News

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Originally Posted by kilted exile

Some peoples high schools are known for producing great minds or athletes: mine on the other hand had race riots (folk jumping out of vans in balaclavas wielding baseball bats) and gave the world Ian Brady (myra hyndley's sidekick/mentor depending on who you believe) and now its used to kick off an anti gang initiative: wonderful, really makes you proud.

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Great credentials! ;)


Thousands of sports shoes have been washed up on a Dutch island after a ship lost some of its containers in heavy weather. Residents of Terschelling island rushed to get the trainers, but were faced with having to search for shoes that matched in size and design.

Police made no effort to stop people taking goods from containers that had broken open, reports say.

Other items washed up included briefcases, toys and meat.

The ship, the Mondriaan, got into difficulties on Thursday night about 14 km (9 miles) off the Terschelling coast.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4704810.stm

A strong "toxic smell" which led to the evacuation of two Mexican schools over gas leak fears turns out to have been produced by a skunk, officials say. Security officers from the state-owned oil firm Pemex were called in to deal with the suspected leak in Nanchintal, in the eastern state of Veracruz.

Experts from the local petrochemical plant said they inspected the schools and gas pipelines but found no leak.

They said they had finally traced the smell to a skunk kept in a school lab.

However, the mayor of Nanchintal, a town of 28,000 inhabitants, accused Pemex of a cover-up.

The Tabasco Hoy newspaper quoted Francisco Leon Ocejo Meza as saying there had been a "toxic cloud" which he blamed on Pemex's activities.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4724908.stm

A South Korean man has claimed he is the natural father of US skier Toby Dawson, who won a bronze in the Winter Olympics last week, media reports said. Dawson, 27, was adopted by US parents in 1982, from an orphanage in Seoul who did not know who his parents were.

Kim Jae-su, 52, said his lost son went missing during a shopping trip with his mother near a market in the South Korean city of Busan, in 1981.

Dawson was found near the same market, South Korean's Yonhap news agency said.

Kim Jae-su said Dawson looked very like his lost son.

He said he made the connection after friends and relatives called him, saying Dawson looked just like him.

"So I looked at the papers and confirmed it myself," Mr Kim told the newspaper Chosun Ilbo. "There is no doubt that this is the son I lost 25 years ago."

No records

Mr Kim said he never reported the fact his son was missing to police, because he did not think it would help, instead looking for the child himself.

Deborah and Mike Dawson, ski instructors from Colorado, were told the three-year-old had been abandoned.

Deborah Dawson has told the US broadcaster NBC that the child was very traumatised when he first arrived from South Korea.

Toby Dawson said his childhood shyness ultimately helped his skiing.

"I was definitely more aggressive in that area of my life because I was so shy otherwise," NBC quoted him as saying.

Dawson won bronze in the men's mogul competition at the Olympics in Turin.

He has recently said he is searching for his biological parents. Kim Jae-su said he was willing to take a DNA test to prove his paternity.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...ic/4732042.stm

Man raped his dying stepdaughter

A man who raped his unconscious teenage stepdaughter as she lay dying from a head injury has been jailed for nine years at the High Court in Glasgow.

Sentencing Judge Lord Philip told George McKee, 50, he had committed an "appalling crime" which filled members of the public with "horror".

McKee admitted raping Kerry Muchan, 14, in her Paisley home on 23 July, 2005 while she was unconscious.

Kerry died soon after the rape from a head injury caused by a fall.

Lord Philip said: "Any sentence I impose has to reflect the revulsion and horror society feels at this kind of behaviour."

Kerry was drunk and had fallen several times before she was raped.

Lord Philip said: "Instead of looking after her and being concerned for her condition and seeking medical help, you took advantage of her complete helplessness and raped her when she was in a state of complete unconsciousness."

In addition to the nine-year sentence, McKee will be monitored for three years after release.

Stair fall

He pleaded guilty to raping Kerry at her home in Dalskieth Avenue, Paisley.

The court heard Kerry had fallen ill after taking a cocktail of alcohol and drugs.

Her death less than two and a half hours after being raped was caused by head injuries sustained during falls.

These included a fall down stairs after which McKee took her to his bed and raped her.

He was found in bed with his stepdaughter by a relative.

Still alive

When paramedics arrived, they found a faint pulse.

However, she died later in the Royal Alexandra Hospital.

A postmortem examination revealed she was still alive when her stepfather raped her.

It found she had horrific injuries consistent with being raped with considerable force.

The court was told McKee and Kerry's mother Lorna Muchan had lived as man and wife and he treated the girl as his own.


9 Years!!!!! Guy got off light, but it's ok when he gets to barlinnie someone'll cut his......

Grrrrr...RAAAAARGGGHHH!!!!


Let me do the deed. Brutality shall be met in kind.

A bicycle courier in Colombia has been given a four-year jail sentence for grabbing a woman pedestrian's bottom, a TV station has reported. A judge's ruling - criticised by some as being too harsh - ruled the courier had committed an abusive sexual act.

