Society's ChildS


Newspaper

Actor Hugh Grant confronts News of the World editor on air

David Ferguson
Raw Story
Fri, 08 Jul 2011 16:51 UTC
Actor Hugh Grant has had a long-standing grudge match going with the Murdoch-owned tabloid The News of the World for some years.

In April of this year, Grant published an article in Britain's The New Statesman describing the tactics used by the British tabloid media and how each Prime Minister since Margaret Thatcher has known that they can only be elected with the help and consent of Murdoch's NewsCorp, Inc. empire.

Grant had a run-in with former News of the World editor Paul McMullen in which he found out that the tabloid was listening in on his phone messages. As a retaliatory gesture, he made a visit to McMullen's pub with a recording device and got the editor on tape admitting to many of the paper's most dubious practices.

The two men met again on the BBC News Channel and while the discussion began cordially enough, it quickly escalated. Grant's parting shot to McMullen is not to be missed.
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Black Cat

TS-hey! Airport agent 'took passenger's iPad and stuffed it down his trousers'... and stole $50,000 worth of devices from luggage


The Daily Mail, UK
Fri, 08 Jul 2011 02:08 UTC
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© Broward Sheriff's OfficeCharged: TSA worker Nelson Santiago-Serrano, 30, is accused of swiping $50,000 worth of electronics from passengers
  • SA agent Nelson Santiago-Serrano charged in Florida
  • He allegedly admitted theft to police
  • Allegedly sold stolen goods online during shifts
The list of consumer complaints against the TSA over recent months may soon have to include theft, in addition to groping and racial profiling.

That's because a Transportation Security Administration worker has been charged with two counts of grand theft for allegedly stealing electronics out of passengers' luggage, authorities in Florida said Thursday.

According to the Broward County Sheriff's Office, Nelson Santiago-Serrano, 30, was caught by a Continental Airlines employee stealing an iPad from a suitcase in Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport's Terminal 1 on Monday.

Mr Santiago-Serrano was allegedly seen trying to stuff the device into his pants, reports the Broward-Palm Beach New Times.

Police say that after they arrested him on Monday, he admitted to stealing computers, GPS devices, video cameras, and other electronics from bags he was supposed to be screening.
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People

One-armed man fined $200 in Belarus for clapping at unsanctioned rally


RIA Novosti
Fri, 08 Jul 2011 13:13 UTC
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© Sergei Samokhin
A court in Belarus fined a one-armed man for taking part in unsanctioned "clapping" protests in Minsk earlier in the week, Belarusian information website Khartiya-97 reported on Friday.

"The court ruled that the disabled man by the name of Konstantin will have to pay a fine of 1.05 million Belarusian rubles [some $200]," the website said.

The man was found guilty by the court of clapping in a public place. The fact that the man was clapping was proved by one of the witnesses during the trial.
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Vader

Best of the Web: US: 'It was kind of messed up that the females got shot': Katrina cover-up officer tells how police fired at unarmed and wounded civilians


The Daily Mail
Thu, 07 Jul 2011 10:58 UTC
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Officer Michael Hunter told the court how he and his colleagues had fired at wounded and unarmed people

  • Police sergeant 'randomly fired at wounded and unarmed civilians with assault rifle'
  • Officer 'stamped on mentally disabled man as he lay on the ground dying'
  • Cops wanted to send the message: 'Don't mess with us' in the wake of 2005 hurricane
A police officer told how he saw two wounded women lying on the ground after he and colleagues had fired at unarmed civilians in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Michael Hunter, a government witness in the federal trial of five current or former officers, said he didn't perceive any threat and said he peered over a barrier and saw two wounded females on the ground, embracing each other and crying.

Hunter, who already has been sentenced to eight years in prison, is one of five former officers who have pleaded guilty to participating in a cover-up.
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Heart - Black

UK: Kept as a slave, sexually abused and finally beheaded by psychopathic family: How man with learning difficulties was failed by everyone


The Daily Mail
Fri, 08 Jul 2011 10:22 UTC
michael gilbert

  • Vulnerable Michael Gilbert was stabbed, shot at with an air gun and treated like a dog for a decade
  • Criminal family hacked up body and dumped him in a lake
  • Police ignored his pleas for help claiming he had 'invented his injuries'
Police and social services repeatedly failed a vulnerable young man who was tortured and imprisoned for a decade before his headless body was found dumped in a lake.

Two separate reports into the murder of Michael Gilbert, 26, found he was let down by numerous professionals from early childhood until his body was found dumped in the Blue Lagoon in Arlesey, Bedfordshire, in 2009.

He was kept as a slave by a family known to the police, beaten and sexually abused before being killed while his captors claimed his benefit money.
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Newspaper

Furious News of the World staff to sue for unfair dismissal and it could land News International with a £14m bill


Daily Mail
Fri, 08 Jul 2011 10:00 UTC
rebekah brooks
Did she weep or was she dry-eyed? Rebekah Brooks failed in her rallying cry


The 200 staff who were effectively made redundant by News International when it shut down the News of the World are set to sue the company for unfair dismissal - and it could cost the company £14million.

Many of the paper's journalists believe they have been badly mistreated because they had no involvement in the phone hacking scandal, and the large majority were not even working on the paper when the alleged offences took place.

