Randy Travis Has A Stroke In Hospital

Country music singer Randy Travis has had a stroke in a Texas hospital, his publicist has said.

Kirt Webster said 54-year-old Travis suffered the stroke while he was being treated for congestive heart failure because of a viral illness.

Mr Webster said Travis was undergoing surgery on Wednesday night to relieve pressure on his brain. He has been in a critical condition.

"His family and friends here with him at the hospital request your prayers and support," Mr Webster said in a news release.

Doctors said that Travis had been in good health until three weeks before he was admitted to hospital, when he contracted a viral upper respiratory infection.

The illness led to a weakened heart muscle that eventually worsened into heart failure.

A six-time Grammy award winner, Travis is known for hits such as Forever and Ever, Amen and Three Wooden Crosses.

He pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated in January following his arrest last year when he was found naked after crashing his Pontiac Trans Am.

He was sentenced to two years of probation, fined $2,000 (£1,320) and given a 180-day suspended jail sentence.

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Driver Drags Child After Reversing Into Buggy

Police are hunting for a driver who reversed into a mother pushing her child in a pushchair and dragged it across a car park before speeding off.

Video and images of the driver in a shop before the incident have been released by police in Muskegon, Michigan in an attempt to identify him.

The video shows the car backing into the woman and knocking her over before driving off with the pushchair containing the child apparently hooked on to the back.

The 18-year-old woman chases after the car, which stops long enough for her to unbuckle her son, and then drives off - taking the buggy with him.

The mother had a scraped knee but the one-year-old was not injured.

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Pilotless Drone Makes First Landing At Sea

A computerised drone the size of a fighter jet has completed a pilot's most difficult task unaided after landing on an aircraft carrier at sea for the first time.

The US Navy's X-47B drone landed on the USS George H W Bush off the coast of Virginia, deploying a hook that caught a wire aboard the ship and brought it to a quick stop.

It had previously touched down on land but hitting a moving target at sea, often in turbulent air, is seen as a more challenging manoeuvre.

Ray Mabus, a US Navy spokesman, said: "It is not often you get chance to see the future but that's what we got to do today.

The X-47B drone is as big as a fighter aircraft and weighs around 20 tonnes

"This is an amazing day for aviation in general and for naval aviation in particular."

Unlike conventional drones, the X-47B, which cost around $1.4bn (£938m) to build, is not operated by remote control.

The aircraft uses computer software and GPS navigation to guide itself through the sky, flying missions of up to 2,400 miles.

Although it will never be put into operational use, US Navy officials hope it will help them develop future carrier-based drones.

The pilotless drone can travel at speeds of up to 610mph

Such aircraft could enter production as early as 2014 and are expected to be operational by 2020.

The continued development of the unmanned drones is controversial, with growing criticism of the United States' use of Predator and Reaper aircraft to launch lethal missile attacks against terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

Critics claim the strikes cause widespread civilian deaths and are carried out with inadequate oversight.

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San Francisco Crash Pilot 'Blinded By Light'

The pilot of a plane which crashed at San Francisco airport, killing two people, may have been temporarily blinded by a bright light as he came into land.

Lee Kang Kuk, who was making his first landing at the airport and had just 43 hours' experience at the controls of the Boeing 777, said he saw a bright flash as he approached the runway.

It happened around 35 seconds before impact when Asiana Airlines flight 214 was around 500ft (150m) off the ground - the point at which the aircraft began to slow down and drop steeply.

Deborah Hersman, who chairs the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said the use of lasers had not been ruled out.

Passenger Eugene Anthony Rah took this photo of the aftermath of the crash

It is not clear whether the flash of light caused the crash or whether other factors were to blame.

The pilot's claim came as phone calls to the emergency services made by passengers on board the plane were released, demonstrating the confusion caused when the Boeing 777 hit the runway.

Pleading for ambulances to be sent, one woman can be heard saying: "There are a lot of people that need help ... We have people over here who weren't found and they're burned really badly."

Meanwhile, it has emerged that passengers were initially told not to evacuate the aircraft.

The airline stewardesses at a press conference following the crash

The plane hit a sea wall as it came into land, causing its tail fin to break off and the rest of the fuselage to spin across the runway.

However, the NTSB found people did not begin leaving the plane until a fire erupted 90 seconds after impact.

"We don't know what the pilots were thinking, though I can tell you in previous accidents there have been crews that don't evacuate, they wait for other vehicles to come to be able to get the passengers out safely," Ms Hersman said.

She suggested that the pilots in the cockpit may not have been in a position to spot the fire outside the plane.

Air crash investigators at the site in San Francisco

At least one of the emergency escape slides opened inside the aircraft, pinning down two flight attendants.

Three other crew members were flung from the aircraft onto the runway but survived.

