• 

  © Getty Images
  'In-app' purchases allow children to rack up bills
• 'Game currency' purchased with real money
• Bills of up to £1,300 from 'free' apps

Parents whose children have accidentally run up huge bills playing games on their iPhones could be in line for compensation from Apple.

Campaigners are awaiting the result of a U.S. court case in which a group of disgruntled parents are suing the company after their children's innocent game playing ended up costing a fortune.

They accuse Apple of enticing children to spend money on iTunes

If the parents are successful, it could open the door for legal actions worldwide.

Apple, which is worth more than £311billion, has repeatedly been criticised for allowing children to spend hundreds of pounds on games using their parents' iPhones.

Apps such as Smurfs' Village, based on the popular books and film, have repeatedly caught out parents. Although some apps are free to download, playing them can incur charges. As the child collects 'game currency', the bills can mount up.

Considering the number of kids who have TVs, video game consoles and/or computers in their bedrooms these days, "Go to your room and think about what you did!" no longer cuts it as punishment.

But an Ohio mother has come under fire for innovative, yet questionable, technique she used in order to punish her daughter for "mouthing off" to her in front of her friends.

Denise Abbott temporarily banned her 13-year-old daughter Ava from using her cell phone or logging onto Facebook. But Abbott went one step further by doctoring Ava's Facebook profile photo to read:

"I do not know how to keep my (mouth shut). I am no longer allowed on Facebook or my phone. Please ask why. My mom says I have to answer everyone that asks."

Abbott also added a red X over the teen's mouth.

"If she can't talk respectfully to me, she's not going to be able to talk to anyone else either," Abbott tells the media .

Do Abbott's actions against her daughter constitute indefensible public humiliation? Or did the cyber-punishment fit the crime?

The metaphor of suicide has been used to depict the downward spiral surrounding countries bludgeoned by the economic crisis - particularly U.S. and Eurozone communities plagued by epidemic joblessness and a rash of budget cuts. Now the term literally describes the psychological dimension of the crisis, according to studies on suicide rates.

Some symptoms of the social despair have been grimly spectacular. Greece was jolted one recent morning after aging pensioner Dimitris Christoulas put a pistol to his head in Athens's main square. In 2010 Americans were shaken by the suicide-by-plane of Andrew Stack, whose anger at the political establishment propelled him into an Austin office complex. Poorer regions have flared with public self-immolations, particularly in the communities of the "Arab Spring" where many youth come to see life as a dead-end street. Underlying these more dramatic examples are statistical patterns that reflect society's unraveling.

A recently published Lancet study showed spikes in suicide across Europe during the recession. While many factors could contribute to this pattern, researchers found a significant correlation between unemployment and suicide trends.

Whether male or female, and whether people realise it or not, inequality between the sexes affects everyone's lives on a daily basis.

While women in the Middle East experience 'in your face' gender inequality, particularly in theocratic regimes like Iran - which one of your authors has direct experience of - the equivalent bias in the West has a flavor that is far more subtle and therefore far more dangerous. It's more difficult to discern the root of a problem when it is acting covertly in a way that few notice.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, how different countries respond to sexism is reflective of how their ruling elites conduct politics. A religious government in the Middle East, for example, rules with an iron fist and bluntly tells its citizens what the rules of the game are. It's overt and leaves no room for doubt as to where the authorities stand on ideology.

In the West, the situation is the opposite. The government's influence is subtle and manipulates its citizens into believing ideals (e.g. "equal rights"), all the while changing the rules to suit the purposes of those who own the government - to keep life more equal for some than others.

(US) Fairfax County police are searching for an unknown attacker who slashed three horses in a Herndon stable Wednesday night or Thursday morning.

The horses are expected to recover, but the bizarre attack - about 10 cuts in all - has spooked volunteers at the equestrian program for children with disabilities and left them wondering who would do such a thing.

"We're all in shock. It's a nightmare," said Davorka Suvak, the program director of Spirit Open Equestrian Program. "It's scary to know the type of person who could do this is running around in a park near kids."

Spirit's facility is adjacent to Frying Pan Farm Park in the 2600 block of Centreville Road. Police know of no motive and have no suspects in the cuttings, which they said occurred between 9 p.m. Wednesday and 9:30 a.m. Thursday.

The United States' descent into a hellish police state continues and appears to only get worse as the years go by. The case of Officer Regina Tasca of the Bogota Police Department in New Jersey is a troubling example of just how far gone some law enforcement agencies are today.

