Society's ChildS


Candle

Dutch teen raped as a child chose to be legally euthanized due to 'unbearable' pain - Update: Teen was not actually euthanized

Noa Pothoven
© InstagramNoa Pothoven in hospital in 2018



Comment: As it turns out, Western media had this story wrong. Ms. Pothoven did not in fact get euthanized by a doctor. Earlier today, Politico Europe's Naomi O'Leary tweeted a thread debunking the reports.

She clarified what actually happened:
"Noa Pothoven had been severely ill with anorexia and other conditions for some time. Without telling her parents, she sought and was refused euthanasia... The family had tried many kinds of psychiatric treatment and Noa Pothoven was repeatedly hospitalised... a hospital bed was set up at home in the care of her parents. At the start of June she began refusing all fluids and food, and her parents and doctors agreed not to force feed her. A decision to move to palliative care and not to force feed at the request of the patient is not euthanasia."

A 17-year-old Dutch girl was legally allowed to kill herself using euthanasia after she was raped when younger and spent years battling depression, according to a report Tuesday.

"Love is letting go, in this case," Noa Pothoven of Arnhem wrote in an Instagram post announcing her choice to die in the living room of her home Sunday.

Pothoven - who was sexually abused at 11 and raped three years later - said she was sick of suffering "unbearable" pain.

"Maybe this comes as a surprise to some, given my posts about hospitalization, but my plan has been there for a long time and is not impulsive," she wrote.

"I will get straight to the point: within a maximum of 10 days I will die," she added. "After years of battling and fighting, I am drained. I have quit eating and drinking for a while now, and after many discussions and evaluations, it was decided to let me go because my suffering is unbearable.

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NPC

No surprise: Anti-Trump protesters in London turn violent

Trump supporter
© Reuters / Clodagh KilcoyneA Trump supporter shouts at anti-Trump demonstrators after one threw a milkshake at him
As President Donald Trump met with Prime Minister Theresa May, droves of demonstrators turned out to protest the American leader's state visit. Tensions were high and the protests spilled over into violence.

Footage captured by video news agency Ruptly showed London's Metropolitan Police scuffling with a group of anti-Trump protesters, some wearing the signature hoods and scarves of 'Antifa' activists.

It is unclear what that struggle broke out over, but a contingent of police wrestled at least two of the protesters to the ground.

Arrow Down

Gosh darn! CNN, Maddow ratings in total freefall as Russiagate fairy tale collapses

maddow don lemon
© MSNBCMSNBC personalities Rachel Maddow and Don Lemon
Ratings for the anti-Trump media have taken an absolute nosedive ever since the Mueller report dispelled their multi-year narrative that President Trump is a Kremlin agent.

According to Breitbart's John Nolte, CNN's primetime ratings suffered a 16% collapse in May - luring just 761,000 members of the resistance and captive airport audiences alike. Overall, the network's total day viewers dropped to just 559,000.

As Nolte points out, "Fox News earned three times as many primetime viewers (2.34 million) and more than twice as many total day viewers (1.34 million). What's more, when compared to this same month last year, Fox lost none of its primetime viewers and only four percent of its total day viewers."

Comment: A proper comeuppance for an unhinged media personality who has done nothing but mislead her audience for the last three years. MSNBC's Maddow should hang her head in shame, as well as all of CNN's disgraceful crew, that they ever had the nerve to label themselves journalists.


Heart - Black

Teacher mocks autistic student with 'most annoying' award

most annoying male
© Rick CastejonGary parent Rick Castejon says this award was given last month to his 11-year-old son, who has autism, at a Bailly Preparatory Academy awards lunch
A Gary father is expressing disbelief this week after his fifth-grader, who is autistic, was given a trophy dubbing him the "most annoying male" for the school year.

Rick Castejon said the award was given to his 11-year-old son at a fifth-grade awards luncheon for Bailly Preparatory Academy students last month by a special education teacher in front of students, parents and the school's principal Carlita Royal.

"We were blindsided. We just weren't expecting it," Castejon said. "As a principal or teacher, you should never let this happen to any student."

Gary Community School Corp. emergency manager Peter Morikis confirmed the incident in a statement Monday, saying he met immediately with family upon learning of the incident and that disciplinary action was taken against the personnel involved.

Handcuffs

Scot Peterson, officer who did nothing during Parkland school shooting, arrested and charged with neglecting duty

Scot Peterson
© Amy Beth BennettEx-Broward deputy Scot Peterson at a first-appearance court hearing on Wednesday, June 5 2019
When every second counted, as students were screaming and dying in their classrooms, school security officer Scot Peterson hid rather than respond. His inaction resulted in his arrest Tuesday on charges of neglecting his duty.

