Finke described the behavior of some of his players as "unacceptable." "Some players behaved very badly, and that's why we have conceded four goals," Finke said to L'Equipe. "I know that it is difficult to play with 10 men, but that is not a reason to lose it to this point. "The game was balanced until the red card. The Croatians were more clinical in front of goal, but Cameroon also had chances to score. "The behavior of some of the players is really not satisfactory. Even when we were 11-a-side, it was not acceptable." In 1982, Algeria, despite having beaten then West Germany, went out after a seemingly contrived 1-0 win over Austria.
|
Cameroon to investigate allegations of match fixing by its players at the World Cup .
Convicted match fixer correctly predicts African nation's result to German magazine Der Spiegel .
Match fixer Wilson Rag Perumal talks of "seven bad apples" in Cameroon team .
Cameroon lost all three of its World Cup group games in Brazil .
|
146f43b8e3a7d32a8b2fe6899ba2416da05a64c6
|
By . Dan Bloom . A trainee medical negligence lawyer locked her dog in her kitchen for a week until it starved to death. Katy Gammon abandoned five-year-old boxer Roxy while she stayed with her mother, leaving the dog to spend six days clawing at the door until it went blind, slipped into a coma and died. When the 27-year-old returned a week later the stench through her letterbox was so strong she could not face going inside - so returned to her mother for another nine weeks. Roxy was only discovered when a neighbour saw a swarm of flies at the kitchen window, and was so decomposed an RSPCA inspector had to scrape her body off the floor with a shovel. WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT . Scroll down for video . Horrific: Roxy the five-year-old boxer died a long, painful death after being locked in the kitchen by trainee medical negligence solicitor Katy Gammon, 27. She was only found when a neighbour saw swarms of flies . Decomposed: The dog was infested with maggots after Gammon smelled the decomposing body and refused to enter the house for another nine weeks after Roxy's death. It is one of the worst cases the RSPCA has faced . No explanation: When the RSPCA showed Gammon, pictured leaving Bristol Magistrates' Court, the horrific photographs of her dog's body she told the inspector: 'I don't know what you want me to say' The animal welfare charity, which prosecuted Gammon, described the case as one of the worst it has ever dealt with. Gammon, who was a trainee solicitor with the Bristol legal firm Lyons Davidson, is facing jail after she admitted two animal cruelty charges today at Bristol Magistrates' Court. A Lyons Davidson spokesman said she no longer works for the firm. Shock: The RSCPA released photos of the dog's body to show the gravity of Gammon's crimes . Magistrates heard Gammon . had started staying with her mother's home nearby and initially began . returning to feed Roxy. When she dislocated her knee, she was unable to get to the house and claimed her ex-boyfriend was feeding the animal. But that was a lie, the court heard. Gammon did not check on the dog for a week and had tied a rope to the handle of the kitchen door, fixing the other end to a hook in her hallway so it could not be opened. Left without food and water Roxy clawed frantically at the . door, leaving fragments on the floor, as she tried in vain to escape. A vet said Roxy would have taken up to . six days to die in horrific conditions and in severe pain, first becoming blind and falling . into a coma before finally passing away. Finally, on November 3 last year, a neighbour alerted police after seeing swarms of flies through the kitchen window. Police arrived and were greeted by a strong smell of decomposition and the kitchen still closed with the rope. They called the RSPCA and the remains of Roxy were removed for a post mortem. Horrified RSPCA inspector Chris James had to remove the dog's body with a shovel. He said a . stream of maggots had crawled from the kitchen down the hallway - to . where there were tins of dog food on a table. Offender: Gammon, who the court heard was sorry for her actions, pleaded guilty before Bristol magistrates . Gammon . was interviewed and admitted leaving Roxy for a week before going back . to check on her, when she found a stench coming from her home. She . told RSPCA Inspector Miranda Albinson she had looked through the . letterbox and been greeted by a smell so awful she couldn't bear to go . into the house. Gammon said: 'I assumed she was dead - I never went back.' Insp . Albinson asked her: 'You deliberately locked her in the kitchen and . left her for a week to die, that correct?' 'Psychiatric issues': A report is being prepared on Gammon before she is sentenced . Gammon replied: 'Yes, . basically.' When shown photographs of the scene Gammon added: 'I don't know what you want me to say.' Gammon pleaded guilty to one count of causing unnecessary suffering to an animal, and another of failing to prevent causing unnecessary suffering to an animal. The two offences each carry a maximum sentence of six months in prison and possible fines of £20,000. Joanna Lyons, defending, said Gammon now had 'genuine remorse' for the suffering she had caused and was 'absolutely mortified'. She said Gammon appeared to have 'some psychiatric issues' and asked for sentencing to be adjourned for the preparing of a report. Gammon was freed on unconditional bail to be sentenced at the same court on April 9. Chairman of the Bench Patricia Lee told her: 'This is a very serious offence - so serious that there's no way we can sentence today. 'We need a full report about you and your circumstances and everything about you.' Gammon, who had hobbled into court on crutches wearing a grey trouser suit and white shirt, did not comment outside court. Insp Albinson said after the case: 'This is one of the worst cases we have ever come across. 'The police who attended the scene were genuinely upset by it and they investigate murders. 'She showed no remorse whatsoever in interview. It is difficult to understand.' Today a spokesman for Lyons Davidson law firm yesterday said Gammon no longer worked for the company but would not say when she left. Her entry on the company's website yesterday described her as a paralegal with a law degree and said she had completed a legal practice course. It added: 'She runs a wide-ranging caseload investigating claims concerning failed surgery, delays in diagnosis. dental claims and infection cases.'
|
Katy Gammon, 27, tied Roxy up and left home for a week .
She returned to a stench so strong she could not face going inside .
Five-year-old boxer was eventually found maggot-infested 10 weeks later .
Traumatised RSPCA inspector had to scrape her off the floor with a shovel .
Gammon, from Bristol, faces jail in one of the worst cases ever recorded .
|
146f9f37839ea2921004c54a67cba457517aebfc
|
Human traffickers are forcing illegal immigrant children to cut off the ears and fingers of other kids traveling into the U.S. in order to extort money from their families, a Texas senator claimed on Monday. Lashing out at President Barack Obama for a 2012 policy shift that he said encourages Central American parents to send their children northward, Sen. Ted Cruz said the children are being placed in 'unspeakable' peril when the traffickers,known as 'coyotes,' take over. 'We just heard stories . of little boys and little girls, forced by these drug dealers to cut . off the fingers or cut off the ears of other little boys and little . girls, in order to extort money from their families,' Cruz said after he toured the temporary holding facility for 'unaccompanied alien children' at Lackland Air Force Base along with Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and Rep. Michael Burgess. 'And these children . are told, "If you don't cut off the fingers or ears of another child, . you'll be shot".' Cruz was relating accounts he heard from officials at the Lackland facility in San Antonio, according to a spokesperson in his office. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO . Sen. Ted Cruz, right, with Attorney General and Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott, talked to reporters on Monday outside a temporary shelter for unaccompanied illegal immigrant children at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas . Heartbreak: More than 1,000 children -- a tiny fraction of the national total this year -- wait at Lackland AFB while health care professionals and caseworkers figure out how to reunite them with family members -- who may not be in the U.S. legally themselves . The coyotes, Cruz said, 'are not well-meaning . social workers trying to care for these kids. These are hardened, cold . criminals. These are transnational, global criminal cartels. And they . are vicious, violent murderers.' 'These children are being subjected to . physical abuse, to sexual abuse. Some of them are losing their lives.' 'When the President of the United States . prevents the Border Patrol from following the law and enforcing our . immigration laws,' Cruz declared, 'when the President of the United States announces to . the world, "Amnesty for those who have broken the law," the consequence is . that people respond to that.' 'And the way they've responded to that is . handing over their children to drug dealers and vicious cartels.' Abbott, who is running to succeed Republican Rick Perry as governor of Texas, confirmed the accounts they heard and agreed that the White House deserves the blame. 'We are dealing with a human-made crisis. The . challenges these children are going through are unprecedented,' he said, 'and it . is unacceptable to have children housed in facilities like this.' 'Equally . unacceptable, though, is to have a president promoting policies that . entice children to navigate more than 1,000 miles away from home, going . through the most treacherous conditions, facing things like human . trafficking and sexual assault.' 'We were told of remarkable stories, . stories about children having their ears cut off, of having fingers cut . off in the pathway, on the way here. A story about a quadriplegic child . who was left on the banks of the Rio Grande River on the United States . side, showing the way that these cartels and gangs and smugglers . operate.' Both men pegged Obama's 2012 policy shift – his Rose garden announcement of a 'deferred action' program to stop the deportation of people brought into the country as minors before June 2007 – sa the starting gun for the flood of children across America's southern border. 'We are witnessing a humanitarian crisis unfolding that is a direct consequence of President Obama's lawlessness,' Cruz said. 'Obama . lawlessly granted amnesty to some 800,000 people here illegally who . entered as children. And the direct consequence of that lawlessness, of . that amnesty, is that we have seen the number of children taking the . incredible risks that are entailed with coming across the border grow . exponentially.' 'It has gone from 6,000 in 2011,' he said, 'to this year – it is . expected to be 90,000 .... next year the estimates are 145,000.' Unspeakable horror: The lawmakers heard about sexual and physical assaults, including some cases where children were threatened with death if they refused to cut of other kids' body parts to use as extortion bait with their parents . Abbott has ordered Texas law enforcement officers to plug the holes that he says Obama has left in U.S. border security as Border Patrol agents are transformed into glorified day care workers. And he's demanding that the Department of Homeland Security cough up the funds needed to pay them. 'While we have border control agents who . are spending time taking care of the health care needs of these . children, border control agents who are literally changing diapers and . making baby formula,' Abbott told reporters, 'at that time we have the cartels who are engaging . in their international trafficking operations, cartels who are importing . crime into the United States, importing into the United States some of . the most dangerous gang members around the globe.' Drug cartels taking advantage of the diversion of federal law enforcement personnel, he claimed, 'may be making well over $100 million because of this operation.' 'The state of Texas is going to put the boots on the ground,' Abbot said, 'but we expect the federal government to foot the bill.' 'We are demanding that the federal government pay for the operations by the Texas Department of Public Safety to keep this state safe.' Cruz shot back against the administration's claim that regional violence, and not the president's policies, are to blame for the avalanche of young people pouring into Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. 'That is an explanation that makes no sense,' Cruz said. More help coming: Texas has put its own public safety personnel on the border, working alongside U.S. Border Patrol agents and guided by National Guard troops in Lakota helicopters, in order to find illegal immigrants crossing into the US . 'Violence in Central America explains the increase in immigrants from those countries, but there's no reason why violence in Central America would cause more parents to send their kids alone.' 'You would expect to see more families coming to flee violence,' he said. 'We've always seen that: Whenever a region of the world is suffering under significant violence, we've always seen an increase in immigration from those areas. But the shift here is dramatic. The shift here in particular focuses on unaccompanied minors. And the reason it does is not difficult to ascertain.' Parents in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, he insisted, 'have been led to believe that all their child has to do is get to America and they will receive amnesty.' 'And as long as they believe that, we will see thousands upon thousands more little boys and little girls physically violated, sexually violated, subjected to unspeakable horrors.' In 2013 the U.S. Border Patrol recorded 2,346 rescues, 461 assaults, and 445 deaths along the border, mostly crimes in which illegal immigrants were the victims.
|
Sen. Ted Cruz and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott toured Lackland Air Force Base, where more than 1,000 children are being held after crossing the border illegally .
Drug dealers force children 'to cut off the fingers or cut off the ears of other little boys and little girls, in order to extort money from their families'
'And these children are told, "If you don't cut off the fingers or ears of another child, you'll be shot"'
Cruz and Abbott blame Obama for suggesting to Central American parents that their children can receive amnesty if they make it to the United States .
Obama announced a policy in 2012 that 'deferred' the deportation of 800,000 people brought into the US illegally as children through June 2007 .
Cruz said Obama, not Central American violence, is at the root of a flood of children streaming into border states .
'You would expect to see more families coming to flee violence,' he said, but 'the shift here in particular focuses on unaccompanied minors'
|
14708c86a58c65eed28a61b1055352c533f60ad4
|
By . Harriet Hernando for MailOnline . A dive-bombing blackbird has made life a misery for visitors to one of America's most popular parks by launching ferocious airborne attacks. The bird has been spotted swooping down on families - including children - and pecking them on the head near Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, US. Mila Zinkoea captured the vicious attack on camera when she was pecked on the bonce by the winged menace in a scene straight out of Alfred Hitchcock's horror movie The Birds. After moving to a safe spot, she started filming and singled out one bird in particular who was the main aggressor. She said: 'It was circling its nest. There were dozens of nests around, but only this one bird kept attacking people.' The angry bird can be seen dive-bombing people as they walk beside a hedge where its chicks sit in a nest. The blackbird swoops on a woman as she goes for a stroll in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco . A little boy protects his head after being pecked on the head by a fearless blackbird in San Francisco . It does not discriminate between blondes or brunettes or the young and the old, attacking anyone who comes within its vicinity. And incredibly, Ms Zinkoea said she saw tourists who were antagonising the bird. She said: 'I observed one Chinese couple who were violently shaking the bush with the nest on it in order to make the bird to attack them in order to take a picture.' The news comes after a spate of crow attacks on blonde women jogging in Eltham Park in London.
|
Visitor Mila Zinkoea was pecked on the head by the fierce bird .
She started filming the birds and singled out one main aggressor .
Blackbird dive-bombed and pecked anyone in vicinity - including children .
|
1470e8c94e3cd67d80d98d5e6331f532d94e64f3
|
The Russian space agency Roscosmos is planning to travel to the moon - and stay there. 'We're not talking about repeating what mankind achieved 40 years ago,' said Vladimir Popovkin, head of Russian space agency Roscosmos. 'We're talking about establishing permanent bases.' Russian Soyuz TMA-17 rocket: The Russian space agency announced new plans to build 'permanent' bases on the moon . Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, lunar module pilot, walks on the surface of the Moon - but in the 'new' space race, Russia could be the leaders . Space race reborn: The Vostok 3KA-2 space capsule, flown with the cosmonaut-mannequin Ivan Ivanovich on March 25, 1961, as the final test mission prior to Yuri Gagarin's first manned space flight . Roscosmos has already said that it aims to put a man on the moon by 2030. The mission was revealed at the Global Space Exploration Conference - an international space conference at which neither America or China was present. The Japanese space agency Jaxa also revealed that it was planning manned moon missions. We are looking at the Moon as our next target for human exploration,” said Yuichi Yamaura, an associate executive director at JAXA. An official statement from the conference said, 'The International Space Station has helped us learn a lot more about humans in space but we still have more to learn. Will private space entities eventually turn to a settlement and colonisation model going forward, and will this open up space settlement and colonisations in ways that were not thought of in previous decades?' 'We have produced and flown more hardware over the last 30 years than we will need for Mars, although the necessary technologies aren’t necessarily the same. The key to success is austere programs that are properly led and focused.' Roscosmos has had a rocky history so far, often announcing ambitious plans but not always succeeding at execution. In January, a faulty launch saw the country's Mars probe, the Fobos Grunt, crash down to Earth following an unstable two-month orbit. Major Yuri Gagarin in his space suit. It was the Soviet Union's own giant leap for mankind _ one that would spur a humiliated America to race for the moon . Just last week, reports escaped from the agency that the head, Vladimir Popovkin, has been suffered head injuries following a fight in the office. Russia and the U.S. fought neck-and-neck in the 60s, but Russia threw in the towel when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin reached the stars. They closed down their moon programmes, but re-entered space in the spirit of international co-operation, and currently provides launches to and from the International Space Station. But prime minister Vladimir Putin said last year that 'Russia should not limit itself to the role of an international space ferryman'.
|
Russia has said it aims to put man on moon by 2030 .
'Permanent bases', rather than simply repeating previous missions .
|
1471e20f532dd53c6eb089bb6bc1d6059ae72911
|
Andy Gray is on BT Sport’s shortlist to be co-commentator when their Champions League coverage starts next season. Gray, who is working for beIN Sport, based in Doha, made two guest appearances in that role during BT’s FA Cup broadcasts last season and would jump at the chance to return to mainstream English TV on a regular basis. BT, who need to augment their football talent before taking up exclusive live UK rights for the Champions League, are expected to finalise their plans in January. Andy Gray (left) works for beIN Sport but may return to Champions League football with BT Sport next season . Michael Owen missed Newcastle v Liverpool on Sunday to travel to America instead . Owen (left) went to watch his horse Brown Panther run in America instead of working for BT Sport . Gray is widely acknowledged as football’s best co-commentator. But after the storm over sexist comments about female assistant referee Sian Massey that led to his departure from Sky Sports in 2011, Gray’s appointment would have to be approved by BT Sport’s new chief Delia Bushell. A women’s campaign group criticised BT for using Gray in the FA Cup. However, it might be more than coincidental that news of a BT move for Gray has emerged after Michael Owen chose to watch his horse Brown Panther run in the Breeders’ Cup meeting in the States rather than work on BT Sport’s Newcastle v Liverpool match last Saturday. BT are understood to have been disappointed by Owen’s decision to put his racing interests before his football commitments and have made that very clear to him. So much so that if Owen misses another game in similar circumstances, there could be a parting of the ways.
|
Gray on shortlist to be co-commentator for BT Sport's Champions League coverage next season .
Gray works for beIN Sport but has done FA Cup games for BT before .
Gray was sacked by Sky for sexist comments he made about Sian Massey .
Owen has been warned by BT after he watched his horse Brown Panther in the United States rather than work on Newcastle v Liverpool last Saturday .
|
1471ff8c470d6a51fd71c589251042070436b02e
|
Adrian Peterson, 29, turned himself in on Saturday after police issued an arrest warrant . Adrian Peterson has spoken out for the first time since his arrest for severely whipping his 4-year-old son with a wooden switch - apologizing, but also defending his actions. The statement come as the Minnesota Vikings reinstated him today today after he missed just one game following child abuse charges this weekend. 'I am not a perfect parent, but I am, without a doubt, not a child abuser. I am someone that disciplined his child and did not intend to cause him any injury,' Peterson said. 'No one can understand the hurt that I feel for my son and for the harm I caused him. My goal is always to teach my son right from wrong and that’s what I tried to do that day.' Peterson, the Vikings' highest-paid player and biggest star, was booted from the team's roster for Sunday's 30-7 loss against the New England Patriots. However, he is back on the practice field today and will play next week against the New Orleans Saints. 'To be clear, we take very seriously any matter that involves the welfare of a child,' Vikings owners Zygi and Mark Wilf said in a statement. 'At this time, however, we believe this is a matter of due process and we should allow the legal system to proceed so we can come to the most effective conclusions and then determine the appropriate course of action.' Peterson turned himself into police in his hometown of Spring, Texas, on Saturday after detectives issued an arrest warrant for the May beating. The boy had wounds on his thighs, backside and even his genitals following the beating. Peterson has admitted to whipping his son, but his attorney said he was only using the discipline he himself had received as a child growing up in East Texas. In his statement, he defended the motivation behind the severe discipline he meted out, saying: 'Deep in my heart I have always believed I could have been one of those kids that was lost in the streets without the discipline instilled in me by my parents and other relatives. Brutal: Police released these images of the wounds Peterson allegedly left on his son's body after beating the four-year-old with a switch . Back on the field: Peterson, the Minnesota Vikings' biggest star, was reinstated by the team after being kicked off the roster on Saturday. He will play next week against the New Orleans Saints . 'I have always believed that the way my parents disciplined me has a great deal to do with the success I have enjoyed as a man.' However, Peterson said he has seen a psychologist, who told him that there are usually better ways to discipline children than hitting them. He said he has had to 'reevaluate how I discipline my son going forward.' The Vikings owners, the Wilf brothers, said they decided to bring Peterson back on the team after 'significant thought, discussion and consideration. 'As evidenced by our decision to deactivate Adrian from yesterday’s game, this is clearly a very important issue. On Friday, we felt it was in the best interests of the organization to step back, evaluate the situation, and not rush to judgment given the seriousness of this matter. 'My attorney has asked me not to discuss the facts of my pending case. I hope you can respect that request and help me honor it. I very much want the public to hear from me but I understand that it is not appropriate to talk about the facts in detail at this time. Nevertheless, I want everyone to understand how sorry I feel about the hurt I have brought to my child. 'I never wanted to be a distraction to the Vikings organization, the Minnesota community or to my teammates. I never imagined being in a position where the world is judging my parenting skills or calling me a child abuser because of the discipline I administered to my son. 'I voluntarily appeared before the grand jury several weeks ago to answer any and all questions they had. Before my grand jury appearance, I was interviewed by two different police agencies without an attorney. In each of these interviews I have said the same thing, and that is that I never ever intended to harm my son. I will say the same thing once I have my day in court. 'I have to live with the fact that when I disciplined my son the way I was disciplined as a child, I caused an injury that I never intended or thought would happen. I know that many people disagree with the way I disciplined my child. I also understand after meeting with a psychologist that there are other alternative ways of disciplining a child that may be more appropriate. 'I have learned a lot and have had to reevaluate how I discipline my son going forward. But deep in my heart I have always believed I could have been one of those kids that was lost in the streets without the discipline instilled in me by my parents and other relatives. I have always believed that the way my parents disciplined me has a great deal to do with the success I have enjoyed as a man. I love my son and I will continue to become a better parent and learn from any mistakes I ever make. 'I am not a perfect son. I am not a perfect husband. I am not a perfect parent, but I am, without a doubt, not a child abuser. I am someone that disciplined his child and did not intend to cause him any injury. No one can understand the hurt that I feel for my son and for the harm I caused him. My goal is always to teach my son right from wrong and that’s what I tried to do that day. 'I accept the fact that people feel very strongly about this issue and what they think about my conduct. Regardless of what others think, however, I love my son very much and I will continue to try to become a better father and person.' 'At that time, we made the decision that we felt was best for the Vikings and all parties involved.' Peterson's importance to the Vikings is hard to overstate. He is a former MVP who hold several NFL records for rushing. His six-year, $86million contract makes him by far the highest-paid player on the team. His 1,266 rushing yards last season accounted for nearly a quarter of the entire team's offense. He scored ten of the team's 45 touchdowns. Hours after the arrest, the Vikings decided not to play Peterson against the Patriots, moving swiftly after a week in which the NFL came under heavy scrutiny for its handling of a domestic violence case involving former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice. But unlike a previous case involving former cornerback Chris Cook, the Vikings have decided to allow Peterson to return to the field while the legal process unfolds. In 2011, the Vikings suspended cornerback Chris Cook with pay after he was arrested for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend and barred him from all team activities while his trial played out. Cook wound up missing 10 games and was eventually acquitted. He never faced discipline from the NFL and played two more seasons with the Vikings before signing with the 49ers. The NFL is looking into Peterson's case, and if convicted he could face a minimum six-game suspension under the league's new tougher domestic abuse policy that was implemented after Commissioner Roger Goodell admitted he botched Rice's initial punishment. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.
|
Adrian Peterson was arrested on Saturday for injuring his son .
Boy had injuries all over his body - including on his private parts .
The Vikings booted him from their roster in Sunday's 30-7 loss against the New England Patriots .
He will resume practice with the team today and will play next Sunday .
Peterson is the highest-paid player and the biggest star on the Vikings .
NFL star says he has talked to a psychologist .
|
147457933bef37ad6bf6fc14eac05e8462e42d64
|
Diego Maradona’s lovelife appears to have taken a turn for the better as he was filmed serenading his girlfriend in Dubai. The legendary footballer sang an impromptu love song to his on-off partner Rocio Oliva, 24, during a product launch. This comes just two weeks after a video emerged appearing to show the 54-year-old physically assaulting Ms Oliva. Scroll down for video . Bizarre: Diego Maradona interrupted a product launch to serenade his 24-year-old on-again girlfriend . Maradona decided to pull the bizarre stunt while on stage in the UAE to promote a sports drink, claiming afterwards it was ‘part of the show’. Maradona, whose infamous Hand of God goal helped Argentina knocked England out of the 1986 World Cup, then looks lovingly at Ms Oliva, whom he has been dating on and off since the beginning of last year. The serenade follows the disturbing 30-second video which allegedly shows Maradona hitting the 24-year-old after becoming upset over her using her mobile phone. Ms Oliva secretly filmed the 53-year-old walking towards her spluttering: 'You still looking at your phone.' She retorted: 'Can't I look at it?' before begging him: 'Stop Diego, calm down, stop hitting.' as he allegedly tried to strike her twice with his right hand. Forgive and forget: The 54-year-old seemed to have patched things up with his young love following the release of a video where Ms Oliva secretly filmed what appeared to be Maradona assaulting her . It's back on: Maradona decided to pull the bizarre stunt while on stage in the UAE to promote a sports drink, claiming afterwards it was ‘part of the show’ The serenade follows the disturbing 30-second video which allegedly shows Maradona hitting the 24-year-old after becoming upset over her using her mobile phone . The video was broadcast on a lunchtime TV programme in Argentina, after which the Hand of God insisted he had only knocked the phone out of her hands. He told a journalist: 'I sent the phone flying but I swear I've never hit a woman. The story starts and finishes there. 'I admit I knocked the phone out of Rocio's hands but there's nothing more to it. The situation didn't continue.' Maradona and Ms Oliva have broken up and reunited several times during the course of their relationship, and the couple were even engaged for a short time before breaking it off. In May last year Maradona allegedly had a row with her on an airplane that got so heated that fellow business class travellers and air stewardesses allegedly had to step in to try to get him to calm down. In July this year, Ms Oliva was arrested in Brazil after Maradona accused her of stealing watches and jewellery worth nearly £250,000 from his mansion in Dubai.
|
Diego Maradona serenaded his on-off girlfriend Rocio Oliva in Dubai .
Ex-footballer interrupted product launch to sing to the 24-year-old .
Two weeks ago, Ms Oliva secretly filmed Maradona allegedly hitting her .
He later told a reporter he had only knocked the phone out of her hands .
|
1475692bc6915084ff54c079082492957eb9dfa9
|
By . Luke Salkeld . A group of travellers have won the right to stay on land under a motorway flyover - with new toilets installed at taxpayers’ expense. Council officials had tried to evict the travellers, but were beaten by a court injunction. The O’Brien family pitched up on the site near the M5 six weeks ago after they were apparently turfed off a nearby council-run site when their tenancy ended. Legal victory: A group of travellers has won the right to stay on land under a flyover on the M5, with portable toilets installed at taxpayers' expense . Bristol City Council applied for an eviction order but the travellers - who say they have nowhere to go - had already got an injunction blocking the order. Last week the council’s High Court bid to get the injunction removed was dismissed. Now bosses have been forced to install portaloos at the site in Shirehampton, Bristol, after locals threatened to collect excrement in the area and take it to local politicians’ homes. The call for loos at the site under the M5 motorway came from Steve Norman, an independent council candidate from nearby Avonmouth. His request, prompted by residents’ complaints about human waste, was initially refused by Nick Hooper, the council director responsible for gypsies and travellers. Mr Hooper wrote in an email: ‘It is vital that we do not create any impression that the Council is sanctioning the use of this land for travellers by installing facilities.’ But in a fiery reply, Mr Norman said: ‘I feel sure I could muster up enough fellow constituents to clean-up and bag the excrement free of charge and deliver it to yours and [Bristol] Mayor Ferguson’s abodes. ‘Clearly it is your intentions to take us back to the dark ages in Shirehampton/Avonmouth because deciding to act otherwise will give the wrong “impression”.’ After the council lost its court application last Thursday, Mr Hooper relented and said the council would provide temporary toilet facilities. The council relented and installed the loo after locals threatened to collect excrement in the area and take it to local politicians' homes . A spokesman for Bristol City Council said: ‘We have obtained a possession order which we are not able to pursue because of an injunction obtained to prevent the order being enforced. ‘We are unable to comment further as the matter is currently before the court for resolution.’ The authority will return to the high court in six weeks’ time in a big to once again get the family’s injunction removed. The O’Brien family said they had offered all along to pay for the toilet, but the council had refused - and then insisted they have it for free. They said they are currently on the waiting list for a place at the council’s permanent caravan site in nearby Ashton. Parminder Sanghera, a legal representative for the O’Briens, said: ‘The O’Brien family do not want to discuss their ongoing case. ‘I am not authorised to discuss any aspect of the case.’
|
Portaloos installed after council's bid to remove them was beaten by an injunction .
Council installed toilets after residents threatened to take excrement to councillors' homes .
|
1475966aae9645aeb6c4bec08e84e60096867275
|
A man arrested in Florida has been charged with a 2012 murder that happened in New York. Boyd Holland, 22, of Copaigue, New York, was picked up in Orlando, Florida, Tuesday and charged with second-degree murder in the death of Eric Brooks. A giant tattoo across Holland's neck that says Savage no doubt helped authorities identify him. Captured: Authorities arrested Boyd Holland (above) in Orland, Florida and charged him with murder in the 2012 death of Eric Brooks in Wyandanch, New York . Murder: Brooks was pronounced dead on May 12, 2012 from a gunshot wound at Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center (above) Brooks was 35-years-old when he died on May 12, 2012, from a gunshot wound. CBS New York reports that Suffolk County police were called out around 11:35 p.m. on that night after a caller reported a man had been shot in the torso, finding Brooks lying in the rear of a yard in Wyandanch, New York. He was pronounced dead at Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip. Interesting ink: Above is a closer look at Holland's Savage tattoo across his neck . Police said that the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force helped apprehend and transport Holland back to New York today, where he will be arraigned tomorrow. Authorities have not yet revealed how they connected Holland to Brooks' death.
|
Boyd Holland of Copiague, New York was arrested in Florida today and charged with a 2012 murder in New York .
Holland, 22, is accused of killing Eric Brooks on May 12, 2012 .
The suspect has a giant tattoo across his neck that says Savage .
|
1477bad5a211a302b61e4a5c902293d945ed1f4e
|
By . Emma Innes . PUBLISHED: . 11:30 EST, 11 April 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 05:23 EST, 12 April 2013 . A 60,000 tonne stone structure has been discovered at the bottom of the Sea of Galilee in Israel. The giant cone-shaped cairn, which is made of basalt cobbles and boulders up to one metre long, has left archaeologists baffled as to its purpose and age. Heavier than most modern-day warships, the structure is nearly ten meters high and 70 metres wide. The structure, which is more than 200 meters below the surface of the water, is made from rocks stacked on top of each other . A 60,000 tonne stone structure has been discovered at the bottom of the Sea of Galilee in Israel . The Sea of Galilee is the largest freshwater lake in Israel - it is approximately 13 miles long and eight miles wide. It has a total area of 64 square miles and a depth of 141 feet at its deepest point. It is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth and it is fed partly by underground springs and partly by the Jordan River. It was first discovered in 2003 by researchers carrying out a sonar survey of the sea, but divers have now been down to investigate further and have published their findings in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. They believe that the structure, which is more than 20 meters below the surface of the water, is made from rocks stacked on top of each other which could indicate that it was design to mark a grave. It is thought that it was made on land and then submerged as sea levels rose. However, there is also a theory that it could have been created below the water as a fish nursery -similar smaller structures have been discovered in the past which were built for that purpose. The researchers will now carry out underwater archaeological excavations in an attempt to find associated artefacts that could tell them more about it. Researcher Dr Yitzhak Paz, of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Ben-Gurion University, told LiveScience that it could date back more than 4,000 years making it an Early Bronze Age artefact. The giant cone-shaped cairn, which is made of basalt cobbles and boulders up to one meter long, has left archaeologists baffled as to its purpose and age (the map shows where it was found) He said: ‘The most logical possibility is that it belongs to the third millennium B.C., because there are other megalithic phenomena [from that time] that are found close by.’ If it does prove to be from this era, then it could be connected to the city Bet Yerah which was one of the biggest sites in the area at the time. Jesus and the miraculous catch of fish, in the Sea of Galilee, by Raphael . Many . of Jesus's sermons were preached on the shores of the lake at a time . when there was a string of villages around the water's edge. In the time of the Byzantine Empire the lake's significance in Jesus's life made it a major destination for Christian pilgrims. Its importance declined when the Byzantines lost control and the area came under the control of the Umayyad Caliphate. At this time all of the major cities in the area, other than Tiberias, were abandoned. In . 1187, Saladin defeated the armies of the Crusades at the Battle of . Hattin, largely because he was able to cut the Crusaders off from the . valuable fresh water of the Sea of Galilee . Dr Paz told LiveScience: ‘It's the most powerful and fortified town in this region and, as a matter of fact, in the whole of Israel.’ While details about the structure remain sketchy, the researchers are confident that it was created by a well-organised society and that it’s building was a community effort. Sonar signatures revealed the scale of the find . Heavier than most modern-day warships, the structure is nearly ten meters high and 70 meters wide .
|
4,000-year-old cairn found at the bottom of the Sea of Galilee - where Jesus gave his sermons .
Structure is ten meters high, 70 meters wide and 200 metres under water .
|
1478f55ce327e297b5e839a79b8c7f596383b8ec
|
By . Lucy Waterlow . PUBLISHED: . 06:00 EST, 25 November 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 07:37 EST, 25 November 2013 . A teenager who considered killing herself because online bullies made her life hell has shared her story in the hope it will help other victims. Amy Louise Paul, from Peterborough, features in a new video for counselling service Childline who helped her through her ordeal. She said: 'When I was 13 I had a disagreement with one of my friends at school and I thought it was all sorted. Then one of my other friends said "she's made a Facebook group about you for all the people who wish I was dead already."' Amy Louise aged 13 with her mother, Lisa: They have both praised Childline for their support after she was a victim of online bullies . She added: 'The website was shared and sent out to people to join the group and as far as I'm aware many people did.' People joined the Facebook group and left cruel comments about the teenager. Amy Louise said the impact of the bullying affected her happiness and wellbeing. 'Before the cyber-bullying started I was happy but afterwards I didn't want to talk to anyone or be around anyone and I even cut myself off from my family, she said. Online abuse: The teenager felt suicidal after a hate group was set up to taunt her on Facebook . 'I . used to love school and was always excited to be going in to learn new . things but I started to dread going. And I couldn't just leave it at . school because it followed me home. I'd go on the computer and I'd be . worried that someone would say something about it while I was online. It invaded everywhere.' She said it became so upsetting, it made her question her will to live and she even contemplated suicide. She . recalls: 'I was very upset, words can't describe how upset I was. I . thought everything had been taken away from me and I didn't know what to . do. 'It made me so I . didn't want to wake up in the morning. I didn't want to go to school or . see anybody and it made wanting to carry on living very difficult. At . one point I did want to take my own life.' When . Amy Louise's mother, Lisa, 45, a shop manager, found out about the hate . group set up to target her daughter she was furious but felt helpless . about what could be done. Moved on: The student is smiling again now the Facebook group has been taken down and she got the help she needed to overcome her ordeal . In a previous interview with the Daily Mail said said: 'The first I heard about the hate group was when I collected Amy Louise . after school; she was crying uncontrollably and told me what happened. 'I was absolutely furious that the school knew and had . not called to tell me what was happening. Then I discovered they had not . punished the girl responsible. I had frequent meetings with . them but they weren't interested, they didn't take it seriously and I . think the problem is some governors don't even understand what a . computer is, let alone cyber-bullying.' She added: 'The police came 24 hours after I reported what was happening but then never got back to us. 'People sweep it under the carpet but they are playing with children's lives. My daughter was in such a terrible state.' The bully was made to take the Facebook group down by their headteacher but Amy Louise continued to feel the impact on her confidence and because 'people were still talking about it'. It was Childline who eventually helped her after she reached out to them via their website. Lisa said: 'The only people who've been really useful are ChildLine - they have been brilliant and gave us lots of good advice.' No escape: Age 13, left, Amy Louise felt she had no way to get away from the online bullies but now she's happier, right, age 17 and urging other victims to seek help . Some adults who grew up in a world where there were no mobile phones or social network websites may struggle to comprehend the scale and impact of cyber-bullying. But NSPCC statistics reveal that 38 per cent of young people have been affected by it. A third have received abusive emails and 24 per cent have received abusive text messages. It can lead to depression and anxiety, and in some tragic cases, teenagers have taken their own lives because they have felt unable to cope. The NSPCC offer advice on their website to children and parents on how to deal with cyberbullying including tips on online safely and privacy settings. Amy Louise urges anyone suffering from cyber-bullying to seek help, either by confiding in their parents or teachers or in Childline like she did. 'Quite simply if I hadn't spoken to Childline I doubt I would still be here today,' she admits. Now Amy-Louise has finally been able to move on from her ordeal and has even drawn some positives from it. She said: 'It was a horrible experience but from it I . learnt that I can be strong and not let people get to me. The . experience made me strive to push myself and I'm off to college now to . study law, politics and English. I also joined the Air Cadets and play . in their band at an international level.'
|
Amy Louise Paul was victim of online bullying .
Bullies joined hate group to taunt her on Facebook .
It made her so upset she considered suicide .
Found help thanks to Childline .
|
147910cda0c95a0b16ab29739d253ec41dd672e5
|
By . Mailonline Reporter . She faces months of treatment 12,000 miles from home - but that hasn't stopped little Madison Merrick from smiling. The four-year-old was born with her bowel outside her body and has travelled from New Zealand to Britain with her mother Alana for the treatment she so desperately needs. She has already been there more than a year and her mother has vowed that they will stay in the city of Birmingham for as long as it takes to find a bowel donor. Little fighter: Madison Merrick, with her mother Alana, is all smiles despite enduring months of treatment for a condition which impacts on every aspect of her life . Alana said: 'A new bowel would mean she could grow up to live normally - otherwise, we’re looking at a lifetime in and out of hospitals. 'It is difficult living away from home for so long and not knowing when we will be returning to New Zealand. 'I love the city and the people here have made us both so welcome. I couldn’t have asked to come to a better place while Madison waits for her treatment.' Madison and Alana, 22, flew to Britain from their home in Auckland in May last year because the surgery the youngster needs is not available in New Zealand. She is being treated at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, which has an international reputation for transplant work. Madison - who is known as Madiee - has spent the last 12 months undergoing a series of tests and has just been placed on the transplant waiting list. But she could have to wait a year or more for an organ to become available. And she will have to stay in Birmingham for at least six months after the procedure to ensure her body does not reject it. The $1million cost of Madison’s treatment is being met by New Zealand’s Ministry of Health, which is also funding her accommodation in Bennetts Hill, close to the hospital. The little girl was born with gastroschisis, in which her small and large intestine sat outside her abdominal wall. She also had a hole in her small bowel. Madison has already had a string of operations but she is unable to eat and has to be fed intravenously. This can cause liver damage over time and so a bowel transplant is her only hope in the long term. Sick from birth: Madison was born with her bowel outside her body and has to be fed intravenously because she is unable to eat . Alana said: 'Madison is such a happy little girl. She loves dancing, dressing up and playing with her dolls and toys. 'But this operation is essential for her to grow up and live a normal life. I have the support of a couple of relatives over here and I have met some wonderful people who have become great friends. 'But I will stay here for as long as is required. Nobody knows how long it will be before the right match comes up. It is a waiting game. 'A transplant would be something worth waiting all the time in the world for.' More... Baby delivered by emergency C-section after her pregnant mother was struck by lightning still has STATIC HAIR a year on . Alana is raising cash to help pay for living expenses as she is not eligible to work in Britain. Her friend Joanne Franks, who made contact after following a Facebook appeal for Madison, is leading the campaign. Joanne said: 'Madison is a lovely girl and it has been so difficult for them both to come to a new country on their own. 'I wanted to do all I could to help them settle in and raise money for Alana and Madison’s living expenses.' To donate to Madison’s cause go to www.madisonmerrick.org.nz . Determined: Her mother says that they will stay in Birmingham until she has a bowel transplant and can begin to live a more normal life .
|
Madison Merrick was born with the condition gastroschisis .
