Media offers to Casey Anthony for an exclusive interview have hit at least $1.5 million, reports TMZ . Anthony’s parents have already turned down a $250,000 deal for an interview with them, says the gossip blog. The lawyer for the mom cleared of charges that she murdered her toddler…
Continue reading …Young women shopping in northern Virginia malls should watch their butts, police warn. A serial slasher is believed to be responsible for at least five attacks in the region, and cops believe he won’t stop slashing until he’s caught, the New York Daily News reports. An 18-year-old woman was slashed…
Continue reading …Oslo’s central train and bus station was evacuated today and traffic halted after a suspicious suitcase was left behind on a bus. “There is some baggage that was left on a bus and the police bomb squad is checking it out,” a firefighter told Reuters . “All trains and buses have…
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The school holidays are well under way, and if the kids are driving you mad, check out our latest events and activities for children, from enchanted princesses to electric guitars Far, far away, Manchester From 2 August, the normally hushed rooms of Manchester Art Gallery will be disrupted by the squeals of children as they discover a fantasy world of princesses and knights. Set over the two top floors of the gallery, the transformed space will include three tents where kids under 12 can create costumes and make films of their stories to project on to the gallery walls. Artists will also be on hand to organise art activities, and there will be sensory play areas for babies and toddlers. • manchestergalleries.org . Free, 2-28 August, Tuesdays to Sundays, 1-3pm Bike It, nationwide Britain has 13,000 miles of walking and cycling routes, among them plenty of short, traffic free ones suitable for children. UK charity Sustrans is promoting its best family-friendly routes as part of its Free Range Kids campaign, aimed at ensuring future generations of independent, active children. The routes include the Spen Valley Greenway, near Bradford, a 5½-mile route along the River Exe in Devon and a nine-mile ride into the heart of the New Forest with Holmsey tearooms providing a handy pitstop. Or get a breath of sea air on a five-mile ride from Frinton to Clacton in Essex, building up an appetite for fish and chips. • sustrans.org.uk Steam fair and vintage vehicle rally, Somerset Sometimes the old ones are the best. A nostalgic day out is on the cards at the West Somerset steam fair and vintage vehicle rally held at Norton Fitzwarren, near Taunton, on 6 and 7 August. Steam engines, fire engines, tractors, steam rollers and buses will be on display, giving kids the opportunity to ride them and witness the huffing and puffing of the engines, not to mention all the fun of a fair(ground). • west-somerset-railway.co.uk . 10am-5pm each day, adults £8, children £4, family ticket £20 Traquair Fair, Scotland Traquair Fair, held in the grounds of Traquair House on the Borders on 6 and 7 August, is one of Scotland’s longest-running fairs, offering theatre, outdoor spectacles, music, dance, storytelling. This year’s theme is fire, and so there will also be flame-eating, glass-blowing demonstrations, forging and pottery-making. Included in the ticket price is a tour of the house, which dates from 1107 and was a hunting lodge for the kings and queens of Scotland. Bed and breakfast accommodation is available in the house (doubles £180), or you can camp in the grounds. • traquair.co.uk/content/traquair-fair . Adults £19 booked online, children over five £13, family ticket £46 Record-breaking, Carmarthenshire The Campbell family, famous for breaking land and water speed records in the 20th century, celebrate the centenary of their Bluebird car this year, and are showing no signs of slowing down. On 13 and 14 August, Don Wales, grandson of Sir Malcolm Campbell, will attempt to break his own electric land speed record of 137mph, as he aims for 150mph on a four-mile stretch of Pendine Sands in Carmarthenshire, where his grandfather set the world land speed record for the first time in 1924. With high adrenaline and fast cars, this will be an exciting weekend, with speed trials for the 500mph land speed attempt taking place, too. • bluebirdspeedrecords.com . Free. Record attempts 3pm on Saturday and Sunday School of Rock, Brighton Kids might balk at the idea of going to school in the holidays – unless it’s the School of Rock. The Brighton Institute of Modern Music (Bimm), which runs rock’n’roll colleges in Brighton and Bristol, has teamed up with Total Guitar and Metal Hammer magazines to offer three courses in August. The Total Guitar summer school (1-4 August, limited availability) covers artists from Bloc Party to Eric Clapton, with tutors including Paul Weller. The Skindred-to-Black Sabbath Metal Hammer school is from 8-11 August.
