Couple kept girl, 12, as sex slave, police allege

An Oceanside couple is being held on suspicion of keeping an underage Mexican immigrant as a sex slave, forcing her into prostitution and beating her severely, San Diego County Sheriff's Department officials said.

Marcial Garcia Hernandez, 45, and Inez Martinez Garcia, 43, were arrested Thursday on suspicion of 13 felony counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child under age 14.

The girl had been smuggled into the U.S. at age 12, and the abuse by Hernandez and Garcia occurred over a 21-month period, the Sheriff's Department said.

Hernandez and Garcia forced the girl to care for their three children and cook and clean for the family, as well as have sex with Hernandez, according to Deputy G. Crysler, an investigator with the North County Human Trafficking Task Force.

"When the girl victim refused to participate in the sex acts or did not complete her tasks in a timely or correct manner, she was beaten," Crysler said.

The couple forced the victim into lying about her age so she could work at a local restaurant, with Garcia and Hernandez keeping the money she earned, according to the arrest documents. She was also forced into having sex with older men, with Garcia and Hernandez keeping the money paid by "johns," the documents said.

Authorities were called after the victim was allegedly beaten by Garcia. Reunited with her family, she returned to Mexico. Recently, she returned to the U.S. and is assisting in the criminal investigation, according to the Sheriff's Department.

ALSO:

Lindsay Lohan is 'victim' despite criminal charges, lawyer says

Teacher pleads guilty to having sex with 17-year-old ex-student

Inmate charged in 1991 slaying, rape of 16-year-old Compton girl

-- Tony Perry in San Diego

Read More..

Lindsay Lohan Will Be Charged with Lying to Police

By Howard Breuer

11/29/2012 at 01:35 PM EST

There's more legal trouble in store for Lindsay Lohan.

The same day that the actress was arrested in New York for allegedly punching a woman in a club, she will have charges filed against her in California for lying to police in a separate incident.

Nearly six months after Lohan crashed her Porsche into the back of a dump truck in Santa Monica on the way to the set of the Elizabeth Taylor biopic Liz & Dick, she will be charged with lying to police.

According to media reports, Lohan claimed her assistant had been driving; however, the assistant told police that Lohan was driving.

"She is being charged," says Santa Monica Police Sgt. Richard Lewis, who adds that lying to police is only one of the charges. "The charges were drawn up yesterday and they will be filed today," Lewis tells PEOPLE.

When Lohan appeared before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner back in March to end her formal probation relating to two DUI arrests and a necklace theft case, she was warned that if she violates any laws before her informal probation expires in May 2014, she could get 245 days in jail.

Read More..

Clinton releases road map for AIDS-free generation

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an ambitious road map for slashing the global spread of AIDS, the Obama administration says treating people sooner and more rapid expansion of other proven tools could help even the hardest-hit countries begin turning the tide of the epidemic over the next three to five years.

"An AIDS-free generation is not just a rallying cry — it is a goal that is within our reach," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who ordered the blueprint, said in the report.

"Make no mistake about it, HIV may well be with us into the future but the disease that it causes need not be," she said at the State Department Thursday.

President Barack Obama echoed that promise.

"We stand at a tipping point in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and working together, we can realize our historic opportunity to bring that fight to an end," Obama said in a proclamation to mark World AIDS Day on Saturday.

Some 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV, and despite a decline in new infections over the last decade, 2.5 million people were infected last year.

Given those staggering figures, what does an AIDS-free generation mean? That virtually no babies are born infected, young people have a much lower risk than today of becoming infected, and that people who already have HIV would receive life-saving treatment.

That last step is key: Treating people early in their infection, before they get sick, not only helps them survive but also dramatically cuts the chances that they'll infect others. Yet only about 8 million HIV patients in developing countries are getting treatment. The United Nations aims to have 15 million treated by 2015.

Other important steps include: Treating more pregnant women, and keeping them on treatment after their babies are born; increasing male circumcision to lower men's risk of heterosexual infection; increasing access to both male and female condoms; and more HIV testing.

The world spent $16.8 billion fighting AIDS in poor countries last year. The U.S. government is the leading donor, spending about $5.6 billion.

Thursday's report from PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, outlines how progress could continue at current spending levels — something far from certain as Congress and Obama struggle to avert looming budget cuts at year's end — or how faster progress is possible with stepped-up commitments from hard-hit countries themselves.

