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On the news today I heard that Obama spent an hour alone with his grandmother at her place while the family was elsewhere. I know how much time my child spent with her grandparents who lived half way across the country when she was growing up (a lot. She spent summers with them for many years so she'd know them). The story got me wondering just how much time his kids have spent with his grandmother over the past years and of course by the end of this vacation. If they haven't spent much time with her you have to...

Her dimpled face radiated happiness as she slowly and gracefully strolled towards the garden at the US ambassador’s residence in Nairobi, eliciting excitement among guests. Senator Barack Obama’s grandmother Sarah Obama, Prime Minister Raila Odinga and the US ambassador, Mr Michael Ranneberger, during the 232nd US Independence Day celebrations at the ambassador’s residence in Muthaiga, Nairobi. Photo/STEPHEN MUDIARI Initially, many thought that it was a joke when it was announced that Mrs Sarah Onyango Obama, the step-grandmother of US Senator Barack Obama, the 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate would grace the event — America’s Independence Day celebrations. Americans normally celebrate the...

READING, Pa. -- Police said a 61-year-old Reading woman beat her 16-year-old granddaughter severely after finding her in bed with another girl. Joyce Beddell is charged with aggravated and simple assault, recklessly endangering another person and endangering the welfare of a child. Police said Beddell's granddaughter suffered serious bruises to her legs and buttocks during Thursday's assault with a cane and a belt. The other girl fled from the house before the beating began. Beddell told police she had done nothing wrong. She told police she should be allowed to discipline her granddaughter as she wishes. Beddell was jailed in...

Cindi Cook had it all planned out. Her teenage son would graduate from his Hall County high school, go to college, then settle down and start a family. Then came the pregnancy. It was spring 2007 and, according to court testimony, Cook had no interest in her 16-year-old son's girlfriend, also 16, having their baby. Cook "began to pressure until the young lady relented and agreed to have an abortion," DeKalb County solicitor general Robert James said Wednesday. Displeased that the baby would ruin her son's chances of going to college, Cook "searched for a clinic that did not require...

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In March, 2007, Donna Holman was convicted of a charge of "harassment" as she engaged in "sidewalk counseling" to discourage women from entering a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Iowa City, Iowa. Judge Karen Egerton found Mrs.Holman guilty on the hearsay testimony of Planned Parenthood employees. The woman Mrs. Holman allegedly harassed did not even show up for the hearing. Despite being unable to confront her accuser and offer exculpatory evidence, the Iowa Supreme Court declined to review the case. "While murderers and rapists run free, a harmless 72-year-old Christian grandmother, Donna Holman, must languish in jail for having the...

Police issued an arrest warrant for the man who fled a Sand Lake apartment Saturday after his grandmother found a body in a freezer. Elmer Seetot, 22, is wanted for second-degree murder, Anchorage Police Department spokesman Paul Honeman said Sunday.

A 39-year-old grandmother accused of selling heroin on the streets of a Los Angeles suburb with her 11-year-old granddaughter as a lookout has been arrested on drug and child endangerment charges, police said on Tuesday. Undercover officers watched for two weeks as Martha Gutierrez Novas sold heroin at a bus stop in Long Beach, south of Los Angeles, clutching a brown and white Chihuahua and often with her granddaughter at her side, a police spokesman said. "The granddaughter acted as a lookout, standing at the corner of the building looking, I assume, for police officers," said Sgt. Paul LeBaron, a...

U.S. Army Master Sgt. Brinda Kupiec of Lubbock, Texas, the host national escort noncommissioned officer in charge with the 657th Area Support Group, checks in local Iraqi laborers, May 3, 2007, as they report for work at Logistical Support Area Anaconda. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Alexandra Hemmerly-Brown Deployment Provides Direction, Focus for Anaconda Soldier By Sgt. Alexandra Hemmerly-Brown 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) LOGISTICAL SUPPORT AREA ANACONDA, Iraq, May 14, 2007 — Two years ago, a wife sat by her husband’s side, comforting him. The woman had quit her job a school teacher several years earlier to help her...

BARABOO, Wis. - The teen accused of gunning down the Weston school principal last September told his grandmother afterward that "something snapped" in his head, she testified. Irene Hainstock took the stand Tuesday at a hearing on whether Eric Hainstock, who turned 16 last week, should be prosecuted in juvenile court instead of adult court, where he is charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the death of Principal John Klang. The charge carries a mandatory life prison term. If prosecuted as a juvenile, he could be incarcerated only until the age of 25, his lawyers have said. According to prosecutors,...

