Society's ChildS


Stormtrooper

Cop faces 7 years after video shows him smash a man's head in

Jack Burns
Free Thought Project
Sat, 22 Apr 2017 14:27 UTC
cops smash man's head
A Rockville Centre police officer is on trial for a May 2016 beating he gave to two brothers. The beating was captured on video and was bad enough to warrant an investigation and subsequent charges.

The incident began on the evening of the 8th, at a bar near South Park Avenue. Officer Anthony Federico arrived on the scene to investigate reports of a fight taking place. When he approached brothers Kevin and Brendan Kavanagh, the officer engaged the two.

The discussion quickly turned violent as Federico attempted to arrest both men — or no reason. He tasered Brendan, and Kevin can be seen taking a swipe at Federico. The officer's actions may have been justified up until that point, and probably would have been justified in taking Kevin down as well, but he made a costly mistake. Instead of punching Kevin with his fists, he chose to punch him with the blunt edge of his taser, an action for which prosecutors have criminally charged him.
Read More...
Cell Phone

Chicago lawmakers ask police to use 'textalyzer' to prevent the deadly practice of texting & driving


RT
Sat, 22 Apr 2017 00:13 UTC
Texting
© Mike Blake / Reuters
Texting while driving can be distracting. To stop the deadly practice, Chicago lawmakers are looking to a new piece of technology that detects whether a motorist was texting while driving. However, civil rights groups warn its use would be an invasion of privacy.

Two Chicago, Illinois aldermen ‒ City Council Finance Committee Chair Edward Burke (14th) and Transportation Committee Chair Anthony Beale (9th) ‒ introduced a resolution urging the Chicago Police Department to consider using technology that would tell police if a driver was swiping, tapping, texting or otherwise distracted by a cell phone in the moments before an accident.

The technology is still being developed by the Israeli tech firm Cellebrite, which claims it can access a cell phone's operating system to check when a phone had been used and if it had received or transmitted messages in the moments before an accident.

The information would also allow police to gather information that would further their understanding of how text messages contribute to car accidents.

Comment: See also: Avoid texting so much: Science shows how it's psychologically messing with your mind

Read More...
Stock Down

US regressing into a developing nation for majority of people warns MIT professor


RT
Sat, 22 Apr 2017 14:17 UTC
Skid Row
© Lucy Nicholson / Reuters
Growing income inequality is turning the US into a dual economy, with one economy for the rich and another for the poor, according to an MIT professor, who warns that the middle class is vanishing.

In his new book, "The Vanishing Middle Class," Peter Temin, professor emeritus of economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, warns that the US is moving backward and becoming more like a developing nation, as the "the vanishing middle class has left behind a dual economy."

"We are still one country, but the stretch of incomes is fraying the unity of the nation," Temin wrote in the introduction of his book, according to a copy obtained by Barnard College.

The economist describes a dual economy, where the gap between the rich and the poor has grown wider.

Temin points to a study from the Pew Research Center, which, he said, "shows that the income share lost by the middle class has gone to people earning more than double the median income."

"In short, the rich got richer. The poor did not disappear, and the middle class shrank sharply," Temin wrote. "We are on our way to become a nation of the rich and the poor with only a few people in the middle."
Read More...
Star of David

IDF uses stun grenades, tear gas to disperse rally in support of over 1200 Palestinian hunger strikers


RT
Sat, 22 Apr 2017 13:25 UTC
Israeli security forces fire tear gas towards Palestinian protesters
© Ahmad Gharabli / AFPIsraeli security forces fire tear gas towards Palestinian protesters, April 17, 2017
The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) used stun grenades and fired tear gas to disperse a rally in support of hunger striking Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons, which was taking place in the city of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank on Friday.

The march began at the al-Azza refugee camp where the Palestinians set up a solidarity tent in support of the hunger strikers.

The protesters, carrying Palestinian national flags and chanting anti-Israeli government slogans, had made all their way to the northern entrance of Bethlehem City when the IDF intervened.

Read More...
Handcuffs

Belgian police arrest 5 terrorist suspects after weapons & drugs seized during raids


RT
Sat, 22 Apr 2017 13:09 UTC
Brussels police Europe terrorist suspect
© Eric Vidal / Reuters
Belgian police arrested five people suspected of having ties with a terrorist group after swooping down on their homes in a Brussels suburb. The prosecutor's office said the arrests were related to a case not associated with Thursday's attack in Paris.

Two of the four raids were conducted in Brussels' infamous Molenbeek district, where the mastermind of the November 2015 terrorist attack in Paris, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, as well as one of the main suspects, Salah Abdeslam, used to live amongst the area's predominantly Muslim population.

Searches were also carried out in the municipality of Ganshoren in the Brussels Region, some five kilometers from the capital, and in the municipality of Roosdaal, about 30 kilometers west of Brussels.

