Hasta La Gadget!

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A warplane on Friday bombed the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun, where a chemical attack killed scores of people this week and prompted U.S. missile strikes, a witness in the rebel-held area and a war monitoring group said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based organization that monitors the war, said a Syrian government or Russian warplane hit Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib province before noon.

The Syrian army and the Russian defense ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.

The witness, an activist working with an air raid warning service in opposition areas, said the jet struck at around 11 a.m. local time (0800 GMT) at the northern edge of the town, causing damage but no known casualties.

The United States fired dozens of cruise missiles on Friday at an airfield from which it said the Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack was launched that killed at least 70 people on Tuesday.

Washington blamed the gas attack on Syrian government forces. The Syrian government strongly denies responsibility and says it does not use chemical weapons.

The Observatory and the witness said earlier this week that the aircraft which they accused of carrying out the suspected gas attack had flown out of the Shayrat air base, the one attacked by U.S. missiles on Friday.

The Syrian army said the missile attack on its airbase killed six people and caused extensive damage, describing it as a “blatant aggression”.

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The annual BAFTA game awards were held at London’s Tobacco Dock last night, celebrating the best software and creative, talented individuals from 2016. Playdead’s quiet, thought-provoking Inside was easily the most successful, picking up the awards f…

A Scottish court has warned that President Donald Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf club risks charges of voyeurism if “officious bystanders” take photos of female hikers peeing near the course. 

Sheriff Donald Corke issued the warning as he ruled in a case brought by local woman Rohan Beyts. She sued the Trump International Golf Links Scotland for damages for invasion of privacy after at least one staff member took photos of her last April as she urinated during a walk across the seaside course last year. She demanded $3,750 in damages at the Edinburgh Sheriff Court, saying that the club breached data protection laws. 

Corke ruled against damages for Beyts Wednesday, saying that her attorney failed to prove that the distress she suffered was based on the club’s failure to register under the Data Protection Act. 

But he branded the club’s police complaint against Beyts “frivolous,” saying that it was “lawful” that she discreetly relieved herself as she walked across the course, taking advantage of public access to property protected under Scottish law. Beyts is a known opponent of the controversial course.

“Officious bystanders taking pictures of females urinating in the countryside put themselves at very real risk of prosecution whether for a public order offence or voyeurism,” Corke said.

Beyts told the court she had a bladder condition at the time and that she tried to hide from sight to relieve herself during a walk, the BBC reports. Four days after the incident, police charged her with public urination and told her that she had been photographed. Those charges were dropped.

The 62-year-old had “a reasonable expectation of privacy” and should not have been photographed — just as men seen urinating on the course are not photographed, Corke ruled.

Both sides claimed victory in the decision.

In a statement, the Trump club hailed Corke’s decision and called Beyts a “shameless activist with a history of antagonistic behavior. “She came on to our property with a hostile opponent of the project looking for trouble,” it said. “Members of our greens-keeping staff were flabbergasted at what they witnessed and reported the incident to the police.”

Beyts’ attorney, Michael Dailley, said his client lost compensation on a “technicality.” He and Beyts viewed the case as a reaffirmation of land access for walkers, which they claim infuriates the president.

A Police Scotland document revealed officials’ concerns about conflict between the law and what Trump expected on his course. “Their belief is that the land is private and that they will be able to restrict access unconditionally,” the report said of Trump officials, according to the Guardian. “This is obviously not the case.”

Beyts told reporters after the ruling that her case was never about compensation. “I wasn’t interested in money,” she said. “I was only interested in clearing my name when the Trump Organization representative spoke of me committing a deliberate and shameful act within a few feet of the clubhouse. That was not the case.”

“My message for Donald Trump is: Treat people with respect and dignity, and you will get treated with respect and dignity,” she added.

Companies using surveillance equipment, such as the CCTV cameras at the Trump club, are required under U.K. law to register under the Data Protection Act. The club finally registered four months after photographing Beyts, the Guardian reported.

Trump’s golf course is has caused great controversy in surrounding Aberdeenshire communities. Residents have accused him of ignoring environmental laws and bullying homeowners who refused to sell to him.

After he was elected president, Trump pressured British politician Nigel Farage at a meeting to battle wind farms for energy because he’s concerned they would blight the views from his Aberdeenshire course.

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A paraplegic man died an unspeakably cruel death after his ex-girlfriend abandoned him in the cold at a remote Georgia hunting camp, the local sheriff said.

Troymaine Johnson, 33, had been in the woods “a good two nights and part of one morning.” before the ex-girlfriend’s disturbing statements sent deputies on a search, said Upson County Sheriff Dan Kilgore.

“I can’t imagine the desperation he must have felt while lying in the middle of a cold, dark forest, waiting on death to take him,” Kilgore told The Huffington Post.

