Raymond Scott aka Shakespeare Thief Found Dead In Prison

A serial thief who tried to make £2m by selling a stolen copy of a rare first collection of Shakespeare plays has been found dead in prison.

The body of 55-year-old Raymond Scott was found in his cell at Northumberland prison, on Wednesday morning after a lock down.

It is understood his throat was cut, but prison authorities are not believed to be treating the death as suspicious.

A Prison Service spokeswoman said: "HMP Northumberland prisoner Raymond Scott was pronounced dead at approximately 8.40am on Wednesday March 14 after being found unconscious in his cell.

"As with all deaths in custody, the independent Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will conduct an investigation."

Scott was jailed for eight years for handling a stolen copy of a rare first collection of Shakespeare's plays.

The 17th century folio had been taken from a display cabinet at Durham University in 1998.

Regarded as one of the most important printed works in the English language, fewer than 250 copies of the collection survive.

They were first printed in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death. Read More

Man And Woman Arrested Over Toddler's Death at a property on Kilbourne Road, Belper, Derbyshire

Two people have been arrested on suspicion of murdering a two-year-old boy.

The child died after falling ill at a property on Kilbourne Road, Belper, Derbyshire, at 10.45am on Tuesday.

Police say he was taken to hospital but died a short time later.

Officers have cordoned off a former convenience store and flat above it. Both properties are for sale.

A 41-year-old man and a woman, 32, are being questioned over the boy's death, which is being treated as suspicious.

It is not yet known what caused the toddler's death.

A post-mortem examination was carried out on Tuesday night but detectives are waiting for the results of toxicology tests.

Neighbour Robert Egan told Sky News: "He was a lovely little lad, full of beans, we were all shocked when the paramedics turned up yesterday and the police interviewed us last night". Source

Syrian army using 30 types of torture says Amnesty ... As Assad's troops plant landmines along border to stop refugees fleeing

Syrian forces are carrying out more than 30 types of torture on prisoners, a report claims.

Amnesty International said civilians held by security forces in the crackdown on anti-government protests were being horrifically abused.

The torture methods include crucifixion-type beatings, electric shocks and rape, according to a report based on accounts from Syrians who had fled to Jordan.

It said the testimonies were ‘further evidence that torture and other ill-treatment in Syria form part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population’.

At least 276 people had died in custody, Amnesty International said.

Yesterday troops killed dozens near the city of Idlib, activists claimed.

Troops have planted landmines along routes used by people trying to flee President Bashar Assad's regime, it has been claimed. Read More

Butler 'injected millionaire socialite with deadly virus and told her she would die if she didn't hand over $8.5million for antidote'

The butler accused of holding millionaire socialite Anne Bass hostage for 12 hours in her Connecticut estate and injecting her with a 'deadly virus' is to face trial today.

Masked assailants convinced the philanthropist that she would die from the injection and demanded that she pay $8.5 million for an antidote.

The men said Bass and her boyfriend, artist Julian Lethbridge, had 20 hours to produce the cash and it was only after the men reconsidered and fled the house, that the victims learned that the substance was harmless, likely an ink.

A trial is starting in U.S. District Court this week for Emanuel Nicolescu, a former head butler at the Bass estate, who is the only person arrested in the crime. Nicolescu, 31, has pleaded not guilty to charges including attempted extortion. His attorney declined comment. Read More

Project X Copycats Wreck $500,000 Home

A group of teenagers have been accused of wrecking a $500,000 home in a copycat of the film 'Project X.'

The teens threw a party at the empty Texas home before going on a wrecking spree with the building owners saying it looked like it had been hit by a tornado.

Nearly every window in the Houston home had been smashed, and walls kicked in.
Police arrested 13 people Friday after being called to the property by a private investigator working for the builders who owned the property.

Investigator Mark Stephens said when he quizzed the teens over the damage they told him they were copying what happened in the film Project X.
'I asked some of the kids why, and they said 'Project X.' said Mr Stephens.

'And I said, 'OK what’s 'Project X?'

Released earlier this month, the film Project X fictionally documents the story of three High School teens in California who attempt to make a name for themselves by throwing the biggest party. Read More

British pensioner and Thai bride found battered to death in remote bungalow

A British pensioner and his Thai wife have been found brutally murdered in a beach resort bungalow on the Gulf of Thailand.

