Society's ChildS


Stock Down

French Peugeot Citroen car manufacturer unveils 5 billion euro loss for 2012

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PSA workers protesting against planned factory closure in north of Paris. (file photo)
The French auto giant PSA Peugeot Citroen has announced a net loss of five billion euros (USD 6.7 billion) in 2012, making it the worst result in its history.

The carmaker released on Wednesday the historic loss, blaming 4.74 billion euro in asset write-downs and a collapse in European sales for the results.

The automaker is reportedly losing seven million euros every day. This is while the company has reported a 588 million-euro profit in 2011.

In an attempt to recover, the PSA previously announced that the company plans to eliminate 11,200 jobs and close its Aulnay plant in north of Paris. This has sparked several demonstrations by the workers.

Handcuffs

Russian cop faces 5 years in jail after leaving disabled man to die on street in -40C

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© RIA Novosti / Ramil Sitdikov
After losing his fingers as a result of twelve hours spent in subzero temperatures, a disabled man has died from a blood clot in a Russian hospital. A policeman who refused to fulfill his duty by helping the man is now facing five years behind bars.

The incident happened late last year when 28-year-old speech impaired Vitaliy Seduhinsky was boarding a bus with his mother when the doors shut before she could get on.

Unable to communicate, Seduhinsky spent some time circling the bus route before being let off at a suburban stop in the city of Barnaul.

Lost and confused, he was spotted by a woman who called the police to help the stranded individual. The officer who responded to the call failed to carry out his duty, simply decideding not to investigate the report any further.

X

Lean Cuisine recall: Glass found in mushroom ravioli

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© Photo: Nestle USA/PR NEWSWIRENestle is voluntarily recalling Lean Cuisine Culinary Collection Mushroom Mezzaluna Ravioli with production codes 2311587812 and 2312587812; best before date is DEC 2013.
Lean Cuisine lovers, check your freezers: Nestle is voluntarily recalling more than 500,000 dishes of frozen Lean Cuisine mushroom ravioli because three customers reported finding glass fragments in the entrees, the company says. No injuries have been reported, according to a company press release.

The recall covers packages of Culinary Collection Mushroom Mezzaluna Ravioli produced in early November and distributed nationwide. The suspect packages are marked with:
The UPC number 13800-58358
Production codes of 2311587812 and 2312587812
"Best before date" of DEC 2013

Black Cat

Elder-care facility operator facing manslaughter and abuse charges in death of resident

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The operator of a Sacramento elder-care facility is facing felony charges, including manslaughter, in the gruesome death last year of an 88-year-old resident.

Silvia Cata, 52, owner of Super Home Care on Bowman Avenue, was arrested Monday evening at her home near Northgate Boulevard and West El Camino Avenue, according to the state attorney general's office.

She faces felony charges of elder abuse and involuntary manslaughter in what is believed to be the first-of-its-kind criminal prosecution in California involving an elder-care provider.

Deputy Attorney General Steve Muni, a veteran prosecutor with the AG's Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse, said he believes this is the first time the Department of Justice has pursued a manslaughter case against a caregiver in connection with an elderly resident's death.

Georgia Holzmeister, 88, who suffered from dementia and lived at Super Home Care since 2007, died last June after suffering massive, foul-smelling bedsores at the home. The sores on her buttocks resulted in sepsis, a life-threatening condition that occurs when the body develops a severe, toxic response to bacteria or other germs.

Bizarro Earth

Evicted retired couple commits suicide as Spain debates reform

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© AFP/Luis Gene
A retired couple in Spain killed themselves Tuesday because they faced eviction, police said, as lawmakers considered legislation to save ruined homeowners from being thrown into the street.

In the latest in a series of suicides reportedly linked to evictions, the couple, aged 68 and 69, killed themselves in their home in Calvia on the island of Mallorca, a police spokesman who asked not to be named told AFP.

Hours later in Madrid, members of parliament agreed to debate a citizens' motion to protect poor homeowners from eviction - a fate faced by hundreds of thousands in Spain.

The lower house of parliament agreed to debate the bill after lawmakers of the ruling conservative Popular Party threw their weight behind it despite earlier resistance, the party's parliamentary spokesman Alfonso Alonso said.

In response to popular protests and reported suicides, Spain's government in November passed a two-year moratorium on evictions - but campaigners insist that it go further.

Health

Four killed in Brazil Carnival float fire

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Four people died early Tuesday when a float at the end of a Carnival parade ran into a power line and caught fire in the southeastern city of Santos, officials said.

Three of the victims were pushing the vehicle under the float and the fourth was an onlooker, the office of the mayor of Santos told AFP. Four other people were injured.

The float belonged to the fan club of FC Santos, one of Brazil's top football teams, and paid homage to football great Pele, a former Santos player.

