Society's Child
A Dallas County judge rewarded Johnny Pinchback, 55, his freedom on Thursday. He was wrongly convicted and sent to prison 26 years ago for rape.
The courtroom burst into cheers, applause and a standing ovation when a judge said "Mr. Pinchback, you are free to go".
Family, friends and others who have been exonerated filled the courtroom for the moment when Pinchback could walk into freedom after being convicted in 1987 for aggravated sexual assault.
Back then, the teenage victims ages 14 and 16, wrongly identified Pinchback out of a lineup. They said he was the man who tied them up and raped them at gunpoint in an Oak Cliff field.
Pinchback thanked his family, The Innocence Project of Texas and God for this day of freedom.
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Palestinians shout slogans as they take part in a rally to mark .Nakba' in the occupied West Bank city of Beit Lahm (Bethlehem) May 12, 2011.
Palestinians shout slogans as they take part in a rally to mark .Nakba' in the occupied West Bank city of Beit Lahm (Bethlehem) May 12, 2011.
Marchers in Beit Lahm (Bethlehem) held Palestinian flags and a giant key symbolic of their optimism to return home.
Meanwhile, in Gaza City, hundreds of children took part in a march while holding placards with the names of the villages and towns forcefully taken over by Israeli occuppiers in 1948.
Palestinians refer to May 15, 1948 as the "Nakba Day" or catastrophe. In that year, Israeli forces displaced some 700,000 Palestinians, forcing them to flee to different neighboring countries.
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Singer and former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters poses next to Israel's West Bank barrier in Bethlehem, June 2, 2009
Singer and former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters poses next to Israel's West Bank barrier in Bethlehem, June 2, 2009
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is criticizing what it says is the dark side of Pink Floyd legend Roger Waters, claiming imagery the British rock icon used in his latest tour is anti-Semitic, FOXNews.com reported Tuesday.
Waters, a longtime vocal critic of Israel, takes aim at the Jewish nation's West Bank security fence during a segment of his 2010-2011 "The Wall Live" tour by using imagery associated with stereotypes about Jewish people and money, ADL officials say.
During Waters' recent performances of "Goodbye Blue Sky," an animated scene has projected images of planes dropping bombs in the shape of Jewish stars of David, followed by dollar signs -- an "outrageous" juxtaposition, according to Abraham Foxman, ADL's national director.
In a bizarre turn of events, Jeff Hall, a regional leader of the National Socialist Movement, was shot dead last week by his 10-year-old son, according to The New York Times.
The boy allegedly shot his father using a handgun as he lay on the couch at their home in Riverside, California. Charged as a juvenile with murder, the boy may plead insanity, his public defender said.
The police say the killing was intentional but have no motive as yet.
Hall exposed his son to NSM's activities as he grew older, just hours before the murder giving him a leather belt with a silver insignia of the Nazi SS.
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Jeff Hall holds a Neo Nazi flag near his home in Riverside, California
Jeff Hall holds a Neo Nazi flag near his home in Riverside, California
The police say the killing was intentional but have no motive as yet.
Hall exposed his son to NSM's activities as he grew older, just hours before the murder giving him a leather belt with a silver insignia of the Nazi SS.
The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement yesterday reported April revenue for casinos in Atlantic City. The numbers, down across the board, are disheartening for the second-biggest gambling market in the country. Heartening for the rest of the world, however, is that the Tropicana Casino and Resort got cleaned out by a single blackjack player. We don't know his/her name. But we approve. The mysterious gambler took advantage of the Tropicana's recently arrived high-stakes tables to win a record $5.8 million in April. No idea if this took place during one drug-fueled weekend or over several weeks. But, again, we approve.
The wily gambler caused the casino's April revenue to drop by 54 percent on table-games and by 20 percent overall, according to The Press of Atlantic City, which also got the now-former CEO of the casino on the phone:
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'We ran very unlucky,' lamented Mark Giannantonio, Tropicana's outgoing chief executive officer.
Giannantonio disclosed that one blackjack player won $5.8 million, but he declined to release the gambler's name.
'We had the single-largest winner in our history,' Giannantonio said. 'If it hadn't been for bad luck at the tables, we would have had a good month.'
