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U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder today announced more than $37 million in Recovery Act and Fiscal Year 2009 grants have been awarded to support organizations in developing, implementing and expanding youth mentoring activities. "These funds allow us to invest further in the future of today's youth by providing mentoring opportunities to help children reach their full potential," said Attorney General Holder. "These grants will help steer young people away from criminal activities by providing them with healthy life alternatives, positive role models, and direct contact with caring adults." The Recovery Act, signed into law by President Obama, provides the Office...

Much has been made about the possibility of "pulling the plug on grandma" in the current health care debate. But what of younger Americans, many of whom make up a large portion of America's uninsured? Young voters make up an important piece of Obama's electoral support. Exit polls last November consistently showed voters 18 to 29 breaking for Obama and Democratic candidates for the House by wide margins. It seemed as though young voters were now the Obama generation. But polls over the last few months have shown many voters -- including many young voters -- beginning to sour on...

Dutch twin brothers who mugged a teenager in the northern town of Groningen were arrested after being caught on camera by a car gathering images for Google's online photo map service, police said. The pair stole the 14-year-old boy's mobile phone and 165 euros ($230) in cash last September. "The picture was taken just a moment before the crime," a police spokesman said. In March, the victim recognised himself and the two robbers while surfing Google Maps, which has a "Street View" feature allowing users to see images of buildings. The images are usually taken by a camera mounted on...

A double slaying east of Colorado Springs on Thursday was the result of a gang-related clash over a stolen iPod, the El Paso County Sheriff's Office said. The suspect, 19-year-old Juan Vasquez, was arrested early Friday in the shooting deaths of two male high school students at a park in the Cimarron Hills area, sheriff's spokeswoman Lt. Lari Sevene said. The victims were identified as 18-year-old Uriel Rascon and 17-year-old Luis Burciaga. Rascon attended Sierra High School, and Burciaga went to The New Horizons School, an alternative high school. Both schools are in Harrison School District 2. Vasquez is being...

Mob of young men attacks Man's skull fractured during beating; another attacked, robbed Police suspect a mob of 20 to 30 young men who brutally attacked a motorist in Mount Clemens on Saturday may also be responsible for at least two other violent crimes that took place the same night. Four people were taken into custody for questioning and police Sunday were hoping to interview a man who was beaten unconscious during the ordeal and was hospitalized with a fractured skull. "This certainly was a frightening incident," Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel said. The trouble began late Saturday and into...

A 15-STRONG gang attacked a young man after chasing him for almost half-a-mile. The 19-year-old was walking down Manchester Road, Thornton Lodge, at 9.30pm on Saturday to meet his girlfriend ... The gang cornered him in a garden there and beat him with baseball bats and pieces of wood. All the attackers are young Asian men ...

A car exploded Sunday evening while parked outside a block of flats in the Århus suburb of Åbyhøj, reports DR public broadcaster. The force of the explosion shattered six windows and one of the car doors was flung 15 metres from the car itself. Police are at a loss as to the motive of the bombing but have issued a warrant for a 25-35-year-old man seen leaving the scene of the crime. Two other cars were set on fire in the city of Århus, but police believe the episodes are unrelated. (LYT)

Unknown persons destroy ancient bronze coffin discovered recently [17 January 2008] IBB, Jan. 17 (Saba) - Unknown persons devastated early morning on Thursday an ancient bronze coffin and stole another one completely were in an archaeological location in al-Asibia area in Dhefar valley of Ibb province. The director general of Antiques and Cultural Properties Protection in the General Authority for Antiquities and Museums Hesham al-Thawr held the director general of the security office in the al-Saddah district responsible for destroying the location and disinterring the bronze coffin. Al-Thawr said that the security official has ordered the military patrols, which have...

A SCHOOLGIRL was raped by a gang who poured caustic soda over her body to destroy DNA evidence. The 16-year-old was left fighting for life with terrible burns from the drain-clearing chemical. She was under heavy sedation at a specialist burns unit last night as sickened police called the attack by five youths a new low. The gang beat the teenager before taking turns to rape her in an empty house in Tottenham, North London. One detective said: “After they had finished raping her, the gang poured caustic soda over the girl to try and get rid of DNA evidence....

