Our society’s shame: Urgent review into care for vulnerable adults after undercover report on ‘disgusting’ abuse
- Four people arrested as police launch probe into abuse
- Castlebeck chief executive says he is ‘shocked, ashamed and disgusted’ by the footage
- Staff trying to goad patients into committing suicide, slap them and punch them
- Patients given cold showers and pinned to the ground
The Government today ordered an urgent review after the BBC’s Panorama show uncovered ‘inhumane’ abuse of people with learning disabilities at a ‘state-of-the-art’ residential hospital.
Four people were arrested after secret filming showed vulnerable adults at Winterbourne View, in Bristol, being slapped, dragged across the floor and taunted by the people who were supposed to be… Continue reading
Photographer’s stunning black and white pictures of a nation’s rural ruins
Another country: Photographer’s stunning black and white pictures of a nation’s rural ruins, exiled from the American Dream
Photographer Steven Rubin spent much of the 1980s traveling throughout Maine’s countryside with nothing more than a camera and a bit of cash.
This month, a Los Angeles gallery will display an extensive collection of images from that time period, painting a portrait of American poverty that many have never seen.
The photographs, black and white portraits of an isolated community, disarm viewers and allow them unfettered entrance into ‘Vacationland.‘
Burst: A young girl blows a bubble, lost in thought as a man guzzles a beer behind her
Mother-of-two ‘raped boy, 15, after getting him drunk’
Charged: Leanna Intorcia allegedly plied a 15-year-boy with alcohol before raping him
A 34-year-old woman has been accused of raping a teenage boy after getting him drunk.
Leanna Intorcia is alleged to have plied the 15-year-old with alcohol while he was a guest in her home.
Police said when the boy became drunk she had oral sex with him and later sexual intercourse.
Intorcia was arrested after the boy’s parents went to police in Cartage, New York.
She was charged with third degree rape and endangering the welfare of a child.
Intorcia was arraigned before Wilna Town Justice Richard Buckingham and her case will be put before a grand jury.
The mother-of-two is the second women in recent weeks to be charged with raping an underage boy.
North Korea threatens to reduce the ‘rat-like’ South ‘to ashes’ in just four minutes using ‘peculiar means and methods of our own style’
North Korea today made a veiled threat to use ’special actions’ to reduce South Korea’s government and media ‘to ashes’ in less than four minutes.
It follows North Korea’s renewed promise last week to wage a ‘sacred war’ against Seoul after claims South Korean President Lee Myung-bak had insulted the North’s April 15 celebrations of the birth centennial of national founder Kim Il Sung.
But today’s military statement, which vowed actions of ‘unprecedented peculiar means’ – possibly a cyber attack – was unusual in promising something soon and describing a specific length of time.
Threat: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un acknowledges cheers last week during a mass military parade in Kim Il Sung Square to celebrate the centenary of the birth of his grandfather
Pakistani students raped woman, 20, after she fell asleep on night bus on way home from night out
- Pair told victim they would call her a taxi after she missed her stop, then lured her down an alleyway
- Rizwan Ahmad and Hassan Siddique jailed for a total of 18-and-a-half years and told they could be deported
Two ‘despicable’ sex predators who raped a woman after she fell asleep on a night bus have been jailed for a total of 18-and-a-half years.
Pakistani students Rizwan Ahmad, 24, and Hassan Siddique, 19, targeted the 20-year-old as she made her way home from a night out in central London.
Snaresbrook Crown Court heard how Siddique got off the number 55 bus while Ahmad began chatting to the woman when she realised she had missed her stop.
‘Despicable’: Rizwan Ahmad, 24, (left) and Hassan Siddique, 19, have been jailed for a total of 18-and-a-half years and could face deportation
‘Ctrl+C me, my brothers’ – Piracy preachers paste themselves in US
A Sweden-born “online piracy religion” is seeking official recognition in the United States. “Kopimists” preach that any act of copying information is sacred and cannot be limited by any human law.
The movement, established in late 2010 by then-19-year-old philosophy student Isak Gerson, holds Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V – the keyboard shortcuts for copy and paste commands – as its sacred symbols.
The name Kopimism is world play on “copy me”, inspired by a Biblical quote from 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Copy me, my brothers, just as I copy Christ himself.”
Chinese money to ‘settle’ Sudanese oil divorce?
South Sudan is to seek investment from China for a new pipeline. This would allow it to export oil without the consent of its northern enemy Sudan. The two parts of a formerly
united country are in a bloody conflict over control of crude revenues.
Beijing may join an international consortium South Sudan wants to form for construction of a pipeline, Pagan Amum, lead negotiator for South Sudan, told the Financial Times.
“They are positive, they are looking into it, they have agreed to provide South Sudan with technical assistance in building an alternative pipeline,” said Amum. “Financing would not be a problem because we would be using future sales.”
Gas and peace: Egypt cuts off gas supply to Israel
Egypt has canceled its natural gas supply deal with Israel, insisting the move has nothing to do with politics. Israel downplayed the decision, which could further deteriorate bilateral ties that have decayed markedly since the Egyptian revolution.
Far-right French voters to arbitrate heavyweight run-off
With the surprise breakthrough by the far-right in the first round of the French presidential poll, political pundits now say their supporters are in a key position to decide who becomes France’s next leader.
Nasa’s greatest hits:
Breathtaking time-lapse photography shows off our beautiful planet from the International Space Station
- Footage captured across the world by astronauts since November and set to soundtrack Walking In The Air
Nasa has released a compilation of the best of its time-lapse photography from space – accompanied by a suitable theme tune.
To the haunting sounds of Walking In The Air, written by Howard Blake for the film The Snowman, the four-minute tape zooms over the earth’s surface from the International Space Station, shot by the Expedition 30 crew who boarded in November.
The breathtaking footage captured enchanting light displays and vivid weather systems across the globe in the last five months.
