Welcome to Sott.net
Sat, 23 Oct 2021
The World for People who Think

Society's Child
Map

Airplane

Met Police London City Airport Guard Shoots Himself Dead Inside Police Station

North Woolwich Police Station
© Google
Airport guard dies after being found with serious gunshot wounds

An investigation has been launched after an armed Met police airport guard shot himself dead at a Docklands police station.

The constable, in his 30s, was a member of London City Airport's SO18 security team. He was found by a colleague with serious gunshot wounds at North Woolwich station, in Newham, at 2.30pm on Sunday.

Paramedics battled to save his life but he was pronounced dead 22 minutes later. Scotland Yard today said no-one else was being sought in connection with the tragedy.

The station is used as a base by armed officers on the nearby airport's Aviation Security Command.

Footprints

European leaders and financial markets braced for Greece exit from euro

Image
Return to drachma nears amid political impasse in Athens and open discussion in Brussels of possible end of single currency

Financial markets are hastily making preparations for a Greek exit from the euro after a day of political and economic turmoil ended with Europe's policy elite admitting for the first time that it may prove impossible to keep the single currency intact.

With attempts in Athens to form a government after last week's election looking increasingly doomed, European leaders abandoned their taboo on talking about the possibility that Greece might have to leave the euro.

Shares, oil, and the euro were all sold heavily on Monday in anticipation that anti-austerity parties would garner support in a second Greek election likely to be held next month, bringing the row between Greece and its European creditors to a climax.

Stormtrooper

Oakland Cop Shoots, Kills High School Senior; Nothing to See Here

Image
© unknown
US, California - An Oakland cop shot a fleeing high school senior three times, killing the teenager while shooting himself in the foot. Oakland police claim they saw a hidden gun on 18-year-old Alan Blueford's person shortly after midnight, causing them to pursue him. That's when cops say Blueford pointed a gun at one of the officers (they also say "several independent witnesses" corroborate the claim), compelling him to shoot.

Police are not releasing the name of the officer, who is on paid administrative leave, though the San Francisco Chronicle identified him as Officer Miguel Masso. A police spokesperson, meanwhile, offered to the media that Alan Blueford had been convicted of felony burglary and was on probation when shot. His father says his son was completing the community service portion of his sentencing, and speculated that his son ran away from cops because he didn't want to get into any more trouble. He says his son was in the Oakland neighborhood for the Floyd Mayweather match.

Blueford's family has retained counsel, civil rights attorney James Burris, who points out all the shots were fired by cops. The family also claimed in a statement that their son was left to bleed to death, and that Blueford's friends were detained for six hours following the incident. The family says it was informed of their son's death at the hands of cops not by the police department but from one of Blueford's friends after he was released. The family also points out that the original police version claimed an exchange of gunfire. Investigators say the gun recovered at the scene had not been shot.

Heart - Black

49 Headless Bodies Dumped on North Mexico Highway

Image
© The Associated Press/Christian Palma
A federal policeman guards the area where dozens of bodies were found on a highway connecting the northern Mexican metropolis of Monterrey to the U.S. border near the city of Monterrey, Mexico on May 13.
Monterrey, Mexico - Forty-nine bodies with their heads, hands and feet hacked off were found Sunday dumped on a northern Mexico highway leading to the Texas border in what appeared to be the latest carnage in an escalating war between Mexico's two dominant drug cartels.

Local and federal authorities discovered the bodies before dawn scattered in a pool of blood at the entrance to the town of San Juan, on a highway leading from the metropolis of Monterrey to the border city of Reynosa. A white stone arch welcoming visitors was spray-painted with black letters: "100% Zeta."

Nuevo Leon state security spokesman Jorge Domene said at a news conference that the 43 men and six women would be hard to identify because of the lack of heads, hands and feet. The bodies were being taken to a Monterrey auditorium for DNA tests.

The victims could have been killed as long as two days ago at another location, then transported to San Juan, a town in the municipality of Cadereyta, about 105 miles (175 kilometers) west-southwest of McAllen, Texas, and 75 miles (125 kilometers) southwest of the Roma, Texas, border crossing, state Attorney General Adrian de la Garza said.

Light Saber

Paul Rusconi, Malibu Artist, Cleared Of Allegations Of Raping His Twin Daughters

Paul Rusconi
© KTLA
Famed Malibu photographer Paul Rusconi was cleared Friday of allegations that he raped his 20-month-old twin daughters.
After being cleared Friday of allegations that he raped his 20-month-old twin daughters, famed Malibu photographer Paul Rusconi cried.(Video here)

It's been almost a year since distant family members, the nanny who took care of Rusconi's two girls, and her husband, accused him of raping his daughters after seeing photos that he had taken of himself with his girls in a bathtub, KTLA reports.

Rusconi believes that the couple targeted him because he is a gay single father. "They all called me a sexual deviant and a pervert," Rusconi told KTLA. "That's all stemming from my sexuality."

Airplane

Nepal Plane Crash: 13 Indians Die; 2 Girls & Dad Rescued

Image
© unknown
Kathmandu - Two Indian children aged nine and six were pulled out alive along with their father and three others from the wreckage of a small plane that crashed near a tricky airport around 2,600m above sea level in northern Nepal on Monday, killing 15 of the 21 people on board, mostly Indians.

Officials said 13 Indians killed in the crash included the mother of the two. Seven of them were from Mumbai and one from Hyderabad. It was unclear where the rest were from and the airline didn't identify the dead.

