Iran school official jailed for abusing boys

TEHERAN • A supervisor at a Teheran boys' high school has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and 80 lashes for sexual abuse of minors, Iran's semi-official Isna news agency said yesterday.

The scandal prompted the intervention of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who demanded the judiciary take the necessary measures to punish the culprit.

Reports of assaults against several dozen pupils at the private school in the west of the capital sparked outrage in May.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

British minister quits over lewd phone texts

LONDON • A British government minister said yesterday he had resigned and was "deeply ashamed" after being exposed sending an avalanche of lewd social media messages to two barmaids.

Mr Andrew Griffiths, the minister in charge of small businesses, who was formerly Prime Minister Theresa May's chief of staff, said he had stepped down last Friday, as the Sunday Mirror newspaper published details of his chats with the two women. The MP sent them £717 (S$1,200) in return for explicit pictures and videos. He asked them to tie each other up, among other requests.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

US driver found alive after car falls off cliff

CALIFORNIA • An Oregon woman who disappeared a week ago was rescued from the bottom of a California coastal cliff, where she survived by drinking water from the radiator of her wrecked sport utility vehicle, the authorities said.

Ms Angela Hernandez, 23, from Portland was found by hikers last Friday after they saw her wrecked SUV partially submerged at the bottom of a 61m-high cliff in the Big Sur area.

REUTERS