SOCIAL workers are placing obese children on the child protection register alongside victims thought to be at risk of sexual or physical abuse.
In extreme cases children have been placed in foster care because their parents have contributed to the health problems of their offspring by failing to respond to medical advice.
The intervention of social services in what was previously regarded as a private matter is likely to raise concerns about the emergence of the “fa... (more)
Adam Busby of O'Fallon, Mo., had his three children, including eight-month old Lilly (who he is holding) participate in the Missouri Child Identification Program event at the Webster Grove Masonic Temple on Saturday. (Laurie Skrivan/P-D)
Parents shaken by recent news of local kidnappings took precautions Saturday to safeguard their children.
Nearly 800 children in south St. Louis County had dental molds made and DNA samples collected, and were photographed an... (more)
VICTORIAN Premier Steve Bracks has defended the state's prostitution laws after it was revealed private investigators were having sex with prostitutes to prove the case against illegal brothels.
Legal confusion over how much evidence is needed before a court has forced at least six Melbourne councils to send in private investigators to buy sex at illegal brothels.
Although state Government began reviewing the Prostitution Control Act last year Mr Bracks said current... (more)
One of the interesting implications of the Manassas Park pool hall case I've been following is that the initial police raid on the bar was conducting under the auspices of a state alcohol inspection. The raid was clearly part of a criminal investigation, but bringing the police in under the formality of an ABC inspection negating the need for a search warrant.
The Pentagon recently reported that it now spends roughly $8.4 billion per month waging the war in Iraq, while the additional cost of our engagement in Afghanistan brings the monthly total to a staggering $10 billion. Since 2001, Congress has spent more than $500 billion on specific appropriations for Iraq. This sum is not reflected in official budget and deficit figures. Congress has funded the war by passing a series of so-called “supplemental” ... (more)
IMAGINE THAT on 9/11, six hours after the assault on the twin towers and the Pentagon, terrorists had carried out a second wave of attacks on the United States, taking an additional 3,000 lives. Imagine that six hours after that, there had been yet another wave. Now imagine that the attacks had continued, every six hours, for another four years, until nearly 20 million Americans were dead. This is roughly what the Soviet Union suffered during World War II, and contemplating these numbers may hel... (more)
Given the desperate situation in Iraq, the CIA's Baghdad station chief needs to be an exceptional manager who can marshal the agency's forces and work closely with the U.S. armed forces. Unfortunately, several sources have informed me that the CIA has nominated a man who has been widely criticized within the agency and seen as a bad fit for the role. Furthermore, I'm told, the new station chief is closely associated with detainee abuses, especially those involving “extraordinary rendition... (more)
It is interesting how every now and then, the unwitting masses are blasted by a media wave of fearmongering, with announcements of impending doom and terror being made to remind us of our mortality, just to have that same media quietly admit that there was nothing to justify the hysteria.
It happened this summer with the liquid explosions scare that resulted in ridiculous anti-juice security measures in airports. And more recently with the warnings of a holiday terror sur... (more)
Airport-style x-ray cameras which see through clothes, could be installed on street lampposts in a bid to combat terrorism, it was claimed last night.
The measure was suggested in a memo sent last week to one of Tony Blair's working groups at the Cabinet Office, the Sun newspaper reported. The move comes amid growing concern about Britain's "surveillance society".
The Home Office memo, to the Prime Minister's working group on security, crime and justice, reportedly... (more)
No mention of the negative effects of blasting people with x-ray radiation all day, of course.
Their theory is that explosives planted throughout the World Trade Center - not the burning fuel from the jetliners that crashed into the buildings - brought the Twin Towers down on Sept. 11, 2001.
That proposition was intriguing enough that about 300 people showed up Sunday, some out of simple curiosity, at the Michigan Union in Ann Arbor to hear three speakers explain why they believe the U.S. government - not fanatical Muslim terrorists - was behind the 9... (more)
A foreign toll road corporation has agreed to buy dozens of newspapers in Texas and Oklahoma that have up until now been harsh critics of the Trans Texas Corridor superhighway, a clear example of influence peddling that pointed to racketeering, and a desperate lunge to silence dissent against the sellout of American infrastructure and the North American Union.
"Australian toll road giant Macquarie agreed Wednesday to purchase forty local newspapers, prima... (more)
Sherry Clark arrived for breakfast with an armload of DVDs whose messages cast the shadow of skepticism over the official line on the 9/11 attack.
Through forkfuls of pancakes, the Delaware, Ohio, woman conjured up images of shrouded schemes and dark lurkings, government complicity and war-industry profiteering.
A lunchbox purse sported a get-the-truthout sticker. A lapel button noted that polite women seldom make history.