A group of children and a former football player jumped off the float just ahead of the accident, officials said.

Edson Arantes do Nascimento - best known as Pele - offered his condolences to the families of the victims.

Ambulance

2 dead in murder-suicide at University of Maryland

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A University of Maryland student shot his two roommates, one fatally, before turning the gun on himself in an apparent murder-suicide. The New York Times reported that the three roommates were arguing in the front yard of their house near the university's College Park campus opened fire.

According to WJLA Channel 7, the gunman started several small fires in the house and yard around 1:00 a.m. Tuesday to drive his roommates outside, then began to shoot at them. He then went inside the house and shot himself, dying at the scene.

Both of the other two men were taken to an area hospital where one was pronounced dead.

Bizarro Earth

Texas teen sues parents over abortion fight

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A pregnant 16-year-old Texas girl is suing her parents, claiming that her parents are attempting to force her to have an abortion.

The Texas Center for Defense of Life filed a lawsuit on the teen's behalf on Sunday arguing that her parents "are violating her federal constitutional rights to carry her child to term by coercing her to have an abortion with both verbal and physical threats and harassment."

The teen, identified in the lawsuit only as R.E.K. since she is a minor, was "beside herself" when she called the center for help, her lawyer Stephen Casey told ABCNews.com. The group claims it has previously represented teens in similar situations and won their cases.

"These girls are in a bind, particularly in a situation where their parents are forcing them to do something they don't want to do," Casey said. "Regardless of the [situation], that's her parents and she should expect support from them in this situation, not resentment and anger."

Magnify

At boys' home, seeking graves, and the reason

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© Meggan Haller for The New York TimesA forensic anthropology team on the grounds of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Florida, searching for signs of bodies of those who were confined.
Nobody is quite sure how many boys' bodies lie beneath the grounds of the notorious Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, or which one is Thomas or Owen or Robert.

Nobody is quite sure how most of them died - the cause is often listed as "unknown" or "accident" - or why a great number were buried with such haste.

The scattered graves bear no markings: no names, no loving sentiment. The only hint of a cemetery are the white crosses that the state planted in the 1990s, belatedly and haphazardly.

From the time it opened in 1900, as the state's first home for wayward children, until it closed in 2011, as a residential center for high-risk youths, Dozier became synonymous with beatings, abuse, forced labor, neglect and, in some cases, death. It survived Congressional hearings, state hearings and state investigations. Each one turned the spotlight on horrific conditions, and little changed.

But now, spurred on by families of the dead boys and scores of former students - now old men - forensic anthropologists from the University of South Florida have spent the last year using sophisticated radar equipment to search for answers beneath the 1,400-acre campus.

TV

'Hackers' access Emergency Alert System of local Great Falls, Montana TV station to broadcast fake warning of 'Zombie Apocalypse'

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A Montana television station's regular programming was interrupted by news of a zombie apocalypse.

The Montana Television Network says hackers broke into the Emergency Alert System of Great Falls affiliate KRTV and its CW station Monday.

KRTV says on its website the hackers broadcast that "dead bodies are rising from their graves" in several Montana counties.

The alert claimed the bodies were "attacking the living" and warned people not to "approach or apprehend these bodies as they are extremely dangerous."

The network says there is no emergency and its engineers are investigating.

Comment: The Emergency Alert System is probably very difficult for an outsider to hack. From Wikipedia, we read:
The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national warning system in the United States put into place on January 1, 1997. In addition to alerting the public of local weather emergencies such as tornadoes and flash floods, the official EAS is designed to enable the President of the United States to speak to the United States within 10 minutes, but the nationwide federal EAS has never been activated. The EAS regulations and standards are governed by the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the FCC. EAS has become part of IPAWS - the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, a program of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). EAS is jointly coordinated by FEMA, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the National Weather Service (NOAA/NWS). [...]

The FCC requires all broadcast stations and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPD) to install and maintain FCC-certified EAS decoders and encoders at their control points or headends unless they have been designated a non-participating station by the FCC. These decoders continuously monitor the signals from other nearby broadcast stations for EAS messages. For reliability, at least two source stations must be monitored, one of which must be a designated local primary. Stations are to retain the latest version of the EAS handbook.

Stations are required by federal law to keep logs of all received required monthly test, required weekly test, emergency action notification, and emergency action termination messages. Logs may be kept by hand but are usually kept automatically by a small receipt printer in the encoder/decoder unit. Logs may also be kept electronically inside the unit as long as there is access to an external printer or method to transfer them to a personal computer. While only the four aforementioned events are required by federal law to be logged, most stations log all received activations.
In other words, it is tightly monitored, and understandably so in today's climate of government paranoia regarding subversive messages breaking through the 'frequency fence' of mainstream media lies.