Shelly Newkirk, a TCU sophomore who is gay, helped create the community inclusion scheme in the Fort Worth campus.

It is available as part of the US university’s Learning Living Community programme.

The Star Telegram reports that Newkirk helped lead the effort for the DiversCity Q housing area.

She said her vision is that it will be a place where gay and straight students “can interact and hang out.”

Students can choose from other communities such as fine arts, heath and wellness and leadership and strengths.

On TCU’s residence website, a member of the ‘Fine Arts Living-Learning Community’ said: “The best part about living in a LLC is the close community formed between all the residents.”

The TCU associate director for residential life, David Cooper, says that the Living Learning scheme is “a chance for students to be part of a unique experience”.

TCU is not the first US university to incorporate LGBT residential facilities. Louis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon has provided a few rooms a semester “available for a gay male and a gay female to live together” since 1995.

Vanessa Fawbush, the PR officer for the university says of the scheme, which interviews prospective students so as to avoid straight couples cohabiting: “My understanding is that it’s nice to have the option.”

The University of California-Riverside also provides “gender-neutral” residences. The director of its LGBT Resource Centre, Nancy Tubbs, said: “Because straight people can join the living-learning community, it’s not self-segregating.”

Eight students have committed to the TCU “DiversCity Q” programme so far, Newkirk stated. 

The Chicago Tribune reports that four lawsuits were filed against Town Hall District police officer Richard Fiorito on Thursday.

Three other lawsuits were filed against the officer in February.

All of the plaintiffs have accused Fiorito of false arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol, and in some of the lawsuits, it is alleged that Fiorito used excessive force.

Plaintiff Shawn Rauch claimed that whilst in the station, the police officer grabbed him by the throat, shoved him against a wall and called him a homosexual slur.

Prosecuting attorney Jon Erickson claimed that the police officer fabricated DUI charges as part of a scheme to earn extra overtime pay.

Firioto himself was unavailable for comment, according to the newspaper and officials at the Independent Police Review Authority, said complaints are under investigation.

Neville Corby died at the scene at Ashbourne Road on Monday morning while his 31-year-old partner is recovering in hospital from gunshot wounds to the chest.

Police have described his condition as stable.

Neighbours said the men lived together as a gay couple.

It is thought the incident occurred at around 8am.

Detective Superintendent Chris Thompson described the father-of-two as a victim of “a brutal, merciless, execution-style killing, all the more shocking as it occurred in a residential street at the time children were going to school.”

Speaking on behalf of West Yorkshire Police’s Homicide and Major Enquiry Team, he said it was not thought to be a random attack, as there have been “a number of domestic incidents at this address” with some occurring over the weekend.

The police are now searching for 68-year-old local man Ernest Wright, a convicted murderer.

Det Supt Thompson said: “I believe that Mr Wright may continue to be in the Bradford area and I would appeal for anyone who has information to contact the police as a matter of urgency.”

Wright is known to have a black Mitsubishi Shogun vehicle. Its registration number is J264 RJC. Police have warned members of the public not to approach him.

A 32-year-old man and a 33-year-old woman were arrested and questioned on suspicion of assisting an offender on Tuesday.

They have been released on bail.

Police are also appealing for any information on a blue Vauxhall Astra, which was found abandoned in High Poplars. The police believe the car was used to flee the scene some time after 7:50am on Monday. Its registration number is FR55 ARR.

This is the second recent killing of a gay man in a suburban residential area .

Last month, Gerry Edwards, 59 was pronounced dead after receiving multiple stab wounds at his home in Bromley, south-east London.

His partner, 56-year-old Chris Bevan, is recovering in hospital.

David Kilcullen, 46, of The Avenue, Bickley, has been charged with murder of Mr Edwards and attempted murder or Mr Bevan and is due to appear at Greenwich Magistrates’ Court today.

LGBT activists have set up a scheme in which people are asked to donate money for every minute the Phelps family protest against gays.

The vehemently homophobic church, whose leader Fred Phelps runs GodHatesFags.com, turned up to picket outside the White House on Monday, calling President Obama the ‘antichrist’ for his support of equality.

