Image copyrightBMJImage captionThe patient reported he regularly played with and even inhaled the toy pieces during his childhood
Doctors removed a toy traffic cone from a patient's lung - 40 years after he inhaled it by accident.
The 47-year-old man, from Preston, was referred to a respiratory clinic after having a cough for over a year.
Medics suspected the patient - a long-term smoker - had a tumour when scans showed something on his lung.
However, when they removed the mass they discovered it was the "long lost Playmobil traffic cone" he had received on his seventh birthday.
A report in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) said the postman told doctors he "regularly played with and even swallowed" the toy pieces during his childhood.
But, on one occasion, he believes he inhaled a tiny plastic traffic cone.
He did not report any ill-effects for decades, doctors said, until the persistent cough which caused him to seek medical advice.
Because the man was so young when he inhaled the toy, the report said, his airway may have been able to remodel and adapt to the presence of a foreign body.
It was not unusual for children to ingest or inhale small toys, it said, but "a case in which the onset of symptoms occurs so long after initial aspiration is unheard of".
Image captionX-rays taken after the cone was removed showed an improvement in the patient's lungs
Four months after the removal of the tiny traffic cone, the patient's cough had almost gone and his symptoms had improved markedly, the report said.
Lady Lucan, the 80-year-old widow of Lord Lucan, has been found dead at her home in London, police have confirmed.
Officers found her body after forcing entry to the property in Belgravia on Tuesday, but her death is not believed to be suspicious, the Met Police said.
Lady Lucan was one of the last people to see her husband John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, alive before he disappeared in November 1974.
He vanished after the family's nanny was found murdered at their home.
Veronica, the Dowager Countess of Lucan, was found unresponsive after being reported missing, police said.
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A Met Police spokesperson added: "Police attended an address on Eaton Row in Westminster... following concerns for the welfare of an elderly occupant.
"Officers forced entry and found an 80-year-old woman unresponsive.
"Although we await formal identification we are confident that the deceased is Lady Lucan."
Image captionVeronica Duncan married John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, in 1963
Lady Lucan was born Veronica Duncan in 1937 to Major Charles Moorhouse Duncan and his wife Thelma.
In the late-1950s and early-1960s she worked as a secretary and model in London and met her future husband at a golf event in early 1963.
They were engaged later the same year and married in November 1963.
Lord Lucan vanished after the body of Sandra Rivett, nanny to his three children, was found at the family home at 46 Lower Belgrave Street, central London, on 7 November 1974.
Lady Lucan was also attacked at the family's home on the same night Ms Rivett was murdered but managed to escape.
Lord Lucan's car was later found abandoned and soaked in blood in Newhaven, East Sussex, and an inquest jury declared the wealthy peer the killer of Ms Rivett a year later.
Image captionLord Lucan vanished from the family home in 1974 and has not been seen since
Lord Lucan was officially declared dead by the High Court in 1999, but has reportedly been sighted in Australia, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand.
A High Court judge granted a death certificate in February last year allowing his son, Lord Bingham, to take over his title.
Earlier this year, Lady Lucan gave a television interview in which she said she believed Lord Lucan had made the "brave" decision to take his own life.
During the ITV programme she spoke of her own depression and her husband's violent nature following their marriage in 1963.
Image captionSandra Rivett was bludgeoned to death in 1974
Lord Lucan timeline:
18 December 1934 Richard John Bingham is born in London into an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family.
1963 Marries Veronica Duncan, with whom he has three children.
1964 Ascends to the earldom on the death of his father.
1972 Their marriage collapses and Lord Lucan moves out of the family home at 46 Lower Belgrave St, London. He loses a custody battle and accrues gambling losses.
7 November 1974 The children's nanny Sandra Rivett is found dead. Her attacker also beats Lady Lucan severely before she manages to escape and raise the alarm at a nearby pub. Lord Lucan drives to a friend's house in Sussex in a borrowed Ford Corsair, which is later found abandoned in Newhaven. Friends receive letters in which he claims to have interrupted a fight during "a traumatic night of unbelievable coincidence" and says "the circumstantial evidence against me is strong". Police mount a search but find no further trace of him.
