Local Authorities Say South Jersey Man Lured Children To His Home By Promising Them Modeling Jobs

Authorities Say South Jersey Man Lured Children To His Home By Promising Them Modeling Jobs

 

CHERRY HILL, NJ (CBS) – The FBI arrested two Cherry Hill seniors for allegedly luring underage girls to take illicit sexual pictures in their upscale homes.

Sixty-eight-year-old Burton Gersh and 73-year-old Les Sidweber are each charged with two counts of producing child pornography.

“They had a guy who approached one of the young women while she was walking to school in her school uniform and encouraged her to come to one of the defendant’s home where she would be photographed for modeling,” says First Assistant United State Attorney Louis Lappen from the Philadelphia office.

A criminal complaint filed in U-S District Court describes how beginning in Fall 2010 Gersh and Sidweber paid for two Pennsylvania girls ages 16 and 17 to come to their homes, strip naked and perform sexual acts on each other as well as Gersh.

“Once these men earned the trust of these victims they exploited them on multiple occasions,” says Lappen.
Investigators say several of the illicit pictures show identifiable characteristics of Gersh’s home including one taken in his driveway with his home address on Hidden Lane and another with a backyard gazebo that has a sign “Welcome to Gershs” with the picture of a lighthouse.
 

For full story go to: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Woman in Philadelphia Abduction Found Alive, Her Kidnapper Arrested, FBI Says

Woman in Philadelphia Abduction Found Alive, Her Kidnapper Arrested, FBI Says

Woman in Philadelphia Abduction Found Alive, Her Kidnapper Arrested.

 

 The woman who was kidnapped on Sunday off a desolate Philadelphia street -- a harrowing crime that was caught on surveillance camera -- was found alive today in Maryland, while her abductor was arrested, authorities said. 

 

Carlesha Freeland-Gaither, 22, was found by FBI agents inside a parked car in Jessup, Maryland.

Her alleged abductor, Delvin Barnes, 37, was arrested at the scene, according to the FBI.

 

Ed Hanko, the special agent in charge of the Philadelphia FBI field office, said that because of tips called in from the public, investigators were "able to identify this individual, identify his car and track it into Maryland."

FBI agents were joined by U.S. Marshals and Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agents who located the car and approached when Barnes stepped out of the vehicle.

Freeland-Gaither was found inside the car and is now being treated at a local hospital, police said.

Hanko said that she is "in good shape," but police still have not had a chance to interview her.

Freeland-Gaither's mother, whose name was not released, attended tonight's news conference and said that she has been able to speak to her daughter by phone from the hospital, but will be reunited later this evening.

"She was very upset. She was crying," she said of her daughter.

"Thank you for keeping me up. Thank you for being there for us. I'm taking my baby home," she added.

Barnes is being held as a result of an outstanding attempted capital murder warrant that was issued for him in Virginia, though he is expected to face federal charges once the ongoing investigation into Freeland-Gaither's case is complete.

Investigators said that they have no reason to believe Barnes knew his victim before the abduction.

"He's a thug and this is what he does apparently," Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey told reporters. "People like this, there's nothing that makes sense."

In the surveillance video released Monday, Freeland-Gaither can be seen fighting to get away from her attacker during Sunday's abduction.

Freeland-Gaither was pulled down the street in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia toward the man’s car, which police believed to be a 2000 or 2002 gray Ford Taurus. At one point, she even fell to the ground to try and get away before she was pushed into the car.

 

 

Mexican mayor, wife detained in case of 43 missing

Mexican mayor, wife detained in case of 43 missing 

FILE - In this May 8, 2014 file photo, the mayor of the city of Iguala, Jose Luis Abarca, right, and his wife Maria de los Angeles Pineda Villa meet with state government officials in Chilpancingo, Mexico. Federal police early Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2014 detained the couple, who are accused of ordering the Sept. 26 attacks on teachers' college students that left six dead and 43 still missing. The Iguala police chief is still a fugitive.

