The famous World Trade Center cross doesn’t belong at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, according to American Atheists. The group has filed suit to yank the planned cross, a 17-foot T-joint found upright in the rubble of 9/11, arguing that it violates the Constitution by promoting Christianity on…
Continue reading …Alien life may appear in a test tube on Earth long before it’s found elsewhere—and by some standards, it’s already here, researchers say. Multiple teams of scientists around the world are experimenting with genetic tools in an effort to create synthetic life, the New York Times finds. Having a…
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Spreadsheet put out by Department of Health as part of revised business plan says cost of transition is now £1.49bn. The cost of the government’s plans to reform the NHS is rising by almost £1m a day, the Guardian has learned. The information – in a spreadsheet put out by the Department of Health as part of its revised business plan last week – saw officials admit that the cost of transition was now £1.49bn. The figure is £160m more than the previous estimate, issued six months ago when the reforms bill was first published. In January, the department estimated the total cost of the structural change to be £1.33bn. The health bill was amended following suggestions by the Future Forum, a committee set up by David Cameron to head off criticism over the wide-ranging reforms. But the effect appears to have been to increase significantly the cost of the changes to the taxpayer. A new impact assessment will be completed by the Department of Health following the forum’s recommendations. Analysis by the Health Service Journal revealed that the transition to placing health budgets in the hands of GPs has already cost £228m since last July. The size, scale and cost of the reforms have long troubled MPs and health service professionals. Trade unions claim three-quarters of the estimated cost of the transition will go towards redundancy payments to 20,000 staff, suggesting average settlements of more than £45,000. John Healey, the shadow health secretary, said: “People will be shocked at the scale of wasted cost due to David Cameron’s NHS upheaval. “These new figures, slipped out by the Department of Health, show that the costs of this unnecessary reorganisation are spiralling out of control. “The government is forcing these changes without knowing how much they will cost and before they have been approved by parliament. The last year has been a wasted year for the NHS, with services being cut back and long waiting times returning.” Alan Maynard, the professor of health economics at York University, said the “delays and time taken for the reforms have really begun to affect morale and work ethic”. He added: “People just won’t work if they don’t know where they will be next year or whether they have a job.” The Department of Health said the benefits of the changes would “far outweigh” the costs. At the time the bill was published, ministers pointed out that NHS Information Centre figures showed that between 1999 and 2009 under Labour, the number of health service managers increased from 23,378 to 42,509, adding that the difference was close to the number of expected redundancies. Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, said the new, slimmed-down NHS would reap a financial bonanza of more than £11bn – mostly down to reduced “administrative” spend. NHS Health Health policy Andrew Lansley Randeep Ramesh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Julia Roberts looks like she hasn’t aged a day in her new makeup ads. Now British advertising authorities have told off L’Oreal for going too far touching up Julia Roberts—and Christy Turlington. The cosmetics firm was ordered to pull two overly airbushed magazine ads featuring the models after the…
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Prosecution asks for Stuart Mungall to be jailed after the ‘mercy killing’ of his terminally ill wife A retired actor who found fame in the 1970s as the lorry driver in the Yorkie bar TV ads has admitted to killing his terminally ill wife. Stuart Mungall, 71, denied murdering Joan, 69, also a former actor. The prosecution accepted his plea of guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He smothered her with a pillow at their home in Tooting, south London, on 3 December, in what he saw as a mercy killing, then took tablets to kill himself, the Old Bailey was told. The case was adjourned for sentencing, but the prosecution asked for a jail term because his wife – who suffered from the neurodegenerative Pick’s disease, leaving her unable to move and with a life expectancy of months – had not asked to die. The judge told him: “You took the law into your own hands and you took a life in doing so.” Mungall was suffering from depression as he struggled to care for his wife of 43 years. He thought he saw an “expression” in her eyes, “like an animal who needs to be put down and cannot say it”, the court heard. He told police: “She’s not in pain any more. She was in such pain last night. Doctors say do this and that but they cannot make it better, so I made it better.” Mark Dennis, QC, prosecuting, said that Mungall’s wife told a nurse the day before her death that she was “taking it all in her stride”. The couple, who ran a garden centre after retiring from acting, were said to be devoted to each other. Despite being housebound, mostly bedridden and almost entirely dependent on her husband, Joan remained mentally alert and adopted a “realistic and sanguine approach to her condition”, said Dennis. “There is no suggestion that his wife wanted to end her life prematurely, nor had she encouraged the defendant to act as he did.” Mungall, who appeared in Casualty, The Bill and other television series, was said to have shunned offers of help in looking after his wife, who had worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and was a friend of the actor Jane Asher. She did receive some medical support at home but Mungall had failed to accept his wife would need palliative care at a local hospice, the court heard. He developed a depressive illness that led him to “snap” on that morning, said Dennis. The night before the killing, Mungall told his brother he was “thinking about placing a pillow over her face” but after an hour-long conversation Mungall’s brother did not think he would “do anything silly”. At 3pm Mungall made three phone calls to his brother, daughter and a close friend, to admit what he had done. “This was a deliberate killing. It was not assisted suicide, nor did it even come close to that,” said Dennis. “There is no evidence she asked that morning to be killed or asked the day before to be killed. “The most the defendant has said is that morning he looked into her eyes and she gave a look that he took to mean he should do what he went on to do. “He had chosen to do what he did. No doubt in his own mind doing what he thought in his state was best for him and for her. He has therefore cut short a life.” The prosecution asked for a sentence of less than one year’s imprisonment. Mungall had served the equivalent of six months in custody before being granted bail. Adjourning sentencing until 23 September Peter Beaumont, the recorder of London, said: “I am not making any promises but I want to explore every angle.” He told Mungall: “You present a difficult sentencing exercise because you took the law into your own hands and took a life in doing so.” Miranda Moore QC, defending, said: “He took the life of the woman he loved.” After his wife’s death, Mungall told a friend: “At last Joan is out of pain and free from it all.” Crime Caroline Davies guardian.co.uk