The Oslo Police District is snowed under by the sheer number of criminal cases in the capital, and only 21 percent of reported offenses were handled last year. Investigators claim they don't have the time, staffing or resources to cope with their workload. More than 10,000 cases remained in the legal queue in Oslo when 2007 came to a close. "This is unfortunate for the credibility of and confidence in the police," said Oslo district chief public prosecutor Morten Yggeseth. He added that this trend has significance for the country’s security. Oslo Police District Union leader Jan Olav Frantsvold said...

IN retrospect, it was not a good idea to have left his pistol at home. Called to the scene of a traffic accident in the Paris suburbs last Sunday, Jean-François Illy, a regional police chief, came face to face with a mob of immigrant youths armed with baseball bats, iron bars and shotguns. What happened next has sickened the nation. As Illy tried to reassure the gang that there would be an investigation into the deaths of two teenagers whose motorbike had just collided with a police car, he heard a voice shouting: “Somebody must pay for this. Some pigs...

Unidentified young people set another car on fire in the night from Thursday to Friday during the fourth consecutive night of riots in Amsterdam's Slotervaart neighbourhood... The unrest began after two violent incidents ... Both times young Moroccan Dutch were involved. In the latest incident on October 14, 22-year-old Bilal Bajaka attacked two police officers at a police station with a knife. One of them pulled her gun and shot her attacker, who died on the spot. Amsterdam police chief Bernard Welten said the problems in Slotervaart were caused by a "core group of no more than 35 youths aged...

LA COURNEUEVE, France, May 6, 2007 (AFP) - As news of rightwinger Nocolas Sarkozy's presidential victory flashed up on the television in the cafe, Gnyma Cisse buried her head in her hands in a mixture of frustration and fury. "I'm disgusted," said Cisse, 23, who had gathered to watch the election coverage in Le Metro cafe which caters to a largely immigrant and first generation French-born clientelle in the La Courneuve suburb of Paris. Cisse, of Sengalese origin, called her sister-in-law who lives here without French nationality. "Pack your bags. The planes are already on standby," she said, alluding to...

On Sunday France elected a pro-American, conservative named Nicolas Sarkozy as its new president. The 52-year-old who beat back by 10 percentage points his Socialist rival, promises an unabashed Thatcherite agenda for France. Sarkozy also replaces the embattled Jacques Chirac, a relic from an earlier age of French politics, who made anti-Americanism his hallmark. Sarkozy campaigned on a platform of sweeping reforms, pledging to dismantle large portions of the social welfare state and to make France competitive on world markets again. He also pledged to reduce taxes, shrink the size of government and shut down redundant government programs. Carrying out...

Riot police fired tear gas at stone-throwing protesters gathered in central Paris today to demonstrate against the presidential election victory of right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy, an AFP journalist said. The clashes took place on the Place de la Bastille where about 5,000 supporters of the defeated Socialist candidate Segolene Royal had gone to await the election results. Up to 300 rioters, some of whom were masked, made running attacks on riot police who took up positions at the entrance to boulevards leading onto the square. Earlier a small crowd of protesters, brandishing black and red anarchist flags, set fire to an...

Riots at a train station in the French capital, Paris, have become an issue in the upcoming presidential election. The government's candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, said police were justified in arresting an alleged fare dodger - the action that sparked the riots. Socialist candidate Segolene Royal said the clashes resulted from Mr Sarkozy's failures as interior minister. About 100 youths clashed with police at the Gare du Nord station after a dispute over a train fare. Rioters smashed windows and attacked vending machines and shops, after objecting to the treatment of a man arrested for jumping a ticket barrier. Transport officials...

