Society's ChildS


Handcuffs

Psychopath behind bars: Rockefeller imposter Gerhartsreiter jailed for murder

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© UnknownGerhartsreiter pretended to be a Hollywood producer and an English aristocrat
A German man who pretended to be heir to the Rockefeller oil fortune has been jailed for killing his California landlady's adult son in 1985.

Christian Gerhartsreiter, 52, was sentenced to 27 years to life in prison at a Los Angeles federal court.

He had been living in Los Angeles under a false name when he murdered John Sohus, 27. His bones were later dug up at the house.

Sohus' wife Linda, 29, also vanished. No trace of her has ever been found.

In April, a jury found Gerhartsreiter guilty of first-degree murder with malicious intent, and of using a blunt object as a deadly and dangerous weapon to kill.

False identities

Gerhartsreiter proclaimed his innocence as he was sentenced on Thursday, accusing Linda Sohus of the killing.

Handcuffs

Dave Lee Travis, ex-Radio 1 DJ, faces indecent assault charges

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© UnknownMr Travis spoke to reporters as he arrived at his home

Former BBC Radio 1 presenter Dave Lee Travis has been charged with 12 historical sexual offences, police say.

The 68-year-old faces 11 counts of indecent assault and one of sexual assault, and will appear before Westminster magistrates on 23 August.

Mr Travis, of Mentmore, Bucks, said he was "disappointed and surprised" to be charged and denied the allegations.

The allegations date from 1977 to 2007 and relate to nine female complainants aged between 15 and 29 at the time.

Mr Travis was questioned by police as part of Operation Yewtree, an investigation into historical claims linked to the entertainment industry.

The probe was launched in the wake of sexual offence allegations against ex-TV presenter and Radio 1 DJ Jimmy Savile.

Whistle

Massive gas blast in Bulgaria caught on camera


Massive gas blast in Bulgaria caught on camera.

Moment a gas cistern ignited near a railway line in Varna, Bulgaria, causing a massive blast which injured 12 people.

Arrow Down

78 children missing from Oklahoma Department of Human Services

Missing Children
© Cudahynow.com
The Oklahoman reported that seventy-eight children in custody of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services are missing. Thirty-eight of them have been missing for more than three months. Melissa Jones, a DHS program supervisor, insisted that "there is accountability, but keeping children from running away can be harder than it seems".

Kim Baker who formerly worked for the DHS in Oklahoma City commented "I worked for DHS child abuse center in OKC about 30 years ago and I saw corruption then. I had to quit. I went to a state attorney for help because I was 19 and didn't know where to turn to report the abuse and nothing was done. I had to quit and not be part of it."

Arrow Down

Bubblemania: Why Marc 'Wolf' Faber still thinks a 1987-style market crash is coming

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Dr. Doom is doomish again.

Marc Faber, the author of "The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report," says investors need to brace for a drop of 20% or more by the time 2013 closes, predicting a market fallout similar to what was seen in 1987.
"In 1987, we had a very powerful rally, but also earnings were no longer rising substantially, and the market became very overbought," Faber said Thursday on CNBC. "The final rally into Aug. 25 occurred with a diminishing number of stocks hitting 52-week highs. In other words, the new-high list was contracting, and we have several breaks in different stocks."
October 1987 marks a period no investor could easily forget. The S&P 500 SPX -1.29% is up around 20% for 2013 so far. Faber compares that to 1987, when stocks rose more than 30% up to the same point. But it was in the latter half of 1987 that things fell apart. On "Black Monday," Oct. 19, 1987, the S&P 500 fell 20.4% in the biggest single-day loss for Wall Street in history. It marked the end of a five-year bull market, and stocks ended up just about where they'd started that phase.

He noted that during a two-day period this week, as the S&P 500 nears an all-time high of 1,709, there have been 170 new 52-week lows. That means just a relatively few companies are driving the market higher.
"The only way this market can go up is if the 10 or 50 stocks that are very strong continue to drive the market higher, with the majority of stocks having actually peaked out."
Of course, the 1987-crash theme is not a new one for Faber. He made similar predictions in May and February. So how many times is Faber going to cry wolf before we see this happen? Well, ZeroHedge says he may be on to something, if you look at a Hindenburg cluster that's been happening over the last four days. This indicator warns when more than 2.2% of traded issues are hitting new highs, while another 2.2% or more are making new lows. (Read more on the Hindenburg Omen.)

