Welcome to Gaia! ::

Boy's wrapped birthday gift is dad back from Iraq
Fri Jan 30, 3:47 pm ET

DAYTON, Nev. – Gabriel Hurles' sixth birthday party wasn't a surprise, but his present sure was. The kindergartner was so engrossed in the cupcakes his mother brought to his class on Wednesday that he didn't notice the enormous wrapped box off to the side.

"That's one big, giant present," a 6-year-old classmate told him. "See what you got, Gabriel."

Gabriel peeled back the wrapping paper to find the surprise of his young life — his father, an Army mechanic back in Nevada on leave from his second tour in Iraq.

"It's my dad!" he announced to his classmates at Sutro Elementary School in Dayton, a few miles northeast of Carson City. "Hi, Daddy."

Army Spc. Casey Hurles, 23, hadn't seen his son since he left in June. When he learned his leave would coincide with his son's birthday, he hatched a plan to hide out in the 4-foot-tall box.

"It was such a rush of emotion," said Hurles, who said he got butterflies in his stomach while waiting in the box.

After Hurles sat down and ate a cupcake with the birthday boy, teacher Dawn VanSickle presented him with a banner from the class that read, "Welcome Home. Thank you for your service."

VanSickle said she was happy to arrange the reunion in her classroom.

25 random things about Facebook
It’s not a computer virus, but it sure is starting to feel like one
By Helen A.S. Popkin
updated 6:00 a.m. PT, Mon., Feb. 2, 2009

It’s not a computer virus, but for some Facebook members, it’s starting to feel like one. It’s called the "25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you," and it seems all the kids are doing it. The Facebook notification pops up in your e-mail or Facebook "wall" with instructions to list these 25 things and tag 25 of your own “friends” to do the same.

The only thing lacking in this dubious invitation is the dire threat of a chain letter — that failure to comply means certain death in say, the next 25 days. Well, turnabout is fair play. Let's see how YOU like it, Facebook!

1. Facebook fosters the illusion that every person you know actually cares that you left your Nikes in the locker room at Crunch.

2. Nobody cares that you left your Nikes in the locker room at Crunch.

3. If you join Facebook to find out what your kids are up to, you might actually find out what your kids are up to.

4. You don’t want to find out what your kids are up to.

5. Unless, of course, you want to find photos of your 19-year-old daughter making out with another 19-year-old coed for the edification of a bunch of 19-year old dudes doing beer bongs. (That’s age 19, if you’re lucky.)

6. You can announce your divorce on Facebook via the heart icon thingy.

7. Don’t announce your divorce on Facebook.

8. Don’t announce your divorce on Facebook for a number of reasons, the least of which is that all your "friends" will respond on your "wall" with sympathies that in a different era would've been delivered in privacy. You wouldn’t console somebody by shouting across a room full of people. Why are you doing it on a Facebook "wall?"

9. You people take Facebook way too seriously.

10. A woman was killed after changing her relationship status on Facebook.

11. Remember that Burger King "Whopper Sacrifice" application that allegedly offered a free Whopper coupon for every 10 friends you dumped? Well, you probably shouldn’t have dumped a couple of your oldest friends, two of which are hardcore vegans. At least one of them didn’t find it hilarious at all and now they won’t “re-friend” you.

12. If you join Facebook to find people you used to know, you’re just as likely to find your middle school BFF Jill as you are to reignite the passions of that one guy from Photography class who has been stalking you since junior college.

13. "Don’t Get Botox"

14. Facebook can get you fired. Yes, you. Just like you are not that one person who can drive safely while talking on a cell phone, you are not that one person who is in no danger of getting fired for something stupid posted by or about you on Facebook.

15. What’s more, your boss is on Facebook. If you join, you’re going to have to decide whether to accept his or her "friendship." If you accept, you risk losing your job for something he or she stumbles upon. If you attempt to play it safe by not accepting your boss’s "friendship," you risk losing your job for offending him or her.

