Wednesday, August 6, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Controversy over shocking people with autism, behavioral disorders
By AMY BURKHOLDER CBS NEWS August 5, 2014, 5:00 PM

Jennifer Msumba is on the autism spectrum. For seven years, she was treated at the Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Massachusetts, where she received painful electric shocks aimed at modifying her behavior. She describes being strapped, spread-eagle to a restraint board and shocked multiple times before she left the center in 2009.

"It's so scary. I would ask God to make my heart stop because I didn't want to live when that was happening to me. I just wanted to die and make it stop," she told CBS News correspondent Anna Werner in an interview at her mother's home outside Boston. "I thought, they won't be able to hurt me anymore."

Msumba provided testimony to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel in April. The panel met to discuss a ban on using electrical stimulation devices to modify aggressive or self-injurious behavior in people with severe emotional problems and developmental disorders such as autism at the Judge Rotenberg Center, or JRC, the only known facility in the country that uses them.

JRC says it takes patients with "extraordinary behavior disorders," many of whom have been expelled from or refused admission to other treatment centers. The shock devices are used as an "aversion therapy" technique at the center in Massachusetts that serves children and adults with serious special needs. The premise is, if a student is repeatedly shocked for bad or destructive behaviors, those behaviors will stop.

In its current patient population, JRC says 29% of its 234 students are court-approved to receive shocks from a device called a "Graduated Electronic Decelerator," or GED. The shock devices are made on site.

Students such as Msumba wear a backpack or fanny-pack device, sometimes 24 hours a day. Inside is a device attached to electrodes that deliver a shock whenever a staffer presses a button on a remote control carried on their belt. JRC claims it stops bad or aggressive behavior. JRC states the goal is to manage behaviors without medications, so patients can be educated and spend time with family and friends.

"I felt like I was being punished for being born," Msumba said. "Because I was disabled I was being punished." Part of Msumba's treatment plan was for staffers to draw up a list of prohibited behaviors, ranging from head-banging to hand movements, for which she could be shocked.

"It's not humane, you don't even feel like a person, you have wires all over your body," said Msumba. "I would get five or ten shocks for just doing one thing."

Asked what that was like, Msumba responded, "Being underground in Hell."

JRC's use of shock devices came under scrutiny in 2012, when a videotape of the process was presented in a court case. It shows student Andre McCollins tied by the arms and legs to a restraint board. Records, depositions, and videotapes obtained by CBS News confirm he was shocked more than 30 times over a seven-hour period.

His mother, Cheryl McCollins, says Andre was shocked for not taking off his coat, and then repeatedly shocked for tensing his muscles, and for screaming during the shocks, which JRC calls "applications."

"When my son was screaming for help, they didn't flinch," McCollins said. "Children are being abused, tortured and controlled."

JRC says it no longer uses the restraint board in combination with shocks.

But McCollins says her son has not recovered. CBS News met Andre in June at his Brooklyn home. Previously diagnosed with autism and pervasive developmental disorder, his mother says while Andre is verbal, and knows what happened to him at JRC, it's too upsetting for him to talk about it. Cheryl McCollins claims Andre suffered permanent damage as a result of the shocks.

"It doesn't work," she says. "Shock him out of autism? Inflicting pain, it's like you're making the injury worse." She shakes her head. "You can't make sense out of insanity."

But Roger and Sharon Wood insist they were living another kind of insanity: their son, Joshua, who has severe autism, threatened to hurt them, and himself.

"He would just go into severe rages that he could not control. He would grab his head and cry. My daughter, ourselves, we would hide, lock ourselves in the bedroom and just hope that Josh wouldn't hurt himself, " his mother said.

Both Sharon and her husband Roger joined dozens of other parents who assembled at JRC the day CBS News visited the center. They felt a strong need to speak out in favor of the shock treatment Joshua receives at JRC.

"JRC was the only place that said we will take him, we will embrace him, and we will take him off of those drugs that are affecting him physically, mentally and emotionally," Sharon Wood told Werner. She said Joshua is now able to swim, ride horses, and go to speech therapy, and people are no longer afraid of him.

Roger Wood sees the shocks as a tough, but necessary choice. "For me, there's just no contest: the difference between being restrained for hours and hours a day, being helpless, being medicated, not living a life -- to having something that interrupts your behavior, redirects you, allows you to focus again on learning and activities," he said.

