NEWS BREAK FROM AROUND THE WORLD

The parents of a Kentucky teenager who was fatally shot in a mass shooting at her high school this week said their daughter called them as the violent scene unfolded in the background. Bailey Holt, 15, was one of two students killed at Marshall County High School in western Kentucky on Tuesday after a classmate allegedly opened fire, killing them both and injuring at least 18 others, authorities said. "She called me and all I could hear was voices, chaos in the background," Bailey's mother, Secret Holt, told ABC affiliate WKRN on Wednesday. "She couldn't say anything and I tried to call her name over and over and over and she never responded." "We rushed to the high school, and they wouldn't let us get through," she said. Secret Holt said she knew something was wrong when she didn't see her daughter on any of the buses that were used to transport the surviving students to a nearby school. "We waited and waited for h...

A man has been arrested after an eight-year-old girl was stabbed to death near Walsall, West Midlands police said. Officers were called to an address in Brownhills at about 9.15pm on Saturday and found the girl, named by police as Mylee Billingham, with serious injuries. She was taken to hospital and died a short time later. A 54-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder. He was treated in hospital for a stab wound to his stomach. Police said on Sunday morning that he was in a stable condition and would be questioned in due course. A neighbour, Graham Greatrex, 74, told how he helped comfort Mylee’s mother after the schoolgirl was discovered badly wounded. He said: “I just offered her a warm drink because it was a bitterly cold night. “She was in shock.” On Sunday the home was being searched by forensics experts. The house is believed to belong to the local authority and is one of a row of terraced bungalows in the street. Greatrex said that a man had live...

Cristiano Ronaldo netted a late brace in Real Madrid's 7-1 demolition of Deportivo La Coruna, only to leave the field covered in blood and peering into a mobile phone. The five-time Ballon d'Or winner was a picture of frustration, passing up simple chances as Gareth Bale turned the match emphatically in Madrid's favour on the back of Adrian Lopez's 23rd-minute opener for Depor. Ronaldo made it 5-1 by converting Casemiro's cross from close range and a brave header from Lucas Vazquez's centre gave him a sixth LaLiga goal of the campaign. It came at a price, as Fabian Schar's boot left the 32-year-old with a nasty cut above his left eye. Looking like a prize-fighter rather than a prize-winning forward, Ronaldo was led from the field by Madrid's doctor and borrowed a phone that seemingly belonged to the medic to inspect the damage – surely an act more concerned with surgery than selfies. After the match, head coach ZInedine Zidane confirme...

California mom from hell Louise Turpin wanted to add a 14th child to her brood — so she could land a TV reality show and make money, according to a new report. “She used to say how they would be perfect for TV and would often ­mention they would be bigger than the reality show ‘Kate Plus 8,’ ” her half-brother Billy Lambert told UK’s The Mirror. “She thought the world would be fascinated by their lives,” he continued. She and her husband “thought it would make them millions and household names. They didn’t care about the kids – it was all about them.” Indeed, the Turpin family has captured the world’s morbid curiosity — but only after it was revealed Louise and husband David ritually abused their 13 kids for years — beating them, withholding food and education and shackling them to their beds for weeks or months on end as a sick punishment for infractions as minor as washing their hands above the wrists, authorities said. Investigators said Louise seemed confused as to why there ...

Thirteen malnourished siblings, ranging in age from 2 to 29, were rescued by police in California from a house where some of them had been chained to beds, and their parents have been charged with torture, officials said on Monday. Police made the discovery after a 17-year-old girl escaped the house in Perris, about 70 miles (113 km) east of Los Angeles, and used a cellular phone she had found in the house to call them, the Riverside County Sheriff's Office said in a statement released online. "Deputies located what they believed to be 12 children inside the house, but were shocked to discover that seven of them were actually adults," police said in a statement. "The victims appeared to be malnourished and very dirty." The girl, who officers had initially thought was about 10 years old, contacted police on Sunday after escaping. The children's parents, David Allen Turpin, 57, and Louise Anna Turpin, 49, were arrested and each charged with...

