Society's ChildS


Better Earth

Thousands gather in Washington to protest Keystone pipeline

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© Reuters / Richard Clement Demonstrators carry a replica of a pipeline during a march against the Keystone XL pipeline in Washington, February 17, 2013.
Thousands of people have gathered in Washington today to urge U.S. President Barack Obama to make good on his recent promises to combat climate change.

TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline project is the rally's most popular whipping boy.

Organizers are billing the protest, held at the foot of the Washington Monument, as the biggest climate protest in American history.

Protesters formed a human pipeline and many waved signs and chanted slogans against Keystone XL.

Thousands have spilled onto the National Mall despite chilly temperatures and brisk winds.

Among them: Canadian tribal leaders, movie stars, Americans with ties to Canada and even a group of nuns.

Speakers included prominent environmentalists like Bill McKibben, head of 350.org, who was arrested last week at a similar protest outside the White House.

The U.S. government is reviewing the Keystone proposal, which would ship bitumen from Alberta to the U.S. gulf coast.

Source: The Canadian Press

Bell

Woman marries her twin sister's convicted killer, claiming he is an innocent man

  • Victor Cingolani, Johana Casas
    Killer: Victor Cingolani (right) has married Edith Casas, twin sister of Johana (right) who he murdered
    Victor Cingolani is serving 13 years in jail for the murder of Johana Casas
  • He married Johana's sister Edith yesterday in the city where she was shot
  • Angry crowd outside the register office pelted Edith with stones and eggs
  • Cingolani was rushed out of the back door to his cell wearing a disguise
  • The wedding had been delayed by a judge for physiological tests on Edith
An Argentine woman was confronted by an angry crowd when she married her twin sister's killer on Valentine's Day.

Edith Casas, 22, wed Victor Cingolani yesterday in a ceremony taking place less than a year into the groom's 13-year sentence for the murder of model Johana Casas.

The bride was pelted with stones and eggs as she emerged from the register office, while her husband, disguised in sunglasses and a beret, was rushed out of the back door to his cell.

The couple married in Pico Truncade in southern Argentina, the same city where Johana was shot twice in the head days before her 20th birthday in July 2010.

Her body was found on the outskirts of the city, which lies around 1,200 miles from the capital Buenos Aires, and Cingolani, an ex-boyfriend, was convicted of murder in June last year.

Sheriff

Man tased outside Target trying to steal Justin Bieber Valentines

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© Milford PatchA Grafton man was arrested by Milford Police Tuesday after he fled the store with these items. Credit Courtesy Milford Police
Milford - An alleged shoplifter was hit with a stun gun as he tried to escape from Target in Milford, according to police.

Milford Patch reports that man, identified as Michael Pete Harding, 50, of Grafton was trying to swipe a shopping cart full of items that included several cases of Red Bull, Tide detergent, and packages of Justin Bieber valentines.

Police believe he planned to resell the items.

While Harding was in the store, Target's store security recognized him as having shoplifted from the store in the past, so they called police.

An officer was waiting for him as he tried to run out the doors.

"He pushed the cart at me and then ran off to my left," the officer told the Patch.

The officer was able to chase down Harding.

Harding allegedly tried to punch the officer, and was hit with a stun gun in response.

He's charged with larceny over $250 and resisting arrest.

Handcuffs

Teenager arrested after home invasion, kidnapping in Quebec

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Canada, Quebec - A 16-year-old Ottawa boy was interrogated Saturday night about his potential involvement with a home invasion and kidnapping of a senior couple at gunpoint in west Quebec overnight.

Quebec Provincial Police said two male suspects forced the couple out of their cottage in Bouchette, QC, near Maniwaki and used the couple's car to drive them to a barn in L'Isle-aux-Allumettes, near Pembroke.

The barn was more than two hours away from the couple's cottage.

Police said the suspects then tied the couple up.

Police said both suspects wore a scarf around their face and one of them had a handgun.

Both suspects spoke English, according to police.

Police said the couple managed to untie themselves and escape from the barn when the suspects fled. They then flagged down a passing motorist who contacted police.

Eye 1

Man charged in killings of 2 women in Missouri

Derek Richardson. Richardson
© The Associated Press/Kansas City (Mo.) Police DepartmentDerek Richardson
A Kansas City-area man was arrested Saturday in the killings of two prostitutes whose bodies were found posed on the sides of rural Missouri roads nearly a year apart.

At a news conference Saturday night, authorities said Derek Richardson, 27, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of abandonment of a corpse. His bail is set at $2 million. It wasn't immediately known whether he has an attorney.

"We absolutely stopped a person who was going to kill again," said Kansas City police Sgt. Doug Niemeier, adding that authorities will search across the United States to ensure there weren't other victims.

"We do know that he had travels elsewhere," Niemeier said, "so we will be contacting those states just to make sure."

Police announced earlier this month that the deaths of Tamara Sparks and Nicoleone Reed were linked and asked the public for help. Police said they believed whoever was responsible for the deaths also was the person who lost a size 11, canvas, Crocs-brand shoe at the site where Sparks' body was found.

