Israeli girl youngest divorcee

A 14-year-old Israeli girl has got a divorce from her 17-year-old husband, making her what media are describing as the country’s youngest divorcee.

The divorce came after a rabbinical court ruled that their wedding met the major requirements of Jewish law.

The two sweethearts had exchanged vows in front of friends, exchanged a ring, and the union had been consummated.

When her parents found out what had occurred, they insisted on a religious divorce, which she initially refused.

Both partners come from traditionally religious Jewish families.

The young couple are said to have recited their marriage vows in front of a group of friends and the husband give his wife a ring.

The girl is said to have initially refused her parents’ demand for the divorce, saying she wanted to live with the boy.

She said she wanted to marry him officially when she was old enough.

The Israeli press says she only changed her mind when the boy’s parents offered her money.

The religious court in Jerusalem then held the divorce proceeding.

The divorce will go on the girl’s legal file, meaning that when she is 16, her identity card will say she is divorced.

One consequence of this is that – if she follows Jewish religious law – she will not be able to marry anyone with the name of Cohen, who are traditionally the Jewish priestly caste.

 

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stop sofware theft

SEATTLE – Stolen laptop? Now you can tell those thieves exactly what you think of them.

Front Door Software Corp.’s Retriever program displays your contact information as your computer boots up. There’s even space for a plea to a Good Samaritan — “$50 for my safe return,” maybe.

In most cases, that’s enough to help an honest person return the machine, said Carrie Hafeman, chief executive of the five-person company based in Evergreen, Colo.

But in the darkest scenarios, Retriever takes off the kid gloves.

You can log on to a Web site and check a box indicating the computer is missing. Now during start-up, a big yellow and red banner appears on the screen, boldly declaring the laptop lost or stolen. This message is set to reappear every 30 seconds, no matter how many times the thief closes the window.

You can remotely switch on a second password prompt if you fear the thief has also stolen your regular Windows, Macintosh or Linux login.

Behind the scenes, Retriever uses built-in Wi-Fi to sniff out nearby networks, then suss out what Internet service providers power them. With that information in hand, Hafeman said, you can file a police report and get help locating the criminal.

While waiting for law enforcement to come through, you can even let off steam by sending new messages to the nagging “Stolen Computer!” screen.

“You are being tracked. I am right at your door” was one, Hafeman said, adding that she could not bring herself to say others that came to mind. Customers have also tried to induce fear or guilt by switching their contact info to “Secret Service” and “Catholic church.”

The latest version of Retriever, which costs $29.95 for three years of use, is even more aggressive.

Now, when the “stolen” screen pops up, the laptop cries for help. Use a canned message (“Help, this laptop is reported lost or stolen. If you are not my owner, please report me now.”) or record your own.

“You can say, ‘Get your hands off me, you S.O.B.’” Hafeman said.

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College Student went out for run, and disappeared

Tiffany Sessions was a 20-year-old junior studying economics at the University of Florida in Gainesville when she decided to go out for a run. She never came back.

Sessions left her off-campus apartment about 6 p.m. February 9, 1989. She told her roommate she’d be back shortly and took her Walkman with her.

It was the last time anyone would see her.

That was 20 years ago, a time when no one had cell phones, Blackberries or Web sites to aid in tracking a missing or abducted person.

The only clues came from people who recalled seeing a young woman fitting Sessions’ description walking down the main street just before dusk.

Sessions’ jogging route usually took her down Gainesville’s main street to a small dirt trail that cut through the woods. The loop was 1½ miles each way and took her about an hour.

Police and family believe that she was abducted near the woods. After extensive searches, no clues were found: not her remains, not her Walkman, not the clothes she was wearing.

“Much of the area in the last decade has been paved over, with new construction, making a search today very difficult,” said Detective Bob Dean of the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office. However, investigators are still searching and working this case actively.

earchers were out as recently as late December, seeking clues with newer technologies.

“We have used ground sonar equipment, even,” Dean said.

Over the years, there have been some possible suspects — people who came forward and confessed — but police have ruled them out as credible suspects.

One potential suspect was a man who was in jail for killing a 5-year-old girl. He’d written a letter to police, claiming he was responsible for Tiffany Sessions’ disappearance.

But when questioned later by police, he denied writing the letter, even though handwriting analysis indicated that he had.

“Although police don’t think so, I still believe this guy could have something to do with my daughter’s disappearance,” said Patrick Sessions, Tiffany’s father.  

According to Patrick Sessions, who has been closely involved with the police investigating his daughter’s case, the man who confessed was a sex offender who had been released just a month and a half before Tiffany Sessions disappeared.

The cold case unit of the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office has taken over this case. Patrick Sessions observed the 20th anniversary of his daughter’s disappearance by making renewed appeals through the media.

Police and family urge anyone with more information about Tiffany Sessions or information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for her disappearance to call the tip line at 352-367-4161.

A $25,000 reward is offered.