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Staff at Exeter prison rumble plot by two artistic inmates who created fake brickwork to hide hole being dug through cell wall Prison staff foiled an apparent attempted breakout in which inmates allegedly hacked through a wall and disguised the hole they had left with fake bricks made out of papier-mache. Two inmates are said to have dug through the thick wall of a cell at Exeter prison and jammed the false, painted bricks into the gap to hide what they were doing. Unfortunately for them, a guard spotted masonry dust on the ground, while another staff member saw that the brickwork on the exterior wall of the second floor did not look quite right – and the plot was rumbled. Detective Constable Alex Bingham of Exeter police said: “We believe that two inmates may have orchestrated a move to one of the only cells that you could possibly dig from. “They dug through the wall and used papier-mache to fill in where the mortar had fallen out. They have then used paint to paint over what they have done. If you did a visual check of the cell you would not have noticed it.” The men are thought to have gained access to the arts and crafts department, where they obtained paint and materials to make the papier-mache. When the interior wall of the cell was inspected it was allegedly wet with paint and the bricks that had been removed were hidden under a bunk bed. Even if the inmates had made it out they would still have had to negotiate a high wall topped with razor wire to complete their escape. The two men, who have not been identified, were arrested and are being held at separate jails after being charged with attempting to escape lawful custody. A former inmate of Exeter prison said he was not surprised at the attempt. The ex-prisoner, who served a sentence at the prison a decade ago, claimed the walls were in a bad condition and prison officers rarely carried out checks on the fabric of the building. No one at the prison was available to comment. Crime Prisons and probation Steven Morris guardian.co.uk
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UK supreme court rules British prop designer, Andrew Ainsworth, may sell replicas of stormtrooper outfits he made for original Star Wars film A British prop designer has won his battle with Star Wars creator George Lucas over the right to sell replica stormtrooper outfits following a supreme court ruling. Twickenham-based Andrew Ainsworth, 62, built the original costumes used in Star Wars and has been selling the outfits, based on his moulds for the 1977 blockbuster, online for a number of years. He successfully argued the costumes were functional works rather than artistic ones, and therefore not subject to full UK copyright laws. “The judges concluded that the helmet could not be regarded as an artistic work because it was a mass produced item – remember how many stormtroopers there were? – and has an utilitarian role,” said leading intellectual property lawyer Simon Bennett of Fox Williams LLP. Lucas had taken the case before a succession of judges in an effort to halt Ainsworth’s work. He has now been forced to admit defeat – in the UK at least – following the ruling by the UK’s highest court for civil cases, which upheld a decision taken at the court of appeal in 2009. “This is a massive victory, a total victory, we’ve already got the champagne out,” Ainsworth told the BBC, adding that he had gone to court on a principle and was not going to allow the director to “buy his soul”. He told the Daily Telegraph: “I am proud to report that in the English legal system David can prevail against Goliath if his cause is right. If there is a force, then it has been with me these past five years.” However, the supreme court also ruled that Lucas’s copyright had been violated in the US, meaning Ainsworth will no longer be able to sell his costumes there. The film-maker successfully sued Ainsworth for $20m in the US when he began selling replicas of the models in 2004 , but a succession of UK courts overturned that ruling, culminating in today’s decision. “He lost on the US issue and as a result claims for infringement of foreign copyright can now be brought in the UK,” said Bennett. Ainsworth’s suits cost up to £1,500 and are highly sought after by Star Wars devotees, who wear them to fan conventions, as well as collectors. A spokesman for Lucasfilm told Sky News the court had “maintained an anomaly of British copyright law under which the creative and highly artistic works made for use in films … may not be entitled to copyright protection in the UK”. The BBC has posted a video in which Ainsworth shows how he makes the outfits. George Lucas Star Wars Science fiction and fantasy Intellectual property UK supreme court Design Fashion Ben Child guardian.co.uk
