■ UNITED STATES
The real Harry Potter
Sometimes it is a hassle being Harry Potter, especially if you are a 78-year-old retiree. Each time a new Harry Potter book or movie comes out, Florida resident Harry Potter gets phone calls from children and interview and autograph requests. "The kids want to know if I'm Harry Potter," he said with a chuckle. "I tell them I've been Harry Potter for darn near 80 years." Potter said he has not read any of the books or seen the movies, but he gets his fun out of Pottermania. "When Harry talks to the kids, they'll ask about the owl and he'll say, `Oh, he came by and brought the mail,'" his wife Jan said. "Then, when they're done, the mothers come on and say thank you for talking to the kids. He gets a big kick out of it."
■ COLOMBIA
Phone scam on the rise
The nation, long one of the world's kidnapping capitals, has seen a rash of cases in which mobile phone customers receive messages telling them to turn off their handsets for two hours because their telephones have been cloned, police say. The criminals then contact family members of the phone user to say that he or she has been taken hostage. Families who have no way of contacting their relative are directed where to drop off ransom money before the two hours are up. "If you get a call telling you to turn off your handset, contact the authorities," local TV channel Caracol told viewers during a Tuesday news program.
■ UNITED STATES
Mom dressed dead toddlers
Two children found dead under an apartment sink were bathed and dressed by their mother before being wrapped in trash bags, arrest warrants released on Wednesday showed. The warrants provide new details of the events that police in Hanahan, South Carolina, say led to the arrest of a troubled single mother suspected of leaving her children in a hot car for hours while she was at work. Sametta Heyward, 27, was charged on Tuesday with homicide by child abuse after the bodies of one-year-old Triniti Campbell and four-year-old Shawn Campbell Jr. were found. The warrants said Heyward called her ex-boyfriend and told him she had "killed her babies."
■ GUATEMALA
Anti-crime body approved
Congress on Wednesday voted to create a commission made up of a team of international crime experts to investigate organized crime and police corruption. The US, Sweden, Norway and Spain have offered to help finance the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, which is expected to start work in November. "The commission's goal of helping Guatemalan authorities to investigate criminal groups and take them to trial ... will help to strengthen the rule of law," the US embassy in Guatemala said in a statement on Wednesday.
RSS