The FBI has recently adopted a novel investigative technique: posting hyperlinks that purport to be illegal videos of minors having sex, and then raiding the homes of anyone willing to click on them.

Undercover FBI agents used this hyperlink-enticement technique, which directed Internet users to a clandestine government server, to stage armed raids of homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Nevada last year. The supposed video files actually were gibberish and contained no illegal images.

A CNET News.com review of legal documents shows that courts have approved of this technique, even though it raises questions about entrapment, the problems of identifying who's using an open wireless connection--and whether anyone who clicks on a FBI link that contains no child pornography should be automatically subject to a dawn raid by federal police.

Roderick Vosburgh, a doctoral student at Temple University who also taught history at La Salle University, was raided at home in February 2007 after he allegedly clicked on the FBI's hyperlink. Federal agents knocked on the door around 7 a.m., falsely claiming they wanted to talk to Vosburgh about his car. Once he opened the door, they threw him to the ground outside his house and handcuffed him.

There's no evidence the referring site was recorded as well, meaning the FBI couldn't tell if the visitor found the links through Ranchi or another source such as an e-mail message.

He told investigators he brought his girlfriend food and water, and asked her every day to come out of the bathroom.

“And her reply would be, ‘Maybe tomorrow,”’ Whipple said. “According to him, she did not want to leave the bathroom.”

The boyfriend called police on Feb. 27 to report that “there was something wrong with his girlfriend,” Whipple said, adding that he never explained why it took him two years to call.

DEKALB, Ill. - A gunman opened fire Thursday in a packed lecture hall on the campus of Northern Illinois University, wounding as many as 15 people, police and witnesses said. Police said the gunman was dead. Police reported that the scene was secure and that the gunman was “no longer a threat” about an hour after the shooting, which occurred about 4 p.m. ET in Cole Hall. It was not immediately clear whether the man committed suicide or was killed by police. Three people with head wounds were being treated at Rockford Medical Center, and a spokesman at Kishwaukee Community Hospital in DeKalb told NBC News that area hospitals had been advised “to expect up to 15 injured people from the campus.”

An Indian man has married a dog in a Hindu ceremony - to atone for stoning two other dogs to death.

The man, known as Mr Selvakumar, believed he had been cursed by the killings 15 years ago, and wanted to repair the damage done.

An astrologer told him the only way to remove the curse would be to marry a female dog.

The former stray dog named Selvi - now officially known as Mrs Selvakumar - was chosen by the man's family, bathed and dressed in a sari for the celebrations.