Two people have been rescued after getting into difficulties off the Sussex coast, near Seaford.
The alarm was raised at 11:50 on Saturday after two people were spotted shouting for help and waving, trying to get people's attention.
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Two people were rescued by the coastguard helicopter after getting into difficulties off the coast near Seaford
The incident happened close to Splash Point, near Seaford.
The Marine and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said that neither lifeboats from the RNLI nor the coastguard's rescue team were able to reach the area where the people were struggling.
Although the lifeboat arrived on the scene, the sea was too rough to rescue them and it was deemed too unsafe for a coastguard team to reach the pair on foot.
This meant that the coastguard's helicopter had to be scrambled and used to rescue the two people who were airlifted to safety.
The two people were aged 25 and 26 and came from Slough. They were taken to a nearby golf course and were shaken but unharmed.
Liz Hanson, from Solent Coastguard, said: "The two people involved in this incident were local to Slough but visiting the coast for the day when they became cut off by the tide.
"They were not aware of the nature of the tides and, being originally from Lithuania, they were also not aware of the emergency telephone numbers, so they were lucky they were spotted by members of the public who were able to raise the alarm.
"We always advise members of the public to check the tide times before setting out on a coastal walk, and if they do get into difficulty, to dial 999 and ask for the Coastguard."
Source: www.thisissussex.co.uk
Divorce judge ‘bias’ outrage - New York Post
EXCLUSIVE
It’s divorce, Jersey style.
A band of angry ex-wives from the moneyed suburbs of the Garden State are joining forces to bring down Monmouth County Judge Paul Escandon, who they claim favors their rich and sometimes crooked hubbies — in one case, giving a confessed mob killer custody of his three kids.
“The fact that he awarded custody to a violent felon, ex-mobster turned informant shows he did not consider the safety and well-being or best interest of my children,” Patricia Pisciotti told The Post.
Pisciotti, 42, divorced her husband Nicholas “P.J.” Pisciotti, 42 — an acting Bonanno capo under Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano — in 2006, and was given joint custody of their three kids.
After her ex was arrested in 2007, Pisciotti said she sought and was granted sole custody. But in post-divorce proceedings under Escandon this year, Pisciotti said her son and two daughters were taken from her and given to P.J., despite his 2007 testimony that he and an associate “probably” killed Bonanno associate Richard Guiga in a bar fight in the mid-1990s.
At least 10 women told The Post that Escandon has a mysterious beef against the opposite sex, in many cases shutting them out of their marital homes, reducing them to poverty, and taking their kids away from them.
“I am fighting against a corrupt judge named Paul X. Escandon,” Rachel Alintoff wrote to Gov. Chris Christie and other lawmakers.
Alintoff said she lost custody of her 2-year-old, Hayden, in Escandon’s court last year — without a required legal hearing, she claims — after her husband, Wall Streeter Bryan Alintoff, claimed she was a “flight risk.”
An Appellate Court summarily reversed Escandon’s ruling in November, returning Hayden to his mom.
“Now, in an attempt for vengeance, Judge Escandon has put my son and I . . . [in] poverty by only granting us $12,000 a year while my husband made over $500,000 last year as a commodities trader,” she wrote.
Another woman who asked not to be identified said she has been denied a penny of her businessman husband’s millions because of Escandon, who she said is not enforcing an order for the husband to disclose his assets.
“Before I began in Monmouth County Court, I had some hope in the fairness of the system,” she wrote in a letter to the governor. “I no longer believe in the fairness and believe that my children and I have been victimized even further in this process.”
State judicial officials are considering a probe of Escandon, and two of the women said they have been contacted by the FBI.
The judge came to Christie’s attention last month, when Alintoff confronted the governor at a town-hall meeting.
“We need to put people on the court who understand that their job is to interpret the law, and not to make the law,” Christie said at the time.
Escandon, 47, a former defense attorney, was appointed to a seven-year term in 2010 by then-Gov. Jon Corzine. He makes $165,000 a year.
Escandon refused to comment outside his home in posh Loch Arbour.
“I really can’t discuss my cases,” he said.
Meanwhile, a blog, JudgePaulEscandon.blog.com — created by Alintoff’s father, Dr. Merny Schwartz — now urges spurned wives to reach out to officials about the judge’s alleged misdeeds.
These fivewomen are part of a group that has banded together, claiming Judge Paul Escandon unfairly ruled in their husbands’ favor.
Paula Diaz Antonopoulos Wolfe
She’s trying to convince Escandon—who she claims fell asleep during her court proceeding — to increase visitation time with her daughter.
Rachel Alintoff
She’s saddled with thousands of dollars of debt after Escandon granted her and her son only $1,000a month from her husband.
Jennifer Glovich
Her ex stormed into her house and took their daughter in violation of a court order, she said. Escandon “lets my husband do these things.”
