A woman who killed her boyfriend for calling her a lesbian has been jailed for five years while her sister has been jailed for four years for refusing to call him an ambulance.
Samantha Brown, 20, from Manchester, England, stabbed Dean Darvill, 23, in the groin after he accused her of having a gay affair, The Manchester Evening News reported.
He bled to death after she fled the scene.
However, he would have survived the attack had her sister, Toni, 25, got him medical help.
Manchester Crown Court was told that Samantha Brown and Mr Darvill had been at her sister's house drinking when the incident happened in the early hours of January 9.
Police sources said that a row erupted after Mr Darvill caught her in a compromising position with another woman at the house.
Mr Darvill called Brown a lesbian after which she stabbed him in the groin with a knife from the kitchen
She then ran from the house.
The court was told that Mr Darvill begged Brown's sister to "get me an ambulance" but she refused.
She also stopped the other woman from dialing 999.
An hour later, as Mr Darvill's condition worsened, she phoned his family, who begged her to call an ambulance, but again she refused.
She would not tell them her address but said that she had also stabbed her boyfriend and that he had needed only five stitches.
She eventually called the emergency services an hour later, but by then it was too late.
Guy Gozem QC, for the prosecution, told the court: "The wound was a survivable wound. What was required was urgent medical attention, with which Dean might have lived."
He told the court that when questioned by police, Toni Brown had said she did not call the emergency services because she did not want to wake up her young children.
Judge Clement Goldstone QC said: 'How anyone can be so callous and selfish is beyond me."
Speaking outside court, Mr Darvill's uncle, Chris Mitchell, said: "We will never allow the evil act of these two despicable individuals to sully his memory."
Guy walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender sets up a beer and walks off. The customer hears a sound from the rafters and looks up. A monkey swings across the rafters, lands on the bar, runs over and straddles the guy's glass, dunks his balls in the beer, jumps to the rafters and swings off. The customer can't believe what just happened. He calls the barman over. "Hey, did you see that?" "See what?" asked the barman. "That monkey came across the rafters, landed on the bar and dunked his balls in my beer." The barman said he didn't see it but he would give the guy another beer. The customer said, "Stand over there and watch. Maybe it'll do it again." Sure enough, here it comes. Swings across the rafters, lands on the bar, runs over and dunks his balls in the guy's beer, jumps up on the rafters and makes it. The bartender walks over and says, "Well I saw it that time. Here's another beer." The guy asked, "Hey, who does that monkey belong to?" The barman says, "It's our piano player's over there." The guy walks over to the piano player who happens to be half drunk and says, "You know your monkey dunked his balls in my beer?" The piano player says, "No, but if you'll hum a few bars... I'll try and play it."
Police officer Joseph Uhler was caught on film charging out of his unmarked car and waving his gun at a unarmed motorcyclist pulled over for speeding. When the footage was uploaded to YouTube, authorities raided Anthony Graber's home, seized his computers, arrested him, and charged him with "wiretapping" offenses that could land him in jail for 16 years. Glyn writes in:
The ACLU of Maryland is defending Anthony Graber, who potentially faces 16 years in prison if found guilty of violating state wiretap laws because he recorded video of an officer drawing a gun during a traffic stop. The ACLU attorney handling the case says, "To charge Graber with violating the law, you would have to conclude that a police officer on a public road, wearing a badge and a uniform, performing his official duty, pulling someone over, somehow has a right to privacy when it comes to the conversation he has with the motorist." Indeed, Maryland contends that Uhler had a reasonable expectation of privacy while waving his gun around in public and yelling at a motorist with a giant video camera mounted on the top of his helmet.
Remarkably, the state Attorney General has already opined that when police record in public, that is not a private conversation subject to the same laws. In other words, in any public interaction between a police officer and a member of the public in Maryland, it is private for one of them but not the other.
"We have looked, and have not been able to find a single court anywhere in the country that has found an expectation of privacy for an officer in such circumstances," writes the ACLU.
