Glenn Hartong, The Enquirer
Six year-old Pranav Veera, who has a photographic memory and has tested in the very upper ranges of intelligence, poses with letters spelling his name

He's only 6 years old.

At first glance, Pranav is a typical young boy who is highly competitive at playing Wii video games and likes to play outside. A closer look reveals he's anything but typical.

Pranav has an IQ of 176. One person in 1 million has an IQ of 176 or above. Albert Einstein's IQ was believed to be about 160. The average IQ is 100.

When Pranav was 4-and-a-half, his parents noticed he seemed unusually intelligent while playing with alphabet sets. He could even recall which letters were certain colors.

"That kind of puzzled us," said his father, Prasad Veera. "You have to have not a normal memorization, but some other means of recall."

Now, he loves all kinds of alphabets.

"He loves to collect them, like different colors, different sizes, different materials," said his mother, Suchitra Veera.

The Veeras decided to have Pranav tested three months ago at Powers Educational Services in Hyde Park, Ohio.

"I said, 'Let's try it out, because he seems to do a lot of stuff kind of not quite normal for his age,' " his father said. "He tested 176."

He seems to have a photographic memory, so keeping Pranav engaged and learning is a big challenge for his family.

His mother and grandmother, Shanta Sastri, work with him at home.

They're guided by his focus and interests.

"The way to get him interested is to associate something with numbers, like presidents' birthdays … and when they came into office," his mother said.

"Once we introduced him to the idea, he was asking more and more questions, so we created a spreadsheet for him in Excel, and he keeps on asking us to add more types of information to it, like sort them in the order that they came into office, sort them in the order when they were born," she said.

In prekindergarten, his teacher had him do more challenging work, such as division and telling time. In kindergarten, his classmates are learning the alphabet and numbers up to 100. He's counting over 1 million.

"He's an amazing child," said Marci Taylor, his teacher at McCormick Elementary in the Milford School District. "He knows so much, yet he's probably more excited about learning than any child I've ever seen. He shakes with excitement."

Pranav knows so many incredible things, she said, but what's also impressive is that he's still a 6-year-old boy.

"He loves to go play at recess and climb on the monkey bars," Taylor said.

It's possible that Pranav might eventually have his learning accelerated, even by skipping grades, but his father said they would have to consider that with his social needs. "We want him to be as normal as possible," his father said.

"Right now, it's kind of early, and we can do a lot at home," his mother added. "We have to figure out what works best, because I think it's different for each child."Pranav draws his intelligence from both sides of the family.

His father has a Ph.D. and his mother has two master's degrees.

What does Pranav want to be when he grows up?

"An astronaut," he said without hesitation.

Truly, for Pranav, the sky's the limit.

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Landlord offers free rent to laid-off tenants

Dallas school accused of staging fights

By DANNY ROBBINS, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, March 19, 2009

(03-19) 23:42 PDT DALLAS (AP) --

The Dallas school system was rocked by allegations Thursday that staff members at an inner-city high school made students settle their differences by fighting bare-knuckle brawls inside a steel cage.

The principal and other employees at South Oak Cliff High knew about the cage fights and allowed the practice to continue, according to a 2008 report by school system investigators.

"More than anything, I'm in shock and disbelief — shocked that this could ever occur and shocked that it would be condoned by a professional administrator," said Jerome Garza, a member of the Dallas school board.

The report, first obtained by The Dallas Morning News, describes two instances of fighting in an equipment cage in a boys' locker room between 2003 and 2005. It was not clear from the report whether there were other fights.

Superintendent Michael Hinojosa told the newspaper that there were "some things that happened inside of a cage" and called the fights "unacceptable."

No criminal charges were ever filed, and there was no mention in the report of whether anyone required medical attention or whether any employees were disciplined. A district spokesman would not comment.

The allegations came to light during a grade-fixing investigation that eventually cost the high school its 2005 and 2006 state basketball titles. School officials were suspected of altering students' grades so that they could remain eligible to play for South Oak Cliff, a perennial basketball powerhouse in one of the poorer sections of the city.

