A gang of Sweeney Todd cannibals murdered their victims and stuffed and baked their remains into pies to sell on the streets, a Brazilian court has heard.

Trio Jorge Negromonte, 50, his wife Isabel Pires, 51, and his mistress Bruna da Silva, 25, are believed to have lured at least three women to their house with the promise of employing them as nannies before beheading, dismembering, quartering and stuffing their parts into pastries.

The cannibal ring is said that have used their victims' flesh to make stuffed pastries, known as empanadas, which they ate themselves or sold to neighbors for 50 cents, according to police.

The gang appeared at court for the first time yesterday in their home town of Pernambuco, north-east Brazil. They were accused of murdering Jessica da Silva, 17, Alexandra Falcao, 20, and Gisele da Silva, 31, but did not enter pleas, according to the Daily Mail.

However, authorities said that the alleged cannibals have previously confessed to killing another six unidentified people.

A World War II vet says he was tied up and shot twice during an attempted burglary earlier this year inside his California home. The accused criminal sees things differently, though, and now wants to file charges of his own.

Samuel Joseph Cutrufelli, 31, is on trial for attempted murder after allegedly shooting 90-year-old Jay Leone in the jaw and the back during a home robbery-gone-wrong back in January. When Cutrufelli attempted to flee Mr. Leone's home after things went awry, though, the nonagenarian managed to make off firing a few rounds of his own.

According to Mr. Leone's take, he was tied up by Cutrufelli at gunpoint and left to watch while the suspect snuck around the Greenbrae, CA residence attempting to empty it of anything of value. Leone soon managed to wiggle himself free though, then pleaded with the suspect to let him use the bathroom. On the way, he found one of five handguns stored throughout the house and approached the criminal during mid-burglary.

Cutrufelli, Leone says, fired first.

"The .45 hit me right in the face here and went through the back of my head," the vet told jurors during court proceedings earlier this month. "I didn't feel a thing."

So nonplussed was Leone, in fact, that he managed to fire off a few rounds himself moments after being shot in the face.

"I said, 'F - - you, you son of a bitch, now it's my turn," Leone admitted to the court.

A nanny suspected of killing two young children she was looking after and then stabbing herself is in critical condition in a city hospital, as authorities continue to investigate a situation that is every parent's nightmare.

The horror started for the children's mother, Marina Krim, when she and a third child returned to their apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side Thursday evening. Puzzled by the darkened home, she returned to the lobby to ask the doorman if the nanny had gone out with 1-year-old Leo, just learning to walk, and 6-year-old Lucia, known as LuLu.

She was told they hadn't left, so she returned upstairs. A search led to the bathroom, where the children's bodies were in the bathtub and the nanny lay wounded nearby. It's unclear how many times the children were stabbed.

"There was some kind of screaming about, 'You slit her throat!'" said music therapist Rima Starr, who lives on the same floor as the family, and said she heard screams coming from their apartment at around 5:30 p.m.

The nanny, Yoselyn Ortega, who was found near a knife, was hospitalized in critical condition and was in police custody. The children were pronounced dead at a hospital.

Canada, Alberta - Three Grade 6 students were left in critical condition and five others injured after a minivan crashed into a classroom at a school in St. Paul, Alta., Thursday morning.

The three most seriously injured students were taken by air ambulance to Edmonton, said Kerry Williamson, spokesman for Alberta Health Services, which runs St. Therese Healthcare Centre in St. Paul, where the remaining five were taken.

Three of those five injured students have since been released from hospital, he said.

Two of the seriously injured students are undergoing surgery and remain in critical condition. The third student taken to Edmonton is in stable condition. The driver of the minivan - a 46-year-old man from St. Paul - was taken into custody.

RCMP said the man received minor injuries in the crash and is in hospital.

"There's various aspects of this investigation that we are looking at and ruling in or out," said Chief Supt. Randy McGinnis.

"One would be impairment, impairment by alcohol or a drug, and the other reason for this accident could be a mental condition."

Sold! A young woman's virginity. The price? A staggering $780,000.

That's the sum a Japanese bidder was willing to pay in order to initiate 20-year-old Brazilian student Catarina Migliorini into the world of coital relations.

Migliorini had submitted herself - along with sexy photos - to an online auction site called Virgins Wanted. As you can probably imagine, all items on the block involve one very specific thing.

As the New York Daily News reports, the auction is actually more of a publicity stunt to promote a documentary by the same name. Virgins Wanted is the brainchild of Australian filmmaker Justin Sisley, who will film Migliorini before and after the deed.