Both admit they've never seen Joshua get shocked.

"We've seen him like right after and he's been totally fine," explains Sharon Wood. "There's no lingering results because we would obviously be concerned about that but we just see him being happy and go-lucky and not in any distress."

"Without the treatment program at JRC, these children and adults would be condemned to lives of pain by self-inflicted mutilation, psychotropic drugs, isolation, restraint and institutionalization -- or even death," JRC said in an earlier statement. JRC's executive director, Glenda Crookes, told Werner the shocks are painful, but students don't fear the shocks. "When you put that device on them, they're not hurting themselves anymore, they're not hurting other people anymore, and their affect, it just changes," said Crookes. In hundreds of pages of supplemental information provided to the FDA docket, JRC says it is not aware of, nor has has experience of, any patient who has sustained an injury from the GED.

But former JRC employee Gregory Miller, who submitted testimony to the FDA, disputes that. Miller told the FDA panel students often sustained burns so severe from the GED devices they were placed on "GED vacation."

Miller cites photos from the Massachusetts Disabled Persons Protection Commission (DPPC) and Cheryl McCollins. It is alleged they show severe burns Andre suffered as a result of the shocks. Miller says it took McCollins weeks in the hospital to heal.

Documents filed with the FDA show the United Nations has said use of electro-shock devices by the Rotenberg Center constitutes a violation of the UN Convention Against Torture, and would not be legal if used even against convicted terrorists.

Mike Flammia, the attorney for the Judge Rotenberg Center, bristles at the characterization of the treatment as torture. "You can never call any treatment torture if it's providing a benefit," he said. "And we have mountains of evidence that it in fact does benefit these people."

Flammia has successfully argued cases in court for students to receive shocks. He says every use of the shock device has to be approved by a court. "Independent psychologists come in here from the state and evaluate every case, and they write reports. All those reports say that the treatment has worked beautifully and should continue."

Flammia fears for parents who petitioned the FDA to keep up the shock program. "There is no other treatment for the people here that suffer from these severe behavior disorders. I can't imagine that the U.S. government is going to take away the only treatment that works."

But beyond the JRC community, disability advocates say out of hundreds of organizations, not a single one supports the use of shock as a form of aversive therapy. Disability advocates have been fighting JRC for years.

"The procedures used at The Judge Rotenberg Center fly in the face of everything we know about the science of behavior modification," says Nancy Weiss, Director of the National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities at the University of Delaware.

Weiss also disputes JRC's claim shocks are only used for students with self-mutilating or life threatening behaviors. Weiss says documents show children are shocked for behaviors such as refusing to follow directions, getting out of their seat, or simply slouching. "You don't need to be an expert to know that what they do to people at the Judge Rotenberg Center is wrong," says Weiss. "If parents did anything close to this to their own child they'd be arrested on the spot."

Jennifer Msumba, meantime, is suing the Judge Rotenberg Center. Her attorney, Ben Novotny, also represented Andre McCollins in the 2012 case.

"What sets Jennifer's case apart from the countless other students that have endured shock therapy, is that Jennifer is verbal," says Novotny. "She has the ability to explain the true impact of shock therapy. She has the ability to be a voice for all the other children who cannot speak for themselves. With Jennifer's case, it is now our goal to end this inhumane practice for good."

Said Msumba, "Just because someone can't speak or someone's disabled, doesn't mean they don't have feelings, they're not afraid."

In response to the Msumba case, the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center said in a statement to CBS News, "Jen did very well on the GED; she was receiving treatment for self-abusive behavior such as severe head banging. All treatments at other placements had failed." JRC says Msumba also sent positive emails to the school after leaving in 2009. When asked about the emails, Msumba told CBS News it took her two years to process her experience and recover from what she calls "abuse".

Msumba claims she endured a form of brainwashing, and says it took her two years to process her experience and recover from what she calls abuse.

Msumba, meantime, now lives at a group home in Florida, where her therapy includes playing the piano and positive feedback reinforcement -- but no electric shocks. In an on-the-record conversation with CBS News, the neuropsychologist treating Msumba says she is doing well with this treatment. The doctor says she hopes Msumba will soon be moving into her own apartment and enjoying independent living.

