Saturday 20 June 2015

The saddest farewell as families leave US tonight to take loved ones home

People react during a memorial for those who lost their lives after a balcony gave way in Berkeley

Victims of the Berkeley tragedy were brought to St Columba's church in Oakland, California last night for an all-night vigil by family members.

The church became the focal point for an outpouring of grief among the families, the J1 student community and the wider Irish community who mourned the young people killed in Tuesday's tragic accident in the city.

Woman broke bottle over the head of city taxi driver

Taxis

A DUBLIN woman has been spared jail after she admitted attacking a taxi-driver and breaking a bottle over his head.

Sarah Fitzgerald (23), of Sycamore Lawn, Carpenterstown, Castleknock pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assaulting Ji Yu Song and causing him harm on July 5, 2014 in Ranelagh.

Ireland's oldest shopping centre to get a facelift

An artist's impression of the revamped Stillorgan shopping centre.

The canopy and facade of the Stillorgan Shopping Centre, which opened in 1966, will be replaced to bring it up to modern standards.
Owners Kennedy Wilson said the retail outlet had never undergone a major upgrade, and it had sought planning permission for a refurbishment project.

Northern Most Respected Musician Dies


The death of Northern most respected musician, Danmaraya Jos has been announced. It was announced this evening by the Director General of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN).

Rihanna and rumoured new beau Karim Benzema arrive at the same nightclub as Chris Brown



Rihanna was seen making a rather eye-catching appearance at Hooray Henry's nightclub in West Hollywood with rumoured beau Karim Benzema.

Woman secretly gives away her baby to gay friend



A woman was arrested, charged and convicted of fraud after giving away her baby to her gay friend while telling her lover that she had an abortion, prosecutors in Scotland said.

Now, 29-year-old Vikki Gilmore of Perth, was sentenced to serve 3 years in prison after keeping the father of her 3-year-old girl out of the child's life.

The woman’s gay friend, 35-year-old Christopher Yates of Glasgow, was also sentenced to serve 3 years in jail. The girl’s father, 34-year-old Steven North, was extremely happy with the jail sentences imposed on the two.

Teacher, 37, marries his 18-year-old student after being arrested for having sex with her



A teacher married his student after being charged with having sex with her when she was 17 years old. 

The high school math teacher of Alabama, married his student when she graduated after he was charged with having an inappropriate relationship with her.
Matthew Shane Wester, 37, was indicted on charges of having a sexual relationship with his student. 

North Korea Claims Not To Only Have A Cure For AIDS, But Also CANCER & EBOLA


North Korea has created a wonder drug which they say it only does not cure Aids, but also eradicates Ebola and cancer. According to them, the miracle cure consists of ginseng grown from fertiliser and a mix of other ingredients- but did not reveal the special combination.

Nigerians react angrily after man fakes his own death on twitter


Judge tells relatives of murdered churchgoers that the killer's family are also victims

The judge who arraigned Dylann Roof sparked outrage when he referred to the 21-year-old's family as 'victims' and urged the community to 'rally round them'. Charleston County Magistrate James Gosnell Jr told the court on Friday:
 'We have victims - nine of them. But we also have victims on the other side. There are victims on this young man's side of the family.'

Foreign media drags Nigeria's female team coach, Edwin Okon...


After Nigeria lost to the United States 1–0 in a Group D Women’s World Cup match on Tuesday night, Falcon coach Edwin Okon apparently refused to shake hands with American coach Jill Ellis.

Ras Kimono and daughter perform on stage together


Man kills police officer, then 'commits suicide



A 21-year-old man from Cincinnati named Trepierre Hummons (pictured left) fatally shot Sonny Kim, 48 (pictured right) after posting on Facebook that he loved all of his friends and family and thecalled 911 on himself.

Tre twice called the police, telling them that a man with a gun was acting erratically & then described himself in the conversation. The first person to respond to the call was officer Kim, Tre then shot him dead.

Mariah Carey and Australian casino billionaire James Packer go for a romantic stroll in Italy

Mariah Carey is 'dating' Australian casino billionaire James Packer as pair are seen

Pop diva Mariah Carey has been single for less than a year after splitting from actor Nick Cannon but the 45-year-old may have already found love again in the arms of Australian billionaire James Packer after the pair were spotted strolling hand-in-hand around the picturesque town of Capri in the south of Italy.