Tameka Hunt Maurice
Escandon refused to grant her overnight visits with her sons, despite claims that her husband struck her three times in front of witnesses.
Laurie DiBiagio
Escandon denied her request for a restraining order from her Wall Streeter ex, despite claims that he had been harassing her.
Additional reporting by Michael Gartland
Source: www.nypost.com
Divorce lawyers turn to social media to turn up the goods on cheating spouses - Detroit Free Press
The Wall Street Journal's blog Smart Money reported that although that founder Mark Zuckerberg recently took the leap into marriage, Facebook itself is prompting many divorces around the world, and justices are getting wise, and using evidence on FB during divorce hearings.
More than a third of divorce filings in the United Kingdom last year contained the word "Facebook," according to a survey by Divorce Online, a UK-based legal services firm.
And more than 80% of U.S. divorce attorneys say they've seen a rise in the number of cases using social networking, according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.
Gary Traystman, a divorce attorney in New London, Conn., told Smart Money that of the 15 cases he handles per year where computer history, texts and e-mails are admitted as evidence, 60% exclusively involve Facebook.
"Affairs happen with a lightning speed on Facebook," says K. Jason Krafsky, who authored the book "Facebook and Your Marriage" (Turn the Tide, $19.95) with his wife Kelli.
In the real world, he says, office romances and out-of-town trysts can take months or even years to develop. "On Facebook," he says, "they happen in just a few clicks."
The social network is different from most social networks or dating sites in that it reconnects old flames as well as allows people to "friend" someone they may have only met once in passing.
"It puts temptation in the path of people who would never in a million years risk having an affair," he says.
Even when extramarital affairs develop with no help from Facebook, experts say the site provides a deceptively comfortable forum for people to let off steam about their lives.
"The difference with Facebook is it feels safe, innocent and private," says Randy Kessler, an Atlanta, Ga.-based lawyer and current chair of the family law section of the American Bar Association. "People put an enormous amount of incriminating stuff out there voluntarily." It could be something as innocuous as a check-in at a restaurant, he says, or a photograph posted online.
Courts also are increasingly examining Facebook for evidence, the blog reported.
Last year, a judge in Connecticut ordered a divorcing couple to hand over their Facebook passwords to the other's lawyers.
Source: www.freep.com
Sussex win a run-fest - SkySports
Sussex blasted 209-6 on the way to beating Essex by 19 runs at Hove to go clear at the top of the Friends Life T20 South Group.
Chris Nash made 52 and Joe Gatting 45 not out as Sussex made a daunting total of 209-6, the second highest in the competition this season.
Some big hitting from Mark Pettini (44) and James Foster (47) kept Essex in contention but they fell short in the end with Chris Liddle taking 3-35.
Sussex's former Essex player Scott Styris took the man of the match award after making a quickfire 36 and claiming 2-28.
Luke Wright and Nash set the tone by smashing 21 runs off the second over from Graham Napier as Sussex raced to 74-0 after the six-over powerplay.
Wright carried on where he left off against Middlesex on Friday night when he made 91 as he hit sixes off David Masters and Napier before slapping a full toss from Ryan ten Doeschate straight to long off for 40 off 21 balls.
The departure of Wright did not slow the scoring rate however as Nash and Styris continued to take the attack to Essex.
Nash made his runs from 41 balls, including two fours and two sixes, before being stumped by a smart piece of work by Foster off a leg-side wide from Ten Doeschate.
Styris enjoyed himself against his old side as he crashed sixes off Ten Doeschate and Reece Topley before being caught in the deep for 36 off 20 balls.
Momemtum
Gatting ensured Sussex's innings did not lose momentum as he hit a career-best score from just 22 balls, including four fours and two sixes, as the Sharks posted their second-highest total ever in the competition.
Essex made a slow start in reply but remained in contention thanks to Pettini who made 44 off 31 balls.
The Eagles were well behind the run rate at halfway on 74 for two but some powerful hitting from Greg Smith and Foster gave them hope of pulling off a sensational win.
Smith hit three sixes in his 26-ball 39 before being bowled by Will Beer while Foster hit four sixes in a row to reduce the deficit to 25 off the final over.
Essex's hopes disappeared when Foster was caught on the boundary with three balls to go.
Source: www.skysports.com
Pets can become casualties of divorce - Las Vegas Review Journal
Divorce has upended cruelly the lives of Sam and Sophia.
Not their own divorces, of course. Rather, it's the divorces of their owners that have landed Sam, a friendly but wary 3-year-old mixed-breed dog, and Sophia, an elegant 10-year-old tortie-point Siamese cat, into the Nevada SPCA shelter, 4800 W. Dewey Drive.
