© Nigel Howard
Cerebral Palsy sufferer David Bysooa with his mother Vidulah Bysooa and stefather Steve Lambert Nigel Howard

David Bysooa, 16, from Surbiton, was removed from an Air Mauritius flight at Heathrow after he became unsettled in an aisle seat and the passenger beside him complained

A teenager with cerebral palsy has been banned from flying alone by an airline after being ordered to leave a flight for "not sitting in his seat properly".

David Bysooa, 16, from Surbiton, was removed from an Air Mauritius flight at Heathrow after he became unsettled when he was given an aisle seat instead of the window seat his mother Vidulah had booked. David was travelling alone to visit his grandparents in Mauritius, something he has done on his own with the airline more than a dozen times.

Each time the teenager had travelled in a window seat as it makes him feel more relaxed. But after being given an aisle seat on the full flight David, who has mild autism and learning disabilities, kept leaning over the woman next to him while the plane was still on the runway.

When the passenger complained, the crew were unable to find an alternative seat. When he became upset he was ordered to leave the plane at the request of the captain and led back to his parents in the terminal.

Mrs Bysooa today accused the airline of discrimination. The 47-year-old, who works with the reservations department of Kenyan Airlines at Heathrow, said: "The way my son was treated was appalling. "This is someone who frequently flies with the airline and is well known. They should have understood why he needed to have a window seat.

"He is more than capable of flying on his own but the way he was discriminated against is disgraceful."

She has raised the matter with the Civil Aviation Authority. David was not offered a refund for the missed flight by Air Mauritius.

In an email to support worker Tom Quilter of Achieving for Children, which has taken up Mrs Bysooa's complaint, Air Mauritius said it could not guarantee specific seats on its aircraft.

David leaning over the "nervous flyer" who had booked the window seat had created "a very uncomfortable atmosphere". It added: "I can assure you that the decision was not taken lightly."

It was a death sentence.

David Stojcevski, a 32-year-old resident of Roseville, Michigan, was arrested for failing to pay a $772 fine stemming from careless driving. A court ordered him to spend a month in the Macomb County jail.

Over the next 17 days of his incarceration in a brightly lit cell—where he was denied clothing—he lost 50 pounds, suffered convulsions, and eventually began to hallucinate. He died in agony, from a combination of obvious, untreated drug withdrawal and galling neglect.

Making matters worse (if anything could be worse than that), the entirety of his demise was captured on jail surveillance footage. Indeed, Stojcevski was under self-harm watch—stemming for a profound misdiagnosis of his condition, which was drug addiction, not mental instability—and jail officials were supposed to be watching him constantly. Either their vigilance was inadequate, or they watched and simply didn't care.

The presence of the convoy of the son of the Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in central Mina prompted the stampede that killed hundreds of pilgrims on the outskirts of the holy city of Mecca, a report says.

The Arabic-language daily al-Diyar said in a report on Thursday that the convoy of Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud played a central role in the deadly crush on the third day of the annual Hajj pilgrimage earlier in the day.

The report said that Salman, who had sought to attend the huge gathering of pilgrims in Mina, a large valley about five kilometers (three miles) from Mecca, arrived at the site early on Thursday accompanied by a huge entourage.

The report said 200 army forces and 150 police officers escorted the prince.

In a precedent-setting case, a state judge ruled this month that the mother of a New Jersey teenager with epilepsy, who is also her legal medical caregiver, cannot go to her school to administer her daughter's cannabis oil.

The oil treatments, which are legal in the state, control the young girl's seizures and allow her to function normally in school, according to her parents.

In its opinion, the court reasoned that state and federal laws prohibiting drug possession on school grounds takes precedence over the students' right to use medical cannabis derivatives. This ruling is in spite of the fact that New Jersey has already legalized cannabis for medical use.

A journalist who uncovered the tragic suicide of a disabled man linked to the government's fitness for work tests has been blacklisted by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over his investigations.Editor of Disability News Service (DNS) John Pring, who uncovered a direct link between a mentally ill man's suicide and the government's austerity cuts, says that the DWP is no longer responding to his questions.Set up in April 2009, DNS examines sensitive issues that impact disabled people's lives, such as discrimination, independent living, benefits, poverty and human rights.

Pring had spent months gathering evidence to prove a coroner had blamed British man Michael O'Sullivan's suicide on the government's work capability assessments.O'Sullivan, who suffered from chronic anxiety and depression, took his own life in 2013 after being judged "fit for work" by the DWP.At the time of his death, he had been taking anti-depressants, was engaging in talk therapy and was also allegedly liaising with an employment support officer.

