AGAR: Fatherlessness and weak justice spurring rampant crime
Toronto Sun, by Jerry Agar, columnist, September 9, 2024
Fifteen-year-old Mario Giddings of Toronto was shot dead the day before he was to begin Grade 11 at Weston Collegiate Institute.
Will you be surprised — should the police solve the crime — to learn the perpetrator or perpetrators were on bail despite a previous criminal conviction?
One man was murdered and another had a hand severed in vicious attacks in Vancouver.
Does it surprise you to learn, according to CTV News, that the suspect, “Brendan Colin McBride, 34, of White Rock, B.C., was on probation for a 2023 assault at the time of his arrest and had 60 previous interactions with police.
Court documents show McBride was sentenced to 18 months of probation in April for an assault last September. He was previously charged with assault causing bodily harm in January 2021 and sentenced to 12 months of probation the following year.”
McBride, we are told, is “very troubled.”
I am sorry he suffers from mental illness, if that’s the case. But that is no reason for him to be loose among the public.
If the rights of criminals and the criminally insane trump public safety, the public is not safe.
What are we paying judges and a court system to do if not to use their awesome powers to protect the public?
What do we do about that?
Research shows the majority of the public wants a tougher-on-crime approach. We need to elect politicians who share that attitude and, if necessary, who will make changes to the Supreme Court of Canada by appointing judges who care about public safety.
The other anti-social behaviour that threatens public safety is rampant fatherlessness.
The Canadian Children’s Rights Council says “father deprivation is a more reliable predictor of criminal activity than race, environment or poverty.
Father-deprived children are 72% of all teenage murderers, 60% of rapists, 70% of kids incarcerated, twice as likely to quit school, 11 times more likely to be violent, 3 of 4 teen suicides, 80% of the adolescents in psychiatric hospitals and 90% of runaways.”
Mohbad: ATvFJ Charges Govt On Compulsory Paternity Test
Independent, Nigeria, May 19,2024
…Offers Free DNA Tests For Nigerians
Following the controversies arising from the untimely death of Nigerian rapper and singer, Ilerioluwa Oladimeji Aloba, aka Mohbad, and the paternity of his son, the African Television Foundation for Justice (ATvFJ) has urged the Nigerian government to ensure a compulsory paternity test for every child born in the country.
In addition, the Foundation is offering free DNA tests for every Nigerian child.
Larry Omodia, CEO of the ATvFJ, disclosed this during Mohbad’s coroner inquest, which took place at Ikorodu Magistrate Court, Ikorodu, in Lagos, recently.
It would, however, be noted that during the coroner inquest, one of the suspects in the case, Ibrahim Owodunni, popularly known as Primeboy, testified that Mohbad doubted the paternity of his son as he told his wife, Omowunmi Aloba, that he only had intimacy with her once before she showed up with the news of the pregnancy.
Omodia, who noted that the Foundation is also offering a N50million reward to anybody with useful information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of perpetrators of the alleged murder of Mohbad, narrated that a lot of men were being victimised in Nigeria and all over the world.
“The free DNA to all Nigerians was borne out of Mohbad’s wife’s refusal to conduct a DNA test on the child.
Girl, 13, charged after Ammanford school stabbings
BBC News, By James McCarthy, April 25, 2024, UK
A 13-year-old girl has been charged with three counts of attempted murder after two teachers and a pupil were stabbed at a school in south-west Wales.
Dyfed-Powys Police said the teenager was arrested at the scene at Ysgol Dyffryn Aman, in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire.
Two teachers and a teenage pupil were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening stab wounds.
They have all since been discharged.
The Crown Prosecution Service said the girl had also been charged with possessing a bladed article on a school premises and would appear at Llanelli Magistrates' Court on Friday.
The school went into lockdown for about four hours at 11:20 BST on Wednesday after teachers Fiona Elias and Liz Hopkin and a pupil were injured.
Supt Ross Evans said: "A 13-year-old girl was arrested at the scene, I can confirm, she has now been charged with three counts of attempted murder.
Canadian DNA lab knew its paternity tests identified the wrong dads, but it kept selling them
CBC, April 9, 2024, by Jorge Barrera
Canadian DNA laboratory knowingly delivered prenatal paternity test results that routinely identified the wrong biological fathers — ruling out the real dads — and left a trail of shattered lives around the globe, a CBC News investigation has found.
Harvey Tenenbaum, the owner of Viaguard Accu-Metrics, told a CBC producer with a hidden camera during a conversation in his office that prenatal paternity test results that his laboratory produced for about a decade were "never that accurate."
