Need to know

Compiled by KATHERINE HOBY

Jail sentences


The Sensible Sentencing Group is holding a public meeting tonight to discuss how New Zealand deals with violent criminals. Mark Middleton and Garth McVicar, advocates for tougher penalties, will speak. All are welcome to the meeting at the Kentucky Lounge, Te Rapa Race Course, Hamilton, at 7 pm.

Parking trial


Residents in some Freemans Bay, Mt Eden, and St Marys Bay streets should have received a letter about a trial of residential parking permits. The streets involved in the trial, which will start next month, are Beresford St, Gwilliam Place, Runnell St, Cascade St, Margaret St, Sheridan St, England St, Napier St, Smith St, Franklin Rd, Paget St, Tahuna St, Georgina St and Renall St in Freemans Bay, St Marys Rd, Caroline St, Green St, and Seymour St in St Marys Bay, and Burnley Terrace in Mt Eden. Residents who have not received a letter and permit application form should telephone Auckland City Council (379-2037).

Scholarships

The Kelliher Economics Foundation will offer three national economics scholarships to secondary school economics students for tertiary education. The deadline for applications is September 27. The award will cover three years, paying $3000 a year for tertiary expenses. Conditions, regulations and foundation objectives are available by contacting the foundation on (09) 309-9326 or the secretary, Martin Smith, via e-mail: martin@mvs.co.nz

Toy box


Take a walk down memory lane and visit the Museum of Transport Technology and Social History (Motat), on Great North Rd, Western Springs, for its Into the Toy Box exhibition. The exhibition showcases the museum's collection of dolls, cars, tin toys, games, trains, and teddy bears. There are toys from the past and the present - from Tonka trucks to the Teletubbies. Adult tickets are $10, children/senior citizens $5, and a family pass for two adults and up to four children under 16 years is $20. Into the Toy Box runs until August 31.

Roadworks


The Greenlane southbound off-ramp and the Khyber Pass Rd southbound on-ramp, will be closed between 10 pm today and 5 am tomorrow. Transit New Zealand is installing underground ducts. It advises motorists to follow signposted detours.

Also today ...


In 1865 John Wilkes Booth, the actor and Confederate sympathiser who assassinated US President Abraham Lincoln, died after 12 days on the run, possibly from a self-inflicted bullet wound as Union soldiers burst into the barn in which he was hiding. Booth and conspirators plotted to assassinate Lincoln, as well as Vice-President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward, in a desperate plan to save the Confederacy. Lincoln was at Ford's Theater when Booth entered his private box unnoticed, and killed the President with a single bullet in the back of his head. He jumped to the stage and shouted "Sic semper tyrannis! (thus always to tyrants) - the South is avenged!" Despite breaking his leg in his leap, he escaped. Lincoln was the first of four US presidents to be assassinated. The others were James Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901) and John F. Kennedy (1963).

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