Society's ChildS


Handcuffs

New Mexico man in federal custody for threatening Obama over Medicaid card delay

Obama
© unknown
A 55-year-old homeless man from New Mexico pleaded guilty on Thursday to making a telephone threat against President Barack Obama in which he said he would shoot the president, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

Tracy York White of Las Cruces was arrested in October, four days after he is accused of telling a Social Security Administration employee in Ohio by phone that he planned to get a firearm, travel to the White House and kill the president, the statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Albuquerque said.

"In his plea agreement, White stated that he made the threat in frustration and knew what he was doing was wrong," U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman Elizabeth Martinez said of the plea in federal district court in Las Cruces.

White was accused of making the threat after he became agitated when he was told a new Medicaid card would take two weeks to reach him after he moved from Texas to New Mexico, according to the criminal complaint.

Bad Guys

Teacher arrested for cocaine ran $1.5 million coke lab out of his home

Image
© Wales News ServiceMacphallen Kuwale: Teacher turned drug dealer
A teacher turned drug dealer was caught when police uncovered a cocaine laboratory in his home worth around £900,000, a disciplinary hearing has heard.

Macphallen Kuwale was running a 'sophisticated' wholesale operation at his home in Llanrumney, Cardiff, a police officer told a General Teaching Council for Wales (GTCW) hearing today.

The technology whizz had cutting agents worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, as well as a pressing machine to make the cocaine appear to be of a higher grade, police say.

Detectives' investigations also uncovered further damning evidence in scenes reminiscent of hit TV show Breaking Bad.

Sheriff

Flashback Witness: Cops taunted pinned driver after fatal crash

Image
Oceanside police said they are investigating allegations that several officers laughed and taunted a driver as he was pinned in a wrecked car next to his dead friend.

The fatal crash happened early Friday after a high-speed chase that began on Highway 78 near College Boulevard when California Highway Patrol officers spotted a 1991 Honda Civic racing a dark sedan. The sedan slowed down, but the Honda sped off on northbound Interstate 5 with the CHP in pursuit, according to CHP Officer Jim Bettencourt.

The Honda exited the freeway onto Mission Avenue and eventually crashed into a parked pickup on Mesa Drive, Bettencourt said. The driver, 21-year-old Jorge Luis Lopez, survived the crash, but his passenger was killed, according to a CHP statement.

Eye 2

Flashback The Bad Seed? Boy charged with 2nd-degree murder in little sister's stabbing death

Image
Leila Fowler, 8, was stabbed to death inside her Valley Springs, California home on Saturday, April 27, 2013
A 12-year-old California boy accused of stabbing his 8-year-old sister to death was charged Wednesday with second-degree murder.

Appearing in a green jumpsuit in juvenile court, he said, "Yes" when asked if he understood the charges. He didn't enter a plea.

The boy didn't appear to be nervous, shocked or stunned. He smiled while talking with his lawyer and several times he looked back at his family.

He will remain in custody while he awaits his next court appearance on May 29.

The boy's younger sister, Leila Fowler, was stabbed multiple times in her family's home in northern California on April 27 while she was there with her youngest brother.

"He's holding up well under the circumstances," one of the boy's attorneys, Mark Reichel, said Tuesday.

The boy, who was arrested Saturday, told police a man broke into the family's home.

Stop

Criminal! Obese baby put on fruit and veggie diet

Image
© ABC NEWSBaby Santiago weighs 44 pounds - more than double the median weight for a baby his age
A 44-pound baby has been put on a special diet to slim his chubby frame.

The 8-month-old Colombian boy named Santiago weighs 44 pounds - more than double the median weight for a baby his age according to growth charts from the American Academy of Pediatrics, according to the Associated Press.

Folds of fat were hindering Santiago's ability to move - prompting his mother Eunice Fandino, to seek medical help.

"I'm worried about his obesity," Fandino said in an interview with RCN Television. "I don't want him to continue like this so, God willing, the treatment they're going to give him for his heart will work to reduce his weight."

The type of treatment Santiago will receive for his heart is unclear, but doctors are trying to get him down to 17 pounds by weaning him off formula and adding more fruit and veggies to his diet, the AP reported.

Pistol

Feds raid gun parts stores against protective court order

Image
With a search warrant in hand, federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives confiscated computers, customer lists and the questionable polymer 80 percent lower receivers from four Ares Armor store locations throughout San Diego County over the weekend.

"There were women and children inside our retail establishment when the (ATF) agents came in with guns drawn," said Ares Armor Executive Officer Dimitrios Karras. "They came into our manufacturing facility with their guns up like they were invading Iraq."

The raid happened three days after Ares owner was granted a temporary restraining by a judge to stop ATF agents from searching their stores.

The ATF confirmed they were investigating the stores for federal firearm violations.

The case stems from the sale of what is called an 80% lower receiver, which gun enthusiast use to build their own rifles and guns.

