• RE and Spanish teacher Ann Maguire, 61, was due to retire next year
• Known for treating Corpus Christi pupils as if they were her own
• Former students travelled across the country to pay tribute last night
• Notes left outside school in Leeds called her 'best teacher ever'

Stabbing victim Ann Maguire had been due to retire next year after inspiring generations of pupils at her school over four decades.

She taught whole families from the local estate - first the parents, as well as their cousins, then their children and their children's children.

Known for her dedication and kindness, the Spanish and religious studies teacher was remembered last night in the fondest of terms by her devastated friends and pupils.

They said Mrs Maguire, 61, was the matriarch of Corpus Christi, striving for excellence and coaching even the most difficult children with care and patience.

'This has become something bigger than Cecily McMillan. It's about protests and dissent.'

People across the United States responded with outrage after Occupy Wall Street activist Cecily McMillan was found guilty Monday afternoon of "assaulting" the very police officer who she says sexually assaulted her.

Over 100 people rallied in New York City's Zuccotti Park Monday night and, according to advocates, messages of support immediately began pouring in from across the country.

"I know Cecily would be in gratitude for how much people care," Stan Williams of support group Justice for Cecily told Common Dreams. "But this has become something bigger than Cecily. It's about protests and dissent."

McMillan's supporters on Monday filled a New York court room with cries of "Shame!" when the 25-year-old organizer was handed a guilty verdict and then promptly handcuffed and taken away to Rikers Island, where she is currently detained pending sentencing. In a Democracy Now! interview Tuesday morning, Martin Stolar, criminal defense attorney affiliated with the National Lawyers Guild and co-counsel for McMillan's case, derided her felony verdict - that could land her a sentence of two to seven years with a chance of probation - as "ridiculous" and vowed an appeal.

- Guardian obtains copy of letter from nine of 12 jurors
- McMillan faces up to seven years in prison for assault

A majority of the jurors who this week convicted an Occupy Wall Street activist of assaulting a New York police officer have asked the judge in her case to not send her to prison.

Cecily McMillan was on Monday found guilty of deliberately elbowing officer Grantley Bovell in the face, as he led her out of a protest in March 2012. She was convicted of second-degree assault, a felony, and faces up to seven years in prison. She was denied bail and is being detained at Riker's Island jail.

However, nine of the 12 jurors who unanimously reached the verdict have since taken the unusual step of writing to Judge Ronald Zweibel to request that he not give her a prison sentence on 19 May.

"Live free or die" is the motto of the state of New Hampshire. I hope the residents are prepared to die, because living free is not what they do. NH is merely a cog within the Amerikan Stasi State, but I am referring to what goes on within NH itself, not the police state existence imposed by Washington. On May 5 attorney William Baer was arrested at a school board meeting at which he went over a 2-minute speaking rule while trying to get some explanation from the Gilford, NH, school board for assigning sexually explicit reading material to his 14-year old daughter's English class. The evasiveness of the school board angered Mr. Baer, and he spoke out again in support of another parents protests, and was promptly arrested by a goon thug cop.

The school board chairman, Sue Allen, who has no legislative power nevertheless managed to create a law backed by police violence. After all if Bush and Obama can create laws by edict, why not a school board chairman? Under Allen's edict, if a parent violates the 2-minute rule that Allen imposed, she has the parent arrested. The goon thug cop wasn't embarrassed to arrest a parent for making a legitimate complaint during the public comment period of a school board meeting.

Remember, we "freedom and democracy" 'mericans have free speech and protest rights. Actually, don't remember that, because you no longer have any such rights.These rights are dangerous. They enable terrorists and extremists such as those dangerous people who don't believe The Government.

The human race currently thrives in a world of deceit where most nothing is what it seems to be. There are malevolent forces behind the curtain, pulling the strings of society and guiding people towards conformity and blind submission. 'They' make us believe what they need us to believe in order to aid their agenda, doing so through their puppeteered 'leaders' of the world, as well as by using their various control systems such as religion, public education, mainstream media, politics, and so on. Wherever you look, there are distractions and diversions, intentionally implemented to keep us from seeing what is right in front of us, and to stray our attention away from what they are doing.