She has travelled from New Zealand to the UK for treatment .
Her mother says that they will stay in Birmingham until she has transplant .
$1million cost of treatment is being met by the New Zealand government .
|
1479ee4f4c25511c2a1f698e4b72ac7d1e8fe42f
|
(CNN)What a difference a year makes. American ski star Lindsey Vonn exorcised the ghosts of a grueling fight back from injury with victory on the slopes of Val d'Isere, Saturday. A year ago on the same snow, the 30-year-old aggravated a right knee injury, which ended her season and quashed her hopes of defending her downhill crown at the 2014 Winter Olympics. But Vonn -- who credits her golf star boyfriend Tiger Woods with inspiring her comeback -- underlined her return to form at the famous French ski resort with a dominant downhill World Cup win on the OK piste. "I already knew I could win here today," Vonn told reporters. "It was for other people to understand that I'm back to where I used to be. "It's a celebration for myself and for the team around me. After two tough years, I've waited a long time for this and I'm very happy. "It feels amazing. I was a bit nervous as I made some mistakes in training. I skied aggressively today." The victory in Val d'Isere was the 61st World Cup win of Vonn's career, which means she is just one win away from equaling the all-time record held by Annemarie Moser-Proell. Vonn, who had not won on the French piste in the last four years, has a chance to match the Austrian's feat in Sunday's super-G. She added: "61 is a difficult number and I'm looking forward to another chance tomorrow. "I'm very much looking forward to the rest of the season and having more opportunities to feel more comfortable with the speed and keep pushing myself." Vonn leads the downhill World Cup standings on 232 points ahead of joint Olympic downhill champion Tina Maze, who finished seventh. The American posted a photo on Instagram posing with her prize for her Val d'Isere victory -- a baby cow. "This is the best prize for winning a race EVER!! I have a new addition to my growing herd...meet "Winnie" my one month old baby calf," she said. Vonn is continuing her steady comeback from an anterior cruciate ligament injury which threatened to end her career in 2013. She crashed heavily at the 2013 world championships and has since had reconstructive surgery on her right knee.
|
Victorious ski star Lindsey Vonn says: "I'm back to where I used to be."
The American clocks a dominant win at the World Cup downhill in Val d'Isere .
Vonn injured her knee in the same event 12 months ago which end her Olympic defense .
A 61st World Cup win for Vonn means she is now one win away from equaling all-time record .
|
1479f05a603ff78dde3a117d75803a1fa93c1134
|
Michail Antonio’s late header salvaged a point for Forest and maintained their unbeaten start to the Championship campaign. Stuart Pearce’s men will be disappointed with a draw when a win would have taken them top but grateful for a point after trailing to Daryl Murphy’s double strike. Ipswich made their attacking intentions clear from the kick off, playing three men up front. And they got their reward when Murphy gave them the lead in the 19th minute with his fifth of the season. Daryl Murphy puts Ipswich Town ahead in the 19th minute against Nottingham Forest at the City Ground . Robert Tesche equalises for Nottingham Forest just after the hour mark with a back-post header . But less than 10 minutes after the equaliser Murphy grabs his second with a powerful header . The game looked won for Ipswich but a late Michail Antonio header gave Forest a share of the spoils . Nottingham Forest (4-4-2): Darlow; Hunt, Mancienne, Wilson (Lascelles 29), Lichaj (Harding 81); Burke (Paterson 75), Tesche, Lansbury, Antonio; Assombalonga, Fryatt . Subs not used: De Vries, Veldwijk, Grant, Osborn . Goals: Murphy (19, 71) Ipswich Town (4-1-4-1): Gerken ; Parr, Chambers, Berra, Mings; Williams (Bishop 61), Skuse, Hyam (Tabb 33); Murphy, McGoldrick (Smith 76), Sammon . Subs not used: Bialkowski, Bajner, Bru, Henshall . Goals: Tesche (63), Antonio (90) It was a superb solo effort from the 31-year-old who glided down the right flank and cut in past both Eric Lichaj and Kelvin Wilson before curling the ball into the corner of the net. The Irish midfielder had already served Forest notice of his threat heading an early effort straight at Karl Darlow before bursting into the box and onto Connor Sammon’s flick and blasting over the bar in 12th minute. Forest had their chances to take the lead prior to Town’s opener with Matty Fryatt the main danger. He missed out on a golden opportunity when teammate Britt Assombalonga took Chris Burke’s cross off his toes. A minute later the ball did drop for Fryatt three yards out but he struck the post. After quarter of an hour Ipswich left back Tyrone Mings made a vital tackle to stop Assombalonga in the visitors’ area and from the resulting corner Fryatt headed wide from close range. The free flowing football continued into the second half with both sides pushing forward in search of goals. Jonny Williams, making his first start for the Tractor Boys in his second loan spell their from Crystal Palace, looked impressive. His persistence was impressive in winning one corner and minutes later Henri Lansbury ended another of his runs with a clumsy tackle that earned him a booking. Antonio wheels away after scoring the dramatic equaliser and breaking Ipswich hearts . Karl Darlow leaps at full stretch but can't reach Murphy's shot, which finds the back of the net . Murphy celebrates scoring the opener in his side's Sky Bet Championship clash with Forest . Nottingham Forest's Michail Antonio is tackled by Town's Jonathan Parr at the City Ground . At the other end Dean Gerken made a fantastic reflex save low to his right to beat out Michail Antonio’s snap shot from Jack Hunt’s cross. But the Ipswich stopper was powerless to keep out then Forest equaliser soon afterwards. Lansbury floated a corner kick to the far post where German midfielder Robert Tesche rose unopposed to head powerfully home for his first Forest goal. Forest could have taken the lead when Chris Burke’s wicked shot curled just wide instead it was Murphy who struck again. Mings played a neat one-two with Tabb and whipped in an inviting ball that Murphy nodded home from close range. The home side could have struck straight back but Christophe Berra cleared Antonio’s effort off the line before a flying Gerken denied Assombalonga from the rebound. But Antonio was not to be denied and deep into stoppage time another Lansbury corner went to the far post and he powered home a header. Nottingham Forest manager Stuart Pearce and Ipswich's Mick McCarthy in conversation before the game . Nottingham Forest's Britt Assombalonga and Tyrone Mings battle for the ball during the first half . Matty Fryatt gets in the mix for Forest during their Championship clash . Luke Chambers and Assombalonga battle for the ball in the air at the City ground .
|
Ipswich drew 2-2 with Nottingham Forest at the City Ground .
Daryl Murphy opened the scoring for Ipswich in the Championship clash .
Robert Tesche equalised for Forest in the second half .
But Murphy scored his second less than ten minutes later .
Michail Antonio scored 90th minute equaliser .
|
147b2cafb848e58ef5ebfee498b99669db51fa7f
|
By . Emily Crane For Daily Mail Australia . Australia's Great Barrier Reef is at risk because authorities are failing to protect the marine park by approving the dumping of dredge spoil, a former government official says. Jon Day, who was a former director of Conservation Biodiversity and World Heritage at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, says the dumping of dredge spoil will put more pressure on a reef that is already in decline. The authority approved plans in January to dump three million cubic metres of dredge spoil at the Great Barrier Reef to expand Queensland's Abbot Point coal port. Scroll down for video . Australia's Great Barrier Reef is at risk because authorities are failing to protect the marine park by approving the dumping of dredge spoil from Abbot Point coal port, a former government official says . It's a decision that should not have been made, according to Mr Day, and is part of an ABC Four Corners investigation on Monday. Scientists and senior officials within the authority faced a tense year-long struggle against the proposal, with fears about the effect the spoil could have on the marine park. 'The big question is why was it allowed to be approved,' Four Corners reporter Marian Wilkinson told Daily Mail Australia. 'The official view from the Environment Minister (Greg Hunt) is that they've put tougher environmental conditions on so they believe it can be done safely. But there's a lot of questions among experts inside and outside the agency about it.' Jon Day, who was a former director of Conservation Biodiversity and World Heritage at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, told ABC reporter Marian Wilkinson the dumping of dredge spoil would put more pressure on a reef that is already in decline . Mr Day, who resigned from the authority last month, says alternatives to sea dumping for Abbot Point weren't properly considered. 'If we take that into account and if we did a proper evaluation of all the alternatives, that decision would not have been made,' he said. 'Our own legislative mandate says "the long-term protection and conservation of the values", and we're not doing that.' Wilkinson said the decision was criticised by UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, which will decide next year whether the reef should be declared 'in danger'. The authority approved plans in January to dump three million cubic metres of dredge spoil at the Great Barrier Reef to expand Queensland's Abbot Point coal port . Reporter Marian Wilkinson Wilkinson said the decision was criticised by UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, which will decide next year whether the reef should be declared 'in danger' 'The other options to look at were trying to find a place to dump on land and trying to do something to extend the port's trestles so that ships didn't have to come so close to the reef,' Wilkinson said. Mr Hunt, the federal environment minister who approved the dumping, told the program that Abbot Point was a 'line in the sand' and he has guaranteed that no further dumping will take place in the marine park under his watch. 'Of course, the argument from some of the scientists is why did we have to have this one in the first place?' Wilkinson said. The ABC's Four Corners is on Monday night at 8.30pm. Scientists and senior officials within the authority faced a tense year-long struggle against the proposal, with fears about the effect the spoil could have on the marine park .
|
A senior official at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority says dumping more dredge would put extra pressure on the reef .
The authority approved plans in January to dump 3 million cubic metres of dredge spoil at the reef to expand Queensland's Abbot Point coal port .
It's a decision that shouldn't have been made, according to scientists .
Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt has vowed to stop future dredge spoil at the marine park .
|
147bafcf67de9ecf7ea2c4729be8c61b6ba98952
|
Struggling: The publishers of Penthouse are filing for bankruptcy after amassing $300million worth of debt . The publisher of adult magazine Penthouse has filed for bankruptcy with $300million of debt. The magazine has seen a sharp drop in sales as a result of the rise of free adult content on the internet and is now looking for investors to cover their losses. California-based FriendFinder Networks, who own the publication, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Tuesday after losing $49.4 million last year, and $10.3 million in the past quarter. But the company said it has reached an agreement with key stakeholders to keep the magazine on the shelves and return control to its founders. However, founded by Bob Guccione, whose monthly circulation is now said to be 175,000 down from 5 million at its peak, may be snapped up by New Jersey-born entrepreneur Jeremy Frommer. Last year, Mr Frommer acquired a trove of memorabilia owned by the late Guccione that included nude photos of Madonna and a picture of former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger engaged in a sex act. He is now the CEO of the Guccione Collection. Today, Mr Frommer told MailOnline: 'I would like to see the Penthouse brand restored to its former glory and carry on the legacy of Bob Guccione.' However, he would not comment on ongoing discussions. Chief . executive Anthony Previte, said: 'The Chapter 11 filing is the most . efficient and cost-effective way for the company to implement the . transaction support agreement while continuing to operate our business.' 'All . operations will continue as normal throughout this process. Importantly, nothing about the user experience is going to change and we . anticipate that all of our affiliates will continue to be paid in the . ordinary course of business during the Chapter 11 process.' Penthouse was founded in 1965 as a rival to Hugh Hefner's Playboy. Bob Guccione began publishing the magazine in Britain in 1965 and four years later in the United States, . earning him a fortune of around $400 million by the 1980's. However, the rise in popularity of the internet badly affected sales and several bad business deals put publishers General Media in financial trouble. Drop in sales: The magazine has struggled to compete with the availability of free adult content on the internet. Its founder Bob Guccione (right) died in 2010 after the company was taken over by FriendFinder Networks . History: Founder of Penthouse Magazine, Bob Guccione, when the magazine started in 1965 . In 2003 the company declared itself . bankrupt after defaulting on its loans, but restarted the following year and . was renamed Penthouse Media Group. Mr Guccione left the company soon after the deal and died of cancer in 2010, aged 79. Besides . publishing Penthouse, FriendFinder Networks operates a number of . adult-oriented social networking sites including AdultFriendFinder.com, . Amigos.com, AsiaFriendFinder.com and SeniorFriendFinder.com. The group said holders of most of the . secured debt agreed to the plan, which will now need approval by a . bankruptcy court in Delaware. The . plan would convert some of the debt to new stock, and the . existing shares would be cancelled.
|
FriendFinder Networks Inc filed for Chapter 11 on Tuesday .
The company took ownership of the publication in 2003 .
It has struggled to compete with the rise in free content on the internet .
The magazine was founded in 1975 as a rival to Hugh Hefner's Playboy .
|
147c36271a94ef4c29945e06ed2b597ca216d071
|
Germany would rather see Britain leave the EU than allow David Cameron to tear up its rules on free movement of labour, Angela Merkel has said. The Chancellor warned the Prime Minister that he is reaching a ‘point of no return’ by pushing for reform of the bloc’s sacred free movement system. The threat has forced Mr Cameron to tone down his ambitions for any deal to curb EU immigration. Scroll down for videos . Germany would rather see Britain leave the EU than change rules on free movement of labour, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said . The pair clashed at a summit in Brussels last month, German magazine Der Spiegel said. Citing senior officials, it said Mrs Merkel told Mr Cameron he was nearing a ‘point of no return’ with plans to introduce quotas for the number of EU workers who can come to Britain. She threatened to abandon her efforts to keep Britain in the EU unless he backed down. One government insider was quoted on Radio Bavaria saying: ‘The time for talking is close to over. ‘Mrs Merkel feels she has done all she can to placate the UK, but will not accept immigration curbs from EU member states under any circumstances. It has come to a Mexican stand-off and it is now a question of who blinks first.’ Mrs Merkel was confident of winning the battle of wills, the insider added. It came amid reports that Mr Cameron is ditching his quota plan to appease Berlin. Ministers will focus on making the existing rules work better for Britain. A source said Mr Cameron’s plans – to be outlined before Christmas – would stretch EU rules ‘to their limits’. Nigel Farage said David Cameron could not win significant renegotiation from Brussels because the German Chancellor would block him . National Insurance numbers (NINOs) have been handed out to more than 420,000 people from the EU, up from 285,000 in the year before the coalition was formed . One proposal would ban EU migrants coming to Britain unless they had a job to go to. Anyone unable to support themselves would be deported after three months. It is thought the Prime Minister will seek Mrs Merkel’s approval before announcing any changes. Government sources did not dispute the Spiegel reports last night. They stressed that Mrs Merkel is still publicly voicing support for both the EU’s free movement rules and Britain’s membership of the EU. A Downing Street spokesman said: ‘The Prime Minister will do what is right for Britain, as he has repeatedly made clear.’ But critics said Mrs Merkel’s warning demonstrated the weakness of Mr Cameron’s position. Eurosceptic Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said: ‘It is looking increasingly unlikely that it will be possible to get a successful renegotiation. The chart shows the monstrous bill handed to the UK by the EU in comparison with other member states . 'I’m afraid it leaves me very suspicious about what the Prime Minister is trying to do. Signing up to the European Arrest Warrant raises questions about whether he even wants a successful renegotiation. ‘On immigration I think there is a question about whether he is making statements he can actually deliver.’ Ukip leader Nigel Farage said: ‘The only logical next step is to abandon the renegotiation and announce an immediate referendum.’ Former Tory minister Kenneth Clarke said Mr Cameron ‘knows perfectly well’ that free movement is essential to the EU. He told the BBC’s Sunday Politics: ‘All our companies, multinational companies, will go spare if you start interfering with that.’ Meanwhile, a study found that the UK is the most ‘prosperous’ major EU country – but still less successful than Norway and Switzerland, outside the bloc. The Prosperity Index by the Legatum Institute think-tank ranks 142 countries on economic and social factors. The UK came 13th, just ahead of Germany. Norway was top overall, beating Switzerland and New Zealand . Labour should apologise for lifting border restrictions on eastern European immigrants, a former aide to Gordon Brown has said. Ian Austin, a minister in Mr Brown’s government said Labour should ‘be honest’ and ‘say sorry’ for opening the borders to Eastern Europeans in 2004. He said: ‘If you make a mistake, you should say sorry. Let’s be honest about it. ‘It was a mistake. I said so at the time. I did not think it was the right thing to do. ‘What we have to do now is understand people’s concerns and come up with ideas that will address that.’
|
Germany would rather Britain leave the EU than change rules on migration .
Angela Merkel warned David Cameron he is reaching 'point of no return'
The pair clashed last month at an EU summit in Brussels, German press say .
Mrs Merkel believes she will win in battle of wills with the PM, a source said .
Prime Minister now wants to ban migrants without a job moving to the UK .
|
147c567184910d84eb5b6122dbeb6d5bf355fe9f
|
By . Sara Malm . A panda who has grown depressed with boredom and loneliness has been given a plasma TV in order to cheer her up. Sijia is one of three giant pandas which had to be rescued from the Wolong National Natural Reserve when they were left orphaned and abandoned in the devastating 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, Sichuan province. Silja and her fellow panda survivors were then sent to the Yunnan Wild Animal Park, and this year the others were returned successfully to the wild. Sad pandaface: Sija and two other pandas were saved from the 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, China, and taken in by a zoo, but now that the others have left, Silja has become depressed . Panda telly: Sija has been given some new playthings, including a plasma screen TV which shows imagery of pandas in the wild . However, with zoo keepers saying that Sijia is not ready to be released just yet, she is living alone in her cage with limited stimulation. A short while after the other two were removed, keepers noticed that Sija had become uninterested in her food and showed signs of depression. Animal psychology experts concluded that her cage was not interesting enough and ordered new toys for Sija, including the plasma TV to be installed to help pass the time. Happy bear: Animal psychology experts also ordered that Sija be given a swing to play on in her enclosure at the Yunnan Wild Animal Park in Sichuan province, . Swing when you're winning: Sija enjoying her newly installed swing in her zoo enclosure . Distractions: The big panda has also been given a 'fake friend' in the shape of a giant cuddly toy panda to make her feel less lonely . She was also given a giant sized cuddly panda to help remove the feelings of loneliness, as well as a swing just the right size for a panda looking to have fun. So far, Yunnan Wild Animal Park say that the distractions seem to be working, and in particular the TV images of wild pandas going about their lives have proven particularly successful in distracting Sijia from her loneliness. Zu spokesman De Liu said: ‘It is still early days yet, but we are cautiously optimistic that we may have given her enough to do to stop her getting more depressed.’
|
Sija the panda was saved from the 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, China .
She is now the last panda to be set free, and it has made her depressed .
Experts concluded that she's become bored, and ordered a TV for her cage .
|
147cc493782eb6c509760ec49d5f48a2f3991066
|
By . Leon Watson . A Nepalese teenager killed herself after Brazil's 7-1 World Cup semi-final defeat to Germany. Police said 15-year-old Pragya Thapa was depressed after her favourite team's thrashing and hanged herself on Wednesday morning in Bharaul - a village 250 miles east of the capital Kathmandu. The 10th grade student was found by her mother hanging from her ceiling in her room. Thapa was living with her mother and grandparents . while her father was abroad working. Tragedy: A 15-year-old girl committed suicide in a village 250 miles east of Kathmandu (pictured) after watching Brazil lose to Germany in the World Cup semi-final . It was reported she was studying in her room after discussing the game with friends before the tragedy happened. Police said they were investigating and the body had been sent for autopsy. 'She was anxious to see Brazil in the final, but it went down to Germany,' Sharad Thapa, a Nepal police inspector said of the preliminary investigation. Agony: Brazil were hammered 7-1 in the semi-final at Belo Horizonte on Tuesday . 'Some of her friends started teasing her for supporting Brazil. Later in the morning, she took an extreme measure by hanging herself in her own room.' Thapa, also a local athletic player, was studying in the tenth standard at the Morning Star Boarding School in Itahari. Brazil were hammered 7-1 in the semi-final at Belo Horizonte on Tuesday sparking widespread shock among football fans in the World Cup host nation.
|
Police said the 10th grade student was depressed and hanged herself .
Her body was found in a village 250 miles east of the capital Kathmandu .
She had been watching Brazil lose 7-1 at the World Cup in Brazil .
|
147e237d6a7839b1d3d073c7a5bcf3da560f85a4
|
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former D.C. mayor, now Washington councilman, Marion Barry has been arrested again. Former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry was arrested July 4 and charged with stalking, police said. On July 4, the U.S. Park Police arrested Barry and charged him with misdemeanor stalking. About 8:45 p.m. in Anacostia Park, a Washington woman flagged down a Park Police officer on patrol and pointed to Barry, who was in another car. The woman said Barry was stalking her, Park Police spokesman Sgt. David Schlosser said. Barry was taken into custody, processed and released, but he must make a court appearance for the charge. A court date has not been set. Barry's other run-ins with the law have included a federal sting operation in 1990, when he was mayor. Surveillance cameras caught him smoking crack cocaine in a hotel room. Despite his fall from grace, he was re-elected in 1994 to a four-year term as mayor. In his latest political comeback in 2004, Barry won a seat on the D.C. Council, on which he continues to serve. Barry was arrested in 2002 when traces of marijuana and cocaine were found in his car after he was stopped in the Buzzard Point area of Southwest D.C. No charges were filed, and Barry claimed that the drugs were planted. And in 2006, Park Police officers stopped him for driving too slowly, prompting him to accuse authorities of targeting him. Barry had been on probation since 2005 for not filing or paying income taxes for several years. Last year he again failed to file a tax return, and his probation was extended to May 2011, according to the Washington City Paper.
|
U.S. Park Police charged former mayor with misdemeanor stalking .
July 4 arrest came after woman complained to police about Barry .
Incident happened in Anacostia Park in Washington .
|
147e8b27c7b26cb36fb876a9fe3decc9a17b7ec5
|
Rome, Italy (CNN) -- Italian prosecutors' decision to seize Vatican Bank funds as part of an investigation into possible money-laundering was correct, an Italian court ruled Wednesday. The Vatican expressed "surprise" that its appeal had been rejected and stood by its position that the investigation was the result of a misunderstanding. Italian prosecutors last month froze Vatican Bank transactions for the first time ever, after the bank failed to provide all the information required by anti-money laundering rules. Prosecutors seized 23 million euros (about $30 million) in Vatican Bank transactions "as a cautionary measure," prosecutor Nello Rossi told CNN in September. Pope Benedict XVI personally told the director of the Vatican Bank that he trusted him and appreciates the work he is doing, the Vatican said the day after they met on September 26. Ettore Tedeschi, the bank head, was among the faithful meeting Benedict that day after the pope's weekly Angelus address. Tedeschi kissed the pope's hand and gave him a copy of his book "Money and Paradise," and they exchanged a few words, the Vatican said. Tedeschi told CNN before the meeting with the pope that he was incredulous and "humiliated" when he learned Italian investigators were looking into money-laundering allegations against the bank. He said the probe was the result of a "misunderstanding." "My first reaction was of incredulity and afterwards, that of feeling humiliated in the intense work that, along with [bank] Director-General [Paolo] Cipriani and all of the institute's managers, I've been carrying out," Tedeschi told CNN by e-mail September 24. "After discussing with Dr. Cipriani the actions that spurred the inquiry, I was relieved, and I've realized that we had to immediately take action in explaining the facts to various levels and places," he said. Tedeschi said he also realized the need to speed up the process of getting the Vatican Bank on the "white list" of banks that comply with internationally agreed standards, "to prevent other misunderstanding events like the one that just happened." This is not the first time Italian prosecutors have investigated the bank, but probes are extremely rare, Rossi said. The probe began after another Italian bank informed Bank of Italy investigators of two Vatican Bank transactions that did not appear to comply with anti-money-laundering requirements, the Bank of Italy said. When Bank of Italy investigators told legal authorities about the transactions, they were told that judicial authorities were already investigating the Vatican Bank, a source close to the investigation said. The Vatican Bank is "the most secret bank in the world," author Jeffrey Robinson said after the funds were seized, and he said there is no way to find out how much money it controls. The Vatican's sources of income include its vast real estate holdings, explained Robinson, who wrote "The Laundrymen," which looks at money laundering worldwide. The Bank of Italy investigation was prompted by two wire transfers that the Vatican Bank asked Credito Artigiano to carry out, the Bank of Italy said. The Vatican Bank did not provide enough information about the transfers -- one for 20 million euros (about $26 million) and one for 3 million euros (about $4 million) -- to comply with the law, prompting the Bank of Italy to suspend them automatically, it said. It is not entirely clear how much legal authority Italian officials have over the Vatican Bank, since the Vatican is a sovereign state. They had the power to seize the money and stop the transactions because they took place on Italian soil, said Rossi, the prosecutor. An effort by Holocaust survivors to sue the Vatican Bank in the United States failed in 2009 when a U.S. court ruled that the Vatican Bank had "sovereign immunity" and was not subject to lawsuits filed in the United States. A lawsuit against related entities is still in court. The Vatican Bank was created by an order of the pope "to carry on activities that are for pious causes," according to expert testimony related to the Holocaust suit. It accepts deposits only from top Catholic Church officials and entities, Settimio Caridi testified in U.S. District Court in 2006. It uses its funds "for designated pious purposes" and is "an autonomous pious foundation," he said. Caridi, a top Italian legal scholar who was called to testify by Vatican lawyers, said the bank is an integral part of the Vatican, a "central entity under the oversight of the Holy See." It is ultimately overseen by a commission of five cardinals -- the top position in the Vatican hierarchy below the pope -- which is headed by the Vatican secretary of state. The Vatican Bank is subject to particularly stringent anti-money-laundering regulations because Italian law does not consider it to be operating within the European Union. It must supply more detailed information about transactions than European Union banks have to give. CNN's Hada Messia in Rome and Richard Allen Greene in London, England, contributed to this report.
|
Prosecutors seized about $30 million in transactions last month over money-laundering fears .
The Vatican says there was a misunderstanding and appealed against the seizure .
Pope Benedict XVI is standing by the head of the bank, the Vatican says .
It's "the most secret bank in the world," says a money-laundering expert .
|
147eed718b60d678f013b321262c8a2b9093bf51
|
(CNN) -- Frank Williams has been a integral part of one of Formula One's most successful teams since forming it 35 years ago, but he is now starting to pass on his legacy. The Williams F1 boss, who turns 70 this month, announced on Friday that he is standing down from the British team's board and that he will be replaced by his daughter Claire. Williams, who is tetraplegic and has been confined to a wheelchair since a car accident in 1986, said the time had come for him to hand control over to the next generation. However, he will remain as team principal and keep his majority shareholding. "I have decided to signal the next stage in the gradual but inevitable process of handing over the reins to the next generation by stepping down from the board at the end of this month," he said in a statement on Williams' website. "It is no secret that Claire is my daughter but I am proud to say that she has fought hard to earn this appointment and, of all the battles she has had to fight, the prejudices of her father were not the least challenging. "I shall be looking to Claire to represent the Williams family on the board and I know that she will work tirelessly." As well as her board role, Claire Williams will start work as director of marketing and communications on April 1 in the place of the departing Dominic Reilly. Williams became the first F1 team to float on the stock exchange in March 2011 and the team has a rich heritage in the elite division of motorsport. But despite winning nine constructors' titles -- a record bettered only by Ferrari -- and seven drivers' championships, the marque which once employed legendary racers such as Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna has stuttered in recent years. The last time Williams won a grand prix was in 2004, when Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya drove to victory in Brazil. Williams finished 2011 ninth in the constructors' standings after collecting just five points. Senna's nephew Bruno will make his debut for the team alongside Venezuela's Pastor Maldonado at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on March 18.
|
Williams founder Frank Williams will step down from the team's board next month .
Williams founded the British team in 1977 and the marque has won nine constructors' titles .
His daughter Claire will move onto the board as director of marketing and communications .
Williams have not won a grand prix since Juan Pablo Montayo's victory in Brazil in 2004 .
|
147fa5bc0ad2e0521fe3ab76646b2e4eef33921a
|
Arsenal are prepared to spend another £20million in the January transfer market. The areas they are particularly scouting for are centre half, defensive midfield and left back. They will weigh up marquee players, budget ones and those with potential. Here Sportsmail highlights just how much bang for his buck Arsene Wenger may be able to find. VIDEO Arsene Wenger acting coy when discussing Khedira last transfer window . Arsene Wenger knows his defence needs reinforcements but he is working on a tight budget in January . WINSTON REID (West Ham) Cost £8m . West Ham do not want to sell Reid in January and disrupt their promising season. He is out of contract in the summer but the £8m price tag will reflect their desire to keep him. Not a typical Arsenal player but has Premier League experience, wants to defend and is a threat at set-pieces, which the Gunners have been lacking. Winston Reid would not be a cheap solution, but he has the benefit of Premier League experience . Reid has been excellent for West Ham over the past few seasons, and his power in the air would be vital . SAMI KHEDIRA (Real Madrid) £6m . Khedira is a player that could change Arsenal’s future and is vastly experienced despite still only being 27. Madrid will consider selling in January if he continually stalls on a new contract and have already targeted his compatriot Christoph Kramer, 23, of Bayer Leverkusen. All the big clubs are interested and big wages are an issue - but they should be worth paying. Adding World Cup-winning midfielder Sami Khedira would be a massive boost for Arsenal in January . The Real star would be available for the cut price of £6million, but his wages might be a sticking point . MARCELO BROZOVIC (Dinamo Zagreb) Cost £6.5m . Talks have been opened with the midfielder’s agents and they are hopeful of agreeing a deal with Arsenal but decisions don’t come quickly at the Emirates. Brozovic has played as a playmaker and attacking midfielder but the Gunners believe he can play a more defensive role. Room for improvement at 21 and cheaper than William Carvalho at Sporting. Marcelo Brozovic is already in talks with the Gunners, but it remains to be seen if the deal gets done in January . MATIJA NASTASIC (Manchester City) Cost £12million . Arsenal have made enquiries for Nastasic and City will sell at the right price as they are actively looking for another centre back themselves in anticipation the Serbia defender will leave. There is interest from Italy also with Inter Milan and Juventus among his admirers. Would fit into Arsenal’s style. Matija Nastasic (left) would fit into Arsenal's style, but at £12million his injury problems could be a concern . RON VLAAR (Aston Villa) Cost £12m . Vlaar may be out of contract next summer but the price again reflects Villa’s dire need to keep him. Arsenal will also face competition from Southampton, Manchester United and Tottenham, who are weighing up defensive changes. Vlaar has the ability and physical presence to fit in comfortably at the Emirates. Ron Vlaar (right) would bring more solidity to the Arsenal defence, but there are several interested teams . CHRIS SMALLING (Man Utd) Cost £16m . Manchester United refused to sell Smalling to Arsenal in the summer and will not let the England centre half go at this stage either with a lack of defensive cover. It is fair to say that Louis van Gaal is continually taking stock of his defenders and Smalling’s injury record continues to hinder his development. Chris Smalling was sent off in last month's Manchester derby, but is still not central to Louis van Gaal's plans . Arsenal have enquired about Smalling before but with United lacking cover, he won't be allowed to leave . VIRGIL VAN DIJK (Celtic) Cost £8m . Has impressed in Scotland and during Celtic’s European campaigns but there are doubts whether he is at the level to seriously improve upon Arsenal’s deficiencies. He is good on the ball and scores goals but may lack the extra quality to make a difference to their current squad. Celtic's Virgil van Dijk has an eye for goal and has impressed in domestic and European football . There remain questions over whether Van Dijk would dramatically improve Arsenal's options . TYRONE MINGS (Ipswich Town) Cost £7m . Tall, powerful looking left back who has caught the eye of a number of Premier League scouts and was the subject of a bid from Crystal Palace in August. He continues to impress at Ipswich and has good character and potential to switch to centre back. Very good potential but not quite ready. Tyrone Mings has impressed during his time at Ipswich, but is still a prospect rather than a ready-made star . GIANNELLI IMBULA (Marseille) £20m . Arsenal have been joined at the hip by Chelsea scouts at most of Imbula’s games since he made his breakthrough at Guingamp. Powerful presence who can dominate midfield but Marseille’s prised possession won’t come cheap. Wenger also looked at 19-year-old clubmate Stephane Sparagna who is out of contract soon but injuries have dogged him. Arsenal have been watching Imbula closely, but could face competition from the likes of Chelsea . Imbula is a powerful midfielder, but is likely to cost Arsenal all of their £20million budget in January . ALEXANDRE LACAZETTE (Lyon) £15m . Arsenal don’t need a striker but that hasn’t stopped them looking at Lyon’s Lacazette who is the top scorer in France with 11 goals. A target for Newcastle and Liverpool, he has also been watched by Tottenham in recent weeks. Ready-made for Arsenal but only really required should they sell. Alexandre Lacazatte has been superb so far this season in France, but do Arsenal need another forward? ONE TO PONDER... AYMERIC LAPORTE (Athletic Bilbao) Cost £34m (buy-out clause) Stylish centre back with plenty of admirers. French-born but has been in Bilbao’s youth system since the age of 16. Still raw but plenty of potential. Manchester United and Barcelona are contemplating bids but Bilbao will not negotiate - it’s buy-out clause only and that will keep Arsenal at bay for now. Athletic Bilbao defender Aymeric Laporte (right) would cost a massive £34m, but Arsenal are interested .
|
Arsenal want to buy a centre back, left back and defensive midfielder .
Gunners defensive frailties have been exposed so far this season .
Winston Reid, Sami Khedira and Ron Vlaar among the potential targets .
|
14804f15246ff3c352af785a8c800375e44d829b
|
By . Sam Webb . PUBLISHED: . 08:02 EST, 28 January 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 08:35 EST, 28 January 2013 . Vets in Zimbabwe braved crocodile-infested waters to give medicine to a two-tonne hippo, one of the most fearsome animals in the world. The pictures show the extraordinary lengths the medics will go to ensure the welfare of the powerful and dangerous mammals. Dr Michael Kock, 60, oversaw the risky operation, where experts were trying out a new dosage of drugs on the beast. Risky business: A dangerous lesson in how to safely give medicine to a two-tonne hungry hippo has been captured on camera by a vet . Deadly: Hippos kill more people than any other animal in Africa . While veterinary students looked on and took notes, a team of 12 people set about bringing the thrashing animal under control. The hulking hippo was first shot with a sedation dart, allowing the vets and gamekeepers to pull the blindfolded beast by rope towards the riverbank to carry out the procedure. The exercise was held to teach pupils how to safely give medicine to sick animals without putting themselves or the creatures in harm's way. The vets used a new mixture of drugs to make the beast docile enough for people to get up close, but not so sleepy that the hippo would drown, a common problem in the past. They showed the students how to top-up the drug combination - to avoid the hippo regaining its senses and attacking the group - how to . administer antibiotics and the method for injecting reversal drugs into the muscles . under the hippo's tongue to wake it up. Air support: First the vets shoot the Hippo with a tranquiliser from a helicopter . A brave vet then carefully blindfolds the sedated animal . Caution: The blindfolded beast is roped ready to be led to the shore . Dr Kock, a senior lecturer at the . faculty of veterinary science at the University of Pretoria, in South . Africa, said: 'Hippos can be extremely dangerous and their teeth are . lethal. 'During the night they leave the water and travel up to 20 miles to feed. 'People and communities who live by . the riverbanks and who go to the water to wash and bathe can often bump . into them as the hippos return in the morning. The team carefully guides the hippo to the riverbank for treatment . 'Hippos can be very aggressive and they are capable of chomping a person in half.' Hippos are among the most dangerous animals in the world and are responsible for more deaths in Africa than any other species. 'On this occasion we had to be very careful. Although the hippo was sedated it was still awake and could give you a nasty bite,' Dr Kock added. 'There were also other hippos in the water and a few crocodiles about in there so we had to exercise extreme caution. Treatment: The antibiotics are injected into the hippo . Wake up call: Reversal medicine is injected into the animal's gums . 'You can see from the pictures it is still awake and watching us. 'We had to approach it from behind and put straps around its jaw. Once this had been done we had a bit more freedom to move around. 'By doing this it should help us treat the hippos without putting their lives in danger and it can help us to lead hippos away from situations where they come into close contact with humans. 'This new combination of drugs is fantastic because it means we can safely treat the hippos without harming them and causing them to drown.' The hippo is guided back into the water... ... and groggily goes on its way, with minor discomfort and with the vet team perfectly safe .
|
Images show a team of 12 tackle the powerful creature in Zimbabwe .
Hippos are deadly and can bite a man in half .
Vets forced to sedate and blindfold the hippo to give it medicine .
|
1480d4943ccd3ec7f000eb85a1fdaf47d04e90da
|
(Rolling Stone) -- The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will make up for past oversights at this year's induction ceremony by admitting the backing groups of six first-generation rock stars. The honored groups include the Blue Caps (Gene Vincent), The Comets (Bill Haley), the Crickets (Buddy Holly), the Famous Flames (James Brown), the Midnighters (Hank Ballard) and the Miracles (Smokey Robinson). In each of these cases, the backing group failed to get into the Hall of Fame at the same time as their frontman - sometimes causing a great deal of controversy. The Hall of Fame's failure to induct the Miracles along with Smokey Robinson in 1987 caused a particularly large uproar. Hall of Fame rules state that artists are eligible for induction 25 years after their debut release. At the time, Robinson had been a solo artist for only 14 years. The six groups will be inducted April 14 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's annual ceremony at Cleveland's Public Hall. "These Inductees are pioneers in the development of the music we call rock and roll," the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's president and CEO Joel Peresman said in a statement. "As part of our mission to recognize the most impactful, innovative and influential artists in rock, the committee brought forth these six groups that belong in the Hall of Fame." Beastie Boys, Donovan, Guns N' Roses, Laura Nyro, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Small Faces/The Faces, Freddie King, Don Kirshner, Cosimo Matassa, Tom Dowd and Glyn Johns are also being inducted at this year's ceremony. See the full article at RollingStone.com . Copyright © 2011 Rolling Stone.
|
The honored groups include the Blue Caps (Gene Vincent), The Comets (Bill Haley) etc .
The backing group failed to get into the Hall of Fame at the same time as their frontman .
