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Tumor Removed From Newborn's Brain Contained Foot
Thursday, December 18, 2008
AP
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A pediatric neurosurgeon says a tumor he removed from the brain of a Colorado Springs infant contained a tiny foot and other partially formed body parts.
Dr. Paul Grabb says he operated on Sam Esquibel at Memorial Hospital for Children after an MRI showed a microscopic tumor on the newborn's brain. Sam was 3 days old and otherwise healthy.
PHOTOS: INCREDIBLE TUMORS
Grabb says that while removing the growth, he discovered it contained a nearly perfect foot and the formation of another foot, a hand and a thigh.
"It looked like the breach delivery of a baby, coming out of the brain," Grabb said. "To find a perfectly formed structure (like this) is extremely unique, unusual, borderline unheard of."
Grabb isn't sure what caused the growth but says it may have been a type of congenital brain tumor. However, such tumors usually are less complex than a foot or hand, he said.
The growth may also have been a case of "fetus in fetu" — in which a fetal twin begins to form within another — but such cases very rarely occur in the brain, Grabb said.
Sam's parents, Tiffnie and Manuel Esquibel, say their son is at home now but faces monthly blood tests to check for signs of cancer or regrowth, along with physical therapy to improve the use of his neck. But they say he has mostly recovered from the Oct. 3 surgery.
"You'd never know if he didn't have a scar there," Tiffnie Esquibel said.
Police: 1981 Murder of Son of America's Most Wanted Anchor John Walsh Is Solved
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Dec. 16, 2008: Tears roll down John Walsh's cheek as he talks about the death of his son, Adam, and the conclusion of his murder investigation during
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — The investigation into the 1981 murder of Adam Walsh, the 6-year-old son of "America's Most Wanted" anchor John Walsh, is finally closed.
Hollywood, Fla., Police Chief Chad Wagner announced Tuesday that the department had concluded that Ottis Toole, a serial killer who died in jail in 1996, was the man who kidnapped and decapitated the young boy.
The announcement brought to a close a case that had vexed the Walsh family for more than two decades, inspired the television show about the nation's most notorious criminals and triggered changes in how authorities search for missing children.
"Who could take a 6-year-old and murder and decapitate him? Who?" an emotional John Walsh said at Tuesday's news conference. "We needed to know. We needed to know. And today we know."
Adam Walsh disappeared from a Hollywood mall on July 27, 1981. Two weeks later, fishermen discovered his severed head in a canal 120 miles away. The rest of his body was never found.
Toole confessed twice to Adam's murder, but he had confessed to hundreds of other killings, and police determined most of those confessions were lies.
Officials were never able to verify his confessions because of a series of errors they made in the investigation — including losing the bloodstained carpeting from Toole's car, preventing DNA testing, — and the car itself.
Toole's niece later told Walsh that her uncle gave a deathbed confession to Adam's murder in September 1996.
Wagner acknowledged and apologized for the mistakes that were made in the investigation, but he said detectives were always led back to Toole.
"Our agency has devoted an inordinate amount of time seeking leads to other potential perpetrators rather than emphasizing Ottis Toole as our primary suspect," he said. "Ottis Toole has continued to be our only real suspect."
For all that went wrong in the probe, the case contributed to massive advances in police searches for missing youngsters.
Adam's death, and his father's subsequent activism, helped put faces on milk cartons, started fingerprinting programs, increased security at schools and stores and spurred the creation of missing persons units at every large police department.
It also prompted legislation to create a national center, database and toll-free line devoted to missing children, and led to the start of "America's Most Wanted," which brought those cases into millions of homes.
With the case now closed, Wagner said he hoped the Walsh family could find some closure.
"The not knowing has been a torture, but that journey's over," John Walsh said.
Newspaper 'Steals' Empire State Building in Just 90 Minutes
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
The Empire State Building is lit red, green and white for the Christmas season.
In what has been described as one of the biggest heists in American history, the Empire State Building was reportedly stolen this week by a New York City newspaper in less than 90 minutes.
The New York Daily News drew up fake documents, created a bogus notary stamp and filed paperwork with the city and successfully took ownership of the $2 billion property on Monday.
The heist illustrates what it descibes as a gaping loophole in the city system that doesn't require clerks to actually verify information.
The office of the city register, upon receipt of the phony documents prepared by the newspaper, transferred ownership of the 102-story building from Empire State Land Associates to Nelots Properties, LLC. Nelots is "stolen" spelled backward.
To further enhance the absurdity of the heist, included on the bogus paperwork were original "King Kong" star Fay Wray as witness and Willie Sutton, the notorious bank robber, as the notary.
"Of course, stealing the Empire State Building wouldn't go unnoticed for long, but it shows how easy it is for con artists to swipe more modest buildings right out from under their owners," the paper concluded.
Nearly 24 hours after the fake deed was filed, the newspaper returned the building to its rightful owners.
The Daily News says it will not report all elements of how the scam works.
"Crooks go where the money is. That's why Willie Sutton robbed banks, and this is the new bank robbery," Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney Richard Farrell told the Daily News.
FCC Head Wants Free Nationwide Wireless Internet Access
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Outgoing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is pushing for action in December on a plan to offer free, pornography-free wireless Internet service to all Americans, despite objections from the wireless industry and some consumer groups.
At its December meeting, the FCC could also consider new rules designed to speed up consideration of disputes between independent cable programmers and cable providers such as Time Warner Cable Inc. and Comcast Corp., which either refuse to carry some channels or put them on specialty tiers of service that cost subscribers more.
The agency also will ask for more feedback on its proposal to require programmers to sell their channels to cable operators individually instead of in bundles.
The free Internet plan is the most controversial issue the agency will tackle in December.
Mr. Martin shelved plans to consider a wider variety of sticky issues pending at the agency, including a request by the Hollywood studios to hobble TVs and set-top boxes so studios can offer copy-protected theatrical releases sooner.
The proposal to allow a no-smut, free wireless Internet service is part of a proposal to auction off a chunk of airwaves. The winning bidder would be required to set aside a quarter of the airwaves for a free Internet service.
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The winner could establish a paid service that would have a fast wireless Internet connection. The free service could be slower and would be required to filter out pornography and other material not suitable for children.
Cops: Drunk Driver Ends Police Chase by Running Over Himself
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
SANTA FE, N.M. — A man is in a northern New Mexico jail, accused of driving drunk and leading police on a chase that finally ended with him running over himself.
Roy Travis Aguilar, 21, was treated for minor injuries at a Santa Fe hospital and booked into the Sandoval County detention center on charges of aggravated driving while intoxicated, fleeing a police officer, careless driving and two other outstanding traffic warrants.
A tip on a police hot line Sunday afternoon reported a possible drunken driver on a highway.
State Police Officer Grace Romero spotted Aguilar's pickup truck swerving across both lanes of the highway, driving slowly and then fast. He refused to stop.
After narrowly missing other vehicles, police said Aguilar drove through a ditch and a barbed-wire fence before stopping. He tried to put the truck into park, but it ended up in reverse.
Police said Aguilar fell from his open door and both of his legs were run over by the front driver's side tire.
Dr Pepper to Deliver On Its Free-Soda Promise
Friday, November 21, 2008
LOS ANGELES — Dr Pepper is making good on its promise of free soda now that the release of Guns N' Roses' "Chinese Democracy" is a reality.
The soft-drink maker said in March that it would give a free soda to everyone in America if the album dropped in 2008. "Chinese Democracy," infamously delayed since recording began in 1994, goes on sale Sunday.
"We never thought this day would come," Tony Jacobs, Dr Pepper's vice president of marketing, said in a statement. "But now that it's here, all we can say is: The Dr Pepper's on us."
Beginning Sunday at 12:01 a.m., coupons for a free 20-ounce soda will be available for 24 hours on Dr Pepper's Web site. They'll be honored until Feb. 28.
