Society's ChildS


Hearts

Gay couple shares unbelievable story of adoption after finding baby on subway

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When playwright Peter Mercurio answered the phone 12 years ago, he probably didn't realize the call would change his life.

On an August night in 2000, Mercurio received a phone call from his partner, David Stewart, who was at the Eighth Avenue A/C/E subway stop in New York City, recounts Mercurio in "We Found Our Son in the Subway," an op-ed for The New York Times.

"I found a baby!" Stewart yelled, according to Mercurio. "I called 911, but I don't think they believed me. No one's coming. I don't want to leave the baby alone. Get down here and flag down a police car or something."

When the couple appeared in family court that December to give their account of what happened, the judge overseeing the case asked if they'd be interested in adopting. Stewart, a social worker, replied "yes."

Bizarro Earth

Florida mom accused of stabbing sons' bullies with box cutter

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© Orange County Jail
A Florida mom has been charged with aggravated child abuse for allegedly using a box cutter to stab two teens who she says were bullying her sons.

"I will defend them. I don't want them to fight," Nora Silva told ABC News' Orlando affiliate WFTV.

The incident began when Silva's 14-year-old and 17-year-old sons got off of the bus on Tuesday afternoon. Surveillance footage from a neighbor's house shows a group of more than a dozen boys surrounding one of Silva's sons and pushing him to the ground.

Silva, 33, and her mother Esther Silva, 63, got into the scuffle, according to police reports.

Heart - Black

Murder of baby found in stolen SUV prompts soul searching in China

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© Quirky China News/Rex Features/HAPThe baby's mother, centre, who is reported to have had a breakdown after hearing her son was dead.
Zhou Xijun is said to have confessed to killing baby and burying body in snow after finding him on back seat of car

A car thief in north-eastern China who discovered a baby boy asleep in a stolen 4x4 killed him and buried the corpse in the snow.

The 48-year-old thief's confession prompted a wave of seething incredulity on the internet in China and a bout of soul-searching about parenting, capital punishment and media censorship.

According to a post on the Jilin province public security bureau's microblog, Zhou Xijun turned himself in to Changchun city police at 5pm on Tuesday. He confessed that he stole the Toyota RAV4 from outside a supermarket on Monday morning, strangled the two-month-old boy, named Xu Haobo, after noticing him while driving on the highway, and buried his corpse in the snow. Zhou abandoned the vehicle outside a primary school in a nearby city and took a minibus back to Changchun.

The infant's father, a supermarket owner surnamed Xu, had left the car's engine running while he entered his market to turn on a stove. He emerged 10 minutes later to find the car missing, immediately called the police, and broadcast a message on a local radio station saying that he would not hold anybody accountable if the baby was safely returned.

The child's mother had a nervous breakdown after hearing Zhou's confession, Chinese media reported. It is unclear whether the baby's body has been found.

Pistol

Gun control debate fueling 'explosive' rise in far-right extremist groups: report

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© AFP Photo
The number of anti-government, far-right extremist groups has soared to record levels since 2008 and they are becoming increasingly militant, according to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

It says the number of groups in the "Patriot" movement stood at 1,360 in 2012, up from 149 in 2008 when Barack Obama was first elected president, an increase of 813%. The report said the rise was driven by opposition to Obama and the "spluttering rage" over federal attempts at gun control.

Those who were identified as "militia" groups or the paramilitary wing of the Patriot movement, numbered 321, up from 42 in 2008, the SPLC said in its report.

Concern over a "truly explosive growth" of groups on the radical right, along with a rise in domestic terrorist plots, has prompted the SPLC to write to US attorney general Eric Holder and Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano, warning of the potential for domestic terrorism and urging them create a new, inter-agency task force to assess whether it has adequate resources to deal with it.

Black Cat

Psychopathy alert: Russian teen charged with cemetery murder

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© RIA Novosti. Vadim GernovRussian Teen Charged with Cemetery Murder
An 18-year-old student was charged on Wednesday with murdering a man in a cemetery near Moscow and cutting a swastika into his forehead, police said.

Investigators said they believe the student and a 21-year-old suspected accomplice came across a sleeping man in the cemetery, woke him up and attacked him with "homemade Nunchakus," (martial arts weapons) causing "multiple head injuries."

Their victim died at the scene, police said, after which the youths are said to have "carved a swastika on his forehead, in order, according to them, to show that the murder had been committed by skinheads" in order to throw the police off the scent.

Gear

Chavez death could be US plot - Russian communist leader

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© RIA Novosti. Aleksei KudenkoChavez Death Could Be US Plot – Russian Communist Leader
The death of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez from cancer may have been part of a plot by the United States to infect its enemies in Latin America with the disease, the leader of Russia's Communist party, Gennady Zyuganov, speculated on Wednesday.