The six groups will be inducted April 14 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame annual ceremony .
|
1480d69db8c6c542a48e9bb815020db5f9cf0fee
|
By . Associated Press Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 17:29 EST, 8 February 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 17:29 EST, 8 February 2013 . The next Lay's potato chip will taste like chicken and waffles. Or cheesy garlic bread. Or Sriracha, a hot sauce often used in Thai dishes. Lay's is letting potato chip lovers decide which one of the three will be its newest flavor. All of them will be sold at retailers nationwide starting next week. After trying them, fans have until May to vote for their favorites. The flavor with the most votes will stay on store shelves. New chip on the block: Lay's Thai-inspired Sriracha flavored potato chips, along with two other flavors - Cheesy Garlic Bread and Chicken & Waffles - will be sold at retailers nationwide starting in mid-February 2013 . But if the other two flavors sell well, they may remain in stores, too, said Ann Mukherjee, chief marketing officer at Frito-Lay. 'Who knows, we don't know what's going to happen.' she said. 'Our intent is to keep the one that people vote for.' It's the latest promotional stunt that tries to engage customers through social media and direct interaction, much as Hasbro's Monopoly did with its recent contest that ended with the addition of a cat game token and the demise of the iron. Lay's Chicken & Waffles, Cheesy Garlic Bread and Sriracha were suggested by three people through the company's 'Do Us a Flavor' campaign. A panel of chefs and flavor experts looked though about 3.8 million submissions and selected about 20 flavors to prototype. From there, the judges picked the three finalists. Mukherjee said that each dish was cooked in the test kitchen and compared with the flavored chip. Fans will have three ways to vote for their favorites. They can do it though Lay's Facebook page, by texting 'VOTE' to 24477 or through Twitter using the hashtags (hash)SaveChickenWaffles, (hash)SaveGarlicBread or (hash)SaveSriracha. The person who submitted the winning flavor will win $1 million, or one percent of the chip's 2013 sales, whichever is more. The runners-up will win $50,000. Although the new flavors are not supposed to hit stores until next Tuesday, some stores have started selling them. Fans have been posting images of the bags to social networks such as Instagram and Twitter. 'We started shipping them,' said Mukherjee. 'I think some of our retailers got excited and put it out on the floor earlier.' Lay's adds about one new potato chip flavor every year, said Mukherjee. Last year it launched the Lay's Classic BLT, made to taste like the sandwich. This is the first time in Lay's 75-year history that it has let U.S. consumers choose the company's next flavor. Lay's, which is a unit of PepsiCo Inc.'s Frito-Lay snack business, has held similar contests in other countries. Frito-Lay first tried such a contest in the United Kingdom for its Walkers brand in 2008. Fans came up with Walkers Chilli & Chocolate and Walkers Cajun Squirrel. Builder's Breakfast, which tasted like a full bacon, sausage and eggs breakfast, won. But the flavor has since been discontinued. Your vote counts: After trying the three new flavors, fans have until May to vote for their favorites .
|
Lay's is letting potato chip lovers decide which one of the three will be its newest flavor .
All of them will be sold at retailers nationwide starting next week .
|
1480f3192c2ac29cb032e56d10886cedf7c8ef07
|
By . Daily Mail Reporter . Last updated at 2:16 AM on 25th November 2011 . Tragic: Margaret Nicholl, pictured with her husband Richard, was thrown from her bike after hitting a pothole at 35mph . A retired civil servant was killed when she was thrown from her bike after hitting a deep pothole, an inquest heard yesterday. Margaret Nicholl, 67, was on a country ride with husband Richard, 70, when they sped down a hill. Mr Nicholl noticed five deep craters at the side of the road and shouted a warning to his wife. Seconds later she hit one of the ruts . at 35mph and continued for several yards before falling off. She was not . wearing a helmet and suffered massive head injuries, dying ten days . later in hospital. The . inquest at Wells Coroner’s Court in Somerset heard that the potholes had . been there for at least four months and the road was overdue for . inspection. Mr Nicholl told . the hearing he and his wife had been keen cyclists for more than half a . century and usually cycled up to 4,000 miles a year. They had been cycling for three miles when they approached the hill in Shepton Montague, Somerset, at around 10am on March 12. He said: ‘As we went over the brow of the hill I saw some potholes. I was slightly ahead of Margaret and to her right. ‘I pointed with my left hand and shouted “potholes”. Within two seconds I heard a bang and I am sure she hit a pothole. ‘I then heard a dull thud as if she had fallen off her bike. I saw Margaret lying in the road still astride her bike. I went back to her and saw she was unconscious.’ An inquest into Mrs Nicholl's death heard that along with husband Richard, the couple cycled up to 4,000 miles each year . Scene: The pothole which Mrs Nicholl hit is marked with an orange box. A drinks can placed inside indicates that the pothole was quite large . PC David Horsley, of Avon and Somerset police, went to the scene shortly after the accident and measured the gradient of the hill to be nine per cent or one in 11. He found five large potholes, with the largest measuring 39 inches (100cm) long, 19 inches (49cm) wide and three inches (8cm) deep. The final pothole - measuring 26 inches (67cm) long, nearly 12 inches wide (30cm) wide and 2.5 inches (6cm) deep - had tyre tracks in mud on it which matched those of Margaret’s bike. Phillip Kingdom, highways inspection manager for Somerset, said he was not surprised that the road was in such a bad state of repair. Mrs Nicholl was rushed to the Royal United Hospital in Bath following the pothole accident, but sadly did not survive . ‘We went through one of the most severe winters I have known. We were experiencing potholes all over the county. ‘We had 25,000 potholes last year in the county, which was a record. There was no extra money available at the time.’ Verdict: Accidental death.
|
Margaret Nicholl sustained massive head injuries after hitting pothole .
|
14815e0d6b1bb88d4c00febd455b323a00d2f1f8
|
Two 'Stop The Violence' activists have been charged with severely beating a former roommate and fellow campaigner after he let himself into their flat to collect his belongings. Nikole Ardeno and Emanuel Velez, both 30, were wearing anti-abuse t-shirts when they allegedly attacked Joshua Magraff as he was walking down the street in Washington, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday about 4.30 pm. Accusing him of burglary, the defendants kicked the victim as he was unconscious, causing him to have seizures and vomit blood, according to Washington police Chief Chris Luppino. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO . Charged: Nikole Ardeno (left) and Emanuel Velez (right) have been charged with severely beating up their former roommate and fellow Stop The Violence campaigner just hours after a protest through Washington . Ardeno was still wearing the same 'Stop the Violence' shirt that she had worn the night before as she led a march in the city protesting two recent shootings, the chief said. Police believe Ardeno and Velez attacked Magraff because he had gone to an apartment all three shared to collect his belongings after moving out. Ardeno and Velez had come to the police station about 20 minutes before the alleged attack to claim that Magraff was burglarizing the apartment, but police said Magraff appeared to only be taking items that belonged to him as he moved out, Luppino said. Magraff was still unconscious and in critical condition Wednesday at UPMC Mercy hospital in Pittsburgh, Luppino said. A hospital spokeswoman could not update Magraff's condition Thursday because officials there don't release information about alleged crime victims. Ardeno, Velez, and Magraff, are all members of the Pennsylvania-based group. Controversy: Leaders of the campaign group insist they do not tolerate violence and will investigate the claims . Ardeno 'is a big part of that group,' the chief said, and Velez 'is very active with them.' The group's leader, Suzanne Kelley, said she hoped to speak with Ardeno about her version of the incident, but said the group does not condone violence. 'We do not promote violence at all, and I can't believe this is going on. I don't want the community to get a negative effect from this because they back us,' Kelley said of the defendants. Online court records don't list an attorney for the defendants who face a preliminary hearing Nov. 10 on charges of aggravated assault, conspiracy, simple assault and disorderly conduct. Ardeno remained in the Washington County Jail on Thursday, but Velez had posted bail. He does not have a listed phone number.
|
Nikole Ardeno and Emanuel Velez, 30, 'kicked Joshua Magraff in the street at 4.30 pm Tuesday as he was unconscious, having seizures, vomiting blood'
They were 'wearing Stop The Violence t-shirts', had just come from protest .
The defendants accused Magraff of burglarizing their Pittsburgh apartment .
Police say Magraff, their former roommate, had gone to retrieve his things .
|
1481b2dbaaa82682849ad32c0715633502050ad2
|
London, England (CNN) -- From the original celebrity endorser King Henry VIII to modern-day superstars such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, the humble football boot has come a long way. Britain's notorious wife-beheading royal paid four shillings -- the equivalent of $1,350 in today's money -- for his custom-made leather pair that were in an inventory of his wardrobe when he died in 1547. By comparison, Nike's new Mercurial Vapor Superfly II is the most expensive boot on the modern retail market, coming in at around $400. Henry VIII's boots would have been sturdy models made from tough leather to cope with the violent, no-rules, all-in-brawl approach to the game of the 16th century, a far cry from the streamlined and lightweight shoes designed for today's game. "We have a revolutionary technology which has a stud that adapts to different pitch conditions," Nike design director Andy Caine told CNN. "This will make the fastest player even faster whatever the pitch conditions might be. For a modern footballer who's really fast, this is really going to change his game." The birth of boot-making giants . From workers knocking about in brutal steel-caps, the evolution of boots really kicked off in the late 1880s when nailed-in leather studs helped with traction in muddy fields. In 1948, a falling-out between the two German siblings behind the Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory led to the creation of Adidas and Puma -- the two most influential boot makers until the emergence of Nike in the 1980s. Both companies laid claim to the invention of the screw-in synthetic stud. Adolf ("Adi") Dassler's company said his firm's innovation helped Germany win the 1954 World Cup when treacherously wet weather struck before the final against Hungary, but brother Rudolph insisted Puma's Super Atom boot featured interchangeable studs years previously. Two decades later, Puma struck an important blow by signing up the world's greatest player, Pele, for $125,000, according to a book by Dutch author Barbara Smit. At the opening game of the 1970 World Cup, the Brazil legend asked the referee to delay starting the match so he could tie up his laces -- meaning valuable exposure for Puma as the world's television cameras focused in on the player's feet, Smit wrote in "Three Stripes Versus Puma." Pele's Puma King range was also worn in the 1980s by Argentina superstar Diego Maradona, giving the company an association with two of the best players to have graced the sport, says Alan Spurgeon of specialist Web site www.Footy-Boots.com. Enter the Predator . But Adidas consolidated their position at the top of the boot market thanks to a much lesser-known player. Craig Johnston, born in South Africa and raised in Australia, made his name with English club Liverpool in the 1980s. After retiring at the relatively young age of 27 to look after his ill sister, Johnston came up with the novel idea of adding rubber patches to the outside of boots, which boosted control of the ball and gave added swerve when kicking it. "I was coaching kids in Australia and I was telling them that they had to grip and bite into the ball like a table tennis bat to swerve it. 'That's fine Mr Johnston,' they said, 'but our boots are made of leather and not rubber, it's raining and they are slippery,' " he told Britain's Design Museum Web site. "I went home and took the rubber off a table tennis bat and stuck it on my boots with super glue. Immediately I went outside again and kicked the ball, I could hear a squeak when the rubber engaged with the polyurethane of the ball." The result, after years of development, was the Predator. Launched in 1994, it has been worn by superstar names such as Zinedine Zidane and David Beckham -- both of whom had customized versions. Johnston, ironically, has recently been a critic of modern boots, saying they contribute to injuries suffered by players. "People say that the boots don't provide enough protection. In fact, the opposite is true," he told FootyBoots in 2009. "The problem is that the boots are so well made there is no give at all in the materials -- especially the cheaper synthetics. "The pitches are now so well-maintained and even woven with synthetic materials that the players' studs engage like they should do, but they don't release enough, causing injury. Also, the studs are far too long and give far too much grip." A new major player in the market . The next most significant boot was Nike's Mercurial Vapor, Spurgeon said, launched in 1998 with the endorsement of Brazilian World Cup winner Ronaldo. That range's popularity is expected to continue with the Superfly II, worn by Portugal's Real Madrid superstar Cristiano Ronaldo -- the planet's most expensive player at $130 million -- at the World Cup in South Africa. Caine said the design took a painstaking three years. "We really started from scratch on this boot," he said. "It's a long process. Every change you make, you have to make a sample then you have to test it on the pitch, test it in a lab, and make sure it provides a benefit." The process starts with a small core team who focus on what needs improving from the previous boot, Caine said, gathering input from players and seeking out the latest technical innovations. "Once you get onto the manufacturing side there's obviously larger development teams that come into it," he said. "A lot of people touch it through its life cycle, but there's quite a small core team who work on the real essence of the design and what it's about." While Caine is proud of the Superfly's new adaptable retraction system, which can change and extend automatically, Adidas have also unleashed an innovative new product before the World Cup -- even daring to revamp the traditional three-stripe design in a boot that changes color in different light. The AdiZero is the lightest football boot on the market, Spurgeon says, with 2009 world player of the year Lionel Messi's F50 spearheading the range. "It's the fastest and lightest football shoe that we've ever created," Adidas senior product manager for footwear Aubry Dolan told CNN. "We've talked to the players, professionals and amateurs, and their message was very simple: make me faster. "The goal was simple, the challenge was very difficult. Never before have so many players felt, touched, tested, seen and thought about the product." Who rules the roost? The leading companies are coy about releasing boot market figures, but Spurgeon believes Adidas is a clear leader from Nike -- last year the firm claimed it had a 50 percent share in North America and Germany. United States-based Nike, however, is regarded the No. 1 sportswear company, he said. And it may be team shirts and balls, rather than boots, which prove to be the biggest money-earner at the World Cup, according to Germany-based marketing consultancy SPORT+MARKT. "As the sale of boots is still the core business, both companies are trying hard to sign the world's best football players to endorse their products," consultant Stephanus Tekle told CNN. "However, although boots are the right tool to promote the reliability and the technology of the brands, in terms of sales the World Cup shows a different trend. "During the event, fans tend to show commitment to their own national teams by purchasing the official jersey and the official ball rather than the boots of their favorite football players. This is probably the most profitable line of business during the World Cup for both Adidas and Nike." New avenues: The Internet . Adidas has guaranteed maximum exposure in South Africa by buying up exclusive sponsorship rights, forcing Nike to continue the more innovative tactics it started with 2006's "Joga Bonito" social networking-style Web site. "Now Nike is trying to pursue a long-term strategy: no more single campaigns but the activation of more comprehensive marketing, especially via the Internet," Tekle said. "For instance, Nike is deeply involved in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities with the latest campaign, "Lace Up, Save Lives," endorsed by important athletes. The aim is to lend more credibility and reliability to the brand. "The Internet is soon going to be a major resource for the kit suppliers more and more, and new innovative campaigns should be expected on the web."
|
The first recorded football boot belonged to Britain's King Henry VIII almost 500 years ago .
Leading manufacturers Adidas and Puma formed by the feuding Dassler brothers .
U.S. company Nike began to emerge as the top rival to German firm Adidas in 1990s .
Both companies are launching new boot ranges ahead of World Cup in South Africa .
|
148214a8815e0b66c40d1f3245e003d79525d4f5
|
Editor's note: CNN affiliates report on where job seekers are finding work across the country and how those looking for employment are coping with the situation. Job fairs are becoming more popular and are seeing record attendance. (CNN) -- A record number of senior citizens attended a job fair this week in Loveland, Colorado. The fair, which targeted people 50 and older, drew the biggest crowd -- about 900 people -- for the annual event. Nan Cooper, a job seeker, said applicants have to do more these days than just walk into a prospective employer's office with a resume. "[Times] have changed radically," she told KMGH in Denver. "I've spent countless, countless hours on the Internet and filling out applications." iReport.com: Share your job hunt story . She said she had even applied for jobs through the online auction site eBay. Read the full report on KMGH . Northeast: Job week seeks to solve 'disconnect' between employers, job hunters . Employers in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area say they are having a difficult time filling 22,000 available positions. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said this week the city would increase its participation in a job placement program, both monetarily and through city organizations. The mayor made his remarks as part of a kickoff event for Imagine Career Week, which links high school students and employers. A spokesman for one of the groups sponsoring the week's events said there shouldn't be so many employers with open spots. "At the same time, we have young people walking around famously saying that they can't find a job. There's a big disconnect there someplace," Paul Leger of the Allegheny Conference told WTAE. During the career week, students will visit businesses and prospective employers will visit classrooms. Read the full report on WTAE . Southeast: Wal-Mart to increase its N.C. workforce by nearly 6 percent . Wal-Mart said Wednesday it plans to add 3,000 jobs in North Carolina. The retail chain currently employs 51,000 people at 155 locations in the state. "In a time when many are suffering, we want North Carolinians to know that we are here to stay," David Cameron, general manager for the Carolinas, told WRAL of Raleigh. He did not say where the jobs would be located. North Carolina is one of eight states with unemployment above 10 percent. Read the report on WRAL . Southeast: Military recruiter sees more potential airmen . Technical Sgt. Greg O'Conner is staying very busy these days. He is an Air Force recruiter in Bradenton, Florida. "With the way the economy is, recruitment is up," he told Bay News 9. "I get dozens of calls every day and walk-ins from young men and women interested in joining the Air Force." One of his recruits was 20-year-old Dakota Slentz, who cannot afford to go to law enforcement training school. He said the Air Force offers a chance for great experiences as well as a great salary. In statistics provided by the Department of Defense, the Air Force has reported meeting its recruiting goals each month of the fiscal year, which began in October. Read the full report on Bay News 9 . West: Sacramento project to bring thousands of jobs . A building developer in Sacramento, California, says plans to turn rail yards into a residential and commercial district will require thousands of workers over the next 20 years. Suheil Totah of Thomas Enterprises told KCRA that initial projects like building roads will mean jobs for 3,000 people. The company said more than 56,000 people will be needed for the project in the next two decades. The 244 acres will be converted into a mix of homes, businesses, entertainment venues and government offices. Read the report on KCRA . Around the nation . Tennessee will use federal stimulus money to hire 12,000 people ages 24 and younger, WSMV reports. A food company is converting a North Carolina textile plant and bringing 172 jobs, WXII reports.
|
Job fair aimed at people 50 and older draws big crowd .
Pittsburgh area business executives meeting with high school students .
Wal-Mart adding 3,000 jobs in North Carolina .
Air Force recruiter in Florida has seen increase in interest .
|
1482c1372b40d8f0ffe13f5f2e50c0b74b592cb6
|
A doctor suspected his mistress had poisoned him, but was afraid to contact authorities in case she tried to attack him or his girlfriend as he recovered, a court has heard. Dr. George Blumenschein believes his ex-mistress, Dr. Ana Maria Gonzalez-Angulo, poisoned him after she found out he was trying to have children with his partner. Gonzalez-Angulo, a breast cancer doctor based at Houston's famed Texas Medical Center, is charged with aggravated assault after prosecutors say she spiked Blumenschein's coffee in 2013 with ethylene glycol, a sweet-tasting chemical found in antifreeze. Scroll down for video . Dr. George Blumenschein (left) suspected his mistress Dr. Ana Maria Gonzalez-Angulo, (right) had poisoned him, but was afraid to contact authorities in case she tried to attack him or his girlfriend as he recovered, a court has heard . Yesterday his long-term partner Evette Toney told jurors that Blumenschein feared the other woman might attack him again while he recovered in the hospital. Prosecutors say that Gonzalez-Angulo and Blumenschein, a fellow researcher, were involved in a casual sexual relationship. They say Gonzalez-Angulo's relationship with Blumenschein turned into a 'fatal attraction' after he spurned her in favor of Toney, his 10-year live-in girlfriend, with whom he was trying to have children. His long-term partner Evette Toney (pictured) told jurors that Blumenschein feared the other woman might attack him again while he recovered in the hospital . Witnesses have testified that Gonzalez-Angulo had access to ethylene glycol at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where she and Blumenschein worked. But Gonzalez-Angulo's attorneys have argued that other people may be responsible for his poisoning, including Toney. Blumenschein survived the poisoning but told jurors this week he now only has 40 percent of his kidney function. If convicted, Gonzalez-Angulo, 43, could be sentenced to up to life in prison. While questioned by prosecutors, Toney told jurors that she did not poison Blumenschein and that despite the affair she still loves him. She said they are still together and are working on their relationship. Witnesses have testified that Gonzalez-Angulo had access to ethylene glycol at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, (pictured) where she and Blumenschein worked . 'It's a work in progress,' she said. Toney testified that shortly after Blumenschein was hospitalized following his poisoning, he told her that he believed Gonzalez-Angulo had poisoned him. But Toney said he told her to not tell anybody of his suspicions because he feared Gonzalez-Angulo might hurt him again or hurt her. 'At one point, George said, 'Evette, do not poke the dragon,'' Toney said. Toney testified she helped Blumenschein record telephone conversations he had with Gonzalez-Angulo as part of efforts to try and gather evidence against her. Gonzalez-Angulo did not make a confession on the phone calls, but prosecutors have said they show the obsessive feelings she had toward Blumenschein. While Gonzalez-Angulo's attorneys questioned Toney, they suggested that Toney had been upset Blumenschein would not marry her. Blumenschein (centre arriving at court) survived the poisoning but told jurors this week he now only has 40 percent of his kidney function . Gonzalez-Angulo's attorneys (pictured) suggested Toney got angry with Blumenschein about an affair she had long suspected. Toney said that Blumenschein was afraid of marriage and that she had moved out of their home in 2009 because he wouldn't make a long-term commitment. But Toney said the two got back together and focused on the future, including having children. Gonzalez-Angulo's attorneys suggested Toney got angry with Blumenschein about an affair she had long suspected. Toney said she didn't know about the affair until after Blumenschein told her about it following his poisoning and that she wasn't interested in hurting Blumenschein. 'I didn't follow him. I didn't check his BlackBerry. I trusted him,' she said. Testimony was to resume on Wednesday in the trial, which began September 15. Prosecutors might rest their case on Wednesday. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.
|
Ana Maria Gonzalez-Angulo is accused of poisoning George Blumenschein .
Gonzalez-Angulois, 43, is charged with aggravated assault .
Blumenschein told jurors he now only has 40 percent of his kidney function .
|
1483c5371c90923f05c803055ced431318aedf0e
|
(CNN) -- South American soccer stars Kaka and Carlos Tevez have indicated they will stay at their respective clubs despite being linked with big-money moves in the European close-season. Brazil star Kaka has reportedly again been targeted by Tevez's English side Manchester City, who wanted the former world player of the year before he moved to Spain from AC Milan in 2009. And Tevez was expected to leave City, having asked for a transfer in January after citing his unhappiness at being so far away from his young family in their native Argentina. Kaka has struggled to make an impact at the Santiago Bernabeu since his $92 million transfer, and missed the first four months of this season with a knee injury. Newspaper reports have linked City, Milan and Chelsea -- whose manager Carlo Ancelotti was his coach at the San Siro -- with a potential bid for the 29-year-old, but he insists he wants to stay in Madrid. "I want to stay at Real Madrid and I want to play for Real Madrid," he said at a boot launch in quotes reported by the UK Press Association. "My mother is coming to live in London next year. She is a preacher and she is coming to talk about God. But I have a challenge with Real Madrid. I don't want to think now about playing in the Premier League or going back to Italy. "I want to get back in good shape and play for Real Madrid next season. I have a good relationship with Carlo but the truth is that I want to stay in Madrid, I want to play in Madrid and I want to live in Madrid." Tevez had been linked with a move to Spain or Italy, but his manager Roberto Mancini said the striker had indicated he was happy to stay in Manchester after helping City qualify for the Champions League next season and end a 35-year wait for a trophy by winning the FA Cup on Saturday. "I spoke with him many times in the last 20 days," Mancini told reporters after his captain scored twice in Tuesday's 3-0 win over Stoke which lifted City above Arsenal into third place ahead of the final round. "He has a five-year contract and he has told us he wants to stay. In December he had a problem but everyone can change his opinion. I don't know what his representatives think. "Carlos is an important player here. The feeling for him is good. Nowhere else can he find behavior that all people have for him." However, Mancini's comments came after Tevez had cast more doubt over his future following Saturday's 1-0 win over the same opposition at London's Wembley Stadium. "I want to make it clear that I don't have any problem with Roberto Mancini, despite what people have written and said to the contrary," the 25-year-old said. "But I need to sit down with my family, because we need to make this decision together. I repeat, there is no problem with Mancini. It is a family thing. But really, I haven't made a decision yet."
|
Brazil midfielder Kaka says he is happy to stay at Spanish club Real Madrid .
He confirms that his mother is moving to London, where he has been linked with Chelsea .
Carlos Tevez will stay at Manchester City, according to manager Roberto Mancini .
The Argentine had asked for a transfer in January because he was homesick .
|
148413cea62e91556d19e4bc9bd22a6ab10876e8
|
Washington (CNN) -- Homeowners who wound up paying thousands more dollars in special taxes than their neighbors for the same sewage service found no relief at the Supreme Court on Monday. The justices, by a 6-3 vote, upheld the decision by city officials in Indianapolis to deny refunds for some residents who paid their assessment fees up front, while forgiving the remaining taxes of those choosing an installment plan. Chief Justice John Roberts, in a tough dissent, said the result was a "gross disparity." Those with the heftier bills sued, saying their Equal Protection rights under the Constitution were being violated. The city had abandoned its installment plan option after just one year, and Justice Stephen Breyer said that was a proper exercise of government, since it reduced administrative costs. "The city had a rational basis for distinguishing between those lot owners who had already paid their share of project costs and those who had not. And we conclude there is no equal protection violation," he said. "State law says nothing about forgiveness, how to design a forgiveness program, or whether or when rational distinctions in doing so are permitted." He said the Supreme Court stepping in "would risk transforming ordinary violations of ordinary state tax law into violations of the federal Constitution." Indiana allows public works projects to be apportioned, meaning costs can be spread equally along "all abutting lands or lots." The Brisbane/Manning Sanitary Sewers Project began in 2001, to connect about 180 Indianapolis homes to the city's existing sewage system. Thirty-eight homeowners individually decided to pay their assessments up front -- $9,278. The rest agreed to monthly installments spread over 10 to 30 years, including interest. But the city soon decided to shelve the long-standing assessment plan, concluding the lot-by-lot payments were discouraging families from moving from less healthy septic systems to more efficient sewer systems. The new public improvements financing system adopted by Indianapolis now relies on a single, flat $2,500 fee to connect sewer lines. City-issued bonds would help cover remaining costs. Outstanding payments under the old method were canceled, but refunds were denied those who had already paid in in full. Court records show some property owners on the installment plan paid as little as $309, and a quarter of the rest put in less than $1,000. The 38 homeowners who had paid in full asked for a partial refund, but officials in the state capital said in a letter that to provide one "would establish a precedent of unfair and inequitable treatment to all property owners" who had also paid the assessments throughout the city, even partially. Thirty-one homeowners then sued, claiming disparate treatment. The average claim was about $8,000. Breyer said the city's desire to reduce "financial hardships" for those paying under the old lot-by-lot system was adequate justification for the change, and did not amount to a constitutional violation. He said the controversy was a local one, not implicating interstate commerce. But Roberts disagreed sharply. "Every generation or so, a case comes along when this court needs to say enough is enough, if the Equal Protection Clause is to retain any force in this context." Joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, Roberts added that the city promised to treat all homeowners the same, but "ended up charging some homeowners 30 times what it charged their neighbors for the same hook-ups. The equal protection violation is plain." Groups opposing the city were disappointed in the decision. "The Equal Protection Clause is supposed to mean what it says: that people are entitled to equal treatment," explained Institute for Justice attorney Robert McNamara, who filed a supporting brief in the case. "But the lesson of today's decision is less 'people must be treated equally' and more 'never pay the government up front.'" The case is Armour v. City of Indianapolis (11-161).
|
Homeowners seeking a refund of special tax payments lose their appeal .
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, says the city had a rational basis for its action .
Some homeowners paid thousands more before the city changed its payment plan .
|
14862c0e384d9c3768a2728e3bfa0e3642e70396
|
By . Helen Lawson . PUBLISHED: . 06:45 EST, 16 June 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 10:14 EST, 16 June 2013 . Two bodies have been found following a search for a pair of missing climbers off the coast of Anglesey. The bodies, which have not been formally identified, were recovered from the sea this morning by a team of rescuers, including an RAF helicopter, police and the coastguard. Two climbers - a 48-year-old man from Sussex and a 21-year-old man from Hampshire - were reported missing from the South Stack cliffs near Holyhead at 10.15pm yesterday. A helicopter from RAF Valley helped with the search for two missing climbers (file photo) The men were supposed to meet two fellow climbers, who raised the alarm when they did not arrive at their destination. A search operation involving RAF 22 . Squadron, the coastguard and North Wales Police was stopped at 1am this . morning and resumed at first light. North Wales Police told MailOnline that the force is trying to track down relatives of the missing climbers. Lifeboats from Holyhead and Trearddur . Bay joined a coastguard team from Holyhead and Cemaes Bay and a Sea King . helicopter from RAF Valley in the search below Gogarth Bay near the . South Stack cliffs. Teams from the RAF, coastguard, police and lifeboat service searched below Gogarth Bay for the men, who were reported missing from South Stack . A police spokesman said: 'The bodies . were located in the sea shortly after 7.15am today. The North West Wales . Coroner will be informed.' An RNLI spokesman said: 'Late Saturday night Holyhead all-weather lifeboat and inshore lifeboat were requested to search the area of North Stack for two overdue climbers. 'Items were located by coastguards at the top of a cliff and a large air, land and sea search was mounted. 'It's a very popular area for climbers. The cliff rescue team train there. This is very sad.'
|
Discovery in search for man, 48, from Sussex and man, 21, from Hampshire .
The climbers were reported missing from the South Stack cliffs last night .
Search resumed at first light today and bodies were found at 7.15am .
|
148637f392eabecfe1a1ff29ea0a7d1dbc85eaa2
|
By . Daily Mail Reporter . Last updated at 6:55 PM on 7th October 2011 . A pub landlady died in 'fantastically rare' circumstances after toppling over in her high heels on a night out, an inquest heard. Tragic Sian Thomas, 38, tumbled in a nightclub after catching one of her white leather heels in the hem of her dress during a friend's leaving party. She suffered bruising to her knee which developed into an embolism and she died two days later from a blood clot on the brain, an inquest at Worcestershire Coroners Court was told. 'Dreadfully tragic': Sian Thomas developed a fatal blood clot after falling over in her high heels on a night out on June 6 . Miss Thomas, a landlady at the Berkeley Arms in Spetchley, Worcestershire, was 'in agony' the day after the fall, but managed to joke about the incident. She told pals on Facebook about her 'good night' at Mode nightclub in Worcester on June 6. She wrote: 'Had a good night for jenny's leaving party but slipped over in my heels and been to A AND E and i have bruised the bone on my knee !!! in agony, cant walk :(...' A friend replied: 'hi sianey well that was silly wasnt it'. Just hours after posting the comments, Miss Thomas was taken ill at her partner Rob McCairn's house and was rushed to Worcestershire Royal Hospital at 10am. Humour: Miss Thomas, pictured here with partner Rob McCairn, joked about her tumble on Facebook, but died in 'fantastically rare' circumstances the next day . She tragically died the next afternoon, on June 8, after developing an embolism as a result of her fall. A pathology report revealed she had developed deep vein thrombosis in her left leg from not being able to move it. This led to a blood clot which went into her lungs and passed through a hole in her heart, before entering her brain. Popular: Miss Thomas, a landlady at the Berkeley Arms in Spetchley, Worcestershire (pictured), was dedicated to her job, friends and family . Consultant Rosemary Johnson, who treated Miss Thomas, told the inquest such clots would normally be filtered out in the lungs, but the hole had enabled it to pass through. She described the circumstances as 'fantastically rare', saying she had never seen it occur in her 15 years as an A&E consultant. Recording a verdict of accidental death, Worcestershire coroner Geraint Williams said the incident was 'dreadfully tragic'. Fast decline: Miss Thomas was rushed to Worcestershire Royal Hospital (above) on June 7, just hours after joking about her fall. She died the next day. Miss Thomas's mother, Alice - supported by several members of her family - said her daughter was dedicated to her job, friends and family. She told the hearing: 'She was the best. She was kind, caring and supportive. She had an excellent character - not a flaw. 'I accept these things happen. She was a good girl and it's a great loss.'
|
Sian Thomas, 38, developed fatal blood clot after injuring her knee .
Had joked about the fall just a day before her death .
Mother pays tribute to 'kind, caring and supportive' daughter .
|
1486bf735a2b6259aa2c511985d1235865281f41
|
By . Fred Redwood . PUBLISHED: . 16:00 EST, 11 May 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 18:02 EST, 11 May 2013 . Why do lighthouses so fascinate people? Despite the fact that they are located on remote coastlines and are impractical to live in, a pack of prospective buyers queue up whenever one comes on the market. This question is one that Robin Beckmann, 54, is in a good position to answer. He is selling Point Lynas lighthouse on the north-east coast of Anglesey in North Wales, where he has lived with his wife Iona, 46, and their two adult children for 11 years. Bright home: The Point Lynas Lighthouse on Anglesey is on the market for £1.3million and comes with a fully functioning light as well as three cottages . ‘There’s so much more to a lighthouse than a normal house,’ says Robin, who works in education administration. ‘There’s all the history that comes with it, and there’s an air of mystery and danger about being on a little bit of land confronting the sea.’ Robin’s own story of how he came to buy this lighthouse is a romantic one. It began in the 1980s when he and Iona would come to Anglesey on holidays. ‘We would walk by the headland and we’d always talk about what it would be like to live in the lighthouse – it was special to us,’ he recalls. ‘Then, in 2002, Iona saw it was for sale. We just had to have it.’ Financially, it seemed like a madcap idea. The lighthouse, which was on the market for £230,000, came with three keepers’ cottages but these dwellings were virtually falling down and they were not allowed to live in the lighthouse tower itself. When Robin bought it, he had to lease it back to Trinity House and Mersey Docks and Harbour Board at a peppercorn rent so that they could maintain it. Flashy lifestyle: The 1,000-watt lamp at Point Lynas lighthouse is encased in a circular room in the front of the building and is on 24-hours a day . Romance in the lighthouse: The bedroom in the main house on the property . The lighthouse is still in use. The 1,000-watt lamp shines for nine seconds out of every ten, 24 hours a day. Its beam can be seen for 18 nautical miles. Robin spent £700,000 restoring the cottages, rented two of them out as holiday homes and lived in the third with his family. All three cottages have three bedrooms. Robin charges £350 a week in the low season and £950 in high season for the two holiday homes. The lettings made a gross profit of £42,000 last year. While other holiday cottages can be difficult to let out in winter, he found plenty of interest at this time of the year because holidaymakers are keen to witness the dramatic storms that lash this stretch of the coast around Christmas time. As a result, he found he was able to let out the cottages for 40 to 45 weeks of the year. But Point Lynas has always been more than a simply an investment to Robin. Over the years he has become obsessed – ‘to the point of nerdiness’ – with everything to do with lighthouses. He has joined the Association of Lighthouse Keepers, an organisation of like-minded enthusiasts that runs visits to lighthouses around the country. He has also researched Point Lynas’s history with academic diligence, finding the grave of its first keeper, a certain Captain Beaver, in the nearby Llaneilian churchyard. Spot on: Point Lynas Lighthouse on its headland in Llaneilian, Anglesey, from where its light can be seen for 18 nautical miles . It transpires that as a young man in the 1750s, Beaver was a pirate who caused havoc in the Caribbean. Robin has also made contact with the son of a former keeper and the wife of another. ‘The curious thing is that both of them often walk around this way,’ says Robin. ‘It’s as if the lighthouse continues to cast its spell over them.’ A number of lighthouses have gone on the market recently. Strathy Point and Tod Head, on the east coast of Scotland, sold for above their asking prices of £75,000 and £145,000 respectively. And along the North Wales coast from Point Lynas, at Talacre Bay in Flintshire, the Point of Ayr Lighthouse found a buyer at £90,000. As the tower is cut off from land at high tide, the new owners will experience the thrill of waves breaking all around them. As a permanent dwelling, it is unusable, having no mains services. Anyone looking for a more realistic buy-to-let opportunity might be interested in The Old Lighthouse at St Ann’s Head in Pembrokeshire. Currently used as two holiday lettings, its observation lounge in the former lens room gives fantastic views over the islands of Skomer and Skokholm. It is for sale for £975,000. Point Lynas’s price of £1.375 million is obviously going to put it beyond the budget of many people. Would it be possible to buy the cottages individually? ‘I’d be reluctant to split them up because they are worth more as a single business than as separate cottages,’ says Robin, who is leaving to take up a new job in mid-Wales. ‘Also, there is a reason why there are three keepers’ cottages here. ‘In the 1800s there were two keepers at The Smalls lighthouse off West Wales and one of them died. The other tied the dead body in some tarpaulin and hung the corpse outside the window. ‘By the time the survivor was picked up, he had been driven raving mad and the authorities stipulated that every lighthouse in the country must be manned by three keepers. ‘To break up the three cottages would be going against this old lighthouse keepers’ code.’ Williams and Goodwin: tppuk.com, 01248 343018 .
|
Lighthouse in Anglesey, North Wales on the marked for £1.3million .
Its 1,000-watt lamp shines for nine seconds out of every ten, 24 hours a day .
Three three-bedroom former keepers' cottages comes with the property .
|
1487670fcfd49ff6ecb767ed67881c7d88c16069
|
By . Darren Boyle . A fireman saved a family when their car caught fire on the way to the airport - then gave them a lift to make sure they caught their flight. Phil Nelson spotted smoke and flames coming from a people carrier as he drove behind it up the M56 motorway. After using his flashing lights to pull them over, he single-handedly moved them to safety, directed traffic around from the fire - then drove them in his own car the rest of the way to Manchester Airport. Scroll down for video . Firefighter Phil Nelson, left, was driving behind the Renault Scenic carrying the unnamed family, right, to Manchester Airport when he saw the flames under the bonnet of their friends car . Luckily for the family, who were on their way to Hong Kong, Mr Nelson managed to get them and their luggage out of the burning car before it was completely engulfed in flames and then took them to Manchester Airport . Mr Nelson was returning from a firefighting conference where he met colleagues from Hong Kong . The family had been getting a lift from a friend to catch a flight for their holiday to Hong Kong when the grey Renault Scenic they were travelling in caught fire on the M56 eastbound carriageway. Mr Nelson was only driving back up the M56 because he had just been at North West Fire Control in Warrington meeting a delegation of firefighters - visiting from Hong Kong. Mr Nelson, station manager at Wythenshawe fire station, said: 'I was driving back from seeing visitors from Hong Kong at control when I saw the Renault Scenic ahead. 'First there was smoke coming out the engine, then flames started dropping down from it. 'I put my lights on to flash them to pull over and as soon as they stopped and oxygen pooled around the engine compartment, it went up in a flash. 'I was trying to ring it in to control and the family were trying to get all their luggage out the boot.' After rescuing the family, Mr Nelson, pictured, managed the scene until his colleagues arrived with a fire engine . He continued: 'I helped them with that, then got them back from the area, put my safety gear on and went to warn other motorists. 'I was trying to move cars from lane one when highway services arrived. 'The car was just a shell, but the family and their friend seemed quite positive - they were just happy they were all ok. 'If the car had exploded or fumes had come in through the ventilation system the outcome could obviously have been very different. 'Luckily, I had a people carrier with me so I got them and their luggage to the airport in time. It was just an extra piece in my crazy day.' The family, whose names were not recorded by the fire service, were happy to pose for a snap with Mr Nelson at the airport. A relative of the driver has since contacted the firefighter to thank him.
|
Phil Nelson was returning from a meeting with firefighters from Hong Kong .
