Colville Schoolboys 'Plotted Rape And Murder'

A US judge has ruled that two boys, aged 10 and 11, will stand trial on charges of planning to rape and murder a classmate.

The schoolboys had a handwritten plan listing seven steps leading up to the killing of a female classmate, according to Stevens County Prosecutor Tim Rasmussen.

That list was submitted as evidence at their mental capacity hearing on Friday.

The judge decided that the pair understood the nature and consequences of their actions and would stand trial in juvenile court.

Under Washington state law, children aged eight to 12 are typically presumed not to have the mental capacity to form an intention to commit a crime. Juvenile court is usually reserved for defendants between ages 12 and 18.

According to court documents, one of the boys wanted the girl dead because "she's rude and always made fun of me and my friends," the documents said.

The boys are said to have boarded a school bus on February 7 with a knife, a semi-automatic pistol and ammunition in a backpack on their way to Fort Colville Elementary School.

The younger boy is believed to have taken the gun, originally belonging to his grandfather, from his older brother's room.

They were arrested after another child saw one of the boys playing with the knife on the bus and told a school employee.

One of the suspects later said he would kill the student who told school officials about the weapons, prosecutors said.

The boys are also alleged to have targeted other children in Colville, a town about 215 miles (345 km) east of Seattle in Washington state.

They have pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, witness tampering and juvenile possession of a firearm.

Mr Rasmussen said: "There are very few prosecutions of a crime of this magnitude with boys of this age."

Both a defence psychiatrist and a state psychologist have said they present a danger to the community.

The boys have been expelled from the school district indefinitely. A status hearing is set for April 8.

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Shroud Of Turin On Display For TV Special

The Shroud of Turin has gone on display for a special television appearance in Italy, as new research disputes claims that the linen is a medieval fake.

Pope Francis sent a video message to the event at Turin's cathedral, but made no claim that the image on the shroud of a man with wounds similar to those suffered by Christ was really that of Jesus.

Many experts stand by carbon-dating of scraps of the cloth that date it to the 13th or 14th century.

However, some have suggested the dating results might have been skewed by contamination and have called for a larger sample to be analysed.

New research purports to date the linen - which some say was Jesus Christ's burial cloth - to around the time of his death.

A bishop prays in front of the shroud in Turin

The Vatican has tiptoed around just what the cloth is, calling it a powerful symbol of Christ's suffering while making no claim to its authenticity.

"This disfigured face resembles all those faces of men and women marred by a life which does not respect their dignity, by war and violence which afflict the weakest," Pope Francis said in his video address.

"The face in the shroud conveys a great peace. This tortured body expresses a sovereign majesty.

"It lets a pure and calm energy shine through and it seems to say to us: 'Trust and don't to lose hope. The power of the Lord defeats all'."

The 14-foot-long and 3.5-foot-wide cloth is kept in a bullet-proof, climate-controlled case in Turin's cathedral, but is only rarely open to the public.

The authenticity of the shroud is the subject of debate

The last time was in 2010 when more than two million people lined up to pray before the shroud.

The latest display coincided with Holy Saturday, when Catholics mark the period between - according to Christian faith - Jesus's crucifixion on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

The display also coincided with the release of a book based on new scientific tests on the shroud that researchers say date the cloth to the 1st century.

The research in The Mystery Of The Shroud, by Giulio Fanti of the University of Padua, and journalist Saverio Gaeta, is based on chemical and mechanical tests on fibres of material extracted for the carbon-dating research.

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Bird Flu: New Strain Kills Two In China

Two men have died in China after contracting a strain of avian influenza that has never been passed to humans before, the Chinese official news agency has reported.

The men, aged 87 and 27, became sick late last month and died in Shanghai in early March, according to the Xinhua news agency.

The strain of the bird flu virus was identified as H7N9, which had not been transmitted to humans before, Xinhua said, quoting the national health and family planning commission.

There are no known vaccines against the H7N9 virus.