16. Oh, and you’re also at risk of alienating your oldest friends by bumping their rank in your "Always show these friends" box. We’re talking your adult friends, like, in their 30s and 40s, with jobs and kids and all kinds of grown-up responsibilities.

17. Your otherwise grown-up friends are angry at you for bumping their "Always show these friends" rank because obviously you’re trying to communicate some kind of super secret Facebook message along the lines of, "I value your friendship two-people less today than I did yesterday." It’s like watching your friendship stock plummet.

18. The esteemed widow of former Emperor of Malawi did not just send you a "friend" request, nor is she bearing a unique and prosperous offer straight out of Nigeria just for you.

19. And while we’re on the subject, I'VE JUST BEEN HELD UP AT GUNPOINT IN LONDON AND I NEED YOU TO SEND ME $600 NOW!!!!!

20. Facebook is most concerned about Your Privacy. (And the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny are friends!)

21. Don’t connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts. People you haven’t heard from for, like, seven years — people you never thought you were friends with — will leave lame and annoying comments on your Tweets.

22. It’s like, hey, if you want to rekindle the friendship I never thought we had, call me or at least send a private e-mail. Jeez.

23. OK, the cool thing about having your Facebook and Twitter accounts connected is that your Tweets show up as your status updates. But then, if people respond on Twitter and maybe ask you something, and you respond via Twitter, it shows up as your Facebook status, and that’s annoying.

24. While you're sending zombie challenges to all your "friends," there's a guy in Egypt using Facebook to foment democracy.

25. Eventually, someone will post photos from your high school yearbook. Dang, your hair was big.

Naw, but seriously. You kids are awesome! Come "friend" me on Facebook!

83 years after teen disappears, police reopen case
By JENNIFER QUINN,
– Wed Feb 4, 11:51 am ET

LONDON – The teenage girl disappeared in 1926. But a deathbed confession supposedly made decades ago has led detectives to open what might be one of Britain's oldest-ever cold case reviews.

Emma Alice Smith was 16 when she disappeared while cycling between her home and a nearby railway station. Her disappearance has been unsolved — and her body has remained missing — ever since.

But that could soon change: David Wright, the teenager's great-nephew, said Wednesday that he had at last told police about the confession, the existence of which had long been a family secret.

Wright said his mother told him that in the 1950s, a man whose identity has not been revealed claimed responsibility for the teenager's death, but the confession was never made public. Police were not told at the time, either.

Wright's mother was told about the confession by her aunt — Emma Alice's sister Lily — who died in 1995.

"A gentleman, on his deathbed sometime in 1952 to 1953, had confessed to killing her sister. But she felt she was unable to bring it to light because her own father had just passed away," Wright said. "It was also a very small community and to make an accusation like that would have been scandalous in those days.

"Those sorts of things were hushed up or brushed under the carpet."

In December 2007, Wright broke the silence and went to police in Sussex, asking them to look into his great-aunt's disappearance. Last month, they said they planned to reopen the case.

"I was very, very surprised when they said they would investigate it. I didn't think anyone would be interested," he said.

Emma Alice had worked as a servant in a large house near her home in the village of Waldron, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of London. She was the second of eight children; Wright's grandfather was her older brother.

Police said they want to find Emma's body for her family's sake rather than to make an arrest.

"The family are keen to trace the body of Emma, if that is possible, in order that she can be given a proper burial and laid to rest with her close family," said Detective Chief Inspector Trevor Bowles, of the Sussex Police Major Crime Branch. "A number of local people have already assisted us and have been able to fill in some of the many gaps which exist.

"Given the years which have passed, this is inevitably a difficult task."

Detectives are fitting the cold case investigation around their existing caseload, Detective Inspector Mike Ashcroft said.

He said officers, using maps of the time, have already identified the likely path Emma Alice would have taken, and they will begin searching the ponds along the 2.5 mile (4 kilometer) route between her home and the railway station.

Experts have assured the detectives that human remains will still be present, even after more than eight decades of decomposition. "I'm pretty certain that if there's a body in a pond, we'll find it," Ashcroft said.