While driving on the M56 he spotted the Renault Scenic catch fire .
Mr Nelson flagged the car down and rescued the passengers and their bags .
The family were on their way to the airport to fly home to Hong Kong .
Mr Nelson took the unnamed family to Manchester Airport for their flight .
|
1488fe212a6b727a7538928b6518b35c02e1d0dd
|
A new Christmas advert is set to be the cutest yet. The 60-second video clip from McVitie's, which cost £1million to make, stars a host of adorable young animals emerging from a box of biscuits. A fluffy kitten, spotted piglet and duckling all exit the box one by one to the surprise of the family. The 60-second video clip from McVitie's stars adorable puppies, kittens, a hedgehog, piglet and a reindeer . Created by Grey London, the advert features the McVitie's Victoria biscuit selection before a host of animals appear from the blue pack. It is the first Christmas advert created by the biscuit company in more than 30 years and will air for the first time today (Thursday, 4 4) at 7.42pm on E4. The group of cute creatures includes an Alaskan malamute puppy, piglet, Persian kitten, rabbit, duckling, ginger kitten, pug puppy and a baby hedgehog. Along with a reindeer calf and even a narwhal - a tusked whale - all the animals emerge from the box. An adorable malamute puppy clambers up the armchair in an attempt to wake up the snoozing granddad . Tangled up in Santa's hat, the spotted piglet is just one of the many baby animals appearing in the advert . United Biscuits Sweet Biscuits marketing director, Sarah Heynen said: 'The launch of McVitie's Victoria on our TV screens this Christmas marks another momentous occasion for McVitie's at the end of what has been a highly successful year for us. 'We are delighted to introduce the latest additions to our McVitie's Sweeet family, and hope it brings chocolatey cheer to biscuit-loving households across the UK for the festive season.' Company's first Christmas advertisement in 30 years features a baby narwhal swimming in a bowl of punch . Cute animals: The fluffy kitten looks surprised after its emergence from the box of chocolate biscuits . The 60-second clip cost £1m to make and was conceived by creative agency Grey London . The advertisement is the latest addition to the McVitie's Sweeet campaign, which launched in February this year. It has seen the company invest some £12million into the adverts in a bid to modernise and increase the brand's profile. McVitie's hope the cute animals in the Christmas campaign will reflect 'the feeling that we get when we open a box of McVitie's Victoria'.
|
60-second video clip cost £1m to make and stars a host of young animals .
Advert will air for the first time on Thursday 7.42pm on E4 .
Film was made by Grey London to promote the classic Victoria selection .
|
148914e79066562195d92a4e72f02b326a896af7
|
By . Ellie Zolfagharifard . and Reuters . Selfie fans, your life just got a little easier. A Swedish tech start-up has launched an app for Apple devices that lets people take photos of themselves without having to touch their screens. Using touchless technology, which it says is ideal for taking 'selfies' or 'groupies', Crunchfish's GoCam app lets users trigger photos or videos from a distance with just hand gestures. Scroll down for video . Using touchless technology which it says is ideal for taking 'selfies' or 'groupies', Crunchfish's GoCam app lets users trigger photos or videos from a distance with just hand gestures . Photos can be triggered from a distance of up to 10 ft (3 metres), the company claims. The company, based in the southern Swedish city of Malmo, says the free GoCam app is currently only available in Sweden and Australia. Over the past few years, gesture recognition has become more popular thanks to products such as Microsoft's Kinect for video games. However, power-hungry technology has yet to become mainstream in computers or mobile devices. Photos can be triggered from a distance of up to 10 feet (3 metres). The company, based in the southern Swedish city of Malmo, says the free GoCam app is currently only available in Sweden and Australia . The technology using something known as Touchless A3D software which detects and tracks different gestures. It does this using a video stream from the camera in the mobile phone, picking up on particular movements, such as a wave of a hand . 'Even though a number of handset vendors globally are integrating our touchless software for different features into their devices, we wanted to develop GoCam in order to show the capabilities of gesture interaction also in the iOS environment,' said Joakim Nydemark, chief executive of the group. The technology using something known as Touchless A3D software which detects and tracks different gestures. It does this using a video stream from the camera in the mobile phone, picking up on particular movements, such as a wave of a hand. 'Touchless A3D requires no hardware changes and runs on all major mobile operating systems, the company writes on its website. 'This makes it possible for the user to experience a new interaction paradigm in any mobile device.' Too lazy to get up to switch the kettle on? Soon you may be able to simply raise your hand or nod your head from another room, and you’ll be moments away from a fresh cup of tea. This is the hope of researchers at the University of Washington who have developed technology that will allow people to control household devices with simple gestures. The technology, named ‘WiSee’, is similar in concept to how Microsoft's Xbox Kinect sensor works by using cameras to recognise gestures. By adapting a Wi-Fi router and wireless household devices, the researchers developed a system that can detect specific movements without the need for sensors or cameras. They claim it is simpler and cheaper than similar gesture-recognition technologies . Out of the 900 gestures performed, WiSee accurately recognised 94 per cent of them. It was found that as many as five people can move simultaneously in the same room without confusing the receiver.
|
App tracks gestures via iPhone camera using its Touchless A3D software .
GoCam app can be triggered from a distance of up to 3 metres .
The app was created by Crunchfish, a start-up based Malmo, Sweden .
Free technology is currently only available in Sweden and Australia .
|
148960d4ed34939c6fcca34df3277d983841caea
|
By . Deni Kirkova . PUBLISHED: . 09:59 EST, 22 April 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 12:44 EST, 22 April 2013 . Shocking figures about cheddar's high-salt content surfaced in November, when the Mail reported that the cheese can . contain as much salt as junk food products, and a single portion has a greater . amount of salt than a bag of crisps. And it seems supermarkets are responding to the news accordingly as the first ever reduced-salt mild cheddar cheese launches in the UK today. The ground-breaking cheese, which will go on sale exclusively at more than 600 Tesco stores, will offer health-conscious British shoppers a cheddar with a 30 per cent reduction of salt. Cheese, especially cheddar, is one of the most popular foods in Britain but also one of the biggest contributors of salt to the UK diet . Cheese, and especially cheddar, is . one of the most popular foods in Britain, but it is one of the biggest . contributors of salt to the UK diet, along with bacon and bread. Alarming levels of salt in cheese contribute to high blood pressure, which is responsible for . strokes, heart attacks and thousands of early deaths a year, reported Consensus . Action on Salt and Health (CASH). With more people than ever watching their salt intake Tesco believes this new cheese will fill an . important gap in the market. Tesco cheese category buying manager . David Chamberlain said: 'Cheddar is the most consumed cheese in Britain . with plenty of different varieties to suit a wide range of tastes - from . mild to extra strong and even those that can reduce your cholesterol. 'There are also several different fat-reduced cheddars available, but now shoppers across the UK will have easy . access to a reduced-salt variety for the first time. 'This cheese has been developed over several years by one of the UK's top dairy producers and we believe it stands up well against regular mild cheddars. We also think it will inspire other cheese makers to follow suit. 100g of cheese can contain 1.5g to 3.5g of salt. 50g/2oz cheddar - a piece the size of a small matchbox or the amount you'd get in a cheese sandwich - contains 0.8g salt. You could try replacing high-salt cheddar and feta with mozzarella and cream cheeses, which are relatively low in salt. The cheese has been made for Tesco by . award-winning dairy producers Joseph Heler, who have become well known . for their ground-breaking work within the reduced fat cheese market. Small amounts of salt are essential for health, but Tesco and Heler were conscious that there are a number of people within the UK who are watching their salt intake yet still want to continue to enjoy every day foods. Tesco nutritionist Karen Tonks added: 'Reducing salt consumption is an important factor in helping to reduce early deaths from coronary heart disease and stroke. 'Cheese is a popular product both as a snack and as an ingredient and is a good source of calcium and protein but its salt content means that you have to keep an eye on the portion size. 'Now with a reduced salt cheese in the range it means it is easier to balance salt intakes - especially when combining with other foods that also contain salt - and with a great flavour the family won't notice the difference.' Heler's Reduced Salt Mild Cheddar costs £1.88 per pack (£7.52 per kilo). The low-salt cheddar passed the FEMAIL taste test . We tried Heler’s Reduced Salt Mild Cheddar and came up with the following: . FEMAIL can't really tell there is reduced saltiness - a feature of cheddar we particularly enjoy .
|
A single portion of regular cheddar has more salt than a bag of crisps .
Ground-breaking mild cheese boasts a 30 per cent salt reduction .
FEMAIL couldn't spot cheese's reduced saltiness...
.... but it does taste a bit more like Edam than cheddar .
|
148984c6661cae2c7a19ffdfce322c4f38257481
|
Whether it's a pop star or a friend - you're unlikely to bat an eyelid if they snap and post a picture of themselves online. But people who share lots of selfies are displaying psychopathic traits, according to a new study. It found that men who regularly post selfies on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, are more likely to be narcissistic, impulsive and display other characteristics, such as a lack of empathy. Obsessed with selfies? Men who regularly post them on social media sites are displaying psychopathic traits, according to a new study, which found that selfie addicts are also likely narcissistic. Male celebrities such as Justin Bieber (pictured) regularly keep their fans updated with self-portraits . Researchers also revealed that self-objectification may be a bigger problem for men than previously thought, with many taking the time and effort to edit and improve their selfies, before posting them online. Psychologists from Ohio State University found that men who posted selfies regularly, scored higher than average for levels of anti-social traits. For example, men who doctor their images to improve their appearance, show signs of narcissism and self-objectification, said assistant professor of communication Jesse Fox. Narcissism is most commonly associated with vanity but as a psychological flaw, relates to a feeling of being more intelligent, attractive and better than others, according to the study published in the journal, Personality and Individual Differences. Researchers also revealed that self-objectification (illustrated with a stock image) may be a bigger problem for men than previously thought . Men who put their pictures online as soon as they can are more likely to show signs of psychopathy, which is defined as having a lack of empathy or regard to others and impulsiveness. Professor Fox explained: ‘Psychopathy is characterised by impulsivity. They are going to snap the photos and put them online right away. ‘They want to see themselves. They don’t want to spend time editing.’ To come to their conclusions, the researchers surveyed 800 men aged between 18 and 40 about their social media output, as well as giving them psychological questionnaires to establish personality traits. The survey asked them how often they post pictures on sites like Instagram and Twitter and whether they Photoshop their selfies first. Professor Fox said: ‘It’s not surprising that men who post a lot of selfies and spend more time editing them are more narcissistic. ‘The more interesting finding is that they also score higher on this other anti-social personality trait, psychopathy, and are more prone to self-objectification. ‘Most people don’t think that men even do that sort of thing, but they definitely do.' She warned that such behaviour can lead to further problems. ‘We know that self-objectification leads to a lot of terrible things, like depression and eating disorders in women. ‘With the growing use of social networks, everyone is more concerned with their appearance. ‘That means self-objectification may become a bigger problem for men, as well as for women.’ Experts linked selfies with mental illness in April last year by suggesting suggested that people regularly searching for the perfect angle from which to portray themselves could in some cases be ill. One leading psychiatrist said the majority of patients he sees with Body Dysmorphic Disorder take a lot of selfies. Dr David Veale, a consultant psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust and The Priory Hospital, told The Sunday Mirror: ‘Two out of three of all the patients who come to see me with Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) since the rise of camera phones have a compulsion to repeatedly take and post selfies on social media sites.’ Experts have linked selfies with mental illness and have suggested that people regularly searching for the perfect angle could in some cases be suffering from a confidence-related mental health condition . He told MailOnline: ‘Taking selfies is not an addiction - it’s a symptom of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) that involves checking one’s appearance.’ Cognitive behavioural therapy is often used to help patients moderate their obsessive behaviour relating to their appearance. Sufferers of BDD can spend hours trying to take pictures that do not show any defects or flaws in their appearance, which they are very aware of but which might be unnoticeable to others. In one extreme case of the disorder, a British teenager Danny Bowman tried to commit suicide because he was unsatisfied with his appearance in the selfies he took. He was so desperate to attract girls, he spent 10 hours a day taking more than 200 selfies trying to find the perfect image, but his habit, which began at the age of 15, caused him to drop out of school and lose almost two stone in weight. In an article for Psychology Today, Dr Pamela Rutledge, Director of the Media Psychology Research Centre in Boston Massachusetts, said: ‘Selfies frequently trigger perceptions of self-indulgence or attention seeking social dependence that raises the 'damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don’t' spectre of either narcissism or very low self-esteem.'
|
Researchers from Ohio State University said men who share lots of selfies are displaying psychopathic traits, such as a lack of empathy .
Men who Photoshop their pictures before sharing them show signs of narcissism and self-objectification, the study found .
Researchers revealed that self-objectification may be a bigger problem for men than previously thought .
|
148d1c990203087c0007fc10f426598aab07e7bc
|
By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 21:41 EST, 5 January 2014 . | . UPDATED: . 21:41 EST, 5 January 2014 . When David Carnahan's school crush lost her father last month, the young Texas boy provided more than a shoulder to cry on. Devastated that Jolie Fowler and her younger sibling would grow up without a dad, David began raising money to help support the grieving family. He's raised more than $1000 through donation website gofundme.com and in the process, 'learned a lot about what it means to give from the heart.' Scroll down for video . Heartwarming: Little David Carnahan has raised more than $1000 for his crush's family after her father died on December 23 . Puppy love: David Carnahan has loved his crush Jolie, right, since the second grade . Jolie's father died on December 23 from a medical condition. He didn't have life insurance. Just four days later, David's mom Jennifer Weeldreyer Carnahan posted a fundraising profile online on her son's behalf. 'My crush since 2nd grade lost her daddy last week. He had no life insurance. I would like to help her family in some way. Please consider donating. Thank you,' the post said. The adorable boy has raised more than his $1000 fundraising goal, with 39 donors, and plans to keep the page open until Wednesday. 'I told Jolie's family about the donations and they were very touched that the community cared about their family so much,' he wrote online. 'I can't even begin to tell you how happy my heart is that the community came together to support a family friend in need. 'Many donors didn't even know the Fowler Family but just wanted to help. WOW! I've learned a lot about what it means to give from the heart!' Selfless: David Carnahan has posted clips to YouTube in which he appeals for donors . Loving family: David Carnahan's mom, Jennifer Weeldreyer Carnahan (left), helped him set up a fundraising profile on donation website gofundme.com .
|
David Carnahan has had a crush on Jolie Fowler since the second grade .
Her dad died on December 23 and had no life insurance .
On December 27, David's mom set up a profile on donation website gofundme.com to raise $1000 for the Fowler family .
He has raised $1045 .
|
148d51bb99f2df54b3c193404693289d084ce73b
|
Betty Williams, 86, has reserved every table at a local pub so that lonely people can enjoy a festive dinner together this Christmas . A widowed former school teacher has hired out a pub to lay on a Christmas lunch for 50 strangers - likely to cost £1,000 - just so they won't feel lonely over the festive season. Betty Williams, 86, who lives in West Hill in East Devon, has reserved every table at the Lamb and Flag pub in Ottery St Mary and will foot the bill for the traditional turkey dinners and bottles of wine. The pensioner, who was originally going to keep her identity a secret, lost her husband 12 years ago and has found herself along over the Christmas period in recent years due to a lack of close family and an inability to travel. And this year, determined not to eat by herself again, she made the reservation and extended an open invite to people who would otherwise be on their own. The former Italian and French secondary school teacher said: 'I've been watching programmes on television about food banks and people by themselves being in trouble. 'Every time my post comes there is a request for money, and I thought rather than send the money abroad, why not help local people? 'I just thought it was the sort of gesture I could make to people in the local community who might be in trouble. That was my only intention. It has completely snowballed.' Mrs Williams, who doesn't have any children, has since received donations of more than £1,000 from as far as America and Holland after her news of her plight went international. The Oxford University graduate added: 'I don't have any close relatives at all. I was an only child, my husband was an only child, and we live miles away from other relatives. 'My nearest relatives at the moment are in Derbyshire or Kent - a long way away.' She first approached the town's mayor, Glyn Dobson, to see if he thought the idea was reasonable and after little persuasion he stepped in to help organise the event. He said: 'It's a very kind gesture. I think it is because she has been on her own. 'It is people who wouldn't be having a Christmas lunch or spending it alone. Most of them are local people and they are mostly elderly.' He added that the lunch on Tuesday, December 23, for those who live in the parish will start at 12.30pm. The Lamb and Flag pub in Ottery St Mary will host the Christmas lunch, set to cost around £1,000 on Tuesday . Along with a full dinner with all the trimmings, the generous pensioner has also ordered two bottles of wine for each of the 12 tables. At the full price, such a spread will cost £21.95 per person for food and £14.95 per bottle of wine - a total of £1,097.50 if 50 people turn up. However, the pub is offering an undisclosed discount. Cllr Dobson added: 'The pub are very happy. They thought it was lovely. In the town, it's all been very positive. 'She [Mrs Williams] hopes to come but she said don't count on it. If she does come, I will say the generous lady is here and we will give her a round of applause.' And the generous benefactor will not be spending Christmas Day alone in her £490,000 house in the small village either. 'I have been invited out by some friends to go to their house [on Christmas Day] and by other friends on Boxing Day,' she said. 'I thought I was going to be on my own with a tin of soup.' .
|
Betty Williams, 86, has reserved every table at the Lamb and Flag pub .
She will foot the £1,000 bill for turkey dinners and bottles of wine next week .
Her husband died 12 years ago and she's been alone over Christmas since .
This year she decided to make gesture to help people in local community .
|
148d8da54f765502f8ecaf2211b37cc096ae9ff6
|
By . Emma Glanfield for MailOnline . This is the shocking moment a police officer appears to throw a punch at a suspect who is being restrained by two other officers. The video, taken by a passer-by, shows the officer apparently attacking the man as he was arrested in Derby city centre in July. Senior officers have now launched an inquiry into the incident after studying the alarming footage. Scroll down for video . The video, taken by a passer-by in July, shows the officer apparently throwing a punch at the suspect as he was arrested and restrained in Holcombe Street, Derby. Police said an internal investigation had been launched . The footage shows the suspect being restrained by police and appears to show the officer arguing with him . The video shows the suspect being pulled along Holcombe Street by officers, as he shouts abuse at a third officer who follows them down the road. Then, as they approach a police car, the third officer appears to argue with the suspect before apparently launching himself at the man landing a punch on his face. Filmed by an onlooker who did not want to be identified, a woman's scream can be heard before the video cuts out. In response, a force spokesman confirmed the incident took place in late July and that an internal investigation had been launched. At the time of the incident, the suspect had been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and public order offences. Alan Charles, the police and crime commissioner for Derbyshire, who oversees the work of the county's force, said: 'Police officers deal with very difficult situations on a daily basis. 'The public have the right to expect officers to behave in a professional manner. 'If any officers don't meet these standards, then they can certainly expect any breaches to be thoroughly investigated and appropriate action taken.' A woman's scream can be heard on the video footage after the officer apparently punches the suspect's face . The suspect can be heard arguing and shouting at the police officers as he is restrained in Holcombe Street . Mark Pickard, Derbyshire Police Federation chairman, said: 'We are confident that, if a complaint is made, then the Derbyshire force will carry out a thorough investigation. 'The force has an exemplary record when it comes to investigating complaints from members of the public about its officers and staff. 'Police officers are bound by the force's standards and the new Code of Ethics and, as such, their behaviour must meet stringent guidelines. 'Where their conduct is found to be wanting, there are also procedures in place to ensure they are dealt with appropriately.' Lisa Higginbottom's stepbrother Sam Kirk died after being felled by the single punch of an attacker. The police officers restrained and arrested the man on suspicion of criminal damage and public order offences . In the footage, a police car can be seen stopped next to the commotion as the incident unfolds (far top left) She launched a campaign called 'One Punch' to educate people about the dangers of lashing out. She said: 'I am shocked to hear that a police officer can behave in this way. 'The whole idea of the campaign is that, whatever the provocation has been, people should not lash out with their fists. 'The campaign was launched in the hope that people learn that their fists are weapons and should not be used. 'It asks that when faced with a potentially explosive or tension-filled atmosphere, they take 60 seconds to think about exactly what the consequences of their actions might be.'
|
Video appears to show policeman throwing a punch at suspect in Derby .
Footage taken by passer-by who watched man be arrested by three officers .
One of the officers apparently argued with suspect before attempting punch .
Derbyshire Constabulary said an internal investigation had been launched .
|
148ef5d0df6d09e31eefdbceac5974bba388d645
|
Gus Poyet says there can be no more excuses for the shortcomings of his Sunderland side after signing Jermain Defoe from Toronto FC. The Black Cats head coach has repeatedly bemoaned the attacking personnel available to him at the Stadium of Light. Indeed, Sunderland are the Premier League’s second-lowest scorers with just 18, but Poyet said: ‘There is no doubt we all needed a lift, and the club is a different club today. I’ve got no doubts about that. Sunderland boss Gus Poyet has told his players 'there are no excuses' after the signing of Jermain Defoe . Defoe is in contention to face former side Tottenham at White Hart Lane on the weekend . Black Cats manager Poyet said he was thrilled to have signed the former Tottenham striker . 11 - Aston Villa . 18 - Sunderland . 19 - Burnley . 20 - West Brom, Hull, Leicester . 22 - Crystal Palace, Stoke . ‘It doesn’t happen that way very often, and it’s not very often we’re in a position where we can bring in a player of the quality of Jermain Defoe. ‘But we’ve got him here, and we have to use him in the right way now. There are no excuses now. I am responsible, and I’m telling you there are no excuses now, so whatever happens from this point onwards is down to me. ‘I cannot say one thing one day and then change when it suits me. We were missing something in front of goal, but now we’ve got Jermain. Now I need to keep him fit and playing, and find a way with Jermain on the pitch to make him score goals. That’s my challenge now.’ Poyet has revealed that he used his friendship with Defoe – who he worked with at Spurs - to get the deal started, before handing over to sporting director Lee Congerton to thrash out the terms of his £80,000-per-week contract. Poyet was pleased with how quickly Sunderland moved to sign Defoe ahead of their league rivals . The Uruguayan – who could now start Defoe at White Hart Lane – explained: ‘When the club was happy to start finding out about the possibility, I talked to Jermain. Simple. ‘I knew that Jermain would tell me the truth. He wouldn’t say, “Let me wait and see, and maybe I’ll give you an answer next week or in another week’s time”. It was straightforward. ‘When I knew what Jermain told me, I went back to Lee and said, “Now the ball is on your side of the court”. As soon as I spoke to Jermain, I knew we had a chance, and that was the main thing. We had a proper chance, and it proved right, so credit to Jermain. ‘Then all the rest of the deal was tough, there were so many things involved, but that is credit to the club.’
|
Gus Poyet has stated his delight at being able to sign Jermain Defoe .
The Black Cats coach believes Defoe will fill a major void in his side .
Defoe is expected to make his Sunderland debut against Tottenham .
|
148f18e41b5307338bc20301c9957c3b86a3ba00
|
Britain will be 'swamped' by tuberculosis unless new measures to diagnose the disease . A leading doctor has warned that Britain will be ‘swamped’ by tuberculosis unless new measures to diagnose the disease in immigrants are introduced. The disease, which was rife in Britain until the 1950s, is an increasing and worrying problem in urban areas. Rising immigration has seen a surge in cases in the last 20 years. Under current rules, new immigrants from countries where TB is common are required to have chest X-rays before being allowed into Britain. But doctors argue this century-old method only spots active TB once it is already destroying the lungs – meaning cases are often diagnosed far too late. Other countries such as the U.S. use a blood test, which can detect the latent TB in those not displaying any symptoms. Cases have fallen since this technique was introduced in 2007. At the British Thoracic Society conference this week, Peter Davies of the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, said urgent changes were needed to halt the decades-long rise in TB cases. He told The Times: ‘The tide has been coming in for 20 years, it’s been getting bigger and bigger and if we don’t do something we will be swamped with TB as we were 100 years ago.’ TB is caused by a bacterium that spreads through saliva. The disease used to be known as consumption because the bacterium ate holes in the lungs. From 50,000 cases a year in Britain in the 1950s, the rate fell to 5,000 in the 1980s. TB is a bacterial infection which is spread by inhaling drops of saliva when an infected person coughs, speaks or sneezes. The disease mainly affects the lungs, . but can travel to other parts of the body including the brain, kidneys, . bones and joints. The disease is curable with a six-month course of . antibiotics, but a drug-resistant form can develop if the course is not . completed. Left untreated it can prove fatal. Symptoms include a persistent cough that . lasts for more than three weeks that gets progressively worse, . unexplained weight loss, fever, night sweats, chest pain, fatigue and . loss of appetite. However, many people who are infected . never develop symptoms - although the bacteria remain in the body, they . are not infectious. Last year there were just over 9,000 cases of TB - a five per cent increase on the year before, according to figures from the Health Protection Agency. The main risk area is still London with 3,588 cases reported in 2011, accounting for 40 per cent of the UK total. And nearly three quarters of those suffering the disease were those not born in the UK. Professor Davies and his peers recommend that people from the Indian subcontinent and sub-Saharan Africa, where rates are highest, should be given the blood test when registering with a GP. Those found to have latent TB can easily eliminate it with a course of antibiotics. Speaking about the blood test, he said: ‘It’s a no-brainer. If we screen for latent TB we would eliminate the majority of cases of people coming into this country. Now we’ve got the blood tests, for goodness’ sake let’s use them.’ He added that with TB claiming up to 500 deaths a year, the numbers were as many as HIV. The homeless and drug addicts should also be screened because new infections have become more common among these groups, he continued. Mike Mandlebaum, chief executive of the charity TB Alert, said: ‘The truth is that TB never really went away in the UK and has been steadily rising here, from around 5,000 cases a year at the end of the Eighties to 8,500 in 2007/8. ‘TB is a disease usually associated with certain high-risk groups such as those with HIV, those from Eastern bloc countries and Asia, and those living in crowded living conditions. But anyone can get it.' Onn Min Kon, a consultant at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, London, said that rates of the disease are continuing to rise and that the UK has the highest rates in Europe. Last year there were just over 9,000 cases of TB - a five per cent increase on the year before, according to figures from the Health Protection Agency . Echoing the sentiments of Mr Mandlebaum, he said even low risk people are susceptible if the disease is out of control, it being possible to become infected by being in the same room as someone with TB. He added that people should not become careless about the risks because they didn’t fit the traditional demographic of someone who gets the disease. His research has found that a fifth of immigrants to Britain from high-risk areas had latent TB – but the current guidelines for screening men around 75 per cent of these cases will be missed, so the real figure may be substantially higher. The Department of Health said that in line with NICE guidance, the NHS currently uses both chest X-ray screening and blood-testing to check for TB, with the evidence for new technologies kept under review.’
|
9,000 cases of tuberculosis in the UK last year - up 5% on the year before .
Immigrants currently screened using chest X-ray .
But experts argue this 100-year-old method only spots people with advanced disease, meaning many with no symptoms are missed .
Calling for blood test used in the U.S. to be standard test .
|
148f2910c44f0a4e11e42cb84e276d8a9e81b858
|
By . Associated Press . A few weeks after David Letterman announced he'd be retiring from the CBS late-night television line-up, Craig Ferguson has done the same. Ferguson, host of 'The Late Late Show' since 2005, told his studio audience during Monday's taping that he will step down at the end of the year. Ferguson's show airs after Letterman's, at 12:35am on weekdays. Putting his feet up: Craig Ferguson, pictured on The Late Late Show last November, has announced he will step down from his show at the end of the year . Retirement: Ferguson, once considered a strong contender to succeed David Letterman, has suffered from a ratings slip . Long run: The Scottish comedian has been the host of The Late Late Show since 2005 and will end his tenure at the end of the year. Pictured above in his first year of hosting the show . Julie Chen with Ferguson: He told his studio audience on Monday that he will step down at the end of the year . Lyle Lovett with Ferguson: The comes after CBS announced that Stephen Colbert will replace Letterman . Ferguson fiddles with the autocue: There was a time that Ferguson, whose show won a Peabody Award in 2009, was considered a strong contender for David Letterman's job on the Late Show . The move was no surprise after CBS . announced that Stephen Colbert will replace Letterman next year. There . was a time that Ferguson, whose show won a Peabody Award in 2009, was . considered a strong contender for that job. But 'The Late Late Show' has faded in the ratings, particularly with the arrival of Seth Meyers in February as competition in the same time slot. 'CBS and I are not getting divorced, we are consciously uncoupling,' Ferguson said. 'But we will still spend holidays together and share custody of the fake horse and robot skeleton, both of whom we love very much.' He told the audience it was his decision to leave, adding, 'CBS has been fine with me.' CBS Entertainment Chairwoman Nina Tassler said Ferguson 'infused the broadcast with tremendous energy, unique comedy, insightful interviews and some of the most heartfelt monologues seen on television.' New blood: Ferguson's show airs just after David Letterman, who recently announced his retirement as well. Letterman will be replaced by Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert. Pictured together on the April 22 episode of Letterman's show . Pushed out: Ferguson recently faced competition from newcomer Seth Meyers, who has the same time slot on NBC . The Scottish-born Ferguson, 51, became a U.S. citizen during his tenure on the show. He already has a new job lined up, as host of 'Celebrity Name Game,' a syndicated game show set to debut later this year. But he joked about his plans with the audience. After his stint ends, 'I'll go and do something else. Probably, I'm thinking, carpentry. But I haven't made my mind up yet. ... I feel like doing this show for 10 years, that's enough,' he said. Guest LL Cool J told Ferguson that 'I hate to see you go.' It's been an unusually busy period of personnel changes in the late-night television arena. Jimmy Fallon took over the 'Tonight' show on NBC from Jay Leno in February and was an instant sensation, ascending to the top of the ratings against Letterman and ABC's Jimmy Kimmel. Letterman announced that he would be leaving CBS after more than three decades in late-night TV. Chelsea Handler also has said she will be leaving her late-night show on E! CBS said it plans to continue 'The Late Late Show' and will be searching for another host. There's another opening at Comedy Central, which is looking to replace 'The Colbert Report' when it ends at the end of the year.
|
The 51-year-old Scottish comedian announced his retirement during Monday's taping .
He has been the host of The Late Late Show since 2005 .
Ferguson will finish the year out at the late-night show and already has another gig set up as the host of 'Celebrity Name Game'
|
148fd862571d0d588cf3c8d917cf2eccb2d6b09e
|
By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 05:36 EST, 28 October 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 05:57 EST, 28 October 2013 . Devastated: John Halliday, pictured, had to have part of his leg amputated after doctors failed to notice the spread of a serious infection . A grandfather whose leg had to be amputated after a series of hospital blunders had been awarded £1.5m in compensation. Health and Safety consultant John Halliday, 59, is now confined to a wheelchair in the wake of failures by doctors and has been warned his life expectancy is likely to be shorter. Medics at Bradford Royal Infirmary failed to diagnose a serious infection which later spread to other parts of his body including his spine, leaving him with ‘devastating’ injuries. He has been forced to give up work and is now heavily reliant on help from carers in adapted accommodation. He has been warned a combination of earlier and more recent illnesses is likely to cut his life short. In . an out-of-court settlement, he has been awarded compensation after the . hospital admitted liability for negligence in delays in diagnosing and . treating septic arthritis which would have avoided the amputation. Mr Halliday, from Retford, Notts, said he felt he had been ‘abandoned’ by the NHS. There . had been a ‘catalogue of errors’ in his care but it was only a year . after he first fell ill that he realised mistakes had been made. He said: 'It’s unbelievable, it really . is. I’m in a wheelchair. I have carers in every day and they have to do . most things for me. I’m not able to work - and can make a cup of tea . and a sandwich and that’s about the limit nowadays. 'At first I was very angry but I’ve had to accept what’s happened and make the best of the hand I’ve been dealt. 'It is a large sum of money but it doesn’t bring back the life I had.' The father-of-two, a former . psychiatric nurse before setting up his own business, had suffered from . gout attacks for years which left him bedridden but had never needed . hospital treatment until 2008 when he began suffering serious problems . linked to his left ankle. Payout: Patient John Halliday says he felt abandoned by the NHS while receiving treatment at Bradford Royal Infirmary . He . was examined by doctors at Bradford Royal Infirmary who wrongly told . him he was suffering from cellulitis and an allergic reaction to . medication. He was given . antibiotics but did not undergo an early surgical washout of the ankle . to eradicate the infection which can damage vital cartilage. Trauma: John Halliday, from Retford, pictured before mistakes at Bradford Royal Infirmary led to him losing part of his leg due to an infection . It . was not for another 10 days that he was given the correct diagnosis of . septic arthritis which had led to toxic shock syndrome and kidney . failure. Despite the joint . being washed out four times and again two months later, the efforts . proved too late and he was told he needed a below-the-knee amputation. But before the operation could take . place, he was readmitted to the hospital in January 2009 where tests . showed the infection had spread to his lungs and spine. His leg was amputated two weeks later but his other problems continued, leaving him with severe curvature of his spine. Owing . to the back problems, he was unable to walk using a prosthetic leg and . cannot even move short distance on crutches. He suffers from severe back . pain and phantom pain in his missing leg. He . has now had to move from his home in Clayton, Bradford, where . he was a regular spectator of the city’s rugby league and football teams . and a keen fishermen, to live closer to his family in Retford, . Nottinghamshire. Surgeons who examined the case agreed if . he had kept his leg, his ability to get around would have been improved . and he would have been able to become mobile earlier, which would have . reduced his spinal problems. 'Abandoned': Mr Halliday is now confined to a wheelchair and has had his life expectancy cut short after the treatement he received at Bradford Royal Infirmary . Mealla Logue, of MPH Solicitors of Manchester, who represented Mr Halliday, said the negligence had led to ‘devastating’ injuries. A Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust spokesman said: 'We are deeply sorry for the distress Mr Halliday has experienced as a result of the care he received at our hospital. 'The care we provided fell below our usual high standards and we sincerely apologise to Mr Halliday for this.'
|
John Halliday is now confined to a wheelchair after 'catalogue of errors'
Medics at Bradford Royal Infirmary failed to spot spread of septic arthritis .
Mr Halliday awarded out-of-court settlement after hospital admitted liability .
Health and safety consultant from Retford, Notts, said he felt 'abandoned' by the NHS .
|
1490b621d745b92099503585b8df8df3ec636347
|
By . Jo Macfarlane . PUBLISHED: . 17:18 EST, 5 January 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 17:18 EST, 5 January 2013 . Tens of thousands of vulnerable care patients say they feel at risk from abuse, are allowed to go hungry and are often left unwashed, according to a shocking Government survey. It found that one in three adults who are in residential care or receiving help at home fear abuse or physical harm – equivalent to about half a million people. Others complained they received so little food and drink that they believed their health could suffer. Charities claimed last night that the survey showed the system was in ‘massive crisis’ and warned that the problems could get even worse as cash-strapped local authorities targeted care budgets for further cuts. Revelations: Tens of thousands of vulnerable care . patients say they feel at risk from abuse, are allowed to go hungry and . are often left unwashed, according to a shocking Government survey . About 1.5 million people in England – most of whom are elderly or disabled – receive basic care funded wholly or in part by local authorities because they have issues with mobility, have ongoing health issues or are dependent on alcohol or drugs. The Adult Social Care Survey, which was carried out by the Department of Health, regulator the Care Quality Commission and the NHS’s Health and Social Care Information Centre, found: . The care received by 89-year-old Ann Joyce in her residential home is ‘woefully inadequate’, according to her daughter Jacqueline Grattan.Ann, from Essex, has bone cancer and dementia, and has been in the care system for three years. Art gallery owner Jacqueline, who lives in Wormley, Hertfordshire, said: ‘We keep being told the staffing levels comply with Government guidelines, but there are never enough people on duty to deal with basic needs like toileting. ‘The staff are supposed to have dementia training but I have never seen any of them talk to my mother or try to keep her mind active. ‘If she says no to a cup of tea or glass of water, they leave it at that, although she can’t express her wishes. As a result, she is constantly dehydrated and unable to fight off infections. ‘In my mother’s unit there are supposed to be five staff for 28 patients, but one or two care assistants are invariably off. 'My mother sometimes has to wait 40 minutes to be toileted and that can’t be right, whatever the Government guidelines say. ‘The staff work hard. They are on the go all the time but they are badly managed. If you asked me whether my mother feels safe and secure, I would say no.’ A spokesman for Barchester Care Homes, which runs the home where Ann lives, said: . ‘The safety, health and wellbeing of our residents is of the utmost importance. Our staff are highly qualified and dedicated, and residents are offered access to activities and excursions.’ England’s 152 local authorities were each asked to send the survey to at least 300 people receiving social care, who were selected at random. Nearly 63,000 completed the poll between January and March last year. A third said they did not feel as safe as they would like, while two per cent said they did not feel safe at all. But in some areas, such as Brent, . North-West London, more than 50 per cent claimed they did not feel safe, . while in Hartlepool, Co Durham, St Helens, Merseyside, and Tameside, . Greater Manchester, more than 40 per cent said social care services did . not make them feel safe. The report did not reveal why people felt unsafe or who they feared might cause them harm. At . the same time, 2,500 people – four per cent of those surveyed – claimed . that they did not get enough food and drink. This rose to 9.2 per cent . in Westminster, Central London, and 8.8 per cent in Manchester. An . additional one per cent – 630 people – said they got so little food and . drink that they believed there was a risk to their health. And 44 per . cent said they did not feel as clean and as well-presented as they would . like, with six per cent claiming they felt less than adequately clean. One per cent claimed the way they were treated ‘completely undermines the way I think and feel about myself’. Liz Kendall, Labour’s care spokesman, said the study was a damning indictment of England’s £17 billion-a-year care industry. ‘These figures are deeply concerning but they represent only part of what’s going on and that’s not good enough,’ she said. ‘The . Government must ask why people are not feeling safe, and this . information should be fed back to providers, commissioners and families. We need to know what’s going on here in depth. ‘I . suspect part of the problem is how isolated many elderly and disabled . people feel while in care, separated from their families. But a lack of . funding and the high turnover of carers also mean many receiving care in . their own homes don’t know the people who are coming to help them, and . basic compassion is lacking.’ Worrying: Up to 50 per cent of those . questioned in the NHS survey in some areas said they felt unsafe because they believed . they were at risk of abuse or physical harm (file picture) Michelle Mitchell, charity director . general at Age UK, said: ‘By neglecting the social care system for so . long, governments have put the human rights, health and dignity of too . many at risk. ‘Many older . people are worrying about having enough food to eat, and feel unsafe . and unable to present themselves in a way that retains their dignity. How can this be acceptable in a civilised society?’ Health . Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: ‘The quality of care needs to be valued as . highly as the quality of treatment. There can be no hiding place for . those providing poor care. We have protected access to care by investing . £7.2 billion over four years, but we also want to drive up standards so . everyone gets the service they have the right to expect.’ More than 50 different carers in a year have been sent to one 80-year-old stroke victim, who is looked after in his own home. Retired accountant Richard has had two strokes in two years and is housebound. He was offered a residential care place after his first stroke, but his wife Helen, 75, asked that he be allowed to continue living at their home in Darlington, Co Durham. The couple now rely on a succession of young care assistants, part-funded by the local authority, who visit four times a day to help get Richard out of bed and dressed, feed him and put him to bed. Helen said that while many of the carers were ‘wonderful’, she had been left frustrated by the lack of training and high turnover of staff. ‘I keep a diary and in the past year we’ve had 56 different carers – only six of them men,’ she said. ‘Richard has a care plan but they don’t read it so I’m on edge all the time, wondering what they are going to do next. ‘It can be very frustrating. One of the girls we had was a 17-year-old who went straight from working at Burger King to looking after my husband. They don’t get the training they need – it’s not just a case of making a cup of tea and having a chat. ‘Richard has to have everything done for him, including washing and toileting, because he can’t get around on his own. They never call ahead if they’re running late. ‘Whoever runs the care system, I would like to go in there and shake them all up.’ Both the couple’s real names have been withheld because Helen is worried about possible repercussions from the carers who visit their home. ‘Some of the girls who come in to help can be slightly vindictive and I wouldn’t want them to react badly to criticism,’ she said.
|
Charities claim the Government survey shows 'massive crisis' in the system .
