Thursday morning news and coffee roundup

Just a quick news roundup with some odd tidbits. First there was a bus crash of Katzenbach students:

ROSEDALE, Md. (AP) A bus carrying children from a New Jersey school for deaf students crashed into two tractor trailers and a passenger car, seriously injuring the bus driver and disrupting northbound traffic on Interstate 95 for hours, state police said.

The bus, owned by Stout's Charter Service of Trenton, N.J., was carrying 27 students, boys and girls ranging in age from 11 years to 15 years, and five staff members from the Marie H. Katzenbach School for the Deaf in Trenton, state police 1st Sgt. Russell Newell said. The students were returning to New Jersey after a basketball game at the Maryland School for the Deaf in Columbia.

I send my sympathies to Katzenbach - almost went to school there so I guess I have a soft spot for it! UPDATE: NBC reports:

The driver, 55-year-old Keith Schmitt of North Plainfield, was flown to a hospital.

Two children were hurt. One has a head injury and a second has a back injury.

Now this next news item struck me as very weird:

In a rare case that has raised the hackles of women’s rights activists and lawyers, a rape accused has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the victim, a deaf-mute girl and her family members. Under the MoU, both parties have agreed to tie the knot.

The MoU between 22-year-old victim and accused Dilip Mulji Vaghela has been signed on a Rs 50 stamp paper before a notary in Ahmedabad. Dilip and his friend Vinod were arrested last year by the Women’s Cell of Crime Branch for allegedly gangraping the deaf-mute girl.

However in the MoU, Dilip states that he never raped the girl, but that he likes the her and wants to spend rest of his life with her.

Who's communicating this girl's needs if her mother didn't even understand her when she tried to explain she was pregnant? We need some more cheerful news these days...