Marcus Brian Bisram, who was finally returned to Guyana on Wednesday evening after fighting his extradition from the United States for over two years, was yesterday remanded to prison after he was charged with procuring and com-manding the 2016 murder of Faiyaz Narinedatt.

Bisram, 30, was repre-sented in court by attorneys Sanjeev Datadin and Dexter Todd, who told the court that a number of attorneys would be representing Bisram in the matter, while the state was represented by Stacey Goodings.(Stabroek news)…[+]

Jake Burton Carpenter, known as the godfather of snowboarding and founder of Burton Snowboards, has died aged 65 due to complications from cancer. Carpenter quit his job in 1977 and founded his namesake company in the US.

He saw the possibilities of using a single board to surf on snow, and by 1998 the sport of snowboarding had made it to the Olympics. “He was the soul of snowboarding, the one who gave us the sport we love,” the company said.

“I saw a sport there from a very young age,” he told the BBC earlier this year.

“Then it was sort of a fad that came and went, but it never left for me.”

The Vermont-based company struggled to begin with, selling only 300 boards in the first year, but he went on to become a true visionary in the sport.

He had to overcome plenty of hurdles as resorts initially deemed Burton boards too dangerous and wouldn’t allow snowboarders to share the slopes with the skiing elite. But the sport grew and grew to the major worldwide sport it is now, with Carpenter at the helm. “People take it for granted now,” Pat Bridges, a writer for Snowboarding Magazine, told The Associated Press. “They don’t even realise that the name Burton isn’t a company. It’s a person. Obviously, it’s the biggest brand in snowboarding. The man himself is even bigger.“(BBC)…[+]

A woman in a domestic violence situation managed to call 911 without the perpetrator realising, by pretending to order a pizza. Officers in Oregon city, Ohio, praised the caller’s quick thinking, which led to the alleged abuser being arrested.

The unnamed woman told local media her mum was being attacked at the time. This tactic for subtly calling the emergency services has been internet lore for years, but this is a rare confirmed case of it being effective. Officials have previously warned that the strategy is not guaranteed to work, as dispatchers are not trained to recognise a pizza order as a genuine call for help.

The dispatcher who answered the call, Tim Teneyck, told local news station 13 ABC he initially thought the woman had dialled an incorrect number. When she insisted she was through to the right person, he realised what was happening – partly because he had seen similar scenarios being shared on social media.

“You see it on Facebook, but it’s not something that anybody has ever been trained for,” Mr Teneyck said. “Other dispatchers that I’ve talked to would not have picked up on this. They’ve told me they wouldn’t have picked up on this.”

It is unclear where exactly the idea originated, but a very similar scenario was used in a campaign by the Norwegian Women’s Shelter Association in 2010.

Four years later, in May 2014, a user on discussion website Reddit claiming to be a 911 operator described a domestic abuse victim calling to order a pizza. They wrote that the call “started out pretty dumb, but was actually pretty serious” – before describing a conversation similar to the one Mr Tenyck had.

A few months later a number of news sites reported on the Reddit post, and in 2015 it was even turned into a Super Bowl ad addressing domestic abuse.

The scenario later became a viral “public service announcement” on social media, with one Facebook post making the unsubstantiated claim that “dispatchers are trained” to recognise the pizza call as a call for help, and to ask specific questions.(BBC)…[+]