At the heart of the debate is not only the question of is shock humane, but what proof exists that it actually works? JRC provided CBS News with literature showing efficacy; read the JRC documents here.

Mental health professionals dispute that claim. Dr. Gregory Fritz, President-Elect of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, said there's virtually no reliable data this type of aversive shock therapy is effective in bringing about a change in behavior, over the short or long term, once the shock is withdrawn.

In government documents, it's noted a majority of the FDA advisory panel that evaluated banning shock devices used at JRC felt there's inadequate evidence it works. A majority also felt using the electrical stimulus presented a "substantial and unreasonable risk" of illness or injury.

The FDA advisory panel's recommendations will be considered by the full FDA; a decision on whether to ban the use of shock devices at the Judge Rotenberg Center is expected at any time.



http://www.judgerc.org/

Judge Rotenberg Educational Center
A special needs school.

The JUDGE ROTENBERG CENTER (JRC) is a special needs day, respite, and residential school located in Canton, Massachusetts licensed to serve ages 3-adult. Since 1971, JRC has provided very effective education and treatment to both emotionally disturbed students with conduct, behavior, emotional, and/or psychiatric problems and developmentally delayed students with autistic-like behaviors.
Our specific goal is to provide each individual with the least intrusive most effective form of treatment to insure his/her safety, the safety of others, and promote healthy growth and development. JRC is committed to providing the most effective educational program possible.
 
Our Specialized Education Programs Offer:
Near Zero Rejection Policy
JRC does not reject or expel student due to the severity of their behavior.
ABA Based Treatment Plans
Student programs are directed by clinicians with doctoral and masters level training in behavioral psychology.
Elimination or Minimization of Psychotropic Medications
JRC attempts, wherever it is professionally appropriate to do so, to minimize the use of psychotropic medication and to substitute the use of highly structured behavioral program in its place.
State of the Art Educational Software
This software is developed in-house and has allowed students that have fallen behind in their academic skills to make up several grade levels in a single semester.
Powerful and Varied Reward Program
Students are paid for completing academic work. Classrooms have rewards areas with TVs, radios, games, etc. There is also a Movie Theater with a snack bar, Lounges with the most up-to-date gaming systems, Internet Café, Beauty Salon and Retail store on site.

This official JRC website includes a number of parental and student testimonials. See the following article from Mother Jones. The article is 6 pages long and has a great deal of information about this school, and is suggested reading.


http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/08/school-shock

The School of Shock

Eight states are sending autistic, mentally retarded, and emotionally troubled kids to a facility that punishes them with painful electric shocks. How many times do you have to zap a child before it's torture?
—By Jennifer Gonnerman
| Mon Aug. 20, 2007 3:00 AM ED

Update (4/25/14):  An FDA advisory panel has recommended banning the kind of devices used on students at the Rottenberg school.
Update (9/4/12): Jennifer Gonnerman wrote this update in New York magazine to her epic 2007 Mother Jones exposé on torture at the "school of shock."

In 1999, when Rob was 13, his parents sent him to the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, located in Canton, Massachusetts, 20 miles outside Boston. The facility, which calls itself a "special needs school," takes in all kinds of troubled kids—severely autistic, mentally retarded, schizophrenic, bipolar, emotionally disturbed—and attempts to change their behavior with a complex system of rewards and punishments, including painful electric shocks to the torso and limbs. Of the 234 current residents, about half are wired to receive shocks, including some as young as nine or ten. Nearly 60 percent come from New York, a quarter from Massachusetts, the rest from six other states and Washington, D.C. The Rotenberg Center, which has 900 employees and annual revenues exceeding $56 million, charges $220,000 a year for each student. States and school districts pick up the tab.

The Rotenberg Center is the only facility in the country that disciplines students by shocking them, a form of punishment not inflicted on serial killers or child molesters or any of the 2.2 million inmates now incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons. Over its 36-year history, six children have died in its care, prompting numerous lawsuits and government investigations. Last year, New York state investigators filed a blistering report that made the place sound like a high school version of Abu Ghraib. Yet the program continues to thrive—in large part because no one except desperate parents, and a few state legislators, seems to care about what happens to the hundreds of kids who pass through its gates.

