Society's ChildS


Question

Mystery illness strikes scores of French pupils

Joshua Melvin
The Local, France
Thu, 10 Apr 2014 21:57 UTC
Mystery illness
© Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/AFPA mystery illness has struck hundreds of pupils at a French school.
Hundreds of French school children have fallen victim to a mystery sickness that has spread like wildfire through their school. All classes have been suspended and baffled health authorities have advised the school to close, while they try to determine the cause of the outbreak.

Since January at least 227 pupils at their school in south-western France have reported headaches, dizziness, vertigo and trouble breathing, but health authorities, despite carrying out multiple tests, are no closer to determining the cause.

Earlier this week regional health authorities in Aquitaine recommended "as a measure of precaution" closing part of the College Jean-Moulin in Artix, French magazine L'Express reported.

The school apparently remains open for the moment, but all classes have been suspended.

So far the most promising lead was the series of renovations completed at the secondary (junior high) school over the winter holidays. It was shortly after classes resumed in January that pupils began reporting symptoms.

The head of the Aquitaine regional health authority told L'Express they were baffled by the outbreak of sickness.
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Handcuffs

Milan 'clinic of horrors' doctor jailed for life


The Local, Italy
Thu, 10 Apr 2014 21:51 UTC
Clinic of Horrors
© Shutterstock

An Italian surgeon has been sentenced to life in prison, including three years in solitary confinement, for performing operations that led to the death of four people and injured 40 others.

Pier Paolo Brega Massone, the former chief of Milan's Santa Rita Clinic, dubbed 'clinic of horrors', "did not hesitate in performing the "unnecessary operations", including two unrequired mastectomies, "for money", chief prosecutor Grazie Pradella was quoted by Corriere as saying.

She said Massone, who in a previous trial was sentenced to 15 years and six months in prison, "has an evil nature" who "showed no compassion for other humans".

Pradella added that Massone was "motivated by money" when he performed the operations, even on those who were terminally ill, as part of a lucrative "system" that allowed him to claim reimbursements from government health funds.

His assistants, Fabio Presicci and Marco Pansera were sentenced to 30 years and 26 years and two months, respectively.

The scandal came to light in May 2008, when they were jailed on murder charges, and dates back to 2006, when four elderly patients died after unnecessary operations were performed on them.

One of the patient's died after having a lung removed, while another woman died after being "fatally weakened" following three operations to remove a tumour. At least two women had breasts removed for benign cysts.
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Stormtrooper

L.A. county deputies shoot and kill unarmed man helping neighbors during hostage standoff

Arturo Garcia
The Raw Story
Thu, 10 Apr 2014 20:14 UTC
Policeman With Gun
© via Shutterstock
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department admitted on Thursday that deputies mistakenly shot and killed a 30-year-old man after mistaking him for the suspect in a hostage situation earlier this week, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Authorities confirmed that John Winkler was one of three hostages inside a West Hollywood apartment during the stadoff. The victim had gone into the apartment to help the other hostages after hearing screaming coming from the residence.

Officials said in a statement the three deputies on the scene saw one of the other hostages bolt out of the residence as they arrived.

"He was covered in blood and bleeding profusely from the neck," the statement read. "Simultaneously, Winkler ran out of the door, lunging at the back of the fleeing victim. Both ran directly at the deputies."

Interim Sheriff John Scott told the Times Winkler's description matched that of the suspect, identified by KTLA-TV as 27-year-old Alexander McDonald.

Winkler was shot three times in the chest and died at a local hospital. The other hostage was listed in stable condition after suffering stab wounds to the back and a gunshot wound to the leg.

"It's just a really sad story," Winkler's friend and roommate, Devin Richardson, told the Times. "He basically went to help some neighbors and ends up getting shot."
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Eye 2

Suspected contract killer confesses to 40 murders

Kim Chandler, Scott Smith
KSL News
Wed, 09 Apr 2014 21:09 UTC
drug cartel killer
© Associated Press/Tulare County District AttorneyThis undated photo provided by the Tulare County, Calif., District Attorney shows Jose Manuel Martinez. Prosecutors are calling this Central California man a contract killer and have charged him with murdering nine people in three counties
A suspected contract killer charged in Central California with killing nine people confessed to investigators that he carried out up to 40 slayings in a career spanning decades, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Errek Jett, the district attorney in Lawrence County, Ala., said that Jose Manuel Martinez, 51, told investigators he carried out the crimes working as an enforcer for a drug cartel. Jett said they believe Martinez because of the details he gave investigators.

Martinez was arrested last year shortly after crossing the border from Mexico into Arizona and sent to Alabama, where he awaits trial on one murder charge. Once word got out, a steady stream of investigators from across the country came to question Martinez, Jett said.

Defense attorney Thomas Turner, who represents Martinez in that lone case, said his client is eager to start a June trial in Alabama, so he can return to California. Turner said Martinez maintains his innocence to the charge there and doesn't seem to be a hardened killer.

"I've found him to be polite and a likable individual," Turner said. "He has a good personality as far as talking with him."

Prosecutors in California say otherwise.
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Pills

Woman jailed for 20 years for killing baby with 'morphine breast milk'

Antonia Molloy
The Independent
Sun, 06 Apr 2014 21:03 UTC
Image
© IndependentStephanie Greene was convicted of of homicide by child abuse, involuntary manslaughter and unlawful conduct toward a child.
A South Carolina woman who killed her baby daughter by giving her what prosecutors say was a fatal dose of morphine through her breast milk has been jailed for 20 years.

