Society's ChildS


2 + 2 = 4

Quebec Students Call for Free Education Now that Tuition Hike is Off the Table

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© Graham Hughes / Canadian PressQuebec students march through Montreal on May 20, 2012.
Canada, Montreal - One Quebec student group says that with tuition hikes officially off the table, it will now champion the idea of free education.

The new Parti Quebecois government scrapped a controversial increase in post-secondary tuition fees this week and a hardline student group is now turning to free education as its long-term goal.

CLASSE, which speaks for 100,000 Quebec students, says free education is entirely achievable and used a march attended by several hundred people on Saturday to highlight the issue.

"Our struggle for accessibility to higher education is not yet over," said Jeremie Bedard-Wien, a spokesman for CLASSE.

Free education is not a position that is shared by the province's two other major student associations and with the proposed hike by the former Liberal government formally cancelled, Quebec has the lowest tuition in the country again.

But CLASSE says it wants education to be completely accessible by being entirely free.

It's an opinion that has limited political support.

The PQ government has said it favours indexing tuition to inflation but has promised to call a symposium on the issue.

Dollar

Charities Deceive Donors Unaware Money Goes to a Telemarketer


Carol Patterson was waiting for a call from her doctor. When the phone rang on that afternoon in August 2011 at her home in Cortland, Ohio, it wasn't a physician on the other end. A woman named Robin said she was representing the American Diabetes Association.

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InfoCision telemarketers at work in one of the company's Ohio offices.
Robin didn't ask for money. She asked Patterson to stamp and mail pre-printed fundraising letters to 15 neighbors. Both of Patterson's parents and one grandmother had been diabetic, so she agreed to do it, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its October issue.

"I thought since it does run in the family, it wouldn't hurt for me to help," says Patterson, 64, a retired elementary school teacher. She guessed, based on what she knew about charity fundraising, that about 70 to 80 percent of the money she brought in would be used for diabetes research.

The truth was almost the exact opposite. The vast majority of funds Patterson, her neighbors and people like them throughout the country would raise -- almost 80 percent -- would never be made available to the Diabetes Association. Instead, that money collected from letters sent to neighbors would go to the company that employed Robin and an army of other paid telephone solicitors: InfoCision Management Corp.

Pistol

Houston Cop Shoots, Kills Wheelchair-Bound Double Amputee

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© Agence France-Presse/Stan Honda
US, Texas - A police officer in Houston has shot and killed a double amputee in a wheelchair after the man threatened his partner with what turned out to be a pen.

­The shooting happened in a group home, the owner of which called the police saying the man was causing a disturbance.

Police representatives said that when two officers arrived, the disabled man cornered one policeman and threatened him with a metal object.

Another officer opened fire, saying was forced to take action, "fearing for his partner's safety and his own safety", after the man refused to calm down and remain still, police told AP.

Later, the metal object that the one-armed, one-legged, wheelchair-bound man was waving turned out to be a pen.

Beer

Drunk Moscow driver crashes into bus stop, kills '5 disabled teens, their teachers'

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© RIA Novosti / Iliya PitalevAmbulances on the site of a road accident on Minskaya street which clained seven lives
Russia - Seven people were killed, including several disabled teens, after a drunk driver ran his speeding car into a bus stop in the Russian capital.

­The car plowed the bus stop and literally tore it out of the ground. However, this did not stop the out-of-control vehicle, with a speed 120 kilometers per hour. The car dragged the ruined bus stop for about 10 meters, pulling everyone who was waiting for the bus under it.

Seven people were killed at the scene and at least one person was injured.

Police have already identified all the bodies, but are not revealing the names of the dead in the interests of the investigation, the Moscow police press service said.

Due to the fact the information is undisclosed, there is uncertainty concerning the age of the victims.

According to the Moscow police version posted on their website, there are four adults and three teenagers.

However, there is a possibility that among the dead were two teachers at an assisted living facility - a wife and husband - and their five students, all minors.

Airplane

Horizon Air Flight Attendant Stole Passenger's iPad

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Wendy Dye, a flight attendant for Horizon Air, was arrested over a missing iPad
Oregon City, Oregon - Police say a Nevada man who lost his iPad on an airplane used an app called Find My iPad to locate it inside the Oregon home of a flight attendant.

Officers in Oregon City, outside Portland, arrested 43-year-old Wendy Ronelle Dye Friday evening.

The flight attendant for Horizon Air allegedly told officers that a passenger brought her the tablet saying it was found on a seat. She said she never used the iPad and planned to turn it over to airline officials, but police found some of her personal information on it including her husband's birthday.

Arrangements are being made to return the tablet to its owner in Reno. Dye did not immediately respond to a phone message.

A spokeswoman for Alaska Airlines, which owns Horizon, says Dye was suspended.

Bizarro Earth

Riot Outside MTV Event in Madrid; 11 Arrests, About 60 Injured

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© picture-alliance/dpa
Spain, Madrid - Fans rioted outside a free concert hosted by MTV at a Madrid theater early Saturday after they were denied entry because the venue was full to capacity, officials said. About 60 people sustained minor injuries and 11 others were arrested.

Thousands of people had turned up at the venue late Friday for the lineup of Spanish Indie music acts, police said. Once the theater was full, scuffles broke out in the streets outside and people began throwing bottles.

