Modesto, CA, United States (AHN) – Two women in Modesto, California, were arrested for using a fake baby funeral to scam people out of money.

Police say Chastity Doll and Tiffany Lyon bilked good Samaritans out of nearly $700 for a funeral for baby Justin Michael Farrell. The women claimed the infant died of a heart condition while they were on vacation in the city.

“They have tugged on the heartstrings of people and taken advantage of them and that’s really what is difficult to understand,” Sgt. Craig Gundlach of the Modesto Police Department said in a Fox 40 report.

The women were detained Saturday on charges of taking money under false pretenses and conspiring to defraud the public.

A police officer spotted the two women at a busy intersection with a sign depicting a baby boy and asking passing motorists for funeral donations.

Police who were initially called because of complaints about the women causing a traffic hazard questioned the women, who were unable to provide details of their “son’s” death. Investigators contacted the coroner who had no history of the boy.

Police discovered that the duo had downloaded the picture of the dead baby off the Internet.

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Columbus, OH, United States (AHN) – An Ohio university student has admitted giving the FBI a bogus warning about bombs on his campus to avoid an examination.

Jonathan Birkemeyer, 24, pleaded guilty on Monday to reporting a false bomb threat. He faces 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. A sentencing date has yet to be set.

Birkemeyer told authorities last Nov. 16 that he had discovered a map of nine bombs in four buildings in Ohio State University. The document purportedly showed chemical explosives in door jambs that, once opened, would trigger the bombs.

The four buildings, which housed three laboratories and a library, were evacuated but no explosives were found.

Birkemeyer was a sophomore in criminology who dropped out of the university at the end of the winter term. According to authorities, he was having difficulties adjusting to civilian life after his discharge from the Navy.

A search of the apartment he shared with roommates near the campus later revealed that Birkemeyer sent the e-mail so he could avoid taking a test on the day he reported the bombs were to explode. He failed the examination that was rescheduled for two days later.

Birkemeyer used an iPod to send the email to the FBI tip line. The iPod was assigned an IP address shared with a secured wireless router that could be accessed only by him and this three roommates.

The IP address also led to a laptop with which Birkemeyer visited the FBI tip line page and downloaded a map of one of the four buildings.

Birkemeyer was found to have stolen both the iPod and the laptop he used for the bogus report. He is facing a separate theft charge.

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Los Angeles, CA, United States (AHN) – The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest, has instituted a ban of chocolate and strawberry milk.

The school board on Tuesday voted to remove the flavored milks as of July 1.

The decision by the district, which affects about nearly 688,000 students, is seen by many as controversial. However the district is just one of a growing number of school districts nationwide banning the longtime cafeteria beverage.

Washington, D.C., Boulder Valley, CO, and Berkeley, CA, are some of the other school districts that only serve plain milk at its schools because of the added sugar in flavored versions.

A LAUSD spokesperson stated: “Jamie Oliver provided the opportunity to focus on an area that could contribute to ongoing district initiatives, which included the recommendation for the removal of flavored milk with added sugars. Our goal, in tandem with Jamie Oliver, is to continue to serve healthy and nutritious meals.”

Oliver, on his ABC show “Food Revolution,” filled a school bus with sand and equated it to the quantity of added sugar LA students consume every year in flavored milk alone, one serving of which apparently has the same amount of sugar as a candy bar (between 20 and 27 grams).

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in three American children are overweight or obese. Since 1980, obesity in people between the ages of 2 to 19 has tripled.

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London, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – Almost all state run schools in England and Wales would like close on June 30 following the decision by majority of members of the National Union of Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers to strike.

The ballot results released on Tuesday said 92 percent of NUT members and 83 percent of ATL members favored a job walk-off.

The two unions are the largest teachers’ unions in the country. The tutors’ industrial action is expected to affect up to 23,000 state schools and other fee-paying schools with NUT and ATL members.

The teachers, however, are not the only ones participating in a massive nationwide strike over changes in Britain’s pension system. Other public sector unions are slated to hold strike votes to support the protest.

Although the June 30 strikes would be the first time that tutors would have struck nationally, teachers had walked off their jobs locally to protest plans by Education Secretary Michael Gove to convert schools into academies.

The unions are against the conversion because the move would disrupt collective bargaining over pay and conditions because it would grant schools more autonomy.

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Nairobi, Kenya (IRIN) – Discriminatory laws and a largely homophobic society mean that men who have sex with men (MSM) in Kenya generally find it difficult to access HIV-related information and health services, but rural MSM have an especially hard time.

When Kibet Kipsowen*, 30, a cattle keeper in Kenya’s Rift Valley Province, and his partner have sex, they use the oil-based jelly he applies when milking his cows; he’s never heard of a water-based lubricant, let alone used one. “Milking jelly is the only lubricant I have known for the last four years,” he told IRIN/PlusNews at his home in the village of Lanjuera.

Health practitioners discourage the use of oil-based lubricants for anal sex, as the oil degrades condoms, increasing the likelihood that they will break. Studies have found that most African MSM use oil-based lubricants, heightening their risk of contracting HIV.

According to a 2008 Modes of Transmission study conducted by UNAIDS and the government, MSM and prisoners account for 15.2 percent of new HIV infections in Kenya annually.

Kipsowen and his partner have been an item for a few years now, but dare not let anyone in their village know they are a couple. “Even people who have ‘normal’ sex do not speak about it – I can never reveal my sexuality or else I would risk being an outcast, or even be killed,” he said.

