USA – — Philip D. Chism was sentenced Friday to serve at least 40 years in state prison for the rape and murder of Colleen E. Ritzer, a sentence imposed shortly after Ritzer’s parents denounced the teenager as someone “pure evil’’ who deserved to be executed. Essex Superior Court Judge David Lowy sentenced the 17-year-old Chism for the attack on Ritzer inside a second-floor girls’ bathroom at Danvers High School on Oct. 22, 2013. Chism raped, slashed, and strangled Ritzer before moving her body to nearby woods, where he violated her with a tree branch. “Colleen Ritzer lived a life of quiet heroism,’’ said Lowy. He said her death was a “brutal and senseless murder. …The crashing waves of this tragedy will never wane.’’ At a news conference after the sentencing, Ritzer’s mother, Peggie Ritzer, said the sentence was not tough enough. “Today’s sentence is unacceptable,” she said. Lowy said that Chism “did not start life on third base,’’ in part because his father was abusive and in and out of his son’s life.

(bostonglobe)…[+]

ISRAEL – The high point of many seven-year-olds’ days out may include a play in the park, but for one Israeli child, it involved the discovery of a precious ancient artifact. Ori Greenhunt spotted a figurine poking out of the earth when he was climbing a mound with friends at Tel Rehov archaeological site and carefully carried it home. The small artifact is thought to be 3,400 years old and may be the image of the fertility goddess Astarte, or simply a curvaceous lady.   Ori came across a stone that had shifted and saw an image of a person covered with soil, according to the country’s Antiquities Authority.(Daily Mail)…[+]

FRANCE – The French government’s plan to clear part of the Calais migrant camp known as the “Jungle” has been approved by a court in Lille. Authorities say around 1,000 migrants will be affected by the eviction plan for the southern part of the camp. Aid agencies say the number of people living there is much higher. Local officials said public areas such as places of worship or schools would not be cleared and said it would be a “humanitarian operation”. A deadline had initially been ordered for the southern part of the “Jungle” to be cleared by Tuesday evening but activists appealed to the court to halt the evictions.(BBC)…[+]

USA – Escalating their battle to stamp out an unprecedented spread of street encampments, city officials have begun seizing tiny houses from homeless people living on freeway overpasses in South Los Angeles. Three of the gaily painted wooden houses, which come with solar-powered lights and American flags, were confiscated earlier this month and seven more are planned for impound Thursday, a Bureau of Sanitation spokeswoman said. Elvis Summers, who built and donated the structures, was out Wednesday with a flat-bed trailer, trying to move houses scattered up and down Harbor Freeway bridges into storage…[+]

IRAQ/SWEDEN – A 16-year-old Swedish girl rescued from ISIS territory in northern Iraq by Kurdish special forces has given a television interview explaining how she came to be stranded in the terror group’s so-called caliphate. Kurdish forces came to the aid of Marlin Stivani Nivarlainnear the ISIS stronghold of Mosul last Wednesday, according to a statement by the Kurdistan Region Security Council. Kurdistan 24 (K24), a broadcast news station based out of Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, aired an interview with the teen Tuesday.(CNN)…[+]

SOUTH AFRICA –Shanty huts sit next to clapped-out cars, as children sprint along the dusty wasteland under the scorching sun. Beyond the flimsy shacks lie ditches and pools of filthy, stagnant water where mosquitoes breed. These are the daily conditions endured by families in South Africa’s ‘white squatter camps’ where there is little food, running water and no electricity. While most white South Africans still land the plumb jobs and enjoy relative wealth, the number of poor whites has steadily increased in the past two decades.(Daily Mail)…[+]

UK – A woman who was dubbed Britain’s fattest teenager is set to move to a specially-designed house half a mile from 20 fast-food outlets. Georgia Davis, 22, from Aberdare in Wales, is known as the Takeaway Princess in her neighborhood and has been clinically obese since she was five.  She once weighed 400 kg and was so big she could not walk.  Now 317 kg, she is still too big for her current house, and the new £150,000 property – which will be paid for out of her benefits – has been specially designed with a double front door, and widened rooms and corridors. But the home is just yards away from tempting takeaways and fast food delivery outfits. Miss Davis will have plenty of options including five Chinese takeaways, two Indians and an array of pizza and kebab shops. (Daily Mail)…[+]

CUBA – President Raúl Castro has called on all Cubans to help eradicate the mosquitoes that carry the Zika virus and ordered 9,000 army troops to help stave off the disease.  Cuba has yet to detect a case of Zika, but the outbreak is affecting large parts of Latin America and the Caribbean and is likely to spread to all countries in the Americas except for Canada and Chile, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.

“It’s necessary for every single Cuban to take up this battle as a personal matter,” Castro wrote in a national message sounding the alarm over Zika, which is carried by mosquitoes that transmit the virus to humans. The virus is suspected of causing birth defects after infecting pregnant women. Cubans should clean up potential environments for the Aedes genus of mosquitoes, said Castro, who also is general of the armed forces.(theguardian)…[+]

PERU – At least 3,000 barrels of crude oil have been spilled in an Amazonian region after leaks from Peru’s main oil pipeline, the state oil company said. The oil has polluted two rivers that at least eight indigenous communities rely on for water, the government and indigenous leaders said. Petroperu has promised a full clean-up and is also providing food and water. The company said the first leak was triggered by a landslide but the cause of the second rupture was unclear.(BBC)…[+]

GERMANY – A father-to-be killed his heavily pregnant girlfriend by burning her alive because he could not cope with the thought of becoming a parent, a court heard. Eren Toben, 20, lured his 19-year-old girlfriend Maria Peiner, who was eight months pregnant, into a wooded area in Berlin, Germany, before stabbing her with a bread knife and setting her alight. The court heard he wanted a ‘free, happy life’ and brutally murdered his partner and their unborn baby so he could avoid fatherhood.

He has now been jailed for 14 years, alongside his accomplice, Daniel Mueller, 20, who helped carry out the horrific murder. The court heard how the two men lured Miss Peiner into woods on the outskirts of Berlin to kill her. Judge Regina Alex said Toben hatched the plot, adding: ‘For him the crime was a solution, he wanted a free, happy life which he had control over. ‘He abused Maria’s love for him to lure her into an ambush.'(Daily Mail).(FOTO: bz-berlin.de)…[+]