The hidden camera conversation unfolded in the midst of a months-long CBC News investigation into a years-long pattern of erroneous results produced by Viaguard's non-invasive prenatal paternity testing. The test — if done correctly — matches DNA from a fetus that is in a mother's blood with the biological father's DNA.
Viaguard, based in Toronto, sold its prenatal tests through various related online storefronts with names like Prenatal Paternities Inc. and Paternity Depot.
"The test was not that accurate…. And we're leery of that test now," said Tenenbaum.
Tenenbaum is 91 and still runs the laboratory, showing up onsite most days, answering phones and meeting with customers.
A longtime businessman, it seems he began selling DNA services through Viaguard in the early 2000s, registering a prenatal paternity division in 2013, according to business records.
During the hidden camera encounter, he presented himself as a seasoned scientific expert who's seen it all, and, in a matter-of-fact tone, said he knows mistaken prenatal paternity results could inflict lasting damage on lives.
"There's a lot involved if it gets screwed up," Tenenbaum told the CBC News producer, who posed as a prospective customer seeking a paternity test.
"What if it's the wrong guy named and you're aborting your child of, you know, a wrong person…. We can imagine everything happens in life…. You see them all, and worse, and worse."
He also described instances where Viaguard's tests were proven wrong during a birth.
44 students suspended for incomplete immunization records
The Canadian Press, April 9, 2024
As many as 44 elementary students have been suspended from school due to ongoing incomplete immunization records with the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit (WECHU), as mandated by the Immunization of School Pupils Act (ISPA) R.S.O.1990.
As of March 26, 2024, while most elementary school students have fulfilled all required vaccinations, the suspensions of 44 students highlight the importance of adhering to immunization requirements.
Beyond compliance, maintaining up-to-date immunization records aids the WECHU in planning services and identifying potential risks in the event of disease outbreaks within the community. This becomes particularly crucial in light of recent vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles, in Ontario.
What Happened When This Italian Province Invested in Babies
The area around Bolzano has a thick network of family support provided by the government. That means a steady birthrate in a country facing a demographic plunge.
The New York Times, By Jason Horowitz and Gaia Pianigiani -- Jason Horowitz reported from Bolzano, Italy, and Gaia Pianigiani from Siena. April 1, 2024
In a municipal building in the heart of the alpine city of Bolzano, Stefano Baldo clocked out of work early for his breastfeeding break.
"It's clear I don't breastfeed," Mr. Baldo, a 38-year-old transportation administrator, said in his office decorated with pictures of his wife and six children. But with his wife home with a newborn, one of the parents was entitled by law to take the time, and he needed to pick up the kids. "It's very convenient."
Full houses have increasingly become history in Italy, which has one of the lowest birthrates in Europe and where Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, as well as Pope Francis, has warned that Italians are in danger of disappearing. But the Alto Adige-South Tyrol area and its capital, Bolzano, more than any other part of the country, bucked the trend and emerged as a parallel procreation universe for Italy, with its birthrate holding steady over decades.
The reason, experts say, is that the provincial government has over time developed a thick network of family-friendly benefits, going far beyond the one-off bonuses for babies that the national government offers.
Parents enjoy discounted nursery schools, baby products, groceries, health care, energy bills, transportation, after-school activities and summer camps. The province supplements national allocations for children with hundreds of euros more per child and vaunts child-care programs, including one that certifies educators to turn their apartments into small nurseries.
All of that, experts say, helps free up women to work, which is vital for the economy. As in France and some Scandinavian countries, it also shows that a policy of offering affordable day-care services has the power to steer Italy from the impending demographic cliff as the birthrate falls.
North Carolina school removes bathroom mirrors to get kids off TikTok, back in class
Since the mirrors were removed earlier this month, the school says there has been a "drastic decrease" in students using the bathroom to make TikTok videos
USA Today, Emilee Coblentz, January 29, 2024
A North Carolina middle school has come up with a way to curb TikTok use among its students: removing bathroom mirrors.
Reports of disruptions because of the popular social media app began to surface in 2021, when school administrators said that TikTok challenges were endangering both students and staff, and in some cases, canceling classes and increasing security.
For the Southern Alamance Middle School in Graham, North Carolina, it was affecting attendance and productivity. Students at the Burlington-area school were "going to the bathroom for long periods of time and making TikTok videos," Les Atkins, a spokesman for the Alamance-Burlington School System, told WFMY-TV.
Some students were going to the bathroom as many as nine times a day, largely to make the videos, according to the school.
Nearly 95% of teenagers between 13 and 17 report using social media, with more than a third of them saying they use the platforms "almost constantly," according to a U.S. Surgeon General advisory released last year.
