Thursday, November 12, 2009 WASHINGTON: A Google search has reunited a father with the daughter he has been trying to track down for three decades.April Antoniou, 30, of Newnan, Georgia, and her father, Scott Becker, of Wichita, Kansas, have been making the rounds of television news and talk shows since their Internet-aided reunion this month.Antoniou and Becker told Atlanta television stations WGCL-TV and 11Alive they had been independently trying to find each other for years but with no success.Antoniou said she had frequently turned to Google but had no luck because her father's name is relatively common and she knew very little about him.But when she typed "Scott Robert Becker Looking for April" into the Google search box a few days ago it landed her on a website created by her father seven years ago -- www.aprilbecker.com -- where he had left a message:"Dear April,"When you read this, please send an email to: april@aprilbecker.com"I'm your Dad and I would really like to talk to ya."When I get your email, I will ask you a couple of questions that only you would know so I can filter out the crazies out there."By the way, You have a lil sister that REALLY wants to talk to you :-)"Dad Scott Robert Becker"Becker told the local television stations he had been looking for April ever since he divorced her mother a few months after April's birth, even spending tens of thousands of dollars on private investigators."I could not find her. I could not find her mother. I couldn't find April and I looked and I looked and I looked," Becker told WGCL-TV."So, I thought maybe one day my daughter will Google her name and maybe she will find me that way," he said.Becker said that after receiving an email from his daughter he confirmed her identity by asking personal questions such as her mother's maiden name and her birthday.Antoniou, who has two children of her own aged four and six, and her father reunited at an Atlanta restaurant last week.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in
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