Rob's mother Jo-Anne deLeon had sent him to the Rotenberg Center at the suggestion of the special-ed committee at his school district in upstate New York, which, she says, told her that the program had everything Rob needed. She believed he would receive regular psychiatric counseling—though the school does not provide this.
As the months passed, Rob's mother became increasingly unhappy. "My whole dispute with them was, 'When is he going to get psychiatric treatment?'" she says. "I think they had to get to the root of his problems—like why was he so angry? Why was he so destructive? I really think they needed to go in his head somehow and figure this out." She didn't think the shocks were helping, and in 2002 she sent a furious fax demanding that Rob's electrodes be removed before she came up for Parents' Day. She says she got a call the next day from the executive director, Matthew Israel, who told her, "You don't want to stick with our treatment plan? Pick him up." (Israel says he doesn't remember this conversation, but adds, "If a parent doesn't want the use of the skin shock and wants psychiatric treatment, this isn't the right program for them.")

The Rotenberg Center has a policy of not giving psychiatric drugs to students—no Depakote, Paxil, Risperdal, Ritalin, or Seroquel. It's a policy that appeals to Louisa and many other parents. At Andrew's last school, she says, "he had so many medicines in him he'd take a two-hour nap in the morning, he'd take a two-hour nap in the afternoon. They'd have him in bed at eight o'clock at night. He was sleeping his life away." These days, Louisa says she is no longer afraid when her son comes home to visit. "[For him] to have an electrode on and to receive a GED is to me a much more favorable way of dealing with this," she says. "He's not sending people to the hospital."

Massachusetts officials have twice tried to shut the Rotenberg Center down—once in the 1980s and again in the 1990s. Both times parents rallied to its defense, and both times it prevailed in court. (See "Why Can't Massachusetts Shut Matthew Israel Down?" page 44.) The name of the center ensures nobody forgets these victories; it was Judge Ernest Rotenberg, now deceased, who in the mid-'80s ruled that the facility could continue using aversives—painful punishments designed to change behavior—so long as it obtained authorization from the Bristol County Probate and Family Court in each student's case. But even though the facility wasn't using electric shock when this ruling was handed down, the court rarely, if ever, bars the Rotenberg Center from adding shock to a student's treatment plan, according to lawyers and disability advocates who have tried to prevent it from doing so.

Not surprisingly, the most vocal parent-supporters tend to be those with the sickest children, since they are the ones with the fewest options. But at the Rotenberg Center, the same methods of "behavior modification" are applied to all kids, no matter what is causing their behavior problems. And so, while Rob would seem to have little in common with mentally retarded students like Michael and Andrew, they all shared a similar fate once their parents placed them under the care of the same psychologist, a radical behaviorist known as Dr. Israel.

DR. ISRAEL'S RADICAL BEHAVIOR

IN 1950, MATT ISRAEL was a Harvard freshman looking to fill his science requirement. He knew little about B.F. Skinner when he signed up for his course, Human Behavior. Soon, though, Israel became fascinated with Skinner's scientific approach to the study of behavior, and he picked up Walden Two, Skinner's controversial novel about an experimental community based on the principles of behaviorism. The book changed Israel's life. "I decided my mission was to start a utopian community," he says. Israel got a Ph.D. in psychology in 1960 from Harvard, and started two communal houses outside Boston.

Israel's success with Andrea convinced him to start a school. In 1971, he founded the Behavior Research Institute in Rhode Island, a facility that would later move to Massachusetts and become known as the Judge Rotenberg Center. Israel took in children nobody else wanted—severely autistic and mentally retarded kids who did dangerous things to themselves and others. To change their behavior, he developed a large repertoire of punishments: spraying kids in the face with water, shoving ammonia under their noses, pinching the soles of their feet, smacking them with a spatula, forcing them to wear a "white-noise helmet" that assaulted them with static.

***

Thirty years earlier, O. Ivar Lovaas, a psychology professor at UCLA, had pioneered the use of slaps and screams and electric jolts to try to normalize the behavior of autistic kids. Life magazine featured his work in a nine-page photo essay in 1965 with the headline, "A surprising, shocking treatment helps far-gone mental cripples." Lovaas eventually abandoned these methods, telling CBS in 1993 that shock was "only a temporary suppression" because patients become inured to the pain. "These people are so used to pain that they can adapt to almost any kind of aversive you give them," he said.