Kiwi adventurer Jeremy Burfoot doesn't mind when people call him an idiot for attempting to travel 20,000 miles from London to New Zealand by jetski. After all, that was his reaction when he first heard the idea. The 51-year-old airline pilot leaves London on Sunday morning and will spend up to 12 hours a day for four months astride a jetski on his way down to the southern hemisphere. The idea came from his first officer, who suggested it as a follow-up to his record-breaking 2005 jetski journey circumnavigating New Zealand. "I said: 'You're an idiot. What kind of a fool would do that?'," Mr Burfoot said. "He grabbed his atlas out and we were looking at it, and it looked pretty interesting."
Since then it's been mostly his wife who has been calling him an idiot, as he faces possible encounters with sharks, bad weather and pirates along the way. But it's all for a good cause. One of Mr Burfoot's goals is to smash the world record for riding a personal watercraft. More importantly, he wants to raise awareness about cancer prevention, after battling skin cancer himself in the past. "What it's about is the healthy living to prevent cancer in the first place - not going out in the sun, and eating reasonably good food, and staying healthy," Mr Burfoot said. But even if you do, you're not guaranteed of not getting cancer, so it's also early detection that we're talking about. If you get these things early, they're curable - that's the message."
Mr Burfoot will be joined on the mission by four other men as he weaves around the world's waterways, setting off from the River Thames outside London's Houses of Parliament on August 1. The standard-size jetskis will be packed with technical equipment to document the adventure, safety gear, some high-energy food, camping accessories and "very little" personal belongings. They have no logistics planned aside from the detailed route. The team will head across the English Channel to Rotterdam, riding the rivers of the Rhine and Danube and out to the Black Sea. From there they'll head to Turkey, then on to Egypt through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, which will take them to Yemen, Oman, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and down to Singapore, where they'll break the previous jetski journey record of 11,500 miles.
Then they'll island hop around Indonesia before moving to the top of Australia, down the east coast to Melbourne, across the Tasman to Wellington and then finally to Auckland. Mr Burfoot expects to complete the journey towards the end of November. One of their main logistical challenges will be refuelling the crafts along the way. "When you get down to these Middle Eastern countries like Sudan and Eritrea, the refuelling will be by 20-litre drums, walking up to the local service station in 40 degree heat," Mr Burfoot said. "So you're talking, to refuel all our machines, 35 x 20L drums - at least six trips with two each up to the local service station."
A video has emerged showing French police evicting African immigrants with babies and children during a housing protest in a Paris suburb. Police arrived in the north-east Parisian suburb of La Courneuve last Wednesday and asked a group of about 60 mostly women and children to move, said Michael Hajdenberg, a journalist with the French media organization Mediapart. The group had been living in the street since being evicted from their council homes on July 8 to make way for a new housing project, he said. When the group failed to respond to the request, Hajdenberg said police officers forcibly removed them.
Authorities had offered to accommodate them for a short period in hotels, but Hajdenberg said the immigrants wanted more of a long-term guarantee of places to live. The video shows police dragging away women with babies and young children. In one scene a woman with a baby wrapped to her back is dragged along the pavement while screaming and shouting. Another scene shows what appears to be a pregnant woman lying on her back on the street. Police can also be seen carrying women away while children and babies are screaming.
The incident lasted about 30 minutes said Hajdenberg, who added that "there were no serious injuries, mostly cuts and scrapes." The immigrants are mostly from the Ivory Coast, said Michael Hoare, a spokesman for the campaign group Right to Housing. "Most of them have been in France for between 3 to 10 years. Some of them have papers, some of them don't. They have submitted demands to be legalized," Hoare said. The arrested protesters were released later the same day and have since accepted short-term hotel accommodation, Hoare said.
"Because the experience was so traumatic they have ended up accepting the offer to go into the hotel and there are meetings going on about their future," he said. Commissioner Christian Lambert from the Police Commissioner's office of the town Bobigny said in a written statement: "An eviction is never a simple procedure when there is resistance involved on behalf of those being evicted." Regarding the scene in which a mother is dragged with her child on her back, the statement read: "The officers were not able to dislodge her by pulling on her arms because her arms were linked with people on both sides. Therefore they moved her by pulling on her legs. Within a metre or so the baby is dislodged and become apparent to another officer who immediately picks it up."
Summer 2010 is far from over, but extremely hot weather has been a major weather story to date, not only in the United States but also in other parts of the northern hemisphere. All-time record high temperatures have been tied or broken in more than a dozen nations.