At least three dead and 34 injured after man drives car at speeds of up to 90mph straight through crowds of shoppers in Austria

3 dead as man drives SUV into crowds in Graz before 'stabbing bystanders’

At least three people are dead and another 34 injured after an SUV ploughed into a crowd of people in Graz, Austria.
Eyewitnesses say the driver rammed into crowds at up to 90mph before he got out and began randomly stabbing bystanders, which included the elderly and policemen.

Charleston church killer's racist 'manifesto' revealed

Charleston shooter Dylann Roof’s ‘manifesto’ revealed on ‘Last Rhodesian’ website

A site entitled The Last Rhodesian - seemingly written by Dylann Roof shortly before the attacks on the Emanuel AME Church, claims he is a member of a superior race and spells out his plans.

Nigerian Dr and nurses charged with manslaughter of Irish woman seeking abortion

Marie Stopes doctor and nurses 'bungled woman's abortion then sent her home despite symptoms of internal bleeding that killed her just hours later' 


A doctor and two nurses will face trial accused of the manslaughter of a woman from Ireland who travelled to London for an abortion.
Dr Adedayo Adedeji, 63, and nurses Gemma Pullen, 32, and Margaret Miller, 54, made no plea when they appeared together in the dock at Ealing Magistrates’ Court in west London.

Price of tobacco and alcohol in Ireland '70% higher than EU average'



Alcohol and tobacco prices are higher here than anywhere else in the EU, official Eurostat figures have revealed.
The publication of the consumer price level report across the EU today showed that Ireland’s alcoholic beverages and tobacco prices (collectively) are 70% higher than the EU average.
The National Off-Licence Association has stated called on Government to reverse the budgetary hike on alcohol in Budget 2014.

Water protests contributed to Clerys closure, says retail group



The group representing the country's retailers has said that the series of water protests on Dublin's O'Connell Street last year was partially responsible for the closure of Clerys.
More than 400 people have been left without work after the store went into liquidation last Friday.

Families gather for Berkeley tragedy vigil; funerals to begin today



Relatives and dozens of fellow Irish students have gathered at a church for a vigil remembering four of the six young people killed in the California balcony collapse.
Hearses carried the four metal coffins into St Columba Catholic Church in Oakland and about 15 of the victims’ immediate family members huddled together in the rectory for about an hour before entering the church for the viewing that was limited to relatives, friends and fellow students.

Nigerian Woman Dumped By Lover Finds Suitor Via Radio Appeal In Kano


A woman who went on radio to appeal for a husband in the northern Nigerian city of Kano has found a suitor, journalist Nasiru Zango has told the BBC.

Boyfriend Chops EVERYTHING He And His Girlfriend Owned In Two After They Split Up


It may sound like a half-baked plan - but a spurned boyfriend has cut everything he owns in two to spite his former partner.
German eBay user 'der.juli' took power tools to his most expensive possessions, including a TV, an iPhone 5, an Apple laptop and even his car.

Ambode Set To Get Okada Riders Off Lagos Roads Again


The Lagos State Government has made its intention known that Okada riders will from now hence forth stop plying major roads in the State. While speaking yesterday, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Transportation, Oluseyi Coker had noted that the riders were restricted from 475 routes out of the 9,100 roads in Lagos in 2012 but they soon came back.

Telephone pole bursts into flames in quiet residential street

Shocking moment wooden telephone pole in Devon burst into flames

Residents in Paignton, Devon, were left stunned when the BT telegraph pole suddenly caught alight, causing chaos on the usually quiet road. People were kept back as firefighters tackled the blaze, which cut off more than dozen homes' phone lines and internet. It is not yet clear what started the fire, leaving firemen and residents in the seaside town baffled.

World's largest cruise ship - which will boast seven 'neighbourhoods'

Royal Caribbean Harmony of the Seas cruise ship starting to take shape in France

Killer who stabbed his mother to death jailed for life

Desperate: Mrs Kalejaiye, a mother of two, phoned her boyfriend during the attack, the court heardJailed for life: Killer Emmanuel Kalejaiye, 22, who stabbed his mother to death in September 2013












A cross-dressing Psycho-style killer who killed his mother in a frenzied attack has been jailed for life.
Emmanuel Kalejaiye, 22, stabbed his mother, Tolu Kalejaiya, more than 40 times at their home in Wickford, Essex, in September 2013.
He then dressed up in a women's tracksuit to try and fool neighours into thinking she was still alive, the court heard.

