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N.H. police arrest college students on hazing charges, say frat pledges branded with hot bayonet

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Police in New Hampshire say two college students have been arrested over a pledging ceremony where fraternity initiates were burned with a hot World War II-era bayonet. Henniker police say 25-year-old Nicholas Weiss and 22-yeasr-old Kevin Phelps were each charged with four misdemeanor counts of student hazing this week. Police say the two used the heated bayonet to brand at least seven other New England College students at the Sigma Alpha Beta fraternity house last fall.

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The seven who were branded were charged in March over a separate ceremony that night. Police started investigating after pledges went to the school infirmary with severe burns to their chests. One had burns to his buttocks.

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Journalists have a lot to be nervous about lately: layoffs, furloughs, newspaper closures. But reporters at an Australian paper may have received the scariest threat of the day when a live shark was left on their doorstep. Police said the two-foot creature was spotted early Wednesday by a man who was leaving a McDonald’s restaurant next door to the offices of The Standard in the small Victoria state town of Warrnambool. When police arrived, the animal – believed to be a relatively harmless Port Jackson shark – was still breathing, Warrnambool police Sgt. Tom Revell said Thursday. There are a couple of theories on the motive: Some readers were angered by a photograph the newspaper recently ran on its front page featuring a man who caught a large reef shark. Those upset by the photo didn’t believe the creature should have been caught.