Create your own free news widgets.

A WORKING smoke alarm is being credited with saving an 83-year-old woman and her disabled daughter from a fire that severely damaged their home east of Melbourne.

The beauty hall at Selfridges in London is said to be the biggest in the land and something about its particular atmosphere slows shoppers to a drowsy crawl, as if intoxicated by the expensively perfumed air. Not Beverley Knight, though. The aisles may stretch into infinity but Britain's Queen of Soul navigates her way along and around their shiny whiteness with the brisk confidence of the frequent visitor, and on vertiginous wedge heels. "This is pretty much the mecca for make-up," she imparts over her shoulder, striding forth. "If it exists, you'll find it here. But do you know what? Only 15 per cent of the counters offer anything for dark-skinned women like me. The others? It's a case of [she starts singing], 'Walk on by... '"

Women the world over lose out financially in divorce, say custodians of the U.N. treaty on women's rights. That's why they are reviewing what CEDAW says on the matter, with a new general recommendation expected next year.

I'm working my way through the book The Rules of Love by Richard Templar (Buy Direct). In it, Templar outlines what he feels are the rules everyone must follow in order to find and keep a happy romantic relationship. Some of his rules are contentions, but none more so (in my opinion) than #46 - Your Partner Is More Important Than Your Kids. More important, you say? Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of single parents around the world today, and see what their reaction is. I'll hazard most of them would blanch at this suggestion, much less agree with it. And frankly, the first thing that came to mind for me when I read #46 was a horrible story where a single parent did rank their partner over their kids: a woman - whose boyfriend was in jail for stalking her and uttering threats - was told by one of her children that they didn't like said boyfriend. The Mom in turn defended the boyfriend's actions, saying he was a good, solid man. Not the best of thought processes for sure, but I'l

A Texas woman accused of abducting her two children from their upstate New York home is facing custodial interference and other charges.