Society's ChildS


Stock Down

Despicable: Canadian priest gambled away $400,000 of refugee aid


RT
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 09:20 UTC
Amer Saka catholic priest
© Gambling Herald / YouTubeAmer Saka (Left)
A priest in London, Canada, has been charged with fraud for allegedly stealing and gambling away some US$400,000 (C$500,000) collected by his parish for refugee aid.

Amer Saka, a 51 year old clergyman of St. Joseph Chaldean Catholic Church, an Eastern Syriac branch of the Catholic Church, had ostensibly collected the money from some 20 donors as part of a sponsorship program that helps refugees fleeing war-torn Middle Eastern countries move to Canada, local media reported.

The fraud surfaced when Saka allegedly called his local Bishop, Emanuel Shaleta, head of the Chaldean Catholic church in Canada, and confessed to taking the money for himself and losing it all at a casino. He then turned himself in to police, who launched an investigation, while church authorities suspended him from his duties.

Comment: How many people could have been helped with the money that this supposed man of service carelessly squandered? How many people will suffer and die because of his actions?

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Dollars

Nice attacker: Texted someone about weapons, emptied bank account, scoped out Nice for 2-3 days


RT
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 20:14 UTC
bouhlel
© Eric Gaillard / ReutersThe name Mohamed Lahoualej Bouhlel is seen on a plate outside the building where he lived in Nice, France, July 17, 2016
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the driver of the truck that killed at least 84 people in Nice on Thursday, had planned the attack and was busy preparing for it, local media report citing investigators.

Police have inspected the attacker's phone, found in his truck when they searched through it. They discovered several text messages Bouhlel apparently wrote to his accomplice, just ahead of the tragedy. One message reads "I have the equipment."

Bouhlel there might have been referring to the truck he rented, or to the dummy weapons, a deactivated grenade and 7.65mm caliber pistol with which he shot at police during the attack before being shot himself. France-TV reports Bouhlel procured the weapon from two Albanians, who are among 6 people currently in custody in connection with the case. Bouhlel 's ex-wife, previously also detained, has been released on Sunday, AFP reports.


Comment: Caution: 'accomplices' does not necessarily imply any ties to an organized "Islamic terror cell". In this case, it can simply mean the people he got the weapons from, or someone who helped him rent the truck. They need not have even known he was planning something of this sort.

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Pistol

Police describe deadly shooting at Florida hospital as 'extremely random'

J.D. Gallop and Chris Bonanno
FLORIDA TODAY
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 13:11 UTC
titusville florida hospital shooting
© Craig Rubadoux / FLORIDA TODAYTwo people were killed in a shooting at Parrish Medical Center in Titusville early Sunday.
A 29-year-old Titusville man was taken into custody as investigators search for a motive in what Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey says was an "extremely random" shooting inside Parrish Medical Center in Titusville that claimed the lives of an employee and a patient.

The suspected gunman was identified as David Owens, 29, of Titusville. He was booked into the Brevard County Jail Complex about 10 a.m. Sunday and charged with two counts of first-degree premeditated murder and is being held on a no bond status.

The victims were named as 88-year-old Cynthia Zingsheim, who was a patient at the hospital, and 36-year-old employee Carrie Rouzer. Both were shot in a room on the third floor, where the 210-bed hospital's birthing suites are also located.

Comment: Is there "something in the air" recently that's causing people to lose any remaining semblances of sanity that they had left?

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Pistol

Alleged rape suspect takes four hostages in Baltimore Burger King

Colin Campbell
The Baltimore Sun
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 14:31 UTC
cop cars baltimore intersection hostage situation burger king
© Courtesy @charmcitylwyBaltimore police responded to a possible barricade situation at Washington and Monroe in Southwest Baltimore.
An armed man suspected in a recent rape took four people hostage — including a 7-year-old girl — inside a Baltimore Burger King after evading police Sunday, authorities said.

Officers tried to stop the suspect, whom police did not name, to serve him an arrest warrant on the northwest side of the city about 11 a.m., when he sped off and led police on a chase to Washington Boulevard and South Monroe Street near Carroll Park, police said.

The man crashed into another car at the intersection about 11:30 a.m. and ran inside the fast food restaurant, where he barricaded himself and the hostages, police said.
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Christmas Tree

800,000 people in India attempt to plant 50 million trees to break Guinness World record

Katie Pohlman
Eco Watch
Tue, 12 Jul 2016 01:54 UTC
Planting trees in India
More than 800,000 people turned out Monday in India to plant trees in hopes of breaking a world record.

Uttar Pradesh officials distributed 50 million tree saplings across the state to help India increase its forest cover and to break the Guinness World record for the number of trees planted in 24 hours—which was set by Pakistan in 2013 with 847,275 trees—the AP reported. Students, lawmakers, government officials and others headed out to plant trees at designated spots along roads, rail tracks and in forested lands.

