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FBI cuts down Mass. mom's door in wrong-home raid

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FITCHBURG, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts mother says the FBI used a chain saw blade to cut through her door and held her at gunpoint for at least 30 minutes before agents realized they were conducting a raid at the wrong home.

Judy Sanchez, of Fitchburg, says she awoke to heavy footsteps in the stairwell on Jan. 26 and walked into her kitchen in time to see a blade chop through her door.

She says she was held facedown on the floor at gunpoint while her 3-year-old daughter cried in another room.

It turns out agents were after the other tenant on the floor of the multiunit building who is suspected of dealing drugs.

Sanchez says she and her daughter now have trouble sleeping.

The FBI has apologized and is paying for the damage.

Pfizer is recalling 1 million packets of birth control pills in the U.S.: http://t.co/ByZq07bq
L.A. officials say "Soul Train" creator Don Cornelius died this morning of an apparent suicide at age 75: http://t.co/VyQ0bpbb
Feb. 1 is Working Naked Day, anniversary of the space shuttle Columbia disaster, Hula in the Coola Day: http://t.co/YwoWpH3n
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Michele Bachmann refutes Mitt Romney endorsement report

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He runs the PAC RT @StuartRoy: Min invest yields win head 2 head w/ romney MT @chucktodd Santorum SuperPAC up with new ad in MO
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Japan snowstorm kills 52, crushes steel bridge

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Heavy snowfall has crippled much of Japan's western coast, killing more than 50 people and injuring nearly 600. The worst snowstorm in six years has dumped more than 10 feet of snow in the hardest-hit regions, causing at least one bridge to collapse and forcing school closures across the region.

An avalanche today buried three people for more than an hour near a hot springs in Akita Prefecture in northwest Japan. The women were later found unconscious but survived.

Western Japan has been battered by one snowstorm after another since the beginning of the year, overwhelming cash-strapped cities struggling to keep up with cleanup efforts.  In the Niigata Prefecture, officials said nearly half of their 30 cities had run out of funds set aside snow removal. Further north in the Aomori Prefecture, the government had already applied for additional funds from Tokyo, after draining its budget.

Residents, frustrated by the slow response, have taken it upon themselves to clean up the winter mess, resulting in deadly consequences. Nearly all the storm-related deaths have been a direct result of snow removal.

Meanwhile, in Nagano, the weight of all the snow proved to be too much for a 310-foot steel bridge. It collapsed early this week, although no one was injured.

The Japan Meteorological Agency forecasts more snowfall in the next 24 hours.

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Romney: 'I'm not concerned about the very poor'

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Wednesday that he's "not concerned about the very poor" because they have an "ample safety net" and he's focused instead on relieving the suffering of middle-class people hit hard by the bad economy.

In comments likely to become fodder for his critics, Romney emphasized, "You can focus on the very poor, that's not my focus."

He brought up the subject of the poor in a CNN interview marking his big win in Florida's GOP primary Tuesday night, a major step toward becoming the party's challenger to President Barack Obama in the fall. A multi-millionaire former venture capitalist, Romney has been criticized by Democrats and his Republican rivals alike for earlier remarks seen as insensitive, such as saying "I like being able to fire people" and declaring that he knew what it was like to worry about being "pink-slipped" out of a job.

"I'm not concerned about the very poor." he said Wednesday. "We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it. I'm not concerned about the very rich. They're doing just fine. I'm concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling."

Asked whether his comment about the poor might come across as odd to some, Romney reiterated.

"We will hear from the Democrat party the plight of the poor and there's no question, it's not good being poor, and we have a safety net to help those that are very poor," Romney said, adding that he's more worried about the unemployed, people living on Social Security and those struggling to send their kids to college.

"We have a very ample safety net and we can talk about whether it needs to be strengthened or whether there are holes in it. But we have food stamps, we have Medicaid, we have housing vouchers, we have programs to help the poor," Romney said. "But the middle-income Americans, they're the folks that are really struggling right now."

