Three Hurt As Marriage Reception Erupts In Violence

A bride was arrested and spent her first night of married life in a police cell after being accused of 'glassing' a guest at her wedding reception.
The 32-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of assault causing grievous bodily harm after her special day descended into violence.

She spent the whole of the wedding night in custody but was released back into her husband's arms the following day after her alleged victim decided not to press charges.
The 29-year-old man had to be rushed to hospital with cuts to his face after being attacked with the glass.

Two other men - including the 54-year-old groom - were also injured in the fracas and had to be treated by paramedics.

A police spokesman said: "Police were called to a disturbance involving a wedding party at the Bromley Court Hotel at 1am on Sunday.
"A 29-year-old male was taken to Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford suffering from cuts to his face after being assaulted with a glass.

"A 30-year-old male was taken to Princess Royal University Hospital in Farnborough suffering from a broken nose.
"A 54-year-old male was treated at the scene by LAS for a cut to his elbow.
"A 32-year-old female was arrested at the scene and taken to Bromley Police Station on suspicion of GBH against the 29-year-old male.

"She was kept in custody overnight and released with a police caution for affray after the victim declined to press charges or assist police with the investigation."
A spokesman for the London Ambulance Service said: "We were called at 1.20am on Sunday to reports of an assault.

'We sent two ambulances and a responder crew to the Bromley Court Hotel and treated three persons for various injurious, two of which were taken to hospital for treatment.'

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Kate Hoax Call DJs Tearfully Apologize

They say they expected a hang-up and a few laughs. Instead, the Australian DJs behind a hoax phone call to the London hospital where the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge was being treated were deeply apologetic Monday as they described how their joke ended up going too far.

The phone call — in which they impersonated Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles — went through, and their station broadcast and even trumpeted the confidential information received. Whatever pride there had been over the hoax was obliterated by worldwide public outrage after Friday's death of Jacintha Saldanha, the first nurse they talked to.
"There's not a minute that goes by that we don't think about her family and what they must be going through," 2DayFM radio host Mel Greig told Australia's A Current Affair, her voice shaking. "And the thought that we may have played a part in that is gut-wrenching."

Cause of death not disclosed

Police have not disclosed the cause of Saldanha's death, but many have assumed it was related to the stress from the call. An autopsy is being held Tuesday.
Prime Minister David Cameron said at a luncheon Monday that "the suicide of this nurse, who worked incredibly hard and obviously was incredibly dedicated ... is an absolute tragedy."
His office later said Cameron's comment was not an official acknowledgment that the death was a suicide.

Greig and co-host Michael Christian spoke publicly about the prank for the first time in the televised interview. Another interview on rival show Today Tonight also aired Monday.
The hoax has sparked broad outrage, with the hosts receiving death threats and demands they be fired.

The radio station's owner said Greig and Christian were receiving psychological counseling to deal with the tragedy. A British lawmaker said he wished that much was being done for Saldanha's grieving family.

"They are devastated by what has happened," said Labour legislator Keith Vaz, who has visited Saldanha's husband and two children at their home in Bristol, southwest England.
"They are shocked and they are bewildered," Vaz told the BBC. "More support, in my view, needs to be given."

Both DJs apologized for the hoax and cried when asked about the moment they learned that the Saldanha was dead. But neither described having reservations before the hoax tape was broadcast; they said higher-ups at the station had made the decision to air it.
"We didn't have that discussion," Greig said.

Show terminated

Southern Cross Austereo, the parent company of 2DayFM, released a statement Monday saying that Greig and Christian's show had been terminated and there would be a company-wide suspension of prank calls. The DJs themselves remain suspended.

Saldanha, 46, had transferred their call last week to a fellow nurse caring for the duchess, who was being treated for acute morning sickness at King Edward VII Hospital in London. That nurse said the former Kate Middleton "hasn't had any retching with me and she's been sleeping on and off."

Three days later, Saldanha was found dead at the hospital's nurses' accommodation.
The DJs said when the idea for the call came up in a team meeting, no one expected that they would actually be put through to the duchess' ward.
"We just assumed we'd get cut off at every single point and that'd be it," Christian said.

"The joke 100 per cent was on us," he said. "The idea was never, `Let's call up and get through to Kate,' or `Let's speak to a nurse.' The joke was our accents are horrible, they don't sound anything like who they're intended to be."

Southern Cross Austereo CEO Rhys Holleran has called Saldanha's death a tragedy but defended the prank as a standard part of radio culture. He has also insisted the station had not broken any laws. He told Fairfax Radio on Monday that his station had tried at least five times to contact the London hospital to discuss the prank before it aired, but never succeeded.

When asked why the company made the attempts, Holleran replied "because we did want to speak with them about it." When pressed as to whether this meant the station had reservations about the pre-recorded prank, Holleran said only, "I think that that's a process that we follow and we have checks and balances on all those things."

