Annie Stensrud, a Minnesota news reader who faced allegations of being drunk while on air last week, has claimed she was sick and not under the influence of alcohol.
Annie Stensrud ended up making headlines herself after slurring her words during a live news broadcast on KEYC-TV, CBS/Fox, in Mankato.
KEYC-TV’s General Manager said the faux pas was due to a bad reaction to medication, which Annie Stensrud confirmed.
Annie Stensrud said in a statement: “My performance last Sunday [December 4 at 10pm] was terrible, and for that I apologize.
“I’ve been sick for some time and taking medication and have missed a lot of work lately.
“I’m on my way to feeling better and hope to be back at full strength soon. I appreciate everyone’s understanding and even more so, their support.”
Annie Stensrud, a Minnesota news reader who faced allegations of being drunk while on air last week, has claimed she was sick and not under the influence of alcohol
The stations GM, Dennis Walhstrom, told WCCO Radio after the incident that she should have called in sick but stands by her statement.
Dennis Walhstrom said: “That’s what we found, that she had a reaction to a medication.
“She’s also missed work and had not been feeling well for the past week.
“She was taking unspecified medication that she had a bad reaction to.
“She probably shouldn’t have come in. She should have called in.
Annie Stensrud has been anchoring weekend evening broadcasts for a year and her Sunday show had been cut down because of an over-running NFL game.
In one of the strangest segments, Annie Stensrud says: “Today’s event featured Christmas fo… music, food and a chance to meet the Santa dog.
“They felt three ways for Christmas…parents and grandparents,” Annie Stensrud adds, as she speaks over a man giving a pre-recorded interview.
The Huffington Post suggested Annie Stensrud could have been drunk, whereas Gawker.com added that she might just have a strange accent.
KEYC news director Dan Ruiter told TV Spy that although station may work in a “very public business, personnel issues need to remain private”.
Dan Ruiter told the Mankato Free Press that there is no proof she was intoxicated and viewers are jumping to conclusions if they believe this.
The incident had echoes of when CBS Los Angeles journalist Serene Branson garbled her words live on air, causing speculation she had a stroke.
Doctors said she was suffering from symptoms of a stroke, but had actually suffered a complex migraine during a live Grammys broadcast.
Jody Mary Ryan from Fort Myers, Florida, hoped to cover her tracks and appease her angry husband by telling police her lover – her husband’s best friend – had raped her.
Jody Mary Ryan, 18, is the one in jail, arrested on a charge of making a false police report, after investigators discovered her sex assault claims were bogus, cops said.
Jody Mary Ryan later confessed her husband, Mahmoud Koush, 27, put her up to making the phony claims when he found out about the extra-marital tryst. It was his way of getting back at his adulterous pal.
Police say Mahmoud Koush called cops and reported his friend had touched his wife inappropriately.
When police and paramedics arrived at Jody Mary Ryan’s house, she told officers the man had raped her and that she didn’t want her husband to find out.
Jody Mary Ryan, 18, is the one in jail, arrested on a charge of making a false police report, after investigators discovered her sex assault claims were bogus
The woman claimed her husband’s best friend had forced himself on her at a hotel in Fort Myers.
But staff at the hotel said she seemed perfectly amicable when the pair rented a room there.
And nurses who examined Jody Mary Ryan for signs of sexual assault at Gulf Coast Hospital said she never made any comments about being raped.
The woman was only concerned about whether she was pregnant, police said.
And then there was the surveillance video.
Cops say video footage shows Jody Mary Ryan showing up at her lover’s workplace and throwing a ring he gave her because she was upset her husband found out.
When cops confronted her, Jody Mary Ryan admitted that Mahmoud Koush had put her up to the phony rape claims.
Jody Mary Ryan said Mahmoud Koush found out about the two-week affair between the couple and was furious.
Avery L. Blandin from South Carolina has been charged with murder of his wife, who was fatally stabbed inside a Greenville County Walmart this weekend.
It was reported that while shoppers looked on in horror, store management roped off the area for homicide investigators and continued to operate as usual.
Avery L. Blandin, 46, is accused of killing Lilia Blandin, 38, who worked at the Woodforest Bank inside the discount retail store in Berea.
Avery L. Blandin from South Carolina has been charged with murder of his wife, who was fatally stabbed inside a Greenville County Walmart this weekend
Greenville County Sheriff’s Office Master Deputy Jenning said police were called to at 1:21 p.m. on Saturday to the Walmart at 6134 White Horse Road, where they found Lilia Blandin with stab wounds.
Lilia Blandin was transported to the hospital but she died shortly after.
Witnesses told deputies they heard a verbal fight between the woman and a male suspect, which escalated to a physical fight.
Shopper Phillip Tallent told local station WYFF4 he was looking for Christmas lights with his family when the horrifying scene unfolded, and he intervened.
Phillip Tallent told the station: “When I looked, I could see a couple of stabbing motions, and I really started to run towards the front (of the store).
“I’ve seen it when [the man] was making a stomping motion at [Lilia Blandin] across her chest and neck area. I picked up the chair and I hit him.”
Phillip Tallent told deputies that a man, identified as Avery Blandin, ran towards the door with several witnesses failing in attempts to stop him.
Lilia Blandin, 38, who worked at the Woodforest Bank inside the discount retail store in Berea, was transported to the hospital but she died shortly after
The witness said the man fled the scene after pulling out a second knife.
“That’s when I let him go because I already seen what he did with the first one, so I wasn’t going to get involved with the next one,” Phillip Tallent said.
Deputies confirmed a male suspect fled the scene. Phillip Tallent told WYFF4 he was able to get the tag number of the car the man got into and gave it to investigators.
Walmart company spokesman Dianna Gee told Greenville’s News Channel 4 the company is assisting with the investigation and had turned over surveillance video footage from the store.
“We did, as requested, close our grocery checkout area to allow the police to do their work and provide some level of privacy, given the circumstances,” Dianna Gee said.
“This was a senseless act of violence, and our thoughts and prayers go out to the victim’s family during this difficult time.”
Avery Blandin, of Simpsonville, was identified and located after the stabbing when he was involved in a traffic collision.
According to deputies, Avery Blandin was taken to Greenville Memorial Hospital to receive treatment for injuries and will later be taken to Greenville County Detention Center to await a bond hearing on Monday.
A couple was kicked-off from a train for having sex at Toronto subway, but, unperturbed, they got off and continued the deed on the station platform, with the man’s naked derriere and the woman’s legs – akimbo – in full view for all to see.
The as-yet-unidentified couple was caught on a Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) train on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. after a horrified passenger who witnessed the copulation pressed the emergency button.
TTC spokesman Brad Ross told the Toronto Sun: “They were on the subway train itself…they were having intercourse.
“This is the first report I’ve seen of this type of behaviour in the almost four years I’ve been here.
“They appeared to be extremely intoxicated, I’m not sure if it was from alcohol or drugs.”