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'Soul Train' Founder Commits Suicide: Report

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'Soul Train' Founder Commits Suicide: Report (Credit: Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo)

Don Cornelius, the man who created Soul Train, was reportedly found dead Wednesday morning at his Los Angeles home.  Police sources tell TMZ.com that Cornelius appears to have taken his own life; sources say he died from what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.  He was 75.

Cornelius created "Soul Train" and hosted the show in national syndication from 1971 to 1993.  It was the first real venue on American TV for soul music, and as the show's writer and producer, as well as host, Cornelius played a vital role in bringing stars like James Brown, Aretha Franklin and Michael Jackson to a wider audience.  Some have described the show as "a black American Bandstand," though Cornelius was not a fan of that comparison.  As the host, he was known for the catchphrase with which he closed each episode: "I'm Don Cornelius, and as always in parting, we wish you love, peace and soul!"

"Soul Train," which ceased airing in 2006, also spun off the Soul Train Music Awards and the Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards.   Its most famous theme song, "TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)," by MFSB became a massive pop hit in 1974.

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Romney hits morning shows, armed with talking points about Obama’s billions

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He runs the PAC RT @StuartRoy: Min invest yields win head 2 head w/ romney MT @chucktodd Santorum SuperPAC up with new ad in MO
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Separated at birth, Indonesian twins meet in Sweden

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Twins born in Indonesia and put up separately for adoption, have been reunited after finding each other living just 40 kilometres (25 miles) apart, in southern Sweden, three decades later.

Non-identical twins Emilie Falk and Lin Backman -- strangers until last year -- were separated nearly 29 years ago.

According to a DNA test the pair had done two months after reuniting in January last year, and which they shared with AFP, there is a 99.98 percent chance of them being sisters.

A complex string of events led up to that revelation.

Both were adopted from an orphanage in Semarang in northern Indonesia by Swedish couples, but there was no mention in either of their documents of the fact that they had a twin.

When Backman's parents left the orphanage with her all those years ago, the taxi driver had turned around and asked them: "What about the other one, the sister?" and they jotted the girls' Indonesian names down on a piece of paper.

The name helped Backman's parents track down the Falks back in Sweden, and the two families got together a few times when the girls were babies to compare notes.

"They went through the adoption papers, but they didn't think we were very similar and there was a lot in the papers that didn't add up ... And there were no DNA tests back then," Falk said.

Among the discrepancies were different names for the girls' fathers. And although the records showed they had the same mother, the families eventually decided that this too was an error.

The two couples in the end wrote off the idea and eventually lost touch.

Although their parents had told them the story as children, both Falk and Backman later forgot about it. Growing up, neither was interested in information about their biological background, so they never asked.

"But when I got married two years ago I started thinking about family and my adoption, and when I asked my mother she told me this story again, and I decided to look for Lin," Falk said.

She had a name and began searching through a network for Indonesian children adopted by Swedish families, and found her on Facebook.

"I am born on March 18, 1983 in Semarang and my biological mother's name is Maryati Rajiman," Falk said she wrote, and quickly received the reply: "Wow, that's my mother's name as well! And that's my birthday!"

They found they had a lot in common.

They lived only 40 kilometres apart in the very south of Sweden, they are both teachers, they got married on the same day only one year apart and even danced to the same wedding song: "You and Me" by Lifehouse.

"It was really strange," Falk said.

"When Lin called me (with the DNA test results), I remember I was sitting in the car and when she told me I started laughing, because it just felt so strange," she said, adding: "I suddenly started thinking that we shared a womb. It was really strange, but really cool too."

Since then the two have kept in close touch, and have talked about going to Indonesia to search for their biological parents.

There are a number of details, some contradictory, in the adoption papers, including a reference to their father as a taxi driver.

"We are very curious if he is THE taxi driver," Falk said.

Asked if she wished she had found out about her twin earlier, Falk insisted "there's no use in being sad about something I didn't know about. I am only happy to have found her."

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