Society's ChildS


Ambulance

Lion kills woman interning at California sanctuary

Michael Winter
USA Today
Thu, 07 Mar 2013 08:37 UTC
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© Photo: KFSN-TV/APCous Cous in 2012 at Cat Haven, a 100-acre refuge in the Sierra Nevada foothills with about two dozen large cats from four continents.
Male lion attacked when volunteer entered cage. Deputy later shot 4-year-old big cat dead.

An African lion killed a 26-year-old female intern who entered his enclosure Wednesday at a California sanctuary for rare big cats, the Fresno County Sheriff's Office said.

A deputy shot and killed the 4-year-old male lion after he attacked the woman about 12:30 p.m. PT at Project Survival's Cat Haven in Dunlap, 45 miles east of Fresno.

The sanctuary's founder, Dale Anderson, described the victim as an intern-volunteer but did not identify her. An autopsy will be conducted Thursday.

The lion, named Cous Cous, had been at the preserve since he was 8 weeks old, said Project Survival spokeswoman Tanya Osegueda.

A sheriff's sergeant told the Associated Press that only one other worker was around at the time of the mauling. The non-profit preserve is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays between Oct. 1 and April 30.

Investigators are trying to determine why the woman entered the lion's space.
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Light Saber

Best of the Web: 10 years later, Dixie Chicks right all along

LZ Granderson
CNN
Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:13 UTC

Two days past 18

He was waiting for the bus in his Army green ...

Those are the first two lines from one of the most powerful songs I have ever heard, . If you don't know it, I encourage you to look it up -- unless you're one of those folks who still hates the group that made the song popular, in which case, its beauty might be lost on you.

It was 10 years ago this week -- as the country was barreling toward war with Iraq -- that Natalie Maines, lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, stood in front of a packed house in London and said:
"Just so you know, we're on the good side with y'all. We do not want this war, this violence. And we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."
It didn't matter that the evidence to invade Iraq was questionable or that Maines later apologized. The damage was done, and one of the most popular acts in the country became its most hated. Its music was banned from radio, CDs were trashed by bulldozers, and one band member's home was vandalized. Maines introduced "Soldier" with a call for peace, but she would soon find that the group needed metal detectors installed at entrances to shows on its stateside tour because of death threats.

It was a classic case of freedom of speech meeting the irrational repercussions of that speech. "Soldier" is not only their last No. 1, it's still their last single to chart in the top 30. Officially, they've been on hiatus since 2006, but Maines, who is planning on releasing a solo CD in May, recently said, "I just don't feel like it's the Dixie Chicks' time."
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Fish

Dolphins saved my life: woman


Yahoo!7
Tue, 05 Mar 2013 18:10 UTC

A woman says she owes her life to a pod of dolphins after slipping off a cliff and into the sea while trying to rescue her dog.

She says she thought she was going to die before the dolphins nudged her and her dog to safety.

Karyn Gitsham walks her dogs Buddy and Ramsay along the beach at Carrickalinga, on South Australia's Fleurieu Peninsula, every morning.

Four-year-old Cocker Spaniel Ramsay often runs into the water chasing seagulls, but this morning he got into trouble when he couldn't swim back.

Ms Gitsham says she climbed up the cliff face to follow the distressed pooch from the shore when the unthinkable happened.

"I just remember falling and I'm in the water and the waves were just pounding me up against the rocks and I could see him out there trying to get back in," Ms Gitsham told 7News.

It was then that her unlikely saviours came to the rescue.
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Bizarro Earth

Tennessee mom: 4-year-old daughter was 'shamed' at pool for not wearing a top

David Edwards
Raw Story
Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:31 UTC
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© Shutterstock
A Tennessee mother says that her 4-year-old daughter was shamed and sexually harassed by employees at a public pool who insisted that the girl wear a top while at the facility.

Sarah Parada told The Tennessean that she was forced to leave Longview Recreation Center's indoor pool on Friday after a Williamson County Parks and Recreation lifeguards and a supervisor said that the 4-year-old girl could not swim while wearing only bathing suit bottoms.

"She left feeling really ashamed of herself," Parada explained.

Pool policies listed on the Williamson County Parks and Recreation website do not include a requirement that little girls wear tops, but Parks and Rec Director Doug Hood said that it was just "common sense."

"The rule requires tops and bottom for girls. It's never, ever been questioned in my 34 years," he told the paper. "Protection is part of that common sense. I wish I could tell people that everyone coming in there is someone you'd want to have over for Sunday dinner, but they're not."
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Pistol

Georgia city ordinance would require a gun in every home

David Edwards
Raw Story
Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:18 UTC
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A small town in Georgia has proposed an ordinance that would require "the head of household" in every home to own a gun and ammunition.

Town leaders in Nelson on Tuesday told WSB-TV that they had drafted the ordinance because they only have one police officer on duty for eight hours a day. And they worry that sheriff deputies cannot provide enough protection during the 16 hours each night that no officer is patrolling.

