■SRI LANKA
Cellphones banned in school
The government has banned students from taking mobile phones to school following the suicide of a teenager disciplined for using her telephone, an education ministry spokesman said yesterday. All schools were ordered to impose the ban after a 14-year-old girl — reprimanded over telephone contact with a boy during school last week — hanged herself, the spokesman said. Another student from the same school in the capital Colombo attempted suicide after receiving a similar reprimand. “Bringing mobile phones to school will now be considered unacceptable and teachers will make sure that no students takes a phone to class,” the spokesman said. More than half the country’s 20 million population use mobile phones and several networks offer special packages aimed at students.
■FRANCE
Oxygen prevents cancer
Men who regularly do heart-pounding exercise are less likely to develop cancer, a study said yesterday. The study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that the key factor in the reduced risk of cancer was a higher rate of oxygen consumption. A team of researchers from the universities of Kuopio and Oulu in Finland studied the leisure-time physical activity over a 12-month period of 2,560 men between 42 and 61 years old with no history of cancer. Over an average follow-up period of 16 years, 181 of the subjects died from cancer, mostly of the stomach or intestines, lungs, prostate and brain. Using an intensity scale for physical exercise that measured “metabolic units” of oxygen consumption, the scientists found that the men who exercised for at least 30 minutes a day were half as likely to get cancer as those who did not.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Model charged with bigamy
A former model who wed five men without divorcing any of them was handed a suspended jail sentence on Monday by a court after being charged with bigamy. Emily Horne, 30, married four men by the age of 23, changing her name on marriage certificates to avoid detection, a court in Manchester heard. Horne, a former glamour model who had roles in adult movies, only told husband No. 5 that she was already married when they set off on their honeymoon in 2007. Judge Mushtaq Khokhar described Horne as a “manipulative woman” who had “undermined the institution of marriage.” But the judge said he had decided not to jail her because she had made progress in the last six months since being prescribed medication for a personality disorder. Horne, who has bipolar disorder, was handed a 10-month suspended prison sentence after admitting to bigamy at an earlier court hearing.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Bomb prankster sentenced
A teenager who phoned the White House and claimed as part of a “drunken prank” that there was a bomb in the center of New York escaped jail on Monday. Thomas Hutchinson, 19, from Sheffield, northern England, made a “giggling” call to the White House switchboard after drinking with friends at a barbecue in May and claimed there was a bomb in Madison Square Garden. The operator pressed a malicious call trace button and it was found to have been made in Britain. Prosecutor Stephen Acaster said there was great concern when the call was first received but it was soon realized it was a hoax and Madison Square Garden was not evacuated. A court gave him a six-month jail sentence, suspended for 18 months. He was ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work.
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