He said activation of the emergency bar alerted the operator and a security supervisor.
Cell phone footage of the less-than-romantic encounter was posted online and has since went viral.
The couple was arrested when Toronto police were alerted and arrived at the station. They were also taken to Mount Sinai for a checkup as a precaution.
The man and the woman were charged with being engaged in a lewd act.
Brad Ross told the Sun: “We took the action we did because children ride the subway. We can’t have people engaging in sexual activity on the subway system, buses or streetcars.
“It’s a public system and the TTC carries 1.6 million people a day, from all ways of life, including children. No matter what your background is, it is not appropriate to have sex this way.
“I’d suggest to people, if they are deeply in love, that they find a more appropriate venue.”
The death toll from yesterday’s grenade attack at a Christmas market in Liege, Belgium, rose to six, including the killer himself.
According to Belgian police, the body of a woman was found at an address used by the gunman Nordine Amrani.
Nordine Amrani, 32, was armed with grenades and an assault rifle when he attacked holiday shoppers at Place Saint-Lambert in Liege.
Attacker’s victims included two teenage boys aged 15 and 17, a 75-year-old woman and an 18-month-old baby, who died in hospital last night. A total of 122 were also wounded.
Prosecutor Cedric Visart de Bocarme told Belgian La Premiere radio station that the woman – a 45-year-old cleaner – had been found in a warehouse used by Nordine Amrani.
Cedric Visart de Bocarme said: “A search last night revealed in a warehouse used by the attacker, notably to grow cannabis, the body of a woman killed by the attacker.”
The death toll from yesterday's grenade attack at a Christmas market in Liege, Belgium, rose to six, including the killer himself
Nordine Amrani, who was previously jailed for possession of arms and drugs offences, hurled grenades and sprayed bullets into crowds of Christmas shoppers and children in Place Saint-Lambert.
The attack paralyzed the centre of Belgium’s fifth largest city, with workers trapped in offices as police sealed off the area. It is still unclear what drove Nordine Amrani to carry out the attack.
The shoppers, many of them children, ran screaming for safety in the panic as the gunman opened fire.
Men, women and children fled down the streets of the city centre – some still carrying shopping bags – as ambulances and police descended on the area.
Reports said Nordine Amrani used an FN FAL automatic rifle, a Belgian-made rifle capable of firing 700 rounds a minute, a pistol and threw three grenades in the attack.
In the initial chaos, reports said up to three men had taken part in the attack, but the Interior Ministry later confirmed only one was involved, adding the incident was not terrorism-related.
Nordine Amrani was on his way for police questioning when he attacked a crowd near a bus stop at Place Saint Lambert, a central shopping square which is the site of the city’s Christmas market and its main courthouse. It was not clear whether he committed suicide or died accidentally.
Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo expressed horror at the attack and travelled to the city. The nation’s King and Queen also arrived on the city this evening to visit survivors.
Interior Ministry official Peter Mertens said emergency medical teams were called in from as far away as the Netherlands.
The broadcaster Radio Television Belge Francophone said during the attack that all buses had been asked to leave the city centre and all shops in the area were closed, some with many customers stranded inside.
Police helicopters were flying over the city and a medical post has been set up in the courtyard of the palace of the Prince Bishops (the court house) located on the site.
Police were on the scene quickly and sealed off the square. TV images showed blood splattered across the cobblestones.
Place Saint-Lambert is a busy crossroads. Every day 1,800 buses serve the square, which leads to downtown shopping streets.
The Place Saint-Lambert and the nearby Place du Marche host Liege’s annual Christmas market which consists of 200 retail cabins and attracts some 1.5 million visitors a year.
American transportation safety regulators want to ban the use of mobile devices while driving, going so far as to say they should never be used in cars unless in case of emergency.
The National Transportation Board said Tuesday that states should ban all driver use of cell phones and other portable electronic devices, even including hands-free devices.
NTSB made the radical recommendation following a deadly highway pileup in Missouri last year when a 19-year-old pickup driver sent or received 11 texts in the 11 minutes immediately before the crash which killed him and a 15-year-old student.
The pickup, travelling at 55 miles per hour, collided into the back of a tractor truck before the pickup was rear-ended by a school bus that overrode the smaller vehicle, and a second school bus rammed into the back of the first bus.
NTSB made the radical recommendation following a deadly highway pileup in Missouri last year when a 19-year-old pickup driver sent or received 11 texts in the 11 minutes immediately before the crash which killed him and a 15-year-old student
The recommendation, unanimously agreed to by the five-member board, significantly exceeds any existing state laws restricting texting and cell phone use behind the wheel.
While the NTSB doesn’t have the power to impose restrictions, its recommendations carry significant weight with federal regulators and congressional and state lawmakers.
NTSB has previously recommended bans on texting and cell phone use by commercial truck and bus drivers and beginning drivers, but it has stopped short of calling for a ban on the use of the devices by adults behind the wheel of passenger cars.
The problem of texting while driving is getting worse despite a rush by states to ban the practice, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said last week. In November, Pennsylvania became the 35th state to forbid texting while driving.
About two out of 10 American drivers overall – and half of drivers between 21 and 24 – say they’ve thumbed messages or emailed from the driver’s seat, according to a survey of more than 6,000 drivers by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Even more, many drivers don’t think it’s dangerous when they do it – only when others do, the survey found.
At any given moment last year on US streets and highways, nearly 1 in every 100 car drivers was texting, emailing, surfing the Web or otherwise using a handheld electronic device, the safety administration said. And those activities spiked 50 per cent over the previous year.
Driver distraction wasn’t the only significant safety problem uncovered by NTSB’s investigation of the Missouri accident.
Investigators said they believe the pickup driver was suffering from fatigue that may have eroded his judgment at the time of the accident. He had an average of about five and a half hours of sleep a night in the days leading up to the accident and had had fewer than five hours of sleep the night before the accident, they said.
Regardless of the personal contributions to the accident, the fatal Missouri crash is a “big red flag for all drivers”, NTSB chairman Deborah Hersman said at a meeting to determine the cause of the accident and make safety recommendations.
It is not possible to know from cell phone records if the driver was typing, reaching for the phone or reading a text at the time of the crash, but it’s clear he was manually, cognitively and visually distracted, she said.
“Driving was not his only priority,” Deborah Hersman said.
“No call, no text, no update is worth a human life.”
Missouri had a law banning drivers under 21 years old from texting while driving at the time of the crash, but wasn’t aggressively enforcing the ban, board member Robert Sumwalt said.
“Without the enforcement, the laws don’t mean a whole lot,” Robert Sumwalt said.
As Kim Kardashian marriage to Kris Humphries was crumbling, the NBA star is said to have enjoyed a late night party with two blondes, inviting them back to couple’s martial suite.