Clinton warned Thursday that the U.S. must continue doing its share: "In the fight against HIV/AIDS, failure to live up to our commitments isn't just disappointing, it's deadly."

The report highlighted Zambia, which already is seeing some declines in new cases of HIV. It will have to treat only about 145,000 more patients over the next four years to meet its share of the U.N. goal, a move that could prevent more than 126,000 new infections in that same time period. But if Zambia could go further and treat nearly 198,000 more people, the benefit would be even greater — 179,000 new infections prevented, the report estimates.

In contrast, if Zambia had to stick with 2011 levels of HIV prevention, new infections could level off or even rise again over the next four years, the report found.

Advocacy groups said the blueprint offers a much-needed set of practical steps to achieve an AIDS-free generation — and makes clear that maintaining momentum is crucial despite economic difficulties here and abroad.

"The blueprint lays out the stark choices we have: To stick with the baseline and see an epidemic flatline or grow, or ramp up" to continue progress, said Chris Collins of amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.

His group has estimated that more than 276,000 people would miss out on HIV treatment if U.S. dollars for the global AIDS fight are part of across-the-board spending cuts set to begin in January.

Thursday's report also urges targeting the populations at highest risk, including gay men, injecting drug users and sex workers, especially in countries where stigma and discrimination has denied them access to HIV prevention services.

"We have to go where the virus is," Clinton said.

Read More..

Husband accused of cooking wife kept her head in freezer, police say

A  68-year-old Oceanside man
accused of killing his 73-year-old wife, then cooking her body parts on
their kitchen stove, will be in court next week to answer the charges.

Frederick Joseph Hengl pleaded not guilty last week as bizarre details emerged about him and his late wife.

Neighbors said they saw Hengl outside wearing a purple dress, pink makeup
and various articles of jewelry, including a pearl necklace. The
neighbors told Fox 5 News that his wife was once seen roaming outside with a knife making religious comments such as “God will smite you.”

A preliminary hearing is slated for Dec. 5 in which more details might become available. 

Deputy Dist. Atty. Katherine Flaherty told Vista Superior Court Judge
J. Marshall Hockett that police found pieces of meat cooking on the
stove at the family home and a severed head in the freezer.

Hockett ordered Hengl kept in jail on $5 million bail.

Police are unclear when Hengl's wife, Anna Faris, was killed. They
went to the couple's home after neighbors reported a strange smell and
hearing the sound of a power saw.

Several
people who live in the neighborhood said Anna-Maria Hengl had been
behaving bizarrely since last spring, exposing herself, wandering around
carrying a butcher knife and making religious pronouncements, telling
people such things as, “God will smite you.”

Her husband, meanwhile, had been going out dressed in women’s clothing, makeup and jewelry, area residents told news crews.

One neighbor said the one-time Home Depot employee, who had sold her a
ceiling fan, would sometimes wear blouses and makeup, including “hot
pink” lipstick. Another said he saw Frederick Hengl last summer clad in a
floor- length purple dress, pearl necklace and pearl earrings, carrying
an ornate purse.

Read more: http://fox5sandiego.com/2012/11/19/dismembered-womans-husband-to-face-judge/#ixzz2DLS2FbXM

Several people who live in the neighborhood said Anna-Maria Hengl had
been behaving bizarrely since last spring, exposing herself, wandering
around carrying a butcher knife and making religious pronouncements,
telling people such things as, “God will smite you.”

Her husband, meanwhile, had been going out dressed in women’s clothing, makeup and jewelry, area residents told news crews.

One neighbor said the one-time Home Depot employee, who had sold her a
ceiling fan, would sometimes wear blouses and makeup, including “hot
pink” lipstick. Another said he saw Frederick Hengl last summer clad in a
floor- length purple dress, pearl necklace and pearl earrings, carrying
an ornate purse.

Read more: http://fox5sandiego.com/2012/11/19/dismembered-womans-husband-to-face-judge/#ixzz2DLRAPQk6

"There is no evidence of cannibalism at this time," Flaherty told reporters.

ALSO:

LAX union protesters arrested; delays anger travelers

Mitt Romney loses election, but still goes to Disneyland

Black family flees O.C. city after tires slashed, racial taunts

 -- Tony Perry in San Diego and Shelby Grad

Read More..

