Society's ChildS


Life Preserver

Brazilian teen puts virginity on sale

Image
© CNNA Brazilian teen is auctioning off her virginity to help care for her bed-ridden mother.
A Brazilian teen is placing her virginity up for auction to the highest bidder.

Rebecca Bernardo,18, made the decision out of desperation to care for her bed-ridden mother.

"I made up my mind right after my 18th birthday," said Bernardo through a translator. "That's when my mother suffered a stroke."

While Bernardo tried other forms of employment, the money she earned barely covered the costs of a caretaker.

She was inspired by the virginity auction of another Brazilian woman, Catarina Migilorini.

Migilorini offered to sell her virginity through an Australian website. She received widespread publicity and was offered modeling contracts.

"There comes a time when you have to make decisions to get what you want," said Bernardo. "You have to be strong."

Syringe

Indiana hospital fires eight veteran nurses because they refused to take flu shot for religious reasons

Image
© IU Health.orgFired: IU Health Goshen said its decision to fire workers who don't take the flu vaccine is backed up by the CDC
An Indiana hospital has fired eight employees, many of them veteran nurses, because they refused to take the flu vaccine.
IU Health Goshen is just the latest hospital to force its employees to receive the jab and fire or discipline the ones who object. At least four of the nurses who was terminated tried to appeal the vaccine on religious grounds with the help of a lawyer. The hospital rejected their arguments and fired them anyway.

The Elkhart Truth reports that the hospital informed its staff in early September that vaccinations would be mandatory for all employees. The hospital said it was following guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association, which both recommend mandatory vaccinations for employees.

'As a hospital and health system, our top priority is and should be patient safety, and we know that hospitalized people with compromised immune systems are at a greater risk for illness and death from the flu,' hospital spokeswoman Melanie McDonald told the newspaper.

'The flu has the highest death rate of any vaccine preventable disease, and it would be irresponsible from our perspective for health care providers to ignore that.'

Ambulance

Mom: Boy didn't steal plane in crash

Image
A teen pilot killed along with two friends in an Alabama plane crash had his own key to the aircraft and had flown it many times, his mother said Wednesday, denying authorities' assertion that the plane had been taken without permission.

Sherrie Smith said her 17-year-old son Jordan Smith was the one flying the plane that went down in the Alabama woods Tuesday night, killing the him and two other male teens. The Federal Aviation Administration said the Piper PA 30 crashed less than a mile from the Walker County Airport in Jasper, which is northwest of Birmingham.

Smith says the owner of the plane had let her son fly it many other times and had given her son his own key.

"He had used the plane many times before," she said.

She said her son was a high school junior who fell in love with flying at an early age and was one test short of earning his private pilot's license.

Brick Wall

The Colombian village I've come to know

I am in a remote village on the Pacific coast of Colombia. One road leads in and out, extending as far as the next village. It is a thoroughfare for cocaine transportation -- processed deep in the jungle, transported up the coast, en-route to Panama -- a ruthless commodity akin to conflict minerals or diamonds. Fuelling both addiction and war, affecting the lives of every person in this area.

There exists a palpable sense of death here. At the very least, a recognition of one's mortality -- it seeps through the air. Ten people have lost their lives in so many days. Eight trapped in their rooms on a passenger ship sunk off the coast, two murdered and four wounded in narco-trafficking conflicts and domestic disputes. Yet life goes on. Death is, for the residents, a practical outcome of the day to day -- dogs hang their heads in the street, gaunt, homeless, searching for scraps of food. Cows show ribs and chickens spotted with featherless patches roam aimlessly. The military casually occupies benches in the town centre equipped with all manner of assault rifles, sidearms and even rocket launchers.

Bad Guys

Twice unlucky for jailed Mormon cult leader

Warren Jeffs
© 3 NewsWarren Jeffs in his police mugshot.
The leader of a breakaway Mormon sect has incorrectly prophesied the end of the world for the second time in as many months.

Warren Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), issued his latest edict last week, saying the apocalypse would occur before the New Year.

CNN reports on December 31 authorities in Colorado City, where the church is based, were preparing for the worst.

"Jim Jones, Koresh, history has showed us that these things happen when religious zealots take charge of a group of people," said Sam Brower, a private investigator who has worked on cases for ex-FLDS members.

Question

Weird U.S. state laws take effect in 2013

Hog
© Dreamstime.comReleasing a hog into the wild is now illegal in Kentucky.

A number of new laws went into effect after the toll of midnight on Dec. 31, and from the wise to the wacky, they're now officially on the books in states across America.

