Society's ChildS


Pills

Woman jailed for 20 years for killing baby with 'morphine breast milk'

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© IndependentStephanie Greene was convicted of of homicide by child abuse, involuntary manslaughter and unlawful conduct toward a child.
A South Carolina woman who killed her baby daughter by giving her what prosecutors say was a fatal dose of morphine through her breast milk has been jailed for 20 years.

Former nurse Stephanie Greene, 39, was convicted in Spartanburg on Friday of homicide by child abuse, involuntary manslaughter and unlawful conduct toward a child.

Six-week-old Alexis died of respiratory failure on 13 November 2010 - a toxicology report from the baby's autopsy found a level of morphine in the child's body that a pathologist testified could have been lethal for an adult.

Comment: US - Police: Baby died from morphine in breast milk


Colosseum

Paying up for the rest of your life: Harvard study finds your share of the federal debt is $106,000



American workers would have to cough up a one-time "debt reduction fee" of $106,000 to pay off the nation's debt that has grown 58 percent under President Obama, according to Harvard University's Institute of Politics annual report on the USA.

The 91-page report provided to Secrets pegged the nation's debt at $16.7 trillion, up from the $10.6 trillion inherited by Obama. "The debt has grown so quickly because of large and repeated annual deficits in federal spending," said the report.

What's more, the Annual Report of the USA, from the student at the Harvard Political Review and done in partnership with the American Education Foundation, found that food stamp usage has surged 77 percent during the recession and that Social Security benefits will be slashed 23 percent starting in 2033 unless Congress and the White House institute sweeping reforms.

The report is considered one of the nation's authoritative independent analysis review of federal spending. One of the best benefits of the report is that the authors try to put huge numbers like the debt in perspective.

"Such large sums are difficult to conceptualize properly," said the student authors in their report.

Arrow Down

Prosecutors knowingly sent innocent New York man to prison for 25 years

John Fleming
© Assocaited PressJohn Fleming gives a few brief statements being exonerated.
A man spent nearly 25 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. In fact, there was proof that he wasn't even in the same state at the time of the crime, but prosecutors withheld that evidence, and coerced a false witness, in an effort to achieve an expedient conviction of a completely innocent man.

Wrongfully Accused

Jonathan Fleming, of Brooklyn, took a trip to Orlando, Florida, in August 1989. John, 27-years-old at the time, went to visit Disney World with his family.

During that trip, on August 15, 1989, a man named Darryl "Black" Rush was fatally shot to death back home in Brooklyn.

Three days after the murder, Fleming had returned home and was implicated as a suspect. He told investigators that he had ample proof of his alibi in Florida. Fleming had post cards, plane tickets, and videos of the trip. His family confirmed his whereabouts. He had receipts from the trip still in his pocket. When Orlando police did interviews, they even recorded witness statements of people who remembered Mr. Fleming in Florida.

However, the best alibi in the world wasn't enough to protect John Fleming from corruption in the judicial system.

Fleming was charged with Rush's murder and went to trial.

Cow

'Wake up America, they are taking everything away from us' says family involved in Nevada BLM cattle dispute

cattle dispute nevada
© Bailey Bundy Logue
A man has been released after being arrested Sunday during an ongoing dispute over grazing rights between the Bureau of Land Management and a family in southern Nevada, and the family is calling for action.

A federal judge in Las Vegas first ordered Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy to remove his trespassing cattle in 1998, according to reports from the Associated Press. Similar orders were issued in July 2013, and again in October.

Saturday, the BLM began taking some of the 908 cattle from Bundy. The BLM says Bundy's cattle have been trespassing on U.S. land without required grazing permits for over 25 years. However, Bundy said he doesn't recognize federal authority on land that he says belongs to the state of Nevada.

The BLM released a statement on its website saying, "Cattle have been in trespass on public lands in Southern Nevada for more than two decades. This is unfair to the thousands of other ranchers who graze livestock in compliance with federal laws and regulations throughout the west. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the National Park Service (NPS) have made repeated attempts to resolve this matter administratively and judicially."

Stock Down

Gloom, boom and doom report: 2014 crash will be worse than 1987's

Marc Faber
© Adam Jeffery | CNBC Marc Faber
Marc Faber says the stock market is setting up for a decline more painful than the sudden crash of 1987.

