Woman Found Fatally Shot at Home of Pistorius

Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press

Oscar Pistorius, the South African Olympic and Paralympic track star, in September.

JOHANNESBURG — Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius, who made sporting history by becoming the first double amputee sprinter to compete in the Olympics, was taken into police custody early on Thursday after he shot and killed a woman in his home in Pretoria, according to South African police officials.

Mr. Pistorius, 26, won two gold medals and a silver at last year’s Paralympic Games in London. In the 2012 Olympics, he reached the 400-meter semifinal and competed in the 4x400 meter relay. Known by the nickname Blade Runner, he races using carbon fiber prosthetic blades.

The Associated Press, citing the woman’s talent agent, said the victim was Reeva Steenkamp, a model.

Early Thursday morning, the police responded to a report of gunshots in the upscale housing complex where Mr. Pistorius lives, said Col. Katlego Mogale, a police spokeswoman. When they arrived, they found paramedics treating a 30-year-old woman for gunshot wounds. The woman was pronounced dead and a 26-year-old man was taken into custody, Colonel Mogale said. She declined to identify the man as Mr. Pistorius, but another police official confirmed that it was the runner.

Colonel Mogale said that the case is being investigated as a murder and that the suspect is expected to appear in court later Thursday. She would not comment on a possible motive for the shooting.

“A case of murder has been opened,” Colonel Mogale said. “Currently the investigators and the forensic people are on the scene.”

Reports from local media said that Mr. Pistorius told the police that the shooting was an accident and that he had mistaken the woman, who was said to be his girlfriend, for an intruder.

South Africa has one of the world’s highest rates of violent crime, and break-ins by armed robbers are relatively common. Legal handgun ownership is also common, with some restrictions.

Adele Kirsten of Gun-Free SA, an anti-gun violence organization, said that whatever the motive, the shooting was an avoidable tragedy.

“The idea that you have a gun to protect your family against intruders, the data doesn’t bear that out,” Ms. Kirsten said. “What it tells us is that having a gun in your home puts you and your family at risk of being shot.”

In the Paralympics last September, Mr. Pistorius won individual gold, when he successfully defended his Paralympic 400 meter title. He had lost his 100- and 200-meter titles, but was part of the gold medal-winning 4x100 meter relay team. He came second in the 200 meter race.

After that contest, Mr. Pistorius damaged his reputation among his followers by criticizing the winner, Alan Oliveira of Brazil, raising questions about the length of the winner’s blades. Mr. Pistorius later apologized and praised the gold medalist in the 100 meter race, Jonnie Peacock of Britain.

Mr. Pistorius, who was born without fibulas, had both legs amputated below the knee before his first birthday and he battled for many years to compete against able-bodied athletes. In 2008, he qualified for the Beijing Games but was ruled ineligible by track’s world governing body because his blades were deemed to give him a competitive advantage.

South African journalists said Mr. Pistorius lived in a walled complex near the South African capital, Pretoria. A reporter outside the compound on Thursday said it was protected by high walls and razor wire.

In a statement, the International Paralympic Committee said it would not comment “until the official police process has concluded” but it offered “its deepest sympathy and condolences to all families involved in this case.”

Sarit Tomlinson, Ms. Steenkamp’s publicist, told Sky News that the couple had a "healthy, fabulous relationship.”

On her Twitter account, Ms. Steenkamp sent a message on Wednesday alluding to Valentine’s day on Feb. 14 and saying: “What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow???”

She also mentioned a South African reality TV show and described herself as “SA Model, Cover Girl, Tropika Island of Treasure Celeb Contestant, Law Graduate, Child of God.”

Mr. Pistorius’s father, Henke Pistorius, told the South African Broadcasting Corporation: “I don’t know nothing. It will be extremely obnoxious and rude to speculate. I don’t know the facts. If anyone makes a statement, it will be Oscar. He’s sad at the moment.”

Lydia Polgreen reported from Johannesburg, and Alan Cowell from Paris.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 14, 2013

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly in one reference to the sprinter at whose home a woman was fatally shot. He is Oscar Pistorius, not Pretorius.