BERKELEY, Calif. - Jane Stillwater is an unlikely war correspondent. She's 64, a self-described Berkeley "flower child, 40 years later" and broke. So how did this mother of four grown children end up in Baghdad, churning out commentary ranging from shock at Thursday's bombing of the Iraqi parliament cafeteria, to the weirdness of touring Saddam Hussein's bathroom? Inspired by a sense of outrage and determined to blog from inside the war zone, Stillwater ate peanut butter sandwiches for months to save up for a ticket to Kuwait. She got a small Texas newspaper to help her secure press accreditation, and...

Coats — A Harnett County man is charged with brutally beating and trying to rape a 75-year grandmother. John Martin Meeks, 30, of Coats, was arrested Wednesday and charged with attempted rape, burglary and assault. .....

A Palestinian grandmother blew herself up in the Gaza Strip, lightly wounding three Israeli soldiers, in the first suicide attack claimed by Hamas in almost two years. The mother of nine and grandmother of 41 became the oldest Palestinian suicide bomber at the age of 57, approaching troops operating to curb daily rocket attacks, the army said. "Troops saw a woman approaching them in a suspicious manner and identified her carrying an explosive device," a spokeswoman said of the incident in the northern town of Jabaliya. "They then threw a stun grenade in her direction but she managed to blow...

You are what your grandmother ate 22:00 13 November 2006 NewScientist.com news service Roxanne Khamsi The mice on the left-hand side have active AVY genes, giving them golden fur, while those on the right have silenced AVY genes (Image: Cropley et al/PNAS) A mother’s diet can change the behaviour of a specific gene for at least two subsequent generations, a new study demonstrates for the first time. Feeding mice an enriched diet during pregnancy silenced a gene for light fur in their pups. And even though these pups ate a standard, un-enriched diet, the gene remained less active in their...

"Electronic voting machines count 80% of the votes cast in America today. But are they reliable? Are they safe from tampering? From a current congressional hearing to persistent media reports that suggest misuse of data and even outright fraud, concerns over the integrity of electronic voting are growing by the day. And if the voting process is not secure, neither is America's democracy.... In 2002, Seattle grandmother and writer Bev Harris asked officials in her county why they had acquired electronic touch screen systems for their elections. Unsatisfied with their explanation, she set out to learn about electronic voting machines...

Tomb of 1st emperor's grandmother unearthed www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-29 20:19:32 XI'AN, July 29 (Xinhua) -- After more than a year's excavation and research in a large tomb in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Chinese archaeologists have concluded that the tomb belonged to the grandmother of Qinshihuang, the country's first emperor.   Zhang Tian'en, an expert with the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeology Institute, told Xinhua on Saturday that the tomb was chronologically the closest to the mysterious mausoleum of Qinshihuang, and was probably built on the emperor's orders. "We are hoping that the excavation of his grandmother's tomb will help unravel the mystery about...

Grandmother Accused Of Keeping Boy In Dog KennelCandelario Works As Detention Counselor For Jefferson County UPDATED: 7:44 pm MDT May 26, 2006 COMMERCE CITY, Colo. -- A detention center counselor remains in jail on $100,000 bond after she was arrested Thursday night for allegedly locking her 13-year-old grandson in a dog kennel while she's at work, Commerce City police said. June Candelario, 61, faces charges of second-degree kidnapping, reckless endangerment, false imprisonment and child abuse. Commerce City police were alerted to the case when they were called to a home in the 68th Avenue and Ash Street on a report...

An 84-year-old South Jersey woman hits the nickel slots for $10 million. By Troy Graham Inquirer Staff Writer One happy grandmother, Josephine Crawford of Galloway Twp. talks to reporters after her record win at Harrah's Atlantic City. One happy grandmother, Josephine Crawford of Galloway Twp. talks to reporters after her record win at Harrah's Atlantic City. Down to her last credits on a nickel slot machine, an 84-year-old retired waitress hit for an improbable sum of money Tuesday night. $10,010,113.48. The largest jackpot ever in Atlantic City. The largest jackpot ever on a nickel slot machine, nationwide. And certainly the...

Great-grandmother Marilyn Devine had tears in her eyes when she walked out of the Allegheny County Jail and into the arms of her husband of 32 years. Clinging to him Thursday evening, she apologized for robbing a West Mifflin bank. And although she spoke well of guards who watched over her in confinement, she said she thinks she has been punished enough. "You don't know what stress it is to disgrace yourself and your family and spend four days in lockup, when you've been a good person your whole life," the 74-year-old Baldwin Borough woman said minutes after posting a...

WEST MIFFLIN, Pa. (March 7) - A 75-year-old Pennsylvania woman accused of robbing a bank with an unloaded pistol was arrested when a tow truck driver blocked her in after a short chase. Marilyn Divine of Baldwin said after her arrest that she acted "to help people who are starving to death and nobody cares about them." Police say the robber walked up to a National City Bank inside a supermarket in West Mifflin, located about five miles outside Pittsburgh. The robber demanded money from two tellers, brandishing a handgun. A former bank employee chased the woman's car until police...