The NTSB is using pilot interviews, cockpit recordings and control tower communications to piece together the moments leading up to the crash.

They found both Mr Lee and his co-pilot, Lee Jung Min, who was on his first flight as an instructor, both thought the aircraft's speed was being controlled by an autothrottle, which was set to 157mph.

Wreckage from Asiana Airlines flight 214 was strewn across the runway

When they realised the plane was approaching the waterfront runway too low and too slow, they both reached for the throttle.

Passengers heard a loud roar as the pilots made a desperate attempt to abort the landing.

Two Chinese students were killed in the crash, which left 180 people injured. The students, who began their journey to the US in Shanghai, were on their way to a 15 day camp to study English.

Families of around 20 survivors who remain in hospital have begun arriving to care for their loved ones.

Flight 214 was a direct flight from Incheon in South Korea to San Francisco.

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Canada Train Blast: Engineer Blamed For Crash

Fifty people have now been confirmed dead or are presumed dead after a runaway freight train derailed and exploded in Canada.

Twenty bodies have already been found and officials are telling the families of 30 other people missing that all are believed to have been killed.

A railway boss has blamed an employee for failing to set the brakes properly.

Edward Burkhardt, chief executive of Rail World, made his comments during his first visit to the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic.

Mr Burkhardt, who arrived with a police escort and was heckled by angry residents, said a train engineer had been suspended without pay.

The boss said: "I think he did something wrong. It's hard to explain why someone didn't do something.

"We think he applied some hand brakes but the question is did he apply enough of them.

"He said he applied 11 hand brakes, we think that's not true. Initially we believed him but now we don't."

Edward Burkhardt, chief executive of Rail World visited Lac-Megantic

Mr Burkhardt does not suspect sabotage was involved.

An area of Lac-Megantic was flattened in the inferno caused by the crash, as a wall of fire tore through homes and businesses.

Some parts of the devastated scene have been too hot and dangerous to enter and find bodies even days after the disaster.

The blaze forced about 2,000 residents to flee their homes in the town, which has a population of 6,000. Most residents started returning on Tuesday.

The train, operated by Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway and carrying crude oil, had been stopped for a crew change in the nearby town of Nantes when it broke loose and hurtled downhill without a conductor towards Lac-Megantic.

It travelled for nearly seven miles before derailing at a curve in the tracks at 63mph and several wagons exploded.

Investigators are looking closely at a fire that happened on the train less than an hour before it became loose while stationary in Nantes.

The train's engine was shut down - standard operating procedure but one that might have disabled the brakes.

Police said a range of possibilities remain under investigation, including criminal negligence.

Some officials have raised the possibility the train was tampered with before the crash.

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Video Shows Mexico Volcano Spewing Ash

Mexico's erupting Popocatepetl volcano is continuing to spew large clouds of ash and vapour into the sky.

Local TV footage showed large plumes of smoke rising from the mountain, which is in the state of Puebla.

The volcano has been showing an increased activity for the past week, and the alert level remains at 'yellow'.

The volcano has registered 39 exhalations of low to moderate magnitude over the past 24 hours, emitting water vapour, gas and ash, according to local media reports, quoting the National Centre for Disaster Prevention (Cenapred).

"El Popo", as it is commonly known, has emitted small eruptions of ash almost daily since a round of eruptive activity began in 1994.

There are some 25 million people who live within a 60-mile radius of the volcano.

Mexico City residents awoke at the weekend to find, for the first time in years, a fine layer of volcanic dust on their cars.

The prevailing winds usually blow the dust in other directions.

The volcano is about 40 miles from Mexico City airport which is, in turn, a few miles east of the city centre.

Popocatepetl means "smoking mountain'" in the Aztec language.

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Magnitsky Trial: Dead Lawyer Guilty Of Tax Fraud

A Moscow court has found the Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky guilty of tax evasion three years after his death.

The investment fund lawyer, who died while in pre-trial detention in 2009, was convicted in Russia's first ever posthumous trial - branded a "show trial" by his supporters.

The Tverskoy District Court also found Mr Magnitsky's former boss, the London-based investor William Browder, guilty of tax evasion. He was tried in absentia after declining to return to Russia and received a nine-year jail term.

But Russia's options for jailing US-born Mr Browder are limited since Interpol has refused to include him on its international search list after deciding that Russia's case against him was political.

Mr Browder has all along dismissed the trial as a politically motivated effort to discredit him and Mr Magnitsky.

Court bailiffs wait before a session in the trial

Speaking to Sky News from New York after the verdicts, Mr Browder said it was "one of the most shameful moments in modern Russian history".

" ... They're prosecuting the dead man, what they should be doing is prosecuting the people who killed him. It's truly a travesty of justice."