One of two Houston men accused of training to fight with the Taliban pleaded guilty this afternoon in federal court. Kobie Diallo Williams, 33, a U.S. citizen who was a student at the University of Houston Downtown, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to assist a terrorist group. His help included withdrawing cash from an ATM to send to the Middle East. Another man, Adnan Babar Mirza, 29, a Pakistani national who was in the country on an expired student visa, faces a similar conspiracy charges as well as three federal weapons violations. Mirza appeared today before a U.S. magistrate judge. Mirza...

French police the target in urban guerrilla war By Jon Boyle Mon Nov 27, 11:29 AM ET PARIS (Reuters) - Stoned, beaten and insulted, their vehicles torched by crowds of hostile youths, French police say they face an urban guerrilla war when they enter the run-down neighborhoods that ring the major cities. "Our role is to guarantee the safety of people and property but the great difficulty today is that police are having problems ensuring their own safety," said Jerome Hanarte of the Alliance-Police Nationale union. Bedside television interviews with officers hospitalized after beatings in "les banlieues," or suburbs, support...

FIVE people were shot dead and one policeman was wounded in a string of drive-by shootings by suspected Islamic militants in Thailand's restive Muslim-majority south, police said. A 60-year-old Buddhist cattle raiser was gunned down while walking, before suspected insurgents burned his body and left it on the roadside in Yala, one of three violence-torn southern provinces bordering Malaysia. A 52-year-old Buddhist street ice cream seller was also shot dead on Friday by two suspected insurgents on a motorcycle in Yala where another Muslim villager, 27, was killed late on the same day while riding a motorcycle, police said. In...

OAXACA, Mexico - Four youths wearing masks tossed gasoline bombs at a McDonald's restaurant in the conflict-torn city of Oaxaca on Sunday, damaging the windows, seats and play area, police said. Security personnel at the shopping center where the McDonald's is located extinguished the blaze, police said. The restaurant was closed during the pre-dawn attack, and nobody was hurt. The shopping mall is near a university where leftist protesters set up their headquarters last month after police drove them out of city's main plaza, which they had occupied for five months in a bid to force the resignation of the...

MARSEILLE, France — France's interior minister sent extra riot police to patrol the southern port city of Marseille on Sunday after a group of marauding teenagers torched a bus, seriously burning a young passenger. French police have braced for a surge of violence this weekend, as Friday was the first anniversary of the start of riots in poor neighborhoods where many immigrants and their French-born children live. In scattered violence Saturday, 46 people were taken into custody, most of them in the suburbs around Paris, and two police officers were slightly injured. The most serious violence was the bus attack...

A woman in the southern city of Marseille suffered severe burns when vandals set fire to a bus she was traveling on, a police source said on Saturday. The attack occurred as France marked the first anniversary of riots that scarred the country's poor suburbs, inhabited largely by immigrants. Vandals have set at least six buses on fire in suburbs around Paris this week in an upsurge of violence ahead of the anniversary, but there have been no injuries. The police source said an unknown number of people forced their way on to the bus in Marseille at about 9.00...

CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France -- Police deployed 4,000 reinforcements as marauding youths torched at least two public buses Friday, the anniversary of the deaths of two teenagers that ignited weeks of riots in largely immigrant housing projects across France. After the buses were burned, Paris' transport authority curtailed bus service in the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of the capital, which is home to thousands of immigrants and their French-born children. Thierre Ange, a 19-year-old witness, said four men attacked the bus, "made everyone get off, then they hit a woman and dragged out the bus driver by his tie" and torched the bus...

PARIS, France -- Mixing rap music with memories of France's revolutionary past, youths from poor neighborhoods of largely Muslim and African descent marched through Paris on Wednesday to present a collection of 20,000 complaints to lawmakers. The march by several hundred people came ahead of Friday's first anniversary of the riots involving disaffected youths from immigrant Parisian suburbs. Many in France fear new violence, with tensions rising in recent weeks. "The context is still the same, nothing has changed. So the situation is propitious for other events like last year," said Samir Mihi, co-founder of the AC-Le Feu group that...

