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Africa

The Allegheny County district attorney’s office doesn’t want a woman who admitted abusing two adopted children from Ethiopia released on home confinement and electronic monitoring.

Kristen Barbour, 32, of Franklin Park, pleaded no contest in June to two felony counts of endangering the welfare of children and was sentenced to six to 12 months’ incarceration, which included eligibility for alternative housing and work release. She can leave the Mercer County Jail for up to 8½ hours six days per week to care for her two biological children while her husband, who also was charged, and in-laws work.

Her head draped with thin white fabric in the Ethiopian Orthodox tradition, Konjit walked to the stately entrance to the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa. But the soft-spoken 26-year-old did not go inside to pray because of her “sin.” Days before, she had had an abortion; she had become pregnant after her birth control failed.