Arrow Down

China to stop using organs from executed prisoners in transplants

Organ Harvesting
© Fu Zhiyong/ImaginechinaChinese doctors perform a kidney transplant operation at a hospital in Changsha, Hunan province.
China will start phasing out its decades-long practice of using the organs of executed prisoners for transplant operations from November, as it pushes to mandate the use of organs from ethical sources, a senior official said.

China is the only country that still systematically uses organs extracted from executed prisoners in transplants, a practice that has drawn widespread international criticism.

Many Chinese view the practice as a way for criminals to redeem themselves. But officials have recently spoken out against harvesting organs from dead inmates, saying it "tarnishes the image of China".

Huang Jiefu, head of the health ministry's organ transplant office, said it would begin enforcing the use of organs from voluntary donors allocated through a fledgling national programme at a meeting to be held in November.

"I am confident that before long all accredited hospitals will forfeit the use of prisoner organs," Huang said. He did not say how many of the 165 hospitals that are licensed for transplants would be among the first batch to stop using organs from executed prisoners.

Display

Morning sex on TV during major network news program

Kids sleeping
© Rebeca Seitz
This morning, I woke up with both kiddos in bed with me. Their daddy is out of town on business for a few days - giving me ample opportunity to avoid bedtime scheduling madness (guess who's the disciplinarian here) and revel in those snuffly sighs and giggles that escape just before exhaustion overtakes them and they drift into dreamland.

We slept in. School starts here in 11 days. Gotta sleep in while we can.

Eventually, Andy and I rolled out of bed and went into the living room to start our day in the customary way. A pastry. Some cereal. Flipping back and forth between Morning Express (hi, Robin Meade!) and Good Morning America (hello, GMA crew!). We love Robin's laughter and the lighthearted interaction among the GMA team, the care they seem to give each other when topics turn serious.

Ella heard the television and stirred. I watched from the living room as she sat up, wiped the sleepy from her big brown eyes, and yawned. The GMA segment went to commercial.

And then, wham.

Confusion.

Disbelief.

Did that just flash on my TV screen?

Light Saber

Angry man confronts Republican congressman over NSA surveillance

Ewbanks
© YouTubeEwbanks said. “It needs to end now.”
Republican Congressman James Lankford of Oklahoma received a verbal lashing at a town hall meeting on Tuesday from a man upset with the National Security Agency's surveillance program.

"The DEA and the IRS are getting information from the NSA and using it to frame American citizens and then lying about where they got the information," Dax Ewbank of Oklahoma City said at the event. "This is what is happening. Now, what happens if the government becomes politically against my belief system or my lifestyle?"

Ewbank was referring to documents recently obtained by Reuters that showed the NSA was providing data to the Special Operations Division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA Special Operations Division in turn was sending tips to both local authorities and federal agencies, including the IRS, to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.

Stormtrooper

Former narcotics officer admits terrorizing families 'over a bag of pot'

Barry Cooper
© HuffpostBarry Cooper, Texas narcotics officer
A former Texas narcotics officer recently sat down with HuffPost Live to explain why he turned against the drug war.

"A couple of times I raided a home and there were two kids in the home, scared, we terrorized the family, and it's for a bag of pot," Barry Cooper said Tuesday. "Searching the house, I noticed the kids had straight 'A' report cards, the parent's checkbook was balanced, and I realized that something was amiss, something was really bad."

"I put it together years later, after I started smoking pot," he confessed. "You know, a lot of people report that the use of that medication helps a person self-reflect. And, wow, the veil came off and then I started doing the real research for myself instead of believing the propaganda. And I cried for a year after I found out the truth and what I had been involved in."

Cow

Extremely rare triplet cows born in England to stunned farmer

Triple Cow Birth_1
© BBCJon Appleby joked that cracking open a triple-yolk egg last week must have been a sign of the awesome birth.
A farmer was stunned after one of his cows gave birth to triplets at an incredible odds of 700,000 to 1.

Despite working on the farm his entire life, Jon Appleby, from Wirral in the northwest England, had never heard of three calves being born at the same time from the same mother.

That was until one of his 74 cows at Greenhouse Farm, "number 901," did exactly that, giving birth to three male calves, the Daily Mail reports.