Society's ChildS


Alarm Clock

Wal-Mart Shoplifter Kills Security Employee, Then Self


A man who tried to steal undershirts valued at $16 from a Wal-Mart in Margate, Fla., shot and killed a loss prevention employee there Friday evening, police said.

Bizarro Earth

Mother Kills Her Children Then Commits Suicide

A 34-year-old Florida woman apparently killed her two children in their house and then committed suicide by hanging herself from a ceiling fan, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office said Saturday.

Deputies responded to a house in unincorporated Clearwater, west of Tampa, shortly after 2 a.m. after receiving a call for help. They discovered Dawn Brown and her two children, ages 5 and 9, dead in the house.

Bizarro Earth

Possible Random Sulfuric Attack on Woman

A man allegedly threw sulfuric acid on a woman who was walking into a Golden Hill laundromat just before 6 a.m. Saturday, police confirmed.

The assault happened at 1015 25th St. The suspect fled the scene by car.

The woman was taken to a hospital and treated for second-degree burns on her face, arms and back. Officials said the victim was injured pretty badly.

Stop

Victorian Catholic Church Reveals 620 Abuse Cases

No Child Abuse
© Karenr/Dreamstime.com
The Catholic Church in Victoria has revealed that at least 620 children have been abused by its clergy since the 1930s, sparking a fresh call for an independent inquiry into sex abuse.

The Catholic Church in Victoria revealed the number in a submission to a state parliamentary hearing on Friday but said the instances of abuse reported had fallen dramatically from the "appalling" numbers of the 1960s and 1970s.

"It is shameful and shocking that this abuse, with its dramatic impact on those who were abused and their families, was committed by Catholic priests, religious and church workers," Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart said.

Last year Pope Benedict XVI told Australian bishops that their work had been made more difficult by the clerical sex abuse scandal which has rocked the church as he exhorted them to "repair the errors of the past with honesty".

The full submission was not released publicly but the church said most of the 620 criminal abuse claims it had upheld over the last 16 years related to incidents 30 to 80 years ago, with very few related to abuse that has taken place since 1990.

Archbishop Hart said the church had taken steps to redress the issue, including a program implemented in the 1990s involving an independent investigation, an ongoing program of counselling and support, and compensation.

"This submission shows how the church of today is committed to facing up to the truth and to not disguising, diminishing or avoiding the actions of those who have betrayed a sacred trust," he said.

Attention

Two 13 Year Old Boys Charged With Killing Great-Grandmother With Hatchet

Two 13-year-old Wisconsin boys are charged with using a hatchet and hammer to kill one boy's great-grandmother while stealing jewelry and a car from her home.

Both teens appeared Friday in Sheboygan County court and were ordered held on $1 million bond each on charges of party to first-degree intentional homicide.

Control Panel

Forgetting Bin Laden: What's wrong with our memory?

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Matthew Gray - After the death of Osama Bin Laden was announced, rumors about it swirled throughout the Middle East. Given its history and politics, the region is particularly prone to conspiracy theories--and there is little that can be done to counter them.

(Photo illustration by Foreign Affairs, image courtesy Reuters.)
Why the Facts Don't Always Change History

Two new books address exactly what happened during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Squabbling over the details, though, misses the point. What survives in historical memory depends as much on patterns of human understanding as on the arguments churning through the news cycle.


Two new books about the May 2, 2011, raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed Osama bin Laden are scribbling in the margins of the first draft of history. No Easy Day, written by Matt Bissonnette (under the pen name Mark Owen), a Navy SEAL who participated in the operation, offers a fresh accounting of what will likely be remembered as one of the biggest moments of the decade. No Easy Day has roiled Washington. It has also sparked the publication of a competing e-book, No Easy Op, which was quickly assembled by a group of special operations veterans who question Bissonnette's motivations and criticize his incomplete recounting of what actually happened on that moonless night in South Asia.