The NHS survey found that half of patients are not kept clean .
63,000 people were surveyed and 1 in 10 don't get enough to eat or drink .
Up to 50 per cent of those .
questioned in some areas said they felt unsafe because they believed .
they were at risk of abuse or physical harm.
Nearly .
one in ten in some areas claimed they did not get enough to eat or .
drink, while one in 100 across the country said they received so little .
nourishment they feared their health could be at risk.
Nearly .
half of those relying on carers to perform basic washing duties said .
they did not feel as clean or presentable as they would like.
Thousands said the way they were treated ‘undermines’ the way they feel about themselves.
|
1490c0a25af0fa96770e3394e3721a89422d7ad7
|
New York (CNN) -- Mourners gathered Thursday for the funeral service of a New York police detective, who died nearly a decade after being exposed to toxic debris while transporting victims in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Kevin Czartyoryski died Sunday after a months-long battle with lung cancer, according to the head of the city's detectives union, Michael Palladino. "In May, he was cancer free," Palladino said. "Now here we are seven months later and he's passed away." Czartyoryski developed cancer after years suffering from pulmonary fibrosis, a condition in which the lung tissue becomes thick and scarred. The New York Police Department medical board presumed his condition was caused by the toxic air he breathed while working at ground zero, according to police spokesman Carlos Nieves. Czartoryski joined the police force in 1988 and had most recently been working in its public information office before he retired on disability in 2008. He received a lung transplant in May 2010, just before cancer was discovered in his remaining lung, Palladino said. For months after the collapse of the World Trade Center, he had worked at ground zero, searching for victims' remains and organizing a temporary morgue. "He loved the NYPD and the work he was doing," Palladino said. The 46-year-old Queens native is remembered by friends and colleagues as a respected man with "a magnificent personality," he added. "On behalf of the entire Police Department I convey my condolences to family and friends of retired Detective Kevin Czartoryski," Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said in a written statement on Thursday. "He was a consummate professional and a cheerful bridge for understanding who will be missed terribly." Czartoryski had worked as a public affairs officer to the city's gay and transgender community, working as a part of the department's Hate Crime Task Force. Meanwhile in Washington, Senate Republicans derailed a procedural vote on a bill that would provide $7.4 billion in aid and medical coverage to those exposed to toxins following the attacks of September 11, 2001. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called Thursday's vote "a tragic example of partisan politics trumping patriotism." But the James Zadroga 9/11 Health Bill is not the only plan intended to support ground zero workers. Last month a settlement set to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars to ground zero workers concluded a seven-year fight between the city of New York and first responders, who said they were not properly outfitted for search-and-rescue efforts following the attack.
|
New York police officer, a 9-11 responder, died after battling lung cancer .
NYPD medical board presumed his condition was caused by toxic air from ground zero .
Czartoryski's funeral occurred on the same day 9/11 bill was derailed in Senate .
|
1490e261f833a39763a7c60ed718fed67b84f16f
|
Shop closures are turning high streets into ‘ghost towns’ with clothes shops, building societies and mobile phone stores most likely to put up their shutters. Stores closed at the rate of 16 a day, a total of 3,003, across 500 main shopping centres during the first six months of this year, a study found. At the same time there has been a fall in new tenants filling the gaps, so many outlets remain empty – and a magnet for vandals. The changes are being driven by a switch to buying on the internet, with British families spending more online per person than in any other nation. High street stores are closing at an alarming rate as shoppers spurn them for retail parks and the internet . A survey by business services and accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers found a net fall of 406 shops across 500 town centres in the first six months of this year – compared with 209 in the same period in 2013. Net closures – the number of stores shut, minus the number of new shops opened – rise to 964 when data for July to September is added, following the collapse of Phones4u and La Senza. That is 260 per cent higher than the net closure figure for the whole of last year. The findings suggest many traditional shops, such as fashion outlets, travel agents and building societies are disappearing, while the big chains are moving from town centres to retail parks. They also make clear that government efforts to revive the high street, including a review by the ‘Queen of Shops’ Mary Portas, have failed to end the rise of ‘ghost towns’. PwC said the biggest decline was in fashion shops, with a net closure of 146. Some 20 per cent of clothes and shoe purchases are now made online. There was a net fall of 96 building society branches, largely due to people using the internet and phone services to manage their finances. Mobile phone shops saw a net fall of 47 even before the collapse of Phones4u, and the number of pawnbrokers dropped by 48. But some retail outlets are growing in number, including betting shops, coffee shops, pound stores, charity shops and supermarket convenience branches. PwC’s Mark Hudson said: ‘This data shows that we are now really starting to see the full effects of the digital revolution… Although the rate of growth of online sales is slowing, it still far outstrips store sales growth for most retailers… . This, combined with the advances in mobile technologies and smartphones, is only going to accelerate the channel shift.’ The figures point to a regional divide, with closures most likely in the East Midlands and North West. By contrast, high streets in London and the East of England were still relatively buoyant. A separate survey by analysts Experian revealed a move away from traditional shops towards leisure and food. It found tattoo parlours have surged by 173 per cent over the past decade, while the number of takeaway outlets is up 54 per cent. Experian’s Richard Jenkings said the high street has ‘clearly become a more social environment’. He added: ‘We have seen a clear expansion in the number of retailers where the customer actually needs to be there in person to enjoy the experience, such as cafes, health clubs and even tattooists.’
|
More than 3,000 closed in UK's 500 main shopping centres in six months .
Fashion shops, travel agents and building societies disappearing, says study .
But coffee shops, pound stores, charity shops are all on the rise .
|
1491ad2ff6f47990932dcdea7287fed6d1adf617
|
The mother of an American on trial in Iran denied allegations that her son is a spy for the CIA, saying that anything he confessed to was coerced. Iranian authorities allege that Amir Mirzaei Hekmati entered the country to infiltrate its intelligence system in order to accuse Iran of involvement in terrorist activities, according to the semi-official Fars news agency. "We are deeply concerned for the fate and well-being of Amir," Hekmati's mother, Behnaz, said in a statement Wednesday. "We are also disturbed by the video and reports coming from the Iranian court that describe Amir admitting to being a spy. It is clear to me and our entire family that Amir is speaking under duress." The United States also has called the accusations false. According to Fars, Hekmati told a judge Tuesday that he worked for the CIA and that he was to get paid for delivering information to Iran's intelligence ministry. He also told the judge he felt he had been duped and that he had planned on not returning to the United States, Fars reported. Hekmati's mother called the reported admission "totally false." "It is an indication that he is not speaking freely but being forced to say something that isn't true," she said. "Amir has many financial and business investments in the U.S. and would never walk away from them." Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine, was arrested in August while visiting his grandmother and other relatives, his family in Michigan said last week. Up until Wednesday, they had remained quiet about the arrest at the urging of Iranian officials, who promised his release, they said. "In this environment Amir is a victim," his mother said. "We are convinced that there is a mistake or misunderstanding. We pray and hope he will be allowed to come home soon." The Hekmatis said their son served in the Marines from 2001 to 2005. Later, he started his own linguistics company and contracted his services to the military as well as civilian businesses. His military contracts included cultural competency training. He worked with troops at military bases to promote understanding of, and positive communication, with people of other cultures, his family said. Fars reported that Hekmati said he worked for the U.S. Army for four years and later the CIA, where he was sent to Afghanistan and had access to secret documents. Hekmati was supposed to give his information to the Iranians in two parts -- the first part for free, and if they liked it he would ask for $500,000 for the second part, according to Fars. Hekmati said he was to get a receipt from the intelligence ministry for the money, Fars reported. The judge speculated whether the receipt would later be used as evidence linking Iran to terrorist activities, Fars reported. If Iran had paid, Hekmati told the judge, he would have kept the money and lived in Iran, according to Fars. Hekmati's attorney told the judge his client had been tricked by "Satan" -- referring to the United States -- and argued that intent to commit a crime isn't a crime in itself.
|
The U.S. and his family say Amir Mirzaei Hekmati is falsely accused of spying .
He was arrested in August while visiting relatives .
Prosecutors allege he was hired to deliver information to Iran .
Hekmati served in the Marines from 2001 to 2005 .
|
1493c5508cc8bedc2c00ba4faf04e131b9362688
|
A father who walked in on a man allegedly sexually assaulting his 11-year-old son beat the man to a pulp before calling police to say they could come collect him from a 'bloody puddle' on his floor. The 35-year-old man, who has not been identified, told a 911 dispatcher in the early hours of Friday: 'I just walked in on a grown man . molesting [name redacted]. And I got him in a . bloody puddle for you right now, officer.' Police arrived at the Daytona Beach home in Florida to find Raymond Frolander, 18, unconscious. Scroll down for 911 tape . Raymond Frolander, 18, (pictured in his mugshot) was beaten to a pulp by the father of the 11-year-old boy that he allegedly caught his sexually assaulting at a home in Daytona Beach, Florida . A subsequent mugshot showed that Frolander had been badly beaten around the face, leaving him with swollen lips and eyes, bruising and lacerations. When the 911 responder asked the father if any weapons were involved, he said: 'My foot and my fist'. 'He is nice and knocked out on the floor for you, I dragged him into the living room,' the father said. 'Send an ambulance. He is going to need one.' The dispatcher asked: 'Is he still unconscious?' to which the father responds: 'Yes... I hit hard, sir.' He said that Frolander was a 'damn lucky boy that I love my God'. The father added: 'He stood up and his pants were around his ankles and nothing else needed to be said. I did whatever I got a right to do except I didn’t kill him.' The father had left his home around 1am to pick up some food and when he returned, heard a strange noise coming from the bedroom, police said. He pushed open the door and allegedly found Frolander with his pants down performing a sex act on the child. Frolander, 18, admitted to the abuse on the 11-year-old, according to his arrest affidavit. He is being held without bail on charges of sexual battery . The boy told investigators he had been playing video games with friends but when they left, Frolander took him to a back room and pulled down his pants. He also said Frolander had been abusing him for three years. Daytona Beach police chief Michael . Chitwood told MailOnline today that Frolander had a close family . connection to the alleged victim. The chief said the young boy was intimidated and told by Frolander that terrible things would happen if he revealed the abuse. Chief Chitwood said: 'He's 11 years old, he should be running around outside and playing video games, not dealing with something like this.' He earlier told the Daytona Beach News-Journal that the father was 'just acting like a dad'. The father was not charged in the suspect’s beating, police spokesman Jimmie Flynt said. Frolander was taken to Halifax Heath Medical Center where he was treated for his injuries. The arrest affidavit said that Frolander admitted the abuse. The teen was charged with sexual battery on a child under 12 and is being held without bail. It was not known whether he's hired a lawyer.
|
The 35-year-old father told a Florida 911 dispatcher: 'Send an ambulance. He is going to need one'
Raymond Frolander, 18, was charged with sexual battery on a child under 12 and is being held without bail .
Father of the alleged victim was not charged with any crime .
|
1493ddb696abeb166e9da8d17534b1c7f00e5cb3
|
By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 19:57 EST, 15 October 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 02:48 EST, 16 October 2013 . Forget the 'Bank of Mum and Dad' - grandparents are subsidising their grandchildren to the tune of more than half a billion pounds a year, according to a new study. Researchers found a fifth of grandparents in England aged 50 or over give money to their grandchildren, and the figure totalled £647 million in 2010. Grandparents who give are more likely to be homeowners than renters and more likely to have lower or no mortgage debt, according to the research. Helping hand: A fifth of grandparents in England aged 50 or over give money to their grandchildren, and the figure totalled £647 million in 2010 . The study by the International Longevity Centre-UK (ILC-UK), supported by Key Retirement Solutions and Partnership, highlights how grandparents are playing a vital role in supporting future generations. The report - Grandparental Generosity - looks at the levels and patterns of financial support from grandparents using the 2010 English Longitudinal Study on Ageing (ELSA). Just under 2.5 million grandparents in England aged 50 or older gave money to their grandchildren. Contributions to Child Trust Funds (CTFs), tax-free savings accounts for children available from 2005-2010, were made by one in 25 grandparents (3.99 per cent). Grandparents who give are more likely to be homeowners than renters and more likely to have lower or no mortgage debt . Across England, grandparents gave a cumulative total of almost £333.8 million to their grandchildren in 2010. Almost £313.8 million was contributed to CTFs. Seventy five to 79 year olds gave more than from any other age group, but 80 to 84-year-olds gave the highest amount on average. Grandparent givers are also more likely to provide care for their grandchildren, and be female and married rather than separated or divorced. Grandparental givers are wealthier than non-givers. The research reveals that grandparent givers are typically well-off and are likely to have substantially higher incomes from private pensions. Degree holders gave a much larger amount on average compared to the other groups. Brian Beach, research fellow at ILC-UK, said: 'This research reveals that millions of grandparents are providing financial support to younger generations. 'For grandchildren, these transfers are likely arriving at a crucial transition point, impacting educational and housing opportunities. 'As people live longer and society ages, grandparental giving may have an increasingly important impact on the social mobility of grandchildren.' Ged Hosty, managing director of Equity Release at Partnership, said: 'As families become increasingly financially stretched and time-poor, grandparents are stepping in more and more to provide support. 'However, while this trend is to be welcomed as it helps to draw families closer together, it can put a strain on the grandparents finances that they may struggle to recover from. 'Therefore, it is vitally important that people consider all their assets - including their homes - ahead of retirement and take steps to ensure that they can provide as much help as needed without detriment to their own retirement aspirations.' Dean Mirfin, group director at Key Retirement Solutions, said: 'It is evident that with extended generations increasingly amongst today's population that grandparents are opting to help with their grandchildren, not just in terms of time but also financially. 'Grandparents in many cases are taking a pragmatic view with regard to this financial support seeing it as inheritance at a time when money is needed most or has the potential to most influence the financial well-being of the rest of their families. 'For many being there to witness the impact of their support is a key driver to gift at the right times, and to direct how that support is used, and this is a trend we expect to see continue.'
|
20% of grandparents aged 50 or over give money to their grandchildren .
4% now contribute to Child Trust Funds .
(CTFs)
Those who give are more likely to be homeowners than renters .
80- to 84-year-olds gave the highest amount on average .
|
1494a29ead501934e94f47f3bed78400570198de
|
(CNN) -- Since 2005, Bruno Serato has been serving up free pasta dinners to children, many of whom are poor and live in motels with their families. Serato is an Italian chef and the founder of Caterina's Club, a nonprofit that provides dinner seven days a week to more than 300 children at the Boys & Girls Club in Anaheim, California. CNN asked Serato for his thoughts on being chosen as one of the top 10 CNN Heroes of 2011. CNN: Where were you when you got the call that you'd been selected as a top 10 CNN Hero? Bruno Serato: I was home, getting ready to go to work after talking to my mom in Italy over Skype. I can't express the feelings I had at that moment. I was so happy. I was in tears. I wanted to scream like Tarzan! It was amazing news. CNN: What do you hope this recognition will mean to Caterina's Club? Serato: This gives me hope that I can make Caterina's Club a leader in resolving children's hunger in America. I do believe that, all together, we can make a big difference. If restaurants and chefs across America worked with their local Boys & Girls Clubs and followed our program, we could feed millions of children. I feel like I'm a voice on this Earth and my mission is to tell people: "Let's step forward. Don't just talk about it. Do something about it." We can make this a better place to be and fight the poverty in our country. CNN: How will you use the $50,000 award that you receive for being selected as a top 10 CNN Hero? Serato: It will help me to keep doing what I do and serve more children in need. I also hope to travel to promote the program and make more people aware of our national "motel kids" problem. CNN: What do you want people to know most about your work? Serato: In America, in our own backyards, we have kids who go to bed hungry. If we do something about it, we will have no hungry children in America. If you give up one cup of coffee a day, you can feed 10 kids. One bag of pasta costs a few dollars, and that can serve 10 kids. If I can feed more than 300 kids alone, all together we can feed millions. Read the full story on CNN Hero Bruno Serato: . Making sure 'motel kids' don't go hungry .
|
Bruno Serato was named one of the top 10 CNN Heroes of 2011 .
Serato feeds more than 300 children every night in Anaheim, California .
Serato: All together, we can make a big difference and feed millions .
|
1495b58847eaaf212bab28dc3c98f6ff316cf555
|
(CNN) -- President Obama's spending plan is just the first step in a process that will involve no less than 40 congressional committees, 24 subcommittees, countless hearings and a number of floor votes in the House and Senate, with the aim of getting funding in place for the federal government by the beginning of the 2012 fiscal year October 1. Congress never passed a budget for the current fiscal year, and the government has been running on a "continuing resolution," which expires March 4. House Republicans have thrown down the gauntlet over cuts to current programs and threaten to shut down the government if they don't get their way. After Obama sends his 2012 plan to Capitol Hill, House and Senate budget committees each pass their own budget resolutions, which set caps on spending and establish revenue targets and generally serve as five- to 10-year blueprints for congressional priorities. The budget resolutions also allocate how much may be spent on broad budget functions like defense and education but not individual programs. House and Senate numbers often differ, and the chambers must resolve their differences and pass a single Budget Act. Obama: Budget 'down payment' on debt . Next, the appropriations committees and subcommittees in each chamber debate how to allocate discretionary funds among government agencies and programs. If all doesn't go according to plan, Congress must pass a continuing resolution like last year's by 11:59 p.m. September 30 to continue funding the government as lawmakers continue to try to slice up the budget pie. Justice budget includes increase for prisons . Here are some highlights from Obama's plan: . Department of Education . There's a good reason Obama went to a school to make his first public pitch after his spending plan was released. Education is one of the few areas to get a significant increase in funding: $4.5 billion more than in his 2011 budget. Obama requests increase for education in 2012 . The $77.4 billion request would be spent on reforms, teacher training for STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and math) and reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as No Child Left Behind. Obama wants to spend $80 million to recruit 10,000 teachers in STEM subjects in the next two years, 100,000 over the next 10 years. He also wants $900 million for a new round of Race to the Top, the competition that rewards states that meet the administrations standards for innovation and outcomes. The budget request maintains the current funding level for Pell Grants, but it recommends dropping the year-round option that began in 2009. It also drops subsidies that allowed grad students to avoid interest accruing on loans while they are in school. Department of Defense . The plan increases the Pentagon's base budget to $553 billion, $22 billion more than last year. Defense, State fight for more funding . It reinvests $100 billion expected to be saved through cuts to areas like development or purchase of unmanned intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets; proposals for more ships; a new ground combat vehicle; the Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite; and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The budget includes a 1.6% increase for military pay as well as an increase in housing allowances and health care, especially for wounded service members. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are covered separately, with $118 billion set aside: more than $41 billion less than last year, mostly because of the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Slight increase sought for Homeland Security . Department of Transportation . The plan provides $13.4 billion in discretionary resources in 2012, a $1.3 billion decrease from 2010. It proposes a six-year, $556 billion surface reauthorization plan to modernize the country's transportation infrastructure. It provides $8 billion in 2012 and $53 billion over six years to reach a goal of providing 80 percent of Americans with convenient access to a passenger rail system, featuring high-speed service, within 25 years. The plan reduces funding for airport grants, focusing support on smaller airports, while giving larger airports more flexibility to raise their own resources. Department of Veterans Affairs . Obama's plan provides $61.85 billion, a 10.6% increase over 2010 . It proposes a multiyear budgeting approach to manage medical care resources across multiple fiscal years, including advance appropriations for the 2013 fiscal year . It reduces construction spending and redirects those funds for care and benefits to veterans. Department of the Interior . Obama's plan budgets $12 billion, which is roughly the same as in previous years, and increases land and water conservation programs. The savings are planned through decreases in the U.S. Geological Survey, cuts in construction programs and tribal program reductions. The plan provides more than $500 million to restructure the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement and to strengthen oversight of offshore oil and gas operations in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last year. Department of State and international programs . The plan provides $47 billion for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, a decrease of less than 1% from 2010. Increases are made in the areas of food security and global health. Foreign assistance to several countries is cut. The plan reduces funding for the African Development and Inter-American Foundations by nearly 20% and directs them to seek partnerships to leverage remaining funding.
|
Obama sends plan to Capitol Hill; goal is to get funding in place by start of 2012 fiscal year .
Plan includes a significant increase in education funding .
Plan decreases discretionary resources for the Department of Transportation .
It trims funding for African Development and Inter-American Foundations by nearly 20% .
|
1495e7f82c0353203a54b45b42f0d3c0bcd85df1
|
By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 17:37 EST, 28 April 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 18:57 EST, 28 April 2012 . Suspicion: William 'Clyde' Gibson is being held in connection with the murders of two women . Authorities said they have dug up human remains in the backyard of a southern Indiana man who is suspected of killing two women a decade apart. Police found the remains of what they believe is a third victim late on Friday night at the New Albany home of 54-year-old William 'Clyde' Gibson III, a convicted sex offender. The remains were later identified as those of Stephanie Marie Kirk, 35, of Charleston, Indiana, WDRB.com reported. Floyd County Prosecutor Keith Henderson said told the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, that the remains may have been there for weeks or months. Her exact cause of death is still under investigation, authorities said. 'The fact is it is a serious matter,' Mr Henderson told the News and Tribune of Jeffersonville. 'We do have three individuals at this point.' Henderson didn't reply to a phone message left at his office on Saturday. Gibson is being held without bond at the Floyd County Jail in connection with the deaths of two women. Christine Whitis, 75, of Clarksville, was found strangled in Gibson's home last week, and Karen Hodella, 44, a hairdresser from Florida, was discovered near the Ohio River in Clarksville in January 2003. Gibson was arrested on drunken-driving charges last week after police spotted him driving Ms Whitis' car. Scroll down for video . Grim findings: Police found human remains in Gibson's back yard in southern Indiana identified as 35-year-old Stephanie Marie Kirk . Possible evidence: Police haul away some of the remains during the night . An officer at the jail said Saturday . that there was no record of any formal charges against Gibson. He also . said he didn't know if Gibson had a lawyer. The discovery of the remains came . hours after officials called off a search of the Ohio River, where they . had been looking for Stephanie Marie Kirk, who was last seen on March 25 . when she left a friend's New Albany home to meet a man at a bar. New Albany police Maj. Keith Whitlow had said that they were searching the river as a result of information developed in the Gibson case. Gibson carries a lengthy criminal record. Discovered: The remains in his yard were identified as Stephanie Marie Kirk, left, who was last seen March 25 when she left a friend's house; the body of Karen Hodella, right, was found near the Ohio River in 2003 . The Courier-Journal reported he was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to robbery and sexual abuse in a 1991 attack on a woman at a mall in downtown Louisville. Court records show he fondled her and stole her purse after pushing her into a phone booth, and later he said he had been drinking and using cocaine. Records also show he had arrests for assault, wanton endangerment and driving drunk. In 1992, Gibson told a psychologist that 'it's hard to predict what I might do,' when he drinks heavily. But in 1999, a psychologist found Gibson was at 'low risk' for being arrested again as a sex offender. This week, prosecutors also charged Gibson with being a habitual offender, listing convictions on 10 charges in eight cases between 1992 and 2007. The Courier-Journal reported Gibson was discharged from the Army for bad conduct in 1979 and had spent a year in the military prison at Leavenworth, Kansas. Earlier search: Before discovering the remains, police were searching the Ohio River for Kirk's body . Prior search terms: Police said Kirk was last seen March 25 as she left a friend¿s home in New Albany to meet a man at a bar . Court records also describe Gibson as a well-liked, 'extremely shy' person who didn't know how to respond when introduced to people. They said he had borderline intelligence and was emotionally immature, The Courier-Journal said. Michelle Rucker, Hodella's oldest daughter, said Friday that her mother had been in Indiana visiting her boyfriend's family for less than a day when she called her family in Florida and asked for money for a bus ride home. She told her family that a 'nice man' was buying her drinks at a bar. 'We never heard from her again,' Ms Rucker said. 'She was in Indiana one night and was missing the next day.' Ms Rucker said the latest developments had reopened old wounds. 'My family is a train wreck,' she said. Watch video here: .
|
William 'Clyde' Gibson, 54, has lengthy criminal record of drug and alcohol abuse and is a convicted sex offender .
Gibson is being held over deaths of Karen Hodella and Christine Whitis .
Remains found in yard identified as those of 35-year-old Stephanie Marie Kirk .
|
1495f83719068c60d26decaf44bc1616d84dd14c
|
Eurovision -- the curious annual song contest that sees a continent united around its televisions for an evening of high-energy songs, spangled costumes and ill-advised drinking games -- is once more upon us. Founded in 1956, it was intended as a way to bring together once-warring nations through the innocent medium of pop music. It hasn't necessarily ended the rivalries (the voting-based results system is notoriously territorial), but for the hundreds of millions watching on TV, Eurovision is a well-rehearsed, almost comforting routine. It's less comforting, however, for the competitors and fans dispatched to an unfamiliar city -- this year's Grand Final will be held May 10 at the B&W Grand Ballroom in Copenhagen -- to uphold or betray national honor with only leotard-clad backing dancers for company. Copenhagen: 10 Things to know before you go . Help is at hand, though. Herewith our insiders' guide to maximizing post-Eurovision joy, or minimizing sorrow, in the Danish capital. Drinking and dancing . Copenhagen is compact for a major capital, with a shade over half a million inhabitants, but it's increasingly famed for nightlife, especially in the Meatpacking District -- just like the similarly scenester-filled area of New York -- near the central station. Here the nightlife concentration is sufficiently dense to allow disgruntled central European crooners to stumble from bar to club. For those determined to dance, locals suggest KB18 (Kodboderne 18; +45 33 313 933), or Culture Box (Kronprinsessegade 54; +45 33 325 050). Slightly closer to the contest's harbor-side venue is the dingy but welcoming Eiffel Bar (Wildersgade 18; + 45 32 577 092) in Christianshavn, a possible home-from-home for this year's face fur-fixated French entry, Twin Twin. The walls are covered in Parisian iconography and the beer is dirt cheap. The more adventurous could venture to one of the city's most defiantly hip nightclubs, Sunday (Lille Kongensgade 16; +45 53 668 228), which boasts an in-house team of Thai transgender dancers and a mission to -- their words -- "push the borders of wicked indecency." Eating . Enough about Noma, already. The seashore-foraging, micro-herb-arranging repeat winner of the best restaurant in the world crown is undeniably astounding. But the chances of getting a table are roughly the same as Portugal's prospects of ever winning Eurovision (this year's entrant, Suzy, was kicked out in the semi-finals, adding to half a century of failure). Perhaps off limits too are various offshoots such as Amass, run by a former Noma head chef, or Bror, where the specialty is braised lamb's head with whipped brain and stuffed eyeballs -- which sounds almost as tricky to digest as Latvia's saccharine Eurovision entry. Danish restaurant Noma named the world's best . A better bet is smorrebrod, the traditional Danish open sandwiches that are escaping their lunchtime roots and entering the world of fine dining. Smorrebrod and 10 more new American sandwich heroes . Many of the better known outlets tend to be booked up, but you can try Dyrehaven (Sonder Boulevard 72)off Vesterbro in the city center, which doesn't take reservations and attracts a fashionable crowd. For more basic fare still, there's always Copenhagen's many and famous hot dog stands. Harry's Place (Nordre Fasanvej 269) is a little ways outside the center, but locals make the trip for both the sausages and the trademark chili sauce, known as krudt -- the Danish word for gunpowder. Same-sex marriage . Not for everyone, obviously, and arguably a little hard to arrange on a night out. Nevertheless, this is one of the Eurovision-based attractions promoted by Copenhagen officials. Throughout the Eurovision weekend the city is encouraging any couples to tie the knot. Ceremonies can be held on a specially arranged "wedding boat" cruising the harbor. The marriages are intended to mark both the 25th anniversary of same-sex civil partnerships in Denmark -- the first country in the world to permit them -- and Eurovision's open-minded reputation. With its focus on flamboyant acts and tight sequined outfits, the contest has always had a decidedly camp air, a reputation sealed when Dana International, an Israeli transgender woman, won in 1998. Her mantle has been passed this year to Austria's entrant, Conchita Wurst, the bearded drag alter ego of singer Tom Neuwirth. Cycling . Something of a Danish cliche, perhaps -- the city has one of the highest rates of bike use in the world -- but stick with us, because Eurovision 2014 needs all the environmental help it can get. Most bike-friendly cities in the United States . This year's event had proudly branded itself the greenest contest ever -- until newspapers discovered electricity for the venue itself is being provided by 26 very large, very smelly diesel generators. Contestants can pedal serenely away from the fumes, and the humiliation of being beaten by Malta's Mumford and Sons-lite entry, Firelight, on Copenhagen's famous network of segregated bike lanes. Organizers are laying on fleets of bikes for Eurovision use, and the city is littered with rental shops. (Rent A Bike Copenhagen, Adelgade 11; +45 32 12 50 50 and Gasværksvej 5;+45 50 32 11 00). For those feeling particularly homesick -- or humiliated -- the city's airport, only about six miles from the center, is connected by yet more of those ubiquitous bike lanes. The Little Mermaid . While arguably the most iconic symbol of Copenhagen, the bronze statue of Hans Christian Andersen's famous fairy tale character is underwhelming in real life, standing little more than a meter tall. Five places to find mermaids . Her harbor-side location, however, is restful -- the perfect place to sit and contemplate what might have been had the seams on the lead dancer's costume held together a little longer. It's a place to consider also that even if Copenhagen's attractions aren't enough, things could have been much, much more sedate. The capital won its bid to host the event against a series of notably smaller Danish locations. Among them was Herning, a city on Denmark's Jutland peninsula whose tourist information board lists "libraries" as among the chief attractions.
|
This year's annual Eurovision song contest is being held in Copenhagen .
The Danish capital is increasingly famed for its nightlife .
Denmark is celebrating the 25th anniversary of legal same-sex civil partnerships. It was first country to permit them .
|
149855427e943d1db66730957cb21a4d2af5525e
|
NAVY JUMPSUIT . £112, aqaq.com . Probably the most daring of all the outfits, this jumpsuit’s deep, square neckline shows more of my chest area than I’d usually expose on a beach in high summer. Yet I absolutely love it. While it shows off plenty of cleavage, it reveals little else. The wide-legged all-in-one exudes 1970s glamour, plus it’s comfy. As it draws attention to only one place, make sure your cleavage is up to the task. I got some extra help from Wonderbra’s Ultimate Deep Plunge Bra (£32, very.co.uk). Verdict: Daring and dramatic, but a big success. RARE MAXI DRESS . £22.50, asos.com . Body necklace, £12, riverisland.com . The closest I’ll ever get to feeling like Jennifer Aniston, this shimmering gown exudes old-school Hollywood glamour, and the deep V-neck — accessorised with a body chain — inevitably draws the eye. I have an average-sized 34B chest and, having had three children, my cleavage is not as perky as it was. But this plummeting neck creates an impressive embonpoint, accentuated by the gathered waist. Verdict: A dress that will definitely put me in the spotlight, without leaving me over-exposed. MISSGUIDED DRESS . £30, missguided.co.uk . Shoes, £185, lucychoilondon.com . ON women of my age, this kind of clingy dress screams ‘cougar’. I’d have avoided a red, Lycra number like this even in my 20s. And it’s clearly not flattering now I’m in my 40s. However, the bodycon tube does create impressive cleavage. It’s tight enough to hold my boobs firmly in place, and the inbuilt cups give me a sculpted, full shape. Verdict: Undeniably good cleavage — but I feel like I’ve gone out in my underwear! LIPSY DRESS . £50, lipsy.co.uk . Shoes, £198, lucychoilondon.com . This unusual dress will make you the centre of attention. Just not the right kind of attention. The old rule of thumb says you should never show boobs and legs at the same time: this breaks that rule. There’s no doubt that it shows off my cleavage, but it exposes too much of everything else as well. Verdict: A definite step too far. BLUE MAXI DRESS . £55, asos.com . I feel like a Strictly Come Dancing reject. This gets top marks for flounce — yet in the chest department, it’s decidedly flat. I struggle through layers of chiffon and complicated straps, but it’s when I finally get the dress on that the work begins. I spend ten minutes trying to get my boobs in place — each time, they slide into nothingness under folds of pleated fabric. In the end, I resort to strategically placed body tape to give my chest the uplift it needs. The result is underwhelming. Verdict: Strictly to be avoided.
|
With awards season in full flow and celebrities are testing their red carpet style there's been one look that's been very popular .
The low-plunging neck line has shown up more than once this year, with Jennifer Anniston showing off her assets at the SAG awards last week .
FEMAIL has put the extreme cleavage to the test to see whether it can ever make a stylish outfit .
|
1498a4eb575949d46a96072a72bf4a8eccca5565
|
John McCain says he is "most likely" running for re-election in 2016, but is aware that he will be a top target for conservative groups gunning for establishment Republicans in primaries. In an interview with CNN, the Arizona senator stepped closer to pulling the trigger on a campaign for a sixth term and seems to be spoiling for the fight. But he also said he's not sure Republicans can hang on to the Senate in two years after grabbing it back from Democrats in the midterm elections. "I am approaching it, that decision, and it's most likely that I will announce that I am a running again," said McCain, who will be 80 at the time of the 2016 election. McCain had previously said he was considering and "leaning towards" a campaign but would announce his intentions in early 2015. The veteran senator is about to get his firmest grip on power in Washington since his defeat to President Barack Obama in the 2008 election. He will serve as chairman of the influential Senate Armed Services Committee when Republicans take the majority in January. But McCain said he would run the committee on the assumption that he will be chairman for only two years, because the Republican majority's fate will also be decided in 2016. "It is certainly not clear whether we keep the Senate or not," he said. "That will depend on how we can show the American people with a Republican majority that we can govern or not." McCain knows that tea party and other activists are already lining him up and could seek to exploit positions on immigration and torture that have put him at odds with the conservative base. "I will be at the top of the list, there is no doubt about that," said McCain. "I expect a vigorous campaign. For me to expect anything else would be foolish. And I'm not foolish." In his last election, in 2010, McCain fought off a vocal primary challenge from conservative former House Republican and radio host J.D. Hayworth. Since then, a number of Tea Party-backed candidates have made a practice of challenging longtime lawmakers and candidates favored by the party establishment in primaries.
|
McCain edges closer than ever to 2016 campaign .
Says would be "foolish" not to expect tough primary challenge .
|
149950b42fa891dbe3b391b668c1d4852fa3cd56
|
(Mashable.com) -- Facebook has begun the rollout of a new feature, Facebook Questions, which will allow users to get answers to their queries from the entire Facebook community. Similar in concept to Yahoo! Answers, Quora and Mahalo, Facebook Questions gives users the opportunity to ask questions just by clicking the "Ask Question" button on the homepage. Questions is also available on friends' profiles just as you would post on someone's wall. We first learned of Facebook's Q&A feature two months ago, when the company started asking for volunteers to beta test the product. The world's largest social network even went so far as to promise beta testers a trip to Facebook's offices to meet with the Q&A team. I had the chance earlier today to discuss the new feature with several Facebook employees. Questions has several defining features: . • Photo questions: For example, if you take a picture of a bird, but don't know what species it is, you can post the picture on Facebook Questions and get your answer. • Polling: If you're simply looking for the answer to "Which city is better: Chicago or Dallas?", you can get your answer by creating a poll. • Tagging: The company seems to be placing a lot of emphasis on tagging questions based on category or topic. The goal seems to be to make Q&A discovery an easier and faster process by making it simple to look up questions on cooking, photography, San Francisco or a variety of other topics. • Topic exploration: Facebook described this as a roulette-type feature that allows users to browse Facebook's eventual mountain of Q&A. Under the "Questions about" drop-down menu, there's a feature called "Everything" that allows users to browse the company's catalog of questions. • Following: You can follow specific questions for updates and new answers. • Updated homepage: Facebook Questions does actually change the homepage, adding a new bar at the top of the page where you can choose to update your status, ask a question, add photos, or post a link. There was one more thing that Facebook made clear to me: Facebook Questions is not an advertising product. While brands with Facebook Pages will eventually be able to answer questions, it's not meant to be a promotional platform; it's meant to be a useful and insightful product for users. Facebook Questions will roll out to a limited group of beta testers today, but the company promises to "bring this product to all of you as quickly as we can." The entire feature is public, so we don't suggest posting those awkward bedroom questions on Facebook. Will Facebook Questions prove to be more useful than Quora or even Twitter as a Q&A platform? We think so, if only because it has the biggest advantage of them all: 500 million users. © 2010 MASHABLE.com. All rights reserved.
|
Facebook has begun the rollout of a new feature, Facebook Questions .
Questions will allow users to get answers to their queries from the Facebook community .