Remember Fukushima? The exploded nuclear power plant that everyone was talking about two months ago and now the media has imposed a complete blackout on, because out of print/page views, means out of radioactive spewage, right? Wrong. According to the latest update from a now government funded TEPCO, "fuel rods are fully exposed in the No. 1 reactor at its stricken Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, setting back the utility's plan to resolve the crisis. The water level is 1 meter (3.3 feet) below the base of the fuel assembly, Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at the utility known as Tepco, told reporters at a briefing in Tokyo. Melted fuel has dropped to the bottom of the pressure vessel and is still being cooled, Matsumoto said. The company doesn't know how long the rods have been exposed, he said." And apparently even more skeptics are emerging: ""I've been saying from the beginning the water tomb plan won't work," said Tadashi Narabayashi, a professor of nuclear engineering at Hokkaido University. "Tepco must work on a water circulation cooling system as soon as possible. They've been going round and round in circles and now realize this is what they need to do." And the kicker: "It's unlikely the situation has worsened with the discovery the rods are exposed because they've probably been out of the water since shortly after the crisis started, Narabayashi said." Which means that the situtation has indeed been dire from the very beginning, that TEPCO and the government have been lying, that radiation has been spewing, and that prevalent radiation is likely far higher than most have conceived. Pretty much as was predicted on Zero Hedge long ago.
And indicating that things are even worse, is the following report from Russia Today (courtesy of The Intel Hub) that Reactor 4 may be on the verge of collapse:
And indicating that things are even worse, is the following report from Russia Today (courtesy of The Intel Hub) that Reactor 4 may be on the verge of collapse:
© Reuters/Russell Cheyne
A bumble bee lands on a plant in Pitlochry in Scotland May 29, 2010.
A bumble bee lands on a plant in Pitlochry in Scotland May 29, 2010.
Police in the Scottish region of Tayside were appealing for information Tuesday after four bee hives containing several thousand British black bees were stolen from a medical school in the city of Dundee.
"This theft will undoubtedly hamper our research," said Dr Chris Connolly, the lead researcher on the Dundee project, who reported the bees missing Sunday.
In a statement he described the bees as "very unique" and said they should be easy to identify if they are sold on.
The hives are a part of a 2 million pound ($3.3 million) project at the Center for Neurosciences at the Dundee University's medical school which is investigating the potential effect of pesticides on bee learning and health.
Police said they were keen to trace a white van and two men that were seen in the area at around 0900 GMT on May 8.
Connolly said he thought the bees may have been stolen for breeding, or for selling on to specialist bee-keepers.
"Clearly whoever did this knows what they were doing and how to handle bees," he said.
Kim Walker, who is accused of killing James Hayward
Kim Walker is charged with second-degree murder in the March 2003 death of James Hayward in Yorkton. Hayward, 24, was dating Walker's daughter, Jadah, who was 16 at the time.
She testified Wednesday that Hayward was a "bad influence" on her life - that he dealt drugs and injected her with morphine.
Jadah Walker said her father came to Hayward's house the day of the shooting and pleaded with her to come home.
"He placed his hand on my arm and said something along the lines, 'Please come home Jadah. Please come with me,'" she said.
That's when Hayward came forward and yelled at Walker to get out of the house, she said.
"James was yelling and then my father reached across, grabbed his gun and started firing."
Migration from east to west, in recent decades, has meant FGM is globalizing. Its existence can no longer be denied and the lack of action to combat it can no longer be excused. Western law enforcement discovering FGM crime 'on their patch' has prompted a dialogue about global strategies.
The entire United Nations system is committed to helping countries end FGM, in one generation.
This year's International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM (Feb 6) was marked by a speech by the Director of UNFPA, Alana Armitage, in Geneva. She noted that the UN Interagency Statement (signed in 2007) by ten UN agencies - OHCHR, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNECA, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNICEF, [UNIFEM], and WHO - marked the shift in the way the international community supports countries in their efforts to eliminate FGM.
© Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
Chubu Electric Power Co.'s Hamaoka nuclear power station in Omaezaki city, Shizuoka prefecture,
Chubu Electric Power Co.'s Hamaoka nuclear power station in Omaezaki city, Shizuoka prefecture,
The Nagoya-based company will start the process of shutting down the 1,137-megawatt No. 4 unit at Hamaoka around 3 p.m. local time tomorrow, Atsuo Sawaki, spokesman at the utility, said by telephone today. The 1,380-megawatt No. 5 reactor will be shut the following day, he said.
Chubu Electric this week agreed to Prime Minister Naoto Kan's call to close Hamaoka for as long as three years so it can build a sea wall and take other measures to protect the plant, which lies close to an active fault line. The station is located about 190 kilometers (118 miles) southwest of Tokyo.
An earthquake and tsunami on March 11 knocked out power equipment and cooling systems at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Dai-Ichi station, causing the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl and raising concern about the safety of other plants in Japan.
