1.A British woman has been accused of tricking her friend into having sex with her by pretending to be a man.
The strange case is attracting media attention from all over the world, as one woman accuses the other of hiding her true gender by strapping a fake penis to her body and making her lover wear a blindfold and mask during sex.
The Mirror reports: “Chester Crown Court heard that the alleged victim was left feeling sick after discovering she had been sleeping with a woman” and not with the man she knew as Kye Fortune.
The accused is a 25-year-old woman called Gayle Newland, who is charged with five counts of sexual assault.
She denies the charges.
The victim told police she became suspicious and removed a scarf and mask that Newland told her to wear during sex, which was when she saw that Gayle was wearing “a woolly hat, swimming suit and prosthetic penis.”
2.Serena Williams has defeated her sister, Venus, in her march toward the historic Grand Slam.
The two sisters met for the 27th time in the quarter finals of the US Open last night.
There was one shaky moment, when Venus – who is older – won the second set, but Serena ultimately triumphed 6-2, 1-6, 6-3.
Serena is now just two matches from history. If she wins the US Open, she will become the first player since Steffi Graf in 1988 to collect all four Grand Slam titles – on grass, on clay, indoor and out – in one calendar year.
If she can win what would be her fourth US Open in a row, she would equal Graf with 22 major championships, the most in the professional era and second-most ever behind Margaret Court’s 24.
She next plays the unseeded Roberta Vinci of Italy.
3. In news that will surprise no parent, it seems that you can lead your children to vegetables but you can’t force them to eat.
A new study on children’s eating habits, reported in today’s New York Times, shows that children are inclined to throw out fresh fruit and vegetables, even if the government says they have to eat them.
The Times says: “Since 2012, the US Department of Agriculture has required as part of the school lunch program that children select a fruit or a vegetable at each meal.
“School lunch offerings have been altered to fit the new regulations, but a new study suggests they are not working well.
“Researchers videotaped 498 children before the new vegetable rules were imposed, and then they videotaped another 944 children as they went through vegetable-enhanced lunch lines.
“After the new rules went into effect, more children selected fruits or vegetables but actual consumption dropped after the new vegetable rules were imposed. Children were throwing out the required foods at a rate 35 percent higher than before the rules were instituted.”
“The study’s lead author, Sarah A. Amin, a postdoctoral researcher, is not inclined to give up on the guidelines, saying the answer may lie in “slicing fruits and vegetables to make them easier to eat, serving vegetables with a dip (and) recognizing what fruits and vegetables children already prefer.””
4.A man has been charged with murder after his second wife fell from a cliff in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park.
The same man’s first wife died in an accident involving a car and jack more than two decades ago.
Harold Henthorn, 59, says both deaths were accidental. He was the only witness both times, and police charged him after discovering that his hiking map was marked with an X drawn exactly where his second wife fell.
AP reports that park ranger Mark Faherty told the court that Harold seemed calm has he explained how his second wife, Toni Henthorn, 50, had plummeted off a cliff in a remote, rocky area.
Investigators later found the map in Herold’s Jeep Grand Cherokee.
“He seemed at a loss for words,” Faherty said.
“He hemmed and hawed before he finally gave me an explanation.”
Harold later said he was not sure why the map was marked with an X.
Harold told police that Toni paused to take a photo before tumbling face-first over the ledge.
Harold’s first wife, Sandra, was crushed when a car slipped off a jack while they changed a flat tire in 1995. Her death was ruled an accident although police have now re-opened the file.
Toni was a wealthy ophthalmologist who life insurance policies totalled $4.7 million.
Henthorn purported to be a successful fundraiser, but prosecutors found no evidence he earned income.
