Washington (AP) - The elderly and other vulnerable homeowners are losing their homes because they owe as little as a few hundred dollars in back taxes, according to a report from a consumer group.

Outdated state laws allow big banks and other investors to reap windfall profits by buying the houses for a pittance and reselling them, the National Consumer Law Center said in a report being released Tuesday.

Local governments can seize and sell a home if the owner falls behind on property taxes and fees. The process helps governments make ends meet at a time when low property values and the weak economy are squeezing tax revenue.

Denise Rich, the wealthy socialite and former wife of pardoned billionaire trader Marc Rich, has given up her U.S. citizenship - and, with it, much of her U.S. tax bill.

Rich, 68, a Grammy-nominated songwriter and glossy figure in Democratic and European royalty circles, renounced her American passport in November, according to her lawyer.

Her maiden name, Denise Eisenberg, appeared in the Federal Register on April 30 in a quarterly list of Americans who renounced their U.S. citizenship and permanent residents who handed in their green cards.

By dumping her U.S. passport, Rich likely will save tens of millions of dollars or more in U.S. taxes over the long haul, tax lawyers say.

Rich, who wrote songs recorded by Aretha Franklin, Mary J. Blige and Jessica Simpson, is the latest bold-faced name to join a wave of wealthy people renouncing their American citizenship. Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin gave up his U.S. passport to become a citizen of Singapore, an offshore tax haven, before the company's initial public offering in May.

Nearly 1,800 citizens and permanent residents, a record since data was first compiled in 1998, expatriated last year, according to government figures.

Rich, who was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, has Austrian citizenship through her deceased father, said Michael Heidt, a lawyer in Hollywood, Florida, who represented her in a recent lawsuit.

He said Rich had dumped her U.S. passport "so that she can be closer to her family and to Peter Cervinka, her long-time partner." Rich's two daughters live in London; Cervinka, a wealthy property developer, is an Austrian national. Rich plans to make London her main residence and does not intend to acquire other passports, Heidt said.

A family endured a terrifying road rage ordeal after a man jumped on to the bonnet of their car and hung on for 2km.

The man abandoned his white ute and clung on to a family's red Kia SUV after allegedly being cut off.

As he grabbed on to the car he yelled at the driver: "Do what you want, you black person."

The family caught the dramatic footage on their iPhone on Saturday around 12.40pm in Dandenong.

The SUV driver, Krish Kalli, 34, said he thought his life was in danger.

"He asked me to come out from my car door, so when I get out what's going to happen," Mr Kalli told Nine News.

The family drove their car to Dandenong police station with the Beaconsfield man clinging on.

The terrified family is heard on the phone to 000 saying: "He's on the front of my bullbar now...he doesn't want to get away".

Mr Kalli said that he feared for his family.

"I can't get out after him, he will attack me. No guarantee for my life," he said.

"Who is going to look after my family? No one."

The incident happened at the intersection of Webster St and Princes Highway.

A police spokeswoman said both parties were interviewed and that no one was injured.

Mexico City - A newspaper in Mexico's violent city of Nuevo Laredo announced on Wednesday it will end coverage of drug-related bloodshed, one day after grenades damaged its offices for the second time this year.
Many Mexican news organizations have decided to report only basic facts about murders and massacres in recent years. But it is rare for a newspaper to drop coverage altogether.

Tuesday's attack on the daily El Manana was among the latest incidents that have made Mexico one of the world's most dangerous places for journalists.

El Manana said in an editorial that it was too dangerous to report on the execution-style murders, car bombs and decapitations that have terrorized residents in the city across the border from Laredo, Texas.

"The editorial board of the company has come to this regrettable decision because of the circumstances that we all know about and the lack of conditions to freely carry out journalism," it said.

Couple Claims They Were Just Having Fun; NYPD Says They Posed Safety Risk

A Manhattan couple is suing New York City after an incident last July that began with them swing dancing on a subway platform and ended with them spending a night behind bars.

