Society's Child

Texas gun classes reporting influx of teachers

Arturo Garcia
Raw Story
Tue, 15 Jan 2013 11:51 UTC

The push to provide firearms training to teachers has taken hold in Texas, where, as NBC News reported on Tuesday, hundreds of instructors are hitting the firing ranges.

"We've had over 300 [teachers], and today adds up to 400 now," said Johnny Flynn, head instructor at Big Iron Concealed Handgun Training, in Katy, Texas. "It kinda grew faster and quicker than I ever dreamed it would grow."

KXAS-TV reported on Monday that the state's lieutenant governor, David Dewhurst (R) will ask the state senate to consider using public funding to pay for schools to send employees to similar courses.

Christian wins 'cross' legal battle

MSN News
Tue, 15 Jan 2013 10:53 UTC

A British Airways employee who was forced out of her job for wearing a cross has said Christian rights were "vindicated" in the UK after she won a landmark legal battle.

Nadia Eweida, 60, took the airline to a tribunal when she was sent home from work for displaying a small silver crucifix on a chain around her neck. Her claims of religious discrimination were rejected in Britain but judges in Strasbourg found in her favour.

A European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling concluded there had been a violation of Miss Eweida's right to demonstrate her faith which caused her "considerable anxiety, frustration and distress". They rejected similar claims made by another three Christians.

Nurse Shirley Chaplin, marriage counsellor Gary McFarlane and registrar Lillian Ladele lost their cases in the same ruling. They can now appeal against the decision at the Grand Chamber of the Court.

Miss Eweida left her job in airport check-in in September 2006 but returned to work in customer services at Heathrow's Terminal 5 in February 2007, after BA changed its uniform policy on visible items of jewellery. She said she was "jumping for joy" following the ECHR's decision but expressed disappointment for the other three applicants.

18 human heads discovered in package at Chicago's O'Hare Airport

Philip Caulfield
NY Daily News
Tue, 15 Jan 2013 10:40 UTC

The heads still had the skin on them. Authorities say they believe the heads were medical specimens that became misplaced. Cops don't suspect foul play.

Authorities at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport got a grisly surprise on Monday when they opened a mysterious package and found 18 severed human heads inside.

The heads, which still had the skin on them, appeared to be medical samples from Italy that became misplaced, according to local reports.

South African woman gored by rhino after posing for photo

Erin Conway-Smith
The Telegraph
Tue, 15 Jan 2013 10:36 UTC

A photograph shows Chantal Beyer, 24, and her husband just a few feet away from two white rhinos, which on average weigh 4,000-5,000 pounds.

A few seconds later, one of the rhinos attacked, the Afrikaans-language Beeld newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The rhino's horn penetrated her chest from behind, causing a collapsed lung and broken ribs, the Beeld said. Mrs Beyer, a bachelor of commerce student from Johannesburg, is in an intensive care unit at a Krugersdorp hospital where she is said to be in stable condition.

Game park owner Alex Richter had reportedly told a group of visitors it was safe to get out of the safari vehicle to take photos, and he even used food to coax the rhinos closer.

Swedish woman crashes train after taking it for a joyride

Associated Press
Tue, 15 Jan 2013 10:33 UTC

© AP Photo/Jonas Ekströmer
Derailed train that hangs on the edge of the track after it crashed into the side of a residential building in Saltsjobaden outside Stockholm, Tuesday Jan, 15, 2013. A woman obtained the keys to the train and drove it away before it crashed into the building. The woman was injured in the incident and there are no reports of injuries of people in the building

A woman stole an empty commuter train from a depot Tuesday and drove it to a suburb of Stockholm where it derailed and slammed into an apartment building, officials said.

The woman was seriously injured in the early morning crash and was flown to a Stockholm hospital, police spokesman Lars Bystrom said. No one else was injured.

Bystrom said the woman was arrested on suspicion of endangering the public.

Tomas Hedenius, a spokesman for train operator Arriva, said the woman, born in 1990, stole the four-car train at a depot outside Stockholm.

Train cars carrying Egypt security recruits derail, killing 19

Hamdi Alkhshali and Greg Botelho
CNN
Tue, 15 Jan 2013 10:20 UTC

Train cars filled with Egyptian security force recruits hopped the tracks and crashed in Giza early Tuesday, killing at least 19 people and injuring some 107 others, a local official said.

