Society's ChildS


Heart - Black

Psychopath? Teenager sets sleeping man ablaze on subway, looks on laughing

Brian Conybeare
CBS News - New York
Fri, 20 Jan 2017 23:34 UTC
Piotr Olszewski burns
© CBS NewsPiotr Olszewski's burns.
A Brooklyn man fell asleep on the subway, only to wake up engulfed in flames, and police say it was no accident.

"Over here, the skin is gone," victim Piotr Olszewski told CBS2's Brian Conybeare in an exclusive interview. Olszewski has second-degree burns on his hands and arm after waking up on the subway in flames. "Just everything on fire and smoke, so I was putting fire out with my bare hands," he said.

Police said he was purposely set ablaze at 2:30 a.m. Friday on the G train as it pulled into the Court Square station in Long Island City, Queens. Olszewski was on his way home to Brooklyn from a friend's house.

He said he stumbled off the train completely engulfed in flames and smoke. Two conductors saw him and tried to help, but the suspect, identified by police as 18-year-old Christopher Jackson, of Brooklyn, didn't try to get away. He just stood there, bizarrely laughing.

"I was screaming from the pain." Olszewski said. "He was enjoying it. He was still there next to me."
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Handcuffs

Child cruelty: Ohio mom charged after taping her toddler to a wall during Facebook Live broadcast


RT
Sat, 21 Jan 2017 14:27 UTC
Ohio child taped to wall
© Youtube
An 18 year-old Ohio mother has been charged with abduction after she taped her two year old son to a wall and live streamed the incident on Facebook.

Shayla Rudolph was charged with the third-degree felony on Thursday, weeks after the video was broadcast on January 1.

The footage shows the two year old boy restrained to a wall with packing tape for about 15 minutes, according to police. The boy's mouth was also taped shut.

Reynoldsburg Police Department said in a statement they were alerted to the incident Wednesday by a local news channel.
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Quenelle

'A blue-collar affair': Donald Trump's inauguration breaks Washington norms

Lisa Mascaro
LA Times
Sat, 21 Jan 2017 13:44 UTC
Bikers for Trump
Bikers for Trump roared into town. Self-described "deplorables" hosted a ball. And thousands of Americans, many with red "Make America Great Again" caps, poured onto the grassy expanse of the National Mall.

A sprinkling of rain did not dampen supporters' spirits at President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration Friday, although protesters made a vivid display of opposition.

For the celebrity businessman-turned-politician, who rewrote the political playbook and shunned the Washington establishment to win the presidency, his inauguration was a decidedly Trump affair.
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People 2

Anti-US base activists demand Okinawa protester's release


RT
Sat, 21 Jan 2017 12:59 UTC
US military base protest Okinawa
© Tim Kelly / Reuters
Activists opposing the US military presence on the Japanese island of Okinawa are protesting the ongoing detention of one anti-US base activist over a series of minor offenses.

Hiroji Yamashiro, 64, had been leading protests against the construction of a new US marine corps installation, before he was arrested on October 17 last year. The island already boasts 32 such facilities.

Yamashiro and his supporters have claimed he is being detained for politically-motivated reasons and that the Japanese government is trying to silence him.

Comment: Further reading:

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Ambulance

16 killed, 39 injured, as school bus crashes in Italy


RT
Sat, 21 Jan 2017 09:41 UTC
School bus crashes in Verona
© RaiNews
A bus in Italy carrying schoolchildren collided with a pylon and caught fire, killing at least 16 people, according to authorities. At least 39 people have been injured. The Hungarian bus was heading back to Budapest from France.

The incident occurred as the bus was exiting the A4 highway outside Verona on Friday. There were 55 people on board - 50 of them teenagers.

Italian news agency Ansa said the children were mainly boys, aged 14 to 18. Some had reportedly been thrown out through the window upon collision with the pylon.
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Bomb

At least 21 killed, over 50 injured as bomb hits market in Pakistan on Afghan border


RT
Sat, 21 Jan 2017 08:31 UTC
Explosion hits market in Parachinar
At least 21 people have been killed and more than 50 injured in a bomb blast in Parachinar, on the border with Afghanistan, according to officials. Security forces have cordoned off the area.

Initial reports from the interior ministry indicated that "at least 12 people have been killed and 35 wounded."

Comment: See also:

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Smoking

More anti-smoking fascism: Czech Republic one step away from smoking ban in bars, restaurants, cafes


ABC News
Fri, 20 Jan 2017 22:21 UTC
Nazi No Smoking sign
The Czech Republic is one step away from losing its status of one of the last havens for tobacco smokers in Europe.

