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Heart - Black

North Carolina, US: Frontier Worker Charged with Animal Abuse

Maggie Tobias
The Sylva Herald
Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:00 UTC
peppervetc
© The Sylva Herald
Pepper, an 8-year-old miniature schnauzer owned by Gina and John Rarick of Dillsboro, is still recovering from injuries she sustained after being hit by Frontier Communications employee Joshua Gray, according to Gina Rarick. Gray has been charged with misdemeanor cruelty to animals, and his court date is July 12. Rarick said earlier this week that Pepper had improved slightly, but the dog can’t hold her head up and is unable to walk straight.
Joshua Gray of Sylva, a Frontier Communications employee, has been charged with misdemeanor cruelty to animals after a June 17 incident, according to the Jackson County Sheriff's Office.

Pepper, an 8-year-old miniature schnauzer owned by Gina and John Rarick of Dillsboro, sustained severe brain injuries after Gray hit her with a large test phone, according to Gina Rarick.

Pepper is currently in the care of Sylva Animal Hospital during the day, but Gina Rarick takes her home at night. Pepper's condition is unstable, but she can walk, and by early this week, Pepper was doing better, Gina Rarick said.

"She can walk but she walks in circles. That's the brain damage," she said. "She'll probably always walk in circles."
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Heart - Black

US: Texas man dumps 4-year-old son by highway


Associated Press
Wed, 29 Jun 2011 19:05 UTC
Saginaw
© AP Photo/Saginaw Police Dept.
This booking photo provided by the Saginaw Police Department shows 22-year-old Carlos Rico. Police say Rico abandoned his 4-year-old son along a West Texas highway, and the injured boy spent several hours alone in the dark before a passing motorist picked him up.

Sweetwater - A father abandoned his 4-year-old son along a West Texas highway, and the injured boy spent several hours alone in the dark before a passing motorist picked him up, police said.

Carlos Rico, 22, stopped his car along a cactus-lined stretch of Interstate 20 near Sweetwater at about 3 a.m. Tuesday and "threw the boy out of the car like a bag of garbage," Sweetwater police Chief Jim Kelley told the Abilene Reporter-News on Tuesday.

The boy was picked up about three hours later by the local high school basketball coach and taken to a hospital, where doctors removed at least 500 cactus spines from the child's body, Kelley said. The boy was in the state's custody on Wednesday.
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Binoculars

Saudi Arabian woman challenges male guardianship laws

Dave Lee
British Broadcasting Corporation
Wed, 29 Jun 2011 19:46 UTC
Image
© Getty Images
Guardianship rules severely restrict the freedom of women in Saudi Arabia
When she was a little girl, Samia* would practice medical procedures on watermelons.

Back then, her dream was to become a successful surgeon and to marry a good man.

"I started to dream of the [wedding] gown when I was 10 or 11 years old. I dreamed of forming a small family - having a kid like my mum and to be a surgeon at the same time".

More than 30 years on, Samia is a fully-qualified doctor.

But in a country where the guardianship system means a woman's life is not her own, her dreams of a happy marriage - with a man of her own choosing - have been taken away from her.
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Yoda

In Burma, a woman's inner freedom, unbroken by fear


The Christian Science Monitor
Tue, 28 Jun 2011 19:41 UTC
Aung San Suu Ky
© Unknown
Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi reveals in a BBC lecture the source of her spiritual strength in surviving as an isolated dissident and as a champion of democracy.

Many a visitor to Burma (Myanmar) who sees the headquarters of Aung San Suu Kyi's political party calls it a "cowshed." The ramshackle structure is hardly a symbol of her great ability to keep alive the people's hopes for democracy in a country run by despots.

So where does Ms. Suu Kyi's strength lie in leading a dissident movement despite being isolated for 15 years, either in prison or under house arrest?

The answer can be found in a talk recorded in secret for the BBC's Reith Lectures, just months after her release. The tapes were smuggled out of Burma for broadcast this week and next (click here).

Suu Kyi's insights about her inner strength build on the works and writings of previous freedom fighters, such as Vaclav Havel. But they are unique to her experience as the daughter of modern Burma's founder, someone raised in a Christian school but who lives in a Buddhist country that has been in simmering revolution since 1988.

These lectures could not be better timed to inspire the faltering Arab Spring - as well as the Burmese.

She says a basic human right is freedom from fear, something that Arabs learned quickly after Tunisia's revolution in January. For her, living under a repressive regime, "fear is the first adversary we have to get past when we set out to battle for freedom, and often it is the one that remains until the very end."
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Bizarro Earth

Nuclear experts killed in Russia plane crash helped design Iran facility

Amir Oren
Haaretz.com
Thu, 23 Jun 2011 19:16 UTC
Image
© Associated Press
The wreckage of Tu-134 plane, belonging to the RusAir airline, is seen on a highway near the city of Petrozavodsk Tuesday, June 21, 2011.
The five Russian scientists were among 44 killed earlier this week; no official investigation of foul play has been opened, though Iranian nuclear experts have in the past been involved in similar accidents.

The five nuclear experts killed in a plane crash in northern Russia earlier this week had assisted in the design of an Iranian atomic facility, security sources in Russia said on Thursday.

