Society's ChildS


Eye 1

Friar accused of abuse in 2 states kills himself

Image
A Franciscan friar accused of sexually abusing students at Catholic high schools in Ohio and Pennsylvania killed himself at a western Pennsylvania monastery, police said Saturday.

Brother Stephen Baker, 62, was found dead of a self-inflicted knife wound at the St. Bernardine Monastery in Hollidaysburg on Saturday morning, Blair Township Police Chief Roger White said. He declined to say whether a note was found.

Baker was named in legal settlements last week involving 11 men who alleged that he sexually abused them at a Catholic high school in northeast Ohio three decades ago. The undisclosed financial settlements announced Jan. 16 involved his contact with students at John F. Kennedy High School in Warren, Ohio from 1986-90.

The Youngstown diocese previously said it was unaware of the allegations until nearly 20 years after the alleged abuse.

Network

Anonymous hackers take over U.S sentencing commission website

U.S Sentencing Commission
© AP PhotoThis screen shot shows the website of the U.S. Sentencing Commission after it was hijacked by the hacker-activist group Anonymous, early Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013, to avenge the death of Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who committed suicide. The website of the commission, an independent agency of the judicial branch, was replaced with a message warning that when Swartz killed himself two weeks ago "a line was crossed."
.The hacker-activist group Anonymous says it hijacked the website of the U.S. Sentencing Commission to avenge the death of Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who committed suicide.

The website of the commission, an independent agency of the judicial branch, was taken over early Saturday and replaced with a message warning that when Swartz killed himself two weeks ago "a line was crossed." The hackers say they've infiltrated several government computer systems and copied secret information that they now threaten to make public. Family and friends of Swartz, who helped create Reddit and RSS, say he killed himself after he was hounded by federal prosecutors. Officials say he helped post millions of court documents for free online and that he illegally downloaded millions of academic articles from an online clearinghouse.

Question

Mystery sickness takes over Oklahoma school, causes weird symptoms

Kitchen
© WhoForted?
Much like the mysterious illness that managed to shut down an entire Wal-Mart a few weeks ago, several faculty members from a school in Shawnee, Oklahoma have started to experience strange symptoms while in the building, but reasonable explanations for the sickness can't seem to be found.

"I think it raises alarms when you have more than one experiencing problems," Shawnee Superintendent Dr. Marc Moore told Oklahoma News 9.

The issues came to a head at a January 11 meeting where teachers all began to complain of a "different kind" of headache, dizziness, and a "fogginess" clouding their minds, leaving them a tired mess when they get home from work.

Pistol

Wisconsin sheriff says 911 no longer best option, urges residents to learn to use guns

Image
A sheriff who released a radio ad urging Milwaukee-area residents to learn to handle firearms so they can defend themselves while waiting for police said Friday that law enforcement cutbacks have changed the way police can respond to crime.

In the 30-second commercial, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr. says personal safety is no longer a spectator sport.

"I need you in the game," he says.

"With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option," he adds. "You can beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back. ... Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there."

The ad has generated sharp criticism from other area officials and anti-violence advocates. The president of the Milwaukee Deputy Sheriffs' Association, Roy Felber, said it sounds like a call to vigilantism.

Eye 2

Kentucky neo-Nazis charged in gruesome murder, dismemberment

Image
© Shutterstock
The accused killers are being held without bail for kidnapping, murder and abuse of a corpse among other charges.

The 25-point manifesto of the National Socialist Movement (NSM) makes several hyperbolic "demands," such as "all non-Whites currently residing in America be required to leave the nation forthwith and return to their land of origin: peacefully or by force.''

But it appears that two Kentucky members of the neo-Nazi group and an accomplice took at least one of the over-the-top mission statements deadly serious.

Point 17 says, "We demand the ruthless prosecution of those whose activities are injurious to the common interest. Murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers, usurers, profiteers, race traitors, etc. must be severely punished, whatever creed or race."

