Stampede kills 145 at remote temple in India

NEW DELHI -- Thousands of panicked pilgrims stampeded Sunday at a remote mountaintop temple in northern India during celebrations to honor a Hindu goddess, sending dozens of people plummeting to their deaths and trampling scores more. Police said 145 people were killed.

Rumors of a landslide apparently started the panic at the shrine in the foothills of the Himalayas, said C.P. Verma, a senior government official in the Bilaspur district.

Pilgrims already at the Naina Devi Temple began running down the narrow path leading from the peak. There, they collided with devotees winding their way up.

With a concrete wall on one side and a precipice on the other, there was nowhere to escape and they were crushed. At one point a guard rail broke and dozens of people fell to their deaths.

The bodies of the devotees -- many dressed in brightly colored holiday clothes -- carpeted the path, intertwined with flattened iron railings. Many still held the flowers and food they planned to offer at the temple.

Police said they used a cable car at the shrine to ferry some of the bodies down, and helicopters flew in to take the wounded to hospitals.

Afghan mothers keep their kids with them in prison

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Three-year-old Wahid nervously clutched a dirty blue stuffed bunny, as the other children in the prison huddled around.

"Are you taking us to an orphanage?" he wanted to know.

Asked by some visitors if he wanted to go, Wahid waffled between yes and no, unable to decide which was worse -- moving to an orphanage or staying in prison with his mother.

Wahid is one of 226 young children who live in Afghanistan's prisons, with mothers who are among the country's 304 incarcerated women. These children have committed no crime. But their mothers have decided prison is the best option for them in a poor, war-torn country where a safe, comfortable home is a rarity.

In many European countries, babies and children up to 3 years old are allowed to stay in prison with their mothers to ease the pain of separation. And in the United States, a few jails also allow mothers to have their children with them, while others may end up in foster care or child welfare programs.

But in Afghanistan, the reasons for keeping children in prison are starkly different: Poverty and safety.

In the outside world, these children would be social outcasts because their mothers are prisoners and many of them were accused by their own families of adultery or murder. In prison, the children have access to some education, medical treatment and free items distributed by aid groups -- which is more than the average Afghan child gets.

At least 9 climbers feared dead on K-2

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- At least nine climbers were feared dead on K-2, the world's second highest mountain, after an avalanche cut ropes used to cross a treacherous wall of ice, officials and other climbers said Sunday.

Several other mountaineers were missing, prompting a desperate rescue effort on the peak in northern Pakistan, which is regarded as more dangerous to climb than Mount Everest.

A total of 22 people, mostly foreigners, in eight different groups scaled K-2's summit on Friday, said Nazir Sabir of the Alpine Club of Pakistan.

As they made their way down, an avalanche carried away ropes fixed 1,148 feet below the peak, sweeping some climbers to their deaths and stranding others at a height where they would likely succumb to exposure, Sabir said.

Accounts varied on the number of dead and how they died.

Sabir said nine people died in the avalanche. Included in that number, were two rescuers -- a Nepalese sherpa and a Pakistani porter -- who survivors said fell to their death.

He said two other climbers -- a Pakistani and a Serbian on an expedition he helped organize -- fell to their deaths Friday on the way up.

Grass-roots effort in Egypt fights 'cutting' girls

SULTAN ZAWYIT, Egypt -- In this small Nile River farming village, Maha Mohammed has started to doubt whether she should circumcise her two daughters.

A year ago, she had few qualms about female genital mutilation, the practice of cutting a girl's clitoris and sometimes other genitalia. She herself was cut two decades ago, and she fears her daughters will not find husbands otherwise.

But Mohammed also has heard that circumcision can be medically risky and emotionally painful. And a strong-willed neighbor, another woman, has been dropping by her house regularly to persuade her to say no.

"I hear that girls suffer not just physically but psychologically," the 31-year-old Mohammed said. "But I am afraid. I don't want my daughters to have uncontrollable demands for sex."

Such doubts are significant. With vigorous grass-roots campaigns and the passage of tough laws against circumcision, Egypt seems to be making a dent in this deeply ingrained practice, thousands of years old. The number of young girls circumcised is now steadily declining in a country where an estimated 96 percent of married Egyptian women have had their genitals cut.

Olympics take a bite out of your wallet

How are the Beijing Olympics contributing to a worldwide shortage of vitamin C?

In their efforts to curb air pollution for the upcoming games, the Chinese shut down manufacturing plants in and around Beijing -- including cutbacks at factories producing 80 percent of the world's ascorbic acid, more commonly known as vitamin C.

Experts say the shortage and resulting price increases will not likely spark an outbreak of scurvy, the nemesis of Old World sailors on extended voyages without fresh fruits and vegetables.

But ascorbic acid is crucial to modern food and beverage production, and is an important vitamin supplement in the United States and worldwide.

Ascorbic acid is a common ingredient in everything from cosmetics to baked goods. It is used to make bread softer and more uniform, and some Midwestern bakers are working hard to find adequate supplies.

"I know there's talk out there (about the problem), but I don't have the sense there is a panic yet," said Brian Strouts of AIB International, formerly the American Institute of Baking, in Manhattan, Kan.

Importance of Sunni-Shiite distinction plummets in Iraq

BAGHDAD -- For years, when she approached Iraqi Army checkpoints and produced an identification card for soldiers to study for clues about her sect, Nadia Hashim used a simple formula to signal the mostly Shiite Muslim force that she, too, is a Shiite.

"I am one of you," she'd say.

The soldiers would harass Sunnis, but they'd simply wave Hashim through.

Now her pat line gets her an official reproach.

When a relative used it recently, a soldier admonished the driver and the passengers. "'We are Iraqis, and you shouldn't say such a thing,"' recalled Hashim.

The 35-year-old mother of three said that for her and countless other Iraqis, the fact that soldiers are now using nationalist rather than sectarian language is a significant change. Being a Shiite is no longer key to her survival.

With violence subsiding throughout Baghdad, residents said that sectarianism is becoming less pervasive. They're starting to think of themselves as Iraqis, not as hostages to hyphenated, sectarian identities.