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WORLD & NATION: AT HOME

Compiled from news dispatches

July 23, 2008

A woman accused of slicing open a pregnant woman's belly and taking her baby was obsessed with getting an infant and even had hallucinations of hearing babies cry after a February 1990 miscarriage, according to court records. A few months later, Andrea Curry-Demus stabbed one woman in an apparent plot to steal her newborn; the next day, she kidnapped another baby from a hospital. Curry-Demus, 38, of Wilkinsburg, Pa., was charged Sunday with homicide, kidnapping and related offenses in the death of Kia Johnson, 18. Johnson's decomposing body, with her wrists and ankles bound by duct tape and layers of tape and plastic covering much of her head, was found Friday in Curry-Demus' apartment. A day earlier Curry-Demus had taken the baby to a hospital, claiming first that she was the mother and later that she paid for the child. Authorities say the two women met at the Allegheny County jail on July 15 while visiting different inmates.

A dozen bystanders rushed in to help a 70-year-old man after he stumbled leaving a Southern California bank, causing thousands of dollars to scatter in the wind. Ludwig Geier says hundreds of bills were "gone in no time," flying through the air and littering the First National Bank's parking lot in Torrance on Monday. Almost immediately, about a dozen bystanders rushed in to help. The machine shop owner says about 96 percent of the money was found. Geier says he's going to pray for those good Samaritans, adding, "If I could get them together, I'd buy them dinner and drinks."

A Continental Airlines flight carrying former presidential candidate Ron Paul and six other members of Congress to Washington, D.C., made an emergency landing in New Orleans on yesterday after a loss in cabin pressure. The seven congressmen, all from Texas, were trying to get back in time for a vote last night on an aviation safety bill when the flight landed without incident, a spokesman for one of the representatives said. No injuries were reported among the 128 crew and passengers. FAA spokeswoman Lynn Tierney said Flight 458 from Houston initiated a rapid descent to bring the plane to an altitude below where adding oxygen was necessary and was given priority to land at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.

A Texas grand jury has indicted polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs and five of his followers. Jeffs was charged yesterday with felony sexual assault of a child. Attorney General Greg Abbott says four of his followers are charged with one count of sexually assaulting girls under the age of 17. One of the four faces an additional charge of bigamy. Abbott says a fifth follower is charged with three counts of failure to report child abuse. The charges follow an ill-fated child custody case in which more than 400 children were placed in foster care. The Texas Supreme Court ruled child welfare authorities overstepped in taking all the children from their parents even though many were infants and toddlers.