Society's ChildS


Dollar

DC city council raises minimum wage to $11.50/hr in 2016

minimum wage increase
Washington's city council on Tuesday approved raising the minimum wage to $11.50 an hour, one of the highest rates among U.S. cities and part of the wealthy region's push to hike base pay.

The minimum wage in the U.S. capital would rise in 2016 from the current $8.25, and then be indexed for inflation. The council gave unanimous final approval to the measure, which it first passed two weeks ago.

Democratic Mayor Vincent Gray has opposed the measure, saying it was not known how it would affect the labor market, and urged an increase to $10 an hour instead. The unanimous vote means the council could pass it over Gray's veto.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. The District of Columbia Chamber of Commerce has called for raising the minimum wage to $10 over three years and then indexing it to inflation. The council coordinated raising the base wage with lawmakers in Montgomery and Prince George's counties, in Washington's Maryland suburbs. They approved similar measures last month.

Once the higher pay takes effect, the three jurisdictions would form a region with 2.5 million residents and a minimum wage higher than any of the 50 states. Virginia, which borders Washington, requires employers to pay the federal rate.

Eye 1

Autopsy: Fla. megachurch pastor Zachery Tims died from cocaine and heroin

The New York City medical examiner says the combined effects of cocaine and heroin killed the popular pastor of a Florida megachurch.

Results released Thursday ruled the death of Zachery Tims accidental. He was found dead on the floor of a room at the upscale W Hotel in Times Square in August 2011.

Tims was the senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center in Apopka, one of the largest congregations in central Florida. He also appeared on Christian television and radio programs. Tims started the 7,000 member church in 1996.

The Orlando Sentinel said Tims had been in and out of jail as a young man and hoped the church's youth center would keep youngsters away from drugs and crime. Church officials did not immediately respond to a comment request.

More on this story: Zachery Tims, Florida Megachurch Pastor, Found Dead in NYC Hotel

Source: Associated Press

Bad Guys

IRS delays start of tax filing season due to October shutdown

irs
© Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
The Internal Revenue Service has shortened the upcoming tax-filing season by 10 days while it continues to make up for October's government shutdown, the agency announced Wednesday.

The filing period will begin on Jan. 31, while the statutory deadline of April 15 will remain in place. The IRS said it needs more time to program and test its tax-processing systems after falling behind during the 16-day government closure, which resulted from a lapse in federal funding.

"Our teams have been working hard throughout the fall to prepare for the upcoming tax season," acting IRS commissioner Daniel Werfel said in a statement. "It's a complex process, and our bottom-line goal is to provide a smooth filing and refund process for the nation's taxpayers."


Eye 2

Convicted child rapist, Welsh rock star Ian Watkins, told fan: 'It was mega lolz'

Image
© South Wales police/PAFormer Lostprophets frontman Ian Watkins is due to be sentenced.
Transcript of fan's conversation with former Lostprophets frontman read out to shocked court before sentencing

The paedophile rock star Ian Watkins spoke to a female fan from prison the day after admitting two counts of attempted baby rape and said he was going to issue a statement when he was sentenced saying it had all been "mega lolz".

A transcript of the conversation was read out to a shocked and silent Cardiff crown court on Wednesday as the former Lostprophets frontman was being sentenced.

Christopher Clee QC, prosecuting, told the judge that Watkins had a conversation from Park Prison with a woman named Samantha on 27 November.

Watkins denied being a paedophile and expressed exasperation at the way people had reacted to his guilty pleas.

Smoking

NYC Council on ecigs: No 'vaping' allowed!

ecig
© FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty ImagesA smoker uses an e-cigarette, the battery-powered device designed as an alternative to cigarettes
Bloomberg Expected To Sign Legislation

The New York City Council approved legislation Thursday to ban the use of electronic cigarettes from indoor public spaces where smoking is already prohibited.

E-cigarettes have been endorsed by celebrities, marketed in multiple flavors and are soaring in popularity.

Battery operated, the device heats up liquid nicotine and delivers a chemical-infused vapor. E-cigarettes are billed by many manufacturers as the cigarettes you can smoke anywhere, but that would no longer be true in New York City if Mayor Michael Bloomberg signs the bill, which he is expected to do.

Under the bill, e-cigarettes would be prohibited in the same places as traditional cigarettes and other tobacco products throughout the city. The ban would go into effect in four months, CBS 2′s Sonia Rincon reported. Businesses and restaurants would have another six months to put up signs indicating there is no smoking or "vaping" allowed.

Comment: No 'vaping' allowed, ya hear? Maybe next they'll come up with a 'Vapor Free Air' Act.