Bombings Are Said to Kill Dozens Near Syria’s Capital

Francisco Leong/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Rebels celebrated on top of a downed Syrian jet in Daret Azzeh, 20 miles west of Aleppo, on Wednesday.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Syrian state media said on Wednesday that 34 people and possibly many more had died in twin car bombings in a suburb populated by minorities only a few miles from the center of Damascus, the capital, as the civil war swirls from north to south claiming ever higher casualties. One estimate by the government’s opponents put the death toll at 47.

There were also reports from witnesses in Turkey and antigovernment activists in Syria that for the second successive day insurgents had shot down a government aircraft in the north of the country, offering further evidence that the rebels are seeking a major shift by challenging the government’s dominance of the skies. It was not immediately clear how the aircraft, apparently a plane, had been brought down.

Video posted on the Internet by rebels showed wreckage with fires still burning around it. The aircraft appeared to show a tail assembly clearly visible jutting out of the debris. Such videos are difficult to verify, particularly in light of the restrictions facing reporters in Syria. However, the episode on Wednesday seemed to be confirmed by other witnesses.

“We watched a Syrian plane being shot down as it was flying low to drop bombs,” said Ugur Cuneydioglu, who said he observed the incident from a Turkish border village in southern Hatay Province. “It slowly went down in flames before it hit the ground. It was quite a scene,” Mr. Cuneydioglu said.

Video posted by insurgents on the Internet showed a man in aviator coveralls being carried away. It was not clear if the man was alive but the video said he had been treated in a makeshift hospital. A voice off-camera says, “This is the pilot who was shelling residents’ houses.”

The aircraft was said to have been brought down while it was attacking the town of Daret Azzeh, 20 miles west of Aleppo and close to the Turkish border. The town was the scene of a mass killing last June, when the government and the rebels blamed each other for the deaths and mutilation of 25 people. The video posted online said the plane had been brought down by “the free men of Daret Azzeh soldiers of God brigade.”

On Tuesday, Syrian rebels said they shot down a military helicopter with a surface-to-air missile outside Aleppo and they uploaded video that appeared to confirm that rebels have put their growing stock of heat-seeking missiles to effective use.

In recent months, rebels have used mainly machine guns to shoot down several Syrian Air Force helicopters and fixed-wing attack jets. In Tuesday’s case, the thick smoke trailing the projectile, combined with the elevation of the aircraft, strongly suggested that the helicopter was hit by a missile.

Rebels hailed the event as the culmination of their long pursuit of effective antiaircraft weapons, though it was not clear if the downing on Tuesday was an isolated tactical success or heralded a new phase in the war that would present a meaningful challenge to the Syrian government’s air supremacy. In Damascus, the official SANA news agency said the explosions in Jaramana outside the city at around 7 a.m. were the work of “terrorists,” the word used by the authorities to denote rebel forces seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad. Photographs on the SANA Web site showed wreckage and flames in what looked like a narrow alleyway with cars covered in chunks of debris from damaged buildings. The agency said the bombings were in the main square of Jaramana, which news reports said is largely populated by members of the Christian and Druse minorities. Residents said the neighborhood was home to many families who have fled other parts of Syria because of the conflict and to some Palestinian families. The blasts caused “huge material damage to the residential buildings and shops,” SANA said.

The photographs on the Web site showed shattered windows at the Abou Samra coffee house and gurneys laden with injured people clogging what seemed to be a hospital corridor.

SANA said two bombings in other neighborhoods caused minor damage. Activists reported that there were four explosions and said they were all “huge.”

Footage broadcast on Syria’s private Addounia channel and state television showed damage scarring gray six-story apartment houses above tangles of wrecked cars as ambulances arrived to transport the wounded and rescuers spraying rubble with fire hoses. The camera panned over bloodstained sidewalks.

The blasts seemed initially at least to shift the focus of the fighting from the north, where insurgents have claimed string of tactical breakthroughs in recent days, to areas ringing Damascus.

In the north in recent days, the insurgents also claimed to have seized air bases and a hydroelectric dam, apparently seeking both to expand their communications lines and to counter the government’s supremacy in the air.

The death toll from Wednesday’s bombings was not immediately confirmed. An activist group, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, initially said that 29 people had died but revised the figure later to 47, of whom 38 had been identified. Of the 120 injured, the rebel group said, 23 people were in serious condition, meaning that the tally could climb higher.

