A kidnapped woman's dramatic escape led police to a house of horrors in New Orleans, complete with hidden compartments, false doors and cameras behind two-way mirrors. Apartment resident Mario Perez-Roque, 56, was arrested Friday evening on charges of kidnapping one of his co-workers, a 36-year-old Cuban national he tried and failed to court.

The unnamed woman was kidnapped from her home on Martinique Avenue in New Orleans earlier that same day, and taken to Perez-Roque's rear apartment in a shotgun home, where he held her before she was able to free herself and flee. However, police believe two men were involved in the kidnapping, and are still searching for the second man.
Police say the victim worked with Perez-Roque and had turned him down when he expressed interest in dating her.

Kenner police Lt Brian McGregor described the home as a 'house of horrors'.'We found restraints. They've got false walls and everything else inside the house,' McGregor told the New Orleans Advocate. 'That's pretty much what it is, a house of horrors. Who wants to be restrained? Who wants to be tied up in somebody else's house?' On Friday, Perez-Roque came to the woman's house on Martinique Avenue and kidnapped her, bringing her back to his apartment where he gagged her, placed a bag over her head and tied her to a chair inside the apartment.

The woman told police that at one point, she heard two men whispering in Spanish about leaving the apartment. She was eventually able to free one of her hands and take the bag off her head to find that she was sitting directly across from a picture of herself. The woman then managed to take off all of the restraints and she ran out of the house.

Unfortunately one of the men saw her and started chasing her and nearly succeeded in recapturing her when a Good Samaritan intervened Gary Messina told WWL that he was driving down the street with his wife and son when he saw the man chasing the woman and knew something was wrong. 'I just jumped out of the car to try to stop the guy from pulling her back. As soon as I jumped out of the car he looked at me and he had her around the neck in a headlock and just wasn't going to let her go' Messina explained. The man eventually fled when Messina screamed that the police were on the way.

A widespread practice in the US known as "pay to stay" charges jail inmates a daily fee while they are incarcerated. For those who are in and out of the local county or city lock-ups - particularly those struggling with addiction - that can lead to sky-high debts.

David Mahoney is $21,000 (£13,650) in debt. Not from credit cards. Not from school loans.

He's accumulated the massive tab because of the days he spent locked up in the local jail in Marion, Ohio, which is a small town with a major heroin epidemic. Mahoney, a lanky 41-year-old, has struggled with addiction since he was a teenager, eventually stealing to fuel his habit. He got caught a lot, even burgling the same bar twice.

"The urge to use cocaine and crack - that's what it led to it. Once I start using there's no going back for me," he says.

Today, he's 14 months sober, and is a resident and employee of the Arnita Pittman Community Recovery Center, a sober living house on the northern edge of town. His counsellor says he is doing "awesome" and he hopes to one day to become an addiction counsellor himself.

But while Mahoney may have left his habits behind, he can't shake his debt. It has accumulated over 15 years of trouble with the law and is a separate charge from the restitution he must pay to the victims he stole from, or any administrative costs he has incurred by going to court.

It comes from a daily "pay-to-stay" fee - sometimes called "pay for stay" - that he was charged by the local jail, the Multi-County Correctional Center. He was charged $50 each day he spent in jail, plus a $100 booking fee. It works almost as if he checked into a hotel and got a bill when he checked out.

"Obviously, it's my fault I'm in the situation I am in. I'm trying to start over," he says. "People that end up in jail are usually down on their luck anyway. They're going through some trials and tribulations in life. Why focus on the people who are already struggling?"

What was one of the better kept secrets of the 21st century is now blown totally open. The three corporations above are responsible for much of the world's chocolate influx, 60% of which comes out of West Africa.

In 2000, it was revealed that the harvesting and processing of the cacao plant was left to children, often unpaid and living in slavery. Imprisoned, forced to go to the bathroom on the roof or in a cup and malnourished, children would either be sold into it for $30 or be kidnapped, thinking they were applying for some sort of paying job.

The rules and regulations are so lax there that there is no government to step in and stop the atrocities. This horrific state of child slavery is also the perfect cheap labor for candy companies that want to sell you chocolate for dirt cheap prices. Why do you think it only costs $1 for a chocolate bar?

The information was revealed in the documentary, Slavery: A Global Investigation, which can be watched here:

In Amsterdam speech to event hosted by far-left Jewish group, Joint List lawmaker says Jewish state engaged in 'ethnic cleansing' against Palestinians

Denouncing Israel for "racist policies" against the Palestinians, firebrand MK Hanin Zoabi of the Joint (Arab) List party accused the Jewish state of crimes akin to those committed by the Nazis. She was speaking at an event marking the anniversary of Kristallnacht in the heart of Amsterdam's decimated Jewish quarter on Sunday.

Organized by the city's far-left Platform Stop Racism and Exclusion, the commemoration drew more than 200 attendees, with dozens of them wearing kippot or draped in Israeli flags.

Leading up to Zoabi's speech, several organizers delivered remarks comparing the Holocaust to Israel's treatment of Palestinians. At least half a dozen pro-Israel protesters were escorted from the gathering by security personnel and uniformed Amsterdam city police, when at various points they yelled in protest of the speakers' condemnations of Israel.

At an event devoid of signs and banners, there was not a Palestinian flag in sight as mournful Yiddish songs were performed by a klezmer trio leading up to Zoabi's keynote speech.

