Society's ChildS


Life Preserver

Obese people more likely to die in car accidents: report

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© AFP Photo
Obese people face a much higher risk - of up to 80 percent - of dying in a car collision compared with people of normal weight, researchers reported Monday in a specialist journal.

The cause could be that safety in cars is engineered for people of normal weight, not for the obese, they said.

Transport safety scientists Thomas Rice of the University of California at Berkeley and Motao Zhu of the University of West Virginia delved into a US databank on road accidents, the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS).

They dug out data from 1996 to 2008, covering more than 57,000 collisions that involved two cars. This was whittled down to cases in which both parties involved in the collision had been driving vehicles of similar size and types.

Coffee

Man tries to rob Starbucks, settles for cup of coffee

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© Source: Madison County Jail)Phillip Sawdey
A robbery suspect is behind bars after police say he tried to steal from a Huntsville Starbucks.

Police said Phillip Sawdey walked into the Starbucks on Airport Road and demanded all the cash in the register. The cashier told him she couldn't open it and offered him a coffee instead,

Sawdey accepted the coffee and left the store.

He was located in the parking lot, arrested and charged with robbery.

Attention

Boulder rams into Utah woman's bedroom, breaks her jaw and sternum

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© Image credit: Scot DenhalterScot Denhalter stands beside the giant 12-foot-wide-by-9-foot-tall boulder that pummeled into his home on Jan. 21 in St. George, UT.
It was a nightmare for a Utah woman who awoke in the middle of the night to the rumble of a boulder that rammed through her bedroom.

The 12-foot-wide-by-9-foot-tall rock pummeled through Wanda Lee Denhalter's bedroom at 3 a.m. Jan. 19, breaking her jaw and sternum.

Her husband, Scot Denhalter, was not home during the incident.

"Just knowing a rock had pinned her in the bedroom frightened me," Denhalter was quoted as saying in The Spectrum. "I feel a bit guilty because I wasn't there. She stumbled around probably in shock. She found her phone and called 911."

Evil Rays

Vegas police officer dead in family murder-suicide

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© AP Photo/Las Vegas Sun, Steve MarcusOfficials put on protective masks before entering a house as they investigate a shooting and fire in Boulder City, Nev., Monday, Jan. 21, 2013.
A Las Vegas police lieutenant and two family members are dead after an apparent double murder, suicide and arson at a home in Boulder City, authorities said Monday.

Clark County Sheriff Douglas Gillespie and other officials didn't immediately identify the police officer, pending positive identification and the release of names by the Clark County coroner.

"There was an incident today involving one of Metro's lieutenants," a somber Gillespie said in a 2 1/2-minute statement to reporters at a hastily called news conference. "Several bodies were discovered."

Stop

Tennessee fisherman rescued after dangling over dam for three hours

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© Courtesy James Clark/Southern Standard NewspaperGreg and Gary Cherry are shown in a boat dangling over a dam at Pepper Branch Park in McMinnville, Tenn., Jan. 20, 2013.
Two Tennessee brothers already have plans to fish again next weekend, despite dangling precariously over a dam for three hours after their boat's motor died Sunday.

Greg and Gary Cherry were fishing for bass and perch on their weekly outing when the motor of their Bass Tracker III conked out at the edge of the Barren Fork River Dam in McMinnville, Tenn.

The current began tugging the boat over the edge when Greg Cherry, 47, shoved the motor down to hold the boat in place and called for his brother to quickly join him in the back of the boat.

"Weight transfer is the best thing in that situation," Greg Cherry told ABCNews.com.

"We locked our arms and I said, 'We're in this together,'" Greg Cherry, 47, said. "I said, 'I love you,' and [Gary] said, 'I love you, too.' And if one of us goes over, we're going over together."

Ambulance

New Orleans Police: 5 shot along Martin Luther King parade route

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© Photo: YouTube/Screen Grab
At least five people were shot along the route for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade route, the New Orleans Police Department said on Monday.

WVUE reported that the incident happened at around 1:15 p.m. ET, just 30 minutes after the march passed the location of the shooting at the intersection of MLK and Lasalle Street.

NOPD Chief Ronal Serpas told reporters that one suspect was spotted fleeing the scene in a late model white sedan. Shots were thought to have been fired from the vehicle. Surveillance video was being reviewed by New Orleans police.

Red Flag

Atlanta Falcons fan pistol whips TV after loss to San Francisco

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An Atlanta fan was so distraught after the San Francisco's record comeback to defeat the Falcons on Sunday that he pistol whipped his flat screen television.

In an unverified cell phone video that was posted on Sunday, the cameraman announces that the fan "just broke his fucking TV."

At that point, the fan pulls a gun out of his pocket and slams the butt into the already-cracked screen. With each blow, the screen flashes a bright white light. The man then throws the television to the ground and repeatedly stomps it.

Bizarro Earth

Authorities confirm missing man's head and hands were hidden in Georgia man's wall

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© APThis December 2012 handout photo provided by the Effingham County Sheriff's Office shows Chad Moretz, who was shot dead by a SWAT team on Jan. 11, 2013.
The severed head and hands found inside a Georgia man's wall were confirmed as belonging to a man missing since New Year's Eve, the Associated Press reported on Monday.

Medical examiners confirmed that the body parts belonged to 35-year-old Charlie Ray, a friend of Chad Moretz, 34, who was killed by a SWAT sniper during a standoff with police on January 11. Moretz was shot dead after coming out of his house carrying an assault rifle.

Music

New York ex-con charged for shooting neighbor's guitar over loud music

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© Shutterstock
A Queens man turned down a plea deal on Friday after being accused of breaking into his neighbors' house and registering an unusual noise complaint by firing a bullet into their guitar.

Court documents obtained by DNAinfo.com New York said that 43-year-old Jeffrey Marino kicked in the door of a Rego Park apartment and yelled, "Your music is too loud... I'm going to kill you."

Marino is accused of firing a single round from his .38-caliber pistol into a guitar hanging over the head of one of the residents.

A second roommate was awakened by the noise and was ordered to get on the ground at gunpoint, according to the court documents. Marino allegedly pointed the gun at all three roommates and directed them not to report the crime.

Eye 1

Cassandra Elfers, middle school volleyball coach, charged with sex abuse of student

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Cassie Elfers is accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a minor.
A middle school volleyball coach was arrested for allegedly having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old student in Kentucky, LEX18 reported.

Cassandra "Cassie" Elfers, 21, a part-time volleyball coach at Sharp Middle School in Pendleton County, turned herself in to authorities on Friday, Fox 19 reported, and now faces first-degree sexual abuse charges.

Elfers' attorney Eric Deters told ABC 9 On Your Side that Elfers did not have sex with the student. He noted that Elfers was also a volunteer basketball coach for the team the 13-year-old boy played on. The coach she assisted was her boyfriend.

"I assume this is going to be an allegation of inappropriate touching," Deters said to station LEX18.