One of the blondes, named Shell Maci according to her Twitter page, posted numerous photos to the social networking site as she and her friend snooped around the apartment, with Kim Kardashian notably absent.
The party, which took place at the presidential penthouse at the Gansevoort Hotel on Park Avenue, is said to have happened on September 22, less than a month before Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from Kris Humphries.
As well as taking plenty of snaps the girls filmed two short videos.
In one a girl looks into the camera with Kris Humphries stood behind but her it appears that he was actually being filmed by a TV camera, which can be seen in the far right side of the shot.
Kris Humphries is said to have enjoyed a late night party with two blondes, inviting them back to couple's martial suite
Whether they were the E! reality cameras have not been confirmed but were also in the room, sparking speculation it may have been a manufactured publicity stunt.
The blonde girls are seen them holding up the KK branded towels and Kris Humphries is seen clearly in the background.
As the girls film Kris Humphries appears oblivious to the face he has been caught on camera entertaining in the New York hotel suite.
As well as posing on Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian’s bed the girls were also seen exploring the reality star’s closet as well as climbing into their bathtub.
The two blonde girls are seen them holding up the KK branded towels and Kris Humphries is seen clearly in the background
While filming in the bathroom Kris Humphries can be seen walking past the doorway indicating he didn’t mind the ladies exploring the apartment.
The girls appeared excited an animated by their experience inside the couple’s plush New York pad, where they were filming Kourtney and Kim Take New York.
To prove they were in Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian’s apartment, the girls were seen holding up the couple’s towels with the KK and KH initials embroidery on them.
It is not clear if they stayed the night or simply enjoyed the party but Shell Maci tweeted: “omggggg crazy night last night.”
It was not clear why Kim Kardashian was not at the apartment at the time but the couple were not spotted together for three days from the Thursday September 22, and were pictured together again on Sunday September 25 grabbing a bite to eat.
Kourtney and Kim Take New York is currently airing on E! depicting the couple’s enjoying time together as newlyweds and Sunday’s episode saw the couple agree to try for a baby.
But by the end of the episode it became clear they were on very different pages and Kim Kardashian had changed her mind about trying for a child with Kris Humphries.
Kim Kardashian famously filed for divorce from Kris Humphries on October 31, after just 72 days of marriage.
Kris Humphries is now seeking an annulment and last week he gave an awkward interview on Good Morning America, where he deflected questions about his estranged wife.
The Spanish aristocrat, Duchesse of Alba took to the red carpet with Tom Cruise at the premiere of Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol.
Duchesse of Alba, a 85-year-old billionaire, posed for pictures with her 60-year-old husband and Tom Cruise, 49, who looked a little awkward.
The mother-of-six, who has more titles than Queen Elizabeth II, appeared more than happy to cozy up next to Tom Cruise and bask in the Callao cinema in the Spanish town.
While he is yet to turn down a Mission it appeared the prospect of entertaining the eccentric aristocrat for the evening proved too much for Tom Cruise, who appeared happy to get back to his glamorous co-stars.
Paula Patton looked simply stunning in a purple leopard print strapless gown which boasted lace detail.
The actress teamed the dramatic dress with her hair up and matching purple earrings.
The Spanish aristocrat, Duchesse of Alba took to the red carpet with Tom Cruise at the premiere of Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol
While Tom Cruise has been looking dapper on the red carpet at the other Mission Impossible premieres it appears he decided to dress down for the Spanish screening.
Tom Cruise, who is married to actress turned fashion designer Katie Holmes, opted for a camel coloured leather jacket which he teamed with a cream polo neck and brown trousers.
His British co-star Simon Pegg was dressed in a grey suit which left Tom looking a little out of place.
Despite his casual attire, Tom Cruise was still in high demand from the crowd and many fans were eager to catch a glimpse or snap a photo of the actor.
But it appeared Tom Cruise’s biggest fan for the evening was the Duchess of Alba who was seen gazing at him with a look of admiration on her face.
The Duchess was joined by her 60-year-old husband who she married in a ceremony in October.
Police investigators on New York’s Long Island announced today they believe they have discovered the skeletal remains of New Jersey prostitute Shannan Gilbert, who vanished in December 2010 after fleeing a client’s home in a panic.
Suffolk County Police Commissioner Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said searchers found the bones at around 9:15 a.m. in a dense wetland thicket, not far from where the 24-year-old disappeared from the area in 2010.
Richard Dormer said authorities believe it is Shannan Gilbert‘s corpse, although further examination will be conducted by the county medical examiner.
Police began searching for Shannan Gilbert last December when they came upon the first of what would become ten homicide victims’ remains. They were strewn along several miles of thicket along a parkway leading to Jones Beach.
They think Shannan Gilbert may have drowned accidentally while fleeing a client’s home for an unclear reason.
The body was found about a quarter of a mile from where her belongings were found in a thick, brambled area.
Last week, the search turned up Shannan Gilbert‘s purse, containing her ID, cell phone and lip gloss, as well as her jeans and shoes.
Police investigators on New York's Long Island announced today they believe they have discovered the skeletal remains of New Jersey prostitute Shannan Gilbert, who vanished in December 2010
Commissioner Richard Dormer said: “We went in with the idea we were going in one last time to see if we could find anything and we did.
“This is very tough brambled area, difficult to traverse, you can’t walk through that area and this is why it has taken us so long to find.”
He also said the location of the skeleton suggests that Shannan Gilbert may have been trying to flee across the wetland to a causeway.
Richard Dormer suggested that she had become hopelessly entangled in the brush, which he called a “tough, desolate, tangled mess”.
“The terrain would have made it impossible. Our people who were in there over the last few days had to cut through that brush and bramble area, before she was located,” he said.
Officers had to use heavy, earth-moving equipment to excavate the site.
Shannan Gilbert’s disappearance prompted the investigation which led to five bodies found in burlap sacks on Gilgo Beach last December.
The bodies have been positively identified as prostitutes advertising on Craigslist.
Since then, five more bodies have been found which have yet to be identified.
Police said they think Shannan Gilbert’s disappearance is unrelated to the other bodies but a single killer may be responsible for the ten dead.
Relatives of Megan Waterman and Maureen Brainard-Barnes, whose bodies were among the ten found, visited the scene on the first anniversary of the grisly discovery.
A police officer and his cadaver dog were following up on the disappearance of Shannan Gilbert when they came across the first set of human remains on December 11, 2010.
Two days later, three more bodies were found. By April, the total had risen to 10 bodies, all strewn along several miles of Ocean Parkway, on a barrier island south of Long Island that leads to Jones Beach.
Authorities at first believed several people could be involved, but Police Commissioner Richard Dormer has said recently that detectives now suspect one serial killer is likely responsible for all ten deaths because the victims all had some connection to the sex trade.
The victims included eight women, a man and a toddler.
Police believe the women were prostitutes and suspect the man was involved in the sex trade because he was found wearing women’s clothing. The toddler is believed to be the child of one of the prostitutes.
