Society's ChildS


Handcuffs

Men plead guilty to posing as teenage girls online to collect thousands of pornographic videos of underage boys

MICHAEL GORDON
Charlotte Observer
Tue, 05 Sep 2017 17:19 UTC
handcuffed
© Rick Nease/Detroit Free Press
Feeding the sexual fantasies of adolescent boys, adult men posed as teenage girls to collect thousands of pornographic videos from online victims in the United States and other countries, a federal investigation says.

Now, three members of the ring appear headed to prison.

Dane William Anderson, Mark Christopher Klein and Samuel Heineman were part of a ring of sex predators who operated between 2007 and 2014, court documents say. All have pleaded guilty to pornography or child-exploitation charges. They are scheduled to be sentenced later this year in Asheville federal court.

Before their arrests, several of the defendants helped produce a vast online archive of sexually explicit tapes involving hundreds of unsuspecting young men, according to prosecutors and an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security.
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Stop

About time: French luxury fashion giants join forces to end practice of using ultra-thin models

Rachel Hosie
Independent
Wed, 06 Sep 2017 17:11 UTC
skinny fashion models
They've also banned the use of models under the age of 16

Two luxury French fashion powerhouses have joined forces to stop using ultra-thin models in catwalk shows and photoshoots.

In what is widely being considered a step in the right direction, LVMH and Kering, who between them own Gucci, Saint Laurent, Vuitton et Dior, will stop using size zero (UK size four) models.

They have unveiled a charter "to ensure the wellbeing of models" which will also ban the use of girls under the age of 16 for photoshoots or fashion shows where they'd be representing adults.

On the eve of the start of New York Fashion Week, it was announced that these new measures were being taken to look after models.

However, the companies are also addressing criticism they've faced that the fashion industry encourages anorexia and eating disorders.
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Target

Lawmakers targeting sex trafficking hub Backpage.com puts Silicon Valley on edge - New laws could threaten online freedoms

Evan Halper
LA Times
Thu, 31 Aug 2017 17:07 UTC
backpage execs
© Cliff Owen / Associated PressFrom left, Backpage.com Chief Executive Carl Ferrer, former owner James Larkin, Chief Operating Officer Andrew Padilla and former owner Michael Lacey
After a sustained assault from lawmakers, investigators and victims groups, the website Backpage.com agreed early this year to shut down its lucrative adult page, which had become a well-known sex-trafficking hub.

It wasn't long before the company was back in the headlines.

The adult section was gone, but the sex traffic was not. In May, authorities in Stockton charged 23 people with involvement in a trafficking ring that was using another corner of Backpage to market sex with girls as young as 14. A Chicago teenager allegedly trafficked on Backpage had her throat slit in June.

The resilience of this platform - host to an estimated 70% of online sex trafficking at its peak - is a long-running public relations mess for the tech industry. Internet freedom laws held sacred in Silicon Valley have helped shield Backpage from prosecution and lawsuits by victims of gruesome sex trafficking.
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Family

Tunisia pressing ahead to reform laws on marriage and inheritance despite widespread opposition

Simon Speakman Cordall and Mona Mahmood
The Guardian
Mon, 04 Sep 2017 10:09 UTC
Tunisia president Essebsi marriage reform
© Mohamed Messara/EPATunisia’s president Beji Caid Essebsi has said: ‘The state is obliged to achieve full equality between women and men and to ensure equal opportunities for all responsibilities’.
Against strong opposition, Tunisia is pushing ahead with laws that will allow women to marry outside the Muslim faith and grant them equal inheritance rights

Tunisia is pressing ahead with ambitious proposals to reform the country's laws on marriage and inheritance, despite widespread resistance from inside and outside the predominately Muslim country.

Last month, president Beji Caid Essebsi announced his intention to allow women to marry outside the Islamic faith, and to give them equal rights under the country's inheritance laws.

Currently, a Muslim woman is not allowed to marry a non-Muslim. Men are allowed to marry women of any faith who don't have to convert. Under Islamic law, men typically receive double the inheritance of any woman.

Citing the country's 2014 constitution, considered one of the most progressive in the region, the president said: "The state is obliged to achieve full equality between women and men and to ensure equal opportunities for all responsibilities."
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Jet1

F-16 Fighting Falcon based out of 162nd Wing crashed in southeast Arizona, fate of pilot 'unknown'


RT
Wed, 06 Sep 2017 02:32 UTC
F-16 fighting falcon
© U.S. Air Force
The Arizona Air National Guard has confirmed an F-16 based out of the 162nd Wing crashed in southeast Arizona. However, officials said they could not confirm the status of the pilot.

An F-16 Fighting Falcon crashed approximately 20 miles northwest of Safford at 3:00pm on Tuesday, according to a Guard news release.

"The Air Force has assembled an interim safety board to investigate the incident and additional details will be provided as soon as they become available," the 162nd Wing said in a statement Tuesday.

