A Canadian woman is being held in custody after trying to open a door on an aircraft in midflight.
Barbara Loretta Morton, 47, of St John’s, Newfoundland, had to be restrained by cabin crew aboard a WestJet plane carrying 131 people on a flight from Calgary to Halifax. The plane made an emergency landing at Winnipeg.
About an hour into yesterday’s flight, Morton allegedly left her seat and tried to leave the plane through a door hatch.
A 77-year-old male passenger and an airline employee were assaulted while restraining the woman, Winnipeg police said. The passenger suffered minor injuries.
Morton is charged with two counts of assault, mischief, endangering the safety of an aircraft and failing to comply with the instructions of a flight crew.
She is now in custody at the Winnipeg Remand Centre.
Scientists at the University of Cambridge, England, have discovered a gene that is linked to half of all breast cancers.
The gene, called NRG1, gets damaged in some people during their lifetime and damaged NRG1 has been found in half of breast cancers.
It has also been implicated in half of all prostate and bowel cancers along with one quarter of ovarian and bladder cancers.
When functioning normally, the NRG1 gene acts as a brake preventing cancer cells from growing but when it becomes damaged the cancers are allowed to multiply into a tumor.
How and why the gene gets damaged is not yet known but the identification of NRG1 should enable therapies to be targeted at specific cancers in the future.
Dr Paul Edwards, of the department of pathology at the University of Cambridge, who discovered the gene with colleagues, said it provided “vital information” about how some cancers spread.
He said: “I believe NRG1 could be the most important tumour suppressor gene discovery in the last 20 years as it gives us vital information about a new mechanism that causes breast cancer.
“We found the gene on chromosome 8 partly by good luck and partly by good judgment.
“In every case that we looked at where a big chunk of chromosome 8 had been lost, at least part of the gene was lost.
“The gene was effectively ‘turned off’ in a lot of breast cancers.
“If we have found the gene that is lost on chromosome 8 and we know that some other cancers also lose that bit of chromosome 8, then it is logical that it is the same gene.
“We have got strong evidence that the gene is implicated in breast cancer but we have no reason to think it’s not the same for other cancers, including prostate and colon cancer.”
The research was published in the journal Oncogene and funded by Breast Cancer Campaign and Cancer Research UK.
The finding comes just as Breast Cancer Awareness Month gets into full swing.
NFL games played yesterday showed many players sporting pink gloves, boots and the pink ribbon motif painted on the back of their helmets. Coaches such as Wade Phillips of the Dallas Cowboys sported the pink ribbon motif on his shirt, while assistant head coach and offensive coordinator Jason Garrett wore a Cowboys baseball cap with a pink visor.
In Canada, they were more up front and got the message across with a TV advertising campaign aimed at younger viewers in which MTV Canada DJ Aliya-Jasmine Sovan walks across the screen in a small white bikini, drawing appreciative stares from everyone at the pool party.
Murdered swimsuit model Jasmine Fiore’s mutilated body was identified through her breast implants, authorities disclosed yesterday.
The 28-year-old’s naked body was found stuffed in a suitcase in a dumpster in Buena Park, California, at the weekend. She had been strangled. Her fingers were cut off and her teeth removed to hamper identification.
Detectives were able to use the serial number on the implants to determine that it was Jasmine Fiore.
“We actually have had several cases where we identified the victim or the defendant in that way,” a spokesperson for Orange County District Attorney’s Office said. The implants have serial numbers in case of a recall.
Fiore’s ex-husband, Ryan Alexander Jenkins, 32, has been charged with her murder. He is believed to be in his native Canada and police are concentrating their search in Vancouver.
The contestant of the reality TV show Megan Wants A Millionaire is thought to have crossed the border into Canada after his black BMW sport utility vehicle and boat trailer were found in Blaine, Washington, and his boat was located in Point Roberts from where it is possible to walk a few hundred yards into Canada.
Airings of the VH1 reality TV show have been suspended.
Police believe Jenkins may be heading for his hometown of Calgary.
Police believe the reality TV contestant sought in the death of his swimsuit model ex-wife has crossed the border into his native Canada.
Ryan Alexander Jenkins, 32,has been charged with murder after the naked body of 28-year-old Jasmine Fiore was found stuffed in a suitcase left in a dumpster in Buena Park, southern California, at the weekend. She had been strangled. Her teeth and fingers had been removed.
A car and empty boat trailer belonging to Jenkins were found at a marina in the remote northwest Washington town of Blaine. Police believe he may have simply walked into Canada.