Sam, an otherwise friendly little guy who's a bit skittish about meeting strangers - reach out to pat his head and he reflexively pulls back - was brought to the shelter by his owner, who cited a divorce as the reason for giving him up, said Doug Duke, executive director of the Nevada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Sophia, whose regal manner and striking markings make her stand out among other residents of her room at the shelter, also was brought in by her owner, who, Duke said, cited a "separation" as the reason.
As unwitting victims of their owners' marital difficulties, Sam and Sophia aren't alone. Each week, Southern Nevada shelters and animal rescue organizations receive dogs, cats and pets of every sort who, by virtue of their owners' impending marital breakups, lose their homes, too.
Granted, it doesn't usually come to this for the pets of divorcing couples. However, Duke said divorce is the sixth most-common reason - after foreclosures, the death of pet owners and problems stemming from financial reversals and hardships - that pet owners voluntarily surrender their pets to the Nevada SPCA shelter.
On any given day, at least one pet whose road to the shelter began with an owner's divorce will go up for adoption, he said.
Andy Bischel, development director for The Animal Foundation, which operates the Lied Animal Shelter, 655 N. Mojave Road, said about 50,000 animals come into the shelter every year and that, in 2010 and again in 2011, about 45 impounded animals annually were brought there for the specifically cited reason of an owner's divorce.
However, the numbers represent only instances in which owners specifically cite divorce as the reason for surrendering their pet. It wouldn't include, for example, cases in which an owner substitutes another, perhaps less personal, reason for turning in a pet, impounded strays who become strays because of an owner's divorce and pets for which no specific reason for impoundment or surrender is cited. It also doesn't include pets who were abandoned and found in homes and yards who might have been abandoned because their owners split up or pets who simply become collateral damage in a couple's disintegrating relationship.
There's really no way of knowing precisely how many pets are abandoned because of divorce, Duke said, "but we suspect a lot of other turn-ins we get are when owners start fighting and have marital problems."
Yet, Bischel added, "you can't pass judgment on people who come in, because they're actually doing the right thing," because, at a shelter, the pets at least have a shot at finding a new home.
Southern Nevada animal rescue organizations also regularly see pets whose divorcing, or divorced, owners choose to give them up.
"We've had quite a few owner surrenders where there's been a divorce situation and one spouse didn't want to take the dog and the other couldn't keep the dog, or both of them couldn't keep the dog," said Cynthia Cartwright, fundraising and event coordinator for Las Vegas Labrador Rescue.
Some spouses end up leaving Southern Nevada after a divorce and can't take a pet with them, she said. Or, divorcing spouses may have to downsize and move into smaller rental homes or apartments, "and a lot of these places won't take pets over 20 pounds.
"So we have rescued and placed quite a few Labs from divorce situations. Most of the time, they don't want to get rid of the dog and usually call us because they don't want to take the dog to a shelter because they're afraid of what may happen. They know we're no-kill, so we're going to keep them and find them a home."
That doesn't necessarily make the process less heartbreaking.
Once, Cartwright said, "we went to pick up (a Labrador) from the house (the husband and wife) were moving out of, and the husband was just really emotional. When we put her in the back of my car, he put his arms around her and was hugging her. He got all choked up because he didn't want to give her up, but he was moving into an apartment and didn't know what to do."
If there is an upside, it's that most divorcing pet owners give up a pet only for reasons of benign, if sad, practicality.
"The interesting thing is, when people talk about this, you expect people to be, in a lot of cases, fighting over the animal, and they do," Duke said. "But we see many cases where Mom and Dad split up and one of them is, maybe, leaving town and they're overwhelmed, or they both have to downsize their living situation."
But there are instances in which a family pet becomes caught in the middle of a domestic power struggle. Debbie Pietro, president of Golden Retriever Rescue Southern Nevada recalled a case in which a wife surrendered the family's golden retriever to the organization while her husband was away on a trip.
But, she said, it turned out that "they were fighting badly and ready to divorce."
As it routinely does, the organization - which Pietro said typically sees between 10 and 20 divorce-related surrenders a year - had the dog neutered and prepared for adoption to a new home, on the basis of the paperwork signed by the wife.
But, Pietro said, "he came home from wherever he was and he walked in and said, 'I want my dog back.' He was swearing, 'How dare you neuter my dog.' "
It was, she added, "the worst case we've seen."
"It's absolutely heartbreaking when the animal is used as a pawn, and somebody would be mad at a spouse and turn the animal in to the shelter," Duke said. "We have people who come in and say, 'I never expected my wife or husband to do this.' The problem is, they did, and our interest here is the best interests of the animal."
Under Nevada law, pets are - no matter how much we might think otherwise - property. So, in a divorce proceeding, a pet is, from a strict legal standpoint, not very different from a house, a car or a jewelry collection.
But divorce-related disputes about the family pet aren't necessarily about the pet.