The train carrying Central Security conscripts was heading from Assiut north to Cairo when it partially derailed around 12:45 a.m. Tuesday (5:45 p.m. ET Monday) in Giza, National Railways Authority Chairman Hussain Zakaria said, according to state-run EGYNews.

The partial derailment happened after two cars separated from the rest of the train, said Transportation Ministry spokesman Mohammed Shahat, according to the same news organization.

Illinois school considers making administrators armed part-time cops

Christina Ng
ABC News
Mon, 14 Jan 2013 10:05 UTC

An Illinois school is considering making three school administrators part-time police officers, which would allow them to possess guns inside of the school.

The Washington Community High School's administrators and school board will meet tonight to discuss the proposal.

The idea was devised by Washington Police Chief Jim Kuchenbecker and School Superintendent Jim Dunnan after the Dec. 14 shooting at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 students and six staffers dead.

"We started talking about the tragedy at Sandy Hook and we talked about the six educators that stepped in and gave their lives to protect those children," Kuchenbecker told ABCNews.com. "We looked at each other and said, 'What if?'"

Serial cow killers baffle French farmers

Ben McPartland
The Local
Mon, 14 Jan 2013 23:29 UTC

Since late November last year police have received reports of seven violent attacks against farm animals, leaving local farmers furious and increasingly concerned. In a bid to stem the bloodletting farmers have reportedly taken to patrolling their fields at night armed with loaded guns.

In the seven attacks four cows and a ram have been killed by a gunshot to the head whilst two other cows were left severely injured after being mutilated. In most cases the attackers helped themselves to the meat from the bodies of the dead beasts.

According to a report in the regional newspaper Sud-Ouest, the attacks occur each time at night under the light of a full moon.

The newspaper carries details of one incident in which a cow was completely mutilated.

"They cut it in two and took the right shoulder, the right leg and all the loin," the animal's owner, farmer Jean Claude Leroy told the paper.

In another incident just before Christmas a cow was killed by hammer blows to the head before its ear, testicles and neck were removed.

Thousands apply for just 200 retail jobs in New Mexico

RT.com
Mon, 14 Jan 2013 18:56 UTC

Thousands apply for just 200 retail jobs in New Mexico

In the last three days alone, thousands of people have applied for 200 new jobs at Target in Albuquerque, New Mexico, even though candidates only have 2.8 percent chance at getting a job.

With long lines wrapping around the Marriott Upton building in Northeast Albuquerque, each candidate was competing with 7,000 others to get a job that only one out of 35 will be accepted to. Still, many of the applicants expressed their confidence to the media and battled the lines at the job fair, which ran Thursday through Sunday.

"Good luck, 'cause I'm going to blow those people out of the water with my interview," Pauly Garcia told KOAT Action 7 News. Another applicant, Natalie Bryant, said her personality and good looks will land her a position.

The mass applications demonstrate the strong need for unemployed Americans to find a job, even if it means waiting hours in line for a retail position at Target. Retailers have provided many of the new jobs in the US, even though unemployment figures have remained largely the same.

Veterans' hospital exposes hundreds to HIV and hepatitis

RT.com
Mon, 14 Jan 2013 18:54 UTC

A New York veteran's hospital may have exposed more than 700 of its patients with HIV, hepatitis B or hepatitis C by mistakenly reusing its insulin pens, which are used to inject diabetes patients with a hormone produced by the pancreas.

Patients at the Buffalo Veterans Administration Center are now at risk of acquiring the deadly diseases because of the mistakes made by hospital staff, who didn't always label the insulin pens for individual patients and therefore reused them on others.

"Although the pen needles were always changed, an insulin pen may have been used on more than one patient," VA spokeswoman Evangeline Conley told the Associated Press. The reuse of the pens went on for nearly two weeks, putting all patients who received the injections between Oct. 19 and Nov. 1 at risk for the deadly infections. The procedural errors were not discovered until the conduct of a routine pharmacy inspection in November.

Once the hospital discovered the error, it took immediate action to avoid reusing the pens, and began offering free blood tests to any of the patients who might have been contaminated.