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John Hughes died an hour ago of a heart attack

A three-year-old girl was forgotten at Ben-Gurion International Airport Sunday, when her parents flew to Paris with only four of their five children. Just like in the famous movie Home Alone, in which an eight-year-old boy is mistakenly left behind when his family flies to Paris for a Christmas holiday, the two parents from Israel, who were on their way to an annual vacation in Paris, forgot their young daughter. The crying child was found wandering the duty free shops with no adult supervision. Police at Ben-Gurion noticed the wandering child among the thousands of passengers at Ben-Gurion Airport and...

A 10-year-old boy is recovering after a pit bull attack left him with injuries so severe that he had to have his arm amputated.

A woman got a 30-day jail sentence for leaving her three young children home alone for several hours while she and her boyfriend attended a videotaping of "The Jerry Springer Show." Shannon Cook, 25, pleaded guilty earlier this week to misdemeanor child endangerment. She also was placed on probation for a year. The two girls and one boy, all under the age of 4, have been placed in foster homes... Police said Cook left the children alone at a suburban home Oct. 19 while she and her boyfriend went to Chicago for the taping. About five hours later, the two...

WALNUT CREEK - A San Ramon man and his new wife who left his two children home alone while they went to Las Vegas over the New Year's weekend pleaded no contest to criminal charges Thursday. Jacob Calero, 39, and Michelle de la Vega, 32, both received jail sentences in the plea agreement with the District Attorney's Office. Both will apply to serve their time in the sheriff's home detention program, their attorneys said."Sometimes you have to step up to the plate," said Calero's attorney, Thomas McKenna, after the Superior Court hearing. "We admitted full responsibility. I'm asking the public...

A San Ramon couple accused of felony child endangerment for allegedly leaving their 10- and 5-year-old boys at home alone over the New Year's weekend was released from custody today after pleading no contest in Contra Costa County Superior Court. Jacob Calero, 39, and Michelle De La Vega, 32, were facing up to seven years and four months in prison each, prosecutors said as the couple was charged last week. After their pleas today, the couple may serve their nine- and six-month sentences at home with electronic monitoring, prosecutor Dara Cashman explained outside the Walnut Creek courthouse.

Most parents I know weren't shocked to hear that a San Ramon couple might leave their two boys, ages 5 and 10, home alone while they went to Las Vegas for five days. They were shocked to hear that they might leave them alone for five hours. If it's true they went off to ring in the New Year and left their kids to fend for themselves, it's outrageous. Ten years old? Home alone for five days? What were they thinking? In the end, the boys spent one day alone before police discovered them and their grandmother brought them to...

Father's attorney says what couple did was 'not as bad as it looks' A grandmother of two young San Ramon boys left home alone while their parents vacationed in Las Vegas went to court Thursday to get custody of the children, and the father's attorney said what his client did was "certainly not nearly as bad as it looks." The hearing before Contra Costa County Juvenile Court Judge Lois Haight in Martinez came a day after San Ramon police arrested Jacob Calero and his wife of nine months, Michelle De La Vega, when their flight home landed at Oakland International...

SAN RAMON - Police in San Ramon are investigating a case involving a father and stepmother of two boys who allegedly left them home alone while they celebrated New Year's weekend in Las Vegas. San Ramon Sgt. Eric Webb said officers were sent to a Dougherty Valley home late Saturday to check on the 5- and 9-year-old brothers after their grandmother said she suspected they were by themselves. After entering the home around 11 p.m., Webb said, police found a gas fireplace lit and the boys asleep in their beds. The boys were unharmed and had been eating cereal and...

Boy is left behind as his family evacuates Conroe police find lost Pasadena 10-year-old inside convenience store By RENEE C. LEE Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle CONROE - Police are trying to locate the family of a 10-year-old Pasadena boy who was left behind at a convenience store Thursday afternoon as relatives continued their evacuation trek. Conroe police spokesman Sgt. Bob Berry said the family was traveling in a five-car caravan from Pasadena headed to Dallas when they stopped in Conroe. He said the family members went into the store as a group but apparently did not do a head count...

Actor Macaulay Culkin took the stand at Michael Jackson's child molestation trial Wednesday and denied he was molested by the pop star. Jackson attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. asked Culkin what he thought of the charges against Jackson. "I think they're absolutely ridiculous," said Culkin, 24. He said prosecutors never approached him about whether he had been molested and he only learned of the allegations that he had been molested by watching news coverage of the trial. "Somebody told me you should probably check out CNN because they're saying something about you," Culkin said. "I just couldn't believe it. ... It...

Many argue that communism will never be possible because of "human nature". The essence of this false argument is the belief that a communist society would consist of an all-powerful central government that would tell everybody what to do--and would therefore undermine the creative initiative of individuals and the search for happiness. • This argument is based on two false assumptions: (1) It assumes that a communist society will look like the former Soviet Union, or the current China, North Korea, etc (ie: corrupt police states with a feudal-style ruling class) (2) It assumes that people will only work in...

WASHINGTON, D.C., FEB. 27, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Less time with Mom and Dad has contributed to more problems for more kids over the last few decades. So says Mary Eberstadt, a part-time research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and author of "Home-Alone America: The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Behavioral Drugs, and Other Parent Substitutes" (Penguin). Eberstadt shared with ZENIT how this separation of children and their parents is producing unforeseen negative consequences. Q: If children are better off materially than ever before, why are they beset by so many troubles such as psychiatric problems, obesity and sexually transmitted diseases?...

OK, ladies and gents, I just figured my last year's screed on this was such a huge hit (37 whole responses! Woo-hoo!) that I just had to come back for an encore. But this time we have a new twist: Instead of that blue writing at the top of the page where all the threads are listed, I'm getting the notice right when I log on - you know, the one with that says "Welcome back, [whoever you are]!" and underneath it is the rectangle in the middle of the page informing you that someone has posted something new to...

Brianna: The Little Girl That Could NEWSWEEK Oct. 13 issue — Left at home alone for nearly three weeks, 2-year-old Brianna Lee somehow managed to fend for herself. Wandering about her Florida apartment foraging for food, she survived on whatever she could unwrap—cheese crackers, cookies, brownie mix, ketchup, uncooked macaroni.

The children, ages 7 and 4, had cereal and, for a time, milk. Frozen TV dinners and corn dogs, too. All the basics, to their mother's mind, to survive the 20 days she planned to be in North Carolina wooing a potential husband she'd met over the Internet. The mother — Janet Hseuh Chen, 31 — tended to the details with meticulous care, authorities said. She unplugged the phone and taped the drapes shut. She lied to school officials, saying she and the children were going out of town. She taught the children how to heat their own meals and...