Society's ChildS


Question

Mysterious shapes cut into forest clearings near Eureka, Missouri


West St. Louis County - Strange circles and symbols are taking shape along interstate 44. It's enough to cause some phone calls from curios Google map users.

"We've had similar calls and we've explained that what you're seeing from the sky is some of our experimental treatments," says Tiffany Knight, PhD an Associate Professor of Biology with Washington University.

What some might suspect is from a UFO is really from a university, as in, Washington University at the Tyson Research Center.

That's a 2,000 acre outdoor laboratory for ecosystem studies.

"So you don't necessarily think of aloes as living in Missouri but they do," says Knight. "We have cacti living in there."

"Really?" asks Patrick Clark.

"We have those that are native to Missouri in our glades," adds Knight. "So we do get some of these almost desert like plant and animal species."

V

Egyptian activists hope for 'second revolution' a year after Morsi's election


Opposition plans large-scale demonstrations on Sunday, with some hoping army may step in to facilitate transition of power

Egypt is holding its breath for mass demonstrations to mark the first anniversary of President Mohamed Morsi's election on Sunday, amid speculation the army might intervene in the event of large-scale civil unrest.

Opposition activists claim an unverifiable 15 million Egyptians have signed a petition demanding Morsi's removal, and expect a significant proportion of that number to take to the streets on 30 June. There have already been outbreaks of fighting in two cities, where Morsi's still-sizeable support base has launched counter-protests. As a result, many opposition actors hope the army, who deployed armoured vehicles on Cairo's streets on Wednesday, will be forced to intervene and facilitate a transition of power.

A senior military source told the Guardian on Thursday that the army did not want to intervene. But they stated that if Sunday's protests were as widespread and prolonged as those that drove Egypt's 2011 uprising, and if serious fighting broke out between Morsi's supporters and his opponents, then the army may regard the protests as a more legitimate representation of the people's will than the elections that brought Morsi to office a year ago - and would step in to facilitate a transition of power to a technocratic caretaker government.

The eventual scale of the protests nevertheless remains uncertain, and could yet prove highly exaggerated. But some of Morsi's opponents are convinced 30 June will be as pivotal as the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

Che Guevara

Truck drivers join mass protests in Brazil as country grinds to a halt

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Unprecedented social turmoil continues in Brazil. Truck drivers have started three days of nationwide protests demanding lower fuel prices and exemption from road tolls.

MUBC, the most influential truckers union in Brazil, started a 72-hour strike on Monday. A spokeswoman for the MUBC trucking union headquarters in Rio de Janeiro said drivers were off the job in at least five states: Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Espíritu Santo and Mato Grosso.

The trucking union's demands include a subsidy for diesel fuel, exemption on highway toll payments for drivers and the creation of a new federal government department of cargo transportation.

Truckers protesting on the Anchieta highway that links Sao Paulo to Brazil's main Santos port triggered a 2-kilometer (1.4-mile) traffic jam, according to the highway operator Ecovias. Some other federal highways were blocked as well.

Apple Red

California teacher, 28, gave birth to baby fathered by student, 16, say police

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Laura Whitehurst, 28, was arrested on Monday night for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old student, who reportedly fathered her baby.

The teacher was questioned at her home in Redlands, California and then charged with unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, noted PE.com.

She was released after posting a $25,000 bail.

Whitehurst teaches 10th-grade English at Citrus Valley High School in Redlands, but is now on administrative leave.

According to the Redlands Police Department, her lover was 16 years old during their year-long relationship, which allegedly started last summer. The alleged victim is now 17 and recently graduated high school.

Dollar

Boston man arrested for making false $2M claim to Marathon bombing fund

Boston Bombing
© TheBusinessInsider
A man was arrested Tuesday and accused of making a false claim for over $2 million to a fund set up to aid victims of April's Boston Marathon bombings using his dead aunt's name.

MyFoxBoston.com reported that 22-year-old Branden Mattier was arrested outside his home in Boston's South End by a Massachusetts state trooper who had presented him with a simulated check for $2.195 million from One Fund Boston. He was charged with attempted larceny over $250 and identity theft.

The office of Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said that Mattier claimed that his deceased aunt, Onevia Bradley, suffered a double amputation in the April 15 bombings. Mattier allegedly sent an e-mail to The One Fund asking if his aunt could make a claim as a double amputee if the amputation was expected to be performed in the future. The One Fund later received a claim form from Mattier, along with a letter allegedly from the chief of trauma services at Boston Medical Center affirming Bradley as a double amputee.

However, hospital officials said Bradley never received treatment in connection with the bombings and the investigation revealed that Bradley had actually died more than a decade earlier.

Click for the full story from MyFoxBoston.com

Camcorder

Police State: Two New Jersey men use surveillance video to support police brutality allegations


Two northern New Jersey men are reportedly using footage from a surveillance camera to help support their allegations of police brutality in 2011. Alexis Aponte and Miguel Rivera claim that Paterson police used undue force against them when they were arrested, according to CBS New York.