Across the United States, the heat has been particularly persistent in the southern and eastern parts of the country. A July heat wave produced 100-plus-degree heat along the Eastern Seaboard from southern New England to the Virginias, including temperatures in excess of 105� F in parts of Maryland (including Baltimore) and Virginia. Hartford, Connecticut, tied its all-time record high temperature of 102� F on July 6.
Globally, at least 14 different countries have reported all-time record high temperatures this year (not all have been during the northern hemisphere summer), according meteorologist to Jeff Masters of Weather Underground.
On Thursday of this last week, all-time record high temperatures were established in Moscow, Russia, with a high of 102� F. The heat has been persistent -- this will be the hottest July on record by far -- and accompanied by a severe drought, damage to crops and wildfires. In addition, Finland established a new all-time record for heat on Thursday when the temperature hit 99 degrees in Joensuu.
The most intense heat of the summer has occurred in the typically hot Middle East. All-time record high temperatures have been established in Saudi Arabia, Iraq (125.6� F for both) and Pakistan (128.3� F).
The intense heat in both cases -- across the United States and in Europe/Middle East -- has been produced by persistent and strong high pressure systems in the upper levels of the atmosphere.
Across the United States, it's common for a high pressure system to be dominant in the summer, but the high has been centered farther to the east than it is during most summers, resulting in the core of the heat being focused farther to the east. While there have been occasional breaks from the intense heat in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, the heat has been more persistent in the Deep South. Temperatures average three to five degrees above normal in June and two to four degrees above normal in July.
With the heat focused farther to the east, it's actually been cooler than normal in Southern California, especially close to the coast where water temperatures have been lower than normal. Temperatures in July have averaged three to five degrees cooler than average from Los Angeles to San Diego. Each city had a record cool day. The Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) had a high of 67� F on July 9, and San Diego recorded a high temperature of 64� F on July 8 .
Across Europe and the Middle East, a high pressure system in the summer is also common; however, its strength typically waxes and wanes. This summer, it's been more persistently strong than it is during most summers, allowing the heat to occur with more frequency and intensity.
At the age of 58, the world's oldest living conjoined twins, Ronnie and Donnie Galyon, have spent plenty of time exhibiting the wonders of the human body. But over the last few months, they've shown that the human spirit can be far more wondrous.
During that time, the twins have inspired an entire community to donate time, labor, materials, guidance and even food to help build their much-needed new home.
The house, just outside of Dayton, Ohio, is an addition to the home of their younger brother, Jim, and his wife, Mary. Ronnie and Donnie moved in two weeks ago.
Two weeks ago, Ronnie and Donnie Galyon moved into their new home, built with the help of a whole community of volunteers. At age 58, they are recognized by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins.
"They are elated, it's wonderful," Jim Galyon told AOL News. "They're truly happy here."
On Saturday, they get to say thank you.
The Galyons will celebrate with an open house and a barbecue, giving all of the volunteers a chance to see the finished product they helped create.
"It's just a fantastic thing to see it come through," said Pete Andrews, founder and director of the New York charity Christian Youth Corps Inc. (CYC), which organized the project.
"It's because hundreds of people cared, and did more than caring and talking," he said. "They actually did something about it. People could see their time, money and efforts go into something that made a big difference right in their backyard. I'm looking forward to shaking all their hands on Saturday."
Ronnie and Donnie's new home, just outside of Dayton, Ohio, was built by hundreds of community volunteers.
The 936-square-foot home is customized to fit their needs. Four-foot-wide hallways offer them plenty space to move around in their new specially designed wheelchair. A unique bed accommodating the position of their bodies makes sleeping at the same time possible.
Like the home, the bed and the chair were donations.
And while the new comforts will give Ronnie and Donnie a much-improved quality of life, the new location is nearly as life changing for Jim and Mary. The couple has cared for the twins since 1991, making frequent trips to their previous -- and much smaller -- home four miles away.
"It's wonderful. Instead of having to drive across town to check on them, we just walk into the next room," Jim said. "It takes a load off."
When the project began a few months ago, CYC had just $224 in its bank account.
"That was gas money to get back to New York," Andrews said.
Yet the group convinced Brentwood Builders to donate its services as the lead contractor and assembled local volunteers to help with the labor.