In Kentucky, for example, it's illegal to release a feral hog into the wild. The law makes sense, according to Politico, because wild hogs have been running amok in Kentucky's farmland, destroying crops and spreading disease.

Though the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been using gun-equipped helicopters to cull packs of wild hogs in the state, their populations continue to increase. The beasts are now found in 37 of Kentucky's counties, up from 19 counties in 2009, reports Politico.

The state of Illinois has dealt a blow to necrophiliacs, specifically outlawing sex with a corpse for the first time. Previously, the only charge authorities could level was "criminal damage to property."

"The death of a loved one is bad enough, but it should be much more than criminal damaged property," state Rep. Daniel Beiser told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "This is a completely inappropriate charge."

Arrow Down

Restaurant rival poisons 80 diners' dishes in China

Eggplant Dish
© Medical Daily
Diners in China received quite the uncomfortable surprise recently when they ordered eggplant dishes in a Beijing restaurant. The dishes had been laced with clonidine, a drug prescribed for a variety of conditions, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, menopause and LSD flashbacks. The event sent 80 diners to the hospital; 34 patrons needed to have their blood pumped in order to remove traces of the drug.

According to the Annals of Internal Medicine, the perpetrators were connected to a neighboring restaurant, who wanted to gain a leg up on the competition by making its patrons sick. The pair hid the drug, a white powder without a scent, in the restaurant's starch, which the chefs used to thicken the braised eggplant.

Clonidine was likely chosen because it takes only a small trace of the drug to make a person sick and would be tasteless. The diners fell ill almost immediately, becoming dizzy, tired, nauseous. Some diners also reportedly suffered from blurred vision and started vomiting.

Doctors at an area hospital quickly discovered that the source of the diners' symptoms was potentially toxic levels of clonidine in their blood. The police traced the drug to the restaurant before linking the chemical with the nearby restaurant. The perpetrators were snagged and sentenced to one year in prison.

Eye 2

New York man arrested in attempted murder of 7-year-old

Image
David Alfonso
A western New York man was arrested in the alleged attempted murder of a 7-year-old girl, the Buffalo News and Niagara Gazette report.

Lockport, N.Y., police arrested David Alfonso, 28, on Monday after responding to a 911 call and finding Alfonso at an intersection covered in blood, the News reports.

Alfonso allegedly tried to kill the little girl, the child's mother, Cassandra Castro, 27, told police, according to the News.

In her call to emergency responders, the mother allegedly said, "He is killing my baby," the Gazette reports.

Arrow Down

Fake "fashion braces" are the latest Asian fashion trend

Brace
© Medical Daily
Most American teenagers can't wait to shed their "metal mouth" nickname and count down the days they can finally take their braces off. However, trendy teenagers in China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand can't wait to get them on, even if they don't need it.

Braces are the latest teenage fashion trend in Asia. According to the Vice UK, having a mouth of metal has become such a hit with Asian teens that there have been reports of many adolescents buying harmful, fake, black market braces.

Braces are considered a sign of wealth in Southeast Asia. A real set of braces in Bangkok, for example, will cost around $1,200, which is a considerable amount for a country with a GDP of $345 billion, compared to the US which had a GDP of $15.06 trillion in 2011.

Vice UK reports that the "best part" about the fashionable faux braces is that they don't need to be inserted by a medical professional. According to the website many Asian beauty salons are now offering to put in these fashion braces. There are even cheaper do-it-yourself kits that let people choose between "Hello Kitty", "Mickey Mouse" or other varieties for as little as $100.

Gear

Online article forces Giles County officials, police to cancel school on Wednesday

School Shooting
© RevelationNowAn online article claims to have found a connection between the shootings in Aurora and Newtown. It also includes a potential future target for 'the next school massacre.'
Giles County, Va., - On Wednesday, most students will head back to school but not those in Giles County. They were suppose to return to class but school was canceled after an online article raised concerns about safety.

The article is entitled: The Next School Massacre Target?". It's posted on a website that caters to conspiracy theories and UFOs.

"We have to take this as serious information," says Giles County Sheriff Morgan Millirons.

The article connects the Colorado movie theater shooting to last month's shooting in Connecticut and then to Narrows.

The author uses a scene in the latest Batman movie that shows a map of attack sites. One is called Sandy Hook, the other is Narrows. The author writes that it's plausible schools in Narrows, Virginia might be in danger.

"We just want to emphasize that no threat has been made to any school system here in Giles County," says Sheriff Millirons.

But police aren't taking any chances. On Tuesday, police issued a reverse 911 call to parents about the article.