Society's ChildS


Dollar

US: Elderly Woman Uses AIDS Threat to Rob Colorado Bank

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© CBS4
Longmont police are looking for a woman who robbed a bank and used the threat of AIDS as her weapon.

Thursday a woman went to the Wells Fargo bank inside the Safeway on Ken Pratt Boulevard. Police say she gave the teller a note saying she has AIDS and she would infect the teller if she didn't hand over the money. She never showed a weapon.

The threat of getting infected with AIDS was enough to scare the teller into giving the woman money.

"I'm not sure how you could do it; there's variety of ways. You could have needle with your blood, you could spit on somebody; you know saliva is not a good transmission of that," a Longmont police officer said. "It was enough to inspire the fear and that helped her be successful in the robbery."

Arrow Down

US: Tour Bus Operator Stashes Extra Passengers In Luggage Compartment

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© Getty ImagesBus passengers near luggage storage area.
When a tour bus operator found he had more passengers than seats, he put six people in the luggage compartment with mattresses and pillows.

Now the Michigan company has been ordered to cease commercial bus operations after the discovery during a trip to Ohio.

The order against Haines Tours of Gladwin was issued Friday by the U.S. Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

An Ohio State Patrol officer found six people May 27 in the luggage compartment of a bus traveling from Michigan to Clyde, Ohio. Mattresses and pillows were in the luggage area.

It is reported that the driver told the officer there was no room on the bus for more passengers.

Laptop

Facebook Loses 1.5 Million Users in Canada

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© Adrian Wyld, The Canadian PressFacebook, known for its meteoric rise in popularity, lost 1.5 million users in Canada in May. Facebook also reported a loss of approximately 6 million users in the United States in the same month.
Is Facebook's reign as the king of social networking coming to an end?

Facebook, known for its meteoric rise in popularity, lost 1.5 million users in Canada in May. Facebook also reported a loss of approximately 6 million users in the United States in the same month.

Overall, Facebook gained 13.9 million users in April, and 11.8 million users in May - compared to a typical month in 2010 where the company gained 20 million users per month on average.

A report published Monday morning on mashable.com says that if this slowing trend continues for two consecutive months, it could be a significant indicator for Facebook's future.

Despite the slowed growth in North America, Facebook continues to dominate the social networking world, having reached 687 million active monthly users by the beginning of June 2011. The majority of new users are from countries that are late in adopting Facebook, such as India, Brazil, and Mexico.

Stormtrooper

Israeli Police, Palestinian Protesters Clash at Sensitive Jerusalem Holy Site

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© The Associated Press / Tara Todras-WhitehillIsraeli border police stand guard inside Jerusalem's Old City after Friday prayers, Friday, June 10, 2011. Israeli policemen entered a sensitive Jerusalem holy site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary on Friday and used stun grenades to disperse dozens of Palestinian protesters who were hurling stones at security personnel, police said.
Israeli policemen entered a sensitive Jerusalem holy site Friday and used stun grenades to disperse dozens of Palestinian protesters who were hurling stones at security personnel, police said.

The scene of the clash was the Old City compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

Israeli spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police entered the compound after Palestinians began lobbing stones at security forces stationed outside one of the gates. The clash began immediately after Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque.

Police used stun grenades to disperse the crowd, he said.

Officers made three arrests, no one was injured and order was quickly restored, Rosenfeld said.

The compound, holy to Jews and Muslims and captured by Israel in 1967, is one of the most combustible sites on earth. Clashes there in the past have ignited broader violence.

Wolf

US: Washington Residents Warned of 'Bloodthirsty' Dog Pack

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© The Associated Press / Stevens County Sheriff's OfficeIn this May 2011 security camera frame grab provided by the Stevens County Sheriff's Office, dogs are seen at the home of a resident near Deer Park, Wash. A pack of dogs has killed about 100 animals in the past three months while eluding law enforcement and volunteers in northeastern Washington state. The killings are happening in a wide area of mountains and valleys west of Deer Park, a small town about 40 miles north of Spokane, authorities said.
A "bloodthirsty" pack of dogs has killed about 100 animals in the past few months while eluding law enforcement and volunteers in northeastern Washington state, residents and authorities said.

The killings started in late March and have occurred in a wide area of mountains and valleys west of Deer Park, a small town about 40 miles north of Spokane.

"Trying to figure out where they are going to hit is next to impossible," Stevens County Undersheriff Lavonne Webb said Thursday. "Nobody is claiming ownership of any animals involved in the pack."

Most recently, the dogs killed a 350-pound llama Tuesday night. They've also killed goats and other farm animals.

So far, no humans have been attacked. But authorities are warning residents to take whatever steps are necessary to protect their families and animals because the dogs appear to be killing for fun rather than food.

