Society's ChildS


Gold Seal

Racism, hunger and laziness: A First Nations youth perspective on Idle No More media coverage

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As Chief Theresa Spence has demonstrated since December 11th, there is supreme hunger in this country. For too many First Nations people, that hunger is literal, as they struggle to find a way to feed themselves despite the wealth that is being extracted from their lands. For others, this hunger is more abstract.

As a Kanien'kehá:ka and Anishinàbeg woman (that's Mohawk and Algonquin) who was raised off-reserve, I have been sustained throughout my life by strong connections to my home communities and my First Nations identity.

I have followed the Idle No More movement ravenously, consuming online Canadian media coverage, as well as the commentary section following every article. In these comments, it is clear that, in a purportedly enlightened country like Canada, racism against First Nations people is everywhere.

In particular, I'm struck by the repeated accusation of the laziness of First Nations people. The hypocrisy of such a characterization is astounding. In fact, few Canadians have taken any time to find out the facts, preferring instead to regurgitate the racist stereotypes that we've been fed by the media and the mainstream education system for generations.

Stock Down

The Boeing debacle: Seven lessons every CEO must learn

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© REUTERS/Issei KatoU.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) inspection charge Lorenda Ward (C), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) technical advisor Eric West (2nd L), unidentified Boein Co. official (R) and members of the Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) inspect All Nippon Airways' (ANA) Boeing Co's 787 Dreamliner plane
Brake problems. A fuel leak. A cracked windshield. One electrical fire. Then another. An emergency landing in Japan. A safety investigation imposed by the FAA. Then two premier customers - Japan's two main airlines, ANA and JAL, ground their fleet of Boeing [BA] 787s. Then the FAA grounds all 787s used by the only American carrier. Now other regulators around the world follow suit, grounding all 50 of the 787s delivered so far. The regulatory grounding of an entire fleet is unusual - the first since 1979 - and relates to a key to the plane's claimed energy-efficiency: the novel use of lithium ion batteries, which have shown a propensity to overheat and lead to fires - fires that generate oxygen and hence are difficult to put out.

And keep in mind: Boeing's 787 project is already billions of dollars over budget. The delivery schedule has been pushed back at least seven times. The first planes were delivered over three years late. In fact, out of a total of 848 planes sold, only 6 percent have been delivered.

Yet grave as these issues seem, they are merely symptoms of a deeper disease that has been gnawing at the US economy for decades: flawed offshoring decisions by the C-suite. Offshoring is not some menial matter to be left to accountants in the backroom or high-priced consultants armed with spreadsheets, promising quick profits. It raises mission-critical issues potentially affecting the survival of entire firms, whole industries and ultimately the economy.

Sheriff

Concerned citizen pulls over drunk cop, locks him up in his own cruiser

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Pietermarizburg man arrested an allegedly drunk police officer and locked him up in the back of his police van after watching him drive recklessly through the city streets.

Russell George, of Prestbury, said he was coming down Stott Street and about to enter Mayor's Walk at about 8 pm on Sunday when he noticed a police van driving fast and recklessly .

"He was driving towards oncoming traffic as he turned into Victoria Road.

"At this point I was concerned about the safety of other road users," self-employed George told The Witness.

"He suddenly jammed on his brakes and came to a complete stop.

"I got out of my car and went towards him and I asked him if he knew what he was doing. He started his car and carried on driving," he said.

Continuing to drive recklessly, the policeman turned into Logan Road and came to a stop at the Howard Road intersection.

Evil Rays

Harrowing surveillance footage shows woman getting punched, dragged, and thrown onto subway tracks in Philadelphia

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Police say surveillance video shows a man approach a woman at a SEPTA station, assault her and then throw her onto the tracks.

According to SEPTA, the woman was sitting Tuesday just after 3 p.m. at the Chinatown stop's northbound platform on Race Street along the Broad Ridge-Spur subway line.

Surveillance video, released Thursday by SEPTA, shows a man approach the woman. Police say he asked for a lighter.

Once he had that lighter, he attacked the woman, throwing her onto the tracks (see the surveillance footage in the second video clip above).

The man took her cell phone, which had fallen out of her pocket and onto the ground, and is then seen on surveillance video leaving, SEPTA police said.


Pistol

Firearms instructor leaves gun in school bathroom

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© Reuters / Jim Urquhart
In response to last month's massacre in Newtown, a Michigan charter school hired a firearms instructor as a security guard - only to find that the armed guard forgot his gun in the school bathroom.