Police were today holding a security guard, a chef and a local fisherman over the murder.

They say the men were looking for cash but only got the equivalent of £41, a bank card and a mobile phone.

The victims were named as Michael Raymond, aged 68, and his Thai wife Suchada Bonkamdi, aged 52.

Their bodies were discovered yesterday afternoon by a maid at the Jack Beach Resort in Prachuap Khiri Khan, 180 miles south of Bangkok.

Both Mr Raymond and his wife had been severely beaten about the face and head.

Case officer Captain Winai Raila-aied said: 'They were beaten with a chair and other hard objects.

'At first two suspects - a chef and a security guard - admitted they had robbed the couple of 2,000 baht (£41), a mobile phone and a Bangkok Bank ATM card.

'Now all three have confessed to their wrongdoing.' Read More

Homeless Hotspot plan 'to be axed' after ad agency backs away from plan to use real people as walking wi-fi zones

The New York advertising agency behind a plan to use homeless people as walking wi-fi hotspots has been forced to back off the controversial plan.

The Homeless Hotspots initiative was trialled at the SXSW music and technology conference in Austin, Texas using homeless people wearing T-shirts that said, 'I'm a 4G Hotspot' - with a suggested price of $2 per 15 minutes.

'We have no definite, specific future plans yet, in New York City or elsewhere. This was an initial trial program,' said Emma Cookson, chairman of BBH New York. 'We are now listening carefully to the high level of feedback.'

'We are trying to learn and respond, and we will then consider what is appropriate to do next,' said Cookson in an interview with the New York Post. Read More

Leanne McNuff Killed by her Boyfriend after her FACEBOOK Account was hacked and status changed to Sleeping Around

A young mother was stabbed to death in front of her four-year-old son after someone changed her Facebook status to 'sleeping around'.

Leanne McNuff, 24, was knifed just an hour after phoning her best friend to say her account had been hacked.

Her soldier boyfriend Ian Lowe, 24, was arrested shortly after she was attacked in front of her son Jaden in her semi-detached home in Droylsden, Greater Manchester.

Today the Private, from 1st Battalion The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment who was leave from serving in Afghanistan, was still being questioned by police over the killing on Sunday evening.

Leanne's best friend Emma Barlow, 26, said she had been worried that someone had hacked her Facebook account shortly before she was attacked.

Emma said: 'I spoke to her around 50 minutes before it happened. She was having problems with her Facebook and had phoned me for help.

'She thought someone had hacked into her account and changed her password. Jaden was still up and I could hear him in the background.'

'Someone had changed her Facebook status and it was saying nasty things about her - things that weren't true.

'She was upset because it was saying things about her sleeping around - it was all untrue. I was trying to contact Facebook.' Read More

Goldman Sachs exec exposes bank's 'toxic' greed in scathing public resignation letter

A Goldman Sachs exec has dealt a deeply embarrassing blow to the firm by quitting in an open letter in which he lambasts the working environment as 'toxic and destructive'.

Greg Smith, an executive director who has worked at the New York-based investment bank for 12 years, claimed it is more interested in making money for itself than its clients.

In a scathing resignation letter published in the New York Times on Wednesday, he reveals staff have so little respect for clients, they call them 'muppets' and talk of 'ripping eyeballs out'.

'I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it,' writes Smith, who headed the firm's U.S. equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

'To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money.' Read More

Murder statistics in Broome shock community

The video, replayed half a dozen times to appalled court staff, lawyers and relatives in the Broome Magistrates Court, shows a blurry Aboriginal figure tearing along the street.

It's 4:00 am on Christmas and drunken revellers from Broome's only nightclub spill into the street.

The shaky mobile phone video captures the scene; an Aboriginal woman screams and heckles as the man disappears out of shot, being confronted by a Frenchman on the wooden decking that runs along the pearl galleries of Dampier Terrace.

Then he's back, lurching down onto the street to be encircled by a fresh group of men. He stumbles to the ground and is kicked over and over again, squirming and helpless.

He's already dying from a stab wound to the chest delivered just minutes before.

The men finally pull away and he's left motionless on the ground.

His name was Kristopher Dixon and he was the eighth person to be murdered in Broome in three-and-a-half years.