All the world's a stage, and they are the illusionists of tonight's performance.

But who are 'they', exactly? It is said by many that they are the people at the very top of the chain of control, beyond those who we believe to be the most powerful. Others say that 'they' are a secret society, composed of thirteen of the most influential families in the world. They have been given quite a few nicknames, such as the Illuminati and Big Brother. However, who they are is not the most important thing to know about them at this point of their performance. What's important is the knowledge that they are there, and that they are purposely misleading, misdirecting, and manipulating the minds of the human race for their own advantage. Just simply knowing that they exist greatly defies their agenda. They intend to stay in the shadows until such time as to when the human race is so entranced by their tricks and treats that they could announce what they've been doing to the human race for millennia and nobody would give a damn as long as we can go about our daily lives. They have set up many control systems to keep us from questioning most anything, turning us into obedient sheeple. Our perspective of what's going on is not any better than that of a horse wearing blinders that keeps it from seeing anything to the left or right of the path it's being guided down. However, there is a massive chain reaction of people waking up all over the world, which I doubt they will be able to contain for much longer.

A grand jury has charged a former Blackwater Worldwide security guard with murder for his alleged role in a 2007 shooting of unarmed civilians in Baghdad, according to an indictment made public on Friday.

A federal appeals court last month effectively ended a manslaughter case against the guard, Nicholas Slatten, but prosecutors had signaled they might seek a new indictment against him.

The indictment comes just weeks before three other former Blackwater guards are scheduled to face trial on manslaughter charges over the deaths of 14 Iraqis killed as the guards accompanied a State Department convoy through Baghdad's Nisur Square.

The indictment, which was returned on Thursday but not made public until Friday, charges Slatten with the murder of one person, the driver of a white Kia sedan, which was the first shooting in the square.

Murder is a more difficult charge than manslaughter for prosecutors to prove because it involves proving that a defendant willfully and intentionally killed a victim.

A 27-year-old woman has admitted holding down a 2-year-old and 4-year-old girl while her husband raped them.

Defense lawyer Patti Campbell says Sierra Clark has a low IQ and was "groomed" by her husband, Ronald Clark, to help him carry out the rapes of the girls. He's now serving at least 27 years in prison for rape and child pornography.

The Post-Standard reports that Sierra Clark pleaded guilty Thursday morning to helping her husband rape the two girls multiple times between April and August 2010.

Newspapers in the United Arab Emirates are reporting that the American drummer for the rock band Scorpions has been sentenced to one month in jail after being convicted of offensive behavior in Dubai.

The government-backed National newspaper reported Tuesday that James Kottak was convicted of insulting Islam, raising his middle finger and being under the influence of alcohol while in transit at Dubai airport.

The Gulf News Daily says he was arrested April 3 en route from Russia to Bahrain, where the German band was scheduled to perform at a Formula One race. Kottak was a no-show at the April 5 concert.

Officials have found one body after a hot air balloon hit a power line, caught fire and then shot up into the sky before exploding and crashing in eastern Virginia.

Two were still missing and presumed dead, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said during a press conference on Saturday morning.

"We are transitioning from a rescue to a recovery operation," she said.

A pilot and two passengers were believed to be on board one of three hot air balloons that took off shortly before 8 p.m. on Friday, and attempted to land a short time later at a designated landing area, according to witnesses.

Marijuana has accounted for nearly half of all total drug arrests in the US for the past 20 years, according to the FBI's crime statistics. And according to the Department of Justice (DOJ), a large portion of the US illegal drug market is controlled directly by Mexican cartels. The DOJ's National Drug Intelligence Center, which has since been shut down, found in 2011 that the top cartels controlled the majority of drug trade in marijuana, heroin, and methamphetamine in over 1,000 US cities.

Now, those cartels and their farmers complain that marijuana legalization is hurting their business. And some reports could suggest that the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is more interested in helping to protect the Mexican cartels' hold on the pot trade than in letting it dissipate.