1. Spanish priest dies of Ebola

    A Spanish priest* being treated for Ebola died on August 12 in a Madrid hospital, becoming the first European victim of the deadly disease amid a worldwide debate over who should get experimental Ebola treatments.

    Two American aid workers and the Spanish priest who died had gotten a new Ebola drug named ZMapp, which has never been tested in humans.

    The Spanish priest, 75-year-old Miguel Parajes, died in Madrid’s Carlos III Hospital, the hospital said.

    Health care workers in Liberia have administered three doses of ZMapp to three doctors suffering from Ebola.

    2. Iranian professor wins top math prize

    Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani on August 13 became the first woman to be awarded the Fields Medal, mathematics’ equivalent* to the Nobel Prize.

    The professor at Stanford University in California was among four Fields Medal recipients at the International Congress of Mathematicians held in Seoul, and the first female among the 56 winners since the prize was established in 1936.

    3. Teens who killed Chinese plead not guilty

    Four teenagers pleaded* not guilty on August 12 to murder charges in the fatal* beating of a Chinese graduate student at the University of Southern California.

    According to prosecutors, Jonathan Del Carmen, 19; Andrew Garcia, 18; Alberto Ochoa, 17; and Alejandra Guerrero, 16, fatally attacked USC engineering student Ji Xinran at around 1 a.m. July 24.

    Xi, 24, was beaten with a baseball bat and a wrench* as he walked to his apartment near the university campus. He made it back to his apartment, leaving a trail of blood, and a roommate discovered his body hours later.

    4. Thai flight makes emergency landing

    A Thai Airways plane heading from Sydney to Bangkok was forced to make an emergency landing in Bali after a broken window was discovered in the cockpit*.

    The Boeing 747 was en route to Bangkok on August 12 when it made the emergency landing at Bali’s NgurahRaiInternationalAirport at 4.50 p.m.

    The broken cockpit window caused a decrease in cabin pressure for the 272 passengers on board flight TG467.

    5. Mother charged after son sets self on fire

    An American woman in North Carolina is accused of helping her teenage son set himself on fire after he doused* his body with fingernail polish* as part of a social media stunt, police said.

    Janie Lachelle Talley, 41, watched as her 16-year-old son attempted to complete a “fire challenge” video for Facebook on July 29, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said on August 11. The boy suffered minor burns on his chest and neck.

    Police arrested Talley on August 6 and charged her with contributing to the delinquency* of a minor*.

    6. Teen banned from school over dyed hair

    An American teenager with dyed-red hair was sent home from school by her principal over concerns that her mane was too bright and distracting, the girl’s mother said on August 15.

    Hayleigh Black, a 15-year-old student at Muscle Shoals High School in northwestern Alabama, had been dyeing her hair red for three years without incident until principal Chad Holden called her into his office, her mother said.

    School policy dictates that students cannot have an unnatural color that is distracting, Boyd said, adding that she had no problem upon learning that the principal had sent home kids sporting bright orange and purple hair.(SD-Agencies)