Man Admitted to Hospital for Kidney Stone, Discovers He's a Woman

Man >> Woman

A Colorado man who was admitted to the hospital for a kidney stone received surprising news when the nurse came back with test results revealing he was actually a woman.

Denver photographer Steve Crecelius said he's felt a little different all his life.

"When I was about 6 years old, I started having these feminine feelings, but that was in the '60s. Wearing my mom's makeup, I thought I looked pretty," Crecelius told ABC News.

So when he went to the emergency room five years ago, he wasn't too shocked when the nurse told him she found traits of both genders in his ultrasound results.

He was intersex, meaning he had both male genitalia and internal female sex organs.

"The nurse is reading the ultrasound and says, 'Huh, this says you're a female,' Crecelius said. "It was very liberating. I had spent so much energy after the age of 13 constantly evaluating how people looked at me and acted towards me."

Steve, who now goes by "Stevie," said his wife and their six children accepted his new identity right away.

"We told them individually. Some were in person and some weren't," Crecelius said. "Every one of them said, 'We don't care one way or the other. We love you for who you are and you're still my dad.'"

Crecelius and his wife, Debbie, have been together for 25 years and she's supported him every step of the way, including taking him to buy his first bra.

She told Crecelius, "You know, when I first saw you, I said to myself,  'He runs like a girl.'"

"I think we were pretty good when she began to mourn the loss of her husband," Crecelius said. "We worked through what we needed to. The concept of unconditional love is a larger story."

Intersex is a term used to describe people who bear both external genitals and internal organs, such as testes and ovaries.

A person with the condition may have male genitals along with fallopian tubes and ovaries.

"The condition used to be called hermaphroditism, meaning that person can't be identified as male or female," Crecelius said.

According to the Intersex Society of North America, more than 1,500 children a year are born intersex.

For Crecelius, he hopes he can be an advocate for those born intersex and same-sex couples.

"I think of bullying, because I haven't heard anyone talk about this. It's important to talk about," Crecelius said. "People need to be accepting and understand. I was born this way, and loving each other and supporting each other will always be the main factor in our household."

News by Yahoo

Read current news at http://bbc-cnn-worldnews.blogspot.com 

Rare penny fetches more than $1 million, sold at auction

Rare one cent of U.S.A.

One of the first pennies ever produced by the U.S. Mint was put up for auction Thursday night and reportedly sold for more than $1 million.

Bids for the 1792 Silver Center penny reached $1.15 million Thursday night, according to Heritage Auctions, which conducted the sale. The U.S. Mint itself was founded in April, 1792.

If you don't have $1.15 million on hand, there are more affordable rare coins available. The Canadian Mint recently began selling a limited-edition glow-in-the-dark quarter featuring a dinosaur skeleton for around $30.

And the website ThinkGeek offers electromagnetically shrunk quarters for $25, or 100 times their actual value as currency.

ABC News reports that the rare penny is made of copper with a small silver plug at its center. It was an experiment by the then-fledgling U.S. Mint, which shelved the penny before it could go into mass circulation. The U.S. Mint determined the penny was too large and heavy for practical use.

Todd Imhof at Heritage Auctions told ABC that unlike today's legal tender which bears the inscription, "In God We Trust," the copper-silver penny reads "Liberty Parent of Science & Industry."

"At the time, industry and science reflected an enlightenment mindset," Imhof said. "People believed freedom of thought and industrial growth would bind and unify the new country, not religion or God."

An anonymous collector who has owned the coin for 10 years sold the penny. "With collectible items, for an item to sell for over a million dollars it is an unusual event," Imhof said.

However, Imhof also said a coin of the same type sold for close to $3 million over a year ago. Still, the $1.15 million sale is one of only 30 $1 million-plus coin sales in history.

News by Yahoo

Read current news at http://bbc-cnn-worldnews.blogspot.com

'Evidence of Prostitution' Seen in Secret Service Scandal

Hotel Caribe in Cartagena, Columbia

Eleven U.S. Secret Service agents and five military service members are under investigation and facing possible reprimand for allegedly cavorting with prostitutes and drinking excessively at a Colombian hotel ahead of President Obama's visit.

