Indonesian volcano spews new burst of ash

TANAH KARO, Indonesia (AP) — An Indonesian volcano that was quiet for four centuries shot a new, powerful burst of hot ash more than 10,000 feet in the air Friday, sending frightened residents fleeing to safety for the second time this week. The force of the eruption — the strongest so far — could be felt five miles away. “This was a big one,” said 37-year-old Anto Sembiring, still shaken after abandoning his coffee shop in the middle of the danger zone. “We all ran as fast as we could. … Everyone was panicking.” The eruption of Mount Sinabung on Sunday and Monday — which caught many scientists off guard — forced more than 30,000 people living along its fertile…

Abstinence program partners Chinese officials with U.S. evangelicals

BEIJING – If all goes according to plan, this fall a girl somewhere in China’s Yunnan province will tell her boyfriend she can’t have sex with him. And he’ll have an abstinence program from the United States to thank. This Story Abstinence program partners Chinese officials with U.S. evangelicals User Poll: Does abstinence education work? In Yunnan schools this year, teachers are being trained with a sex education curriculum created by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family. The agreement with the Yunnan ministry of education is a milestone for Focus …

Arizona police say gunman kills 5, then self

LAKE HAVASU CITY, Ariz. (AP) — A gunman entered a western Arizona home and began shooting, killing the mother of his two children and three others before fleeing with the kids to California where he fatally shot himself, police said Sunday. In all, six people died. Officers responding to the home said they found four people dead and two others wounded. One of the injured died of his wounds early Sunday at a local hospital, police said. The alleged gunman, identified as 26-year-old Brian Diez, was found dead hours…

Kindergartens see more Hispanic, Asian students

The kindergarten class of 2010-11 is less white, less black, more Asian and much more Hispanic than in 2000, reflecting the nation’s rapid racial and ethnic transformation. The profile of the 4 million children starting kindergarten reveals the startling changes the USA has undergone the past decade and offers a glimpse of its future. In this year’s class, for example, about one out of four 5-year-olds will be Hispanic. Most of today’s kindergartners will graduate from high school in 2024. More Hispanic children are likely in the next generation because the…

Mother labored to find reason for son’s developmental delays

Adults who encountered Adam Driscoll as a baby tended to be impressed by his quiet, easygoing nature. He seemed happy, cried little and, by the age of 6 weeks, even slept through the night. But his mother, Jen, though grateful for Adam’s placidity — a marked contrast to his rambunctious older brother — viewed his undemanding behavior with an uneasiness that grew as he did. A former day-care provider who worked in a genetics lab at the University of Delaware, Driscoll knew that siblings’ personalities and development varied considerably. But she worried that Adam’s behavior reflected something more ominous: His muscle tone was poor, and he was stumped by things that seemed almost instinctive to other children, such as playing with toys. Driscoll repeatedly…

Katrina still has emotional grip on thousands of children

Five years later, Hurricane Katrina continues to wreak havoc in the lives of thousands of children who suffer from serious emotional disturbances, often compounded by a lack of stable housing, a study reports today. Children displaced by the storm are nearly five times more likely than other kids to have severe emotional disturbances, and fewer than half of the children believed to need psychological help got it, the study says. It’s published in the journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness . “A significant number of children are still living under dangerous and traumatic conditions of persistent displacement,” says study co-author Irwin Redlener, director of Columbia University’s National…

Women with cancer open up about ‘the big’ C in real life

Melanie Hernandez noticed the lump two weeks after delivering her fourth child. But at 31, Hernandez was too busy to think about cancer. She had a husband, a newborn, three other kids and her own preschool. She didn’t want to think that the ugly, uncomfortable growth could be cancer. “Even to associate that word with your name, it’s devastating,” she says. MORE: ‘The Big C’ has big influence on the actors By the time a doctor diagnosed Hernandez with melanoma — nine months later &#…

Kim Raver finds some of herself in strong characters

Kim Raver’s characters are survivors. “There seems to be a theme running through the women I play,” Raver says. “They take their circumstances and try to make the best of them. “Subconsciously maybe that’s something I’m drawn to. I have an incredible role model in my mom. She was a single mother raising two kids in New York. “Growing up the way I did, I definitely have an independent side to me. I didn’t give it up until I met my husband (French filmmaker Manu Boyer). He’s so wonderful I allowed myself to let someone else in and help out.” In Raver’s new film, Bond of Silence , airing Monday on Lifetime, she plays a woman whose husband is mysteriously murdered…

Obesity rates higher among minority girls

While some research suggests that the incidence of childhood obesity may be leveling off, a new study finds that for certain racial groups the rates may actually be getting higher. The study, to be published in the September issue of Pediatrics , finds that black, Hispanic and American Indian girls have two to three times higher odds of having a high body-mass index (BMI) compared to white girls. What’s more, although rates of obesity peaked for Hispanic girls in 2005, they have kept on rising for American Indian and black girls. “What was encouraging was that we saw some decline in obesity, (but) we saw an increase in the racial disparities. So, whatever policies we’re …

Former reality stars turn to politics

WASHINGTON — Three years ago, Surya Yalamanchili was told “you’re fired” by Donald Trump on national television. Now, the 28-year-old hopes Ohio voters will hire him for the U.S. House of Representatives. Yalamanchili, who survived eight episodes of The Apprentice in 2007, is one of three candidates running for Congress this fall after achieving some measure of fame as cast members on reality TV shows. Two others, Republican Sean Duffy of Wisconsin and Democrat Kevin Powell of New York, starred on MTV’s iconic Real World series. “Reality TV shares a lot in common with politics,” Yalamanchili told USA TODAY. “It’s much …

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