Powerball Winners Want to Go to the Beach, Set Up Scholarships with $300 Million
Label: LifestyleCindy and Mark Hill
David Eulitt/Kansas City Star/Landov
Just in time for the holiday season the Hill family of Dearborn, Mo., got quite the gift: nearly $300 million, after winning half of the $587.5 million Powerball jackpot.
"We're still stunned by what's happened," Cindy Hill, 51, said during a press conference Friday alongside her family, according to an NBC News report. "People keep asking us, 'What are you going to buy with it?' I just want to go home and be back to normal."
Hill, who was an office manager until she was laid off in 2010, and her husband Mark, a mechanic, have three adult sons and a daughter, Jaiden, 6, whom they adopted from China.
On their list of possible purchases since their record win: a beach vacation for Jaiden (who has never visited the beach) and a red Camaro for Mark. The family has also spoken about possibly adopting again and setting up college funds for their extended family members, as well as a scholarship fund at their local high school.
As for their winning ticket, Cindy said she checked on Thursday morning after learning that one winning ticket was sold in Missouri.
"I didn't have my glasses, and I was thinking, is that the right number?" Cindy, who had bought five tickets, said, according to NBC.
The other winning ticket was sold in Arizona, and no winner has claimed the prize yet. On Thursday, however, a man in Upper Marlboro, Md., went into a gas station to check a handful of tickets (watch the CCTV video), reportedly presenting a ticket with the winning numbers (5-23-16-22-29-Powerball 6), CNN reports.
Kenya village pairs AIDS orphans with grandparents
Label: HealthNYUMBANI, Kenya (AP) — There are no middle-aged people in Nyumbani. They all died years ago, before this village of hope in Kenya began. Only the young and old live here.
Nyumbani was born of the AIDS crisis. The 938 children here all saw their parents die. The 97 grandparents — eight grandfathers among them — saw their middle-aged children die. But put together, the bookend generations take care of one another.
Saturday is World AIDS Day, but the executive director of the aid group Nyumbani, which oversees the village of the same name, hates the name which is given to the day because for her the word AIDS is so freighted with doom and death. These days, it doesn't necessarily mean a death sentence. Millions live with the virus with the help of anti-retroviral drugs, or ARVs. And the village she runs is an example of that.
"AIDS is not a word that we should be using. At the beginning when we came up against HIV, it was a terminal disease and people were presenting at the last phase, which we call AIDS," said Sister Mary Owens. "There is no known limit to the lifespan now so that word AIDS should not be used. So I hate World AIDS Day, follow? Because we have moved beyond talking about AIDS, the terminal stage. None of our children are in the terminal stage."
In the village, each grandparent is charged with caring for about a dozen "grandchildren," one or two of whom will be biological family. That responsibility has been a life-changer for Janet Kitheka, who lost one daughter to AIDS in 2003. Another daughter died from cancer in 2004. A son died in a tree-cutting accident in 2006 and the 63-year-old lost two grandchildren in 2007, including one from AIDS.
"When I came here I was released from the grief because I am always busy instead of thinking about the dead," said Kitheka. "Now I am thinking about building a new house with 12 children. They are orphans. I said to myself, 'Think about the living ones now.' I'm very happy because of the children."
As she walks around Nyumbani, which is three hours' drive east of Nairobi, 73-year-old Sister Mary is greeted like a rock star by little girls in matching colorful school uniforms. Children run and play, and sleep in bunk beds inside mud-brick homes. High schoolers study carpentry or tailoring. But before 2006, this village did not exist, not until a Catholic charity petitioned the Kenyan government for land on which to house orphans.
Everyone here has been touched by HIV or AIDS. But only 80 children have HIV and thanks to anti-retroviral drugs, none of them has AIDS.
"They can dream their dreams and live a long life," Owens said.
Nyumbani relies heavily on U.S. funds but it is aiming to be self-sustaining.
The kids' bunk beds are made in the technical school's shop. A small aquaponics project is trying to grow edible fish. The mud bricks are made on site. Each grandparent has a plot of land for farming.
The biggest chunk of aid comes from the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has given the village $2.5 million since 2006. A British couple gives $50,000 a year. A tree-growing project in the village begun by an American, John Noel, now stands six years from its first harvest. Some 120,000 trees have already been planted and thousands more were being planted last week.
"My wife and I got married as teenagers and started out being very poor. Lived in a trailer. And we found out what it was like to be in a situation where you can't support yourself," he said. "As an entrepreneur I looked to my enterprise skills to see what we could do to sustain the village forever, because we are in our 60s and we wanted to make sure that the thousand babies and children, all the little ones, were taken care of."