 

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexico's most-wanted couple, accused of running their town as a drug fiefdom and ordering an attack that killed six and left 43 college students missing, were caught Tuesday in a rough-and-tumble neighborhood of Mexico City where they were hiding. Federal police seized Jose Luis Abarca and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, in a raid before dawn in Iztapalapa, a working-class neighborhood of the capital. It was a far fall from their reign of wealth and power as the mayor and first lady of Iguala, a town in southern Guerrero state where the students from a teachers' college went missing Sept. 26, allegedly at the hands of police and a drug cartel. Even as they were hauled off to the Attorney General's organized crime unit to give their statements, the capture did nothing to answer the biggest mystery: Where are the students? Their disappearance, and the failure to make progress in the case, has ignited protests across the country and broadsided President Enrique Pena Nieto's efforts to paint violence in Mexico as a thing of the past. "News like this just makes you angrier," said Mario Cesar Gonzalez, whose son, Cesar Manuel Gonzalez, is among the missing students. "I wish they would put the same intelligence services and effort into finding the students. The ineptitude is staggering." Authorities have uncovered mass graves and the remains of 38 people, but none has been identified as the missing students. Besides Tuesday's arrests, at least 56 other people have been taken into custody, and the Iguala police chief is also being sought. Some hoped the couple's detention would provide new leads. "This was the missing piece. This arrest will help us find our kids," Felipe de la Cruz, the father of one of the missing students, told Milenio television. "It was the government who took our kids." No shots were fired in Tuesday's raid on three houses, including the one in which the couple was hiding, according to a federal official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. One of the houses was a run-down stucco structure with cracked and stained walls and men's jeans hanging out to dry. Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said 60 federal agents had staked out the three houses, and were tipped off to the couple's presence by a female associate, Noemi Berumen, who apparently accompanied the couple or aided them in their flight from justice. Berumen was also detained in the Tuesday raids. "The house they were found in looked as it were abandoned," Murillo Karam said. "The reason we started to suspect this person (Berumen) was that she appeared to be entering an abandoned house. " Before they fled last month, the couple ran Iguala like a fiefdom in cooperation with the local drug cartel, Guerreros Unidos. Abarca received up to $220,000 every few weeks as bribe money and to pay off his corrupt police force, according to Attorney General Jose Murillo Karam, who gave a detailed account last month of the couple's alleged collusion with organized crime. The mayor's wife was a major operator in the cartel, an offshoot of the Beltran Leyva gang, Murillo Karam said. Two of her brothers were on former President Felipe Calderon's most-wanted drug trafficker list until they were killed in 2009. A third brother, Salomon Pineda, was believed to run the territory in northern Guerrero state for the cartel. Guerreros Unidos has increasingly turned to the lucrative practice of growing opium poppies and sending opium paste to be refined for heroin destined for the U.S. market, according to a federal official. The students attended a radical rural teachers college with a history of carrying out protests. They had gained the enmity of Abarca because of a previous demonstration in the town, Murillo Karam said. Abarca believed they planned to disrupt a speech by his wife, who aspired to succeed him as mayor, and ordered police to detain the students after they hijacked four buses to provide transportation to a coming protest. Three students were shot dead in the confrontation and later three bystanders were killed in a separate attack. Police then picked up the other students and took them to the nearby town of Cocula, Murillo Karam said. At some point they were loaded aboard a dump truck and taken - apparently still alive - to an area on the outskirts of Iguala where some mass graves have been found, he said. In statements to the media soon after the disappearance, Abarca maintained that he spent the evening of Sept. 26 dining out, and that he ordered police to leave the students alone. Detained gang leader Sidronio Casarrubias told authorities one of his lieutenants told him the students were sympathizers of a rival gang, the attorney general said. The search for the students has taken authorities to the hills above Iguala and to a gully near a trash dump in the neighboring city of Cocula, but still no remains have been identified. Abarca and his wife amassed jewelry stores and other properties believed bought with illicit funds, including a shopping mall that was vandalized in one of the many protests against the failure to solve the students' disappearance. Authorities said they ruled with fear. Pineda was overheard telling one of Abarca's political rivals, "You don't know who you're messing with." Days later he turned up dead. Witnesses said Abarca himself did the killing.

Assad's Syria truncated, battered _ but defiant

Assad's Syria truncated, battered _ but defiant

In this Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014 photo, Mustafa Sobhi, 53, and his wife Faten Shaar, 52, sit under a portrait of their son Majed, who was killed while serving in the Syrian army, at a shelter in Tartous, Syria. The family was forced to flee the northern Syrian city of Aleppo to the coastal city of Tartous. Their story spotlights the pain and challenges as Syrians adjust to life in this truncated country, now in its fourth year of war, still firmly under the grip of President Bashar Assad, despite an armed rebellion to uproot him and losing territory to opposition rebels and the extremist Islamic State group.