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UK supreme court rules British prop designer, Andrew Ainsworth, may sell replicas of stormtrooper outfits he made for original Star Wars film A British prop designer has won his battle with Star Wars creator George Lucas over the right to sell replica stormtrooper outfits following a supreme court ruling. Twickenham-based Andrew Ainsworth, 62, built the original costumes used in Star Wars and has been selling the outfits, based on his moulds for the 1977 blockbuster, online for a number of years. He successfully argued the costumes were functional works rather than artistic ones, and therefore not subject to full UK copyright laws. “The judges concluded that the helmet could not be regarded as an artistic work because it was a mass produced item – remember how many stormtroopers there were? – and has an utilitarian role,” said leading intellectual property lawyer Simon Bennett of Fox Williams LLP. Lucas had taken the case before a succession of judges in an effort to halt Ainsworth’s work. He has now been forced to admit defeat – in the UK at least – following the ruling by the UK’s highest court for civil cases, which upheld a decision taken at the court of appeal in 2009. “This is a massive victory, a total victory, we’ve already got the champagne out,” Ainsworth told the BBC, adding that he had gone to court on a principle and was not going to allow the director to “buy his soul”. He told the Daily Telegraph: “I am proud to report that in the English legal system David can prevail against Goliath if his cause is right. If there is a force, then it has been with me these past five years.” However, the supreme court also ruled that Lucas’s copyright had been violated in the US, meaning Ainsworth will no longer be able to sell his costumes there. The film-maker successfully sued Ainsworth for $20m in the US when he began selling replicas of the models in 2004 , but a succession of UK courts overturned that ruling, culminating in today’s decision. “He lost on the US issue and as a result claims for infringement of foreign copyright can now be brought in the UK,” said Bennett. Ainsworth’s suits cost up to £1,500 and are highly sought after by Star Wars devotees, who wear them to fan conventions, as well as collectors. A spokesman for Lucasfilm told Sky News the court had “maintained an anomaly of British copyright law under which the creative and highly artistic works made for use in films … may not be entitled to copyright protection in the UK”. The BBC has posted a video in which Ainsworth shows how he makes the outfits. George Lucas Star Wars Science fiction and fantasy Intellectual property UK supreme court Design Fashion Ben Child guardian.co.uk
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Northern League member says Norwegian killer’s ideas are in defence of western civilisation One of Silvio Berlusconi’s former ministers has defended the thinking of the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik. Interviewed on a popular radio show, Francesco Speroni, a leading member of the Northern League, the junior partner in Berlusconi’s conservative coalition, said: “Breivik’s ideas are in defence of western civilisation.” Speroni spoke as other right-wingers around Europe, including leading officials of his own party, distanced themselves from the massacre on Utøya and the ideology that inspired it . The Italian politician was endorsing the comments of another high-profile member of the league who had drawn fierce criticism for arguing that the killings might have been part of a plot to discredit hardline conservative thinkers. Like many in his party, Mario Borghezio, who sits in the European parliament, is an admirer of the writings of the late Italian journalist and author Oriana Fallaci, who popularised the term Eurabia to describe a future, supposedly Islamised Europe. Borghezio, a member of the European parliament’s committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs, suggested that there was something suspicious about the fact that Breivik had been able to move around freely until last Friday. He said he disagreed with the way “this massacre is being used to condemn positions like that of Oriana Fallaci”. While describing the Norwegian killer as “unbalanced”, Borghezio said: “Christians ought not to be animals to be sacrificed. We have to defend them.” His comments brought outraged demands for his expulsion from opposition politicians and at least one member of the Berlusconi government. The party’s chief organiser, Roberto