Dr Pepper is owned by Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc.
Man Faces Battery Charges for Hitting Girlfriend With Sandwich
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — A man faces a domestic battery charge after allegedly hitting his girlfriend with a sandwich as she was driving.
Police said the 19-year-old man became angry and hit the woman in the arm and face with a sandwich, knocking her glasses off, as she was driving along Interstate 95 on Friday.
The victim nearly lost control of the car because she couldn't see the road. Her boyfriend then allegedly ripped off the rear-view mirror and used it to shatter the windshield.
He was arrested, jailed and later freed on $7,500 bail.
Police haven't said what type of sandwich was involved.
That's sad in so many ways!
Widow Killed by Husband's Coffin on Way to Bury Him
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
A grieving widow in Brazil was killed by her husband's coffin while on the way to bury him, Reuters reported Tuesday.
The hearse in which 67-year-old Marciana Silva Barcelos was traveling was hit by another vehicle while en route to the cemetery, local media reported. The hearse was hit from behind, causing the coffin to slam into Barcelos' head.
Her husband, Jose Silveira Coimbra, 76, had died of a heart attack the night before while at a dance.
The accident happened about 70 miles south of Porto Alegre city in Brazil's southernmost state.
Man Jailed After 2 Ate From 1 Plate at Buffet
Thursday, October 30, 2008
A Texas man was jailed last week after refusing to pay for a second buffet meal after his girlfriend "ate a couple bites from his plate."
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday that Dan Linscomb, 40, of Texas City, Texas, was arrested Oct. 21 after refusing to pay for the second $7 meal at an Iron Skillet restaurant in northwest Atlanta.
According to a police report, Linscomb said "there were no signs in the restaurant that said someone could not have some food off your plate," the paper said.
Linscomb was jailed on a charge of theft of services, but was released two days later after he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, the paper said.
San Francisco Car Theft Suspect Charged With Driving Stolen SUV to Court
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
SAN ANSELMO, Calif. — Police have charged a man with stealing a Lexus SUV he drove to court the day a jury was to decide whether to convict him in a separate auto theft case.
Tony Van was arraigned Monday on charges of receiving a stolen vehicle and receiving stolen property after police saw him approach the stolen Lexus in front of the courthouse with its keys in hand.
Police were attracted to the SUV after bystanders noticed several Yorkshire terriers mulling around it.
Van was also charged with animal cruelty and leaving animals in an unattended vehicle.
Meanwhile, the 37-year-old San Francisco hairstylist was convicted in the other case. He was charged with possession of a $125,000 Porsche Carrera that had been stolen from a San Anselmo home.
Japanese Woman Arrested for Virtual-World 'Murder'
Thursday, October 23, 2008
TOKYO — A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband's digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday.
The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log onto popular interactive game "Maple Story" to carry out the virtual murder in mid-May, a police official in northern Sapporo said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.
"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.
The woman had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.
She has not yet been formally charged, but if convicted could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine up to $5,000.
Players in "Maple Story" raise and manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting against monsters and other obstacles.
Related
The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married, and killed the character.
The man complained to police when he discovered that his beloved online avatar was dead.
The woman was arrested Wednesday and was taken across the country, traveling 620 miles from her home in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sappporo, where the man lives, the official said.
The police official said he did not know if she was married in the real world.
In recent years, virtual lives have had consequences in the real world.
In August, a woman was charged in Delaware with plotting the real-life abduction of a boyfriend she met through "Second Life," another virtual interactive world.
In Tokyo, police arrested a 16-year-old boy on charges of swindling virtual currency worth $360,000 in an interactive role playing game by manipulating another player's portfolio using a stolen ID and password.
Virtual games are popular in Japan, and "Second Life" has drawn a fair number of Japanese participants. They rank third by nationality among users, after Americans and Brazilians.
Giant spider snapped eating bird in backyard near Cairns
By staff writers
October 23, 2008 12:54pm
Article from: NEWS.com.au
THIS amazing image of a mammoth spider devouring a bird was taken in the backyard of a property near Cairns.
The image, which is being cirulated via email worldwide, is real, according to wildlife experts, The Cairns Post reported.
The photo, believed to have been taken earlier this week, shows the spider clenching its legs around a lifeless bird trapped in a web at a property near Atherton, west of Cairns.
Joel Shakespeare, the head spider keeper at NSW's Australian Reptile Park, has told ninemsn the spider was a golden orb weaver.
"Normally they prey on large insects, it's unusual to see one eating a bird," he said.
Mr Shakepeare said he had seen golden orb weaver spiders as big as a human hand but the northern species in tropical areas were known to grow larger.
Mr Shakespeare told ninemsn the bird, a chestnut-breasted mannikin which appears frozen in an angel-like pose in the pictures, is likely to have flown into the web and got caught.
"It wouldn't eat the whole bird," he said.
Woman, 61, Fights Off Deer Attacking Pet Poodle
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
BUTTE, Mont. — A 61-year-old Silver Bow County woman got into a tussle with an aggressive deer after it attacked one of her poodles.
Carol Lince said it happened Monday at her home about 35 miles southeast of Butte.
Lince said she let her three poodles outside, and then heard one "screaming bloody murder."
She went outside and saw a doe attacking the smallest dog.
Lince kicked at the deer's hind legs to try to get the animal off her dog.
She said the doe rammed her with its head and pushed her into her fence. Lince started walloping the deer's head with her fists until it eventually jumped her fence and ran off.
Lince said she sustained bruises where the deer rammed its head into her abdomen.
The dog was pronounced OK by a veterinarian.
San Francisco Weighs Decriminalizing Prostitution
Oct. 17: Prostitute Patricia West, 22, poses for a photograph in front of City Hall in San Francisco.
SAN FRANCISCO — In this live-and-let-live town, where medical marijuana clubs do business next to grocery stores and an annual fair celebrates sadomasochism, prostitutes could soon walk the streets without fear of arrest.
San Francisco would become the first major U.S. city to decriminalize prostitution if voters next month approve Proposition K — a measure that forbids local authorities from investigating, arresting or prosecuting anyone for selling sex.
The ballot question technically would not legalize prostitution since state law still prohibits it, but the measure would eliminate the power of local law enforcement officials to go after prostitutes.
Proponents say the measure will free up $11 million the police spend each year arresting prostitutes and allow them to form collectives.
"It will allow workers to organize for our rights and for our safety," said Patricia West, 22, who said she has been selling sex for about a year by placing ads on the Internet. She moved to San Francisco in May from Texas to work on Proposition K.
Even in tolerant San Francisco — where the sadomasochism fair draws thousands of tourists and a pornographic video company is housed in a former armory — the measure faces an uphill battle, with much of the political establishment opposing it.
Some form of prostitution is already legal in two states. Brothels are allowed in rural counties in Nevada. And Rhode Island permits the sale of sex behind closed doors between consulting adults, but it prohibits street prostitution and brothels.
In 2004, almost two-thirds of voters in nearby Berkeley rejected decriminalization. But proponents of Proposition K say their proposal has a better shot in San Francisco, which they believe is more sexually liberal than the city across the bay.
After all, the world's oldest profession has long been established here. During the Gold Rush, the neighborhood closest to the piers was a seedy pleasure center of sex, gambling and drinking known as the Barbary Coast.
These days, on certain corners, prostitutes sell their bodies day and night, ducking into doorways and alleys when police pass by. One recent afternoon in the Mission District, six prostitutes were plying their trade on a single block.
Police made 1,583 prostitution arrests in 2007 and expect to make a similar number this year. But the district attorney's office says most defendants are fined, placed in diversion programs or both. Fewer than 5 percent get prosecuted for solicitation, which is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail.
Proposition K has been endorsed by the local Democratic Party. But the mayor, district attorney, police department and much of the business community oppose the idea, contending it would increase street prostitution, allow pimps the run of neighborhoods and hamper the fight against sex trafficking, which would remain illegal because it involves forcing people into the sex trade.