TARTOUS, Syria (AP) -- Syrian businessmen start from scratch after their shops and factories were destroyed. Families who lost their homes struggle to rent new dwellings and make ends meet. Along highways stretching through government-controlled areas are the bombed ruins of once-rebellious towns, now dotted with checkpoints.

Government-controlled Syria is truncated in size, battered and impoverished. But it carries on, underscoring how Syrian President Bashar Assad's government has clung to power, despite an armed rebellion to uproot him, now well into its fourth year.

Visits the past week to the capital, Damascus, and the coastal region of Tartous, a stronghold of government support, show how Syrians have adjusted to life in this reduced country. Thick barriers surround government buildings, painted in the red, black and white of the Syrian flag. Assad's portrait is everywhere: as a soldier, a businessman and a father.

After years of brutal back and forth, the government rules over Damascus and a sweep of territory west to the Mediterranean coastal region that includes Syria's biggest cities, along with some parts south of the capital. Rebels hold some suburbs in the countryside around Damascus and parts of the northwest. The extremist Islamic State group has imposed its rule over territory encompassing a third of both Syria and neighboring Iraq.

The war constantly intrudes. The persistent thud of bombings of nearby rebel-held areas is the soundtrack of Damascus.

Checkpoints dot roads, often concrete shacks spruced up with posters of Assad cut into heart shapes. Soldiers rest on faded couches.

"Got any cigarettes, sir?" one soldier hopefully asks a driver.

Local pro-government militias also guard towns and neighborhoods, aiding Assad's stretched army.

Mustachioed men with assault rifles peer into cars at the entrance of the historic Bab Touma area of Damascus. The majority Christian district is a favorite target for mortars from the nearby rebel-held neighborhood of Jobar. Anti-Assad activists accuse some pro-government militias of being more brutal than soldiers, and say they demand bribes and steal cars.

Leaving Damascus, the highway is well-paved, including a strip of freshly asphalted road. Nearby stands part of the smashed remains of the town of Nabak, whose residents rebelled against Assad early in the uprising. The yellow Ferris wheel in Nabak's amusement park is faded.

Graffiti nearby reads "Assad for eternity." Another reads: "I love you Lulu."

It's unclear how many Syrians live in rebel- and government-controlled areas, given the demographic upheaval in a country where nearly half of the population has fled their homes. Areas once dominated by Assad-loyal minorities, like the Alawite-dominated coastal region of Tartous, have seen their communities change character as they host some 350,000 displaced people, mostly Sunni Muslims.

That ultimately will have a longer-term effect: It will be difficult for Assad's government to carve out an Alawite bastion, as some critics suggest he is doing - and which government officials deny.

It also highlights the fact that Sunnis, who form the country's majority faith group, form Assad's chief power base, even as the rebellion is dominated by Sunnis. Minorities, like the Alawites, Shiites and Christians, mostly support the government or have remained neutral.

The displaced include a Muslim preacher, Mustafa Sobhi and his wife, Faten Shaar, who fled to a town in Tartous province after rebels burned down their pharmaceutical factory. Sobhi says the rebels in his hometown in the northern city of Aleppo punished him because his son, Majed, was in the army. Majed was killed in March last year.

Sobhi's other son now sells sandwiches outside a local university. The upper-middle-class family's fortunes were destroyed in the war, but they were safe in Tartous, Sobhi says.

"We have to be one hand," he says, sitting beside his wife on a thin mattress on the floor, the apartment's only furniture. A large poster of their slain son in his army uniform and another praising Assad hangs on the wall.

The displaced include Sunni traders from Aleppo, once the country's industrial powerhouse. Some have re-opened businesses in Tartous on a smaller scale.

Mohammed Jallad, an oven maker, fled as fighting intensified in his Aleppo neighborhood. His home and business were destroyed in shelling.

With a loan, he reopened business in Tartous, sharing an industrial space with four other Aleppo men. He sleeps in a nook above his ovens to save money.

His shop's rent tripled over two years as demand by displaced people rose. From 15 workers in Aleppo, he now employs two.