"When he's not here we rely on county sheriffs - however it takes a while for them to get here," Nelson City Councilman Duane Cronic, who drafted the proposal, explained.

Cronic's ordinance reads: "In order to provide for the emergency management of the city, and further in order to provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants, every head of household residing in city limits is required to maintain a firearm, together with ammunition."
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Bizarro Earth

Man faces 30 days in jail for laughing too loud in his own home: report


NBC New York
Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:09 UTC
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© Getty Images
A 42-year-old Long Island man is facing a $500 fine or 30 days in jail for laughing too loud in his own home, according to a published report.

Lawyer Andrew Campanelli calls the two summonses issued to his client Robert Schiavelli, who lives with his mother in Rockville Centre, "absurd," reports the New York Post.

Schiavelli received the tickets for "disturbing the peace" on consecutive days in February after police responded to a neighbor's complaints that his laughter could be heard across the street.
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Handcuffs

'House of horrors': Abortion doctor set to go on trial in 8 deaths

Maryclaire Dale
NBC News
Mon, 04 Mar 2013 15:30 UTC
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Dr. Kermit Gosnell in an undated photo released by the Philadelphia District Attorney's office.
Three years after drug agents searching a suspected "pill mill" at a West Philadelphia clinic instead found a medical "house of horrors," an abortion doctor is going on trial on eight counts of murder.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, the clinic owner, is charged with killing a pregnant refugee and seven viable newborns. He also faces a separate federal trial on prescription drug charges.

Gosnell, who has pleaded not guilty, saw himself as a medical missionary in the blighted neighborhood where he worked and lived for 40 years. His Women's Medical Center treated the poor, immigrants, teens and women with late-stage pregnancies who could not get abortions elsewhere.

"I feel in the long term I will be vindicated," Gosnell told the Philadelphia Daily News in a March 2010 interview, a month after the federal drug raid. "I aspire to perfection, certainly for my patients."
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Hearts

Gay couple shares unbelievable story of adoption after finding baby on subway

Cavan Sieczkowski
Huffington Post
Fri, 01 Mar 2013 15:15 UTC
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When playwright Peter Mercurio answered the phone 12 years ago, he probably didn't realize the call would change his life.

On an August night in 2000, Mercurio received a phone call from his partner, David Stewart, who was at the Eighth Avenue A/C/E subway stop in New York City, recounts Mercurio in "We Found Our Son in the Subway," an op-ed for The New York Times.

"I found a baby!" Stewart yelled, according to Mercurio. "I called 911, but I don't think they believed me. No one's coming. I don't want to leave the baby alone. Get down here and flag down a police car or something."

When the couple appeared in family court that December to give their account of what happened, the judge overseeing the case asked if they'd be interested in adopting. Stewart, a social worker, replied "yes."
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Bizarro Earth

Florida mom accused of stabbing sons' bullies with box cutter

Christina Ng
ABC News
Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:48 UTC
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© Orange County Jail
A Florida mom has been charged with aggravated child abuse for allegedly using a box cutter to stab two teens who she says were bullying her sons.

"I will defend them. I don't want them to fight," Nora Silva told ABC News' Orlando affiliate WFTV.

The incident began when Silva's 14-year-old and 17-year-old sons got off of the bus on Tuesday afternoon. Surveillance footage from a neighbor's house shows a group of more than a dozen boys surrounding one of Silva's sons and pushing him to the ground.

Silva, 33, and her mother Esther Silva, 63, got into the scuffle, according to police reports.
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Heart - Black

Murder of baby found in stolen SUV prompts soul searching in China

Jonathan Kaiman
Guardian
Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:26 UTC
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© Quirky China News/Rex Features/HAPThe baby's mother, centre, who is reported to have had a breakdown after hearing her son was dead.
Zhou Xijun is said to have confessed to killing baby and burying body in snow after finding him on back seat of car

A car thief in north-eastern China who discovered a baby boy asleep in a stolen 4x4 killed him and buried the corpse in the snow.

The 48-year-old thief's confession prompted a wave of seething incredulity on the internet in China and a bout of soul-searching about parenting, capital punishment and media censorship.

According to a post on the Jilin province public security bureau's microblog, Zhou Xijun turned himself in to Changchun city police at 5pm on Tuesday. He confessed that he stole the Toyota RAV4 from outside a supermarket on Monday morning, strangled the two-month-old boy, named Xu Haobo, after noticing him while driving on the highway, and buried his corpse in the snow. Zhou abandoned the vehicle outside a primary school in a nearby city and took a minibus back to Changchun.

The infant's father, a supermarket owner surnamed Xu, had left the car's engine running while he entered his market to turn on a stove. He emerged 10 minutes later to find the car missing, immediately called the police, and broadcast a message on a local radio station saying that he would not hold anybody accountable if the baby was safely returned.

The child's mother had a nervous breakdown after hearing Zhou's confession, Chinese media reported. It is unclear whether the baby's body has been found.
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