He hopes that after a decade the timber profits from the trees will make the village totally self-sustaining.
But while the future is looking brighter, the losses the orphans' suffered can resurface, particularly when class lessons are about family or medicine, said Winnie Joseph, the deputy headmaster at the village's elementary school. Kitheka says she tries to teach the kids how to love one another and how to cook and clean. But older kids sometimes will threaten to hit her after accusing her of favoring her biological grandchildren, she said.
For the most part, though, the children in Nyumbani appear to know how lucky they are, having landed in a village where they are cared for. An estimated 23.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have HIV as of 2011, representing 69 percent of the global HIV population, according to UNAIDS. Eastern and southern Africa are the hardest-hit regions. Millions of people — many of them parents — have died.
Kitheka noted that children just outside the village frequently go to bed hungry. And ARVs are harder to come by outside the village. The World Health Organization says about 61 percent of Kenyans with HIV are covered by ARVs across the country.
Paul Lgina, 14, contrasted the difference between life in Nyumbani, which in Swahili means simply "home," and his earlier life.
"In the village I get support. At my mother's home I did not have enough food, and I had to go to the river to fetch water," said Lina, who, like all the children in the village, has neither a mother or a father.
When Sister Mary first began caring for AIDS orphans in the early 1990s, she said her group was often told not to bother.
"At the beginning nobody knew what to do with them. In 1992 we were told these children are going to die anyway," she said. "But that wasn't our spirit. Today, kids we were told would die have graduated from high school."
___
On the Internet:
http://www.trees4children.org/
Couple kept girl, 12, as sex slave, police allege
Label: BusinessAn Oceanside couple is being held on suspicion of keeping an underage Mexican immigrant as a sex slave, forcing her into prostitution and beating her severely, San Diego County Sheriff's Department officials said.
Marcial Garcia Hernandez, 45, and Inez Martinez Garcia, 43, were arrested Thursday on suspicion of 13 felony counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child under age 14.
The girl had been smuggled into the U.S. at age 12, and the abuse by Hernandez and Garcia occurred over a 21-month period, the Sheriff's Department said.
Hernandez and Garcia forced the girl to care for their three children and cook and clean for the family, as well as have sex with Hernandez, according to Deputy G. Crysler, an investigator with the North County Human Trafficking Task Force.
"When the girl victim refused to participate in the sex acts or did not complete her tasks in a timely or correct manner, she was beaten," Crysler said.
The couple forced the victim into lying about her age so she could work at a local restaurant, with Garcia and Hernandez keeping the money she earned, according to the arrest documents. She was also forced into having sex with older men, with Garcia and Hernandez keeping the money paid by "johns," the documents said.
Authorities were called after the victim was allegedly beaten by Garcia. Reunited with her family, she returned to Mexico. Recently, she returned to the U.S. and is assisting in the criminal investigation, according to the Sheriff's Department.
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Lindsay Lohan is 'victim' despite criminal charges, lawyer says
Teacher pleads guilty to having sex with 17-year-old ex-student
Inmate charged in 1991 slaying, rape of 16-year-old Compton girl
-- Tony Perry in San Diego
U.N. Will Vote on Status for Palestinians, Defying U.S.
Label: World
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority spoke at the United Nations before the General Assembly voted on Palestine's status as a “nonmember observer state” on Thursday.
UNITED NATIONS — An overwhelming majority of countries are expected on Thursday to vote to recognize Palestine as a “nonmember observer state” at the United Nations. Palestinian leaders say the step advances a two-state solution with Israel, but Israeli and American officials condemn it as detrimental to peaceful coexistence.
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, speaking to the United Nations General Assembly before the vote, called the moment a “last chance” to save the two-state solution and said that the window of opportunity was narrowing.
“The General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine,” he said just before the vote was scheduled to take place.
The resolution is expected to win backing from a number of European countries, among them France, Spain and Switzerland — a rebuff to intense American and Israeli diplomacy. Others, like Germany, say they will abstain, and a tiny handful of countries are expected to join Israel and the United States in voting no.
The resolution comes shortly after an eight-day Israeli military assault on Gaza that Israel described as a response to stepped-up rocket fire into Israel. The operation killed scores of Palestinians and was aimed at reducing the arsenal of Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, a part of the territory that the United Nations resolution expects to make up a future state of Palestine.