Caroline Stern, a 55-year-old dentist, and her boyfriend, 54-year-old George Hess, were approached by a couple of NYPD officers at Columbus Circle, who asked them what they were doing.

"And I responded we're dancing and they told us it was illegal to dance on the platform," Stern told 1010 WINS' Sonia Rincon.

A former Wall Street trader whose dramatic death in a Phoenix courtroom was witnessed by millions on TV and the Internet, probably committed suicide with a homemade cyanide pill.
Marin collapsed moments after a jury found him guilty of burning down his Biltmore Estates mansion in 2009. Television video from Marin's court hearing appeared to show him putting something in his mouth immediately after the verdict was read. Seven minutes later, he went into convulsions and fell to the floor. Paramedics were unable to revive him.

Authorities had suspected that arson defendant Michael Marin committed suicide by ingesting poison after he collapsed in court on June 28, moments after a jury found him guilty of burning down his Biltmore Estates mansion in 2009. That theory was bolstered this week when Maricopa County investigators discovered a canister of cyanide in Marin's car.

The family of a woman forced to undergo an abortion because she ran afoul of China's one-child policy has accepted a cash settlement of £7,100 from the government.

Feng Jianmei's husband, Deng Jiyuan, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the family accepted the settlement of 70,600 yuan (£7,100) because they wanted to return to a normal life.

Feng was forced to abort her baby seven months into her pregnancy because she did not have 40,000 yuan to pay the fine for having a second child. The June incident caused a public uproar and renewed criticism against China's tough family planning rules.

A Rhode Island cop who was convicted of a felony after he was caught on video kicking a handcuffed woman to the head is still employed as a police officer.

Lincoln police officer Edward Krawetz kicked the woman in the head in 2009 claiming self-defense because apparently he was in fear for his life. He didn't go to trial until March of this year.

He was convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison but because he is a cop, the judge suspended the sentence, meaning he didn't serve a day in jail, even though he already had a prior conviction for assaulting a jogger.

He will also collect his pension once he reaches retirement age.

And now a panel consisting of three cops will determine if he gets to keep his job. And it will take them at least two months to come to that decision in which Krawetz will continue receiving cop benefits, even though he is not getting paid at the moment.

And to think that if it wasn't for that surveillance camera, he would still be on the streets, unleashing his fury on more citizens.

Florida residents are voicing their opposition to the release of genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes by a British pest control company; despite the fact that the pesky critters were engineered to impede the spread of dengue fever.

Dengue Fever, which comes from a virus spread by the bite of an infected mosquito, was first recognized in the 1950s, yet has become a leading cause of hospitalization and death among children in tropical Asian and Latin American countries. The incidence of dengue has increased by 30 times in the last 50 years and, according to the World Health Organization, 2.5 billion people are now at risk.

Mila de Mier, the author of a 96,000-signature online Florida petition, said she began her campaign because she was worried about the lack of scientific understanding surrounding the full impact of the mosquitoes on the Florida ecosystem.

"We need more data. If something goes wrong the consequences could be catastrophic not only for humans but also the whole ecosystem, and I don't want my family being used as laboratory rats for this," de Mier told the Guardian.

Oxitec, the U.K. company responsible for the mosquitoes, has developed the insects in laboratories over the past 10 years and released them into the open for the first time in 2009 on the Cayman Islands. Oxitec's GM mosquitoes have also been released on a trial basis in Brazil.

A longstanding conflict between G4S security guards and employees of a Hawaiian commuter airline came to a physical clash that was caught on video.

The video shows a security guard named "Erik" trying to pull the camera out of the hands of an airline employee while repeating, "you don't take picture of me."

The guard pushes him, shoves him, spits on him and ultimately threatens to kill him.

"I'm going to kill this fucker. I don't care. You don't take picture of me, brah."

The owner of the commuter airline sent the video to Los Angeles photo activist Shawn Nee, who forwarded it to me.

I've reached out to the owner for further comment and will update accordingly.