Society's ChildS


Pistol

Trayvon Martin's parents launch website, CCE to 'shine light' on 'stand your ground' law

Jeff Weiner
Orlando Sentinel
Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:08 UTC
trayvon martin
© Change for Trayvon
On the eve of another meeting of the state task force reviewing "stand your ground," the parents of Trayvon Martin unveiled a new website and political committee aimed at changing the controversial law.

A new committee of continuous existence, or CCE, called "Change for Trayvon" and a corresponding website will collect funds to "be distributed to candidates, elected officials and efforts which support the mission of... revising Stand Your Ground laws across the nation to ensure there is judicial or prosecutorial oversight," the site says.
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Pistol

Two teens killed in Chicago, 24 others wounded across the city in night of gun violence

Adam Sege, Carlos Sadovi and Peter Nickeas
Chicago Tribune
Sun, 14 Oct 2012 06:19 UTC
Image
© Devlin Brown / Chicago TribuneTwo people were shot in the 6300 block of South Rhodes Avenue.
Two teenagers were killed and 24 others were wounded during a city night filled with gun violence.

Police said 15 of 24 shooting victims were gang affiliated.

The youngest victim, was 17 years old and died from his wounds after being shot along with a cousin as the two went to meet a girl in the West Woodlawn neighborhood on the South Side Saturday night, according to family. Authorities identified the teen as Richard Modell but his family said his name was Modell McCambry.

The dead teen may have been targeted due to a feud between two rival gangs, one of which police say he belonged to. He and his 18-year-old cousin were on their way to meet a girl when someone walked up and opened fire in the 6300 block of South Rhodes Avenue just before 9:30 p.m., according to police.

The teen died after being taken to John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County in "extremely critical" condition with a gunshot wound to the chest. Modell lived about three blocks south of where he was killed, a spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner's office said.

The man's cousin was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital with multiple gunshot wounds; his condition was not available. Responding paramedics found both of them in the street.

Police said they don't have any reason to think the older of the two affiliates with a gang and believe he may have been shot because he was with Modell.
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Calendar

Long after death, Confederate spy honored in Arkansas

Jeannie Nuss
Seattle pi
Sun, 14 Oct 2012 11:31 UTC
Image
© The Associated Press/Arkansas History CommissionA copy of a 1912 painting by artist William Besser from a Civil War era photograph of David O. Dodd

Little Rock, Arkansas - The story of David O. Dodd is relatively unknown outside of Arkansas, but the teenage spy who chose to hang rather than betray the Confederate cause is a folk hero to many in his home state.

Street signs and an elementary school in the state capital have long borne Dodd's name, and admirers gather at his grave each year to pay tribute to Dodd's life and death.

"Everyone wants to remember everything else about the Civil War that was bad," said one of them, W. Danny Honnoll. "We want to remember a man that stood for what he believed in and would not tell on his friends."

A state commission's decision, though, to grant approval for yet another tribute to Dodd has revived an age-old question: Should states still look for ways to commemorate historical figures who fought to defend unjust institutions?

"(Dodd) already has a school. I don't know why anything else would have to be done to honor him," James Lucas Sr., a school bus driver, said near the state Capitol in downtown Little Rock.

Arkansas' complicated history of race relations plays out on the Capitol grounds. A stone and metal monument that's stood for over a century pays tribute to the Arkansas men and boys who fought for the Confederacy and the right to own slaves. Not far away, nine bronze statues honor the black children who, in 1957, needed an Army escort to enter what had been an all-white school.
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Bad Guys

Collision of Navy ships prompts Pentagon inquiry


The New York Times
Sun, 14 Oct 2012 00:00 UTC
USS San Jacinto
© The Associated Press/U.S. Navy, Specialist 1st Class Tommy LamkinThe guided-missile cruiser USS San Jacinto approaches at sea in the Atlantic Ocean June 6, 2012.
The United States Fleet Forces Command said in a news release that the submarine Montpelier and the cruiser San Jacinto collided about 3:30 p.m. Saturday during a training exercise. No one was injured and both ships were able to continue to operate under their own power, Navy officials said.

Nevertheless, the extent of any damage to the vessels was not clear, said Lt. Cmdr. Brian Badura of the Fleet Forces Command.

"We have had circumstances where Navy vessels have collided at sea in the past, but they're fairly rare as to how often they do take place," Commander Badura said. Navy officials said the collision was under investigation, but declined to offer specifics on where it occurred.

The Montpelier arrived at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in southern Georgia, he said in a statement late Sunday. The San Jacinto arrived at Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Fla.
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Arrow Down

Missouri couple sues doctors for separating baby's head during grisly botched birth, and trying to cover it up: reports

Philip Caulfield
New York Daily News
Fri, 12 Oct 2012 09:26 UTC
Newborn Beheaded
© FacebookArteisha Betts and Travis Ammonette, of Florissant, Mo., claimed their son, Kaden Travis Ammonette, died during birth after the delivering doctor separated his head from his neck.
A Missouri obstetrician separated a baby's head from his body during delivery and then shoved the newborn back into the mother and performed an emergency C-section to cover up the ghastly blunder, a couple claims in a lawsuit.

Arteisha Betts and Travis Ammonette, of Florissant, filed a 10-count complaint in St. Louis County Circuit Court last month claiming doctors wrongly pushed them to have a vaginal delivery, decapitated their son and then tried to cover it up, according to local Patch and Courthouse News Service.

The details of the couple's claim are horrifying.

During a February 2011 appointment, the couple claimed, Dr. Susan Moore told them their baby boy would have to be delivered by caesarian because his abdomen was too large for a normal birth, according the CNS report.