Jallad says he doesn't want to flee abroad, fearing he would join the fate of some 3 million Syrian refugees who mostly live in miserable circumstances.

"I wanted to work, so where could I go? The situation abroad is humiliating," he says.

As Syrians struggle to get by, they have adjusted to reality.

Taghrid, an embroiderer in Damascus, says she sent her army-age son to Egypt to avoid conscription, something many families have done.

"May God protect him," she says outside Damascus' grand Umayyad Mosque. She only gave her first name out of fear of endangering her son.

Government services, while scrappy, still exist. Workers receive salaries, even if the local currency is falling. There is still power, though cuts are routine. Health care is still free, although residents say waits are long as doctors leave their posts.

"The Syrian government holds and clings to the unity and territorial integrity of Syria. And this for us is a sacred issue," Assad adviser Bouthaina Shaaban says.

Life continues on for Syria's wealthy. Cafes and restaurants in Tartous are half-filled, with apologetic owners saying young people being back at school has cut into their crowds. Businessmen have opened an entertainment center and mall in Damascus and a seven-story shopping center in Tartous.

At Damascus' Malki Mall, a sign advertises a selfie competition. At the mostly empty Tartous Mall, investor Ali Naddeh smokes a waterpipe and says shops soon will open.

"This is a time of opportunity," he says.

 

Special Report From Philadelphia Front Page News: $13.5M for Jehovah’s Witness sex victim

Special Report From Philadelphia Front Page News: $13.5M for Jehovah’s Witness sex victim

Lawyer Irwin Zalkin (left) and Jose Lopez speak to the media about a $13.5 million settlement against the governing body of the Jehovah's Witness church. Lopez was a boy when a church leader molested him. 

SAN DIEGO — A San Diego judge has found that the governing body of the Jehovah’s Witness church covered up years of sexual abuse by a local church leader and continued to put children in danger of being molested, a ruling likely to echo across the country as alleged victims from other congregations take similar cases to court.

The church’s hierarchal body, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, was ordered Wednesday to pay Jose Lopez $13.5 million in damages for the abuse he suffered in 1986 at the age of 7 as part of the church’s Linda Vista Spanish congregation.

Six other men and one woman who said they also were molested by the same man, church leader Gonzalo Campos, have also sued the Watchtower but settled their cases out of court.

Mario Moreno, associate general counsel for Watchtower, denied the cover-up allegations in a statement: “Jehovah’s Witnesses abhor child abuse and strive to protect children from such acts. The trial judge’s decision is a drastic action for any judge to take given the circumstances of this case. We will seek a full review of this case on appeal.”

Correction

An earlier version of this story said there were an estimated 7.9 million members nationwide. It's been changed to say worldwide.

The church, known for its door-to-door preaching, has some 14,000 congregations in the United States and an estimated 7.9 million members worldwide.

The theme of sexual abuse and cover-ups by the church has appeared in lawsuits from here to Britain. 

In 2012, a court in Alameda County handed down a $21 million judgment in the similar case of abuse against a 9-year-old girl. The amount was later reduced to $8 million. 

Twenty other lawsuits are pending in California, Ohio, New Mexico, Connecticut and Vermont, according to the San Diego-based Zalkin Law Firm. 

And on Thursday, six adults filed a lawsuit claiming molestation in North Texas by church elders in the 1990s.

The emerging allegations have been compared to the Catholic Church clergy sex abuse scandal, with at least one major exception: “We were embroiled with a long slog with the Catholic Church around the country … but they accepted on some level that they committed these errors, that this was a problem,” said Lopez’s lawyer Irwin Zalkin, whose firm negotiated more than $200 million in settlements in Catholic abuse cases. “At least they said ‘mea culpa.’”

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have not, he said.

“These guys will deny and deny, they are belligerent, they are arrogant, they treat victims as adversaries,” Zalkin said. “This is not an organization that is ready to accept the reality of what they have been doing.”

According to the church’s policy at the time, there must be two eyewitnesses or a confession by the abuser before the church can act on a claim. In most of the cases, members claim the church did not punish the abusers, allowed them to have contact with children and never warned the congregations.

