Society's ChildS


Sheriff

US: Police Believe Man in Custody is Responsible for California Homeless Killings


Fox News
Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
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© The Associated PressJanuary 13, 2012: A crowd gathers at the intersection of Imperial Highway and La Palma in Anaheim, Calif. Friday night following the discovery of a dead man behind a Carl's Jr.
Police in Southern California said Saturday they believe a man in their custody is responsible for all four recent killings of homeless men in Orange County.

Anaheim police said at a news conference that investigators have tied 23-year-old Itzcoatl Ocampo of Yorba Linda to the killings.

Ocampo was detained Friday night after a fourth homeless man was found slain in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant.

Three other homeless men have been found stabbed to death in north Orange County since mid-December, and a task force of police officers, sheriff's deputies and FBI agents had been looking for the single suspect they believed was responsible for all three.

Ocampo could not immediately be reached for comment. A phone number listed in his name rang without an answer, and no one answered the door at two addresses listed in his name.
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Footprints

India: Shrine Stampede Leaves Ten Dead


South Asian News Agency
Sat, 14 Jan 2012 18:42 UTC
A stampede during a religious ceremony in central India has left at least 10 people dead, an official said.

According to Senior police officer Rajesh Vyas said the stampede occurred early Saturday when a large number of people surged forward to gain entry into a Muslim shrine.

Vyas said some pilgrims fell down and were crushed to death.

The shrine is near Ratlam, a town in Madhya Pradesh state nearly 480 miles southwest of New Delhi. Police in the region could not be immediately reached for details.

Deadly stampedes are relatively common at religious places in India, where large crowds gather in tiny areas with no safety measures or crowd control.
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Bizarro Earth

Two Years On, Haiti Still Reeling from Earthquake

Moni Basu
CNN
Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:02 UTC

Fabiola Leocal's story ought to be uncommon, but in post-earthquake Haiti, it's not.

All she has left of her previous life are a stack of photographs and a few other things scavenged off the rubble of the building she called a home.

When the catastrophe struck, as the Haitians say, her house tumbled, along with many others that dotted the hillside in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Canape Vert. Her husband of nine years, Rene, was crushed under concrete.

She lived in a camp for a while but returned to where she belonged. Now she has a tin shack and memories -- photographs carefully tucked away in loose, laminated photo album pages of herself and Rene. He, in a suit. She, in a much finer dress than the black sleeveless top and printed skirt she has on now.
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Einstein

US, New York: Homeless Long Island Teenager Is Intel Competition Semifinalist


CBS News, New York
Thu, 12 Jan 2012 02:51 UTC
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© Sophia Hall / WCBS 880Samantha Garvey and her father at Brentwood High School - Brentwood, NY - Jan 12, 2012
Samantha Garvey has good reason to be the recipient of high fives and congratulations from the faculty and students in the hallways at Brentwood High School.

The 17-year-old senior says she cannot believe that she is one of the semifinalists in the highly prestigious Intel Science Competition, in part because she lives in a Bay Shore homeless shelter with her parents, brother, and twin sisters.

"I am currently homeless. Like I've said, this motivates me to do better. I do well and I pursue my passion because it's what I have and it's a way out, you know, and it'll lead to better things," Garvey told WCBS 880 reporter Sophia Hall.
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Dollar

US: Home Seizures May Jump 25% This Year as U.S. Foreclosures Resume

Dan Levy
Bloomberg Business Week
Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:46 UTC
foreclosure sign
© n/a
Banks may seize more than 1 million U.S. homes this year after legal scrutiny of their foreclosure practices slowed actions against delinquent property owners in 2011, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

About 1.89 million properties received notices of default, auction or repossession last year, down 34 percent from 2010 and the lowest number since 2007, the Irvine, California-based data seller said today in a statement. One in 69 U.S. households received a filing.

While the seizure process has been "highly dysfunctional," there were "strong signs in the second half of 2011 that lenders are finally beginning to push through some of the delayed foreclosures in select local markets," RealtyTrac Chief Executive Officer Brandon Moore said in the statement.

The number of home repossessions is likely to rise about 25 percent from the more than 804,000 properties seized last year as lenders resume foreclosure actions, Daren Blomquist, a spokesman for RealtyTrac, said in a telephone interview. Settlement talks are continuing with state attorneys general over documentation flaws, known as "robo-signing," that surfaced in October 2010.
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Wolf

Best of the Web: We've Lost Nearly All of Our Wild Foods -- What Happened? And What Are We Missing?

Jill Richardson
AlterNet
Sat, 29 Dec 2012 17:33 UTC
foraging
© n/a
Fish are the last wild food that most of us will eat.

A few days from now, a single bluefin tuna will make international headlines when it sells for an ungodly amount of money -- perhaps more than $100,000 -- at Tokyo's Tsukiji market. And while the high price of the first bluefin of the year will be extraordinary, the rarity, and thus the prestige and high pricetag of bluefin in general, provides a clue to humans' dietary history. Once upon a time, wild foods were a regular and beloved part of the American diet. Today, the American epicure might dine on foraged mushrooms and ramps, but for many of us, fish are the last wild food we eat. What happened? And what are we missing?