Inside the weird world of the factory cleaner turned billionaire 'Georgian Scaramanga'

Tiblisi's Bidzina Ivanishvili has albino rapper son and a £30m Bond villain mansion

He's the billionaire former prime minister who lives in a glass clad metallic mansion overlooking the Georgian capital which would make Scaramanga blush. 
Meet Bidzina Ivanishvili, who when not trying to sway public opinion by appearing on a talk show he founded on his albino rapper son's TV channel, is still thought to be pulling the strings at the top of government in the former Soviet state.   

These are young England football stars in their training camp. Look carefully and ask yourself...

Undoubtedly there is no racism among any of the young England players but, as these fascinating pictures show, whether eating, training or larking about together, the team-mates sometimes unconsciously segregate themselves into black and white

At first glance, they look like any bunch of young lads sitting down to a meal. In this case, they happen to be the England Under-20s football squad. Look more closely, though, and you will see a startling fact: one table is entirely inhabited by black players, the other by white.
The same pattern can be seen in other pictures taken at the squad’s training base during a tournament in France last month.
Exercising in the swimming pool, six white players line up alongside each other, while the black youngsters gather together at the other end of the pool. And on a line of training bikes, it is the same story. Black and white separated by colour.
It is clear there is no animus between the groups. Indeed, other pictures taken during the tour show the squad training, laughing and joking together with no divisions at all. They are comfortable and happy in each other’s company. And yet as we can see, more than once — in social and sporting situations — the group seems subconsciously to divide in two.
There is clearly no racism at play here, in either direction, but the pictures illuminate an element of British society that I, as a black Briton, know is too often ignored, not least because in this politically correct age it is deemed taboo.
Look at playgrounds and parks, youth clubs and nightclubs and you will see this pattern repeated time and again. Whites will socialise with whites, blacks with blacks, and Asians with Asians. They effectively segregate themselves.


As we can see, more than once — in social and sporting situations — the group seems subconsciously to divide in two

The same applies at school gates when parents arrive to collect their children. I don’t believe this springs from racism, either conscious or unconscious.
Undoubtedly, attitudes to race in Britain have been transformed in the past 50 years: in the Fifties and Sixties, some whites — to their everlasting shame — wouldn’t even have shared the same swimming pool with a black man like me.
So why do different ethnic groups still not integrate fully with one another? This is not just a British phenomenon. Some years ago, a black American psychologist wrote a book pertinently entitled Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria?
Shared experiences and habit play a role but, in Britain at least, does part of the reason lie in multiculturalism?
This fashionable dogma is obsessed with instilling respect for diversity and celebrating different groups’ beliefs and traditions. The result has been not, as was hoped, a society in which people of various backgrounds mix freely but one made up too often of separate communities.
Could it be that in the process of respecting the differences between us all, we are — inadvertently — quietly reinforcing cultural barriers which separate black and white?
That, in my view, is what we are seeing in the football pictures; the result of multiculturalism in microcosm, allied to the natural human impulse to gravitate towards what is familiar and therefore reassuring.
It is fascinating to see this social divide among young footballers in particular, partly because many of them will have grown up in urban schools where numerous colours and creeds rub along together, but also because the sport has made such efforts to stamp out racism in recent years.


Exercising in the swimming pool, six white players line up alongside each other, while the black youngsters gather together at the other end of the pool


It has come a long way since vile and moronic fans used to throw bananas at John Barnes on the pitch. Since then, there has been a massive influx of black talent, coupled with the Football Association spending millions on its laudable Kick it Out campaign.
That, however, is not to say that the game does not still have issues to resolve. Remember that it was only four years ago that one of our country’s most prominent players, England star John Terry, was caught calling fellow footballer Anton Ferdinand a ‘f***ing black c***’.
I know Anton’s brother Rio socially and was struck by his erudite and principled stand against what he perceived, correctly in my view, to be a continuing racist undertone in this country.
Ironically, I expect the talented young men in these pictures will be among those who finally stamp that problem out.
For my part, as a man who is biologically from Caribbean stock, yet raised by middle-class white parents in Teddington, South-West London, I have long experience of the challenges that come with bridging the racial divide in all areas of society.
If racism is to be eradicated then I believe we must all work harder to integrate ethnic groups in everyday life.
This will take effort, education and willpower but if we can do it, society will be all the stronger.
The segregation in some of the pictures from this football tour may not be intentional, but it reminds us that we all have work to do if we want to say we have genuinely left the problems of the past behind.