Lopez, now 36, attended the Kingdom Hall in Linda Vista with his mother as a child. Because his father and stepfather were not part of the church, elders suggested a male leader, Campos, would be a good Bible teacher for the 7-year-old boy. 

By then, according to evidence revealed in the case, church elders knew Campos was a pedophile and had molested a boy as early as 1982, but they chose to do nothing about it. 

In its statement Friday, The Watchtower disputed that Campos held any responsibility within the congregation at the time.

Man wanted in Pennsylvania trooper ambush captured

Man wanted in Pennsylvania trooper ambush captured 

FILE - This undated file photo provided by the Pennsylvania State Police shows Eric Frein, who has eluded police, but is charged with killing one Pennsylvania State Trooper and seriously wounding another in a late night ambush. Authorities said Thursday, Oct. 30, 2014, that they have captured Frein.

 

BLOOMING GROVE, Pa. (AP) -- A survivalist accused of ambushing two state troopers, killing one and seriously wounding the other, was captured on Thursday by U.S. marshals in an abandoned airplane hangar, ending a seven-week manhunt that had rattled the nerves of area residents, authorities said.

The apparently quiet takedown of Eric Frein ended weeks of tension and turmoil in the area, as authorities at times closed schools, canceled outdoor events and blockaded roads to pursue him. Residents grew weary of hearing helicopters overhead, while small businesses suffered mounting losses and town supervisors canceled a popular Halloween parade.

State police confirmed Frein was taken into custody Thursday but released no other details. Media photographs show him sitting in the back of a cruiser with a bloodied nose, with longer hair than he had in images on the FBI's most wanted posters.

"Way to Go PSP!" a sign read across from the barracks in Blooming Grove, where the ambush occurred and where Frein was being held.

Two law enforcement officials said Frein was captured in the hangar. They weren't authorized to discuss the circumstances of Frein's arrest and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. A federal law enforcement official in Washington said Frein was armed when he was captured.

Frein is charged with opening fire outside the Blooming Grove barracks on Sept. 12, killing Cpl. Bryon Dickson and seriously wounding another trooper.

Police said they linked him to the ambush after a man walking his dog discovered his partly submerged SUV three days later in a swamp a few miles from the shooting scene. Inside, investigators found shell casings matching those found at the barracks as well as Frein's driver's license, camouflage face paint, two empty rifle cases and military gear.

Officials, saying Frein was armed and extremely dangerous, had urged residents to be alert and cautious. Using dogs, thermal imaging technology and other tools, law enforcement officials combed miles of forest as they hunted for Frein, whom they called an experienced survivalist at home in the woods.

They pursued countless tips and closed in on an area around Frein's parents' home in Canadensis after he used his cellphone to try contacting them and the signal was traced to a location about 3 miles away. At times police ordered nearby residents to stay inside or prevented them from returning home.

Trackers found items they believe Frein hid or abandoned in the woods - including soiled diapers, empty packs of Serbian cigarettes, an AK-47-style assault rifle and ammunition and two pipe bombs that were functional and capable of causing significant damage. They also discovered a journal, allegedly kept by Frein and found in a bag of trash at a hastily abandoned campsite, that offered a chilling account of the ambush and his subsequent escape into the woods. The journal's author described Dickson as falling "still and quiet" after being shot twice.

Police spotted a man they believed to be Frein at several points during the manhunt, but it was always from a distance, with the rugged terrain allowing him to keep them at bay. Police said he appeared to be treating the manhunt as a game.

Frein had expressed anti-law enforcement views online and to people who knew him. His criminal record appeared limited to a decade-old misdemeanor case involving items stolen from a World War II re-enactors event in upstate New York, for which he spent 109 days in jail.

Police found a U.S. Army manual called "Sniper Training and Employment" in his bedroom at his parents' house, and his father, a retired Army major, told authorities that his son is an excellent marksman who "doesn't miss," according to a police affidavit. Authorities believe Frein had been planning a confrontation with police for years, citing information they found on a computer used by him.

A man and a woman believed to be Frein's parents, reached separately by telephone on Thursday, declined to comment.

The manhunt for Frein in northeastern Pennsylvania had scrapped some plans for trick-or-treating. The chairman of Barrett Township's board of supervisors planned to meet with other town officials to try to salvage Halloween.

