Beijing - Local authorities have detained nine people, including an obstetrician, on suspicion of baby trafficking at a hospital in northwestern China, state media reported.
Three government officials and three hospital managers at Fuping County Maternal and Child Health Care in Shaanxi province were also fired over the baby trafficking scandal, the official Xinhua News Agency reported late Friday.
Among the detained suspects is Zhang Shuxia, an obstetrician at the hospital who abducted newborns by sometimes falsely claiming the infants were born with congenital problems, it said. Xinhua said police had received 55 reports of child abductions and that Zhang allegedly was involved in 26 of them.
It said police had rescued twin baby girls and located a third child, all taken from the Fuping hospital.
Despite severe legal punishments, including the death penalty, child trafficking is a big problem in China. It is very profitable for the traffickers, and demand is strong, driven partly by the traditional preference for male heirs, a strict one-child policy and ignorance of the law.
Source: Associated Press
Society's Child
Some graffiti popping up on highways has a lot of people talking, and the state isn't too happy about how a group of vandals are trying to get their message across.
An Iowa mother is being advised by a civil rights organization after surveillance video recently emerged of her being viciously beaten by a police officer, apparently without provocation.
Brandie Redell admits that she was trying to shoplift around $388 of women's clothing from the Von Maur department store in Davenport on February .
Yet when she was caught and questioned by police she says that Officer Scott Crow repeatedly punched her, leaving her hospitalized with an eye swollen shut and vision that is now 70 per cent impaired. Crow remains in his job and Redell is planning legal action.
Damage: The punches left Redell needing hospital treatment and she says permanent impairment to her vision
This is a HUGE jump.
Compared to the same quarter last year in which 188 people renounced their US citizenship, this year's number is over SIX TIMES higher.
Not to mention, it's 66.5% higher than last quarter's 679 renunciations.
This brings the total number of renunciations so far this year to 1,810.
While still embryonic, it's difficult to ignore this trend - more and more people are starting to renounce their US citizenship.
© John Rawlston
A bowl of fruit and dried beans rests atop a rock alongside Signal Mountain Boulevard.
A bowl of fruit and dried beans rests atop a rock alongside Signal Mountain Boulevard.
If you know the owner or why the fruit is sitting so neatly inside a wok perched precariously high on a rock between the two-laned road and a deadly drop of several hundred feet to the Tennessee River below, please reveal yourself.
Were they left for the birds? Was it a teenage prank? Or some kind of cult sacrifice? Was it left by a bargainer shopping at the world's longest yard sale?
Just spill the beans. The mystery is maddening for some mountaintop residents.
Sure, there are more important things to fret about than fruit. But you have to understand: On Signal Mountain, people usually know what's going on. And they know it fast.
"Nobody knows how it got there," said Pam Morrison, who lives in Walden. "A lot of people have seen it and nobody knows anything about it."
© Spencer Platt/Getty Images
In the past, the bodies of slaughtered horses have been found in wooded areas, away from the public, but that wasn't the case Wednesday.
According to South Florida SPCA President Jeanette Jordan, it appeared the horse was slaughtered somewhere else and the remains were dumped at 5295 NW 163rd Street.
Laurie Waggoner, Director of Operations for the South Florida Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was called to the scene by the Miami Gardens Police Department.
"The slaughter of horses in our community continues unabated," stated Ms. Waggoner. "The only difference in this case, is the remains were disposed of in an extremely public area."
© YourJewishNews
Now, police in Sweden are warning tourists in Stockholm, to be on the lookout for people in ghosts costumes, who try to distract their victims and then pick their pockets.
Police said that tourists have reported that their pockets were picked while they were distracted by people wearing white sheets with white face paint.
"The thieves are always finding new methods. Often, the theft is carried out using some sort of distraction. They come onto people very strongly and aggressively, which scares people," Stockholm police spokesperson Gunnar Thun said.
"Many tourists think that Stockholm is a safe city. It is indeed a pretty safe city when it comes to violent crimes, but not when it comes to crimes against personal property. People got robbed often here," Thun said.
He warned tourists to watch out from the ghosts. "People should keep a safe distance from them," he said.
Throughout this year, the White House has been considering adopting what's known as chained CPI, a less generous way of calculating Social Security cost-of-living increases that assumes seniors will change their buying habits as certain items become more expensive.
Compared with the current model, advocacy group Social Security Works has said that a person who began drawing Social Security at the age of 62 would be receiving 7.32 percent less in benefits per year by the age of 88 under chained CPI.
"I'm sorry to say that the president of my own party has advocated this and he's wrong," Harkin told a group of seniors at a retirement center on Tuesday. "I'm so tired of people saying we've got to cut Social Security. I thought, we got to come back and say something, no, you've got to increase Social Security."
© RIA Novosti
Russia Destroys Over 75% of Its Chemical Weapons Stockpile
Russia Destroys Over 75% of Its Chemical Weapons Stockpile
Russia has destroyed more chemical agents than any other of the 180 signees of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, Minister Denis Manturov said while visiting a chemical weapons disposal facility in the Bryansk Region, which borders Ukraine and Belarus.
More than 500 inspections of Russia's chemical weapons stockpile have been conducted since the convention came into effect, and not a single violation has been detected in this respect, the official added.
Last year, Deputy Industry and Trade Minister Georgy Kalamanov said Russia planned to destroy all of its chemical weapons by 2015.
A 95-year-old world War II veteran died after being Tasered and hit with bean bag rounds by police for threatening care home staff - but his family insist he was killed unnecessarily.
Police say that John Wrana, who lived in a Chicago assisting living home, was brandishing his cane, a metal shoehorn and a knife before officers shocked him and hit him with bean bag rounds.
The senior citizen had been reported to authorities because he was being 'involuntarily' committed for medical treatment by staff at the Victory Centre, the Chicago Tribune reported.
He was behaving in 'combative' manner, by threatening staff with his cane and a shoehorn. Wrana was reportedly scheduled to undergo a risky surgery, and was apparently afraid to end up on life support.
When police arrived at Park Forest at around 8.45pm, they said he was ordered to surrender, but he refused to and continued to berate staff and threaten them.
Police say that John Wrana, who lived in a Chicago assisting living home, was brandishing his cane, a metal shoehorn and a knife before officers shocked him and hit him with bean bag rounds.
© Nick Grapsas
John Wrana (pictured with his wife, Helen) died after being Tasered and shot with bean bag rounds
John Wrana (pictured with his wife, Helen) died after being Tasered and shot with bean bag rounds
He was behaving in 'combative' manner, by threatening staff with his cane and a shoehorn. Wrana was reportedly scheduled to undergo a risky surgery, and was apparently afraid to end up on life support.
When police arrived at Park Forest at around 8.45pm, they said he was ordered to surrender, but he refused to and continued to berate staff and threaten them.
Comment: Millions of people are living in poverty, while the elites are sitting on mountains of cash. The government claims cuts are necessary to "balance the budget", yet there is always plenty of money to fund the endless war of terror.
Number of Americans in poverty at record high
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