Four sisters, four weddings — in one year
It’s one down, three to go for Jeff and Cheryl Whitaker’s daughters
By Michael Inbar
updated 7:58 a.m. PT, Mon., Feb. 9, 2009

Forgive Jeff and Cheryl Whitaker if they don’t want to go near a piece of wedding cake by the end of 2009. In an amazing bit of happenstance, the couple are marrying off all four of their daughters in one calendar year.

The Whitakers, who pulled off their own miniversion of the Brady Brunch when they married in 2004, bringing two daughters apiece into the family fold, were delighted and immediately overwhelmed when the young ladies all found love and engagement rings in rapid-fire succession.

TODAY staged a wedding gabfest Monday, bringing all the couples, along with the proud parents, to the set. On hand with the Whitakers were Katie McConnell and her new husband Tyler (they married Jan. 17), Kimberly Whitaker and her fiance Jeff Ervick (May 1 wedding), Lindsay Gideon and her intended Adam Liszewski (June 13 wedding), and Kelly Whitaker with fiance Mike Houser (Oct. 24 wedding).

Here come the brides
Youngest daughter Katie, 23, was the first to get engaged and the first to marry. She’s become the family’s marital pioneer and is helping her older sister and stepsisters navigate through the planning process.

“I had to figure it out all for myself,” Katie told TODAY’s Natalie Morales. “I spent so much time looking on the Internet and through magazines and all of that. But it’s so nice having everyone else now doing the same thing.”

The next two engagements came in quick succession — Jeff asked Kimberly, 29, for her hand last April, and just two weeks later, Adam popped the question to Lindsay, 26. Mike and Kelly, also 26, made it a total family affair when they announced their engagement over Thanksgiving.

“It’s like watching a movie happen right before my eyes,” dad Jeff Whitaker told TODAY. “It’s a real adventure. I never had the feeling that they would all be engaged together, but as soon as the youngest [got engaged] we had a fear, and then it worked its way up the ladder.”

Kelly, for her part, considers herself lucky to be trailing the marital pack in her family this year — as the last to get engaged and the last wedding date on the calendar, she’s got a fount of reliable experts to draw upon.

“It was pretty helpful, because I didn’t really have much experience with the ins and outs of the wedding planning process,” she told Morales. “Just being able to go through everything with them step by step, learning the millions of things that go into the big day, it was great.”

The weddings are scheduled for the family’s Annapolis, Md., hometown, but each daughter is putting her personal stamp on her own nuptials and parties. Kimberly told TODAY while the women are “all planning really different weddings,” they have shared ideas and experiences when it comes to florists, caterers and DJs.

The price of love
Of course, the million-dollar question is how the family can foot the bill for four weddings in one year. Jeff Whitaker told Morales everyone is not only involved in wedding planning, but in raising the money. His ex-wife Linda Morelock and her husband Mark are helping pay for Kimberly’s and Kelly’s weddings. Likewise, Cheryl’s ex-husband John Gideon and his wife June Blessing are kicking in for Lindsay’s and Katie’s weddings.

Still, Jeff acknowledged the hit on his pocketbook. He’s back to working full-time instead of part-time, and he’s parting with one of his most treasured possessions. “I do have my personal ’57 Chevy up on the Internet,” he told Morales.

Happily, the noncompetitive daughters aren’t stepping on each other’s toes when it comes to their weddings. They’re giving all concerned a chance to breathe, Lindsay told Morales.

“I’m having a summer wedding, (Katie) had a winter wedding, (Kimberly) has a spring and (Kelly) has a fall, so they’re all in a different season,” she said.

While the gals, only six years apart in age, have been confabbing constantly in putting together their dream days, mom Cheryl Whitaker told Morales that her job as ringleader Mom has been a little more hectic, since she has to select four different mother-of-the-bride dresses, “a different one for each wedding.”

