National CPS News Archive

Young boy's death at hands of foster parents led to change

by Michael D. Pitman

It's been five years since the death of 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel at the hands of his foster parents that captured the attention of the region, state and nation, sent two people to prison and led to a child welfare system overhaul.

Marcus' death during the weekend of Aug. 4-6, 2006, in the closet of the Carrolls' Union Twp. home in Clermont County placed a giant spotlight on some gaping holes in the child welfare system and led private foster placement agency, the former Lifeway for Youth, from operating in the state. While his death was the breaking point to prompt reform in Ohio's foster care and children services system, other children died while under the charge of Butler County Children Services: Tiffany Hubbard, 3, of Hamilton in 1986; Randi Fuller, 2, of Hamilton, in 2000; Christopher Long, 2, of Middletown, in 2001; Courtney Centers, 3, of Middletown in 2002; Jesus Rodriquez, 7 months, of Hamilton in 2003; and Justin Johnson, 13 months, of Middletown in 2004.

oxfordpress.com

August 7, 2011

North Carolina may compensate sterilization victims

by Jim Brumm

North Carolina should compensate the surviving victims of the state's forced sterilization program, the Governor's Eugenics Compensation Task Force recommended on Monday.

The task force also said the state should pay for mental health services for the fewer than 2,000 of the nearly 7,600 residents forcibly sterilized from 1929 to 1974 who are believed to be still alive.

reuters.com

August 2, 2011

Hunter tops list of child abuse

by Donna Page

NSW Community Services received almost 80 child abuse reports a day from the Hunter and Central Coast last financial year, making it the worst region in the state.

NSW Community Services received almost 80 child abuse reports a day from the Hunter and Central Coast last financial year, making it the worst region in the state.

theherald.com.au

July 31, 2011

Right to Self-Representation in Termination of Parental Rights Proceeding

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that a defendant in a criminal proceeding has a constitutional right to refuse their court appointed counsel. A criminal defendant also has a right to represent themselves.

In New York, before a court may allow a criminal defendant to proceed pro se, (1) the defendant's request to do so must be unequivocal and timely asserted, (2) there must have been a knowing and intelligent waiver of the right to counsel, and (3) the defendant must not have engaged in conduct which would prevent the fair and orderly exposition of the issues. In in re Kathleen K. the New York Court of Appeals addressed whether the Family Court erred in failing to grant the application of appellant Stephen K. to represent himself in a proceeding brought by the Department of Social Services ("DSS") to terminate his parental rights ("TPR").

justfamilies.org

July 30, 2011

Break The Cycle of Shrinking Family Time

by Annie

San Antonio evangelical preacher Matthew Hagee's new release Response Able: What my father taught me about life and making a difference (Charisma Media) offers the insights of a lifetime on parenting, self-reliance and affecting societal change.

With some parents working two jobs or both parents working more than 40 hours a week, Hagee wants to help parents break the cycle of shrinking family time in America. To do this, he has issued a provocative challenge to the parents in his flock. He calls it the 707 Challenge and, beginning this month, he wants parents to sign up for the 707 Campaign that requires moms and dads to commit to spending at least seventy minutes per day with their children, seven days a week, for seventy days.

scuttle.localhs.com

July 28, 2011

Kids get back to nature at camp

by Vernon Morning Star

Organizers of Cedar Bridge Farm School (CBFS) summer camps hope kids will go home with happy memories of "what I did this summer." CBFS is offering week-long themed day camps with that organizers hope will have kids talking for months.

The programs are designed to get kids participating, and there is something for everyone: farm and garden activities, games and yoga, children's theatre, teepee building and much more. Activities are designed to keep the kids moving, thinking and having fun. The day camps feature week-long programs for children aged six to 12 and run until the end of August.

bclocalnews.com (UK)

July 22, 2011

Alarming new stimulant sold legally in many states

by Abby Goodnough and Katie Zezima

Dr. Jeffrey Narmi could not believe what he was seeing this spring in the emergency room at Schuylkill Medical Center in Pottsville, Pa.: people arriving so agitated, violent and psychotic that a small army of medical workers was needed to hold them down.

