Society's ChildS

Health

Oakland teen declared brain dead days after routine tonsil surgery

Image
© family photoJahi McMath
Family members of 13-year-old Jahi McMath are holding out hope for a miracle recovery after a routine procedure has left the girl brain dead. Last week, McMath went in to Children's Hospital Oakland to get her tonsils removed.

She was supposed to go home the next day, but her grandmother noticed severely bleeding from her nose and mouth after the procedure. She soon went into cardiac arrest.

The child is now hooked up to a ventilator and doctors are telling mother Nailah Winkfield she won't recover.

"At this point I'm just all cried out. I have no tears left, so the only thing I can do is stay here," said Winkfield. "I am not leaving unless she leaves with me because I will not let them pull the plug on my child."

Arrow Down

Report: Quantico Marine shooter had suffered brain injury; medical treatment was insufficient

lopez
© AP Photo/US Marine Corps, Lance Cpl. Antwaun L. JeffersonSgt. Eusebio Lopez, an Officer Candidate School instructor, during the Quantico Leadership Venture at OCS.
A military investigation has found that a Marine who fatally shot his ex-girlfriend and a colleague before killing himself at the Quantico Marine Corps base should have received better psychological care.

Sgt. Eusebio Lopez was receiving treatment in North Carolina after his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in Iraq, but his medical care stopped abruptly when he was transferred to Quantico in 2012, according to the report obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The reason appeared to be two-fold: His new doctors didn't know about his previous treatment and he didn't speak up.

The report also found problems with the response to the shooting and said Marines regularly flaunted regulations that required them to register personal firearms and store them in the armory.

Heart - Black

In West Bank, Arab home faces demolition while Jewish ones get stamp of approval

Image
© Gil Cohen-MagenA neighborhood under construction in the West Bank settlement of Ofra.
Defense Ministry changes housing regulation according to whether the houses belong to Jews or Palestinians.

The Defense Ministry's Civil Administration on Tuesday rejected a request to legalize a Palestinian house, claiming it was too close to a main West Bank road. A day earlier, the administration approved the construction of homes in the West Bank settlement of Ofra, after revoking the very ban on which the Tuesday decision was based.

The administration's planning heads, architects Natalia Averbuch and Daniel Halimi, said their considerations were purely professional. But observers maintain that the administration's planning is politically motivated and aimed at pushing the Palestinians off their land.

The request that a retroactive bulding permit be issued for the Palestinian house in Beit Ummar, a village 11 kilometers northwest of Hebron, was rejected by the administration's planning and licensing committee, headed by Halimi, on Tuesday. The administration had previously issued a demolition order for the house, which was built without a permit.

Arrow Down

Student suspended for a year after hugging teacher

classroom
© Jose Cendon/AFP/Getty Images)
A high school senior won't graduate on time after being suspended for one year for hugging a teacher in November. Last week, a Duluth High School hearing officer found that Sam McNair violated the Gwinnett County Public Schools' rules on sexual harassment.

"Something so innocent can be perceived as something totally opposite," McNair told WGCL.

A surveillance camera captured when McNair entered a room, placing his arms around the back and front of the teacher and tuck his head behind her neck. The teacher alleged in a discipline report that McNair's cheeks and lips touched the back of her neck and cheek, according to WGCL.

The 17-year-old denied that he sexually harassed his teacher and that he kissed her. He said that he has never been disciplined for hugging teachers in the past.

Eye 1

Controversy over 5th-grader's religion speech

tampa school
© CRISTINA QUICLER/AFP/Getty Images
A 5th grade student won first place after he gave a speech about the history of people using religion to justify murder, but was stripped of his title the same day by a school official.

Zachary Golob-Drake gave the speech to his class at the Patel Partnership School in hopes that he would be chosen to represent the school at the regional 4-H Tropicana Public Speech Contest, WFLA-TV reports. He was to deliver the speech Thursday morning to the entire 4th and 5th grades classes and two winners, one from each grade, were to be chosen to represent the school.

