Society's ChildS


Dollar

Smoke and mirrors mask corruption at Pennsylvania's largest cyber-charter school as founder charged with funneling $8 million into private account

computer education
© Unknown
For the last decade, cyber charter schools have been springing up all over the country. Cyber schools give classes over the Internet to students in grades K-12, who get their education entirely online instead of in a brick-and-mortar location. Despite the lack of research into these schools' educational quality, in recent years some states have removed limitations to their growth.

Pennsylvania is one such state pioneering cyber charter schools. As of the 2012-2013 school year, 16 of its public schools were cyber. Students could attend those programs free, subsidized by federal, state, and local tax revenue.

On Friday, the founder of Pennsylvania's bigger charter school - PA Cyber - was charged with fraud, for funneling $8 million of the school's funds into his personal companies and holdings. Nicholas Trombetta allegedly used the tax payer money to purchase a plane, houses for his mother and girlfriend, and a million dollar Florida condo.

Blue Planet

Bear stalks 2 women in 3-hour ordeal

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© Unknown
Annapolis Valley pair flee to hunter's shack.


Two Nova Scotia women say they had a close escape from a black bear while travelling in the Annapolis Valley.

The three-hour ordeal ended with the pair cowering in an old hunter's shack while the bear pawed the walls of the building outside.

Nikki Latta, 23, and Lindsay Jones, 25, headed into the woods near Port George on the Bay of Fundy shore Monday evening. Latta was familiar with the area, but Jones wasn't. The two joked about a bear attack - Jones is terrified of them.

Then a passing dog got spooked and ran away.

Eye 2

UK Mother catches 'feisty' albino king snake in her garden

  • Mother and daughter Ann and Bridie Denniss, spotted the 3ft long snake in the garden
  • They decided to catch it and grabbed some tongs, gloves and a bag
  • The albino king snake tried to bite them but they eventually captured it
  • King snakes are commonly kept as pets but no one has yet claimed it
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Feisty: A fearless mother and daughter, from Weymouth, Dorset, captured an angry Californian King snake with a pair of salad tongs after finding it on the loose in their garden
A fearless mother and daughter used a pair of salad tongs to capture an escaped red-eyed snake they spotted slithering along their garden wall.

Bridie Denniss, 24, was enjoying a cup of tea in her kitchen with her mum Ann when she looked out of the window and saw the 3ft long snake.

Brave Ann, 54, grabbed a pair of tongs from the kitchen draw along with a garden sack and went after it.

Pistol

South African girl of seven 'shoots friend dead'

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© UnknownGun ownership is an emotive issue in South Africa
A seven-year-old South African girl has shot dead her friend, aged six, with her grandfather's revolver while playing at a farm, police say.

A murder case has been opened after the dead girl, a daughter of a farm worker, was shot in the face, reports say.

The alleged killer's grandfather has been charged with failure to safeguard a firearm, police added.

South Africa has tight gun ownership regulations but many people still possess firearms.

'Great shock'

The debate over gun ownership in South Africa is highly emotive, and sometimes takes racial overtones in a country where divisions between black and white people still run deep, says BBC South Africa analyst Farouk Chothia.

Books

Liberia students all fail university admission exam

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© Unknown
Liberia's education minister says she finds it hard to believe that not a single candidate passed this year's university admission exam.

Nearly 25,000 school-leavers failed the test for admission to the University of Liberia, one of two state-run universities.

The students lacked enthusiasm and did not have a basic grasp of English, a university official told the BBC.

Liberia is recovering from a brutal civil war that ended a decade ago.

'Dreams shattered'

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Nobel peace laureate, recently acknowledged that the education system was still in a "in a mess", and much needed to be done improve it.

Handcuffs

Mumbai gang-rape: Indian police arrest fifth man

mumbai rapist
© Danish Siddiqui/ReutersPolice officers escort one of the men arrested in connection with the gang-rape of a photojournalist at a court in Mumbai on Sunday.
Police say charges will be filed soon as last of five men wanted in connection with assault on photojournalist is picked up in Delhi.


Police have arrested the last of five men wanted in connection with the gang-rape of a photojournalist in Mumbai.

They said charges would be filed soon in a case that has caused public outrage and renewed the debate over whether women can be safe in India.

The victim, a 22-year-old Indian woman, said she was anxious to return to work after Thursday night's assault, in which five men repeatedly raped her while her male colleague was beaten and tied up in an abandoned textile mill in the country's financial capital.

A statement from Jaslok hospital, where the woman has been since the attack, said her condition was being monitored but that she was "much better" and is being visited by her family. Indian law forbids identifying rape victims by name.

Police arrested the fifth suspect on Sunday in Delhi, the capital, after rounding up the other four in Mumbai.

Attention

Transgender Harlem woman dies days after being assaulted in hate crime attack

Islan Nettles, 21, was brutally assaulted early Saturday morning on Frederick Douglass Blvd., cops said.


A bigoted thug brutally beat a transgender woman to death in Harlem just moments after realizing his friend was actually born a man, the victim's family and officials said Friday.

