Smileband general news

Ethan Stables, 20, was planning acts of terrorism against groups he hated, prosecutors told Leeds Crown Court.

In June last year, he had allegedly assembled a machete, knives, an axe, an air rifle and a ball bearing gun when he became 'enraged' about a planned LGBT Pride event at the New Empire pub in his home town of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.

Jonathan Sandiford, prosecuting, said Stables was arrested as he was on his way to what the prosecution believe was a final reconnaissance visit to the pub before returning to his home his weapons.

The jury heard Stables was arrested after sending messages to other far right extremists on a far-right Facebook group saying he would 'slaughter every one' of the people at the LGBT event. One worried member of the private group chat rang the police and posted a warning on Twitter about Stables’ intentions, the court heard.  

Police responded with an armed operation to protect the event in Barrow.

Mr Sandiford said Stables was a 'white supremacist and Nazi - a supporter of Adolf Hitler, if you will'.

'He had a deep-seated hatred of black, Jewish, Muslim and especially gay people,' the prosecutor said.

'Between 2016 and his arrest in 2017 he was planning and preparing to commit acts of terrorism directed towards members of these groups but, primarily, directed towards people who were lesbian or gay.'

Mr Sandiford said Stables spent seven months researching firearms and explosives and had begun to acquire material to build an improvised explosive device.

He said: 'His purpose in these acts of preparation was to launch a murderous attack on members of these communities. In particular, the prosecution suggest, people who were gay. The prosecutor told the jury of seven men and five women how Stables became 'enraged' when he heard about the Pride event planned at the New Empire pub on June 23.

He said Stables began to take photographs of the pub 'with a view to launching an attack later that evening.'

Unemployed Stables, from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, had a history of depression, the prosecutor told the court.

He allegededly made internet searches related to 'the terrorist group National Action, preparing for a "Race War" and "How to be a terrorist. The jury heard Stables had also made internet searches for 'n****r jokes', 'setting gays on fire', and 'fascist haircuts'. 

Prosecutor Mr Sandiford showed the jury photographs recovered from Stables’ phone which showed him posing in front of a Swastika flag hung on the wall in his flat.

The jury also saw a series of other recovered photographs, including a picture with the caption 'n****r lyncher' and a White Wolf with the words 'Keep Britain White'.

Stables, of Egerton Court, Barrow, denies one count of preparing terrorist acts and one of making threats to kill. 

Smileband general news

A warehouse worker stabbed his ex-girlfriend to death in a frenzied attack in a shopping centre car park after begging her not to break up with him, a court has heard. Joshua Stimpson met 23-year-old student Molly McLaren on Tinder and they dated for seven months until things turned sour and she ended the relationship, Maidstone Crown Court was told.

Just two weeks later he bought a kitchen knife and attacked the university student in her car after she left a gym in Chatham, Kent. The 26-year-old admits manslaughter but denies murder - a plea not accepted by prosecutors.

The court heard Miss McLaren went to Pure Gym in Chatham Retail Outlet on June 29, having parked in the nearby car park.

Soon after, Stimpson also arrived and Molly asked him: 'Are you following me now?'.

The court heard she then sent a text to her mother, Joanne, at 10.45am saying: 'Mum he's turned up at the gym and come next to me'. 

Mrs McLaren then called her daughter and told her to come straight to the family home in Cobham, near Gravesend.

Molly also sent a WhatsApp message to a group of friends at 11.02am saying 'Feel like I'm f***ing looking over my shoulder all the time', the court heard. Prosecutor Philip Bennetts QC said CCTV footage showed Stimpson waiting for Molly in his car until she emerged from the gym, and then begin to tail her.

He then left his car, walked quickly to hers and yanked the door open as Molly began screaming.

Stimpson then repeatedly knifed her in the neck and head as she sat in the driver's seat of the small Citroen, the prosecutor said.

A witness to the attack, Benjamin Morton, tried to pull the 26-year-old off his victim as she screamed.

He also tried to close the car door on Stimpson's leg, but he moved inside the car and carried on his attack, the court heard.

Smileband general news

hostilities against the West ‘sooner than we expect’, the head of the Army has said. Warning of Russia eye-watering’ military capabilities, Sir Nick Carter laid bare the scale of the threat.

The Chief of the General Staff said the Kremlin was a ‘clear and present danger’ and predicted a conflict would start with something we did not expect.

