Friday Five News 8/1/15

The INTERNATIONAL  story I noticed this week was the first anniversary of the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris. There was lots of news coverage on this plus a TV programme dedicated to it here.

Of course the recent attacks in Paris has reminded people of how vulnerable we all are from terrorist attacks.  It must be really hard for the employees who continue to work there always feeling under threat.  Freedom of speech, it seems, can come at a very expensive price.

The LOCAL  news item I hunted out was this sad story of how two unscrupulous men conned a vulnerable woman out of £1.6 million through an internet dating site.  They set up a phoney profile and managed to convince the poor women into sending money to fund a business and various other expenses.

I’ve heard of (and received) e-mail requests for help to get people out of trouble abroad, or where you’re promised money but need to send a small amount of money first, thus disclosing your bank details but this takes things to a whole new level.  Understandably the woman is now in an extremely fragile state and will probably suffer over this for the rest of her life.  Unfortunately the two defendants both received sentences of less than 3 years.  Sometimes our justice system sucks!

It’s clearly never too late when it comes to some SPORT: Bill Guilfoil will be entering the trials for the US Olympic table tennis team – despite the fact he is 93 years old.

Guilfoil, who has been playing for 80 years, will attend the trials in Greensboro, North Carolina in February.  He also attempted to make the team for the 2012 Games, but missed out on a place in London.

"This year I'm going to practise more," Guilfoil told KMBC News. "It's exciting."

The main entertainment news revolved around the nominations for the BAFTAs so this week I delved into the ARTS and found this story about the ups and downs of a house in Cheltenham that is up for sale, complete with an original BANKSY artwork on its end wall.  The property is a Grade II listed building but looks very run down.  The artwork has also been subject to theft attempts and has been vandalised.

I just don’t get art sometimes!

Finally I found this MISCELLANEOUS item personally interesting.  Having watched my Mum suffer the indignities caused by Alzheimer’s any discoveries/developments regarding new treatments are always welcome.  This article is about a different approach to treatment that seems to have had promising results in mice.  Of course there would be a long way to go before this could lead to drug trials on people let alone drugs being available for general use but new developments are always encouraging.

All links are courtesy of the BBC website. Opinions are my own.