Feature will roll out to a limited group of beta testers Thursday .
|
1499b44ed53e16066f7591b61eeec8fbb0ce545e
|
A group of drunken friends who got naked in a bath with a stolen pet rabbit then tried to shave her, wrung her neck and threw her out of a window, have escaped jail. Rebecca Atkinson's much-loved white lion-headed rabbit, Percy, was stolen from its hutch and carried to a party in Seaham, County Durham, at the end of June. The whereabouts of the rabbit remained a mystery until Mrs Atkinson went online and saw a video which showed her pet being tortured to death. Percy was taken from her hutch and carried to a party where she was cruelly abused a group of drunken friends who tried to shave her, wrung her neck and threw her out of a window . Percy, a much-loved white-headed rabbit (pictured), was taken from her hutch by the group at the end of June - the Atkinson family found out what happened when they were contacted by a woman who saw the video . Rebecca Atkinson's daughter Jessica (pictured) said: ' I just can't believe anyone could be so cruel' The shocking video showed Percy being cruelly abused by Martin Bell, 20, Frank Hudson, 19 and two 17-year-olds who cannot be identified. Percy had recently given birth to five babies when she was snatched from her hutch - but those young rabbits all died because they could not survive without their mother, despite the efforts of their owners to rear them by hand. Peterlee Magistrates, in County Durham, heard how Bell and Hudson admitted causing unnecessary suffering to the pet. Chairman of the Bench William Brown told the pair: 'What we have had described to us is quite a horrendous event. 'It is a rabbit, somebody's pet and the difference between civilised people and uncivilised people is how they deal with the creatures on the earth with us. 'You did not treat that rabbit nicely.' Jessica Atkinson, pictured with mother Rebecca and new pet rabbit, Jonny, were devastated by the horrific suffering of their pet . Percy had just given birth to five babies but those bunnies died because they could not survive without her . Their offending was a joint enterprise, the court heard, although it was Bell who threw Percy out of the window, and one of the youths, who will be sentenced separately next week, who wrung her neck. Any of the four young men could have put a stop to her suffering, the chairman said. He said the panel considered the custodial sentences that many people in the area had called for, but instead sentenced Bell and Hudson to 18 month community orders, with 18 months supervision, and 200 hours of unpaid work each. They were both banned from keeping animals for five years, ordered to pay £85 costs each, a victim surcharge of £60 and £50 each in compensation to the Atkinson family. Mr Brown added: 'I think when you grow up and have a family and one of out children loses a pet, you will know how distressed they can be. 'While it is "only" a rabbit, it is somebody's pet and it meant a lot to them. 'I am sure you can see from social networking, people are horrified with what you have done. Today will not stop what aggravation you have been suffering.' The family were disappointed by the sentencing and said it was 'pathetic' and simply a 'slap on the wrist' In a victim impact statement read in court, Anthony Atkinson, 31, of Seaham, said his wife Rebecca, his step-children Jessica, 14, Aaron, 10, and son Brynn, four, were devastated. Mr Atkinson reported feeling numb, angry and unwilling to go out in case he confronted the youths and lost control. 'This broke our hearts,' he said. Mr Atkinson, a carer for his wife, said his daughter noticed the rabbit was missing from her hutch the morning after Percy was stolen. The rabbit had been misnamed when they thought she was male. He did not report the missing pet to the police but made an appeal on Facebook and soon after his wife was contacted by a woman who had seen a similar rabbit on a video posted on Instagram. They could not bear to watch the horrific scenes themselves, but were shown a screen grab of the rabbit in Bell's arms as he sat naked with one of the youths who is brandishing a can of lager, and Hudson. The picture was shared on a local Facebook page and one of the youths messaged Mr Atkinson saying: 'Hello, that picture you put on Facebook with the rabbit - I'm on that photo. 'It got brought in the house and someone hoyed [threw] it out of the window. 'I'm just telling you the craic.' Jessica saw that Percy, her pet rabbit, was missing from her hutch the morning after she was stolen . The youth was arrested and he showed officers a black bin bag where Percy had been dumped. An autopsy showed she suffered a serious injury caused by landing hard on the ground. She would have been in pain before she had her neck wrung. The youth said the other 17-year-old had stolen the rabbit, brought it to the party and thrown it to the three of them in the bath. They drunkenly tried to wash and then shave her, without success, before Bell threw her out. The youth who sent the Facebook message to Mr Atkinson was the one who put her down. Paula Sanderson, prosecuting, said: 'None of the defendants made any attempt to stop any suffering caused to that rabbit.' When Hudson was interviewed by police he admitted it was 'mad' to put the pet in the bath and that she would have been scared. Mike Simpson, defending both men, said the 'only decent thing that anybody did that night was to put it out of its misery' once it had been so badly injured in the fall. He said both men had been subject to threats and, on at least one occasion, violence. 'There has been vilification on social media and perhaps that is what follows, having used social media themselves in the first place,' he said. Reacting to the sentences imposed, Mr Atkinson said: 'We feel robbed, after months of waiting it ends up with a slap on the wrist for them. 'They will be out and about, laughing. 'It is pathetic really. My wife is fuming.' He said thousands of people had signed a Justice for Percy petition calling for the defendants to be jailed.
|
Percy, the pet rabbit, was stolen from her hutch and taken to a party .
Drunken friends got naked in a bath with the rabbit, then tried to shave her .
Then wrung her neck and threw her out a window in Seaham, Durham .
Two of the men, Martin Bell, 20, and Frank Hudson, 19, given 18 month community orders and 200 hours of unpaid work each .
Also banned from keeping animals for five years at Peterlee Magistrates .
The youth who wrung her neck will be sentenced separately next week .
Devastated family said they were 'fuming' at the 'pathetic' sentencing .
Percy had just given birth to five babies when she was taken from hutch .
|
1499cb91dffbf954993b58c025b0e40d8aac5779
|
Protection: Parents and business will today be asked whether they want automatic online blocks to protect children from adult websites . Parents and business will today be asked whether they want automatic online blocks to protect children from adult websites. The Government is canvassing views on an ‘opt-in’ system, under which internet service providers would automatically block pornography unless an adult asked for it to be available. The move is a victory for the Daily Mail’s Block Online Porn campaign, which has called for the introduction of such content filtering systems. There is growing alarm about the impact of sexual content on the internet on Britain’s children. Just three per cent of pornographic websites require proof of age before granting access to sexually explicit material, and research suggests as many as one in three under-tens has seen pornography online. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport angered campaigners earlier this year by suggesting it was ruling out the idea of an automatic block on porn, on civil liberties grounds. But following the Mail’s campaign, ministers have now included questions about the opt-in system in the public consultation document, launched today on the department’s website. The consultation asks for views on the best way to shield children from internet pornography, and other adult and potentially harmful content. These include websites promoting suicide, anorexia, gambling, self-harm and violence, as well as those exposing them to online sexual grooming or cyber-bullying. As well as an automatic block on such content, another option under consideration is a less stringent ‘active choice’ system. This would mean customers being asked about access to adult content when setting up an internet connection on devices including computers, phones and televisions. It would list types of material and ask users to choose whether or not they want to see explicit sites. Proposals: The Government launched a consultation paper an on 'opt-in' system, under which internet service providers would automatically block pornography unless an adult asked for it to be available . The third option, known as ‘active choice plus’, would be similar, presenting users with a list of possible online content. But in this case, explicit sites would be marked as blocked as a default setting, unless the customer chose otherwise. David Cameron last month said there was a . clear case for looking at default blocks amid mounting concerns from . child safety campaigners and MPs. Currently, the opt-in system is being resisted by internet companies, which make millions from adverts for pornographic websites. The Mail’s campaign has been backed . by Deputy Children’s Commissioner Sue Berelowitz and Sara Payne, the . mother of murdered schoolgirl Sarah. But ministers yesterday warned that no filter would be 100 per cent effective. Children’s . Minister Tim Loughton said: ‘Growing numbers of parents do not feel in . control of what their families are exposed to online. ‘Many want to take responsibility, but all too often they do not know how because they find the technology too difficult to use or their children are more technically advanced then they are. ‘We have been clear that the internet industry needs to raise its game to equip families better in being able to block what their children access on the internet.’ Support: David Cameron last month said there was a clear case for looking at default blocks on explicit sites. The Mail's campaign has been backed by Sara Payne, right, the mother of murdered schoolgirl Sarah . He added: ‘There is no silver bullet to solve this. No filter can ever be 100 per cent foolproof. ‘There is a cottage industry of people, mostly operating outside the UK, continually creating and proliferating “proxy” websites that provide links to adult and harmful content. ‘Automatic filtering on its own risks lulling parents into a false sense of security and there can never be any substitute for parents taking responsibility for how, when and where their children use the internet.’ The Government consultation will last ten weeks. Ministers will respond with their favoured option later this year. The argument in favour of an opt-in system has been reinforced by a large study, conducted by the London School of Economics, which found that most parents have no idea what their children are looking at on the internet. Leading the way: How the Daily Mail has campaigned for the introduction of content filtering systems . Among parents of children who had admitted to researchers that they had looked at adult content, more than two thirds were certain their child had not, or said they did not know. In addition, more than a quarter of children admitted ignoring warnings their parents gave them about harmful material on the internet. Andrew Flanagan, head of the NSPCC, said: ‘Industry has done a huge amount in recent years and active choice is a step in the right direction. ‘But long term we back the next step which is the introduction of an opt-in filtering system for all internet accounts in the UK, if necessary, supported by Government regulation. ‘This will mean all new internet accounts will default automatically to a setting that blocks access to adult content. Over-18s can then request for this to be removed.’
|
Government canvassing views on .
‘opt-in’ system in which internet service providers would block pornography unless adult asked for it to be .
available .
The move is a victory for the Daily Mail’s Block Online Porn campaign .
|
149ae9e010c125a9a9ef100dc99bbda3d806a248
|
Tony Blair’s charities have received millions of pounds from some of his closest friends, it emerged today. The former prime minister set up several foundations and initiatives after leaving Number 10 in 2007. Now details have emerged of the wealthy businessmen and women who helped launch them and keep them afloat, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and billionaire entertainment mogul Haim Saban. Scroll down for video . Tony Blair's charities have received substantial funding from his close friends, including Haim Saban (left) who has given £415,000 to the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. The two men are pictured with former US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice . Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk, pictured with his wife Elena, gave the Foundation £320,000 . Since quitting Downing Street seven years ago, Mr Blair has secured donations from the world’s super-rich to bankroll several good causes, including the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative and the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. Italian businessman Paolo Pellegrini and his wife Henrietta gave £1million to the Africa Governance Initiative, according to the Sunday Telegraph. The money was used to establish smart offices overlooking Hyde Park. Bill Gates, the Microsoft mogul who is worth more than £50billion, and his wife Melinda gave £500,000 to Africa Governance Initiative last year. The couple are known to be good friends with Mr Blair and his wife Cherie. Bill and Melinda Gates, close friends of the Blairs, £500,000 to Africa Governance Initiative last year, according to reports . The Swedish Postcode Foundation, based in Stockholm, gave £750,000 to the to Africa Governance Initiative. Meanwhile Hollywood media mogul Haim Saban gave £415,000 to the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, it was reported. His wife Cheryl donated £650,000 to a women's charity run by Mrs Blair. The Foundation also received £320,000 from Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk. Russian billionaire oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a close friend of Lord Mandelson, gave £300,000 to help set up Breaking the Climate Deadlock, set up by Mr Blair in 2008. Russian billionaire oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a close friend of Lord Mandelson, gave £300,000 to help set up Breaking the Climate Deadlock, set up by Mr Blair in 2008 . The funding was revealed in documents filed by the charities on both sides of the Atlantic. Mr Blair’s business dealings since leaving office have often come under scrutiny. Last week he appeared to not rule out working for President Putin as he defended making millions from advising some of the world’s worst despots. Mr Blair used an interview with Vanity Fair to defend the considerable wealth he has accrued since leaving office while insisting his main aim was to improve the world. The 61-year-old has been widely attacked for selling his services to some of the world’s most authoritarian leaders, including the ex-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Kazakhstan president Nursulstan Nazarbayev. After detailing Mr Blair’s work for several questionable world leaders, the author of the profile and interview, Vanity Fair contributing editor Sarah Ellison, wrote: ‘And is there anyone he wouldn’t work for? ‘For instance, would he work for Vladimir Putin if Putin called asking for advice? Blair smiled, and switched the topic to Kazakhstan.’ Later she wrote: ‘He paused and then added, “I’m not holding my breath for the call from Putin.” ‘But if it came, I asked? “It won’t come, so let me not either praise or insult”.’ He insisted the Russian leader was never likely to seek his services. Mr Blair, who insisted that ‘whatever criticisms people have of me, they’ve seldom thought of me as politically stupid’, said there were no conflicts of interest between his charity role and lucrative work as an international advisor. But he stressed that he was now a ‘private sector individual’ not a government representative and should not be bound by the same rules.
|
Blair set up network of charities after leaving Downing Street in 2007 .
Insists they do not conflict with his work as an international adviser .
Donors include Microsoft founder Bill Gates and oligarch Oleg Deripaska .
Italian Paolo Pellegrini gave £1million to the Africa Governance Initiative .
|
149b5bca71d2558d2bbeb20045a86b192c905e2d
|
Five penalties from Tim Swiel saved Harlequins from a surprise home defeat at the Stoop as they edged strugglers Newcastle Falcons 15-7. For three-quarters of the match, Newcastle were easily the better side but they failed to take their chances and only had a solitary try from Alex Tuilagi, which was converted by Juan Pablo Socino. Tuilagi and fellow wing, Sinoti Sinoti, had caused the home defence huge problems but ill-discipline and careless errors cost Falcons the match. Five penalties from Tim Swiel saved Harlequins from a surprise home defeat by Newcastle at the Stoop . Harlequins fielded a much weakened line-up with Chris Robshaw, Nick Evans and Luke Wallace all absent through injury. Joe Marler and Nick Easter were also rested, while Danny Care started on the bench. Fly-half Swiel, and number eight James Chisholm both made their first Premiership starts. Newcastle made eight changes from last week's defeat at the hands of Stade Francais. Skipper Will Welch returned as did fellow forwards Scott Wilson and Ally Hogg. Tuilagi, Mike Blair and Sinoti were recalled to take up places in the back division. Newcastle began with a thrilling movement, which almost resulted in the game's first try. Inside his own half, Sinoti fielded a clearance kick, before exploding past three defenders to set up a position in the opposition 22. The ball was recycled for Tuilagi to bounce off Marland Yarde's attempted tackle before being forced into touch, inches short of the try line. Newcastle dominated but only had a solitary try from Alex Tuilagi, which was converted by Juan Pablo Socino . However Quins relieved the early pressure to take a ninth minute lead when Swiel kicked a penalty. Incisive breaks from Karl Dickson for Quins and Sinoti then followed but though neither resulted in tries, although they certainly contributed to a highly entertaining first 20 minutes. Newcastle continued to be the better side but Socino spurned their first chance for points when his penalty attempt went badly astray. The Falcons then suffered two further blows in quick succession. First, lively full back Simon Hammersley left the field with an injury to be replaced by Noah Cato before lock Dom Barrow limped off with Kane Thompson coming on. Tuilagi goes over in the first half, it was all the Falcons had to show for their efforts . The second quarter was nowhere as good as the first as it was frequently disrupted by treatment for injuries. However there was still some creative running with bursts from George Lowe and Blair testing the opposition defences. Quins had a chance to extend their lead by kicking an easy penalty but they opted for an attacking line-out. This proved to be the wrong call as hooker Joe Gray's throw went straight to a Newcastle jumper. The visitors made them pay for that error by scoring the opening try in first-half stoppage time. From a line-out in the home 22, the Falcons pack drove forward and Tuilagi was on hand to force his way over, with Socino converting for a deserved 7-3 lead at the interval. Swiel's remarkable kicking game saved Quins from defeat and took them nine points clear of Newcastle . Quins began the second half poorly so they made two replacements after nine minutes of the half with David Ward and Will Collier being introduced into the front row. Ugo Monye soon followed onto the field as he replaced Asaeli Tikoirotuma. Against the run of play, Quins reduced the arrears to one point. Lowe and Matt Hopper made strong runs to get the hosts into the Newcastle half and earn a penalty. Swiel made no mistake with the kick. Tom Catterick's restart went straight into touch, which handed Quins the initiative, and when Newcastle were again penalised Swiel put them 9-7 ahead on the hour-mark. Care became the fourth Quins' replacement just in time to see Swiel kick his fourth penalty after George McGuigan was penalised for not releasing. The home side then had their best period of the match and another Newcastle infringement saw Swiel again on target to send the Falcons home without even a bonus point. Harlequins forward mark Lambert charges forward during the Aviva Premiership match .
|
Strugglers Newcastle were unlucky not to beat Harlequins at the Stoop .
Alex Tuilagi scored the only try, it was converted by Juan Pablo Socino .
Tim Swiel kicked five penalties to save Quins from a shock home defeat .
Chris Robshaw, Nick Evans and Luke Wallace were absent through injury .
|
149b6b47bc149975ba5615831f75a2f18dfa485f
|
It seems a week doesn’t go by without a firm claiming to have designed a Back to the Future-style hoverboard, but the latest device takes this a step further. Dubbed AirBoard, it takes inspiration from Marty McFly’s iconic board, as well as the Segway and even drones to create what its creator calls an ‘all electric personal air vehicle.’ Riders ‘fly’ up to five feet (1.5 metres) in the air on this stand-on craft that moves by reacting to shift’s in the user’s weight. Scroll down for video . AirBoard (pictured) was designed by Latvian-based Elviss Straupenieks and his prototype can carry a person weighing up to 220lbs (100kg) without losing stability. Riders ‘fly’ up to five feet (1.5 metres) in the air on this stand-on craft. Mr Staupenieks is expected to launch the $13,000 (£8,485) AirBoard next year . It can also be remotely controlled using a smartphone app. AirBoard was designed by Latvian-based Elviss Straupenieks and his prototype can carry a person weighing up to 220lbs (100kg) without losing stability. Dimensions (open): 71 inches (180cm) long and 69 inches (150cm) high when open . Dimensions (folder): 30 inches (80cm) by 40 inches (110cm) Maximum weight: 220lbs (100kg) Maximum altitude: Five feet (1.5 metres) Release date: 2016 . Price: $13,000 (£8,485) He told James Day at the Metro that the production model should be able to withstand up to 264lbs (120kg) without losing stability. In theory the board can also be used with heavier weights ‘but it gets shaky’, continued Mr Straupenieks. The board ‘flies’ thanks to four propellers fitted either side of the foot panels. These are powered by four separate electric motors, and each propeller is covered by a metal mesh, for safety reasons. Like a Segway, the board moves in reaction to shifts in the rider’s weight and flight altitude is controlled by an app. Users can also remotely control AirBoard using this app that has been designed to work with the board’s built-in GPS and gyroscope. The board ‘flies’ thanks to four propellers fitted either side of the foot panels. These are powered by four separate electric motors, and each propeller is covered by a metal mesh (pictured). Like a Segway, the board moves in reaction to shifts in the rider’s weight and flight altitude is controlled by an app . Users can also remotely control AirBoard using an app designed to work with the board’s built-in GPS and gyroscope. The app additionally shows important information such as battery life, speed, compass and altitude. During flight, the phone sits in a holder fitted to the board's handles (pictured) The app additionally shows information such as battery life, speed, compass and altitude. ‘AirBoard has a thermal core system,’ said Mr Straupenieks. ‘This system allows airflow from a thermal opening to flow inside the unibody and cool down the parts while passing more air to the propellers. ‘AirBoard is more than just scaled quadcopter. It is a new category of aircraft. The AirBoard takes inspiration from Marty McFly’s iconic board in the Back to the Future franchise (picutred), as well as the Segway and even drones to create what its creator calls an ‘all electric personal air vehicle’ The board additionally has a thermal core system (pictured) that allows airflow from thermal opening to flow inside the unibody and cool down the parts while passing more air to the propellers . The board is 71 inches (180cm) long by 69 inches (150cm) high when open, but folds to 30 inches (80cm) by 40 inches (110cm) to make it portable . 'An aircraft you could place in your house or even in a car’s trunk.' Mr Straupenieks is launching an Indiegogo campaign to fund production of the board on Monday, and if successful the AirBoard will go on sale next year. The board is 71 inches (180cm) long and 69 inches (150cm) high when open, but folds down to 30 inches (80cm) by 40 inches (110cm) to make it portable. The firm didn’t reveal how much the board weighs but said it is made from lightweight aluminium and titanium. AirBoard is expected to cost $13,000 (£8,485) and the app comes with a built-in, location-based security alarm to deter thieves. The firm said AirBoard would be ideal for moving in extreme environments, such as over water and snow or in a desert. It added that military and emergency services could use it for search and rescue missions, or photographers could use it to film shots from the air. It's not to be confused with the AirBoard, from London-based firm AirWheel, which was released last month. A device with the same name was released last month, by London-based firm AirWheel. Its AirBoard costs £499 ($755) and is a self-balancing electric board that remains stationary until a user steps on it. Riders then power the device by leaning forward, and the AirBoard reaches speeds of up to 12mph (19km/h). The AirBoard uses similar technology to that seen on certain eco-friendly cars, and when travelling downhill or slowing, the battery charges itself. The gyroscope in the AirBoard means the spinning wheels are axle-free, so they can move in any direction while also keeping the device constantly balanced. Plus, as soon as user steps down from the waterproof board, it stops moving. AirBoards are available to buy online, or from Harrods. The gyroscope in the AirBoard (pictured) means the spinning wheels are axle-free, so they can move in any direction while also keeping the device constantly balanced. Plus, as soon as user steps down from the waterproof board, it stops moving. AirBoards are available to buy online, or from Harrods .
|
AirBoard is described as an ‘all electric personal air vehicle’
It features four propellers powered by four separate electric motors .
Prototype can carry a person weighing up to 220lbs (100kg), but the finished model is expected to take up to 264lbs (120kg)
Like a Segway, the board moves in reaction to shifts in the rider’s weight .
It can also be remotely controlled and monitored using a mobile app .
Flight altitude is limited to five feet (1.5 metres)
AirBoard is expected to go on sale in 2016 and will cost $13,000 (£8,485)
|
149be1fb46c22d69c325f20c4f143bb0f3665db4
|
PUBLISHED: . 14:42 EST, 22 January 2014 . | . UPDATED: . 16:17 EST, 22 January 2014 . Report: Heavily pregnant Fiona Anderson, 23, was visited by social workers more than 50 times before she drowned her her three children and then jumped to her death from a multi-storey car park . A mother who killed herself after drowning her three children had been visited by social services more than 50 times, a report into the horrifying case has found. Heavily pregnant Fiona Anderson, 23, jumped to her death off a multi-storey car park in April last year. Police discovered the bodies of her three children Levina, three, Addy, two, and 11-month-old Kyden, at the family home in Lowestoft, Suffolk, several hours later. A report carried out by the Suffolk Local Safeguarding Children Board has now revealed the family were visited by officials dozens of times. The review, which concluded today, revealed the children were neglected by their mother and being forced to survive on just biscuits. It also found the children spent hours strapped into their pushchairs and strongly criticised 'poor management oversight' and 'inappropriate' decisions by council staff. But the investigation concluded social workers - including a student who shouldn’t have been sent to deal with such a serious case - were not to blame for the deaths. The children's father Craig McLelland today called for change to 'prevent this ever happening again'. He said: 'They have put in the report that social services need to change a lot of things and give more support for people. 'I am just hoping that people get the support now and it is being offered to prevent this ever happening again.' Concerns about the family stretched back to 2009 when worried social workers tried and failed to force the mother to give up her first child over fears about her mental health. The report acknowledged this action resulted in the relationship between the family and children’s social care becoming strained. By June 2010, when Levina was 12 months old, the concerns had diminished sufficiently for formal involvement to cease. But in May 2011, staff received reports that Levina and Addy had been sleeping in a double pushchair for 13 nights and had only been fed biscuits. Police and social workers visited the house where they found the children 'malnourished' and trapped in play pens without toys for hours. Tragedy: Levina, three, Addy, two, and Kyden, 11 months, who are pictured here with their father Craig McLelland, had been forced to survive on biscuits in the months leading up to their deaths . Victims: Kyden McLelland, 11-months-old, pictured left, and Levina McLelland, three . Innocent: Addy McLelland was just two. He was found dead at the flat with his brother and sister . Levina rarely went to nursery - reportedly because her mother feared the teachers would abuse her. Her attendance was so inconsistent that it was said to be 'like her first time' each day she turned up. There was also evidence that the young girl was given sanitary towels to use as knickers. Staff who visited the home also reported that Addy was underweight and 'worryingly passive'. In late 2011 the two children were put on Child Protection Plans for neglect after workers judged them to be emotionally stunted with poor language skills. Professionals who met the children said they were 'frozen' in their responses, with a sense of 'learned helplessness'. Staff were also aware of domestic fights between the parents - on one occasion when the mother was holding one of the children. When Kyden was born in May 2012 he was included in the Child Protection Plan, the report said. By August 2012, child protection officers decided to start legal proceedings against the family but a social worker sent to gather evidence failed to report back - so the process stalled. CCTV shows Fiona Anderson at outside the building complex where the father of her children lived early on the morning that she died . She appeared to try the door at the building which is home to St John's Housing Trust . Thirty seconds later she left the building - less than two hours later her body was found . During January and February last year, there were plans to have a legal strategy meeting 'as a matter of urgency', but this never happened. The report slammed the decision to send a student social worker to deal with the troubled family, calling it 'most inappropriate in the circumstances'. It revealed that even after a worried lawyer urged the council to send a more experienced worker to solve the situation, the student was still sent on most visits. An unannounced Ofsted inspection in July 2010 in the area where the family lived found that cases were 'carried out by unqualified staff or staff who are not yet registered as social workers'. At the time, the inspector said: 'This practice falls well below expected standards and may place children at risk of inadequate protection'. The report also said there was a 'failure to collect and collate information and evidence which would demonstrate not only physical neglect but also emotional abuse/neglect'. Fiona Anderson clutching a teddy bear moments before she fell to her death in Lowestoft . Anderson died from injuries sustained from jumping 40ft from a multi-storey car park . It also said: 'The poor management oversight which allowed such drift to occur with the case from August 2011 to March 2013 was concerning.' The report also found the mother’s mental health had been assessed before the birth of her first child, but never after she became a mother, despite longstanding concerns. It identified 13 ‘learning points’, aimed at preventing future tragedies. But it concluded that staff had been hampered by the mother’s unwillingness to engage with social workers, saying: 'None of the professionals who had worked with the family would have been able to prevent or predict the final tragic outcome. 'There was never any evidence to suggest that the mother would harm herself or the children, and without any letter or definitive statement of intent by the mother, it remains unclear why she took the actions she did.' Police outside the flat where the three children were found in April last year . The children's tearful father, Craig McLelland, arrives at . the home where his three children were found dead with his . mother Mandy who comforted him as he lay a balloon and a toy . Teddy bears and flowers were left at the scene by family members and shocked members of the public .
|
Heavily pregnant Fiona Anderson, 23, jumped to her death in April last year .
Police then discovered the bodies of her three children Levina, three, Addy, two, and 11-month-old Kyden at the family home in Lowestoft, Suffolk .
A report into the case found social workers visited them dozens of times .
It noted that a student social worker was even sent to see the family .
The children were forced to survive on biscuits and were 'malnourished'
Levina rarely went to nursery and was given sanitary towels as knickers .
But investigation concluded social workers weren't to blame for the deaths .
|
149beb9a315b88386ad05457df823476ec48d7d9
|
Buenos Aires, Argentina (CNN) -- Argentina's capital city was beset by strikes Thursday, with teachers, doctors and transit employees refusing to work over money matters. Teachers and doctors in Buenos Aires went on strike Wednesday and are scheduled to go back to work Friday, the government-run Telam news agency and other outlets reported. Subway workers will go on strike Thursday night for a few hours, they said. This is the fourth work stoppage in the past six months for doctors. Only emergency cases are being treated. The doctors are not only seeking better salaries, but also improvements to the public health system. They are protesting "the lack of money in the public system, the possibility that the health budget will be reduced by 500 million pesos (about $130 million), the lack of professionals, the lack of labor to solve the problems in Argentina's public health," said Alicia Kobylarz of the Federal Syndicate of Health Workers. The nation's public hospitals treat the poor and needy. Health professionals want the government to employ more doctors to meet rising patient loads and an increase in diseases and epidemics such as H1N1 flu and dengue fever. The hospitals depend on funding from the provinces, leading to major differences in each area's needs and what local health care facilities can offer. "Provinces that have petroleum income, for example, are provinces that have better budgets, that have better hospitals" said Aldo Neri, a former national health minister. "There is much inequality in the treatment that the poor receive in Argentinean public hospitals depending on which province they live in. That's why I say the inequalities have increased." The current health minister, Juan Manzur, said next year's health budget will have an increase of more than 15 percent, greater than the national budget, which will have a 12.4 percent increase. Teachers also want greater pay and announced Thursday they would go back on strike Tuesday because of failed talks with Buenos Aires Education Director Mario Oporto. The teachers say they want their raises by year's end. Oporto said there's no money for raises now, the official Telam news agency reported. "The province's posture is very clear: There won't be raises in 2009 because there already have been," Oporto told a radio station, according to Telam. "We're sorry about the work stoppage, and we are ready to keep working. This time we are very firm: There will be no raises in 2009." Daniel Scioli, governor of Buenos Aires Province, said public education "is our top priority" but also emphasized there would be no raises this year, the news agency reported. Teachers' union leaders complained Thursday that government officials went to schools Wednesday to find out which teachers were there and which had joined the work stoppage, Telam said. Subway workers in Buenos Aires announced they will walk off the job at 7 p.m. Thursday. They, too, want pay raises. Educators also are on strike in neighboring Chile, where professors say they are owed a "historic debt." The indefinite strike entered its fourth day Thursday and negotiations are scheduled to resume Friday. Jaime Gajardo, president of Chile's College of Professors, told a local TV station there has been improvement in negotiations with the government and the talks could advance noticeably in the next few days. Pablo Zalaquett, the mayor of Santiago, the capital of Chile, said the two sides are closer on a pay bonus the professors want. CNN's Javier Doberti contributed to this report.
|
Teachers, doctors in Buenos Aires scheduled to go back to work Friday .
Subway workers were set to go on strike Thursday night for a few hours .
Doctors seek better salaries, improvements to public health system .
Argentina's neighbor Chile also seeing strikes by educators .
|
149c13f0325e040c908a86811c2b160c494d743f
|
Brendan Rodgers has confirmed that Daniel Sturridge is out of Liverpool’s biggest week of the season as he continues his recovery from a calf problem. Liverpool face a trip to Newcastle on Saturday before heading to Spain for a Champions League clash against Real Madrid on Tuesday, and round off a demanding seven days with a showdown against Chelsea at Anfield. Sturridge, who has not played for his club since August 31, 11 matches ago, damaged his calf two weeks ago in training as he was working his way back from a thigh injury. Brendan Rodgers has confirmed Daniel Sturridge will miss Liverpool's match against Newcastle . Sturridge picked up his latest injury on England duty and hasn't played since the beginning of September . Daniel Sturridge went on Twitter on Thursday to reveal he his feeling 'closer to full fitness' Crunch matches he will miss . Newcastle (a) - November 1 . Real Madrid (a) - November 4 . Chelsea (h) - November 8 . England vs Slovenia - November 12 . Scotland v England - November 15 . Liverpool initially hoped he might recover within a fortnight but there is no prospect of that and Rodgers has reluctantly accepted that time has run out. ‘I don’t think he will be fit,’ said Rodgers. ‘The bottom line is that he is injured. He strained his calf. So he is injured. We will just wait and work with him until he gets back fit. ‘I have to find the solutions without Daniel. You are learning every day about the players. Gradually as each day goes by, I sense and feel we are getting better.’ The ramifications of Sturridge’s absence from those matches is that he will not be available for England’s games against Slovenia and Scotland next month, either. The England striker tweeted that he is getting 'closer to fitness each day' but will be out of a crucial week . Sturridge signs autographs before Liverpool's Capital One Cup game against Swansea on Tuesday . His absence has come as a source of great frustration to his manager, as the 25-year-old’s pace, clinical finishing and dynamism are crucial to Liverpool’s gameplan and they have certainly missed him. Rodgers would not be drawn on Sturridge’s claim on talkSPORT that his fitness problems might be ‘hereditary’ as both his father (Simon) and uncle (Dean) endured muscular injuries like him, but the manager wants to see his striker have a consistent run in his team. ‘When you have that talent, you just have to keep yourself fit and available as you possibly can,’ said Rodgers. Rodgers would not be drawn on Sturridge's claims that his fitness problems might be 'hereditary' ‘We will work with him and hopefully we will get that bit of luck when he comes back. When he comes back, hopefully we will have him for the rest of the season. ‘I can only concentrate on his injury now. He’s just recovering and we will see the length of time it takes. He is probably speaking how he felt. That is the way of the world. ‘I am not an expert on any genetics code, or medicine, so I can’t comment. ‘All I know is it’s a calf strain on the back of his last injury and he’s working to recover.’
|
Daniel Sturridge expected to be out until mid-November with calf strain .
England striker hasn't played for club or country since start of September .
Liverpool face Newcastle on Saturday before trip to Real Madrid .
Reds must then face Chelsea at Anfield next weekend .
|
149c22d887c6a25ad050acdb53cfd37e00fe5c38
|
Paddy McNair had to be stapled up on the pitch during Manchester United's FA Cup clash with Yeovil after a nasty clash of heads with Kieffer Moore. The young defender went up for a header with the opposing striker in the 20th minute at Huish Park but both went down holding their face. United's club physio Neil Hough and club doctor Steve McNally then rushed onto the pitch to provide treatment as McNair had his head stapled. Yeovil striker Kieffer Moore and Manchester United defender Paddy McNair clash heads in the first half . United defender McNair has his head stapled after suffering a cut in the accidental collision . A member of United's medical staff treats McNair's wound (left), leaving staples visible on his head (right) McNair, 19, appeared to show no signs of concussion and so was allowed to play on, albeit with a bandage around his head. In the collision Yeovil striker Moore damaged his nose as the third-round fixture was temporarily stopped while the duo lay down injured. The Northern Irish defender broke through into the United team this season amid an injury crisis at Old Trafford, and was brought in for the cup clash by Louis van Gaal after missing the draw with Stoke on New Year's Day. Moore (left) and McNair were both able to continue the FA Cup third round clash after being bandaged up .
|
Paddy McNair and Kieffer Moore clashed heads in the first half .
Defender McNair had his head stapled by Manchester United medical staff .
Both players were deemed fit to continue the FA Cup clash at Huish Park .
|
149c41c329f54989c07d6822592c09a2f4214851
|
Tragic: Part of the large apartment complex from which the five-year-old fell in Jakarta, Indonesia . A five-year-old boy fell to his death from his 19th-floor bedroom window after he was refused permission to watch the latest Spider-Man movie, according to reports. Naming him only as Valentino, police in Indonesia said the boy locked himself in his room at an apartment complex in the capital Jakarta after an argument with his mother. Officers said they were investigating the possibility the tragic youngster may have mimicked his screen hero or, despite his tender age, taken his own life. However, the fall could also have been no more than a tragic accident. According to Indonesian media the boy was in the bath on Thursday when he asked his mother, a 23-year-old woman named as Eva, if he could see the latest superhero film. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was released in Indonesia on Wednesday and has been a smash hit, scoring the country's highest opening day box office figures of all time. But the boy's mother said he could not go because his one-year-old brother Vincencius was ill and she wanted to visit the toddler at her mother's house, kompas.com reported. 'This made Valentino very upset,' senior police commander Suyudi told the website. 'He wanted to see the movie. 'After his request was declined, Valentino then rushed to his room and locked it from the inside.' The police chief continued: 'She went down to the second floor to ask for help from a caretaker, but while talking to him she heard a commotion outside.' The child's body was found on the fibreglass roof of the food court in the apartment complex, according to reports. The noise heard by his mother was people rushing to try and help him after he fell. He was taken to the nearby Pluit Hospital in north Jakarta, but was pronounced dead on arrival. Smash hit: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was released in Indonesia the previous day and smashed box office records . Tragic: The boy was taken to the nearby Pluit Hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival . Floral tributes were left on the damaged roof of the food court. Initially police said they were investigating the possibility that the boy had taken his own life. The window in the apartment was easily accessible from his bed. However, police have also said he was a 'hyperactive' child who enjoyed imitating his screen heroes. 'He liked to imitate films like Iron Man and Captain America after every watch,' the head of the criminal investigation unit told Kompas on Friday. The fall could also have simply been an accident, investigators said. The tragic case recalls the death of six-year-old Kevin Morais, who was climbing along the window ledge in his bedroom on the third floor of his home in London when he lost his grip and fell. His mother, nurse Maria Morais, heard the fall and found her ‘naughty little boy’ lying in a pool of blood. She called an ambulance but the child was unresponsive. He was said to have believed he was 'invincible' like his hero, Spider-Man. For confidential support in the UK call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90.
|
Named as Valentino, the boy shut himself in his room in Jakarta, Indonesia .
He had argued with his mother about watching blockbuster, police said .
The mother, 24, was still trying to unlock the door when she heard him fall .
Police are investigating possibility he mimicked hero or took his own life .
The fall on Thursday could also have been no more than a tragic accident .
|
149c646a3a824b75f75735c484e97dc561b31dad
|
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will travel to one of the smallest and most remote nations in the world as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations next year. Tuvalu, a tiny group of islands in the South Pacific, is delighted to host an official visit by the couple when larger rivals such as Australia and New Zealand will miss out. Its consul to the UK, Iftikhar Ayaz, told the Mail yesterday that his country’s 10,400 inhabitants were ‘very excited’ that such ‘a small and faraway state’ had been chosen and promised William and Kate a welcome they would not forget. On tour: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will visit Malaysia, Singapore, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu . When the Queen and Prince Philip . visited Tuvalu in 1982, they were carried from their ship to the shore . in garlanded canoes hoisted on the shoulders of dozens of handsome young . men. ‘I have had the . pleasure of meeting the Queen on several occasions and she still . remembers the experience very vividly indeed,’ said Mr Ayaz. ‘Of course . the Duke and the Duchess can expect the same welcome.’ Buckingham Palace yesterday announced dozens of visits by members of the Royal Family to mark the Queen’s 60 years on the throne. Her Majesty’s own itinerary will take in ten regions of the UK between March and July, as well as hosting four days of events over an extended bank holiday weekend in June. Remote: The tiny Tuvalu island in the Pacific Ocean is at risk of disappearing in the next 50 years because of rising sea levels . Beautiful: Tuvalu's capital Funafuti. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be visiting the atoll next year . The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of . Cornwall will travel to Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Papua New . Guinea. Charles will make additional trips to the Channel Islands and . Isle of Man. Prince Harry will undertake his first . solo tour on behalf of the Queen, taking in Belize, Jamaica and the . Bahamas probably in early March. Prince Andrew will visit India; Princess Anne Mozambique and Zambia; the Duke of Gloucester the British Virgin Islands and Malta; and the Duke of Kent the Falkland Islands and Uganda. Ten years on: Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh ride along the Mall in an open top car on their way to watch a parade in celebration of the Golden Jubilee in June 2002 . First royal visit for 30 years: The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh tour Tuvalu, a Pacific Island, in 1982. Next year the Duke and Duchess and Cambridge will follow in their footsteps . Prince Edward and his wife, the Countess . of Wessex, have bagged what is considered to be one of the ‘plum’ trips . – touring the Caribbean, including Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, . Grenada, Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the . Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, with an extra visit to Gibraltar. But it is the trip by William and Kate, which also takes in Malaysia, Singapore and the Solomon Islands, which is likely to attract the most interest. No firm dates have yet been agreed but it is likely to take place in the autumn. ‘We are very proud of having the Queen as our head of state and were happily planning to celebrate her jubilee when this wonderful news came through,’ added Consul Ayaz. ‘A few years ago there was a move to declare Tuvalu a republic, but the reaction of the public was so strongly against it that it was quickly dropped. ‘As the islands that make up Tuvalu are very remote – some are 500 kilometres apart – the news will take a while to filter through, but all of the residents will be delighted. Prince William and Kate raised more than £1m for severely malnourished children in famine-hit east Africa through a charity visit. When the royal couple visited a Unicef supply centre in Copenhagen, traffic to the UK charity’s website rocketed by 226 per cent. Extra interest in the charity meant they were able to rake in extra money in donations – enough to buy two weeks' worth of high protein emergency food for 100,000 of the most acutely malnourished children. The fundraising total combines thousands of public donations as well as 'in-kind' support, including free cargo space from leading airlines British Airways and UPS, as well as life-saving supplies to the value of £520,000 from the Children's Investment Fund Foundation. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge helped pack boxes of emergency health kits on their visit to help the 320,000 children who are at imminent risk of death. During the visit, William said: 'An incredible amount is being done. Unicef is leading the way and doing a fantastic job, but sadly there's lots more still to do, and that's why we're here today.' David Bull, executive director of Unicef Uk, said: 'Their Royal Highnesses are helping to save and transform children's lives in East Africa.'
|
Prince Harry will make his first solo overseas trip on Queen's behalf .