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Preston Bailey, Celebrity Party Planner, Weds in King Kong-Themed Ceremony

By Suzanne Zuckerman

02/14/2013 at 05:00 AM EST

Preston Bailey (left) and Theo Bleckmann

Courtesy Preston Bailey

Wedding planner to the stars Preston Bailey finally got the wedding of his dreams when, just after midnight on Valentine's Day, he tied the knot in an over-the-top ceremony with Theo Bleckmann.

Bailey, 63, whose list of glamorous clients includes Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump and Catherine Zeta-Jones, pulled out all the stops for his own nuptials with his partner of seven years. On the top floor of the Empire State Building, in a ceremony officiated by dear friend Joan Rivers – who got ordained online for the occasion – the couple married in a dazzling King Kong-themed extravaganza. 

"We love the imagery of the films but King Kong has a tragic ending," says Bailey. "We wanted to create a happy ending."

Upon reaching the top of the skyscraper, guests were greeted by a King Kong statue covered in flowers. Attendees including Martha Stewart and NeNe Leakes (Bailey is planning the Real Housewives of Atlanta star's upcoming nuptials to ex-husband Gregg) were then led toward the ceremony down a flower-festooned hallway that had been set up like an art gallery, featuring personal photos of their own weddings.

"As we were planning, it felt like, 'me, me, me, me,' " says Bleckmann, 47, of that touch. "So we thought, how can we extend the feeling of love and make it inclusive for everyone?"

To make sure guests unaccustomed to staying up all night would have the energy to party 'til dawn, Bleckmann says, "We're giving them as much coffee and chocolate as possible!" And plenty of champagne, of course. 

Check back for photos from Bailey and Bleckmann's romantic affair and more details, including Bailey's dramatic entrance and a parting gift courtesy of Martha Stewart.

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Morning-after pill use up to 1 in 9 younger women

NEW YORK (AP) — About 1 in 9 younger women have used the morning-after pill after sex, according to the first government report to focus on emergency contraception since its approval 15 years ago.

The results come from a survey of females ages 15 to 44. Eleven percent of those who'd had sex reported using a morning-after pill. That's up from 4 percent in 2002, only a few years after the pills went on the market and adults still needed a prescription.

The increased popularity is probably because it is easier to get now and because of media coverage of controversial efforts to lift the age limit for over-the-counter sales, experts said. A prescription is still required for those younger than 17 so it is still sold from behind pharmacy counters.

In the study, half the women who used the pills said they did it because they'd had unprotected sex. Most of the rest cited a broken condom or worries that the birth control method they used had failed.

White women and more educated women use it the most, the research showed. That's not surprising, said James Trussell, a Princeton University researcher who's studied the subject.

"I don't think you can go to college in the United States and not know about emergency contraception," said Trussell, who has promoted its use and started a hot line.

One Pennsylvania college even has a vending machine dispensing the pills.

The morning-after pill is basically a high-dose version of birth control pills. It prevents ovulation and needs to be taken within a few days after sex. The morning-after pill is different from the so-called abortion pill, which is designed to terminate a pregnancy.

At least five versions of the morning-after pills are sold in the United States. They cost around $35 to $60 a dose at a pharmacy, depending on the brand.

Since it is sold over-the-counter, insurers generally only pay for it with a doctor's prescription. The new Affordable Care Act promises to cover morning-after pills, meaning no co-pays, but again only with a prescription.

The results of the study were released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's based on in-person interviews of more than 12,000 women in 2006 through 2010. It was the agency's first in-depth report on that issue, said Kimberly Daniels, the study's lead author.

The study also found:

—Among different age groups, women in their early 20s were more likely to have taken a morning-after pill. About 1 in 4 did.

—About 1 in 5 never-married women had taken a morning-after pill, compared to just 1 in 20 married women.

—Of the women who used the pill, 59 percent said they had done it only once, 24 percent said twice, and 17 percent said three or more times.

A woman who uses emergency contraception multiple times "needs to be thinking about a more regular form" of birth control, noted Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research for the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group that does research on reproductive health.

