Man Charged With Abducting & Raping Teen He Later Married

 A man is on trial after been charged with raping and abducting his girlfriend's 15-year-old daughter, but he says the teen ran away with him willingly and eventually married him and bore his child.

Prosecutors are expected to call the now-grown woman and her relatives to testify about the day she disappeared in 2004 with Isidro Garcia after a fight at the family's apartment in an immigrant neighborhood in Santa Ana, California.

A decade later the woman reunited with her mother and sister after she reached out on Facebook.

They devised a plan for her to escape Garcia, who had told his wife she would be arrested and deported if she ever dared to leave and beat her when she tried, prosecutor Whitney Bokosky said during the trial's opening statements last week.

The account differs widely from the image of a happy couple presented by defense attorney Seth Bank. He showed jurors photos of the couple smiling at their wedding and at their daughter's birthday parties and told them of the family's trips to Disneyland and Las Vegas.

The case drew widespread attention in 2014 after Garcia's wife went to authorities near their home in Bell Gardens, California, and said she was the subject of a missing persons report filed a 10 years earlier by her mother, soon after she had arrived in the country from Mexico.

After Garcia's arrest, neighbors said they were shocked because the couple seemed so happy together.

Garcia, 42, is charged with rape, kidnapping and lewd acts on a child. If he is convicted of the kidnapping charge, he could face a life sentence.

Bank said Garcia acknowledged having an inappropriate sexual relationship with the teen but said he did not rape or abduct her. He genuinely loved his wife and worked hard as a janitor and machine operator to provide for his family, Bank said.

The alleged victim had willingly left an unhappy home to build a life with Garcia and fabricated the abduction tale years later when she began to regret her choice and wanted to reunite with her family, Bank said.

I Was Misquoted, I Never Slept With 100 Women - Sir Shina Peters

 News went round earlier this year that, veteran Juju music star, Sir Shina Peters revealed that he has slept with at least 100 women. He reportedly made the assertion during a chat with YNaija. 

The father of ace cinematographer, Clarence Peters has now refuted the claim

 in an interview with Saturday Punch, maintaining he never said such.

According to him,

“My friends and I were sitting down discussing about some young artistes and they were criticising them. I told them not to criticise the young singers because they would outgrow whatever they are doing now. I told them that it was youthful exuberance and that someone like me could relate with it because I had passed through more than what they are facing. I did not even mention anything about women. It is only a mad man that will say that I slept with 100 women. “Even if I did, is it something to be proud of? I never made any statement like that" said Sir Shina Peters.

He also revealed that being misquoted and spread of fake rumours are parts of the prizes one pays as a celebrity.

Former Defence Minister Killed in a Car Bomb, Al-Shabaab Takes Responsibility(Photos)

Former Somali defense minister Muhidin Mohamed Haji was killed today, Monday February 15th, in a car blast in Mogadishu's KM4 neighbourhood. According to a police officer at the scene, the bomb had been planted underneath his car.

 Islamist terror group Al- Shabaab has taken responsibility for the attack, with its spokesman Sheik Anbdiasis Abu Musab telling Reuters that they are behind his killing. Haji was defence minister in 208 during Somalia's transitional federal government, which was backed by United Nations.

He had fought alongside peacekeepers to push Al-Shabaab out of Mogadishu and other major cities. Until his death, Haji worked as an adviser for the Somali Federal parliament.

Female Politician and Activist, Najatu Muhammad Rejects President Buhari’s Appointment Via Newspaper Advert

 Northern politician and activist, Najatu Muhammad, used the quarter page of Daily Trust newspaper publication today, to announce her rejection of an appointment by President Buhari.

 Buhari had over the weekend ordered the sack of 13 Vice Chancellors of 13 Federal Universities and announced their replacements. Najatu was one of the replacements.

In her publication, Najatu said she was rejecting her appointment to serve as Chairperson of Federal University Dutse for personal reasons. She said she used the pages of a newspaper to reject the appointment because that was how she got to know of her appointment. She said she was not consulted by anybody before being appointed. See her newspaper announcement below...

One Month Old Baby Abandoned Inside Indomie Carton

 The police at FESTAC Town police station and a leader of the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) have rescued a-month-old baby, who was abandoned in an Indomie carton.

