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RENO, Nev. — A couple authorities say were so obsessed with the Internet and video games that they left their babies starving and suffering other health problems have pleaded guilty to child neglect. The children of Michael and Iana Straw, a boy age 22 months and a girl age 11 months, were severely malnourished and near death last month when doctors saw them after social workers took them to a hospital, authorities said. Both children are doing well and gaining weight in foster care, prosecutor Kelli Ann Viloria told Reno Gazette-Journal. Michael Straw, 25, and Iana Straw, 23, pleaded guilty...

Cops: Mom threw baby at car July 14, 2007 ORANGE COUNTY - -An east Orange County mother was arrested after witnesses told authorities she threw her 2-month-old baby at a moving car, according to a sheriff's report released Friday. Eva Platt, 31, was arguing with the child's father, Tony Licon-Diaz, at their Sherman Street home about 1:45 a.m. Thursday. Witnesses told deputies that Platt had been drinking when Licon-Diaz left the house and got in a car to leave. She tossed the baby after him, and the child struck the closed window and fell to the ground. The baby was...

A jury has found a 13-year-old Canadian girl guilty of murdering her parents and her younger brother in revenge for being grounded and having her computer privileges revoked. A jury in Medicine Hat, Alberta, found the teenager guilty on three counts of first-degree murder after only three hours of deliberation. The bodies of her father, 42, mother, 48, and brother, 8, were found in the family home in April 2006. They had been stabbed 41 times. During the trial, the girl told the jury that her boyfriend, Jeremy Steinke, who was 11 years her senior and had claimed to friends...

A 15 year-old schoolgirl hatched a plot to kill her parents because they grounded her and forced her to go horse-riding "when she didn't want to", a court has heard. The Brisbane girl, who cannot be identified because she is a juvenile, enlisted the help of her 18 year-old boyfriend, Joshua Andrew Hockey, to slash their throats in the family's Newmarket home on February 18 last year after giving him a hunting knife as a Valentine's Day gift. Hockey, 20, of Bellbowrie, and the girl, now 16, have each pleaded guilty to one count of attempted murder and conspiracy to...

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy - Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches. In the latest document — formulated as five questions and answers — the Vatican seeks to set the record straight on Vatican II's ecumenical intent, saying some contemporary theological interpretation had been "erroneous or ambiguous" and had prompted confusion and doubt. It restates key sections of a 2000 document the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, "Dominus Iesus," which...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican said on Tuesday Christian denominations outside Roman Catholicism were not full churches of Jesus Christ. Protestant leaders said this was offensive and would hurt inter-religious dialogue. A 16-page document by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Pope Benedict once headed, described Christian Orthodox churches as true churches, but suffering from a "wound" since they do not recognize the primacy of Pope. But the document said the "wound is still more profound" in Protestant denominations. "Despite the fact that this teaching has created no little distress ... it is nevertheless difficult to...

... "Any rape case is horrible but this takes it to another level, something you can't think of even in your worst dreams," police spokesman Ted White said. According to the police report, a man knocked on the woman's door at about 9 p.m. and told her he had a flat tire. The mother and son, whom police have not identified, went outside and were ambushed by a group of gun-wielding suspects. The victims told police they were forced back into their home and beaten and sexually assaulted. According to authorities, the men raped, sodomized and beat the woman, then...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Two teenagers were accused of gang-raping a woman and forcing her 12-year-old son to join in the attack, then beating him and pouring cleaning solution into his eyes. Authorities allege Avion Lawson, 14, and Nathan Walker, 16, were among a group of about 10 masked suspects who forced their way into the womanÂ’s apartment in a crime-ridden housing project the night of June 18. The two were being held without bail Friday on suspicion of armed sexual battery by multiple perpetrators, sexual performance by a child, armed home invasion and aggravated battery. Both were arrested...

VATICAN CITY (AFP) - The Vatican set itself on a collision course with other Christian faiths Tuesday, reaffirming the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church in a corrective document designed to clear up recent "erroneous" doctrine. The document's central claim that the Catholic Church is "the one true Church of Christ", is likely to revive a debate which has dogged the Vatican's dealings with other Christian faiths for decades. Other Christian faiths "lack elements considered essential to the Catholic Church," it said. The 16-page text -- released by the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,...