The school took the National Rifle Association's advice in hiring an armed guard, but the retired Lapeer County Sheriff's Dept. firearms instructor, Clark Arnold, endangered students less than a week after he was hired by forgetting his deadly weapon in the school bathroom.

The Chatfield School of Lapeer, Michigan, which has about 500 enrolled students, was fortunate that the security guard remembered to retrieve the missing gun before a student came across it. The school director reported the incident to local authorities, but the retired firearms instructor will face no criminal charges.

"If you left a gun unattended and a toddler finds it and shoots and hurts someone, it could be some kind of reckless use of a firearm," Lapeer County Prosecutor Byron Konschuh told the Flint Journal.

But because no students were injured at the charter school, "it's almost like no harm no foul," Konschuh added.

Pistol

Man shops at Utah JCPenney while carrying assault rifle

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A man in Riverdale, Utah walked into a local JCPenney department store this week armed to the teeth, carrying a holstered handgun, a semi-automatic assault rifle and extra clips on his belt.

The strange display of firepower was enough to draw a scene, with bystanders taking photos and making concerned comments to one another. Images of the man published to Facebook caused a stir in the community and got the attention of ABC 4 in Salt Lake City.

The woman who took the photo that got the most attention said it happened on Wednesday, just four hours after President Barack Obama announced a series of executive orders relating to firearms.

Red Flag

'Compassionate, gifted' Connecticut priest busted in cross-country meth ring

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© CONNECTICUT POSTMonsignor Kevin Wallin, of Bridgeport, Conn., was charged along with four others with selling crystal meth as part of a cross-country drug ring.
He went from pastor to pusher.

A Connecticut priest was part of a cross-country drug ring that smuggled crystal meth from California into the well-heeled hamlets of Fairfield County, federal prosecutors said.

Monsignor Kevin Wallin, a former pastor of St. Augustine Parish in Bridgeport, sold meth to undercover narcs six times since September 2012, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Wednesday.

The 61-year-old former church leader and four others were indicted by a grand jury on six counts of possession with intent to distribute.

If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison and a $2 million fine.

Federal investigators arrested the group on Jan. 3.

Heart - Black

Algeria: 12 hostages have died in the siege

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Algeria's state news agency says 12 hostages have been killed since the start of the operation to free workers kidnapped by Islamic militants at a natural gas plant in the Sahara.

The APS news agency quotes an unidentified security source for the new death toll and says the fatalities include both Algerian and foreign workers at the remote desert facility.

APS also said Friday that 18 of the hostage takers have been killed.

The militants, meanwhile, offered to trade two captive American workers for two terror figures jailed in the United States, according to a statement received by a Mauritanian news site that often reports news from North African extremists.

The Friday report from the government news agency APS, citing a security official, did not mention any casualties in the battles between Algerian forces and the militants. But earlier it had said that 18 militants had been killed, along with six hostages.

Eye 2

Man bites off girlfriend's thumb in fight

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Police in Central Florida say a man bit off his girlfriend's left thumb during a fight while he was driving her to work at Taco Bell.
Police in Central Florida say a man bit off his girlfriend's left thumb during a fight while he was driving her to work at Taco Bell.

Florida Today reports that hospital officials called police after the woman arrived for treatment Wednesday.

Pistol

Gun laws in the U.S.: Seven things you need to know about the data

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From concealed carry laws to background checks, the 50 states are a patchwork of inconsistent gun regulations.
Weapons laws can vary dramatically from state to state. Here are the key findings we collected while building our interactive.

When you first encounter this interactive, it's perhaps best to know that our key finding was that gun regulation from state to state is not one-size-fits-all.

Trying to create "buckets" to classify regulations broadly among the states is a challenge because most states have not enacted comprehensive legislation. In fact, it's common to find that states regulate one area of gun control in a very isolated way. For example, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania have enacted universal background checks for prospective gun owners, which also apply to sales at gun shows. However, other states, like Virginia, have imposed other administrative requirements - many of which emphasize record-keeping over regulation - that also pertain to gun shows.

A key point about the "blue" regulation areas used to highlight gun regulations in this interactive: the law specifically regulated gun rights in those states; however, if a state's regulation area is colored "grey", we can't necessarily make the assumption that there are absolutely no gun restrictions in that locale.

Below are other key findings we encountered while wrangling the data for this interactive: