Society's ChildS


Bizarro Earth

Man fakes his own kidnapping to avoid angry girlfriend, gets arrested

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The NYPD said a career criminal pulled another fast one late last week, but this time the staged kidnapping was reportedly a hoax to explain a long absence to his girlfriend.

Rahmell Pettway, 36, was discovered tied with duct tape early this past Thursday in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, according to a New York Post report. He claimed he had been grabbed by two men in a light blue minivan two weeks earlier, the newspaper reported.

Bizarro Earth

Siberian woman accused of killing husband to protect cat

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© AFP 2013/ Torsten Silz
Russian investigators in East Siberia's Buryatia republic have launched a criminal investigation against a woman who allegedly killed her husband after he threatened her cat.

Investigators said the 56-year-old woman and her husband drank alcohol together, and then started arguing over the cat, which had moved to their livestock farm in the republic's Zakamensky district after its owner from a nearby farm died.

Bad Guys

Police: 17 injured in 400-inmate brawl at Tucson prison

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© Shutterstock
A fight involving more than 400 inmates broke out Sunday morning at a prison near Tucson, Arizona, leaving 17 prisoners injured along with two members of the prison staff, according to The Associated Press.

While it's not clear what started the brawl, authorities said it appeared to break down along racial lines, with roughly 300 white and Latino prisoners fighting about 100 African-Americans in the minimum-security prison.

Ambulance

Baby born in emergency c-section dies 24 hours after parents

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© WNBC
A newborn boy delivered via emergency C-section died on Monday morning, a day after his parents were killed by a hit-and-run driver currently at large, NBC News reported.

According to WNBC, the boy's father and mother, Nachman and Raizy Glauber, were killed early Sunday morning when their livery cab was hit by a gray BMW sedan, forcing the child to be delivered prematurely and placed in intensive care.

The Glaubers, each of them 21 years old, died in separate hospitals. Members of the Brooklyn Hasidic community held a public service Sunday afternoon, and vowed to care for the child.

Pistol

Massachusetts police dog accidentally fires stolen handgun

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A Massachusetts police dog was digging in a snow bank early Saturday morning found what he was looking for: not only did police canine Ivan discover a stolen handgun, he fired it too.

Officers said nobody was harmed in the mishap, which took place in a residential neighborhood in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Police said they began pursuing a vehicle that sped away from the site of what sounded like a shooting.

Soon an officer noticed a man exit the car and bury something in the snow, at which point the vehicle was pulled over and backup was called. When Ivan and his handler, Lt. John Pickles, showed up, the canine began pawing at the snowbank indicating he'd found something.

Health

Michigan sheriff's deputy's 4-year-old son accidentally shoots and kills himself

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Family and friends in Michigan are mourning the death of a 4-year-old Jackson County deputy's son, who accidentally shot and killed himself over the weekend.

Mlive.com reported that Jackson County Sheriff's Deputy Mark Easter was identified as the father of Michael Richard Leland Easter. The father was on the way to work at around 5:30 p.m. on Saturday when the 4-year-old boy found a gun and shot himself.

Michael Richard Leland Easter was later pronounced dead at Allegiance Health.

"I knew it was bad when one of the local sheriff's here, he came out of the house and was walking down the driveway," neighbor Lon Zicafoose told WXMIM. "I could tell he was crying and he got closer to the road here and he was sobbing and crying."

Heart - Black

U.N. report: Nearly 3,000 wild great apes killed or 'stolen' each year

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© AFP Photo
Almost 3,000 great apes are killed or captured in the wild each year because of rampant illegal trade, according to a new UN report released Monday that voiced fears for their survival.

More than 22,000 great apes are estimated to have been lost to the illicit trade between 2005 and 2011, according to the study by the UN Environment Programme, which oversees the Great Apes Survival Partnership (Grasp).

"This trade is thriving and extremely dangerous to the long term survival of great apes," said Grasp coordinator Doug Cress, describing the illegal trade as "sophisticated, ingenious, well financed, well armed".

"At this rate, apes will disappear very quickly," he said.

Capturing a single chimpanzee alive can require killing 10 others, said Cress.

Bizarro Earth

CEO: 'Automated process' led to misogynistic rape shirts on Amazon

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The founder and CEO of an online t-shirt company found himself profusely apologizing this weekend after Twitter erupted with anger on Saturday over a line of clothing offered on Amazon that carried slogans promoting rape.

The shirts all featured a combination of words made to parody the slogan, "Keep Calm and Carry On." But instead of something silly or smarmy, t-shirt maker Solid Gold Bomb was offering shirts with slogans like, "Keep Calm and Rape Her," "Keep Calm and Hit Her," and "Keep Calm and Grope On." One, in pink, offered the slogan: "Keep Calm and Rape A Lot."

Michael Fowler, founder and CEO of Solid Gold Bomb, explained on the company's website that it had no intention of producing such offensive shirts, revealing they were actually created by an "automated process" that "relied on both computer based dictionaries and online educational resources ie. verb lists" to generate a parody of "Keep Calm."

Heart - Black

Kids aged 5 among UK sexual offenders

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Children as young as five have been listed among the under-18s who have been accused of sexual offences in Britain, police statistics show.

National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) said it has figures from the police showing they dealt with 5,000 cases of under-18 children harassing other kids between 2009 and 2012.

NSPCC said the offences included accusations of rape and sexual assault and 98 percent of the accused were boys.

The charity blamed open access to explicit online material for the shocking figures saying the situation requires urgent treatment.

"We are treating an increasing number of children who have carried out online grooming, harassment in chatrooms and 'sexting'. We hope our findings will ring alarm bells with the authorities that this is a problem which needs urgent attention," Claire Lilley, a policy adviser at the NSPCC said.

Ambulance

Six Russian teenagers buried under 5 meters of snow in Siberia, 1 escapes avalanche

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© RIA Novosti / Albina Olisaeva
Rescuers are searching for six teenagers who have been buried under five meters of snow after an avalanche hit them on a mountain slope in East Siberia. Their classmate who managed to escape the snow trap is currently in hospital.

The group was heading to the summit of Mount Ak-Bashtyg in the republic of Tyva, East Siberia, when the avalanche hit.

The teens wanted to place flags on top of the mountain which is believed by the locals to bring luck, said Russia's Children's Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov on his Twitter page @RFdeti.

The avalanche as high as 5-6 meters was about 200 meters in width and 600 meters in length according to the Emergencies Ministry's information. The threat of further avalanches in the area remains high.