Tiffany Sessions was last seen wearing red sweatpants, a white sweatshirt with the word “Aspen” on it, a gold Rolex watch and a black Sony Walkman. She was 5′3″ and weighed 125 pounds at the time of her disappearance. She has blonde hair and brown eyes.

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Indian boy marries dog to ward off tigers attacks

In India, An infant boy was married off to his neighbors’ dog in eastern India by villagers who said it will stop the groom from being killed by wild animals, officials and witnesses said Wednesday.

Around 150 tribespeople performed the ritual recently in a hamlet in the state of Orissa’s Jajpur district after the boy, who is under two years old, grew a tooth on his upper gum.

The Munda tribe see such a growth in young children as a bad omen and believe it makes them prone to attacks by tigers and another animals. The tribal god will bless the child and ward off evil spirits after the marriage.

“We performed the marriage because it will overcome any curse that might fall on the child as well on us,” the boy’s father, Sanarumala Munda, was quoted as saying by a local newspaper.

The groom, Sagula, was carried by his family in procession to the village temple, where a priest solemnized the marriage between Sagula and his bride Jyoti by chanting Sanskrit hymns, a witness said.

The villagers then ate a feast with rich food and alcohol to celebrate.

The dog belongs to the groom’s neighbors and was set free to roam around the area after the ceremony. No dowry was exchanged, the witness said, and the boy will still be able to marry a human bride in the future without filing for divorce.

Indian law does not recognize weddings between people and animals, but the ritual survives in rural and tribal areas of the country where millions are illiterate.

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Man loses $300,000 in Starbucks jewel heist

Colorado, USA – How much is a cup of coffee at Starbucks? For a jewelry salesman from Kansas, it ended up costing about $300,000.

Police say the man stopped for coffee Monday at a Starbucks in Parker, Colo., south of Denver. He was just returning to his car when he was held up.

Three masked robbers took three “tubs” of jewelry and a briefcase containing the salesman’s handgun, the Rocky Mountain News reported.

Police didn’t identify the 64-year-old salesman.

Parker police spokeswoman Elise Penington said the victim was in town for a trade show. One of the robbers allegedly brandished a gun, but no one was injured in the robbery.

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Pregnat Brazilian woman was knife attacked by neo-Nazis

The Brazilian woman who claimed she lost her unborn twins in a knife attack by neo-Nazis was not pregnant and probably carved the initials of Switzerland’s main right-wing party into her own skin, Swiss investigators have said. Paula Oliveira, 26, was not three months pregnant on Monday, when she claimed an attack by three skinheads, one with a Nazi symbol tattooed on the back of his head, caused her to have a miscarriage, Swiss police said in a statement.

The case prompted Brazilian authorities to demand a thorough investigation in what they said was a xenophobic attack and caused outrage in Brazil after pictures of her scarred body appeared in media.

Photographs of the smiling woman have been splashed across newspapers next to those of a bare stomach and legs with the initials SVP – presumably for “Schweizerische Volkspartei” (Swiss People’s Party) – clearly visible in several places.

But on Friday, Walter Baer, chief of forensic medicine at Zurich University, said: “Any experienced forensic doctor would not hesitate to assume that this was a case of self-infliction.”

All of the wounds were reachable by hand, and none were severe, he said.

He added, however, that investigations were ongoing.

Police said Miss Oliveira claimed she was attacked outside a Zurich train station, and that the assailants cut her stomach and legs with the initials of Switzerland’s main right-wing party.

The alleged details had shocked the Swiss public and prompted condemnation from Brazil’s president.“Brazil is an example of how to live with foreigners,” President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said. “I think we can’t accept and we can’t stay quiet facing this remarkable violence against a Brazilian woman abroad.”

The woman’s father blamed police for dragging their feet on a potentially embarrassing investigation and criticized those who suggested her daughter had lied.

“They’re trying to transform the victim into a criminal. This is the tactic of a Nazi militia,” Paulo Oliveira told the O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper.Miss Oliveira’s fiance, Marco Trepp, a Swiss investment consultant, claimed she was still terrified by the attack, which he said occurred only days after she accepted his marriage proposal.

“She’s in a post-traumatic phase, scared of everything, especially to walk on the street,” Mr Trepp told Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper. “Last night, she had lots of nightmares. She couldn’t sleep well. She woke up sweating, screaming.”The Swiss People’s Party has taken a hardline stance against immigrants and pressed to toughen asylum laws and make it easier to expel foreign nationals. However, the party is part of Switzerland’s broad coalition government and has never had links to neo-Nazism.

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Dad at 13

He’s 13. He scarcely looks 10. And according to a British tabloid, he’s a father.

Baby-faced and only 4 feet tall, the boy, Alfie Patten, was just 12 when he impregnated Chantelle, now 15, The Sun reported Friday. Shown in a video posted Friday on the tabloid’s Web site, the diminutive Alfie takes the newborn girl in his arms.

Asked what he would do to support the child financially, Alfie asks in a small, high-pitched voice, “What’s financially?”

