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Sisters Separated at Birth Reunited After 30 Years Thanks to Home DNA Test

Two sisters who were adopted as babies and lived thousands of miles apart have been reunited thanks to a home DNA test.

The popularity of at-home DNA testing has boomed in recent years, as anyone can purchase a simple kit for themselves or a loved one and uncover secrets hidden in their own DNA.

MyHeritage, a leading genealogy site, ran a pro bono initiative called DNA Quest in 2018, where it donated 15,000 tests to adoptees to support them in being reunited with their birth families through DNA testing. This resulted in hundreds of reunions, according to the company. Sisters Ashleigh Brown and Laurinda Collado are one of those.

Brown and Collado are now aged 33 and 35. Born in the Dominican Republic to the same biological parents, Collado was adopted when she was 5 months old and raised as an only child in Bristol, Connecticut. Two years later, her adoptive parents were given the choice to take in her sister Ashleigh but they chose not to. Instead, Brown was adopted at 6 weeks old and grew up in Barbados.

While each knew that they had biological siblings somewhere, they lived with the fear that they might never meet their biological family, with nothing but pictures of their biological parents in baby albums. It wasn't until the DNA Quest initiative was launched by MyHeritage that they were able to take steps to find each other.

Son reunites with mother to bring her rapists to justice after 28 years

The timeline of the case that took 28 years to bring justice to the victim was recently shared by Uttar Pradesh police.

Gang-raped at the age of 12, a woman’s remarkable journey to justice come to fruition recently. The timeline of the case that took 28 years to bring justice for the victim was recently shared by Uttar Pradesh police.

The young girl was raped by two individuals in 1994 at the age of 12. She had been living with her sister and brother-in-law in Shajahanpur when the accused barged into her home and gang-raped her.

The rape led to her becoming pregnant and she gave birth to a child at the age of 13. She was forced to part ways with her child in 1996 who was taken in by a couple in another district. The family migrated to Rampur.

The victim tried to restart her life and married another man. However, he divorced her after 10 years when he became aware of the gang-rape that she had been subjected to.

European governments must apologise for forcing unwanted adoptions

Governments across Europe must apologise for the adoption scandal that took place in the latter half of the 20th Century, and help victims trace their relatives and heritage, writes James P. Axiotis.

When I was just nine months old I was ripped away from my birth mother, just because she wasn't married.

So when I read that a report published by the Joint Committee on Human Rights has recommended that the government apologise to women like my birth mother, it resonated. It reignited in me the frustrations I have at the lack of remorse by governments that allowed this to happen.

Some 185,000 women in 1950s, 60s and 70s Britain were "shamed" and "coerced" into giving up their babies, a committee inquiry found. But that is only half the story. What few people know is that the same was happening across Europe at the same time including in my homeland, Greece.

Governments need to make a collective apology, and to acknowledge the harm they have caused to both mothers and children. They also need to remove barriers facing victims that prevent them from tracing their relatives, as well as do everything they can to help reconnect these lost generations to their roots. We are all victims in this scandal, and the emotional scars are ones that live with us throughout our lives.

Arrest of the Spanish Jacques Seguela for rape of minors

Arrest of one of the most influential men in Spain, the communicator and consultant Nacho Jacob (his real name is Ignacio de Jacob y Gomez), 41, called "The Count of the Sweet Wells" (Conde de Pozos Dulzes) royalist and affirmed and assumed Catholic. He was caught red-handed in a room at the Nelva Hotel in Murcia, on July 19, 2022. Other sources inform that he was caught in the hotel parking lot. The police have already managed to identify 3 other victims and are looking for others whom the police presume are numerous.

He is a partner of the Vicente Ferrer Foundation and collaborator of “Nuevo Futuro” and “Terre des Hommes”, which promotes the development of the most disadvantaged children In an interview given in 2020 to the magazine Mujer Hoy, he answered the question of knowing if children are among the groups that concerned him the most. His answer: 'I remember that, as a young man, I started in San Cristóbal, with Father Ángel, helping excluded children, with significant social uprooting'.

He is the founder of Jacob Fitzgerald Events & Communication. More than 2000 prestigious events organized around the world from Paris to Miami via Los Angeles.

His career in the world of public relations and communication has earned him numerous distinctions, such as the Dove of Peace, which was awarded to him by the "Fundación Mensajeros de la Paz", jointly with the King Queen of Spain, the Pompidou Prize for Communication which he received in Paris from the hands of Leonardo Di Caprio or the “European Citizen Prize” granted by the Europa Forum.

The aforementioned police sources confirm that Nacho Jacob has already hired the criminal lawyer Raúl Pardo-Geijo, named Spain's best lawyer in criminal law in 2020 by the prestigious legal publishers Client Choice and Best Lawyers.

Inside America’s Adoption Fraud Industry

In the age of 'Instagram adoptions', sophisticated con artists are defrauding prospective parents of large sums of money by digitally posing as viable birth mothers. With the scope of this fraudulent industry only just emerging, Sarah Green speaks to victims of the burgeoning crime, and those who are fighting it in the dark.