The San Francisco Chronicle editorialized against the measure, saying it could make the city a magnet for prostitution.
If the proposal passes, "we wouldn't be able to investigate prostitution, and it's going to be pretty difficult for us to locate these folks who are victims of trafficking otherwise," said Capt. Al Pardini, head of the police department's vice unit. "It's pretty rare that we get a call that says: 'I'm a victim of human trafficking' or 'I suspect human trafficking in my neighborhood.'"
The proposition would also prohibit police from accepting federal or state funds for sex trafficking investigations that involve racial profiling. Such investigations often arise from raids on brothels that advertise as Asian massage parlors.
"We feel that repressive policies don't help trafficking victims, and that human rights-based approaches, including decriminalization, are actually more effective," said Carol Leigh, co-founder of the Bay Area Sex Workers Advocacy Network and a longtime advocate for prostitutes' rights.
But San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said the ballot question mistakenly assumes prostitution is a victimless crime.
"The crime of prostitution does not exist by itself," Harris said. "Along with it come pimps, johns and other crimes that really impact the safety of neighborhoods."
If the measure passes, supporters say, prostitutes would not feel the need for pimps as protection. But opponents insist it would embolden pimps who trap drug addicts into prostitution by plying them with drugs.
"The proponents usually paint a fairly rosy picture of two consenting adults and a monetary exchange at the end," Pardini said. "They don't factor in the people that are being exploited and people that are being controlled, the ones manipulated both physically and chemically."
Iran busts 'spy pigeons' near nuclear site
Oct 20 05:11 AM US/Eastern
Security forces in Natanz have arrested two suspected "spy pigeons" near Iran's controversial uranium enrichment facility, the reformist Etemad Melli newspaper reported on Monday.
One of the pigeons was caught near a rose water production plant in the city of Kashan in Isfahan province, the report cited an unnamed informed source as saying, adding that some metal rings and invisible strings were attached to the bird.
"Early this month, a black pigeon was caught bearing a blue-coated metal ring, with invisible strings," the source was quoted as saying of the second pigeon.
The source gave no further description of the pigeons, neither their current status nor what their fate will be.
Natanz is home to Iran's heavily-bunkered underground uranium enrichment plant, which is not far from Kashan.
The activity is the focus of Iran's five-year standoff with the West, which that fears it aims to develop nuclear weapons.
Tehran vehemently denies the charge.
Last year, Iran issued a formal protest over the use of espionage by the United States to produce a key intelligence report on the country's controversial nuclear programme.
Suspect in Golf Cart Eludes Utah Sheriff Cruisers
Sunday, October 19, 2008
MORGAN, Utah — A Utah sheriff's office has found that it shouldn't underestimate the golf cart as a getaway car.
A suspect in a souped-up cart managed to elude officers who pursued him last month through an alfalfa field — but only for a while. He was arrested the next day at his grandmother's house.
Officers started pursuing the driver after he was spotted spinning out in a city park in Morgan. He took off into an alfalfa field and jumped irrigation ditches that the sheriff's cruisers couldn't cross.
Morgan County Sheriff's Sgt. Scott Peay suspects the cart was fitted with a car engine instead of the original electric motor.
Pony Falls Into Pool After Getting Drunk on Fermented Apples
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
A horse in England wandered into a swimming pool after getting drunk on fermented apples Tuesday, the Daily Mail reports.
The pony, nicknamed "Fat Boy," escaped his stable in Newquay, Cornwall, on Tuesday and became intoxicated after munching on fallen, rotten apples, the paper said. He then fell into Sarah Penhaligon's pool.
"I was terrified, but when I took a closer look, I realized it was a horse," she told the paper.
It took rescuers two hours to build hay steps to help the animal get out of the pool, the Daily Mail said.
Man Named Fox Wrecks Car After Picking Up 'Dead' Fox
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,433783,00.html
A man who decided to take home a fox he hit on the road wrecked his SUV after the animal he thought was dead revived.
Tommy Fox ran over the fox last Wednesday near Dover, Tenn., as he returned home from work, the Leaf Chronicle reports.
Thinking the animal was dead, he decided to take the animal home to cut off its tail as a souvenir, Dale Grandstaff of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency told the paper.
"The tails are real bushy and pretty and thick this time of year," Grandstaff said.
Instead, the driver flipped his GMC Jimmy trying to keep the fox — that had awoken in the backseat — from biting him, Grandstaff told the paper.
Fox suffered minor injuries and bruises, the Leaf Chronicle reports. The fox died, though it was unclear if it was from initial injuries or the subsequent wreck of the vehicle.
Aspiring Chef Dies After Eating Red-Hot Chili Sauce as a Dare
Monday, September 29, 2008
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,429473,00.html
An aspiring chef died after eating a super-hot chilli sauce as part of an endurance competition with a friend.
Andrew Lee, 33, challenged his girlfriend’s brother to a contest to see who could eat the spiciest sauce that he could create.
The fork-lift truck driver, who wanted to cook for a living, prepared a tomato sauce made with red chillies grown on his father’s allotment. After eating it, however, he suffered intense discomfort and itching. The following morning he was found dead, possibly after suffering a heart attack.
Toxicology tests are being conducted to try to establish if he suffered a reaction to the food.
An inquest was told that Lee, from Edlington, England, was in perfect health and had just passed a medical examination at work. He was a keen cook and would often prepare meals for his parents. It is believed that Mr Lee had never prepared a dish as hot as the one he made the night before his death.
Lee’s sister, Claire Chadbourne, 29, said that he took a jar of the sauce to the home of his girlfriend, Samantha Bailey, and challenged her brother Michael, 29, to see who could eat it. “Andrew just ate the chillies with a plate of Dolmio sauce,” she added. “It was not a proper meal because he had already eaten lamb chops and potato mash after work.
“He apparently got into bed at 2.30am and started scratching all over. His girlfriend scratched his back until he fell asleep. She woke up and he had gone. It is incredible. Who would have thought he could have died from eating chilli sauce? We don’t know of anything else that could have caused his death. The postmortem showed no heart problems.
“He loved cooking for his friends. He always said he wanted to be a chef but didn’t want to start at the bottom.”
An inquest was opened and adjourned in Doncaster last week.
This article says it ALL!
Bush Proposed Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac Supervision In 2003. A September 11, 2003 New York Times article shows that President Bush proposed “the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.” His proposal: An agency within the Treasury Department to supervise mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Fearing that mortgages would no longer be available to people who were unable to pay them back, Democrats eventually killed the proposal. The current meltdown in the mortgage industry is a direct result of giving mortgages to people who could not pay them back, a practice protected by Congressional Democrats.
Both entities were recently taken over by the government, a move that puts trillions of taxpayer dollars at risk.
This article clearly states who was at fault and why.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E3D6123BF932A2575AC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print
SEC Announces New Short-Selling Rules
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/claman-sec-announce-new-short-selling-rules/
The Securities & Exchange Commission announced new trading rules Wednesday to curb the use of what's known as "naked" short selling.
This was first reported by FOX Business's Liz Claman.
Naked short selling is a Wall Street maneuver where a trader “shorts” a stock, or bets that a stock will go down in price, without borrowing the shares immediately first. Traditional short selling requires borrowing the shares before selling them. Naked shorts can usually push a stock's price lower than a traditional short can.
According to the rules instituted by the SEC, short sellers now must deliver the securities to the borrower by the end of business within three business days or face penalties that might included banning from further short sales of that same security.
The SEC issued a temporary ban on naked short selling on specific stocks that included Fannie Mae (FNM: 0.37, -0.11, -22.91%) and Freddie Mac(FRE: 0.25, -0.01, -3.82%) along with 17 investment banks. These rules now apply to all stocks and industries as of 12:01 a.m. ET on Thursday.
