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JetBlue Pilot Has Psychotic Episode In Prison

Clayton Osbon
© unknown
Dallas - The JetBlue Airways pilot who disrupted a cross-country flight by leaving the cockpit and yelling about religion and terrorists has had a psychotic episode in prison and requires further mental evaluation, a judge said Wednesday.

Clayton Osbon was charged with interference with a flight crew, but was found not guilty by reason of insanity last month. A forensic neuropsychologist testified in a short, unpublicized trial that Osbon had a "brief psychotic disorder" at the time of the flight brought on by lack of sleep.

Passengers said Osbon left the cockpit during a March 27 flight from New York to Las Vegas. He ran through the plane's cabin yelling about Jesus and al-Qaida. The flight was diverted and safely landed in Amarillo, Texas.

After the trial, Osbon was sent to a prison medical facility in North Carolina for evaluation. He was scheduled to return to Amarillo federal court this week for another hearing on whether he should go free or be sent to a mental health facility.

Instead, U.S. District Judge Mary Lou Robinson on Wednesday extended Osbon's evaluation period to Oct. 15, with a final evaluation report due to her by the end of that month.

Robinson said she was notified by a forensic psychologist that Osbon "had suffered a psychotic episode." She did not say what the nature of the episode was, if it was connected to his previous disorder or what prompted it. A message seeking comment was left for Osbon's attorney, Dean Roper.

Robinson's order said attorneys on both sides did not oppose the extension.

Stormtrooper

Police State: Hong Kong Police Body Cameras Spark Fears

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© Agence France-Presse/Philippe Lopez
In a first for Asia, Hong Kong police said Thursday they will trial the use of video cameras attached to their uniforms to film exchanges with the public, despite concerns from human rights groups.

The southern Chinese city's police force said officers would start to wear the small cameras by the end of the year.

Similar devices have been deployed by police in the United Kingdom and United States, while police in the Australian state of Victoria are proceeding with a trial this month.

"We will try out the body camera scheme by end of this year," a Hong Kong police spokeswoman told AFP.

She played down criticism from human rights activists that the use of body cameras was a step toward the creation of a police state in the former British colony, which reverted to mainland rule in 1997.

"We are not targeting anyone at any public rallies but of course it could be a useful device for the police to deal with those who disturb public law and order at these rallies," she said.

The devices would be used by trained and clearly identified police officers, in order to enhance evidence gathering and public security, officials said.

But Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor director Law Yuk-kai said filming random interactions with the public could breach Hong Kongers' "constitutional right to privacy" and threaten the city's cherished freedoms.

Die

Zimmerman Prosecutors In Huge Screw-Up - Photo of Dead Trayvon Martin, College Docs Mistakenly Released

George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin
© unknownGeorge Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin
In an embarrassing screw-up, Florida prosecutors today accidentally distributed a post-mortem photo of Trayvon Martin as well as copies of George Zimmerman's college records, material that Florida law considers confidential and exempt from disclosure.

The documents were inadvertently included in supplemental discovery records distributed this morning by prosecutor Angela Corey's office. The material was sent to a variety of media outlets, including TSG, that have paid fees to receive discovery provided by the government to Zimmerman's lawyer.

The photocopied picture of Martin was one of three taken by an unnamed witness. The photo mistakenly released by Corey is a black and white copy of an image depicting the teenager lying face down on a lawn.

After distributing the picture, a Corey aide sent an e-mail to reporters noting that a "photo depicting the killing of a person" was "confidential and exempt" pursuant to state law.

USA

Police Brutality! Cops Strip Search Florida Mom, "Forcibly" Pull Tampon Out of Her for Maybe Rolling Through Stop Sign

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US, Florida - Getting pulled over for rolling through a stop sign is whack. But getting pulled over, having a gun pointed in your face, and then being strip searched on the side of the road in front of your two children for rolling through a stop sign is, well, really whack and probably an excessive use of force.

At least. that's what a new lawsuit in the Sunshine State is claiming.
Last July, Leila Tarantino claims that she was pulled over by an officer with the Citrus County Sheriff's Department. In the suit, Tarantino says she came to a full stop and should have never been pulled over in the first place.

A passing cop pulled a u-turn, flashed the lights, and rolled up behind her. Tarantino claims that the cop immediately drew his weapon, pulled her from the car, and refused to explain why he pulled her over. Tarantino's two young children watched all of this unfold from inside her car.

Dollar

Economy Forces World's Oldest Shipping Company into Liquidation

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© Xabier Mikel Laburu/Bloomberg
The world's oldest shipping company sold its last vessel and is going out of business, according to the liquidator.