The five Russian experts were among the 44 passengers killed when the Tupolev-134 plane broke up and caught fire on landing outside the northern city of Petrozavodsk on Monday.
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Bandaid

US: Federal Appeals Court Rules Health Care Reform Bill is Constitutional

Bill Mears
CNN
Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:19 UTC
Image

Lawmakers surround President Barack Obama as he signs the health care legislation in March 2010 at the White House.
The political and legal future of the sweeping health care reform bill received a big boost Wednesday after a federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled in favor of the Obama administration and Congress, concluding a key provision in the landmark legislation was constitutional.

The "individual mandate" requiring nearly all Americans to purchase health insurance by 2014 or face financial penalties -- was challenged in federal courts by a large number of individuals and groups, who said people should not be forced to purchase a product like medical coverage. A partially divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit disagreed.

"We find that the minimum coverage provision is a valid exercise of legislative power by Congress under the Commerce Clause," said the three-judge panel on Wednesday, in a 64-page opinion.
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Bad Guys

U.S. Navy Welcomes Partners, Kicks Off FRUKUS 2011

Samantha Thorpe
Navy.mil
Mon, 20 Jun 2011 20:45 UTC
Image
© US Navy
Sailors assigned to the guided-missile destroyer USS James E. Williams (DDG 95) catch lines from the Russian navy destroyer Admiral Chabanenko (DDGHM 650) as it prepares to dock at Naval Station Norfolk.
Norfolk, Virginia - Ships from Russia, France and the United Kingdom arrived at Naval Station Norfolk to participate in FRUKUS 2011 with the U.S. Navy off the coast of Virginia, June 20.

FRUKUS stands for the participating countries - France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States - and is a two-week interoperability exercise aimed to improve maritime security through open dialogue and increased training between the participating navies.

"FRUKUS 2011 provides the opportunity for personnel of all participating nations to engage in realistic and challenging maritime training to build experience, cooperation and teamwork," said U.S. Navy Capt. Peter Demane, commander, Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 26.

FRUKUS consists of two phases: ashore and at-sea. While ashore, Sailors from each ship will participate in training areas including damage control, fire fighting and ship handling. The at-sea portion, which begins next week, will provide critical training in maritime domain awareness, anti-piracy and maritime interdiction operations. A shore-based multinational combined task group staff will provide command and control for the ships during the at-sea phase.
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Bad Guys

US - Headed to the beach? Heads up for an invasion force

Larry Shaughnessy
CNN.com
Wed, 29 Jun 2011 19:01 UTC
Image
© Agency Presse France/Getty
Beachgoers on the U.S. East Coast may see U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Ospreys like these overhead next week.
Washington -- It's mid-June, a perfect time to visit the beach to watch porpoises play in the surf or seagulls strut the sand -- or you could watch a formation of Marine Corps warplanes darting over the shore at hundreds of miles per hour.

But don't worry -- the United States hasn't declared war on your family's beach house. It's just part of a major Marine Corps exercise called Exercise Mailed Fist (translation: armored fist).

The exercise is designed to test the capability of every type of Marine Corps aircraft, including MV-22 Ospreys and F/A 18 Hornets, as well as some Navy ships and Air Force planes.

The drill will stretch from Quantico Marine Base in northern Virginia to the Navy's Pinecastle Bombing Range in Florida.

With thousands of Marines and other service members involved, it's the biggest such drill ever on the U.S. East Coast.
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Handcuffs

US Police State: Reporters in Washington arrested for filming public meeting


Russia Today
Fri, 24 Jun 2011 17:06 UTC

Video courtesy of Reason.tv

Two journalists were led out of a public meeting in handcuffs in Washington DC this week after using their cell phones to report on the hearing of the DC Taxicab Commission.

Peter Tucker of TheFightBack.org says two US Park Police officers cuffed him and dragged him away after he used his phone to take photos at the Commission meeting. Tucker has long been an advocate of independent taxi drivers and Washington Post columnist John Kelly reports that one taxi driver yelled, "We need the reporter here!" while the journalist was hauled off.

"You can't arrest me for reporting," demands Tucker.

"I can arrest you for not obeying an order," replies an officer.

As he was led out of the room, the packed house of drivers quickly emptied the room in protest.

Despite the hearing being a public meeting, the commission does not take kindly to being recorded, even if those at stake here - the drivers themselves - are for it. Following an account in May, Tucker writes that DC Taxicab Commission chairman Dena Reed told him "You cannot record the meeting unless the commission allows you to do so, it does not." When Tucker asked to be shown where the commission's rules say that, Reed responded: "I can't show you anything because it's not written in there."
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Alarm Clock

Fox News Reports: 'U.S. Troops Reportedly Taking More Medication Than Ever'

Marianne Skolek
Salem-News.com
Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:41 UTC
Image
© Salem-News.org
Salem-News.com writer Dr. Phil Leveque, who as a physician treated generations of military vets with PTSD; says the dangerous hard drugs provided by the government lead to addiction, destruction of families, disaster and death.
Fox News reports that U.S. military troops are taking more prescription medication than ever. US troops Heavily Medicated on Prescription Drugs, the report warns.

The bottom line is that the men and women of the US armed forces are taking more addictive medication than they ever have in the past.

The Daily reported Wednesday, that the US Department of Defense doesn't keep track of those medical prescriptions doled out to service members in combat. This, despite ongoing pleas from federal officials to record the data. The military's 2012 budget report from the House Appropriations Committee, cited how the prescription of pain management drugs is not handled consistently, particularly in battle. According to The Daily, the report includes an ultimatum. The committee expects concrete information within two months of the budget's approval, detailing "the required steps and potential obstacles toward electronic transmission of prescription drug data."
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