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Officers who shot Kimani Gray have been repeatedly sued for civil rights violations

John Marzulli
NY Daily News
Fri, 15 Mar 2013 18:01 UTC
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Sgt. Mourad Mourad racked up three suits while he was a plainclothes cop on Staten Island, and Officer Jovaniel Cordova racked up two at Brooklyn's 70th Precinct - all alleging various civil rights violations including illegal stop and search and false arrest.

The NYPD sergeant and cop involved in the fatal shooting of Brooklyn 16-year-old Kimani Gray have been named in five federal lawsuits - which cost the city a total of $215,000 in settlements, court records show.

Sgt. Mourad Mourad racked up three suits while he was a plainclothes cop on Staten Island, and Officer Jovaniel Cordova racked up two at Brooklyn's 70th Precinct - all alleging various civil rights violations including illegal stop and search and false arrest.

Prosecutors later dismissed all but one of the arrests against the six plaintiffs, and the criminal cases were sealed.

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© TODD MAISEL/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Kimani Gray, 16, with his mother Carol Gray. Kimani was killed by police after he allegedly pulled a gun on March 9, 2013.
Mourad and Cordova had been placed on desk duty while the NYPD and the Brooklyn district attorney's office continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding the March 9 shooting in East Flatbush that has since sparked riots. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said Gray was shot after he pointed a .38-caliber revolver at the sergeant and cop, who had approached a group of youths on the street.
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Heart - Black

Chinese data reveals 330 million abortions in the country since 1971


Raw Story
Sat, 16 Mar 2013 11:07 UTC
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© Shutterstock
Nearly 330 million abortions have been performed in China in the 40 years since it first implemented measures to limit population growth in the world's most populous nation, official data showed.

China has announced structural changes to its family planning system which oversees the controversial one-child policy during the ongoing annual meeting of the national legislature in Beijing.

Data posted on the health ministry website earlier this year shows that from 1971 - shortly before China started encouraging people to have fewer children - through 2010 a total of 328.9 million abortions were carried out in the country, which has a population of 1.35 billion.

China says that its one-child policy introduced in the early 1980s has prevented overpopulation and boosted economic development. The policy exempts some rural families, ethnic minorities and couples who are both only children.
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Cult

Brainwashed and cut off from her family, Scientology leader's niece reveals Church secrets in new book


Raw Story
Sat, 16 Mar 2013 11:03 UTC
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© AFP Photo
The Church of Scientology has lashed out at a new book by its leader's niece, which recounts a stolen childhood and how she was brainwashed and cut off from her family before eventually escaping.

In Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology And My Harrowing Escape, Jenna Miscavige-Hill - whose uncle David Miscavige runs the secretive group - also claims she was forced to work as a child.

But a spokesman for the Church said her claims were "false" and denounced "efforts to exploit Mr Miscavige's name."

"The Church has long respected the family unit while accommodating and helping those raising children," Karin Pouw, spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology International, told AFP.

"The Church does not engage in any activities that mistreat, neglect or force children to engage in manual labor. The Church follows all laws with respect to children," she said, accusing Miscavige-Hill of "apostate behavior."
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Bad Guys

Hong Kong police find 'severed heads in freezer'


Raw Story
Sat, 16 Mar 2013 11:00 UTC
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© AFP Photo/Phillipe Lopez
The severed heads of a Hong Kong couple were found in a refrigerator at a bloodstained apartment in a gruesome murder for which their 29-year-old son has been arrested, according to reports.

Police said in a statement Friday that "some sections of human body" had been found at a flat in Tai Kok Tsui on the outskirts of the city and that they suspected the victims were a 64-year-old man and his wife.

They had been reported missing last Saturday, police said.

The couple were identified as Chau Wing-ki, 64, and his wife Siu Yuet-yee, 63, by Hong Kong newspaper the South China Morning Post(SCMP).

Their heads had been found in the refrigerator and parts of their arms and legs were also discovered in the flat, according to the SCMP, while their bodies remain missing.
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Heart - Black

Steubenville football players found guilty of rape

Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Columbus Dispatch
Sun, 17 Mar 2013 10:46 UTC
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© KEITH SRAKOCIC | AP
Trent Mays, left, and Ma'Lik Richmond.
Two members of the high school football team that is the pride of Steubenville were found guilty Sunday of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl in a case that bitterly divided the Rust Belt city and led to accusations of a cover-up to protect the community's athletes.

Steubenville High School students Trent Mays and Ma'Lik Richmond were sentence to at least a year in juvenile jail, capping a case that came to light via a barrage of morning-after text messages, social media posts and online photos and video. Mays was sentenced to an additional year in jail on a charge of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material, to be served after his rape sentence is completed.