Christmas Day 2021 should have been one of the happiest of Breanne Paquin’s life. After almost a decade of disheartening doctor visits and diagnoses, Paquin and her husband boarded a last-minute flight from Cleveland, Ohio to Houston, Texas for what they thought was their Christmas miracle.

The hopeful couple were expecting a baby boy, and they were flying almost 1,300 miles to meet him. Leading up to their trip, Paquin had been in near-constant communication with a pregnant woman named Ingrid Hernandez — their online relationship developed through daily good morning and good night texts, picture updates, video messages and FaceTime calls, along with an expectant promise that grew with each passing day.

Five months prior, Hernandez had promised the Paquins her unborn baby boy via social media. In the months that followed, they had spent dozens of hours and thousands of dollars perfecting every detail for his homecoming — from building and furnishing his nursery, to stocking frozen breastmilk and baby supplies.

The young couple never could have predicted the trauma that waited for them in Texas. Instead of spending their Christmas with Hernandez in a hospital delivery room, the Paquins found themselves in an emergency meeting with their lawyer on a deserted restaurant patio.

North Dakota woman sentenced to life in prison for death of foster child

Body of North Dakota child was found in the woman's basement


A North Dakota woman has been sentenced to life in a federal prison for fatally abusing her 5-year-old foster child.

Tammy Longie, of Tokio, earlier pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, child abuse and neglect in the May 2020 death of Raven Thompson. His body was found the basement of Longie's home on the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation.

Longie was sentenced in federal court Monday in a case that U.S. Attorney Jennifer Klemetsrud Puhl called "tragic and horrifying."

The FBI and Bureau of Indian Affairs responded the Longies' home and found Raven dead and his 7-year-old brother in need of medical care due to abuse and neglect.

BZ Wob decision requesting implementation of sanctions against Russia

BZ Wob decision requesting implementation of sanctions against Russia

North Dakota woman sentenced to life in prison for death of foster child

A North Dakota woman has been sentenced to life in a federal prison for fatally abusing her 5-year-old foster child.

Tammy Longie, of Tokio, earlier pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, child abuse and neglect in the May 2020 death of Raven Thompson. His body was found the basement of Longie's home on the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation.

Longie was sentenced in federal court Monday in a case that U.S. Attorney Jennifer Klemetsrud Puhl called "tragic and horrifying."

 

NORTH DAKOTA MAN FATALLY SHOT IN STANDOFF WITH POLICE

Delete 'illegitimate child' from adoption law, says parliamentary panel

NEW DELHI: A parliamentary panel is learned to have recommended omitting the reference to "illegitimate child" from the adoption law, saying that no child is illegitimate whether born within or out of wedlock. The panel has also underlined the need to enact a single comprehensive law covering guardianship aspects of various categories of persons and applicable to all, irrespective of religion, sources said.

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice chaired by senior BJP leader Sushil Modi made this recommendation while reviewing the "Guardians and Wards Act".

The panel is likely to table its report on 'Review of Guardianship and Adoption Laws, in the ongoing Monsoon session.

The committee in the report is understood to have suggested that it strongly feels that the word 'illegitimate' should be omitted as no child is illegitimate and law should be the same for all children whether born within or out of wedlock. It feels there is a need to amend the Guardians and Wards Act to give primacy to the 'welfare principle' over parental authority.

It is also of the view that there is a need to define what constitutes the welfare of the child in broader terms in both the Acts, the sources said.

Lintse finalist of Mr. Gay Belgium promotes couples with children during Antwerp Pride

RIBBON -The fifteenth edition of the Antwerp Pride will start on Wednesday. For Lintenaar Tim Küsters, who played in the final of Mr. Gay Belgium stands, promises to be busy days and is especially committed to the people from its community who want to have children.

“Wednesday I will be present at the opening party and during the Antwerp Pride parade on Saturday we will be on one of the cars with all the finalists to drive through the city. Finally, I'm going to the Pride Village on Sunday," says Tim.

With the different presences, Tim naturally wants to put his final place in the spotlight, but he wants to bring even more attention. “During Mr. Gay Belgium we can commit ourselves around a theme of our own choice. I do this for the LGBTQIA+ community with a desire to have children. My partner Tim has two children from a previous relationship. So basically my wish to have children has been fulfilled. I am lucky that Nick and Lissa accepted me very quickly. Despite me coming into their lives early in their teens, they handled this pretty well. Their father was before me with a woman.”

But Tim wants every same-sex couple to enjoy this childhood bliss. “In May 2006, the legislation on adoption for same-sex couples was approved in Belgium. We are 2022 and things are not going smoothly at all. For example, there are only nineteen countries where adoption is possible for these couples. There is no law at all about surrogacy. I hope to draw more attention to this theme so that it is discussed in the media and even in education, for example. It should be easier for future generations in our community to realize their wish to have children. Now it is a difficult search for the possibilities.”