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Society's Child
"We go to great lengths to never arrest anybody on these warrants," Box Elder County Chief Deputy Sheriff Dale Ward told the Ogden Standard-Examiner. "The reason we do that is we don't want to run a debtors' prison. There is no reason for someone to be rotting in jail on a bad debt."
Over the past three years, reports the Standard-Examiner, thirteen people have been arrested and jailed on civil bench warrants of the kind that resulted in Iverson's fatal incarceration. Roughly half of those arrests arose from civil judgments obtained by government agencies, the rest from private debts. Apart from Iverson, all of those thus imprisoned were released within 12 hours after posting bail or making a promise to appear in court.
Scientists Shannon Morris, Melissa Lee and Kevin Rafferty are seeking monetary damages in the lawsuit, but it has not been revealed how much. The group says that they wanted to implement the computerized DNA analysis system called TrueAllele in their crime lab, to ensure that the results of their tests were correct. The crime lab was working with the program for a short period of time before it was ultimately canceled by the department. However, the state police rejected the suggestion and they began to put more pressure on the scientists to secure convictions.
According to lawyer John Bailey, who will be representing the scientists, the crime lab in question had a culture of corruption.
Comment: It's sickening that even the scientific evidence that can mean the difference between freedom and a life behind bars -- or worse -- can't be relied upon. These police gangs are corrupt to their very cores.
© janboehm / YouTube
The video posted on Friday showed a group of men blocking a bus full of refugees in the town of Clausnitz, in the eastern German state of Saxony.
The video shows them shouting in German "we are the people" and urging the refugees to "go home."
A witness told the Freie Presse newspaper that one of the protesters had threatened the refugees with a cut-throat gesture.
In the video footage, women and children could be seen through the windscreen of the bus with a sign stating "enjoy your travel." The footage shows a boy crying and stepping out from the vehicle.
Comment: Utterly heartbreaking to see such things - and all the xenophobia, racism, fear and hatred - manipulated into being by Western governments seeking to divide and conquer Europe.
© Getty Images
In the video, which was originally posted on the Facebook page of Gary Schlesinger of Brooklyn, New York City trash collectors are being ordered around by an NYPD cop. They are picking up dozens of cases of fruits and vegetables — and throwing them into the back of a trash truck.
According to Schlesinger, "NYC [is] cracking down on fruit stores that put out merchandise more than 4 feet from store."
The food was allegedly blocking a sidewalk, so, instead of asking the owner move it, or merely confiscating it from a non-compliant owner and giving it to a food shelter, the government's decision was to put it in a landfill.
© Omar Sanadiki / Reuters
Four blasts hit al-Tin Street near the al-Sadr hospital, with two explosions being car bombs and the others suicide bombers, the al-Ikhbariya channel said.
There are casualties among civilians in Sayeda Zeinab district, a police source, who talked to RIA-Novosti, said.
The death toll is currently being verified. Hezbollah's al-Mmanar TV puts the death toll at 22, while the Syrian state TV at 30. Dozens are feared injured.
Comment: The Syrian rebels can't win on the battlefield so now they take their suicidal missions into the cities, killing civilians.
© REUTERS/ Gleb Garanich
On Saturday, meetings in Kiev commemorating the bloodiest day of violence between police and protesters during the February 2014 protests turned ugly, with activists from ultra-nationalist groups including the Right Sector clashing with Ukraine's National Guard in the center of the city.
"I am witnessing clashes between the Right Sector and national guards. Right Sector activists told us they were attempting to bring tents to the Maidan [so that] demonstrators could stay warm," a correspondent from Ukraine's News One reported on Saturday.
© Getty Images
Walters: 'I have been accused of being a Nazi and an anti-Semite'
Walters: 'I have been accused of being a Nazi and an anti-Semite'
The Pink Floyd star - a prominent supporter of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel since its inception 10 years ago - said the experience of seeing himself constantly labelled a Nazi and anti-Semite had scared people into silence.
"The only response to BDS is that it is anti-Semitic," Waters toldThe Independent, in his first major UK interview about his commitment to Israeli activism. "I know this because I have been accused of being a Nazi and an anti-Semite for the past 10 years.
© Issei Kato / Reuters
Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Takahama nuclear power plant.
Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Takahama nuclear power plant.
The reactor would have been the fourth to come on after the shutdown. The push by the government and utility companies came amid protests across Japan against the continued reliance on nuclear energy, prompted by failures to get the Fukushima crisis under control.
Now Kansai Electric Power says about 34 liters of radioactive water have escaped the plant's reactor No. 4. An investigation is underway.
Comment: The Japanese people have been staging protests over their government's plans to restart nuclear power plants throughout Japan and it appears their concerns are well-founded. There is little evidence that safety can be guaranteed or that the public will be kept informed.
© Ralph Orlowski / Reuters
The reinforcement of the fatwa against Rushdie coincides with the 27th anniversary of the legal decree being issued by the first Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, according to the state-run Fars News Agency.
Khomeini called for Rushdie's assassination in February 1989 on charges of blasphemy over Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses.
Comment: Nobody has the right to make a "religious decree" calling for the death of anyone else. Period. This is a big black mark on Iran which is otherwise generally civilized.
Comment: Malcolm X: Capitalism is cowardly and like a vulture, 'can only suck the blood of the helpless'