A senior CERN physicist from Switzerland has announced this afternoon firm evidence for the existence of the elusive Higgs Boson, or God particle.
Although the signal doesn’t meet strict scientific standards for a “full scientific discovery”, it’s still enough for researchers at CERN’S Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to predict a discovery next year.
Two separate teams of scientists have been running independent experiments in secret from each other in order to improve the veracity of the results with the team leader of one, Fabiola Gianotti, proclaiming that they believe they’ve found signs of the Higgs boson in the past year.
“We have built a solid foundation for the months ahead,” Fabiola Gianotti said.
However, CERN was cautious: “The main conclusion is that the Standard Model Higgs boson, if it exists, is most likely to have a mass constrained to the range 116-130 GeV [a unit of energy equal to billion electron volts] by the ATLAS experiment, and 115-127 GeV by CMS.
“Tantalizing hints have been seen by both experiments in this mass region, but these are not yet strong enough to claim a discovery.
“Higgs bosons, if they exist, are very short lived and can decay in many different ways. Discovery relies on observing the particles they decay into rather than the Higgs itself. Both ATLAS and CMS have analyzed several decay channels, and the experiments see small excesses in the low mass region that has not yet been excluded.”
The upshot of the experiments, therefore, is that researchers believe the Higgs is fairly lightweight, which could lead to more exciting discoveries, according to New Scientist’s Lisa Grossman.
Lisa Grossman wrote: “A Higgs of this mass, about 125 gigaelectronvolts, would blast a path to uncharted terrain. Such a lightweight would need at least one new type of particle to stabilize it.”
A senior CERN physicist from Switzerland has announced this afternoon firm evidence for the existence of the elusive Higgs Boson, or God particle
When looking at results, the scale of certainty used by researchers is the sigma, something peculiar to particle physics.
Researchers need a five-sigma level of certainty to make a bona-fide formal discovery, which means there’s only a one in a million chance that the result is a statistical error.
Scientists only formally acknowledge an experiment’s results if they hit a three sigma level, which means there’s only a 1 in 370 chance of them being a fluke.
The sigma probabilities announced today for the Higgs hunt have not been combined, but the overall ATLAS result was 2.3.
Before the press conference began, CERN described the room as “full to the rafters. People would hang from the lamps if the security guards would let them”.
The Higgs boson is regarded – by those who know about such things – as the key to understanding the universe. Its job is, apparently, to give the particles that make up atoms their mass.
Without this mass, these particles would zip though the cosmos at the speed of light, unable to bind together to form the atoms that make up everything in the universe, from planets to people.
The Higgs boson’s existence was predicted in 1964 by Edinburgh University physicist Peter Higgs. But it has eluded previous searchers – so much so that not all scientists believe in its existence.
The hunt for the Higgs boson was one of the LHC’s major tasks.
The collider, housed in an 18-mile tunnel buried deep underground near the French-Swiss border, smashes beams of protons – sub-atomic particles – together at close to the speed of light, recreating the conditions that existed a fraction of a second after the Big Bang.
If the physicists’ theory is correct, a few Higgs bosons should be created in every trillion collisions, before rapidly decaying.
This decay would leave behind a “footprint” that would show up as a bump in their graphs.
The CMS – or Compact Muon Solenoid – is a 13,000-ton machine that sits 330 feet underground, while the ATLAS, at 148 feet long and 82 feet high, is the biggest detector ever constructed.
From the Big Bang to the 1960s
The existence of the Higgs boson was put forward in the 1960s to explain why the tiny particles that make up atoms have mass.
Theory has it that as the universe cooled after the Big Bang, an invisible force known as the Higgs field formed.
This field permeates the cosmos and is made up of countless numbers of tiny particles – or Higgs bosons.
As other particles pass through it, they pick up mass.
Any benefits in the wider world from the discovery of the Higgs boson will be long term, but they could be felt in fields as diverse as medicine, computing and manufacturing.
Experts compare the search for the Higgs boson to the discovery of the electron.
The idea of the electron – a subatomic particle – was first floated in 1838, but its presence was not confirmed for another 60 years.
A century on, the electron’s existence underpins modern science. Our understanding of it is critical to the development of technology from television and CDs to radiotherapy for cancer patients
Four people have been killed and at least 75 were injured during a grenade attack in a Christmas shopping area in Liege, Belgium.
The shoppers, many of them children, ran screaming for safety in the panic as the attacker Nordine Amrani opened fire.
The dead included a 15-year-old boy, a 17-year-old girl, and a 75-year-old woman.
Nordine Amrani, 32, who was a convicted sex attacker and drug dealer, also died.
A two-year-old girl is in critical condition in hospital.
Men, women and children fled down the streets of Liege centre – some still carrying shopping bags – as ambulances and police descended on the area.
Four people have been killed and at least 75 were injured during a grenade attack in a Christmas shopping area in Liege, Belgium
Detectives said Nordine Amrani used a rifle, a pistol and grenades in the attack.
In the initial chaos, reports said up to three men had taken part in the attack, but the Interior Ministry later confirmed only one was involved, adding the incident was not terrorism-related.
Nordine Amrani was on his way for police questioning when he attacked a crowd near a bus stop at Place Saint Lambert, a central shopping square which is the site of the city’s Christmas market and its main courthouse. It was not clear whether he committed suicide or died accidentally.
Gaspard Grosjean, a journalist for local Liege newspaper La Meuse, ran over to the square just after the attack, shortly after 12:30 p.m.
“We saw people with bullet wounds in their shoulders, their hands,” the journalist said, adding that he had seen one dead body.
“I see people completely scared, people are crying, everyone is on their phones.”
Interior Ministry official Peter Mertens confirmed the attack in the city and said emergency medical teams were called in from as far away as the Netherlands.
The broadcaster Radio Television Belge Francophone said that all buses had been asked to leave the city centre and all shops in the area were closed, some with many customers stranded inside.
It said police helicopters were flying over the city and a medical post has been set up in the courtyard of the palace of the Prince Bishops (the court house) located on the site.
Police were on the scene quickly and sealed off the square. TV images showed blood splattered across the cobblestones.
Valerie Schaaps, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office in Brussels, confirmed there had been explosions and gunfire, causing injuries.
Place Saint-Lambert is a busy crossroads. Every day 1,800 buses serve the square, which leads to downtown shopping streets. The Place Saint-Lambert and the nearby Place du Marche host the Liege’s annual Christmas market which consists of 200 retail cabins and attracts some 1.5 million visitors a year.
Police in Dyer County, Tennessee, have launched a murder investigation after the body of mother-of-four Karen Swift, who vanished after Halloween party, was found.
Karen Swift’s body was found among bushes and undergrowth near a cemetery just two miles from her home
Investigators are currently giving no details about how she was murdered and no suspects have been named.