"These several actions today make it crystal clear that the SEC has zero tolerance for abusive naked short selling," said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox in a statement.
Naked short selling became much more common after the SEC eliminated a regulation known as the “uptick” rule on July 6 of last year.
Many companies, notably companies in the financial industry, have complained that without the “uptick” rule, their companies’ stocks can fall dramatically--commonly called a “bear run.”
Talk about animal abuse: GRAPHIC
http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/iowa_pigfarm_abuse
Trained Dog Calls 911, Saves Owner
By AMANDA LEE MYERS, AP
PHOENIX (Sept. 4) - "Man's best friend" doesn't go far enough for Buddy — a German shepherd who remembered his training and saved his owner's life by calling 911 when the man had a seizure.
Animals in the NewsScottsdale Police Department / AP24 photos Buddy the German shepherd proved Sept. 10 that he truly was "man's best friend." The pooch called 911 in order to help owner Joe Stalnaker, an Arizona man who was having a seizure. Police arrived at Stalnaker's home and he was taken to the hospital.
And it's not the first time Buddy has been there for owner Joe Stalnaker, a police officer said Sunday.
On a recording of the 911 call Wednesday, Buddy is heard whimpering and barking after the dispatcher answers and repeatedly asks if the caller needs help.
"Hello, this is 911. Hello ... Can you hear me? Is there somebody there you can give the phone to," says the dispatcher, Chris Scott.
Police were sent to Stalnaker's home, and after about three minutes Buddy is heard barking loudly when the officers arrived.
Scottsdale police Sgt. Mark Clark said Stalnaker spent two days in a hospital and recovered from the seizure.
"It's pretty incredible," Clark said. "Even the veteran dispatchers — they haven't heard of anything like this."
Clark said police are dispatched whenever 911 is called, but that Stalnaker's address was flagged in Scottsdale's system with a notification that a trained assistance dog could call 911 when the owner was incapacitated.
Clark said Stalnaker adopted Buddy at the age of 8 weeks from Michigan-based Paws with a Cause, which trains assistance dogs, and trained him to get the phone if he began to have seizure symptoms. Buddy, now 18 months old, is able press programmed buttons until a 911 operator is on the line, Clark said.
Clark said Buddy has made two other 911 calls when Stalnaker was having seizures.
He said Stalnaker's seizures are the result of a head injury he suffered about 10 years ago during a military training exercise.
Stalnaker was not listed in the phone book, and he did not immediately respond to a request through police for an interview.
http://news.aol.com/article/trained-dog-calls-911-saves-owner/173238
A fine Sunday indeed for Tony Romo
Tony Romo had been somewhat of an NFL opening-week quarterbacking exception, enjoying a great Sunday in Cleveland, except, of course, for that bloody chin thing.
The weekend had also gone very well for Bill and Sharon White of Irving, who were returning late in the evening after an out-of-town trip.
The national news was about a day of QB disasters around the league, even at the elite level. Tom Brady, down and out for the season. Peyton Manning, looking feeble and lost. Carson Palmer, his once stellar reputation taking another plunge.
And for pure weirdness, there's Vince Young, a young man in obvious need of either a good shrink or a good butt-kicking.
Meanwhile, even as devout football fans, the Whites had been on the road and out of touch with the NFL events. They particularly didn't want to know the Dallas Cowboys' outcome. The TiVo at home was waiting. Bill planned to watch the Cleveland game immediately, with suspense attached.
But a couple of miles from the house, while driving on MacArthur Boulevard, the Whites had their own mini-disaster. A tire blew on the Mercury. Bill, luckily, managed to nurse his wounded ride off the street and into the lighted parking lot of a strip mall.
For troubling news on a Sunday, it didn't rank up there with taking a direct hit to the chin from the helmet of linebacker Willie McGinest, but Bill became a bit woozy himself when he discovered his jack was malfunctioning. Never a good thing at midnight.
Plan B kicked in, however. One of those cigarette-lighter-plug-in air compressors was available. Except it was leaking more air than it was pumping.
"I don't know, a hundred cars, probably more, had to go by. Nobody was stopping," said Bill. "That's just kind of the way it is in today's world."
And then ...
"Bill was fooling with that tire, and I was standing beside the car watching him," Sharon said. "The next thing I know, a nice-looking young man, very well-dressed, but with something strange on his chin, he walked up, smiled, and said, 'Hey, you need some help?' "
Sharon hadn't even noticed a car pull up.
So now it's Bill and the well-dressed young man both bent over a flat tire at midnight on a Sunday, trying to figure out why a faulty air compressor plugged into the cigarette lighter was leaking more than pumping.
"I didn't get a good look at him at that point," Bill said. "We were both trying to get the tire pumped up."
Sharon, however, took a second look. "You are Tony Romo," she said. No reply, just a smile, and then it was back to work on the compressor.
Finally, they got the tire aired up. Enough, anyway, to make a slow drive home.
"I didn't want to bother him," Sharon said, "but I asked again, 'You're Tony Romo, right?' " I knew it was him by then. But he smiled and said, 'Yes, ma'am.' "
Sharon: "I did something no 50-year-old woman should be doing, but I screamed real loud, and then jumped up and hugged him."
Bill's immediate response was "Don't tell me how you guys did. I'm going home to watch it."
By the next day, after seeing what the "something strange on his chin" was about, that made the Whites appreciate Romo's gesture even more.
"He gets almost knocked cold in that game, and I read it took 13 stitches to close the cut, and then there's a long flight home [the Cowboys charter arrived at around 11 p.m.] and Tony's got to be dog tired, but he still was a good enough person to stop and help us," Bill said.
"Look, we're driving a 10-year old car that is sitting in a parking lot with a flat tire in the dead of night. He could tell by that we're nothing special. But here's a young man making millions of dollars, and he's got all this fame and glory, and he does this?"
The Whites couldn't thank Romo enough. "But if I ever had the opportunity, I'd also like to thank two other people. His mom and dad," Bill said. "They obviously raised him right. We've got kids about his age. We know how difficult it can sometimes be in this day and age."
(An e-mail from Sharon alerted me to Tony's good deed. No Cowboys official knew about it even by Wednesday.)
Not that the Whites weren't already Romo fans, but ...
"After all this, what I realized is the athletic thing is Tony's gift, yet it goes beyond that," Bill said. "This was a good person we met. A good person with small-town values despite all the big-city fame and fortune."
Shrug off a blow to the chin. Win a game. Help strangers fix a flat. It was a fine Sunday for the kid.
http://www.star-telegram.com/sports/story/899904.html
Meet Evans the Atom, who will end the world on Wednesday
By Jonathan Petre
Last updated at 2:03 AM on 07th September 2008
The man behind the world’s biggest scientific experiment, which critics claim could cause the end of the world, is a Welsh miner’s son who has admitted blowing things up as a child.
Dr Lyn Evans, who has been dubbed Evans the Atom, will this week switch on a giant particle accelerator designed to unlock the secrets of the Big Bang.
But the 63-year-old physicist revealed yesterday that his passion for science was fuelled by the relatively small bangs he had created with his chemistry set at his council house in Aberdare in the Welsh valleys.
‘I was more interested in chemistry than physics when I was young,’ he said.
‘I had a number of chemistry sets. Like everybody, I used to make explosives. I even blew the fuses of the whole house a few times.’
His interest in physics grew at his boys-only grammar school, where lessons had an added attraction because they were attended by girls bussed in from a nearby school that lacked a physics teacher.
On Wednesday, Dr Evans will fire up the Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile-long doughnut-shaped tunnel that will smash sub-atomic particles together at nearly the speed of light.
Built by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), the collider lies beneath the French-Swiss border, near the institution’s headquarters in Geneva, at depths ranging from 170ft to 600ft.