He said he was "not too worried" about being pursued by the Russian authorities as long as he was in the West because Western governments and Interpol had rejected the allegations.

"It shows the desperation of Putin to cover up the crimes of his regime by going after the whistleblowers," he added. 

An empty cage in the Moscow courthouse - where normally the defendant hears the verdict - symbolised the absence of the late Mr Magnitsky and his co-accused.

"I did not doubt that the decision would look like this," the lawyer for Mr Magnitsky's family Dmitry Kharitonov told the RAPSI legal news agency.  "I know that he committed no crimes."

Magnitsky died on his 358th day in custody in a Moscow detention centre

Mr Magnitsky was jailed in 2008 soon after accusing Russian law enforcement officers of corruption. The lawyer was held on charges of tax evasion after claiming officials conspired to claim $230m (£150m) in tax rebates through Mr Browder's Hermitage Capital investment company.

A year later, the 37-year-old father died in prison of pancreatitis, after what supporters claim was a systematic torture campaign. A report by Russia's presidential human rights council found in July 2011 that he had been repeatedly beaten and deliberately denied medical treatment.

Campaigners say the fraud was committed by state officials who subsequently had him framed and arrested for the crime.

His death sparked widespread condemnation and a US law named after Mr Magnitsky imposing sanctions on Russians implicated in the lawyer's death.

The legislation infuriated Moscow, which in retaliation passed legislation prohibiting Americans from adopting Russian children.

Mr Browder, who is a British citizen and is campaigning for other governments to adopt the Magnitsky Act also told Sky News that Britain was acting "very shamefully" by not enforcing the sanctions, especially since his investment fund that sparked the case is based in the UK.

Friends and relatives attend Magnitsky's funeral ceremony

Mr Magnitsky had kept a diary in which he documented the conditions he was being held in and his deteriorating health.

Entries recorded in the months before he died describe excruciating pain from his untreated pancreatitis, raw sewage flooding prison cells and the sound of rats running through the prison at night.

Shortly before his death, the lawyer wrote: "I'm being subjected to punishment only for trying to defend the interests of my client and my country."

The Kremlin's own human rights council has said there was evidence suggesting Mr Magnitsky was beaten to death, but President Vladimir Putin has dismissed allegations of torture or foul play and told the nation last year that he died of heart failure.

Russian authorities closed the case against Mr Magnitsky after his death but reopened it in 2011, in a move former colleagues say was illegal because they did not have the consent of his relatives.

"This show trial confirms that Vladimir Putin is ready to sacrifice his international credibility to protect corrupt officials who murdered an innocent lawyer and stole $230m (£150m) from the Russian state," Hermitage Capital said in a statement.

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Romanian Gulag Guards Face Abuse Charges

The brutal treatment of inmates in Romanian gulags during the communist era included slamming doors on their fingers and forcing them to eat excrement, it has been reported.

They were also beaten on the soles of their feet and made to haul heavy loads in extremes of heat and cold until they collapsed.

Details of the ordeals suffered by political prisoners have come to light amid moves to bring guards now in their 80s and 90s to justice.

They face possible prosecution by a government institution tasked with investigating crimes against dissenters in the 1950s and 60s.

Guards who mistreated prisoners have long been shielded by Romania's establishment, whose ranks are filled with members of the former Securitate secret police.

An inscription translated as 'solitary confinement' at Jilava prison

However, the Liberal Party - whose members were targeted by communists under Soviet occupation after World War Two - is now part of the coalition government and has led efforts for a probe into the allegations.

The names of 35 guards are to be handed to authorities starting next week.

Of Romania's 617,000 political prisoners, 120,000 died in the gulags. Inmates frequently starved to death, and many died from a lack of medical care.

The prisoners included politicians, priests, peasants, writers, diplomats and children as young as 11.

Most survivors died before seeing any chance of justice.

Caius Mutiu, 79, a former detainee who testified to the Institute for Investigating the Crimes of Communism and the Memory of the Romanian Exile, said: "It would be good for the ones who are alive to go on trial, so history will mark them down as criminals."

Emilian Mihailescu: 'Medicine didn't really exist'

He said a guard once threatened to shoot him after he collapsed from hard labour.

He spent two weeks in isolation, sleeping on a damp, concrete floor and lived on a diet of cabbage, potatoes and barley soup.

Former detainee Emilian Mihailescu, an architect, said a Romanian diplomat in his cell died when a boil on his neck became infected. "Medicine didn't really exist," he said.

One of the Romanian prison guards who will be publicly named this month is Ion Ficior, dubbed by inmates "a human beast".

"Ficior beat us every day with a wooden stick," said former prisoner Ianos Mokar.

In an interview with The Associated Press, an unrepentant Ficior, 85, denied he had beaten anyone.