June 1975 Lord Lucan is named as Ms Rivett's killer at the inquest into her death. Lady Lucan identifies him as her attacker.
1999 His family is granted probate over Lord Lucan's estate, but no death certificate is issued and Lord Lucan's son Lord Bingham is refused permission to take his father's seat in the House of Lords.
2014 The Presumption of Death Act enables Lord Bingham to apply to have Lord Lucan declared dead so he can inherit the family title.
2016 Lord Lucan's death certificate is issued after a High Court judge rules he is presumed to be dead.
Image copyrightMASHROU' LEILAImage captionMashrou' Leila said the Cairo concert had been one of the best they had played
Egyptian police have arrested seven people after they were allegedly seen raising rainbow flags at a concert in Cairo last week, security sources say.
The seven were reportedly detained on Monday for "promoting sexual deviancy", but have not yet been formally charged.
Prosecutors opened an investigation after images from the concert by the Lebanese band Mashrou' Leila - whose lead singer is openly gay - went viral.
Homosexuality is not explicitly criminalised under Egyptian law.
But the authorities routinely arrest people suspected of engaging in consensual homosexual conduct on charges of "debauchery", "immorality" or "blasphemy".
The advocacy group, Solidarity With Egypt LGBTQ+, said late last year that it had recorded 114 criminal investigations involving 274 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals since 2013.
End of Facebook post by Rainbow Egypt - رينبو إيجبت
The raising of the rainbow flag was a rare public show of support for the LGBT community in the conservative Muslim country.
Late on Monday, the state news agency reported that Public Prosecutor Nabil Sadek had ordered an investigation by the State Security Prosecution after images posted on social media were condemned by several politicians and media figures.
The deputy head of the Egyptian Musicians Syndicate, Reda Ragab, meanwhile said it would be taking steps to stop Mashrou' Leila performing again in the country.
"We are a religious, conservative society, an identity we need to preserve," he told the Daily News Egypt website.
"This is a scandal against our traditions and far from serious and meaningful art."
The Egyptian feminist and writer Mona Eltahawy condemned the actions of both the authorities and the musicians syndicate.
"It is utterly ridiculous to arrest anyone for waving a flag. It is utterly ridiculous to arrest anyone for their sexuality as #Egypt does," she wrote on Twitter.
Mashrou' Leila has twice been banned from performing in Jordan. On Saturday, it said the Cairo concert "was one of the best shows we've ever played".
"Was an honour to play to such a wonderful crowd! So much love!"
Image copyrightEPAImage captionIraqi soldiers joined Turkish troops for exercises on the Turkish side of the border on Tuesday
Turkey's president has said Iraqi Kurds could go hungry as a result of the punitive measures it is considering after Monday's independence referendum.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government of "treachery" for pressing ahead with the vote despite international opposition.
Massoud Barzani should now "give up on this adventure", he said.
Mr Erdogan has previously threatened to cut a vital Kurdish oil pipeline and stop lorries crossing Turkey's border.
Turkey fears that the emergence of an independent Kurdish state on its border will stoke separatist feeling in its own Kurdish minority.
The results of the referendum are yet to be declared, but a "yes" vote is expected.
Image copyrightAFPImage captionSome 72% of the 5.2 million people eligible to vote in Kurdish-controlled areas voted
Kurdish leaders say that would not automatically trigger a declaration of independence, but rather give them a mandate to start negotiations on secession with the central government in Baghdad and with neighbouring countries.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ruled out any such talks on Monday night, saying he would not discuss the referendum's results because it was "unconstitutional".
This was the strongest rhetoric yet from President Erdogan on the Kurdish referendum. He called it "treachery" and a "threat to national security". Once again he threatened military or economic intervention, without elaborating.
Turkey is worried that independence might further Kurdish insurgency here and is concerned for ethnic Turkmen in the city of Kirkuk, which the Kurds want to be part of any future state. But there was a lot for a domestic audience - sabre-rattling to please nationalists at home.