Karen Swift, 44, was last seen outside her home on October 30 at 1:30 a.m. after returning from a Halloween party.
Twenty days before her disappearance, Karen Swift had filed for divorce from her husband David, citing irreconcilable differences, myfoxmemphis.com reports.
According to court documents, the couple seemed to agree on a custody arrangement and child support payments while they were still living together.
Karen Swift, 44, was last seen outside her home on October 30 at 1:30 a.m. after returning from a Halloween party
Karen Swift had two sons in college and two daughters aged seven and nine.
Her body was found on Saturday after the once-green vegetation that had concealed it had thinned due to the cold weather.
The body was identified on Sunday using dental records.
Karen Swift’s car was found about a mile from her home, with a flat tire.
Her father Gary Johnson, 67, last month told ABC she could have got a flat tire and decided to leave the car and walk home when something happened to her.
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation special agent in charge John Mehr said the vehicle was searched for evidence but did not say what may have been found.
The timeline of events leaves questions, and a multi-hour window, up for investigation.
Karen Swift attended a Halloween party at the Dyersburg Country Club-The Farms the night before she disappeared, and arrived home to the house she shared with her ex-husband around midnight. She had picked up one of the couples’ daughters from a sleepover since the girl was not feeling well.
The State Gazette reports that Karen Swift and her husband David bumped into each other on the stairs when she came home; making that the last time anyone reported seeing her.
The next morning, Karen Swift was not in the house so David called her cell phone and got no answer. A neighbor then called David to tell him that her abandoned car was sitting off the side of a small nearby highway.
David Swift then reportedly made several calls trying to ascertain Karen’s whereabouts: he called one of their older sons, who was at college in Arkansas, he called some of Karen’s friends, all of whom had no clues.
It was one of Karen Swift’s friends who called the police department to report her missing at 2:37 p.m. Sunday afternoon, and not David. The police then told the friend to have David call them and he did so.
The following search included crime lab specialists, K9 teams and ground crews searching the rivers and lakes surrounding the area where Karen Swift’s car was found.
There was one initial clue that gave an inkling of hope but ended up being a tangential issue.
A week after Karen Swift disappeared, one of her neighbors was arrested for aggravated animal cruelty.
The aptly-named John Hogshooter, 39, was arrested after allegedly poisoning two local dogs, one of which belonged to the Swifts.
Given the disturbing nature of his crimes and proximity to the Swifts house, his car and home were searched for clues relating to Karen’s disappearance but was ruled out as a suspect shortly after the investigators found nothing relating him to her case.
Karen Swift’s brother Jeffrey Johnson said the young daughters were “in shock” with their mother gone.
David Swift’s lawyer Timothy Naifeh said: “It’s very emotional for Mr. Swift and the family.
“They’re asking at least for this period of time to have some privacy – it’s time for grieving and it’s time for mourning.
“It’s heartbreaking and it’s very, very sad.”
Karen Swift’s disappearance prompted a massive ground and aerial search.
Four people were arrested in Tampa Bay, Florida, after police discovered Steven and Cynthia Bowers, a middle-aged Florida couple, were holding a swingers’ club at their three-bedroom home.
Following a six-week investigation, Tampa Bay sheriff’s officers raided the property and found all three bedrooms lined wall-to-wall with beds, a dancing pole, spanking table and large televisions which were playing pornographic films.
Tenants Steven Bowers, 56, and Cynthia Bowers, 55, both of St Petersburg were arrested as were their friends Ricky Zabala, 55, and Pamela Zabala, 54, who are believed to have helped the Bowers operate the club.
They were charged on Saturday with operating a sexually-oriented business without a license. They were also charged with operating a bottle club without proper zoning and licensing.
Cynthia Bowers
The business was thought to have been in operation from Wednesday to Sunday from 6:00 p.m. until the early hours of the morning, with a line of tiki torches lighting the way up the driveway for guests
Sheriff’s office launched an investigation after several neighbours complained.
Steven Bowers
Landlord Sheriff Iguaran told the St Petersburg Times that Steven and Cynthia Bowers seemed like excellent tenants as they always paid their rent on time and kept the grass neatly trimmed.
The landlord said: “They told me they were a party family. As long as there was no criminal activity, I had no problem.”
It wasn’t until last week he learned from the county code enforcement that the couple was hosting an illegal swingers club.
He said: “I am very sad to find this on my property, you don’t know how much.”
Police believe the Bowers’ “parties” at the house boomed into an unlicensed sex club business where single guests paid to get in and couples got in for free. There was also said to be a bring-your-own-bottle policy.
Bart Heller, a jilted boyfriend from Fort Wayne, Indiana, posted on Facebook a text that led police to a gruesome murder scene, where he killed two 19-year-olds before committing suicide.
Police found the bodies after a getting a tip from thousands of miles away.
Bart Heller, 43, posted at 2:26 pm Saturday: “someone call 911. three dead bodies at 3229 lima road fort wayne indiana. I’ve killed ryann, erin, and myself. people were warned not to f******* play me and ruin me. they didn’t listen. sorry about your luck.”
Nancy Lopez, who lives across the country in Washington state, spotted the Facebook posting on her status news feed and called police.
Bart Heller posted on Facebook a text that led police to a gruesome murder scene, where he killed two 19-year-olds to death before committing suicide
Less than 20 minutes later, police arrived at the address to find Erin Jehl, Bart Heller’s ex-girlfriend, and Ryann Tipton, both 19, shot to death. Bart Heller was also dead in the house, according to reports.
Bart Heller apparently killed Erin Jehl after she dumped him several days before. Ryann Tipton was Erin Jehl’s high school friend and was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Police have not formally identified Bart Heller as the shooter, but said Erin Jehl was picking up some of her things from her ex-boyfriend when he killed her and Ryann Tipton.
Bart Heller apparently killed Erin Jehl after she dumped him several days before
Police do not believe Ryann Tipton and Erin Jehl were romantically involved.
Bart Heller’s Facebook profile, as well as his post, has since been removed by Facebook.
However, Saturday afternoon, Nancy Lopez saw the posting and panicked.
Nancy Lopez told WANE TV she had never met Bart Heller. He sent her a friend request on the social network saying he wanted to get to know people from different parts of the country.
Their interactions were brief and rare.
“They were just more like, <<Hi. How are you?>>. That kind of thing. We never talked serious,” Nancy Lopez said.
It’s unclear how long Bart Heller dates Erin Jehl or what drove the shooting. However, there was a significant age gap between the two.
Verizon Wireless apologized yesterday for sending out a mass text message to thousands of people warning of a “civil emergency” and an “extreme threat to life”.
Verizon text urging people to “take shelter before 1:24 p.m.” was sent out at 12:26 p.m. on Monday to cell phone users in the New Jersey counties of Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris and Ocean.
It led to scores of worried residents calling their local police departments, NJ.com reports.
Many people were panic stricken and in a state of shock and confusion.