Peterson stood alone in the Broward County Main Jail's prisoner assembly room for his first court appearance Wednesday morning. He is charged with seven counts of child neglect with great bodily harm, three counts of culpable negligence and exposure to harm, and one count of perjury, records showed.

Broward Judge Jackie Powell set bonds totaling $102,000 with conditions that included surrendering his passport. His attorneys noted his passport was at his North Carolina home and argued Peterson should not be required to remain in jail while someone flies there to retrieve it. Powell denied the request.

The extraordinary case of a cop charged with failure to act could land Peterson in prison for up to 97 years - though some experts warn that the charges will be difficult to prove.

Red Flag

University of Michigan offers course on fake news coverage of Trump

cnn building
The University of Michigan is offering a course during the fall 2019 semester on bias and inaccurate reporting in the news media, specifically when it comes to covering President Donald Trump.

"News Media Ethics," COMM 435, will explore what the president has labeled "fake news" reporting. In the course, students will ask: "How do journalists cover the news? Do they report it honestly and truthfully? How valid are claims by critics that news media behaved unethically in their coverage of Donald Trump?"

Elise Boddi, chief administrator in the University of Michigan Communication Studies Department, confirmed to Campus Reform on Monday that, as of that moment, the course is still being offered but noted that things could always change. She added that at this time, there are no plans to cancel the course.

Eye 1

Amazon's new patent means Alexa will listen to everything you say by default

Alexa dot
© Andres Urena/Unsplash
A newly revealed patent application filed by Amazon is raising privacy concerns over an envisaged upgrade to the company's smart speaker systems. This change would mean that, by default, the devices end up listening to and recording everything you say in their presence.

Alexa, Amazon's virtual assistant system that runs on the company's Echo series of smart speakers, works by listening out for a 'wakeword' that tells the device to turn on its extended speech recognition systems in order to respond to spoken commands.

On Amazon's devices, the wakeword is 'Alexa', but similar systems control how Apple devices work ('Hey Siri') and also Google's ('Hey Google'), not to mention products from other tech companies.

In theory, Alexa-enabled devices will only record what you say directly after the wakeword, which is then uploaded to Amazon, where remote servers use speech recognition to deduce your meaning, then relay commands back to your local speaker.

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Star of David

Cruel and unusual punishment: IDF violence in Gaza leaves 3 children a month disabled for life according to WHO

gaza child amputee israel
© Ali Jadallah - Anadolu AgencyPalestinian student Mohammed Abu Hussain from Gaza, who lost his leg after being shot by an Israeli sniper during "Great March of Return" demonstrations, sits on a chair holding his crutches at the playground of his school in Gaza City, Gaza on 3 September 2018.
At least three children in the Gaza Strip are left permanently disabled every month as a result of armed conflict and Israeli violations, data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) has revealed.

The report by the WHO, released on Friday, cited data collected between March 2018 and March 2019, and stated that in the past year alone, a total of 172 Gazans were injured in such a way that they were left disabled for life, 36 of whom were children, meaning that one person is affected every other day.

Amputations make up an overwhelming proportion of permanent disabilities, with the most common cause being high-intensity gunshot wounds resulting in 121 amputations. Health agencies and organisations have warned that the number could rise if Gaza's medical services are not urgently upgraded.

Handcuffs

Circuit court rules that police can't just arrest someone for cursing at them

police car
© Pixabay
The 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday upheld a US District Court decision that refused to throw out a civil lawsuit against an Arkansas police officer who arrested a man who yelled a curse word at the officer as he conducted a traffic stop on another citizen.

What Happened

According to court documents, in 2015 Arkansas State Trooper Lagarian Cross was performing a traffic stop on a Fort Smith highway when he heard a passerby yell "f*ck you" out of the window of a moving car. The remark prompted Cross to end his traffic stop and pursue the car. After making the stop, Cross arrested Eric Roshaun Thurairajah on a charge of disorderly conduct, stating the profanity constituted "unreasonable or excessive noise."

Thurairajah spent hours in jail for the utterance, court records say, before the charge was dropped and he was released under his own recognizance.

Thurairajah, however, was not done.

Attention

Sacramento: Neighbors put out a warning after finding cats cut in half

Blue the cat
© Nancy OlsenBlue the cat that was found chopped in half.
People in a Sacramento neighborhood said they're finding cats sliced in half and decapitated.

This is happening in the Arden Arcade area and neighbors want to warn others about the problem.

Nancy Olsen lives on Laurelwood Way and said her beloved family cat was found on a nearby school's front lawn, cut in half. She's convinced this isn't a coyote or other wild animal based on how the animal was cut.

"It's really hard to wrap your head around seeing your animal chopped in half and we don't know where the other half of his body was," she said.

Olsen had been a mother to her cat named Blue for five years. Her son found Blue severed last Saturday while he was out walking.