A look back at April 2015: Heartland heroes
As 2015 comes to a close, The New Paper looks back at the top stories from our pages this year, and offers a glimpse behind the scenes
One of the more memorable events in April was the dramatic rescue of toddler Naureh Fitria Auni.
The three-year-old was home alone, sleeping, as her mother Noreen Saniri took an older sibling to kindergarten a 10 minutes' walk away.
In the mere minutes that Madam Noreen was gone, the little girl woke up and made her way to the balcony where she slipped - almost tumbling to the ground from her second-storey home at Block 371, Jurong East Street 32.
STUCK
Auni's saving grace? Her head was stuck between the horizontal metal pole of a drying rack and the balcony.
An online video showed two foreign workers rushing to her aid.
One of them was seen climbing swiftly up the water pipe on the exterior of the block to get to the second-storey to help the child.
It was later established that the two workers, Mr P. Muthukumar, 24, and Mr S. Shanmuganathan, 35, were working at a nearby road when they saw the toddler in danger.
The video, which subsequently went viral, saw Singaporeans praising the workers as heroes.
The Indian nationals were later presented with a public spiritedness award by the Singapore Civil Defence Force for their "quick thinking and selflessness".
2 workers die in Geylang blaze
A tragic early-morning blaze at a Lorong 6 Geylang flat on April 4 killed two foreign workers and injured three more.
A spokesman for the Singapore Civil Defence Force said firefighters entered the unit with two water jets and extinguished the blaze within 30 minutes.
They later found two men motionless in one of the rooms.
Paramedics pronounced them dead at the scene, the spokesman added.
The flat was used for housing Bangladeshi workers.
It was said that the residents were so desperate to escape the burning unit that some jumped out of the second storey unit.
Meet Mrs S'pore Idol
Malay pop star Taufik Batisah tied the knot on April 4, to much fanfare.
The 34-year-old wed Miss Sheena Akbal, 31, and hosted a reception for 3,000 people at Luzerne Building on Bendemeer Road.
The marriage came just weeks after a shock announcement that the heartthrob was getting hitched.
The #AwakKatMane hitmaker described his bride as "the most beautiful person" inside and out.
Taufik also revealed that he knew Miss Sheena before his Singapore Idol days in 2004.
He said: "I don't think I can find someone so chill, who doesn't care about the fame or the limelight.
"She just wants to be there to support me and be the shoulder that I can lean on."
"I don't think I can find someone so chill, who doesn't care about the fame or the limelight."
- Singer Taufik Batisah on his new wife
Cabbie jailed for attacking Norwegian
The taxi driver made headlines when he claimed he was attacked by Norwegian national Arne Corneliussen, 50, following an argument at Boat Quay.
A court case eventually sentenced Corneliussen to 10 weeks in jail.
But the tables turned on cabby Chan Chuan Heng, 47, when two witnesses - who read news reports of the case - came forward to provide fresh evidence that Chan had actually attacked Corneliussen first.
The Norwegian's conviction for voluntarily causing hurt was quashed and his case sent back to the courts for a retrial.
Subsequently, the 47-year-old cabby was charged with providing false information to the police.
He also faces a second charge of voluntarily causing hurt to Corneliussen for allegedly punching the left side of his head with his right hand.
The case is ongoing.
Scholar poisoned 2 classmates
An A*Star scholar was charged in California, US, after allegedly poisoning her classmates.
Ouyang Xiangyu, then 26, who was in her second year as a graduate medical student at Stanford, had put paraformaldehyde in her classmates' water bottles, The New Paper reported on April 2.
Two of the students had drunk the poisoned water and complained of a burning sensation in their mouths and throats.
Court papers quoted Ouyang as saying: "I am truly sorry for what had happened but I really didn't mean to harm people. It was me crying out for help, and I didn't know."
It was also revealed that she had been suffering from severe insomnia, dizziness, depression and a "disconnection from reality".
The scholar - who completed her A levels at Temasek Junior College in 2008 and went on to graduate with a degree in biochemistry from Imperial College London - was described as an awkward and quiet girl with no friends and had once asked a classmate what it was like to have a boyfriend.
Earlier this month, Ouyang pleaded no contest to four felony counts in a California court, and faces a maximum one year in a county jail.
Ouyang is also no longer an A*Star scholar nor a student at Stanford.
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