‘They are not thousands of miles away, they are on Europe’s doorstep,’ he said in a speech at the Royal United Services Institute.

Britain’s ability to pre-empt or respond to the threat ‘will be eroded if we don’t match up to them now,’ he said, adding: ‘Russia could initiate hostilities sooner than we expect. General Carter’s major speech came as experts issued their own warnings about the threat from Russia and the need for Britain to spend more on defence.

The head of the National Cyber Security Centre warned that a major attack on the UK was a matter of ‘when, not if’. Ciaran Martin said Britain had been fortunate to avoid a ‘category one’ hacking attack. This is defined as one that could cripple infrastructure such as energy supplies and the financial services sector.

He suggested one was likely in the next two years, telling the Guardian: ‘It is a matter of when, not if, and we will be fortunate to come to the end of the decade without having to trigger a category one attack.’

And the former head of spy agency GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, told the BBC he was seriously concerned about Russia’s growing aggression in cyberspace. He said: ‘It’s the single country that’s kept me awake, because their intent has changed over the years.’

In his speech in London on Monday, General Carter said there were stark parallels between the situation before the First World War in 1914 and how Russia might view things now.

He said: ‘Our generation has become used to wars of choice since the end of the Cold War. But we may not have a choice about conflict with Russia. And we should remember Trotsky’s advice that “you may not be interested in war but war is interested in you”. He cautioned that hostilities would not start with ‘little green men’ – a reference to conventional ground troops in camouflage.

‘It will start with something we don’t expect. We should not take what we’ve seen so far as a template for the future,’ he said.

The Army chief said Russia’s doctrine for war utilises ‘all of the instruments of national power, not just the military’. He added: ‘The character of warfare is making it much harder for us to recognise true intentions and distinguish between what is peace and what is war.’

He said credible deterrence could be underpinned only by genuine forces and commitment ‘that earns the respect of potential opponents’.

To deter Russia in Eastern Europe, Britain and its Nato allies must improve their speed of recognising what was going on, speed of deciding what to do and speed of assembling forces if needed, he said: ‘The time to address these threats is now – we cannot afford to sit back. 

Smileband health topics

Shigellosis causes acute gastroenteritis. When severe, stools contain blood, mucus, and pus. While usually self-limiting to 4-7 days, severe dehydration can occur; especially in infants and the elderly. Asymptomatic infections can occur.

 

Arizona 5 year median: 444 cases

 

Transmission
Transmission can occur through contaminated food or water, by person-to-person transmission by the fecal-oral route or through exposure to feces by sexual contact.

Incubation period can range from 1 to 7 days.

Lab Tests & Specimen Info

Test*	Specimen
Culture	Stool

 Isolation Precautions

Enteric precautions should be followed for the duration of acute symptoms. 

Generally, no environmental measures are indicated for sporadic cases. For outbreaks, environmental cleaning may be necessary following EPA-approved cleaning materials and guidelines.

Prevention for Patients

• Carefully wash hands with soap during key times such as before eating and after changing a diaper or helping to clean another person who has defecated.
• If caring for a child in diapers who has shigellosis, promptly discard the soiled diapers in a lidded, lined garbage can, and wash hands and the child’s hands. Any leaks or spills of diaper contents should be cleaned up immediately.
• Avoid swallowing water from ponds, lakes, or untreated swimming pools.
• When traveling internationally, follow food and water precautions strictly and wash hands frequently.
• Avoid sexual activity with those who have diarrhea or who recently recovered from diarrhea.

Public Health Actions
Public health will conduct case and contact investigation to determine the source, risk factors, and transmission settings.

Antibiotics are usually not necessary for Shigella infections but if treating, culture and test for antibiotic susceptibility. CDC has reported emerging strains of Shigella with quinolone resistance. 

Smileband health topics

A surgeon has revealed he is creating a bionic vagina made from the intestine of a pig. The artificial organ was developed with the animal's tissue alongside a patient's own stem cells.

The groundbreaking project is being led by Alexander Seifalian – the man who constructed the first synthetic trachea to be transplanted into a patient.

If could potentially transform the lives of women with disorders such a vaginal artesia, where the vagina is abnormally closed or absent or Mayer–Rokitansky–Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, in which the vagina does not fully develop. 

The treatment could also be applied to patients with vaginal cancer or injuries.