Contact denied

The King Edward VII Hospital denied that its management had been contacted by the radio station.
"Following the hoax call, the radio station did not speak to anyone in the hospital's senior management or anyone at the company that handles our media inquiries," the hospital said in a statement.

It also announced a memorial fund to help support the nurse's family, with the hospital making the first donation.Vaz, however, called on the hospital to do more. He urged it to hold an inquiry into Saldanha's death and said no one from King Edward VII had visited her family.
"I'm a little surprised that nobody has made the journey to Bristol to sit with them and to offer them the counseling that I think that they need," he said.

Saldanha had two children. Her husband, Ben Barboza, expressed his sadness on his Facebook page with a short note "Obituary Jacintha."

"I am devastated with the tragic loss of my beloved wife Jacintha in tragic circumstances," he wrote. He said she will be laid to rest in Shirva, India.

Meanwhile, there were indications that the Duchess of Cambridge still struggled with acute morning sickness over the weekend when her husband, Prince William, cancelled a Sunday night engagement.
Palace officials said no final decision had been made on whether Kate would attend Wednesday's British premiere of The Hobbit, where she and William are to be the guests of honor.

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‘World’s Most Famous Wolf’ shot and killed outside Yellowstone

A wolf so popular that she was referred to as a rock star by rangers was shot and killed in Wyoming just outside Yellowstone National Park late last week, wildlife officials told the New York Times.

The 6-year-old gray wolf, a tourist favorite known as 832F, was the alpha female of Yellowstone's "highly visible" Lamar Canyon pack, according to the Times. She had been fitted with a GPS collar that allowed researchers to track her movements.

According to the newspaper, she was the eighth wolf fitted with the collar to be shot during this year's hunting season.

Last fall, Wyoming removed wolves from its list of endangered species, allowing them to be legally hunted on the Yellowstone Park border for the first time in decades.

On Friday, the Humane Society filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to delist wolves in Wyoming. At least 50 wolves have been killed in the state since Oct. 1, the lawsuit claims. (According to the Times, at least 87 wolves have been shot in Montana this season, and 120 shot or trapped in Idaho.)

"The decision to strip Wyoming wolves of federal protection is biologically reckless and contrary to the requirements of the Endangered Species Act," Jonathan Lovvorn, the Humane Society's lead counsel for animal protection litigation, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. "Wyoming's regressive wolf management plan is reminiscent of a time when bounties paid by state and federal governments triggered mass killings that nearly exterminated wolves from the lower 48 states."

Ranchers say wolf hunting is necessary to protect livestock. According to National Park Service estimates, there are more than 1,700 wolves living in the Rocky Mountain region—most in Idaho.In Yellowstone alone, according to the park's annual wolf report, there were at least 98 wolves in 10 packs—plus two loners—at the end of 2011. And none was more popular than 832F.

"She is the most famous wolf in the world," Jimmy Jones, a wildlife photographer, told the Times.

According to Daniel Stahler, director of Yellowstone's wolf program, data from 832F showed she rarely traveled outside the park. When she did, it was "only for brief periods."

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Google's GMail Service Suffers Disruption

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Several Google Inc Web products, including the popular GMail service, appeared to go dark for users on several continents on Monday.

Google confirmed that "service disruptions" had affected GMail and Google Drive, its online storage service. The two products are part of Google's Apps suite, a Microsoft Office rival that caters to both consumers and businesses.

By 10:10 a.m. Pacific Time (18:10 GMT), Google's Apps Dashboard monitoring service reported that GMail and Drive service had resumed. The company did not specify how many users were affected, or where, but the outage prompted widespread complaints on social media on both coasts in the U.S. and other major markets, from the United Kingdom to Brazil.

Some users additionally reported that the outage had affected Google Docs, the company's word-processing and spreadsheet programs, while Chrome, Google's Internet browser, also crashed unexpectedly.

"We are currently experiencing an issue with some Google services," Google spokeswoman Andrea Freund said in a statement. "For everyone who is affected, we apologize for any inconvenience you may be experiencing."

Firmly entrenched in the consumer market, GMail is one of Google's most popular and important product offerings. The search giant, which has been pushing a corporate version of the email service and its Apps suite to businesses to compete with Microsoft, said this month that the package will no longer be free to business customers.

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Scientists create brain cells from human urine

A new scientific study claims that human urine can be converted into brain cells. And the surprising discovery may extend beyond practical applications, allowing a way to circumvent the controversial debate over stem cell research.

The study, published online in Nature Methods and conducted by a team led by Chinese stem-cell biologist Duanqing Pei, found that cells generated from human waste might someday be used to study disease and even in therapeutic treatments for neurodegenerative diseases.