Cult

Westboro Baptist Church hatemonger, Fred Phelps Sr., dead at 84

Fred Phelps
© unknownFred Phelps, Westboro Baptist Church founder, dies at 84: he founded Westboro Baptist Church, the Kansas congregation known for its anti-gay picketing.
Fred Phelps Sr., a fire-and-brimstone preacher whose anti-gay picketing at military funerals inflamed the nation and drew international scorn but was protected by the Supreme Court as an exercise in free speech, died March 19 at a hospice in Topeka, Kan. He was 84.

The Topeka-based organization Rev. Phelps founded, Westboro Baptist Church, announced the death on its Web site but did not provide the cause. The message said he had "Gone The Way of All Flesh."

Rev. Phelps was an ordained Baptist minister, a disbarred Kansas lawyer and, according to a BBC documentary, the patriarch of the "most hated family in America."

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a prominent civil rights group, described his Westboro congregation as a "family-based cult" and "arguably the most obnoxious and rabid hate group in America."

The expression of Rev. Phelps's bigotry even managed to offend the conscience of the Ku Klux Klan, which staged protests to counter Westboro's demonstrations at military funerals.

Health

Riker's Island inmate found 'baked to death' in his cell

Jerome Murdough
© AP Photo/Jason DeCrowIn this March 12, 2014 photo, Alma Murdough and her daughter Cheryl Warner hold a photo of Murdough's son, at her home in the Queens borough of New York
Jerome Murdough was just looking for a warm place to sleep on a chilly night last month when he curled up in an enclosed stairwell on the roof of a Harlem public housing project where he was arrested for trespassing.

A week later, the mentally ill homeless man was found dead in a Rikers Island jail cell that four city officials say had overheated to at least 100 degrees, apparently because of malfunctioning equipment.

The officials told The Associated Press that the 56-year-old former Marine was on anti-psychotic and anti-seizure medication, which may have made him more vulnerable to heat. He also apparently did not open a small vent in his cell, as other inmates did, to let in cool air.

"He basically baked to death," said one of the officials, who all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to discuss specifics of the case.

The medical examiner's office said an autopsy was inconclusive and that more tests were needed to determine Murdough's exact cause of death. But the officials, all with detailed knowledge of the case, say initial indications from the autopsy and investigation point to extreme dehydration or heat stroke

Chalkboard

Education revolt - Teachers boycott standardized testing, stir up nation-wide movement

teachers boycott standardized testing
© Betty UdesenKris McBride, Garfield's academic dean and testing coordinator, at left, and Jesse Hagopian, Garfield history teacher and a leader of the school's historic test boycott.
Parents, students, and teachers all over the country have joined the revolt to liberate our kids from a test-obsessed education system.

Life felt eerie for teachers at Seattle's Garfield High in the days following their unanimous declaration of rebellion last winter against standardized testing. Their historic press conference, held on a Thursday, had captured the attention of national TV and print media. But by midday Monday, they still hadn't heard a word from their own school district's leadership.

Then an email from Superintendent José Banda hit their in-boxes. Compared with a starker threat issued a week later, with warnings of 10-day unpaid suspensions, this note was softly worded. But its message was clear: a teacher boycott of the district's most-hated test - the MAP, short for Measures of Academic Progress - was intolerable.

Jittery teachers had little time to digest the implications before the lunch bell sounded, accompanied by an announcement over the intercom: a Florida teacher had ordered them a stack of hot pizzas, as a gesture of solidarity.

"It was a powerful moment," said history teacher Jesse Hagopian, a boycott leader. "That's when we realized this wasn't just a fight at Garfield; this was something going on across the nation. If we back down, we're not just backing away from a fight for us. It's something that educators all over see as their struggle too. I think a lot of teachers steeled their resolve, that we had to continue."

Parents, students, and teachers all over the country soon would join the "Education Spring" revolt. As the number of government-mandated tests multiplies, anger is mounting over wasted school hours, "teaching to the test," a shrinking focus on the arts, demoralized students, and perceptions that teachers are being unjustly blamed for deeply rooted socioeconomic problems.

"You're seeing a tremendous backlash," said Carol Burris, award-winning principal of South Side High School in New York City and an education blogger for The Washington Post. "People are on overload. They are angry at the way data and testing are being used to disrupt education."

Cow Skull

Grasping at straws: Expert believes missing Malaysian Airlines flight being held for ransom

Image
© CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN/AFP/Getty ImagesA personnel of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue checks the map during a search in the Andaman sea area around northern tip of Indonesia’s Sumatra island for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 on March 17, 2014.
Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 is no closer to being found as the disappearance of the Boeing 777 carrying 239 people nears its two-week mark.

Pilot suicide, terrorism and hijacking are some possibilities that are being theorized to the plane as the search area expanded to 7 million square miles. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said last week that "there are a number of possible scenarios that are being investigated as to what happened to the flight."

Rick Mathews, of the National Center for Security & Preparedness at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy of SUNY Albany, tells CBSDC that there is another theory that should be put into play: the missing flight is being held for ransom by a group of individuals, maybe including people from the flight crew.

"You want to most likely hide the plane so that it will not be seen and get these people away from there. You want a place to prove life, confirm the fact that they are alive without giving away their location," Mathews told CBSDC, adding that this was an "internal hijacking" that might have been perpetrated by one or more members of the crew.