Also on Thursday, the CDC released a report on overall contraception use. Among its many findings, 99 percent of women who've had sex used some sort of birth control. That includes 82 percent who used birth control pills and 93 percent whose partner had used a condom.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

Emergency contraception info: http://ec.princeton.edu/index.html

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Euro falls as German, French economies disappoint

LONDON (Reuters) - The euro dropped and European shares fell on Thursday as growth data from the region's two largest economies came in weaker than forecast, throwing a first quarter recovery for the bloc into doubt.

The German economy, Europe's largest, contracted by 0.6 percent in the final quarter of 2012, marking its worst performance since the global financial crisis was raging in 2009.

Worryingly for Berlin, it was export performance - the motor of its economy - that did most of the damage. France's 0.3 percent fall was also a touch worse than expectations.

The figures suggest the euro zone could remain slumped in recession in the first quarter of this year and pushed down the euro 0.5 percent to a session low $1.3382.

"This is major data, so it's dampening sentiment," said Anita Paluch, sales trader at Gekko Capital Markets.

"It is kind of disappointing that Germany, which had shown so much resilience, is now showing signs of suffering from the debt crisis."

Stock markets also edged lower although the impact was not so marked. The pan-European ESTOXX 50 index <.stoxx50e> was down 0.1 percent by 0815 GMT with London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> all down by a similar amount.

German bonds were steady, stabilizing after a fall in the previous session as demand for traditional safe-haven assets returned.

Benchmark Bund futures were 3 ticks higher on the day at 142.08, with analysts targeting a further rise if the remaining GDP data for countries such as Italy (0900 GMT), and the euro zone as a whole (1000 GMT), also come in weak.

The pain is not confined to Europe. Japan, under some pressure over its aggressive monetary and fiscal policies which are driving down the yen, came up with an unwanted riposte earlier on Thursday - its GDP shrank 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter, leaving it in recession and crushing expectations of a modest return to growth.

The Bank of Japan also kept monetary policy steady and upgraded its economic assessment, as recent falls in the yen and signs of a pick-up in global growth in recent months give it some breathing space after expanding stimulus just a month ago.

Markets in China and Taiwan remain shut for the Lunar New Year holiday but Hong Kong resumed trading on Thursday.

(Reporting by Marc Jones; Editing by Peter Graff)

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Pope to Make First Public Appearance Since Decision to Resign

VATICAN CITY — As Christians embarked on the 40-day period of Lent preceding Easter, Pope Benedict XVI made his first public appearance on Wednesday since the stunning announcement of his resignation two days ago, holding a general audience at the Vatican before a mass at St. Peter’s described by officials as likely to be his final celebration of a major mass in the huge basilica before his retirement on Feb. 28.

Loud cheers greeted the pope as he entered the Vatican’s audience hall which has a capacity of around 8,000 people.

The day — Ash Wednesday at the beginning of one of the most important periods in the Christian religious calendar — offered the pope’s followers a chance to see and hear him before he withdraws into a far more sheltered life in a convent within the Vatican walls where an apartment has been prepared for him.

Still unclear, however, are some of the practical consequences of Benedict’s decision, Vatican officials acknowledged Tuesday, from how the former pope will be addressed, to what to do with the papal ring used to seal important documents, traditionally destroyed upon a pope’s death.

“There are a series of questions that remain to be seen, also on the part of the pope himself, even if it is a decision that he had made some time ago,” the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said at a news conference. “How he will live afterward, which will be very different from how he lives now, will require time and tranquillity and reflection and a moment of adaptation to a new situation.”

Thousands of Catholics gathered for a glimpse of Benedict, including Francesca Meggiorini, from Verona, who had brought her four children with her because, she said, “this is special. I wanted my kids to be present. The pope was a man whose simple words went straight to the heart. So it’s wonderful for my children to be here. I think this experience will remain in their memory.”

Kevin Murphy, on a pilgrimage from Saint Benedict School in Bury St. Edmunds in eastern England, called Benedict “a great moral and spiritual leader.” And Fabio Semeraro, a ballet dancer from Rome, said he came to see the pope after “because it’s an important event. You get attached to a pope, but then again, after there will be another.”

Even though the Code of Canon Law allows popes to resign, the occurrence was rare enough to have caught Vatican officials off guard, including on issues like the protocol and potentially awkward logistics of having a former pope and his successor share a backyard.