Verizon text urging people to “take shelter before 1:24 p.m.” was sent out at 12:26 p.m. on Monday to cell phone users in the New Jersey counties of Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris and Ocean
About two hours after the mass text was sent out, Verizon issued an apology, saying that it was a “test emergency notification” that failed to say it was a test.
Company spokesman David Samberg said: “This test message was not clearly identified as a test.
“We apologize for any inconvenience or concern this message may have caused.”
Police departments and county authorities confirmed that they received a high volume of 911 calls from concerned residents asking whether there was an actual emergency.
Before Verizon came forward to issue the apology, authorities thought it may have been the work of hackers.
Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden said: “There is no reason to panic here. It is a false text done maliciously.”
It also prompted the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security to issue a special statement on Twitter this afternoon reassuring citizens there was no actual emergency.
Four US soldiers have been killed when two helicopters crashed on a training exercise at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, reports quoting a military spokesman said.
Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, told the Seattle Times the circumstances of Monday night’s crash remained unclear.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the deceased,” Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield said, promising a “thorough investigation”.
Joint Base Lewis-McChord is a joint US army and air force facility.
The facility supports more than 100,000 military and civilian personnel, contract employees and retirees, the Seattle Times reports.
Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield said two OH-58 Kiowa choppers had crashed in the aviation training area south-west of the base at around 20:00 local time in clear skies.
“We will conduct a thorough investigation,” he said.
“We will do everything in our power to support the families of the brave soldiers who died this evening.”
Russian scientists say that sniffing a potential partner’s scent could tell if Mr. Right has a sexually transmitted disease (STD).
Russian researchers found that gonorrhea-infected men smelt “putrid” to women, reports MSNBC.com.
“Our research revealed that infection disease reduces odor attractiveness in humans,” wrote Mikhail Moshkin, a professor at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Russia, and the lead author of research published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
The off-putting scent may be subtle, more a chemical warning than a stench of body odor, but it does have some effect, according to the experiment conducted by Mikhail Moshkin and his colleagues.
The scientists had already observed that certain animals, such as mice and rats, were not as attracted to the scents of those that were infected with disease, reports MSNBC.com.
They investigated if humans would also be turned off by the scent of an infected person, particularly one with an STD.
The researchers took samples of armpit sweat and spit from 34 Russian men aged between 17 and 25.
The group included 13 young men with gonorrhea, 16 who were healthy and five who had had the disease but were successfully treated.
Then 18 female students aged 17 to 20 were asked to sniff the samples.
They obtained sweat samples by dressing the men in tight-fitting T-shirts with cotton pads sewn into the armpits.
After an hour of sweating, men bagged their shirts and the pads were placed in glass vials for the women to sniff.
The women ranked the infected men less than half as high as healthy or recovered guys on a “pleasantness score” that assessed scent.
And when they were asked to describe the scent, the women said that nearly 50% of the infected men’s sweat smelt “putrid”.
The researchers said the study indicates that humans, like other animals, might use scent to sniff out appropriate mates.
“We can conclude that unpleasant body odor of infected persons can reduce the probability of a dangerous partnership,” the scientists say in the MSNBC.com report.
Scientists have developed a new gel that could help banish the redness suffered by people with “middle-age acne” or rosacea skin condition in just four weeks.
According to researchers, the gel contains a drug widely used in eye drops to treat glaucoma, the disease that can cause blindness, which works by constricting blood vessels.
When used in the eye, the drug makes blood vessels shrink and reduces pressure that can cause vision problems.
Researchers have reformulated the drug into a gel that can make blood vessels in the surface of skin contract, reducing the red and flushed appearance that many rosacea sufferers endure.
Photo Source: waterdropcosmetic.com
Generally, one in ten adults suffers from middle-age acne, with twice as many women affected as men.
The skin condition actually starts with frequent episodes of flushing, usually in fair-skinned people who are genetically susceptible to rapidly reddening skin.
It has been suggested that rosacea is triggered by a microscopic mite which usually lives harmlessly on the skin.
The mites have been found in higher numbers on people with rosacea, but there remains no proof that they actually cause it.
During flushing episodes, tiny blood vessels quickly dilate, allowing more blood to flow through.
They then relax and return to their normal diameter. But over time, they can become permanently dilated, allowing higher amounts of blood to flow near the skin’s surface. Many sufferers go on to develop spots, especially around the nose.
Eventually, flushing results in leakage of inflammatory cells out of the blood vessels and into the skin.
These inflammatory cells then migrate toward the surface of the skin, resulting in spots.
Many people find the flushing is made worse by triggers ranging from spicy food, to stress, alcohol or cold weather.
Most existing acne treatment regimens for rosacea involve antibiotic creams and gels to control infections on the skin caused by the condition.
Laser therapy can also make the blood vessels shrink and needs to be repeated after a few months.
Scientists at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, used the new gel on 122 rosacea sufferers once or twice a day for four weeks.
Within 12 hours, there was an improvement in redness, according to results published in the British Journal of Dermatology.
Michael Jackson’s house items from the home where he spent his final days have been displayed at Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills, where his adoring fans turn the place into a shrine.
The display includes a Victorian baby grand piano, the wooden armoire where Michael Jackson had written a note to himself on the mirror and a kitchen chalkboard where his children inscribed the message, “I love daddy”.
About 25 members of the Official Michael Jackson Fans of Southern California spent the weekend making and delivering glitter-covered cards, handmade Christmas ornaments, flowers and pictures to the auction rooms. They will be passed on to the Jackson family.
Michael Jackson’s house items from the home where he spent his final days have been displayed at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills, where his adoring fans turn the place into a shrine
Julien’s Auctions announced last month that it would sell the contents of the sprawling home where Michael Jackson died in 2009.
On Sunday, Julien’s Auctions invited Michael Jackson fans to preview its exhibit of the home’s art and furnishings before it opened to the public on Monday.
“This means a lot, because we don’t have a place to go to leave things for the family,” said Christine Tucker, spokeswoman for the fan club.
“He inspires us to create. We make these beautiful things and we want his kids and his mom to see it.”
Karen Jackson, a 57-year old fan, stayed up all night working on her creation – a charm-covered chain anchored by a metal “M” that includes tiny photos of Prince, Paris and Blanket.
“I’ve been working on this for a year,” Karen Jackson said.
“I hadn’t finished it because I didn’t know how to get it to them.”
Darren Julien, president of Julien’s Auctions, said he sought permission from the Michael Jackson’s family to include fans in the auction exhibit, and the megastar’s mother requested that he deliver any handmade items from fans to her.
“They put their hearts into it because they want the kids and Mrs. Jackson to see how much love they have for Michael,” Darren Julien said.
“Michael Jackson has played such an important part in our careers and lives, and this is a fun way to give back. This is Michael’s VIP reception.”