When the call went out about a car burglary in the raw suburb of Épinay-sur-Seine north of here last weekend, three officers in a patrol car rushed over and found themselves surrounded by 30 youths in hoods throwing rocks and swinging bats and metal bars. Members of a police union demonstrated Wednesday over a rash of assaults on police officers in Paris suburbs, where riots occurred a year ago. Neither tear gas nor stun guns stopped the assault. Only when reinforcements arrived did the siege end. One officer was left with broken teeth and in need of 30 stitches to...

Reports of riots heavily exaggerated Riots and demolition. Smashed windows and devastated shopping centers. It turned out to be nothing less than hype. How could it happen? Malin Sahlström, secretary of press with the Västra Götaland Police Authority gives an explanation to the whole thing. - No official spokesperson was on duty. He left at 18.00 and afterwards, emergency call centre operators themselves took care of external relations like contact with the media and they’re not qualified for this responsibility. We’re supposed to be open towards the media, but according to what I’ve heard, the operators yesterday recieved equal numbers...

LGF reader Enlil from Gothenburg, Sweden, sent the following disturbing note: Tonight there were power shortages all over Sweden’s second largest city, Gothenburg. “Youth gangs” took the opportunity, spreading the European tradition of “Ramadan Riots.” Within an hour most schools and commercial centers in the north eastern suburbs were vandalized. - It’s complete chaos in north eastern Gothenburg. “We’ve sent all available police units but there’s no way we can stop the vandalisation,” police spokesman Frank Karlsson tells gp.se. - Several youth gangs are wandering about smashing windows and breaking into schools, malls, banks and a retirement center. Not a...

VERSAILLES, France, Oct 2, 2006 (AFP) - Seven French police officers were hurt during clashes with scores of youths that broke out after a car chase in Les Mureaux, in the western Paris suburbs, justice officials said Monday. The incident late Sunday followed the arrest of man who drove his car into a police vehicle after being chased for a traffic offence. As the man was being taken to the police station in another vehicle, it was set upon by a crowd. "There were around 250 people -- very angry and very hostile," police officials said. The prosecutor's office said...

It looks as if immigrants youths want to turn nightly rioting during the Islamic holy month of ramadan into an annual tradition. Around 8:30pm last night violence erupted again in Brussels, the capital of Europe. The riots centered on the Brussels Marollen quarter and the area near the Midi Train Station, where the international trains from London and Paris arrive. Youths threw stones at passing people and cars, windows of parked cars were smashed, bus shelters were demolished, cars were set ablaze, a youth club was arsoned and a shop was looted. Two molotov cocktails were thrown into St.Peter’s hospital,...

Police Sweep Paris Suburb After Attack Tuesday September 26, 2006 4:01 AM PARIS (AP) - More than 200 police raided a neighborhood Monday in suburban Paris where a band of youths attacked riot police last week and seriously wounded one officer, reviving memories of the violence that raged in poor French suburbs last year. Twelve people were detained in the early morning sweep in Corbeil-Essonnes south of the capital, the local prosecutor said. A band of up to 30 youths armed with makeshift weapons attacked two riot police patrolling a housing project in Corbeil-Essonnes last Tuesday. One suffered a double...

Youths wielding iron bars beat up two riot policemen patrolling a rough housing project in a southern Paris suburb, police officials said Wednesday. One officer was hospitalized with a double fracture of the skull during Tuesday night's incident in Corbeil-Essonnes... His colleague reportedly sustained facial and body injuries. Police were called in to disperse the gang of up to 30 youths who stoned the unmarked police car as it patrolled the area... The police got out of their car, were encircled and attacked. Some of the youths were armed with iron bars... No arrests were made following the incident... "These...

“Youths” Kick Man to Death on Crowded Antwerp Bus The Belgian state is no longer able to guarantee the security of its citizens. On Saturday afternoon Guido Demoor, a 54-year old Flemish train conductor on his way to work, was kicked to death by six “youths” on a crowded bus near Antwerp’s Central Station. The incident recalls the rush-hour murder ten weeks ago of Joe Van Holsbeeck, 17 years of age, in a crowded Brussels Central Station on 12 April. Guido Demoor, a father of two, intervened when six “youths” got on bus 23 in Antwerp and began to intimidate...

