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This article was published 09/11/2010 (5477 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Georgia teen killed in random attack

DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. — A U.S. teenager was stomped, kicked and punched to death at a weekend house party after police say he walked by a group who decided to pounce on the next person who passed by. Four have been charged with murder.

District Attorney David McDade said the four, who appeared in court Monday, were charged with murder in the death of 18-year-old Bobby Tillman early Sunday in Douglas County, west of Atlanta.

The party was intended to be a small gathering of about 10 friends of a girl who lives at the house, but it grew to a group of 60-80 after word spread by emails and other electronic messages, said Douglas County Sheriff Phil Miller. When the girl’s parents saw how many people had come, they asked the partiers to leave.

That’s when a fight broke out between two females and two males, and one of the females hit a male, Douglas County Maj. Tommy Wheeler said. He said the man said he wouldn’t retaliate against a girl, but he would hit the next man who walked by.

Scientists claim post-big bang conditions

GENEVA — Scientists at the world’s largest atom-smasher said Monday they have succeeded in recreating conditions shortly after the big bang by switching the particles they use for collisions from protons to much heavier lead ions.

The Large Hadron Collider recorded its first lead-ion collisions on Sunday and has since stabilized the twin beams sufficiently to start running physics experiments, said a spokeswoman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN.

The collisions produce an effect that is as close as researchers have ever come to observing the state of matter moments after the formation of the universe, which is believed to have begun with a colossal explosion known as the big bang.

Sex-trafficking indictments

MINNEAPOLIS — Twenty-nine people have been indicted in a sex-trafficking ring in which Somali gangs in Minneapolis and St. Paul allegedly forced girls under age 14 into prostitution in three states, according to an indictment unsealed Monday.

The 24-count indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Tennessee, said one of the gangs’ goals was recruiting females under age 18, including some under age 14, and forcing them into prostitution so the defendants could get money, marijuana or liquor.

Record alligator snared

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A man who trapped and killed an alligator so big it pulled his boat around a lake has snared what authorities say is Florida’s longest gator on record, exceeding 4.3 metres.

Wildlife officials say the gator caught by Robert Ammerman, a nurse who traps gators as a hobby, weighed 297 kilograms. It was caught Nov. 1, the last day of Florida’s alligator harvest, in Lake Washington.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says the previous record was a slightly shorter gator trapped in 1997. The state’s heaviest alligator on record was taken in 1989, weighing 473 kilograms.

Ammerman said the gator thrashed and pulled his boat for about 45 minutes after being harpooned, and took two hours to tow to dock.

Protest camp raided

RABAT, Morocco — Moroccan forces raided a protest camp in the disputed territory of Western Sahara and unrest spread to a nearby city, leaving at least three Moroccan security officials and one demonstrator dead Monday, reports said.

Moroccan officials reportedly used tear gas and pressure hoses to dismantle the camp at dawn. Flames engulfed a TV station and an office as unrest spread to Laayoune, the main city in Western Sahara, where a local independence movement called the Polisario Front is locked in a conflict with Morocco, which claims the territory.

Morocco’s official MAP news agency said three security officials were killed — including one stabbed to death by vandals — and said about two dozen others were hospitalized.

Pit bulls maul grandson

ROBBINSVILLE, N.C. — Authorities in North Carolina say a woman’s five pit bulls mauled her grandson, leaving him in critical condition.

Graham County Sheriff’s Capt. Joseph Jones said Monday the boy was bitten on his neck, stomach and legs. Jones says the boy was attacked Saturday while playing in his yard, where several of the dogs were running free.

–From the news services