The explosions reflected the dramatic shift since Syria’s uprising began in March 2011 as a peaceful protest centered on the southern town of Dara’a. It has since spread across the land in a full-blown civil war pitting government forces against a rebel army of Army defectors, disaffected civilians and what the authorities say are foreign jihadists.

Hala Droubi reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Alan Cowell from Paris. Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting from Istanbul, and Hania Mourtada from Beirut, Lebanon.

Read More..

Melissa Rycroft & Tony Dovolani Thank Fans for Dancing with the Stars Win

We have a winner!

Melissa Rycroft and Tony Dovolani won the mirror-ball trophy on Dancing with the Stars Monday night in the culmination of a challenging all-stars season.

"It's unbelievable," Rycroft told PEOPLE after the show. "I don't know why we kept underestimating ourselves. I don't know why we kept thinking, 'It's not us, it's not us.' And it was us."

Dovolani, who's never won in 14 previous seasons on the show, was elated on a night when his reasons for celebrating extended far beyond the DWTS ballroom.

"What an incredible moment. ... Fourteen seasons were worth every bit of waiting for this wonderful woman to show up in my life again and give me this incredible journey on a night that my wife and I got married 13 years ago. Tonight is our anniversary," said Dovolani, who is Albanian. "Melissa has affected not just me but an entire nation of Albanians that are celebrating the 100th year of independence."

Rycroft, who placed third with Dovolani in season 8, attributed their success this time around to the viewers.

"We appreciate this moment so much. We had felt the fans' support this entire season and they got this trophy for us," she said. "We went up against powerhouses and this is from the fans."

And her partner also thanked voters for pushing them ahead of fellow finalists, Shawn Johnson and Derek Hough and Kelly Monaco and Val Chmerkovskiy.

"This is to all you guys, the fans," Dovolani said. "Thank you so much for giving us this incredible ride."

Hough and Johnson, who've both won seasons before but not together, were cordial and supportive runners-up.

"I know how much this means to Tony and Melissa to win this tonight," Hough told PEOPLE. "The fact that they did is just amazing. I'm so proud of them, and it's awesome. Tony's had some tough seasons, for sure. If anybody deserves some redemption and a lift, it's him. And I'm really proud of him."

Read More..

Simple measures cut infections caught in hospitals

CHICAGO (AP) — Preventing infections from surgery is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out some simple measures can make a big difference.

A project at seven big hospitals reduced infections after colorectal surgeries by nearly one-third. It prevented an estimated 135 infections, saving almost $4 million.

The measures included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.

Practices were standardized at the seven hospitals.

The Joint Commission hospital regulating group and the American College of Surgeons directed the project. They announced results on Wednesday.

___

Online:

Joint Commission: http://www.jointcommission.org

Read More..

Baby girl hospitalized after nearly drowning in toilet

A 6-month-old baby was recovering at Children's Hospital Los Angeles on Tuesday after she fell in a toilet and nearly drowned at her Sun Valley home, police said.

The baby's mother called police shortly before 10 a.m. and said her daughter had fallen in the toilet, LAPD Officer Luis Garcia said. The woman said her 2-year-old daughter was playing with the infant in the bathroom and locked the door, and the mother had to kick the door down to get inside.

When officers arrived at the home in the 8200 block of Laurel Canyon Boulevard, the baby wasn't breathing, Garcia said. They performed CPR and managed to resuscitate the girl before she was airlifted to an area hospital.

Garcia said Tuesday afternoon the girl was in stable condition and was expected to be released from the hospital later in the day.

ALSO:

Indictments link Mexican Mafia and street gangs

L.A. marks 100th 'safe surrender' newborn left at hospital

Substance-abuse counselor accused in fatal DUI charged with murder

— Kate Mather

Follow Kate Mather on Twitter or Google+.

Read More..

Protesters Gather Again in Cairo Streets to Denounce Morsi

CAIRO — Thousands of people flowed into the streets of Cairo, the Egyptian capital, Tuesday afternoon for a day of protest against President Mohamed Morsi’s attempt to assert broad new powers for the duration of the country’s political transition, dismissing his efforts just the night before to reaffirm his deference to Egyptian law and courts.