Diana Marcela Diaz told RCN that the courier had cycled off after groping her, but had been caught by passers-by.

When he was arrested, she was given the option of slapping him, letting him go, or filing a complaint.

She had chosen to set a precedent that would stop sexist behaviour, she said.

RCN described the sentence as historic, but some lawyers condemned it as excessive.

A female member of the national ombudsman's office said the courier had only acted out of lust.

"He didn't use violence or commit a sexual act," she was quoted as saying.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4746760.stm

excuse me?
hehe well it were me Id have slapped ( no that seems to light maybe broken a book on his head) then filed charges and turned myself in for GBH. or would it be aggrivated assult?:D
But I say good on her :nod:

Bummer for him. Not to say he shouldn't have thought before he acted, but wow--four years? For a grope? Most celebrities get richer, not poorer, when they pull that kind of thing.

Shakespeare Died of Rare Cancer?

The Bay has hung in Detroit since 1965. An abstract painting worth an estimated $1.5m (£850,000) is in need of repair after a 12-year-old boy stuck a piece of chewing gum on the canvas. The gum left a small stain in a corner of The Bay, a 1963 painting by American artist Helen Frankenthaler.

The boy, who visited the Detroit Institute of Arts with a school group, has now been suspended by teachers.

Curators at the museum said they were researching how to remove the stain, but expected no permanent damage.

Frankenthaler is regarded as one of the most influential second generation US abstract expressionist painters.

The Bay, one of her most celebrated works, is thought to be one of the most valuable paintings in the museum's collection.

Rock, rap and art

The director of the Holly Academy, where the boy goes to school, confirmed that the pupil had been suspended for his actions.

"Even though we give very strict guidelines on proper behaviour and we hold students to high standards, he is only 12," Julie Kildee said.

"I don't think he understood the ramifications of what he did before it happened, but he certainly understands the severity of it now."

His parents had also taken disciplinary action, Ms Kildee said.

A security guard spotted the gum on the corner of the painting after the group of schoolchildren had left the display room.

Staff moved quickly to remove the gum, which had not stuck firmly to the canvas. It did leave a small stain, which curators expect to remove in the near future.

Becky Hart, assistant curator of contemporary art at the museum, said she had tried to explain to the boy how the museum helped preserve works of art.

"I knew that probably wouldn't make any sense to him, so I asked him what kind of music he liked," Ms Hart told the Detroit Free Press.

"He said he liked rap, so I said: 'Well, you know what rock and roll is,' and he did.

"So I said: 'Can you imagine if somebody had messed up the beat in rock and roll so you didn't have any rhythm in rap.' And he looked at me, and he got it immediately."

The painting will be kept on display while repairs are carried out, but the museum is to review its display policies.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4767888.stm

US 'plans stealth shark spies'

Pentagon scientists are planning to turn sharks into "stealth spies" capable of tracking vessels undetected, a British magazine has reported.

They want to remotely control the sharks by implanting electrodes in their brains, The New Scientist says.

It says the aim is "to exploit sharks' natural ability to glide through the water, sense delicate electrical gradients and follow chemical trails".

The unusual project was unveiled last week in Hawaii, it says.

'Steering' sharks

The research is being funded by the Pentagon's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), according to the magazine.

It aims to build on latest developments in brain implant technology which has already seen scientists controlling the movements of fish, rats and monkeys.

"Neural implants consists of a series of electrodes that are embedded into the animal's brain, which can then be used to stimulate various functional areas," the magazine says.

It says such devices are already being used by scientists at Boston University to "steer" a spiny dogfish in a fish tank.

The next step for the Pentagon scientists will be the release of blue sharks with similar devices into the ocean off the coast of Florida.

As radio signals will not penetrate the sea, communications with the animals will be made by sonar.

The US navy has acoustic signalling towers capable of sending sonar signals to a shark up to 300km (187 miles) away, the magazine says.

It says the scientists will be particularly interested in the animals' health during the tests.

"As wild predators, it is very easy to exhaust them, and this will place strict limits on how long the researchers can control their movements in any one session without harming them.

"Despite this limitation, though, remote-controlled sharks do have advantages that robotic underwater surveillance vehicles just cannot match: they are silent, and they power themselves," the magazine says.

The project was discussed at the 2006 Ocean Sciences Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Honolulu, Hawaii.

link

Ohh, boy. The animal rights groups will be up in arms--now we're depriving OTHER species of free will.

Here's another one on animals. And no it wasn't me in Colorado.


Wolf seen in Colorado
Wildlife officer videotapes animal near Wyo. border

By Deborah Frazier And Gary Gerhardt, Rocky Mountain News
March 4, 2006

A lone wolf videotaped strolling across a snowy valley in Colorado near the Wyoming border inspired joy in conservationists Friday as new evidence the wolf is making a long-predicted return to the state.

"It's a wolf, not a dog and not a wolf-dog hybrid," said Rob Edward of Sinapu, a Boulder-based wolf advocacy group, after watching the video taken by a Colorado Division of Wildlife officer.

