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Early Saturday morning, someone crept into the New Fellowship Baptist Church, walked past thousands of dollars worth of audio equipment and computers and set fire to the balcony and altar, then fled as the Dorchester building went up in flames, fire officials and the church's pastor said yesterday.

LAHORE, Pakistan — Saira Liaqat squints through her one good eye as she brushes a woman's hair. Her face, most of which the acid melted years ago, occasionally lights up with a smile. Her hands, largely undamaged, deftly handle the dark brown locks. A few steps away in this popular beauty salon, Urooj Akbar diligently trims, cleans and paints clients' fingernails. Her face, severely scarred from the blaze that burned some 70 percent of her body, is somber. It's hard to tell if she's sad or if it's just the way she now looks.

Vast Peat Fire May Burn for Months in North CarolinaWillie Drye for National Geographic NewsJune 13, 2008 About 450 firefighters are battling a 40,000-acre (16,000-hectare) blaze in northeastern North Carolina that could burn for months unless the drought-stricken region gets a downpour. The fire, which was sparked by a lightning strike on June 1, is currently the largest active wildfire in the United States. Containing and extinguishing the fire is posing a unique challenge, because it is burning in highly flammable peatland. Peat is partially decomposed plant matter formed in wetlands that can be harvested as fuel. It can be...

Hundreds of protesters in Indonesia have set fire to a mosque belonging to the minority Muslim Ahmadiyya sect. Police in the town of Sukabumi in western Java say nobody was injured but that many members of the Ahmadiyya community have fled the area. The hardline Islamist demonstrators believe the Ahmadiyya practice to be a deviant form of Islam that should not be allowed in Indonesia. A nearby religious school belonging to the group has also been vandalised. Around 300 people torched the mosque just after midnight on Monday. Many Ahmadiyya members have sought refuge with friends and relatives nearby....

4/11/2008 - WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFPN) -- Since 3-year-old Al Amreeki left Balad Air Base, Iraq, with more than 45 percent of his body burned from a stove fire at his home, he has come a long way due to treatment from Airmen and medics throughout the world. The young boy's uncle brought him to the Air Force Theater Hospital in Iraq Jan. 25, and since then the boy has traveled aboard a C-17 Globemaster III to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and onto Andrews Air Force Base, Md., and finally arriving by commercial air bus to...

Nabokov wanted his final, unfinished work destroyed. Should his son get out the matches? Here is your chance to weigh in on one of the most troubling dilemmas in contemporary literary culture. I know I'm hopelessly conflicted about it. It's the question of whether the last unpublished work of Vladimir Nabokov, which is now reposing unread in a Swiss bank vault, should be destroyed—as Nabokov explicitly requested before he died. It's a decision that has fallen to his sole surviving heir (and translator), Dmitri Nabokov, now 73. Dmitri has been torn for years between his father's unequivocal request and the...

12/17/2007 - BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- When Army Cpl. Joseph Barzeski invited Staff Sgt. Tracy Davidson to tour the Convoy Support Center's burn clinic in Scania, Iraq, he didn't think she would be back. But she did come back, again and again. "I didn't think she was going to want to stay, but she wanted to help," said the corporal. "She just fell right into it." Since that day in mid-July, Sergeant Davidson has assisted nearly every day the clinic has been open. She's become a fixture at the facility as a care provider for families, and a...

A Syracuse man was charged with assault after he tortured his girlfriend by burning his name into her back with a heated knife blade, according to police. Marcel Tirado, 23, of 501 Seymour St., was charged with assault and unlawful imprisonment, both felonies, and a misdemeanor charge of criminal possession of a weapon, said Sgt. Tom Connellan, a police spokesman. "It's incredibly cruel," Connellan said. "It's beyond imagination what this woman was going through." The woman, whom police did not identify, also had scars she told police were from earlier encounters with Tirado, Connellan said. Police gave this account: Tirado...

SHERMAN OAKS, California (CNN) -- Youssif nervously scanned the doctor's examining room, his dark brown eyes darting around, from the floor to the wall to the ceiling. His mother stroked his hair and then his forehead to put him at ease before the doctor walked in to the room. A day earlier, the badly burned 5-year-old Iraqi boy had boarded a plane in Amman, Jordan, with his family, their first trip on an airplane. Now, more than 7,500 miles later, his mom, dad and 14-month-old sister were with him at the Grossman Burn Center in the heart of sunny Southern...

IP Tire Burn Stopped! VT and NY Breathe Easier...Published by jamiehenn, November 15th, 2006 After three years of public opposition, International Paper decided to abandon its efforts to burn tire derived fuel at its plant in Ticonderoga, New York. Huzzah! For the past two weeks, IP had been botching a test burn of the tires, hitting their maximum pollution levels burning only a fraction of the total amount of tires they wanted to. “I think that clearly the results demonstrated that there was a lot more pollution coming from the burning of tires than IP anticipated,” said Paul Burns, executive...