Israel encountered this same sort of adaptation in his students, but his solution was markedly different: He decided to increase the pain once again. Today, there are two shock devices in use at the Rotenberg Center: the GED and the GED-4. The devices look similar and both administer a two-second shock, but the GED-4 is nearly three times more powerful—and the pain it inflicts is that much more severe.

Israel, 74, still holds the title of executive director, for which he pays himself nearly $400,000 in salary and benefits. He appears utterly unimposing: short and slender with soft hands, rounded shoulders, curly white hair, paisley tie. Then he sits down beside me and, unprompted, starts talking about shocking children. "The treatment is so powerful it's hard not to use if you have seen how effective it is," he says quietly. "It's brief. It's painful. But there are no side effects. It's two seconds of discomfort." His tone is neither defensive nor apologetic; rather, it's perfectly calm, almost soothing. It's the sort of demeanor a mother might find comforting if she were about to hand over her child.



http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2011/02/28/school_lobbied_to_stop_electric_shock_ban/

School lobbied to stop electric shock ban
By Donovan Slack
Globe Staff / February 28, 2011

Canton facility spent $100,000 on effort

WASHINGTON — The Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, a special-needs school in Canton that disciplines students with electric shocks, used a sophisticated lobbying campaign in Congress last year to help defeat a ban of its controversial techniques, according to recently released public documents.

The center, the only school in the country that uses electric shocks to modify behavior, launched its Capitol Hill campaign after the House approved a measure last year outlawing the use of restraints and some other devices to control students. The bill did not explicitly reference shock devices, but lawmakers said the ban would have applied to the Judge Rotenberg Center’s practices.

The center paid $100,000 last year to a law firm headed by former GOP presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani in a successful effort to help stifle the measure in the Senate, according to 2010 lobbying disclosure records released in January. The bill died in the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

Miller’s bill would have prohibited schools from using mechanical restraints or devices, which Judge Rotenberg Center administrators feared could have included their shock apparatus, Krenik said. The bill also would have limited the use of seclusion. Forty other legislators signed on as cosponsors, including Democratic representatives Barney Frank and Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts. The measure passed the House 262 to 153 in March 2010.

Aides to Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts said parents and students visited his office and asked that he not support the bill, but he was waiting to learn more about the legislation before taking a position on a new law. Kerry is opposed to using electric shocks for punishment.




There is a new attempt to put a stop to the very abusive treatment of the mentally ill or disabled at this so-called school. “Msumba provided testimony to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel in April. The panel met to discuss a ban on using electrical stimulation devices to modify aggressive or self-injurious behavior....”

“In government documents, it's noted a majority of the FDA advisory panel that evaluated banning shock devices used at JRC felt there's inadequate evidence it works. A majority also felt using the electrical stimulus presented a "substantial and unreasonable risk" of illness or injury. The FDA advisory panel's recommendations will be considered by the full FDA; a decision on whether to ban the use of shock devices at the Judge Rotenberg Center is expected at any time.”

The JRC and a number of parents place a high premium on the fact that the students aren't given psychotropic drugs, as though all of them cause the zombie-like state that some do. Psychotropic drugs are in most cases effective without severe side effects now, including sleepiness, and psychiatric treatment has almost totally stopped including shock treatments.

According to http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/why-arent-lobotomies-performed-today, the old treatment called lobotomy is only performed “in a few countries” for OCD, depression and epilepsy. Those nations aren't mentioned.







Depression can start as young as preschool, study finds – CBS
By MARY ELIZABETH DALLAS HEALTHDAY August 6, 2014, 5:30 AM

Depression can strike at any age, even among preschoolers, researchers report.

And if it does strike, the odds are that the disorder will recur throughout childhood, a new study shows.

The study found that preschoolers who are depressed are two and a half times more likely to continue to experience symptoms in elementary and middle school, a research team from Washington University in St. Louis said.

However, spotting depression in kids early on could make treatment more effective, they added.

"It's the same old bad news about depression; it is a chronic and recurrent disorder," child psychiatrist Dr. Joan Luby, who directs the university's Early Emotional Development Program, said in a university news release.

"But the good news is that if we can identify depression early, perhaps we have a window of opportunity to treat it more effectively," Luby said. That could "potentially change the trajectory of the illness so that it is less likely to be chronic and recurring," she added.

