Mystery over drowned hedge fund tycoon Michael Treichl's 'lost millions' after he left just £325,000 behind in his will following police quiz over the fire that destroyed his 500-year-old mansion

With the mystery surrounding the death of 69-year-old hedge fund tycoon Michael Treichl and the fire at his Grade I-listed family home still unsolved, a further enigma has now emerged – the whereabouts of his multi-million-pound fortune.

Lawyers for Treichl last week gained a grant of probate, and revealed he left less than £325,000, despite years of deal-making.
Treichl, who comes from one of the wealthiest families in Austria, was found drowned in Lake Geneva, Switzerland, in June – weeks after being arrested and questioned by police over the blaze which destroyed 500-year-old Parnham House.

He had spent a rumoured £10 million restoring the Dorset mansion, which he had bought for £4 million in 2001.
There have been suggestions that he dramatically burned down the house and then took his own life.

Germany's most famous women's rights activist Alice Schwarzer at 75

She has spent her life fighting for women's equal rights, writing and publishing the magazine "Emma." A look at the life of Alice Schwarzer, Germany's best known — and most controversial — feminist, as she turns 75.
"The engine driving everything I do is fairness. Anything else would have, for me, been a misuse of my life."
Taken from Alice Schwarzer's autobiography, "Lebenslauf" ("Curriculum Vitae"), published in 2011, that sentence could be viewed as something of a life motto for a woman who changed German society. Schwarzer writes further of herself, saying, "I am not a person who prefers to focus on myself, hunched over my sensitive predilections. I find the world much too exciting for that."
The worst insult at home: parochialism
It could be that Schwarzer's rebellious nature was already predetermined before she even hit the cradle. She was born out of wedlock on December 3, 1942. That normally would have been a scandal for the time, but it was overlooked at the height of a war that gave people other, more pressing worries.

Republicans may regret this tax bill

Josh Barro has an interesting piece laying out in words a thesis that so far I've only heard in whispers and tweets: In some ways, Democrats might be better off if the GOP tax bill passes.

The logic is this: After the Affordable Care Act's passage, one path forward (emblematized by Barack Obama's "pivot to deficits" and the search for a grand bargain) was to declare the American welfare state substantially complete. But the pivot failed, the grand bargain failed, and the energy in the party shifted strongly to the left. Now Democrats have a vision of continued welfare state expansion that's basically not going to work if polling-friendly tax hikes on the superrich are the only thing on the table. In the new Demutopia, rich people will pay more — but the middle class will need to pay more too.

This scam tricks you into buying fake tech support software

Scammers are tricking victims into paying $25 for fake security software, ZDNet reports.

The tech-support scammers use fake blue screen of death (BSOD) messages and a phony "Troubleshooter for Windows" application to try to sell a supposed Microsoft security product called "Windows Defender Essentials." The name sounds like two real Windows anti-malware applications: Windows Defender and Security Essentials.

Malwarebytes researcher Pieter Arntz said the Troubleshooter app is being distributed through a cracked software installer.

11-year-old girl wins $25,000 science prize for creating a cheap device to test drinking water for poison

Gitanjali Rao, a seventh grader from Colorado, has been awarded the title of "America's top young scientist" for designing a compact device to detect lead in drinking water, which she believes can be faster and cheaper than other current methods.

The 11-year-old's invention was inspired by the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, where cost-cutting measures led to tainted drinking water that contained lead and other toxins. It also won her a $25,000 prize, for which Rao already has plans: "I plan to use most of it in developing my device further so that it can be commercially available soon," she said

“It’s been complete hell”: how police used a traffic stop to take $91,800 from an innocent man

ust hours after this story was published, a judge, with the backing of state legislators who read Vox’s reporting, ruled in favor of Phil Parhamovich — and he will get his $91,800 back.

“My gut has been clenched for a long time. I feel like it is still going to take some time to unwind and unclench,” Parhamovich said. “But I feel incredible. It hasn’t even sunk in yet.” He thanked the Institute for Justice, an advocacy group, for taking his case and Vox for reporting on it.

What follows is the original story.

Phil Parhamovich had been waiting for this moment for a long time. The 50-year-old had spent years restoring and selling houses, cars, and musical instruments, often clocking 12-hour workdays, to save up more than $91,000. And now it was all going to pay off: He would buy a music studio in Madison, Wisconsin, where Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins recorded songs — not just fulfilling a dream of owning a monument to grunge rock, but also giving him a space to work on his own career as a musician.

Then came the police stop this past March. By the time it was over, police in Wyoming would take all of Parhamovich’s money — the full $91,800. Parhamovich, who has no criminal record, was not accused of or charged with a serious crime; he only got a $25 ticket for improperly wearing his seat belt and a warning for “lane use.”

But Wyoming law enforcement officers found and eventually seized the $91,800 in cash, as it was hidden in a speaker cabinet — by getting Parhamovich, under what he claims was duress, to sign away his interest in the money through a waiver.

Driver slams truck into toll booth on San Francisco's Bay Bridge, killing attendant

OAKLAND -- A toll collector on California's Bay Bridge was killed and the driver of a box truck was arrested after his truck slammed into a line of vehicles and crashed into the toll plaza, CBS San Francisco reports.

Shortly after 5 a.m., a line of vehicles was waiting at the toll booth and the box truck hit the last vehicle in line, causing a chain reaction, Williams said.

The truck continued westbound and hit the toll booth, demolishing it. The attendant inside the booth was killed, and the truck driver and a passenger were ejected from the vehicle.

The toll booth attendant was later identified as Si Si Han, age 46.

Gov. Jerry Brown expressed his condolences in a statement released Saturday.