Plus, there's a potential added bonus to the discovery: Embryonic stem cells possess a high risk of developing tumors, which reportedly would not be an issue with cells taken from the urine samples.

The process works by transforming cells present in the urine into precursors of brain cells, known as neural progenitor cells. The study says the cells found in urine are a "much more accessible source" than cells found in skin and blood samples.

"This could definitely speed things up," James Ellis, a medical geneticist at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children in Ontario, Canada, told Nature.

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Iran: We Stole All Secrets From US Drone

An Iranian military commander claimed Monday that the country has stolen all the secrets held by a high-tech American surveillance drone that crashed in Iran last year, according to Iranian news reports.

"All the intelligence in this drone has been completely decoded and extracted and we know each and every step it has taken," said Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, Commander of the Aerospace Division for the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard, according to an English-language report by Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency.

Another Iranian outlet, Press TV, reported that Hajizadeh said that data gleaned from the drone showed that it was not spying on the Iranian nuclear program – a story Hajizadeh said the Americans had spread "as an excuse for hostile practices."

The RQ-170 Sentinel drone, a classified unmanned surveillance craft produced by defense contracting giant Lockheed Martin, was on a CIA mission when it mysteriously crashed in Iranian territory last December, according to U.S. officials at the time. Days after the crash, Press TV broadcast video of what appeared to be the drone propped up but in good condition. Iranian officials said then they were going to set about analyzing the advanced aircraft.

At the time of the crash, American officials said that the drone had been operating over Afghanistan when its operators lost control, after which it floated into Iranian airspace. Iranian officials said their country's electronic warfare experts had been able to take control of the drone and bring it down -- a claim disputed by Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby, who said the drone was not taken down by "hostile activity of any kind."

The bat-wing shaped craft is designed to dodge enemy radar and slip unnoticed into hostile territory to gather information or support operations on the ground. It was reportedly used to keep tabs on the man believed to be Osama bin Laden during the Navy SEAL mission that took out the terror leader in Pakistan in May.
Hajizadeh also reportedly said today that a surveillance drone sent by Hezbollah to spy in Israel in October was "an old product of Iran" and featured none of the technology allegedly gleaned from the RQ-170.
Representatives from the CIA and the U.S. military did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this report.

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SEAL Team Six Member Killed in Raid

The Pentagon has identified Petty Officer 1st Class Nicolas Checque as the Navy SEAL who died of injuries sustained in the successful rescue of an American doctor from the Taliban over the weekend.

A U.S. doctor is freed from Taliban captors in a raid that cost a serviceman his life.

One of the Special Operations troops involved in the raid to free an American doctor from the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan died of his wounds today.

A U.S. official confirmed the service member killed in the raid was a member of SEAL Team Six, the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011.

"I was deeply saddened to learn that a U.S. service member was killed in the operation, and I also want to extend my condolences to his family, teammates and friends," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement released today. "The special operators who conducted this raid knew they were putting their lives on the line to free a fellow American from the enemy's grip. They put the safety of another American ahead of their own, as so many of our brave warriors do every day and every night. In this fallen hero, and all of our special operators, Americans see the highest ideals of citizenship, sacrifice and service upheld. The torch of freedom burns brighter because of them."

President Obama also praised the Special Operations force for their bravery.

"Yesterday, our special operators in Afghanistan rescued an American citizen in a mission that was characteristic of the extraordinary courage, skill and patriotism that our troops show every day," he said today.

"Tragically, we lost one of our special operators in this effort," he said. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, just as we must always honor our troops and military families. He gave his life for his fellow Americans, and he and his teammates remind us once more of the selfless service that allows our nation to stay strong, safe and free."

Dr. Dilip Joseph and two colleagues were kidnapped Dec. 5 by a group of armed men while returning from a visit to a rural medical clinic in eastern Kabul Province, according to a statement from their employer, Colorado Springs-based Morning Star Development. The statement said the three were eventually taken to a mountainous area about 50 miles from the border with Pakistan.

Morning Star's crisis management team in Colorado Springs was in contact with the hostages and their captors almost immediately, the statement said.

On Saturday evening in Afghanistan, two of the three hostages were released. Morning Star did not release their names in order to protect their identities. Dr. Joseph remained in captivity.
Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, ordered the mission to rescue Joseph when "intelligence showed that Joseph was in imminent danger of injury or death", according to a military press release.

Morning Star said Joseph was in good condition and will probably return home to Colorado Springs in the next few days.

A Defense Department official told ABC that Joseph can walk, but was beaten up by his captors.

Joseph has worked for Morning Star Development for three years, the organization said, and travels frequently to Afghanistan.

"Morning Star Development does state categorically that we paid no ransom, money or other consideration to the captors or anyone else to secure the release of these hostages," the organization said.