Police seek couple after Holocaust survivor found dead and tied up

By Calvin Palmer
New York police said today they want to question two people in connection with the death of an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor  who was found dead in his apartment with his arms bound behind his back.
Guido Felix Brinkman was found by the superintendent of his Upper East Side apartment building yesterday evening. He was [...]

Wife jailed for her part in husband’s secret filming of young girls bathing

By Calvin Palmer
A teaching assistant was given a two-and-a-half jail sentence today for her part in a child pornography operation that filmed young girls as they bathed.
Rosemary Foxall, 49, of Brownhills, West Midlands, prepared baths for the girls while her husband, Martin, secretly filmed them.
Her husband has since committed suicide.
Earlier this month, Foxall was found [...]

Mother accused of locking toddler in 100-degree attic

By Calvin Palmer
A Massachusetts mother appeared in court today after allegedly locking her three-year-old son in an attic where the temperature reached more than 100 degrees.
Kristen Paquette, 27, of Lowell, was arraigned at Lowell District Court on charges of reckless endangerment to a child and assault and battery on a child. She was held on [...]

Restaurant owner shot trying to enforce smoking ban

By Calvin Palmer
Turkey recorded its first smoking-ban murder when a restaurant owner was shot dead trying to prevent his customers from smoking, according to the Hurriyet newspaper.
A fight broke out after Hidir Karayigit, 46, ordered a group of customers to put out their cigarettes when they lit up at his “meyhane,” a traditional restaurant that [...]

Hacker loses appeal against extradition to U.S.

By Calvin Palmer
The British hacker who penetrated American military Web sites searching for proof of alien life has lost his High Court appeal against extradition to the U.S.
Gary McKinnon, 43, of Wood Green, north London, is accused by U.S. authorities of being responsible for the “biggest military hack of all time”, involving 97 government computers [...]

Five-foot shark hurls teenager off surfboard

By Calvin Palmer
A teenager escaped with a cut lip and ripped wetsuit yesterday morning when a five-foot shark hurled him off his surfboard.
Zac Skyring, 14, was taking an early morning surf with his father at Broken Head, just south of Byron Bay in New South Wales, when a bronze whaler swam up underneath his surfboard.
The [...]

Evacuated residents return home after blaze at chemical plant

By Calvin Palmer
A fire at a chemical plant that saw a central Texas town put under a mandatory evacuation order was eventually brought under control yesterday evening.
The fire broke out around noon at the El Dorado Chemical Co, which processes ammonium nitrate into fertilizer, in the town of Bryan.
The explosive nature of the chemical and [...]

FedEx Priority Overnight gets lost in translation

By Calvin Palmer
I like to think that I have a reasonable grasp of the English language and know what words mean. I also believed that those meanings were universal, thus enabling easy and unequivocal communication between individuals. Apparently I am mistaken.
I sent a package to Carl Zeiss, to its headquarters in Thornwood, New York, on Tuesday. The [...]

Baby ripped from womb found alive and woman arrested

By Calvin Palmer
The baby girl ripped from her mother’s womb has been found alive in New Hampshire and a woman neighbor is being held on $2 million bail.
Julie Corey, 35, of Worcester, Massachusetts, a former neighbor of murdered mother Darlene Haynes, was arrested with a baby girl in Plymouth, New Hampshire.
Corey was arraigned today in [...]

Boston police officer stripped of gun and badge after alleged racial slurs

By Calvin Palmer
A Boston police officer was placed on administrative leave today pending a termination hearing following racist remarks allegedly made in an e-mail.
Officer Justin Barret, 36,  a member of the National Guard is alleged to have made racial slurs to describe Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates in an e-mail to fellow guardsmen and the [...]