“I’ve had a little problem picking things out, trying to make sure I get what they want me to have,” Whitaker told Morales, adding, “I’ve sent a few back.”

While making it through four family weddings in one year is exhausting for Cheryl to even think about, she wouldn’t have it any other way. She told TODAY how gratifying it is to watch the blended family grow even closer as their weddings dates draw nearer.

“The best part is really how these girls have embraced each other and really become friends,” she said.

“You never know when you meld two families if that will happen, but I see how close these girls have become. They are looking forward to sharing it with each other, and listening to them talk to each other makes it even more special.”

The prospective grooms have been bonding as well. Kelly’s fiance Mike noted the past holidays were the first time the whole family got together with every daughter engaged, which made for some spirited and animated conversations.

“We could all share in the festivities; it worked out well,” Mike told Morales.

Jeff Whitaker said he looks forward to many more family get-togethers in the future — and the possibility of having grandchildren also come in batches.

“It brings a lot of energy to the house, and holidays are a blast!” he told Morales.

After bitter 4-year fight, he finally sees his son again
Dad has ‘beautiful’ reunion with boy whose mother abducted him to Brazil
updated 7:41 a.m. PT, Tues., Feb. 10, 2009

Choking back tears that had been building up for more than four and a half years, a New Jersey father tried to describe the emotions he felt at finally being able to hold and hug his son and tell the boy how much he loved him.

“It was the most beautiful thing I’ve seen since his birth. It was incredible. Amazing. I got to see my son,” David Goldman told TODAY’s Meredith Vieira Tuesday by phone from Brazil.

The previous day, accompanied by U.S. Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, Goldman had finally reached the end of a nightmare that began in June 2004 when his wife, Bruna, left with their son, Sean, for a two-week trip to visit family in her native Brazil. She never came back.

In all the years since, Goldman had traveled to Brazil numerous times hoping to see his son, but all the contact he was allowed to have consisted of a few brief phone calls.

International dispute
A New Jersey court ruled that Bruna had to return Sean to New Jersey for a custody hearing. But despite international law and treaties between the United States and Brazil that upheld the court ruling, Bruna refused to either return or to give up custody of the boy. Instead, she divorced Goldman in a legal proceeding that violated international law, and married an influential Brazilian attorney.

Then, last August, Bruna died while giving birth to a child by her new husband. After her death, that husband petitioned a Brazilian court to take Goldman’s name off his own son’s birth certificate.

Although the system seemed stacked against him, Goldman never gave up. Finally, with the help of Smith, the New Jersey congressman who accompanied Goldman to Brazil, father and son were reunited for a visit on Monday.

“After all this time I got to see him, walk over to him and hug him and tell him how much I love him and how much I miss him and how joyful it was to be with him,” Goldman said.

‘It was beautiful’
He had no idea if Sean would really remember him and how he would greet him, Goldman said.

“I was expecting the worst. And when our arms locked, it wasn’t that way at all. It was beautiful,” he told Vieira, fighting back tears the entire time he spoke.

Sean asked his dad why it took so long to visit him. “That was very painful,” Goldman said. “I saw the anguish on his face.”

What to tell the boy? Goldman was understandably reluctant to tell Sean how his mother first left him and then refused to let him see Sean.

“I didn’t want to hurt him by telling him the absolute truth, so I just said that the courts were making things very difficult,” Goldman said. “I said, ‘Sean, I’ve been here many, many times to try to be with you. The last time I was here I stayed for 10 days and I couldn’t be with you.’ ”

Smith told The Associated Press that Goldman shot baskets and went swimming with Sean during Monday’s visit. Goldman was scheduled to see his son again on Tuesday.

Vieira asked what plans he had for today’s visit.

“I’ll do whatever I can with him. It depends on what kind of restrictions there are,” Goldman replied.

‘It’s going to happen’
In a later interview with TODAY correspondent Amy Robach, NBC senior legal analyst Susan Filan said that Goldman should eventually regain custody of his son, whose room in Goldman’s Tinton Falls, N.J., home remains as it was the day he left for Brazil with his mother more than four years ago. Filan said that international law and treaties between the United States and Brazil are unequivocal in affirming Goldman’s parental rights.