"It was a challenging but very rewarding process," said John Harkleroad, project manager for Brentwood Builders. "The lion share that we did was the coordination of the effort, keeping all the volunteers going in the right direction and doing the right things and ordering materials and calculating things."
Ronnie and Donnie Galyon are pictured with Christian Youth Corps founder Pete Andrews and Marlene Steele, a volunteer who helped raise more than $400 with candy sales.
The company donated more than 300 hours to the project, along with some of the materials and labor.
There were times when the project was lacking funds and in danger of coming to a stop. But as word got out, the money started to come in.
"When AOL picked it up and AP, we started getting donations from all over the country," Andrews said. "People wanted to be a part of it."
The CYC received donations as small as $3 and as large as $15,000.
"Every dollar that came in was helpful, every nail in that bag helped," Andrews said.
And the volunteers kept showing up when they were needed, whether it was to hammer nails or put up drywall. For the landscaping alone, 30 people offered their services.
Now, nearly all the costs have been covered. The CYC hopes to receive just a few thousand dollars in donations to break even on the project.
"We are totally grateful," Galyon said. "It's just fantastic."
A NEW lipstick has gone on sale that shows when women are in the mood for sex. The color changes from clear to deep crimson as the wearer feels frisky.
It works by reacting with a girl's body chemistry.
And each $18 tube comes with a color chart so men can work out how willing their partner is feeling.
The Mood Swing Emotionally Activated Lip Gloss was invented in California.
A spokesman for makers Too Faced said: "The colors change depending on your emotional state."
Celeb fans include singer Katy Perry, engaged to randy funnyman Russell Brand.
Dating expert Lorraine Adams said: "This is the ultimate date ice-breaker.
"But using it every day could get embarrassing. Would you really want the man next to you on the bus to know if you're turned on?"
When Sogen Kato's 111th birthday rolled around last week, he was hailed as the oldest living man in Japan. But there was just one problem with the claim on that title: He'd been lying dead in his bed for some 30 years, which is where city authorities found his mummified skeletal remains Wednesday.
Social workers first became suspicious about the extremely elderly Kato -- born in 1899 -- in February, when they tried to visit the home he supposedly shared with his daughter, 81, son-in-law, 83, grandson, 49, and granddaughter, 53. The officials were refused entry by the grandson, who claimed Kato was living in an old people's home in central Japan, according to The Mainichi Daily News.
That alibi changed when police and government workers returned to the house on Monday, with the aim of congratulating Kato on turning 111 four days earlier. This time, they were chased off by the granddaughter, who said, "My grandfather is well, but he's refused to meet with anyone," the newspaper reported.
But on Wednesday, one of the grandchildren turned up at a police station and confessed that the family knew Kato had died some time ago, as they'd spotted a skull when they tried to enter his room in March.
"Grandpa was a very scary man. So we couldn't open the door,'' the grandchild told police, according to Japan Today, adding that Kato had "shut himself up in the room without food or water" some 30 years ago with the aim of becoming a "living Buddha." Officers who searched the house later that day found Kato's mummified remains, clad in long underwear and covered by a blanket, lying faceup in bed.
An autopsy failed to pinpoint the cause of death, but police said a newspaper and local government report dated November 1978 were found next to the corpse, suggesting Kato died around this time.
While the grandfather may have willingly locked himself away, it appears as though his family had good reason to keep mum about his gradual mummification. Japan Today reported that police are investigating whether the family fraudulently claimed a $110,000 survivor pension Kato would have been entitled to (if he'd been alive) when his 101-year-old wife died in 2004, noting that over $31,000 had been withdrawn from the grandfather's bank account earlier this month.
Two weeks ago, in upstate New York, ex-Governor Sarah Palin was invited to address a major gathering of the American Indian Nation. She spoke for almost an hour on her future plans for increasing every Native American's present standard of living should she one day become the first female President.
At the conclusion of her speech, the Tribes presented the ex-Governor with a plaque inscribed with her new Indian name - Walking Eagle. The proud ex-Governor then departed in her motorcade, waving to the crowds.
A news reporter later inquired of the group of chiefs how they had come to select the new name given to the Senator. They explained that Walking Eagle is the name given to a bird so full of shit it can no longer fly!
