Society's ChildS


Snakes in Suits

Barclays and Lloyds hand bosses almost £1m in shares

Jill Treanor
The Guardian
Wed, 05 Mar 2014 09:51 UTC
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© Carl Court/AFP/Getty ImagesAntónio Horta-Osório will now receive a minimum of £2.6m a year (up from £1.7m) and a maximum of £7.7m (down from £8m)
New 'allowances' follow move by HSBC last month to hand its boss £1.7m in shares a year to get around bonus cap

Bailed-out Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays have handed their bosses almost £1m in shares to sidestep the new rules from Brussels which are intended to clampdown on bankers' pay.

Similar handouts, which have become known in the City as "allowances", will be given to about 1,000 staff at Barclays and some 75 bankers at Lloyds. Barclays is facing outcry about its increased bonus payouts, which are being awarded despite a sharp fall in profits in 2013.

Barclays has agreed a £18,000-a-week shares payout for its chief executive Antony Jenkins, who earns a salary of £1.1m a year. Lloyds' boss António Horta-Osório is getting almost the same size allowance, after receiving a total pay package of £7.5m last year.

The new allowances at Barclays and Lloyds follow a move by HSBC last month to hand its boss, Stuart Gulliver, £1.7m in shares a year to get around the bonus cap, which the EU introduced on 1 January and the chancellor George Osborne is fighting in the courts.
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Question

First bankers, now BitCoin CEO found dead in apparent suicide in Singapore


RT
Thu, 06 Mar 2014 09:36 UTC
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© Photo from linkedin.comAutumn Radtke
A young American woman who ran the First Meta bitcoin exchange was found dead in her Singapore apartment last week. Police are investigating the "unnatural death".

Autumn Radtke was found on the morning of February 26 after Police received an emergency call from an apartment building. She was pronounced dead at the scene. A preliminary police investigation has ruled out foul play, but neighbors told police they suspected Radtke jumped from an apartment.

First Meta Ltd. issued a statement on its website, saying they were 'shocked and saddened' by the news and gave their deepest condolences to Radtke's family.

"The First Meta team is shocked and saddened by the tragic loss of our friend and CEO Autumn Radtke. Our deepest condolences go out to her family, friends and loved ones. Autumn was an inspiration to all of us and she will be sorely missed," the statement said.
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Ambulance

New Jersey gas explosion: one dead and 10 homes destroyed after line cut


The Guardian
Tue, 04 Mar 2014 09:06 UTC
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© Josh Forst/APAftermath of the gas explosion in Ewing, New Jersey
Woman's body found on car and seven more people injured in fireball as workers tried to repair damaged main

A gas leak and explosion in New Jersey killed one person, injured seven workers, destroyed 10 homes and damaged another 45, authorities said.

The body of a woman was found on a car near the site of an explosion in a New Jersey housing development. Police were waiting for the results of an autopsy for positive identification of the victim. Officials did not know whether the victim lived at the development.

Police said the blast happened on Tuesday after a gas line was damaged by contractors who were digging in the area. The utility PSE&G said it received a call that a contractor had damaged a gas line and crews were repairing the line when it exploded.
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Video

Videos from Ukraine that the U.S. media will never show you


SCG News
Wed, 05 Mar 2014 00:00 UTC
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The Sugar coated story that the U.S. media has been feeding the public is completely out of sync with the events unfolding on the ground in Ukraine. Here are six videos that you'll never see aired on the mainstream news.
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Bulb

Film Director Emir Kusturica urges Russia to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine


ITAR-TASS
Tue, 04 Mar 2014 00:01 UTC
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© EPA/ANATOLY MALTSEV “Unfortunately, Ukraine is following the Yugoslav scenario, and I regret it,” Kusturica said
Well-known Film Director Emir Kusturica told Itar-Tass on Monday that Russia should protect ethnic Russians residing in Ukraine and save the country from a disaster.

"Unfortunately, Ukraine is following the Yugoslav scenario, and I regret it. I see the same kind of catastrophe. I think that Russia should protect ethnic Russians residing in Ukraine," Kusturica said.
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Stormtrooper

New Jersey man escapes 5 year sentence after dash cam footage clears him, indicts cops

George Chidi
The Raw Story
Sat, 22 Feb 2014 22:21 UTC
police camera
© ABC
Evidence from a dashboard camera on a police cruiser ended a nightmare for a New Jersey man facing false charges of eluding police, resisting arrest and assault.

Prosecutors dismissed all the criminal charges against Marcus Jeter, 30, of Bloomfield, N.J. and instead indicted two Bloomfield police officers for falsifying reports and one of them for assault after the recording surfaced showing police officers beating Jeter during a traffic stop, according to WABC of New York. A third has pleaded guilty to tampering.

Jeter's defense attorney requested all recorded evidence, but the police failed to hand over a second tape until additional evidence surfaced of a second police car at the scene. The tape showed Jeter complying with police, even as one punched him in the head repeatedly.

