Society's ChildS


Family

UK in family breakdown 'epidemic'

Jennifer Cockerell
The Independent, UK
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 11:36 UTC
The UK has one of the highest rates of family breakdown in the Western world with just two thirds of children living with both parents, according to research by a global development organisation.

The UK comes only behind Belgium, Latvia and Estonia in the list of countries where both a child's father and mother live in the same household.

The analysis by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) showed that just 68.9 per cent of children live with both parents in the UK, well below the average of 84 per cent.

The figures have been described as symptomatic of an "appalling epidemic of family breakdown" by social justice campaigners.
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Pistol

Impending societal collapse? U.S. running out of ammo as inventories plummet 93% since Obama re-election


Free Republic
Fri, 28 Dec 2012 11:27 UTC
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© Traction Control blog
Reaction to threats by Senator Dianne Feinstein and others to ban certain weapons and severely restrict ownership of guns generally has caused a run on gun stores, as is widely reported.

Less reported is the run on ammunition, leaving ammunition inventories down 93% since election day.

So reports Traction Control blog:
Plunge! Ammunition Levels Less Than 10% of Pre-Election Levels:

Ammunition Stock levels have fallen by more than 90% from the pre-Election Day levels. Less than 10% remains available. Available Ammunition links will be updated throughout the day.

Handguns are down by 80%, Long Guns by 63% for an overall 72.2% reduction in firearms inventories.

AR pattern rifles are becoming particularly difficult to source.
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Hourglass

Grandmother 'comes back from the dead just minutes before post-mortem' after spending 3 days in the morgue

Anna Edwards
Daily Mail
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 11:14 UTC
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Lyudmila Steblitskaya, her daughter Anastasia, and granddaughter Nelli, all had a horrific shock
A grandmother has been brought back from the dead twice - and has even survived spending three days in a morgue.

The 61-year-old Russian woman has been declared dead twice by doctors, but each time has come back to life - and once was minutes away from being cut open for her autopsy.

Hardy Lyudmila Steblitskaya spent 3 days laying in a freezing cold morgue, while her family mourned the retired cook.

The mother's eery habit of returning to life has not only left her family torn between grief and hope that she may come back to life, but perplexed doctors too, The Siberian Times reported..

She has scared both doctors, friends and family once in November last year and in October this year.

The initial confusion began last year, when Lyudmila was taken to Tomsk Regional Clinical Hospital and spent days in hospital because she felt unwell.
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Pistol

Predictable result of Sandy Hook massacre and 'gun control debate': Sales of firearms across U.S. explode to 'levels never seen before'

Justin Jouvenal
Washington Post
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:45 UTC
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© Gary Kent pJohn Gonzales shows where all the AR-15s were hung until Wednesday at the Bee County Pawn shop on North St. Mary's Street. Manager Monica Moreno said the shop has sold out of all 30-round magazines for AR-15s and AK-47s and all the ammunition for those rifles is gone.
Gun sales have surged in the Washington metropolitan region and across the nation in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre as enthusiasts rush to buy firearms they fear will be outlawed by a fresh push for gun control.

Gun dealers requested nearly 5,150 background checks on purchasers in Virginia eight days after the Dec. 14 shootings in Newtown, Conn. - the largest number ever in a single day, Virginia State Police said. And in the days since, the daily number of background checks has regularly doubled corresponding totals from the previous year.

In Maryland, state police project that they will receive 8,200 gun permit applications in December, more than in any other month this year and double the number received in June.

Similar surges have reportedly been seen in California, Colorado and even Connecticut, the site of the tragedy.

"I've never seen shelves so bare in stores that weren't going out of business," said John Pierce, co-founder of the Virginia-based gun rights networking hub OpenCarry.org. "It's really shocking."

Comment: Judging by the results, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Sandy Hook Massacre and subsequent 'debate' about gun control was actually carried out to push Americans towards becoming more heavily armed than ever before.

Once rising food prices translate into food shortages and society begins to break down, the U.S. will be left with a whole lot of hungry armed people, the perfect recipe for a nationwide massacre.

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Cell Phone

Texting and walking: 1 in 3 people distracted by mobile devices while crossing the street


Huffington Post
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 11:08 UTC
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© Photo: Buffalotechno
We all know about the dangers of distracted driving ... but maybe we should be concerned about distracted walking, too.

A new study in the journal Injury Prevention shows that nearly one in three people cross busy streets while distracted by their cell phones -- and some are even doing it during rush hour.

The most dangerous distracted walking activity? Texting -- people who texted took nearly two seconds longer than non-texters to cross around three or four lanes of traffic. And they also ignored traffic lights, didn't look both ways and crossed in an area that is not the crosswalk nearly four times more than non-texters.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Washington, included 1,102 pedestrians who were monitored for their "distracted" activities: listening to music, texting, talking on the phone, talking to a companion, or dealing with a child or pet.

The researchers found that nearly half of the time, these distracted activities were taking place during rush hour (between the hours of 8 and 9 a.m.). The age group most likely to be guilty of this: 25-to-44-year-olds.

The researchers also found that just slightly fewer than a third of the people in the study were distracted in some way when they crossed the road: 11 percent listened to music, 6 percent talked on the phone, and 7 percent text messaged.
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Extinguisher

Blast outside Karachi railway station kills six


Dawn.com
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:58 UTC
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© AFP PhotoBystanders remove an injured man beside a burning passenger bus after an explosion in Karachi on Dec 29, 2012
At least six people were killed when a loud explosion ripped apart a passenger bus parked outside the gates of Karachi Cantonment Station, the main railway station in the city.