A heated argument between at least one of the alleged prostitutes and at least one of the Secret Service agents on Thursday first alerted local authorities to the alleged behavior at the Hotel Caribe in Cartagena, officials told ABC News.

"My understanding is that 11 secret service agents did bring women to their room and there was a dispute the next morning when one of the women did not leave there room," House Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Peter King told ABC News. "One did not leave, police came and she refused to leave until she was paid for her services. So that is what started all this."

Adult prostitution is legal in designated "tolerance zones" in Colombia, though restricting the sex trade to those zones has been difficult, according to the U.S. State Department. "Sexual tourism" is reportedly widespread in Cartagena and other coastal cities.

After the argument in the room, hotel authorities went down to the reception desk to see who else of the American guests may have signed in female guests -- alleged prostitutes -- for the evening, a senior Obama administration official told ABC News.

Initially, that inspection led the hotel authorities to have questions about 22 Americans -- 17 Secret Service agents and five special operations soldiers who were there to assist the Secret Service, the official said. Their names were reported to the lead U.S. military official on the ground.

U.S. officials have stressed that some of those about whom the hotel raised questions may merely have been attending a party and violating curfew. But Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan made a prompt decision to relieve the entire detail of duty and have them return to Washington for questioning.

"I don't think inspector Sullivan would have all of them leave if there was not evidence of prostitution," King said.

Sources familiar with the situation also said the allegations against the agents include excessive drinking.

The group included special agents, Uniformed Division officers and two supervisors, sources said. None were assigned to the Presidential Protective Division.

The Defense Department also announced today that five personnel who were assigned to assist the Secret Service have been restricted to quarters for alleged inappropriate conduct and will return to the United States for questioning at the conclusion of the mission.

"The nature of the allegations, coupled with a zero tolerance policy on personal misconduct, resulted in the Secret Service taking the decisive action to relieve these individuals of their assignment, return them to their place of duty and replace them with additional Secret Service personnel," Assistant Secret Service Director Paul S. Morrissey said in a statement.

"These actions have had no impact on the Secret Service's ability to execute a comprehensive security plan for the President's visit to Cartagena," he said.

All 11 Secret Service members were interviewed today in Washington and have been placed on administrative leave. If the allegations are proven true, they could face reprimands and firing potentially.

Commander Gen. Douglas Fraser, who heads the U.S. Southern Command, said he is "disappointed by the entire incident and that this behavior is not in keeping with the professional standards expected of members of the United States military."

He also pledged a thorough investigation of the military members who may have participated in the incident, and punishment, if appropriate, in accordance with established policies and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said President Obama was made aware of the allegations but said it "would not be appropriate for the President to characterize something that's being looked into by the Secret Service at this time."

Carney insisted, however, that the incident has not been a distraction for Obama, who is participating in the two-day Summit of the Americas with other Western Hemisphere leaders.

Officials said the investigation of the agents' behavior would center less on moral or legal aspects of the alleged behavior and more on whether Secret Service and U.S. military protocols were violated -- and whether the security of the president could have been compromised.

"If all this happened, this compromised the agents themselves," King said. "It left [the agents] open to be threatened and blackmailed in the future. ... They could have been threatened or blackmailed secondly to bring prostitutes in an area that's a secured zone. It just violates a basic code of conduct."

The Secret Service most recently faced public embarrassment and intense scrutiny in November 2009 when several agents allowed two uninvited guests onto White House grounds for a state dinner and photo line with the president. The so-called "Gate-crasher" incident resulted in three agents later being placed on administrative leave.

News by ABC

Read current news at http://bbc-cnn-worldnews.blogspot.com

New Hampshire Suspects Found Dead After Killing Police Chief in Shootout

New Hampshire Police Chief killed

A man and a woman were found dead today in the New Hampshire house where a shootout left a police chief killed and four other officers injured,

The couple inside the house are believed to have been the result of either a suicide pact or a murder-suicide.

The police shooting occurred Thursday in Greenland, a coastal town of 3,500 outside Portsmouth, N.H., after a standoff with a suspect believed to be armed with a rifle.