However, the strain does not seem highly contagious because no health abnormalities were detected among 88 of the victims' close contacts, the commission said.

Another woman in nearby Anhui province also contracted the virus in early March and is in a critical condition.

All three cases showed symptoms of fever and coughs that later developed into pneumonia.

It is unclear how the three were infected.

China is considered one of the nations most at risk from bird flu because  it has the world's biggest poultry population and many chickens in rural areas are kept close to humans.

The World Health Organisation says more than 360 confirmed human deaths from the H5N1 strain of avian influenza have been reported globally from 2003 until March 12 this year.

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First US Face Transplant Patient Marries

A man who became the first in the US to receive a full face transplant has married the woman he met at a support group.

Dallas Wiens, 27, was severely burned after a high-voltage wire touched his head while he repaired a church window in Fort Worth, Texas, in November 2008.

He spent months at Parkland Memorial Hospital, before undergoing a face transplant in Boston.

Mr Wiens met his new bride while they were at a burns support group

It was at the hospital that he met Jamie Nash, 29, who had suffered burns to more than 70% of her body after a car accident, in 2011.

The couple were married at Ridglea Baptist Church - where Mr Wiens was injured - in front of more than 150 people.

"I am blessed beyond measure that you have chosen me, and I love you with all my heart," the Dallas Morning News quoted Mr Wiens as saying.

His bride said: "Things happened that I didn't think ever could be possible for me, and you made them possible.

"You gave me hope, and you gave me tender love that I will always treasure."

The wedding was followed by a reception at the Flying Saucer in downtown Fort Worth.

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Supercomputer Pioneer Roadrunner To Shut Down

A supercomputer, which was once the world's fastest and the first to perform a million billion calculations per second, is being decommissioned.

Roadrunner spent five years testing the reliability and safety of the US's nuclear weapons stockpile at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the nuclear facility in New Mexico where atomic bombs were developed in the 1940s.

"Roadrunner was a truly pioneering idea," said Gary Grider of the Laboratory's High Performance Computing Division.

"Roadrunner got everyone thinking in new ways about how to build and use a supercomputer. Specialised processors are being included in new ways on new systems, and being used in novel ways.

The supercomputer has about 55 miles of cable (Picture: LANL)

"Our demonstration with Roadrunner caused everyone to pay attention."

Roadrunner combines two different kinds of processors on an industrial scale, which was unique when the supercomputer was launched in 2008.

It was designed to perform high-speed calculations and has been used to understand how nuclear weapons work, as well as helping scientists map out the universe and see how viruses spread.

But it is expensive to run and is being replaced by newer computers which are more energy efficient and can better handle and store the large amounts of data being generated.

Roadrunner was described as "truly pioneering"

Although the computer is being switched off this weekend, it is not quite the end for Roadrunner.

Before it is dismantled, researchers will have about a month to do experiments to help guide the design of future supercomputers.

"These are things we never could try while Roadrunner was running production problems," Mr Grider said.

"Even in death, we are trying to learn from Roadrunner."

Although Roadrunner was the first computer to break the petaflop barrier of one quadrillion calculations per second, it is estimated that sometime between 2020 and 2030 supercomputers will be able to perform one quintillion calculations per second - 1,000 times faster than Roadrunner.

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Russia: Homeless Battling Brutal Cold Spring

By Katie Stallard, Moscow Correspondent

Russia celebrated Maslenitsa, the traditional end of winter festival, a fortnight ago - but the weather does not seem to have taken the hint.

Large stretches of the Moscow river remain frozen, the streets are still packed with ice and snow.

The state weather service says the country is experiencing its coldest March for more than half a century.

Last week, temperatures dropped to -25C overnight.

The unusually cold spring is having serious consequences for the capital's homeless.

Sky News joined a mobile field kitchen run by a charity handing out food near one of Moscow's busiest stations.

The crowd began to gather just before 5pm, standing to one side of the busy pavement as the capital's rush hour hurried home.

