Society's ChildS


Megaphone

Special Ed teacher's resignation letter hits a nerve

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Wendy Bradshaw
A Polk County public school teacher's letter of resignation has apparently hit a nerve with frustrated teachers and parents nationwide.

Special education teacher Wendy Bradshaw submitted her letter to her Lakeland elementary school on Friday morning, then posted it to her Facebook page. It started to go viral within hours, and as of Tuesday had been shared nearly 40 thousand times. It was also posted on the Washington Post education blog.

Comment:


Light Saber

People Power! Million Mask March results in protests around the world

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In DC people took to the streets, bashing a window at the EPA and replacing an american flag with an anonymous flag at Monsanto's headquarters.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets in hundreds of cities around the world for the 2015 Million Mask March, with police arresting dozens in London and activists storming the doors of biotech giant Monsanto in Washington, DC. Organized by the Hacktivist group Anonymous, the event featured thousands of people from around the world donning Guy Fawkes masks and protesting a variety of injustices ranging from inequality and corruption to police brutality and capitalism itself, RT reported.

Protests spanned the globe, with major events taking place in Europe and the United States, as well as Canada and Guatemala.As in the past, one of the biggest marches took place in London, where hundreds and potentially thousands of people flooded the streets. Although protesters were told to follow a specific route, some broke off from the main group and the scene quickly became chaotic.

Roughly 50 people were arrested as a result. According to Sky News, arrests were primarily for public order violations. Three officers were also injured during the day's events. At one point in the evening, a police car was set on fire, with some demonstrators standing around it, before police finally extinguished the blaze. Smoke devices were also deployed in London.

Comment: In Washington DC, protesters gave out money, food and hugs to the homeless:

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In London, 3 officers were injured and a police car was set on fire. There were also dozens of arrests for 'public order violations'.
Below is video from Seattle where a few hundred protesters took to the streets and were stalked by police on bikes.


Here's another image from Washington, DC:




Fire

5 injured as factory explosion produces huge fireball in Brasov, Romania

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© DigiSport.ro screengrab
Five people were injured in an explosion at a bread factory in the central Romanian city of Brasov late on Thursday and firefighters were trying to extract a person from the rubble, Deputy Interior Minister Raed Arafat said.

The explosion was caught on camera, as it occurred at a factory near a soccer stadium where a televised match was starting.

"Five people were taken to the hospital ... with burns," Arafat told local television station Antena 3, who said firefighters and ambulances were on site, with local hospitals alerted and helicopters on standby.

"Right now they are trying to extract one person from the rubble. We suspect more people are trapped under the rubble."

Arafat said ten people were estimated to have been working in the factory at the time of the blast.


Ambulance

Bavaria rail crash: At least 2 dead as German train collides with towed US Army vehicle

Bavarian train crash
© DPA / AFP Rescuers gather at a partially burnt regional train after an accident on the railway near the Bavarian city of Freihung, southern Germany, on late November 5, 2015.
A passenger train collided with a tractor trailer towing a US Army truck at a railway crossing in southern Germany, local media reported. The train driver and the trailer driver were killed, while more than 20 people were injured, according to DPA agency.

The crash happened in Freihung, in eastern Bavaria, late Thursday. According to DPA news agency, it is now being assumed that the truck got stuck on the tracks and was hit by the train. The collision was followed by an explosion.

The train, which was heading from Nuremberg to the city of Weiden, collided with a "Romanian tractor trailer" towing a US Army truck, FOCUS Online reports, citing local police. The truck was being transported from the US military's Grafenwöhr Training Area in Bavaria, local Mittelbayerische.de reports.

Comment: Tragic yet perhaps symbolic too, as Germany increasingly collides with the US on many issues, as it seeks to realign its geopolitical position. See also:


Heart - Black

Displaying signs of psychopathy, defendants in Becky Watts trial 'live in fantasy world'

Nathan Matthews, Shauna Hoare, Becky Watts
Nathan Matthews (top right) and girlfriend Shauna Hoare (bottom right) are accused of murdering Becky Watts (left)
The trial of a man and woman accused of murdering teenager Becky Watts has been told the defendants live in a "fantasy world" where "lies are told".

Prosecutor William Mousley QC said the couple had "lied and lied and lied again" at Bristol Crown Court.

The jury heard Becky's stepbrother Nathan Matthews and his girlfriend Shauna Hoare "did not like her" and wanted her as a "sexual plaything".

Mr Matthews and Ms Hoare deny murdering the 16-year-old.

Mr Matthews admitted he had killed Becky after panicking during an attempt to kidnap and scare her, but insists Miss Hoare had no part in it.

In his closing statement, Mr Mousley told the jury: "The real world where you and I live is a world of good sense and logic, where obvious and safe conclusions can be drawn from the evidence."