The girl was taking birth control pills but missed one, the newspaper reported.

Britain had 27 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 between 2000 and 2005, according to a report published by Population Action International. Comparable figures are 10 per 1,000 for Spain, 8 in 1,000 for France, and 5 in 1,000 for The Netherlands.

Britain’s teen pregnancy rate, however, is still far below that of the United States, which registers 44 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 and are more line with English-speaking countries such as Australia and New Zealand, which respectively have 17 and 27 births per 1,000 women between 15 and 19, according to the report.

But the country’s reputation as Europe’s teen pregnancy capital has been an embarrassment to politicians.

Brook, a U.K. group that provides sexual health advice to people under 25, said teen pregnancies had fallen by about 12 percent since 1998, but more had to be done.

“It can be easy to concentrate on young women but young men need as much support and information,” Brook’s chief executive, Simon Blake, said.

In a move last year to tackle the high teen pregnancy rate, British education officials announced they would start introducing sex education earlier in English schools. Beginning next year, children as in grades as low as kindergarten will be given basic sex education.

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Bangladesh man kills 40,000 rats in one year

A poor farmer from northern Bangladesh was crowned the country’s rat killing champion on Thursday with a final score of 39,650 dead rodents after a year-long hunt.

Binoy Kumar Karmakar, 40, used traps, poison and flooding to kill his quarry, and collected their tails to prove his success rate and claim a prize from the government.

Karmakar collected a 14-inch Sony colour television for winning the competition for 2008, which was part of a nationwide drive to stop food supplies being eaten up by rats.

“During the year, our farmers killed around 25 million rats,” agriculture department spokesman Abdul Halim told AFP. “Binoy Kumar Karmakar has been declared the champion for killing 39,650.”

Officials estimate that up to 10 per cent of Bangladesh’s crops – mostly rice, wheat and potato – is devoured by millions of rats every year.

Last year an invasion of rats in Bangladesh’s southeastern Chittagong hill tracts region wiped out crops and caused a famine in some remote villages.

The UN’s World Food Programme distributed food aid to 120,000 people for four months after the invasion forced affected tribal people to live on wild roots.

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Man runs out of gas after robbing gas station

Florida, USA Authorities said they arrested a man who apparently forgot to fill up when he was robbing a gas station.

The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office said a 23-year-old man used a Bowie knife to rob a Cape Haze gas station early Sunday. Deputies said the man pulled the 12-inch blade and demanded money. But when he left, a customer followed him and called 911.

While deputies were looking for signs of the robber, a newspaper carrier told them that a man in a car matching the one from the robbery had run out of gas nearby.

The man was arrested several hours after the robbery and charged with robbery with a weapon and loitering/prowling. He was released Monday on $10,500 bail.

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Mother dumped baby in lake

A 20-year-old woman accused of dropping her newborn baby girl into a lake told police she felt the infant’s heart beating as she let the child slip from her hands into the brackish water.

“It’s hard to believe,” Kenner Police Chief Steve Caraway said on Wednesday. “This was a beautiful little girl, full term, a child that could have made someone very happy.”

Ciara Craig, a sales clerk who lived in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, will be charged with first-degree murder, Caraway said. Killing a child under 12 in Louisiana brings an automatic first-degree murder charge, which could result in the death penalty.

Craig, who gave birth at home on Tuesday, said she didn’t want the child and had contemplated an abortion, but her pregnancy was too far along, Caraway said. She hid the pregnancy from her grandmother, with whom she lived.

“She said she was not ready to raise a baby,” Caraway said. “She said it was the result of a one-night stand and she did not want it.”

Craig admitted to police that she drove to the shore of Lake Pontchartrain north of New Orleans on Tuesday afternoon and walked to the water carrying a black bag, with her daughter in it. Witnesses told police she emptied its contents into the water, walked calmly back to her car and drove off. Craig turned herself in Tuesday night at the urging of family members.

Craig was in a hospital under police guard Wednesday undergoing treatment related to the delivery. Police said Craig did not have an attorney Wednesday afternoon. They would not divulge Craig’s grandmother’s name or the names of other family members.
She had received counseling on alternatives, Caraway said. But he was not sure if she knew about Louisiana’s Safe Haven law, which allows people to drop off unwanted infants in safe places without being prosecuted.

“She should have brought the baby to a police station or hospital,” he said. “There are too many other options for something like this to happen.”

A day after the baby’s body was pulled from the lake, the state Department of Social Services said it would launch a major public awareness campaign about the Safe Haven law. It will include outdoor advertising across the state, brochures and a new Web site, DSS Secretary Kristy Nichols said.

“We are going to make sure word gets out in churches and schools,” she said. “This will be a major campaign.”

Under the law, a baby up to 31 days old may be left at any emergency care facility, such as a hospital or police station. The baby cannot be left unattended and must show no signs of abuse or neglect. The department may also seek to have churches added to the list of places an infant may be dropped off, Nichols said.

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