Mr. Abbas directed harsh criticism toward Israel, saying that the “aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip has confirmed once again the urgent and pressing need to end the Israeli occupation and for our people to gain their freedom and independence.”
“This aggression also confirms the Israeli Government’s adherence to the policy of occupation, brute force and war, which in turn obliges the international community to shoulder its responsibilities toward the Palestinian people and toward peace,” Mr. Abbas said early in his speech.
The Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, was politically weakened by the Gaza fighting, with its rivals in Hamas seen by many Palestinians as more willing to stand up to Israel and fight back. That shift in sentiment is one reason that some Western countries give for backing the United Nations resolution, to strengthen Mr. Abbas and his more moderate colleagues in their contest with Hamas.
“We have not heard one word from any Israeli official expressing any sincere concern to save the peace process,” Mr. Abbas said.
“On the contrary, our people have witnessed, and continue to witness, an unprecedented intensification of military assaults, the blockade, settlement activities and ethnic cleansing, particularly in Occupied East Jerusalem, and mass arrests, attacks by settlers and other practices by which this Israeli occupation is becoming synonymous with an apartheid system of colonial occupation, which institutionalizes the plague of racism and entrenches hatred and incitement.”
“The moment has arrived for the world to say clearly: Enough of aggression, settlements and occupation,” he said.
The vote is taking place exactly 65 years after the General Assembly voted to divide the former British Mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and the other Arab — a vote that Israel considers the international seal of approval for its birth.
At the time, Arabs rejected the division of the land and the creation of Israel. But since the late 1980s, the Palestine Liberation Organization has officially endorsed two states, with the state of Palestine defined as comprising the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza — areas beyond Israel’s pre-1967 borders that it captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Mr. Abbas said the Palestinians wanted to breathe new life into the negotiations. He said the Palestinians would accept “no less than the independence of the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on all the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, to live in peace and security alongside the State of Israel,” adding they were also seeking a solution to the refugee issue based on the resolutions.
Sony sells over half a million PlayStation 3 consoles over Black Friday week
Label: TechnologyBoth Microsoft (MSFT) and Nintendo (NTDOY) had a big week of console sales during Black Friday’s week of shopping madness in the U.S. So how did Sony (SNE) do in comparison? Sony Computer Entertainment of America president and CEO Jack Tretton announced on Thursday that the company sold 525,000 PlayStation 3 consoles and 160,000 PS Vita handhelds during the Black Friday week. Overall PlayStation sales of hardware, software and accessories are up 9% over the same period last year. Tretton was also happy to reveal that subscriptions to its PlayStation Plus grew 259% since last year with customer satisfaction flying high at 95% after Sony added the Instant Game Collection to the service earlier this year.
Sony’s PlayStation 3 and PS Vita sales were largely bolstered by $ 199.99 bundles packaged with free games that the company pushed to retails on Black Friday. The sell-out of the bundles within minutes at retailers such as Amazon (AMZN) is a good indicator that there is huge demand for a sub-$ 200 PlayStation 3. Currently, the lowest-priced PS3 is a second-gen 160GB slim model with an MSRP of $ 249.99. The redesigned third-gen PS3s start at $ 269.99 with a 250GB hard drive.
In terms of which home console did the best over Black Friday, it looks like the Xbox 360′s 750,000 consoles took first place, while Sony came in second with 525,000 PS3s and Nintendo came in third with 400,000 Wii U systems.
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Stephen Fishbach Blogs: Abi-Maria Gomes Has 'Subtlety of a Wounded Walrus' on Survivor
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
Survivor
Abi-Maria Gomes (left) and Lisa Whelchel
Monty Brinton/CBS (2)
Stephen Fishbach was the runner-up on Survivor: Tocantins and has been blogging about Survivor strategy for PEOPLE.com since 2009. Follow him on Twitter @stephenfishbach.
"You need to pick one side or the other. You can't keep flipping."
– Amanda Kimmel, Survivor: Micronesia
Hey guys – I have a secret. It's a really, really big secret. You'll never discover it. Not even if you follow me around all day. Look – just follow me a little. Please? For your sake. This secret is frickin' huge. It's going to change everything.
Okay, here's a hint. Starts I. Ends with DOL.
It's an immunity idol, alright?! And I have this secret paper here, which proves it. But I'm going to rip it up into little pieces. Because it's soooo secret.
Poor Abi. Is there anything more heartbreaking in this broken world than someone pretending that they have a secret? The dreamy Malcolm said it best on Survivor: she's like a wounded ex-girlfriend.
