Oscar Pistorius gets a clean bill of mental health, much to his defense attorneys’ chagrin – America’s wall between church and state is kicked in by its own Supreme Court – How to survive getting run over by three trains – And a lot more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs:
Oscar Pistorius has no mental disorder – that’s the conclusion of a psychological report ordered by the judge to confirm and knock down defense claims. The prosecution says it means that the Olympic and Paralympic athlete is criminally responsible for his actions. Pistorious shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenekamp on Valentine’s Day 2013 – the prosecution says it was deliberate, the defense says Pistorius mistook her for a burglar.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf says anyone caught hiding suspected Ebola patients will be prosecuted. It echoes a similar warning issued in Sierra Leone last week, which said that some Ebola patients had checked themselves out of hospital and gone into hiding. Sierra Leone’s director of disease prevention and control Dr. Amara Jambai said at least 57 suspected and confirmed Ebola cases were “missing”, the victims having fled or gone into hiding.
Two Egyptian police officers died trying to defuse bombs that exploded near the presidential palace in Cairo. Islamist militants said they had planted bombs in the area last week. President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi promised “just and speedy retribution” for the two deaths on the first anniversary of his rise to power.
British Prime Minister David Cameron is coming under more pressure from Euroskeptics to pull out of the European Union, the heels of Cameron’s failure to stop the EU from naming Jean-Claude Junker its new Commission President. Despite lobbying against him, Cameron now says Britain “can do business” with Juncker. Opposition Labour leader Ed Milliband said Cameron “started with a divided Europe,” but would up “with a united Europe against him.”
The US Supreme Court has ruled a Christian-owned company can claim a religious exemption to a law requiring employers to pay for their workers’ contraception as part of their health care plan. The bizarre ruling only applies to “closely held” companies with few owners, and allows wealthy owners to dictate their religious beliefs as policy to workers.
Uruguay striker Luis Suarez took to twitter to apologize for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini during the World Cup match on 24 June and vowed there would never be a repeat of the incident. He initially denied it. Uruguayan President Jose Mujica’s response was much more entertaining – Mujica lambasted FIFA bosses as “sons of bitches” who meted out “fascist” punishment to Suarez.
A late night flight from Chicago to Southern California was forced to make an emergency landing when one of the plane’s emergency slides deployed in the passenger cabin. No one was hurt, but 96 passengers and crew were frightened. The pilots dropped the plane from 11,580 meters to 5790 meters in about 10 minutes as they followed air controllers’ orders to put it down in Kansas, where passengers had to stay overnight before another plane was rounded up to complete the journey.
A New York City woman survived being run over by a train, not once but three times in a row. 22-year old Irish immigrant Mary Downey of the Bronx fell from the subway platform and broke her shoulder, just as a train approached. She flattened out between the two rails and the train passed over her. And a second train passed over her. And finally, the driver of the third train saw her and radioed for help, although he didn’t have enough time to stop the train before it, too, ran over her. Paramedics came and took her to hospital to treat that broken shoulder.