English Baccalaureate Certificates: Out go GCSEs, in comes the tough new six-subject Baccalaureate

• 600,000 pupils will start EBaccs in English, maths and science from 2015
• Exams could take three hours to finish compared with 90 minutes for GCSEs
• Marks will also be awarded for spelling, grammar and punctuation
• Gove insists exams will remove 'bite-sized, spoon feeding'

SA footballer critical after nightclub fall

A young South Australian football player is fighting for his life after jumping from the second storey of a nightclub, reportedly in a bid to escape security.

The club's owners claim Ricky Elley, 19, was being chased by bouncers after being earlier kicked out of Port Pirie nightclub The Family, according to Nine News.

Police have not confirmed this detail but a spokeswoman said it appeared to be a case of tragic misjudgement.

Mr Elley, who plays for Central Augusta Football Club, suffered critical head injuries when he fell through a shade cloth, crashing to the ground, in the early hours of Sunday.

Mr Elley had been on the roof for up to 20 minutes before he fell, according to witnesses.

"It was pretty traumatic, as you can imagine. There were lots of his mates there," a witness told Nine News.

The nightclub posted a statement on Facebook yesterday.

"After last night's incident, our thoughts and well wishes are with the friends, family and the young man involved," it read. "Out of respect for the family and friends affected and also the young man himself, the page will not be displaying anything from this weekend.

"We would like to thank everyone for your understanding in this matter."

The incident comes one week after Port Adelaide football player John McCarthy died in a similar accident, after misjudging a jump from the roof of a Las Vegas hotel.

Advokats ærkerival frygtes dræbt

Lettisk politi mener at have fundet liget af en russisk-født rigmand, der sagsøgte den danske advokat Jeffrey Galmond og en russisk teleminister for mordtrusler, før han forsvandt Skandalen om den danske advokat Jeffrey Galmond og hans forbindelser til inderkredsen omkring den russiske præsident, Vladimir Putin, tager nu en makaber ny drejning.

Facebook and Twitter: A No-No for Federal Jurors

Were you hoping to waste away your hours of jury duty on Facebook or Twitter?

Federal judges are hoping you won’t, and have a new list of instructions from the Federal Judicial Conference Committee on how to discourage social networking in the courthouse throughout cases. While you may just be browsing breaking news or your friends’ updates, judges are concerned you’ll engage in external research or leak details about the case.

The new guidelines, drafted in June and issued Friday, instruct judges how to best deter jurors from using Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or YouTube to research and communicate about the cases for which they’re serving. Judges are told to review these instructions before the trial, at the close of each day before they return home, at the end of the case and at any other time deemed appropriate.

“Jurors should be told why refraining from use of social media promotes a fair trial,” said Judge Julie Robinson, the Conference Committee on Court Administration and Case Management chair, in a statement. “Finally, jurors should know the consequences of violations during trial, such as mistrial and wasted time.”

These instructions follow the results of a national survey of federal judges who reported that juror use of social media was most often reported by a fellow juror. Judges are encouraged to ask jurors to out fellow jurors who violate the instructions against social networking.

GOP delegates want tough talk, yearn to party like 1980, when Democrat was ousted after 1 term

 Republicans heading to their party convention are eager to hear an earful about the shortcomings of President Barack Obama’s record, the woeful U.S.

economy and the competing visions of the two presidential candidates. What they aren’t looking for is any mention of compromise, which most Americans say is

necessary to get the nation back on track.

The Republicans want a party like in 1980, when the GOP ousted a Democratic president after one term.


Delegates from around the country have big dreams for the Aug. 27-30 gathering in Tampa, Fla., where Mitt Romney will accept the party’s nomination and

Republicans will kick off their final push to defeat Obama. They sketched out a sharp message they want to hear from speaker after speaker — onetime White

House hopefuls, GOP governors, congressional leaders and the party’s top recruits angling to win a job in Washington.

Conventions are four-day slugfests directed at the opposing party and its candidate. The rhetoric is brutal, vitriolic and far from conciliatory. Some lines

are memorable.

“Poor George, he can’t help it — he was born with a silver foot in his mouth,” quipped Texas state treasurer Ann Richards to laughs and applause at the

Democratic National Convention in Atlanta in 1988. Her target was the well-heeled GOP nominee, Vice President George H.W. Bush.

Twenty years later, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin accepted the Republican vice presidential nomination at the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn., and compared her

mayoral experience in Wasilla, Alaska, to that of nominee Obama.

“I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities,” she said.

The crowd roared.

Ed Cox, the chairman of the Republican Party in New York, wants speakers at the convention to echo the message that Romney delivered after he won the

Wisconsin primary in April. Romney cast the election as a choice between what he called Obama’s “government-centered society” and the “opportunity

society” the former businessman said he would pursue as president.

“This is the crux of our message, that we are for an opportunity society of free people and free enterprise,” Cox said in an interview with The Associated

Press. “America has always been about people having dreams, going out and working to make them. To do that they don’t want the heavy hand of government on

top of them, whether it’s in taxes or regulations.”

The Obama administration in its first year “ignored what they were elected to do, which was to pay attention to jobs and the economy,” said Cox, who has

seen his share of conventions as the son-in-law of President Richard M. Nixon.

Jim McErlane, a lawyer from Chester County, Pa., said convention speakers should keep it simple.

“The economy, the economy, the economy,” he said in an interview. “Jobs, jobs, jobs.”

Shawn Steel, a lawyer from Palos Verdes, Calif., wants the convention to remind Americans of 1980, when Ronald Reagan accepted the nomination in Detroit and

then scored a landslide victory that knocked out President Jimmy Carter and helped Republicans seize control of the Senate.

Ibaka's new deal with Thunder reportedly for $48M

 The Oklahoma City Thunder took a big step toward sticking around as an NBA championship contender.

