Society's ChildS


Briefcase

Sources: Atty. charged in home invasion commits suicide

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© NBCWashington.com
Paul Mannina, the U.S. Department of Labor attorney charged in a home invasion, was found dead in a D.C. jail cell of an apparent suicide Tuesday, reported NBC4's Mark Segraves.

Mannina, 58, was arrested last week in connection with a violent home invasion at the residence of one of his coworkers.

He was "found unresponsive on the bunk in his cell by facility security staff" around 3:45 a.m. Tuesday, D.C. police said. Police said in an official release that the cause of death is under investigation.

Heart - Black

Infant dies after being raped; mother encouraged the attack and watched

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A mother is under arrest after allegedly allowing her boyfriend to rape her infant child, causing the child to die.

Jessica Lynn Howell, 25, of St. Charles County, Missouri, was arrested in connection with the death of her four-month-old daughter, Ashlynn Lilith Peters. Ashlynn died December 3, 2012.

Originally Howell was not charged as she claimed innocence in the attack, but prosecutors say text messages between Howell and her boyfriend Jordan Lafayette Prince are conclusive and damning.

Che Guevara

'People Revolution' spreads to Brazil: Thousands take to streets in anti-government protests

What started as small protests about higher bus fares has swelled into nationwide, massive anti-government demonstrations in Brazil. Last night, reports O Globo, more than 100,000 protesters filled the streets of Rio de Janeiro, while an additional 65,000 hit the streets of São Paulo. Nothing tells the story quite like this video of the streets of Rio posted by Lucio Amorim on Twitter: Reporting from São Paulo, NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro tells our Newscast unit that people on the streets are demanding that the government pay attention to them. "The cost of living here is extremely high, there's a massive rate of inflation, and so people say that they are fed up, that they want their government to do something for them," Lourdes said. One of the big issues is that Brazil has been gearing up for the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016. Lourdes says people feel as though the government has been focusing on those big, international events while allowing them to languish.

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Planetary meltdown: Stressed by the physical changes sweeping the planet, civilizations and governments, already burdened by deception, debt, inequality, and corruption could begin to crumble one by one. Change has come to planet Earth.
The New York Times says the protests are the largest and "most resonant since the nation's military dictatorship ended in 1985." What's more, the Times reports, the protests share something in common with the mass protests occurring halfway across the world in Turkey. The newspaper writes: "The demonstrations in Brazil intensified after a harsh police crackdown last week stunned many citizens. In images shared widely on social media, the police here were seen beating unarmed protesters with batons and dispersing crowds by firing rubber bullets and tear gas into their midst. "The violence has come from the government,' said Mariana Toledo, 27, a graduate student at the University of São Paulo who was among the protesters on Monday. 'Such violent acts by the police instill fear, and at the same time the need to keep protesting.'"

Stock Down

Fake shop fronts hide Northern Ireland economic woes before G8

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© Reuters/Cathal McNaughtonKevin Maguire, age 62, walks his dog past a vacant shop, with graphics pasted to the outside to make it look like working butchers shop, in the village of Belcoo, Northern Ireland June 3, 2013. The forthcoming G8 summit will be held at a nearby golf resort. Local councils in Northern Ireland have painted fake shop fronts and covered derelict buildings with huge billboards to hide the economic hardship being felt in towns and villages near the golf resort where G8 leaders will meet this month.
Local councils in Northern Ireland have painted fake shop fronts and covered derelict buildings with huge billboards to hide the economic hardship being felt in towns and villages near the golf resort where G8 leaders will meet this month.

Northern Ireland's government has spent 2 million pounds tackling dereliction over the past two years, the province's environment department said, demolishing some buildings and giving others a facelift in a bid to make areas more attractive.

Almost a quarter of so-called dereliction funds were freed up for local councilors in the county of Fermanagh in anticipation of Britain hosting the annual Group of Eight leaders summit there on June 17-18. More than 100 properties have been spruced up.

In the one-street town of Belcoo, the changes are merely cosmetic. At a former butcher's shop, stickers applied to the windows show a packed meat counter and give the impression that business is booming.

Across the street, another empty unit has been given a makeover to look like a thriving office supply shop. Locals are unimpressed.

Comment: This is the essence of psychopathy in power. They are so disconnected from reality, and their internal make-up is so fundamentally different from normal people, they can't see how insulting, cruel and useless it is.


Stormtrooper

School refuses to lift suspension for 5-year-old who they interrogated for hours over toy gun until he wet himself

cap gun
© Unknown
School officials in Calvert County, Md., will not lift the suspension they gave to a kindergartner for bringing a toy cap gun onto his school bus in May despite allegations that school officials interrogated the boy for more than two hours until he wet himself.

Dowell Elementary School in Lusby refused to expunge the suspension in a letter on Friday, which was obtained by The Washington Post. The boy, who was not identified, was suspended on May 29 for 10 days. The punishment was scaled down to three days after a disciplinary hearing was held.

The letter said the suspension would not be removed because the boy "did bring a cap gun in his book bag" and that some kids were frightened, not knowing whether the gun was real or fake.

The boy was accused of carrying a cowboy-style cap gun in his backpack onto the school bus. He told his mother he did it because he wanted to show it to a friend, who had brought a water gun the day before.

Pistol

Toddlers with guns kill more Americans than terrorists

children with gun
© Unknown
Americans hate terrorists and love our kids, right? So you might be shocked to know that preschoolers with guns have taken more lives so far this year than the single U.S. terrorist attack, which claimed four lives in Boston.