"No police were hurt. Nobody else was hurt. He didn't take any more lives. He didn't shoot anybody else, from what I understand," chairman Ralph Megliola said. "That's the best scenario."

Helen Blackmore, who lives in the heart of the search zone in Cresco, was ready for some normalcy.

"It was very crazy here. The helicopters were out all the time. Nobody was sleeping. Even today they were out," she said. "We're relieved. We're very relieved. We want things to get back to normal."

Frein belonged to a military re-enactors group, playing the part of a Serbian solder. He had a small role in a 2007 movie about a concentration camp survivor and helped with props and historical references on a documentary about World War I.

The FBI named him to its 10 most wanted list.

His 18-year-old sister, Tiffany Frein, earlier acknowledged that he "did something messed up" but told NBC News that he is "not a psycho."

Frein is charged with first-degree murder and various other offenses, including two counts of possession of weapons of mass destruction filed after police discovered the pipe bombs.

Dickson, at his funeral, was called a devoted husband and father and "impeccable" ex-Marine who took his work seriously but also enjoyed making wooden toys for his young sons and finding humor in everyday situations.

Trooper Alex Douglass was shot in the pelvis and critically injured in the ambush, which took place during a late-night shift change. Douglass remained hospitalized until Oct. 16, when he was discharged to a rehabilitation facility, state police said.

"If you attack troopers, and a civilized society, the Pennsylvania State Police will bring you to justice. Eric Frein is a coward," the Pennsylvania State Troopers Association said in a statement. "Cpl. Bryon K. Dickson II and Trooper Alex T. Douglass are true heroes."

 

Sheriff: School shooter invited victims to lunch

Sheriff: School shooter invited victims to lunch 

A sign bearing the Oct. 24, 2014 date of a shooting in the cafeteria of Marysville Pilchuck High School is shown Monday, Oct. 27, 2014 as part of a growing memorial on a fence around the school in Marysville, Wash.

MARYSVILLE, Wash. (AP) -- A popular student responsible for a shooting at a Washington state high school on Friday invited his victims to lunch by text message, then shot them at their table, investigators said Monday.

Snohomish County Sheriff Ty Trenary said at a news conference that the five students were at a lunch table when they were shot by 15-year-old Jaylen Fryberg. Fryberg then committed suicide.

Detectives are digging through reams of text messages, phone and social media records as part of an investigation that could take months, Trenary said.

"The question everybody wants is, `Why?'" Trenary said. "I don't know that the `why' is something we can provide."

Fryberg, a football player who was named a prince on the school's Homecoming court one week before the killings, was a member of a prominent Tulalip Indian Tribes family. He seemed happy although he was also upset about a girl, friends said. His Twitter feed was recently full of vague, anguished postings, like "It won't last ... It'll never last," and "I should have listened. ... You were right ... The whole time you were right."

On Friday, after texting five friends to invite them to lunch, he pulled out a handgun in the cafeteria and started shooting. The victims were Zoe R. Galasso, 14, who died at the scene; Gia Soriano, 14, who died at a hospital Sunday night; Shaylee Chuckulnaskit, 14, who remains in critical condition; and his two cousins, Nate Hatch, 14, and Andrew Fryberg, 15.

Hatch, who was shot in the jaw, is the only victim who has shown improvement. He was upgraded to satisfactory condition Monday in intensive care at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, while Andrew Fryberg remained in critical condition there.

Soriano's family said her organs would be donated.

"We are devastated by this senseless tragedy," her family said in a statement, read at a news conference by Providence Regional Medical Center's Dr. Joanne Roberts. "Gia is our beautiful daughter, and words cannot express how much we will miss her."

Trenary also confirmed that the .40-caliber handgun used in the shooting had been legally purchased by one of Fryberg's relatives. It remains unclear how Fryberg obtained the weapon.

The Snohomish County Medical Examiner on Monday ruled Fryberg's death a suicide. There had been some question over whether he might have shot himself accidentally as a teacher tried to intervene, but Trenary said Monday that investigators confirmed there was no physical contact between the teacher and the gunman.

At the memorial outside the school Monday, a group of mourners hugged each other tightly at 10:39 a.m. - the minute the shooting was reported Friday. Flowers and signs were zip-tied to a chain-link fence lined with red and white balloons reflecting the school's colors. Many referenced the victims and said they'd be missed.

