The Morningwood News

Guardian Unlimited
Jonathan Watts in Beijing
The Observer

Fears of sexual turmoil and ‘bachelor villages’

China is planning to tighten punishments for sex-selective abortions amid concerns that its widening gender imbalance will lead to wife trafficking, sexual crimes and social frustration.

Shocking new figures released by the state media show that the worst affected city, Lianyungang in Jiangsu province, has a ratio of 165 boys to 100 girls among children aged one to four.

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Yahoo 7 News
AAP

A 16-year-old schoolboy has cracked the federal government’s $84-million internet porn filter.

Tom Wood, a Year 10 student, told News Ltd newspapers it took him about 30 minutes to break through the government’s new filter, released on Tuesday.

Tom, who attends a Melbourne private school, can deactivate the filter after several clicks.

His method ensures the software’s toolbar icon is not deleted.

He can leave his parents believing the filter is still working.

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Orlando Sentinel
Willoughby Mariano

The Orlando Sentinel has confirmed that one of three men found dead in an east Orange County home in an apparent double murder-suicide is a prominent political consultant.

Ralph Gonzalez was found dead at his home at 2420 Hickory Oak Blvd., his father Rafael Gonzalez, 69, confirmed. Gonzalez is the former head of the Republican party in Georgia and the president of Strategum Group, an Orlando political consulting firm that represents Republican candidates, including many in Central Florida such as state Rep. Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando.

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By JIM SCHAEFER
DETROIT FREE PRESS

A mundane morning of testimony in the trial of two former Detroit police officers against Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and the City of Detroit heated up with the first detailed allegation of extramarital philandering by the mayor.

Harold Nelthrope, a former Kilpatrick police bodyguard, testified in Wayne County Circuit Court that he and another officer in 2002 drove the mayor to a rendezvous with a “Jamaican friend” at a barbershop on the west side of Detroit about two blocks from the Kilpatrick family home.

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International Herald Tribune
Europe
The Associated Press

MOSCOW: When he flexes Russia’s diplomatic and military muscle, President Vladimir Putin always makes headlines.

But few could have predicted the squall of gossip and speculation that would follow after Putin stripped off his shirt for the cameras while on holiday with Prince Albert II of Monaco in the Siberian mountains last week.

The resulting images of the presidential abs, prominently enshrined on the presidential Web site, inspired admiration, criticism and some racing pulses among his admirers.

The Russian media still can’t get enough.

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Yahoo News
By OneWorld US

SAINT LOUIS, Aug 20 (OneWorld) - Members of a leading Iraq war veterans’ organization voted this weekend to launch a campaign encouraging U.S. troops to refuse to fight.

The decision was made at the group’s annual membership meeting, held this weekend in Saint Louis, Missouri alongside the annual convention of the Veterans for Peace organization.

“Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) decided to make support of war resisters a major part of what we do,” said Garrett Rappenhagen, a former U.S. Army sniper who served in Iraq from February 2004 to February 2005.

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International Herald Tribune
Europe
By Clifford J. Levy

MOSCOW: Moscow asks, Who turned off the hot water?

The dour Moscow of Cold War film strips is long gone, and this increasingly prosperous city fancies itself striding chest out into the future. But every summer, the people here get a taste of old-style deprivation, as if they were flung back to a time when they had to line up at dawn to buy a few coils of mealy sausage.

In neighborhoods rich and poor, for as long as a month, most buildings have had no running hot water, not a drop.

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The Houston Chronicle
By RICHARD STEWART

PEARLAND — This time, Nyles Reed didn’t have to pay for his Purple Heart medal.

Monday, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn awarded him the medal, saying it is “embarrassing” Reed was ever told he’d have to pay $42 to get his own.

The 75-year-old retired salesman got a standing ovation at a packed luncheon of the Pearland and Alvin Chambers of Commerce.

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The Seattle Times
By Oskar Garcia
AP

OMAHA, Neb. — For prices starting at $50, two nonfederally recognized American Indian tribes are offering membership to thousands of illegal immigrants, claiming they can achieve legal status by joining the groups.

But immigration authorities said becoming a tribe member gives no protection against being deported. And immigration advocates condemned the practice, saying it defrauds immigrants of money and gives them false hope.

“You can’t just decide to become a member of a tribe and all of a sudden legalize your status,” said Marilu Cabrera, a spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

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The Indianapolis Star

First lady Cheri Daniels apparently is one heck of a spitter.

And she’s got the blue ribbon to prove it.

The first lady took top honors in a watermelon-seed-spitting contest at this year’s Indiana State Fair. In fact, she won two blue ribbons this year, including one for milking a cow.

“After coming in second in the cow-milking contest last year, I vowed to take home first this year,” said Daniels, obviously a scrappy competitor. “I practiced several times throughout the fair and the hard work paid off.”

Her prowess at spitting watermelon seeds she credits to her upbringing.

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Chicago Tribune
By Associated Press

SAN DIEGO - The Navy has removed a video from YouTube shot aboard the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan because it shows sailors using safety equipment inappropriately, a Navy spokesman said.

The video, titled “Women of CVN76: ‘That Don’t Impress Me Much,’” was shot by an airman and not sanctioned by the ship’s commanders or the Navy. It includes fleeting shots of the door to the ship’s nuclear power plant and of a sailor dancing while wearing a full-body radiation suit.

Both could alarm Navy nuclear-propulsion officials, who are sensitive about security. Under Pentagon rules, images of any part of a ship’s nuclear plant cannot be shown to foreign nationals.

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National Public Radio (NPR)
By Lisa Chow

China, the world’s top exporter of laptop computers, T-shirts and toys is now trying to export indie rock. The country’s largest independent record label has just released its first album in the United States, by a band called Rebuilding the Rights of Statues.

The band toured the United States before the album’s release, performing at the South by Southwest musical festival in Austin, Texas, and several shows in New York.

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