"I am not an immigrant in my homeland," chanted Zoabi to applause from the crowd, which waited almost an hour for her remarks.

Calling herself "one of 120,000 of her people who were not expelled by Israel in 1948," Zoabi — who was born in Nazareth in 1969 — lashed the Jewish state for creating "more than 80 laws" that discriminate against Palestinians.

The Israeli rules, said Zoabi, are similar to the conditions under which Jews lived at the time of the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom in Germany.

Police officers barged into an off-campus apartment near the University of Alabama and used a nightstick and Taser to violently arrest students over a noise violation.

Tuscaloosa police were called about 3 a.m. Saturday to the apartment after a neighbor complained about loud music, and video recordings show students refusing to let officers enter the apartment, reported AL.com.The students also refused to leave, and an officer grabs one of them and yanks him outside before barging into the residence.

The students, all of most of whom appear to be white, asked the officers whether they had a right to enter and search the apartment, and they asked whether they were being arrested or detained."I respect your authority, but you are not allowed in my apartment," one student tells an officer, who complains that he is not respecting his authority. "I am answering your questions in a timely manner."

The officer tries to grab the student, who steps back out of the doorway, and the officer steps through the door and takes out his Taser."I don't have to have a warrant," the officer shouts, and several students inside remind him that he does. "You're under arrest for harassment for grabbing my arm, so get outside now!"

A gunman opened fire at the US-funded security training facility on the outskirts of the Jordanian capital of Amman. The attack left 8 dead and another 6 wounded, three US government sources said, according to Reuters.

Earlier reports said two Americans and one South African national were killed in the attack, while two Americans and four Jordanians were injured.

The attacker was a senior co-trainer who had the rank of captain, a Jordanian security source said, as cited by Reuters.
The attack took place at Mwaqar camp, funded by Washington - a facility for training Iraqi and Palestinian special security forces. Earlier reports had claimed that the assailant committed suicide after killing the contractors. However, Mohammad Momani said that the attacker had been shot dead shot by security forces.

The attacker's identity has not been officially disclosed. However, he was identified as 29-year-old Anwar Abu Zaid by his brother, Fadi, who spoke to AP. Fadi Abu Zaid said that his brother, who has a wife and two children - a boy and a girl - joined law enforcement when he was 18, was mentally stable and "not an extremist at all." Abu Zaid went to work as usual on Monday morning, his brother said.

An investigation has been launched into "the reasons behind the crime", Momani said in a statement released by Jordan's Petra news agency. The US and Jordan will be closely cooperating on an investigation into the incident, President Obama said in a statement. "We take this very seriously and will be working closely with the Jordanians to determine exactly what happened," Obama said during a meeting with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday.

Although the mainstream media didn't recognize the crimes committed by Jimmy Savile until after his death, there were many instances throughout his career where he was accused or implicated in child abuse cases.

In most cases, he was able to avoid a whole lot of legal trouble and public scrutiny due to his media celebrity and his close ties to the power of the royal family.

The fallout from the Jimmy Savile case has probably just begun, but the backlash has already been considerable for anyone who has dared to speak out on the issue, with some people at the BBC even losing their jobs.

The number of motorists attending speed awareness courses in the U.K. has almost tripled since 2010, prompting allegations that police forces are pocketing millions from motorists attending classes.

Details of the profit-motivated industry doubling its profits from courses emerged after Bedfordshire Police & Crime Commissioner Olly Martin announced new revenue-generating proposals.

The senior policeman, who is frequently vocal about his department's budget shortfall, wants speed cameras across stretches of the motorway network switched on permanently. He is also calling for all drivers caught traveling at over 70 miles per hour to be fined.

A large segment of white middle-aged Americans has suffered a startling rise in its death rate since 1999, according to a review of statistics published Monday that shows a sharp reversal in decades of progress toward longer lives.

The mortality rate for white men and women ages 45-54 with less than a college education increased markedly between 1999 and 2013, most likely because of problems with legal and illegal drugs, alcohol and suicide, the researchers concluded. Before then, death rates for that group dropped steadily, and at a faster pace.

An increase in the mortality rate for any large demographic group in an advanced nation has been virtually unheard of in recent decades, with the exception of Russian men after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Doctors Without Borders released an internal review of what happened before, during, and after its hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan was bombed by U.S. military forces on October 3.

The review highlights how the U.S. violated the neutrality of the facility, which the U.S. had agreed to respect. It also demonstrates there were no "armed combatants" in the hospital and no fighting in the "direct vicinity" at the time of the airstrikes. It also significantly calls into question statements by anonymous officials or military operatives, which have been made to the press.

The aid group followed a "no weapons" policy, which had been implemented at the hospital, and staff remained in full control of the medical facility, according to the review. GPS coordinates were also provided to Kabul and New York, and the U.S. Defense Department and Afghan Ministry of Interior, as well as the U.S. Army in Kabul, were made aware of the location of the hospital.

Dr. Joanne Liu, the president of Doctors Without Borders International or MSF International, said even though the internal review [PDF] was an ongoing process, the organization had made the decision to share details to "counter speculation" and to be "transparent."

"What we know is that we were running a hospital treating patients, including wounded combatants from both sides—this was not a 'Taliban base,'" Liu declared. "The question remains as to whether our hospital lost its protected status in the eyes of the military forces engaged in this attack—and if so, why. The answer does not lie within the MSF hospital. Those responsible for requesting, ordering and approving the airstrikes hold these answers."