The video appears to show Aponte being kicked by Paterson officers and then dragged down the street during a 2011 arrest.

A federal lawsuit filed Friday in Newark claims Aponte, of Paterson, and Rivera, of Prospect Park, were beaten while on the ground handcuffed. Aponte was a passenger in a truck driven by Rivera when police stopped them.

Their attorney, Darren Del Sardo, says the video was from a camera outside the Rivera family's home. It mostly captured what happened on the passenger side.

The lawsuit names Paterson police and specific officers.

People

Curfew considered after 400 teens street brawl in Greensboro


A massive fight in downtown Greensboro Saturday night has some city leaders taking a hard look at bringing back the teen curfew.

Nearly 400 people were involved in the several fights that happened along Elm Street.

Greensboro police arrested 11 people ranging in age from 16 to 20-years-old. Officers had to use pepper spray and a stun gun to try to get the crowd under control. Greensboro Police Department had to call UNCG Police and Guilford County for extra help.

Some officers minor injuries following the fights. As soon as one fight stopped another started.

The security cameras outside of Syn and Sky nightclub caught many of the brawls. The footage shows two groups of teens walking toward each other on Elm Street and several people running away into the streets.

Cell Phone

Girl, 15, faces child porn rap for iPhone pic

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Cops: Young Floridian displayed illicit image to several classmates


A 15-year-old Florida girl was arrested yesterday on a child pornography charge for allegedly showing several classmates a photo on her iPhone depicting "two juveniles engaged in oral sex," police report.

The girl admitted to "taking the pornographic photo," according to a complaint affidavit filed by the Pasco County Sheriff's Office. The document, sworn by a detective, does not identify the juveniles in the photo, though a sheriff's spokesperson said that the teen herself is one of the minors depicted.

On May 21, the iPhone was seized from the girl "during class" by an employee of Wiregrass Ranch High School in Wesley Chapel who "observed a picture of two juveniles engaged in oral sex."

In subsequent interviews, "five witnesses" told a deputy that they "had been shown the child pornography by the defendant." The girl later reportedly copped to taking the photo and possessing it on her white iPhone.

Question

Puerto Rico town mystified by missing remains

San Juan - The remains of at least 40 people are missing from a cemetery in the sleepy mountain town of Gurabo, where officials are trying to solve a mystery that has frightened neighbors and left families distraught.

The apparent thefts occurred at the town's oldest cemetery, which was built in 1912 and features rows of white mausoleums located on the outskirts of Gurabo.

"I have spent nine years with the municipality," Public Works Director Jose Roman told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "I have never, never, ever had something like this happen to me."

No one has been able to explain the disappearances, although many residents believe the bones are being stolen for Santeria rituals, practiced by those who follow the Caribbean-based religion that blends Roman Catholicism and the African Yoruba faith.

Roman acknowledged that possibility, as well as a hypothesis that thieves are snatching boxes made of steel that hold the bones to sell them on the black market. However, he said no bones have been left behind.

Government officials made the discovery last month when they tried to exhume several remains to move them to another cemetery, only to find they were gone.

Comment: Puerto Rico is heavily polluted with DU residue from years of being used as a bombing range for the USAF. Perhaps the disappearance of corpses is related to DU analysis in the population...a retrospective baseline snapshot. Perhaps it's to destroy evidence the mil complex wants to disappear.


Handcuffs

We must hate our children

graduates
© Reuters/Brian Snyder
Next time you're watching a college graduation, as you look out over the sea of caps and gowns, make sure you notice the ball and chain most graduates are wearing as they march onstage to receive their diplomas. That's student loan debt, which at over $1 trillion tops credit card debt in the U.S. today. The average burden is $28,000, but add in their credit cards and they're graduating with an average of $35,000 in debt. It's no wonder that people who've paid off their student loan debt are 36 percent more likely to own homes than those who haven't, according to new research by the One Wisconsin Now Institute and Progress Now.

What kind of society sends its young people from higher education into adulthood this way? I'm aware I'm only talking about those lucky enough to go to college, when roughly one-third of high school graduates don't - but if this is the way we treat our relatively lucky kids, the rest of them don't have a prayer. For many, the school to prison pipeline functions much more efficiently than the school to college one; California is one of at least 10 states that now spends more on prison than higher education. According to the Federal Reserve Bank, two-thirds of college graduates leave with some debt, and 37 million Americans are repaying a student loan right now.

Unbelievably, interest rates on federally subsidized loans are doubling today, from 3.4 to 6.8 percent. As Congress bickers over alternatives, even Democrats are backing "market-based" plans that aren't as bad as GOP ideas, but aren't good either. I hope they can find a way to lower interest rates, but the real scandal isn't the rate hike. The real scandal is that we take for granted that young people must go into debt - at whatever interest rate - to pay for college.

Of course, the truly lucky kids - those blessed wealthy members of the Lucky Sperm Club - sail through higher education without debt. But today, even upper-middle-class kids are having to take out loans, as the average annual cost of a four-year public university soars above $22,000, while private schools are over $50,000. Who the hell thinks this is a good idea?

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