Society's ChildS


Stormtrooper

Restrained Man Pepper-Sprayed To Death By Florida Cops


Fox News
Wed, 28 Dec 2011 03:03 UTC
No doubt you've heard the adage: a picture is worth a thousand words. A picture of 62-year-old Nick Christie could be worth thousands of dollars when a jury sees it.

The photo shows the Ohio man restrained inside the Lee County Jail with his body covered in pepper spray.

"This photo is a picture of a man who is strapped to a chair naked inside a jail for hours with a hood over his face. That evokes thoughts of being tortured," says Cleveland-based lawyer Nick DiCello who represents the Christie family.

The photo, which was obtained by FOX 13's investigative unit, was taken in the final hours of Christie's life.

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House

UK taxpayers shoulder subsidised stagnation in housing sector

Emma Rowley
The Telegraph
Wed, 28 Dec 2011 01:55 UTC
Britain's housebuilders are set for "subsidised stagnation" as the Government has failed to secure necessary action in exchange for supporting the sector, a think tank warned.
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© PAState intervention in the sector has so far blocked the “creative destruction” which would have released land, benefiting new entrants, the think tank said.

As with the banks, the state has backed developers without getting enough in return for its help, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) argued in a new report.

"The Government's new Housing Strategy does not make sufficient demands of the housebuilders," said Nick Pearce, its director. "Instead, it offers them public land, money and guarantees without a serious quid pro quo."

Companies have been able to prioritise trading land over building homes and, without change, housebuilding risks another "lost decade", even as the UK faces a housing crisis, the think tank claimed.
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Attention

Egyptian Court Bans Virginity Tests on Female Detainees


The Washington Post
Tue, 27 Dec 2011 09:00 UTC
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© The Associated Press/Ahmed AliAn Egyptian court has ordered the country's military rulers to stop the use of "virginity tests" on female detainees, a practice that has caused an uproar among activists and rights. Samira Ibrahim, 25, filed a lawsuit after being subjected to a forced 'test."
A court on Tuesday banned virginity tests on female detainees in Egypt's military-controlled prisons, buoying human rights groups, who said the civilian court's ruling was binding on the country's military leaders.

The ban came in response to a lawsuit filed by market manager Samira Ibrahim, one of seven women who said they were subjected to humiliating virginity checks after being detained by the military at a March sit-in.

At the time, the ruling generals denied that soldiers had conducted the tests and offered no apologies. A general was later quoted as saying that tests had been carried out but only to protect soldiers from accusations of rape. Last week, the military announced investigations of the incidents.

The generals' management of the country's political transition has drawn intense criticism from activists, but the reports of mistreatment of women at the hands of the military have incensed a broad swath of Egyptians. In recent crackdowns on protesters, soldiers were filmed dragging unarmed women by their hair, beating them, and in at least one case stripping off a woman's clothing and exposing her bra.
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Laptop

US: SOPA Is the End of Us, Say Bloggers

Tim Mak
Politico
Tue, 27 Dec 2011 20:32 UTC
hands at keyboard
© ReutersBloggers argue their very existence could be wiped out if the anti-piracy bill is passed.
The conservative and liberal blogospheres are unifying behind opposition to Congress's Stop Online Piracy Act, with right-leaning bloggers aruging their very existence could be wiped out if the anti-piracy bill passes.

"If either the U.S. Senate's Protect IP Act (PIPA) & the U.S. House's Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) become law, political blogs such as Red Mass Group [conservative] & Blue Mass Group [liberal] will cease to exist," wrote a blogger at Red Mass Group.

Some have asserted that the controversial measures would criminalize pages and blogs that link to foreign websites dedicated to online piracy. In particular, this has concerned search engines like Google, which could face massive liability if some form of the bill passes, some say.

"Of course, restrictions of results provided by Internet search engines amount to just that: prior restraint of their free expression of future results. Google and others, under SOPA, are told what they can or can't publish before they publish it. Kill. The. Bill," conservative blogger Neil Stevens argued at RedState.

Liberals had their own spin on it, cheering on the fact that corporate support for SOPA was starting to subside.
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No Entry

US: Sears to Close 100 to 120 Kmart, Sears Stores

Anne D'innocenzio and Michelle Chapman
The Associated Press
Tue, 27 Dec 2011 20:03 UTC
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© The Associated Press/Charles Rex ArbogastIn this Feb. 28, 2008 file photo, a banner is seen on the exterior of the Sears department store in downtown Chicago.
Sears Holdings Corp. plans to close between 100 and 120 Sears and Kmart stores after poor sales during the holidays, the most crucial time of year for retailers.

The closings are the latest and most visible in a long series of moves to try to fix a retailer that has struggled with falling sales and shabby stores.

In an internal memo Tuesday to employees, CEO and President Lou D'Ambrosio said that the retailer had not "generated the results we were seeking during the holiday."

Sears Holdings Corp. said it has yet to determine which stores will close but said it will post on http://www.searsmedia.com when a final list is compiled. Sears would not discuss how many, if any, jobs would be cut.

The company has more than 4,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada. Its stock dropped $8.67, or 18.9 percent, to $37.18 in morning trading. The shares dipped to their lowest point in more than three years at $36.51 during the first few minutes of trading.