Riot police, some on horseback, were deployed to the area after garbage containers were set ablaze. Several parked cars were damaged in the unrest and blazing objects were placed in the road to obstruct the arrival of police vehicles. Hundreds of youngsters ran away from the scene as police vans began to arrive, according to video footage on the website of news agency Europa Press.

"I saw thousands of young people blocking roads near the theater as fire trucks and ambulances began to arrive," taxi driver Jesus Gonzalez said after driving past the area at 3 a.m.

Pills

New York City schools give out morning-after pills to students - without telling parents

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© Helayne SeidmanAnnette Palacios says that at 15 she’s too young for sex, while mom Pania laments not getting a parental opt-out letter.
The Department of Education is giving morning-after pills and other birth-control drugs to students at 13 high schools, The Post has learned.

School nurse offices stocked with the contraceptives can dispense "Plan B" emergency contraception and other oral or injectable birth control to girls without telling their parents - unless parents opt out after getting a school informational letter about the new program.

CATCH - Connecting Adolescents To Comprehensive Health - is part of a citywide attack against the epidemic of teen pregnancy, which spurs many girls - most of them poor - to drop out of school.

While Big Apple high schools have long supplied free condoms to sexually active teens, this is the first time city schools have dispensed hormonal birth control and Plan B, which can prevent pregnancy if taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sex.

It might be a nationwide first as well. The National Association of School Nurses could cite no other school district supplying Plan B.

So far, during an unpublicized pilot program in five city schools last year, 567 students received Plan B tablets and 580 students received Reclipsen birth-control pills, the city Department of Health told The Post.

This fall, students can also get Depo-Provera, a birth-control drug injected once every three months, officials said.

Oral and injectable contraceptives require prescriptions, which, in the CATCH program, are written by Health Department doctors.

Handcuffs

'Fake Pilot Who Joined Cabin Crew in Cockpit' is Arrested in Plot Mirroring the Movie 'Catch Me If You Can'

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The unemployed 32-year-old man posed as a pilot and joined cabin crew in a plane cockpit. He has been arrested by Italian police
A man who posed as a pilot and joined cabin crew in a plane cockpit has been arrested, Italian police said today.

The unemployed 32-year-old man, whose real identity was not released, created a fake profile for himself on Facebook and called himself Andrea Sirlo, even posting pictures of himself wearing a uniform and Aviator sunglasses.

To complete the illusion he made up fake identity cards and even sent himself imaginary comments from dozens of fake cabin crew friends who expressed their 'delight' at being rostered with him on flights.

Police held the man in the bar at Turin's Caselle airport and revealed details of the elaborate scam at a press conference - as they compared it to the hit Leonardo Di Caprio film Catch Me If You Can in which he posed as a fake pilot and con man who flew more than one million miles around the world in the 1960s.

Officers said they believed he had flown in the cockpit of at least one flight between Munich and Turin in October last year and a link on his Facebook page highlighted the trip on a low budget airline called Air Dolomiti but did not take command of the plane.

Mail

U.S. Postal Service Hopes To Deliver More Junk Mail

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© KDKA
Pittsburgh - Eighty-four billion pieces of junk mail were delivered to our doors last year - music to the ears of the U.S. Postal Service.

"We certainly have to fill in the void when it comes to revenue," says the agency's Tad Kelley

There's been a huge recession-related decline in the volume of first class mail. The postal service hasn't relied directly on taxpayer dollars since the early 80′s.

Cutting costs only goes so far in easing serious budget deficits, so the USPS is looking to junk mail as a rescue remedy to add more revenues.

Stop

Faith Healer Doctor Arrested After Patient Dies

Faith Healer
© Pattaya Daily NewsPolice arrested a Cambodian outlaw doctor after a young diabetic patient died in her Bangkok clinic. The doctor had stopped her patient from using diabetic pills. She instead used alternative healing methods, claiming to represent Jesus with divine healing power.
Bangkok - Police officers of Dindang police station arrested Mrs. Wonnt Lalita, age 50, nationality Cambodian, for claiming that she was representing Jesus, and opening an unlicensed medical clinic of massage therapy to cure general illnesses.

The self-proclaimed divine healer was arrested after a 22-year-old diabetic female patient died in her clinic on June 19. The patient was identified as "Ms. Mo"(alias).

Ms. Mo had just graduated with first-class honors from the Faculty of Education, department of Early Childhood Education and majoring in Elementary Education. She was supposed to have attended her graduation ceremony in July.

After the patient died, her father filed a complaint with Mrs. Chanthana Jindathawornkit, the director of the law office of the Department of Health Service Support in the Ministry of Public Health.

The patient's father, Mr. Paiboon (surname withheld), age 51, said that his daughter came to have therapy at Mrs. Wonnt's clinic for her diabetes. The one-room clinic was named Lalita Wongt Co. Ltd, and was in a 1-story business building, located on No. 22, Soi Choomchuen, Asoke, Dindang Road, Dindang, Dindang.

The outlaw doctor claimed she could cure people with her body massaging, and told his daughter to stop taking her diabetes pills. But stopping the pills caused her death, according to the health director Mrs. Chanthana, who co-operated with police officers to arrest the doctor.