Comment: There appears to be a trend with US fighter jets crashing over the past few years:

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Bad Guys

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel tells "Dreamer" students that public schools are a "Trump-Free" zone

Jessica Chasmar
Washington Times
Tue, 05 Sep 2017 16:19 UTC
Rahm Emanuel
© Rich Hein/Sun Times via APChicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, accompanied by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson speaks at a news conference Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017 in Chicago.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday assured incoming high schoolers that they need not to worry about President Trump ending the "Dreamers" program, saying Chicago Public Schools are a "Trump-free" sanctuary for young illegal immigrants.

"To all the Dreamers that are here in this room and in the city of Chicago: You are welcome in the city of Chicago. This is your home. And you have nothing to worry about," Mr. Emanuel told a group of freshman on the first day of classes at Solorio Academy High School, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

"Chicago, our schools, our neighborhoods, our city, as it relates to what President Trump said, will be a Trump-free zone. You have nothing to worry about," Mr. Emanuel said. "And I want you to know this, and I want your families to know this. And rest assured, I want you to come to school ... and pursue your dreams."
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Attention

Democratic-led states threaten lawsuits after Trump gives Congress six months to legalize DACA, or he will "revisit this issue!"


RT
Wed, 06 Sep 2017 04:10 UTC
DACA, Dreamer program
© Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
As President Donald Trump vows to "revisit the issue" of granting legal status to "dreamer" immigrants if Congress doesn't codify DACA in the next six months, multiple Democratic-led states are threatening lawsuits.

On Tuesday, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on Tuesday. Trump then tweeted that Congress has six months to legalize DACA, otherwise he will "revisit this issue!"

Congress will have six months to pass a law that would regulate the status of people brought into the US illegally as children. Under the program, some 800,000 of them were granted temporary protection from deportation by President Barack Obama's executive action in 2012.
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Water

Notorious Nestlé under fire yet again: Lawsuit charges bottled 'spring water' is just plain groundwater

Claire S. Bernish
The Mind Unleashed
Tue, 05 Sep 2017 00:00 UTC
Nestle poland spring
Beyond the already effrontery contention Nestlé fills its spring water bottles with basic groundwater, the court documents argue that groundwater draws from sources abutting waste and garbage dump sites.
Nestlé, the company notorious across North America for questionable business ethics, has come under fire yet again over bottled water - this time, as the subject of a class action lawsuit stating the mineral water its Poland Spring brand claims on the packaging is, in fact, just groundwater.

Filed in a federal court in Connecticut on Tuesday, Bangor Daily News reports the lawsuit accuses Nestlé Waters North America Inc. of "colossal fraud perpetrated against American consumers." The outlet continues,
"The civil suit was brought by 11 people from the Northeast who collectively spent thousands of dollars on Poland Spring brand water in recent years. It is seeking millions of dollars in damages for a nationwide class and appears to hinge on whether the sources of Poland Spring water meet the Food and Drug Administration's definition of a spring."
That definition, while seemingly simple from a consumer's perspective, meticulously describes what qualifies water sources to be sold, for example, as officially "spring water," among other common terms.

Comment: A few reasons why Nestlé is so notorious:

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Rose

'Five bags of ecstasy explode' in stomach of teenage law student found dead in Ibiza, Spain


RT
Tue, 05 Sep 2017 11:39 UTC
Ecstacy tablets
© AFP
A teenage law student was found dead in an Ibiza hotel room after five bags filled with ecstasy tablets exploded inside her stomach, an inquest heard, with her mother claiming she may have been forced to swallow them.

Rebecca Brock, 18, was discovered with a pool of blood next to her head in a hotel room after travelling to the island for a friend's birthday, Nottingham Coroner's Court was told on Monday.

Spanish police began an investigation after finding that the amount of the class-A drug in her system was "double the level" of a normal fatal dose. When her body was found, the circumstances were suspicious enough for a major crime squad to investigate.

Her mother, Margarita Brock, told the inquest she believes her daughter may have been forced to swallow the drugs. She said her daughter would not have knowingly taken the pills because she was unable to swallow tablets.
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Red Flag

Huge riot reportedly breaks out at Kansas prison with reports of burning buildings and inmates with weapons


RT
Wed, 06 Sep 2017 15:00 UTC
helicopter
© Jorge Duenes / Reuters
A riot has reportedly occurred at a state prison in western Kansas. Local law enforcement agencies are on the scene, saying that the situation in the facility is under control.

"Huge riot broken out at Norton Correctional Facility. Buildings are burning and some inmates have gotten weapons," the Kansas Organization of State Employees tweeted.

The Norton prison housed 848 inmates as of Friday, with another 125 at a satellite unit to the east in Stockton, according to AP. Most of the inmates are either "low-medium security" inmates or minimum-security inmates.
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