The company's revenue at stores open at least a year fell 5.2 percent to date for the quarter at both Sears and Kmart, the company said Tuesday. That includes the critical holiday shopping period.
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Family

Best of the Web: Half of America In Poverty? The Facts Say It's True

Paul Buchheit
Information Clearing House
Tue, 27 Dec 2011 19:06 UTC
poverty in us
© n/a
Recent reports suggest that almost 50% of Americans are in poverty or at a "low income" level. The claim is based on a new supplemental measure by the Census Bureau that includes health care, transportation, and other essential living expenses in the poverty calculation.

The concept of "low income" is controversial. It has been defined as earnings between 100 and 199 percent of the poverty level, a claim which, if true, would place every American family making $50,000 or less at a near-poverty level.

Conservative organizations believe the whole 'poverty' issue is overblown. The Cato Institute blames LBJ and Obama for reversing a declining poverty rate. Forbes blames the calculations. The Heritage Foundation argues, "The average poor person, as defined by the government, has a living standard far higher than the public imagines...In the kitchen, the household had a refrigerator, an oven and stove, and a microwave." The case for a growing "consumption equality" is alternately defended and denied.

With emotions running high on both sides, we need to take a balanced look at the available data to determine how well the highest-earning family of the poorest 50% -- a family with a $50,000 income -- can survive. (The maximum individual income for the poorest 50% is about $30,000.)
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Boat

Iran threatens to close key Gulf oil route over nuclear sanctions


Reuters
Tue, 27 Dec 2011 15:45 UTC
Image
© MSNBC/Bing
Tehran - Iran threatened on Tuesday to stop the flow of oil shipments through the crucial Strait of Hormuz if foreign sanctions were imposed on its crude exports over its nuclear ambitions.

The move could trigger military conflict with economies dependent on Gulf oil. The threat alone sent oil prices rising.

Western tensions with Iran have increased since a Nov. 8 report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog saying Tehran appears to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be pursuing research to that end. Iran strongly denies this and says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Iran has defiantly expanded nuclear activity despite four rounds of U.N. sanctions meted out since 2006 over its refusal to suspend sensitive uranium enrichment and open up to United Nations nuclear inspectors and investigators.

Many diplomats and analysts believe only sanctions targeting Iran's lifeblood oil sector might be painful enough to make it change course, but Russia and China - big trade partners of Tehran - have blocked such a U.N. move.
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Eye 1

Police: Neighbor chopped up US girl with hacksaw

Tom Lobianco
Associated Press
Tue, 27 Dec 2011 12:00 UTC
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© AP/Allen County Sheriff's DepartmentAn undated Allen County Sheriff's Department photo shows Mike Plumadore. Authorities said Monday night, Dec. 26, 2011
Fort Wayne, Indiana - A babysitter and trusted neighbor has confessed that he bludgeoned a 9-year-old Indiana girl to death with a brick then dismembered her, hiding her head, hands and feet at his home and dumping the rest of her remains nearby, police said Tuesday.

Allen County sheriff's investigators said in an affidavit that 39-year-old Michael Plumadore admits he killed Aliahna Lemmon on Thursday.

According to the affidavit, Plumadore told police that after beating Aliahna to death, he stuffed her body into trash bags and hid her in the freezer at his home in a rundown trailer park in Fort Wayne. He said he later chopped up her body and stuffed her remains into freezer bags.

Police said Plumadore told them he had hidden Aliahna's head, feet and hands at his trailer and discarded her other remains at a nearby business. Police obtained a warrant to search his trailer on Monday and found the body parts.

The affidavit does not provide details about why Plumadore killed the child.
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People

US: Woman's Face Slashed, Man Beaten and Robbed of Air Jordans


Associated Press/NBC 5
Tue, 27 Dec 2011 15:59 UTC
Image
© Unknown
The limited edition shoes sell for $180

A 19-year-old Houston-area man says he was beaten and a friend was slashed in the face as a group of men robbed him of his new pair of expensive Air Jordan shoes.

Efrain Espinoza says the men first tried to steal his cell phone, followed him from a party Monday to his home near Pearland and then swiped the $180 shoes during a fight.

A 19-year-old woman with him required treatment for a stab wound to her face.

"She was stabbed from the cheek to the chin. They did stitches inside and outside," the victim's cousin Virginia Costilla told KPRC in Houston.
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People

French Breast Implants Sold Under New Name to Dutch

Rob Quinn
Newser
Tue, 27 Dec 2011 06:52 UTC
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© Associated Press/Michel EulerA plastic surgeon holds silicone gel breast implants made by French company Poly Implant Prothese that he removed from a patient because of concerns that they are unsafe.
Lawyer says company's founder ready to face courts

The potentially dangerous breast implants made by a French company accused of using cheap industrial-grade silicon were sold in at least one other country under a different name, Reuters has found. Implants made by Poly Implant Protheses were rebranded by a Dutch company that sold them to close to 1,000 women. Dutch health authorities have advised the women involved to consult with their physicians.

An Interpol arrest warrant has been issued for the company's founder, Jean-Claude Mas . His lawyer says the 72-year-old is in France and is ready to respond to any court summons, despite having recently had surgery. The lawyer denied reports that Mas is a former butcher, saying his client worked as a medical sales representative for Bristol Myers before founding PIP in 1991.
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