Society's ChildS


Airplane

Plane crash in Moscow leaves four crew members dead


The Guardian
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 05:21 UTC
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© Yuri Kochetkov/EPAThe wreckage of the Tupolev Tu-204 cockpit outside Vnukovo airport.
Police say no passengers were on board airliner that rammed through highway barrier outside Vnukovo airport near Moscow

A Russian airliner broke into pieces after it slid off a runway and crashed on to a highway outside Moscow, killing four of the 12 crew on board and leaving chunks of fuselage on the icy road.

The crash during peak holiday travel before Russia's new year's vacation, which runs from Sunday until 9 January, cast a spotlight on Russia's poor air-safety record despite President Vladimir Putin's calls to improve controls.

Television footage showed the Tupolev Tu-204 jet in pieces, with smoke billowing from the tail end and the cockpit broken off the front.

One witness told state channel Rossiya-24 he saw a man thrown from the plane as it rammed into the barrier of the highway outside Vnukovo airport, south-west of the capital, and another described pulling other people from the wreckage.
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Black Cat

Sign of the cross in a tree after tornado gives true believers in Alabama hope

Robert Richardson
whnt.com
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 05:10 UTC
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© whnt.com
Christmas carols about angels have special meaning to a Marshall County woman who says she frequently feels their presence.

Barbara McKinley said she received a sign of the cross after the April 27 tornadoes, when a tree fell in one of her neighbor's yards, in the Preston Island community.

"After the tornado, he went up to start cutting the tree limbs up and that to haul out to the road to be picked up, and as he was cutting up, when he got into this part of the tree, is when he saw the cross," McKinley said.

Her neighbor began to cut the same timber looking for more, but McKinley said the cross disappeared after 12 to 15 inches, and she was glad to receive a cross-cut of the cross.
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People

Hunger strike pressures Canada prime minister, aboriginal protests spread

Louise Egan
Yahoo! Canada News
Fri, 28 Dec 2012 00:00 UTC
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© Reuters/Chris WattieAttawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence (L) pauses while speaking with journalists about her hunger strike with elder Danny Metatawabin in a teepee on Victoria Island in Ottawa December 27, 2012.
A Canadian aboriginal chief in the third week of a hunger strike is urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to "open his heart" and meet with native leaders angered by his policies as small impromptu protests spread beyond Canada's borders.

Chief Theresa Spence from the remote northern Ontario community of Attawapiskat has been fasting since December 11 and has vowed to continue until Harper commits to talks on a litany of complaints, including new legislation that she says will harm native lands.

"He's a person with a heart but he needs to open his heart. I'm sure he has faith in the Creator himself and for him to delay this, it's very disrespectful, I feel, to not even meet with us," she said in an interview in Ottawa.

Spence is at the center of an unprecedented Canadian aboriginal protest movement called "Idle No More" that began with four women in the province of Saskatchewan raising awareness about the Conservative government's budget legislation passed earlier this month.

The legislation, which has also been criticized by opposition politicians, reduces environmental protections for lakes and rivers and makes it easier to sell reserve lands.

Aided by Facebook and Twitter, their protest proliferated and is now drawing comparisons to the "Occupy Wall Street" movement.

"Flash mob" protests with traditional dancing and drumming have erupted in dozens of shopping malls across North America. There have been rallies, marches and highway blockades by aboriginal groups across Canada and supporters have emerged from as far away as New Zealand and the Middle East.

The campaign aims to draw attention to dismal conditions faced by many of the country's 1.2 million natives, including poverty, unsafe drinking water, inadequate housing, addiction and high suicide rates.
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Boat

More than 200 passengers on Queen Mary 2 fall sick with vomiting and diarrhea on exclusive Christmas Cruise - as those on SECOND liner become ill with 'norovirus'

Beth Stebner
Daily Mail, UK
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 00:00 UTC
  • As many as 190 passengers and 31 crew members have become ill with unknown illness on cruise ship
  • Symptoms - which include vomiting and diarrhea - are consistent with norovirus, a highly contagious disease spread through contaminated food and water
  • Ticket for similar Caribbean cruise costs upwards of $4,7000
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© PA Archive/Press Association Images
Hundreds of passengers hoping to enjoy a pampered Christmas cruise on the imposing Queen Mary 2 are instead below deck with an unknown illness that causes vomiting and diarrhea.

