Society's ChildS


Cow Skull

US: Illinois Law Lets Motorists Salvage Fur, Food from Roadkill


USA Today
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
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© The Associated Press/Jim SuhrIn this photo taken Jan. 4, 2012, a tractor-trailer rumbles by a roadkill raccoon in southwestern Illinois.
In six years of trapping, one thing has become apparent to Cody Champ: His pursuit of animal pelts isn't cheap, costing him $100 a week just for gas. So, it's little wonder the Illinois man welcomed a recent state law that allows him to get a few freebies, even if he needs a shovel and good gloves.

Among the hundreds of Illinois laws that took effect last year, the so-called "roadkill bill" got little attention despite being perhaps the quirkiest of all - allowing anyone with an Illinois furbearer license to salvage pelts or even food from the unfortunate fauna that prove no match for steel-belted radials.

Republican Rep. Norine Hammond pushed the measure straight-faced at the behest of a retired state conservation officer who thought it was a waste to allow animals' pelts to rot along the roadsides. Hammond said it was an opportunity for some people to make a little money, and could benefit the state by letting citizens carry out the task once relegated to state highway crews.

Despite snickering from some lawmakers, the bill sailed through the General Assembly - twice, because lawmakers overrode a veto by Gov. Pat Quinn, who worried that motorists might suffer the same fate as the critters. One poke came from Rep. Lou Lang, a Chicago-area Democrat who asked what to do if a critter wasn't quite dead.
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Ambulance

US: Connecticut Paramedic Accused of Ambulance Sex Assault


Fox News
Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
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© The Associated Press/Hamden Police DepartmentJan. 5: Mark Powell, of North Haven, Conn., a paramedic arrested on charges he sexually assaulted a woman in the back of an ambulance.
A paramedic has been arrested on charges that he sexually assaulted a woman in the back of an ambulance as she was strapped to a stretcher.

Hamden police said Friday the 22-year-old woman was unconscious Dec. 25 when she awoke to find 49-year-old Mark Powell assaulting her.

Powell surrendered Thursday to face charges of first-degree sexual assault and unlawful restraint.

The North Haven man was released on $25,000 bond and is due back in court in Meriden on Jan. 19. He did not respond to a phone message Friday seeking comment.

Police say the woman fell and suffered a head injury around 3 a.m. while attending a holiday party. The assault allegedly took place while she was being taken to a hospital. She contacted Hamden police after her release.

Source: The Associated Press
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Heart - Black

US: Monk Seals Beaten to Death in Hawaii


United Press International
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 07:37 UTC
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© unknown
Authorities in Hawaii say they are looking for whoever has beaten four monk seals to death in less than three months.

Honolulu's KITV-TV reported Wednesday a fisherman found the latest seal carcass Monday in Pila on the northeast coast of Kauai.

State officials said its head wounds were similar to those found on three monk seals found dead on Molokai's west side in previous weeks.

"They're dying because their skulls are being smashed. So for me, that is alarming," community activist Walter Ritte told the TV station. "That's setting a dangerous trend."

Ritte said he suspects misinformed young fishermen or hunters may be to blame for the seals' deaths.
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Pistol

US, California: Navy SEAL on Life Support After Shooting Himself in Head, Dies


KFMB-TV CBS 8 News
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 08:52 UTC

A 22-year-old Navy SEAL was gravely wounded early Thursday when he shot himself in the head at his Pacific Beach home while trying to convince a companion that the pistol he was showing off was safe to handle, authorities said.

The shooting in the 1800 block of Grand Avenue left the sailor on life support at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, according to San Diego police. Authorities initially reported that the man had died.

The serviceman, who had been drinking with a woman at a bar before they returned to his residence, was showing her his 9 mm handgun when the accident occurred, SDPD Officer Frank Cali said.
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Crusader

Head of Russian Church Says Leaders Must Listen to Protests

Sophia Kishovsky
The New York Times
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
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© The Associated Press/RIA Novosti/Vladimir Rodionov/Presidential Press ServiceRussian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill , right, congratulates Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during an Orthodox Christmas at Christ The Savior Cathedral in Moscow, early Saturday, Jan. 7, 2012. Christmas falls on Jan. 7 for Orthodox Christians in the Holy Land, Russia and other Orthodox churches that use the old Julian calendar instead of the 16th-century Gregorian calendar adopted by Catholics and Protestants and commonly used in secular life around the world.
The Russian Orthodox Church continued what appeared to be an effort to get the authorities to address Russians' grievances over the political system, with Patriarch Kirill I, the church's leader, saying in a televised interview that it would be "a very bad sign" if the country's leaders failed to heed recent protests over perceived electoral fraud.

The church, a powerful force in Russia, made a point of announcing that the patriarch would be speaking on Saturday, which is Christmas Day in Russia.

The announcement, made on Thursday, came just 15 minutes after the Interfax news agency released a report on an essay by a senior church official, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, that made the same point as the patriarch, but in starker terms: it said that the authorities could be "slowly eaten alive" if they did not respond to Russians' concerns.

Church leaders have been walking a careful line since the parliamentary elections on Dec. 4, nudging the government to respond to the protesters and affirming their right to demonstrate, but Patriarch Kirill I has not questioned the legitimacy of the elections or criticized Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin.