The aim of the £4.4billion experiment is to recreate the conditions that existed a fraction of a second after the Big Bang – the birth of the universe – and provide vital clues to the building blocks of life.
It will track the spray of particles thrown out by collisions in a search for the elusive Higgs Boson, a theoretical entity that supposedly lends weight, or mass, to the elementary particles. So important is this mysterious substance that it has been called the ‘God Particle’.
Scientists also hope to shed some light on the invisible material that exists between particles – dubbed ‘dark matter’ as no one knows what it really is – which makes up most of the universe.
But a handful of scientists believe that the experiment could create a shower of unstable black holes that could ‘eat’ the planet from within, and they are launching last-ditch efforts to halt it in the courts.
One of them, Professor Otto Rossler, a retired German chemist, said he feared the experiment may create a devastating quasar – a mass of energy fuelled by black holes – inside the Earth.
‘Nothing will happen for at least four years,’ he said. ‘Then someone will spot a light ray coming out of the Indian Ocean during the night and no one will be able to explain it.
‘A few weeks later, we will see a similar beam of particles coming out of the soil on the other side of the planet. Then we will know there is a little quasar inside the planet.’
Prof Rossler said that as the spinning-top-like quasar devoured the world from within, the two jets emanating from it would grow and catastrophes such as earthquakes and tsunamis would occur at the points they emerged from the Earth.
‘The weather will change completely, wiping out life, and very soon the whole planet will be eaten in a magnificent scenario – if you could watch it from the moon. A Biblical Armageddon. Even cloud and fire will form, as it says in the Bible.’
He said that attempts were still being made in the European Court of Human Rights to halt the experiment on the grounds that it violated the right to life. The court has, however, already rejected calls for a temporary delay in the project, and it is unlikely to come to a speedy decision about whether the CERN experiment should be halted for good.
Meanwhile Dr Walter Wagner, an American scientist who has been warning about the dangers of particle accelerators for 20 years, is awaiting a ruling on a lawsuit he filed a fortnight ago in his home state of Hawaii.
He fears the experiments might unwittingly create something he calls a ‘strangelet’ that could result in a fusion reaction that might ultimately turn the Earth into a supernova, or an exploding star.
But Dr Evans, the leader of the project, who has devoted 14 years of his life to building the vast particle accelerator, is dismissive of the doom-mongers.
In fact, he is so relaxed about the project, he even wears shorts to work.
He said that Prof Rossler was a ‘crazy’ retired professor who had invented his own theory of relativity.
‘We have shown him where his elementary errors are, but of course people like that just will not listen,’ said Dr Evans.
Meanwhile, Dr Wagner’s fears were ‘totally and completely’ unfounded. ‘There are thousands of scientists around the world who have been preparing this machine and they know what they are talking about, unlike these guys,’ he added.
Dr Evans says his real nightmare is not that he will destroy the world but that, with the cameras rolling, the machine will break down. ‘This is not the first accelerator I have commissioned, but the first under the glare of the whole world,’ he said.
‘My main worry is that we’ve got a huge amount of equipment and it is new. If something trips off, we are down for hours and we have all these Press people sitting around.
‘We are not used to that. We are used to setting things up quietly and announcing it afterwards.’
Experiment produces lab rap hit
The Large Hadron Collider may be causing fears for the future of the world, but it has become the bizarre setting for an unlikely music hit.
Written and performed by 23-year-old Kate McAlpine, who works in the Press office at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland, the video features Kate and two background dancers bopping about in lab coats.
A long way from rap’s usual subjects of violence and crime, the rap focuses on the science of high-energy particle physics. One section goes: ‘Two beams of protons/ swing ’round./ Through the ring they ride/’til in the hearts of the detectors/ they’re made to collide!/ And all that energy packed/ in that tiny room/ becomes mass,/ particles created from the vacuum.’
Kate, who wrote her first physics rap while studying at Michigan State University, says: ‘Rap and physics are culturally miles apart and I find it amusing to throw them together.’
A CERN spokesman said: ‘We love the rap and the science is spot on.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1053091/Meet-Evans-Atom-end-world-Wednesday.html
Motorcyclist Dies in 239 MPH Crash on Bonneville Salt Flats
Friday, September 05, 2008
WENDOVER, Utah — A 47-year-old record-setting motorcycle racer has died after losing control and crashing while traveling at 239 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.
Investigators were not sure what caused Cliff Gullett, of Bozeman, Mont., to lose control of the motorcycle Wednesday during a time trial.
The American Motorcyclist Association said on its Web site that Gullett was competing in the 500cc Streamliner class at the Salt Flats, where drivers go for speed records every summer on the open space just east of the Nevada state line.
Gullett owned Team Bozeman Motorsports, a motorcycle and snowmobile dealership. He had set a handful of world land-speed records and wanted to eventually become the first to reach 400 mph on a two-wheeled Streamliner, according to an interview last week with The Billings Gazette.
Curt Lance, Team Bozeman's general manager, said "Cliff always told me that if anything happened on the Salt, he wanted it to be quick and not lingering. He died doing the thing he loved to do most — racing at Bonneville.
Son Spots Dad on TV, 5 Years After Family ‘Cremated’ Him
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Five years after a British man and his family cremated and held a wake for his dad, John Renehan spotted his father on television, alive.
Renehan’s father, John Delaney, disappeared in 2000, the Daily Mail reported. When police found a decomposed body in April 2003, wearing similar clothes and with similar wounds to Delaney, they declared it was him.
A coroner confirmed the police findings and Renehan paid for a cremation and wake, the Mail reported. He is now demanding an apology from police for the trauma he suffered believing his dad was dead.
Turns out 71-year-old Delaney had been in a care facility since 2000, after suffering a head injury and memory loss, the Mail reported. Unable to give any clues as to his identity, Delaney was given the name David Harrison and placed in a home.
In April Delaney was featured on a TV show about missing persons.
By coincidence, Renehan was watching and recognized his dad. DNA tests confirmed the link and the pair had an emotional reunion two weeks ago, the Mail reported.
Man Swears to God He Didn't Owe Money, Struck by Lightning a Moment Later
China: A man named Xu is recovering in hospital after he was struck by lightning only a minute after swearing to God that he did not owe money to his neighbour. It is thought that he will recover completely.
Xu's neighbour, Huang, claims that he lent him 500 yuan, or about £40, to buy a wedding present three years ago. Huang went to Xu's house and demanded that the debt be repaid but Xu denied that the debt existed.
"I told him that if he dared to swear to God that he didn't owe me the money, then I would waive his debt," Huang said. Xu took him up on the offer and was promptly struck by lighting.
http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=73073
Jason’s Words To Live By: “Persistence always beats Resistance”
life could be worse, this poor kid died because his parents couldn't afford medical treatment:
Two-headed baby boy Kiron dies at home
From correspondents in Dhaka, Bangladesh
August 28, 2008 05:31pm
Article from: Agence France-Presse
A BABY boy born with two heads has died after his parents took him home because they could not afford his medical care.
The Bangladeshi boy, named Kiron, was born on Monday by caesarean section and died at home late yesterday after developing a fever and breathing difficulties, paediatrician KS Alam said.
Kiron had attracted such attention that 150,000 people gathered at the clinic where he was cared for after his birth in Keshobpur, 135km from the capital Dhaka.
Police were called in to control the crowds and Kiron was moved to a hospital in nearby Jessore city.
But his parents decided, against doctors' advice, to take him home, Dr Alam said.
"We wanted to refer him to a hospital in Dhaka but the family was so poor that they could not afford to take him there, so they took him home where he died," Dr Alam said.
"It was a very unusual case. The boy had one body but two complete heads."
He weighed 5.5kg at birth.
Report: Body Was Decomposing in Trunk of Car Driven by Missing Tot's Mom
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Results taken from air samples reveal that a body was decomposing in the trunk of a car driven by the mother of missing Florida toddler Caylee Anthony, a local TV station reported.