Whatcom County Sheriff’s deputies received a report yesterday that a man matching Jenkins’ description arrived by boat at Point Roberts, Washington, about 10 miles from Blaine at the tip of a peninsula.
Canadian Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said police agencies across Canada are on the lookout for Jenkins who is originally from Jenkins is from Calgary, Alberta.
Acting Calgary Police Chief Al Redford said a fugitive apprehension unit is checking with Jenkins’ connections and associates in the city.
Jenkins was a contestant on the VH1 reality TV show Megan Wants a Millionaire.
He met Fiore in Las Vegas casino in March and the two soon got married, said Fiore’s mother, Lisa Lepore. But the marriage was annulled in May.
Court records show that Jenkins was charged in June in Clark County, Nevada, with a misdemeanor count of “battery constituting domestic violence” for hitting Fiore in the arm and will be tried in December.
Jenkins also has a criminal history in Calgary. He was sentenced to 15 months of probation in January 2007 on an unspecified assault charge, according to the Alberta, Canada Ministry of Justice.
A newspaper reporter in New Hampshire was charged today with running a prostitution ring.
Keith Provencher, 50, was arrested at his Manchester home and arraigned in Lawrence District Court. He pleaded not guilty to two counts of deriving support from prostitution. He is being held on bail of $10,000.
Prosecutors said he advertised his prostitutes on Craigslist and other Web sites and rented hotel rooms in Andover, Massachusetts and New Hampshire where the women would have sex for money.
An investigation is still ongoing to establish whether the prostitution ring also operated in Canada.
Prosecutor Michelle Defeo said Provencher would rent a room in the hotel, then two women would arrive, followed by a steady flow of male visitors.
Police began an investigation after complaints by the staff at the the Springhill Suites in Andover.
Provencher has been suspended from the New Hampshire Union Leader, where he has been a sports writer for 23 years.
The newspaper issued a statement calling Provencher “a valued employee for many years”.
“He is innocent until proven guilty,” the statement said. “However, given the nature and seriousness of the charges, he is suspended until further notice.”
The number cases of swine flu in the United States has risen to 40 after authorities confirmed 28 cases in students at a private school in New York City.
More than 100 students at St Francis Preparatory School in Queens have complained of flu-like symptoms. City officials said they were still evaluating the students and did not confirm whether they had all been tested for swine flu.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said 17 more students probably have it but that the strain of flu in New York does not match the one in Mexico.
“So far we have no evidence that is consistent with the evidence in Mexico,” he said. “But their definition of serious illness may be different.”
Most of the cases in the U.S. have recovered or are recovering in stark contrast to Mexico where the number of suspected swine flu deaths has risen to 149.
Cases of swine flu have been reported in California, Texas, Ohio, Kansas and Michigan.
Health officials in Canada have confirmed six cases – four in Nova Scotia and two in British Columbia.
In all six cases, those infected had recently traveled to Mexico.
Across the Atlantic, two cases were confirmed in Britain.
Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish Health Secretary confirmed that a man and woman had tested positive. Both are patients at Monklands Hospital in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, and are “recovering well”.
Health Minister Trinidad Jimenez said the patient is a young man who had recently returned from Mexico where he had been as part of his university studies.
The man is from Almansa, in the Castilla-La Mancha region, and is responding well to treatment.
Another 20 people in Spain are suspected of having the disease.
The United States declared a public health emergency today as the number of reported cases of swine flu reached 20.
Cases have been reported in California, Ohio, Kansas, Texas and New York. Patients have ranged in age from nine to over 50. Two cases have been hospitalized but all recovered or are recovering.
Canada today said four people have fallen ill with swine flu in Nova Scotia.
Health officials are at a loss to explain why the cases in the United States have been mild, unlike in Mexico where the same strain has killed 22 people and is suspected in the deaths of 64 others.
Tests today confirmed that eight students from St Francis Preparatory School, a private Catholic school in New York City, had contracted the disease during a trip to Mexico two weeks ago.
In Ohio, state health officials said a nine-year-old boy who recently traveled to Mexico on vacation with his family has a confirmed case of swine flu and is recovering at his home.
Officials do not know if the boy has the same strain linked to the deaths in Mexico, health department spokesman Robert Jennings said.
Kansas health officials said yesterday that they had confirmed swine flu in a married couple living in the central part of the state after the husband visited Mexico. The Dickinson County couple were not hospitalized, and the state described their illnesses as mild.
“Fortunately, the man and woman understand the gravity of the situation and are very willing to isolate themselves,” said Dr Jason Eberhart-Phillips, the state health officer.
