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"You are no longer in the West, you are in the Middle East, women like you are killed," Khaled Abughanem said to his daughter, according to the Justice Department. The American woman — who sought to celebrate her wedding in Mexico — invited her family to the ceremony in Guadalajara last September. Instead, her disapproving father, mother, and brothers conspired to kidnap her in an attempt to force her to marry someone else in Yemen, the Department of Justice alleged in an ongoing case against her father, Khaled, and brother, Waleed. The unnamed victim, who according to a DOJ statement...

Parents who give their grown children a gym membership at Christmas risk a recriminatory, What are you saying, Mom? So does surprising them with offers to pay for dating coaches and matchmakers. Two years ago, Kelli Kaku’s mother bought her the $797 online course, “Fall in Love by Christmas.” Ms. Kaku, 34 years old, was blindsided. “I was like, ‘I’m trying!’ ” said Ms. Kaku, a seventh-grade teacher who had moved back home to Fresno, Calif., at the time. She agreed to the course, mostly because she didn’t want to waste her mom’s money. Dating coaches say pandemic lockdowns and...

President Barack Obama’s wedding ring was “noticeably missing” from his left hand on Sunday, according to a White House pool report. Obama, who was at Camp David in Maryland on Sunday, arrived back at the White House and was photographed by the Associated Press without a ring on his hand. He was playing golf earlier in the day to celebrate his birthday, which comes this Tuesday. Obama’s ring, however, was off his finger long before he stepped on the course.

As Britain puts airport staff on alert to spot potential victims of forced marriage, one campaigning group says the trick of putting a spoon in their underwear has saved some youngsters from a forced union in their South Asian ancestral homelands. The concealed spoon sets off the metal detector at the airport in Britain and the teenagers can be taken away from their parents to be searched -- a last chance to escape a largely hidden practice wrecking the lives of unknown thousands of British youths. The British school summer holidays, now well under way, mark a peak in reports...

After nearly four years in office, many Americans still express frustration that much about Barack Obama remains a mystery as establishment media remain incurious about the Democratic president, while seemingly ready to dispatch crack investigative teams at a moment’s notice to probe into the personal lives of Republican figures such as Sarah Palin. Largely ignored in 2008 was research by the Hillary Clinton campaign based on contacts developed with members of the church Obama attended for two decades, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. This is the first of a series of articles WND has developed from months of...

A secret love tryst in a snowstorm ended in tragedy when a cheating husband froze to death as he and his mistress cuddled together in a car, an inquest heard today. The 29-year-old died from hypothermia as temperatures plunged to minus 10 degrees Celsius as the couple sheltered in a garage in Luton, Bedfordshire. Syed Hussain was secretly dating a girlfriend after being unhappy in a forced marriage arranged by his family. A coroner heard that Syed died during the big freeze in December when he and his mistress, Shabana Akhtar, had a secret rendezvous just before Christmas. the couple,...

Authorities are investigating a California girl's claim that her family tried to force her into an arranged marriage in Pakistan, prompting the 13-year-old to run away from home and hide in a nearby motel. Jesse Marie Bender disappeared from her Southern California home Feb. 22. Local and federal authorities launched a nationwide search for the child after her mother, Melissa Bender, said she thought her daughter was kidnapped by someone she met on Facebook. But the family's account fell flat when police found the girl early Wednesday hiding at the Black Horse Motel in Apple Valley, Calif. Jesse Bender, who...

New York Senator Hillary Clinton acknowledges a 3-minute ovation during the Democratic National Convention 2008 at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado, August 26. Democratic women Senators appears on stage at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, August 26, 2008. U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) is expected to accept the Democratic presidential nomination at the convention on August 28. US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama watches New York Senator Hillary Clinton addressing the Democratic National Convention on a TV screen in Billings, Montana on August 26. Vice Presidential candidate Senator Joe Biden (R) (D-DE) stand at the podium...

A Clayton County man faces murder charges in the strangling death of his 25-year-old daughter early Sunday over her desire to end an arranged marriage. Chaudhry Rashad, 54, apparently got mad during an argument in which the victim, Sandela Kanwal, told him she wanted out of the marriage, Clayton police officer Timothy Owens said. Authorities were called to their Utah Drive home in Jonesboro just after 3 a.m. Sunday. Kanwal lived with her father when she was not with her husband, who is in Chicago, Owens said. She hadn't seen the husband in three months, he said. Both Rashad and...

Muslim leaders have given warning against “malicious” intervention by third parties into legitimate arranged marriages. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has welcomed plans to allow third parties to take legal steps to protect young people from being forced to marry a person. But it has urged the Government to ensure that cultural norms are safeguarded. Those given the new powers should receive training, the council said. Muslims and other minority groups in Britain with a tradition of arranged marriage say that the issue is not one of faith, but of culture. Arranged marriages have long been practised in the...

A second Birmingham woman has been found dead following a dispute over an arranged marriage. Student Balqis Akhtar, aged 20, was discovered with two gunshot wounds to her head in the village of Kangar, near Gujar Kahn, in Pakistan. She was sent abroad from her home in Birmingham for an arranged marriage but is said to have argued with her father about the match. Police in Pakistan have now launched a murder inquiry and are liaising with detectives in the West Midlands who are also investigating the death. News of the killing comes just days after Sahda Bibi, 21, of...

Woman sentenced to 15 years for killing husband 4 days after wedding By Rana Husseini AMMAN — A 22-year-old Ramtha woman was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Sunday on conviction of killing her husband four days after their wedding in Oct. 2001. The tribunal reduced the premeditated murder charge against Thraa Abdullah to manslaughter and handed her the maximum penalty for strangling her husband, Ahmad Hussein, with an electric cord in their house in Ramtha on Oct. 15 last year. The defendant's family had forced her to marry the victim, and the marriage took place on Oct. 12,...