Calderoli, who also sits in the cabinet, responded with a public apology to Norway “and above all to the relatives of the victims for the terrible, unspeakable remarks made in a personal capacity by [Mario] Borghezio”. His gesture was almost immediately undermined, however, when Speroni spoke up in defence of his party colleague, using even franker language than Borghezio. Unlike his fellow MP, who is notorious for headline-grabbing, extremist comments, Speroni is a Northern League heavyweight. He was the minister for institutional reform in Berlusconi’s first government between 1994 and 1995 and has since been the league’s chief whip in the senate, the upper house of the Italian legislature, and the European parliament. “I’m with Borghezio. I don’t think he should resign”, Speroni said. “If [Breivik's] ideas are that we are going towards Eurabia and those sorts of things, that western Christian civilisation needs to be defended, yes, I’m in agreement,” he told Radio 24. In France, the National Front announced on Tuesday it had suspended a former local election candidate who made remarks on his blog that were interpreted as supportive of Breivik. Italy Europe Anders Behring Breivik Norway John Hooper guardian.co.uk
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Northern League member says Norwegian killer’s ideas are in defence of western civilisation One of Silvio Berlusconi’s former ministers has defended the thinking of the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik. Interviewed on a popular radio show, Francesco Speroni, a leading member of the Northern League, the junior partner in Berlusconi’s conservative coalition, said: “Breivik’s ideas are in defence of western civilisation.” Speroni spoke as other right-wingers around Europe, including leading officials of his own party, distanced themselves from the massacre on Utøya and the ideology that inspired it . The Italian politician was endorsing the comments of another high-profile member of the league who had drawn fierce criticism for arguing that the killings might have been part of a plot to discredit hardline conservative thinkers. Like many in his party, Mario Borghezio, who sits in the European parliament, is an admirer of the writings of the late Italian journalist and author Oriana Fallaci, who popularised the term Eurabia to describe a future, supposedly Islamised Europe. Borghezio, a member of the European parliament’s committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs, suggested that there was something suspicious about the fact that Breivik had been able to move around freely until last Friday. He said he disagreed with the way “this massacre is being used to condemn positions like that of Oriana Fallaci”. While describing the Norwegian killer as “unbalanced”, Borghezio said: “Christians ought not to be animals to be sacrificed. We have to defend them.” His comments brought outraged demands for his expulsion from opposition politicians and at least one member of the Berlusconi government. The party’s chief organiser, Roberto Calderoli, who also sits in the cabinet, responded with a public apology to Norway “and above all to the relatives of the victims for the terrible, unspeakable remarks made in a personal capacity by [Mario] Borghezio”. His gesture was almost immediately undermined, however, when Speroni spoke up in defence of his party colleague, using even franker language than Borghezio. Unlike his fellow MP, who is notorious for headline-grabbing, extremist comments, Speroni is a Northern League heavyweight. He was the minister for institutional reform in Berlusconi’s first government between 1994 and 1995 and has since been the league’s chief whip in the senate, the upper house of the Italian legislature, and the European parliament. “I’m with Borghezio. I don’t think he should resign”, Speroni said. “If [Breivik's] ideas are that we are going towards Eurabia and those sorts of things, that western Christian civilisation needs to be defended, yes, I’m in agreement,” he told Radio 24. In France, the National Front announced on Tuesday it had suspended a former local election candidate who made remarks on his blog that were interpreted as supportive of Breivik. Italy Europe Anders Behring Breivik Norway John Hooper guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Glenn Beck thinks people who attack his use of Nazi analogies are a lot like … Nazis. The radio host— who was widely criticized for comparing victims of the Norway shooting rampage to Hitler youth —likened the early days of the Third Reich to the Obama administration’s reaction to the debt…
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