North Dakota woman plans to give obese kids letters on Halloween

By David Bailey

(Reuters) - A North Dakota woman told a local radio station that on Halloween she will give children she considers obese a sternly-worded letter for their parents along with candy.

The woman, who gave her name only as "Cheryl," said she would still hand out candy but planned to give some trick-or-treaters a sealed envelope with a letter for their parents, she said Tuesday in a call to a radio station in Fargo.

"I am not denying any of the kids candy," she said. "I am just hoping the parents are going to read this and think about it while they watch their kids get into bigger and bigger sizes of clothes," according to a recording of the radio show.

"As far as we know Cheryl is a local Fargo woman that thinks it is her mission to watch out for the overweight children of Fargo," radio host Corey Schaffer said Wednesday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has said the percentage of children and adolescents aged 2-19 years in the United States who were obese in 2010 was 17 percent.

Schaffer, who goes by Zero as a host of the Y94 show, said the woman exchanged emails with the station for a couple of days and was scheduled in advance to call in Tuesday.

Schaffer said Cheryl's Halloween plan has sparked some "nasty, nasty responses."

Among the responses was "Ready, Eggs, FIRE." Others suggested she pass out healthier treats or not answer her door.

Cheryl's letter reads in part, "Your child is, in my opinion, moderately obese and should not be consuming sugar and treats to the extent of some children this Halloween season.

"My hope is that you will step up as a parent and ration candy this Halloween and not allow your child to continue these unhealthy eating habits."

Halloween has been a season of radio pranks since Orson Welles radio broadcast adaptation of "War of the Worlds" sparked fears of an East Coast alien invasion 75 years ago, but Schaffer said the station was not perpetrating a hoax and he did not believe Cheryl was either.

In the radio appearance, the woman said, "I just think that parents should take more responsibility for their kids becoming little fat kids."

Cheryl added, "I don't want to be the mean lady. I don't want to be the lady that everybody avoids."

(Reporting by David Bailey; Editing by Greg McCune and Kenneth Barry)

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After 74 years and 3,000 letters, pen pals meet for first time

written more than 3,000 letters to each other over more than 70 years, but Audrey Sims and her friend Norma Frati had never met in person. Until now.

The pair were first in touch in 1940, when they were assigned to write each other a letter as part of a pen pal project in school. They continued to correspond, but Sims, 83, who lives in Australia, and Frati, 87, who lives in Texas, never got around to getting together.

I think we've got parallel families. We're both married and divorced and married again, and it’s sort of almost the same,” Sims said in an interview with Texas affiliate KHOU.

The pair, who share a mutual love of flowers, said they planned to visit some gardens during Sims’ stay. And the two women say that once Sims heads back to Australia, their written correspondence will resume.

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Irish PM says received letters in blood over planned abortion law

By Padraic Halpin

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland's prime minister said he had been sent letters written in blood and been branded a murderer by opponents of his government's plans to allow limited access to abortion, an issue that has polarized the country for decades.

Enda Kenny's government agreed draft legislation in April to allow for limited access to abortion where a woman's life is in danger, including the threat of suicide, following months of protests from both sides of the debate.

Ministers signed off on the completed legislation at a meeting on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the government said, and it hopes to enact it before parliament adjourns in July.

After about 40,000 people massed outside government offices in Dublin on Saturday in the largest anti-abortion demonstration in traditionally Roman Catholic Ireland's history, Kenny delivered a trenchant defense of the plans.

"I am now being branded by personnel around the country as being a murderer, that I am going to have on my soul the death of 20 million babies," Kenny told parliament on Wednesday, detailing how he had been sent items of Catholic regalia and threatening messages.

"I'm getting medals, scapulars, plastic fetuses, letters written in blood, telephone calls all over the system, and it's not confined to me."

A two-decade debate over how Ireland should deal with a Supreme Court ruling that abortion be permitted when a woman's life was in danger was re-opened last year after the death of a woman who was denied an abortion of her dying fetus.

Successive governments had sidestepped acting on the ruling, the result of a challenge by a 14-year-old rape victim in the so-called "X-case" of 1992 to a constitutional amendment nine years earlier that intended to ban abortion in all instances.

"LURID CLAIMS"

Kenny has been met by resistance from some among his conservative Fine Gael party as well as a concerted campaign by Ireland's once powerful Catholic Church which is putting pressure on lawmakers.

Kenny, midway through his five-year term, has kept all but one of Fine Gael's 76 members of parliament on side, even as he pushes through tough austerity measures required under an EU-IMF bailout. He has said he expects the government to vote as one on the issue, signaling any defectors could be expelled from his party.

In a strongly worded statement on Tuesday, the Catholic Bishops of Ireland accused the government of misleading people on the abortion legislation and said every citizen "should be deeply concerned" by the changes proposed.

Rocked by a series of child abuse scandals, the church's influence over society has waned since the 1980s and a younger, secular generation wants to end the practice of Irish women travelling to nearby Britain to terminate their pregnancies.

Kenny, a regular Mass-goer who delivered a once-unthinkable rebuke to the Vatican over its handling of the abuse scandals two years ago, said he did not agree with many of the statements that the bishops had made.

"My job as taoiseach (prime minister) is to lead the government in governing for the people of the country. That is not confined to any sector of the people, it is for all of the people," he said to applause from some members of parliament.

"Therefore I am proud to stand here as a public representative, as a taoiseach who happens to be a Catholic but not a Catholic taoiseach."

Opponents said Kenny's allegations of unpleasant behavior by critics of the government's abortion proposal were aimed at discrediting the anti-abortion movement.

"The taoiseach is making lurid claims again - just after the largest ever pro-life demonstration in Ireland, the National Vigil for Life last Saturday," Cora Sherlock, spokeswoman for anti-abortion group Pro Life Campaign, said in a statement.

"This is nothing more than spin designed to distract from the Bill. It's a disgusting attempt to demonize the pro-life movement rather than debate the proposed legislation."

(Editing by Pravin Char)

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Woman seeks home for World War II letters found in the hatbox

On the southern edge of Louisiana, there is almost as much water as the Earth. You cannot drive to someone's home, you have to travel by boat and sometimes there are hours of water between neighbors. It takes a special breed to make a home here, in the swamp, between mosquitoes and hurricanes almost a year. But those who call it home, I love it. See a magical space of quietude strange and subtle green and grey ruffle where time nobody cares and the freedom of the water is at your fingertips.

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