The only other person in the village who knows about his sexuality is Soita Wellapondi, a local nurse and social worker, and that’s only because Kipsowen visited her when he developed a sexually transmitted infection.

“At that time I had a lot of wounds in my anus; I felt so much pain that I thought I would die, yet I could not even confide to my own mother, brother or sister, and I could not visit a health center,” he said.

He knew that by confiding in Wellapondi he risked his secret being revealed to the community, but he felt she was his only chance of accessing health care. “I bought him some antibiotics and pain killers; it was absolutely impossible to convince him to visit a health center, even one far away where he is not known,” said Wellapondi.

Local health workers have very little experience and no training in dealing with MSM. A clinical officer at the Mogotio health center near Lanjuera says he has only ever had one MSM client.

“He came here for treatment of injuries resulting from anal sex, and was advised to come for further treatment but he never came back,” said the clinical officer, who declined to be named.

“A rumor spread in the neighborhood about the man’s sexuality – that could be the reason he never returned,” he added. “Unfortunately, the rumor could have originated from hospital workers, most of whom were shocked by the ‘strange’ patient.”

The local District AIDS Officer, Dr Festus Kanyako, says there is a definite need for MSM in rural areas to know that they have the same rights to health care as other members of the community.

“Their issues are treated as extremely private and this deprives them of… the information, counseling and facilities that they need in their sexual lives. I have never had any of them come out in the open [but] if I had, I would arrange for access to protection and health care.” he told IRIN/PlusNews.

“It is saddening because at major meetings [on HIV] in towns, I see MSM speaking freely and socializing open about their sexuality,” Kanyako commented. “I wonder if this will ever happen in the remote district where I work.”

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– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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San Marcos, CA, United States (AHN) – A 14-year-old Girl Scout who was one of the group’s top sellers of their famous cookies died after collapsing at a middle school dance.

Sabrina Keller, 14, was celebrating the end of 8th grade with 250 classmates at Woodland Park School in San Marcos, CA, on Thursday when she collapsed after walking off the dance floor.

“She was dancing and then she sat down and then from a chair just collapsed, just kind of folded over onto the floor,” Principal David Cochrane told San Diego’s 10 News.

A parent chaperone who also works as a nurse tried to resuscitate the teen and performed CPR until San Marcos emergency crews arrived.

Medics airlifted her to Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego, Keller she was pronounced dead at 10:10 pm.

An autopsy performed Friday was inconclusive and medical examiners said further tests to determine a cause of death could take up to 90 days.

According to reports, the girl didn’t have any pre-existing medical conditions.

Keller, a popular 8th grader, was named San Marcos County’s top Girl Scout cookie seller after selling 3,463 boxes of cookies. It also marked a county record.

As a prize for selling the most cookies in the county, the Girl Scouts arranged a helicopter ride for Keller.

A vigil held for the teen on Friday drew a crowd of hundreds. Grief counselors were at her school Monday to comfort classmates. A memorial service is planned for Tuesday in San Marcos.

The middle school graduation Keller was looking forward to attending will be held on Thursday.

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Manila, Philippines (AHN) – The social welfare department has ended the educational assistance to 70 poor youths given scholarships by the previous administration forcing former president and now congresswoman Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to pay the tuition of one of the students on Wednesday.

Arroyo said the gesture was in keeping with her promise during her presidency to help Erwin Dolera and two other dumpsite scavengers to finish college.

Dolera, 19, is in his last and senior year at the Trinity University of Asia. He is taking up Communication Arts.

Dolera’s government-sponsored scholarship ended when Arroyo’s term ended in 2010. The Department of Social Welfare and Development offered to continue the assistance under the Study Now Pay Later program, but Dolera declined because he preferred the full scholarship.

Without the department’s assistance, Dolera sought Arroyo’s help, according to the ex-leader’s spokesman, Elena Bautista-Horn.

Horn branded the government’s refusal to continue the scholarship of Dolera and other Arroyo scholars as an act of vengeance by the Aquino administration, which is holding her accountable for alleged corruption during her term.

Dolera, Jason Vann Banogan and Jomar Pabalan are the so-called Paper Boat Boys for sending then president Arroyo a message written on paper boats in 2001. In their message, the boys, who were orphaned when their parents were killed in a landslide, asked Arroyo to help them finish their schooling.

The paper boats reportedly reached the presidential palace after the boys let it sail through the Pasig River.

 

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Mogadishu, Somalia (AHN) – Somalia’s fragile transitional government has disclosed it has finalized a job creation program for youths in a bid to protect them from falling into crimes such as extremism.

Aweys Sheik Haddad, director general for Somali labor, youth and sports ministry, announced the program Thursday afternoon during a ceremony marking World Tuberculosis Day.

Haddad said the program will teach job skills for young men to prevent them from being recruited as fighters by the rebel Islamist group Al-Shabaab.

He said the program will be in two phases, first to teach the youths job skills and then to find job opportunities for them.

“I am very hopeful that this tangible initiative will yield positive results of decreasing the number of Somali youths exploited as combatants by the terrorist Al-Shabaab group,” Haddad told the ceremony.

He denied as “baseless propaganda” reports that the Somali government also recruits children as soldiers. However all participants in Somalia’s armed conflicts, including the transitional federal government, the regional semi-autonomous states, moderate Islamists and the al Qaeda-linked militants are known to recruit child soldiers.

Former warlords also used to recruit children, mostly those from poorer families and orphans.

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