William and Kate will be first royals to visit Tuvalu since 1982 .
|
149d037b39f23e6eb566259a2fcc2d4b1a2a3c1b
|
By . Rebecca English . PUBLISHED: . 18:22 EST, 17 March 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 18:31 EST, 17 March 2013 . The scene was a desert palace overlooking an ancient wadi, its walls covered with priceless Bedouin hangings. Inside was a feast laid on for a future king – the Prince of Wales – by a future king. For in the centre of the dining room, sitting upright on a silver platter surrounded by a bed of cardamom-scented rice was the piece de resistance: A whole skinned and roasted baby camel. Guest of honour: Prince Charles was offered baby camel by the Saudi Royal family as he visited the Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz . Royal visit: Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall arrive for an audience with the Sultan of Oman Qaboos bin Said Al Saidat at the Sultan's Palace . If Charles felt a little queasy at this point (as many of his entourage certainly were), he was diplomatic enough not to show it. In fact the prince, dressed in a Savile Row suit, took his place at the head table with his host, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz. As a plate of prime carved meat was brought to him, the 64-year-old managed to daintily bring a couple of morsels to his lips with a gracious smile, before cleverly pushing his food round his plate for the rest of the hour-long banquet. Greeting: Prince Charles, Prince of Wales with the Sultan of Oman Qaboos bin Said Al Saidat on the final leg of his tour of the Middle East . Delicacy: Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall tries some chocolates made by women who are learning cooking skills at the Female Academy for Arts and Crafts . Welcome ceremony: Prince Charles and Camilla receive a welcome worthy of royals at Muscat International Airport today . ‘I have never seen anything like it before,’ said a member of the British delegation that accompanied the prince, ‘and to be honest I hope I never will again. ‘As we walked in there was this huge creature sitting on a salver in the middle of the room. It was rather white and shiny with these large ribs protruding from the side. ‘It was only a few seconds later that I noticed this hump in the middle of it and realised what it was.‘We were told that it was a whole baby camel and that it was a sign of the huge esteem in which the prince is held that it had been roasted for him.’ Grandeur: Charles and Camilla have an audience with the Sultan of Oman Qaboos bin Said Al Saidat at the Sultan's Palace at Bayt al Baraka . The banquet was held just outside the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Friday night to welcome Charles, who was on a three-day visit to the kingdom as part of a tour of the Middle East on behalf of the British government. The prince was taken from his lodgings, Grand Palace, one of the Saudi royal family’s numerous gold-encrusted residences, to the Wadi Hanifa, a short drive out from the city. Overlooking an oasis and the 18th century ruins of old Riyadh, the Diriyah Palace is part of an 26,500-acre estate that has its own mosque, helipad and stables. Charles was invited to sit down with the Crown Prince and 60 of his closest relatives to enjoy coffee and high-level discussions. After half an hour he was invited into the banqueting area where he was greeted by the roasted camel and several whole roasted sheep and lamb, which had been placed on tables for other dignitaries to pick at. The Duchess of Cornwall was at a separate women’s banquet being thrown for her by one of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia’s wives, Princess Hessa bint Trad Al Saalan. The duchess said she had noticed a ‘sea of change’ in treatment towards women since her last in 2006. ‘They are in a world that can see and is starting to recognise their talents,’ she said.
|
HRH was served roast baby camel and cardamom-scented rice .
The Prince managed politely to eat a few mouthfuls of the meat .
He sat at the head table with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia .
It is the final leg of Charles and Camilla's tour of the MIddle East .
|
149d466dedb72bf6f0f1b10a271fdae31075b9a0
|
By . Jill Reilly and Laura Cox . PUBLISHED: . 17:35 EST, 24 March 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 18:42 EST, 24 March 2012 . A Southern Californian man thrown off a Caribbean gay cruise earlier this week has said that that he and his partner were taunted, humiliated and subjected to inhumane treatment when they were arrested for indecent exposure. Dennis Jay Mayer, 53, of Palm Springs said he has no doubt they were arrested in Dominica because they were gay. Police said it was because they were seen having sex in public on the balcony of their ship cabin. Mayer said they were not having sex, but were ‘partially clothed’. Gay cruise: John Hart, 41, left, and Dennis Jay Mayer, 43, both of Palm Springs, California, pleaded guilty to indecent exposure after they were caught having sex . ‘The total experience was horrendous,’ he said. ‘They told us that they did not like us, that they did not like gay people.’ Mayer, a retired deputy sheriff, told how he and his partner of 17 years, John Robert Hart, 41, were summoned to speak to the captain wished to speak to us. ‘We were caught off guard,’ he added. Three cruise ship officials and six Dominica police officers were waiting for them. After police interviewed both men separately, the assistant captain spoke, Mayer said. ‘At this time, we are going to eject you from the ship. We have zero tolerance toward your behavior,’ Mayer recalled him saying. Police drove them to their headquarters, where they sat on a bench for nearly two hours without legal representation despite repeated requests, Mayer said. After police took pictures and obtained fingerprints, a high-ranking officer began a nearly four-hour interrogation. ‘He said: “You're being arrested for being gay. We're arresting you for the crime of buggery”,’ Mayer said. ‘He said that other people said that we were engaging in homosexual sex. He repeated that several times. I told him I didn't know why they would say that. I wasn't doing that.’ Mayer, 43, second from left, and Hart, 41, third from left, are escorted by police officers back to court following their arrest during a stop on a gay cruise of the Caribbean . During the interrogation, the police official threatened to take them to a clinic and have them medically examined for proof of homosexual activity, Mayer said. ‘He said, you know, we're looking for specific things, fluids, bruising, things of that nature,’ Mayer said.After making the threat, the official left the room, then came back saying they had a right to refuse the test, Mayer said. The two men were charged with indecent exposure and put in a five-by-eight-foot cell to await an appearance before a magistrate. ‘The treatment was inhumane,’ Mayer said. ‘We were detained for approximately 26 hours, and 19 of those locked in a cement cell, which had no running water, no toilet, no lights. ‘It stunk of feces and urine. It was infested with cockroaches, ants and bugs.’ Mayer said police brought in government officials to look at them. ‘They paraded many people by to look in on us as if we were some type of animal, which was quite humiliating,’ he said. ‘People got great joy in the pleasure of taunting us.’ On Thursday morning, police drove them to the courthouse in the capital of Roseau, passing through an angry crowd, Mayer said. ‘They were chanting and banging on the police vehicle. They were screaming things,’ he said. ‘I've never seen anything like this in my life, other than in movies. Both my partner and I really feared for our safety.’ Arrest: Two men on board a gay cruise of the Caribbean were arrested yesterday in Dominica, after being spotted having sex on the Celebrity cruise ship, pictured, from the port of Roseau . Police drove around the block twice to avoid the crowd and journalists. Officers formed a barricade with their bodies and urged Mayer and his partner to run into the courthouse and not stop. ‘It was very frightening,’ Mayer said. Once in the courtroom, Chief Magistrate Evaline Baptiste ordered the men to pay a nearly $900 fine after they pleaded guilty to indecent exposure. He called the two men ‘rogues and vagabonds’. Police then drove them to the airport, Mayer said. He added he would never return to Dominica. ‘I would not spend my money in a country that does not support gay behavior,’ he said. ‘Shame on us for not doing our research.’ The two initially were arrested on suspicion of the local equivalent of sodomy in the eastern Caribbean island, which prohibits sex between two men. The couple's attorney, Bernadette Lambert, said they were remorseful. 'They were struck by the beautiful mountains, the clean and clear fresh air and were having a few cocktails, and so threw caution to the wind,' she told the court. Party boat: The cruise was organized by Atlantis Events, a Southern California company that specializes in gay travel. The ship departed for St. Barts without the men, who are being held in a cell at police headquarters in the capital of Roseau . The two were aboard the Celebrity Summit cruise ship that had departed Puerto Rico on Saturday with about 2,000 passengers. The ship departed for St Barts late Wednesday, leaving the men behind. The cruise was organized by Atlantis Events, a Southern California company that specializes in gay travel. President . Rich Campbell said Thursday that the outcome of the case would have . been the same had it involved a heterosexual couple instead of two gay . men. 'It had nothing to . do with their sexual orientation and everything to do with their public . conduct,' he said. 'I have been in contact with the guests and they are . in good spirits.' Dozens of islanders packed the courtroom in the capital of Roseau to attend the 30-minute hearing. Dominica . Tourism Minister Ian Douglas said that tourists should abide by local . laws regardless of their religious or sexual orientation, and that . cruise ship officials should make passengers aware of these laws. 'It . cannot be the responsibility of Dominica to screen guests and tourists . before they come into the country,' he said. 'It is expected that any . time people come to a country, they will respect the laws of the . country.' Statement: President Rich Campbell, pictured, who is aboard the cruise, said 'The guests' actions were unfortunate but minor in this case and have no bearing on our overall guest experience' Gay Caribbean . cruises have been popular for several years despite hostility to . homosexuality on certain islands, especially in Jamaica, Barbados and . the Cayman Islands. Campbell said in a phone interview earlier that the company has organized many trips to Dominica and would 'happily return'. 'Many countries and municipalities that gay men visit and live in have antiquated laws on their books,' he said. 'These statutes don't pose a concern to us in planning a tourist visit.' 'The guests' actions were unfortunate but minor in this case and have no bearing on our overall guest experience,' he said via email. The pastor of Dominica's Trinity Baptist Church, Randy Rodney, praised the police for their intervention. 'I . am very pleased that the police were called in and have arrested the . people in question. I have warned about gay tourism and its implications . for Dominica,' said Mr Rodney, who is a vocal critic of homosexuality . and lesbianism. Holiday ethos: On the company website, guest are encouraged to enjoy themselves and it states 'The only rule is there are no rules' According to Cruisemates.com, no gay cruise lines sail to Jamaica or Barbados for fear of homophobia and possible violence. It said other places like the U.S. Virgin Islands welcome gay cruises. In 2010, the Cayman Islands rejected the arrival of an Atlantis gay cruise amid protests from religious groups even though homosexuality is legal on the archipelago. Don Weiner, a spokesman for Atlantic Events, referred all questions to Campbell, including why the company organized a trip to Dominica and whether it knew about the island's anti-sodomy laws. Elizabeth Jakeway, a spokeswoman for Celebrity Cruises, referred all questions to Atlantis. The last time authorities in the Caribbean intervened on a gay cruise was in February 2011, when agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection arrested a California man aboard the Allure of the Seas, which had docked in St. Thomas. The man, Steven Barry Krumholz of West Hollywood, pleaded guilty to selling ecstasy, methamphetamine and ketamine to fellow passengers.
|
Men were spotted having sex on Celebrity Summit from dock in Dominica, where sex between two men is illegal .
Claimed the Dominican police taunted and humiliated them, to the point they were frightened for their safety .
Ordered to pay $900 fine after pleading guilty to indecent exposure .
Said they will never go back to Dominica and that they should have done more research before going .
|
149d5dafef508567b70fd2124100be82be37bc88
|
By . Ruth Styles . She's famous for her relaxed approach to royal walkabouts but even the Duchess of Cornwall couldn't hide her surprise when offered a perch on a well-wisher's knee during a visit. After bursting into fits of laughter, Camilla delicately took up Anthony Laing's offer as she took her place at the centre of a group photo with staff at the Shortbread House of Edinburgh. Mr Laing, the business' managing director, looked thrilled by his usually close brush with royalty, as did the chuckling staff members. New throne: Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, perches on the knee of Anthony Laing (left) during a visit . Camilla was visiting the bakery as part of the annual royal tour of Scotland which kicked off yesterday with a visit to a jazz festival. But it was the bakery trip that proved the highlight of the week so far, with Camilla cheerfully donning a white coat and hat over her pretty navy and white patterned dress for the tour. Later, she tried on some clothes of an entirely different sort as she visited the Edinburgh International Fashion Festival sporting her favourite taupe coat and white pleated skirt. There, she was treated to a catwalk show and inspected pieces by some of Scotland's hottest young design talent before being presented with a tiny teddy for her grandson Prince George. Taking her seat: Camilla giggles as Mr Laing makes the offer before sitting down on his knee . Eye-opening: Camilla gets an eyeful of a risque display at the Edinburgh International Fashion Festival . Enjoying the show: Camilla sat front row with Anna Fremantle, the brains behind the event, during the show . Is that for George? The Duchess of Cornwall was given a teddybear for her grandson at the fashion festival . Stylish: The Duchess wore a white pleated skirt and taupe jacket for her visit to the Edinburgh Fashion Festival . She was also confronted with a set of risqué mannequins but appeared none the worse for the experience. Charles, however, was nowhere to be seen and instead of joining the Duchess at the bakery, travelled to the Glendelvine Estate in Perthshire . where he found himself face-to-face with a huge fluffy red squirrel. Happily . for the environmentalist prince, this one was a toy gifted to him as he . was brought up to speed with efforts to save the red squirrel, an . endangered native species. Once . common to the whole of the UK, the red squirrel is threatened by the . increasing numbers of grey squirrels, with the alien species forcing the . native reds north. Keepers at the Glendelvine Estate have hit upon a novel solution to the problem - trapping any greys spotted on the land. Tasty: Camilla listened intently as she was told about shortbread before being handed some to try . Enjoying the tour: Despite being forced to don a white cover-all and hat, Camilla enjoyed her visit to the bakery . Lovely to meet you: Camilla is introduced to bakery staff at the Shortbread House of Edinburgh . Present for George? A delighted Prince Charles was handed a giant red squirrel toy for Prince George . On the way to London: The toy, presented by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, was placed in the boot . Meeting: Prince Charles meets Black Watch veteran Dr Tom Renouf at Balhousie Castle in Perth . The . programme, which has been underway since 2009, sees David Fraser, the . estate's gamekeeper, trap up to 63 grey squirrels a year - with . dramatically beneficial effects for the reds. Later, the Prince of Wales attended a . reception for the Scottish Wildlife Trust's 50th anniversary at Murthly . Castle, near Perth before carrying on to Balhousie Castle for a tour of the Black Watch Regimental Museum, which reopened last year after a £3.5 million redevelopment. Charles is Royal Colonel of the Black Watch, 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, as well as patron of the Black Watch Royal Highland Regiment Association and of the Black Watch Heritage Appeal. The . visits to the Shortbread House and Glendelvine are part of a week of . Scottish engagements for the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, . who are known as the Duke and Duchess of Rothesay north of the border. Later this week, the royal couple will meet athletes preparing to take part in the Commonwealth Games before joining the Queen for the opening ceremony on Thursday night. So that's how you do it! Prince Charles meets the Highland Pipers outside Balhousie Castle . Looking around: Balhousie Castle houses a museum dedicated to the Black Watch regiment .
|
The Duchess perched on bakery manager Andrew Laing's knee .
Camilla was visiting the Shortbread House of Edinburgh this morning .
She and Prince Charles are on day two of their annual tour of Scotland .
The Prince of Wales spent the morning at the Glendelvine Estate .
He was at the Perthshire estate to hear about red squirrel conservation .
Later, Camilla was confronted by a risque selection of mannequins .
She was at the Edinburgh International Fashion Festival and saw a show .
|
149db46fd08b02aa8f7dd47208323adfaccc9581
|
Atlanta police are being accused of embellishing the case against a father whose son died in a hot car last month after significant discrepancies allegedly emerged during a review of the evidence. The Atlanta Journal Constitution has carefully looked through some the evidence, including a surveillance video that captured Justin Ross Harris outside the Home Depot where he worked, and the newspaper claims authorities overstated some of their case at a July 3 hearing. According to the AJC, the tape contradicts some of the testimony given by Cobb County detective Phil Stoddard. Also, in an exclusive interview, Harris' brother told the paper that he and Harris were planning a cruise together and that Harris had specifically requested one with facilities for children. Scroll down for video . Family: The Atlanta Journal Constitution claims there are discrepancies int he evidence in the case of Justin Ross Harris, pictured right with his wife and late son Cooper . During the July 3 hearing, Stoddard, prompted by prosecutor Chuck Boring, strongly insinuated that Harris sat in his parked car outside of his work on the morning on June 18 for 30 seconds before getting out and walking inside. Boring reiterated this during closing arguments, saying 'That morning, he waits 30 seconds in that car... 30 seconds with that child right beside him.' However, the AJC claims the security video in fact shows Harris remained in the Hyundai for less that 15 seconds before exiting the car, during which time he put the car in park, turned off the engine and gathered his belongings. Harris returned to the SUV at lunchtime to put a package of light bulbs inside and Stoddard. During the brief trip to the car, Stoddard and Boring said the father had a 'clear view' of the inside of the car. However, after reviewing the video, the AJC claims only Harris' arm and shoulder are seen reaching inside the vehicle, and that his eyes remain above the SUV's roof at all times. It also shows it took just three seconds for him to open the door, put the package inside and shut the door again. According to the AJC, a surveillance video contradicts some of the testimony given by Cobb County detective Phil Stoddard, pictured on July 3 . Mom: Police have not named Leanna Harris as a suspect and she has not been charged with any crime . The third piece of allegedly overstated evidence presented by authorities is the claim that Harris paused during . his walk back to the office, because he apparently was concerned a . passerby would see his son inside the car. While . the tape does show Harris pass a man in the parking lot, and pause . briefly, his eyes are on his cell phone, which he is poking at with his . free hand and he doesn't appear to notice the man at all. The man in fact walks the length of . Harris' parked car and would have almost certainly seen the child if . he'd turned his head, the AJC claims. Michael . Baygents, Harris' half-brother, told the newspaper that he and Harris . were excitedly planning to take their families on a cruise in October . after Harris suggested the two families vacation together. He said they settled on Carnival Cruise Lines because a carnival ship had water slides for children. Baygents said he was frustrated to see the way the police were portraying his brother's case. 'I'm . very angry with them. I think they rushed to judgment. I think Stoddard . rushed to judgment. I think he made a terrible mistake,' he told the . AJC. The claims come after the lawyer for the Harris' wife said she was devastated by the loss of little Cooper. Peaceful: Harris described Cooper as peaceful with his . eyes closed, when this wasn't the case, according to Stoddard. He . allegedly also told his wife: 'I dreaded how he would look' Criminal defense attorney Lawrence . Zimmerman said Leanna Harris is 'living every parent's nightmare' after . the death of her 22-month-old son. The woman's husband, Justin Ross Harris, 33, was arrested on charges of murder and child cruelty after the boy's death June 18. The . father told police he left his son in the backseat of his SUV for about . seven hours after forgetting to drop him off at day care and going to . work, investigators in the Atlanta suburb of Cobb County have said. Leanna Harris has not been charged in the case. Zimmerman criticized media coverage of . her reaction to her son's death, saying speculation over a perceived . lack of emotion in the case thus far is similar to what 1996 Olympic . bombing hero Richard Jewell faced after an attack that year on the . summer games in Atlanta. Jewell led people away from a suspicious backpack before a blast killed one and left more than 100 people injured. He . became the target of intense scrutiny after an unattributed news report . said he was the focus of the investigation into the attack. Jewell's name was cleared in 2006 and he died the following year at age 44. Investigation: Cobb County police investigate the SUV where toddler Cooper Harris died near Marietta, Ga., when his father Ross forgot to drop his child off at day care and went to work . 'Newspapers, . television and online media have fostered a poisonous atmosphere in . which Leanna's every word, action and emotion — or failure to cry in . front of a crowd — is scrutinized for some supposed hidden meaning,' Zimmerman said. He . added that the media has dug into his client's upbringing, marriage and . sex life. Zimmerman also said Leanna Harris has been unable to return . to work and she's asking to be allowed to mourn her son out of the . public eye. 'She will never be able to tuck him into bed at night and return later to check on him. 'She . mourns Cooper's death deeply, in her own private way,' the lawyer . stated. 'She takes comfort from a strong faith in God, but the loss is . still overwhelming. Getting through each day seems almost impossible.' During . an hourslong probable cause hearing on July 3, prosecutors said . evidence shows Justin Ross Harris had been leading a double life and was . sending nude photos with several women — including at least one . teenager — even on the day his son died. The . couple had two life insurance policies for the toddler, one for $2,000 . and one for $25,000. After his son's death, Harris talked with relatives . about what they needed to do to file claims, investigators have said. Harris' defense attorney Maddox Kilgore has argued that evidence in the case is . insufficient and the boy's death was a tragic accident. Justin Ross Harris remains jailed without bond. Police recently said a . toxicology tests on the body of 22-month-old Cooper had negative . results, but they didn't say what substances they tested for. No bond: Justin Ross Harris, the Georgia man charged with murder after his toddler son died inside of a hot SUV, was refused bond on July 3 and will now remain in jail until he is tried . Toxicology tests typically are used to detect foreign substances such as drugs in a person's system. A . growing number of questions are being asked about Leanna Harris' unusual behavior in the wake of young Cooper’s horrific death inside a . sweltering SUV last month. Harris, . a 30-year-old dietitian, expressed little emotion throughout her . husband's preliminary hearing last week, despite a number of shocking . allegations including that her husband had been sexting with six . different women, some teenagers, on the day their young son had passed . away. As . prosecutors said her husband was practically leading a double life and . should not be granted bond, Leanna Harris chewed gum and stared blankly . ahead. During last Thursday's proceedings, investigators described her own behavior on the day her son died as odd, if not suspicious. When informed by workers at her son's . day care facility that Cooper had never been dropped off, she calmly . responded, 'Ross must have left him in the car. There's no other . explanation,' according to Cobb County Police Detective Phil Stoddard's . testimony. Then, when . reunited with her husband at police headquarters after he had been . charged with murder, Leanna Harris asked him, 'Did you say too much?' according to Stoddard. When she called home June 18 with the . grim news of Cooper's death, her mother could be overheard on the phone . saying: 'Why aren't you crying? Why aren't you reacting?' Heartbreaking details: Detective Stoddard testified that there was scratch marks on Cooper Harris' face and abrasions on the back of the toddler's head . Justin Ross Harris is accused of leaving his 22-month-old son Cooper to die in a scorching hot SUV on June 18 . Her response, according to Stoddard: 'I must be in shock.' Police . had previously disclosed that, like her husband, she had researched . children dying in hot vehicles prior to her son Cooper's death, telling . officers it was her 'worst fear.' At Cooper's funeral - and with her husband listening from jail on speaker phone - she said she held no anger toward him. 'Ross . is and was a wonderful father,' she told mourners, before telling her . husband of seven years: 'I love you and I'm doing this for you.' Some of Leanna Harris' comments during her eulogy at Cooper’s funeral have also raised suspicions. 'Some of you might wonder how I'm standing here today and I ask myself the same question,' the deeply religious mother said. 'I should be crumpled into a pile of tears and snot on the ground. (The Lord) is standing behind me, holding me up.' The . 250 or so mourners who gathered at University Church of Christ gave her . two rounds of applause as she said she wouldn’t bring her son back, . even if she could. 'He's in the most peaceful, wonderful place there is.' Justin Ross Harris was denied bond by a judge who called it a 'possible death penalty case.' He remains in jail on murder and child cruelty charges and prosecutors may seek to use Leanna Harris as a witness. In . Georgia, the spousal privilege shielding a wife from testifying against . her husband, doesn't apply in cases of the death of a child.
|
The Atlanta Journal Constitution has reviewed some of the evidence, including a surveillance video that captured Justin Ross Harris outside the Home Depot where he worked .
The newspaper claims authorities overstated some of their case at a July 3 hearing .
According to the AJC, the tape contradicts some of the testimony given by Cobb County detective Phil Stoddard including how long Harris sat in the car before going to work .
Also Harris' brother told the paper that he and Harris were planning a cruise together and that Harris had specifically requested one with facilities for children .
|
149db90fa1076b0170869aa357cf9a2e5bfffdbe
|
In the last couple of years the selfie has seen a meteoric rise to fame and was even given the Royal Seal of approval during the Commonwealth Games when some opportunistic youngsters managed to take one with her Majesty in the background. But now there is a new way to document your day – the dronie, where all of your photos are taken by a drone. French drone manufacturer Parrot say the increasingly popular method of using a remote controlled miniature aircraft is down to 'narcissism' - as people are buying them ready fitted with cameras in order to film themselves. Forget selfies - people are now using drones to take photos and videos, like this couple in Portugal . Up to 30,000 of the remote-controlled devices are predicted to have been sold by the end of this year . Drones are also increasingly being used at weddings, giving the bride and groom high-quality footage of their big day from an aerial perspective. Henri Seydoux, Parrot’s chief executive, told the Financial Times that the drones of the future will be able to pilot themselves, automatically following their subject around. He told the paper: ‘It would be like having a full TV crew with you when you went snowboarding or mountain climbing.’ He said that sales of drones jumped by 130 per cent in the third quarter of the year, taking the company by surprise. A woman gets her photo taken by a remote controlled flying dronie in a snow covered New Zealand . A group of brave adventurers had this picture taken by a dronie in Costa Rica as they crossed a rope bridge . Mr Seydoux added: ‘It turned out that in reality people bought the drones because of narcissism. ‘People want to put pictures on YouTube of them looking strong and talented, and that is why people want the cameras.’ However, last month it was revealed a passenger plane had a near miss with a drone as it landed at Heathrow, in the first such incident recorded at Britain’s biggest airport. The incident involved an Airbus A320, which can carry up to 180 passengers, and was rated by investigators as among the most serious near-collisions. The aircraft was at just 700ft at 2.16pm on July 22 when the pilot saw the drone, which had not shown up on air traffic control radar. He reported the sighting and an inquiry was launched by the UK Airprox Board, which investigates all reported near-misses. Investigators, however, were unable to identify it. It comes amid concern over the threat to aircraft from domestic drones flown by amateurs - especially as they are expected to be a must have Christmas present this year. Drones cost from as little as £35 - and sales have jumped thanks to extra demand. It is estimated that more than 30,000 drones will have been bought by British consumers by the end of the year — a high proportion of them as Christmas presents. The electronics chain Maplin says that sales within its stores are up 300 per cent on 2013. Last month, a conference on unmanned aerial systems in London heard that police were worried about injuries and other problems on Boxing Day when amateur ‘pilots’ try out their new drones. This group of friends and their dogs shot a video on a dronie of their walk up Bernal Hill in San Francisco .
|
People are increasingly turning to drones to take pictures and shoot video .
Couples now use the dronie for high quality pictures of their wedding day .
Remote controlled miniature aircraft expected to be big hit this Christmas .
One drone manufacturer said sales have jumped by 130 per cent this year .
More than 30,000 drones expected to be bought in Britain by end of year .
|
149e136d4972083fd60ebab4c15b0174956161e9
|
A Dallas nurse who recovered from Ebola has been reunited with her dog Bentley, who has spent 21 days in quarantine. The King Charles Cavalier spaniel has undergone twice-daily check-ups by vets in hazmat suits at a secret naval base while his owner, Nina Pham, was treated for the deadly virus. This morning, the pair were reunited privately on Saturday at the secret location near the Texan city where he had been isolated since she fell ill. Scroll down for video . Together again! Nina Pham, 26, clutches Bentley as he is released from quarantine after 21 days . Thankful: The former Ebola patient thanked vets for treating him as their own while she was in hospital . Private reunion: Pham traveled to the naval base this morning to retrieve Bentley from his isolation unit . Smiles: Pham posed excitedly with her 'best friend' Mr Bentley and one of the vets that cared for him . As Pham, 26, underwent blood transfusions and hospital transfers to tackle the deadly virus, Bentley underwent twice-daily check-ups by vets in hazmat suits at the decommissioned naval air base near Dallas. Tearful, Pham said at a news conference Saturday that she was thankful for the thoughts and prayers for 'me and Mr Bentley,' whom she called 'one of my best friends.' Pham was diagnosed with Ebola last month. She contracted the virus while caring for the Liberian patient Thomas Eric Duncan, who died on October 8. City spokeswoman Sana Syed said on Thursday that the dog has tested negative for Ebola and that his 21-day quarantine — the Ebola incubation period — ends Saturday. Pham recovered and was released October 24 from a Washington, D.C.-area hospital. Ebola free: Bentley, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel belonging to cured Ebola patient Nina Pham, has been release from quarantine. Pictured above in a snap shared by Dallas Animal Services on Thursday . Where's Nina? Pham had not been allowed to visit her dog as it could have caused Bentley to become anxious . Under observation: Workers in hazmat suits removed Bentley from Pham's home, and took him to a special isolation room at a nearby naval base. He has been treated by veterinarians and other workers every day. On Thursday he tested negative for Ebola for a third time . Pham was one of two nurses to contract Ebola after treating Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Nurse Amber Vinson has also been cured of the deadly disease which has currently claimed nearly 5,000 lives, mainly in the West African nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. That leaves only one person currently being treated for Ebola in the U.S. Dr Craig Spencer of New York is currently being treated for the disease in an isolation wing at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital. He came down the disease less than a week after returning from West Africa where he was performing aid work with Doctors Without Borders. Ms Pham was the first Ebola patient in the U.S. to have been in contact with a pet as she came down with the virus. Nurse's best friend: Pham's beloved dog has been in quarantine since just after she admitted herself to the hospital with a high temperature . Happy: Pham contracted the disease after volunteering to treat U.S. Ebola patient-zero Thomas Eric Duncan. She has since recovered from the deadly disease. Pictured above giving a hug to President Barack Obama on October 24 . While dogs are not known to be the virus' natural carriers, it's still unclear whether they indeed spread it to humans if they've come into contact with someone who is infected. In Spain, those questions caused officials to put down the dog of nurse there who became infected. Excalibur, who belonged to Spanish nurse and Ebola patient Teresa Romero, was destroyed days after Romero was diagnosed. The move sparked widespread outrage and mass protests in the streets of Madrid - as Romero was later cleared of the virus. Pham's family revealed they pleaded with the district judge to let Bentley survive. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.
|
Nina Pham's dog Bentley was quarantined for 21 days when she fell ill .
The King Charles Cavalier spaniel was kept at secret Dallas navy base .
Pham, 26, was cleared on October 24 but had to wait to see Bentley .
They were reunited this morning at tearful private ceremony .
|
149f5df02b52c7d3fe6068c906f787c51538bdde
|
By . Sam Adams . PUBLISHED: . 04:55 EST, 14 March 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 04:59 EST, 14 March 2013 . Resigned: Scott Sassa, a senior executive at media firm Hearst, has left his job after explicit texts he allegedly sent to a stripper were seen by his bosses . A high-flying executive has resigned from a top job with one of America's biggest media firms after sexually explicit text messages - allegedly sent between him and a stripper - were forwarded to his bosses. Scott Sassa, 53, left his role as president of Hearst Entertainment and Syndication group after the woman apparently forwarded the explicit messages to senior figures at the company. Mr Sassa, who was responsible for the firm's interests in cable television networks, including ESPN and Lifetime, is alleged to have sent the texts to the LA-based stripper and arranged to meet up with her. The woman, who has not been named, is believed to have sent Mr Sassa - who is a single father-of-two - revealing pictures of herself during the exchanges. She is accused of trying to blackmail him by threatening to forward the messages to his bosses at Hearst unless he paid her money. She was helped by her boyfriend in trying to extort money out of Mr Sassa - who has also held senior positions at Fox, NBC, Friendster and Marvel Entertainment, the New York Post reports. He is thought to have met the stripper in LA in December. The stripper is believed to have made a list of demands, but Mr Sassa refused to pay the money. Her boyfriend then emailed the text messages to executives at Hearst, according to the Post. Among those thought to have received the messages were Hearst's CEO Frank Bennack Jr and Michael Clinton, president of marketing for the magazines. High-flyer: Mr Sassa, a single father-of-two, has worked in senior roles for other entertainment firms, including NBC . Mr Sassa is understood to have been asked to resign on Tuesday with Hearst arranging a 'large compensation package for him. Neither Mr Sassa or Hearst have commented on the matter. Mr Sassa had previously enjoyed a successful career at NBC, which he joined in 1997 as president of the NBC Television Stations division and before that at Turner Broadcasting.
|
Scott Sassa, 53, resigns from high-powered post at Hearst Entertainment .
'Stripper and her boyfriend had tried to blackmail the single father-of-two'
Sent texts to senior Hearst excutives after he refused to pay them money .
|
14a18b9243e8eb8c75679fe42900150c4d081b1d
|
Miami (CNN) -- An American Airlines plane was searched and cleared at Miami's airport Monday after a "suspicious item" was identified in its cargo hold, the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement. American Airlines Flight 930 from Sao Paulo, Brazil, landed in Miami at 8:46 a.m., the agency said. "In the process of unloading cargo, a suspicious item was identified," it said. "Out of an abundance of caution, local law enforcement and EOD (explosive ordnance disposal, or a bomb squad) arrived on scene to inspect. The item was cleared and declared safe at 10:37 a.m.," according to the statement. The agency did not disclose details about the item. Earlier, American Airlines spokesman Tim Smith said that no explosive material or devices were found on board the plane. He said that empty fuse holders were found and described them as like a fuse but not an explosive device. The flight had 169 passengers and 11 crew members on board, Smith said. CNN's Anna Rhett Miller and Mike Ahlers contributed to this report.
|
The item has been declared safe, the TSA says .
Authorities responded after the plane landed in Miami .
The flight was from Sao Paulo, Brazil .
|
14a2fd923c4f0eed8e947237616511e6d14c8ae7
|
(The Frisky) -- I once told my mother about a girl I had a crush on. At the time, I think I was about 16, and I had so much acne that if I fell asleep at a library, when I woke up, a blind guy would be trying to read my face. "Just go for her," my mother said. "It's not that simple," I said, while filling out my order form for 25 crates of Noxzema. "She's got a boyfriend." "Well, don't do anything differently. Act like she doesn't. That's how I got your father." She then walked out of the room, leaving my pasty teenage complexion an extra shade of white as I actually contemplated my mother dating. I've since related this story as an example of how hitting on someone with a significant other isn't always a terrible thing. Hey, if they're not married or serious, go for it. However, if you're considering trying to get a guy who has a girlfriend, there are a few things you should know. The Frisky: The Top 5 online dating do's and don'ts for guys . First, I'll admit guys will hit on anything. I once observed one of my friends hitting on a street sign. Granted, he was drunk, but it did not matter to him that he was hitting on an inanimate object, or that the street sign was a little out of his league. Men do have standards, but when they're single, they'll hit on a woman with a boyfriend. They'll hit on nuns. Very occasionally, they'll hit on nuns with boyfriends. I'm not going to defame my own kind, but women can be better at subtlety, and you should use this to your advantage. The Frisky: Is cheating worse when you're married? I'm a big anti-cheating guy, so if a woman hit on me while I had a girlfriend, I'd be flattered. If she offered to go home with me or tried to kiss me or something like that, milk would shoot out of my nose and I'd run for the hills. (I have an odd fight-or-flight mechanism.) Subtlety is your friend. We'll pick up on the signals. If a guy is interested, wait for him to honorably break up with his girlfriend before the two of you start dating. Frankly, this is just good manners. The Frisky: To tell or not to tell on a cheater? It should go without saying that it's bad form to hit on a guy while his girlfriend is actually there, or even if she's in the same town. Men have a well-honed sense of panic that kicks in when someone's hitting on them while their girlfriends are in the same ZIP code. We know that women can read us, so unless you're hitting on a really shady guy, you'll scare him off as he runs home to call his girl and tell the story of the Evil Homewrecking Woman. The Frisky: Can couples get past infidelity? One last thing: If you do snag a guy away from his girlfriend, be wary. The good news is that, despite the popular perception, most of us men tend to be loyal once we're in a committed relationship. But know that if it happened once, it can happen again. TM & © 2009 TMV, Inc. | All Rights Reserved .
|
Writer: Some guys will hit on anything -- even inanimate objects .
Writer: Hitting on a man when his girlfriend is nearby could make you "Evil Homewrecking Woman"
If you snag him away from someone, be wary: It could happen again, writer says .
|
14a38c5a221d4db0c37f7022e84435bf6cd55d56
|
CANTON, Mississippi (In Session/CNN) -- A Mississippi middle school teacher could face the death penalty after she was found guilty Tuesday of fatally shooting and stabbing her lover's pregnant fiancee in 2006. Carla Hughes taught at the same middle school as the victim's fiancé, Keyon Pittman. Carla Hughes, 28, sobbed loudly as a judge read the verdicts on two counts of capital murder for the deaths of Avis Banks and her unborn child. The jury also found the slayings occurred during the commission of a burglary, making Hughes eligible for the death penalty. A jury of nine women and three men are due to return to Madison County Circuit Court Wednesday morning to decide if Hughes should be executed for killing Banks, who was five months pregnant. Their verdict must be unanimous or Hughes will receive a life sentence. Mississippi is among the states that consider murdering a pregnant woman to be taking two lives. Madison County district attorneys alleged Hughes killed Banks so she could be with Keyon Pittman, her lover and colleague at Chastain Middle School in Jackson, Mississippi. Watch the jury find Carla Hughes guilty » . Banks, 27, was found lying in a pool of blood on November 29, 2006, in the garage of the Ridgeland home she shared with Pittman, the father of her unborn child. She had been shot four times in the leg, chest and head, and then stabbed multiple times in the face and neck as she lay dying, according to medical testimony. Suspicion initially fell on Pittman, who admitted to having an affair with Hughes, a language arts teacher. Pittman, a key prosecution witness, told the jury he began seeing Hughes one month after finding out his girlfriend was pregnant. He testified that the two met frequently in Hughes' home and even went out of town together, but he insisted the relationship was based solely on sex. Throughout the trial, defense lawyers maintained her innocence and attempted to cast blame on Pittman, portraying him as a womanizer seeking to avoid the burden of fatherhood. But prosecutors said they could not link the crime to Pittman, who testified that he invoked his right against self-incrimination during a preliminary hearing when asked where he was the afternoon his fiancée was killed. Instead, prosecutors alleged that the murder weapons connected Hughes to the crime. The defendant's cousin testified that he lent her a knife and a loaded .38 caliber revolver the weekend before Banks' death. Ballistics tests matched the bullets from Banks' body to the gun, which Hughes returned unloaded to her cousin after her first interview with police. Madison County District Attorney Michael Guest said Banks' relatives plan to deliver victim impact statements at the sentencing. He said medical testimony will be presented to support the prosecution's claim that the murders were gruesome and heinous, and warrant the death penalty. Hughes' lawyer, Johnnie E. Walls, Jr., a Mississippi state senator, said her relatives will testify in a bid to spare her life.
|
Mississippi jury convicts Carla Hughes of two counts of capital murder on Tuesday .
