Sisters of slain soldier granted extended leave

Sisters of slain soldiergranted extended leave
NEW BERLIN, Wis. -- The sisters of a woman soldier killed in Iraq earlier this month have been granted 15 more days of leave from duty there as they consider whether they will seek reassignment from the war zone, their father says. John Witmer of New Berlin said Thursday that his daughters Rachel and Charity need time and privacy as they consider what to do.
The two arrived home April 12 on a 15-day leave to attend the funeral of Michelle, their 20-year-old sister and Charity's twin, who was killed April 9 during an ambush attack in Baghdad.
Under Defense Department policy, when a soldier is killed while serving in a hostile area, other family members in the military may request a noncombat assignment.
2nd editor leaves paper
USA Today is losing a second high-level editor from a management upheaval touched off by a stinging report on deceptions and fabrications by a former star reporter.
Hal Ritter, the newspaper's managing editor of news, submitted his resignation Thursday to publisher Craig Moon. He had been in his current role since 1995 and had worked at the paper since it was founded in 1982.
The newspaper's top editor, Karen Jurgensen, retired abruptly Tuesday at the age of 55.
Ritter's departure came on the same day the newspaper revealed the conclusions of an investigation by three veteran journalists into the work of former star reporter Jack Kelley.
The panel's review found Kelley committed many acts of fraudulent reporting for more than a decade, including fabricating parts of at least 20 stories and stealing at least 100 passages from other news organizations.
China confirms SARS
BEIJING -- China reported two confirmed SARS cases and said one of two other people suspected of having the disease has died, apparently the first SARS fatality in the country since July. Hundreds of people have been quarantined.
The confirmed cases both had worked in laboratories in Beijing for China's Centers for Disease Control and were probably infected there, the official Xinhua News Agency said today.
In addition, Beijing and Anhui each have one suspected case of the respiratory disease, Xinhua said, citing a health ministry official.
One of the suspected cases -- the mother of a 26-year-old medical student in Anhui -- has died. The mother apparently got the illness from her daughter, one of the confirmed cases.
Lutheran sex-abuse case
MARSHALL, Texas -- Dozens of blue notebooks, thick with child-pornography images, fill a law office a block from the East Texas courthouse where victims of sex abuse by a former Lutheran minister won a jury award of nearly $37 million.
The notebooks are filled with images that were printed out from three computers in the parsonage of former minister Gerald Patrick Thomas Jr., attorneys said.
For three years, the office has served as the "war room" for the plaintiffs' attorneys as they built their case against the Lutheran authorities who ordained him and assigned him to Marshall despite accusations of past inappropriate behavior.
On Thursday, the jury awarded nine plaintiffs amounts ranging from $50,000 to $9.8 million, depending on their medical needs and the level of abuse suffered.
The case is the most serious to hit the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which has about 5 million members, and has drawn comparisons to the worst abuses committed during the Roman Catholic molestation crisis.
Besides Thursday's verdict, an attorney for the plaintiffs disclosed that separate settlements reached before the trial totaled $32 million. Those deals were struck with the Chicago-based denomination and the seminary in Columbus that Thomas attended.
Human trafficking report
GENEVA -- The trafficking of African women and children for prostitution or cheap labor is aggravated by war, poverty and a failure to register births, UNICEF said in a study.
Half the continent's 53 governments say trafficking is a serious concern, but there are no reliable figures, said Andrea Rossi, an Italian expert who wrote the report by the U.N. Children's Fund.
Nigeria and Gabon are the major destinations for individuals trafficked from neighboring countries in West Africa, including strife-hit Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Individuals from countries including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola are taken to South Africa -- one of the few countries with an anti-trafficking program, Rossi noted.
Associated Press