Friends of murdered 16-year-old Shakilus Townsend have posted pictures on the internet showing him wielding a knife and posing with a gun.

In an indication of his gang connections, the teenager was described as a ‘fallen soldier’ and there were vows to avenge his killing.

The images were released as a man and four teenagers – including a girl – were arrested over the murder.

Detectives believe Shakilus could have been lured to his death in a honeytrap operation by a teenage girl who exchanged text messages with him arranging to meet.

His killers, their faces masked with bandanas, lay in wait and set upon him, stabbing, punching, kicking and hitting him with a baseball bat.

Police have described the murder as ‘clearly planned and targeted’.

Shakilus is the 18th teenage murder victim in London so far this year and the 33rd in Britain. Read more »

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) - The state has racked up nearly $175,000 in legal costs defending a law giving some illegal immigrants a break on tuition at public colleges and universities.

And the expenses could keep rising if opponents of the measure try again to roll it back.

The 2004 state law lets illegal immigrants who meet certain rules pay the lower tuition normally reserved for legal Kansas residents. For example, the students must be graduates of Kansas high schools and pledge to seek legal status.   MORE>>>

San Francisco prides itself on being a sanctuary for illegal immigrants. City officials do not cooperate with federal immigration officials. But the policy has come under fire after revelations that city officials have been shielding illegal immigrant juvenile felons from federal immigration authorities. Mayor Gavin Newsom says the city will stop the practice.   MORE>>>

Toddlers should be taught about racism and singled out for criticism if they have racist attitudes, a Government-funded advisory group said yesterday.

It told nursery teachers, playgroup leaders and childminders to record and report every racist incident involving children as young as three.

These could include saying ‘Yuk’ about unfamiliar food.

Even babies should not be ignored in the hunt for racism because they can ‘recognise different people in their lives’, a new guide for nurseries and child care centres said. Read more »

National Forest Service officials, surrounded and attacked yesterday in Wyoming with sticks and stones by 400 members of the Rainbow Family, were given reason to regret their decision to cancel a long-planned national service project by the Boy Scouts of America in favor of the unorganized annual gathering of hippies, anarchists and “free spirits” who commune with nature and each other.

According to a statement released by the Forest Service’s Incident Command Team in Rock Springs, Wyo., officers patrolling the main meadow of the seven-day event held near Sandy Springs made contact with a man who fled and was later apprehended. A second Rainbow attendee was detained for interfering in the arrest.

As 10 officers began to leave the area with their suspects, they were surrounded by an estimated 400 members of the Rainbow Family. A request for additional officers was made. Read more »

A small boat packed with at least 148 illegal immigrants from Africa landed Saturday on a beach in the Canary Islands, the Interior Ministry said Saturday.

The flimsy fiberglass vessel arrived at La Tejita beach on Tenerife’s south coast around 6:30 a.m. (0530 GMT) as wind surfers were preparing to take to the sea, authorities said. The wind surfers and tourists alerted police.

The Africans tried to run inland, but were rounded up and detained, a ministry spokeswoman said. One man, who was dehydrated and had hypothermia, collapsed on the beach and was taken to a hospital. The rest were treated on the scene by Red Cross mobile units.   MORE>>>

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. sprinter Tim Montgomery, an Olympic gold medalist now banned from the sport, pleaded guilty on Thursday to distributing heroin.

According to a guilty plea filed in federal court in Norfolk, Virginia, Montgomery faces at least five years in prison and a fine of up to $2 million. 

Once known as the fastest man alive, Montgomery has since been banned from competing for his role in a steroid scandal and sentenced to another prison term for check fraud. Read more »

Berlin, Germany —The man who tore the head off the Adolf Hitler wax figure at Berlin’s new Madame Tussauds said he did so to protest war and fascism — and to win a bet. “Politically, I lean to the left, but I’m not an extremist,” Frank L. , told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper after being released from police custody on Saturday evening, a few hours after he disrupted the opening of Madame Tussauds Berlin by ripping the head off its new Hitler waxwork.

Frank L. later told the paper that he’d been particularly incensed that the Hitler waxwork was located so close to Berlin’s Jewish Museum. He added that he was sorry a security guard had been injured in the scuffle, as he hadn’t intended to hurt anyone. Story>>>>>

WINNIPEG, CANADA — the young mother carefully folds the red Nazi flag emblazoned with a black swastika that once hung on her living room wall and lays it on her kitchen table. In its place she has hung a banner that reads “White pride worldwide,” explaining that guests from the media might find it less shocking. It was a swastika drawn on her daughters arm, she says, that led Manitoba’s child protection agency to seize her children more than three months ago. Ever since, she has lived with the torment of seeing her children only two hours a week, and is turning to beer and cigarettes for comfort. She say she is a victim of a state run amok, persecuted for holding political views that are outside the mainstream. MORE>>>>