California polygamist gets life for family abuses
Los Angeles Times
-- February 14, 2009
MURRIETA,
California (AP) - A self-proclaimed polygamist was sentenced Friday to
seven consecutive life prison terms for torturing seven of his 19
children, abusing four others and imprisoning two of his three wives.
Mansa
Musa Muhummed, 55, 
also was sentenced to additional terms totaling 16
years and eight months by Riverside County Superior Court Judge F. Paul
Dickerson III, who said Muhummed's treatment of his family amounted to
"a reign of terror over defenseless children."
At his trial,
several of Muhummed's children and stepchildren testified against him,
telling jurors they had been beaten, starved, strung up by their feet
and forced to eat vomit and feces."If his appeals are exhausted and he does not prevail, he will die in prison," said Peter Morreale, Muhummed's attorney.
Muhummed
was convicted in June of 25 counts, including torture, child
endangerment, false imprisonment and corporal injury on a spouse.
Doctors had said the children were extremely malnourished, with one 19-year-old daughter weighing 56 pounds (25 kilograms).
(... more at ...)
Taxpayers May Pay for Octuplet Costs
USA Today News / Nation
-- February 11, 2009
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A big share of the
financial burden of raising Nadya Suleman's 14 children could fall on
the shoulders of California's taxpayers, compounding the public furor
in a state already billions of dollars in the red.
Even before the 33-year-old single, unemployed
mother gave birth to octuplets last month, she had been caring for her
six other children with the help of $490 a month in food stamps, plus
Social Security disability payments for three of the youngsters. The
public aid will almost certainly be increased with the new additions to
her family.
Also, the hospital where the octuplets are
expected to spend seven to 12 weeks has requested reimbursement from
Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program, for care of the premature
babies, according to the Los Angeles Times. The cost has not been
disclosed.
Word of the public assistance has stoked the
furor over Suleman's decision to have so many children by having
embryos implanted in her womb. "It appears that, in the case of the Suleman
family, raising 14 children takes not simply a village but the combined
resources of the county, state and federal governments," Los Angeles
Times columnist Tim Rutten wrote in Wednesday's paper. He called
Suleman's story "grotesque."
On the Internet, bloggers rained insults on
Suleman, calling her an "idiot," criticizing her decision to have more
children when she couldn't afford the ones she had, and suggesting she
be sterilized.
(... more at ...)
N.Y./Region New York Times Video by JIGAR MEHTA and JENNIFER MEDINA
-- January 2009
The Education of Harunur
Harunur
Rashid,
a Bangladeshi immigrant, was brought to New York by a man his mother
paid to take him to America to get an education. She had hoped he
would have a better life than what his small village could offer. But
those hopes dissolved when the man gave Harunur to a Bangladeshi family
in New York who forced him into servitude where he suffered abuse and
was barely fed. One day he managed to escape through an open window
and with the help of Muhammad Chaudry, a Bangladeshi-American who gave
Harunur shelter after he escaped, began to learn the meaning of
compassion in his quest for education.
Harunur Rashid, 17, is currently enrolled in the first class of the English Language Learners and International Support
Preparatory Academy with 87 other aspiring students.
N.Y./Region New York Times Video by PAUL VITELLO, SHAWN PATRICK FARRELL and MATTHEW WARREN
-- November 7, 2008
Islam and the Election
A
group of male and female ethnically-diverse NYU students discuss the
impact of the U.S. elections on their perceptions, politics, and
identity. Khalid Latif, Executive Director and
imam of the NYU Islamic Center, describes the on-campus group as
"basically an instutition within
the Division of Student Affairs serving a diverse population of about 2,000
young muslims coming from all walks of life and diverse ethnicities in terms of
their religiosity and various sects of Islam who are trying to figure out what their
identity means in terms of an American context.”