Coronor Mary Hassell, who presided over the case, wrote in a report submitted to the DWP that the "trigger" for his death was the assessment that he was fit to work."The anxiety and depression were long-term problems, but the intense anxiety that triggered his suicide was caused by his recent assessment by the DWP as being fit for work, and his view of the likely consequences of that," her verdict stated.

The DWP later responded to the coroner's concerns in a document marked "OFFICIAL - SENSITIVE," conceding O'Sullivan's case should have been dealt with differently.

Pring has reported widely on problems with Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith's Universal Credit scheme. He also uncovered a secret DWP investigation of more than 60 deaths of benefit claimants since 2012. The full findings of this investigation, including 30 recommendations for reforms, are yet to be made public.

Finland's government condemned a racist protest in which demonstrators — including one dressed in a Ku Klux Klan outfit — attacked a bus transporting asylum seekers in the early hours of Friday.

Public broadcaster Yle showed images of around 40 protesters — some with burning torches — throwing fireworks at a bus which was transporting asylum seekers, mostly families with children, to a new reception centre in the southern city of Lahti.

One of the protesters could be seen dressed in a white hood, a symbol of the racist American Ku Klux Klan, with a Finnish flag in his hand.

They also threw stones at Red Cross volunteers, although no one was hurt at the incident.

Prime Minister Juha Sipila condemned the attack on Twitter, saying "threats and violence against asylum seekers and migrants are absolutely unacceptable."

"Finland's government condemns last night's racist protests against the asylum seekers who have come to the country. Violence and threatening behaviour is always indefensible," a government statement said.

The police held two protesters after the incident and said they were likely to face fines. "The protesters were young people from Lahti... At this point we have no indication that they would be somehow organised," chief inspector Martti Hirvonen told the Finnish news agency STT.

Another incident took place late Thursday in Kouvola, in south-eastern Finland, when a 50-year-old man was arrested after throwing a petrol bomb at an emergency housing facility for asylum seekers. The fire was quickly extinguished and no one was hurt.


In recent weeks Finland has seen an unprecedented influx of mostly Iraqi asylum seekers, which has forced the authorities to quickly set up new reception centres around the country.

Via Agence France-Presse

They are known as "frequent fliers": a small population battling substance abuse, severe mental illness and homelessness that cycles regularly and quickly through New York City jails for mostly nonviolent offenses.

The 800 people with the most jail stays from November 2008 through 2013 accounted for 18,713 incarcerations through December 2014 at a cost of $129 million, according to a study by city officials published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health.

At least one person was jailed 66 times during the six-year period, the study's data show.

In 88.7% of these detentions, the top charges were misdemeanors. Petit larceny and possession of trace amounts of drugs accounted for more than half of the top charges. Less than 1.2% of the top charges were violent crimes such as murder, rape and felony assault.

Four people have been killed and many are suffering from critical injuries after a crash between a charter bus and an amphibious "Ride the Ducks" tour vehicle in Seattle, Washington, fire officials told local media.

Fire officials added that 12 people are in critical condition and another 20 suffered from non-life-threatening injuries. More than 44 patients were transferred to Harborview Medical Center and other hosptials, the Seattle Fire Department said in a statement.

All four of the people who died were international students at North Seattle College.

Everyone involved has been removed from the vehicles, the Fire Department stated on Twitter.

It's currently unclear how the accident over the Aurora Avenue Bridge occurred. Two passenger vehicles were also involved in the incident and the bridge has been shut down for an investigation.

Onboard the charter bus were multiple foreign students, according to the Associated Press, and officials were working to contact the necessary consulates.

Meanwhile, there is no information to be shared yet regarding the "duck boat," a vehicle that doubles as a boat and an on-road bus. The tour company involved, called Ride the Ducks, offers tours of Seattle featuring loud music and guides who quack through megaphones.

"It was devastating," said Ride the Ducks President Brian Tracey. "All I care about is the safety of the passengers and the people who were injured on the duck."

The French animal rights group, Cause Animal Nord, has come under fire after a video emerged of the activists taking away a puppy from a crying homeless man in central Paris.

The video shows the man fighting for his dog, but eventually losing out as three members of the group, including the organization's president, seized the puppy and ran away. The homeless man was left in tears.

Later today, Stewart Parnell, former CEO of Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) could find out that he will spend the rest of his life behind bars. If convicted, Parnell could be the first person involved in a food poisoning outbreak to ever receive such a harsh sentence.

Parnell was convicted on September 19, 2014, of knowingly shipping peanut butter contaminated with salmonella from a PCA plant in Blakely, Georgia, to Kellogg's and other customers who put the ingredient in everything from crackers to pet food.

Former employees reported filthy conditions at the Georgia plant, where investigators found disgusting and unsanitary conditions at the plant, including the presence of roaches, rodents, mold, and a leaking roof near the production area. ^{[1] [2]}