Georgia Pellegrini, a chef who has worked in elite restaurants in New York and France, decided to answer this question for herself when she set out to hunt her own food. As her new book's title implies -- Girl Hunter: Revolutionizing the Way We Eat, One Hunt at a Time -- she entered into a masculine realm in which she was often the only woman. Pellegrini traveled across the United States and even England, hunting everything from squirrel to elk. As much as she stands out as a woman, she also stands out among the local and sustainable food movement. (An anthropologist recently pointed out that the local food movement "has been reticent to embrace hunting as an integral part of sustainable eating.")

As a chef, Pellegrini focuses on her meal's flavor more than many other sustainable food writers. At one point, while contemplating pulling the trigger to shoot a javelina, Pellegrini says, "I wonder if I had to work hard enough for this. I wonder if I had to exert myself enough... Then I wonder how javelina taste."
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Attention

Ship aground off Italy; 3 bodies found, 69 missing

Frances D'Emilio and Nicole Winfield
Associated Press
Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:27 UTC
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© AP
Divers searched the submerged part of a luxury cruise liner that went aground off Italy's coast in case any of 70 people unaccounted for might be trapped inside, a coast guard official said Saturday, as passengers described a delayed and terrifying evacuation.

Three bodies were recovered from the sea after the Costa Concordia ran aground off the tiny island of Giglio near the coast of Tuscany late Friday, tearing a 160-foot (50-meter) gash in its hull and sending in a rush of water.

One of the victims was a Peruvian crew member, a diplomat from the South American country said, adding that a Peruvian woman was also missing. The ANSA new agency identified the other two fatalities as French passengers, but didn't cite a source.

Passengers described a scene reminiscent of Titanic, saying they escaped the ship by crawling along upended hallways, desperately trying to reach safety as the lights went out and plates and glasses crashed. Helicopters whisked some survivors to safety, others were rescued by private boats in the area, and witnesses said some people jumped from the ship into the dark, cold sea.
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Heart - Black

Kathleen Edward, Girl Taunted Online While Battling Huntington's Disease, Dies

Kim Carollo
ABC News
Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:12 UTC
The 9-year-old Michigan girl taunted on Facebook by neighbors while she suffered from a terminal disease died Wednesday, according to WXYZ-TV.

Kathleen Edward of Trenton, Mich., died from Huntington's disease, the same genetic degenerative brain disorder that took her mother's life in 2009.

Back in late 2010, 33-year-old Jennifer Petkov, who lived on the same block as Kathleen's family, allegedly began cyberbullying the little girl.

On a Facebook page under Petkov's name, there were images of Kathleen's mother, Laura, in the arms of the Grim Reaper and Kathleen above a set of crossbones. Neighbors also accused Petkov and her husband Scott of building a coffin, putting it on their truck and driving past the Edward home, honking the horn.
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Light Saber

Flashback CyberbullyJennifer Petkov Says 'I'm Sorry,' Wishes to Move On

Nate Stemen
Trenton Patch
Sat, 14 Jan 2012 12:59 UTC
'It just seems like no matter how quiet I stay that I'm still being accused of doing things that I'm not doing,' the Trenton woman, who used Facebook to post doctored photos of a dying girl, told Patch in an exclusive interview last week.

Jennifer Petkov says she is sorry, and she has a big regret.

Petkov, of Trenton, first made national news in October 2010 when she posted on Facebook photographs she doctored of a 7-year-old girl dying of Huntington's disease and her mother, who died as a result of the disease in 2009.

Though no criminal or civil charges were filed against Petkov for posting the Facebook photos, the story blew up in local and national media. A follow-up story Trenton Patch ran on June 23 was read by about 1 million people.

In the photos, the face of the girl, Kathleen Edward, was superimposed onto a skull and crossbones, and her mother, Laura Edward, 24, was being embraced by the grim reaper.

"The entire world thought I was this evil child-hater, child-taunter," Petkov told Patch in an exclusive interview last week at a restaurant in Trenton.
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Attention

Revealed: Doctors Routinely Cheating Exams in Uncovered Scandal

Anthony Gucciardi
Natural Society
Sat, 14 Jan 2012 12:46 UTC
X-Ray
© Natural Society
Utilizing an extensive data bank of answers recorded by those who have taken the test, radiology doctors around the nation from prestigious and little-known programs alike have been cheating the exam system for a very long time. With exam officials openly admitting that the cheating has been going on for a 'long time', the information sheds light on the fact that many radiology doctors may actually be completely unqualified to be dosing up patients with damaging radiation.

Doctors around the country have setup very complex banks of information known as 'recalls', which have been setup by doctors who have previously memorized test questions and shared them for public viewing. With each question meticulously documented and archived by radiology residents, the answers cover just about every program in the county - including highly the highly prestigious and challenging. This system makes even the most respected exam completely worthless in determining the knowledge base of the doctors.
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