Still, the drumbeat of implicit criticism has been surprising from the church, which has been a strong supporter of the government, and the patriarch's statements on Saturday appeared to keep the pressure on.
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Boat

Iran Thanks U.S. Navy for Saving 13 Sailors Held Captive by Somali Pirates

Rich Schapiro
New York Daily News
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 07:36 UTC
Calls rescue a 'humanitarian gesture'
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© The Associated Press/U.S. NavyOn Friday a U.S. warship rescued Iranian sailors whom Somali pirates had held captive for 40 days.

In a rare display of gratitude, Iran thanked the U.S. Saturday for its role in rescuing 13 fisherman held captive by Somali pirates.

"The rescue of Iranian sailors by American forces is considered a humanitarian gesture and we welcome this behavior," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said on state TV's Al-Alam Arabic channel.

Iranian officials were forced into the uncomfortable position of praising their sworn enemy after the U.S. Navy saved the captured Iranian crew on Friday.

The American forces, after spotting a pirate skiff alongside an Iranian-flagged fishing vessel, quickly overwhelmed the bandits, who surrendered without firing a single shot.

The Iranians had spent 40 days in captivity.
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Heart - Black

Iraq: Fallujah Babies: Under a New Kind of Siege

Dahr Jamail
Al Jazeera
Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:37 UTC
Fallujah
© EPACongenital abnormalities have mushroomed in the wake of devastating US sieges in Fallujah in 2004
Doctors and residents blame US weapons for catastrophic levels of birth defects in Fallujah's newborns.

Fallujah, Iraq - While the US military has formally withdrawn from Iraq, doctors and residents of Fallujah are blaming weapons like depleted uranium and white phosphorous used during two devastating US attacks on Fallujah in 2004 for what are being described as "catastrophic" levels of birth defects and abnormalities.

Dr Samira Alani, a paediatric specialist at Fallujah General Hospital, has taken a personal interest in investigating an explosion of congenital abnormalities that have mushroomed in the wake of the US sieges since 2005.

"We have all kinds of defects now, ranging from congenital heart disease to severe physical abnormalities, both in numbers you cannot imagine," Alani told Al Jazeera at her office in the hospital, while showing countless photos of shocking birth defects.

As of December 21, Alani, who has worked at the hospital since 1997, told Al Jazeera she had personally logged 677 cases of birth defects since October 2009. Just eight days later when Al Jazeera visited the city on December 29, that number had already risen to 699.
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Crusader

US: New York Pastor Arrested in Connection with Myrtle Beach Area Robbery

Brad Dickerson
Myrtle Beach Online
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
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© unknownAnthony Lee Drumgoole
A Rochester, N.Y., pastor who was arrested Friday at his church will also face charges in Horry County stemming from a November robbery at the Carolina Forest Buffalo Wild Wings, police said

Upon his return to Horry County, Anthony Lee Drumgoole, 23, will be charged with kidnapping and robbery and four counts of financial transaction card fraud, according to Sgt. Robert Kegler of Horry County police. He has family ties in the city of Conway.

On Nov. 27, Drumgoole allegedly robbed a patron at knifepoint in the restaurant's bathroom and forced the victim to strip in order to keep him from giving chase.
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Family

US: Number of Homeless Students Surges, Putting Strain on Schools

Adeshina Emmanuel
Chicago Sun-Times
Sat, 07 Jan 2012 20:27 UTC
homeless family staying at Madonna House
© Richard A. Chapman~Chicago Sun-Times Regenia Nelson and her children, Jarvis, 15, and Janiyah, 18 months, are a homeless family staying at Madonna House, a shelter in the Lakeview community.
At 15, Jarvis Nelson should be in high school and even thinking about college.

Yet Jarvis is in seventh grade, and doesn't know where he'll go to high school - or even where he will be living - when he graduates from junior high, hopefully next year.

That's because Jarvis has attended three different schools in the past four months. He's lived in three different places on the North and South Sides of the city - including his most recent home, a temporary shelter in Lake View.

Jarvis, like thousands of other students in Chicago Public Schools, is homeless.

He is just one of more than 10,660 students who were homeless at the beginning of the school year. That's 1,466 more than at the same point in the previous school year, according to a CPS tally.
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Sheriff

Canada: Sex on Duty Costs Saskatoon Police Officer


CBC News
Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:00 UTC
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© CBC NewsSaskatoon police officer Collin Reddekopp was suspended for 30 days and demoted in rank for one year.
A Saskatoon police officer who had sex with a member of the public while he was on duty, has been suspended for 30 days and demoted.

The officer, Cst. Collin Reddekopp, was the subject of an investigation by Saskatchewan's Public Complaints Commission, which oversees local municipal police departments.

"It's pretty straightforward," Saskatoon's chief of police, Clive Weighill, told CBC News when asked to provide more information about the case.

"Officer meets girl. Officer has affair. Officer has sexual encounter one day on duty," Weighill explained.

According to Weighill, the officer met the woman in April when he was assigned to investigate her concerns about receiving a number of annoying telephone calls.

Weighill said that after dealing with the woman's case, Reddekopp started a relationship with her.
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