animal rights

IT'S the oldest excuse in the book, but for one teenage girl, a dog really did eat her homework. 

 

Payton Moody, 13, had just finished building a candy-covered volcano for her science class when her pet devoured it last month.
But after feasting on 50 metal straight pins and chocolate, which is toxic to dogs, Reggie the Labrador was rushed to hospital for emergency surgery.
"I made a volcano project out of candy and I pinned the candy to a foam base," Payton, from Colorado, told CBS Denver.
"I woke up one morning and I came down to my desk and it was just all over the floor. I was very scared."
The family found Reggie writhing in pain on the floor and rushed him to a vet.
"They were able to take most of the pins out with an endoscopy," Dr. Brian Van Vechten told
"But there were still six or so in the stomach, so I was called to take the remaining pins out through surgery."

Reggie was released after a two-day stay and is now on the road to a full recovery.

It was a busy June day in 2010 when Jan Braund, a Sydney retiree, bundled herself and her frail husband Alan onto a train for their long-awaited shot at justice.

 

A year earlier, the Braunds had been left financially ruined after a Commonwealth Bank financial planner named Don Nguyen switched the couple's life savings from conservative to disastrously risky investments. He did it without their knowledge or permission, allegedly forging their signatures along the wayNow, the Braunds had been summoned by Australia's corporate and market watchdog, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, to give her account of how Nguyen had wreaked havoc with their finances and their lives.
Getting there was an ordeal. Alan, now deceased, had advanced dementia and couldn't be left alone. When the couple tried to leave the train, an exhausted and confused Alan tripped and fell after his leg dropped into the platform gap.
Jan, with a dossier of evidence of forgery and unauthorised transactions in hand, was determined to get to the meeting. She hoped it would lead to justice.
But two weeks later, she received a call informing her that ASIC would not be using her evidence.
It later emerged that ASIC was tipped off about Don Nguyen's activities 20 months before the Braunds travelled to Sydney's CBD for their meeting. It waited until 2010 to launch an official investigation, which culminated in an enforceable undertaking with the bank in late 2011 and the banning of seven planners, including Nguyen. Criminal charges were never laid and CBA managers were never held accountable.
Jan Braund's powerful account of that June day - and its aftermath - is set out in her submission to a landmark parliamentary inquiry that is scrutinising ASIC's performance.
She was one of many customers who received inappropriate advice from CBA financial planners and who were later compensated to the tune of $51 million.
Hers is one of hundreds of submissions to the inquiry lodged by lawyers, unions, victims, former staff, lobby groups, professional bodies, whistleblowers, government bodies and financial institutions. Some defend and praise ASIC, but most are critical - and a few are tragic.

A dog trapped down the world's largest man-made hole in South Africa for more than a week was rescued on Saturday.

The poor pooch survived a dizzying plunge down the 200-metre "Big Hole" in Kimberley in Northern Cape province, managing to swim across the lake at the bottom and take refuge on one of its sides.
 
"Big Hole", Kimberley's main tourist attraction, is a former diamond mine owned by the De Beers group and is claimed to be the world's largest hand-dug excavation.
Local media reported step-by-step on the five-hour operation to rescue the labrador-style dog.
The animal was "doing well", rescue service spokeswoman Vanessa Jackson told AFP after it was brought to safety, with a local pet association on scene to make sure it was not injured.
"It was moving around, it was running around and all that, so it doesn't seem that it was injured, it was probably hungry and dehydrated," she said.
A team of seven went down into the vast crater, providing support to one another as the last man managed to get the dog, she said.

Chris 'Mad Dog' Russo (l.) blasts former partner Mike Francesa for his softball handing of Alex Rodriguez in several interviews.