When he leaves the papacy at the end of the month, Benedict will retire to his summer home in Castel Gandolfo, in the hills outside Rome, before moving to the Mater Ecclesiae convent, a plain, four-story structure built 21 years ago to serve as an international place “for contemplative life within the walls of Vatican City,” as it is described on a Vatican Web site.

Workers began transforming the building into a residence in November, after the cloistered nuns who had occupied the convent left, Father Lombardi said. He did not tip his hand about whether the renovations were carried out with the pontiff as the future occupant in mind. “The pope knew this place, this building and thought it was appropriate for his needs,” he said.

The timing, however, raised suspicions that the pope had been planning the details of his retirement for some time. The editor of the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, wrote Monday that the pope had made his decision “many months ago,” after a demanding trip to Mexico and Cuba in March 2012, “and kept with a reserve that no one could violate.”

Father Lombardi said that the stress of that trip had further convinced the pope that he no longer had the stamina to do the job.

In fact, the pope had meditated on the possibility of resigning for years. In the 2010 book “Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times,” from a series of interviews conducted by Peter Seewald, a German journalist, Benedict said that if a pope “clearly realized that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of carrying out the duties of his office,” he would have “the right, and under some circumstances also an obligation, to resign.”

Rumors of his imminent resignation began to appear periodically in the Italian news media in recent years, as the pope appeared increasingly frail in public appearances.

A Vatican official, who asked not to be named because he was discussing papal business, said that the number of people who had known about the pope’s decision “a long time, could be counted on one hand.” But the pope had informed a small group of other collaborators “in recent days.”

When he retires to Vatican City, the pope will be able to move freely, Father Lombardi said, though it was “premature” to say how involved he will be in day-to-day activities — like saying Mass — at the Vatican.

He would not, however, intervene in the choice of his successor. “You can be sure that the cardinals will be autonomous in their decision and he will have no specific role in this election,” Father Lombardi said, adding that the pope was “a very discreet person.”

The conclave to choose the next pope will begin 15 to 20 days after the pope resigns, and a new leader of the Roman Catholic Church is expected to be in place by Easter, which falls on March 31 this year.

Father Lombardi said the pope would continue to perform his regular duties until the end of the month, and would keep all the appointments on his calendar. Some parts of his schedule will be modified to take into account the heightened public interest in the pope during his final days in office, Father Lombardi indicated.

For instance, the Ash Wednesday mass usually takes place in a church on the Aventine Hill. But this year it will be conducted in St. Peter’s to allow a greater number of the faithful to attend, Father Lombardi said.

His final audience, on Feb. 27, will be moved to St. Peter’s Square instead of the usual indoor venue used in winter, “to allow the faithful to say goodbye to the pope.”

Elisabetta Povoledo reported from Vatican City, and Alan Cowell from Paris.

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Westminster Names Affenpinscher Banana Joe Best in Show

People Pets

By Kiran Hefa & Alison Schwartz

02/12/2013 at 11:55 PM EST

Westminster has its top dog!

After two days of meticulous primping, prizes and the less-pretty realities of any spirited championship, the 137th Annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show came to its finale Tuesday night, declaring Affenpinscher Banana Joe the best in show.

The competition proved fur-rocious as the pint-sized, black-haired furball bested six other finalists (and 2,721 entries total) for the honor, including Old English Sheepdog Swagger, who was named the reserve best in show. It’s the first time the breed has ever taken home the top prize in Westminster history.

Earning top marks at Westminster is the latest accolade in Banana Joe's storied run. The paw-dorable pooch, who is 5 years old, has been named best in show 86 times in his career, and his Westminster win will go down as his last.

"It's all so indescribable. It's just a wonderful thing as a tribute for a small breed with such a big heart," handler Ernesto Lara said post-victory. "The plans for him now is for him to retire back home where he was born, and that's in the Netherlands."

Describing his little buddy, Lara praised the breed for its commendable qualities as a canine companion.

"An Affenpinscher is a very human-like dog," he said. "It's definitely a breed you don’t want to tame or train, in the proper sense."

"You want to befriend it," Lara continued. "Once you gain the friendship, they're loyal just like a human friend."

As for Banana Joe's big victory, "Nobody told him he's small," said Lara, "and I don't think he'll believe that."