Kathmandu's Indian embassy identified three Indian survivors as Tirumala Kidambi Sreekanth, Tirumala Kidambi Sreevardhini (9) and Tirumala Kidambi Sreepada (6). They were airlifted to the tourist town of Pokhara for treatment along with other survivors - two Danes and a Nepalese air hostess. Officials said Sreekanth was admitted to Pokhara's Manipal Teaching Hospital ICU, while the two children were in a post-operative ward. B L Karna of Tribhuvan airport said the pilot aborted landing at Jomsom airport at the last moment and tried to return to Pokhara, 60km away, due to a technical problem.

Bizarro Earth

Selective Empathy: Obama's, Cheney's, and Ours

funeral prayers for the victims of a drone strike
© Getty Images
Locals offer funeral prayers for the victims of a drone strike in Miranshah, North Waziristan February 15, 2009.
"Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue our family is very familiar with. ...With the respect to the question of relationships, my general view is freedom means freedom for everyone. ... People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to." --Dick Cheney

"But I have to tell you that over the course of-- several years, as I talk to friends and family and neighbors. When I think about-- members of my own staff who are incredibly committed, in monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together....At a certain point, I've just concluded that-- for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that-- I think same-sex couples should be able to get married." --Barack Obama

Every positive development has a negative side (and leave it to me to find it). How fortunate for the cause of marriage equality that there are gay people on the White House staff, and that Dick Cheney has a lesbian daughter. Perhaps if the president had some staffers from Yemen, or the former vice president's daughter married a Pakistani, they would awaken to the humanity of people in those places too.

But Obama's recognition of the right of gay Americans to marry is not matched by an awareness of the right of Afghans to live free of airstrikes. Instead, we have an endless succession of horrors like this, sometimes (but not always) followed by apologies that would mean something if only they were followed by the complete abandonment of a strategy that leads inevitably to parents weeping over the lifeless bodies of their children. I doubt Obama would be so cavalier about civilian casualties if they happened in Chicago.

Sherlock

Vatican Mystery: Police Open Mobster's Grave Seeking Missing Girl's Body

Image
© Angelo Carconi / The Associated Press
Forensic police officers work in the courtyard of Sant’ Apollinare Basilica in Rome. They are seeking evidence in a 1983 disappearance.
An overwhelming stench filled the air as forensic experts in white pantsuits and masks mingled with priests in black clerical garb during the exhumation of a reputed Italian mobster from the crypt of a Roman basilica.

The scene Monday outside the church of Sant'Apollinare was hectic, with television cameras jostling for views inside the chapel and the adjacent courtyard of the Opus Dei-run Pontifical Holy Cross University, where forensic vans came and went.

The chaotic scenes were part of an investigation into one of the Vatican's most enduring mysteries: the 1983 disappearance of the teenage daughter of one of its employees.

Medical experts took samples from the remains of Enrico De Pedis and removed boxes of old bones from the nearby ossuary, as part of the investigation into whether Emanuela Orlandi may have been buried alongside him, said a De Pedis family lawyer.

Ms. Orlandi was 15 when she disappeared in 1983 after leaving her family's Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See.

Mr. De Pedis, a member of Rome's Magliana mob, was killed in 1990. His onetime girlfriend has reportedly told prosecutors he kidnapped Ms. Orlandi. In 2005, an anonymous caller told a call-in TV show the answer to the girl's disappearance lies in his tomb.

Attention

Female Bank Robbers Stake Their Claim

Stick Up
© Minyanville
Lipstick em' up!
Put the money in the pocketbook, and no one gets hurt.Lady criminals are staking their claim in the face of recent economic strains, with one in 10 bank heists in the U.S. being pulled by women. The Daily Beast reports the number of female driven robberies has doubled over the past decade, unable to avoid the line: "Why today's Bonnies aren't waiting for a Clyde."

A week ago, the FBI took suspected femme-fatale Johanna Quish into custody. She's believed to be responsible for a string of bank robberies committed over the past month in the Greater Boston area. Quish is the latest in a trend that's turning a few heads, and raking in a whole new batch of bank-robbing monikers.

Among them are the 'Barbie Bandits'--Heather Johnston and Ashley Miller--who met while dancing at the same strip club. They gained notoriety in 2007 after holding up a Bank of America branch in Georgia. Then there is Candice R. Martinez, aka the 'Cell Phone Bandit,' who knocked over a Wachovia, three years before the bank was acquired by Wells Fargo, in 2006. She stole upwards of $40,000, reportedly chatting on the phone with her boyfriend the entire time.

There's the 'Bad Hair Bandit,' who became famous for her ratty wigs, one of which she donned while holding up a US Bank, a division of USBancorp, in 2010. She would feature many more badly placed hair pieces over the 20 subsequent robberies committed before her 2011 arrest. The Starlet Bandit donned a wig as well, along with sunglasses, making sure she looked the part while robbing a Los Angeles Citibank in 2010, her last in a string of ten local heists before being caught.

Dollar

Social Justice Activist Files $100-Million Suit Against Bell Over Expiry Dates

Bell
© unknown
Canada, Toronto - Bell Mobility and its parent company, BCE Inc. (TSX:BCE) have been served with notice of a $100-million class-action lawsuit alleging that expiry dates on its pre-paid wireless services are illegal.

The suit alleges the practice is contrary to Ontario's Consumer Protection Act and the pre-paid wireless services should be treated as gift cards without an expiry date under the act.

The suit is being handed by the Toronto law firm of Sack Goldblatt Mitchell LLP on behalf of Celia Sankar of Elliot Lake, Ont.

Sankar, founder of the DiversityCanada Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes social justice, is a Bell Mobility pre-paid wireless customer who has had her credit balance seized on two occasions.