The Week in Pictures: February 24 – March 2, 2015

It was another news packed seven days last week so lets look back at some of the stories that made our headlines and those of publications around the world

Celebrated Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was assassinated Friday whilst walking home from a restaurant near the Kremlin with his girlfriend Anna Duritskaya. Shot four times with a pistol fired from a white car that drew up next to them on the Great Moskvorestsky bridge, the former nuclear scientist, environmentalist, founder member of the Union of Right Forces (SPS) and father of four, died at the scene. Tens of thousands marched through Moscow to honor this popular politician on Sunday.

Finnish quartet PKN has won it’s nation’s competition to find an entry for the Eurovision Song contest accumulating the most votes from the public on Saturday night. Comprised entirely of musicians with autism or Down’s syndrome the punk act has already been touted as one of the favorites to win the Viennese final to take place in May. The band that describe themselves as “just normal guys with a mental handicap” are now 5/1 to win just behind the Estonian and Italian entries.

Best known for his portrayal of the Science Officer aboard the Star Ship Enterprise the 83 year old actor, Leonard Nimoy, passed away in Los Angeles after succumbing to end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Suffering chest pains he had been moved to hospital on February 19th tweeting; “A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory with his final tweet being “LLAP” a reference to Mr. Spock‘s famously oft said salutation; “Live Long And Prosper”.

In sport Chelsea won the League Cup two nil against Tottenham, the first big trophy win during the second reign of Jose Mourinho as manager of the club. With Terry putting one in and Walker deflecting one into his own net the win was a comfortable victory for the west London side but the big question is are the leaked images of their new shirts real or not? You’ll have to find our daily news pages to find out but in the meantime lets look at last week’s big stories that grabbed our headlines.

1.Mayweather and Pacquiao have settled their differences and have announced their bout on May 2nd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

2. NHL has once again opposed the expansion of sports betting in Canada but 63% of athletes in its neighboring US all think sports betting should be legalized on a much larger scale than it already is.

3. Pachinko, an insanely popular game in Japan, is similar to slot machines and has managed to steer clear of anti-gambling laws as the Japanese parliament tries to pass the casino bill.

4. Hard Rock Casinos, which cater to the evolving needs of today’s cosmopolitan gamblers, has appointed Jon Lucas as EVP

5. Royal Panda Casino is the proud adopted parent of a panda cub and gives its players a chance to meet the world-famous royal baby face-to-face

6. Unibet has ended their 5-years of cooperation with Playtech’s Virtue Fusion so that they could cooperate with Relax Gaming to develop a new bingo software.

7. Portugal will end the internet gambling monopoly in the country as soon as the President signs the new bill.

Meanwhile accusations have surfaced that Mr. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, a ‘guru’ who has approximately fifty million followers world wide and a net worth somewhere in the region of $40 million, convinced up to 400 men to undergo castration in order to become closer to God. The allegations date back to the year 2000 but have only just come to light as the victims have started talking of their experience…….possibly in very squeaky voices.