Society's ChildS


Eye 2

Germany's Catholic Church severs ties with criminologists who research sex abuse


Raw Story
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:14 UTC
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Germany's Roman Catholic Church said on Wednesday it had severed ties with criminologists commissioned to research sexual abuse by clergy in a row over the right to publish their findings.

The Church announced in July 2011 it would open its archives, which date back to the end of World War II, to shed light on abuse claims, tasking the northern Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony to analyse evidence.

But "mutual trust" between the Bishops' Conference and the head of the research centre has been "shattered", the bishops complained, adding they would now search for a new partner in the project.

Bishop Stephan Ackermann, appointed to handle issues surrounding claims of sexual abuse of minors, said they had been forced to terminate their contract with the institute "for an important reason with immediate effect".

"Trust is indispensable however for such an extensive and sensitive project," he said in the Bishops' Conference written statement.
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Health

South Carolina woman killed by dog while babysitting

David Ferguson
Raw Story
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 15:11 UTC
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A 65-year-old woman in Greenwood, SC was attacked and killed by a family dog while she was babysitting. According to Abbeville/Greenwood's WYFF Channel 4, sheriff's deputies responded to a 911 call about an animal bite.

When they arrived, they were met at the door by an "aggressive pitbull" with blood on its chest, paws and muzzle.

Shortly after deputies arrived on the scene, the homeowners returned. They pacified the dog and closed it into a room of the house so police could enter. The babysitter, Betty Todd, was found dead in a pool of blood that had splattered up the wall, according to a police report. The report said that Todd appeared to have died of puncture wounds to the head, face and neck.
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Stormtrooper

Christian fundamentalists freak out over yoga in the military

Laura Gottesdiener
Salon
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:53 UTC
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© Credit: iStockphoto/STEEX
The exercise helps alleviate stress for traumatized soliders, but try telling that to the Family Research Council .

With a temporary ceasefire declared in the war over Christmas, fundamentalist Christian conservatives are looking for other places that religion may be under attack - and one radical thinks that that place may be the military.

Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, a right-wing Christian think tank that has been classified as a hate group, has flipped out over a "wacky" new initiative being tested in U.S. military training programs. No, it's not the end of "don't ask, don't tell" - it's yoga and meditation classes.

A new Mind Fitness Training program being tested in the U.S. military has integrated yoga, breathing classes and meditation alongside other more traditional training regimes to keep soldiers calm and mentally fit and to reduce depression and use of alcohol and drugs. To Perkins, however, this new initiative is a stand-in for one's personal relationship with God.
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Pistol

Jake England pleads not guilty in Tulsa shooting spree

Justin Juozapavicius
Huffington Post
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:50 UTC
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© APJake England, 20, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of shooting with intent to kill.
An Oklahoma man pleaded not guilty Wednesday to murder charges in an April shooting rampage that killed three black people and wounded two others in Tulsa.

Tulsa Judge James Caputo entered the plea on behalf of 20-year-old Jake England, who's charged with three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of shooting with intent to kill.

A second man charged in the deaths, Alvin Watts, 33, did not enter a plea, and his attorneys say they will enter one for him after filing several motions, including one seeking that their client be tried separately from England.
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Pills

Drug use is hiring hurdle for American employers

Kris Maher
Wall Street Journal
Tue, 08 Jan 2013 12:38 UTC
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© Jeff Swensen for The Wall Street JournalA worker unloads drilling waste in Cecil, Pa. Federal law requires some types of workers in the industry be drug-tested to cut the risk of accidents.
Dawn Fuchs's trucking and environmental-cleanup business is thriving, thanks mostly to a boom in natural-gas drilling in western Pennsylvania. But she faces an unexpected hurdle to growth: More job applicants are failing drug tests.

"It's getting harder and harder to find clean applicants," said Ms. Fuchs, chief executive of Weavertown Environmental Group. About 7% of Weavertown's applicants have been turned away in the past two years after failing screenings, roughly four times the national average for such workers.

The high rejection rate makes it difficult to keep jobs filled in an expanding industry that has frequent employee turnover due to the heavy labor involved, such as cleaning spills and other hazards at gas wells and power plants. Ms. Fuchs figures the company, which now employs about 200 people, will need to add 100 more workers in 2013 and hire others to fill vacancies caused by turnover.

In the debate about whether American workers have the right skills to fill jobs in manufacturing and growing sectors such as oil and gas extraction, failed drug tests are often an overlooked problem. But in parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia - a region undergoing an industrial transformation driven by shale gas - employers and others say widespread drug use, particularly the abuse of prescription drugs, is affecting hiring.
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Question

Florida professor defends theory that Newtown shootings never happened

David Edwards
Raw Story
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 12:26 UTC
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A communications professor from Florida Atlantic University isn't backing down from his theory that the mass killing of 20 children in Newtown, Connecticut may have never happened.