Comment: See also: Tree-mendous health benefit of trees
  • Lone Indian man creates lush new forest ecosystem planting 1,360 acre forest


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Pistol

Baton Rouge: 3 officers shot dead, 4 others injured

Bart Jansen
USA Today
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 16:17 UTC
baton rouge shooting
© Mike Kunzelman, APAuthorities talk to the driver of a car near an area where several officers were shot while on duty less than a mile from police headquarters on July 17, 2016.
Three police officers have been shot dead in Baton Rouge, La., and others may have been wounded, authorities said Sunday.

The three officers were shot near the department headquarters, Baton Route Mayor Kip Holden told MSNBC. At least four others were injured in the shooting, he said.

"They are investigating," he said. "Right now we are trying to get our arms around everything."

Two Baton Rouge police officers and one East Baton Rouge sheriff's deputy are dead, according to WBRZ-TV's Michael Vinsanau.

The gunman was shot, a Louisiana State Police spokesman said, but his condition was not immediately clear.
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Water

As punishment, parents leave 3 children under age 7 in California desert without water, shoes

Colin Atagi and Denise Goolsby
The Desert Sun
Thu, 14 Jul 2016 16:03 UTC
29 Palms desert
© Denise Goolsby/The Desert SunAuthorities found three children wandering this Twentynine Palms desert without shoes or water Wednesday. They say the children were being punished by their mother and her boyfriend.
A mother and her boyfriend were arrested after they punished her three young children by leaving them in the desert in Twentynine Palms in temperatures just shy of 100 degrees on Wednesday, sheriff's officials said.

The children -- a 7-year-old girl, 6-year-old boy and a 5-year-old boy -- were discovered about 11:20 a.m. near the 74-000 block of Samarkand Drive, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. Their parents were "down the road from the children," sheriff's spokeswoman Cynthia Bachman said.

Officials haven't determined why the children were being punished, but they did not need medical treatment after they were found.

They had been in the desert for about 45 minutes without any shoes or water before a local resident alerted authorities. At the time, temperatures were about 95-100 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

"The temperature was going up over the course of that hour," said Todd Lericos, a meteorologist. Temperatures topped off at 104 degrees and there was no wind to help cool the area, he said.
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Pistol

Florida teens, mistaken for thieves, shot at playing Pokémon Go

Christal Hayes
Orlando Sentinel
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 15:39 UTC
Pokemon go app picture
Two teens looking for Pokemon were mistaken as thieves looking for a house to rob and ended up getting shot at on Saturday.

A man was sleeping in his Palm Coast area home about 1:30 a.m. when a loud noise woke him up. The 37-year-old looked outside and spotted a white car parked in the road outside his Primrose Lane house, said Flagler County Sheriff's Office Jim Troiano.

Comment:

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Green Light

French PM: Nice truck attacker was radicalized "very quickly", 2 more arrested in connection with attack


RT
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 14:06 UTC
Truck attack in Nice France
© CNN
The driver who killed at least 84 people in Nice had recently been radicalized, according to French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who says the attack was of an "Islamist nature." Meanwhile, two more people have been arrested in connection with the tragedy.

"The investigation will establish the facts, but we know now that the killer was radicalized very quickly," Valls said in remarks published on Sunday, Reuters reports.


Comment: Translation: "There was no indication in the years, months, and weeks leading up to the attacks suggesting any previous radicalization. But all terror attacks come from radicalized Muslims. Therefore, Bouhlel must have been radicalized 'very quickly', i.e., pretty much the instant he decided to carry out the attack."


"The claim on Saturday morning by Islamic State [IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL] and the fast radicalization of the killer confirm the Islamist nature of this attack," the Prime Minister stated.


Comment: Weak. Anyone can claim responsibility for anything; confessions are not necessarily indications of guilt, obviously. And the evidence of his "fast radicalization" has yet to be subjected to close scrutiny. Valls is blowing hot air at this time.


A man and woman were arrested in Nice on Sunday for possible involvement, putting the total number of people detained in connection with the truck attack at seven, news agencies report, citing judiciary sources. Five of those previously detained remain in custody.
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People

London sees mass anti-Tory, anti-austerity and anti-racism protest


RT
Sun, 17 Jul 2016 13:38 UTC
People's Assembly protest march in central London
© Paul Hackett / Reuters
Several thousand protesters demonstrated in London on Saturday against austerity, racism and the new Tory government. The opposition rally was the biggest major protest since the June 23 Brexit referendum.

Central London saw more than 10,000 anti-Tory campaigners on the streets and Black Lives Matter activists.

Protesters made their way down Piccadilly Circus, Marble Arch and Hyde Park.

Crowds of people were demanding that new Prime Minister Theresa May resign.
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