An estimated 2.5 billion people lack access to proper sanitation around the world, and more than a billion defecate openly. Some 4 billion cases of diarrhea each year lead to more than 2 million deaths, mainly among children. That's more than AIDS and malaria combined.

In India, where 550 million people practice open defecation, 45 percent of children are stunted. The culprit in most cases is poor sanitation and lack of access to clean water. Studies show that lack of toilets and the resulting spread of disease is literally making Indian children shorter.

Residents in upstate New York remain trapped inside their homes, with motorists stranded as a deadly snowstorm continues to dump snow across the region.

A lake-effect snow warning has been issued for the rest of the week in Erie County, and the New York National Guard was deployed to help the Buffalo area dig out.

The storm is blamed for the deaths of at least six people. Three of the people who died in the storm suffered heart attacks, and two of those were shoveling snow at the time, officials said.

Another person in Erie County was pinned by a car while trying to push it out of the snow, while another was found buried in his car, authorities said at a news conference today. In Genesee County, an employee died while operating a snowblower, authorities said.

Dozens of vehicles, including a bus carrying the Niagara University women's basketball team, were stranded, and even snow plows got stuck in the deep snow.

"It started to get bad fast at about 2 a.m. [Tuesday morning] and we came to a dead stop and haven't moved since," Niagara coach Kendra Faustin told The Associated Press in a phone interview Tuesday night. "It was a rough weekend for us on the court and it just won't end."

A Kentucky fire chief is being criticized for racist comments after he refused to help a family of stranded motorists because they were black, and then suggested that an Asian-American television reporter did not understand English.

In a Bullitt County Sheriff's deputy's body camera recording obtained by WDRB, Southeast Bullitt County Fire Chief Julius Hatfield can be heard discussing a car accident on I-65 in September.

Hatfield first goes out of his way to provide assistance to Loren Dicken, who is white.

"You got a jack, ain't you?" Hatfield asks the driver. "If you show me where them things is at, I'll get my guys to start changing the tire for you."

At first, Dicken turns down the offer, but Hatfield insists, saying, "It will save you a bill."

Firefighters working for Hatfield even picked Dicken up from the hospital and took him back to the firehouse, where his car was ready and waiting.

A Lee County elementary school teacher is charged with Cruelty Towards a Child/Transmitting information harmful to minors, according to the sheriff's office.

Tara Milton Roberts, 28, taught at River Hall Elementary School in Alva and is at the Lee County Jail being held without bond. She was arrested for sending photographs of herself scantily clad to a student through the KIK application, according to LCSO.

The messages started off as friendly but soon turned into more sexual in nature - the student knew it was Tara Roberts because he recognized her white iPhone, according to the sheriff's office.

The school district confirmed Roberts taught 5th grade, but the victim was not a student in her class. According to the investigation, Roberts told the student not to tell anyone because she would get in trouble.

According to a Lee County School District spokesperson, Roberts was in her first year of teaching and was on probationary status. She will not be returning to the district.

River Hall parents were notified of the arrest around 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday - and a substitute teacher will be working with the 5th grade team until a qualified teacher can be placed.

Parents were also told the incident involved one student and the use of social media.

At her first appearance Wednesday morning, Roberts only said a few words. She is being held on a $20,000 bond and can have no unsupervised contact with minors.

A Citigroup banker was found dead with his throat slashed in the bathtub of his swanky downtown apartment, authorities said Wednesday.

Shawn D. Miller, Citigroup's managing director of environmental and social risk management, was discovered around 3 p.m. Tuesday by a doorman in the Greenwich Street building, law enforcement sources said.

"We are deeply saddened by this news and our thoughts are with Shawn's family at this time," said a statement sent out by Citigroup.

Russia's upper house of parliament has approved an "anti-offshore" law requiring individual and corporate taxpayers to report foreign profits. The Russian government aims to prevent capital outflow via "offshores," estimated at $200 billion in 2014.

The law requires Russian tax authorities to be notified of all foreign dealings. The government believes it will return $3.1-4.2 billion in tax revenue to the Russian state budget.

Any Russian individual or company that owns 50 percent or more of an offshore asset will have to declare profits to the tax authorities. Over time, the allowable share of ownership will decrease - in 2016 to 25 percent, and on an individual basis to 10 percent.

According to some experts, over $2 trillion has flowed offshore out of Russian jurisdiction in recent years, TASS reports. Even the most moderate estimates put the figure at between $800 million and $1 trillion.

An Ebola survivor has been quarantined in India after his semen tested positive for the virus, health officials there have announced.

The 26-year-old man, an Indian national, traveled to New Delhi from Liberia on November 10, almost two months after he was hospitalized in the West African nation after showing symptoms of the illness, India's health ministry said in a statement.