The newspaper reported Thursday that Angela Williamson, a parent, said she was ignored when she attempted to bring the matter to the attention of district administrators after her son, Cortland, told her that students stood around clapping and screaming while watching a fight he participated in. He and another student fought for five to ten minutes in the cage in 2004. She said the students acted as if they were in an arena.

Williamson said she took her son out of the school and moved to another district shortly after he came home with a swollen hand.

"I said enough is enough, and we just left," she said. "This was the norm. My son said this is what they do — let them fight in 'the cage.'"

She said she met with a football coach who had encouraged the fights.

"He told me this is how they settled disputes in his day," she said.

In an interview with the Morning News, Donald Moten, who retired as principal last year, denied any fights were held.

"That's barbaric. You can't do that at a high school. You can't do that anywhere," Moten said. "Ain't nothing to comment on. It never did happen. I never put a stop to anything because it never happened."

In the report, a teacher was quoted as saying Moten told security personnel to put two fighting students "in the cage and let `em duke it out."

The report said a hall monitor, Gary King, told investigators he witnessed the head of campus security and an assistant basketball coach place two students in the cage to fight.

Another hall monitor, Reno Savala, told investigators he came upon two students fighting in the cage "bare-fisted with no head or eye protection." Savala said the assistant coach was watching the fight and broke it up when Savala told him to.

"It was gladiator-style entertainment for the staff," Frank Hammond, a fired counselor who has filed a whistle-blower lawsuit against the district, told the newspaper. "They were taking these boys downstairs to fight. And it was sanctioned by the principal and security."

Hammond did not actually witness any of the fights, according to the report.

Garza, the school board member, said the board should look into whether criminal charges should be filed.

Dallas police said they have no record of any investigation by the department. The district attorney's office would not comment.

The allegations come about 10 days after law enforcement authorities reported that careworkers at a Corpus Christi institution forced mentally disabled residents to fight each other and recorded the brawls for their entertainment.

___

Associated Press writer Jeff Carlton contributed to this report.

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Man to become first in world to give birth to twins.

A "man" is set to become the first in the world to give birth to twins after becoming pregnant following the start of the sex change process.

Ruben Noe Coronado (left) is the first Spanish transsexual to become pregnant and may become the world's first transsexual father of twins Photo: DIARI DE GIRONA

Telegraph- UK-Ruben Noe Coronado, 25, from Spain, postponed the process of becoming a man so that he could keep his female reproductive organs and give birth

'He' fell pregnant after undergoing fertility treatment when doctors told his girlfriend, the mother of two children from a previous relationship, she couldn't have any more children.

Mr Coronado, born a woman called Estefania or Stephanie and still considered female under Spanish law, is due to give birth at the end of September.

He is the first Spanish transsexual to fall pregnant and it is thought he will become the world's first transsexual father of twins if everything goes to plan.

He will bring the twins up with his partner Esperanza Ruiz, 43. They plan to marry before they become parents.

Once he becomes a parent he will resume his sex-change surgery and become a father rather than mother.

He plans to give birth at a hospital in Barcelona after moving to the area from Malaga two months ago with his girlfriend because of family problems.

Mr Coronado, an epileptic who was adopted as a child, said: "It's like being born with three hands.

"You take advantage of them while you have them and you get rid of one of them when they get in the way."

He said he would not sell his story "now or in the future", but admitted he was "thinking of selling the picture everyone's going to want of me looking pregnant.

"If I don't do it, someone else will and they'll make a fortune," he added.

He claimed he had gone public "so people start to see a transsexual pregnancy as normal.

Last June Thomas Beatie, a bearded American, made headlines round the world after giving birth to a daughter, Susan Juliette.

The 35-year-old, born as female Tracy Lagondino, is expecting a second child with his wife Nancy this summer

Suspects threw more than $17,000 from car

Published: March 20, 2009 at 2:17 PM

SAN DIEGO, March 20 (UPI) -- Authorities in San Diego said drug suspects threw more than $17,000 out of a vehicle during a police chase on a highway in the evening commute hours.

