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The owner of an American apartment house had his maintenance man set fire to the building, killing seven people including a newborn, because he wanted to cash in on a US$250,000 insurance policy, prosecutors said.

The Chicago landlord told police he wanted the house burned when the children living there were at school. Instead, authorities allege, the maintenance man started the fire on a Sunday morning when residents were sleeping inside.

Landlord, Lawrence Myers and maintenance man Marion Comier face seven counts of first degree murder and two counts of aggravated arson.

Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said the charges were based on secret recordings of the two men discussing how Comier had set the fire and arguing over how much he would be paid.

The fire gutted the two-story building, which had been converted into separate living units. Alvarez said residents in an attic apartment had no chance to escape.

"This fire was set at a particularly chilling time of the day, on a Sunday morning at about 6:30 when it would be pretty safe to assume that most residents in that building were there and were sleeping" she said.

On the day of his arrest Myers told a police detective he had wanted the house burned when the children were at school and the women were at work, according to prosecutors. He also told the detective he was having financial difficulties.

Fire officials have said as many as 40 people may have been in the house. Some who escaped awoke to the sound of screaming and banging coming from the attic.

The fire killed Byron Reed and Sallie Gist, their sons, 3-year-old Rayshawn Reed and 3-day-old Brian Reed, Sallie Gist's 16-year-old brother and sister Elijah and Elisha Gist, and 18-year-old family friend Tiera Davidson.

Three Cicero firefighters were also injured fighting the blaze.

(Source: The Guardian [UK])

 

More than 1,000 Medicare employees have been investigated for spying on customers' personal information over the past three years.

Since Medicare ramped up its monitoring of unauthorised access in November 2006, 1,058 employees have been investigated.

Just over half were found to have been spying on people's personal information, although 30 per cent of those were caught for inappropriately accessing their own files.

The Australian Privacy Foundation's Roger Clarke says Medicare has "responsibilities at law, and they have responsibilities ethically to us, to take that care and to put those technical measures in place."

(Source: ABC News website)

 

President Barack Obama has signed a one-year extension of several provisions in the Patriot Act.

Provisions in the measure would have expired this week without the American leader's signature.

The act, which was adopted in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, expands the government's ability to monitor Americans in the name of national security.

The extension includes provisions related to 'roving wiretaps' on multiple phones, and seizure of records and property.

The US Senate also approved the measure, and rejected restrictions and greater scrutiny on the government's authority to spy on Americans and seize their records.

(Source: Washington Post [US])

 

The gap between men's and women's full-time pay is worse than in 1985, according to unions.

An ACTU report says that last year women in full-time jobs were paid an average of 82.5% of the average man in full-time work, a bigger gap than in 1985.

The report says that, although women are now more likely than men to be university graduates, they earn $2000 a year less when they start work and continue to fall behind in wages and superannuation.

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald)

 

The death toll from violence in Iraq was almost twice as high in February as in January, and was 40% higher than last February, according to government figures.

Iraqi government figures show that 352 Iraqis died as a result of attacks during the month.

This is an 80% increase from January's death toll of 196, and a 40% increase from February 2009.

(Source: MX)