Those involved seem to assume that the truths they uncover today will be chiseled into the historical record tomorrow. What survives in historical memory, however, depends as much on patterns of human understanding and memory as on reports, details, and arguments churning through the news cycle. Rather than the truth freeing itself through revelation and sharing, what is actually remembered about the killing of the world's most wanted man will likely be shaped by larger, more commandeering forces. Political pundits recognize this, which is why they talk about "controlling the narrative."

Palette

Elderly woman behind Ecce Homo 'restoration' wants compensation

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© Agence France-Presse/Centro De Estudios BorjanosOriginal version of the painting Ecce Homo (L) by 19th-century painter Elias Garcia Martinez, the deteriorated version and the restored version by an elderly woman in Spain.
The 81-year old amateur artist, who botched the restoration of a 19th century Spanish fresco of Jesus known as Ecce Homo, says she wants to be paid for her work.

­According to Spanish website elcorreo.com, Celia Gimenez has demanded royalties after her local church decided to charge visitors to see what has become of the Ecce Homo.

Some ironically remarked that Cecilia's fresco actually showed the world what Jesus has evolved from... a monkey. Others humourlessly noted the woman behind the amateur restoration needed a visit from the Grand Inquisitor.

The masterpiece by painter Elias Garcia Martinez had been in the Sanctuary of Mercy church in city of Zaragoza for over a century.

Laptop

Facebook agrees to delete European users' facial recognition data

Facebook
© Desconocido
Facebook Inc. has agreed to delete all the facial recognition data it has collected from European users and switch off the feature in Europe by Oct. 15.

The move follows a review of the facial recognition feature that prompts users to "tag" friends in photos uploaded to the service.

Ireland's privacy regulator Billy Hawkes said Facebook would not turn it back on without agreeing with his office on "the most appropriate means of collecting user consent." He said Facebook was "sending a clear signal of its wish to demonstrate its commitment to best practice in data protection compliance."

Hawkes' office, which began reviewing Facebook's compliance with Irish and European Union data protection rules in 2011, has urged Facebook to give users a better understanding of how their personal data is handled and increased control over privacy settings. He said that the "great majority" of the recommendations had been implemented to the regulator's satisfaction.

Dollar

Colorado Bank Robber Handed Out Cash To People


Colorado Springs police are asking the public to return any money they might have received from a man they say is a bank robber who handed out stolen money in a hotel lobby.

Police arrested David Anderson, 26, on suspicion of aggravated robbery and attempted robbery after a string of crimes on Wednesday.

Police say the spree started when a sporting goods store reported a man with a shotgun was trying to obtain another weapon Wednesday afternoon when a shot was fired. The man left the store - a Big 5 Sporting Goods - after a struggle.

Police say suspect then moved on to an Adams Bank & Trust, where he managed to get away with some cash.

Heart - Black

Ohio Woman Unknowingly Married Her Father

Valerie Spruill
© CNNValerie Spruill
It was a dark secret. The kind that destroys lives, devastates families and decimates faith.

Nobody shared it with Valerie Spruill while her husband was alive. For years after his death, she heard bits of the story. It was something about an absentee father, something about her husband.

None of it made sense, she said. That's not until her uncle finally told her what no one else had: She had unknowingly married the father she never knew.

"It is devastating. It can destroy you," Spruill told CNN late Thursday by telephone. "It almost did."

Spruill, 60, of Doylestown, Ohio, went public with her story this month, first published in the Akron Beacon Journal, with the hopes that it would help others facing what seem like insurmountable problems.

It's a story that has gone viral, attracting attention as faraway as Australia and India where the questions are always the same, she says: How could that happen?

It's a question that Spruill said she has been grappling with since she first learned the truth in 2004, six years after her husband Percy Spruill died.

"I don't know if he ever knew or not. That conversation didn't come up," she said. "I think if he did know, there is no way he could have told me."

She confirmed that her husband was indeed her father through a DNA test, hair taken from one of his brushes.

The aftermath of the secret was devastating emotionally -- and physically, Spruill suffered two strokes and was diagnosed with diabetes.

All of it, she believes was brought on by learning the family secret.