Julien’s Auctions sold the contents of Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch in April, 2009. The company also sold Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” jacket for $1.8 million over the summer and his signature spangled glove for $350,000 in 2009.
For the auction of items from Michael Jackson’s rented mansion at 100 North Carolwood Drive, Julien’s Auctions has recreated the home’s various rooms inside the Beverly Hills showroom.
There is a formal dining room anchored by a long table and 10 carved chairs, an elegant living room with damask sofas, and several bedrooms – including the one where Michael Jackson died.
The headboard of his bed was removed from the auction at his family’s request, so fans filled the space where the bed would have been with their tribute.
Among the lots available for sale, fans were most interested in photographing the armoire with Michael Jackson’s handwritten message (expected to sell for at least $6,000) and the chalkboard note from his children (expected to fetch more than $400).
Other items for sale include carved wooden tables, antique statues and various framed paintings.
Darren Julien said he wanted Michael Jackson’s fans to be part of the exhibit “not because they’re going to buy anything, but to honor his legacy”.
“Fans are welcome to add to the tribute throughout the week,” he said.
The exhibit of items is free and open to the public. The auction will be held Saturday.
Scientists from the University of Georgia and the Mayo Clinic in US have developed a vaccine that could deal a serious blow to seven in ten lethal cancers.
In tests, the vaccine it shrunk breast tumours by 80%, and researchers believe it could also tackle prostate, pancreatic, bowel and ovarian cancers.
Even tumours that resist treatment with the best medicines on the market, including the “wonder drug” Herceptin, may be susceptible to the vaccine.
The experiments done so far have been on mice, but researchers hope to pilot the drug on people within two years.
If all goes well, the vaccine – one of the first to combat cancer – could be on the market by 2020.
Rather than attacking cancer cells, like many drugs, the new treatment harnesses the power of the immune system to fight tumours.
The search for cancer vaccines has until now been hampered by fears that healthy tissue would be destroyed with tumours.
To get round this, researchers, who led the study, were focused on a protein called MUC1 that is made in bigger amounts in cancerous cells than in healthy ones.
Not only is there more of it, but a sugar that it is “decorated” with has a distinctive shape.
The vaccine “trains” the immune system to recognize the rogue sugar and turn its arsenal against the cancer.
Researcher Professor Sandra Gendler said: “Cancer cells have a special way of thwarting the immune system by putting sugars on the surface of tumour cells so they can travel around the body without being detected.
“To enable the immune system to recognize the sugar, it took a special vaccine that had three parts to it.
“That turned out to be a winning combination.”
The co-author, Professor Geert-Jan Boons said: “This vaccine elicits a very strong immune response.
“It activates all three components of the immune system to reduce tumour size by an average of 80 per cent.”
The misshaped MUC1 sugar is found in 90% of breast and pancreatic cancers and around 60% of prostate cancers, as well as many other tumours.
The researchers believe more than 70% of all cancers that kill may be susceptible to the vaccine.
Despite their excitement, the work is still only at an early stage.
After the “dramatic” results of the tests on mice with breast tumours, the researchers now plan to try the drug on human cancer cells in a dish.
Years of large-scale human trials would need to follow before the drug was judged safe and effective for widespread use in hospitals.
It could then be used with existing drugs to boost treatment and given to prevent tumours from coming back after surgery.
Men and women known to be at high risk of cancer because of their genes could also be vaccinated in an attempt to stop tumours from appearing.
Prof. Geert-Jan Boons, who has founded a biotech company to commercialize the vaccine, said: “We are beginning to have therapies that can teach our immune system to fight what is uniquely found in cancer cells.
“When combined with early diagnosis, the hope is that one day cancer will become a manageable disease.”
The vaccine is one of several treatments in the pipeline that work by triggering the immune system to attack and kill cancer cells.
One of the challenges of the U.S. government during nuclear weapons testing in the early 50’s was to design a camera capable of capturing a nuclear device mid-explosion.
The result, unearthed this week by blog Damn Interesting, was the “Rapatronic” camera – an ultra-high-speed camera that sat seven miles from the blast site and captured images at high speed – including the image of an 100-ft ball of fire, one ten-millionth of a second after detonation.
The images were taken during the Tumbler-Snapper nuclear tests in 1952.
The “Rapatronic” camera - an ultra-high-speed camera that sat seven miles from the blast site and captured images at high speed - including this image of an 100-ft ball of fire, one ten-millionth of a second after detonation
Damn Interesting wrote: “These single-use cameras were able to snap a photo one ten-millionth of a second after detonation from about seven miles away, with an exposure time of as little as ten nanoseconds.”
“At that instant, a typical fireball had already reached about 100 feet in diameter, with temperatures three times hotter than the surface of the sun.”
No technology at the time was available to wind the cameras on fast enough to take a second photo – so the military typically used arrays of ten cameras aimed at the same bomb.
No shutter could move fast enough, either, so the camera specialist who designed the Rapatronic camera used an array of polarized lenses combined with an electrical element to “shut” the camera shutter in one ten-millionth of a second.
The designer, Harold Eugene Edgerton, a MIT photography specialist, is also credited with popularizing strobe lighting.
Sources with close contacts inside CERN in Switzerland predicted this weekend that sighting of the first strong signs of a particle vital to support Einstein’s ideas of the universe will be reported on Tuesday.
The scientists warned that there would be no announcement of a full scientific discovery – but even confirmation that something like the long-sought Higgs boson had been spotted would be a major advance. The God particle is believed to have given shape to the universe after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.
Oliver Buchmueller, a senior member of one of the two teams seeking the particle in CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) this year, said: “I am feeling quite a level of excitement.”
Two separate LHC teams – using the ATLAS and CMS detectors – have smashed protons in 350 trillion collisions this year, hoping to see the Higgs particle in the debris.
Science bloggers with close contacts among the tight-lipped front-line research groups, known as ATLAS and – Buchmueller’s – CMS, said their understanding was that both had found signals that look very much like the Higgs particle.
“The anticipation among physics enthusiasts is almost palpable,” said theoretician Sascha Vongehr on his blog, www.science20.com. The observation of a “light Higgs” would be announced at a December 13 CERN seminar, he said.
Rolf Heuer, CERN’s director general, revealing the seminar would be given updates on the Higgs search by the heads of the ATLAS and the CMS groups who work independently and in secret from each other, said there would be no discovery announcement.
For that, there would have to be a high degree of certainty – measured at 5 sigma, in scientific terms, or a 0.00003 per cent chance of error- by both.
The observation of a “light Higgs” would be announced at a December 13 CERN seminar
Informed bloggers are saying it is hovering at about 2.5 sigma for CMS and 3.5 for ATLAS – enough to qualify the sightings as “an observation” – both would correspond to a probability above 95 per cent that the observations are accurate.
But, said Oliver Buchmueller, without confirming that reading for his own team, if the ATLAS group had found signals similar to those seen in CMS, “then we’re moving very close to a conclusion in the first few months of next year”.