He was released from the Liberian hospital on September 30 with documents declaring him free of clinical signs linked to Ebola, the ministry added.

As a precautionary measure, Indian authorities carried out tests on his body fluids, which confirmed traces of the virus in his semen, the statement said.

"Currently, this person is not having any symptoms of the disease. However, he would be kept under isolation in the special health facility of (the) Delhi Airport Health Organization, till such time his body fluids test negative and he is found medically fit to be discharged," it said.

This article has disturbing text, photo and video. It will turn your stomach (and it should).

A school in the East end of London has started teaching young people on the prevention of female genital mutilation (FGM) and forced marriage.

"Education to young people on female genital mutilation and forced marriage is hugely important and invaluable. It is not just about legalization and having laws it's about prevention and getting to children as young as possible and explaining to them that this could happen to you," Arifa Nasim, educator and campaigner against forced marriage, told Al Arabiya News.

This week marked the start of a series of talks to young children at Frederick Bremer School in London on FGM and forced marriage.

Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female circumcision or female genital cutting, is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as "partial or total removal of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons."
FGM is practiced in many countries across the globe and is practiced by some Arab, South-East Asian and African communities.

The WHO have separated FGM into three categories; category one is the most common, the clitoris is held between the thumb and index finger, pulled and amputated with a blade. Category two the clitoris is removed but the vaginal lips may also be partially or totally removed. Category one and two are the most common types of FGM. The final category, category three is the most extensive; it involves complete removal of the clitoris, vaginal lips, also the two rounded outer folds that lie on either side of the vaginal opening are removed.

The consequences of FGM are huge, causing a life time of infection, pain and potential death to those who have it.

The Home Office, said that there are 66,000 women in the UK who have had FGM and 24,000 young girls at risk.

With primary and secondary school children being most at risk of being sent abroad by their parents to "be cut" the aim of many campaigners and activist is to educate as many teachers and children on the dangers of FGM and how to spot a child who may be at risk.

A woman whose four pit bulls attacked and killed a family's 10-year-old beagle in October is now suing the deceased dog's owner for up to $1 million in damages, according to court documents.

"I couldn't believe it," said Steve Baker, Bailey's owner. "Everyone was telling me to sue her, but I decided not to because it won't bring Bailey back."

Justice had already been served since the tragedy, he said.

"The police took the action I wanted and declared those dogs dangerous and awareness was raised; so I decided to let it go," Baker said. "Now they're suing me for $1 million - I just can't believe it."

Getting served with a lawsuit was a complete shock, he said.

Baker and his wife were served Wednesday with the lawsuit, filed in the 405th District Court, at their home, the same place where their dog was "shaken like a rag doll" by their neighbor's four pitbulls Oct. 27.

According to court documents, Baker's neighbor and the plaintiff in the case, Emerald White, claims she was "seriously injured" after she was "unexpectedly and viciously attacked" when she entered the Baker's backyard to retrieve her dogs, which had entered through a hole in the mutual fence separating the two properties.

Even as the US debates immigration reform, a new report says four per cent of the total illegal immigrants living in the US are Indians.

The figures of illegal immigrants in the United States has remained unchanged since 2009 at 11.2 million, says a new report by Pew Research.

India is 4^th in the top five source countries of unauthorized immigrants to the US since 2005.

Reuters, on Wednesday, quoted a White House source as saying US President Barack Obama is poised to give relief from deportation to millions of undocumented immigrants who are parents of US citizens or of permanent legal residents.

More than 450,000 "unauthorized" Indian immigrants were living in the US, constituting four per cent of the total illegal immigrants in the country in the year 2012.

Obama has said earlier this year that he would like to improve the US legal immigration system in a way that "makes this underground migration system less necessary." He has had a showdown with Republicans in Congress who have refused to pass legislation that would aid in fixing immigration problems.

Indian are the largest unauthorised immigrants in New Hampshire, says the Pew report.

While the Indian illegal immigrants comprise second largest population in Indiana with four per cent, the percentages in other states were Michigan (14 per cent), Minnesota (nine per cent), New Jersey (11 per cent), Ohio (11 per cent), Pennsylvania (11 per cent) and Washington (five per cent), the report said.

Indians were the third largest unauthorised immigrants in Alaska (four per cent), Arizona (two per cent), Delaware (seven per cent), Illinois (five per cent), Kansas (five per cent), Massachusetts (ten per cent), Missouri (nine per cent)and Oregon (two per cent).

Although the US population of unauthorised immigrants was stable from 2009 to 2012, the number of Mexicans in this population fell by about half a million people during those years.

Unauthorised immigrant populations from South America and from a grouping of Europe and Canada held steady between 2009 and 2012, whereas it grew slightly from Asia, the Caribbean, Central America and the rest of the world for the same period.

The top five source countries of unauthorized immigrants to the US are Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, India and Honduras.