A Tide of Violence. Read More

Britain 2012: The moment armed police surrounded woman in veil - fearing she had a bomb - in eight-hour stand-off on quiet seaside promenade

Dressed in a Muslim veil and surrounded from all angles by armed officers, this was the astonishing scene yesterday as a tranquil seaside resort was plunged into a full-scale terror alert.

Scores of officers carrying sub-machine guns and wearing full protective uniform descended on Saltburn-by-the-Sea, near Middlesbrough, at 11am after reports that a woman had a bomb in her bag.

During a dramatic stand-off with police negotiators, the woman – said to be local to the area – was ordered to place the rucksack on the ground.

In the tense moments that followed, a police helicopter hovered overhead as she was then told to drop to her knees while keeping her hands up. As negotiators continued to talk to her, she was instructed to get to her feet and walk away from the rucksack.

As officers trained their weapons on her, they watched every step towards the seafront before ordering her to sit on a nearby bench.

Once there she placed her hands on her head.

The terrifying stand-off went on into the evening as Army bomb disposal experts headed to the scene from nearby Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, to carry out a controlled explosion on the rucksack.

Witnesses said the woman, who was white and wearing a dress with a veil, had earlier been to a hardware store in the town and purchased items. Read More

New York City: Prototype of the American Police State?

John W. Whitehead
March 12, 2012

“I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world. I have my own State Department, much to Foggy Bottom’s annoyance. We have the United Nations in New York, and so we have an entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have.”—Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York

“There are no safeguards to ensure that the NYPD doesn’t break the law. So far as I know, there are no mechanisms in place to ensure that the NYPD does not become a rogue organization.”—Leonard Levitt, author of NYPD Confidential: Power and Corruption in the Nation’s Greatest Police Force

New York City has long been celebrated as the cultural capital of the world, renowned for its art, music and film. Presently, however, the “city that never sleeps” is serving as the staging ground for a futuristic police state operated, in large part, by Mayor Bloomberg and the New York Police Department (NYPD). Although the NYPD was recognized for its countless acts of bravery during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the department has gained notoriety in recent years for its overt racial profiling, a spying program which targets Muslim communities and political activists, and a stop-and-frisk program that has targeted more than 4 million New Yorkers—the majority of whom were black or Latino and had done nothing wrong—over the course of the past seven years.

Boasting a $4.5 billion budget, a counterterrorism unit that includes 35,000 uniformed police officers and 15,000 civilians, and a $3 billion joint operations center with representatives from the FBI, FEMA, and the military, the NYPD operates much like an autonomous Department of Homeland Security—only without the constraints of the Constitution. Read More

The Blowback of TINA

There is a terrible rule of war. Whatever new weapon that you introduce onto the battlefield, your adversary will eventually acquire it as well. Indeed, they will often use an industrial-strength version of that very same weapon against you.

Hiram Maxim invented the modern machine gun – automated and oil-cooled – but the British army dismissed the invention. Not so the Germans, who used it with deadly accuracy against the British in World War I. The French, meanwhile, were the first to use modern chemical warfare in 1915 by deploying tear gas against the Germans with little effect. The Germans quickly improved on the innovation by developing chlorine gas, and later mustard gas, with devastating effect. And, of course, Americans invented nuclear weapons and then spent the next half-century trying to forestall their use by others.

The perfect weapon, however, has no odor and makes no sound. It has no half-life. It doesn’t require huge factories and production lines. There are no truly effective defenses.

The perfect weapon, of course, is ideology. And the United States, in the nuclear age, believed that it had created just such a perfect weapon. Washington would export the American version of liberal democracy and refashion the world in its own image. In so doing, America would make the world safe not so much for democracy, but for Americans.

But a funny thing happened on the way to hegemony. The very ideology that the United States assumed would defeat all comers has in fact been turned against the United States. Liberal democracy contains within it the very seeds of the American empire’s destruction. Call it blowback, TINA-style. Read More

Hands off Pakistan, protesters tell US

Baku-APA. Pakistanis have condemned the United States over its interference in the country’s southwestern province of Balochistan,APA reports quoting Press TV.

On Friday, thousands of activists held a demonstration in Islamabad to condemn US policies and a proposed US House of Representatives’ resolution advocating “self-determination” for Balochistan province.

