September 21, 2013

Sex jihad sees Tunisian girls return from Syria pregnant

September 21, 2013

Dancing With Black Widow Spiders

I lay on my back with my teeth clenched and my hands gripping the sides of a hospital bed. A crowd of strangers in white coats filled the tiny room. Waves of pain lapped from my abdomen into my chest as the venom worked its way toward my heart.

An experimental antivenin drug was about to be injected into my bloodstream, and while I waited for the needle to go in, I reflected that if anyone in the world was the right person to be bitten by a black widow spider, I was that guy.

As a professional outdoorsman, I spend a lot of time around things that can bite, claw, stab or otherwise attack me. I have been lucky with snakes and reckless with bears. I have had some close calls with lionfish. It figures that the thing to finally nail me would be living on my own front porch.

The black widow’s graceful form and red hourglass marking have made it America’s most recognizable spider. The Eastern species, Latrodectus mactans, is common from Florida to New York and as far west as Texas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/science/dancing-with-black-widows.html?pagewanted=all

September 20, 2013

Family of shot girl thought she was on period

A Hayward family didn't call police for more than five hours after a 10-year-old girl was shot because they thought she had started her period, police said Friday.

The sleeping girl was wounded in the buttocks when someone sprayed her home on the 27000 block of Tampa Avenue with gunfire about 2 a.m. Thursday. Bullets shattered the rear window of a car parked out front, while other rounds went into the home.

When the girl woke up in pain, she thought she was having her period, because the bleeding "was consistent with menstruation," said Hayward police Sgt. Mark Ormsby.

The family contacted its doctor, who confirmed that the bleeding could be consistent with a period, Ormsby said. And there were no clear signs the girl had been shot when her family took her to the bathroom to clean her.

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Family-of-shot-girl-thought-she-was-on-period-4830732.php

September 20, 2013

Ex-probation chief gets 10 months for child porn

The former chief probation officer of San Mateo County was sentenced Friday to 10 months in jail and three years of probation for possessing child pornography - material he asserted he had viewed as part of his job.

Stuart Forrest, 62, of San Mateo was taken into custody after his sentencing hearing at San Mateo County Superior Court in Redwood City.

Forrest testified at his trial that images found on his personal computer late last year were related to work the probation department was doing on human trafficking. But authorities said he collected child pornography for his own use and initially lied about the images when confronted.

Forrest - who served three years as the county's chief probation officer - tried to commit suicide after the pornography was discovered, cutting himself in the neck outside a San Mateo church as authorities moved in to arrest him, investigators said.

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Ex-probation-chief-gets-10-months-for-child-porn-4830429.php

September 20, 2013

Trafficking case against Saudi princess dismissed

Prosecutors dropped a human trafficking case on Friday against a Saudi princess after a Kenyan maid alleged her passport had been taken away and she had been forced to work long hours for meager pay.

The announcement came during what had been expected to be the arraignment of Meshael Alayban, 42, on the charge punishable by up to 12 years in prison.

Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas told the judge that investigators tried to corroborate the allegations but found the evidence did not support the claim.

An attorney had said the maid wanted to make a statement to the court but wasn't available until Monday. The judge told Rackauckas he could wait for the statement, but the district attorney moved to dismiss the case.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Trafficking-case-against-Saudi-princess-dismissed-4829177.php

September 20, 2013

House immigration group collapses

Source: USA Today

WASHINGTON - The road to overhauling the nation's immigration laws became even more difficult Friday when two Republicans abandoned a bipartisan group that had been working to craft a solution in the House of Representatives.

Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, and Rep. Sam Jonhson, R-Texas, put the blame for their decision to leave the House working group on President Obama.

They said the bill they were developing put a lot of responsibility in the hands of the executive branch to enforce immigration law, and they couldn't trust him to follow through.

"If past actions are the best indicators of future behavior; we know that any measure depending on the president's enforcement will not be faithfully executed," Carter and Johnson said in a joint statement. "It would be gravely irresponsible to further empower this administration by granting them additional authority or discretion with a new immigration system. The bottom line is – the American people do not trust the president to enforce laws, and we don't either."


Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/09/20/immigration-house-group/2843175/

September 20, 2013

Tunisian women 'waging sex jihad in Syria'

Tunisian women have travelled to Syria to wage "sex jihad" by comforting Islamist fighters battling the regime there, Interior Minister Lotfi ben Jeddou has told MPs.

"They have sexual relations with 20, 30, 100" militants, the minister told members of the National Constituent Assembly on Thursday.

"After the sexual liaisons they have there in the name of 'jihad al-nikah' -- (sexual holy war, in Arabic) -- they come home pregnant," Ben Jeddou told the MPs.

He did not elaborate on how many Tunisian women had returned to the country pregnant with the children of jihadist fighters.

http://www.france24.com/en/20130920-tunisian-women-waging-sex-jihad-syria

September 19, 2013

2013 Seattle US Cannabis Cup Overview

#t=412

The Emerald City played host to the second-ever US Cannabis Cup this fall. Thousands flooded Seattle to celebrate legal weed in Washington as bud breeders, concentrate kings and edible aficionados competed for Cups.

September 19, 2013

Medical marijuana advocates protest removal of Lansing baby

The case of a 6-month-old Lansing girl who was removed from her parents after a complaint involving medical marijuana has become a rallying point for groups aligned behind the state’s 5-year-old medical marijuana law.

Holding placards and chanting, “Free Bree,” dozens of people gathered outside the Grand Tower on Tuesday to protest the state Department of Human Services’ efforts to remove Brielle (Bree) Green from parents Gordon (Steve) and Maria Green.

snip

Acting on a petition by Children’s Protective Services caseworkers, an Ingham County Family Court referee on Friday ordered the infant removed from her parents’ home because her mother — a registered medical marijuana caregiver — had marijuana in the house, the groups said.


http://www.freep.com/article/20130918/NEWS06/309180085/Lansing-medical-marijuana-Gordon-and-Maria-Green-Bree-Green

September 19, 2013

Thousands cited for having pot on federal land

Karen Strand didn't think she'd get in trouble for having a small container of medical marijuana when she went hiking in Olympic National Park this summer.

President Barack Obama, she remembered, had said the federal government had "bigger fish to fry" than people who follow state marijuana laws, and Washington state had just legalized pot.

But a ranger pulled her over on a remote gravel road, and Strand wound up as one of at least 27,700 people cited for having pot on federal land since 2009, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal court data. The number of citations is small compared to the hundreds of millions of visitors to national parks, forests and monuments each year.

But it nevertheless illustrates one of the many issues Washington, Colorado and other states face in complying with last month's Justice Department memo that requires them to address eight federal law enforcement priorities if they want to regulate marijuana. Among those priorities is keeping marijuana use and possession off federal property.

http://news.msn.com/us/thousands-cited-for-having-pot-on-federal-land?stay=1