Hollywood director and documentary film maker Aaron Russo has gone in-depth on the astounding admissions of Nick Rockefeller, who personally told him that the elite's ultimate goal was to create a microchipped population and that the war on terror was a hoax, Rockefeller having predicted an "event" that would trigger the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan eleven months before 9/11.
Rockefeller also told Russo that his family's foundation had created and ba... (more)
…and opts for "Enemy of the Week" instead. Perhaps the phrase Roman dictators used to use before the Centurions would go and stab their enemies in the throat was a little harsh — even for Hannity.
Last time it was Sean Penn. This week's recipient was Jane Fonda for having the audacity to protest the Iraq War with the rest of those "hate-America" types. Thanks for being a great and loyal American, Sean! That liberal, terrorist loving, blame-America-firster Teddy Roosevelt could lea... (more)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Israel's use of U.S.-made cluster bombs in last year's war in Lebanon may have violated agreements with the United States governing their use, the State Department said Monday.
"There may -- likely could have been some violations," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
The State Department has sent a report to Congress laying out the preliminary findings, he said.
Agreements under the Arms Export Control Act govern use of... (more)
Notice how the sadistic cruelty of using cluster bombs is not an issue, the only issue is if they "violated agreements".
JERUSALEM (AFX) - Israel intends to buy thousands of advanced 'smart' bombs from the United States which the Jewish state first used during the Lebanon war, the Jerusalem Post reported today.
According to the English-language Jerusalem Post, the Israeli army will purchase 100 mln usd worth of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) -- low-cost kits produced by Boeing (nyse: BA - news - people ) that turn free-fall bombs into guided 'smart' munitions.
A protester was removed from a Senate hearing in New Orleans that was investigating on Monday the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina, CNN is reporting. The protester interrupted the hearing when he stood up in the courtroom and held up a a piece of cloth with hand-lettered writing that read, "Probe the White House." He was subsequently escorted out of the courtroom.
"What this person was protesting was he said that Sen. Lieberman needs to... (more)
The Government was accused last night of creating a "surveillance society by stealth" after figures showed that police have put more than 3.3 million people on the national criminal DNA database.
Home Office statistics, reflecting the size of the database on Oct 31 last year and released last week in Parliament, show that 3,327,000 people from a total of 49 million have had their genetic profiles logged by one of the 43 police forces.
A powerful speech highlighting the appalling situation in Iraq, and the pathetic handling of it by the British government: Ill-equipped troops, brutal treatment of civilians... (more)
"[Maryland] Officials say they are working with the health department to make sure the remaining students are vaccinated so they may return to school. "If they stay out of school for too many days, it becomes an issue of truancy," Mowen said. Officials have said they might use the court system to encourage parents to get their children vaccinated. Hanlin said before that option is explored officials are "trying to find out what the road blocks are" to being vaccinated." - ERIN CUNNINGHAM, The Ha... (more)
On January 28, The New York Timesreported, in an article by Ian Urbina, that, during the January 27 anti-war protest on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., an unnamed anti-war protester spat at the ground near Joshua Sparling, a wounded Iraq war veteran "who said he was a corporal with the 82nd Airborne Division." The Times reported... (more)
A LEGAL bid to stop the Princess Diana inquest being held without a jury was launched last night by Mohamed Al Fayed.
The Harrods owner wants a judge to compel Deputy Royal Coroner Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss to conduct the hearings before a panel of ordinary men and women.
In court papers filed yesterday, the tycoon claims Lady Butler-Sloss’s independence could be compromised because she is a salaried employee of the royal house... (more)
Anti-war protesters were allowed to spray paint on part of the west front steps of the United States Capitol building after police were ordered to break their security line by their leadership, two sources told The Hill.
According to the sources, police officers were livid when they were told to fall back by U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) Chief Phillip Morse and Deputy Chief Daniel Nichols. "They were the commanders on the scene," one source said, who request... (more)
The circumstances surrounding the Browns, a New Hampshire couple convicted of federal income tax evasion, could turn on a dime.
Recently AFP interviewed Ed Brown, a Plainfield home owner who grew up in the Roxbury slums of Boston. He and Mrs. Brown, who is a dentist, are self-made people who worked hard for their lot in life, only to see it swept away by a government that takes in gargantuan sums of money via taxes on the domestic populace to pay enormous interest on the national ... (more)
Public confidence in Tony Blair's government has slumped to an all-time low as Labour battles with the crisis at the Home Office and Cabinet revolts over gay adoption, the latest YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph shows today.
Despite the collapse in trust, the Prime Minister insisted yesterday that the last 18 months had been his "most productive" in office.
In an interview for BBC1's Politics Show, Mr Blair tried to shrug off questions abo... (more)
