Pakistan woman, 26, among 13 shooting rampage victims

A 26-year-old woman from Pakistan was among those who died in a shooting rampage when a lone gunman barricaded a rear exit at an immigration services center in Binghamton, NY, and then entered the building and killed 13 people before fatally shooting himself on April 3, authorities said.

The shooter, Jiverly Voong, 41, had been laid off from IBM in nearby Johnson City, according to reports. He entered the center, which holds classes for new immigrants and prospective citizens, and might have picked his victims at random, police said.

The death of Parveen Ali, of Binghamton, who had come to the U.S. eight years ago from the Swat area of northern Pakistan, which is heavily under siege from the Taliban, has devastated the family, a prominent member of the Muslim community in Binghamton told Desi Talk.

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7th anniversary of 9/11: Pentagon memorial's opening brings closure for many

Surely no one who had seen the Pentagon burning seven years ago could have envisioned the scene that unfolded there on September 11.

When the dedication ceremony for the Pentagon Memorial ended about 10:30 a.m. and the dignitaries had left in their motorcades, the families of Sept. 11 victims began filing into the park, searching for the steel and granite memorial benches with the names of their loved ones. They carried flowers, balloons and photographs, and soon, a festive, almost celebratory mood began to take hold among a group long accustomed to spending the day in sadness.

It was the children who set the tone, really, treating the austere objects like playground equipment rather than representations of the dead. They ran among the rows of benches, playing with the water in the pools below and sliding down their smooth, arcing outlines, a stone's throw from the spot where American Airlines Flight 77 tore into the western side of the Pentagon seven years ago, killing 184.

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Woman gets 11 years in prison for slavery case

A wealthy New York woman was sentenced to 11 years in prison on June 26 for keeping two Indonesian women as slaves, forcing them to work up to 20 hours a day for years after confiscating their passports.

Indian-born Varsha Sabhnani and her husband, Mahender Sabhnani, were convicted in December of forced labor, peonage, harboring aliens, document servitude and conspiracy in what prosecutors called "a case of modern-day slavery."

Mahender Sabhnani was due to be sentenced on June 27, also by Judge Arthur Spatt, at U.S.federal court in Central Islip, on Long Island.

Defense lawyers had argued that the victims made up the story and were delusional.

The couple, owners of an international perfume manufacturing and distribution business, had kept the two Indonesian women in their home in Mutton town, New York.

The investigation began when one of the victims was found in a doughnut shop wearing rags and with open wounds behind her ears, prosecutors said. The second victim was found in the home, hiding in a closet under the basement stairs.

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