"The black coat is the kicker. It's characteristic of the Yellowstone wolves," he said.

"Another kind of animal would not have that coat and that stride."

Yellowstone National Park, where wolves were reintroduced in 1994 and have thrived, is about 500 miles northwest of Walden - where ranchers have seen the wolf - and is home to about 300 wolves.

"Of the 200 tagged wolves that have dispersed from the park, only seven have gone over 180 miles," said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"If this is a wild wolf, and it looks like one to me, it's number eight," said Bangs, who is based in Montana.

"It's the right time of year. The Yellowstone packs mate about Valentine's Day. It's probably a young wolf looking for love," said Bangs.

The first confirmed migrant wolf in Colorado was found dead on Interstate 70 near Idaho Springs in 2004. The wolf wore a radio collar from Yellowstone National Park.

At the time, some skeptics speculated that the wolf might have been killed in Wyoming and moved to Colorado as a hoax. Federal officials confirmed with a necropsy that the wolf was killed by a car in Colorado.

On Friday, DOW wolf specialists agreed that the animal looks and acts like a wolf, but stress that even genetic testing isn't 100 percent reliable.

A rancher called the DOW after seeing the wolf and the local DOW manager, Josh Dilley, videotaped the animal on Feb. 16, 10 miles south of the Wyoming border.

"We get a lot of reports about wolf sightings, but this is extraordinarily rare because it's confirmed," said Randy Hampton of the DOW.

Wolves roamed Colorado until settlers arrived and the federal government offered a bounty on pelts, which led to the species' extermination.

Wolf advocates, including Sinapu, have unsuccessfully sought a wolf reintroduction program in Colorado to control wildlife numbers.

Biologists have predicted that wolves would wander into Colorado after they were reintroduced in Wyoming. Wolves are an endangered species, protected by federal law.

"The wolf numbers are increasing in Wyoming," said Gary Wockner, a wildlife researcher and member of Colorado's Wolf Working Group, created to study wolf reintroduction.

"It's an indication of what is to come," he said.

"I don't see a large number of wolves migrating down, but you'll get more than a few random individuals over the next decade or two."

News of another wolf roving in Colorado didn't surprise sheep and cattle ranchers.

The livestock industry opposes the reintroduction of wolves in Colorado,

"We knew that lone wolves would migrate into Colorado and there have been sightings on the Colorado-Wyoming border for years," said Terry Fankhauser, executive vice president of the Colorado Cattlemen's Association.

Two other ranchers in the Walden area reported seeing the same wolf, he said. Ranchers, whose cows are calving now, are watching their stock closely, he said.

"One saw the wolf up close to the yard at his house, but when the wolf saw him, the wolf ran away," Fankhauser said.

No one in the area has reported a wolf attacking livestock, he said.

"Wolves are opportunists and predation happens when a wolf is hungry," he said. "The wolf might prey on livestock and it could prey on wildlife."

Bonnie Cline, of the Colorado Woolgrowers Association, said the wolf spotted near Walden shows that a formal wolf reintroduction isn't necessary.

"They are obviously heading here on their own," she said. "This shows that it's going to happen sooner rather than later."

Bangs and other wolf specialists said a single wolf isn't significant, unless it finds another wolf of the opposite sex.

"A dispersing wolf doesn't mean that wolf recovery has started in Colorado," said Bangs. "It's cool the wolf went a long way, but unless the wolf finds another wolf, no one should read anything into this."

They're out there

Division of Wildlife wolf specialists agree that an animal sighted near the Colorado-Wyoming border looks and acts like a wolf. The endangered animals were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1994.

• Tale of the tape: A DOW officer videotaped the animal in North Park, an area west of Rocky Mountain National Park.

• Location, location: A rancher called the DOW after spotting the animal. At least two other ranchers in the Walden area reported seeing the same animal, which if it is a wolf, likely migrated south to mate. This would be the eighth wolf to migrate since the Wyoming reintroduction in 1994.

Wow well the shark thingis simply disgusting to me ( sorry ). As for the wolf pretty exciting but rentroducing wolves? Seems rather dangerous to me themn again they want to reintroduce tblackbears linxes and wolves in the uk.... I wonder i f they forget they are extinct most ly because they were bloody dangerous to cohabit with. Or am I wrong and was it just mass hunting for recreation and fur?
still the forets and woods are mostlky too close to citys now I think.

Um, wolves aren't so dangerous than wolf-dog hybrids. Wolves usually mind their own business. Unless it is a female wolf with cubs or a rabid wolf - then you're in trouble. But usually wolves don't attack humans for food.
Bears usually eat mostly berries and usually don't hunt other animals for food. Again, female bears with cubs are dangerous and waking them up from hybernation isn't wise too.
We are not very sure about lynxes but we are sure that they don't attack humans for food.
They weren't hunted to extinction in your lands because they were dangerous to live with. Wolves give trouble to sheep-herders and were hunted because of that.
Also, deforestation brought their population down, we think.

*boasting about a country with 40% forests and 20% swamps.*