Secondhand Smoke, Firsthand Ignorance
Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer
Health Benefits of Smoking Tobacco
'World No Tobacco Day'? Let's All Light Up!


Question

Bizarre incident at the Mandela memorial: 'Schizophrenic' sign-language interpreter 'hallucinated', company he works for 'vanishes'

What was the story with the 'fake' sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela's memorial, Thamsanqa Jantjie?


Smoking

EU passes new tobacco control law

Image
The European Union Wednesday passed a tobacco-control law that will ban flavored cigarettes, require bigger warning labels on packets and, for the first time, regulate electronic cigarettes on a European level.

The bloc's 28 countries have two years to write the new regulations into national law, at which point they will come into effect.

About 28% of Europeans smoke and every year the habit kills some 700,000 of them, according to the European Commission, the EU's executive arm. The main objective of the new law is to stop young people from taking up smoking, since even under the commission's own estimate it will get very few existing smokers to quit.

Under the new law, warning labels have to cover at least 65% of a cigarette pack's surface. Individual governments are allowed to go even further, for instance by preventing cigarette makers from displaying branding. The U.K. and Ireland have said they want to adopt such "plain-packaging" laws.

Special additives that make cigarettes more addictive or easier to smoke, such as sweet flavorings, will also be banned. There is an exception for menthol cigarettes, which will remain legal until 2020.

Comment: The main goal of smoking bans was "to change societal behavior" by stigmatizing smoking, making it less convenient and less socially acceptable. By raising the stakes, it helped transform a complaint into a right, so that people annoyed by tobacco smoke now felt justified in demanding that it be eliminated everywhere they might want to go, including other people's property.

In short, they have conditioned the majority of the people on the planet to behave like Nazis and think it is normal.

See also:

The devious plan of anti-smoking campaigns to control people and stop them from using their brain

Let's All Light Up!

5 Health Benefits of Smoking

Nicotine Lessens Symptoms Of Depression In Nonsmokers

Nicotine helps Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Patients

Brain Researchers: Smoking increases intelligence


Robot

Maryland KKK will meet to plot Obama's impeachment

Image
© Raw StoryMaryland-based Confederate White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
A Maryland Ku Klux Klan (KKK) group has been given permission to meet in a county government building to plan the impeachment of Barack Obama for being an "illegal president."

The Cecil Whig reported on Wednesday that the Confederate White Knights had reserved the Elk Room in the Cecil County Government Building on Dec. 20.

"Barack Hussein Obama is an illegal president," Imperial Wizard Richard Preston told the paper. "He needs to be removed from office. We also want 'Obamacare' shut down. It's against citizen's rights."

"On top of that, we want the laws toughened on immigration," the KKK leader continued. "We're flooded with illegal immigrants and our people can't find jobs."


Illegal immigrants are not the problem. People can't find jobs because a gang of psychopaths are running the U.S. government and they give HUGE tax breaks to psychopathic corporations who outsource their jobs overseas where wages are much, much lower.


The group has created an impeachment petition which will be circulated at the meeting.

Maryland State Police 1st Sgt. Jimmy Russell said that the FBI had notified law enforcement officials about the meeting.

Bomb

2013: At least 8000 people - 90% civilians - killed in Iraq

iraq
Iraqi men inspect the site of a bomb attack that went off outside a cafe in Baghdad's Bayaa neighborhood.
At least eight people have been killed and more than 20 others wounded after two bomb attacks hit a northern Iraqi town, security sources said.

According to Iraqi security officials, the explosions targeted a livestock market in the town of Tuz Khormatu, located 175 kilometers (110 miles) north of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, on Friday.

Reports say at least 25 people were also wounded due to the new terrorist attack. No group has claimed responsibility for the deadly assault so far.

The Friday blasts took place a day after three bomb attacks led to the death of more than 35 Shia pilgrims and injured scores of others in areas south of Baghdad.

Comment: The U.S government has poured money into the military defense budget for years in waging its bogus 'war on terror' based on lies. After so many years of unrelenting 'shock and awe' psyops, how much is really left to destroy in Iraq, other than the Iraqi people themselves? This fake 'war on terror' has only created terror. Terror, death and destruction. Shall we call these 'strategic, surgical strikes' too?


Attention

Radiation in Fukushima groundwater skyrockets 3,500+ times over weekend

Radiation in Fukushima groundwater skyrockets 3,500+ times over weekend - Just 5 meters from Pacific Ocean - Nothing being done to stop it flowing into sea
Image
© AFP/Jiji Press

Tepco, Dec. 17, 2013: As a result of the measurement, it was found that the gross-β density in the groundwater observation hole No.0-3-2 obtained at the east of the Units 1-4 Turbine Buildings on December 16 [was] 63,000Bq/L [...]