Earlier this week, 189 passengers and 31 crew members had come down with symptoms, which are consistent with the norovirus, a highly-contagious virus that is easily passed from person to person through contaminated food or water.

The luxe liner departed New York on Saturday for a 12-night cruise in the Caribbean. A ticket on the prestigious liner can cost upwards of $4,700.

Norovirus causes an inflammation of the stomach or intestines called acute gastroenteritis, producing stomach pain, nausea and diarrhea, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Each year, norovirus causes some 21million illnesses, of which 70,000 require hospitalization. It kills about 800 people a year, the CDC says.

The Queen Mary 2, with 2,613 passengers and 1,255 crew members, is now docked in Saint Maarten in the Caribbean, according to ship owner Cunard Line, which is owned by Carnival Corp.

The CDC learned of the illnesses on the QM2 on Christmas Day, and of those on the Emerald Princess last Saturday. Vessels are required to notify the agency when two percent of those on board develop a gastrointestinal illness.
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Black Cat 2

Metal thieves plundering areas hardest hit by hurricane Sandy


CBS New York
Fri, 28 Dec 2012 08:20 UTC
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© CBS 2The NYPD says it has arrested more than 10 people for stealing scrap metal and other debris in areas of NYC heavily impacted by Hurricane Sandy.
More Than 10 Arrests So Far As The Unscrupulous Try To Get Max Resale Value.

New York - Those who live in the Breezy Point section of Queens are picking through their burned out homes one more time, before the city takes a major step in the area's recovery.

Mari Ellen Mack was moved to tears Friday after finding her late father's framed NYPD badge in what's left of her home.

"To think of my father right now, now that's upsetting, but it's crazy at the same time. It's still intact," Mack told CBS 2's Wendy Gillette.

She said she's trying to find anything she can before next week.

The city will bulldoze what's left of the homes that burned after the New Year. That's why Mack went to the home again to see if she could find any mementos.

And she did. Her dad was an undercover detective in the 1960s, infiltrating the mob.

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Family

No heir to run the company? Why adult 'adoption' is big business in Japan

David McNeill
The Independent
Fri, 28 Dec 2012 00:00 UTC
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Osamu Suzuki, left, is the fourth adopted son to run the family company
Family firms in Japan often rely on adult adoptees to help retain dynastic control. Finding a match has become an industry in itself.

Like many men in Japan, Tsunemaru Tanaka is looking for a wife. Unlike some, he is prepared to sacrifice his name to get one. If all goes well in 2013, he'll find a bride, her prosperous family will adopt him and he'll take their family name. In an ideal world, he'll run their business too. "I think I have a lot of skills to offer the right family," he says.

The 19th-century industrialist Andrew Carnegie famously said that inherited wealth "deadens talents and energies. Business research generally supports the Carnegie thesis: companies controlled by heirs underperform their professionalised competitors. Except, apparently, in Japan.

Japan boasts the world's oldest family-run businesses, the Hoshi Guest House, founded in 717. And the construction company Kongo Gumi was operated for a record-breaking 1,400 years by a succession of heirs until it was taken over in 2006. Many family firms - car-maker Suzuki, Matsui Securities, and giant brewery Suntory - break the rule of steady dynastic decline, or what is sometimes cruelly dubbed the "idiot-son syndrome".

So how do Japanese firms do it? The answer, apparently, is adoption.Last year more than 81,000 people were adopted in Japan, one of the highest rates in the world. Remarkably, more than 90 per cent of those adopted were adults.

The practice of adopting men in their 20s and 30s is used to rescue biologically ill-fated families and ensure a business heir, says Vikas Mehrotra, of the University of Alberta, the lead author of a new paper on the Japanese phenomenon of adult adoptions. "We haven't come across this custom in any other part of the world," he says.
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Blue Planet

Rise in number of British couples seeking 'wombs for hire' abroad

Jeremy Laurance
The Independent
Fri, 28 Dec 2012 00:00 UTC
Increase in British couples turning to poor foreign surrogate mothers to have their babies.
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Surrogate Mothers in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
Wealthy British couples who cannot have children are increasingly seeking "wombs for hire" from women overseas, according to figures obtained by The Independent.

The number of couples formally registering children born to foreign surrogates has nearly trebled in five years, raising concerns that poor women in developing countries are being exploited by rich Westerners.

"Parental orders" granted following surrogacy - to transfer the child from the surrogate mother to the commissioning parents - have risen from 47 in 2007 to 133 in 2011.

While the figures are still relatively small, experts say they understate the true scale of the trade which is driven by agencies operating in countries such as India, drawn by a lack of red tape and the absence of regulation.

There are parallels with the trade in inter-country adoption 20 years ago, when hundreds of children from impoverished families in eastern Europe and the developing world were "sold" to wealthy foreigners, with few checks on their suitability, they claim.

Commercial surrogacy is permitted in the US and in many other countries including India, where it was legalised in 2002.
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Handcuffs

Woman charged with hate crime and murder in New York subway shove death

Colleen Long
ABC News
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 00:00 UTC

Sunando Sen
Erika Menendez Charged with 2nd Degree Murder in Subway Shoving Death of Sunando Sen in Queens
New York - A woman who told police she shoved a man to his death off a subway platform into the path of a train because she has hated Muslims since Sept. 11 and thought he was one was charged Saturday with murder as a hate crime, prosecutors said.

Erika Menendez was charged in the death of Sunando Sen, who was crushed by a 7 train in Queens on Thursday night, the second time this month a commuter has died in such a nightmarish fashion.

Menendez, 31, was awaiting arraignment on the charge Saturday evening, Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown said. She could face 25 years to life in prison if convicted. She was in custody and couldn't be reached for comment, and it was unclear if she had an attorney.

Menendez, who was arrested after a tip by a passer-by who saw her on a street and thought she looked like the woman in a surveillance video released by police, admitted shoving Sen, who was pushed from behind, authorities said.

"I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I've been beating them up," Menendez told police, according to the district attorney's office.

Sen was from India, but police said it was unclear if he was Muslim, Hindu or of some other faith. The 46-year-old lived in Queens and ran a printing shop. He was shoved from an elevated platform on the 7 train line, which connects Manhattan and Queens. Witnesses said a muttering woman rose from her seat on a platform bench and pushed him on the tracks as a train entered the station and then ran off.
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Handcuffs

Two charged with murder in Christmas day crash in Pasadena


LA Times
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 17:40 UTC
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Two alleged gang members were charged with murder Friday for their roles in a police chase that ended in a fatal Christmas Day crash, prosecutors said.

Darrell Williams, 22, of Pasadena, and Brittany Washington, 21, of Los Angeles, were each charged with two counts of murder, three counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

The complaint also includes gang allegations for both suspects, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said in a statement.

Prosecutors are asking that bail be set at $3.1 million for Williams and $2.1 million for Washington.

Williams is alleged to have been behind the wheel of a Dodge Durango with Washington in the passenger seat when he failed to pull over for a traffic violation about 8 p.m. Tuesday. He then led a Pasadena police officer and FBI agent on a brief high-speed chase before colliding with a van at Marengo Avenue and Maple Street.

The impact killed Tracey Ongtan, 25, of Glendale and Kendrick Ng, 11, of Daly City. Three other passengers were seriously injured in the collision.
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Eye 2

2 teens, 12-year-old charged in Durham, North Carolina, slaying

Thomasi McDonald
Durham News
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 17:16 UTC
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© Durham Police DepartmentJustino Navarette Maya, 16, of 311 S. LaSalle St. in Durham, is charged with murder.
A man was shot and killed Friday night after giving three young people a ride to a northern Durham neighborhood.

Investigators say Johnny Danilo Villatoro, 35, of Durham, was the victim of a carjacking and the fatal shooting.

Police have charged three youths, including two juveniles with murder.

One of them is a 12-year-old girl from Raleigh who accidentally shot herself in the leg and abdomen while inside the Villatoro's car, police said.

Investigators found her at about 7:30 p.m. on Channing Court. She is being treated at a local hospital for injuries that do not appear to be life threatening.
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