He said the world in which the defendants lived was "where lies are told, they are all innocent lies and that fantasy world where nobody tells anyone else what they have done and nobody displays any emotions".

Road Cone

Crumbling infrastructure: 99-year-old dam may collapse from winter rains and spill arsenic-contaminated tailings

Eastwood Multiple Arch Dam
© City of JacksonThe Eastwood Multiple Arch Dam in Jackson, Calif. following tree trimming operations in August 2015.
State officials are warning that a 99-year-old dam in Northern California is at risk of collapsing if a big rainstorm comes through.

The concrete Eastwood Multiple Arch Dam in Jackson was built in 1916 and holds back large quantities of arsenic-contaminated tailings left over from gold mining.

In June, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found that the dam was structurally unsound.

California Department of Toxic Substance Control officials say they recently began a $1 million emergency repair operation that is expected to be completed this month.

The city of Jackson says the National Weather Service will issue a warning if rainfall amounts reach certain levels that could exacerbate the dam's structural problems.

Comment: How long will these repairs hold, and how many other such structurally unsound dams exist that are not being repaired? Questions that almost seem like wasted breathe when the media focuses on irrelevant nonsense like how Russia could 'annihilate' US Army.


Arrow Down

More school hysteria: Student suspended for dietary supplements

vitamins high school
New York high school student Wyatt Hatfield was suspended from school Oct. 13 after bringing in Vitamin C supplements. The school's policy reportedly says that students can't possess "look-a-like drugs."

Hatfield, a junior at Marathon High School in Marathon, New York, had put a combination of supplements in his lunch bag on Oct. 13, WBNG reports. The supplements included vitamin C, olive leaf extract and Echinacea, all of which had been left on the school bus.

According to superintendent Rebecca Stone, all medications have to be approved by a parent or doctor and then stored at the nurse's office. While Stone said that the policy has been in place for years, Hatfield argued against it.

"I found it quite ridiculous that I was being suspended for dietary supplements," Hatfield told WBNG.

Arrow Down

Hundreds of thousands of social housing tenants face a rent rise of up to £3,000 a year in the UK

council tenants outside of welfare housing
© Getty ImagesRent rise: People in social housing will be worse off
Experts warn George Osborne's little noticed 'pay to stay' scheme will leave an estimated 250,000 people in social housing worse off.

Hundreds of thousands of council tenants are facing a steep rent rise of up to £3,000 a year.

Experts warn George Osborne 's little noticed "pay to stay" scheme will leave an estimated 250,000 people in social housing worse off.

Under the Budget measure anyone earning more than £30,000 a year (£40,000 in London) will have to pay the market rate for rents.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tanks calculates this would see nearly one in ten council and housing association tenants having to pay an extra £3,000 a year on average.

The IFS also said the Chancellor 's plan to cut rents by 1% for all other tenants will "be of little or no direct benefit" to most of the 3.9 million households in England living in social housing.

It says as most of their rent is covered by housing benefit, they will not be better off.

And because councils and housing associations will have less rental income fewer houses will be built, the IFS says.

Comment: Cutting benefits to those that actually need it is not how truly democratic governments behave.


Dollar

'A new type of mafia': Rome trial begins of 46 politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen accused of systematic corruption

Rome mafi trial
© Reuters Alessandro Diddi, the lawyer of convicted murderer Salvatore Buzzi, arrives at Rome’s Palace of Justice on Thursday for the start of the trial.
Prosecutors say year-long investigation exposed how millions of euros were skimmed off city hall contracts by 'a new type of mafia'

A one-eyed former neo-fascist gangster has gone on trial alongside 45 other defendants accused of running a mafia crime ring in Rome that skimmed millions of euros off city hall contracts.

Prosecutors say a year-long investigation uncovered systematic corruption in Rome as politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen conspired with mobsters to rig public tenders on everything from creating refugee centres to rubbish collection.

Massimo Carminati, a one-time member of Rome's notorious far-right Magliana gang, and his sidekick Salvatore Buzzi, a convicted murderer, are accused of running the crime ring, which prosecutors say represented a new type of mafia in Italy.

Comment: That politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen are revealed as 'the new mafia' should come as no surprise for anyone who has been paying attention.


Bad Guys

At least 16 reportedly dead after tailings pond dam breaks in Brazil

Dam collapse Brazil
Tailings pond dam has collapsed
Witnesses report the town of Bento Rodrigues, near Mariana, Brazil, has completely flooded

A dam in the south-eastern Brazilian town of Mariana in the state of Minas Gerais has broken, killing at least 16, according to local media.

Witnesses report the town of Bento Rodrigues, near Mariana, has been completely flooded; the town has a population of 620.


Comment: More collapses. Symbolic of our world?