Police: 5-Year-Old Died Of Malnourishment, Salt Poisoning

Muncie, Ind. - A 25-year-old Muncie woman has been found guilty of neglect of a dependent causing death after her 5-year-old stepdaughter died of malnourishment and salt poisoning.

Brittany McConniel and her husband, Ryan McConniel, were charged last year, months after their stepdaughter, Lauren McConniel, died [at] Riley Hospital for Children on March 9.

Police said the couple lied to investigators about seeking timely medical treatment for Lauren, who they contended displayed psychotic behavior.

The girl had been taken to a mental health facility for evaluation. She wasn't speaking much and had been put back in a diaper at age 5, police said.

A small commercial aircraft crashed in an isolated part of Patagonia, southern Argentina, killing all 22 people on board.

"We did not find anyone alive," said hospital director Ismael Ali, who took part in the rescue mission. "The plane is in charred fragments. Everything is burned and smashed to pieces."

Ali said a witness reported seeing a fireball crash into a field near his home in the foothills of the Andes, indicating a possible midair explosion.

The plane had earlier been reported missing on a flight between the southern cities of Neuquen and Comodoro Rivadavia, in Rio Negro province.

Horacio Farre, a spokesman for the private company Sol, which owned the plane, confirmed there were no survivors. He said the aircraft crashed around 45 minutes after takeoff. It issued a distress signal just before it went down.

The passengers on the Saab 340 twin-engine aircraft included 18 adults, one minor and three crew members, the company said, adding that an investigation is under way.

A "perfect storm was brewing" in West Virginia's Upper Big Branch coal mine in the weeks and days before a fireball tore through it on April 5, 2010, killing 29 miners and injuring one severely, according to a just-released report by the Governor's Independent Investigation Panel.

The report describes in vivid detail the conditions at Upper Big Branch before, during and after the deadliest U.S. mine disaster in 40 years, and concludes that the explosion was preventable and resulted from "failures in safety systems" at the mine in southern West Virginia.

The findings are based on physical examinations of the mine, regulatory records, the mine's internal records and more than 300 interviews with current and former mine employees, family members of miners, as well as with state and federal mine regulators. Noticeably absent from the 120-page report: testimony from the top people in charge of the mine. They invoked their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and refused to cooperate with investigators.

Among the key findings: The Upper Big Branch mine lacked adequate ventilation, water sprays on equipment were not properly maintained and failed to function as they should have, and the mining company didn't meet federal and state safety standards for the application of rock dust, a crucial tool in keeping highly explosive coal dust inert.

DEADLY conman Malcolm Webster thought for almost 17 years that he had got away with the perfect murder.

He was so sure of himself, he tried to kill his second wife in exactly the same way he murdered his first - a staged fireball crash.

His murder of first wife Claire Morris in 1994 netted him £200,000 and he would have gained £500,000 if he succeeded in killing second wife Felicity Drumm.

But yesterday the monster who charmed a string of women was facing life in jail after his web of deceit finally unraveled.

A jury took less than four hours to find the former nurse guilty of murder, attempted murder and a string of other charges, including trying to commit bigamy, fraud and fire-raising.

To the women he wooed around the world, 52-year-old Webster seemed the perfect English gentleman - in the words of one former conquest almost "too good to be true".

In fact, his life was founded on lies and ruthless scheming to get the high life he craved.

Families divided as some people believe world will self-destruct on Saturday

The Haddad children of Middletown, Md., have a lot on their minds: school projects, SATs, weekend parties. And parents who believe the earth will begin to self-destruct on Saturday.

The three teenagers have been struggling to make sense of their shifting world, which started changing nearly two years ago when their mother, Abby Haddad Carson, left her job as a nurse to "sound the trumpet" on mission trips with her husband, Robert, handing out tracts. They stopped working on their house and saving for college.

Last weekend, the family traveled to New York, the parents dragging their reluctant children through a Manhattan street fair in a final effort to spread the word.

"My mom has told me directly that I'm not going to get into heaven," Grace Haddad, 16, said. "At first it was really upsetting, but it's what she honestly believes."

My graduation from high school is this Friday. I live in the Bible Belt of the United States. The school was going to perform a prayer at graduation, but due to me sending the superintendent an email stating it was against Louisiana state law and that I would be forced to contact the ACLU if they ignored me, they ceased it. The school backed down, but that's when the shitstorm rolled in. Everyone is trying to get it back in the ceremony now. I'm not worried about it, but everyone hates me... kind of worried about attending graduation now. It's attracted more hostility than I thought.

My reasoning behind it is that it's emotionally stressing on anyone who isn't Christian. No one else wanted to stand up for their constitutional right of having freedom of and FROM religion. I was also hoping to encourage other atheists to come out and be heard. I'm one of maybe three atheists in this town that I currently know of. One of the others is afraid to come out of the (atheist) closet.

Though I've caused my classmates to hate me, I feel like I've done the right thing. Regardless of their thoughts on it, basically saying I am ruining their fun and their lives, I feel like I've helped someone out there. I didn't do this for me or just atheists, but anyone who doesn't believe in their god that prayer to Yahweh may affect.