The study, published recently in the American Journal of Psychiatry, included 246 preschool children, ranging from 3 to 5 years of age. Luby's team evaluated the children for depression and other psychiatric conditions over time.

The children and their caregivers participated in six yearly assessments as well as four semiannual assessments. Specifically, the caregivers were asked about their child's sadness, irritability, guilt, sleep and appetite, as well as reduced enjoyment in activities or playtime.

The researchers also evaluated interactions between the caregivers and their children through a two-way mirror. This was done to determine if part of the reason why children had ongoing symptoms of depression was because they were not nurtured by their parents.

When the study began, 74 of the children were diagnosed with depression. Six years later, 79 of the children met the criteria for clinical depression, including about half of the 74 kids diagnosed with depression when the study began.

Meanwhile, just 24 percent of the 172 children who were not depressed as preschoolers went on to develop depression later.

Among the children at higher risk for depression were school-age youngsters whose mothers had suffered from depression, the study revealed.

Being diagnosed with a conduct disorder while in preschool also boosted a child's risk for depression later on in elementary or middle school. This risk was reduced however, if children had a lot of support from their mother, the researchers noted.

Overall, the risk for later depression was greatest for the kids who were diagnosed with the condition while they were in preschool, Luby's group reported.

"Preschool depression predicted school-age depression over and above any of the other well-established risk factors," Luby said. "Those children appear to be on a trajectory for depression that's independent of other psychosocial variables."

Preschoolers as young as 3 years old should be regularly screened for depression, the researchers believe. Implementing such depression screenings is easier said than done, however, since there are no effective treatments for young children, they noted.

"The reason it hasn't yet become a huge call to action is because we don't yet have any proven, effective treatments for depressed preschoolers," Luby explained. "Pediatricians don't usually want to screen for a condition if they can't then refer patients to someone who can help."




“The researchers also evaluated interactions between the caregivers and their children through a two-way mirror. This was done to determine if part of the reason why children had ongoing symptoms of depression was because they were not nurtured by their parents.... Among the children at higher risk for depression were school-age youngsters whose mothers had suffered from depression, the study revealed.... Being diagnosed with a conduct disorder while in preschool also boosted a child's risk for depression later on in elementary or middle school. This risk was reduced however, if children had a lot of support from their mother, the researchers noted.... Preschoolers as young as 3 years old should be regularly screened for depression, the researchers believe. Implementing such depression screenings is easier said than done, however, since there are no effective treatments for young children, they noted.”

The mother is pointed out in this article – and in many other psychological articles down through the years -- as being the most influential parent over whether the children will suffer depression or not, either because she is depression herself, or because she is lacking in supportiveness for the child. I must say, though, that if the father is supportive it can make up for the mother's lack of warmth, understanding, forgiveness, or bonding to a great degree, I believe. Once loving parent is better than none.

Many children don't really have perfect parents, and that includes me. It seems certain to me that nearly all parents fail to be wise enough and gentle enough to do a perfect job at bringing up a child. Because of the bonding of children to their parents, some solution to their problems which keeps the child in the custody of both parents is better. The child probably loves both parents unless some very severe problems like domestic violence – beatings or sexual molestation – are involved.

I wonder if this study will be followed up by some attempts at intervening in the home life of the child, such as whole family therapy with a professional who will guide the parents toward better interactions and greater self-knowledge. If something like a father who is sexually abusing the child is involved, that might have to be reported to the police and the courts. If poverty is part of the problem, social services may be able to alleviate some of their strain. Some men who have a history of physical abuse of family members have attended group therapy activities with others like themselves, and with some improvement, giving them some empathy for their victims. There was a very good documentary about such a program a few years ago.




Cybercrime ring steals 1.2 billion Internet passwords
By JEFF PEGUES CBS NEWS August 5, 2014, 7:37 PM

A Russian crime ring has stolen the largest known collection of username and password combinations ever, in a trend that is becoming the crime of the 21st century. CBS News looked into it.

Hackers targeted 420,000 Internet sites of companies large and small. According to Hold Security, the cybersecurity firm that uncovered the theft, more than 1.2 billion records were stolen. Usernames, password information as well as email addresses that Hold Security says could "used and abused for multiple services."

"It's like having keys to your house that fit in multiple doors," the company said.

The theft is believed to be the work of fewer than a dozen members of a Russian crime ring. Hold Security says it has been monitoring the group over the last seven months, but has yet to take the information to U.S. authorities.