In this case, Officer Tasca is being declared "psychologically incompetent" for stepping in to save an emotionally disturbed young man from a brutal beating at the hands of police.

Here at End the Lie I have covered just a few of the troubling things police are able to get away with, such as murdering elderly tourists with pepper spray while they are restrained and brutally beating senior citizens suffering from dementia.

I have also pointed out how when the good police officers out there actually do their job and stand up for justice, they are targeted for harassment or in some cases even thrown in a psychiatric ward.

The things that police officers end up actually getting in trouble for tend to be outright absurd, like mowing the lawn in shorts, yet no one is held responsible for the most egregious violations like those listed above.

British journalists are concerned about the pre-Olympic militarization in London and the incursion on individual rights that is strengthened by the likes of the so-called hostage-taking incident over a failed drivers' license on Friday.
Stories of the incident spread like wild fire in media and reports of a "crisis" involving an "armed" hostage-taker put the public on the alert that they may be facing a serious security risk.

However, the incident turned out to be much less dramatic after it emerged that the so-called hostage-taker was only a client of a training company, enraged after failing a drivers' test three times and that there were no hostages involved.

The police were also quick to dismiss any terror-related risks to the upcoming Olympics.

Olympics organizers have announced 23,000 guards will be watching the games venues as the world sports spotlight turns to London between July 27 and August 12, while another 13,000 soldiers will hit the streets.

A missile-bearing aircraft carrier will be also on standby on the river Thames, unmanned drones will keep a watch and an 11-mile electrified security barrier will cordon off unwanted disturbance.

That, coupled with the Friday incident, raises questions on where the real risks to the games are, risks that warrant the use of an army larger than the British force in Afghanistan to secure the games, and such massive extra protective measures.

The ancient practice of child marriage - reviled in much of the world - remains in force across the Indian subcontinent.Child marriage is defined as the union of two people, at least one whom is below the age of 18.

However, a recent landmark development in India may finally begin the process to bring this evil to an end. Laxmi Sargara, an 18-year-old girl in Rajasthan in northern India, was able to get her "marriage" annulled by a court.

Laxmi had been "betrothed" to a boy named Rakesh when she was only one year old and her "groom" was three. She was not even aware of this matrimonial arrangement until her in-laws came to fetch her earlier this month.

"I was unhappy about the marriage. I told my parents who did not agree with me, then I sought help," Laxmi told Agence France Presse (AFP).

A non-governmental organization that safeguards children's rights, the Sarathi Trust, in the city of Jodhpur, took up her case after her parent refused to help.

"[Laxmi] got depressed. She did not like the boy and was not ready to go ahead with her parents' decision," Kriti Bharti of Sarathi told AFP.

Bharti also said this might have been the first time such a marriage was officially annulled in India.

Child-marriages have been illegal in India since the 2006 passage of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, but the practice persists unabated, particularly among the rural poor. (India officially raised the legal marriage age to 18 in 1978, although the law was actually enacted in 1973).

In a stroke of powerful irony, the day of Laxmi's annulment coincided with the Akshaya Tritiya festival, a tradition where thousands of child weddings are conducted (in defiance of the law).

The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) estimates that 40 percent of all child marriages in the world take place in India.

However, child marriage is also a serious problem in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Yemen and parts of sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, in some these countries, the rates of child marriage are higher than in India. Given India's huge population, in absolute terms, it accounts for the largest number of these marriages.

Early marriages can lead to numerous medical and psychological problems, particularly in relation to early child-births where the mother is not physically mature.

A mother featured in the TLC series Toddlers & Tiaras has been shown encouraging her two-year-old daughter to watch her model a G-string bikini during a calendar photo shoot.

Tricia, a mother of four from Oklahoma, was shown on tonight's episode wearing a leopard print bikini bottom and a stringy black bikini top while SamiJo, her daughter was placed one meter away in order to watch her.

The mother told the cameras: 'My style of parenting is extremely different. I think exposing your child to whatever you can is just a really great way to be culturally diverse.'

She added that she had entered SamiJo, who has become 'obsessed with bras' and 'loves Victoria's Secret', into a toddler's swimsuit competition before she had turned age one.

Tricia told the cameras: 'I still say she's 17, she's far from two.'

A Delta Plane has been quarantined at Chicago Midway Airport.

CBS local reports that "serious medical problem with a passenger" has led to the quarantine.

Sources told CBS that the flight may have been traveling from Ghana and a passenger may have "some sort or rash and contagious disease".