Society's ChildS


Heart - Black

Tom Cruise 'deeply saddened' as Katie Holmes files for divorce and 'seeks sole custody of Suri'

Anita Singh
The Telegraph, UK
Fri, 29 Jun 2012 04:00 UTC
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, the Hollywood couple whose marriage never quite convinced the sceptics, are to divorce after five years.
Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes
© ReutersTom Cruise and Katie Holmes pose for their official wedding picture in 2006
Holmes, 33, filed for divorce in New York yesterday citing "irreconcilable differences", announcing the split via a statement to People magazine.

Cruise, 49, said he was "deeply saddened" by the news. The couple have a six-year-old daughter, Suri.

Holmes is asking for sole legal custody of Suri, according to the US website TMZ, setting up the couple for a high profile legal battle if Cruise chooses to contest her claim.

The pair signed a prenuptial agreement before their wedding in November 2006, which guarantees Holmes a yearly sum. However, legal experts said the actor could be prepared to give up a larger slice of his £160 million fortune in return for Miss Holmes remaining silent about the details of their marriage.

Such a deal would echo that of Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren in 2010. While they had a prenuptial agreement giving Miss Nordegren an annual sum, Woods is believed to have given her a settlement of close to £100 million in order to avoid an "ugly" public dispute.
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Arrow Up

Record Number of Bankruptcies Expected in The Netherlands

Bad News Blogger
badnewsfromthenetherlands.blogspot
Sun, 01 Jul 2012 02:25 UTC
Netherland Bankruptcies
© badnewsfromthenetherlands.blogspot
A record number of bankruptcies are expected this year in the Netherlands. In the past half year, almost as many businesses went bankrupt as in the same period in 2009 - the worst year so far.

This was reported by the TV station NOS. Marcel Theunis, a specialist in the field, said that initially mainly small businesses and start-ups went bankrupt.

Nowadays, many more businesses which have been around for a number of years are collapsing.

Source (in Dutch)
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Heart - Black

Best of the Web: Former child abuse investigation chief: Jersey's 'secrecy culture' led to my suspension

Helen Pidd
The Guardian
Thu, 28 Jun 2012 00:00 UTC
Graham Power claims he was punished for daring to investigate allegations against some of the island's power players

Graham Power
© Toby Melville/ReutersGraham Power: 'I was suspended by the very government whose institutions were being investigated. You cannot get much more conflicted than that."
Before moving to Jersey to take charge of the island's police in 2000, Graham Power had served in the senior ranks of four other forces in a career spanning more than 30 years. A recipient of the Queen's Medal for distinguished service, he had been vetted by UK authorities to "top secret" level and was so well regarded that he had also been appointed an assessor for the body that selects chief officers for UK constabularies.

But after eight successful years on Jersey, Power found himself suddenly suspended in what one local politician supporter believes was a "coup d'etat engineered by a small group of powerful people who denied him natural justice".

The initial suspension, which related to Power's management and supervision of a child abuse inquiry centred around Haut de la Garenne, a children's home on the island, continues to be a hugely controversial topic in Jersey. It's an episode which Jersey's critics see as a prime example of the way the island's elite treats those who dare to challenge their authority.

Nine months before Power's suspension on 12 November 2008, the historic child abuse investigation made headlines around the globe after Power's deputy, Lenny Harper, told the world's media he thought his team had found human remains buried under Haut de la Garenne. He told hordes of journalists that suspicious forensic material discovered during excavation tallied with accounts given by various abuse victims of hearing children dragged from their beds at night who were then never seen again. .
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Heart - Black

Bus driver 'offered boy, 10, $1 for sex then showed him naked pictures of his six-year-old son

Emily Anne Epstein
Daily Mail
Sat, 30 Jun 2012 18:56 UTC
A bus driver and his wife have been arrested on suspicion of child abuse, molestation, child pornography and child prostitution.

Police say Brian DiCamillo, 39, was found out after he offered a 10-year old boy a dollar to have sex with him and when the boy declined, DiCamillo then showed him pornographic images of his own six-year-old son.

Jennifer DiCamillo, 39, also an employee at the Deer Valley Unified School District in Phoenix, Arizona allegedly knew about her husband's activities and did nothing to stop him.


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Blackbox

Naked carjacker injures 7 in rampage: Man shuts down town after flipping Porsche and breaking pregnant woman's legs

James Nye
Daily Mail
Fri, 29 Jun 2012 18:35 UTC
A rampaging naked car-jacker wearing only his socks ran amok in Scottsdale, Arizona today, causing two terrific car collisions that injured seven people and shut down most of the city's roads during rush hour.

Witness photos of the destruction caused by the man show him standing triumphantly on top a SUV while debris from the smash litters the roadside.
Image
© ABC15 News / Candace SchmallTriumphantly standing on top of car as debris from his crash surrounds the intersection, the man is naked apart from his socks
The first car crash was reported to the police at 1.30 p.m. after which the man is said to have left his vehicle, stripped naked and car-jacked a Toyota Prius, pulling the female passenger from the car.