Writing on his Memory Hole blog last month, Professor James Tracy asserted that it was "not unreasonable to suggest the Obama administration [had] complicity or direct oversight of an incident that has in very short order sparked a national debate" on gun control.

"While it sounds like an outrageous claim, one is left to inquire whether the Sandy Hook shooting ever took place - at least in the way law enforcement authorities and the nation's news media have described," he declared, noting that no surveillance video of photos of bodies had been released by authorities.

"Moreover, to suggest that [President Barack] Obama is not capable of deploying such techniques to achieve political ends is to similarly place ones faith in image and interpretation above substance and established fact, the exact inclination that in sum has brought America to such an impasse."
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Eye 1

Daughter accuses German filmmaker Klaus Kinski of years of sex abuse


Raw Story
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 12:22 UTC
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The elder daughter of the late German film icon Klaus Kinski accused him Wednesday of sexually abusing her for several years from the time she was a small child.

Pola Kinski said the diminutive fair-haired actor who died in 1991 had molested her repeatedly from the age of five until she turned 19, in an interview with weekly magazine Stern ahead of the release of a tell-all book she has written.

The notoriously volatile but prolific star of "Fitzcarraldo" and "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" and a frequent collaborator of German director Werner Herzog "ignored all protests" by his young daughter, Pola Kinski charged.

"He just took what he wanted," she said, adding that she lived in constant fear as a youngster of his angry outbursts.
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Snakes in Suits

Judge: Texas school can force student to wear RFID badge

Natasha Lennard
Salon
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 12:09 UTC
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© Image: Northside Independent School District
A high schooler suspended for refusing to wear an ID badge on religious grounds loses her lawsuit.

A federal judge in Texas ruled Tuesday that a San Antonio high school was permitted to expel or transfer a student if she refused to wear the school's mandated identification badges.

Last year Northside Independent School District began issuing school IDs embedded with RFID chips, which monitor students' movements from when they arrive at school until when they leave. One student, 15-year-old Andrea Hernandez was suspended when she refused to wear the ID badge on (albeit slightly loopy) religious grounds - her parents believed the RFID chip to be "the Mark of the Beast."

Hernandez sued the school district, who tried to accommodate the girl and her family by saying they would remove the RFID chip from her badge, but that she would still need to wear the badge itself. Wired explained that Hernandez family continued to take issue:
The girl's father, Steven, wrote the school district explaining why removing the chip wasn't good enough, that the daughter should be free from displaying the card altogether. "'We must obey the word of God," the father said, according to court documents. "By asking my daughter and our family to participate and fall in line like the rest of them is asking us to disobey our Lord and Savior."
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Calendar

9-State "Great Central U.S. ShakeOut" - February 7, 2013


SurfKY.com
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 11:19 UTC
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In just one month, hundreds of communities throughout a nine state region, including Kentucky, will participate in a region wide earthquake drill during the third annual "Great Central U.S. ShakeOut." At 10:15 a.m. (Central Time) on Feb 7, 2013, millions of people will practice the recommended safety action in the event of an earthquake, "Drop, Cover and Hold On."

During an earthquake, individuals are advised to:

- Drop to the ground
- Take Cover under a sturdy table or desk if possible, and protect their heads and necks
- Hold On until the shaking stops

The ShakeOut occurs on the heels of Hurricane Sandy, the deadly storm that impacted millions of Atlantic Coast citizens, caused more than $60 billion in losses, and leaves a lasting reminder of the destructive power of natural disasters.

"This storm has once again shown us what widespread damage and disruption a regional disaster can have on the entire nation," said Jim Wilkinson, executive director of the Central U.S. Earthquake Consortium. During the storm, the loss of life could have been much greater had communities and citizens been complacent about the threat they faced.
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Extinguisher

4 children killed, mother severely injured in overnight house fire

Melissa Roberts and Rebekka Schramm
CBS Atlanta
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 11:17 UTC
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A news conference was held Wednesday morning on details of the fire
Four children, ranging in age from eight months to nine years old, were killed in a house fire in Conyers late Tuesday night.

The oldest victim was 9-year-old Adaria.

Their mother Reba Glass was severely burned as she tried to save her children, according to Maj. Mike Waters of the Conyers Police Department.

"She was able to save one of the children," Waters said. "Witnesses advised that she actually threw that child from a second-story window."

Glass then jumped to safety. Paramedics rushed her to Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital with severe burns. Her surviving child was hospitalized with a shoulder injury, Waters said.

The surviving child turned 6 on Wednesday.

The initial call to 911 came at 11:05 p.m., Waters said. Four officers from a nearby police precinct were on the scene within 30 seconds.
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