As much as Abi is playing at strategy, she really craves attention. Everyone wants to feel wanted. Who hasn't done the whole "I have a secret immunity idol in my pocket, so you'd better be my friend" trick?
Abi's "hints" reminded me of Heroes vs. Villains, when Amanda "hinted" to Parvati about 18 times that she was a target. At the time, I said that Amanda "clobbered Parvati with the Amanda bat."
Okay, so she has the subtlety of a wounded walrus. Nevertheless, Abi wins her first Fishy Award for showing impressive discipline at the food auction. While Denise and Skupin blow their cash on cheap carbs, Abi saves up for that special something. She buys a valuable advantage in the immunity challenge, and wins three more days on the island. In Survivor, three days can change everything.
On Wednesday's episode, Abi also lost her title as the season's most annoying player. Lisa Whelchel turned in another weepy, woe-is-me performance – and let me be the first to say, "Enough!" I threw up a little in my mouth when Lisa went sobbing to Penner ... that she had to vote out Penner. Tears might win you Emmys, Lisa, but on Survivor they only win you enemies.
She's even starting to repeat the same lines. Did you notice she trotted out her old remark about how "Survivor is bigger than I am?" I get that she was a sitcom star, but that doesn't mean she needs a catch phrase. Moreover, the remark basically makes no sense, since Survivor is an abstract concept and Lisa is a physical being. It's just a lazy excuse for not having the will to play the game.
The real victim of Lisa's hemming and hawing is poor Jonathan Penner. With only a couple episodes left, I already miss the lovable goon. What makes Penner such a great player is that, at every moment, he's willing to do whatever it takes to advance himself.
He makes mistakes; he misjudges people's motivations; he fails to make alliances when he needs to most. But he is always scheming, always evaluating. He is always ready to completely rewrite the rulebook of the entire game, so long as it advances Jonathan Penner one space further on the board.
And he always engages his fellow contestants. I loved Penner's brief conversation with Abi after the auction. Abi was feeling petulant and abused. Penner didn't placate her, but by simply representing his intentions, he managed to foster a bond with the outcast Brazilian.
I can't think of many contestants who are better talkers than Penner. Even when he's making mistakes and uttering nonsense, he sounds brilliant.
And is there any more perfect summation of the experience of Survivor than Penner's closing remarks? "It's been fun – and extremely painful," he says. I'm sorry for his pain, but watching him has been a real pleasure.
Clinton releases road map for AIDS-free generation
Label: HealthWASHINGTON (AP) — In an ambitious road map for slashing the global spread of AIDS, the Obama administration says treating people sooner and more rapid expansion of other proven tools could help even the hardest-hit countries begin turning the tide of the epidemic over the next three to five years.
"An AIDS-free generation is not just a rallying cry — it is a goal that is within our reach," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who ordered the blueprint, said in the report.
"Make no mistake about it, HIV may well be with us into the future but the disease that it causes need not be," she said at the State Department Thursday.
President Barack Obama echoed that promise.
"We stand at a tipping point in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and working together, we can realize our historic opportunity to bring that fight to an end," Obama said in a proclamation to mark World AIDS Day on Saturday.
Some 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV, and despite a decline in new infections over the last decade, 2.5 million people were infected last year.
Given those staggering figures, what does an AIDS-free generation mean? That virtually no babies are born infected, young people have a much lower risk than today of becoming infected, and that people who already have HIV would receive life-saving treatment.
That last step is key: Treating people early in their infection, before they get sick, not only helps them survive but also dramatically cuts the chances that they'll infect others. Yet only about 8 million HIV patients in developing countries are getting treatment. The United Nations aims to have 15 million treated by 2015.
Other important steps include: Treating more pregnant women, and keeping them on treatment after their babies are born; increasing male circumcision to lower men's risk of heterosexual infection; increasing access to both male and female condoms; and more HIV testing.
The world spent $16.8 billion fighting AIDS in poor countries last year. The U.S. government is the leading donor, spending about $5.6 billion.
Thursday's report from PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, outlines how progress could continue at current spending levels — something far from certain as Congress and Obama struggle to avert looming budget cuts at year's end — or how faster progress is possible with stepped-up commitments from hard-hit countries themselves.
Clinton warned Thursday that the U.S. must continue doing its share: "In the fight against HIV/AIDS, failure to live up to our commitments isn't just disappointing, it's deadly."
