From HarlemEnglish.com. Nguyen Thi Phuong (26) of Ben Tre Province turned into an old woman virtually overnight possibly due to an allergy caused by eating seafood or some medicines she was prescribed for it.

Incredibly, the face, neck, and hands of the pretty young woman have become wrinkled and saggy, and she says even her stomach looks like she had a few children.

It happened in 2008 when after eating seafood her face broke out in a rash and became itchy.

She thinks she used to scratch her face even in sleep.

Her husband Nguyen Thanh Tuyen (34) got her some medicines but they did not work and he had to take her to a local doctor. Phuong was diagnosed with dermatitis and prescribed some pills. However, after taking them for a week, her face swelled up and hives appeared on her skin.

She then stopped taking the medicines and went to some traditional Chinese doctors in town. The medicine they gave reduced the swelling but she says she put on weight. But the drugs cost VND30,000 (US$1.5) a day.

Soon she had to wear a mask all day to avoid curious stares.

“We consider it as fate decreed by God and so we stopped trying to cure the disease,” said Phuong.

Recognize only by voice

Ho Thi Hiep, a neighbor, said Phuong used to be a beautiful girl. But people meeting Phuong for the first time after her disfigurement were no longer able to recognize her until they heard her voice.

Le Van Thiem of Giong Trom town says: “A couple of days ago, Phuong went back to her hometown for her grandmother’s death anniversary. I met her and thought some old lady was visiting us. Only when I heard her voice did I realize it was her.”

Her saggy skin notwithstanding, Phuong still has the voice and posture of a young woman and black hair.

“It is not just my face that has become saggy but also my stomach,” Phuong says.

“I have never given birth but the skin on my stomach looks like I have had two or three kids.

“Last September when I had a stomachache and went to a doctor, he said I was caught with early aging syndrome.

But Phuong’s condition has not put off her husband Tuyen.

“When we got married, Phuong was a beautiful girl,” he says. “It’s difficult to talk openly about conjugal matters, but just understand that I still love my wife.”

The couple now live in Bu Dop District in Binh Phuoc Province where she has a job shelling cashew while he works as a carpenter.

What doctors say?

Dr Mai The Trach, former head of the Ho Chi Minh City Endocrine Association, says allergies cause changes in facial skin. But Phuong has not aged since her memory and organs like heart, kidneys, liver, and lungs are normal, he says.

Hoang Viet, head of the Dong Nai Province-based Nguyen Dinh Chieu hospital, says he has dispatched personnel to Giong Trom to gather more information about Phuong’s condition.

He plans to bring Phuong to his hospital and, if he is unable to help, then to take her the Ho Chi Minh Hospital of Dermatology and Venereology.

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A coloring book aimed at teaching children about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 has generated controversy for its depiction of Muslims and interpretation of the events.

“It’s disgusting,” said Dawud Walid, director of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, who has lead the charge against what he sees as an irresponsible and dangerous book. Read More

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook is ending its Deals program, which offered the site’s 750 million users discounts similar to those offered by daily deals site Groupon.

Facebook said in a statement Friday it decided to end Deals after four months of testing. The service will wind down in coming weeks. It was available only in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco.

Facebook says it remains committed to serving local businesses through ads, pages and other products. And it will continue to offer “check-in deals.” These lets businesses like restaurants and stores offer deals to customers who “check in” through Facebook to let their friends know where they are.

WASHINGTON — Texas Gov. Rick Perry is expected to rally Christian conservative leaders in Texas this weekend to discuss strategies for his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. The event will be hosted by Dr. James Leininger, a millionaire Christian right figure who was once the biggest political donor in Texas and an early and crucial benefactor to Perry’s political career.

Leininger is not widely known outside of Texas, but inside the state he is seen as a pioneer of political donations to conservative politicians and causes. The conservative activist made his millions selling hospital beds, and since the 1980s he has pushed a mix of religious right fervor and pro-business activism, which is now reflected in the politics of all major Texas Republican figures, particularly Perry. Since 1989, Leininger, who is worth more than $300 million, and his wife have donated at least $6.9 million to political parties, political action committees and state and federal candidates, according to data obtained by TransparencyData.com, a site run by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to increase government transparency. He has also created a host of nonprofits, most prominently the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), to advance his conservative political agenda.

