our possible new domicile
Chef giving us orientation
Our basic ingredients
Halfway through making the spring rolls
John with the finished productBy Mike Blake
SOLANA BEACH, California (Reuters) - A man was attacked and killed by a shark in the ocean near San Diego on Friday, the first person to die in a shark encounter off the Southern California coast in nearly 50 years.
The man was swimming with a group of athletes at Solana Beach, north of San Diego, when he was bitten by the shark, said Deputy Fire Chief Dismas Abelman. His identity was not immediately released.
Abelman said rescue crews responding to frantic calls at about 7 a.m. PDT found the man, believed to be in his 50s, being dragged from the sea with grievous injuries.
"They saw the victim with very severe injuries being pulled out of the water by a group of swimmers he had been swimming with," he said.
An air ambulance was summoned to the beach but the man, who had severe trauma to both legs, was pronounced dead before he could be taken to a hospital, Abelman said.
Area beaches were closed to swimmers and authorities were using helicopters to search for the shark. Abelman said the shark would not necessarily be killed it if it were found but, "We want to know where it is."
It was not known what species of shark was involved.
George Burgess, curator of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida, said, "It was most likely a great white shark judging by the nature of the wounds."
Burgess said great white sharks are not uncommon in the cool Pacific waters off California.
The last reported fatal shark attack in the region was in 1959, according to the International Shark Attack file, which is run by the Florida Museum of Natural History.
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.
Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.
Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.
"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.
"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.
"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said.
Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.
"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.
(Editing by Nick Tattersall and Mary Gabriel)
Xander's really come a long way since moving to San Diego. Don't get me wrong, he still has jackass tendencies now and then, but he's getting better every day.
Trees damaged by fall '07 Witch Fire 
Halo doing his best Paris Hilton impersonation
The boys eat dinner
Clear skies, sunny days
Jeff fixes our light/radio - he's secretly Superman
Xander getting used to the woods
Hanging out around the (illegal) campfireImmigration not an option for all couples
Same-sex couples in which one partner is from another country seek ways to stay together.
By AMY TAXIN
The Orange
Now, all he needs is a visa.
Fouquette, a 43-year-old Web designer, is banking on the
"They can't recognize our relationship for him to immigrate, or for us to stay together," said Fouquette, who met Lee, 39, shortly after he came to
About 35,000 people in the
"Nothing has the 'golden ticket' aspect that marriage does," she said. "The irony is, our couples say 'we're dying to have the opportunity to prove how bona fide these relationships are. … Gay and lesbian couples just want the same opportunity to prove their families deserve to stay together."
In fact, it can be easier for foreign same-sex couples to come here together temporarily than for a U.S. citizen to bring over his or her partner, said Louis Piscopo, an Anaheim-based immigration attorney. That's because
Generally speaking, a marriage was deemed valid in the
In fact, some same-sex couples who plan to move to the
Martha McDevitt-Pugh moved from
"It's not very easy," said McDevitt-Pugh, who founded a group called Love Exiles to offer support to same-sex couples who are facing this predicament abroad. "It's a really insecure existence."
Immigration Equality is lobbying for a bill that would let same-sex couples petition for immigration benefits for their partners much as a straight couples do. Under the proposed Uniting American Families Act, same-sex "permanent partners" could present documents – joint tax filings, property records, bank accounts – to prove their relationship and petition for a green card.
But the bill died during the last two sessions of Congress and has languished for nearly a year in a House immigration subcommittee. One reason is the proposal faces opposition from lawmakers aiming to tighten immigration laws as well as those who oppose same-sex marriage.
Rep. John Campbell, R-Irvine, said the proposal could create more opportunities for fraud in an immigration system that lawmakers are struggling to tighten. "There are a number of well-known abuses where marriages have been arranged for someone to gain access to the
Getting any immigration bill through Congress with the issue so hot – especially in an election year – is unlikely.
"Immigration legislation, other than new restrictions, are not getting through Congress right now," said Louis DeSipio, political science professor at UC Irvine. "If every member of Congress could get his or her pet issue through, there's no pressure to come up with a broader compromise."
Until now, Fouquette and Lee say they have found ways to work within the system. The couple couldn't qualify for graduate housing at UC Irvine because they didn't form a domestic partnership under
"I always have a plan," Lee said. "We have a plan for the worst (scenario)."
"Neither of us are complaining about the way things have worked out for us," said Fouquette, who started a home-based consulting business to be able to move in response to Lee's job and visa offers. "How can you complain too much? Because we don't have to leave, we don't have to split up. Compared to other couples, we're lucky."
Contact the writer: 714-796-7722 or ataxin@ocregister.com
The world as I know it ceased to exist as of 7:42 this morning. That when I realized, as I sat in the terminal at San Diego International Airport, that my cell phone was in my car.
I learned the absurdity of the election is even funnier when coming from Rock's mouth (though, in all fairness, Jon Stewart, keep on rocking). I'm sitting here in my cube weeping silently from giggling so hard.
Anyone who knows me knows that I don't get overly excited about good finds, building them up and overselling them to the point that there's no way they could meet expectations.