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Evidence found in private detective’s notes believed to relate to phone which Rebekah Brooks gave to Sara Payne as gift Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter Sarah was abducted and murdered in July 2000, has been told by Scotland Yard that they have found evidence to suggest she was targeted by the News of the World’s investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who specialised in hacking voicemail. Police had earlier told her correctly that her name was not among those recorded in Mulcaire’s notes, but on Tuesday officers from Operation Weeting told her they had found her personal details among the investigator’s notes. These had previously been thought to refer to a different target. Friends of Sara Payne have told the Guardian that she is “absolutely devastated and deeply disappointed” at the disclosure. Her cause had been championed by the News of the World, and in particular by its former editor, Rebekah Brooks. Believing that she had not been a target for hacking, Payne wrote a farewell column for the paper’s final edition on 10 July, referring to its staff as “my good and trusted friends”. The evidence that police have found in Mulcaire’s notes is believed to relate to a phone given to Sara Payne by Rebekah Brooks as a gift to help her stay in touch with her supporters. One of Payne’s close colleagues said: “We are all appalled and disgusted. Sara is in bits about it.” Coming after the disclosure that the News of the World hacked and deleted the voicemail of the murdered Surrey schoolgirl Milly Dowler, the news will raise further questions about whether News Corporation is “fit and proper” to own TV licences and its 39% share of BSkyB. It will also revive speculation about the possible role in phone hacking of Rebekah Brooks, who was personally very closely involved in covering the aftermath of Sarah Payne’s murder and has always denied any knowledge of voicemail interception. On 15 July Brooks resigned as chief executive of News International and was arrested and interviewed by police. The Labour MP Tom Watson, who has been an outspoken critic of News International, said of the Payne revelation: “This is a new low. The last edition of the News of the World made great play of the paper’s relationship with the Payne family. Brooks talked about it at the committee inquiry. Now this. I have nothing but contempt for the people that did this.” Friends of Sara Payne said she had accepted the News of the World as a friend and ally. Journalists from the paper attended the funerals of her mother and father and visited her sick bed after she suffered a severe stroke in December 2009. In the wake of the Guardian’s disclosure on 4 July of the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone, there were rumours that Sara Payne also might have been a victim. Police from Operation Weeting, which has been investigating the News of the World’s phone hacking since January, checked the names of Payne and her closest associates against its database of all the information contained in the notebooks, computer records and audio tapes seized from Glenn Mulcaire in August 2006. They found nothing. The News of the World’s sister paper, the Sun, was quick to report on its website, on 8 July, that Payne had been told there was no evidence to support the rumours. The next day the Sun quoted her paying tribute to the News of the World, whose closure had been announced by News International. “It’s like a friend died. I’m so shocked,” she told them. In the paper’s final edition on Sunday 10 July, Payne registered her own anger at the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone: “We have all seen the news this week and the terrible things that have happened, and I have no wish to sweep it under the carpet. Indeed, there were rumours – which turned out to be untrue – that I and my fellow Phoenix charity chiefs had our phones hacked. But today is a day to reflect, to look back and remember the passing of an old friend, the News of the World.” Since then, detectives from Weeting have searched the Mulcaire database for any reference to mobile phone numbers used by Sara Payne or her closest associates or any other personal details. They are believed to have uncovered notes made by Mulcaire which include some of these details but which had previously been thought to refer to a different target of his hacking. Police have some 11,000 pages of notes which Mulcaire made in the course of intercepting the voicemail of targets chosen by the News of the World. Friends of Sara Payne today said that she had made no decision about whether to sue the paper and that she wanted the police to be able to finish their work before she decided. Operation Weeting are reviewing all high-profile cases involving the murder, abduction or assault of any child since 2001 in an attempt to find out if any of those involved was the target of phone-hacking. Phone hacking News of the World Rebekah Brooks Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Nick Davies Amelia Hill guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …A little girl’s body has been exhumed 54 years after her murder by cops who now think they can nail the killer using new forensics techniques. Prime suspect Jack McCullough, a former neighbor of the 7-year-old girl and an ex cop, has already been extradited from Washington to Illinois to…
Continue reading …Inventive French hackers managed to turn their country’s equivalent of the White House website into an anti-Nicolas Sarkozy game. For several hours, visitors to the Elysee Palace website were rerouted to a page—viewable here — featuring a cartoon image of the president being pushed out of the presidential palace toward…
Continue reading …“I deal with answers and questions,” Jeopardy host Alex Trebek told the crowd at National Geographic World Championship after hobbling onstage on crutches. “Today I’m going to start with the answer to a question on many of your minds right now. The answer is: ‘At 2:30 yesterday morning, chasing…
Continue reading …This rave review didn’t work out so well. A mob of ravers got so crazed at the premiere of a rave concert documentary that Los Angeles cops had to shut down the movie premiere—and part of Hollywood Boulevard. Thousands turned out at Grauman’s Chinese Theater last night for the…
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