Moral of the story: though the opposition may be great, majority doesn't necessarily mean right. Thank you for reading. Wish me luck at graduation.

EDIT: Well, it hit the fan a couple hours ago. They've already assembled a group of supporters at a local church and called in the newspaper. I've had to deactivate my Facebook account and I can't reason with any of them. They refuse to listen. The whole town hates me, aside from a few closet atheists that are silently supporting, which I don't blame them looking at what I've incited here. Thanks for the support though.

If anyone would like to offer support, the superintendent is who I emailed and the school's website is mpsb.us

Thanks for the support. It's really helping. This has just gotten sickening.

Edit: I've had requests for my Facebook info... I don't mind giving that out at all. Damon Fowler - Bastrop, LA. I could use all of the support I can get.

EDIT: My laptop battery is running low as I type thanks to the hundreds of Facebook friend requests and messages I've been trying to reply to. Thank all of you for the continued support. Right now, I'm about to go to the principle's office to speak to her in person about attending graduation.

I just got off the phone with FFRF as well and apparently I've been given a $1000 student activist's award toward college. I really wasn't expecting it to get this big, nor was I expecting any of that. Still, I thank all of you for the support that I wouldn't have gotten anywhere else. You played a big part in this and because of you, I've decided to walk despite rumors of threats against me. So far, they're talking about organizing a large vocal prayer during the moment of silence despite what I've done. We'll see how this goes. Class night is tonight... not looking forward to attending that.

EDIT: Back from Class Night... (You Tube). Dealt with people staring at me, calling me names, talking about me behind my back (even teachers). I'll walk across that stage tomorrow, whether they want me to or not.

Tokyo - The president of troubled Tokyo Electric Power Co. is stepping down and taking responsibility for the handling of Japan's nuclear power plant crisis, Japanese media reported Friday.

Masataka Shimizu will be replaced by senior executive Katsutoshi Chikudate as the company prepares to report huge losses, the Yomiuri newspaper said.

TEPCO has been struggling since March 11, when the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant was heavily damaged by an earthquake and tsunami and began leaking radiation. Some 80,000 people living within a 12-mile radius of the plant were evacuated from their homes afterward and many are living in gymnasiums.

The disaster is the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986, analysts say.

The company may owe disaster victims in the tens of billions of dollars in compensation and has asked the government for help in paying the bill.

Birmingham, Ala. - Almost three weeks after deadly tornadoes tore through Alabama, an incredible story of survival has emerged about a dog that crawled home to its family on two broken legs.

"Mason," a terrier mix, was picked up and swept away by a tornado.

His family searched but could not find him.

Then Monday, two and a half weeks later, they came back home to sift through the debris and found Mason waiting for them on the porch.

"They've not been able to be in alignment so neither one of them have healed, so he had to crawl on two broken legs to get home," said veterinary Dr. Barbara Benhart.

"This is probably the most dramatic we've seen as far as an injury in an animal that's survived this long," said Phil Doster, an animal-shelter worker.

A veterinarian has volunteered to take Mason in and nurse him back to health.

Jessica Alba has revealed she is getting ready for the birth of her second baby by using hypnobirthing practices. The A-lister said that while every woman experiences pregnancy differently she highly recommends this new birthing craze sweeping over Hollywood.

"It just makes you chill," said Jess on hypnobirthing, the form of hypnotherapy that's used to calm mums mid-delivery. Jessica has been studying the art in the run-up to her second birth. "I was freaked out going into it my first time," admitted Jess. "Like what if I panic? What if I just freak out and I don't know what to do?"

We suspect second time around any birth will be easier. Jessica already has one child, three-year-old Honour Marie, with husband Cash Warren.

What do Calvin & Hobbes author Bill Watterson, country singer Merle Haggard, and Gulf coast fisherman Mike Frenette have in common with my hapless next-door neighbor on Nantucket? They've all stood face-to-face with the bully culture of money in America, and felt the hand of power at their throats.

Merle Haggard, like so many musicians, signed brutal, confiscatory contracts with record labels just to get his music heard. He had no choice: they controlled the business and with that power came the opportunity, even the imperative, to exploit him. Musical artists who made millions for their labels died in poverty because of this rapacious disregard for their rights and disrespect for their talents. It's still happening - only the rise of the internet threatens this hegemony in any long-term way: hence the Verizon/Google deal, and other scams, to control the freedom of the net and turns its immense potential for freedom of expression into profit. You can feel the fuming rage of the stymied power-brokers in the proposals they write and the bills they draft in Congress: how dare some nobody just post a video on YouTube and think millions of people will watch without having to pay for the privilege! The thought that some cocky little John Doe with a cellphone camera can post a picture that contradicts the news stories and the media narrative about some crucial event must make their blood boil. I remember when the video of Stephen Colbert's Press Corps dinner speech was posted, amid the media spin that he had bombed: ten million hits on the video later, that particular lie was just another Colbert punch-line.