"We have this pack that is out there killing for the sake of killing," Webb said in a telephone interview from Colville. "What is going to happen if they come across a small child?"

Heart - Black

Death Upheld for Kuwait Woman for Wedding Carnage

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© Getty ImagesBurnt clothes and debris remain outside the scene of a wedding party fire in Jahra, west of Kuwait City.
Kuwait's supreme court on Sunday upheld a woman's death sentence for setting ablaze her husband's wedding tent, killing 57 women and children.

Nasra Yussef Mohammed al-Enezi, 24, was condemned to death by a lower and appeals courts for the apparent act of revenge against her husband for taking a second wife.

Under Islamic laws, men in Kuwait can take up to four wives at a time.

The ruling against Enezi is final unless the emir commutes the sentence to a life term. Death sentences in the oil-rich Gulf state are carried out by hanging.

Attention

Air Canada Customer Service Employees Go on Strike After Talks Fail

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© CBCAir Canada workers rallied at Toronto's Pearson airport on Thursday.
Air Canada's customer service agents and other airport workers are on strike after negotiations between their union and the airline failed to reach an agreement.

A spokesman from the Canadian Auto Workers union, which represents the 3,800 striking employees, says pensions and wages were key sticking points.

Union president Ken Lewenza had said earlier there was a "huge gap" between the airline and the union on those two issues.

Air Canada (TSX:AC.B) says it has a contingency plan in place to continue operating a full schedule even as the strike goes ahead.

The airline urges passengers to check its website because a high volume of calls could make it a long wait to get through to its call centres, which were largely operated by employees who have now walked off the job.

Federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt has said she's concerned about the potential impact of a work stoppage on Canadians and on Canada's economic recovery.

Penis Pump

"Homophobia Is Apparently Associated With Homosexual Arousal"

"..that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies," concludes a 1996 study published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Yes, the research is 15 years old, but in light of several recent anti-gay rants in the news, I couldn't help but notice Nathan Heflick's latest post at Psychology Today:

Alarm Clock

No Justice in Kafka's America

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© Mr. Fish
In Franz Kafka's short story Before the Law a tireless supplicant spends his life praying for admittance into the courts of justice. He sits outside the law court for days, months and years. He makes many attempts to be admitted. He sacrifices everything he owns to sway or bribe the stern doorkeeper. He ages, grows feeble and finally childish. He is told as he nears death that the entrance was constructed solely for him and it will now be closed.

Justice has become as unattainable for Muslim activists in the United States as it was for Kafka's frustrated petitioner. The draconian legal mechanisms that condemn Muslim Americans who speak out publicly about the outrages we commit in the Middle East have left many, including Syed Fahad Hashmi, wasting away in supermax prisons. These citizens posed no security threat. But they dared to speak a truth about the sordid conduct of our nation that the state found unpalatable. And in the bipartisan war on terror, waged by Republicans and Democrats, this ugly truth in America is branded seditious.

The best the U.S. government could offer as evidence of Fahad's crimes was that an acquaintance who stayed in his apartment with him while he was a graduate student in London had raincoats, ponchos and waterproof socks in luggage at the apartment and that the acquaintance eventually delivered these to al-Qaida. But I doubt the government is overly concerned with a suitcase full of waterproof socks taken to Pakistan. The reason Fahad Hashmi was targeted was because, like the Palestinian activist Dr. Sami Al-Arian, he was fearless and zealous in his defense of those being bombed, shot, terrorized and killed throughout the Muslim world while he was a student at Brooklyn College. Fahad was deeply religious, and some of his views, including his praise of the Afghan resistance, were to me unpalatable, but he had a right to express these sentiments. More important, he had a right to expect freedom from persecution and imprisonment because of his opinions. Facing the possibility of a 70-year sentence in prison and having already spent four years in jail, much of it in solitary confinement, he accepted a plea bargain on one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism.

Bad Guys

16 top Gingrich staff members resign

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© Cheryl Senter / The Associated PressFormer House Speaker Newt Gingrich, accompanied by his wife, Callista, suffered a severe blow to his presidential campaign when his top staffers quit.
Washington - The entire top echelon of Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign resigned on Thursday, a stunning mass exodus that left his bid for the Republican nomination in tatters.

But the former House speaker vowed defiantly to remain a candidate.

"I am committed to running the substantive, solutions-oriented campaign I set out to run earlier this spring," the Gingrich said in a posting to his Facebook page shortly after the 16 aides resigned. "The campaign begins anew Sunday in Los Angeles."

Rick Tyler, Gingrich's spokesman, said that he, campaign manager Rob Johnson and senior strategists had all quit, along with aides in the early primary and caucus states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Other officials said Gingrich was informed that his entire high command was quitting in a meeting at his headquarters in Washington. They cited differences over the direction of the campaign.