The two teens broke down in tears after the verdict was read and later apologized to the victim and to the community. Both were emotional as they spoke, and Richmond struggled at times to talk through his sobs.

Mays, 17, and Richmond, 16, were charged with digitally penetrating the West Virginia girl, first in the back seat of a moving car after an alcohol-fueled party on Aug. 11, and then in the basement of a house. They were ordered to avoid contact with the victim until they're 21.
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Play

Alexander Cockburn dumps on nuclear loving greens and man made global warming

Alexander Cockburn
YouTube
Sun, 17 Mar 2013 06:57 UTC
Acclaimed leftist journalist Alexander Cockburn at his home in Humboldt County, California.


Comment: Salient points on the man-made global warming hoax and dangers posed by nuclear power along the US West coast.

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Heart - Black

Swiss tourist brutally gang-raped in front of husband in central India


RT
Sat, 16 Mar 2013 14:14 UTC
woman India
© Reuters / Adnan Abidi
A woman stands in front of an illuminated house powered by solar energy at Meerwada village of Guna district in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
A Swiss tourist's Indian vacation took a horrific turn Friday night after she was brutally gang-raped by a group of eight people in the state of Madhya Pradesh. Around 15 people have been detained by police, the Times of India reported.

The gruesome incident occurred around 9:00pm local time on Friday, in a desolate jungle area of the Datia district. The victim's husband told police that four people raped the woman in front of him, while the rest of the men restrained the couple.

According to police official S.M. Afzal Datia, the suspects allegedly attacked the 39-year-old woman with canes and other weapons. They assaulted the victim's husband and stole the couple's cash, laptop, camera, flashlights, and mobile phones.

The woman was rushed to Gwalior district hospital, where doctors confirmed the rape and assault. She has since been discharged.

Police Director-General Nandan Kumar Dubey said the suspects have been identified. The matter has also been reported to the minister of external affairs and the embassy, he said.

But National Commission for Women (NCW) chair Mamata Sharma said the local government should be doing far more in the wake of the crime. "The government has remained stoic and are not taking appropriate steps in the right direction," she said in a statement.

The Swiss woman and her husband were touring the area by bicycle and camping overnight in the forest. They had been vacationing in India for the past three months.
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Briefcase

Russian fundamentalists sue U.S., want Alaska back


RIA Novosti
Sat, 16 Mar 2013 19:13 UTC
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© RIA Novosti. Alexander Liskin
Russian Fundamentalists Sue US, Want Alaska Back
US President Barack Obama must have known that his support of gay marriage would bring him trouble. But of all possible repercussions, a demand to roll back Alaska's 1867 sale to the United States was one he was unlikely to have seen coming.

And yet that was the very claim that an ultraconservative religious group made in a Moscow arbitrage court, citing the need to protect fellow Christians from sin.

Obama's alleged plans to legalize the "so-called same-sex marriage" threaten the freedom of religion of Alaska's Orthodox Christians, who "would never accept sin for normal behavior," the nongovernmental group Pchyolki ("Bees") said.

"We see it as our duty to protect their right to freely practice their religion, which allows no tolerance to sin," the group said in a statement on their website.
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Health

13 dead, dozens hurt in Mexico fireworks explosion

Olga R. Rodriguez
Associated Press
Sat, 16 Mar 2013 18:14 UTC
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© AP Photo/J. Guadalupe Perez
Soldiers guard the area as forensic workers gather evidence after a truck loaded with fireworks exploded during a religious procession in the town of Nativitas, Mexico, Friday March 15, 2013
A truck loaded with fireworks exploded during a religious procession in a rural village in central Mexico, killing at least 13 people and injuring 154, authorities said.

The blast Friday was set off when a firework malfunctioned and landed on the truck, igniting the fireworks it carried, officials said

"They were in a procession, they were shooting off rockets and it exploded and fell onto the other ones," said Jose Mateo Morales, director of the Tlaxcala state civil protection department. "It was very serious."

Human remains and burned clothes were spread around a 100-yard (100-meter) radius, including on rooftops, a photographer at the scene said.
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Attention

Skyrocketing food prices spike hunger crisis in Egypt


CNN
Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:09 UTC
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Low-income households in Egypt are being hit by soaring food prices, placing a major strain on many poor families in the country, who are struggling to put basic staples on the table.

Inside a small Cairo apartment, Howeida Nageh is dicing a few tomatoes in her kitchen. Her three sons have arrived home from school and they are hungry. Yet, the only food available is these tomatoes and a piece of bread - and this will be the boys' only meal for the day.
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