U.S. warns citizens over Naples garbage crisis Mon Jul 9, 2007 2:28PM EDT ROME (Reuters) - The United States embassy in Rome has warned U.S citizens they may face a health risk in Italy's southern Campania region due to a garbage crisis that has filled streets with piles of rubbish. "U.S. citizens traveling to or through the area may encounter mounds of garbage, open fires with potentially toxic fumes, and/or sporadic public demonstrations by local residents attempting to block access to dumps," the embassy said in an advisory note. Since May, streets in Naples and nearby towns have been piled...

Toddler Was Denied Shower Access as Well: A couple says their vacation was ruined when an RV park owner told them they weren't welcome after discovering their 2-year-old foster son had the HIV virus. Last week, Dick and Silvia Glover went to the Wales West RV Park in Silver Hill, Ala., with their foster son Caleb. When the boy was banned from using the pool and showers, the Glovers said they were offered an uncomfortable and painful choice: They could either keep Caleb out of the water or leave.

A youth minister at the First Christian Church has been charged with raping and molesting four children at the church, according to the Broward Sheriff's Office. Thiago Fernandes, 24, of Coconut Creek, was arrested Tuesday and is being held without bail at the Broward County Jail.

A married couple who had sex in front of a nine-year-old girl who was forced to watch on a webcam in the United States were both jailed for 10 years. Denise and Ronald Edwards of Cinderford, Gloucestershire, also encouraged a paedophile in New York to abuse the child as they watched online. Videos and CDs carrying images of children being abused were also later found by police at the Edwards’ home, along with a webcam in 2004. Mr Edwards, 54, admitted engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a girl, causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual...

SPOKANE -- A baby found locked in a hot car in North Spokane Thursday night is recovering, but uninjured. Employee spotted baby 'all wet, red, not crying' inside SUV An employee at the Grocery Outlet spotted the inside the sweltering SUV around 6:00 p.m. She advised the store to make an announcement over the intercom, advising customers there was a baby locked in a car. The employee told KREM 2 News, "nobody came up for like, 10 minutes." Employees confronted the woman when she finally spoke to them; they say she told them, "Oh my God, I forgot I had...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,288183,00.html

A Serbian man needed emergency surgery after he had sex with a hedgehog on a witchdoctor's advice. Zoran Nikolovic, 35, from Belgrade, says the witchdoctor told him it would cure his premature ejaculation. But he ended up in an operating theatre after the hedgehog's needles left his penis severely lacerated. A hospital spokesman said: "The animal was apparently unhurt and the patient came off much worse from the encounter. We have managed to repair the damage to his penis."

  Did the earth mooove for you?  Blondie ... identity protected and, inset, Richard, who has herd it all now       By ROBIN PERRIEJuly 06, 2007       COPS rushed to a farm to put a kinky teenager udder arrest — after he was seen romping with a COW.  A shocked passer-by rang 999 after seeing the youth — wearing only black briefs — having sex with the steer at 4.30am.By the time officers arrived he had fled but night-time patrols are on the alert in case he strikes again.Farmer Richard Parish was stunned to hear what had...

WICHITA, Kan. - As stabbing victim LaShanda Calloway lay dying on the floor of a convenience store, five shoppers, including one who stopped to take a picture of her with a cell phone, stepped over the woman, police said. The June 23 situation, captured on the store's surveillance video, got scant news coverage until a columnist for The Wichita Eagle disclosed the existence of the video and its contents Tuesday. Police have refused to release the video, saying it is part of their investigation. "It was tragic to watch," police spokesman Gordon Bassham said Tuesday. "The fact that people were...

RICHMOND, Va. - Deadly methane gas emanating from a dairy farm's manure pit killed five people, including four members of a Mennonite family, authorities said. Emergency workers speculate each of the victims climbed into the pit in a frantic attempt to rescue the others. "It was a domino effect with one person going in, the second person going after them," Sheriff Don Farley said. Farley identified the victims as Scott Showalter, 33; his wife, Phyillis, 34; their children, Shayla, 11, and Christina, 9; and Amous Stoltzfus, 24, who worked at the Showalter's dairy farm in the Briery Branch community. The...

British authorities have revealed their involvement in the rescue this year of 15 teenage boys working in Stockholm as "slave labourers". A Foreign Office spokesman told the Sunday Telegraph that the boys were threatened with beatings if they made any attempt to leave the prison-like conditions in which they were kept. They are desperately underpaid and often resort to stealing from supermarkets to make ends meet. "Lots of the boys come from a weak social situation. Some were born and raised in children's homes, with no education, no parents. Some were picked up in pubs or on the street," Robert...