Society's ChildS


Question

Strange monument mysteriously shows up in front of Paseo area restaurant


Oklahoma City - Owners of Paseo Grill say a giant concrete monument mysteriously showed up on the front lawn of their restaurant. It weighs hundreds of pounds, and nobody knows where it came from or why it is there.

The Paseo District is home to many unique forms of art, but this new addition has not exactly had a warm welcome.

"Well, it's not straight," one Paseo District visitor said. "It's not supposed to be there."

The concrete pillar is rough in texture and appears to have been ripped from its foundation and somehow ended up in the front lawn.

Comment:


Airplane

British Airways flight makes emergency landing in Russia after failure of navigation equipment

The London-Beijing flight with 270 passengers and 16 crew landed in Irkutsk, Eastern Siberia, at 10.41 local time on Wednesday.

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© Irkutsk region Emergencies Ministry press serviceBA technical experts are expected to fly to Irkutsk to assess the damage to the jumbo aircraft.
Passengers were told there was a malfunction of the flight software on board flight BA 039. The plane landed 40 minutes after the initial request from the pilot to bring the plane down in Irkutsk.

The passengers are being put up in city hotels while the airline arranges their onward travel.

'The plane made an emergency landing in Irkutsk because of the failure of navigation equipment', said Yelena Stavitskaya, the Siberian airport's spokeswoman.

'Its passengers will be accommodated in hotels Angara and Irkutsk.'

BA technical experts are expected to fly to Irkutsk to assess the damage to the jumbo aircraft. It is expected many passengers will be offered onward travel by S7 - a Siberian airline that is also part of the OneWorld alliance.

The BA website indicated that an onward flight would be available at 21.00 (9pm) local time.

Comment: With a United Airlines flight being forced to make an emergency landing in Idaho yesterday after one of its two engines apparently shut down, we've got to wonder if this little one-two is a warning from the universe to the planet's two biggest warmongers?


Airplane

United Airlines plane makes emergency landing in Idaho after engine shuts down

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A United Airlines 737 flying from Seattle to Houston made an emergency landing in Idaho after one of its two engines apparently shut down.

Police say the airplane landed safely at the Pocatello Regional Airport just after 2:50 a.m. Tuesday.

The airline said the plane's 116 passengers were waiting at the terminal for a replacement airplane to arrive, which was expected to happen Tuesday morning. The plane also had six crew members.

Pocatello airport manager David Allen tells KPVI-TV that an engine on the airplane shut down and Pocatello was the closest suitable airport to make an emergency landing.

United Airlines spokeswoman Jennifer Dohm sent an email to The Associated Press saying the plane was diverted to Pocatello due to "an issue with an engine" that maintenance workers were reviewing.

Source: Associated Press

Arrow Down

7 dead after two buildings collapse in India


Vadodara: At least seven persons were killed and 40 feared to be trapped under the debris as two multi-storey buildings collapsed in Madhavnagar locality here in the early hours on Wednesday.

The twin multi-storey buildings collapsed behind Atladara area around 4:30am, catching the sleeping occupants unaware, H J Tapariya, chief fire brigade officer of the Vadodara Municipal Corporation said.

According to Tapariya, about 13 to 14 families were staying in the building constructed by the Vadodara Urban Development Authority (VUDA)

Eye 1

Chinese boy, 6, has his eyes GOUGED OUT after being kidnapped by organ trafficker

Boy with No Eyes
© AFP/Getty ImagesHorrific: A Chinese boy lies in hospital after he had his eyes gouged out reportedly by an organ trafficker.
A 6-year-old boy's eyes were removed in Shanxi province, and local police have offered a reward of 100,000 yuan ($16,340) for information in the case.

The incident happened in Fenxi county on Saturday evening. Guo Bin, whose parents are farmers, was discovered missing at 6 pm, when he usually returns from playing outside to eat dinner.

Five hours later, a man who had returned from catching scorpions in the local mountains said he had seen what was possibly a boy twitching in the valley.

Guo's parents then found their son lying in the place, the man described.