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Study questions kidney cancer treatment in elderly

In a stunning example of when treatment might be worse than the disease, a large review of Medicare records finds that older people with small kidney tumors were much less likely to die over the next five years if doctors monitored them instead of operating right away.

Even though nearly all of these tumors turned out to be cancer, they rarely proved fatal. And surgery roughly doubled patients' risk of developing heart problems or dying of other causes, doctors found.

After five years, 24 percent of those who had surgery had died, compared to only 13 percent of those who chose monitoring. Just 3 percent of people in each group died of kidney cancer.

The study only involved people 66 and older, but half of all kidney cancers occur in this age group. Younger people with longer life expectancies should still be offered surgery, doctors stressed.

The study also was observational — not an experiment where some people were given surgery and others were monitored, so it cannot prove which approach is best. Yet it offers a real-world look at how more than 7,000 Medicare patients with kidney tumors fared. Surgery is the standard treatment now.

"I think it should change care" and that older patients should be told "that they don't necessarily need to have the kidney tumor removed," said Dr. William Huang of New York University Langone Medical Center. "If the treatment doesn't improve cancer outcomes, then we should consider leaving them alone."

He led the study and will give results at a medical meeting in Orlando, Fla., later this week. The research was discussed Tuesday in a telephone news conference sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology and two other cancer groups.

In the United States, about 65,000 new cases of kidney cancer and 13,700 deaths from the disease are expected this year. Two-thirds of cases are diagnosed at the local stage, when five-year survival is more than 90 percent.

However, most kidney tumors these days are found not because they cause symptoms, but are spotted by accident when people are having an X-ray or other imaging test for something else, like back trouble or chest pain.

Cancer experts increasingly question the need to treat certain slow-growing cancers that are not causing symptoms — prostate cancer in particular. Researchers wanted to know how life-threatening small kidney tumors were, especially in older people most likely to suffer complications from surgery.

They used federal cancer registries and Medicare records from 2000 to 2007 to find 8,317 people 66 and older with kidney tumors less than 1.5 inches wide.

Cancer was confirmed in 7,148 of them. About three-quarters of them had surgery and the rest chose to be monitored with periodic imaging tests.

After five years, 1,536 had died, including 191 of kidney cancer. For every 100 patients who chose monitoring, 11 more were alive at the five-year mark compared to the surgery group. Only 6 percent of those who chose monitoring eventually had surgery.

Furthermore, 27 percent of the surgery group but only 13 percent of the monitoring group developed a cardiovascular problem such as a heart attack, heart disease or stroke. These problems were more likely if doctors removed the entire kidney instead of just a part of it.

The results may help doctors persuade more patients to give monitoring a chance, said a cancer specialist with no role in the research, Dr. Bruce Roth of Washington University in St. Louis.

Some patients with any abnormality "can't sleep at night until something's done about it," he said. Doctors need to say, "We're not sticking our head in the sand, we're going to follow this" and can operate if it gets worse.

One of Huang's patients — 81-year-old Rhona Landorf, who lives in New York City — needed little persuasion.

"I was very happy not to have to be operated on," she said. "He said it's very slow growing and that having an operation would be worse for me than the cancer."

Landorf said her father had been a doctor, and she trusts her doctors' advice. Does she think about her tumor? "Not at all," she said.

___

Online:

Kidney cancer info: http://www.cancer.net/cancer-types/kidney-cancer

and http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/kidney

Study: http://gucasym.org

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Stock index futures point to slightly higher start

LONDON (Reuters) - Stock index futures pointed to a slightly higher open on Wall Street on Wednesday, with futures for the S&P 500, the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq 100 up 0.1-0.2 percent at 0958 GMT (4.58 a.m EST).

European shares were slightly lower, although they remained near the top of a six-day trading range. French bank Societe Generale sank 3.7 percent after it unveiled a bigger-than-expected quarterly loss.

U.S. President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday he backs higher taxes for the wealthy and a $50 billion spending plan to create jobs by rebuilding degraded roads and bridges.

The U.S. Commerce Dept. releases U.S. retail sales data at 1330 GMT. It was expected to show a 0.1 percent rise in January, slowing from a 0.5 percent increase in December as consumers eyed smaller paychecks on the back of a recent tax increase.

