Society's ChildS


Eye 2

Mum bought an oven and gained a snake: Shock as Blyth housewife finds 2ft python in cooker

Michael Brown
Chronicle, UK
Wed, 06 Nov 2013 13:59 UTC
Image
A python snake
A shocked housewife opened her oven to find a 2ft python slithering inside.

Karen Jackson, 41, from Blyth, had used the oven just two hours earlier to make a pepperoni pizza for her son - but the snake had hidden in a cool space at the back and as the temperature dropped, it emerged.

The mum-of-four called police and the RSPCA, but the python escaped back into the rear of the cooker.

Karen and partner Chris Petrou, 39, called their friend Stephen Smith, who they had recently bought the oven off - and he revealed the reptile was his stepdaughter's escaped pet, called Lily.

Stephen visited Karen and Chris' home and retrieved the non-venomous snake.
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Eye 2

Snake on a plane: Passenger brings snake onto EasyJet flight


The Telegraph, UK
Thu, 07 Nov 2013 09:02 UTC
A man on a London-bound plane causes panic among fellow passengers by releasing his pet snake from his luggage mid-flight


A man on a London-bound plane caused panic among fellow passengers at the end of last month, when he released his pet snake from his luggage mid-flight.

Adam Gubbay, from Stoke Newington, bought a baby corn snake on holiday in Israel, and managed to get the pet through airport security in Tel Aviv.

Mid-way through the flight, Mr Gubbay released the reptile, named Milky, to give it a drink of water, sending fellow passengers into a panic for their safety.

"I had advised the passenger sitting next to me on my left that I was about to feed my snake and that he shouldn't be alarmed and that if it was ok, " said Mr Gubbay.

"He said to proceed, and as I did the female passenger to his left got up and started screaming."

EasyJet staff confiscated the two-foot long snake from the 24-year-old, with the pilot threatening to land the plane early.

Mr Gubbay, a trainee bus driver, said the situation was simply a "misunderstanding" but admitted he was lucky not to be prosecuted.
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Display

Wal-Mart website error gives customers mega discounts

Kevin Fitzgerald
Digital Journal
Wed, 06 Nov 2013 16:49 UTC
Wal-Mart
© Wal-MartWal-Mart Supercenter.
Bentonville - A glitch on Wal-Mart's website early Wednesday morning gave shoppers the opportunity to purchase electronics that are normally worth hundreds of dollars for less than $9.

According to ABC News, the website mistakenly listed a 24-inch high definition Viewsonic computer monitor, an InFocus IN2124 Projector, and other valuable electronics products for just $8.95. Many of these products are normally listed at prices closer to $600.

Reuters (via Yahoo! News) also reports that normally expensive treadmills were mistakenly given a sale price of $33.16.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Wal-Mart spokesperson Ravi Jariwala has stated that the company is still trying to figure out what caused the error and that the store's website may experience some intermittent accessibility issues until the problem is resolved.

Wal-Mart has not stated exactly how many shoppers were able to take advantage of the deals and has not yet elaborated on whether or not the company would honor these temporary sale prices, the Chicago Tribune also reported.
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TV

CNN suffers worst week in TV ratings under Jeff Zucker

Michael O'Connell
Hollywood Reporter
Mon, 04 Nov 2013 14:20 UTC
Jeff Zucker
© Getty ImagesJeff Zucker
Dragged down by its lowest-rated weeknight since going against the Olympics in 2012, the primetime block pulls in lows in total viewers and the key demo.

CNN's bad night ended up being part of a very bad week.

The cable news network suffered its lowest Monday-Friday primetime average in over a year for the week of Oct. 28 to Nov. 1. Averaging just 385,000 viewers and 95,000 adults 25-54, both key measurements marked CNN's worst showings since the 20-year record lows last August when the network suffered particularly against coverage of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
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Mr. Potato

Jon Stewart tears into Obamacare opponents for 'lying like motherf*ckers'

Arturo Garcia
The Raw Story
Wed, 06 Nov 2013 00:19 UTC

Instead of attacking President Barack Obama and the Affordable Care Act on substantive grounds, Jon Stewart said on The Daily Show on Monday, Fox News has insisted on going over-the-top with threats that have been debunked, criticized or otherwise "total bullsh*t."

"Yes, the president has been somewhat dishonest about the promise of his health care program," Stewart argued. "But here's the weird part: his opponents have been lying like motherf*ckers about its effects."
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Handcuffs

Tennessee mayor arrested for stealing $60,000 in 'Toys for Tots' Christmas money

David Edwards
The Raw Story
Wed, 06 Nov 2013 08:14 UTC
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Workers at one Greenbrier City Hall were shocked this week to see the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) arrest the mayor on charges he that stole money from the Toys for Tots charity just before the Christmas season.

The Tennessean reported that TBI agents abruptly showed up on Monday afternoon to take Greenbrier Mayor Billy Wilson into custody.

"It was so quick," City Superintendent Tommy Maitland told the paper. "We didn't have time to process it. They just came in and took him. It was over in a matter of minutes."

Wilson, who also serves as the city's fire chief, was charged with official misconduct and the theft of $60,000 from Toys for Toys, a charity which provides toys to poor children and helps families pay utility bills during the holiday season. The charity is not affiliated with a charity by a similar name run by the U.S. Marine Corps.

