Society's ChildS


Bad Guys

Stepmother takes deal in child torture case

Todd Richmond
ABCNews.go.com
Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:38 UTC
A Wisconsin woman accused of torturing and starving her teenage stepdaughter pleaded no contest to child abuse-related charges Monday just before her trial was set to begin.

The 43-year-old woman entered the plea to first-degree recklessly endangering safety and causing mental harm to a child. A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt but is treated as such for sentencing purposes.

Both charges are felonies that carry a combined maximum penalty of 25 years in prison and $50,000 in fines.

Prosecutors agreed to drop four other felony counts in exchange, including false imprisonment, child neglect, child abuse and failing to prevent the sexual assault of child.
Read More...
Heart - Black

Four women sought in sexual assault of Canadian man

Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story
Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:29 UTC
Image
© Shutterstock
Police in Toronto are on the hunt for four women who are suspects in the sexual assault of a 19-year-old man, The National Post reported Monday.

The man reportedly met the four women at a nightclub on Sunday, March 31, and was offered a ride home by them. Police said they left the club in a silver Honda SUV, but they did not make it back to the victim's home.
Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Grandmother, grandson charged in killing of grandfather

Naomi Nix and Carlos Sadovi
Chicago Tribune
Sun, 07 Apr 2013 10:05 UTC
Image
A 64-year-old woman has been charged along with her grandson in the slaying of her 72-year-old husband, who was killed on his way to dialysis treatment, police said.

The woman and her grandson then used the slain man's money to buy a car, home furnishings, tattoos, gym shoes and other items, prosecutors said.

Janet Strickland, of the 400 block of East 95th Street, was charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of armed robbery with a firearm in connection to the March 2 homicide of her husband William Strickland.

Bail was set at $500,000 for Janet Strickland yesterday.

Prosecutors alleged Janet Strickland and her grandson, also named William Strickland, discussed killing her husband on multiple occasions.
Read More...
Health

Man hit, killed by subway train at 72nd street in New York


CBS New York
Sat, 06 Apr 2013 09:56 UTC
Image
© CBS 2A man was struck and killed by a subway train at the 72nd Street-Central Park West stop on Saturday morning.
A man was struck and killed by a subway train early Saturday at the 72nd Street and Central Park West station.

As CBS 2's Amy Dardashtian reported, police said John Williams, 58, had climbed down onto the tracks to retrieve something when he was struck by the southbound D train around 6:40 a.m.

Police did not know Saturday afternoon what the item was.

There was utter chaos following the accident, as first responders rushed to get people out to the station, and to try to save the man.
Read More...
Ambulance

Florida boy, 7, dies after attack by bulldogs


Fox News
Mon, 08 Apr 2013 09:52 UTC
Image
Tyler Jett
A 7-year-old boy has died a week after he was attacked by two bulldogs while riding his bicycle after school.

Bay County Sheriff's Office officials told the News Herald of Panama City that Tyler Jett was pronounced dead Sunday afternoon at a Pensacola hospital. He suffered a punctured carotid artery.
Read More...
Info

What makes the French so unhappy?

Claudia Senik
Financial Times
Thu, 04 Apr 2013 18:56 UTC
Image
Why are the French so miserable? We are proud of our culture and our economy has fared better than most through the economic crisis. Yet the still-young discipline of happiness research confirms there seems to be something about life in France that makes people more anxious and less cheery than those in other places.

Whenever I look at data on happiness levels that cover several countries, I am always struck by how much contentment differs between countries. The French malaise comes through when you ask people to rate their sense of well-being on a scale from nought to 10. This type of survey, similar to the technique with which doctors ask patients to rate their pain, is well tried and tested by researchers.

You can spot it again when French subjects are asked about emotions that they felt yesterday. They feel a lot of negative emotions (anger, worry, stress) and less positive sentiment (enjoyment, happiness). And surveys going back as far as 2002 show a deep pessimism in the French. Long before the current crisis, they agreed more often than other Europeans that "for most people in the country, life is getting worse", or that "it is hard to have hope for the future of the world". If that were not enough, my countrymen also consume staggering volumes of psychoactive drugs.

When I started working in this field, I thought that by accounting for the economic and political circumstances of each country, it would be possible to explain away these differences. After all, happiness researchers have shown how unemployment, illness and poverty make people sadder, and France does have a longstanding problem with unemployment in certain groups.
Read More...
Bad Guys

Woman who found stolen BMA Renoir painting at flea market revealed

Alex DeMetrick
CBS Baltimore
Fri, 05 Apr 2013 18:50 UTC
Image
New twists in an ongoing mystery over who owns a valuable painting that disappeared from the Baltimore Museum of Art nearly 60 years ago.

Alex DeMetrick reports - the woman who says she bought it at a flea market for $7 is not who she originally claimed to be.

Renoir painted a landscape on the banks of the Seine in 1879. In the 1920s, Baltimore collector Sadie Mae bought it, eventually displaying it at the Baltimore Museum of Art. It later vanished.

Read More...
Question

School faces new questions in Colorado massacre

Dan Elliott
wsoctv.com
Fri, 05 Apr 2013 18:41 UTC
Image
© AP Photo/The Denver Post, RJ SangostiIn this March 12, 2013 file photo, James Holmes, left, and defense attorney Tamara Brady appear in district court in Centennial, Colo. for his arraignment.
New questions confronted the University of Colorado, Denver on Friday amid disclosures that a psychiatrist who treated theater shooting suspect James Holmes had warned campus police a month before the deadly assault that Holmes was dangerous and had homicidal thoughts.

Court documents made public Thursday revealed Dr. Lynne Fenton also told a campus police officer in June that the shooting suspect had threatened and intimidated her.

Fenton's blunt warning came more than a month before the July 20 attack at a movie theater that killed 12 and injured 70. Holmes had been a student in the university's Ph.D. neuroscience program but withdrew about six weeks before the shootings after failing a key examination.

Campus police officer Lynn Whitten told investigators after the shooting that Fenton had contacted her. Whitten said Fenton was following her legal requirement to report threats to authorities, according one of the documents, a search warrant affidavit.
Read More...
TV

United captain diverts flight, family escorted from plane by cops and met by FBI after complaining about in-flight film

Mike Krumboltz
Yahoo News
Fri, 05 Apr 2013 15:05 UTC
united airlines
© Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
A family traveling from Denver to Baltimore on United claims that their flight was diverted by the captain because the parents requested that the in-flight movie, "Alex Cross," be turned off.

The parents, thus far unnamed, wrote a letter to The Atlantic about the incident. According to the letter, after the flight took off, the flight crew lowered the TV screens and began playing the PG-13-rated cop thriller starring Tyler Perry.

The parents, whose children are 4 and 8, believed the film to be too violent for their kids. "Alarmed by the opening scenes, we asked two flight attendants if they could turn off the monitor; both claimed it was not possible" and would be a nuisance to the people behind them.
Read More...
Rose

Pastor Rick Warren's son has committed suicide


LosAngeles.CBSlocal.com
Sat, 06 Apr 2013 09:10 UTC
Pastor Rick and Kay Warren's youngest son, Matthew, has committed suicide, Saddleback Valley Community Church announced Saturday.


    • The evangelical megachurch announced the death of the 27-year-old in a statement. He died Friday night.
    Read More...