Several people asked us to promise our footage would not be shown on Russian television as they were too ashamed for their families to see them.

Volunteers from the Just Help charity arrived to hand out small pots of pasta from the back of a van, with a couple of slices of bread and a hot drink.

It wasn't much, but for many of those gathered it was the only hot food they would eat all day, and a brief respite from the relentless cold.

One of the men, Yuri, told us: "When you are out in the cold 24 hours a day your whole body is cold all the time, you feel like you are freezing.

"Cold weather makes it much worse, you are losing your health. That's why I am trying to eat something hot once a day, trying to take care of myself."

Another man, Augustin, who had both hands amputated, sobbed as he told us: "I had a bladder infection and frostbitten feet, I even got into the hospital because of it, they gave me a surgery.

Homeless people queue at the mobile field kitchen run by Just Help

"My legs were really badly damaged, but the doctor managed to save them. This doctor is the best."

The charity is run by Dr Elizaveta Glinka, but everybody here knows her as 'Dr Liza'.

As she handed out warm socks and medical supplies from an ambulance, she told Sky News: "Many more of them [the homeless] die when spring comes.

"In winter they understand that it's dangerous and are more alert. In March and April, they die from road accidents and from cold as they start sleeping outside.

"Around 30 homeless people freeze every month - those are official statistics. When it gets warmer and the snow piles melt, there will be many bodies found."

A young man called Sasha told us he had been on the streets since he was eight years old and offered to show us how he survived the cold.

He took us to the railway station where he explained that sometimes he slept in the doorways, but often he would just ride around on the metro.

A single ticket is valid all day on the Moscow underground as long as you don't leave the station.

One route, he told us, takes three hours and let's you get some sleep.

Sasha said: "It's very cold in winter, I often get ill. It's much harder to find food. I have to sleep in railway stations and on the metro, but of course the metro is closed at night.

"Winter is a very hard season."

With that he headed off back down to the underground - disappearing into the crowds to take the trains in circles until the stations close.

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Pink Floyd Founder Visits Father's WWII Grave

By Nick Pisa, Sky News Reporter

Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters has made an emotional journey to Italy to visit the World War Two battlefield where his father was killed.

The 69-year-old singer and bass player travelled to Cassino, south-east of Rome, where his father Eric Fletcher Waters died while serving as a second lieutenant with the Royal Fusiliers.

He was among thousands of Allied troops who landed at Anzio in 1944 as they made the advance into Nazi-occupied Europe, but he was killed in the first wave that attempted to secure the beach head.

Waters was mobbed by dozens of fans as he arrived at the site of the Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in Cassino, which was a German stronghold during the war.

Headstones at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery in Cassino, Italy

He was just five months old when his father died, and although his name is on a memorial at the cemetery his father's remains were never found.

Eric Waters' death provided the inspiration for several songs and it is commemorated in particular with When The Tigers Broke Free, which also appeared in the film The Wall.

In the song Waters describes how he feels that his 31-year-old father died in February 1944 because of foolhardy generals.

He also describes coming across a letter of condolence from George V as he tried on his father's uniform, adding how he found it disturbing that it was rubber-stamped and not actually signed.

Eric Fletcher Waters was killed in 1944 at Anzio

After visiting the cemetery at Cassino, Waters told a local Italian TV station: "I'm on a journey through Europe, my grandfather was killed in 1916 and my father was killed down the road in Anzio. This is the end of my journey.

"Some of my past is in my music and so is my future. I'm making a film that won't be aired in public."

Speaking of his father, Waters recalled in an interview his childhood and how his father's death had affected him.

He said: "When men in uniform came to collect their children, that's when I realised I didn't have a father anymore.

"I was very angry. It took me years to come to terms with it. Because he was missing in action, presumed killed, until quite recently I expected him to come home.

"The sacrifice of his life has been a great gift and a great burden to me."