This story is self-explanatory. It's time to change our passwords again. “More than 1.2 billion records” is enough that my records may well be in the group. I'll go through my notebook of passwords and try to get them changed.




Walgreen (WAG) Abandons Plan to Move Overseas
By Richard Davies
Aug 6, 2014

Great expectations … no more. Plans for three big business deals have been shelved.

The Walgreen Company plans to keep its roots firmly planted in the United States, saying it will no longer pursue an overseas reorganization – a politically touchy move that would have trimmed the amount of U.S. taxes it pays.

The largest drugstore chain says it will buy the remaining stake in the Alliance Boots that it does not already own, but it will not pull off an inversion with the Swiss health and beauty retailer.

Walgreens says it is not in the best long-term interest of its shareholders to re-domicile outside the United States. The company’s pre-market share price dropped nearly 5 percent after the announcement.

The Obama administration is looking at ways to prevent American companies from reincorporating overseas to shirk U.S. taxes, without requiring new laws from Congress.

President Obama has denounced “tax inversions” as unpatriotic and has urged Congress to stop them. But Republicans and Democrats disagree about the best solution, making congressional action this year unlikely. The Treasury Department says it’s reviewing a broad range of potential actions.




This is a case that was brought to my attention by an email from my trusty “ActBlue” website, and I attached my name to a plea that they reconsider their “tax inversion.” I feel that I may have helped them in this recent decision to stay in the US. I really like the ActBlue site because it points up many things that are going on in the world of politics, helping me to keep abreast of things.




Croc Takes on Shark During Epic Battle – ABC
By Yazhou Sun via Good Morning America
August 6, 2014

An Australian tourist was left stunned after he witnessed a crocodile attempting to swallow a shark.

Andrew Paice, 43, was on a one-hour cruise on the Adelaide River in Australia when he spotted something unusual in the river.

“Earlier, we saw an 18-foot male crocodile known as Brutus leaping out of the water to eat a piece of buffalo meat held out on a pole to them,” Paice told ABC News via email.

When Paice and his family were on their way back to the jetty, they went past Brutus again. Only this time, they spotted there was a fin in the riverbank as well.

“I thought it was a [fish] or something,” Paice said.

“Then the guide took the boat in for a closer look and behold… it was a shark,” Paice added.

Brutus, famous among tour guides, is thought to be about 80 years old and missing a front leg and most of his teeth. He was photographed wrestling with a bull shark it its jaws.

“The shark was alive in the crocodile’s mouth,” Paice said. “The shark kept wriggling and thrashing about in the croc’s mouth.”

“The croc slid back into the water with the shark in its mouth and then swam across to the mangroves to protect its catch,” Paice added.

Paice said his daughter was “awestruck” by the experience.

“Our tour guides, Morgan and Harry, have been doing this for 30 years and they have never seen anything like this,” Paice said.

Paice said the shark was about 5-feet long. Although Brutus looked like he had taken the shark, Paice said there was a possibility it had actually escaped.

“Brutus is such an old croc,” Paice said. “His teeth aren’t really good, so he couldn’t puncture him very well.”

Paice is currently on a one-year adventure around Australia with his partner Nikki and his daughter.

Paice, an amateur photographer, has taken over 6,500 pictures over the past four months.

“It has certainly given me a boast in regards to my photography,” he said.




This story reminds me of one within the last two years or so of a great white shark that was videotaped in a standoff with an orca, or killer whale. The news commentators said that the orca “shredded” the shark. I don't really like sharks, so I was glad to see both these stories.




After Discrimination Finding, Jury's Out On Memphis Juvenile Courts – NPR
by CARRIE JOHNSON
August 06, 2014

For people connected to the Memphis juvenile courts, April 2012 is unforgettable. That's when federal investigators determinedthat the Shelby County juvenile court system discriminated against African-American defendants.

The Justice Department said that the system punished black children more harshly than whites. In the most incendiary finding, investigators said the court detained black children and sent them to be tried in the adult system twice as often as whites.

The finding came after a three-year investigation, but not everyone in the Shelby County court system buys it. "I said I've been here a long time. I've never seen any evidence of that happening," says Judge Curtis Person. He's led the Shelby County juvenile court in Memphis for the past eight years, and steadfastly denies allegations of discrimination.

