Society's ChildS


Bomb

Police constable shows judge "how grenade works" inside courtroom, three injured

grenade
© Unknown
A hand grenade exploded inside courtroom in Karachi's Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) after a judge asked a police constable if he knew how grenades worked. The constable, instead of explaining his expertise in weapons and grenade handling to the judge, opted to demonstrate practically by promptly pulling out the pin from the grenade.

This resulted in a loud explosion, injuring three including the constable and a court clerk.

The blast took place while hearing of a case was underway in courtroom-III. Two policemen and a court clerk were among injured and taken to a nearby hospital for first aid. Court's proceeding was briefly suspended as a result.

Camcorder

Sickening: Ohio woman, boyfriend indicted for live-streaming rape of 17-year-old

Marina Lonina and Raymond Gates
© Franklin County Sheriff's Office/APMarina Lonina and Raymond Gates
An Ohio woman was indicted Wednesday for allegedly broadcasting the rape of a teenager using the live-streaming app Periscope.

Marina Alexeevna Lonina, 18, is accused of filming the rape of a 17-year-old friend on February 27, Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien said in a statement on Wednesday. Raymond Boyd Gates, 29, who was also indicted Wednesday, is alleged to have forced the young woman to have sex with him at Lonina's Columbus, Ohio, home. Gates is believed to be Lonina's boyfriend, the BBC reports.

Prior to using Periscope to stream the alleged rape, Lonina is accused of taking nude photos of the girl. Lonina and Gates face one count of kidnapping, one count of sexual battery, two counts of rape and three counts of pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor. Lonina faces two additional charges of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material or performance.

"Ms. Lonina maintains her innocence in this matter and denies the charges against her," Roger Soroka, Lonina's lawyer, said in a statement emailed to Newsweek on Thursday.

"If Gates and Lonina are convicted for these charges, they each face a potential sentence in excess of 40 years in prison," O'Brien said on Wednesday.

Authorities were alerted to the alleged incident after one of Lonina's friends, living in another state, saw the live stream, the prosecutor said. It's unclear how many people viewed the broadcast.

Comment: 40 years in jail just isn't long enough. What monsters!


Stock Down

East Ukraine has become an economic wasteland, the cost of war two years later

Ukraine manufacturing
© www.chathamhouse.orgEmployee walks through scrap metal area at a steel plant in Ukraine. Trade volumes between Russia and Ukraine plummeted as a result of sanctions and embargoes.
Until there is progress in implementing the Minsk agreements and some form of economic aid, the situation in Eastern Ukraine will continue to deteriorate - or perhaps even collapse entirely. Two years ago, in April 2014, the Ukraine crisis escalated into a full-scale war between Russian-backed separatist forces and Ukrainian regular and volunteer forces in the Donbas. Over the past six months, the recent terror attacks in Paris and Brussels, together with the military campaign in Syria, have, for the most part, knocked Ukraine out of the headlines. Yet the war continues.

In March, I traveled to Kiev and government-controlled Luhansk province in Eastern Ukraine and found that recent reports on the conflict, such as they are, have given short shrift to the economic crisis facing the civilian population of Eastern Ukraine. There, the old industrial centers of Severodonetsk and Lisichansk, as well as the scores of front line villages located in the immediate vicinity of the ceasefire line, are in danger of economic collapse, unless something is done to put an end to the war and to revive the Ukrainian economy.

To get a sense of the toll that the war has taken on the Ukrainian economy, one could hardly do better than to speak with Vladimir Vlasiuk of Ukraine Industry Expertise (UEX), an industrial policy research firm in Kiev, which has tracked the shrinking industrial and manufacturing base in Ukraine over the past two years.

The overall picture Vlasiuk painted of the Ukrainian economy, despite his best efforts, was not encouraging. According to UEX's estimates, Ukraine's GDP has contracted by 16.5 percent since the beginning of the crisis in 2014. And if one includes the loss of Crimea and rebel-held territory, Vlasiuk says it's closer to 24 percent.

The war and the loss of access to the Russian market have resulted in a steep decline in exports, which have fallen to $38.1 billion in 2015, from a high of $68.8 billion in 2012. The hope that greater access to the European market would make up for the loss of access to the Russian market remains unfulfilled; since 2011 exports to the EU have fallen by roughly $5 billion.

Nowhere is the economic decline more acutely felt than in the country's industrial heartland in the east. Since the beginning of the war, a wave of plant closings in Ukraine has resulted in the loss of 700,000 industrial jobs in 2015 alone.

Comment: Several factors, as stated, add to and complicate the economic situation in East Ukraine, none of which are improving or being addressed. It is like a field being purposely left to go fallow until there is nothing to revive. We have to ask: Why? Who gains from this? Or is the question: Once pillaged and plundered, whose burden will this become?


Clipboard

It's an educational program! California to start issuing speeding tickets to bicyclists

bike ticket
As if threatening government force to extort money from drivers who exceed an arbitrary limit of speed on the highway is not bad enough, police in California will begin issuing tickets to speeding bicyclists as well.

Earlier this month, Marin County parks officials launched a new enforcement program to enforce an arbitrary speed limit on bicycles.

City officials refused to call it a "crackdown" on speeding bicyclists and instead opted for the Orwellian option of calling it an "educational" program.

"We want to get data, educate users and hopefully gain a useful tool," said Max Korten, assistant director of county parks. "Through the Road and Trail Management Plan there are a number of proposals to open trail alignments to bikes that have caused safety concerns among some neighbors and preserve visitors about the speed of bikes on the trails," he said. "It's important that as we consider implementing some of these proposals; we have a tool to address this potential issue."