Stephenson Clarke Shipping Ltd., started in 1730, has been placed into liquidation, according to a statement from accounting firm Tait Walker. The Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England- based shipper, which employed nine people, sold off its final vessel in July, according to the statement

Gear

Doomsday Group Charging $5000 for Spot in End-of-the-World Bunker Near Tenterfield

Doomsday_1
© Sony Pictures Home Entertainment SURF'S UP: A wall of water engulfs Sydney in this Doomsday prediction. Would a $5000 seat in a bunker protect you from this?
A 2012 doomsday group is charging $5000 for admission to a survival bunker in the northern NSW hills.

Massive earthquakes, shifts in the Earth's poles and devastating solar flares will be among events faced by the global community this year, according to the group, which describes itself as a "survival community".

Group organiser, NSW refrigeration mechanic Simon Young, said the entry fee went towards concrete and other materials to construct the bunker, believed to be in mountains near Tenterfield.

The group points to Egyptian texts, Bible passages and a frozen mammoth as evidence the world will undergo massive physical change around December 21.

Bad Guys

Organ Trafficking - A 'business' Built on Guilt and Desperation

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© kelloggs12.edu.glogster.com
According to the WHO, in 2010, 107,000 both legal and illegal transplants of human organs were carried out. Two-thirds of all transplanted organs are kidneys. Experts believe that ten percent of all kidney transplants are illegal. The organization Organ Watch provided a different number - from 15 to 20,000 illegal operations a year.

At least two illegal human organs transplantation surgeries performed in the capital of the Republic of Kosovo trace back to Germany. In 2008, according to the newspaper Spiegel, in the clinic of Pristina 74-year-old German businessman named Walter (last name is not mentioned for obvious reasons) of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia has been illegally transplanted an organ from a 50-year-old Russian woman Vera Schewdko, an immigrant to Israel, who sold her left kidney for 8,100 euros.

Comment: Another of the many ways the wealthy are preying on the poor and desperate:
Exploitation of Poor By Human Organ Traffickers
Rogue Kidney Brokers in the U.S. Sell Black Market Organs for Transplantation
Organ Theft - Not Just Urban Legend
Organ Gangs Force Poor to Sell Kidneys for Desperate Israelis


Family

Pathocrats' Austerity Measures Force More Desperate Europeans to Abandon Children

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© Nina Ruecker | Getty ImagesA doll is used to demonstrate a "baby hatch" in Hamburg, Germany, in this 2000 file photo.
As the euro zone debt crisis deepens and austerity measures take their toll across Europe, the number of young children and babies abandoned across the region has increased, according to local charities.

The rise in the abandonment of infants across Europe is most visible in the spread of "baby hatches" or "boxes" across Europe, where unwanted infants are left anonymously.

The phenomenon was previously more prevalent among immigrants, but it is becoming more widespread among financially desperate members of the local population.

The hatches are sensor-activated so when a baby is placed, an alarm is activated and a carer comes to collect the child. Despite the practice being widely viewed as contravening the 1953 European Convention on Human Rights, of the 27 EU member countries, 11 countries still have "baby hatches" in operation, including Germany, Italy and Portugal.

In those countries where hatches are illegal, the number of infants abandoned in hospitals, clinics and churches has also risen, raising concerns among European charities, the UN and the European Commission that austerity measures and increasing social deprivation are the catalyst for the rise in child abandonment.

Shoe

French Tax-Dodgers Courted by Mississippi Governor

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First Britain upset the French government by offering a home to any high earners seeking to flee a new top tax band, and now the US state of Mississippi is making a bid to recruit wealthy exiles.

France's new Socialist leader President Francois Hollande plans to slap a tax of 75 percent on all income in excess of a million euros ($1.24 million), and territories with lower rates are hoping for a cash exodus.

Thus far the focus has been on France's neighbor Britain, whose Prime Minister David Cameron irked Hollande by boasting that London would "roll out the red carpet" to French entrepreneurs seeking shelter for their income.

But a new offer came Wednesday from a more unlikely quarter: Haley Barbour, former governor of Mississippi, a southern US state that was in part founded by French settlers on territory at one point controlled by the French empire.

Toys

Belarus-Sweden teddy bear row escalates

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© Associated PressThe PR firm released a picture of the bears "in training"
Belarus has taken strong diplomatic action against Sweden following a stunt involving parachuted teddy bears.

Sweden says all of its diplomats have been expelled from Belarus, which has also closed its embassy in Stockholm.

Belarus was angered when a Swedish public relations firm dropped about 800 teddy bears with pro-democracy messages from a light aircraft.

President Alexander Lukashenko sacked his air defence chief and head of border guards over the 4 July incident.

He told their replacements not to hesitate to use force to stop any future air intrusions from abroad.

'Dubious charges'

On Tuesday Belarus's KGB state security service said two Belarusian men, Anton Suryapin and Sergei Basharimov, had been detained on suspicion of complicity in "illegal intrusion".

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said Mr Suryapin, who runs the Belarusian News Photos website, had merely uploaded photos of the teddy bears.

The OSCE's spokeswoman on freedom of the media, Dunja Mijatovic, said she was "surprised and alarmed" at the charges.