Betts went into labor on March 22, just 28 weeks into what is normally a 40-week pregnancy.

The delivering doctor at St. John's Mercy Medical Center, Dr. Gilbert Webb, refused to perform a C-section and "would only agree to deliver her baby by way of attempted trial of vaginal delivery," the complaint said, according to Patch.

Webb refused to allow them to go to a different hospital, and "Betts consented to a trial of vaginal delivery under duress and protest," the complaint said.
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People 2

"We don't owe, we won't pay": Thousands protest in Spain's capital over government austerity measures


Washington Post / Associated Press
Sat, 13 Oct 2012 08:41 UTC
spain monetary crisis
© Associated PressProtesters carry banners against financial cuts and unemployment as they demonstrate against the country's near 25 percent unemployment rate and stinging austerity measures introduced by the government, in Madrid, Spain, July 21.
MADRID - Several thousand anti-austerity protesters in Spain marched down a major street in the capital banging pots and pans Saturday.

Many protesters also blew whistles as they blocked part of the Castellana boulevard Saturday carrying placards saying "We don't owe, we won't pay."

"None of us pushed the banks to lend huge sums of money to greedy property speculators, yet we are being asked to pay for other's mistakes," 34-year-old civil servant Maria Costa, who was banging an old pot along with her two children, said.

With unemployment nearing 25 percent, Spain has introduced biting austerity measures as well as financial and labor reforms in a desperate bid to lower its deficit and assuage investors' misgivings.
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Sherlock

Wyclef Jean faces criminal probe over Haiti charity

Guy Adams
The Independent
Sat, 13 Oct 2012 00:00 UTC
Rapper will have to explain how fund backed by celebrities managed to burn through $16m in two years.

Wyclef Jean
Wyclef Jean
Wyclef Jean, the hip-hop artist and former candidate for the presidency of Haiti, said yesterday he was "committed to ensuring that things are made right" amid news of a criminal investigation into the finances of his personal charity.

The musician's lawyer, Avi Schick, confirmed that Jean's Haitian aid organisation, Yele, went out of business in August, leaving a trail of legal disputes and unpaid debts. Regulators in the US, where it was registered, are now attempting to establish how the non-profit organisation burned through $16m (£10m) in public donations in just over two years.

A report in yesterday's New York Times alleged that much of the money was spent on administration, public relations and consultants, or was funnelled to outside businesses owned by friends and relations of Jean. In one mysterious transaction, detailed in Yele's tax returns, the singer's brother-in-law was given $600,000 for helping with the "rebuilding of Haiti".

In 2010, the charity devoted more than half of its $9m budget to travel, staff salaries, consultant fees and expenses related to its property portfolio, the newspaper revealed. It spent $37,000 to rent space at a Manhattan recording studio owned by Jean, and another $375,000 went on "landscaping" for its offices.
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Attention

Jimmy Savile Child Sex Abuse Scandal: British government could face civil claims

Esther Addley and Lisa O'Carroll
The Guardian
Sat, 13 Oct 2012 12:51 UTC
Jimmy Saville
© The MirrorJimmy Saville in 1982
Department of Health could be sued directly over claims that star abused patients when volunteering at Broadmoor hospital

The government has been dragged into the Jimmy Savile scandal after it emerged that the Department of Health could be sued directly over claims the star abused patients when he was a volunteer at Broadmoor hospital in the 1970s and 1980s.

A lawyer acting for victims preparing legal action against Stoke Mandeville hospital and the BBC said it was possible the government could face civil claims as it was directly responsible for the running of the Broadmoor high security psychiatric hospital in that time.

Savile was a volunteer for more than four decades at the hospital, had keys to its secure unit and at one point in 1988 was appointed to lead a "taskforce" overseeing the management of the hospital after its management board was dismissed by the then health secretary, Kenneth Clarke.
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Pills

Psychiatric Drugs and War: A suicide mission

Kelly Patricia O'Meara
Citizens Commission on Human Rights International
Thu, 11 Oct 2012 00:00 UTC
Miliatary Drug Suicides
© Kelly Patricia O’Meara
The first in a four-part series by investigative journalist Kelly Patricia O'Meara written for the Citizens Commission on Human Rights exploring the epidemic of military suicides and the correlation to dramatic increases in psychiatric drug prescriptions to treat the emotional scars of battle.

Imagine for a moment that a soldier is ordered to proceed through a clearly identified mine field, having received assurance from his commanding officer that it's okay to proceed because the odds are not everyone is blown to bits. Most would consider this nothing short of a suicide mission.

The strained and war-weary men and women serving in the military today, on or off the battlefield, are faced with the equivalent of such a scenario when it comes to treating their emotional scars. Anxiety, sleeplessness, nightmares, stress and depression is affecting the troops serving in America's longest war no less than those who've served in previous wars.
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Gold Coins

Bill Shock: Customer charged $14,766,481,895,641,556.00


smh.com.au
Thu, 11 Oct 2012 18:35 UTC
A Frenchwoman who received a telephone bill for an amount equivalent to nearly 6000 times the country's annual economic output has had the real amount she owed waived - after finally convincing the company they must have made a mistake.

Solenne San Jose, from Pessac in the Bordeaux region of southwestern France, could not believe her eyes when she opened the bill to discover she was being asked to pay €11,721,000,000,000,000 ($14,766,481,895,641,556.00) to close her account.

"There were so many zeroes I couldn't even work out how much it was," she said.

Ms San Jose's alarm mounted when operators at Bouygues Telecom told her they could not amend the computer-generated statement or stop the balance from being debited from her bank account.
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