The report highlighted Zambia, which already is seeing some declines in new cases of HIV. It will have to treat only about 145,000 more patients over the next four years to meet its share of the U.N. goal, a move that could prevent more than 126,000 new infections in that same time period. But if Zambia could go further and treat nearly 198,000 more people, the benefit would be even greater — 179,000 new infections prevented, the report estimates.
In contrast, if Zambia had to stick with 2011 levels of HIV prevention, new infections could level off or even rise again over the next four years, the report found.
Advocacy groups said the blueprint offers a much-needed set of practical steps to achieve an AIDS-free generation — and makes clear that maintaining momentum is crucial despite economic difficulties here and abroad.
"The blueprint lays out the stark choices we have: To stick with the baseline and see an epidemic flatline or grow, or ramp up" to continue progress, said Chris Collins of amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.
His group has estimated that more than 276,000 people would miss out on HIV treatment if U.S. dollars for the global AIDS fight are part of across-the-board spending cuts set to begin in January.
Thursday's report also urges targeting the populations at highest risk, including gay men, injecting drug users and sex workers, especially in countries where stigma and discrimination has denied them access to HIV prevention services.
"We have to go where the virus is," Clinton said.
Husband accused of cooking wife kept her head in freezer, police say
Label: BusinessA 68-year-old Oceanside man
accused of killing his 73-year-old wife, then cooking her body parts on
their kitchen stove, will be in court next week to answer the charges.
Frederick Joseph Hengl pleaded not guilty last week as bizarre details emerged about him and his late wife.
Neighbors said they saw Hengl outside wearing a purple dress, pink makeup
and various articles of jewelry, including a pearl necklace. The
neighbors told Fox 5 News that his wife was once seen roaming outside with a knife making religious comments such as “God will smite you.”
A preliminary hearing is slated for Dec. 5 in which more details might become available.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Katherine Flaherty told Vista Superior Court Judge
J. Marshall Hockett that police found pieces of meat cooking on the
stove at the family home and a severed head in the freezer.
Hockett ordered Hengl kept in jail on $5 million bail.
Police are unclear when Hengl's wife, Anna Faris, was killed. They
went to the couple's home after neighbors reported a strange smell and
hearing the sound of a power saw.
Several
people who live in the neighborhood said Anna-Maria Hengl had been
behaving bizarrely since last spring, exposing herself, wandering around
carrying a butcher knife and making religious pronouncements, telling
people such things as, “God will smite you.”
Her husband, meanwhile, had been going out dressed in women’s clothing, makeup and jewelry, area residents told news crews.
One neighbor said the one-time Home Depot employee, who had sold her a
ceiling fan, would sometimes wear blouses and makeup, including “hot
pink” lipstick. Another said he saw Frederick Hengl last summer clad in a
floor- length purple dress, pearl necklace and pearl earrings, carrying
an ornate purse.
Read more: http://fox5sandiego.com/2012/11/19/dismembered-womans-husband-to-face-judge/#ixzz2DLS2FbXM
Several people who live in the neighborhood said Anna-Maria Hengl had
been behaving bizarrely since last spring, exposing herself, wandering
around carrying a butcher knife and making religious pronouncements,
telling people such things as, “God will smite you.”
Her husband, meanwhile, had been going out dressed in women’s clothing, makeup and jewelry, area residents told news crews.
One neighbor said the one-time Home Depot employee, who had sold her a
ceiling fan, would sometimes wear blouses and makeup, including “hot
pink” lipstick. Another said he saw Frederick Hengl last summer clad in a
floor- length purple dress, pearl necklace and pearl earrings, carrying
an ornate purse.
Read more: http://fox5sandiego.com/2012/11/19/dismembered-womans-husband-to-face-judge/#ixzz2DLRAPQk6
"There is no evidence of cannibalism at this time," Flaherty told reporters.
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LAX union protesters arrested; delays anger travelers
Mitt Romney loses election, but still goes to Disneyland
Black family flees O.C. city after tires slashed, racial taunts
-- Tony Perry in San Diego and Shelby Grad
As Opposition Meets in Cairo, More Violence Mars Syria
Label: World
The Syrian opposition pushed ahead on military and political fronts on Wednesday, as rebels shot down a government warplane in the north of Syria and a newly formed coalition started talks in Cairo on how to pick a transitional government to replace that of President Bashar al-Assad.
The coalition, whose official name is the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, was formed at a meeting in Qatar earlier this month, and has already been anointed with official recognition from Britain, France, Turkey and the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council. But in order to encourage further recognition internationally, it must tackle the broader problem of uniting multiple groups in exile and rebels on the ground in Syria.