“You can’t take a kid from one country and hide him another country and say it’s OK,” Filan said. “There’s no question this case should have been decided in a New Jersey court.”

Filan said she’s looked at the facts from every angle and can conceive of no legal justification or explanation for how the Brazilian courts have acted. According to every law, she said, the man who married Goldman’s wife “has no legal rights to this child whatsoever.”

She added that the change of administrations in Washington and the personal involvement of Rep. Smith have clearly helped Goldman press his case. Public attention given the case should embarrass the Brazilian government into bowing to the dictates of the law, she said.

“Once one government accuses another government of being in violation of a treaty, it’s embarrassing,” she said.

Filan cautioned that it may still take time for Sean to finally come home to live with his father.

“I don’t think it’s going to be as quick as everybody wants, but I think ultimately it’s going to happen,” she said.

40 years' worth of thanks
In 1968, a white firefighter saved a black baby girl, touching the heart of a divided city. The two did not meet again. Until yesterday.

Joyful reunion
A Mattapan woman finally gets to say thanks to the firefighter who rescued her in 1968.
By Maria Cramer
Globe Staff / February 12, 2009

The firefighter crawled on his stomach through the pitch-black apartment, the smoke so thick he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. Somewhere inside was a baby and he had to find her.

A window broke, light filled the room, and he saw her lying in her crib, dressed only in a diaper, unconscious. Soot covered her tiny nose. She wasn't breathing and had no pulse.

He grabbed her and breathed life into her as he ran from the apartment.

A newspaper photograph captured their image - a white firefighter from South Boston with his lips pressed to the mouth of a black baby from the Roxbury public housing development - at a time when riots sparked by racial tensions were burning down American cities.

But despite this most intimate of introductions, they remained strangers. William Carroll won a commendation for the rescue, stayed on the job another 34 years, and retired. Evangeline Harper grew up, lost her family to drugs and illness, had six children of her own, and became a nursing and teaching assistant. And through it all someone would often tell her the story about the day she almost died and the man who would not let it happen. She always wanted to meet him and say thank you.

Yesterday, more than 40 years after the fire, she finally did.

In the neighborhood where they first met, Carroll, a slim 71-year-old, got out of his car, dressed in a navy blue uniform he had borrowed from a fellow firefighter, strode up to the 40-year-old woman, and beamed.

"You've grown a lot since the last time I saw you," he said, laughing and putting out his hand. She smiled, gently took his hand, and looked at him almost shyly.

"Thank you so much for remembering me," he told her.

Then he pulled her into a tight embrace and they held on to each other as they stood on Keegan Street, just a few yards from where he had carried her limp body decades ago.

"Thank you so much," she said softly.

The Globe arranged the meeting after Evangeline Harper, now Evangeline Anderson, introduced herself to a reporter at a community meeting and asked for help tracking down Carroll.

Anderson, who now lives in Dorchester, had tried twice before to locate the firefighter, first when she was 18, after her adoptive mother told her about the rescue, and again right after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

She tried to get his address from the Fire Department, but they said they could not give out personal information. She left her name and phone number, but never heard back.

"I thought, 'Oh, forget it. He probably doesn't remember," she said. " 'He's not interested.' "

That could not have been further from the truth.

"Evangeline Harper," Carroll said. "I'll never forget her name if I live to be 100 years old."

He heard once that she had been trying to get in touch with him, but somehow her phone number was lost and he did not know how to reach her.

For a while, Anderson stopped looking. Then, she heard the news about Lieutenant Kevin M. Kelley, the firefighter who was killed in January after his firetruck crashed into a Mission Hill building.

" 'Oh my God, this could have been this gentleman, and I never got a chance to say thank you,' " she recalled thinking. "I didn't want him to leave this earth or I to leave this earth without saying thank you."