SAN JOSE - Veering from his central campaign theme of increasing education funding, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides on Monday criticized Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for breaking a 2003 promise to provide health care to every California child -- including those who are in the country illegally. Schwarzenegger has said recently that the state should pay health insurance for the children of illegal immigrants, but proposals to fund such programs are caught up in the budget battle's bipartisan bickering, and the governor has expressed concern over the cost. "I hope and expect he'll talk to his Republican colleagues in the Legislature...

Police fought running battles with rioters in central Paris last night as youths attacked officers with bangers, bottles and concrete at the end of a mass demonstration against a youth employment law that has caused a political crisis for Jacques Chirac's ruling party. Trade unionists and student leaders said up to three million people took to the streets across France yesterday - the second time in eight days that the country has seen its biggest street demonstrations in almost 40 years. The protests, including one by hundreds of thousands of students and scholars who marched through central Paris, were mainly...

Post your observations here. Richard Miniter was on FNC and said that even if an employee is caught on videotape stealing from their employers, they cannot be fired.

THE images are unnerving: hooded, swift-footed youths infiltrating protest rallies in the heart of tourist Paris, smashing shop windows, setting cars on fire, beating and robbing passers-by and throwing objects at the riot police. They are called the casseurs - the smashers. With more marches planned for this week as part of a continuing protest over a new jobs law, the casseurs are the volatile chemical that could ignite an even bigger crisis for the government than the impasse over the law itself. They create primarily a law-and-order problem, evoking the rioting that gripped the troubled suburbs of French cities...

BERLIN - Violence at a Berlin school dominated by Arab and Turkish youths and the nearby slaying of police officer, shot in the head while trying to arrest muggers, has fuelled alarm that troubled parts of the German capital are lurching out of control. Police have now been brought in to help control the situation at the Ruetli school in the immigrant-dominated Neukoelln district, with six officers checking students for weapons. Teachers at the school published a letter this week widely interpreted as saying conditions at their school had become so bad that it should be closed down. The letter...

Four Kennedy High School students were charged Thursday in an assault on a Kennedy senior who was pummeled in the school auditorium in front of scores of students and who, witnesses said, was attacked with feces later found strewn across the auditorium floor. Teachers and students were horrified by the incident, which left the victim, an 18-year-old honor student, with a broken nose, two black eyes, abrasions on both eyes and a swollen cheek, according to his father. "For these [attackers] to do what they did is beyond disgusting,'' said one teacher who asked for anonymity. "No kid should go...

Violent Youths Threaten to Hijack Demonstrations in Paris By ELAINE SCIOLINO PARIS, March 29 — The images are unnerving: hooded, swift-footed youths infiltrating protest rallies in the heart of tourist Paris, smashing shop windows, setting cars on fire, beating and robbing passers-by and throwing all sorts of objects at the riot police. They are called the casseurs — the smashers. With more huge marches planned for next week as part of a continuing protest over a new jobs law, the casseurs are the volatile chemical that could ignite an even bigger crisis for the government than the impasse over the...

PARIS (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of French transport workers, teachers and other employees staged a one-day national strike or marched through the streets on Tuesday to try to force the government to abandon a new youth job law.The Eiffel Tower was closed to visitors until the evening, commuters faced delays on trains and Paris underground rail services and airports were hit by stoppages in protest against Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's CPE First Job Contract.Villepin, 52, stood firm over the plan but the strong turnout increased pressure on him to amend or withdraw the measure and calls for his...

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BRITONS have been warned: Stay away from riot-torn Paris. The Foreign Office says the French capital — which has been rocked by violent demos — is too dangerous. Protests against a new employment law have erupted into riots, with fierce fighting in the shadow of famous tourist spots like the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral. Cars have been set alight, shops looted and gangs of youths and masked men swinging baseball bats and wooden planks have had running battles with riot police who have used water cannon and tear gas.The Foreign Office alert is a huge blow to France,...

