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LAGOS (AFP) - A traditional doctor in central Nigeria has been shot dead by a patient who was testing the potency of an anti-bullet charm the herbalist had prepared for him, police told AFP. AFP/File Photo   Ashi Terfa died when patient Umaa Akor fired a gun at his head two weeks ago in south-central Benue state, police spokesman Bode Fakeye said Wednesday. "Akor went for an insurance against bullets and contacted Terfa to prepare it for him," he said. "To confirm its efficacy, the herbalist tied the charm around his neck and insisted that Akor should fire a gun...

A single lightning strike is believed to have killed 13 prized dairy cows at Fernvale, west of Brisbane.Dairy farmer David Potter said he believed the lightning hit a tree the Friesians were under and they were killed in a "chain reaction"."There was two big claps of thunder and when I went to get the cows, there were 13 of them dead under the tree," Mr Potter said."You could see where the lightning had hit the tree. It's just one of them things."We've had storms through here before with lightning and never had anything like that happen before."I've never heard of...

Baby Sitter Arrested, Accused Of Witchcraft, Satanism Woman Admits To Studying Satanism, Giving Girls Alcohol POSTED: 2:42 p.m. EST November 14, 2003 UPDATED: 2:44 p.m. EST November 14, 2003 DES MOINES, Iowa -- Des Moines police filed a criminal charge in a bizarre case which they say involves a baby sitter, two 8-year-old girls, witchcraft and alcohol. Video Video: Baby Sitter Admits Giving Girls Alcohol, Studying Satanism Melissa Fernandez, 20, of Des Moines, is accused of giving 8-year-old twins alcohol, and providing a sharp instrument for one of the girls to cut herself in a ritual to become blood sisters....

NOVEMBER 10--Fresh from a $24,000 victory over the British tab that published her wedding photos, Catherine Zeta-Jones is fixing for her next legal fight--this time, if you can believe it, over published reports that the Academy Award winner shed pounds via the Atkins diet. In a warning letter sent last week to media outlets (see below), lawyers for Zeta-Jones assert that "her likeness and persona have been improperly linked" to the popular diet in press accounts, adding that the weight loss program "has been derided by nutritionists and other health care officials for decades." By incorrectly reporting that Zeta-Jones "uses...

Patrons at Lucy's Saloon watched in amazement around 1 a.m. Sunday when the man they say started a bar-clearing brawl began barking orders at police officers who arrived to quell it — and the officers responded.The man turned out to be St. Paul police Sgt. Jon Loretz, the son of Police Chief William Finney. On Monday, the department referred an investigation into the fight to the state's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to avoid a conflict of interest, Finney said. The chief pledged his department's full cooperation with the agency's probe.The 34-year-old Loretz was at the 601 N. Western Ave. tavern...

Woman jailed after daughter found abandoned in forest 7/7/2003 10:22 AM JASPER -- An woman is in an East Texas jail after authorities said her 6-year-old daughter was found abandoned in the Piney Woods.Angelina County sheriff's deputies said a passerby found the girl alone off State Highway 63 in the Angelina National Forest near Lake Sam Rayburn.The girl told deputies that her mother told her they were going to play hide-and-seek, but when the girl got out of her car, her mother drove away.Angelina County deputies said they found the mother drinking beer at a Sam Rayburn Lake bar. She's...

<p>The head of the government's Total Information Awareness project, which aims to root out potential terrorists by aggregating credit-card, travel, medical, school and other records of everyone in the United States, has himself become a target of personal data profiling.</p>

<p>Today, Sun and CERT announced that many of Sun's Cobalt RaQ 4 Linux servers can be completely taken over by a local user or via the Internet. Ironically, the vulnerability is only present if the vendor's optional "Security Hardening Package" is installed. The package is quite popular and is installed on a large percentage of these servers.</p>