It was the latest in a series of troubling bias attacks in the city, which is on pace to double the number of crimes against the gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual community in 2013 compared with last year.

In the most recent assault, Paris Wilson, 20, repeatedly punched Islan Nettles, 21, in the face after he and a group of friends spewed slurs at the victim, cops said.

Nettles had two Facebook profiles - one identifying himself as man and using his birth name, Vaughn Nettles, and another as a woman.

Wilson was friends with Nettles' "female profile," the victim's family said.

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Delores Nettles said her son was walking with two transgender friends on W. 147th St. near Frederick Douglass Blvd. early on Aug. 17 when the conflict began in front of a police stationhouse.

"As Islan turned around and started arguing, (Wilson) beat him and he knocked my baby on the floor," she said. "And he kept beating and beating and beating my baby."

Cops said Wilson - about to enter his senior year at Buffalo State University - continued the beatdown, even after Nettles fell backward and struck his head on the pavement.

One of Nettles' friends ran inside and alerted cops, who found the victim "unconscious on the ground with a swollen shut eye and blood on her face," according to a criminal complaint.

Police arrested Wilson on a misdemeanor assault charge after Nettles' friend identified him.

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© Susan Watts/New York Daily NewsNettles was on life support at Harlem Hospital.

Comment: Recently, alleged "Pot Mom" Andrea Sanderlin was released on $500,000.00 bail after being arrested for growing weed in NY. A homophobic neanderthal beats a transgendered woman to death directly in front of the Police Station, and he is released on $2000.00 bail.

When your government considers growing a plant to be a more serious crime than taking a human life, it's wayyyy past time to replace your government.


Sheriff

Police attack-dog mauls innocent man during warrantless search of private property

"Hey puppy," he said when he saw a strange dog in his workplace after-hours. Then it lunged at him and gnawed on his leg.

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A kitchen manager visiting his place of work after hours was mauled by a police attack dog, which was released into the property with the purpose of seeking out and attacking anyone it found. Police defend the actions of the dog, saying "He did what he was supposed to do."

Mark Demaline manages the kitchen of Park Place Tavern in Livingston, and on August 22, was visiting the business at 2:00 AM, which he often does, to eat before going home. His routine visits are brief, as he makes a quick salad, grabs his laptop, and leaves. He does not lock the door while in the tavern, reports the Livingston Enterprise.

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© Shawn Raecke, Livingston EnterpriseMark Demaline shows off his wounds.
Unbeknownst to Demaline, police had decided to perform a "standard downtown security check," which involves entering a private business without probable cause or a warrant, snooping around inside and releasing an attack dog to sniff out intruders, without permission from the owner.

Mark had prepared himself a take-home salad and prepared to exit the building, with food and drink in hand. A strange black dog approached him.

Being a dog lover, Demaline greeted the dog, "Hey puppy." The dog lunged at him and sank its teeth into his leg, gnawing his flesh with repeated bites. Mark dropped everything and began screaming and trying to restrain the attack dog.

Comment: The Police train a poor dog to be a vicious killer, then release the animal they've turned into a lethal weapon onto any private property they find to be unsecured. No warning call, no effort to insure there aren't any innocent (and legal) occupants, even children, on the property. They are not charged with any crime for their grossly irresponsible behavior, nor disciplined in any way.

This is the new normal in the United Police State of America.


Penis Pump

North Carolina agrees to compensate sterilization victims for 45-year eugenics program

Eugenics North Carolina
© (Reuters / Adrees Latif)The Charlotte, North Carolina
After a ten-year deliberation process, North Carolina is set to be the first state to offer monetary compensation to victims of government-sponsored sterilization.

Between 1929 and 1974, the state sterilized an estimated 7,600 people by choice, force or coercion under the authority of the North Carolina Eugenics Board program.

The North Carolina General Assembly in late July approved compensation for the remaining victims of the sterilization program. State Governor Pat McCrory signed into law the $10 million compensation package -- to be distributed among living victims -- as part of the state's $20.6 billion budget shortly after the General Assembly's vote. Verified victims will be issued a share by 2015.

The number of victims alive in 2013 is unknown. However, the state Center for Health Statistics estimates that 2,944 victims may be living as of 2010. Less than 200 people have come forward with sterilization claims, Charmaine Fuller-Cooper, former director of the North Carolina Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation, told CNN.

Info

Maldives girl spared lashes after global anger

Maldives
© Wikipedia, Creative CommonsMalé, capital of Maldives.
A 15-year-old girl who was sentenced to 100 lashes in the Maldives after she was raped by her step-father has had the sentence overturned thanks to an international campaign.

Earlier this year, the girl, whose name cannot be released, was accused of engaging in premarital sex. In February she was sentenced to receive 100 lashes as punishment for "fornication", and she was put under house arrest on an island near the capital Malé. Premarital sex is illegal in the Maldives, and flogging is a legal and accepted punishment for it.

The sentence, issued by a juvenile court, sparked anger from women's rights groups in the country and triggered a global campaign, led by the Avaaz network, calling for the sentence to be overturned. Two million people reportedly signed this petition.