The large blast completely ripped opened the roof of the bus, scheduled to depart for Sargodha, which caught fire following the explosion.

"There are reports of five people being killed in the blast. The injured have been shifted to Jinnah Hospital," said Ahmed Chinoy, the head of the Citizen Police Liaison Committee (CPLC).

At least 48 other people were also injured in the blast, with five of them said to be in critical condition, hospital officials said.

"We have received 48 patients, some of which are critical. Six people killed have been shifted to the mortuary," confirmed Seemi Jamali, a senior doctor at the Jinnah Hospital.
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Ambulance

Four killed as passenger jet overshoots airport runway in Moscow and breaks up as it crashes into main road


Daily Mail
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:53 UTC
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Crash scene: The airliner broke up in pieces when it overshot the runway at Vnukovo Airport in Moscow
At least four Russians died today when a passenger airliner overshot a runway and broke into pieces at a Moscow airport.

Officials said up to eight people were on board the Tupolev-204 - flight number RWZ9268 - as it rolled off the runway at Vnukovo airport and burst through a perimeter fence onto a highway.

State television news channel Vesti showed a photo of the wrecked plane's fuselage with the livery of the low-cost Russian Red Wings airline. Its nose, including the cockpit area, appeared sheared off.

Two people were found dead at the scene, while a third victim, a 27-year-old woman, died on the way to hospital. Three others were severely injured.

The captain and co-pilot were among those killed, reported Interfax.

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Wreckage: Rescuers work at the site where the low-cost Red Wings Russian passenger careered off the runway
Interior Ministry officials believe the cause of the crash could be pilot error. Light snow was falling in Moscow at the time.

The plane was flying in from Pardubice, in the Czech Republic after dropping off tourists and then returning to its home Moscow base with just crew on board.
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Magnify

Paedophile snared by police after he takes picture of a girl at his home with shop sign in the background


Daily Mail
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:36 UTC
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Pervert: David Mellor was jailed for six years
Police traced a paedophile to his home after the indecent picture he took of a girl had a giveaway shop sign in the background.

David Mellor, 62, didn't spot he had included it when he photographed the underage girl, in his kitchen and posted the picture on the internet.

But officers in Lincoln recognised the sign and identified the street and his home from the picture's angle.

The image was seen on a file-sharing website by a specialist officer with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection unit.

When police raided Mellor's property they found more then 8,000 indecent images of children on a computer.

He was jailed for six years at Lincoln Crown Court after admitting 18 sex offences involving indecent images and also breaking a court prevention order.
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Bad Guys

India gang rape: Six men charged with murder

Jason Burke
Guardian
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:33 UTC
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© Photograph: Krishnendu Halder/ReutersProtesters rally in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad to mourn the victim of a vicious gang rape who has died nearly two weeks after she was attacked.
Death of student gang-raped by six men and thrown from a moving bus in Delhi two weeks ago prompts mass protests

Indian police have charged six men with murder, hours after a woman who was gang-raped and thrown from a moving bus in Delhi nearly two weeks ago died in a Singapore hospital.

Police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said the men could face the death penalty if convicted. Officials said that authorities would press for the harshest possible punishment.

The announcement came as thousands of Indians gathered to mourn and protest the death of the 23-year-old medical student. The woman, who has not been named, sustained serious internal injuries after being violated with an iron bar during the attack, which took place on 16 December and triggered mass demonstrations calling for better protection for women against sexual violence.

She died late on Friday in the Singapore hospital where she was being treated.

Her family had been keeping a bedside vigil after she suffered severe organ failure. She was flown to Singapore from India two days ago as her condition worsened.

Authorities in India reacted with statements of grief, calls for calm and a huge security operation.
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Heart - Black

Police suspect Brenda Stokes killed 10-year-old Jade Morris before attacking co-worker with razor blades

Ken Ritter
Huffington Post
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 10:10 UTC
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Brenda Stokes Wilson appears in Clark County Justice Court, Friday, Dec. 28, 2012, in Las Vegas.
Police suspect that a casino worker killed a 10-year-girl before going to a Las Vegas resort and allegedly slashing the face of a co-worker with razor blades.

The search for Jade Morris ended Friday afternoon when officials confirmed that it was her body that was found a day earlier in an undeveloped housing tract.

The Clark County coroner's office said she died of multiple stab wounds,

Jade was last seen Dec. 21 with family friend Brenda Stokes Wilson, who picked her up to go Christmas shopping.

Wilson, 50, returned the car she had borrowed for the outing to a friend two hours later. Jade never came back. Investigators later found blood on the driver's door and steering wheel of the 2007 Saab sedan.

Later that night, Wilson was wrestled to the ground with razors in each hand after allegedly slashing the face of a female co-worker at the Bellagio casino.

A judge raised her bail to $60,000 from $600,000 Friday morning after she was identified as the prime suspect in the child's killing.

"It's no secret the defendant is the suspect in the murder of 10-year-old Jade Morris," prosecutor Robert Daskas told Senior Clark County District Court Judge Joseph Bonaventure at the hearing.
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