LITTLE ROCK — Nouel Alba, 37, a New York woman accused of trying to swindle donors by posing as a relative of a child killed in the Connecticut school shootings, also has been accused of soliciting money after superstorm Sandy through Web messages listing bogus charities.
Benigno Aquino III, president of the Philippines, signed legislation that will provide modern contraceptives to the nation’s poorest people and mandate sex education in public schools.
Susan Cotey, 52, and her husband Dennis Murawska, 59, survived an early morning fire at their Wisconsin home, despite the fact that their smoke alarms didn’t go off, because their pet chicken, Cluck Cluck, woke Cotey with loud clucking from her cage in the basement two floors belowwhere they slept.
Nabil Elaraby, an Egyptian diplomat who is secretary-general of the Arab League, declared that two decades of talks with Israel have been “a waste of time” and said Palestinians will take a new statehood bid to the U.N. Security Council.
Erika Menendez, 31, is being charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime after the Bronx, N.Y., woman was accused of pushing an Indian man onto tracks in front of an oncoming subway train and told police “it was an act against Muslims,” officials said.
Reg Austin, a professor and expert on international and constitutional law in Zimbabwe, announced his departure from a statefunded human-rights commission because of a lack of financial support and power to punish violations, likening the panel to “a baby for whose birth the parents made no preparations: no nursery, no cot, no blankets, no baby food.”
Dan Kimball, park superintendent at Everglades National Park in Florida, said complaints about vultures ripping off windshield wipers, sunroof seals and other vehicle parts have declined since park employees began lending visitors “anti-vulture kits” of tarps and bungee cords to protect their vehicles.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/30/2012