Police are appealing for information after a woman in her 30s was kidnapped and driven to an Essex cemetery and gang raped in broad daylight. The victim told police she was approached by a man in Jackson Road, Clacton, Essex, before she was hauled into his car with two other men on Sunday afternoon. The three men then drove the woman to the St Osyth Cemetery in Clay Lane, some four miles away from where she was kidnapped. She was then raped by the three men, sometime between 3pm and 4pm. Police are scouring the ground for forensic evidence while the victim is being supported by specially trained officers. Essex Police are now appealing for any witnesses to the horrific crime. Detective Inspector Greg Wood, of Essex Police’s Public Protection Investigation Unit, said: “We are continuing to make extensive enquiries into this serious offence, including house to house enquiries and reviewing CCTV footage. “We are currently treating this as an isolated incident but we understand t...

Islamist militants Boko Haram on Monday released a new video purporting to show at least 14 of the Chibok schoolgirls whose mass kidnapping nearly four years ago became a symbol of NIgeria's brutal conflict. But despite a concerted global campaign for their release, and talks between the government and the militants, the girls shown in the recording vowed not to return to their parents. The 20-minute-long video is the first since May last year, when another woman who also claimed to be among the 219 seized from the town in Borno state said she wanted to stay. Both videos will compound the suffering of the girls' families and friends but also indicate the extent to which they may have become influenced by their captors. All of those who were shown on camera were wearing black or blue hijabs and at least three were carrying babies. One of the students, her face covered by a veil, said: "We are the Chibok girls that you cry for us to return to you. By the g...

A theater chain is getting an early jump on bringing director Christopher Nolan’s 2008 worldwide blockbuster The Dark Knight back to the big screen to celebrate the film’s 10th anniversary. The Dark Knight, of course, was the middle film in Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, which began with 2005’s Batman Begins and concluded in 2012 with The Dark Knight Rises. Starring Christian Bale as Batman/Bruce Wayne, Batman Begins marked a major turning point in the genre of comic book movies since Nolan took a gritty, real world approach to his films with little room for any fantasy elements. The pinnacle of the trilogy from both a critical and box office standpoint came with The Dark Knight, where Batman met his ultimate nemesis The Joker (Heath Ledger). Ledger’s tragic death after filming sadly added a haunting yet deeply impactful element to the film, which not only went on to capture an astounding $534.8 million in ticket sales domestically, but another $469.7 million overseas to cross t...

For all his success in designing world-changing technology, Bill Gates has set surprisingly strict rules for how his kids can use that technology, the billionaire philanthropist has said in multiple interviews. "You're always looking at how it can be used in a great way — homework and staying in touch with friends — and also where it has gotten to excess," Gates told the Mirror in April 2017. Each of Gates' three kids — ages 15, 18, and 21 — has grown up in a home that forbade cell phones until age 14, banned cell-phone use at the dinner table, and set limits on how close to bedtime kids could use their phones. Gates told the Mirror his kids routinely complained that other kids were getting phones much earlier, but the pleas did nothing to change the policy. In a separate interview with Matt Lauer, then at the Today Show, Gates said he doesn't go as far as keeping the passwords to his kids' Facebook accounts, but that online safety is "a very...

Over the past couple of years, Facebook has frequently tweaked its News Feed algorithms to deliver stories that are relevant and of interest to you. It was a strategy that, up until now, seemed to be the way forward for the site. But that's all about to change, as Facebook has announced that there are big adjustments coming to its News Feed. In the months ahead, the platform will start to prioritize posts from people you care about, like friends and family, over stories or videos from publishers. Users may react positively, but publications that rely on Facebook to drive traffic won't be happy. In a blog post, Facebook CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg said the goal is to ensure that users feel happy when they're on the site, something that's easier to accomplish if you're seeing baby pictures rather than news articles about Russia investigations. During the early days of Facebook, the focus was simply on communication between friends, but over the past couple...