Former nurse Stephanie Greene, 39, was convicted in Spartanburg on Friday of homicide by child abuse, involuntary manslaughter and unlawful conduct toward a child.

Six-week-old Alexis died of respiratory failure on 13 November 2010 - a toxicology report from the baby's autopsy found a level of morphine in the child's body that a pathologist testified could have been lethal for an adult.

Comment: US - Police: Baby died from morphine in breast milk

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Colosseum

Paying up for the rest of your life: Harvard study finds your share of the federal debt is $106,000

Paul Bedard
Source
Thu, 10 Apr 2014 20:01 UTC


American workers would have to cough up a one-time "debt reduction fee" of $106,000 to pay off the nation's debt that has grown 58 percent under President Obama, according to Harvard University's Institute of Politics annual report on the USA.

The 91-page report provided to Secrets pegged the nation's debt at $16.7 trillion, up from the $10.6 trillion inherited by Obama. "The debt has grown so quickly because of large and repeated annual deficits in federal spending," said the report.

What's more, the Annual Report of the USA, from the student at the Harvard Political Review and done in partnership with the American Education Foundation, found that food stamp usage has surged 77 percent during the recession and that Social Security benefits will be slashed 23 percent starting in 2033 unless Congress and the White House institute sweeping reforms.

The report is considered one of the nation's authoritative independent analysis review of federal spending. One of the best benefits of the report is that the authors try to put huge numbers like the debt in perspective.

"Such large sums are difficult to conceptualize properly," said the student authors in their report.
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Arrow Down

Prosecutors knowingly sent innocent New York man to prison for 25 years


Police State USA
Thu, 10 Apr 2014 20:57 UTC
John Fleming
© Assocaited PressJohn Fleming gives a few brief statements being exonerated.
A man spent nearly 25 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. In fact, there was proof that he wasn't even in the same state at the time of the crime, but prosecutors withheld that evidence, and coerced a false witness, in an effort to achieve an expedient conviction of a completely innocent man.

Wrongfully Accused

Jonathan Fleming, of Brooklyn, took a trip to Orlando, Florida, in August 1989. John, 27-years-old at the time, went to visit Disney World with his family.

During that trip, on August 15, 1989, a man named Darryl "Black" Rush was fatally shot to death back home in Brooklyn.

Three days after the murder, Fleming had returned home and was implicated as a suspect. He told investigators that he had ample proof of his alibi in Florida. Fleming had post cards, plane tickets, and videos of the trip. His family confirmed his whereabouts. He had receipts from the trip still in his pocket. When Orlando police did interviews, they even recorded witness statements of people who remembered Mr. Fleming in Florida.

However, the best alibi in the world wasn't enough to protect John Fleming from corruption in the judicial system.

Fleming was charged with Rush's murder and went to trial.
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Cow

'Wake up America, they are taking everything away from us' says family involved in Nevada BLM cattle dispute

Faith Heaton Jolley and Dave Cawley
KSL.com
Mon, 07 Apr 2014 20:56 UTC
cattle dispute nevada
© Bailey Bundy Logue
A man has been released after being arrested Sunday during an ongoing dispute over grazing rights between the Bureau of Land Management and a family in southern Nevada, and the family is calling for action.

A federal judge in Las Vegas first ordered Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy to remove his trespassing cattle in 1998, according to reports from the Associated Press. Similar orders were issued in July 2013, and again in October.

Saturday, the BLM began taking some of the 908 cattle from Bundy. The BLM says Bundy's cattle have been trespassing on U.S. land without required grazing permits for over 25 years. However, Bundy said he doesn't recognize federal authority on land that he says belongs to the state of Nevada.

The BLM released a statement on its website saying, "Cattle have been in trespass on public lands in Southern Nevada for more than two decades. This is unfair to the thousands of other ranchers who graze livestock in compliance with federal laws and regulations throughout the west. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the National Park Service (NPS) have made repeated attempts to resolve this matter administratively and judicially."
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Stock Down

Gloom, boom and doom report: 2014 crash will be worse than 1987's

Alex Rosenberg
CNBC.com
Thu, 10 Apr 2014 12:02 UTC
Marc Faber
© Adam Jeffery | CNBC Marc Faber
Marc Faber says the stock market is setting up for a decline more painful than the sudden crash of 1987.

"I think it's very likely that we're seeing, in the next 12 months, an '87-type of crash," Faber said with a devious chuckle on Thursday's episode of "Futures Now." "And I suspect it will be even worse."

Faber, the editor and publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, has recently called for growth stocks to decline. And he says the pain in the Internet and biotech sectors is just getting started.
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Bad Guys

Ridiculous! TSA refused to let mute woman board plane because she could not say her own name


New York Post
Thu, 10 Apr 2014 00:00 UTC
TSA agent
© Getty ImagesA TSA agent at Los Angeles International Airport in February.
A woman claims an airport security agent refused to let her disabled sister on board a plane because she couldn't say her own name.

Sherry Wright says she was shocked at the treatment they received at Los Angeles International Airport, where her sister Heidi was due to fly to Phoenix.

The problems began when Heidi, who was left wheelchair-bound and unable to speak or write after a stroke a decade ago, was stopped by the Transportation Security Administration due to an expired driver's license, CNN reported.

Wright claims the TSA agent was rude and insensitive, insisting Heidi talk.

"I showed her ID, her (Social Security card) and her DMV papers," Wright said, to no avail.

"He just wanted me to make my sister talk, and I couldn't believe it.
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