South Africa goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa killed

South Africa goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa killed 

FILE- In this file photo dated Monday, May 26, 2014, South Africa's goalkeeper Senzo Robert Meyiwa makes a diving save against Australia during their friendly soccer match in Sydney. According to reports Sunday Oct. 26, 2014, soccer club Orlando Pirates says 27-year old South Africa goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa died during a shooting incident in South Africa.

 

JOHANNESBURG (AP) -- The captain of South Africa's national soccer team was fatally shot when armed men broke into the house where he was staying, police said.

Goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa was killed around 8 p.m. Sunday after two gunmen entered a house in Vosloorus township near Johannesburg while an accomplice waited outside, the national police force said on its Twitter account. The three assailants then fled on foot, according to the police service, which offered a reward of nearly $14,000 for information leading to arrests in the case.

Police said there were seven people in the house during the attack, and that the shooting followed an "altercation."

Authorities said they would do everything possible to find the killers.

South African soccer club Orlando Pirates confirmed Meyiwa's death, saying in a statement that it "has learned with sadness about the untimely death of our number one goalkeeper and current captain Senzo Meyiwa."

"This is a sad loss whichever way you look at it - to Senzo's family, his extended family, Orlando Pirates and to the nation," Pirates chairman Irvin Khoza said.

Dean Furman, one of Meyiwa's teammates, tweeted: "Beyond devastated at the loss of our captain & friend Senzo Meyiwa. Thoughts & prayers are with his family & friends at this terrible time."

Meyiwa was South Africa's captain in its four qualifiers for the African Cup of Nations this year, including its last game, a 0-0 draw with Republic of Congo on Oct. 15.

It's the second death to hit South African sports in three days, as former 800-meter world champion Mbulaeni Mulaudzi was killed in a car crash on Friday. At the time, President Jacob Zuma said "the nation has lost a true hero."

Early Monday local time, the youth league of South Africa's ruling party sent condolences to the families of Meyiwa and Mulaudzi, saying "their premature passing is indeed a great loss to the country and sporting nation."

Nigeria declared Ebola-free; `spectacular success'

Nigeria declared Ebola-free; `spectacular success' 

Health workers carry the body of a woman suspected of contracting the Ebola virus in Bomi county situated on the outskirts of Monrovia, Liberia, Monday, Oct. 20, 2014. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said Ebola has killed more than 2,000 people in her country and has brought it to "a standstill," noting that Liberia and two other badly hit countries were already weakened by years of war.

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) -- Water laced with salt and sugar, and gallons of the nasty-tasting stuff.

Doctors who survived Ebola in Nigeria credited heavy doses of fluids with saving their lives as the World Health Organization declared the country Ebola-free Monday, a rare victory in the battle against the disease that is ravaging West Africa.

In the end, Nigeria - the most populous country in Africa, with 160 million people - had just 20 cases, including eight deaths, a lower death rate than the 70 percent seen elsewhere across the stricken region.

Officials are crediting strong tracking and isolation of people exposed to the virus, and aggressive rehydration of infected patients to counter the effects of vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms.

Nigeria's containment of Ebola is a "spectacular success story," said Rui Gama Vaz, WHO director for Nigeria.

Survivor Dr. Adaora Igonoh said the treatment is not easy. It entails drinking, as she did, at least five liters (1.3 gallons) of the solution every day for five or six days when you have mouth sores and a sore throat and feel depressed.

"You don't want to drink anything. You're too weak, and with the sore throat it's difficult to swallow, but you know when you have just vomited, you need it," she told The Associated Press. "I had to mentally tell myself, `You have got to drink this fluid, whether it tastes nice or not.'"

Some 9,000 people have been infected with Ebola, and about 4,500 have died, mostly in hard-hit Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, with the number of cases expected to increase exponentially in the coming weeks.

Dr. Simon Mardel, one of the world's leading experts on viral hemorrhagic fevers, said the number of deaths could be cut in half if infected people were taught to properly hydrate themselves and do not take anti-inflammatory drugs, which can actually harm Ebola victims.

In other developments:

- About 120 people in the U.S. are being monitored for symptoms because they may have had contact with one of Dallas' three Ebola victims. More than 40 others have been given the all-clear after the 21-day maximum incubation period for the virus ended.