That challenge was apparent on the first day of what are expected to be two days of talks in Egypt. Disagreements emerged over the composition of the coalition when the Syrian National Council, one of its members, tried to increase the number of its representatives.
“Nothing will proceed until we work this out,” said one council member at the talks, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.
The talks took place against the backdrop of a 20-month civil war in which about 40,000 people have been killed so far in clashes between armed rebels and jihadist forces on one side and Mr. Assad’s military on the other. The conflict has flared at various times along Syria’s borders with Lebanon, Israel, Turkey and Jordan and in most of the country’s cities, including deadly car bombings on Wednesday near Damascus, the capital.
In Turkey, once an ally of the Assad government, a team of NATO inspectors visited sites on Wednesday where the alliance might install batteries of Patriot antiaircraft missiles that Turkey, a member, has requested to prevent any incursions by the Syrian air force, which has become the Assad government’s main weapon against the rebels. Patriot missiles have also been discussed as a way of enforcing a no-fly zone over rebel-held areas of Syria near the Turkish border if one is imposed.
Meanwhile, opposition politicians gathered in a Cairo hotel to shape an alternative government. Ahmad Ramadan, a member of the national council, said in an interview with Radio Sawa, an Arabic-language broadcaster sponsored by the United States government, that the talks were more likely to decide on the selection process than to choose actual candidates.
Khaled Khoja, a coalition member attending the talks, said: “I don’t think we’ll be discussing the election of a transitional government during the meeting today. We’re still discussing whether to have a government or to have committees instead.”
State media said on Wednesday that at least 34 people, and possibly many more, died in the two car bombings in Jaramana, a suburb of Damascus that is populated by minorities.
The official SANA news agency said the explosions struck at about 7 a.m. and were the work of “terrorists,” the word used by the authorities to denote rebel forces seeking the overthrow of President Assad.
The agency said the bombings were in the main square of Jaramana, which news reports said is largely populated by members of the Christian and Druse minorities. Residents said the neighborhood was home to many families who have fled other parts of Syria because of the conflict and to some Palestinian families. The blasts caused “huge material damage to the residential buildings and shops,” SANA said.
The death toll was not immediately confirmed. An activist group, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, initially said that 29 people had died but revised the figure later to 47, of whom 38 had been identified. Of the 120 injured, the rebel group said, 23 people were in serious condition, meaning that the tally could climb higher.
There were also reports from witnesses in Turkey and antigovernment activists in Syria that for the second successive day insurgents had shot down a government aircraft in the north of the country, offering further evidence that the rebels are seeking a major shift by challenging the government’s dominance of the skies. It was not immediately clear how the aircraft, apparently a plane, had been brought down.
Video posted on the Internet by rebels showed wreckage with fires still burning around it. The aircraft appeared to show a tail assembly clearly visible jutting out of the debris. Such videos are difficult to verify, particularly in light of the restrictions facing reporters in Syria. However, the episode on Wednesday seemed to be confirmed by other witnesses.
“We watched a Syrian plane being shot down as it was flying low to drop bombs,” said Ugur Cuneydioglu, who said he observed the incident from a Turkish border village in southern Hatay Province. “It slowly went down in flames before it hit the ground. It was quite a scene,” Mr. Cuneydioglu said.
Video posted by insurgents on the Internet showed a man in aviator coveralls being carried away. It was not clear if the man was alive but the video said he had been treated in a makeshift hospital. A voice off-camera says, “This is the pilot who was shelling residents’ houses.”
The aircraft was said to have been brought down while it was attacking the town of Daret Azzeh, 20 miles west of Aleppo and close to the Turkish border. The town was the scene of a mass killing last June, when the government and the rebels blamed each other for the deaths and mutilation of 25 people. The video posted online said the plane had been brought down by “the free men of Daret Azzeh soldiers of God brigade.”
On Tuesday, Syrian rebels said they shot down a military helicopter with a surface-to-air missile outside Aleppo and they uploaded video that appeared to confirm that rebels have put their growing stock of heat-seeking missiles to effective use.
In recent months, rebels have used mainly machine guns to shoot down several Syrian Air Force helicopters and fixed-wing attack jets. In Tuesday’s case, the thick smoke trailing the projectile, combined with the elevation of the aircraft, strongly suggested that the helicopter was hit by a missile.
Rebels hailed the event as the culmination of their long pursuit of effective antiaircraft weapons, though it was not clear if the downing on Tuesday was an isolated tactical success or heralded a new phase in the war that would present a meaningful challenge to the Syrian government’s air supremacy.
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