Society's ChildS


Bizarro Earth

Florida Sheriff's office distributes flyers with phone sex line number to victims of sexual assault

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© Shutterstock
Deputies in Lake County say a phone number written on a pamphlet given to domestic violence and sexual assault victims actually went to a sex hotline instead.

The victims' rights pamphlet handed out by deputies offers an 800 number that connects callers to a recorded message that says, "Welcome to America's hottest talk line. Ladies, to talk to interesting and exciting guys free, press 1 now. Guys, hot ladies are waiting to talk to you."

"We're giving out wrong information and I sure don't want my victims calling a sex line," said Kelly Smallridge, the Executive Director for the Haven, a victim's advocacy group whose number was supposed to appear on the fliers.

Bizarro Earth

Man accused of trying to kill coworker he was stalking by spiking her heels with acid

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© Shutterstock
It's a case that could make you think twice before leaving your footwear unattended.

Japanese police say they have arrested a man over allegations he tried to kill a female colleague by putting hydrofluoric acid, a highly corrosive chemical, in her shoes.

The alleged attack, which police say took place in December, caused gangrene to develop in the toes of the woman's left foot.

To deal with the problem, doctors had to remove the tips of five of her toes, said Teyuaki Harano, deputy chief of police in Gotemba, the city less than 100 kilometers southwest of Tokyo where the suspect, Tatsujiro Fukazawa, was arrested Thursday.

Bulb

Three lost girls use light-up shoes and cell phone to signal rescue helicopter

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Three little girls got lost in the Florida woods Monday night, and their quick thinking helped law enforcement find them.

Two sisters, Grace Shaffer, 6, and Aubrey Shaffer, 9, and their 13-year-old neighbor wandered into a densely wooded area about two miles from their homes in Lakeland, Fla., early Monday evening hoping to see horses.

"They have boundaries set in the front yard," Missi Shaffer, Grace and Aubrey's mother, told ABCNews.com. "They usually stay within those boundaries. We've never had a problem with them wandering off."

The three girls had passed through a barbed-wire fence into a prohibited area on the way to a nearby horse trail.

"As night began to fall, they got disoriented," Donna Wood, Polk County Sheriff's Office public information officer, told ABCNews.com. "They were pretty far into the area and got lost."

Health

Family in home while Georgia toddler mauled to death by seven dogs in yard

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© ABCNEWS.com
A toddler who slipped outside through a doggie door was mauled to death by her family's seven dogs in the backyard while the attack went unnoticed by the child's mother and other relatives inside their home, a southeast Georgia sheriff said Thursday.

Bryan County Sheriff Clyde Smith said the child's grandmother told investigators she was lying in bed when she heard the pit bulls and pit bull mixes barking, and she looked outside her window to see them dragging the girl. Smith said she began yelling, "They're killing Monica!"

It was too late. Monica Renee Laminack, who would have turned 2 on June 1, was dead by the time an ambulance arrived Wednesday evening. Animal control officers used drugs to euthanize the dogs at the home on a rural road in tiny Ellabell, about 30 miles west of Savannah. Deputies found the girl's shoes, diaper and shredded clothing scattered across the fenced-in yard, Smith said.

"They had dragged the child all over the yard. ... They tore her clothes all up," Smith said.

Health

Tulsa dentist may have exposed 7,000 patients to HIV, hepatitis

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© ABC/KOCO,Oklahoma Board of DentistryDr. Wayne Harrington, an oral surgeon with a practice in Tulsa, Okla., is being investigated by the state dental board, the state bureau of narcotics and the federal Drug Enforcement Agency because one of his patients recently tested positive for hepatitis C and HIV without known risk factors other than receiving dental treatment.
Thousands of patients of a Tulsa dentist may have been exposed to HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C, health officials said Thursday.

Dr. Scott Harrington, an oral surgeon who has been practicing in Tulsa for more than 30 years, voluntarily stopped practicing March 20 after two site visits found multiple violations, including assistants being allowed to unlawfully perform IV sedation, which only a licensed dentist may perform. Allowing this is a felony.

The Tulsa Health Department is setting up free testing clinics for the 7,000 patients who may have been exposed since 2007, when the earliest patient information was available.

Patients before 2007 are advised to call a hotline that will be answered from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The number is 918-595-4500.

The free testing will begin Saturday morning at the North Regional Health and Wellness Center, 5635 N. Martin Luther King Blvd., and continue next week.

Exposure to these diseases through an outpatient dental clinic is rare, and the public should not panic, State Epidemiologist Kristy Bradley said.

"I want to stress that this is not an outbreak," she said.

People

Human traffickers target aboriginal girls, women

diane redsky
© Stephanie WesleyDiane Redsky, Shoal Lake First Nation, says the majority of
human trafficking involves Canadian women, including Aboriginal
women and girls as young as 10.
Thunder Bay, Ontario - The reality of the sex trade in Canada, which involves for the most part victimized young girls hidden in underground sex trade and human trafficking networks, was a topic of discussion during two separate events held in Thunder Bay this March.