CAMP TAJI — Multi-National Division–Baghdad Soldiers provided healthcare to a badly burned Iraqi boy in northern Baghdad May 9, in a continuing effort to provide medical support to the Iraqi people. Elements of 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas, were conducting operations near the town of Muhammad al’Abbas when a local woman approached requesting medical aid for her three-year-old son. The boy was involved in a hot water accident which caused second-degree burns on the child’s face and upper body May 7th. The injuries were severe enough for the boy to...

NEW DELHI (AP) - Angry crowds in several Indian cities burned effigies of Richard Gere on Monday after he swept a popular Bollywood actress into his arms and kissed her several times during an AIDS-awareness event. Photographs of the 57-year-old actor embracing Shilpa Shetty and kissing her on the cheek at an HIV/AIDS awareness event in New Delhi were splashed across Monday's front pages in India - a country where sex and public displays of affection are largely taboo.(AP) Hollywood actor Richard Gere, left, hugs and kisses Bollywood actor Shilpa Shetty during and event...

MIDDLE RIVER, Md. — A 2-year-old boy was severely burned Saturday after he went down the slide at an elementary school playground. Someone had broken into the school, stolen several bottles of industrial-strength drain cleaner and splashed it all over the playground equipment, authorities said. Peyton Duschl was scheduled for surgery Sunday morning and likely will be hospitalized for several weeks, said Carol Duschl, the boy's mother. "I just don't understand what would draw somebody to do something like that," Duschl told WMAR-TV. "What kind of sick joke is that?" Peyton suffered second- and third-degree burns, mostly on his legs,...

FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas, March 23, 2007 – When Army Sgt. Antonio Autrey was burned in Iraq by a blast that destroyed his Bradley fighting vehicle almost a year ago, all the former high school football receiver wanted to do was to be able to hold a football again. Army Sgt. Antonio Autrey checks out the weightlifting equipment at the Center for the Intrepid. Photo by Nelia Schrum  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Now, after almost a year in recovery at the Burn Center here, the 4th Infantry Division soldier has set his sights on bench pressing, with...

Democrat Anti-War Activists Burn US Soldier in Effigy,Burn US Flag and Deface Statue of Abe Lincoln in Portland Oregon Protest.    

Volunteers Spark Warmth at Burn Center Troops deployed to Afghanistan give there off time to help local burn victims. By Sgt. Victoria Willoughby 345th Mobile Public Affairs FORWARD OPERATING BASE SALERNO, Afghanistan, Jan. 16, 2007 -- An all too familiar call echoed through the Forward Operating Base Salerno burn clinic and medical staff and hospital volunteers scrambled to receive two young Afghan sisters badly burned in a heater explosion at their home. "A heater in their home had a malfunction and it exploded, burning all four of the children and burning down the entire house. Two of the children...

<p>French police are investigating a car crash involving a billionaire Russian parliamentarian who was critically injured when his Ferrari slammed into a tree on the Mediterranean seafront in Nice.</p> <p>Suleyman Kerimov, 40, a far rightwing member of the State Duma from Dagestan, was said by police to have lost control of the car as he sped on Saturday in rain along the Promenade des Anglais, the Riviera’s most celebrated thoroughfare.</p>

MIAMI -- Bacardi said its 151-proof rum was not the cause of burns suffered by three women who sued the spirits company and alleged that their injuries were caused when a bottle used to pour shots turned into a "flame thrower." Bacardi, in a motion to dismiss the women's' lawsuits, said their injuries were caused after a bartender poured rubbing alcohol on the bar of the "Secrets" adult club and ignited it as part of a promotion for flaming drinks in 2002. Quoting from Miami-Dade County police and fire reports, the company said another drunken patron placed a paper menu...

MEXICO CITY - Electoral officials said Tuesday that they will burn the ballots from the disputed presidential election despite calls from both candidates to spare them. Luis Carlos Ugalde, chairman of the Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE, said in a letter to President-elect Felipe Calderon that a 1990 law clearly called for the burning of the ballots from the July 2 election. "The IFE is obliged to destroy electoral documentation once the electoral process is concluded," Ugalde wrote. No date was set for the burning. Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had asked that the ballots be saved, claiming fraud...

TV reporters 'helped protester burn himself to death' By Rahul Bedi in New Delhi (Filed: 18/08/2006) Indian police are investigating a group of television journalists for allegedly helping a man to burn himself to death and filming his agony for broadcast. Pictures of Manoj Mishra writhing in pain with his back on fire were shown in Bihar state on Tuesday. Mr Mishra later died in hospital from severe burns in the town of Gaya. "We have seized footage clearly showing a group of journalists handing over matches and some inflammable substance, which we later verified to be diesel, to the...