By early Tuesday afternoon in Cairo, a dense crowd of hundreds had gathered outside the headquarters of a trade group for lawyers, and thousands more had filed in around a small tent city in Tahrir Square. In an echo of the chants against Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian’s ousted president, almost two years ago, they shouted, “Leave, leave!” and “Bring down the regime!” They also denounced the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group allied with Mr. Morsi.

A few blocks away, in a square near the American Embassy and the Interior Ministry headquarters, groups of young men resumed a running battle that began nine days ago, throwing rocks and tear gas canisters at riot police officers. Although those clashes grew out of anger over the deaths of dozens of protesters in similar clashes one year ago, many of the combatants have happily adopted the banner of protest against Mr. Morsi as well.

Egyptian television had captured the growing polarization of the country on Monday in split-screen coverage of two simultaneous funerals, each for a teenage boy killed in clashes set off by disputes over the new president’s powers. Thousands of supporters of Mr. Morsi and his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood marched through the streets of the Nile Delta city of Damanhour to bury a 15-year-old killed outside a Brotherhood office during an attack by protesters. And in Tahrir Square here in Cairo, thousands gathered to bury a 16-year-old killed in clashes with riot police officers and to chant slogans blaming Mr. Morsi for his death. “Morsi killed him,” the boy’s father said in a video statement circulated over the Internet.

“Now blood has been spilled by political factions, so this is not going to go away,” said Rabab el-Mahdi, a professor at the American University in Cairo and a left-leaning activist, adding that these were the first deaths rival factions had blamed on each other and not on the security forces of the Mubarak government since the uprising began last year. Still larger crowds were expected in the evening, as marchers from around the city headed for the square. Many schools and other businesses had closed in anticipation of bedlam, and on Monday, the Brotherhood called off a rival demonstration in support of the president, saying it wanted to avoid violence.

Egypt’s Supreme Judicial Council met again on Tuesday to consider its response to the president, and the leader of Al Azhar, a center of Sunni Muslim learning that is regarded as the pre-eminent moral authority here, met with groups of political leaders in an effort to resolve the battle over the president’s decree and the deadlock in the constitutional assembly, which is trying to draw up a new constitution.

But even as Mr. Morsi met with top judges Monday night in an effort to resolve the crisis, a coalition of opposition leaders held a news conference to declare that preserving the role of the courts was only the first step in a broader campaign against what Abdel Haleem Qandeil, a liberal intellectual, called “the miserable failure of the rule of the Muslim Brothers.” Mr. Morsi “unilaterally broke the contract with the people,” he declared. “We have to be ready to stand up to this group, protest to protest, square to square, and to confront the bullying.”

Mr. Morsi’s effort to remove the last check on his power over the political transition had brought the country’s fractious opposition groups together for the first time in a united front against the Brotherhood. But the show of unity papered over deep divisions between groups and even within them, said Ms. Mahdi of the American University.

“This is not a united front, and I am inside it,” she said. “Every single political group in the country is now divided over this — is this decree revolutionary justice or building a new dictatorship? Should we align ourselves with folool” — the colloquial term for the remnants of the old political elite — “or should we be revolutionary purists? Is it a conflict between the Muslim Brotherhood and the pro-Mubarak judiciary, or is this the beginning of a fascist regime in the making?”

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting.

Read More..

Do You Like Emily Blunt as a Blonde?

Stylewatch
Style News Now

11/27/2012 at 01:00 PM ET

Gregory Pace/BEImages; Inset: Rex USA

She wasn’t trying to go incognito, but Emily Blunt was barely recognizable with her new hair color on Monday night.

“That’s not Emily Blunt,” one reader commented after we posted a photo to Instagram of Blunt at the Gotham Independent Film Awards in New York. “Yep, that’s not Emily Blunt,” someone else agreed.

But yes, it was Emily Blunt — and yes, she’d gone blonde! The British star debuted a strawberry-blonde hue at Monday night’s gala, hiding the hair color in a pretty, twisty updo, but leaving some light-colored strands out for us to see.

The actress — a natural brunette — often experiments with her hair color, having gone lighter for roles in the past and most recently rocking an ombré look.

Since she’s currently filming the sci-fi action flick All You Need Is Kill with Tom Cruise, we assume she dyed her hair for the role. But whether for work or for play, we’re really liking the lighter look. What do you think? Tell us: Do you like Blunt’s new blonde hair? 

PHOTOS: SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON EVEN MORE STAR HAIRSTYLES

Read More..