Smileband general news

A millionaire antiques dealer has today admitted strangling his seven-year-old daughter to death at his £1million London home - but has denied murder. Robert Peters, a Chinese porcelain expert, wrapped a dressing gown cord around little Sophia's neck on November 3 last year, then phoned police to confess what he'd done.

After police arrived at the detached Raynes Park property he shared with Sophia's Thai mother Kittiya Promsat, Peters was arrested and initially charged with attempted murder as medics battled to save his daughter's life in hospital.

But the charge was upgraded to murder the following day after she died in hospital. 

At a plea hearing today at the Old Bailey the 55-year-old pleaded guilty to Sophia's manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, but that was rejected by the prosecutors who will press ahead with a murder trial due to start in April. Peters today appeared before Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC for a plea hearing at the Old Bailey.

The antiques trader spoke only to identify himself and showed no emotion during the brief hearing.

Peters, who appeared in the dock wearing a grey prison issue tracksuit, denied murder but pleaded guilty to Sophia's manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility. 

Prosecutor Deanna Heer said the plea was not accepted and there will be a trial at the Old Bailey from April 23.

The trial is expected to go on for up to two weeks. A further case management hearing was set for March 28. The defendant was remanded into custody. Peters, who has been married three times, is a specialist in porcelain and runs a business with his twin brother, Richard, in Kensington Church Street. 

The business is in an antiques arcade with about a dozen other traders. 

Companies House accounts reveal that Peters had business assets worth a further £1.3m in 2016. The brothers hit the headlines in 2010 after they bought a Chinese vase with an asking price of £136 for almost £100,000 after a bidding war. 

Richard Peters, who reportedly lives in Tel Aviv, said it was a 'bargain' and would likely be sold on to a Chinese client.

A third brother, Paul, is also in the antiques trade in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.   

Ex-wife Sara, 57, from Marylebone, central London, said she had not spoken to Peters in 25 years. 

Smileband general news

An earthquake of magnitude 6.4 struck off japan on Wednesday, the United States Geological Survey said. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties from the quake, which hit 103 km (64 miles) northeast of the island of Honshu, at a depth of 64 km (40 miles).

Japan lies in the 'Ring of Fire', a line of seismic faults surrounding the Pacific Ocean where earthquakes and volcanic activity are common. In the past two days, several major earthquakes have been recorded on the Ring of Fire, including off the coasts of Alaska and Indonesia.

On Tuesday morning, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck some 170 miles southeast of Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska, US.

It prompted a tsunami warning for the coastal areas of Alaska and Canada's British Columbia, sending residents fleeing to higher ground, however waves failed to show up.   

The Indonesian island of Java was also shook by an earthquake yesterday, with the epicenter about 95 miles southwest of Jakarta at a depth of about 27 miles under the sea.

The magnitude 6.0 quake damaged hundreds of homes and seriously injured six students at a school where a roof collapsed. 

Smileband health topics

Ascarasis lumbricoides (also known as Intestinal Roundworms) are parasites that live in the intestines of individuals. Generally individuals infected with roundworms are asymptomatic but some infections can cause intestinal blockage and impair growth in children.

 

Roundworms are one of the most common intestinal parasites and are found in areas where human feces are used as fertilizer or poor sanitation occurs.

 

Transmission

Roundworm eggs are passed in the feces of an infected person. The larvae mature into a form that can penetrate skin of humans. 

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.