Comment: Further reading: Joe Quinn on PressTV: Paris Terror Attack - Just In Time For Election

Read More...
Star of David

An Israeli grandmother shares her 'close call' with violent settlers on Passover


Haaretz
Sat, 22 Apr 2017 12:52 UTC
settlers israel
Originally in Mondoweiss

We, three women in our 60s and 70s, wanted to see the settlement reality for ourselves. We got a smaller but bitter taste of the violence and hatred Palestinians in the area experience as routine.

During Passover, I traveled to the West Bank with two other women, all of us members of Machsom Watch, an Israeli human rights group. Our goal was to visit two Palestinian villages: in one, Kafr a-Dik, settlers had recently cut down some olive trees; in the other, Urif, residents had tried to work in their olive groves, but, even though they had arranged this with the army, settlers stopped them from doing so. We wanted to see with out own eyes, rather than reading about, the places where all this had happened. Both villages are less than 10 kilometers east of the Green Line, about 30 miles from either Tel Aviv or Jerusalem

Comment: Further reading:

Read More...
Pistol

Gunman opens fire, killing officer & visitor at FSB office in Russia's Far East


RT
Fri, 21 Apr 2017 19:47 UTC
Russian policemen
© Natalia Seliverstova / Sputnik
An unknown gunman opened fire at an office of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in the Far-Eastern city of Khabarovsk, killing an officer and a visitor, the FSB press service reports.

The shooting took place on Friday inside a reception room of the FSB office in Khabarovsk, the agency's press service said.

The assailant opened fire outside the security checkpoint, killing an FSB officer and one of the visitors, said to be a national of a former Soviet country, it added. The gunman was killed as the security guards returned fire.

The attacker was later identified as an 18-year-old resident of Khabarovsk Region, who had alleged links to a neo-Nazi group, the agency said. He earlier killed an instructor at a local shooting club and stole a hunting rifle and two pistols to carry out the attack, the FSB said in a statement.


No explosive device was found on the slain gunman's body, the FSB said in a statement later on Friday.

Comment: A gunman opened fire in the receiving office of the local branch of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) in the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk on Friday, the FSB Public Relations Center told TASS.
"At 17:02 local time (06:02 GMT), an unidentified man entered the FSB receiving office and opened fire before crossing the control zone," the Center said.

The shooter has been identified as A.V.Konev, born in 1999, a resident of the Khabarovsk region, according to the Center.
Update (April 22): Russia's Investigative Committee has refuted any possible links between the attacker on the parlor of the territorial branch of the FSB federal security service and a rifle club in the Far-Eastern city of Khabarovsk and the activities of terrorist organizations.
The Investigative Committee's official spokesperson, Svetlana Petrenko said: "The investigators don't have any evidence that would confirm the attacker's links to an international terrorist organization, which ostensibly claimed responsibility for the crime."

She also said the data available to the investigators indicated that the young man, who carried out the attack at the FSB parlor in Khabarovsk was an adept of neo-Nazi theories.

"The data we have received so far lead up to a conclusion the crime was committed by an advocate of neo-Nazi outlooks who espoused hatred towards people of other ethnic identities," Petrenko said.


Read More...
Handcuffs

Armed gunman detained after attempted bank robbery ends in shootout in Waldshut, Germany


RT
Fri, 21 Apr 2017 13:10 UTC
bank robbery waldshut germany
© David Young / DPA / Global Look Press
Police have detained an armed robber who was injured in a shootout while entering a bank in the southern German town of Waldshut. Two bank employees, who were hiding inside the building, managed to escape a police statement said.

A man understood to be the perpetrator has been detained and taken to the hospital. The two bank employees managed to escape the building safely.

The armed robber entered the bank on Friday afternoon while two employees were inside, police said in a statement.
Read More...
Family

Many Syrian families are naming their newborns Putin and learning Russian


RT
Fri, 21 Apr 2017 21:38 UTC
Damascus baby
© Abdalrhman Ismail / Reuters
Syrian parents are naming their children after the Russian President as a sign of gratitude, while millions of students, including Bashar Assad's own children, are learning Russian, Syria's Ambassador to Moscow Riad Haddad said.

"Thanks to the efforts of the Moscow embassy, and with the approval of President Assad, Russian is the second language taught in Syrian schools. We have opened Russian faculties in all of the country's universities, while children receive tuition from the seventh grade," said the official, addressing Russia's upper chamber of parliament, the Federation Council, in Moscow.
Read More...
Question

Coincidence? Power outages strike LA, New York and San Francisco


RT
Fri, 21 Apr 2017 21:15 UTC
san francisco
© Justin Sullivan / AFPA Cable Car sits idle during a citywide power outage on April 21, 2017 in San Francisco.
Power outages hit Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, leaving commuters stranded and traffic backed up Friday. About 90,000 customers were affected in San Francisco.

While the outages occurred around the same time there is no evidence they were connected or coordinated.

Read More...