Riots in Nigeria leave many dead Police have struggled to keep a lid on the violence At least 20 people are believed to have died in a second day of violence in the southern Nigerian city of Onitsha. Groups of armed youths rampaged through the city attacking Muslims, in apparent retaliation for the deaths of Christians in riots in the north. Eyewitnesses spoke of streets "littered with bodies" as thousands of Muslims were said to be fleeing the city. Danish cartoon protests in the north led to sectarian clashes which have seen dozens of deaths in four cities. On Wednesday,...

FOUR swimming pool staff have been beaten in an attack in Melbourne's north. Stunned witnesses said about 30 youths had punched and kicked staff, including a young woman, on the grass at Oak Park Aquatic Centre about 4pm yesterday. One witness, Alex, said families had recoiled in horror at the bashings. "I've never seen anything like it," Alex said. "I thought, 'Not another Cronulla'. "There seemed to be dozens of people involved, with most wading into the staff and people trying to help them. "They all appeared to be Middle-Eastern youths. "It was very upsetting and scary. There were hysterical...

PARIS -- A gang of more than 20 youths -- thought to be North African immigrants -- terrorized hundreds of train passengers in a rampage of violence, robbery and sexual assault on New Year's Day, French officials said yesterday.     The five-hour-long criminal frenzy was "totally unacceptable," French President Jacques Chirac told reporters. "Those guilty will be found and punished, as they deserve."     

PARIS, Jan 5 (AFP) - French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy was Thursday to see one of several passengers who were terrorised by a gang of youths on a New Year's Day train on the French Riviera, the newspaper Le Monde reported. The passenger, a 20-year-old woman identified as Charlotte N., was sexually molested and robbed on the train by the youths, according to a police complaint she lodged and an interview she gave to the daily. After being cornered by some of the group, she was robbed of her wallet and cheque-book, and then one of the men groped her...

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Violence on the streets of Sydney spilled into a second night Monday, as scores of youths drove through beachside suburbs smashing windows of stores, homes and apartments, police said. Any hopes that a race riot Sunday would be an isolated incident were shattered after dark when car loads of youths rampaged through southeastern Sydney chased by hundreds of police vehicles and a helicopter. A police spokesman said the violence first broke out in Cronulla, where Sunday's riots also started.

Disadvantaged youths “deserve to be helped, recognised and encouraged,” French President Jacques Chirac said as he met today with a group of successful young entrepreneurs from the low-income neighbourhoods where rioting broke out this month. As the country’s worst civil unrest in decades has waned, Chirac turned his attention away from security to finding ways to target the roots of the problems faced by people in tough suburbs, including high unemployment and racial discrimination. Many youths have complained that the rioting stigmatised their neighbourhoods as dangerous and squalid. Chirac was careful to paint a more positive picture. “In a...

PARIS — Rioters defied a state of emergency that took effect Wednesday, as they looted and burned two superstores, set fire to a newspaper office and paralyzed France's second-largest city's subway system with a firebomb. However, the number of car burnings — a barometer for the unrest — dropped sharply, suggesting the movement lost steam. Overnight Tuesday to Wednesday, youths torched 617 vehicles, down from 1,173 the previous night, national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said. Incidents were reported in 116 towns, down from 226 the night before. President Jacques Chirac announced extraordinary security measures, which began Wednesday and are valid...

PARIS - President Jacques Chirac declared a 12-day state of emergency Tuesday, paving the way for curfews to be imposed on riot-hit cities and towns in an extraordinary measure to halt France's worst civil unrest in nearly four decades. Meanwhile, police said the nightly rioting that began Oct. 27 ago was showing signs of abating. "The intensity of this violence is on the way down," National Police Chief Michel Gaudin said, citing fewer attacks on public buildings and fewer direct clashes between youths and police. He said rioting was reported in 226 towns across France, compared with nearly 300 the...