There is the belief among the staff that the axed journalists have been used as scapegoats for NI's chief executive Rebekah Brooks and BSkyB's James Murdoch.
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Shoe

US: Woman Kicked Off US Airways Flight for Most Bizarre Reason

Maressa Brown
The Stir
Wed, 06 Jul 2011 03:21 UTC
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© unknown
Flying is not always fun. Not for the flight attendants, not for the passengers. And sometimes that lack of fun manifests in confrontations between the two parties. On a U.S. Airways flight from Philly to Miami on Friday, a flight attendant (known as Tonialla G.) was reportedly being rude to several passengers in the boarding area, and a woman named Sandy DeWitt decided to use her iPhone to snap a shot of the employee's name tag, so she could later report her to the airline.

Once at her seat, DeWitt was confronted by Tonialla, who ordered her to delete the photo. And get this -- even after DeWitt complied, the flight attendant deemed her a "security threat" and saw to it that she was thrown off the plane!

U.S. Airways' response?
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Stop

US: State of New York Cuts Back on Mowing Along Highways


ABC News Channel 9
Thu, 07 Jul 2011 04:30 UTC
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© WSYR-TV NewsChannel 9
An extra damp spring has given a boost to the foliage throughout Central New York, but in some places the explosion of growth has gone unchecked. For example, the State is allowing much of the grass along highways to grow out of control.

"A lot of the interstates haven't been done and that's very noticeable," said NY Department of Transportation representative Gene Cilento.

For a second year in a row, the DOT is restricting mowing because of the budget. That means the weeds will grow untamed nearly all summer long, except for a few select locations.

"Some locations where you go, you'll see six-foot high grass," Cilento said. "But right now, in front of signs and right around intersections, it's cut down to near ground level."
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Heart - Black

US: Young brothers, age 3 and 4, found dead in car in Wisconsin; cops question mom's boyfriend

Michael Sheridan
New York Daily News
Thu, 07 Jul 2011 10:58 UTC
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© Dane County Sheriff's OfficeDavid Hoem, 28, was arrested for violating his parole, police say
Two young brothers, ages 3 and 4, were found dead in a car in Wisconsin - and police have detained their mom's boyfriend in connection with their deaths.

David Hoem has not been charged, but is being questioned by authorities after his girlfriend reported her children missing Tuesday following a dispute with the 28-year-old, the Journal Sentinel newspaper reported.

"This is a very unstable guy," Madison Police Capt. Joe Balles said. "It was not really clear what had happened or what he had done."

The 22-year-old mother, whose name has not been released, first went to police Tuesday to file a domestic violence report against Hoem which involved a knife, WMTV News reported.

Afterward, she contacted the children's biological father, who had been watching the kids. She learned that Hoem had gone there to pick them up.

"It was not uncommon for this boyfriend to facilitate custody exchanges between the mother and the father of these two children," Balles said.
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Handcuffs

US: US Citizen Guilty of Supporting Overseas Terror

Tom Hays
The Associated Press
Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:28 UTC
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© The Associated Press / U.S. Attorney's OfficeThis undated photo provided by the U.S. Attorney's Office shows Betim Kaziu. Kaziu has been charged with plotting to provide support to overseas terrorists and the star witness against him is his former friend who has pleaded guilty to the charges.
A Brooklyn-born man was convicted Thursday of terror charges for traveling to the Middle East to avenge abuse of Muslims in a trial that featured the testimony of a would-be terrorist and childhood friend of the defendant who became a government cooperator.

The jury deliberated less than four hours before finding Betim Kaziu guilty of conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization, conspiracy to commit murder and other charges. Kaziu had denied ever being a threat. He faces a maximum of life in prison at his Nov. 4 sentencing.

"Through our judicial system, we have brought to justice a homegrown terrorist who conspired to kill U.S. troops overseas," U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said in statement. "We are committed to using all available tools to combat terrorism wherever it threatens our citizens and our country."

Unlike the cases of Najibullah Zazi, mastermind of a foiled suicide attack on New York City subways, or Faisal Shahzad, the failed Times Square bomber, Kaziu's suspected exploits received little attention, in part because the plot didn't get far. But his case had many of the same themes of homegrown terrorism.

Prosecutors alleged that Kaziu, 23, and star witness Sulejah Hadzovic - two U.S.-born sons of Islamic immigrants from the former Yugoslavia who met in sixth grade - traveled to Cairo in 2009 in hopes of taking up arms against U.S. troops.

Comment: The New York Daily News published some of the inflammatory rhetoric spewed by Kaziu in the martyrdom video he made on the Albanian coast. link
"I came here with the brothers to chill before I, God willing, depart," Kaziu said as he stood on a cliff above the sea.
Yeah, the guy sounds like a real killer. Sheesh...

One can also find a poem written by Kaziu here. It gives us a glimpse into the mind of this man accused of being a wannabe terrorist. Read it for yourself and see if you find any hint of terrorism in this man's words:
" Allah ordered us to put our trust in Him
To testify La illaha il Allah and abstain from sin
To not make mischief and not take others as our savior
To abstain from zina and to be good to our neighbor
He gave us a book wherein is guidance and a way of life
Which we must follow and hold onto it tight
In return he promises mercy and gardens of delight."


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