Small Bits of News

Footage of Teen's Sex Act Distributed Around School
Police have reprimanded dozens of students at an Australian high school after a girl was filmed performing a sex act on a classmate and the footage was distributed to more than 100 other students.
Horrified relatives of the 15-year-old girl called New South Wales police after becoming aware she had been filmed and the footage had been sent to dozens of classmates at Woonona High School.
Police visited the school last week and questioned a number of students, The Daily Telegraph reported.
But detectives were thwarted from proceeding because students had deleted the footage from their phones after being addressed by the principal.
The girl told police the act had been consensual and she did not wish to file a complaint.
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Woman Sues to Collect on 147-Year-Old Promissory Note
The great-granddaughter of a Civil War-era storekeeper in Tampa, Fla. is suing the city for a 147-year-old unpaid promissory note. With interest, the note is now worth over $22 million.
The financially-strapped city of Tampa, in need of ammunition during the Civil War, issued the note to Thomas Pugh Kennedy on June 21, 1861, the St. Petersburg Times reported Sunday. Kennedy's great-granddaughter, Joan Kennedy Biddle and her family are suing to collect the payment, plus 8 percent annual interest.
"This thing has been in the family since the date on the note, and it has never been repaid," Biddle, 77, told the Times. "My daddy told me, and I certainly believe him."
Tampa City Attorney David Smith told the Times that he doesn't consider the claim valid.
In legal documents, Biddle's attorney argues that the statute of limitations doesn't apply, for at the time the note was issued, the state had no such statute on such documents.
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Man Loses Dead Wife's Voice Message in Phone Service Upgrade
IRVINGTON, N.Y. — An 80-year-old widower who'd been saving his dead wife's outgoing message on voicemail so that he'd remember what she sounded like lost it when Verizon upgraded phone service in his area.
Charles Whiting told New York's Journal News that he stayed connected to the memory of his wife Catherine by calling his phone every day just to hear her say, "The Whitings aren't home."
But after the Verizon upgrade in the Westchester, N.Y., area, the greeting message was wiped from his voicemail system.
Whiting said he immediately phoned the company, waiting an entire hour to be helped and even getting disconnected at one stage. After calling back and holding another 90 minutes, he was told the outgoing message Catherine had recorded had been lost for good.
"That's the only recording of her voice that I have," Whiting told The Journal News. "Every time I listened to my messages, I heard her voice saying, 'This is Catherine Whiting.' It was like she was still with me when I heard that. Now they took her voice away."