“James Leininger has been the sugar daddy of the far right in Texas,” said Kathy Miller, the president of the Texas Freedom Network, a nonprofit supporting religious freedom and individual liberties in Texas. “He is probably one of the biggest donors to the Republican Party of Texas’ move to far-right extremism.”

Leininger has been particularly helpful to Perry over the years. In 1998, Perry was in a close contest for Texas lieutenant governor with Democrat John Sharp. In the waning weeks of the campaign, Perry and Sharp were neck-and-neck, and Perry was running low on funds. Leininger stepped forward with a $1.1 million loan to the campaign, enabling Perry to increase advertising when many voters were just beginning paying attention. Perry won that race by a hair. Since then, Leininger has donated more than $250,000 to Perry’s gubernatorial campaigns. A request put into Leininger’s office for comment was not returned by Saturday morning.

A report released on Wednesday by Texans for Public Justice documented the many ties between Perry and Leininger. Of particular note, Perry and Leininger have participated together in a number of financial transactions, including investments by Perry in one of Leininger’s companies.

Andrew Wheat, research director for Texans for Public Justice, told The Huffington Post, “What puts the relationship between Perry and Leininger apart is these personal financial deals.”

According to the report, Perry made a quick $4,500 from a stock purchase and sale in Leininger’s Kinetic Concepts, Inc., the hospital bed manufacturer that made Leininger a millionaire. Perry’s stock purchase came after meeting with Leininger and immediately before an investment group started buying up Kinetic Concepts shares, driving up the price of the stock. In total, Perry would wind up making $38,000 off of Kinetic stock investments.

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After a long legal fight, the Cherokee nation ousted thousands of descendants of black slaves who had long been official members of the tribe.

The Cherokee Supreme Court (the tribe is a sovereign nation) ruled this week a 2007 constitutional amendment that required Cherokee blood in order to belong to the tribe could stand.

“This is racism and apartheid in the 21st century,” Marilyn Vann, the lead plaintiff in the case and a freedman leader, told Reuters.

The controversy over the freedmen’s status is at least in part about money. The Cherokee nation, the second-largest Native American tribe in the country, receives money from the federal government and earns money from its stake in the lucrative gambling industry, which totaled $26.4 billion for all tribes in 2009. In the run-up to the 2007 amendment vote, some proponents of expelling the freedmen suggested that more blacks might apply for membership to receive tribal money.

In the 1800s, the U.S. government passed a law forcing members of the Cherokee nation from their ancestral lands in the Deep South to make room for white settlers. The Cherokee — as well as their black slaves — were forcibly marched west of the Mississippi River to the Oklahoma territory during the “Trail of Tears,” resulting in the deaths of thousands of Native Americans.

After the Civil War, the Cherokee formally admitted by treaty their slaves’ descendants into the nation.

Before the 2007 passage of the amendment, some descendants of the freedmen said the vote on their status within the nation expressed a desire by many tribe members to paper over their slave-owning past. But the tribe’s leadership disagreed. “It’s a basic, inherent right to determine our own citizenry,” a Cherokee leader told the Washington Post. “We paid very dearly for those rights.”

OSLO, Norway (AP) — A Norwegian prosecutor said Thursday he is concerned that the confessed perpetrator of last month’s attacks that killed 77 people is declining to give information that could determine if he had accomplices. Read More

NEW YORK (AP) — Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. zoomed to the top of the list of global smartphone makers in the second quarter, blowing past Nokia Corp. and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd., according to research firm IDC. Read More

SEATTLE (AP) — A Seattle-area Muslim man is suing his former employer, claiming he was fired as a security guard for refusing to shave the beard he wears for religious reasons. Read More

Back in the day in Asia, where pigeons originated, they were cliff-dwellers. They built their nests high up, stuck to the sides of vertical drops.

Though the scenery has changed, pigeons’ nesting habits have not. In cities, even though we see pigeons hopping around the sidewalk, they tend to lay their eggs in nests built against the trusses of huge bridges and the sides of tall buildings. That’s where the baby pigeons are. Read More