Professor Seifalian is carrying out the work at London-based NanoRegMed, which is one of several labs around the world working on the futuristic idea of growing custom-made organs in the lab. He extracted muscle and cells from a patient and joined them with the pig intestine, by feeding them nutrients that allowed the cells to grow and merge together.   

The next step will be to transplant the vagina scaffold into a human.

Professor Seifalian said: 'The construct will be taken from the operating theatre and inserted into the patient. Experimental stage

However, the surgeon admits that the scheme is at an 'experimental' stage – and he said it could take up to five years to be used in patients.

His work follows on from that of Dr Anthony Atala in the US.

His team successfully grown vaginas in a laboratory and implanted them into four teenage patients between 2005 and 2008.

They did not have their own developed vaginas and the artificial organs were created using their own tissue cells. 

Smileband health topics

A team in Germany has developed tiny robot suits that can help sperm become more mobile, solving one of the biggest causes of infertility in men. If the researchers can successfully replicate their lab results inside the human body, it could be a new option for couples struggling to conceive. These 'spermbots' are miniature metal helixes just large enough to completely wrap around the tail of a single sperm and help it along its way towards the egg. The bots are powered with the assistance of a magnetic field controlled by the scientists, though all of the experiments undertaken so far have been with bull sperm in the confines of a petri dish. Once the sperm has reached its target and become embedded in the egg, the metal casing can reverse direction to detach itself. Our results indicate that metal-coated polymer microhelices are suitable for this task due to potent, controllable, and non-harmful 3D motion behaviour," explains the report. 

"Despite the fact that there still remain some challenges on the way to achieve successful fertilisation with artificially motorised sperms, we believe that the potential of this novel approach toward assisted reproduction can be already put into perspective with the present work. 

Smileband health topics

Infant botulism is the infectious intestinal form of botulism that occurs among persons 12 months of age or less, which is caused by ingestion or other exposure to a neurotoxin produced by the anaerobic, gram-positive, spore-forming bacterium Clostridium botulinum.

Botulinum toxin causes weakness and loss of muscle tone. The illness often begins with constipation but is usually first noticed as difficulty feeding (sucking and swallowing), a weak and altered cry and diminished facial expressions. Signs of botulism may also be characterized as a “floppy baby” or floppy movements due to muscle weakness and descending paralysis. Other signs of infant botulism include excess drooling, drowsiness, drooping eyelids, and difficulty breathing.

Arizona usually sees 1 - 3 cases of infant botulism a year. Infant botulism is most often seen in infants less than 6 months of age and is associated with eating honey, home-canned vegetables and fruits, and corn syrup.

Arizona 5 year median: 2 cases

Transmission
Because C. botulinum forms spores, it can survive indefinitely under essentially any environmental condition.

Infant botulism occurs when a baby swallows the botulism spores and the spores grow to produce the toxin in the infant’s intestines. C. botulinum is not part of the patient’s normal, healthy bacteria that live in our bodies and will eventually stop being excreted in the infant’s feces.

Prevention for Patients
Infant botulism can be difficult to prevent because the bacteria that causes the disease is naturally found in soils and dust. The bacteria can be found inside homes on floors, carpet, and countertops, even after cleaning.

The only standard prevention measure for infant botulism is to avoid feeding honey to infants 12 months of age or less. Breastfeeding may slow the onset of illness if it develops.

CDC Prevention Info

Public Health Actions
CDC controls the distribution of botulinum antitoxin, which is stocked at U.S. Public Health Service Quarantine Stations throughout the country. Any healthcare provider considering antitoxin use must consult first with the Arizona Department of Health Services Infectious Disease Epidemiology staff after hours:

Public health will conduct an epidemiological investigation on a case or suspect case.

Smileband general news

Shoppers watched on in horror as two men were stabbed at a busy mall in Luton. Grisly pictures show a trail of blood and a large knife lying on the floor of the shopping centre and Bedfordshire Police said the two men had been taken to hospital.

A video taken from inside The Mall appears to show screens erected around emergency services while they work on one of the victims.

The footage also shows dozens of horrified shoppers walking over the bloody footsteps. 

Both of the men's conditions are unknown. Officers were called to The Mall at around 2.30pm on Sunday afternoon and the shopping centre is cordoned off while the probe takes place. 

A police spokesman said: 'We were called to reports of two men with stab wounds in The Mall, Luton at around 2.30pm today. 