Avis Banks was five months pregnant when she was shot and stabbed in 2006 .
Prosecutors said Hughes killed so she could be with Banks' fiance, Keyon Pittman .
Hughes and Pittman were teachers at Chastain Middle School in Jackson .
|
14a4405c4349377f910923adf7a1c000784f0b50
|
By . Dan Bloom . Founder: Prince Charles is 'well aware' of up to 100 potential job losses at The Prince's Trust . Prince Charles' charity for deprived youngsters is axing up to 100 jobs to save on administration costs. The move comes after The Prince's Trust suffered a £2.8million funding shortfall last year which forced it to dig into its reserves. Chief executive Martina Milburn said the Prince of Wales, who founded the charity in 1976 and is still its president, was 'well aware' of the proposed cuts and had backed them to focus on the front line. All 1,300 of the charity's staff are being consulted on the redundancies, which are mostly expected to happen at the charity’s London headquarters. Ms Milburn told BBC Radio 4's The World At One: 'Our head office has become a little too complicated and a bit too top heavy so we are basically slimming down head office and protecting our frontline delivery in order to get ourselves back to sort of break-even budget. 'We are looking at how, as a charity, our admin costs are as low as possible and our money going directly to young people is as much as possible. 'We are currently undergoing a period of consultation but we think it will be between 50 and 100 jobs so we will be going down from 1,300 to about 1,200.' Ms Milburn said the heir to the throne was 'very well aware' of the use of reserve funds and of the move to slim down the staff. 'We felt it was very important to invest in young people in the recession,' she said. 'We have the reserves in the bank to do that and the trustees took the view, along with the executive, that reserves are there for a rainy day and that for young people all around the United Kingdom it was certainly raining. 'The Prince understands basic finances and how you need to make sure that you spend as small amount as you can on administration when you are a charity.' A spokesman said the staff cuts may affect one 'small' element of the trust’s work with young people, but she could not confirm what that element would be because the plans are still out to consultation. However, she said: 'We expect the number of young people we help to remain broadly the same.' President: Prince Charles on a visit to a Prince's Trust centre in Dundee last year. It helps thousands of youths . The trust still has £22 million in reserves and is not in debt, she added. The Prince's Trust was founded to help 13 to 30-year-olds who are unemployed or have dropped out of school. It now has centres throughout Britain which offer enterprise courses, team challenges for people lacking social skills and cash grants of up to £500. The charity has more than 6,000 volunteers and helped a record 55,801 young people in 2012/13, up almost 2,000 on the year before and almost 10,000 on 2010/11. In that time its income rocketed from £40million to £58million - but so did its spending. The charity, whose top executive is paid almost £150,000, spent £80,000 more than it earned in 2012-13. The amount of ready cash it held also dropped by more than £2million in a year.
|
All of 38-year-old charity's 1,300 staff are being consulted on redundancies .
Its founder Prince Charles is said to have backed cuts to protect front line .
Charity works with disadvantaged youngsters and some will be affected .
But chief insisted the administration cuts are to 'invest in young people'
|
14a5cf8a55eb431dfa4ad43bfe8ff9ae4b2b1643
|
By . Jessica Jerreat . There has been a rise in the number of Chinese investors snapping up apartments in New York after finding they can get more for their money in Manhattan than Shanghai or Hong Kong. Russians used to dominate the property market in the city, but their interest has dropped since the crisis in Ukraine and the increasing threat of sanctions. The number of buyers from China is nearly a fifth higher than it was this time last year, with many signing deals on properties they haven't even viewed in person. Scroll down for video . Investment: Chinese buyers are dominating Manhattan's property market, with a trend for owning apartments in buildings such as One57, above . One of the driving forces behind the increased interest in the Manhattan property market is that investors find they get more square footage for their money. In previously popular markets for Chinese, such as Hong Kong, buyers expect to pay between $4,100 to $5,000 per square foot. But in Manhattan it is nearer $2,100. 'By far and away, the Chinese are the fastest-growing demographic,' Dean Jones, of Sotheby's International, said. 'They are the top consumer for real estate, and New York is front and center.' Nikki Field, of Sotheby's, added that the Russians had been 'gone since the Crimean outbreak' and said Chinese investors now accounted for 28.5 percent of his international business. 'We've only scratched the surface with Chinese demand,' Field said, adding that in the first quarter of this year Chinese business was up 19 percent from the same time period last year. No official figures exist for the nationalities of home buyers because of New York's discrimination laws, but five top real estate brokers gave Reuters their listing of foreign investors. More for your money: Investors have found they can get more square footage for less in New York City than in Hong Kong and Shanghai . Online shopping: One investor recently bought two apartments at the Baccarat, pictured in an artist's impression above, in a deal brokered on a social media website . Chinese buyers took the lead in volume and value of sales in all five estimates. 'In sheer . numbers, the Chinese outspend the Russians in every segment of the . market,' Pamela Liebman, of Corcoran . Group, told Reuters. One key factor was their desire to establish a base in cities such as New York and London so their children have access to Western education. Apartments near leading universities are popular with families, even when the child is too young to walk, let alone start life at college. Shawn Elliott, who takes groups of Chinese buyers on property tours every week, said: 'They're . looking for trophy properties. They're looking for . their children to be comfortable, and to be near Columbia or New York . University.' Typically, Chinese investors spend between $1 million to $5 milion in New York, and buy two to three properties as an investment. But a recent trend has seen them move towards the luxury range, with a fashion for taking apartments in One57, the 90-storey building overlooking Central Park. Life of luxury: Popular buildings such as One57 have amazing city views and and hotel-like amenities . New owners: The lavish design of One57 appeals to the Chinese buyers, who have replaced Russians as the leading property investors in the city . Pritzker Prize-winning architect Christian de Portzamparc designed the skyscraper, where apartments start at $18.85 million for a three-bedroom, and rise to $55 million for a home that covers the entire 81st floor. Each apartment has floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Central Park and the Manhattan skyline, and the building has a private performance room, swimming pool and gym and yoga studio, and 24ft aquarium. Another popular luxury building is the Baccarat Hotels & Residences, where one buyer recently took over two apartments for $13 million without ever stepping foot inside them. The entire deal was conducted through the Chinese social networking site, WeChat, according to Emma Hao of Douglas Elliman, who managed the sale. Brokers forecast the Chinese will continue to dominate the market, with Liam Bailey of Knight Frank said: 'There will be more Chinese buyers, and they will take more share of the market.'
|
Ukraine crisis and threat of sanctions blamed for drop in Russian interest .
City homes seen as investment for families wanting children to have Western education .
Buyers get more space for less money in New York than in Hong Kong .
|
14a5d11f0a33d6d0ef9d31c39cd966a120733fb0
|
By . Ben Spencer . PUBLISHED: . 14:13 EST, 15 December 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 17:49 EST, 15 December 2013 . As they gaze up at us, our pet dogs often seem to know just what we’re thinking. And their position as man’s best friend is getting stronger all the time – because their ability to understand and predict human behaviour is actually growing with each generation, according to animal psychologists. A study from the University of Abertay in Dundee shows that a dog’s ability to understand humans is innate and does not depend on training. Animal psychologists say dogs are evolving their ability to understand and predict human behaviour . It is a result of breeding and genetic selection, so it will only get more advanced in the future. Scientists observed how 24 dogs, . ranging from the highly trained to the totally untrained, reacted to . people’s unspoken commands, such as pointing at a location for the dog . to move to. They found the dogs’ training levels made no difference to . their responsiveness. Dr Clare Cunningham, who led the study published . in the journal Animal Cognition, said: ‘We found that training levels didn’t . make any difference - no matter how well trained they were, it did not . make their ability to pick up cues better or worse. ‘What made the difference was . whether they were familiar with the human who was giving the cues. ‘As . they get to know particular humans, they pay more attention to them and . this may mean they can read and even predict human behaviour with more . efficiency as familiarity grows.’ She . added: ‘If such abilities can be passed on from one generation to the . next, then over time we will see them getting better and better and . better at predicting human behaviour.’ The unspoken commands included pointing to or gazing at a location for the dogs to move to, and recording how they reacted. Dr Cunningham, who co-wrote the paper with her colleague Mari Ramos, said: ‘Dogs have been selected through the domestication process to accept humans as social partners and as such, are very good at attending to their behaviour. ‘If such abilities can be passed on from one generation to the next than over time we will see them getting better and better and better at predicting human behaviour.’
|
Study was led by scientists at the University of Abertay, Dundee .
They showed dogs' ability to understand humans is innate and does not depend on training .
Observed how dogs responded to visual clues from owners .
|
14a635fd803930cdab93a5c1bc5615498fa73768
|
(CNN) -- It was silver in Sochi -- but Austria's Marcel Hirscher was back on top after winning the World Cup slalom crystal globe. Hirscher defeated Germany's Felix Neureuther after recording a time of 2 minutes 07.74 seconds to win the overall World Cup title for the third year in succession. Hirscher showed little sign of nerves in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, as he kept his cool throughout to overturn a five point deficit. "I knew it would be all or nothing," Hirscher told reporters. "Only the result counted. "I laid down a marker on the first leg and on the second we saw that the course-setting made little difference. "It didn't really suit me, but I was still quick." Hirscher added: "With this slalom crystal globe, I've fulfilled another wish and goal, my season's perfect." Olympic slalom champion Mario Matt finished third and claimed 60 points to take him up to sixth in the overall standings. In the women's event, Austria's Anna Fenninger won the giant slalom race after finishing 0.25 seconds ahead of teammate Eva-Maria Brem. The victory earned Fenninger both the small and big globe as the season's top overall skier after seeing off Sweden's Jessica Lindell-Vikarby. "It was an unbelievable day for me," Fenninger told the competition's official website. "There are a lot of emotions for me today. It was a great battle for the giant slalom globe with Jessica and I am and just really happy with today and the entire week in Lenzerheide." Fenninger ended the season in the top-three of every discipline with the exception of slalom.
|
Marcel Hirscher wins World Cup slalom crystal globe .
Austria's Hirscher defeted Germany's Felix Neureuther .
Anna Fenninger won women's giant slalom .
Austria's Fenninger won small and big globes .
|
14a8623198a62f308394ba5b460249ad5cce9cee
|
By . Helen Brown . H IS FOR HAWK by Helen MacDonald (Jonathan Cape £14.99) Five months after Helen Macdonald’s father died, she found herself pacing anxiously up and down a Scottish quayside, a cigarette in one hand, a can of Irn-Bru in the other, and an envelope containing £800 in £20 notes stuffed into her back pocket. The shy poet and historian felt like a drug dealer. Then she saw the man she’d come to meet, struggling with an enormous cardboard box that was lurching and thumping strangely in his arms. As he leaned forward to open it, she saw dried blood around a nasty gash on his wrist. And, suddenly, the female goshawk she had ordered burst out, in a furious clatter of wings and talons. Author Helen Macdonald in happier times in Scotland with a Gyrfalcon, the largest of the falcon species . Macdonald’s heart jumps sideways. To her, the bird is ‘a conjuring trick. A reptile. A fallen angel’. She hopes that the intense concentration required to tame such a wild creature will help cure her grief. Bereavement happens to everyone, notes Macdonald, but you feel it alone. She likens it to somebody walking into a room containing your whole family, and punching each member individually, hard in the stomach. ‘So, the thing is, you all share the same kind of pain, exactly the same, but you’re too busy experiencing total agony to feel anything other than completely alone,’ she says. Macdonald’s father, Alisdair, was a successful photo-journalist, ‘a quiet man in a suit, who had set out each day in search of things that were new, who had captured the courses of stars and storms and streets and politicians’. In 2007, he set out to photograph storm-damaged buildings in Battersea, and died of a sudden heart attack. The last photo on his camera is blurred, taken from a low angle, far too low, in an empty, London street. A young Helen ooking at a parrot with father Alisdair . A few days later, there’s a strange family outing as Helen, her mother and brother walk the streets, looking for his car. It has been towed. They must provide his death certificate before the fine can be waived. This is the car she drives to Scotland to collect her goshawk: his equipment still rattling around in the boot. From him, she’s inherited her ability to wait patiently and pay attention to the details of the world around her. As a small child, she would hide beneath a rhododendron bush on the hill behind her house and watch the world like a tiny sniper: ‘basking in the fierce calm that comes from being invisible, but seeing everything’. Macdonald says this drive toward ‘watching, not doing’ has not served her well in life. ‘Not with people and loves and hearts and homes and work. But in the first few days with a new hawk, making yourself disappear is the greatest skill in the world.’ She trained her first raptor — a kestrel called Amy — when she was 13, then moved on to merlins and peregrine falcons. Before becoming a Cambridge academic, she’d trained birds for Arab sheiks. But she’d always stayed away from goshawks — historically disdained by aristocratic falconers as the ruffians of the bird world, hunting in short, inelegant stabs and unfussy about their prey. Bigger and bulkier than the sparrowhawks that snatch pigeons from suburban lawns, goshawks are the ‘dark grail’ of the bird- watcher’s world. Helen with female Goshawk Mabel. The pair have an unusual relationship, with Mabel serving as the companion to her grief, Helen found the bird of prey to be as brutal as her emotions . Although gamekeepers persecuted them to extinction in the UK by the end of the 19th century, they were successfully reintroduced in the Sixties. The females are so fearsome that breeders have to keep them in separate aviaries to the males — they will slay them if introduced at the wrong moment. In choosing a female goshawk as the companion to her grief, Macdonald is seeking a creature as overwhelmingly brutal as her emotions. But the bird she christens Mabel turns out to be a remarkably calm hawk, settling into life in urban Cambridge with admirable ease. It is bizarre to picture such a cool-eyed predator taking her first meat from her new trainer in a brightly-lit lounge with ’Allo! ’Allo! on the television. Although there is one terrifying scene, in which Mabel’s talons cause blood to gush from between Macdonald’s eyes, the hawk also surprises the human by playing — retrieving balls of crumpled- up paper in her deadly, Baker- lite beak. Mabel looking regal perched on Helen's hand . The 21st-century woman’s account of her mutually successful cohabitation with Mabel runs parallel to her sensitive analysis of T. H. White’s celebrated 1951 memoir The Goshawk. In that, the author of The Once and Future King (the Arthurian classic Disneyfied as The Sword in the Stone) retreats with fantasies of primitive survivalism from an unhappy existence as a schoolmaster to hole up in rural isolation with a goshawk. While Macdonald admits she wants to learn from her hawk how to become ‘numb to the hurts of human life’, White locked himself into mutually destructive battle of wills with ‘Gos’, — replaying the shame and terror of a traumatic childhood, during which both his parents made regular threats to kill him. He drives himself half-mad trying to stay awake for days on end with his bird, spoils the hawk with too much meat, and tries repeatedly to break the spirit he so admires. He becomes his own sadistic father. At times, he even feels he has become a hawk. During one chase, his hawk grabs a rabbit, and White pins the animal’s skull to the grass with a hunting knife. ‘Think of Lust,’ wrote White, who struggled to ‘cure’ his homosexuality with psychotherapy. ‘Real blood-lust is like that.’ But for Macdonald — who understandably prefers hawk-caught meat to the flesh of sad, battery-raised animals — the kill is the point where bird and woman separate. ‘Hunting makes you animal,’ she writes, ‘but the death of an animal makes you human.’ Unlike White, she has friends and family to help her through her distress. And she takes anti-depressants. She ends her exquisitely written book safe in the knowledge that her pain is a separate thing from her bird. Mabel’s talons have left thin, white scars on her hands. But hands, she realises, ‘are for other human hands to hold. They should not be reserved exclusively as perches for hawks.’
|
After losing her father Alisdair, Helen MacDonald buys a goshawk to help her deal with the grief .
Helen began training birds of prey at the age of 13 and even trained birds for Arab sheikhs .
The hawk, called Mabel, is playful but cannot be tamed .
|
14a878f9434b5f75ab26aa40724418317940828f
|
A Sydney mother has been left shaken after a stranger allegedly tried to snatch her 14-month-old baby from his pram. Christine Thomas was jogging on her usual route at 10.30am in Balmain, Sydney's inner west, with her son in his pram on Tuesday morning. Although a man on a bike was able to scare off the alleged baby-snatcher, the 41-year-old took to social media and warned other mothers of the potential danger. Scroll down for video . Christine Thomas nearly had her 14-month-old baby taken from her by a stranger dressed in a blue parka and blue scarf . The 41-year-old was jogging on her usual route at 10.30am in Balmain, Sydney's inner west, with her son in his pram on Tuesday morning . Ms Thomas told Kidspot that a man ran towards her and tried to take the pram out of her hands. 'He was so strong,' she said. 'I just remembered thinking, what am I going to do if he gets my son? How am I going to stop him?' But luckily another man behind Ms Thomas, steered his bike into the alleged attacker. The first man fled from the scene but the ordeal left Ms Thomas in tears. She regrets that she wasn't able to thank the man who helped her nor get his name. 'I was in too much shock. With everything going on in the world today, I kept thinking, what if that guy had killed me or my child? What if he was looking to steal a random off the street?' The man, who saved her son Myles who was asleep during the whole incident, then walked Ms Thomas back to her car. She says that she then reported the incident to police and later posted the scare on a Facebook group. The story was met with horror by other mothers, while one wrote: 'I think I saw him yesterday morning, too, wearing shorts and a blue (windbreaker type jacket) with his [hood] up running'. Ms Thomas described the man as being around 175cm tall, a blue ski parka, dark glasses and jeans. The Daily Telegraph reports the man was also wearing a blue Bulldogs football scarf which was wrapped around his face. Police are investigating the matter and have appealed for any witnesses to come forward.
|
Christine Thomas says a man dressed in a blue parka and a blue scarf tried to take her baby .
The 41-year-old was taking her usual morning jog in Balmain, Sydney's inner west, on Tuesday .
The mother says a man on a bike was able to scare off the stranger .
Police confirmed they received the report but could not provide any further information on the matter .
|
14a8e00b780dd817205e317b581b632c982230b4
|
Thousands of snippets of data have been gathered to provide a detailed look at one of New York City's most iconic sights - the yellow cab. An info-graphic by Vizual-statistix this week has revealed that the most common first name in 2014 among the 52,131 authorized drivers (those behind the wheel of both yellow cabs and limousines) is Mohammad - and alternate spellings MD, Mohammed, Muhammad, and Mohamed. The next most common names were Jean and Abdul. The most common surname is Singh followed by Rahman and Islam, according to the wealth of information available for public use through the project NYC Open Data. According to city statistics, New York cab drivers are the epitome of diversity. Cabbies come from all of the Big Apple's five boroughs; 31 states (and D.C). and more than 175 countries around the world. A new info-graphic on New York City cab and limo drivers reveals that the most popular driver name is Mohammed followed by Jean . More than 10,000 yellow cab drivers come from Bangladesh (23 per cent), close to 6,000 from Pakistan (13 per cent) while U.S.-born drivers made up 6 per cent. The profession continues to be male dominated - with around 49,500 men at the wheel compared to just 536 women. The average age of a yellow cab driver is 46 years old - with the youngest aged 19 and as of August 2013, the oldest was 94. Big yellow taxi: Cab drivers in New York are the epitome of the city's diversity . Creator of the infographic, Seth Kadish, told Daily Mail Online on Wednesday that he creates the data-based graphics as a hobby and that his taxi-driver graphs and tables took around an hour to complete. Mr Kadish, who lives in Portland, Oregon, is a data scientist by trade for California-based company Chegg. He was inspired to collate taxi driver names after a previous graphic he had seen about salon worker names. In order to create the graphic, Mr Kadish explained, he did not take middle names into account but allowed alternate spellings of the same name. On his Tumblr account, he added: 'The heat map below the bar graphs shows the frequency of first and last name pairings. This hints at the diversity of first or last names in some countries compared to others. 'For example, Singh is the most common last name, but none of the most common first names are paired with it - it is traditionally a last name in India, but due to the diversity of first names in India, none of them are in the top 20. 'The most common first name paired with Singh is Balwinder, which is the 52nd most common first name. 'Conversely, Jean (the French version of John) is the sixth most common first name, but is not associated with any of the top 20 last names. Francois, the most common last name paired with Jean, is not even among the 100 most common last names.' The data scientist has created many info-graphics on a wide range of subjects and said he is often influenced to seek out data by what he reads in the news. The cab driver info-graphic was created after a glut of stories about Uber - but Mr Kadish couldn't analyze the controversial transport company's data because it isn't shared publicly. His other recent graphics include 'The correlation between police presence and black populations in US cities'; 'Meeting expectations in Fantasy Football' and 'The Global Prisoner Population by Country'. The New York Taxi and Limousine Commission has also created its own graphic about yellow cabs where it explains that 60 per cent of the yellow taxi fleet are now hybrid vehicles - leading to 190,000 fewer tons of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere each year. Other fascinating facts for 2014 about NYC's yellow cabs include that a typical taxi travels 70,000 miles per year - far enough to make it round the world, 2,8 times. According to date from the City of New York, more than 10,000 yellow cab drivers come from Bangladesh (23 per cent), close to 6,000 from Pakistan (13 per cent) while U.S.-born drivers made up around 6 per cent . Yellow cabs going green: An infographic from the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission reveals 60 per cent of the fleet are now hybrid vehicles .
|
Among the 52,131 authorized medallion drivers of taxis and limousines in New York City, the most common first name is Mohammed - in various spellings .
The next most popular name among cabbies is Jean while the most common surname is Singh .
|
14ab3851d4eaf38124afc1e2adab06ae77001051
|
By . Matt Blake . The bodies of three women have been found locked inside a cabin in a German wood after a possible suicide pact arranged through a social networking site. Police found the trio shut in the bathroom of the holiday hut at a campsite on the shores Edersee, a reservoir and beauty spot, 100 miles north of Frankfurt, western Germany, on Wednesday night. Detectives said the women, aged 49, 44 and 23, each left a note and that they are not hunting anyone in connection with the deaths. Cabin in the woods: Police found the trio shut in the bathroom of the holiday hut at a campsite on the shores Edersee, a reservoir and beauty spot 100 miles north of Frankfurt, western Germany, on Wednesday night . Suicide chatroom: Detectives said the women, aged 49, 44 and 23, each left a note and that they are not hunting anyone in connection with the deaths . The women were found when the owner of the cabin grew worried, having not seen them for two days, and entered the cabin to find a warning light flashing on a carbon monoxide detector. When officers entered the cabin they were forced to flood the inside with oxygen before discovering the bodies lying in the bathroom. Police were unable to disclose any possible motives for the tragedy, but said in a statement that it may have been the result of 'mental illness'. The oldest of the women, from Frankfurt Oder in eastern Germany, had rented the property for two nights on Monday. Investigation: When officers entered the cabin they were forced to flood the inside with oxygen before discovering the bodies lying in the bathroom . No motive: Police were unable to disclose any possible motives for the tragedy, but said in a statement that it may have been the result of 'mental illness' A 44-year-old woman from nearby Kassel and a 23-year-old woman from Potsdam, near Berlin, also died. 'The backgrounds of the joint suicide victims have not been investigated yet, but we will look into mental illness,' Volker Konig, a chief inspector in the Northern Hesse Police, said. 'According to our investigations, the three women got to know each other in online social networks and agreed to go to the campsite. We do not know whether they knew each other before.' Beauty spot: Asked whether he knew why they came from across Germany to Edersee, a police spokesman suggested that it was perhaps chosen because of its reputation as one of the country's foremost beauty spots . Asked whether he knew why they came from across Germany to Edersee, Mr Konig suggested that it was perhaps chosen because of its reputation as one of the country's foremost beauty spots. 'Maybe they were looking for a nice place to spend their final hours,' he said. The case has shades of a 2011 online suicide pact that shocked Germany when three teenage girls, aged 16, 18 and 19, from different parts of Germany, arranged to meet up to kill themselves . after making plans in an internet chatroom called 'Suicide Area'. They . agreed to meet at the railway station in Osnabruck, northwest Germany, . after telling their parents that they were going on a camping weekend . with friends, and took a taxi into the forest near the town of Damme. The taxi driver even helped them pitch the tent in which they were found lying side by side. The mother of one of the girls, named only as Stephanie A., from Jena, eastern Germany, told Der Spiegel at the time: 'She led a double life for years. She . was outwardly cheerful and inwardly broken - and I suspected nothing.'
|
The three women were 49, 44 and 23 and all from different parts of Germany .
They were found locked in bathroom while CO gas detector showed warning .
They are suspected to have died of carbon monoxide poisoning .
Police say women all left notes and that they met on online chat room .
|
14ac1342b9fa80da1c70c81804b8c080ff41edae
|
(CNN)French officials are still trying to determine what caused gunmen to attack a satirical magazine in Paris, killing 12 people. But, according to French media, the gunmen yelled, "We have avenged the Prophet!" as they stormed the office. Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine attacked on Wednesday, has a controversial history of depicting Mohammed, often in an unfavorable light, which has angered many Muslims around the world. The prohibition again illustrating the Prophet Mohammed began as a attempt to ward off idol worship, which was widespread in Islam's Arabian birthplace. But in recent years, that prohibition has taken on a deadly edge. A central tenet of Islam is that Mohammed was a man, not God, and that portraying him could lead to revering him in lieu of Allah. "It's all rooted in the notion of idol worship," Akbar Ahmed, who chairs the Islamic Studies department at American University told CNN. "In Islam, the notion of God versus any depiction of God or any sacred figure is very strong." In some ways, Islam was a reaction against Christianity, which early Muslims believed had been led astray by conceiving of Christ, not as a man but as a God. They didn't want the same thing to happen to Mohammed. "The prophet himself was aware that if people saw his face portrayed by people, they would soon start worshiping him," Ahmed told CNN. "So he himself spoke against such images, saying 'I'm just a man.' " In a bitter irony, the sometimes violent attacks against portrayals of the prophet are kind of reverse idol-worship, revering -- and killing for -- the absence of an image, said Hussein Rashid, a professor of Islamic studies at Hofstra University in New York. In November 2011, Charlie Hebdo's office was burned down on the same day the magazine was due to release an issue with a cover that appeared to poke fun at Islamic law. The cover cartoon depicted a bearded and turbaned cartoon figure of the Prophet Mohammed, with a bubble saying, "100 lashes if you're not dying of laughter." In September 2012, as France was closing embassies in about 20 countries amid the global furor over the anti-Islam film "Innocence of Muslims," the magazine published an issue featuring a cartoon that appeared to depict a naked Mohammed, along with a cover that seemed to show Mohammed being pushed in a wheelchair by an Orthodox Jew. Charlie Hebdo journalist Laurent Leger defended the magazine at the time, saying the cartoons were not intended to provoke anger or violence. "The aim is to laugh," Leger told BFMTV in 2012. "We want to laugh at the extremists -- every extremist. They can be Muslim, Jewish, Catholic. Everyone can be religious, but extremist thoughts and acts we cannot accept." But for many Muslims, depictions of Mohammed, revered not only as a prophet but also as a moral exemplar, are no laughing matter. Satirical representations of Muhammad are not new, although they are very modern, said Rashid. "In the context of Europe, where in many countries Muslims feel like they are besieged, these images are not seen as criticism, but as bullying. Violence, as a response, is clearly wrong and disproportionate. However, it is not so much about religious anger, as it is about vengeance." But even in the United States, where Muslims are relatively acclimated, extremists have opposed the portrayal of Mohammed on "South Park," the satirical cartoon show, and the subsequent "Draw Mohammed Day," that erupted in response. Mohamed Magid, an imam and former head of Islamic Society of North America, told CNN that the Muslim prohibition on depicting prophets extends to Jesus and Moses, whom Islam treats as prophets. Some Muslim countries banned the films "Noah" and "Exodus" this year because their leading characters were Hebrew prophets. In Sunni mosques, the largest branch of the faith, there are no human images of any kind. The spaces are instead decorated with verses from the Quran. But there have been historical instances of Muslims depicting the prophet, especially in Shiite branches of Islam, Omid Safi, a religious studies professor at Duke University, told CNN. "We have had visual depictions of the prophet in the form of miniatures and pictures in the Iranian context, the Turkish context, the central Asian context," said Safi. "The one significant context where depictions of the prophet have not been image-related has been in the Arab context." Johari Abdul-Malik, the imam for Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia, told CNN that depictions of the prophet 's teachings were sometimes used to bridge gaps in illiteracy. Even historical renditions of Mohammed by Muslim artists were careful not to paint the prophet in too much detail. For example, Ahmed told CNN that Muslim artists in the 15th and 16th centuries would depict the prophet but took pains to avoid drawing his face. "It would be as if he was wearing a veil on his face, so the really orthodox could not object -- that was the solution they found." In a Muslim film called "The Messenger," which circulated throughout the Muslim world in the 1970s and 1980s, Mohammed was shown only in shadow. In the Quran, there is "no statement from the prophet requesting his image not be recorded," Abdul-Malik told CNN. Instead, the teaching about images comes from the hadith, a record of the sayings and actions of the Prophet Mohammed and his closest companions. The hadith is considered secondary only to the Quran in terms of textual authority, but the sometimes contradictory accounts have led to centuries of debates within the umma, or global Muslim community. Scholars of religion say opposition to portraying Mohammed wasn't generally violated in earlier centuries because of a gulf between Western and majority-Muslim nations. In the age of globalization, non-Muslims and critics of Islam have felt free to depict Mohammed, including in offensive ways. In 2006, for example, a Danish cartoonist's depiction of the prophet wearing a bomb as a turban with a lit fuse sparked demonstrations across the world. CNN's Nick Thompson and Eric Marrapodi contributed to this report.
|
Objections to portrayal of Mohammed "rooted in the notion of idol worship," professor says .
The Muslim disapproval of depicting prophets extends to Jesus and Moses, imam says .
In globalization age, non-Muslims and critics of Islam have felt free to depict Mohammed .
|
14aca51b25f2df776f878a4362993a7e5d3440d9
|
(CNN) -- Alpine skiing superstar Bode Miller is swapping the piste for the tennis court as he attempts to qualify for the U.S. Open championship at Flushing Meadow later this year. Miller will be competing in the sectional qualifying tournament in Honolulu, Hawaii on Thursday with the winner advancing to the U.S. National qualifying tournament in August where spots at the hard court grand slam will be decided. Millar last made the sporting headlines as he finally won Olympic gold at the Vancouver Winter Games in February in the super-combined event. He ended with a full set of medals after a silver in the super-G and bronze in the downhill, at last fulfilling his promise in the biggest arena of all. But the 32-year-old is also a notable tennis player and was the 1996 Maine State singles champion while his family won a tennis camp in New Hampshire. He gets his chance because of a new policy by the U.S. tennis association (USTA) to give anyone over the age of 14 the opportunity to play their way to the main draw at Flushing Meadows through a new national playoffs system. Miller, a two-time World Cup overall champion, sees his foray into tennis as a new competitive outlet ahead of the start of the new skiing season later this year. He is widely regarded as the greatest American ski racer of all-time with a record 32 World Cup victories and five Olympic medals, capped by his Vancouver triumphs.
|
Bode Miller competes in sectional qualifying for U.S. Open tennis championships .
Five-time Olympic gold medal winner in skiing hopes to make it to Flushing Meadows .
Miller was a high school tennis champion and his family own a tennis camp .
|
14acf65e11c86df5c57b57d39f449f80798c0094
|
(CNN) -- It's a horror show that has played out across Syria for 19 months. Those grieving the dead are themselves targeted by gunfire or deadly blasts. That cycle of death played out again Tuesday when mourners gathered to grieve a man who dared speak out against the Syrian government. A car bomb silenced them. "Children's bodies were maimed and burnt. I saw pieces of human flesh and blood on the street," witness Ahmed Al-Muadami said. This day, mourners came to honor one of 14 men who died after his arrest by Air Force Intelligence -- a much feared security apparatus that dissidents accuse of hunting down anti-government activists. Word spread quickly Tuesday that a Damascus hospital had a collection of unidentified bodies. The families of the 14 men rushed to the scene -- only to discover the bodies of their loved ones bore signs of torture. The outrage boiled over in the Damascus suburb of Muadamiyet al-Sham, where a funeral procession for one of the men morphed into a protest against President Bashar al-Assad's government. Then came the explosion near the Al-Zaitoona mosque, which is a popular gathering site for anti-government protests. "It was a car bomb parked next to the mosque where the people were gathered. The explosion killed at least 13 people and wounded over a hundred," Al-Muadami said. "One child was extremely disfigured ... we couldn't identify him." Amateur videos reportedly from the scene show a grisly aftermath. One man carried the lifeless body of a child, his face charred black and gray. "Look at this, Assad!" the man screamed. "Is this your gift to us for the Eid? Look at this, you murderer!" The Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha begins Friday. CNN cannot independently verify the authenticity of the videos or reports of violence, as the Syrian government has restricted access to international journalists. The Damascus suburbs have seen fierce fighting for months. Opposition activists say the government has committed massacres, while the government says it is fighting armed terrorists. International envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is trying to broker a cease-fire by Friday. But the odds seem daunting. On Tuesday alone, at least 100 people were killed in Damascus and its suburbs; 50 were from Muadamiyet al-Sham, the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said. The activist network said residents in the town called for blood donors after the explosion.
|
13 people are killed in an explosion at a funeral of an opposition activist .
"Look at this, Assad! ... Look at this, you murderer!" one man screams .
The blast takes place in the Damascus suburbs, which has seen months of fighting .
International envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is trying to broker a cease-fire by Friday .
|
14ad25b8836536c9a83a610182972b7aefaf8ae0
|
Muslims around the world are celebrating Islam's biggest holiday with prayers, gifts, traditional visits with family and friends, and feasts. Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice, commemorates what Muslims believe was Prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son in accordance with God’s will, though in the end God provides him with a sheep to sacrifice instead. In remembrance, Muslim faithful slaughter sheep, cattle, camels and other livestock in an act of sacrifice to show gratitude for their blessings, divide the meat into three equal portions and give some of it to the poor. Scroll down for video . Palestinians from Gaza City pray inside the Dome of the Rock during their visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem . It was the first time since 2007 that Muslim worshippers from Gaza have been allowed to travel to the shrine, Islam's third holiest site . The visit to Islam’s third holiest site was granted after Israel eased tight restrictions for the three-day holiday of Eid al-Adha . The holiday held special significance for 500 elderly Gazans as they prayed at the Dome of the Rock at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem. It was the first time since 2007 that Muslims from Gaza have been allowed to travel to the shrine, which is considered Islam's third holiest site. The rare visit was granted after Israel eased tight restrictions for the holiday – a month after a ceasefire ended a two-month war – and the elderly Gazans were allowed to stay for several hours before they were driven back to the Gaza border. Many hadn't visited the shrine in decades and they kissed the ground as they entered the sprawling plaza. Umm Dallaleh Fayyad, a woman in a black abaya and a vibrant blue headscarf, told Agence France-Presse: 'I haven't been here for 35 years. Everything has changed. It's like being in paradise.' Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice, commemorates what Muslims believe was Prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son . A camel is led behind a rickshaw after it was bought at a market to be sacrificed for Eid al-Adha in Lahore, Pakistan . In addition to offering Eid prayers, gifts and social events are a central part of the holiday, which begins at the end of the hajj pilgrimage, with parents often buying new clothes for their children. Because Eid follows the Muslim lunar calendar that depends on sightings of the moon, some Muslims began celebrating the three-day festival on Saturday. Sunday marked the start of festivities for Iraqi Shiites and the majority of Indonesians in the world's most populous Muslim nation of 240 million. Pakistan will celebrate on Monday. Even though Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son in accordance with God's will, in the end God provides him with a sheep to sacrifice instead . Palestinian women, who live in the Gaza Strip and were given permission to travel to Jerusalem's Old City, pray in front of the Dome of the Rock . Indian Muslim women wear brightly coloured clothing as they offer special prayers at the Qutb-e-Alam shrine in Ahmedabad . In remembrance, Muslim faithful slaughter sheep, goats, cattle and other livestock in an act of sacrifice to show gratitude for their blessings . Meat from slaughtered animals must be divided into three equal portions with one of the portions being given to the poor . In Iraq, cleric and politician Ammar al-Hakim, leader of Iraq's largest Shiite party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, prayed at his headquarters in Baghdad. Indian Muslim women wore brightly coloured outfits as they offered prayers at the Qutb-e-Alam shrine in Ahmedabad. In Semarang, Indonesia, mostly women and children queued up to receive a free package of meat during a distribution for the needy after Eid prayers at the Kauman Mosque. Children play with toy guns during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha in the narrow streets of Sanaa, Yemen . Because Eid follows the Muslim lunar calendar that depends on sightings of the moon, some Muslims began celebrating the three-day festival on Saturday . In addition to offering Eid prayers, gifts and social events are a central part of the holiday, which begins at the end of the hajj pilgrimage . Mostly women and children queued to receive a free package of meat during a distribution for the needy after Eid prayers at the Kauman Mosque in Semarang, Indonesia . Saturday marked the first time since 1981 that both Muslims and Jews are celebrating major holidays at the same time. Eid al-Adha coincides with the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur once every 33 years based on their lunar calendars. Yom Kippur is Judaism's Day of Atonement, when devout Jews ask God to forgive them for their transgressions and refrain from eating and drinking, attending intense prayer services in synagogues. The holiday began at sunset Friday and ended Saturday night. Indian Muslims offer special prayers from the terrace of a house near the Qutb-e-Alam shrine in Ahmedabad . This weekend marked the first time since 1981 that both Muslims and Jews are celebrating major holidays at the same time. Cleric and politician Ammar al-Hakim, leader of Iraq's largest Shiite party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, prays at his headquarters in Baghdad . Sunday marked the start of festivities for the majority of Indonesians in the world's most populous Muslim nation of 240 million .
|
Eid al-Adha commemorates what Muslims believe was Prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son .
In remembrance, Muslim faithful slaughter four-legged animals that are halal .
Meat is divided into three equal portions, with one of the portions being given to the poor .
Hundreds of elderly Gazans were granted rare access to Dome of the Rock, Islam's third holiest site .
Eid follows the Muslim lunar calendar that depends on sightings of the moon .
Some Muslims began celebrating the three-day festival on Saturday, others will celebrate on Monday .
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.