The violin famously played by the Titanic's bandmaster as the ship sank on its maiden voyage in 1912 sold for £900,000 ($1,454,400) at auction on Saturday.

This breaks the previous world record price for a single Titanic-related item set at $340,000. According to the auction house staff, the winning bid went to a British buyer based in the UK. It had been set to be auctioned for an estimated £300,000 ($485,796).

U.K. auction house Henry Aldridge and Son has spent over six years and many thousands of pounds researching and investigating the instrument's authenticity. Police forensic evidence, audio archive material, Oxford University research and a CT scan have all been used to prove it is the real deal.

The French government is lobbying its citizens to opt for domestic products over imports, but a new report said that doing so could leave French consumers 300 euros ($398) a month poorer.

According to a report by French thinktank CEPII, which specializes in international economic research, choosing "Made in France" products over imported equivalents could lose French households between 1,270 euros ($1,685) and 3,770 euros ($5,010) each year.

The report came after Arnaud Montebourg, the government minister for Industrial Renewal, launched a "Made in France" campaign last year,dressed in a quintessentially French Breton top and clutching a French-branded blender.

Japan's population fell by a record 0.22 percent to 127.515 million as of last Oct. 1, while people aged 65 or older surpassed the 30 million mark for the first time, the government said Tuesday.

The figures are from a survey by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry.

The decline of 284,000 in the total population, which also included foreign nationals, was the largest of its kind since officials began compiling comparable data in 1950.

It was also the second year in a row that the population has fallen.

Tiona McKinney knew that something had changed in her sleepy college town when she woke last week to the sound of screaming.

"That was right outside my window," said McKinney, 20, a Northwest Missouri State University senior from St. Louis.

A fiery diatribe was coming from her adult neighbor. The woman was ranting in a loud and angry voice, midmorning, across the lawn to no one in sight about the disturbing details of the alleged sexual assault of Daisy Coleman and the investigation that followed.

In this close-knit town of 12,000 some 90 minutes north of Kansas City, there were few who weren't already painfully aware of the murky particulars of a case that had divided the city.

Washoe county police say first reports of the violence at Sparks middle school came in just after 7am, and the suspect is 'down'

Two people died and two boys were critically injured in a shooting at a middle school in Nevada on Monday.

Police did not immediately offer details of who died in the incident, in Sparks, east of Reno.

They said Sparks middle school was "all clear" and the suspect was "down," but gave no further information.

Washoe county police said they received the first report of the incident, at 7.16am local time on Monday.

Angela Rambo, a spokeswoman for Renown regional medical center, said it was treating two boys, who were in a critical condition.

Washoe county school district spokesman Charles Rahn said the middle school and the adjacent Agnes Risley elementary school were evacuated to Sparks high school. Rahn said the middle and elementary schools would be closed for the rest of the day.

Source: Associated Press

Pair deny abduction charges and claim girl given by mother who could not look after her.


A Roma couple accused of abducting a mystery four-year-old girl dubbed the "blonde angel" by Greek media told a court today that her biological mother willingly gave her to them as a baby because she could not look after her.

The couple were ordered held in custody pending trial on charges of abduction and procuring false documents.

The discovery of the girl, known as "Maria", has riveted Greece and prompted thousands of calls with leads from across the world as authorities try to track down her real parents, as DNA tests have shown she was not born to the Romas.

The case has raised questions about whether children are being stolen to order and whether the couple were part of a wider child trafficking ring - in addition to deepening mistrust between the Roma community and the Greeks.