This is admittedly tongue-in-cheek, but one has to wonder if the NSA's PRISM program would have saved more lives had it been monitoring toddlers - or gun owners - rather than suspected terrorists.

11 Deaths in Five Months Where Shooter Was 3 to 6 Years Old

Listed below are the 11 gun fatalities I found where a preschooler pulled the trigger (from Jan. 1 to June 9, 2013). Starting with a list of five toddler shooting deaths The Jewish Daily Forward published in early May, I unearthed six additional cases. This tragic, unthinkable event has happened every month, like clock-work.

Heart - Black

Two women sue Live Oak County Jail, Texas, claiming guards ran a 'rape camp'

Jail bars
© Unknown
Two women in Texas claim the Live Oak County Jail employed guards who ran a "rape camp" out of the facility and "repeatedly raped and humiliated female inmates."

The suit filed in federal court names Live Oak County and former jailers Vincent Aguilar, Israel Charles Jr. and Jaime Smith. The three guards - all employed by the Live Oak County Sheriff's Office - were arrested and charged with sexual assault in August 2010.

The two women, who were identified only as JAS and JMN, claim that, "beginning sometime in 2007 to at least August of 2010 the Live Oak County Sheriff's office ran a 'rape camp' known as the Live Oak County Jail."

Heart - Black

Chicago hospital accused of cutting throats for $160,000 Medicare payouts

Sacred Heart Hospital in Chicago.
© Brian Jackson/Chicago Sun-Times/AP PhotoSacred Heart Hospital in Chicago.
A surgeon at Chicago's Sacred Heart Hospital cut a hole in Earl Nattee's throat on Jan. 3, the day before he died. It's not clear why.

The medical file contained no explanation of the need for the procedure, called a tracheotomy, according to a state and federal inspection report that quotes Sacred Heart's chief nursing officer as saying it happened "out of the blue." Tracheotomies are typically used to open an air passage directly to the windpipe for patients who can't breathe otherwise.

Now, amid a federal investigation into allegations of unneeded tracheotomies at the hospital, Nattee's daughter, Antoinette Hayes, wonders whether her father was a pawn in what an FBI agent called a scheme to defraud Medicare and Medicaid.

"My daddy said, 'They're killing me,'" Hayes recalled, in reference to the care he received at the hospital.

Bomb

GEAB N°76 - Alert for the second half of 2013 - Global systemic crisis II: second devastating explosion/social outburst on a worldwide scale

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© unknown
The 2008 shock was certainly violent, but the reactions of the system, countries and central banks with their bailouts on an unprecedented scale, managed to hide the worst consequences: downgrading of the West in general and the United States in particular, a forced cleanup of the economy, a heavy fall from an artificial standard of living, mass unemployment, the beginning of social unrest... have been able to be partly neglected in favour of recovery hopes kept alive by irresponsible policies diverting liquidity to the banking systems and stock exchanges. Sadly, whilst the world drugged itself, global issues weren't addressed... five lost years: the building is even less strong than before the crisis; the US "solution" orchestrated by the Fed, that everyone else left it to manage to take the time to dress their own wounds, has been to put out with gasoline the fire which they themselves lit. It's not surprising then that it is still the US, pillar of the world before, refusing to fall in line, with their faithful Japanese and British floats, which is once again igniting the world situation. And this time, we shouldn't rely on bankrupt countries to save the situation: they are on their knees following the first shock in 2008. Therefore, it's actually a second world crisis which is looming, once again caused by the United States. Ultimately this five-year period will have been nothing other than taking a step back to enter into an even bigger crisis, which we have called "the crisis squared".

Layout of the full article:
1. A situation which is now out of control
2. A second US crisis
3. The impacts of the second shock
4. Different players' strategies
5. Failure of international institutions
6. Urgent recommendations

This public announcement contains sections 1 and 2

A situation which is now out of control

The illusions which have still blinded the last remaining optimists are in the process of dissipating. In previous GEAB issues we have already laid out the world economy's grim picture. Since then the situation has got worse. The Chinese economy confirms its slowdown (1) as well as Australia (2), emerging countries' currencies are disconnecting (3), bond interest rates are rising, UK salaries are continuing to fall (4), riots are affecting Turkey and even peaceful Sweden (5), the Eurozone is still in recession (6), the news filtering out of the United States is no longer cheerful (7)...

Ambulance

Three injured in Postville, Iowa plant explosion - Third such explosion in U.S. in 4 days

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Three people were injured, one critically, in an overnight explosion at a Postville manufacturing plant, officials said.Rescue crews responded to the Norplex-Micarta laminate manufacturing plant around 1:20 a.m. after an explosion was reported.

Firefighters found blue smoke rolling out of one side of the building with lighter black smoke on the roof.

One person was critically injured in the blast and taken by helicopter to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics' Burn Unit in Iowa City. Another person with minor injuries was taken by ambulance to a local hospital, treated and released. A third person refused treatment at the scene, officials said.

The explosion activated the plant's sprinklers which helped suppress the fire and keep it from spreading. Firefighters entered the building to put out smaller fires and shut down gas valves, boilers and valves that transfer flammable materials used in the plant's manufacturing process, officials said.

Comment: See also:

Fire started by an explosion causes multiple injuries at Louisiana chemical plant

Another chemical plant explosion in Louisiana!