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Riot in India as ‘poisonous’ school lunch kills 21 children

“Twenty-one children have died after eating a free lunch feared to contain poisonous chemicals at a school in eastern India, officials said Wednesday, sparking angry protests as mobs ran riot. Another 30 children remained ill in hospital after consuming the meal of lentils, vegetables and rice. Free lunches are offered to poorer students in state-run schools as part of government welfare measures in many of India’s 29 states. Educators see the midday meal scheme as a way to increase school attendance. But children often suffer from food poisoning due to poor hygiene in kitchens and occasionally sub-standard food.” Continue reading →

School board members among 109 New Jerseyans faking income for free school meal program

“New Jersey state Comptroller Matthew Boxer announced on Wednesday that 109 public employees, spouses and family members will be prosecuted on fraud charges after a state investigation found they lied about their incomes to qualify for a free school lunch program. Boxer did not identify the employees, but mentioned that 40 of them worked for school districts, including six board members. The 109 cheaters hid a combined $13 million in underreported income to claim their children qualified for participation in the National School Lunch Program, which offers free or discounted breakfasts and lunches for children from lower-income families.” Continue reading →

Millions of U.S. license plates tracked and stored – and it’s not just government agencies

“‘License plate readers are the most pervasive method of location tracking that nobody has heard of,’ said Catherine Crump, ACLU lawyer and lead author of the report. ‘They collect data on millions of Americans, the overwhelming number of whom are entirely innocent of any wrongdoing.’ Crump said that the creeping growth of licence plate scanners echoed the debate over the National Security Agency. ‘It raises the same question as the NSA controversy: do we want to live in a world where the government makes a record of everything we do – because that’s what’s being created by the growth of databases linked to license plate readers.'” Continue reading →

Unitarian Church, Gun Groups Join EFF to Sue NSA Over Illegal Surveillance

“‘People who hold controversial views – whether it’s about gun ownership policies, drug legalization, or immigration – often must express views as a group in order to act and advocate effectively,’ said Cohn. ‘But fear of individual exposure when participating in political debates over high-stakes issues can dissuade people from taking part. That’s why the Supreme Court ruled in 1958 that membership lists of groups have strong First Amendment protection. Telephone records, especially complete records collected over many years, are even more invasive than membership lists, since they show casual or repeated inquiries as well as full membership.'” Continue reading →

Arizona cop arrested for pointing gun at store clerk while drunk

“Pima County Sheriff’s deputies say a 23-year-old off-duty police officer was drunk when he pointed his gun at a convenience store clerk for no apparent reason on Tuesday. According to KVOA, surveillance video showed Kyle James McCartin and a companion entering Giant gas station in Tucson on Tuesday at around 3 a.m. Both men appeared to be wearing bullet-proof vests, but no other clothing on their upper bodies. In the video, McCartin was seen smiling and pointing his handgun at the clerk at least two times. Tucson Police said on Tuesday that McCartin had been fired after a brief investigation.” Continue reading →

Grasping for Dignity in the Era of the American Police State

“In a judicial and bureaucratic environment in which human dignity has been given short shrift and largely discounted, the courts have increasingly erred on the side of giving government officials vast discretion in carrying out strip searches for a broad range of violations, no matter how minor the offense and no matter how degrading, demeaning or offensive to one’s human dignity the search is. Making matters worse, government agencies are increasingly exploiting cutting-edge technologies that allow probing and examination of the intimate aspects of persons that is for all intents and purposes equivalent to the excessive intrusion inflicted by a strip search.” Continue reading →

Medical research on animals often biased, scientists warn

“Researchers examined 160 previously published meta-analyses of 1,411 animal studies on potential treatments for multiple sclerosis, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and spinal cord injury, all done on more than 4,000 animals. Just eight showed evidence of strong, statistically significant associations using evidence from more than 500 animals. Only two studies seemed to lead to ‘convincing’ data in randomized controlled trials in humans, it said. The rest showed a range of problems, from poor study design, to small size, to an overarching tendency toward publishing only studies in which positive effects could be reported.” Continue reading →

China shuts down $88 million mocked museum with ‘fake’ national treasures

“Chinese authorities have closed a museum which contained scores of fake exhibits, including a vase decorated with cartoon characters billed as a Qing dynasty artefact, state-run media reported Tuesday. The facility, built in northern China’s Hebei province at a cost of 540 million yuan ($88 million), has ‘no qualification to be a museum as its collections are fake’, a local official told the Global Times newspaper. It had been closed, the paper said, while its founders have been placed ‘under investigation’ after local residents accused them of wasting money.” Continue reading →