Johnson’s ex-girlfriend, 27-year-old Ruby Kate “Katie” Coursey, of Fort Valley, admitted abandoning Johnson, authorities said, and has been charged with felony murder and felony neglect of a disabled adult. She was held at Upson County Jail. It wasn’t clear whether she has an attorney.

Deputies on March 17 found Johnson’s body in a heavily wooded area some 70 miles south of Atlanta. The search began after the sheriff received a call from relatives of Coursey, who said she’d admitted leaving Johnson in the woods.

“I did a bad thing,” Coursey allegedly said, according to police. “I hurt Troymaine. I took him out of the car and left him in the woods.”

Coursey told deputies she couldn’t remember exactly where she’d left Johnson. Nevertheless, investigators began scouring back roads in southeast Upson County. It was about 1:20 a.m. on March 17 ― more than two days after Johnson had been last seen ― that deputies on a remote road came upon a driveway with a damaged entry gate.

“The gate had been pushed in ― hit so hard the concrete posts had pulled up,” Kilgore said. “They drove down in, some 150 to 200 yards off the road, and located his body on the ground near a hunting camp.”

Because there was no obvious trauma to Johnson’s body, authorities didn’t immediately charge Coursey in Johnson’s death. However, they jailed her on an unrelated probation violation.

The investigation determined Coursey had borrowed a friend’s vehicle on March 14, authorities said. The vehicle had front-end damage, consistent with hitting a gate, and paint from the vehicle matched paint found on the damaged hunting camp gate, police said.

Johnson had very limited mobility and only partial use of one arm, his grandmother told investigators. He was 11 years old, his grandmother told police, when a friend playing with a handgun accidentally shot him. From that point on, Johnson was dependent on a wheelchair and the care of those around him, the sheriff said.

Johnson’s grandmother told police she’d last saw Johnson at their Thomaston home on the evening of March 14.

Johnson and Coursey “had a previous relationship, which had deteriorated,” Kilgore said. “That evening, she went to his home and picked him up. [His grandmother] assumed, since they didn’t take his wheelchair or anything else he needed, that they were just going to ride around. They were last seen near there around 8:30 that night.”

Coursey, according to police, has refused to speak since providing investigators the vague details on Johnson’s whereabouts.

Johnson’s funeral was held March 24.

“His father’s dead his mother’s dead … so he’s leaving his earthly family to go on and be with his heavenly family,” his aunt, Sharon Rumph, told Macon’s WMAZ-TV.

Johnson’s cousin, Sade Owens, described him as someone who was easy to like. 

“You didn’t even have to know him, but you just loved him because he was himself and that’s probably what we’re going to miss the most,” Owens told WMAZ-TV.

Autopsy results showed Johnson died from hypothermia due to exposure, Kilgore said. It was unclear just how long Johnson, who Kilgore described as “completely defenseless,” had suffered.

“It’s very hard to prove how long he lived after she cruelly left him out in that,” the sheriff said “One would hope it wasn’t long. It was uncharacteristically cold here that week. Temperatures got down into 20s.”

Motive also remains unclear.

“I cannot imagine what would cause anybody to do something like that,” Kilgore said.

David Lohr covers crime and missing persons. Tips? Feedback? Send an email or follow him on Twitter.  

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Police in India are searching for the parents of a young girl who was found in a forest and appeared to have been living with monkeys, according to local news reports.

Villagers notified police after they saw the girl in a remote forest in  Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary, northern India, in January, the Hindustan Times reports. When police discovered her, she had no clothes, appeared to be tanned from prolonged exposure to the sun and had claw-like nails.

The girl was with a group of monkeys, with whom she appeared to be very comfortable, when a police officer attempted to rescue her, according to the Times of India. The monkeys and the girl screamed when the officer detained her.

“When [the officer] called the girl, the monkeys attacked him but he was able to rescue the girl,” police officer Dinesh Tripathi told The Associated Press on Thursday. “He sped away with her in his police car while the monkeys gave chase.”

Officials took the girl to a hospital in Bahraich, where she is reportedly still being treated.

D.K. Singh, the hospital’s chief medical superintendent, told the Hindustan Times that the girl could not speak or understand any language. News agencies report that she appears to be between 8 and 12 years old.

“She has spent many years with animals and, so, behaved like them,” Singh told the Hindustan Times.

When she was first rescued, the girl ran using her arms and legs and ate food directly off the floor using only her mouth, according the AP. Caretakers have reportedly taught her to walk upright and use her hands when eating. Officials said she could respond to some human interactions.

She still cannot speak, Singh told the Hindustan Times, but “she understands signals and is able to identify the word boy, nurse and other medical staff.”

“It seems the girl had been abandoned in the forest area at an early age,” he added.

Local news outlets have dubbed the orphaned child “Girl Mowgli,” based on the Rudyard Kipling novel and subsequent movies “The Jungle Book.”

Police officers were searching through missing children reports in an attempt to identify the girl, according to the AP.

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