Detectives with cadaver dogs said they detected the smell of human decomposition coming from the trunk of the Pontiac Casey Anthony was driving when her little girl disappeared more than two months ago.
The University of Tennessee "Body Farm" conducted the tests on the car's air samples Aug. 10, and on Wednesday their conclusion was released: a human corpse had been decomposing there, according to WESH-2 TV.
Initially, Anthony's mother Cindy Anthony made a frantic 911 call to report that her daughter's car smelled like a dead body. She later retracted that story and said she believed the scent was that of rotting pizza.
Anthony, 22, remains a person of interest in her tiny daughter's disappearance on or around June 16. She has pleaded not guilty to charges of child neglect and lying to investigators and is out on house arrest on $500,000 bond. She was released Aug. 21 after a month-long stint in the Orange County Jail.
Caylee was two years old when she vanished; her third birthday was Aug. 9.
The test results are reportedly the first scientific evidence that there was a corpse in Anthony's vehicle.
Also Wednesday, news emerged that a policeman was fired for allegedly lying about a rendezvous he had with Anthony.
Anthony Rusciano, a deputy with the Orange County Sheriff's Office, was terminated on the grounds that he wasn't truthful about meeting Anthony at a party, detectives wrote in a memo obtained by MyFOXOrlando.com.
"When investigators contacted Deputy Rusciano by telephone, Deputy Rusciano admitted that he had met the individual for a very brief moment at a party they both attended," wrote Chief Frank Fabrizio in an interoffice memo on Aug. 20.
Some media outlets reported that the officer and Anthony dated — but Rusciano said his involvement with the young mother ended after that one night out.
"Deputy Rusciano denied ever having any further contact with that person," Fabrizio wrote.
Orange County authorities said Rusciano gave answers that were inaccurate and incomplete when questioned about communication he'd had with Anthony that came to light after a search of her computer, MyFOXOrlando.com reported.
When confronted, he confessed that he didn't tell detectives the truth and he was fired Aug. 22. He joined the force in February.
"Lying to investigators during the course of any investigation is unacceptable and reason for termination," wrote Fabrizio.
On Tuesday, 400 pages of case documents released by police revealed that Anthony wanted to give Caylee up for adoption before she was born, but her mother Cindy Anthony convinced her not to.
Among other new details disclosed in the documents:
• Anthony wrote a poem on July 7, eight days before she reported her daughter missing: "What is given, Can be taken away. Everyone lies. Everyone dies."
• Cindy Anthony described her daughter Casey as a sociopath.
• An unclothed doll belonging to the tot and a washed dinnerware knife were among the items found in Anthony's Pontiac Sunfire, which had scratches on its trunk.
• A man identified as an ex-fiancé of Anthony's told detectives that she deleted hundreds of photographs of herself with Caylee from her Web pages on various social networking sites.
French Police Shocked to Pull Over Blind Journalist Driving Drunk
Friday, August 22, 2008
A blind journalist received a DUI and a month’s suspended jail sentence after he got drunk and decided he really wanted to experience being behind the wheel of a car, AFP reported Friday.
The unidentified Frenchman was also fined $750 Friday for driving drunk without a license.
Police spotted a car veering around a French country road early in the morning on July 25. They found the owner of the car, who was also drunk, riding in the passenger seat. He received the same sentence as the driver, and had his license suspended for five months by the court in the northeastern town of Nancy, AFP reported.
The 29-year-old driver of the car shocked police when he told them he was blind, and even more so when he and his 52-year-old passenger blew breathalyzer levels twice the legal limit.
"I really wanted to do it (drive the car)," AFP reports the blind man told the court. "I expressed this wish. He (the owner of the car) agreed."
The owner said he saw "a lot of happiness emanating from him" as he drove, adding that he had "one hand on the handbrake and one hand on the steering wheel" as the blind journalist drove.
"I was very concentrated on the road," he said.
The judge said his level of intoxication did not make him a “very reliable monitor.”
Patient: Doctor Didn't Use Anesthesia During Medical Procedure
Thursday, August 21, 2008
A doctor from Sydney, Australia, who performed surgery without anesthesia and abused and threatened patients, was struck off the medical practitioners list Monday.
The Medical Tribunal of New South Wales found Dr. David Charles Lindsay, 42, who ran Sydney Skin Care Clinic over the past 10 years, unfit to practice medicine.
One female patient testified Lindsay failed to apply a topical anesthetic after he removed a skin lesion from her thigh.
“He sprayed something briefly on the surface of my leg and I experienced what felt like an incision, deep into the flesh,” said the patient, whose name is not being released. “I let out a cry of pain. He looked at me for a moment, and without saying a word, he went on with his work.”
The Tribunal said Lindsay lacked the sensitivity a doctor should have. "Again he cut into my leg. The pain was so excruciating that I asked, 'Have you got ether or something?' Again he said nothing. I could feel the implement being dragged through my flesh," the patient said.
When the patient complained about Lindsay, he made a note on her medical records stating: "Severe personality disorder - wants to destroy doctor's career. Nice."
In his evidence, he said the patient's complaint against him "demonstrated hatred".
Theft suspect crushed in trash compactor
DELTA TOWNSHIP, Michigan (AP) -- Michigan authorities say a shoplifting suspect died after being crushed in a trash compactor where she was hiding.
The Eaton County sheriff's department said two women fled a Lansing-area TJ Maxx discount store after spraying a security guard with Mace.
A deputy found one of the women behind a trash compactor.
Deputies say the woman wouldn't say where the other woman was hiding.
Shortly afterward, authorities got a call about a woman trapped in the trash compactor.
Tyree Monique Tate of Delta Township was pulled from the machine by rescuers and taken to a hospital, where the 26-year-old later died.
Indian Police Say Boy Pushed 10-Year-Old Girl From Bridge, Killing Her for iPod
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
CALCUTTA, India — A 14-year-old school boy in eastern India has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a younger student who refused to give him her iPod, police said Tuesday.
The boy allegedly pushed the 10-year-old girl off a 30-foot bridge then climbed down and strangled her unconscious body on Monday, said Swapan Banerjee, the officer in charge of the local police station in Seuri, a town in West Bengal state.
"It was a murder with intention. He murdered her in anger because she refused to part with the gadget," Banerjee said.
A recent boom in India's economy has brought benefits to millions of middle-class Indians, but has simultaneously exposed simmering discontents as socio-economic inequalities soar and aspirations rise.
"We were always worried about students bringing such gadgets to the school," said Tanmay Ghosh, the headmaster of the school that both children attended. "We have issued several notices and given enough warnings asking them not to bring iPods and cell phones to class."
The boy, who tried to hide the body behind a bush, was arrested, Banerjee said. If convicted of murder, the boy could be sent to a juvenile detention center for up to 10 years.
There was no immediate comment from the boy's family, the police said.
German Cops Seize Teens' Motorized Office Chair
Monday, August 18, 2008
BERLIN — German police have confiscated what may be the world's fastest office chair.
Police say officers happened on the contraption — the work of two inventive 17-year-olds — in the western town of Gross-Zimmern on Saturday.
The pair had added a lawnmower engine, bicycle brakes and a metal frame to the revolving chair — making into a go-kart-like vehicle.
Police said in a statement Monday the inventors insisted they had only tested it over a few meters, but witnesses reported seeing it on several streets.
They are being investigated over a variety of possible offenses, including defying insurance regulations, driving without a license and violating registration requirements.
Police did not say what top speed the chair could reach.
One Can of Red Bull May Increase Risk of Heart Damage, Study Says
Friday, August 15, 2008 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,404261,00.html
Red Bull might “give you wings” but new research suggests just one can of the popular energy drink may increase the risk of heart damage.
A study of university students between the ages of 20 and 24 years old found that drinking one sugar free can of the caffeinated energy drink increased the "stickiness" of the blood and raised the risk of blood clots forming.