Yesterday, she brought her youngest child, 6-year-old Reginald, and her godmother, Jacqueline Greer, who witnessed the rescue. For the meeting, Anderson swept her hair in a curly updo and carefully applied lip gloss.

The women brought Carroll a giant stuffed bear, and a thank-you card tucked inside an envelope addressed "To Our Hero."

Richard Paris, vice president of the firefighters union, stood nearby with Carroll's wife and little Reginald, who kicked at the frozen snow on the sidewalk as Greer, Carroll, and Anderson reminisced about the neighborhood. Gone were the brick high-rises that had once formed Orchard Park. In their place were two-level attached apartments painted in pastels and browns.

"I haven't been here in so long," Carroll said.

No one could remember exactly what started the fire on Nov. 7, 1968, but Greer said it began in the family's kitchen. Carroll, who was assigned to Engine 3, heard the report of children trapped in a burning building.

When Carroll arrived, Greer was at the scene, screaming and crying hysterically.

Carroll saved Evangeline, while Firefighter Charles Connolly rescued her 17-month-old brother, Gerry, and handed him to Lieutenant Joseph O'Donnell, who gave the boy mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

"He just cared," Greer, now 60, said of Carroll. "It wasn't that the child was black or she was white. It was a child and he was trying his best to bring her back her life."

Yesterday, both remembered who was missing from the reunion. Connolly and O'Donnell died long ago of heart problems. Anderson's brother Gerry succumbed to pneumonia as a toddler. Her grief-stricken mother turned to drugs for comfort, and died of an overdose at age 25. Her two sisters died young of natural causes. Last year, Anderson lost both her adoptive mother and uncle.

"I wish my friends . . . were here," Carroll said. "But they're up there watching over us."

"That's what I say about my family," Anderson said.

The two quickly built a rapport. He asked about her children, and she told him her eldest son was studying forensic science in college and how musical her other children are.

He told her he wanted to get to know her, and she promised to cook him some soul food.

"Oh, baby," he said, laughing. "I love it, but my stomach don't."

Carroll then took the group for lunch at Florian Hall, the union's headquarters, where Carroll still goes every week for coffee with friends or to help fellow retirees with healthcare questions. Over sandwiches, the group looked at old black-and-white photos of that day and traded stories about the challenges of raising children.

Carroll bonded with Anderson's son, who drew a picture of himself holding Carroll's hand.

Parting in the parking lot, Carroll hugged Greer and Anderson and told Reginald to call him.

"There's your new grandpa," Anderson said to her son.

"What a beautiful day," the retired firefighter said as he turned and walked back inside.

Indian boy marries dog to ward off tiger attacks
Dad: 'It will overcome any curse that might fall on the child as well on us'
updated 9:29 a.m. PT, Wed., Feb. 18, 2009

BHUBANESWAR, India - An infant boy was married off to his neighbors' dog in eastern India by villagers who said it will stop the groom from being killed by wild animals, officials and witnesses said Wednesday.

Around 150 tribespeople performed the ritual recently in a hamlet in the state of Orissa's Jajpur district after the boy, who is under two years old, grew a tooth on his upper gum.

The Munda tribe see such a growth in young children as a bad omen and believe it makes them prone to attacks by tigers and another animals. The tribal god will bless the child and ward off evil spirits after the marriage.

"We performed the marriage because it will overcome any curse that might fall on the child as well on us," the boy's father, Sanarumala Munda, was quoted as saying by a local newspaper.

The groom, Sagula, was carried by his family in procession to the village temple, where a priest solemnized the marriage between Sagula and his bride Jyoti by chanting Sanskrit hymns, a witness said.

The villagers then ate a feast with rich food and alcohol to celebrate.

The dog belongs to the groom's neighbors and was set free to roam around the area after the ceremony. No dowry was exchanged, the witness said, and the boy will still be able to marry a human bride in the future without filing for divorce.

Indian law does not recognize weddings between people and animals, but the ritual survives in rural and tribal areas of the country where millions are illiterate.