Business inventories data for December, due at 1500 GMT, are expected to show a rise of 0.3 percent, a repeat of the November increase.

Comcast Corp clinched full control of NBC Universal for $16.7 billion on Tuesday, the latest in a series of deals that have taken the cable operator from humble roots in Tupelo, Mississippi, to Manhattan's iconic Rockerfeller Center.

The group is due to unveil fourth-quarter results before the market open, with earnings per share seen at $0.53 from $0.47 one year earlier.

Networking equipment maker, Cisco Systems , is expected to report a $0.01 increase in its quarterly earnings per share, with corporate North America and parts of Europe showing signs of improvement. The results are due after the market close.

Chip-maker Nvidia is also among companies due to report quarterly results.

Clearwire Corp , the wireless service provider that both Sprint Nextel S.N and Dish Network DISH.O want to buy, said on Tuesday that it would need Sprint financing to keep afloat up to the end of the year.

Asset manager Legg Mason Inc is preparing to name its interim head, Joseph Sullivan, as its permanent chief executive, two people familiar with the matter said, as the company turns to a sales chief to stop an outflow of funds.

BlackRock Inc named Morgan Stanley MS.N banker and long-time financial advisor Gary Shedlin as its next chief financial officer, to succeed Ann Marie Petach.

Yahoo Inc Chief Executive Marissa Mayer said the company's search partnership with Microsoft Corp was not delivering the market share gains or the revenue boost that it should.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> closed 47.46 points higher, or 0.34 percent, at 14,018.70 on Tuesday. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 2.42 points, or 0.16 percent, at 1,519.43. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 5.51 points, or 0.17 percent, at 3,186.49.

(Reporting by Francesco Canepa; editing by Patrick Graham)

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India Ink: Lost and Found at the Kumbh Mela

ALLAHABAD, Uttar Pradesh— Most people know the heart-sinking feeling of losing someone in a crowded place. Imagine the feeling of being lost at the largest gathering of humanity in the world, the Kumbh Mela.

It’s a scene so dramatic, and so common, that it’s a theme in many Bollywood movies — families who attend the Kumbh are separated and then reunited decades later.

Pranmati Pandey, a middle-aged woman from Bihar, knows the experience well. The mother of four was separated from her family on Sunday morning in the tide of an estimated 30 million people who gathered for the auspicious bathing day. Late on Sunday night she sat huddled with hundreds of other people, mostly women, who had also been separated from their friends and family.

“I just looked away from my family to give rice to the poor people on the road,” Mrs. Panday said, too exhausted from the day to cry. “When I turned around they were gone.” She wandered around for a few hours before a benevolent stranger took her to the police.

Every 12  years, an enormous pop-up city is erected on a flood plain, where the Ganges, the Yamuna, and the mythical Saraswati rivers merge.  Organizers say up to 80 million people are likely to attend the six-week event.  Though there is not an official estimate of the crowds yet, the police and organizers say that on Feb. 10, the largest bathing day, the number of people separated from their family and friends at the mela rose above 20,000.

To reconnect the huge numbers of missing, scores of police officers, government officials, and nongovernmental workers, like Rajaram Tiwari, are collaborating to assure that the lost will be found. Mr. Tiwari started an organization, Bharat Seva Dal, to find missing people at the Kumbh Mela back in 1947.

Tin Cans to Smartphones

“I came to the Kumbh when I was a teenager,” Mr. Tiwari said. “I saw how many people suffered when they lost their loved ones. So, I decided to start this organization. ”

During the first few Kumbhs he attended, Mr. Tiwari said he walked around with megaphones crafted with tin cans, announcing the names of the missing. Mr. Tiwari, who is in his eighties, said that over the last few decades the government has understood the importance of his service, and eventually gave him more resources.

Now, there are tens of thousands of speakers throughout the gathering, blaring 24-hour announcements with the names and descriptions of the lost. The system is manned by Mr Tiwari’s organization, several other NGOs, and the police.