Without the tape, prosecutors had been demanding a five-year prison sentence.
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USA

Flashback Judge: Family's $80 million gold coin collection belongs to Uncle Sam

Erica Ritz
The Blaze
Sat, 08 Sep 2012 15:23 UTC
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© Getty ImagesA 'Double Eagle' gold twenty dollar coin is displayed above a catalogue picture showing the reverse side of the coin at Goldsmith's Hall on March 2, 2012 in London, England
A judge has ruled that ten rare gold coins worth roughly $80 million belong to the U.S. government, not the family that possessed them, according to ABC News.

In 2003 Joan Langbord and two other family members opened a safety deposit box that belonged to Langbord's father, Philadelphia coin dealer Israel Switt, and found the valuable collection. When they asked the Philadelphia Mint to authenticate the find, the coins were apparently seized without compensation and taken to Fort Knox.

The 1933 Saint-Gaudens double eagle is "one of the most sought-after rarities in history,"according to Courthouse News. Originally valued at $20 each, one owned by King Farouk of Egypt reportedly sold for as much as $7.5 million at a Sotheby's auction in 2002.

The Langbords unsuccessfully sued the government in 2011, alleging that the coins are rightfully theirs, and now they have lost the appeal.
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Gold Bar

Why the California couple who found $10 Million in gold coins could potentially have to hand ALL of it over to the Feds

Jason Howerton
The Blaze
Tue, 04 Mar 2014 15:15 UTC
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© AP/Saddle Ridge Hoard discoverers via Kagin’s, Inc.The value of the “Saddle Ridge Hoard” treasure trove is estimated at $10 million or more.
The California couple who found $10 million in gold coins buried in their backyard last year may be forced to give up the entire stash as the coins may have been stolen from the U.S. Mint in 1900. If true, that means the coins are the property of the U.S. government.

As TheBlaze recently reported, the unidentified couple already learned that they would have to pay about half of the $10 million value of the coins in federal and state income taxes. Now they could potentially walk away with nothing after their monumental find.

The San Francisco Chronicle reportedly obtained an old news article from California fishing guide Jack Trout, who is also a historian and collector of rare coins. The news clipping from Jan. 1, 1900, describes a gold heist from the San Francisco Mint, which some think just might explain the discovery of the $10 million in coins.

Comment: See previous article:California couple finds $10 million in gold coins buried in backyard

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Eye 2

Report: Up to 50% of all women in EU are victims of serious physical or sexual abuse‏

Jane Martinson
The Guardian
Wed, 05 Mar 2014 08:49 UTC
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© Getty Images/DK Stock'Violence against women is a human rights abuse that the EU cannot afford to overlook.'
Violence against women is "an extensive human rights abuse" across Europe with one in three women reporting some form of physical or sexual abuse since the age of 15 and 8% suffering abuse in the last 12 months, according to the largest survey of its kind on the issue, published on Wednesday.

The survey, based on interviews with 42,000 women across 28 EU member states, found extensive abuse across the continent, which typically goes unreported and undetected by the authorities.

Morten Kjaerum, director of FRA, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, which was responsible for the survey, said: "Violence against women, and specifically gender-based violence that disproportionately affects women, is an extensive human rights abuse that the EU cannot afford to overlook."

Comment: Awareness programs don't achieve jack when the wider society is collapsing under the weight of it's own pathology. How about we get some actual god damn role models, and maybe learn to care for each other on the most basic level first of all? This is just another tragic symptom of the world we inhabit.

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Oscar

What a judge told a 'spoiled' teen who moved out and then sued parents for support

Liz Klimas
The Blaze
Wed, 05 Mar 2014 14:51 UTC
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© AP/The Star-Ledger, John O’Boyle, PoolRachel Canning is sworn in during a hearing at the Morris County Courthouse, Tuesday, March 4, 2014, in Morristown, N.J.
A northern New Jersey honor student who says her parents kicked her out of the house when she turned 18 is now suing them, asking a court to make them support her and pay for her college tuition.

A judge in Morristown Tuesday ruled against immediately forcing Rachel Canning's parents - her father a retired police chief - to pay her $650 weekly child support and pay for her remaining year of high school tuition, as she requested in a lawsuit filed last week. Judge Peter Bogaard scheduled a hearing for next month to decide whether to require her parents to pay for Canning's college tuition.

"Do we want to establish a precedent where parents live in basic fear of establishing rules of the house?" Bogaard asked.

The New Jersey Star Ledger reported Bogaard's caution to legal counsel in his initial ruling against an emergency order. It "would represent essentially a new law or a new way of interpreting an existing law," he said. "A kid could move out and then sue for an XBox, an iPhone or a 60-inch television."

Watch this report about the judge's initial ruling from WCBS-TV:

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