Golden, Colorado - Mindy Sigg sat sobbing on Thursday, listening to prosecutors tell a court that her 17-year-old son had confessed to the abduction and killing of 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway.

While any mother would be devastated, there was an even more heartbreaking wrinkle for Sigg: She was the one who called police.

It was not the only high-profile case this week in which a mother made that painful choice. In New Jersey, Anita Saunders saw something on a Facebook page that led her to call police.

Her two sons, ages 15 and 17, are now charged with murdering 12-year-old Autumn Pasquale, a bike-lover who authorities said was lured to their home with the promise of new parts.

What does it feel like to turn in your child, knowing they could be sentenced to many years in prison? Surely, no one knows but those who've done it.

But a main motivation, according to one criminologist, is simply a desire to do the right thing.

Clayton - Relatives of a slain 12-year-old girl from southern New Jersey said Thursday they want to avoid jeopardizing the criminal case and will not comment on the revelation that three days before she disappeared, she may have exchanged online messages with one of the teenagers accused of killing her.

"We want swift justice for Autumn," said Paul Spadofora, a great uncle and godfather of Autumn Pasquale, whose body was found in a recycling bin Monday near the teenagers' home. "We don't want to jeopardize the case."

Two brothers, 15 and 17, were charged with murder and other crimes against the girl, who would have turned 13 on Oct. 29. Authorities say the younger boy lured her to their home by promising to trade bicycle parts.

Both teens are due in court Friday for a hearing on whether they should remain in a juvenile detention facility.

A South African film production designer armed with a nail cutter is trying to help stamp out rhino poaching by sending toenail clippings to the Chinese embassy in Pretoria.

Mark Wilby said he wants to make the point that rhino horn, which sells for prices higher than gold as a traditional Chinese medicine, is made up of keratin - a protein which is a component in human nails and hair.

"I felt that we have moved beyond the time of politeness. I am not doing it out of disrespect to the Chinese authorities, but how else do you get their attention," Wilby told Reuters on Wednesday.

Wilby has produced a video (above) released on YouTube, calling on others to clip their nails and send them by post to the embassy.

Chinese embassy officials were not immediately available for comment. Officials from China and South Africa have been working together to reduce poaching.

Rhino poaching deaths in South Africa, home to almost all the rhinos in Africa, hit a record annual high in October, driven by the use of horns in Chinese medicine and a spreading belief in Southeast Asia, unfounded in science, that they may cure cancer.

The number of rhinoceroses dying unnatural deaths in South Africa, either through illegal poaching or legal hunts, has now reached a level likely to lead to population decline, according to an expert study.

The Archdiocese of Miami said on Wednesday that Father Rolando Garcia was placed on leave after they learned that he had been accused of sexually abusing a 16-year-old runaway boy.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Tony Simmons recalled that Garcia began abusing him in 1994 at the Church of the Little Flower in Hollywood. Simmons said that the Catholic priest first offered him food and counseling. Over time, Garcia plied him with movies, concerts, alcohol and pornography, which eventually led to "oral sex and sodomy."

Simmons explained that he was afraid to speak out because he lived and worked as a painter at the church.

"I honestly thought I was the only person," he told reporters. "And if it came out, I could lose my job."

Garcia continued to stay in contact with Simmons even after he joined the military in 2003. But on Oct. 15, Simmons said he changed his mind about coming forward when Garcia laughed while telling him that others had also accused him of pedophilia.

Guatemala City - Guatemala's Mayan people accused the government and tour groups on Wednesday of perpetuating the myth that their calendar foresees the imminent end of the world for monetary gain.

"We are speaking out against deceit, lies and twisting of the truth, and turning us into folklore-for-profit. They are not telling the truth about time cycles," charged Felipe Gomez, leader of the Maya alliance Oxlaljuj Ajpop.

Several films and documentaries have promoted the idea that the ancient Mayan calendar predicts that doomsday is less than two months away, on December 21, 2012.

The Culture Ministry is hosting a massive event in Guatemala City -- which as many as 90,000 people are expected to attend -- just in case the world actually does end, while tour groups are promoting doomsday-themed getaways.

Maya leader Gomez urged the Tourism Institute to rethink the doomsday celebration, which he criticized as a "show" that was disrespectful to Mayan culture.

Experts say that for the Maya, all that ends in 2012 is one of their calendar cycles, not the world.