Ankara has built a strong relationship with the Iraqi Kurds through an oil pipeline that feeds the Kurdish economy and Turkey's energy needs. And the authorities in Irbil oppose the PKK Kurdish militant group, allowing Turkish military bases in northern Iraq. Mr Erdogan warned he could close the oil valves in Turkey - but it has not yet happened.
With Turkey's notoriously abrasive president, the oratory sometimes does not actually translate into action.
In a speech on Tuesday, Mr Erdogan said he had expected "until the last moment" that Kurdistan Regional President Massoud Barzani would postpone the vote.
"This referendum decision, which has been taken without any consultation, is treachery," he said."If Barzani and the Kurdish Regional Government do not go back on this mistake as soon as possible, they will go down in history with the shame of having dragged the region into an ethnic and sectarian war," he warned.
Mr Erdogan said Turkey, which has long been the Kurdistan Region's main link to the outside world, might now impose sanctions to persuade Mr Barzani's administration to "give up on this adventure that can only have a dark end".
"It will be over when we close the oil taps, all [their] revenues will vanish, and they will not be able to find food when our trucks stop going to northern Iraq," he added.Cross-border trade between the Kurdistan Region and Turkey was worth some $5bn (£3.7bn) in the first six months of 2017, according to Kurdish officials, while hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil flow daily through a pipeline from Kurdish-controlled oil fields to the Mediterranean via Turkish territory.
Iraqi soldiers also joined Turkish troops for military exercises in south-eastern Turkey on Monday, near the border with Iraq.
The US earlier said it was "deeply disappointed" that the Kurdistan Region held the referendum, but stressed that their "historic relationship" would not change.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionCelebrations continued long into the night in the disputed city of Kirkuk
The referendum was held in the three Iraqi provinces that make up the Kurdistan Region, as well as in adjoining disputed areas claimed by the Kurds and the Arab-led central government that are controlled by Kurdish Peshmerga forces.
The Kurdish news agency Rudaw reported that 72% of the 5.2 million Kurds and non-Kurds registered as resident in those areas had voted. Ballots were still being counted on Tuesday, with initial results expected by the end of the day.
Kurds are the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East but they have never obtained a permanent nation state.
In Iraq, where they make up an estimated 15% to 20% of the population of 37 million, Kurds faced decades of repression before acquiring autonomy in 1991.
The attack happened as Palestinian workers waited to enter the settlement
Three Israelis have been shot dead by a Palestinian at the entrance to the Jewish settlement of Har Adar in the occupied West Bank, Israeli police say.
The gunman, a 37-year-old from a nearby village, was also shot and died later.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the attack on Palestinian incitement.
It came as Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt arrived in Jerusalem to try to revive Israel-Palestinian peace talks.
The White House has tried to lay the groundwork for a resumption of negotiations since Donald Trump took office in January, but there has been no sign of progress.
Peace talks between the two sides broke down amid acrimony in April 2014.
Police say the gunman, identified in Israeli media as Nimer Jamal, struck after he raised suspicions of security personnel at a rear gate at Har Adar.
He shot his victims - two security guards and a border policeman - at close-range and seriously wounded another person, before being shot by security forces.
The gunman was a father-of-four who had an Israeli permit to work in Jewish settlements along the boundary of the West Bank, Israel's internal security agency said.
Image copyrightEPAImage captionThe gunman opened fire at guards as he approached a checkpoint
He came from the village of Beit Surik, about a mile east of Har Adar.
The area is about 18km (11 miles) north-west of Jerusalem.
No group has taken responsibility for the attack, although Gaza-based Palestinian militant organisations Hamas and Islamic Jihad welcomed it.
The head of the Information Office of Fatah, the political faction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said Israel bore responsibility for the attack, because of its "continuous aggression" against the Palestinians.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said the attacker's home would be demolished and relatives' work permits revoked. He called on Mr Abbas to condemn the attack unequivocally.
