TEXAS: A Texas family received an expensive phone bill when a jury found them liable for $ 6.9 million in damages caused by their daughter's accident as she was speaking on a car phone.

The civil trial followed an accident earlier this year involving an 18-year-old woman who lost control of the family minivan and crashed into another vehicle, killing a three-year-old child. Lawyers for the victim's family successfully argued that the teenager lost control of the car as she attempted to speak on the carphone. The jury then found the teen's family liable for not training her in how to use the phone while maintaining control of the car.

During the trial the lawyers proved that the parents did not make the teenager read instructions on how to use the phone or tell her to stop and pull over if she could not drive and dial at the same time.

Dino had gout

NEW YORK: It seems that gout, the bane of royals, also afflicted the king of dinosaurs.

In examining `Sue', the best preserved of the world's 14 known tyrannosaurus rex skeletons, orthopedist Bruce Rothschild has found lesions characteristic of the painful disease.

Gout is metabolic disease that causes the buildup of uric acid crystals, usually in the toes but sometimes in the fingers. Because it can be aggravated by excessive consumption of red meat and alcohol, gout is often associated with the high-living royalty of European history, whose ill-tempered tyranny was supposedly due in part to the condition.

Rothschild, of the Arthritis Centre of Northeast Ohio in Youngstown, found small spherical lesions, of about (1.5 cms) across, on Sue's finger bones.

The skeleton, which is to be auctioned by Sotheby's later this year, is currently housed at the Denver Museum of Natural History.

Girl punished

DUBAI: A 16-year-old United Arab Emirates girl has been sentenced to a year in prison and given additional punishment of 30 lashes for beating her mother.

The mother had asked her daughter, who was standing outside their house in a night dress, to either come inside or wear a decent dress. She told the court that her daughter went into a rage on hearing this and hit her on the head and chest and also beat her.

After hearing the verdict, the mother pleaded for leniency, saying her daughter would not be able to manage without her for an entire year. The court turned down the plea, the reports said.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.