Monday, July 03, 2006
GIRL, 13, FOUND HANGED IN SCHOOL
A GIRL of 13 was found hanged in a toilet cubicle at her posh school after writing a suicide note. Claire Gill even said goodbye to her classmates shortly before killing herself. Staff made the gruesome discovery just minutes after her friends went home. One former pupil said: "I know this has really hit everyone at the school really hard."She seemed a quiet girl who just got on with her work. It is such a shock." Claire was declared dead at the scene by paramedics on Wednesday afternoon. Teachers and pupils are baffled why the gifted student took her life. Police said bullying was not involved and are not treating the death as suspicious. A postmortem examination carried out yesterday confirmed she died from hanging. Headmaster John McAteer broke the news to pupils during assembly at St Bernard's Convent School in Slough, Berks, on Thursday morning. Year 9 student Claire's friends were said to be shocked and deeply saddened. Just days before, Claire took part in the national finals of the Magistrates' Mock Trials speaking competition where she played the part of a lawyer.
Youth avoids jail in rock-dropping death
A 19-year-old whose grad-night prank gone awry resulted in the death of an Edmonton bus driver four years ago has been spared jail time.
The teen, who was 15 at the time, dropped a boulder the size of a basketball over a pedestrian bridge, crashing through the windshield of a passing bus and killing driver Robert Stanley who was on his way home.
He was sentenced Thursday to six months deferred custody followed by six months of probation. As a result, he will be under house arrest and will have to do community service. The Stanley family will likely have some input into the kind of volunteer work he will do.
Although he is now 19, he was sentenced as a youth. His name cannot be published because of his age at the time of the offence.
The Crown had asked for time in jail for manslaughter. The maximum sentence for a youth on that charge is two years.
But the dead man's family says they don't want him to go to jail.
"He's not a bad person," one of Stanley's sons said earlier at a sentencing hearing. "He's just a stupid kid, and it would wreck him."
The defence called for no jail time but said he should serve some house arrest.
Man Ordered To Stop Recruiting Sex Offenders
A sex offender who was recruiting dozens of other offenders and predators to live in the same Orange County, Fla., neighborhood has been ordered to stop following a Problem Solvers investigation.
Randy Young, 50, was recruiting sex offenders to live in Lake Shore Village trailer park, according to an earlier Problem Solvers report.
Young has helped make this Orange County mobile home park the densest cluster of registered sex offenders in the area, Local 6 News reporter Tony Pipitone said.
"What has this place become?" Pipitone asked resident Sally Lawton.
"A sex predator park," Lawton said.
Young and his assistant, April Doeer, have placed 25 convicted sex offenders in the community in recent weeks.
But at a nearby community, Lake Fairview, worried residents told Local 6 News that they were concerned about the cluster of sex offenders in one community.
"There are, we believe, 70 children under the age of 14 in 80 homes," concerned neighbor Kathy Powers said.
Rape convict blames his manhood
A 21-year-old man who was Wednesday convicted for attempted rape told a Jabi Chief Magistrates’ Court that his penis should be blamed for the offence.
The convict Salihu Mohammed, of Chinwa village in the FCT, was sentenced to nine months imprisonment without an option of fine for attempting to rape nine years old Fatima Abubakar.
In her judgment, Chief Magistrate Ajoke Ad-epoju averred that though the court could reason with the plea of the convict, she was not impressed by his attitude.
“Considering your age and that of the girl, I hold that such act if it had been carried out would have had negative impact on the life of the victim,” Adepoju said.
She added: “If you cannot control yourself, you have an option of having a girlfriend or go to the commercial sex workers to satisfy your urge”.
Adepoju suggested that as a Muslim since the Holy Quran prevented him from engaging in immoral acts, he should resort to fasting.
Monday Mugshot Vince Vaughn
Actor Vince Vaughn was arrested after getting into a bar fight in North Carolina. Vaughn was in North Carolina with Steve Buscemi for the filming of “Domestic Disturbance.” Vaughn and other locals were charged with misdemeanor assault. A witness claimed the brawl started after Vaughn started talking to someone’s girlfriend.
Veteran arrested for wearing a Veterans for Peace shirt
This afternoon, drinking a cup of coffee while sitting in the Jesse Brown V.A. Medical Center on Chicago’s south side, a Veterans Administration cop walked up to me and said, "OK, you’ve had your 15 minutes, it’s time to go."
"Huh?", I asked intelligently, not quite sure what he was talking about.
"You can’t be in here protesting," officer Adkins said, pointing to my Veterans For Peace shirt.
"Well, I’m not protesting, I’m having a cup of coffee," I returned, thinking that logic would convince Adkins to go back to his earlier duties of guarding against serious terrorists.
Flipping his badge open, he said, "No, not with that shirt. You’re protesting and you have to go."
Beginning to get his drift, I said firmly, "Not before I finish my coffee."
He insisted that I leave, but still not quite believing my ears, I tried one more approach to reason. "Hey, listen. I’m a veteran. This is a V.A. facility. I’m sitting here not talking to anybody, having a cup of coffee. I’m not protesting and you can’t kick me out."
"You’ll either go or we’ll arrest you," Adkins threatened.
"Well, you’ll just have to arrest me," I said, wondering what strange land I was now living in.
Roots of the human family tree are remarkably shallow
Whoever it was probably lived a few thousand years ago, somewhere in East Asia -- Taiwan, Malaysia and Siberia all are likely locations. He -- or she -- did nothing more remarkable than be born, live, have children and die. Yet this was the ancestor of every person now living on Earth -- the last person in history whose family tree branches out to touch all 6.5 billion people on the planet today.
That means everybody on Earth descends from somebody who was around as recently as the reign of Tutankhamen, maybe even during the Golden Age of ancient Greece. There's even a chance that our last shared ancestor lived at the time of Christ.
"It's a mathematical certainty that that person existed," said Steve Olson, whose 2002 book "Mapping Human History" traces the history of the species since its origins in Africa more than 100,000 years ago.
It is human nature to wonder about our ancestors -- who they were, where they lived, what they were like. People trace their genealogy, collect antiques and visit historical sites hoping to capture just a glimpse of those who came before, to locate themselves in the sweep of history and position themselves in the web of human existence.
No one likes a drunk monkey
Banno loves beer, she guzzles at least three to four bottles everyday. And if she doesn’t get her quota, she can even turn violent. In fact, Banno has been hooked on the drink for the last decade or so, even as her peers favour bananas. For Banno is a female monkey in Nawabganj locality of Unnao.
For over a decade now, Banno has been living on a tree near a beer shop in Nawabganj. Over the years, she has become the local star, as visitors flock to the area to see the monkey drinking beer.
And now, the monkey apparently cannot do without the drink even going to the extent of attacking people.
The owner of the beer shop, Rajesh Singh, admits that Banno helped raise his sale figures. People visit the site just to see the monkey drinking beer. ‘‘But now, she has been hitting business as she has injured at least half-a-dozen people in the last few months,’’ he says.