Agents began investigating Wilson early last month, TBI spokesperson Kristen Helm explained on Monday.

"Money was beginning to be donated for this year's Toys for Tots program and we wanted to let people know the money was being stolen and to not send money to Wilson's charity this year," she said.

According to WSMV, Wilson helped start the charity and was accused of continuing to steal donations up until just days before he was arrested.ary
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Black Cat

War on women: Koch brothers poured tens of millions of dollars into anti-choice movement

David Ferguson
The Raw Story
Wed, 06 Nov 2013 09:55 UTC
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Investigations by the website RH Reality check and Politico found that a network of organizations headed by billionaire conservatives Charles and David Koch has spent tens of millions of dollars funding the anti-choice movement.

Senior Washington correspondent Adele Stan wrote Tuesday that tax documents show Koch-directed "pro-business" groups threw their money and resources behind legislative initiatives designed to shut down women's health clinics and deny women access to contraception, reproductive health services and abortions.

"There is little doubt that the rash of anti-choice measures that flooded the legislative dockets in state capitols in 2013 was a coordinated effort by anti-choice groups and major right-wing donors lurking anonymously behind the facades of the non-profit "social welfare" organizations unleashed to tear up the political landscape, thanks to the high court's decision in Citizens United," Stan wrote.

"Helping to drive the right-wing offensive in the states and in Congress is a network of deep-pocketed business titans convened by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, principals in Koch Industries, the second-largest privately held corporation in the United States," she continued.

While the Kochs and their satellite groups profess to be interested more in business policy and deregulation than social issues, their true agenda is an all-out "war on women," said RH Reality Check.
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Pistol

Detroit: Black woman shot to death while seeking help after car crash

Travis Gettys
The Raw Story
Wed, 06 Nov 2013 14:33 UTC
Renisha McBride
Renisha McBride
Police are seeking charges against a resident who's accused of shooting a Detroit woman to death as she sought help after a late-night car crash.

Family members say 19-year-old Renisha McBride crashed about 2:30 a.m. Saturday in Dearborn Heights and knocked on the door of a home in the 16000 block of Outer Drive because her cell phone battery had died.

Preliminary autopsy results showed McBride was shot in the head by a shotgun, killing her.

Her aunt said the young woman, who'd recently started a job at Ford Motor Co., was shot as she turned to walk off the porch of the home where she'd sought assistance.

Police initially said they believed the shot was fired in self-defense, and a neighbor said officers told them shortly afterward that the homeowner had gotten scared and shot someone during an apparent break-in attempt.

Her family said they were initially told by police that McBride's body had been dumped and discovered near Warren Avenue, but police are now saying the woman died on the home's front porch.
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Chalkboard

Florida teacher suspended for forcing kids to say pledge on Sept. 11 or 'go to your home country'

David Edwards
The Raw Story
Wed, 06 Nov 2013 14:49 UTC
pledge of allegiance child
© shutterstock
A Florida teacher was recently suspended without pay for five days after school officials said that she forced a fourth grade student to violate his religious beliefs and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

The Tampa Bay Times reported that the student, whose Jehovah's Witness religion forbids him from worshiping objects, was used to standing silent while the other students put their hands over their hearts and recited the pledge.

But on the morning of Sept. 11, Explorer K-8 School teacher Anne Daigle-McDonald forcibly placed the boy's hand over his heart.

"You are an American, and you are supposed to salute the flag," she said, turning to the class. "In my classroom, everyone will do the pledge; no religion says that you can't do the pledge."

"If you can't put your hand on your heart, then you need to move out of the country," the teacher reportedly added.

Hernando County Schools Division of Business Services-Heather Martin Executive Director later told Daigle-McDonald that nearly all of the students in her fourth grade class had recalled her telling them the next day to move back to their home country if they didn't want to say the pledge.
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Handcuffs

No ethics: Report says military, CIA compelled medics to abuse detainees

Carol J. Williams
Los Angeles Times
Mon, 04 Nov 2013 16:29 UTC
restraint chair
© Getty imagesRestraint chair
Defense Department and CIA interrogation policies after 9/11 forced medical professionals to abandon their ethical obligations to "do no harm" to those in their care and some prohibited practices, including force-feeding of hunger strikers, continue today, a report issued Monday alleges.

The report, Ethics Abandoned: Medical Professionalism and Detainee Abuse in the War on Terror, was carried out by a 19-member task force of Columbia University's Institute on Medicine as a Profession and the Open Society Foundations. The researchers spent two years examining public records of medical professionals' involvement in military and intelligence interrogations and treatment of detainees.

It accuses the counter-terrorism operations of having "improperly demanded that U.S. military and intelligence agency health professionals collaborate in intelligence gathering and security practices in a way that inflicted severe harm on detainees in U.S. custody."

The involvement of medical professionals in abuse and interrogation occurred at the Guantanamo Bay detention center for terrorism suspects as well as at Bagram air base near Kabul, Afghanistan, and at other CIA "black sites," the report claimed.

Doctors, nurses, psychologists and medics, in violation of their ethical commitments, were said to have been compelled to take part in "enhanced interrogation" methods, including the simulated drowning procedure called waterboarding that has been defined as torture and prohibited from practice by any U.S. agents.
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