One of the seven von Trapp children who inspired the film The Sound of Music has died aged 97.
Agathe von Trapp died yesterday at a hospice in Baltimore after suffering heart failure last month.
Ms Von Trapp was the oldest daughter of Austrian naval officer Georg Ritter von Trapp. His seven children by his first wife were the basis for the singing family in the 1965 film in which Julie Andrews starred. (PA)
Pioneering Israeli journalist dies
Veteran Israeli journalist Dov Yudkovsky, who survived the Holocaust and later became editor of Israel’s best-selling newspaper has died aged 89.
Mr Yudkovsky worked for more than 40 years at Israel’s mass-circulation Yediot Ahronot daily.
In a full-page eulogy today the paper credited him with training younger reporters to write in a “simple, upfront, clear and colloquial” style.
Mr Yudkovsky was born in Warsaw in 1923 but grew up in Belgium.
After the outbreak of the Second World War he fled with his family to France but the Nazis arrested them and sent them to Auschwitz. No one else in his family survived.
After the war he moved to pre-state Israel where he managed to get the paper printed in Jerusalem while the city was under siege during the 1948 war that surrounded Israel’s creation. (PA)
Teen sex torture
Five youngsters have been indicted for imprisoning a teenage girl and sexually torturing her in one of Taiwan’s worst youth bullying cases, prosecutors said yesterday.
The suspects, aged between 19 and 21 years old, were charged with locking up the 19-year-old for five days in October during which they sexually assaulted her with a ladle and other objects, according to the indictment papers.
Three youths under the age of 18 are also suspected in the case, and will face a separate hearing in a juvenile court.
The group is accused of abusing the girl in other ways including beating her, puncturing her mouth with needles, burning her with cigarette butts, applying salt on her wounds and forcing her to lick her own blood.
The girl eventually managed to escape while her watchman was out and was discovered by a neighbour who took her home, prosecutors said. (AFP)
Lost art
Three men have been convicted of stealing a valuable Edward Munch painting from a Swedish museum that did not even realise it was missing.
Police found it while investigating other crimes.
The Malmo Art Museum had taken down Munch’s Two Friends, earlier this year and put it in a storeroom. It was not clear when or how the theft occurred. (PA)
Dental work
A 92-year-old man chewed through his bonds to free himself after two men robbed his house.
The men tricked their way into Lester Matteson’s home in Shoreline, Washington and used masking tape to fasten him to a chair while they ransacked the house.
Mr Matteson took two hours to chew through the tape. Other than bruises, he was not injured. (PA)
Pioneer transplant patient dies
A man who donated a kidney to his dying twin brother 56 years ago in the world’s first successful organ transplant has died aged 79.
Ronald Lee Herrick died on Monday in hospital in Maine after undergoing heart surgery in October.
Mr Herrick donated a kidney to his twin brother, Richard. Because they were identical twins, there was no problem with rejection.
The operation on December 23, 1954, kept Mr Herrick’s brother alive for eight years. Lead surgeon Dr Joseph Murray went on to win a Nobel Prize. (PA)
Money laundering in Vatican
Pope Benedict XVI will publish a decree today to fight money laundering in the Vatican, the Holy See said in a press release.
Yesterday’s announcement comes three months after an investigation was launched into two senior figures at the Vatican bank, the Institute for Religious Works (IOR).
Pope Benedict’s Moto Proprio document “regarding the prevention and opposition to illegal financial activity”, will set up a new financial authority in the Vatican, the statement said.
It will also lay down a law on “the prevention and the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism,” it said. (PA)
UK Border Agency error
The UK Border Agency has apologised after an e-mail was mistakenly sent to Customs officers at Heathrow – the UK’s busiest airport – advising them not to search potential drug smugglers.
The e-mail issued by the UKBA and seen by The Sun newspaper reads: “We would seek your cooperation in managing this situation by asking that you do not actively seek to identify any passenger with internal concealments for three days up to and including Christmas Day.”
The UKBA has insisted that the e-mail should never have been sent and is expected to launch a review into the incident. (PA)