Golob-Drake said the assistant principal told him his speech was inappropriate before school was dismissed.

"She started talking to me about how she thought my speech wasn't appropriate for 4th and 5th graders and she thought that probably I would have to rewrite my speech, take the religion out or not compete," Golob-Drake explained to WFLA.

Comment: "Take the religion out or not compete." The message seems pretty clear, even to a 4th or 5th grader.


Evil Rays

Tamerlan Tsarnaev believed he was being fed orders through 'majestic mind control'

Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
© Barcroft MediaTamerlan Tsarnaev.

Slain suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev said he heard voices in his head and believed in the concept of influencing others by way of "majestic mind control," according to a new report.

Journalists at The Boston Globe published this weekend the result of a five-month investigation into the Tsarnaev family, and their report reveals new, never-before-released information about the 26-year-old Chechen boxer who, along with his younger brother Dzhokhar, is accused of orchestrating a terror attack at last April's Boston Marathon race which killed three and left hundreds injured.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died during a shootout with police days after the event, and his brother is currently awaiting trial in federal court in Massachusetts. With the high-profile terrorist case likely a long way from being settled, little attention has been paid to the story in the months since the dust cleared after the event.

Arrow Down

Horsemeat fraud ring discovered in France

Horsemeat
© BBCClearly labelled horsemeat.
Police arrested 21 people in raids on the horsemeat industry across southern France this morning on suspicion that horses used to develop medicines were sold fraudulently for food, police and industry officials said.

Marseille public prosecutor Brice Robin said about 200 horses unfit for human consumption had been given false veterinary certificates and slaughtered for meat by an organised ring, based in the southern town of Narbonne, involving cattle traders, vets and butchers.

"There is absolutely no evidence that these animals were toxic or posed a threat to public health," he told a news conference.

A spokesman for pharmaceutical company Sanofi said some of the horses had been used to incubate antibodies to manufacture serums for everything from rabies to snake bites, and while in good health were certified as fit for human consumption.

Spokesman Alain Bernal of the Sanofi Pasteur vaccine division said the firm was co-operating with investigators but did not know how long the fraud had been going on.

"Horses are a factory of antibodies," he said.

Arrow Up

ASA membership votes to boycott Israel by landslide

palestine
© Wissam Nassar / Maan Images
The full membership of the American Studies Association (ASA) has voted by a two-to-one margin to endorse an academic boycott of Israel, it was announced today.

The referendum was called after the National Council, the ASA's governing body, endorsed the boycott itself on 4 December.

The vote is likely to be seen as an historic milestone in the Palestinian campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), particularly in the United States, where university administrations have forcefully opposed student and faculty initiatives of this kind.

The ASA describes itself as the "nation's oldest and largest association devoted to the interdisciplinary study of American culture and history." It has 5,000 individual members along with 2,200 library and other institutional subscribers.

Folder

Charges dropped for NY pair after a month in jail when 'cocaine' proves to be soap

Cocaine
© Shutterstock
Authorities have dropped charges against a New York pair who spent nearly a month in jail after tests confirmed two kilograms of cocaine were, in fact, soap.

A state trooper pulled the couple over Nov. 13 on Interstate 78 in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, for driving 5 mph over the speed limit and hugging the side of the lane.

The trooper said he smelled marijuana, and the driver, 26-year-old Annadel Cruz, admitted that she'd smoked pot before leaving New York City.

Cruz consented to a search of the new Mercedes-Benz, and the trooper found two brick-size packages covered in clear plastic wrap and red tape in a bag stowed in the trunk.

The driver said the packages contained soap she'd made herself, but the trooper performed a field test that showed the presence of cocaine and arrested Cruz and her passenger, 30-year-old Alexander Bernstein.

Heart

Al Jazeera interview with 78-year-old President of Uruguay, Jose Mujica (VIDEO)

Image
The man described as the world's 'poorest president' discusses his past, his motives, his philosophy, Uruguay's move to regulate marijuana, his role as peacemaker between US-backed Colombian forces and the ELN rebels, and why all you need is love!