The Senate, the upper house of Parliament, voted 45-12 on Thursday to approve a smoking ban in bars, restaurants and cafes. The lower house gave its green light on Dec. 9.

To become effective on May 31, which is World No Tobacco Day, it needs final approval: a signature from President Milos Zeman, who is a chain smoker.

Movie theaters, concert venues, exhibition halls and indoor sports settings would be banned from having separate rooms for smokers. Unlike most of Europe, Czechs have remained tolerant of smoking. Right now it is up to restaurant owners to decide whether to allow or ban it.
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Attention

Car rams into pedestrians, 3 dead, 20 injured in Melbourne, Australia


RT
Fri, 20 Jan 2017 04:30 UTC
pedestrians injured Melbourne
© aling tiwari / YoutubePedestrians rammed in Melbourne
At least 3 people have been killed and 20 more injured after a vehicle was driven into a crowd of people in the center of Australia's second largest city Melbourne.

The incident happened at about 1:30pm local time near Bourke and Elizabeth streets in Melbourne's city centre emergency services said. An Ambulance Victoria spokeswoman confirmed that several people were struck by a car while Victoria Police said a number of people had been injured in the incident.

Comment: Update: Four people have died from the attack, including a young child. The driver was shot in the arm by police, then arrested in his underwear. He's been ID'd as 26yo Dimitrious 'Jimmy' Gargasoulas, who was involved in a domestic stabbing incident earlier in the day. He had posted on his Facebook page: "I'll take you all out. You need an army to take me." He threatened to gouge the eyes out of the owner of the vehicle he stole, who was his mother's ex-boyfriend. He then burned a Bible. He has a history of mental health and drug abuse problems. On his Facebook page, he claimed to be a 'Greek islamic kurdish ANGEL OF CULT' (sic).
gargasoulas
gargasoulas


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Handcuffs

Thousands wrongfully convicted on drug charges in Massachusetts will finally have convictions overturned

Justin Gardiner
The Free Thought Project
Fri, 20 Jan 2017 21:36 UTC
Jailed for falsified drug charges
© thefreethoughtproject.com
After years of injustice, thousands of people wrongfully convicted on drug charges in Massachusetts will finally have their convictions overturned. The ruling centers on drug lab tests that were falsified by a state-employed chemist named Annie Dookhan.
The state's highest court on Wednesday ordered prosecutors to drop a large portion of the more than 24,000 drug convictions affected by the misconduct of former state drug lab chemist Annie Dookhan, issuing an urgent call to resolve a scandal that has plagued the legal system since 2012.
Dookhan was imprisoned in 2013 after being charged with a suite of crimes relating to her years-long career of deceit, where she falsified tens of thousands of reports to jail innocent people. She would mark results as 'positive' for illegal substances without actually testing them, even adding cocaine to samples when no cocaine was present.

At sentencing, Judge Carol S. Ball stated, "Innocent persons were incarcerated, guilty persons have been released to further endanger the public, millions and millions of public dollars are being expended to deal with the chaos Ms. Dookhan created, and the integrity of the criminal justice system has been shaken to the core."

After the shocking revelations, some of the 'Dookhan-tainted' convictions were overturned, but when 2017 came around, 24,391 of those convictions still remained. Most of these people were poor and charged simply with possession. Many remained in prison or on parole, and many more were denied jobs and housing due to their criminal records.

Comment: See also: Prison industrial complex: Falsified or tainted evidence leads to thousands of wrongful convictions

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Handcuffs

Drug lord El Chapo is extradited to US


RT
Thu, 19 Jan 2017 22:56 UTC
El Chapo
© ForbesJoaquin "el Chapo" Guzman
Infamous Mexican drug lord, Joaquin Guzman - better known as El Chapo - has been extradited to the United States where he'll face multiple drug, homicide and money laundering charges, the country's Foreign Ministry has announced.

The Fifth Collegiate Criminal Court in Mexico City has denied notorious drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, protection under the country's laws according to a statement by the Mexican Foreign Ministry. Therefore, permission to extradite Guzman to the US has been issued, and the "Government of the Republic delivered today Mr. Guzmán to the authorities of the United States of America," reads the statement.

Guzman was airborne shortly after the announcement, a spokeswoman for the Mexican Attorney General told ABC News. She did not elaborate on where exactly he was being transferred to.

In May last year, a Mexican judge approved the US extradition request for Guzman, but the ruling was temporarily suspended after his lawyers appealed citing the potential death penalty their client may face in the US. The Mexican Supreme Court dismissed appeals filed by El Chapo's lawyers aimed at halting the extradition earlier on Thursday. "The judges decided not to hear the [appeal for] protection [from extradition]," a source in the court told AFP.
El Chapo DOJ
© Twitter
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