However, Phelps and his church were met by LGBT supporters who protested against them, raising money for local group Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence.

The scheme was thought up by Driving Equality, an organisation that has held various ‘Phelps-A-Thons’.

Visitors to the website www.phelps-a-thon.comcan sponsor the Westboro Baptist Church by choosing an amount to donate for every minute the group chants slogans such as “god hates fags”.

All of the proceeds go towards local LGBT support groups, or to Driving Equality.

Driving Equality aims to raise $25,000 (£17,374) and has already raised over $10348 (£7,192).

Some of this money is to fund founder Chris Mason’s 100-day, 16,000-mile road trip through 48 states to advance LGBT equality.

There have been other ‘Phelps-A-Thons’ at places such as Harvard and SUNY and Mason has appealed for more, saying that he can organise the sponsoring events wherever the fundamentalist family visit.

“Let me know and I will add a Phelps-A-Thon for your community. We can work together to raise money for your local gay/straight alliance or LGBT community centre,” he said.

Last month, the church threatened to picket a London primary school after it held lessons on same-sex relationships as part of LGBT History Month.

Around 30 parents took their children out of George Tomlinson School in February to protest over the curriculum.

The group stated: “God hates the UK and the Tomlinson School fag tyranny, where conscientious parents face religious persecution for withdrawing their children on lying fag so-called history.

“This is yet another warning to the UK to repent of their manifold sins of the flesh, or perish.”

Despite the threat, the group did not arrive to chant outside the school.

The student, described as “petite”, was returning home from a concert in London with her partner and a friend in the early hours of the morning, PA reports.

While waiting at a bus stop, the women were approached by Daniel Fountain, 20, and a male friend who struck up conversation with them.

When the victim and Fountain became separated from the group, he allegedly started trying to kiss her, asking if she found him attractive, the jury heard.

Bill Emlyn Jones, prosecuting, claimed that at this point: “She explained that she was gay. Fountain refused to believe this. He became angry. Perhaps he thought that saying she was gay was a line as a way to rebuff him or deter him. She was in distress, saying ‘no’. He was violent and rough.”

The young woman’s girlfriend was distracted by Fountain’s friend, who was “pestering” her.

Alarmed as to where her partner was, she found her walking away from the defendant, staggering into the middle of a road where she then collapsed.

Upon seeing this, the victim’s girlfriend punched Fountain on the chin.

He punched her back on the head and turned to the other friend, punching her on the face, running off and leaving her with a bleeding nose.

Fountain stated that he had consensual sex with the alleged victim, who Mr Jones claimed was “extremely distressed, curled up in a ball, crying and incoherent” after the alleged incident took place.

Fountain, 20, of Staines, Surrey, denies charges of rape and assault by penetration, assault and actual bodily harm. He told police they had had consensual sex.

The prosecution said that Fountain’s account of the incident to the police was more like the story of a “pornographic film”.

He told officers she had said she wanted to see him again and wished she was going back home with him, the court heard.

The case continues.

Central News reports that Julian Faulkner, who worked at the Heanor Memorial Hospital in Derbyshire, faces six charges of innappropriate behaviour between May 2004 and June 2006.

He is charged with causing distress to a patient, making inappropriate sexual comments to patients and colleagues, and inappropriate use of the computer while at work.

In one incident, Faulkner allegedly ignored an incontinent patient’s request to go to the toilet, going on to spray him with cold water on him as he was lifted out of the bath.

In another, the nurse threw grapes at a patient. The 34-year-old nurse also requested that a female colleague put her hand on a patient’s genitals and forced colleague Lynne Parker to look at an image of a penis on his computer screen.

It is also claimed that Faulkner used a work computer to repeatedly watch footage of the execution of Ken Bigley, the British man killed in Iraq.

Rosemary Paul, of the NMC, states that Faulkner was “inappropriate in using sexual language in relation to his own sex life and in relation to patients and work colleagues”, adding that the defendant “accessed inappropriate websites and showed colleagues explicit images”.

If found guilty of misconduct, Faulkner faces being thrown out of the profession. He is not attending the hearing.