"People who are determined to fight about something will find something to fight about, whether it's the kids or, if there are no kids, the microwave oven or, if that's not available, Fluffy," Las Vegas family law attorney Marshal Willick said. "If you're fixated on the concept of fighting about something, that 'something' may make little difference."
"I've seen every conceivable iteration of people-animal interactions. If you could imagine people being kind, cruel, possessive, jealous, angry, it all plays out."
Willick once saw a case in which a woman "was willing to trade off pretty much everything in order to take the dog and go," and "cases where the animal gets caught in the crossfire."
"Luckily, I have not had a case - although I've read about them - where somebody has done something to the animal just to hurt the other party," he said.
Willick noted that the traditional legal notion that pets are property seems to be changing, both by legislation and by case law. Increasingly, he said, living creatures are being treated more as individuals rather than as chattel.
"But it's an evolution," he said.
By virtue of their long-term relationships with both animal patients and human clients, veterinarians routinely witness the ways divorce affects pets and their owners.
"It's a regular part of life and a regular part of being a veterinarian," said Dr. Christopher Yach of West Flamingo Animal Hospital, 5445 W. Flamingo Road.
Fortunately, said Dr. Ann Bradley of The Ark Animal Clinic, 1651 N. Rancho Drive, most divorcing pet owners work together and do what's best for their pets.
Usually, one spouse will assume primary custody of the family pet and become its primary caregiver, she said. Often, that will be the spouse who, informally, already had assumed most of the family's pet care responsibilities even before the divorce.
Yach said some divorcing couples arrange for pet visits, just as they would for children, and care for the pet on occasions when the one spouse is out of town.
A few couples even decide to continue to share in the costs of caring for the pet after the divorce. Yach said he has clients who have remarried but still show up for most of the pet exams together with the one pet they had together and make decisions with each other, even though one of them is the primary caregiver.
Although it doesn't seem terribly romantic, thinking about such what-ifs when a couple adopts a puppy, a kitten or another pet may make things easier later on if the relationship doesn't last. Like most things, Duke said, it comes down to that marital communication.
"My best guess is a lot of these decisions on abandonment are made very emotionally and very quickly and on impulse," he said. "Not every case. We have people who come in here who have given lot of thought to what they have to do. But others come in and they're already angry the moment they walk in the lobby."
Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280.
Source: www.lvrj.com
Essex come up short in run chase as Sussex remain unbeaten - BBC News
Sussex remain unbeaten in this year's FL t20 after they beat Essex by 19 runs in a high-scoring clash at Hove.
The hosts batted first and reached 209-5, the second highest total by any team in this year's competition.
Chris Nash made 52, Joe Gatting scored 45 not out and Luke Wright added 40, while Reece Topley took three wickets.
James Foster blasted 47 off 20 balls, Mark Pettini scored a rapid 44 and Greg Smith reached 39 but it was not enough as Essex fell 19 short on 190 all out.
This match was a meeting of the top two in the South Group with Essex aiming for their fourth victory in five days.
But that task soon looked beyond them as each of the Sussex top six scored at a rate of more than a run a ball.
Nash, Wright, Scott Styris and Gatting all hit two sixes apiece as the crowd at Hove were treated to an entertaining match.
Topley, 18, claimed the second best figures in his T20 career as he took 3-43, to go along with the 3-28 he claimed in Essex's three-wicket win against Surrey on Friday.
Essex's need to score quickly saw Pettini and Graham Napier both run out and the dismissal of Ryan ten Doeschate left them on 86-4 and seemed to end their chances.
However, Foster gave Essex hope with a blistering 47 before he became one of three men to fall to Chris Liddle.
Group leaders Sussex now have eight points from their five matches, with Essex two points behind in second.
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
Kittiwakes in East Sussex enjoying success, says RSPB - BBC News
The first chicks in one of south-east England's last remaining kittiwake colonies have begun to hatch on cliffs in East Sussex.
About 1,100 pairs of the gulls have been breeding at Splash Point near Seaford, the RSPB said.
The charity said the gulls had struggled to breed along coasts of northern England, Scotland and Wales.
A reduction in the number of sandeels, probably due to climate change, is being blamed, the charity said.
Kate Whitton, from the RSPB, said: "Sussex's kittiwake colony seems to be doing well, which is welcome news, especially as their numbers have been declining nationally over the past few years.
"Another local colony at Newhaven, which has been steadily decreasing over the last few years, has no nesting kittiwakes at all this year.
"Hopefully, by the end of next month we should see the Seaford chicks fledge and start swooping over the cliffs and the sea just like their parents."
The kittiwake has been amber-listed, meaning it is a species of conservation concern.
Kittiwakes are a small ocean-going gulls, with a pure white underside and black tipped pale grey wings and black feet.
The young take a long time to mature with eggs being laid on narrow cliff ledges in the middle of a colony of hundreds of birds.
Many kittiwakes will not return to breed until they are three, four or even five years old.
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
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