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Crass Chinese

Beijing: A Chinese couple was sentenced to three years in jail for selling their new-born daughter online to buy an iPhone and a motorbike with the funds, a media report said. The father of the child, A. Duan, sold his 18-day-old daughter for $3,530 on the social media site QQ, while the child’s mother also supported the man’s decision saying they did not know it was illegal, People’s Daily online reported.

A. Duan spent most of time in internet cafes while the mother, Xiao Mei, reportedly worked in many part-time jobs in Tong’an district in China. “I myself was adopted, and many people in my hometown send their kids to other people to raise them. I really did not know that it was illegal,” Mei said.

The couple met at work in 2013 and after plans for their marriage were shelved, their child was born following an unwanted pregnancy. Both of them were 19-year-old at the time and finding his newborn daughter to be a financial burden, the man sold her to buy the material possessions he desired.

The woman, who fled from Tong’an after the deal, was tracked down. Mei has been awarded a two-and-half years’ suspended sentence and A. Duan was sentenced to three years in jail, the report said. The newborn was purchased for the unnamed buyer’s sister and is still with the buyer as the biological parents are not in a financial position to raise the child. The buyer allegedly turned to police after acquiring the infant.

In a First: Poo museum opens

London: A poo museum, believed to be the first of its kind in the world, showcasing 20 different excrement samples including that elks, lions and human baby has opened in the U.K. The museum dedicated to human and animal excrement opened at the Isle of Wight Zoo’s exhibition in Sandown. It intends to educate people about interesting facts about poo and how to use it as an energy source. “Poo provokes strong reactions. Small children naturally delight in it but later we learn to avoid this yucky, disease-carrying stuff and that even talking about poo is bad.  

4 year old shoots mother- when chicken came home to roost

Miami: A four-year-old boy accidentally shot his mother in the US state of Florida, leaving the woman known for her strong pro-gun stance seriously wounded and facing possible charges, officials said.

  31-year-old Jamie Gilt was driving down a road in Putnam County when her son managed to get hold of a gun while he was sitting in the back seat of the truck, according to a statement released by the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department.

Officials told the Florida Times-Union that the child fired a .45-caliber handgun that he found on the truck’s floor into the driver’s seat. “She was shot through the seat and the round went through her back,” Sheriff’s Captain Joseph Wells said. “There was a booster seat in the back of the vehicle, but, however, the boy was not strapped in when the deputy got to them,” he said, reports PTI.

The deputy noticed that a truck stopped partially in the travel lanes and a woman in the driver’s seat motioning for help. The only other occupant in the vehicle was the boy, who was not harmed. Authorities said the firearm was legally owned by Gilt, who maintained a Facebook page entitled “Jamie Gilt for Gun Sense,” where she regularly posted pro-gun positions.

On her personal Facebook page, Gilt once bragged about her son: “Even my 4 year old gets jacked up to target shoot with the .22.”

Gilt’s social media presence is filled with pro-gun messages, Second Amendment memes and posts supporting the National Rifle Association of America (NRA), as well as photos of her posing with weapons.

She appears to maintain a Facebook page called “Jamie Gilt for Gun Sense,” which has since been inundated by people criticizing her passion for weapons in light of being shot by her son, Washington Post reported.

Detectives have not yet been able to interview Gilt because of her medical condition. Florida law makes it a misdemeanor for a person to store or leave a loaded firearm in such a way that a child could gain access to it. Authorities said they will not make a decision on charges until they can speak with the woman. Gilt is believed to be in stable condition, CNN reported.   The boy is currently with relatives.

Payment Stopped when ‘Dash’, the Dog sounded ‘Daesh’, the ISIS

San Francisco: In a bizarre case, a man’s online payment to his dog walker was blocked by a bank in the US because his service dog’s name sounded like a dreaded terror network. Bruce Francis, 55, from San Francisco, was transferring USD 374 from his account to his dog walker and wrote his dog’s name ‘Dash’ in the memo line, as he has done every month for the past couple of years.

Chase Bank blocked Francis’s online payment because his pitbull mix’s moniker loosely resembles the terrorist network ‘Daesh’, another name for ISIS. Bank officials thought ‘Dash’ was a hair too close to ‘Daesh’ the Arabic term for the Islamic State or ISIS, and cancelled the payment. The dog walker notified Francis ten days later that she still had not been paid.

“I called my bank, and they were kind of squirrely about why the payment didn’t go through,” Francis told the New York Daily News. When he logged into his account, he realised the bank had flagged the transfer made earlier this month for review by the US Treasury Department, which posted a note on his account asking him to “explain what Dash means”.

“I said, ‘Oh, so that’s what this is about,'” said Francis.

“Last year, you didn’t hear John Kerry talking about Daesh, but now he is, and he pronounces it like ‘dash,” he said.

Francis, who suffers a rare form of muscular dystrophy and relies on his 9-year-old service animal, was quick to obey the Federal Reserve. He called the Office of Foreign Assets Control and told them that Dash is his dog’s name. The payment was then processed.

“The idea that my dog is a terrorist is pretty funny. Seriously, the only thing Dash could terrorise is a roast chicken,” said Francis.