The Higgs particle is essentially a missing piece of the “Standard Model” of physics jigsaw, which explains how the universe is glued together.
So far, it’s the only elementary particle predicted by this model that scientists have not been able to create with atom smashers.
The director general of CERN, Rolf Heuer, said recently that he doesn’t think confirmation of the particle’s existence will be made until around October 2012.
But Professor John Ellis, a former head of theoretical physics at CERN, told the BBC that he expects to see the “first glimpse” of the God particle this week.
Prof. John Ellis said: “There seem to be some hints emerging there… and that’s what we’re going to learn on Tuesday.”
The veracity of the results has been ensured by two separate teams, each comprising of hundreds of researchers, searching using different experiments.
One team, using scientists from 169 universities, has been working on the ATLAS detector, which at 148 feet long and 82 feet high, is the biggest ever constructed.
The other is using the CMS – or Compact Muon Solenoid – a 13,000-ton detector that sits 330 feet underground.
There are some scientists, however, who have poured cold water on the news, with Nobel Prize winner Martinus Veltman from the Universities of Michigan and Utrecht telling the Guardian that “there is no Higgs”.
Terry Joe “TJ” Volner, the babysitter of a 4-year-old boy from Wright County, Missouri, has been accused of slitting the boy’s throat and sending a photo of the mutilated body to his mother to prove that he had killed the toddler.
TJ Volner, 22, took a series of photos after allegedly killing the boy, including one showing the dead boy’s chin propped up by a stick.
Prosecutors said Terry Joe Volner took the gruesome “trophy” photos to prove to his mother Tina Miller that he had killed Dusty Guenther, the only son of Gina Guenther.
Police say that he was jealous of Gina Guenther’s new boyfriend, though it is unclear whether or not she and TJ Volner had ever dated.
TJ Volner was arrested after being found in Gina Guenther’s home with a self-inflicted stab wounds.
Love letters from TJ Volner to the boy’s mother were found in the home where the killing took place.
Terry Joe “TJ” Volner, the babysitter of 4-year-old boy Dusty Guenther, has been accused of slitting the boy’s throat
According to police, the mother’s boyfriend had visited the house the night before the toddler was killed. Gina Guenther is the mother of four, and at the time of the alleged murder one of her daughters was in the house but was not harmed.
At the time of the incident, Gina Guenther was at work while her two eldest daughters were at school.
According to court documents, TJ Volner used his cell phone to send pictures to his mother, though why he would want to prove that grizzly fact to her is beyond understanding.
The murderer boasted that he had killed all four of the children as well as Gina Guenther’s new boyfriend, though the three daughters were untouched and no other bodies were found.
One of the pictures of the dead boy showed part of a man’s arm with a tattoo, which helped investigators as they said TJ Volner has the same tattoo on his arm.
The toddler was found last week in an ice covered lagoon near his home.
TJ Volner, who was released from prison in March from a three year sentence for theft, had been staying with Gina Guenther on and off since his release.
Sergeant Casey Jadwin with the Missouri State Highway Patrol said that TJ Volner confessed to him that he’d killed the child by stabbing him in the neck with a folding-knife.
In addition to a murder charge, TJ Volner faces charges of armed criminal action and abandonment of a corpse.
The killer is being held in jail on a $1million bond.
Louis Dowler, Kate Winslet’s former love, is still coming to terms with the break-up and the way he was so brutally discarded nearly three months after he was unceremoniously dumped by the actress.
Speaking publicly for the first time since he was abandoned by Kate Winslet, male model Louis Dowler, 35, says: “I don’t think Kate behaved well and it is still very raw for me.”
Famous for her own emotional performances at award ceremonies, Kate Winslet, 35, left Louis Dowler close to tears after they went on what should have been a romantic trip to Richard Branson’s Caribbean hideaway on Necker Island this summer.
Instead, it was a disaster. While Kate Winslet was hailed a hero for rescuing Sir Richard’s mother, Eve, from the fire which engulfed the luxurious retreat, Louis Dowler was devastated when the trip ended badly.
“I was in love with her and you can’t switch that off overnight,” Louis Dowler tells me.
“I’m not sure Kate treated me well.”
For his part Abel Smith, who eccentrically changed his name by deed poll some years ago to Ned RocknRoll, subsequently informed his wife, Eliza Pearson, 23, the sweet-natured daughter of multi-millionaire Viscount Cowdray, that he had fallen for the Titantic star.
While Eliza Pearson took it on the chin, Louis Dowler is still struggling with what happened.
“Kate came home with me to Cornwall and we just hung out together.
“She met my parents and family,” he says.
“I thought we were inseparable. I certainly haven’t found anyone else since.”
The Burberry model says that at first he was blissfully happy with Kate Winslet when they met after her split from film director husband Sam Mendes, spending time at her $4 million New York apartment.
Louis Dowler, who was at a party for the Omega boutique at the new Westfield shopping centre in East London, adds: “I don’t want to go into details but it wasn’t a straightforward break-up.
“I’m a laid-back guy, so I am not walking around with a long face – but I do still hold a torch for her.”
Ben Ellis, from Gilmer County, Georgia, a 14-year-old boy was found dead in his bed the day after having his wisdom teeth removed.
Ben Ellis had the dental surgery on Wednesday morning. Less than 24 hours later he was dead.
Law enforcement is investigating the teenager’s mysterious death and will perform an autopsy and toxicology tests, but there is said to be a history of seizures in the family, which Ben Ellis has suffered from before.
Ben Ellis’ family told the Sheriff’s Office that he seemed fine on Wednesday after the surgery, according to wsbtv.com.
“He had dental surgery at approximately 10:30 on Wednesday morning. Through the rest of the day he seemed to be doing fine. He went to bed.
“Through the day he had taken one penicillin tablet and one Oxycodone, that we’re aware of. They [his parents] checked on him around 1am, and again, he was doing fine.
“Then at 6:00 a.m., when they went to get him up, they found him deceased,” Lt Frank Coleman said.
Ben Ellis, who was a freshman at Gilmer County High School, was the youngest of four children and was active in the Future Farmers of America, winning competitions for his goats
Ben Ellis, who was a freshman at Gilmer County High School, was the youngest of four children and was active in the Future Farmers of America, winning competitions for his goats.
Teacher Ashton Allen, who has taught Ben Ellis for two years in a row, told wsbtv.com: “He loved showing his goats more than anything. You could see it on his face when he walked into the show ring.
“He was the person I would always count on. Every time I would walk into class he’d be sitting here smiling at me. He was just so full of life and full of joy.”
School principal Erick Hofsteter was moved to tears by Ben Ellis’ death and said: “It serves as a reminder of just how fragile life can be. He was our friend. We’re going to miss him.”
The GBI is performing an autopsy and toxicology tests. Test results could take as long as three months.