The Australian students, who were targeted in the study, showed a cardiovascular profile similar to that of someone with heart disease after drinking one can.
Red Bull emphatically denied that the drink, which is distributed to 143 countries worldwide, was dangerous.
In a statement, it said it had been proved safe by "numerous scientific studies,” and it had never been banned from anywhere it had been introduced.
However, Dr. Scott Willoughby, of the Cardiovascular Research Center at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and Adelaide University, said he was “alarmed” at the results of his survey.
“After one can it seemed to turn the young individual into one with more of the type of profile you would expect to see with someone with cardiovascular disease," he said.
“People who already have existing cardiovascular disease may want to talk to their physician before they drink Red Bull in future."
The results shocked the 30 students tested, some of whom drank up to eight cans per night to help them stay awake to study, and many now refuse to consume the energy drink again.
DUDE! That was just nasty!!!
u gotta c this video, talk about a dirty house
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/14/captive.family/index.html#cnnSTCVideo
Crime-ridden Arkansas town expands 24-hour curfew
By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press Writer
Wed Aug 13, 6:41 AM ET
HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. - Officers armed with military rifles have been stopping and questioning passers-by in a neighborhood plagued by violence that's been under a 24-hour curfew for a week.
On Tuesday, the Helena-West Helena City Council voted 9-0 to allow police to expand that program into any area of the city, despite a warning from a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas that the police stops were unconstitutional.
Police Chief Fred Fielder said the patrols have netted 32 arrests since they began last week in a 10-block neighborhood in this small town on the banks of the Mississippi River long troubled by poverty. The council said those living in the city want the random shootings and drug-fueled violence to stop, no matter what the cost.
"Now if somebody wants to sue us, they have an option to sue, but I'm fairly certain that a judge will see it the way the way the citizens see it here," Mayor James Valley said. "The citizens deserve peace, that some infringement on constitutional rights is OK and we have not violated anything as far as the Constitution."
The area under curfew, in what used to be a West Helena neighborhood, sits among abandoned homes and occupied residences in disrepair.
White signs on large blue barrels warn those passing by that the area remains under curfew by order of Mayor James Valley. The order was scheduled to end at 3 p.m. Tuesday, but Valley said the city council's vote would allow police to have the same powers across Helena-West Helena.
Among the curfew operation's arrests, 10 came from felony charges, including the arrest of two people carrying both drugs and weapons, Fielder said. The police chief said the officers in the field carry military-style M-16 or M-4 rifles, some equipped with laser sights. Other officers carry short-barrel shotguns. Many dealing crack cocaine and marijuana in the city carry pistols and AK-47 assault rifles, he said.
"We've had people call us, expressing concern for their children," Fielder said. "They had to sleep on the floor, because of stray bullets."
Fielder said officers had not arrested anyone for violating the curfew, only questioned people about why they were outside. Those without good answers or acting nervously get additional attention, Fielder said.
However, such stops likely violate residents' constitutional rights to freely assemble and protections against unreasonable police searches, said Holly Dickson, a lawyer for the ACLU of Arkansas who addressed the council at its packed Tuesday meeting. Because of that, Dickson said any convictions coming from the arrests likely would be overturned.
"The residents of these high-crime areas are already victims," she said. "They're victims of what are happening in the neighborhoods, they're victims of fear. But for them to be subject to unlawful stops and questioning ... that is not going to ultimately going to help this situation."
The council rejected Dickson's claims, at one point questioning the Little Rock-based attorney if she'd live in a neighborhood they described as under siege by wild gunfire and gangs.
"As far as I'm concerned, at 3 o'clock in the morning, nobody has any business being on the street, except the law," Councilman Eugene "Red" Johnson said. "Anyone out at 3 o'clock shouldn't be out on the street, unless you're going to the hospital."
The curfew is the second under the mayor's watch since the rival cities of Helena and West Helena merged in 2006. That year, Valley set a nightly citywide curfew after a rash of burglaries and other thefts.
Police in Hartford, Conn., began enforcing a nightly curfew for youths after recent violence, including a weekend shooting that killed a man and wounded six young people.
Helena-West Helena, with 15,000 residents at the edge of Arkansas' eastern rice fields and farmland, is in one of the nation's poorest regions, trailing even parts of Appalachia in its standard of living.
In the curfew area, those inside the homes in the watch area peered out of door cracks Tuesday as police cruisers passed. They closed the doors afterward.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080813/ap_on_re_us/arkansas_town_curfew
Jason’s Words To Live By: “Persistence always beats Resistance”
English is the official language of Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cameroon (along with French), Canada, of course (along with French), the Cook Islands, Dominica, Fiji (along with Fijian), Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Hong Kong (along with Chinese), India (along with several native tongues, Ireland (along with Gaelic), Kenya (along with a native tongue), Kiribati (along with I-Kiribati), Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar (along with French and a local tongue, Malta (along with Maltese), Mauritius, Micronesia, Namibia, New Zealand (along with two native languages), Nigeria, Pakistan (along with Urdu), Philippines (along with Filipino), Puerto Rico (along with Spanish), Rwanda (along with French and a local language), Saint Lucia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore (along with Tamil, Malay and Mandarin), Solomon Islands, Swaziland (along with a local language), Tanzania (along with Swahili and another local language), Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, Zambia and even Zimbabwe.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=71995
Urine bottles: Another result of high fuel prices?
ONTARIO, Ore. -Police say there's been an alarming rise in urine-filled plastic containers found along a three-mile stretch of Interstate 84 in eastern Oregon.
A litter crew for the Oregon Department of Transportation picked up an estimated 200-300 urine filled plastic bottles, along the highway, about half of which were found in a short stretch dubbed "Three Mile Hill."
Police say that drivers _ particularly commercial trucks _ are typically driving very slowly through the area.
Police think the price of fuel may be causing drivers to travel slower than normal to save fuel while at the same time passing rest areas or truck stops.
Under Oregon law, improperly disposing of human waste is a misdemeanor which can carry a fine of up to $250.
http://news.aol.com/article/urine-bottles-another-result-of-high/124612
Two arrested after using barbecue pit as a weapon
ALEXANDRIA, La. -A man and a woman found a new use for a barbecue pit _ one that landed them in jail. An argument over whether a third guest should stay in the house got so heated that the woman picked up the barbecue pit and hit the man over the head with it, police said.
The man picked up the barbecue pit and returned the favor and hit the woman in the head with it, police reported. The woman then told police that she picked up the barbecue pit and hit the back window of the man's car with it.
Police admit that the whole situation was confusing, but after medics treated the man and the woman, they were handcuffed, read their rights and taken to jail.
The man was booked on a charge of aggravated battery and the woman was booked with aggravated battery and simple criminal damage to property valued less than $500.
http://news.aol.com/article/two-arrested-after-using-barbecue-pit-as/124009
Cops follow Cheetos trail to nail burglar suspects
ST. PAUL -St. Paul police followed a trail of Cheetos in order to nab three teenagers suspected of burglarizing a vending machine. Officers were called to the Arlington Recreation Center on July 29, where they found a vending machine's glass had been broken with a chair.
Most of the candy and chips were missing, according to a criminal complaint in Ramsey County District Court.
The officers followed the orange, dusty trail from the rec center, around the side of the building and to a nearby home. Inside, they found numerous vending-sized bags of Cheetos and other snacks.
Police arrested three males aged 17, 18 and 19 who soon arrived at the home by car. The two adults are charged with third-degree burglary, while the 17-year-old is charged with criminal damage to property.
All three denied being involved, the complaint says.
http://news.aol.com/article/cops-follow-cheetos-trail-to-nail/124565
All U.S. adults could be overweight in 40 years
Wed Aug 6, 2008 6:57pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - If the trends of the past three decades continue, it's possible that every American adult could be overweight 40 years from now, a government-funded study projects.