'A number of officers attended, along with the Ambulance service and two men were taken to hospital. 

'The Mall is currently closed while an investigation is ongoing. Anyone with any information, or anyone who was in the area at around 2.30pm and witnessed anything, is asked to call 101 quoting reference number 184 of 21 January.' 

Smileband general news

Hundreds of primary school children are being investigated by police for swapping naked selfies, figures reveal today. They are using smartphones, social networks and video games consoles to share explicit photos with classmates and strangers they meet online.

Almost 200 children under 12 have been branded ‘suspects’ by police in the past three years, according to figures obtained by the Daily Mail.

Police are now questioning whether all these children should remain on their databases or if officers should be investigating in the first place.

At least 5,000 children under 18 were quizzed by police for sending or receiving nude images between April 2014 and April 2017, the figures show. Taking, sending or possessing naked pictures of a child is a criminal offence, even if the child took the photo.

It means police are required by law to treat these youngsters as suspects, which risks criminalising a generation of pupils.

The name of every child caught swapping naked selfies is placed on a police database alongside the ‘crime’ they are alleged to have committed – potentially ruining their chances of employment as adults when they apply for certain jobs involving children.

Last year only 63 under-18s were actually charged with making, distributing or possessing indecent images under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

Thousands of other investigations were dropped because they were classed as ‘experimental’ behaviour by the children.

Thames Valley Police investigated 642 children between 2014 and 2017, and Norfolk quizzed 575 youngsters. Some 432 were interrogated by West Mercia Police and 345 were investigated by Humberside. Some forces have seen a 16-fold increase in child suspects in only two years. Norfolk Constabulary investigated 408 children in 2016-17, compared to 25 two years earlier.

Derbyshire had 164 cases last year, up from eight in 2015. And the number of child suspects in Suffolk rose from 17 to 202 in two years. On one occasion a five-year-old was branded an ‘offender’ by Hertfordshire Police for taking an indecent image of another child. In Northamptonshire, a seven-year-old girl was investigated after she used an iPad to film herself naked before putting the video on YouTube.

Neither could be prosecuted because they were under ten, the age of criminal responsibility.

At least 31 children under ten have been questioned over nude pictures in the past three years. Two were aged only five. Over the same period, police investigated 38 children aged ten. More than 105 11-year-olds and 327 12-year-olds were quizzed.

Police also looked into allegations against 678 children of 13. On one occasion, a 13-year-old girl sent a boy a topless selfie to his Xbox console. Others used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Skype to swap nude images.

The true figures are expected to be far higher because around half the 43 police forces in the UK declined to provide data.

Chief Constable Olivia Pinkney, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for children and young people, questioned whether many of the cases were worthy of police investigation.

Smileband general news

An elephant who appeared in Thai films and television adverts has crushed its owner to death at a zoo in the northern city of Chiang Mai.

The elephant, believed to be in musth - an aggressive state associated with a surge in testosterone - attacked his 54-year-old owner, Somsak Riengngen, crushing him to death with his trunk.

The accident occurred on Monday morning as the elephant was unchained, the South China Morning Post reports. The five-tonne elephant, named Ekasit, had one mahout, or handler, on his back and reportedly took a few steps before turning and attacking Somsak who was on the ground. 

“The elephant suddenly turned back and used his trunk to grab the victim. Then the elephant used his trunk to crush him,” Wuthichai Muangman, acting director of Chiang Mai Zoo, told the Post. 

Mr Wuthichai described Somsak as an “elephant expert”, but added that the elephant had been in musth when the accident happened. 

During musth, which often occurs during winter, male elephants can experience surges in testosterone that can send levels of the hormone up by 60 times the usual amount. The state of musth in male elephants has often been linked to the rutting season, however, any relationship with reproducing is far from clear, as female elephants’ reproductive cycle is not seasonally linked as the musth is. Also, bull elephants in musth have been known to attack females regardless of whether they are in heat or not.

Ekasit the elephant had appeared in television commercials as well as several foreign and Thai films.

He was being kept at the zoo in Chiang Mai as part of a contract that was due to expire in April. 

The zoo owner’s death has reignited the debate about captive wild animals in Thailand.

The country is infamous for offering tourists rides on elephants that are inadequately cared for. 

Out of 2,923 elephants documented as working in Asia’s tourism trade, 2,198 are in Thailand, notes the South China Morning Post.