The film and album The Wall tells the story of how a troubled rock star called Pink, who is said to be Waters, is left psychologically scarred by the loss of his father in the war.

The film opens with scenes of a solider - Eric Waters - along with his comrades, storming a beachhead.

As he left the cemetery the musician was presented with a scarf from the local Cassino football club.

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Pope Francis Calls For Korea 'Reconcilliation'

Pope Francis prayed for a "political solution" in Syria and for "reconciliation" on the Korean peninsula in his first Easter Sunday message.

Thousands of people packed into St Peter's Square to see the pontiff celebrate his first Easter mass and to hear his message to the faithful.

Latin America's first pontiff also issued an appeal for hostages held by militants in Nigeria and condemned human trafficking as "the most extensive form of slavery in this 21st century".

The pope delivered his "Urbi et Orbi" blessing to Rome and the world from the same balcony of St Peter's Basilica where he made his first appearance after his momentous election to the papacy this month.

Speaking in front of some 250,000 people from around the world, Francis prayed for "dear Syria, for its people torn by conflict and for the many refugees who await help and comfort."

Thousands of pilgrims packed into St Peter's Square

He asked: "How much blood has been shed? And how much suffering must there still be before a political solution to the crisis will be found?"

"On the Korean peninsula, may disagreements be overcome and a renewed spirit of reconciliation grow," he said, a day after North Korea declared it was in a "state of war" with South Korea.

Francis also prayed for Nigeria "where great numbers of people, including children, are held hostage by terrorist groups" - an apparent reference to a French family kidnapped in Cameroon and believed held by the Nigerian group Boko Haram.

The Pope also toured St Peter's Square in his open-top 'Popemobile', kissing babies and waving to cheering crowds who held up flags from around the world, including his native Argentina.

Easter is the holiest day in the Christian calendar and celebrates the belief in Jesus Christ's death and resurrection. It is the culmination of weeks of intense prayer for Christians.

Pope Francis arrives for the mass in St Peter's Square

The Catholic Church has been struggling in the face of rising secularism, particularly in Europe where attendances at masses are falling sharply.

During his message, Francis prayed God would reach "every house and every family, especially where the suffering is greatest, in hospitals, in prisons."

On Holy Thursday, Francis celebrated an unprecedented Mass in a youth prison in Rome in which he washed the feet of 12 inmates including two girls and two Muslims - a ritual seen as a gesture of humility towards the 12 apostles attributed to Jesus.

Previous popes only ever performed the ritual with priests or Catholic laymen.

Francis took over the papacy after the resignation of Benedict XVI who stunned the world by announcing he wanted to become the first pope to leave office voluntarily in more than 700 years.

The 85-year-old admitted he no longer had the physical or mental strength to carry out his papal duties.

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North Korea: Nuclear Arsenal 'Will Be Increased'

North Korea has vowed to strengthen its nuclear capability, keeping up a defiant tone a day after warning it was in a "state of war" with South Korea.

Pyongyang also said it would never abandon its atomic weapons in exchange for aid, describing them as a "national treasure".

The central committee of the ruling Workers' Party, chaired by leader Kim Jong-Un, decided at a meeting that the country's nuclear arsenal "should be expanded and beefed up qualitatively and quantitatively until the denuclearisation of the world is realised", the official KCNA news agency reported.

Tensions have risen sharply since the United Nations tightened sanctions in response to the North's nuclear and missile tests. Joint US-South Korean military drills south of the border also angered Pyongyang.

On Saturday, the North declared it was in a "state of war" with the South and warned Seoul and Washington that any provocation would swiftly escalate into an all-out nuclear conflict.

Mr Kim presided over a the party's central committee meeting

During their meeting, members of the committee also decided to develop a light water reactor as part of a civilian nuclear power industry to ease electricity shortages, KCNA said.

The North in 2010 disclosed the existence of a uranium enrichment facility and a light water reactor, purportedly to generate power.

Experts said it could easily be reconfigured to make fuel for nuclear weapons, supplementing the existing plutonium weapons programme.