"I think it's very likely that we're seeing, in the next 12 months, an '87-type of crash," Faber said with a devious chuckle on Thursday's episode of "Futures Now." "And I suspect it will be even worse."

Faber, the editor and publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, has recently called for growth stocks to decline. And he says the pain in the Internet and biotech sectors is just getting started.

Bad Guys

Ridiculous! TSA refused to let mute woman board plane because she could not say her own name

TSA agent
© Getty ImagesA TSA agent at Los Angeles International Airport in February.
A woman claims an airport security agent refused to let her disabled sister on board a plane because she couldn't say her own name.

Sherry Wright says she was shocked at the treatment they received at Los Angeles International Airport, where her sister Heidi was due to fly to Phoenix.

The problems began when Heidi, who was left wheelchair-bound and unable to speak or write after a stroke a decade ago, was stopped by the Transportation Security Administration due to an expired driver's license, CNN reported.

Wright claims the TSA agent was rude and insensitive, insisting Heidi talk.

"I showed her ID, her (Social Security card) and her DMV papers," Wright said, to no avail.

"He just wanted me to make my sister talk, and I couldn't believe it.

Cheeseburger

Michelle Obama's disgusting, cheap school lunch rations leave student's fed up

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© Twitter via twitchy
Editor's Note: Some of the language used by students in this story is of the colorful variety, just so you know...
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First, about one million public school students said "no way" to their cafeteria menus after Michelle Obama's anti-obesity campaign led to anger and frustration over food that apparently many American kids didn't want to stomach.

But for those without other options, all that's left is the power of social media and cell phone cameras when they simply can't take another bite:

Handcuffs

Three arrested after video of them whipping child with belt goes viral on Facebook

Three Michigan residents were arrested on charges of child abuse after they posted a video of a child being beaten on Facebook.
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According to police, the mother of the child, Demitria Powell, as well as Stefon Felton and Uteas Taylor were arrested and charged with third degree child abuse, conspiracy to commit child abuse in the third degree, and third degree child abuse committed in the presence of another child.

The charges are the result of a 6-minute video the trio posted on the child's Facebook wall in which they can be seen smacking the child across the face, as well as whipping him with a belt over 50 times.

In the video, the three adults can be heard berating the child for putting "false information" about himself up on his Facebook page.

Crusader

Utterly absurd and barbaric: Christian couple sentenced to death in Pakistan due to alleged text message insulting prophet Mohammed

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© AP/Khalid TanveerPakistani soldiers stand guard at a local church before Christmas in Multan, Pakistan on Thursday, Dec 24, 2009. Pakistan’s Christian leadership decided to celebrate Christmas cautiously due to ongoing violence and attacks on the Christian community in Gojra.
A Christian couple has been sentenced to death in Pakistan after being accused of sending a text message to a local Muslim leader insulting the prophet Mohammed, their lawyer and prosecutors say.

The couple has denied the charges and said they would appeal the sentence. Their lawyer Nadeem Hassan told the BBC that he believes the trial was conducted unfairly.

Defense attorney Hassan told the French news agency AFP that Judge Mian Amir Habib handed the death sentence to Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar on Friday, finding them guilty of sending a blasphemous text message to the imam of their local mosque.

Gear

More school hysteria! L.A. science teacher suspended over student project that resembled a weapon

marshmallow gun
© AFP/Getty Images/Saul LoebObama and marshmallow gun collage
A beloved science teacher at a public high school in downtown Los Angeles has been suspended because a school employee was afraid that a kid's air pressure-related science project looked too much like a weapon.

The teacher, Greg Schiller, was suspended (with pay) back in February. He teaches - or taught - at the brutally futuristic-looking $232 million Cortines School of Visual & Performing Arts (also called Grand Arts High School).

Schiller got into trouble after two of his students turned in science projects designed to shoot little projectiles, reports the Los Angeles Times. One of the projects used compressed air (but was not actually connected to any air). The other one was coil gun: a tube surrounded by a coil and powered by a standard AA battery.

An unidentified school employee saw the air-pressure projectile device and got scared because, to her, it looked like a fearsome weapon.