The figure might sound alarming, or impossible, but researchers say that even if the actual rate never reaches the 100-percent mark, any upward movement is worrying; two-thirds of the population is already overweight.
"Genetically and physiologically, it should be impossible" for all U.S. adults to become overweight, said Dr. Lan Liang of the federal government's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, one of the researchers on the study.
However, she told Reuters Health, the data suggest that if the trends of the past 30 years persist, "that is the direction we're going."
Already, she and her colleagues point out, some groups of U.S. adults have extremely high rates of overweight and obesity; among African- American women, for instance, 78 percent are currently overweight or obese.
The new projections, published in the journal Obesity, are based on government survey data collected between the 1970s and 2004.
If the trends of those years continue, the researchers estimate that 86 percent of American adults will be overweight by 2030, with an obesity rate of 51 percent. By 2048, all U.S. adults could be at least mildly overweight.
Weight problems will be most acute among African-Americans and Mexican- Americans, the study projects. All black women could be overweight by 2034, according to the researchers, as could more than 90 percent of Mexican-American men.
All of this rests on the "big assumption" that the trends of recent decades will march on unabated, Liang acknowledged.
"This is really intended as a wake-up call to show what could happen if nothing changes," she said.
Waistlines aren't the only thing poised to balloon in the future, according to Liang and her colleagues. They estimate that the healthcare costs directly related to excess pounds will double each decade, reaching $957 billion in 2030 -- accounting for one of every six healthcare dollars spent in the
U.S.
Those financial projections are based on Census data and published estimates of the current healthcare costs attributed to excess weight -- and they are probably a "huge underestimate" of what the actual costs will be, Liang said.
The findings highlight a need for widespread efforts to improve Americans' lifestyles and keep their weight in check, according to the researchers. Simply telling people to eat less and exercise more is not enough, Liang noted.
Broader social changes are needed as well, she said -- such as making communities more pedestrian-friendly so that people can walk regularly, or getting the food industry to offer healthier, calorie-conscious choices.
"It really needs to be more than an individual effort," Liang said. "It needs to be a societal effort."
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSCOL66909620080806?feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNews&rpc=22&sp=true&pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
'Dead' Man Awakens Before Autopsy, Shocks Doctors by Asking for Glass of Water
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
An Indian man who was knocked unconscious during a stampede of thousands of religious pilgrims on a steep Himalayan mountain path woke up as doctors were preparing to perform his autopsy, the Times of India reported.
Mange Ram, 19, lost consciousness in the stampede that killed 150 people and was triggered by rumors of a landslide leading to a Hindu temple devoted to the goddess Naina Devi.
Ram awoke in the hospital morgue Sunday in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.
"When I woke up, I was in the middle of a row of bodies waiting for post mortem," he told the Times. "My throat was parched and I asked for water. Towering over me the doctors and nursing staff at Anandpur Sahib Civil Hospital looked dazed. They must have been surprised to see a dead man come alive like that."
Sat Pal Aggarwal, a doctor on the pilgrimage, said little was done to see if victims of the stampede were still alive.
"People were dumped quite haphazardly into trucks without following any procedure or checking if they were alive," he told the Times.
Despite the huge loss of life, the pilgrimage continued only hours after the corpses had been cleared, according to the newspaper.
Southern California Hot Spot Hits 812 Degrees, Baffles Experts
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
The ground is so hot in one part of Southern California it can melt the shoes right off your feet.
An unexplained "thermal anomaly" caused a patch of land in Ventura County to reach a temperature of over 800 degrees on Friday, baffling experts who have been monitoring the area for weeks.
The anomaly was discovered after the land got so hot, it started a brush fire and burned three acres last month. Firefighters were brought to the scene after reports of a blaze, but by the time they arrived only smoldering dirt and brush remained.
Firefighters took no chances with the smoking ground, clearing brush near the fumes and cutting a fire line around the area to prevent a blaze from igniting.
"We are a little perplexed at this point, to tell you the truth," the Ventura County Star quoted geologist David Panaro as saying. "This is not your usual geological detective story."
The area has recorded high temperatures at least five times since 1987, Allen King, a retired geologist with the U.S. Forest Service told the newspaper.
The hot spot is located in steep, rugged terrain a few miles north of the town of Fillmore on land owned by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and leased by Seneca Resources Corp.
Officials who are familiar with the patch of land, which is near the large Sespe Oil Field, have come up with a few theories as to why the ground soared to 812 degrees fahrenheit on August 1.
One theory is that natural hydrocarbons, such as oil or gas, are burning deep in the earth and seeping out through cracks in the area, causing the surface to rapidly heat and generate smoke.
According to the Star, Allen King, a former geologist with the U.S. Forest Service recently stuck a thermometer into the ground and got a reading of 550 degrees — so hot that it melted the glue holding the sole of his boots together.
"After that we were more cautious about standing in one place for too long," he said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,398484,00.html
145 die in India Hindu temple stampede
New Delhi (dpa) - At least 145 Hindu worshippers were killed and 48 injured in a stampede at a shrine in India's northern state of Himachal Pradesh on Sunday, officials said.
The stampede occurred at the Naina Devi temple dedicated to the goddess Durga, located atop a hill in Bilaspur district, some 320 kilometres north of the national capital New Delhi.
"Our teams confirm that 145 people are dead in the stampede," senior police official RN Dhoke told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa by telephone.
"The bodies of the victims were brought to the Civil Hospital in Anandpur Sahib in neighbouring Punjab state".
Dhoke did not expect the death toll to rise.
Himachal Additional Director General of Police Daljit Singh Manhas earlier said the victims included 40 children and 45 women.
"The death toll could go up as a few more wounded could have succumbed to injuries on the way to local hospitals," Manhas said.
Authorities said rumours of a landslide and boulders rolling down the hill caused the stampede.
"The rumours created a commotion and led to the stampede as devotees on the way to the temple tried to push their way, causing a collapse of the fencing," state principal secretary PC Kapoor said.
"This panic caused a rush between crowds returning from the temple and those going up to the shrine. People started running here and there."
He said the death toll was high because panic-stricken people ran in the narrow and congested stairway, trampling children, women, the old and the infirm.
Tens of thousands of people have been gathering at the temple for the 10-day Sharavan Ashtami fair that began Saturday, which is considered auspicious by the Hindus.
As many as 25,000 people may have been at the temple among the most popular shrines in north India for the festivities, local media said.
Some survivors recounted the horror they witnessed on the hill slopes.
"Devotees returning from the temple ran into pilgrims coming up. Then people tried to outpace each other to find an escape and tried to jump over the fences," a witness told news channels.
"Coming under immense human pressure the fences gave way and people fell down the slope. Several women and children, who could not jump the railings and remained on the path, were trampled upon," he said.
The path leading to the temple wore a tragic look as the bodies of children, women and men lay in slush, some of them clutching offerings for the deity.
Some sweaters and shawls, carried by the pilgrims, and their other belongings lay strewn on the path leading to and out of the temple.
Crying and distraught people frantically searched the pile of bodies to locate their missing relatives.
Heavy rains and lack of coordination amongst the agencies had hampered rescue operations and evacuation of the injured, officials said.
Meanwhile, Himachal Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal ordered an inquiry into whether adequate safety provisions were in place at the temple.
He also offered compensation to those injured in the stampede and to the families of those killed.
But locals said that lack of security arrangements around the temple led to the temple.
"The administration did not deploy sufficient police force even as the devotees numberd in thousands," Likhi Ram told the IANS. Others said that the administration were not prepared for the heavy rush.
Temple stampedes are not uncommon in India, where huge crowds gather to pray on auspicious days at complexes where the approach roads and entrances are usually narrow.
There have been at least three fatal stampedes in the country so far during 2008, claiming over 21 lives in Hindu temples in the southern, central and eastern states
http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=129257
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