Minutes later, the man had motored to Shea Boulevard, near to 90th St in Scottsdale where he collided with four other vehicles, causing one of the drivers to suffer a serious injury.

By now, the man was causing panic as he exited the now totaled Toyota Prius and attempted to carjack another two vehicles before police officers arrived and arrested him.

Mark Clark, a spokesman for Scottsdale police said that the man's erratic beahviour suggests that he may have taken drugs.

Video and additional pictures
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Heart - Black

Mississippi Abortion Clinic Law Set To Take Effect

Emily Wagster Pettus
Source
Sat, 30 Jun 2012 16:26 UTC
Mississippi's only abortion clinic
© AP/Rogelio V. SolisIn this June 27, 2012 photograph, anti-abortion advocates stand outside Mississippi's only abortion clinic, singing and praying for their patients, and "counseling" them to reject abortion.
Jackson - Mississippi could soon become the only state without an abortion clinic because of a new law taking effect this weekend. Critics say the law would force women to drive hours across the state line to obtain a constitutionally protected procedure, or could even force some to carry unwanted pregnancies to term.

Top officials, including the governor, say limiting the number of abortions is exactly what they have in mind.

Republican Gov. Phil Bryant frequently says he wants Mississippi to be "abortion-free."

"If it closes that clinic, then so be it," Bryant said as in April as he signed the law, which takes effect Sunday.

Abortion rights supporters have sued, asking a judge to temporarily block the law from taking effect. So far, that hasn't happened.
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Nuke

In Tokyo, Thousands Protest the Restarting of a Nuclear Power Plant

Martin Fackler
New York Times
Fri, 29 Jun 2012 17:56 UTC
Thousands of protesters, Tokyo
© Kyodo News, via Associated PressThousands of protesters gathered outside the Japanese prime minister's residence in Tokyo on June 29.
Shouting antinuclear slogans and beating drums, tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in front of the prime minister's residence on Friday, in the largest display yet of public anger at the government's decision to restart a nuclear power plant.

The crowd, including women with small children and men in suits coming from work, chanted "No more Fukushimas!" as it filled the broad boulevards near the residence and the national Parliament building, which were cordoned off by the police.

Estimates of the crowd's size varied widely, with organizers claiming 150,000 participants, while the police put the number at 17,000. Local media estimated the crowd at between 20,000 and 45,000, which they described as the largest protest in central Tokyo since the 1960s.

Protests of any size are rare in Japan, which has long been politically apathetic. However, there has been growing discontent among many Japanese who feel that Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda ignored public concerns about safety this month when he ordered the restarting of the Ohi power station in western Japan.

Ohi was the first plant to go back online since last year's accident in Fukushima led to the idling of all of Japan's 50 operational nuclear reactors, which supplied a third of the nation's electricity. Three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant melted down after a huge earthquake and tsunami knocked out crucial cooling systems.
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Pills

Arizona Businessman Drops Dead in Courtroom Moments After Conviction for Arson, Suicide Suspected

Louise Boyle
Daily Mail
Fri, 29 Jun 2012 14:46 UTC
Phoenix- A horrified court room looked on today as a man who had just been convicted of burning down his $3.5 million mansion collapsed and died in front of them.

Michael Marin, 53, was found guilty of arson by a jury in Maricopa County Superior Court. He appeared shocked and closed his eyes as the verdict was read before appearing to put something in his mouth and wash it down with liquid in a plastic water bottle.

In the shocking court room video, he then fell to the floor a few minutes later in convulsions. Mr Marin was taken to a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, where he was pronounced dead.

Image
© Fox NewsLast resort: After being found guilty of burning down his own home and facing years in jail, Michael Marin appeared to swallow a substance in the Arizona
Link to video
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USA

Arizona Cannot Legally Secede from the United States

Talal Al-Khatib
Discovery News
Thu, 28 Jun 2012 10:59 UTC
Image
© Getty Images
Whenever there's a major rift on a particular issue between state and federal government, extreme partisans will invariably question whether it's in all parties' best interests for the state to remain in the Union. In other words, couldn't a state simply secede if it cannot find an accommodation within the law?

Take the recent example of the clash over Arizona's anti-illegal immigration law. Throughout the course of the debate over Arizona's controversial law, SB 1070, signed into law in April 2010 which gave police to screen for undocumented immigrants, the secession issue has been raised by voices on both sides of the political spectrum. Suggestions included not only separating Arizona from the United States, but also dividing Arizona into two different states, an idea that has some support based on an online poll released last year.

Can a state unilaterally secede from the United States? The short answer is no. (That happens to be the long answer, too, but it comes with an explanation.)
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Attention

Meteorite Crashes Into London Cab

Jason Major
Universe Today
Fri, 29 Jun 2012 14:27 UTC

Londoners awoke this morning to news of a meteorite which struck a taxi in the heart of the city's busy shopping district Covent Garden. Witnesses were left stunned by what looked like a scene straight out of a science fiction film. An incident team arrived almost immediately to cordon off the meteorite and keep the public at a safe distance.

No one was injured as a result of the incident, but it's a cosmic harbinger of things to come...
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