Free Republic

Three starving children—including one who was chained to the floor to prevent her from getting food—were found last month in the squalid home of a Northern California couple, authorities said. All three—two boys and a girl—were taken into protective custody, and one was hospitalized, Monterey County Sheriff Scott Miller said Friday. Authorities discovered them in the Salinas, Calif., home on March 14 after two of the young people missed appointments, according to several published reports. […] Eraca Dwan Craig, 31, and Christian Jessica Deana, 44, were both arrested at the scene on suspicion of felony child cruelty, false imprisonment and...

The 2011 Somali famine killed an estimated 260,000 people, half of them age 5 and under, according to a new report to be published this week that more than doubles previous death toll estimates, officials told The Associated Press. The aid community believes that tens of thousands of people died needlessly because the international community was slow to respond to early signs of approaching hunger in East Africa in late 2010 and early 2011. The toll was also exacerbated by extremist militants from al-Shabab who banned food aid deliveries to the areas of south-central Somalia that they controlled. Quicker action...