He said he tried to ensure inmates were fed and that the responsibility for the prison system lay with Romania's communist leaders.

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Runaway Train Blast: Town Mourns Victims

The identities of up to 50 people killed when a runaway train carrying crude oil exploded in Quebec have started to emerge as police admitted the missing were presumed dead.

Twenty bodies have been recovered following the blast in Lac-Megantic, according to officials, which has been blamed on the train's engineer failing to set the train's brakes properly.

Quebec police inspector Michel Forget said he told a meeting of families of the dead and missing "of the potential loss of their loved ones".

"You have to understand that it's a very emotional moment," he said.

Many of the victims had been at the Musi-Cafe, a popular late night bar and live music venue on the town's rue Frontenac.

The disaster scene with the remains of the Musi-Cafe in the foreground

A 40th birthday party for Josee Lafontaine had been taking place attended by her friends and family, with live music played by Guy Bolduc and Yvan Ricard.

But just after 1am the celebrations came to a sudden halt when the train derailed and exploded in flames just metres from the venue.

One of the guests at the party was Gaetan Lafontaine who had stepped outside moments before the blast occurred.

He immediately rushed into the inferno to look for his wife, Joanie Turmel, but neither of them survived. The couple left behind two children.

The crude oil freight train was out of control when it crashed

Mr Lafontaine's brother, Pascal, and his sister-in-law, Karine Lafontaine, who also had two children, were in the cafe at the time of the first explosion and have not been seen since.

Raymond Lafontaine lost a son, two-daughters-in-law and an employee.

"I cannot tell you what my heart is feeling," he told the National Post.

"The more you scratch, the more it hurts. As long as I am active and keep moving, I will be able to talk. But the day I stop, I am going to cry all the tears in my body."

Parts of the town were completely destroyed by the wall of fire

Mr Ricard had briefly left the venue to smoke a cigarette during an interval in the music, a move which saved his life.

But his colleague, who had gone to the bar for a drink just before the blast, was unable to escape. Mr Bolduc was married with two children.

"The last words he said to me were, 'Yvan, I really like playing with you. We have so much fun together,'" Mr Ricard told TVA.

Local resident Geneviève Breton had finished work at a local pharmacy and had one to the Musi-Cafe to meet her boyfriend.

Ms Breton was training to be a teacher and was well known in the town after her appearance in a Quebec singing competition.

Although her boyfriend escaped the inferno, Ms Breton died in the blast.

"Everybody loved her," her mother Ginette Cameron told the National Post. "She sang like an angel."

Just across the road from the Musi-Cafe lived Jimmy Sirois with his partner, Marie-Semie Alliance, and their 18-month old daughter, Milliana.

The accident was Canada's worst railway tragedy in 150 years

The couple were killed when the blast flattened their apartment, but Milliana had a miraculous escape as she had been staying with Mr Sirois' parents that evening.

Three of the cafe's employees were also killed in the blast, including Andrée-Anne Sévigny and Jo-Annie Lapointe. Stephane Lapierre, who lived in an apartment above the cafe, also died.

Lucie Vadnais was unable to escape the explosion as it ripped through the bar. She ran a daycare centre according to Josée Lemieux, a neighbour who often left her son there during the day and who described her as an "angel".

Henriette Latulippe, who worked in a beauty parlour on rue Frontenac,  was believed to have been asleep at home a hundred metres from the accident when she was caught in the blast.

The disaster forced 2,000 of the town's 6,000 residents from their homes and was Canada's worst railway tragedy in 150 years.

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Ashes: Bowler Agar Batters Test Records

Australia's Ashton Agar has achieved the highest score ever by a number 11 in a Test match, racing to 98 runs off just 101 balls in the first Test at Trent Bridge.

Making his Test debut, the 19-year-old came to the crease with his team in trouble at 117 for nine.

He batted on to share a Test record last-wicket partnership of 163 with Phil Hughes.

Agar - who has just 10 first-class appearances to his name and was playing for Henley in the Home Counties Premier League just two months ago - fell two runs short of his century when he was caught by Graeme Swann off Stuart Broad at deep mid-wicket.

He comfortably passed the previous high score by a last man on debut, which was the 45 notched by another Australian, Warwick Armstrong, in 1902.

England's Stuart Broad celebrates after taking the Australian's wicket

Then he surpassed the previous best score in Test match cricket by an Australian number 11, which was an innings of 61 by fast bowler Glenn McGrath.

However, he then outdid the highest Test innings by any number 11 - which until Thursday was West Indian Tino Best's 95 against England last year.

The left-arm spinner scored at a strike rate of 97.02, just under a run a ball, throughout his innings - and 60 of his runs came from boundaries.

His dismissal saw Australia all out for 280 in reply to England's first innings of 215.

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