On Jan. 9, according to the authorities, the men lured a white, 19-year-old alleged small-time drug dealer into the back seat of their car, choked him, beat him with fists and a metal pipe, dragged him out of the car, slit his throat, stabbed him in the chest, rolled his body down a hill and left him dead in the bushes, covered in brambles, in a field in Boone County, Ky., essentially a suburb of nearby Cincinnati.

Extinguisher

Bangladesh garment factory fire kills six workers

Image
© APBangladeshi firefighters and volunteers work to douse a fire at a two-storied garment factory in Dhaka, which killed at least six workers. The blaze comes two months after a deadly fire killed 112 in Dhaka.
At least six female workers were killed after a blaze swept through a small garment factory in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, police and fire officials said.

The latest fire comes two months after the country's deadliest garment factory blaze that killed 111 workers and put the spotlight on the industry's appalling safety and labour issues.

Fire officials said the workers, who were paid as little as $35 a month at the plant in Dhaka's Mohammadpur suburb, which employed some 300 people, died during a stampede and from suffocation after the fire broke out during a lunch break.

"We have the dead bodies of six workers in two hospitals. Most died in a stampede as they rushed to escape the fire," said Bangladesh fire brigade operations director Mahbubur Rahman.

Firefighters brought the inferno under control in about two hours and found no bodies on the charred factory floor, he said, adding that an investigation was underway to determine the cause of the fire.

House

Andre Barbosa squats legally in $2.5 million Florida estate

Image
One 23-year-old man seems very successful for his age, as he lives in a $2.5 million estate in Boca Raton, Florida.

But it's all a lie. Andre Barbosa is a squatter, who took residence at 580 Golden Harbour Drive in July. The twist is that he can't be kicked out of the house, as it is legal for him to live there, without owning or even renting it.

Barbosa, a Brazilian national, cannot be arrested because no one witnessed him breaking into the 7,522 square foot, five bedroom, six bathroom, waterfront home.

The bank who foreclosed the home, Bank of America, said there is a "certain legal process" they are required to follow by law and that they are "work[ing] diligently to resolve the matter."

Bizarro Earth

Jennifer Bigham, deemed insane for killing baby, is released from jail

Image
Jennifer Bigham was deemed insane after she drowned her 3-year-old daughter in a bathtub. Now, three years later, she is able to walk free from jail after doctors determined she had regained her sanity.

Bigham, of Modesto, California, admitted to killing her daughter in 2010, but she was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

She was released from jail Tuesday after doctors declared her sane.

Sheriff

Sheriffs push back on gun laws

Image
© David Kasnic for The Wall Street JournalDenny Peyman is one of a group of sheriffs who say they won't enforce gun laws they deem unconstitutional.
A collection of sheriffs across the country have sent Congress and the Obama administration a message: If we don't like your gun laws, we aren't going to help enforce them.

As of Thursday, 90 sheriffs, many from rural counties, had pledged not to enforce laws they deem unconstitutional, according to a list compiled by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, a Texas-based group that has "vowed to uphold and defend the Constitution against Obama's unlawful gun control measures."

A White House spokesman declined to comment.

The sheriffs began their campaign of letters and media interviews earlier this month, shortly after President Barack Obama signed 23 executive orders addressing gun violence, and outlined a broad framework of new gun-control measures for Congress to consider.

Cult

Boy Scouts threaten to kick out troop for supporting gay members

Image
© Prayitno, Flickr
The Boy Scouts council in charge of overseeing scout programs in the Washington, DC-area is threatening to kick out a Maryland troop for posting a statement on its website declaring it won't discriminate against gay scouts. The troop has to decide by tomorrow whether to remove the statement.

In September, the families of Pack 442, which is based in Cloverly, Maryland (a small town less than 20 miles from the nation's capital), anonymously voted and overwhelmingly approved to adopt a non-discrimination statement. According to Theresa Phillips, committee chair of Pack 442, the pack wanted Boy Scouts of America to know "we will not stand for the discrimination of homosexual minors or adults whatsoever." Here's the sentence causing the controversy:

Image