They had taken new stimulant drugs that people are calling "bath salts," and sometimes even large doses of sedatives failed to quiet them. Poison control centers around the country received 3,470 calls about bath salts from January through June, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers, up from 303 in all of 2010.

bendbulletin.com

July 17, 2011

Connie Martinez gives up custody fight for son

GRAND RAPIDS -- The mother of Jozlynn Martinez, the two-year-old girl murdered in 2010, has voluntarily given up her parental rights to her son.

Consuela Martinez, 22, signed off her parental rights during a court hearing Thursday. Had Martinez not signed off her rights, a Kent County Family Court judge would have held a termination hearing to take away her parental rights to her two-year-old son, Bryan Malmberg, who was fathered by Jeffrey Malmberg.

wzzm13.com

July 14, 2011

Foster care for obese kids: Drastic measure, preventable problem

by Dr. Jennifer Shu

Poor prenatal care, child abuse and neglect can get a child taken out of the care of his or her parent(s), but what about extreme obesity?

A commentary by two Harvard health researchers in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests just that - that in certain situations it may be in a very obese child's best interests to be removed from the home. Should parents lose custody of obese children? There are multiple factors contributing to the choices and habits that lead to obesity in children, and many of these are completely unrelated to poor parenting.

thechart.blogs.cnn.com

July 14, 2011

Supreme Court will set rules for warrantless GPS tracking

by Declan McCullagh

U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear Obama administration's argument that cops have the right to track the whereabouts of Americans' automobiles without obtaining search warrants.

A ruling, which is expected by next year, will establish whether a warrant signed by a judge is required before law enforcement can engage in the practice of tracking a driver's every move on the roads. The Obama administration argues that no warrant is needed. The case that will be presented to the justices arose out of a criminal prosecution of Antoine Jones and Lawrence Maynard, two suspected cocaine dealers who ran a nightclub in Washington, D.C. Jones said the warrantless use of a GPS device to track every movement of his vehicle over the course of a month violated the Fourth Amendment, which generally says that warrantless searches are "unreasonable."

news.cnet.com

June 30, 2011

Born to Breed: An Interview With Quiverfull Walkaway Vyckie Garrison

by Vyckie Garrison

Quiverfull Believers eschew all forms of birth control in favor of "trusting the Lord" with their family planning. The follow traditional family values, which insists that the husband is the head of the household and the wife is the submissive "helpmeet."

The Quiverfull lifestyle is extremely demanding and the only way a woman can hope to succeed is to rely heavily on her older daughters. It is expected that a Quiverfull daughter will be fully capable of running the household, including all meal-preparation, laundry duties, child care and homeschooling of younger siblings by the age of twelve. Many girls are doing all this by the time they're eight or ten because their mothers are so consumed with birthing more and more "arrows" to fill the quivers of their husbands.

rhrealitycheck.org

June 27, 2011

IG says 133 IRS workers didn't comply with tax law

by Stephen Ohlemacher

Some 133 workers at the Internal Revenue Service apparently didn't comply with U.S. tax laws during a two-year period but the agency failed to detect them, a government investigator said Tuesday.

About 44 percent of the cases were workers who filed late returns but didn't owe any taxes, said IRS spokeswoman Michelle Eldridge. More than half the cases have already been reviewed and closed because the facts did not merit further review, she said.

CNS News

June 21, 2011

Tips for Not Appearing Crazy on the Internet

by Zombie

Do crazy people have a right to be heard? I think they do - as long as they're American.

But even with crazy people's well known infiltration of the internet - appearing in any blog or news comments section or online forum they can access - they still have a lot of trouble getting people to listen to them. Crazy people used to have to try to spread their views through poorly photocopied newsletters with weird font choices that no sane person would read. But on the internet, crazy people can put their opinions right next to those of sane people. If they can just use a little self-discipline to not immediately identify themselves as cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, they might actually get their ideas read.

pajamasmedia.com

June 17, 2011