Gabrielle Union thinks Donald Trump's reference to "shithole" places actually refers to his brain. Gabrielle was at Barnes and Noble Saturday in Cleveland signing her book, "We're Going to Need More Wine," when she sounded off on Trump's gross commentary on Haiti and African countries.  She also thinks Oprah -- who now says she's intrigued by the prospect of running for President in 2020 -- can do more outside the Oval Office than inside. Hubby Dwayne Wade was there but can't be seen in the video.

FBI agents knew the gunman behind the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history left behind big caches of guns, ammunition and explosives when they sought warrants to search his properties and online accounts, according to court documents released Friday. However, new questions were raised after a U.S. judge in Nevada unsealed the documents revealing some of what federal agents had learned about shooter Stephen Paddock in the week after the Las Vegas attack. The 315 pages of FBI affidavits provide just a glimpse of what investigators found during initial searches of Paddock's car and home after police found him dead late Oct. 1 in a hotel room at the Mandalay Bay resort. Girlfriend Marilou Danley's casino player rewards card was with him, although she was in the Philippines at the time. The documents made public did not answer the key question: What motivated Paddock, a 64-year-old high-stakes gambler, to unleash gunfire from his room on the 32nd floor of the...

Actor-director Sylvester Stallone has confirmed that The Expendables 4 is happening. Following his breakthrough with the Best Picture Oscar-winning boxing drama Rocky in 1976, Stallone quickly transitioned into becoming an action star, beginning with box office hit First Blood in 1982, where audiences were introduced to who would soon become an iconic character John Rambo. After two Rambo sequels in the 1980s, Stallone, found himself vying for the title of action movie king against former bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger, who quickly rose to prominence thanks to his Conan movies, as well The Terminator, Commando, and Predator. As both Stallone and Schwarzenegger aged, both tried different film genres (including comedy) to varying degrees of success, while other actors like Bruce Willis, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Wesley Snipes, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Stallone’s Rocky IV nemesis Dolph Lundgren took up the action film mantle. In 2010, Stallone realized the potential of bringing...

While DC’s Shazam! has been in the works for years, Warner Bros. has finally confirmed its release date for 2019. It’s been quite a while since WB and DC first announced their ambitious slate of superhero films, but things have changed considerably since then. While Wonder Woman arrived without a hitch, Justice League was nearly derailed by a series of behind-the-scenes issues. Films like Flashpoint, meanwhile, have suffered multiple director and writer losses, while even this year’s Aquaman had its release date changed twice. Luckily, the King of Atlantis will arrive in theaters later this year and 2019 will bring a fast-tracked sequel to Wonder Woman and the debut of Shazam! Though the hero has yet to be teased in a DCEU movie, horror director David F. Sandberg is hard at work crafting the film. Star Zachary Levi began work on Shazam! just a few weeks back and casting announcements for the film have been arriving regularly. And though it’s been assumed the release date...

Ben Affleck just started playing Batman less than two years ago, but it seems he’s just about ready to retire as the character. Over the past few months, the evidence that Affleck won’t be Batman for much longer has piled up. Now, it’s quite possible that Justice League will be his final time depicting the Caped Crusader. So what has been the evidence that Affleck is ready to stop playing Batman? Here’s what you need to know. 1. He was reportedly very unhappy with Batman v. Superman Affleck made his debut as Batman in 2016’s Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. This film was one of the worst-reviewed movies of that year, receiving a dismal Rotten Tomatoes score of 27%. Apparently, Affleck really took this to heart, having previously been mocked for starring in an awful comic book film, Daredevil. Birth Movies Death reported at the time, “My sources have told me that Affleck was incredibly unhappy about the reception of BvS. He felt humiliated after spending so much of ...