Eight things you need to know to get up to speed in the Maryville sexual assault case, based on interviews, law enforcement records and other documents gathered by The Star in the last seven months:

1. About 1 a.m. on Jan. 8, 2012, two teenage girls sneak out of a slumber party and are picked up and driven to the home of a 17-year-old Maryville High School senior named Matt Barnett. Daisy Coleman, 14 at the time, alleges she blacked out after being given multiple drinks and was sexually assaulted by Barnett. Her 13-year-old friend says she was forced to have sex with a 15-year-old boy. Another 17-year-old, Jordan Zech, allegedly takes phone video of the encounter between Barnett and Daisy. Afterward, Daisy is carried out of the house, crying, driven back to her home and left outside in freezing temperatures, where she is discovered by her mother the next morning.

2. Barnett soon is charged with sexual assault, a felony, and endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor. Zech is charged with sexual exploitation of a minor, a felony. Barnett, grandson of a former state representative, tells the sheriff's office that he'd been aware that Daisy had been drinking before having sex with her but says she was only "buzzed," not yet drunk, when the encounter took place. Zech admits to shooting a portion of the encounter between Barnett and Daisy. The 15-year-old admits to having sex with the 13-year-old girl even though she had said "no" multiple times. His case is handled in juvenile court. Nodaway County Sheriff Darren White, whose office investigated the case, later says he "absolutely" believed prosecutions would follow, adding, "I would defy the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department to do what we did and get it wrapped up as nicely as we did in that amount of time."

• The Buenos Aires train slammed into the bumper at the end of the line Saturday at the same station 52 people were killed in a crash last year

• This time there was no immediate report of deaths, but at least 80 people were injured including an 8-year-old boy

• A mob quickly formed, unleashing its fury at the train operators and chanting 'murderer, murderer!' at the injured driver

• Officers intervened and the driver was soon hospitalized under police custody though he tested negative for alcohol

A Buenos Aires commuter train slammed into the bumper at the end of the line Saturday at the same station in Argentina's capital where 52 people were killed in a similar crash last year.

This time there was no immediate report of deaths, but at least 80 people were injured.

A mob quickly formed, unleashing its fury at the train operators. Passengers chanted 'murderer, murderer!' at the injured driver through the shattered cabin window. Officers intervened and the driver was soon hospitalized under police custody.

I don't believe in God. However, I do believe in divine retribution. Without going into the specifics of this somewhat counterintuitive theology, suffice to say here that its central axiom is the idea that actions have consequences. One cannot go on committing evil without reaping a whirlwind or two. Eventually Nemesis overtakes Hubris, and the results aren't pretty.

This is our future. Or, at least, one hopes it is - otherwise, there is no justice in this world, or perhaps even in the next.

This struck me as I was reading a column by Steve Chapman, a mildly conservative journalist with vaguely libertarian leanings: according to him, people on the right (of which I count myself one) are "addicted to apocalypse." He takes us through decades of conservative apocalyptic rhetoric, from Ronald Reagan predicting the end of freedom in America due to the depredations of Medicare to Ted Cruz - the liberal media's villain of the moment - who recently said:

"The challenges facing this country are unlike any we have ever seen. ... (T)his is an administration that seems bound and determined to violate every single one of our Bill of Rights. We're nearing the edge of a cliff. ... We have a couple of years to turn this country around, or we go off the cliff to oblivion." Citing Reagan, Cruz declared: "One day we will find ourselves answering questions from our children and our children's children, 'What was it like when America was free?'"

British graffiti artist Banksy has been told to stop painting murals in New York.

While delighting lovers of street art by painting a new work in a surprise location in the city every day this month, the elusive artist has incurred the wrath of Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor.

The tough-on-crime Mr Bloomberg said that graffiti ''does ruin people's property'' and was ''a sign of decay and lost control''.

''Nobody's a bigger supporter of the arts than I am,'' said the mayor, who donates millions of dollars from his personal fortune each year to the city's artistic institutions. I just think there are some places for art and some places where - no art. You running up to somebody's property or public property and defacing it is not my definition of art. Or it may be art, but it should not be permitted. And I think that's exactly what the law says.''

His remarks echoed a decade-long debate in Britain and Australia over what should be done about murals on the streets of London by the artist, whose works now sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds.