Society's Child

Teenagers in Liverpool paid money by elder gang leaders to stab other youths

Matthew Price and Layla Wright
BBC
Mon, 17 Jun 2019 00:00 UTC

Teenagers are being offered up to £1,000 by gang leaders in Liverpool to stab other youngsters, the BBC has learned.

Bounties are being paid by "elders" who want to avoid carrying out the attacks themselves, young people have told the BBC Beyond Today podcast.

The claims have been linked to at least one recent stabbing.

Merseyside Police said it was aware organised crime groups used violence to settle disputes.

In a statement the force did not directly address the teenagers' claims.

But it said gangs were known to exploit "young and vulnerable people to sell... drugs and even to use violence".

The teenagers, who wish to remain anonymous because they fear reprisals, said: "Young kids are getting money put on their heads."

One boy told the BBC that his best friend was the target of a £1,000 bounty.

Comment: See also:

Drug-addicted will get free heroin under new scheme headed by UK police

RT
Sun, 16 Jun 2019 18:02 UTC

Addicts will be given access to free heroin up to three times a day under a new scheme to licence the UK's first "shooting galleries" where users can safely inject the drug.

A licence was approved by the UK government earlier this month for health centers in Cleveland that will be open seven days a week from Autumn, reports The Times. There, drug addicts can inject themselves up to three times per day while under the supervision of a healthcare professional.

11-year-old North Carolina boy takes on robber with machete

Bill Hutchinson and Morgan Winsor
ABC News
Mon, 17 Jun 2019 14:06 UTC

Injured suspect arrested after manhunt

An 11-year-old boy, who was home alone when three people broke into his family's North Carolina residence, turned the tables on the alleged criminals when he grabbed a machete and whacked one of them in the head, officials said.

Braydon Smith said he knew he didn't have time to think or be afraid.

"I grabbed my machete off my wall and went to hit him," he said in an exclusive interview with ABC station WTVD in Durham, North Carolina. "I knew I had to act in the heat of the moment."

Don't expect a tip: Domino's Pizza teams with robotics company to deliver pies

Kate Rogers
CNBC
Mon, 17 Jun 2019 14:33 UTC

Domino's is taking a new autonomous delivery partnership for a spin.

The pizza chain announced Monday it is teaming with robotics company Nuro for a pilot program in Houston later this year. Nuro has developed a custom unmanned vehicle, called the R2, for delivering goods including food and dry cleaning. Domino's says it's interested to learn more about the operational and customer experiences with this type of vehicle, which is built for goods delivery only.

The move could also give store owners options during peak delivery times.

"The opportunity to bring our customers the choice of an unmanned delivery experience, and our operators an additional delivery solution during a busy store rush, is an important part of our autonomous vehicle testing," Kevin Vasconi, Domino's executive vice president and chief information officer, said in a statement.

Nuro has raised more than $1 billion from investors including Greylock and Softbank and has a partnership with Kroger. Its founders, Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu, were principal engineers at Google's self-driving car project, Waymo.

Texas: Ex-pastor arrested for sexually abusing teen relative over the course of two years

ABC News
Sun, 16 Jun 2019 13:52 UTC

A former Southern Baptist pastor who supported legislation in Texas that would have criminalized abortions has been arrested on charges of child sex abuse, accused of repeatedly molesting a teenage relative over the course of two years.

Stephen Bratton is accused of subjecting the relative to inappropriate touching that escalated to "sexual intercourse multiple times a day or several times a week" from 2013 to 2015, according to Thomas Gilliland, a spokesman with the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

Court records show Bratton, 43, posted a $50,000 bond Saturday, The Houston Chronicle reported .

Bratton told his wife about the abuse in May, and admitted to his co-pastors at Grace Family Baptist Church that same day that he had "sinned in grievous ways," according to court documents.

It isn't clear whether Bratton has an attorney who can comment on his behalf. The Associated Press couldn't locate a phone number for him Sunday.

Creeping socialism: Denver council member wins with promise to impose progressive policies 'by any means necessary'

Victor Skinner
The American Mirror
Wed, 12 Jun 2019 13:48 UTC

Candi CdeBaca won a runoff race last week against former Denver city council president Albus Brooks, and she did it by promising to implement communist policies "by any means necessary."

CdeBaca was among three candidates that unseated incumbents in the Tuesday runoff, preliminary results show, and she's already drawing comparisons to Socialist Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 29-year-old who unseated 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in New York's 14^th congressional district in 2018.

"It's historic," said Carlos Valverde, state director for Colorado Working Families, a political activist group that supported CdeBaca. "It is in the vein of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. ... A victory that really demonstrates people power over money power."

Lychee fruit blamed for the encephalitis deaths of 100 children in India

Sputnik
Mon, 17 Jun 2019 13:42 UTC

Acute Encephalitis Syndrome has spread like wild fire in the Indian city of Muzaffarpur, claiming 20 lives alone on 16 June. Consumption of popular local Lychee fruit has been cited as the cause of the virus' rapid spreading by officials.

At least 100 children have succumbed to the Encephalitis virus in the Indian city of Muzaffarpur in Bihar state over the last few days.

As per official data, 83 of these children died in the Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH), while 17 succumbed to the virus in the city's Kejriwal Matrisadan hospital.

Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) is a viral disease which causes symptoms such as high fever, convulsions and body aches.

Some media reports quoted officials as suggesting that the spread of the virus was caused by the consumption of Lychee fruit.

Indian Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan on Sunday visited the Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital where many children have lost their lives.

TV now portrays dads as hapless fools

Bob Brody
New York Post
Fri, 14 Jun 2019 13:35 UTC

It was just father and son out there on the prairie, working the ranch. The town knew the dad as a model citizen, ready to step in at any hint of trouble to keep the peace. The son minded his manners and performed his daily chores without complaint. This was "The Rifleman," which aired from 1958 to 1963.

I watched the black-and-white Western as a boy and watch it now, in reruns, as a grandfather. Chuck Connors played the father, Lucas McCain, a Civil War veteran who promises his dying wife to care for their son. Set in the 1880s, it was the first prime-time TV series featuring a single parent raising a child.

TV in the 1960s was big on fathers. You could watch Jim Anderson on "Father Knows Best," Danny Williams on "Make Room For Daddy," Steve Douglas on "My Three Sons," Ward Cleaver on "Leave It to Beaver," Ben Cartwright on "Bonanza," Rob Petrie on "The Dick Van Dyke Show," Ozzie Nelson on "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet," Tom Corbett on "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" and Andy Taylor on "The Andy Griffith Show."

Generally these were suburban dads, breadwinners who carried briefcases to work while the wife stayed home raising the kids. They reflected a largely patriarchal society where men made the big decisions and tended to play the role of fathers only while off-duty.

Phoenix cops who threatened to kill family over 'shoplifting incident' placed on desk duty

RT
Mon, 17 Jun 2019 13:23 UTC

Phoenix Police Department has drawn even more criticism after officers, whose "unprofessional" threats to kill parents in front of their children recently went viral, were merely reassigned to "desk duty."

Several videos of the confrontation surfaced earlier this week, quickly going viral and causing a storm of outrage. The incident itself occurred on May 27, when Phoenix Police was alerted by an employee of a Family Dollar store about an alleged shoplifting incident - a four-year-old child had left the shop with a doll without paying.

The police chased the suspects - Dravon Ames, 22; his fiancee, Iesha Harper, 24; along with their two young daughters, one-year-old London Drake, and four-year-old Island Drake - and cornered their vehicle near an apartment complex where the family's babysitter lives. Footage from the scene shows the officers drawing their guns and threatening to kill the pair for non-compliance.

US tech giants are losing billions, quietly lobby to ease Huawei ban - report

RT
Mon, 17 Jun 2019 05:18 UTC

Highly concerned over an imminent loss of billions of dollars in trade with Huawei, Silicon Valley giants have been quietly lobbying the Trump administration to ease its ban on sales of components to the Chinese tech firm.

Huawei spent about $11 billion last year buying components from dozens of US companies, including chips from Qualcomm, as well as software from Microsoft and Google. American firms are set to lose that business once their 90-day temporary licenses, granted following Washington's blacklisting of Huawei and 70 of its subsidiaries, expire on August 20.

To prevent that from happening, major US chip makers such as Intel, Qualcomm and Xilinx have quietly lobbied the Commerce Department to ease its ban on sales to the Chinese firm, Reuters reported, citing anonymous industry sources.

Comment: The Americans have to realize that they're not the only game in town and all their posturing accomplishes is driving Huawei into the arms of their competition. The US tech industry is the only loser in this game.

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Society's Child

Teenagers in Liverpool paid money by elder gang leaders to stab other youths

Drug-addicted will get free heroin under new scheme headed by UK police

11-year-old North Carolina boy takes on robber with machete

Don't expect a tip: Domino's Pizza teams with robotics company to deliver pies

Texas: Ex-pastor arrested for sexually abusing teen relative over the course of two years

Creeping socialism: Denver council member wins with promise to impose progressive policies 'by any means necessary'

Lychee fruit blamed for the encephalitis deaths of 100 children in India

TV now portrays dads as hapless fools

Phoenix cops who threatened to kill family over 'shoplifting incident' placed on desk duty

US tech giants are losing billions, quietly lobby to ease Huawei ban - report

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