The non-binding resolution was proposed by three Republicans, Dana Rohrabacher, Louie Gohmert, and Steve King, in February.

US flags were burned at the demonstration, which was organized by the Defense of Pakistan Council, an alliance of 40 religious and political groups.

Speakers at the demonstration delivered hard-hitting speeches, urging the government to cease its cooperation with the US, which they said is working to break up Pakistan.

"The US is looking for a military base in the region. That’s why the US is conspiring to make Balochistan province an independent state," one of the organizers of the demonstration told Press TV’s Islamabad correspondent.

The speakers also promised to make any sacrifice necessary to preserve and uphold the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country. Read More

Determined but Delusional Eurocrats Carry On Up The Khyber - Nigel Farage

Ted Nishihara: La Mirada Substitute Teacher Arrested on Suspicion of Child Molestation

A 29-year-old substitute teacher in La Mirada was arrested Monday on suspicion of sexually molesting a student at Los Coyotes Middle School, according to Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department officials.

The mother of a female student at Los Coyotes Middle School said her daughter told her a male substitute teacher, identified by authorities as Ted Nishihara, touched her in a sexual manner during class, police said.

The alleged molestation occurred Thursday, according to district officials.A female student made a report to a guidance counselor, who contacted school administrators, according to Norwalk-La Mirada Superintendent Ruth Perez. Read More

Kim Dotcom: Many Megaupload Users at the US Government

Aside from preparing the cases of the Megaupload defendants, a team of lawyers is working hard to grant the site’s users access to their personal data.

The cyberlocker is working out a deal with the Department of Justice to allow users to download their personal files. Interestingly enough, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom reveals that these users include many high-ranking US Government officials.

In the wake of the MegaUpload shutdown many of the site’s users complained that their personal files had been lost due to collateral damage.

From work-related data to personal photos, the raid disabled access to hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of files that were clearly not infringing.

With most of the news coverage focusing on Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and the racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering charges, the fate of these users hasn’t received the attention it deserves. Read More

Parking Tickets Issued During Fallen Marine’s Procession Now Voided

CHICAGO (WBBM) - City Hall is apologizing. Parking tickets issued during Friday’s funeral procession for a Marine from Beverly have been voided.

People started expressing their outrage on Facebook soon after the funeral procession. One wrote, “Cash grabbing Chicago at its best.” Another post said, “Talk about disrespect.” Read More

Akron men steal couple's dog, demand ransom

AKRON, OH (WOIO) -

Two Akron men slapped with charges after stealing a couple's dog and demanding ransom.

Around 7PM Friday night, a resident in the 300 block of Upland Avenue reported his dog, a Dalmatian/Pit bull mix, missing. The resident stated the dog was missing from his back yard between Tuesday night and Friday night. The victim's wife put up fliers throughout the neighborhood.

On Friday night between 5PM-9PM, the victim started receiving harassing phone calls about the missing dog. The caller demanded $500 for the dog to be returned to the victim. The owners offered $40 for the dog to be returned. After the suspect refused the $40, he called the police.

A team of officers, including undercover officers, followed up on the phone calls and made arrangements to meet the suspect(s) at Emerling Park with the money. As officers were waiting in a vehicle at Emerling Park, three men approached the vehicle. Officers jumped out and arrested one man right away, then after a brief foot chase, the other two men were apprehended.

The missing dog was located in the 1400 block of Andrus Street and returned to the owners. Read More

It’s a dirty job: Police nationwide take on soaring Tide detergent theft

Law enforcement officials across the country are puzzled over a crime wave targeting an unlikely item: Tide laundry detergent.

Theft of Tide detergent has become so rampant that authorities from New York to Oregon are keeping tabs on the soap spree, and some cities are setting up special task forces to stop it. And retailers like CVS are taking special security precautions to lock down the liquid.

One Tide taker in West St. Paul, Minn., made off with $25,000 in the product over 15 months before he was busted last year.

“That was unique that he stole so much soap,” said West St. Paul Police Chief Bud Shaver. “The name brand is [all] Tide. Amazing, huh?”

Tide has become a form of currency on the streets. The retail price is steadily high — roughly $10 to $20 a bottle — and it’s a staple in households across socioeconomic classes. Read More