People

Facebook to compensate users for sharing details on advertisements

Approximately 614,000 Facebook users whose personal details appeared in ads on the site without their permission will each receive a $15 (£9.65) payout.

The names and pictures of an estimated 150 million Facebook members were used in Sponsored Stories, but only those who responded to an email from the site earlier this year will be compensated.

Privacy organisations will also receive some of the $20m (£12.9m) settlement.

Facebook said it was "pleased" the settlement had been approved.

The payout was approved by a US court on Monday following a class action filed against Facebook in 2011 by five of its users.

The group said their details had been used to promote products and services through the site's Sponsored Stories programme, without paying them or giving them the choice to opt-out.

A Sponsored Story is a tailored advertisement that appears on members' Facebook pages, highlighting products a user's friends have endorsed or "liked" on the site.

Pistol

Trayvon Martin's killer George Zimmerman will ask state to cover $200K-$300K of his legal bills

George Zimmerman
© AFP Photo / Joe Burbank-Pool
Because he was acquitted, state law allows him to recoup thousands

George Zimmerman, the Neighborhood Watch volunteer who killed Trayvon Martin, plans to ask the state of Florida to cover $200,000 to $300,000 of his legal expenses, his attorney told the Orlando Sentinel Monday evening.

Because Zimmerman was acquitted, state law requires Florida to pay all his legal costs, minus the biggest one: the fee that goes to his lawyers.

That includes the cost of expert witnesses, travel, depositions, photocopies, even that animated 3-D video that defense attorneys showed jurors during closing argument that depicts Trayvon punching Zimmerman.

Defense attorney Mark O'Mara said Monday that he would soon prepare a motion, asking Circuit Judge Debra S. Nelson to authorize the payments.

That motion, he said, "is in the works."

Dollar

Smoke and mirrors mask corruption at Pennsylvania's largest cyber-charter school as founder charged with funneling $8 million into private account

computer education
© Unknown
For the last decade, cyber charter schools have been springing up all over the country. Cyber schools give classes over the Internet to students in grades K-12, who get their education entirely online instead of in a brick-and-mortar location. Despite the lack of research into these schools' educational quality, in recent years some states have removed limitations to their growth.

Pennsylvania is one such state pioneering cyber charter schools. As of the 2012-2013 school year, 16 of its public schools were cyber. Students could attend those programs free, subsidized by federal, state, and local tax revenue.

On Friday, the founder of Pennsylvania's bigger charter school - PA Cyber - was charged with fraud, for funneling $8 million of the school's funds into his personal companies and holdings. Nicholas Trombetta allegedly used the tax payer money to purchase a plane, houses for his mother and girlfriend, and a million dollar Florida condo.

Blue Planet

Bear stalks 2 women in 3-hour ordeal

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© Unknown
Annapolis Valley pair flee to hunter's shack.


Two Nova Scotia women say they had a close escape from a black bear while travelling in the Annapolis Valley.

The three-hour ordeal ended with the pair cowering in an old hunter's shack while the bear pawed the walls of the building outside.

Nikki Latta, 23, and Lindsay Jones, 25, headed into the woods near Port George on the Bay of Fundy shore Monday evening. Latta was familiar with the area, but Jones wasn't. The two joked about a bear attack - Jones is terrified of them.

Then a passing dog got spooked and ran away.

Eye 2

UK Mother catches 'feisty' albino king snake in her garden

  • Mother and daughter Ann and Bridie Denniss, spotted the 3ft long snake in the garden
  • They decided to catch it and grabbed some tongs, gloves and a bag
  • The albino king snake tried to bite them but they eventually captured it
  • King snakes are commonly kept as pets but no one has yet claimed it
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Feisty: A fearless mother and daughter, from Weymouth, Dorset, captured an angry Californian King snake with a pair of salad tongs after finding it on the loose in their garden
A fearless mother and daughter used a pair of salad tongs to capture an escaped red-eyed snake they spotted slithering along their garden wall.

Bridie Denniss, 24, was enjoying a cup of tea in her kitchen with her mum Ann when she looked out of the window and saw the 3ft long snake.

Brave Ann, 54, grabbed a pair of tongs from the kitchen draw along with a garden sack and went after it.