In April 2009, the North formally abandoned six-party talks which offered it economic and security benefits in return for denuclearisation.

Join US-South Korean military drills have angered Pyongyang

On Sunday it reiterated that its atomic weapons were not a bargaining chip.

"They are a treasure of a reunified country which can never be traded with billions of dollars," KCNA quoted the committee as saying.

The meeting vowed to push for nuclear development and boost both agriculture and living standards.

The committee also said it wanted to develop space science and technology, including the launching of more advanced satellites, including communications satellites.

Pyongyang says its long-range rocket launches are aimed at putting satellites into orbit for peaceful purposes. The United States and other nations say the real purpose is to test banned ballistic missile technology.

As tensions have escalated in recent weeks, Washington has maintained a notably assertive stance, flying its nuclear-capable B-52s and B-2 stealth bombers over the South.

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Mandela: South Africa Holds On To Ailing Icon

By Ian Woods, in Pretoria, South Africa

Former South African President Nelson Mandela has spent a fourth day in hospital recovering from pneumonia, and has received a visit from his wife Graca Machel.

Pictures of her being driven into the Mediclinic private hospital in Pretoria provided the first conformation of where he is being treated.

His friend and former fellow Robben Island inmate Mac Maharaj confirmed on Saturday that Mr Mandela had had fluid drained from his lungs to help him breathe, and he was continuing to make progress.

South Africans know that time is inevitably running out for the 94-year-old, and when the do finally mourn his death, they will be joined by millions of people around the world.

But the cling to the man they call Madiba like a respected grandfather and as a Father of their Nation.

Nelson Mandela's wife arrivesat hospital in Pretoria to visit him

Despite having retired from politics and stepped out of the public spotlight, many still believe he retains a position of moral authority over those who succeeded him in government, as well as the people.

Mpho Swanyane, a 30-year-old BMW worker, told Sky News: "He is an icon. And as an icon, he brings a certain mindset to people that they can still do well.

"As long as he's still alive, I believe that people can be on a good path."

One of the unintended consequences of bringing equality to South Africa is that poverty now extends across racial barriers. 

After apartheid ended the privileged position of the white minority, some of them found it hard to adapt. And while the black middle class has grown dramatically, working class whites are no longer immune to economic hardships.

Louis John is 30 but  he looks older. He sits on a busy street in central Pretoria holding a sign urging people to give him money  to help support his family. Like his three young sons, he is barefoot and dirty.

Dylan, aged 12, Kyle, aged 11, and five-year-old Shane sit alongside their father, but he insists they have not gone hungry in the month since they moved to Pretoria in search of work. Louis lost his job as a welder, and he and his wife are currently living in a one room apartment with no electricity or running water.

Painted stones are left outside Mr Mandela's house on his birthday

You might expect him to be bitter about the new South Africa and care little for the health of Nelson Mandela, but even he gushes with admiration for the man who helped end white rule.

"I think he is a great man to be the person he's been. What he went through! He's been in jail for half his life and then he came out with forgiveness. There's not a lot of hatred in him. If it was me, I don't know if I could be like that.

"I think he's a kind of saint. If they locked me up I would have been a bitter person. I would have been angry at the world."

Louis said most of those who stop in the street and give him money are black South Africans, sympathetic to his plight.

"I don't know about apartheid. Because my mum is from the UK we didn't believe in that. If you go to hospital you don't get black blood or white blood, you're getting blood. It's the same thing. I'm not racial at all."

A few yards away, Anna Chabalala is doing brisk business at her market stall. She still credits Mr Mandela's peaceful transformation of her country two decades ago with her contended life today.

"If it's not Madiba, I'm not selling here. My children would not go to school. Me too, I can eat. I can pay the rent. I can do everything (because of) Madiba, really. If not for Madiba - nothing."

If and when he is well enough to go home, millions of South Africans, just like their beloved Madiba, will breathe more easily.

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