Bridget Perrier, co-founder of the anti-prostitution group Sex Trade 101, and Diane Redsky, a project director with the Canadian Women's Foundation, were part of the two dialogues.

On March 6, Perrier sat on a panel that was put on by the Gender Issues Centre at Lakehead University. Perrier told the audience of 40 or so people that she entered the sex trade as a child and exited as woman.
"I still sleep with the lights on,"
Perrier said, who has been out of the world of prostitution for 10 years.

"I still suffer from the effects of the trauma, of prostitution."

On March 6, Perrier sat on a panel that was put on by the Gender Issues Centre at Lakehead University. Perrier told the audience of 40 or so people that she entered the sex trade as a child and exited as woman.

Bizarro Earth

A tweet about a 'dongle' leads to two firings, death threats

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© @adriarichards/TwitterA software developer was fired after tweeting a photo of a man she said was using sexual innuendo during a conference.
Offensive jokes whispered at a tech conference last Sunday night have now spread much further than anyone would have ever thought.

While at the PyCon technology conference last weekend, Adria Richards, a software developer and self-described technology evangelist, overheard two men behind her making a series of offensive and sexual jokes about "dongles" and "forks."

"They started talking about 'big' ad dongles. I could feel my face getting flustered," Richards wrote on her blog titled "But You're a Girl." "I was telling myself if they made one more sexual joke, I'd say something. Then it happened ... the trigger."

Richards didn't turn around in her seat and talk to the two men. But she did speak up on the Internet. She snapped a photo of the two men and tweeted it: "Not cool. Jokes about 'forking' repo's in a sexual way and 'big' dongles. Right behind me #pycon pic.twitter.com/Hv1bkeOsYP."

Richards then tweeted at the PyCon account, and as a result, the two men were removed from the conference.

That was just the start of the impact of those tweets. Later in the week, one of the men, whose name has not been revealed, was fired from his job at Playhaven, a mobile gaming company.

Info

In twist, fake medicine could save rare animals

Chinese Medicine
© iStockphoto
Fake and diluted ingredients, including herbs and animal parts, are increasingly finding their way into traditional Chinese medicines. Investigators have found many supposedly medicinal powders diluted with everything from flour to corn starch to sand.

Sometimes the dilutions are the result of cutting corners by manufacturers, but often it's done by middlemen and retailers seeking to increase their profit margins.

There is little or no governmental regulation of these medicines, and the problem is getting worse. As one traditional Chinese medicine manufacturer noted, "counterfeiters are posing a great threat, as fake products are made to closely resemble genuine ones.

Counterfeiters can produce fake medicinal herbs with starch and gypsum powder, or mix dirt or dust with the herbs to increase their weight."

Sherlock

French are 'taught to be gloomy by their culture'

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© Lipnitzki/Roger Viollet/GettyThe haunted face of singer Edith Piaf represents an archetypal image of Gallic gloom.
Research finds that despite high standard of living happiness is elusive

France, once famous for its joie de vivre, is suffering from existential gloom - and the French have only themselves to blame for their malaise, according to a study to be presented in London next month. Research by a French academic to be delivered to the Royal Economic Society suggests that the country's citizens are "taught" to be miserable by elements of their own culture.

Claudia Senik, a professor at the Paris School of Economics, argues that her country's education system and its cultural "mentality" make the French far less happy than their wealth and lifestyle suggest they should be.

The French enjoy a high standard of living, Senik notes. The country has a generous welfare state, plus universal and free access to healthcare, hospitals, public schools and universities. It also has a 35-hour working week and many foreigners aspire to make it their home - 150,000 Britons have chosen to live there.

Yet the French are gloomy. A recent WIN-Gallup poll found that their expectations for the coming year ranked lower than those in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Handcuffs

Police arrest 2 teens in Georgia baby killing

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© RUSS BYNUM/ASSOCIATED PRESSSherry West was comforted by Luis Santiago, the child’s father.
A pair of teenagers were arrested Friday and accused of fatally shooting a 13-month-old baby in the face and wounding his mother during their morning stroll through a leafy, historic neighborhood.

Sherry West had just been to the post office a few blocks from her apartment on Thursday morning and was pushing her son, Antonio, in his stroller while they walked past gnarled oak trees and blooming azaleas in the coastal city of Brunswick.

West said a tall, skinny teenager, accompanied by a smaller boy, asked her for money.

''He asked me for money and I said I didn't have it,'' she said Friday from her apartment, which was scattered with her son's toys and movies.

''When you have a baby, you spend all your money on babies. They're expensive. And he kept asking and I just said 'I don't have it.' And he said, 'Do you want me to kill your baby?' And I said, 'No, don't kill my baby!' ''

One of the teens fired four shots, grazing West's ear and striking her in the leg, before he walked around to the stroller and shot the baby in the face.