Green Light

Red light Robin Hood arrested again; faces prison time for disabling traffic cameras

red light robin hood
© smithtown todayStephen Ruth
Last year, 42-year-old Stephen Ruth was arrested for disabling traffic cameras, and even making YouTube videos of himself in the act, showing other people how they, too, can disable traffic cameras fairly easily. As soon as the video went viral, Ruth quickly became known as the "Red Light Robin Hood" and was soon arrested by police.

In a testament to his dedication, almost 8 months later, and he's at it again, and arrested again.

Ruth, now 43, was arrested right after a CBS 2 report was published in which he admitted to disabling dozens of cameras over the weekend.

Comment: Speed cameras are a racket.


USA

Taxation is theft meme makes it to major league baseball game

taxation is theft
A viral meme campaign that has taken social media by storm got some mainstream television coverage when a man seated behind home plate at a Texas Rangers baseball game stood up to reveal a shirt bearing the words "Taxation is Theft."

The recent "taxation is theft" campaign has taken the Internet by storm, raising awareness about the concept of taxation as a form of theft.

If you are confused by the term "taxation is theft," just think of the government as people without any special privileges, as they are meant to be representatives of the people, not omnipotent beings granted special rights.

If an average person takes money from someone under the threat of force it is called robbery, but if the government does it is considered legal and moral, and is called "taxation."

Snakes in Suits

No responsibility: Gun-carrying Georgia lawmaker arrested for drunk driving with 4 teens in SUV

Rep. Tom Taylor
© house.ga.gov
Stinking of alcohol and with bloodshot eyes, a Georgia Republican legislator was arrested for speeding and driving while intoxicated with four children in his SUV. He was also carrying a gun on his hip.

"I profoundly regret this serious mistake," State Representative Tom Taylor (R-Dunwoody) said in a statement, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "There's no one to blame but me, and I greatly appreciate the professionalism of the officers involved. This was my first run-in with the law in my life, and it will also be my last."

Heart - Black

Not-so-harmless fun: Study finds violent, sexist games decrease empathy for real-life female victims

Grand Theft Auto video game
© AFP/Getty Images
A group of male high school students in Italy who played Grand Theft Auto as part of a study showed less sympathy for female victims of violence in photographs.

Violent games that let players abuse women could have real-world effects, a new study suggests, with young men who identify with the games' male protagonists ending up less likely to care about women in real life.

A team of researchers in Italy and the United States found that a group of male high schoolers in Italy who played Grand Theft Auto reported feeling less sympathy when shown photos of female victims of violence.

"One of the best predictors of aggression against girls and women is lack of empathy," reads the study, conducted by researchers from the University of Milano Bicocca in Italy and Ohio State University in the US and published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One. "The present research shows that violent-sexist video games such as GTA reduce empathy for female violence victims, at least in the short-term."

Comment: Further reading on the effects video games can have on behavior, and a closer look at real masculinity:


Cardboard Box

San Francisco: Officials force man to move out of his wooden box pod deemed illegal

Berkowitz pod
© www.dailymail.co.ukThe bedroom pod.
A man who made a wooden box his home has been forced to move out after San Francisco building officials deemed the dwelling illegal. Peter Berkowitz, an illustrator, made headlines last month with his story of living in a box paying $400 a month. The 25-year-old came up with the solution as an alternative to paying the city's sky-high rents, building the 32-square-foot pod for $1,300 in his friend's living room.

"It fits all my needs where I have a private, sound-proof place where I can keep my belongings," Berkowitz said in an interview with SFGate. "I'm saving thousands of dollars a year. It's a solution that works for me. I don't want to spend so much money on rent."

After he shared his story Berkowitz was approached by others wishing to replicate his living arrangements and announced to Hoodline plans to produce and sell these "pods."

That ambition met a hasty end, however, thanks to the city's Department of Building Inspection. Chief Housing Inspector Rosemary Bosque told Hoodline that "pods are illegal and a violation of housing, building, and fire safety codes. He would have to completely open it up or look at something different, such as a bed with a frame, with curtains, something that was open to the room. This would be the case for anywhere in the country with respect to building and inhabitability codes," Bosque said.

"It's not just a matter of high rents and a matter of how people are coping with rents in San Francisco; there are fire safety realities," said the department's legislative and public affairs manager William Strawn.

Berkowitz has now left his plywood home, according to Hoodline, and faces finding alternative accommodation in a city where the median rent has reached $4,400 per month, according to data from Zillow.com.


Comment: $12.50/square foot and no bathroom...deal or no deal?


Heart - Black

Insurance companies seeking large premium increases as they threaten to drop out of Obamacare exchange

obamacare
Health insurance companies are amplifying their warnings about the financial sustainability of the ObamaCare marketplaces as they seek approval for premium increases next year.

Insurers say they are losing money on their ObamaCare plans at a rapid rate, and some have begun to talk about dropping out of the marketplaces altogether.

"Something has to give," said Larry Levitt, an expert on the health law at the Kaiser Family Foundation. "Either insurers will drop out or insurers will raise premiums."

While analysts expect the market to stabilize once premiums rise and more young, healthy people sign up, some observers have not ruled out the possibility of a collapse of the market, known in insurance parlance as a "death spiral."

In the short term, there is a growing likelihood that insurers will push for substantial premium increases, creating a political problem for Democrats in an election year.

Insurers have been pounding the drum about problems with ObamaCare pricing.

The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association released a widely publicized report last month that said new enrollees under ObamaCare had 22 percent higher medical costs than people who received coverage from employers.

And a report from McKinsey & Company found that in the individual market, which includes the ObamaCare marketplaces, insurers lost money in 41 states in 2014, and were only profitable in 9 states.

Comment: It appears that the insurance industry hopes to make substantial premium increases an annual event: Obamacare backfires: Insurance companies seek to hike up premiums in 2016