Society's ChildS

Heart - Black

Frail teen found chained in parents' basement

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© KCTV
Authorities found a frail 17-year-old boy handcuffed to a pole in his parents' Kansas City basement, where he said he'd been kept since his father withdrew him from school in September.

Police said Wednesday that they were still investigating and hadn't turned over any of their findings to prosecutors for consideration of possible charges. Police have not released the names of anyone involved in the case. The teen was placed in the custody of child services.

According to a police report, an officer and social worker who were acting on a phoned-in tip visited the family's home on Monday. When they entered the basement, they heard someone cry out, "I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything."

"I then observed a thin frail looking male getting out of the fetal position on the concrete floor around a steel support pole," Officer Jonathan Stone wrote in the report. The teen was handcuffed to the pole and looked very thin for his height, with a sunken face and eyes that "had a look of desperation."

Stop

Feds: 4 charged with selling Miracle Mineral Supplement online as cure-all

Spokane - Two people from Oregon and two from Washington have been charged with selling an ingredient for bleach online as a cure-all for arthritis, cancer and the flu.

An indictment unsealed in federal court in Spokane Tuesday charges 42-year-old Louis Daniel Smith and 38-year-old Karis Delong, both of Ashland, Ore., as well as 49-year-old Chris Olson and 50-year-old Tammy Olson, of Nine Mile Falls, Wash.

Prosecutors say they were involved in a business called Project GreenLife, which imported sodium chlorite from Canada, and that they sold the chemical online as a "miracle mineral supplement." Buyers were instructed to mix it with orange juice or other source of citric acid before drinking it.

Mixing sodium chlorite with citric acid makes chlorine dioxide - a powerful bleach. It wasn't immediately clear if anyone was injured by consuming it. Charges include conspiracy, smuggling and interstate sales of misbranded drugs.

The Olsons were scheduled to appear in federal court Wednesday.

Comment:
MMS: Miracle Mineral Solution or Trojan Horse? Your Body and DNA Decide

Magical Mineral Supplement (MMS)


Arrow Down

Indonesian Komodo dragon attack leaves two hospitalised

Komodo Dragon
© Kenneth Garrett/National GeographicWith its sheer strength and deadly, bacteria-ridden saliva, the Komodo dragon is the top predator in its range.
One victim, a 50-year-old park ranger, was sitting at his desk at the Rinca island front office, where tourists usually check in, when the two-metre-long monitor snuck into his room Tuesday afternoon.

"The man panicked when he saw the Komodo and tried to escape by jumping on a chair, but the Komodo quickly grabbed and bit one of his legs," Komodo National Park official Heru Rudiharto told AFP.

Rudiharto said the ranger was the victim of a similar Komodo attack in 2009 and was still traumatised.

Another employee, aged 35, heard the ranger scream and quickly ran to his aid, but the lizard also attacked him, taking a bite at his leg.

Both are in good condition after being given stitches at a health clinic, Rudiharto said, but they are being monitored in hospital to ensure an infection does not develop.

Until recently, Komodos were believed to hunt with a "bite and wait" strategy using toxic bacteria in their saliva to weaken or kill their prey, before descending in numbers to feast.

Sheriff

Hysteria: Virginia cops bust 10-year-old for bringing toy gun to school

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Douglas MacArthur Elementary
A 10-year-old Alexandria boy was arrested after police said he brought a toy handgun to school on Tuesday, a day after he showed it to others on a school bus.

The boy, a fifth-grader at Douglas MacArthur Elementary School whose name is not being released, was charged as a juvenile with brandishing a weapon, police said.

He was also suspended from school, and Alexandria City Public Schools Superintendent Morton Sherman said further action is being considered, including expulsion.

On Monday, the boy showed the plastic gun to at least one other student during a bus ride home from the school. The 10-year-old did not point it at anyone or threaten to shoot it, but he neglected to mention that the weapon was fake, said Alexandria police spokeswoman Ashley Hildebrandt.

Bizarro Earth

Hysteria: Philadelphia fifth-grader searched, threatened, called a murderer over paper gun

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© WTXF-TV
A Philadelphia fifth-grader said she was scolded by a school administrator and even searched in front of her entire class last week - all because she pulled out a paper gun.

Melody Valentin's grandfather had made her the "gun" - which resembled a piece of paper with a chunk torn out of it - the day before, and she stuck it in her pocket and forgot about it, WTXF-TV reported. When she went to throw it out in class the next day, another student spotted it and called her out. A school administrator was summoned, and Melody was reprimanded for having the paper.

Pistol

Hysteria: Nerf guns, lego guns, bubble guns and paper guns: Schools go into gun panic mode

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News reports like these make it seem that wolves would probably do a better job of running American public schools than its grotesquely overpaid administrators do. These incidents have their funny side, but administrators are terrorizing and traumatizing students because of a national media panic and their own incompetence.

Case 1: The Nerf Gun unleashes a panic that makes Cold War nuke drills seem mild by comparison.

Mail

Postal Service plans to end Saturday mail delivery by August

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The financially struggling U.S. Postal Service announced Wednesday that it plans to stop delivering mail on Saturdays starting the week of Aug. 5 - but will continue delivering packages.

Unless forbidden to do so by Congress, which has moved in the past to prohibit five-day-a-week delivery, the agency for the first time will delivery mail only Monday through Friday. The move will save about $2 billion a year for the Postal Service, which has suffered tens of billions of dollars in losses in recent years with the advent of the Internet and e-commerce, officials said.

"The American public understands the financial challenges of the Postal Service and supports these steps as a responsible and reasonable approach to improving our financial situation," Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe said at a news conference. "The Postal Service has a responsibility to take the steps necessary to return to long-term financial stability and ensure the continued affordability of the U.S. Mail."

Health

Fictitious 'hispanic male' blamed after Texas woman accidentally shot in the back by reckless friend

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© screengrab via KENS 5
San Antonio police say a woman was accidentally shot in the back late Tuesday night. However, detectives say her friends concocted a robbery story to shift the blame.

The shooting happened in the 15000 block of Chase Hill Blvd. inside of a car just before midnight.

Investigators say three men and two women went to pick up a gun. A 19-year-old man, whose identity has not been released, was reportedly handling the gun recklessly when the gun accidentally went off.

Clipboard

German employment agency sends teen to work in brothel

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© photo via Augsburger Allgemeine
A German teenager looking for a job was told to report for duty in a brothel by the local labor office, the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The 19-year-old woman said she was horrified when she opened a job placement letter from the German Labor Office in Augsburg on Saturday informing her that it had lined up a waitressing job for her at the Augsburg Colosseum brothel.

Treasure Chest

Spanish police seize 4.5 tons of cocaine hidden in cow hides

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© AFP Photo
Spanish police said Wednesday they had seized 4.1 tonnes of cocaine worth nearly a quarter of a billion euros in one of the biggest ever seizures of the drug in the country.

The cocaine was found at a warehouse in the eastern city of Elche, hidden in containers of cow hides that came by boat from Colombia and were to be delivered to a shoe maker, police said in a statement.

The cocaine was stored in thousands of packages containing just over a kilo (two pounds) of the drug each, enough for around 82 million doses.

The cocaine is worth nearly 242 million euros ($327 million) and was destined for distribution in Spain and across Europe.