- The European Union stepped up efforts to raise nearly $1.3 billion to combat the outbreak.

- President Barack Obama is working the phones with world leaders, appealing to them to join the fight.

- WHO director Margaret Chan said that an internal WHO report obtained by the AP that said the U.N. agency bungled efforts to control the outbreak was "a work in progress," and "the facts have not been fully checked."

Mardel, of Britain's University Hospital of South Manchester, called rehydration a low-tech approach that has been neglected by a medical system focused on groundbreaking research.

Nigeria's outbreak began in Lagos with a single infected Liberian diplomat who flew in in July, bringing the terrifying disease to Africa's biggest city, with 21 million people.

Many feared the worst in a city with large numbers of people living in crowded and unsanitary conditions in slums.

"The last thing anyone in the world wants to hear is the two words, `Ebola' and `Lagos,' in the same sentence," U.S. consul general Jeffrey Hawkins noted at the time, saying the development raised the specter of an "apocalyptic urban outbreak."

Instead, with swift coordination among state and federal health officials, the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and with ample financial and material resources from Nigeria's government, isolation wards were constructed and Ebola treatment centers designated.

Health workers tracked down nearly 100 percent of those who had contact with the infected, paying 18,500 visits to 894 people.

The eight deaths included two doctors and a nurse.

Monday's announcement came 42 days - twice the incubation period - since the last case in Nigeria tested negative.

"The outbreak in Nigeria has been contained," WHO's Vaz said. "But we must be clear that we only won a battle. The war will only end when West Africa is also declared free of Ebola."

Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan said the success shows what Nigerians can achieve when they set aside their differences. He urged his people to replicate "the unity of purpose and all-hands-on-deck approach" in other areas of national life.

There is no licensed treatment for Ebola, so doctors focus on hydration and supportive care, even in developed countries. In some cases, doctors have been surprised that keeping patients hydrated has been enough to save them.

To improve survival rates, Mardel said, it is time to designate packaged rehydration solutions as part of the cure. He said more needs to be done to make the fluids palatable, such as making the solutions weaker or flavoring them.

Igonoh said she sometimes added orange juice.

Lamont A. Nelson: Return Of the Value in Graffiti as a Form of Public Art by Van Stone frontpagenews1@yahoo.com (267)293-9201

Lamont A. Nelson: Return Of the Value in Graffiti as a Form of Public Art by Van Stone frontpagenews1@yahoo.com (267)293-9201

Lamont Anthony Nelson, Graffiti Artist, Director of VSP Foundation Visual Arts
Programming.

Lamont Anthony Nelson, a street artist, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1965.  He took strong interest in his hobby-art, which has now gained some interest in people admiring his work. At first this was a simple home organizing project, at which continued to develop, the more he worked at it. Just using letter styling art and creating different patterns, Nelson used the ink and pen to become more diverse as some nice graffiti artwork has been created.

Nelson began his career as a graffiti artist in the early 2000s, and that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, an achievement of a social-political goal.

Lamont is a solo graffiti artist, as well as the director of the Van Stone Productions Foundation Visual Arts Programming in Philadelphia, who will collaborate with anyone who is productive.

In his quest to find some graffiti opportunities at first he concluded that there was not a whole lot of interest. As several meetings with people in the hip-hop and the media fields became enjoyable, this has sparked an opportunity to be exposed on a broader spectrum of visual arts graffiti.

His current work is created by free hand ink pen on basic thin cardboard to develop designs of different graffiti styles.   His graffiti style combined of street, radical, and political hand writing to get his message across has only been in effect for the last five years. Nelson does personal work and designs, using imagination and creativity, to stencil and see what can develop as possibly a new trend in the art world.

Nelson's graffiti artwork is characterized by striking images of different letter designs of phrases, titles, or a person’s name. As this trend continues to grow Lamont would like to see this develop into hobby device for anyone to be able to pick up. His work has been both small and large scale stencil work.  Nelson is going to challenge himself to start designing on a larger scale to bring out more of his talent.

One of his goals using his art work is to make graffiti an accessible as any other hobby of the arts and crafts project. Nelson has learned that his graffiti artist craft could become a practice platform for even the already established artist. Pursuing further opportunities, Nelson will most definitely open up graffiti-art to a new market to attract a wide base of visual arts admirers.