Nine thousand children face delinquency charges in the red brick juvenile courthouse each year. Many are handled outside of court, but around 3,000 are prosecuted by the district attorney's office. Lawyers say about 90 percent of those prosecuted are poor and black.

Advocates for juvenile justice, like Patricia Puritz of the National Legal Defender Center, point out that unlike adult court, Tennessee's juvenile court is designed to rehabilitate children, not just punish them.

But Shelby County public defender Stephen Bush says he worries about the lack of mental health services and other ways to rehabilitate children in the system.

"It's a tragedy when the child is sent into the adult system when a court can't find the right services to meet the needs of that child," he says. "The stark racial disparities that were highlighted in the DOJ's findings here, you will find those in urban centers throughout the country. Race has become the defining characteristic not just of our juvenile court systems but also of our adult systems as well."

After the report from the Justice Department, Bush hired a small group of public defenders to handle cases in the juvenile system. And he's working with about 50 other private lawyers — paid for by the state. But many of these are the same attorneys the report criticized for inadequate defense of their young clients.

By many accounts, the lawyers are doing better — calling more witnesses, challenging testimony. Last year, one attorney won a boy's release by proving he had confessed to a murder he didn't commit. But an independent monitor says the quality of defense is still not as good as it could be.

So the jury's still out on the overall court performance.

On the second floor of the courthouse, though, the detention center at least seems to be getting better.

The center has room for more than 100 children, in custody waiting for court hearings. It used to overflow with kids. But the court has been working with schools and police to keep more kids at home or on probation.

Public defender Bush says there are 48,000 kids under the age of five in Shelby County. He hopes the system will be better by the time those children get older. "This work is going to take time, it's going to take deep commitment. But we really are talking about justice for a new generation."

A spokesman for the court says the Justice Department plans to spend three more years in Memphis, trying to make sure they get there.



http://www.shelbycountytn.gov/index.aspx?NID=382

Juvenile Court Judge

Judge Curtis S. Person was elected judge of the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County in August 2006. The Juvenile Court judge is assisted in his judicial duties by referees appointed by himself. Judge Person is also responsible for the administration of the court's Administrative Services Division, Court Services Division, and Child Support Services Division. 

About Judge Person
Prior to his election as judge, Person served children and families of Memphis and Shelby County as chief referee and chief legal officer of Juvenile Court, where he began employment in 1976. Judge Person also served as a member of the Tennessee Senatefrom the 86th through 104th General Assemblies and was a member of the House of Representatives for the 85th General Assembly, a total of 40 years. 

While in the Senate, he served in leadership roles as the Republican Caucus chairman for six years and as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee for 20 years. He was also vice-chairman of the Select Committee on Children and Youth, and a member of various committees, including the General Welfare, Health, and Human Resources and Educationcommittees. 




While not necessarily a racist, Judge Person is a long time Republican, so he is conservative. He disputes that race entered into any decisions about black youths in the court system, but somebody must have thought differently. What stimulated the Department of Justice to step in is not stated in this article. “A spokesman for the court says the Justice Department plans to spend three more years in Memphis, trying to make sure they get there.”

“The Justice Department said that the system punished black children more harshly than whites. In the most incendiary finding, investigators said the court detained black children and sent them to be tried in the adult system twice as often as whites. The finding came after a three-year investigation, but not everyone in the Shelby County court system buys it. "I said I've been here a long time. I've never seen any evidence of that happening," says Judge Curtis Person. He's led the Shelby County juvenile court in Memphis for the past eight years, and steadfastly denies allegations of discrimination...Nine thousand children face delinquency charges in the red brick juvenile courthouse each year. Many are handled outside of court, but around 3,000 are prosecuted by the district attorney's office. Lawyers say about 90 percent of those prosecuted are poor and black...”

“Advocates for juvenile justice, like Patricia Puritz of the National Legal Defender Center, point out that unlike adult court, Tennessee's juvenile court is designed to rehabilitate children, not just punish them. But Shelby County public defender Stephen Bush says he worries about the lack of mental health services and other ways to rehabilitate children in the system. … "The stark racial disparities that were highlighted in the DOJ's findings here, you will find those in urban centers throughout the country. Race has become the defining characteristic not just of our juvenile court systems but also of our adult systems as well."