Facebook Pulls Stabbing App Amid UK Knife Deaths

A surge in knife crime has shaken Britain, ABC News reports. Twelve people—six of them teenagers—were stabbed to death in a single week this month. Public concern has caused Facebook to yank a third-party application where users could send each other "virtual stabs," and Nike has taken its Air Stab shoes off the market.

The government has announced a $200 million anti-knife crime campaign to reassure the worried British public that something is being done. Campaigners are seeking a way to reverse a cycle of violence caused by a perception among young people— aggravated, some say, by things like the Facebook application—that knife crime is so prevalent they must carry knifes to defend themselves.
(More Britain stories.)