Wave of attacks
About 36,000 Palestinians have permits to work in Jewish settlements, where security to guard against attacks is tight.
The issue of settlements is one of the most contentious between Israel and the Palestinians, who see them as an obstacle to peace.
More than 600,000 Jews live in about 140 settlements built since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
Tuesday's attack is the latest in a wave of stabbings, shootings and car-rammings of Israelis predominantly by Palestinians or Israeli Arabs since late 2015.
Since then, some 50 Israelis and five foreign nationals have been killed in such attacks in Israel and the Occupied Territories.
Around 300 Palestinians - most of them assailants, Israel says - have also been killed in that period, according to AFP news agency. Others have been killed in clashes with Israeli troops.
Israel says Palestinian incitement has fuelled the attacks. The Palestinian leadership has blamed frustration rooted in decades of Israeli occupation.
- Senior special assistant on media and publicity Garba Shehu says IPOB had all the appearances of a terrorist organisation - Unlike IPOB, Fulani herdsmen, he said, were only a criminal organisation - Garba Shehu named at least five reasons that made federal government consider IPOB more dangerous than herdsmen The Nigerian Presidency has listed reasons why it brought down the hammer on Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) while appearing to ignore the activities of rampaging Fulani herdsmen. According to the presidency, IPOB had clear tendencies of a terrorist group while the herdsmen were just a criminal group. The clarifications were made by President Muhammadu Buhari’s media aide Garba Shehu in an interview with Nigerian Tribune published on Saturday, September 23. According to Shehu, comparing IPOB to the herdsmen is like ‘comparing apples with paw paws’. Explaining further, Shehu gave five reasons why the federal government deemed IPOB more dangerous than Fulani herdsmen. 1. State declaration IPOB declared the state of Biafra. He said: “The herdsmen, no matter how criminal their actions, have never declared a sovereign state within Nigeria.” 2. Holding Nigerian territories According to Shehu, IPOB was holding on to Nigerian territories and making moves to take more. “They don’t have territorial ambitions. IPOB on the other has put us on notice that they want to take Kogi, Benue, Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta!” 3. Flags Shehu also noted that the pro-Biafra secessionists had flags like terrorist groups 4. Passports The presidential aide also made allusion to the creation of embassies across the world by IPOB. He said: “The Fulani don’t have flags or national passports” The presidency also said the government was able to quickly identify the source of IPOB’s funding but had failed to trace that of Boko Haram because the method used by the pro-Biafra group to source for funds was open.
The police have arrested a 70-year-old man in Akpoha, Ebonyi state, Simon Alobu, for allegedly hypnotizing and repeatedly raping a 7-year-old orphan, Favour. Favour was first raped in 2014 and since then, the man has allegedly been raping her.
.The suspect tore Favour’s bottom with razor blade where he presumably apply some charms to prevent the girl from revealing his identity until the girl revealed his illicit acts on her after attending a crusade at Adoration Ministry, Enugu owned by a Charismatic Catholic Priest Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka.
.Favour is facing health challenges with a body odour following the rape. She is yet to be given adequate medical treatment. Alobu was handed over to the police by a special court in the state known as family law centre where the matter was reported by Favour’s aunt, Enya Martha.
.The man married three wives and has 14 children. None of the wives and children are living with him. One of his wives was divorced while another is dead. The remaining one left him and went to her son who is living outside the area.
The suspect lives in the same compound with the girl and her aunt and was reported to the centre by the victim’s aunt Enya Martha who alleged that the man also raped her when she was a little girl.
Narrating her ordeal in the hands of Alobu, the victim said “the man said I should come and prepare food for him. After preparing the food, my brother who was with me said he was not eating and left immediately.
When my brother left and I was still eating, the man locked the door and carried me to his bed and raped me”. The girl’s aunt, became aware of Favours condition after she complained of severe pains in her private.
According to the woman, she took the girl to Afikpo where the rape was confirmed why efforts to make her reveal the identity of the rapist failed as he continued the act till this year.
BMJ