"How did it happen that six leaders of Latin American countries which had criticized US policies and tried to create an influential alliance in order to be independent and sovereign states, fell ill simultaneously with the same disease?" Zyuganov said in comments carried by Russian state television.

"In my view, this was far from a coincidence," said Zyuganov, the head of Russia's second-largest political party. He urged an investigation under "international control" into Chavez's death.

Zyuganov's claim echoed accusations by Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro, who alleged last week that Chavez had fallen victim to an "imperialist" plot.

Heart - Black

Bolshoi dancer confesses to acid attack on ballet's director

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© ReutersPavel Dmitrichenko told police he planned the attack in which sulphuric acid was thrown at Sergei Filin in January.
Pavel Dmitrichenko tells Russian police he was behind attack with two men that nearly blinded company's director Sergei Filin

A dancer at the Bolshoi ballet has confessed to ordering an attack on the company's director, Russian police said, in a scandal that has exposed the treacherous dramas unfolding behind the theatre's famed stage.

"Yes, I organised this attack, but not to the extent that it occurred," Pavel Dmitrichenko, looking tired and unkempt, said in a video aired on television.

He said he had confessed his motives to police but declined to detail them on video. Channel One, a state-run television station, said Dmitrichenko's girlfriend, ballerina Angelina Vorontsova, had clashed professionally with the ballet's director, Sergei Filin.

Dmitrichenko, 28, was arrested on Tuesday by police investigating the January attack on Filin, when sulphuric acid was thrown at his face, leaving him fighting for his eyesight.

Dmitrichenko's two accomplices - the attacker and a getaway driver - also confessed, police said on Wednesday.

Boat

Group building a 500-foot Noah's Ark in Hialeah

A group in Hialeah is going Biblical.

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The Hidden Ark group began building a 500-foot wooden Noah's Ark on the outskirts of Hialeah that will be both a zoo and a way to raise awareness about the current environmental changes.

"It's a religious thing because it's Noah and God teaches us to protect animals," said Carolina Peralta who is part of the group, hiddenark.com. "You're using Noah's Ark to make a statement about helping animals and conserving our planet."

The building of the ark is still in its beginning stages, but the blue prints posted on the group's website show an area dedicated to the ark that will include a veterinarian laboratory, a petting area, stables, shops and a dining area.

Che Guevara

The King is Dead, Long Live the King! Hugo Chávez's 14 years as leader of the Venezuelan people

One of the most charismatic and conscientious leaders in the world, Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan president of the people, died last night, 5th March 2013. This video is a collection of some of his most memorable speeches during his reign, from his great humor mocking one-time psychopath-in-chief of the Empire, George 'Dubya' Bush, to his support for Iran's global peace agenda.


Comment: He will be sorely missed, but the revolution of the mind goes on... Hasta la Victoria Siempre!


Bell

Austerity America: the government gamble

sequestration credit downgrade
Increasingly partisan infighting on Capitol Hill has seen the deadline to avert $85bn in automatic budget cuts pass without accord

The munificence of Uncle Sam may suddenly be diminished as of late tomorrow night when a slew of painful and indiscriminate government spending cuts are due to come into effect. America, land of the free-spenders, is about to get its first taste of European-style austerity.

A product of the failure of Democrats and Republicans to agree on a prescription to cure the country's deficit disease, the cuts - $85bn by the end of this year and $1.2trn over 10 years - are due officially to come into effect at midnight tomorrow. No one wants them; no one seems to know how to avert them. A nation has been left to stumble blindly into unknown fiscal territory.

For its part, the International Monetary Fund warns that, if fully implemented, the reductions will trim about half a percentage point off the country's economic growth rate in 2013. All across the US, interest groups and industries are warning of particular areas of calamity. Farmers, for instance, are predicting the "first widespread shortage" of meat, poultry and eggs in decades because of cuts to food inspection teams.

The impact will not become clear all at once but, without a political truce soon, it may quickly become unmistakable. Exempt are welfare programmes for the poor and vulnerable and military salaries. But everywhere else, government will be forced to pare back on budgets. First to feel the brunt may be federal workers who will be asked to take furloughs - periods at home without pay - starting 30 days from today.

But the list of potential victims is much longer, particularly in the defence sector, because half of the cuts will fall on the Pentagon. The industry warns that the reductions - known as the "sequester" - will end up costing 2 million jobs. Among others are airports where security screeners and air traffic controllers could be culled, the medical research community where funding is likely to dwindle and national parks where money for rangers will be slashed. Glacier National Park in Montana says snow ploughing to clear its famous Going-to-the-Sun Road may not happen this summer.

"It will be like watching a multiple-car pile-up on the highway that's going in slow motion," Emily Holubowich, a healthcare lobbyist who has being trying to steer Congress away from the brink on behalf of 3,000 clients, told USA Today. "It's like that old saying, 'You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone'."