There is a chaotic order to Mr. Tiwari and his comrades’ lost-and-found command stations, the largest of which is easily identified by a golf cart-sized yellow balloon that floats several hundred feet above it. As people come in, their names and details are written on a slip of paper and broadcast across the Kumbh.

On non-bathing days when the crowds are more manageable, the system works relatively well. But as the masses gathered on Sunday, it teetered on total collapse.

Half naked and soaked pilgrims, who had been separated from their friends and family in the rush to take a dip at the Sangam, swarmed a platform set up by the police on the banks of the river in hopes of finding the missing. Terrified children stood on the platform and screamed for their parents. One little boy, who spotted his father  among the masses, jumped off the stage and crowd-surfed into his arms.

By Sunday night, mountains of paper scraps with names scrawled on them littered the tiny tin-paneled announcement room at Tiwari’s tent. With no system of tracking the missing, many of the names were read once and then discarded.

In hopes of improving the process, police this year tried to utilize mobile internet technology.

“At the last Maha Kumbh in 2001, we were using land line phones and only had one digital camera to take pictures of missing people,” said Alok Sharma, the inspector general of the police in Allahabad.

This Kumbh, Mr. Sharma, 42, said the police are using “WhatsApp,” a smart phone application that sends messages and photos in real time to share information. They’ve also created a digitized photo system of the lost and found people that is available online.

But for Mrs. Panday and the thousands of other frantic people clambering to get the attention of  the police and Mr. Tiwar’s tent for help on Sunday, cell phones mattered little.

No Phone, No Money, No Address

Mrs. Panday is illiterate,  has no money, cell phone or even a phone number to contact her loved ones. So she  relied on her name being called on the loudspeaker. She said she heard it three times but no one had turned up.

The new technologies are supposed to make policing easier and cut back on the time that people are lost from days to hours, Mr. Sharma said. But in many ways, the old-school system of public announcements remains the most effective.

“The crowds are such that they are still not that much into computers and things like that,” said Mr. Sharma, who expected 18,000 police to patrol this year’s festival. “They would just go back to the basics. That is the announcement system.”

 Hundreds of Languages

But, in a country with hundreds of different dialects, making announcements can be difficult.

During one of the bathing days in January, when Mr. Tiwari and his staff did not understand the language of a missing person named Manu, a middle-aged woman from West Bengal, he turned the mic over to her. Scared, Manu only managed to utter a few words in Bengali between sobs.

Luckily for her, a Bengali soldier heard the troubled call and came to the tent to make an announcement on her behalf. Within an hour, a member of her family showed up to claim her.

Overwhelmed with the droves of “lost people” on Sunday, the system of announcements was largely turned over to the missing.  The terrified voices of the old, young children and women reverberated around the Mela, a foreboding warning to stay close to your companions.

Bollywood Reunions

In the early hours of the morning on Monday, Mrs. Panday was still waiting for her family to claim her. A woman sitting nearby let out a shrill shout when she saw her husband. Both in their 70’s, the couple, who had been married for almost six decades, had been separated for hours.

The two made announcements for the other, but in the deafening madness of the Kumbh neither had heard them. As a last resort, the elderly man stopped by Mr. Tiwari’s tent where he reunited with his wife.

Despite the odds, the police and organizers said that in the next few days all of the missing will be reconnected. Well, almost all of them.

Some people who turn up at the tent in the Kumbh are still hoping for the Bollywood story.  A bespectacled man in his forties came to the tent to find his father, whom became a Sadhu 35 years ago.

“I’m not lost,” the man said.  “After attending a Kumbh when I was a child, my father decided to take up the life of a Sadhu and disconnected from the family. I was just hoping this could be the Kumbh I found him.”

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It's a Girl for John Cho

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

02/11/2013 at 06:30 PM ET

Paul Drinkwater/NBC

Surprise: Actor John Cho is a dad again!

The Go On star and his wife welcomed a daughter recently, Cho’s rep confirms to PEOPLE exclusively.

Baby girl is the second child for the couple, who are also parents to a son. No further details are available.

Cho currently stars alongside Jason Bateman in Identity Thief and will reprise his role as Hikaru Sulu in Star Trek Into Darkness in May.

He is also well known for his roles in American Pie and the Harold and Kumar films.

– Anya Leon with reporting by Julie Jordan

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