 The baby was sighted by the OPC leader in Amuwo Odofin, simply identified as Suleiman Badmus, who rescued the baby and handed her over to the police.

The baby is now being cared for by a woman police sergeant, Pamela Nwabinye, who has since the discovery been playing the role of mother to the baby.

Lagos Metro gathered that the baby, who was wearing a light blue overall, was wrapped in a white shawl and carefully placed in the carton.

Olabisi, a younger sister to the OPC leader, who rescued the baby, said “The baby was found close to where I sell herbs at Amuwo-Odofin. One of the OPC members heard the baby’s cries and called my brother, Badmus. The baby was inside a carton.

“When I saw her, I was shocked. I felt whoever abandoned her must be crazy. Mosquitoes had bitten her face. Why would any woman abandon her baby after she had carried the pregnancy for nine months?,” she added.

Sergeant Nwabinye was said to have bought new sets of clothes, flask, feeding bottle for the baby.

A police source at FESTAC police station said: “That’s how Pamela behaves with every baby rescued and brought to the station. She goes all out to mother the baby. Pamela spends her money a lot on abandoned kids. She likes kids a lot.

This Nollywood Actress's Outfit To Iyabo Ojo's Movie Premiere Has Got People Talking(See)

 Yesterday, February 14th, actress Iyabo Ojo had the movie premier of her much talked about movie, Black Val.

 There was fun and laughter, and the outfit of actress Peggy Ovire (right), pictured here with Iyabo Ojo's PA, Gbemi, at the reception caused tongues to wag non-stop.

See the outfit below...

Revealed : Pope John Paul II’s Intimate Relationship With A Married Woman

 

 Hundreds of letters and photographs that tell the story of Pope John Paul II's close relationship with a married woman, which lasted more than 30 years, have been shown to the BBC.

The letters to Polish-born American philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka had been kept away from public view in the National Library of Poland for years.

The documents reveal a rarely seen side of the pontiff, who died in 2005.

There is no suggestion the Pope broke his vow of celibacy. The friendship began in 1973 when Ms Tymieniecka contacted the future Pope, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, then Archbishop of Krakow, about a book on philosophy that he had written.

The then 50-year-old travelled from the US to Poland to discuss the work.

Shortly afterwards, the pair began to correspond. At first the cardinal's letters were formal, but as their friendship grew, they become more intimate.

The pair decided to work on an expanded version of the cardinal's book, The Acting Person. They met many times - sometimes with his secretary present, sometimes alone - and corresponded frequently.

In 1974, he wrote that he was re-reading four of Ms Tymieniecka's letters written in one month because they were "so meaningful and deeply personal".

Photographs which have never been seen before by the public reveal Karol Wojtyla at his most relaxed. He invited Ms Tymieniecka to join him on country walks and skiing holidays - she even joined him on a group camping trip. The pictures also show her visiting him at the Vatican.

"Here is one of the handful of transcendentally great figures in public life in the 20th Century, the head of the Catholic Church, in an intense relationship with an attractive woman," says Eamon Duffy, Professor of the History of Christianity at Cambridge University.

In 1976, Cardinal Wojtyla attended a Catholic conference in the US. Ms Tymieniecka invited him to stay with her family at their country home in New England.

She appeared to have revealed intense feelings for him because his letters immediately afterwards suggest a man struggling to make sense of their friendship in Christian terms.

In one, dated September 1976, he writes: "My dear Teresa, I have received all three letters. You write about being torn apart, but I could find no answer to these words."

He describes her as a "gift from God".

The BBC has not seen any of Ms Tymieniecka's letters. It is believed copies of them were included in the archive that was sold to the Polish National Library by Ms Tymieniecka in 2008, six years before she died. But they were not with the Pope's letters when the BBC was shown them. The National Library of Poland has not confirmed that they have Ms Tymieniecka's letters.

Marsha Malinowski, a rare manuscripts dealer who negotiated the sale of the letters, says she believes Ms Tymieniecka fell in love with Cardinal Wojtyla in the early days of their relationship. "I think that it's completely reflected in the correspondence," she told the BBC.

The letters reveal that Cardinal Wojtyla gave Ms Tymieniecka one of his most treasured possessions, an item known as a scapular - a small devotional necklace worn around the shoulders.