The officer shot dead was Chief Michael Malone. Two officers are listed as critical, according to emergency services, while two others have been released from the hospital.

Malone, who had 26 years of experience in law enforcement, was reportedly scheduled to retire in eight days.

"In those final days, he sacrificed his life in public service as a law enforcement officer in New Hampshire," Attorney General Michael Delaney said today.

SWAT teams placed a robot into the residence to gain entry early today. The robot detected two deceased individuals, one of which has been identified as Cullen Mutrie, who is believed to be the man who killed police chief and shot the others, according to Detective Eric Kulberg. The female is still unidentified.

The shooter and the woman remained holed up in the home into Friday morning, according to Delaney.

Early reports from the crime scene indicated the gunman used a "sniper rifle," though questions at a later press conference suggested an "automatic weapon" was used.

The incident may have been the result of a drug bust gone bad, according to reports.

Kulberg, 31, and Detective Gregory Turner, 32, were both injured in the shootout and were released from a hospital after being treated for gunshot wounds. Detective Scott Kukesh, 33, was awaiting surgery in the intensive care unit with a bullet wound to the chest, while Detective Jeremiah Murphy, 34, was in the intensive care unit after surgery for a gunshot wound to chest.

The four injured officers were from other area departments and were working as part of a drug task force, according to The Associated Press.

"It's a blow to all of us. You're stunned. It's New Hampshire, it's a small town," John Penacho, chairman of the town's Board of Selectman said. "We're stunned. I mean all of us. It's an unbelievable situation."

The shootout is the latest in the rising toll of officers shot by suspects, a trend that counters a decline in many other crimes around the country.

News by ABC

Read current news at http://bbc-cnn-worldnews.blogspot.com

Powerful 8.6-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Off Coast of Indonesia

The epicenter of the 8.7 magnitude earthquake that struck just off the coast of Indonesia

A powerful earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia, triggering a tsunami watch for countries across the Indian Ocean. The 8.6-magnitude quake was centered 20 miles beneath the ocean floor about 270 miles from Aceh's provincial capital.

The tremor was so powerful it was felt in Singapore, Thailand, Bangladesh, India and Malaysia, where tall office buildings shook for more than a minute, according to the Associated Press.

An 8.2-magnitude aftershock was reported off the coast of northern Sumatra with an epicenter 382 miles from Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia, around 6:43 a.m., according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

Acehnese people run shortly after a powerfull earthquake hit western coast of Sumatera in Banda Aceh

Workers at the Hermes Palace Hotel in Banda Aceh described a scene of panic, near the coast, as people fled to higher ground. Employee Cut Arlista said the shaking was so strong that water from the hotel pool spilled out, although the 70 guests at the hotel were not evacuated.

"People were crying, and everybody was running inland as fast as they can," Arlista told ABC News.

The nature of the quake made it less likely a tsunami was generated because the earth moved horizontally, rather than vertically, and therefore had not displaced large volumes of water, Bruce Presgrave of the USGS told the BBC.

"We can't rule out the possibility, but horizontal motion is less likely to produce a destructive tsunami," he said.

Still, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii said a tsunami watch was in effect for Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, Myanmar, Thailand, the Maldives and other Indian Ocean islands, Malaysia, Pakistan, Somalia, Oman, Iran, Bangladesh, Kenya, South Africa and Singapore, according to the AP.

The tsunami warning was extended until 9 a.m. E.T.

The latest quake struck off the west coast of Sumatra, the same region devastated by a magnitude-9.1 earthquake in December 2004. That tremor triggered a catastrophic tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed 230,000 people.

"I think a lot of people learned from the past," Arlista said. "Everybody knew to run as soon as the earthquake hit."

Gary Peart, an Australian worker at the Lumba Lumba Diving Center on the beach in Banda Aceh in the province of Aceh, Indonesia, said the quake lasted quite a while.

"It was long for an earthquake," he said. "Maybe a minute and a half, and then it got slowly, slowly stronger, and then it faded away."

News by ABC

Read current news at http://bbc-cnn-worldnews.blogspot.com