At least nine swine flu cases have been reported in California and Texas. The most recent California case, the state’s seventh, was a 35-year-old woman from Imperial County who got sick in early April. She had no known contact with the others.
Health officials are concerned because people appear to have no immunity to the virus, a combination of bird, swine and human influenzas. The virus also presents itself like other forms of swine flu, but none of the U.S. cases appear to involve direct contact with pigs, Eberhart-Phillips said.
Actress Natasha Richardson, the wife of Irish film star Liam Neeson, was in a critical condition today after a skiing accident in Canada.
It is reported that she suffered a “traumatic brain injury” on the slopes of the exclusive resort of Mont Tremblant in Quebec yesterday afternoon and has been transferred to a hospital in Montreal.
The New York Post has been told by friends of Richardson that she is “brain dead” and is being flown back to her home in New York so her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, her two children and other loved ones can say goodbye before she is taken off life-support.
Neeson is shooting a film in Toronto and left for Montreal after hearing of the acccident.
A spokesperson for the film production company said: “We do not have any details at this time but we hope for the best and our thoughts and prayers are with Natasha and Liam and their family.”
Richardson, 45, is the daughter of the actress Vanessa Redgrave and late film director, Tony Richardson, and has worked extensively both on stage and screen.
She won a Tony award for best actress for her role as Sally Bowles in Cabaret on Broadway in 1998 and her film credits include The Parent Trap and The Handmaid’s Tale.
She married Neeson in 1994 after they appeared together in the film Nell. The couple have two sons.
Sixteen people are missing after a helicopter ferrying workers to an oil platform crashed off the coast of Newfoundland this morning.
Of the 18 aboard, one was rescued and one body was recovered.
Two life rafts were spotted in the water amid the helicopter debris, but rescuers later confirmed they were empty.
The survival window is about 24 hours — but only if the people were wearing the required survival suits with water-activated locator beacons, said Major Denis McGuire of the Rescue Coordination Center in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
McGuire said searchers had picked up signals from the suits, but there was still no sign of the missing.
The condition of survivor Robert Decker, who was flown to a St. John’s hospital, was listed as critical but stable.
The S-92 Sikorsky helicopter went down about 47 nautical miles southeast of St John’s, said Jeri Grychowski of the Rescue Co-ordination Center.
The helicopter was ferrying workers to the Hibernia offshore oil platform when it ditched into the ocean, amid strong winds, at around 9:18 a.m. local time.
Two rescue helicopters and a coast guard vessel were dispatched. A Hercules military aircraft and a merchant ship quickly arrived at the scene.
Grychowski said water temperatures were just above freezing, with waves of up to nine feet.
The lone survivor was picked up by a civilian helicopter owned by Cougar Helicopters of St John’s, the same company as the one that crashed.
The Hibernia platform is jointly owned by Petro-Canada, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Murphy Oil, StatoilHydro and the government of Canada.
A man shot and killed himself today in front a cross inside inside televangelist Robert H. Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral, in Southern California, as a nearby volunteer nearby told a group of visitors about the church’s suicide-prevention program.
Senior Pastor Juan Carlos Ortiz says a long-haired walked into the sanctuary of the building in Garden Grove at about 9:45 this morning, handed a note and his driver’s license to two ushers, walked to the cross and then shot himself in the head as he appeared to be praying.
The Orange County coroner’s office identified the man as Steve Smick, 48. Church spokesman Mike Nason said there was no record of Smick at the cathedral.
Betty Spicer, a volunteer usher at the famous sanctuary, said she greeted Smick when he entered. She said he handed her a folded note with two cards inside as the man told her: “You may want this.”
Spicer said he then walked to the foot of the cross. She and Yvette Manson, another volunteer, said they thought Smick was praying when they heard a pop.
A tourist, one in a group of several visitors from Canada, told Manson the man had shot himself.
“I didn’t realize it. I thought he was praying,” Spicer said.
Manson said she “had just finished telling them about our intervention hotline that we have — suicide prevention on the fifth floor — and all of a sudden I heard this pop, a loud pop, it almost sounded like a firecracker,” she said.
The man used a semiautomatic handgun, said police Lt. Dennis Ellsworth.
Spicer said one of Smick’s cards was a driver’s license, and that the note mentioned a pickup truck in the parking lot.
Cathedral spokesman John Charles said none of the Canadian tourists was injured.
Working in Beijing after 13 years in the USA and a brief, but unhappy, interlude in the UK. I am not an American and no longer feel British, so I am not sure where that leaves me. I guess an Anglo-American living in China. If you enjoy this blog, feel free to contribute. I need to build up my retirement fund.
Calvin Palmer's Weblog 