Eileen Zeidler, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said the chase began at about 5 p.m. Thursday when two men who were under surveillance as part of "a significant drug investigation" drove off in a pickup truck and were pursued by San Diego police and DEA agents, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Friday.

The passenger in the vehicle began throwing money out the window of the vehicle, causing passersby to rush to recover the money. Agents and officers recovered more than $17,000 thrown from the vehicle and a 16-year-old boy later gave police $570 that he had picked up.

Zeidler didn't say how much money the suspects were carrying before they began throwing the cash. She said the suspects were arrested but didn't give any further information on the arrests or the investigation, the Union-Tribune said.

Surgeon keeps working through heart attack

Published: March 20, 2009 at 7:48 PM

NAPLES, Italy, March 20 (UPI) -- A neurosurgeon in Italy said he continued performing a brain cancer operation despite suffering a heart attack during the procedure.

Dr. Claudio Vitale, 59, of Naples, said he suffered an angina spasm about halfway through the procedure but he insisted on continuing to remove the brain tumor of his patient, ANSA reported Friday. Vitale's heart episode was confirmed by a blood test.

"I couldn't leave him at such a delicate moment," said Vitale, who underwent his own operation to clear an artery after he was finished with the surgery. "I'm not a hero, I only did my duty."

Vitale was scheduled to be discharged from the hospital Friday and said he hoped to resume work at Cardarelli Hospital as soon as possible.

"I'll have a week off and then I hope they'll let me get back to work," he said.

The surgeon said he was told the cancer patient was recovering.

Last Updated: March 20, 2009

Car that becomes a plane within 30 seconds.

Airport parking will become a thing of the past if the Transition flying car ever catches on.

Telegraph-UK-It can fly for 450 miles at more than 115 mph, can drive at motorway speed on the ground and launches from from road to air in less than 30 seconds.

It runs on unleaded petrol from any normal filling station.

  The first Transition took to the air a Plattsburgh in New York State.

 The "roadable aircraft" is categorised as a light sport plane and owners will need a sport pilot licence to fly it.

A £7,000 deposit will get you on the list for one of the first production versions being made by Terrafugia of Boston in Woburn, Massachusetts. The full estimated price is around £140,000.

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• Click here for a guided video tour of inside the Terrafugia Transition

Published: Thursday, March 19, 2009

Arlington church theft blamed on devil

A woman who allegedly defrauded an Arlington church of more than $73,000 said Satan was involved.

Jackson Holtz
Herald Writer

ARLINGTON -- She said the devil made her do it.

An Arlington, Washington, woman, 62, told detectives evil was at work when she allegedly forged more than $73,000 worth of checks to herself from the church where she was an administrative assistant.

The woman "guessed that Satan had a big part in the theft," Snohomish County deputy prosecuting attorney Kathy Jo Blake wrote in charging papers filed Wednesday in Snohomish County Superior Court.

The woman worked for the Arlington Free Methodist Church from early 2000 until Feb. 2008 when she was fired, the court papers said.

On June 6, the woman left a teary message for an Arlington police detective admitting she had stolen money from her former employer. During an investigation, police learned that from Jan. 2005 until the end of Feb. 2008, the woman wrote 80 checks worth $73,575.18, the papers said. She allegedly forged the pastor's signature.

The finance chairman of the church had noticed irregularities with the checks and alerted the pastor. Church elders had been reviewing the matter when police contacted the pastor.

The woman told detectives she used the money to cover household expenses. She said she couldn't stand the thought of losing her home, the documents said.

Detectives said the woman seemed relieved the theft was disclosed and she appeared remorseful. She told police she was ready to face the consequences for her actions, the documents said.

The woman tried to enroll in a court program to pay restitution and avoid charges. But the amount she owed far exceeded what she would be capable of paying back in the short amount of time allowed, Blake wrote.

On Wednesday, the woman was charged with first-degree theft, a felony.