Phoenix

2 firefighters dead, 2 hurt in Texas lodge fire

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© The Associated Press/Bryan College Station Eagle/Stuart VillanuevaA Bryan firefighter walks across the smoking rubble of a Knights of Columbus Hall in Bryan, Texas, Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013.
Bryan, Texas - Two Texas fire lieutenants have died of burns after battling a lodge hall fire, a city official said Saturday.

Gregory Pickard and Eric Wallace, both with the department in the Central Texas city of Bryan, were in a group of firefighters responding to the blaze about midnight Friday at a Knights of Columbus hall, city spokeswoman Mary Lynne Stratta said.

The team entered the burning building but didn't emerge when ordered to evacuate, Stratta said.

Wallace, 36, died at the scene and Pickard, 54, on Saturday at a hospital in Galveston, she said.

"He called for help, said he was low on air," Stratta said of Wallace, a 13-year Bryan Fire Department veteran.

V

Protesters show support for Christopher Dorner outside LAPD headquarters

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Dozens of protesters gathered outside the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters downtown Saturday afternoon, holding signs of support for Christopher Dorner, the fired police officer suspected of killing four people.

Those gathered said they were protesting police corruption and the way the massive manhunt for Dorner was conducted. Authorities said Dorner appears to have died from a self-inflected gunshot wound after a shootout with police in Big Bear on Tuesday, ending a deadly rampage that stretched across Southern California.

Protesters said they believed Dorner's claims that he was unfairly fired from the department in 2009 - grievances described in a lengthy online manifesto that has been attributed to him. Dorner also claimed that he was the victim of racism.

Protesters also said they were appalled by police mistakenly shooting at passengers in two separate trucks in Torrance, wrongly believing Dorner might be in the vehicles. One woman was shot in the back and is still recovering.

The protesters emphasized that they did not condone the killings of which Dorner is accused.

Michael Nam, 30, stood at the corner of 1st and Main Streets with a sign, painted by his girlfriend, showing a tombstone and the words "RIP Habeas Corpus." The tombstone was engulfed in flames.

Laptop

Facebook, home of 'The Hacker's Way,' gets hacked; none of users' personal data compromised

Facebook
© Corbis
Facebook is getting an unwelcome look at the shady side of the hacking culture that CEO Mark Zuckerberg celebrates.

Intruders recently infiltrated the systems running the world's largest online social network but did not steal any sensitive information about Facebook's more than 1 billion users, according to a blog posting Friday by the company's security team.

The unsettling revelation is the latest breach to expose the digital cracks in a society and an economy that is storing an ever-growing volume of personal and business data online.

The news didn't seem to faze investors. Facebook Inc.'s stock dipped 10 cents to $28.22 in Friday's extended trading.

The main building at Facebook's Menlo Park, California, headquarters lists its address as 1 Hacker Way. From there, Facebook serves as the gatekeeper for billions of potentially embarrassing photos and messages that get posted each month.

This time, at least, that material didn't get swept up in the digital break-in that Facebook said it discovered last month. The company didn't say why it waited until the afternoon before a holiday weekend to inform its users about the hack.

It was a sophisticated attack that also hit other companies, according to Facebook, which didn't identify the targets.

"As part of our ongoing investigation, we are working continuously and closely with our own internal engineering teams, with security teams at other companies, and with law enforcement authorities to learn everything we can about the attack, and how to prevent similar incidents in the future," Facebook wrote on the blog.

Heart - Black

Hundreds mourn slain Edmonton boy - mother faces first-degree murder charge in death

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© CBC NewsAround 200 people packed into Our Lady of Guadalupe church in Edmonton Saturday for the funeral of 7-year-old Omar Jajoy.
Canada, Edmonton - Hundreds of people watched as a small white casket, adorned with roses, was carried into a central Edmonton parish Saturday morning - a final farewell to 7-year-old Omar Jajoy.

"Omar was ...a very happy kid and a joy for his family," said Max Caravantas, a family friend.

"The service was very touching. We all felt, you know, what the family felt today. It's a tragedy for our community and a tragedy for the Jajoy family as well."

Omar's body was found in a south Edmonton apartment Tuesday morning. The cause of death has not been released, but it is believed he drowned.

Friends at the funeral described him as a friendly boy who enjoyed playing soccer and video games.

His mother, Nerlin Sarmiento, who is charged with first-degree murder in his death, was not at his service.

Sheriff

RCMP questions claim of 600 missing aboriginal women

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© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian PressParticipants of the Women's Worlds 2011 congress take part in a rally on Parliament Hill in solidarity with missing and murdered aboriginal women in Ottawa in 2011.
The RCMP is questioning the oft-cited claim by an aboriginal group and some federal politicians that about 600 aboriginal women have gone missing or been murdered in Canada.

On today's edition of CBC Radio's The House, host Evan Solomon says that when he contacted the RCMP to confirm that there are 580 cases of aboriginal women who were either missing or killed in the country, the force said it wasn't aware of about 500 of them.

The question of exactly how many aboriginal women are missing or killed in Canada comes during a week that included the Annual Day of Justice for Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women on Friday, and a debate in the House of Commons that included a Liberal proposal to strike a special committee to investigate the issue. This week also saw a report from New York-based Human Rights Watch that accused the RCMP in British Columbia of abusive acts, including rape, against aboriginal women.