The Thunder and general manager Sam Presti still face difficult decisions in the team's quest to remain a title threat for the long haul after reaching the

NBA Finals last season, but reaching a contract extension with blocks leader Serge Ibaka is certainly a good start.

Ibaka came to terms on the deal on Saturday as the Thunder locked up another key member of their nucleus while also putting into question whether the small-

market team can afford to keep Sixth Man of the Year James Harden beyond next season..

Ibaka posted on Twitter that he was happy for the chance to play for the Thunder for five more years. Presti didn't provide details of the contract, citing

team policy, but Yahoo! Sports first reported that the deal is for four additional years and $48 million.

"At 23 years old (by the time next season starts), we really do expect his best basketball to be in front of him," Presti said in a conference call, hours

before his wedding.

Presti dismissed the notion that Ibaka's signing means that Harden's departure is inevitable. But with more than $50 million committed per season to All-

Stars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook and starting center Kendrick Perkins, there is not much room left in the budget for Harden, who earned a spot on the

U.S. Olympic team that won gold in London.

Ibaka played for Spain's silver-medal winning Olympic team. Both he and Harden were eligible for extensions to their rookie contracts for the first time this

summer and were set to become free agents after next season.

"We're going to continue our conversations with James. We very much value him," Presti said. "We want him to be a part of our organization moving forward.

We're excited that he's a member of the Thunder and we're hopeful that he'll be with us for years moving forward."

To make that happen, Oklahoma City would likely have to go over the salary cap - set at about $58 million for next season - and pay a luxury tax or make

other moves, such as using the amnesty clause to erase Perkins' contract.

The Thunder have already let veteran free agents Nazr Mohammed and Royal Ivey sign elsewhere, and Derek Fisher remains unsigned. Backup point guard Eric

Maynor, who missed most of last season due to a knee injury, also would become a free agent after next season.

"There's still a commitment for us to try to find a way to make it work for everybody, but we know there's going to be some difficult decisions that have to

be made," Presti said. "We're looking forward to trying to figure those things out, and having Serge in place is certainly a benefit for our organization

moving forward knowing that we have another core player that will be with us for the foreseeable future."

Ibaka was the No. 24 pick in the draft in 2008, the same year Presti selected Westbrook. A native of the Republic of Congo, Ibaka remained overseas for a

year before joining the Thunder and developing into a defensive stopper.

He led the NBA with 198 blocks in the 2010-11 season and finished second in the voting for Defensive Player of the Year last season after recording a league

-best 241 - a franchise record 3.65 per game.

"He's come a long way in a short amount of time, but I've seen a lot of hard work that's gone into that on his behalf, and that gives us confidence that he's

going to continue to work at it," Presti said.

Ibaka has steadily improved his offensive game, adding a mid-range jumper while starting to develop effective post moves. But he's best known for his

defensive impact, particularly after blocking at least 10 shots in three games last season - once as part of a triple-double.

"I think with Serge, he does so many things," Presti said. "Obviously, his shot-blocking is a statistic that's most pointed to because it's objective,

because it's measurable, but there's a lot of things he does for us in terms of just, I would say, deterring shots.

"He really helps our pick-and-roll defense and bails us out a lot of times."

Record-Breaking Phoenix Galaxy Cluster: By the Numbers

 The faraway Phoenix galaxy cluster may be the biggest and brightest such structure ever discovered, and it's forming stars at an unprecedented rate,

scientists announced today (Aug. 15).

Here's a by-the-numbers look at the Phoenix cluster — formally known as SPT-CLJ2344-4243 — which researchers say could yield key insights into how galaxies

and colossal clusters evolve:

2.5 quadrillion: How many times more massive the Phoenix cluster is than our own sun. This may be an all-time record for galaxy clusters — the most massive

structures in the universe, composed of hundreds or thousands of individual galaxies bound together by gravity — researchers said.
 "I would say it's in a dead heat for the most massive galaxy cluster," Michael McDonald of MIT, lead author of the study describing Phoenix's remarkable

properties, told SPACE.com contributor Charles Choi. "The record-holder, 'El Gordo,' is slightly more massive, but the uncertainty in this estimate is high

— it could turn out that with more careful measurements, Phoenix is more massive."

3 trillion: The number of stars that reside in the Phoenix cluster's central galaxy, compared to 200 billion or so in our own Milky Way. [Gallery: Chandra

Spies Fastest-Growing Galaxy Cluster]

10 billion: The low-end estimate of the mass of the huge black hole at the heart of Phoenix's central galaxy, in solar masses. That's about as massive as the

biggest black hole ever discovered.

For comparison, the Milky Way's central black hole weighs in at about 4 million solar masses.
 5.7 billion: The approximate distance of Phoenix from Earth, in light-years. The cluster is found in the Phoenix constellation, partly explaining its

informal name.

However, researchers also chose the moniker as a nod to the mythological bird that rises from its own ashes, since Phoenix's central galaxy has seemingly

come back to life with a huge burst of star formation.

2010: The year in which astronomers discovered Phoenix, using the U.S. National Science Foundation-funded South Pole Telescope. But it took the team a little

while to learn just what they had found.

"We really didn't realize how remarkable it was until late last year and early this year, when we got follow-up X-ray and optical and ultraviolet and

infrared measurements that constrained the star-formation rate," McDonald told reporters today.

740: The approximate number of stars generated per year by the galaxy in Phoenix's center, a new high for the middle of a cluster.

"This extreme rate of star formation was really unexpected," McDonald said. "It's nearly five times higher than the next most star-forming central-cluster

galaxy, in Abell 1835. So it's really crushing the record."

Our own Milky Way galaxy produces just one to two new stars every year on average, McDonald added.