Daily News Dump
News from around the world dumped in your lap.
Sick Bastard Tricks Woman Into Changing His Diapers
Aug 20th
MELBOURNE, FLA. — Janet Schulte believed the man when he told her by phone that his 40-something, disabled brother needed a caregiver who could bottle-feed him and change his diapers.
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What the Melbourne woman can’t believe is that he committed no crime, now that she said she has found out the situation was a charade: that the man and his brother were same person.
And that he didn’t have the disabilities he claimed to have.
“I feel violated,” Schulte said, sharing her story because she said the man has deceived other women and will try again. “I feel disgusted.”
Investigators and prosecutors have refused to pursue charges, saying Schulte was paid and agreed to provide the care.
FLORIDA TODAY is not identifying him because he is not being charged.
“I consented to change his diapers, but I legitimately thought this man needed help,” she said. “How can that not be a crime for him to come into my house and expose himself?”
Sgt. David Marich, head of general crimes for the North Precinct of the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, brought Schulte’s case to the State Attorney’s Office.
When prosecutors said there wasn’t enough evidence, Marich said his office did more research to try to find some statute that was violated.
“It’s a weird case,” Sheriff’s Lt. Tod Goodyear said. “It’s really on a borderline of possibly being a fraud. He is perpetrating something there because he’s doing it under a false pretense.”
FLORIDA TODAY tried several times to reach the man at his Port St. John home and on a cell phone. He did not answer the door or the phone.
How it started
The deception began, Schulte said, when she placed an ad online on Craigslist.org offering child care services.
She said a man called and asked Schulte if she knew any special-needs caregivers.
And, she said, his story went on.
The man told Schulte that a car accident left his brother with physical disabilities, including weak arms, poor bladder control and the mental capacity of a 5-year-old.
He told her how an aunt and current caregiver had no patience. He offered Schulte $600 a week to look after his brother.
Senate Confirms Sotomayor
Aug 7th
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who rose from the housing projects of the Bronx to the top of the legal profession, made history Thursday when the Senate confirmed her to become the nation’s first Hispanic Supreme Court justice.
Sotomayor was easily confirmed in a 68-31 vote. Nine Republicans joined a unanimous Democratic caucus in supporting her nomination.
Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, supported Sotomayor but was not present for the vote because of illness.
Sotomayor, a 55-year-old federal appeals court judge, will be the 111th person to sit on the high court and the third female justice.
She will be sworn in at the Supreme Court by Chief Justice John Roberts on Saturday.
President Obama, who selected Sotomayor on May 26, said he was “deeply gratified” by the Senate vote.
“This is a wonderful day for Judge Sotomayor and her family, but I also think it’s a wonderful day for America,” Obama said at the White House. Video Watch Obama’s remarks »
Watching the final vote with friends and family at the federal courthouse in Manhattan, Sotomayor was confirmed after senators spent a final day of debate rehashing arguments for and against her.
Democrats continued to praised Sotomayor as a fair and impartial jurist with an extraordinary life story. Many Republicans portrayed her as a judicial activist intent on reinterpreting the law to conform with her own liberal political beliefs.
Among other things, Republican opponents emphasized concerns over her statements and rulings on hot-button issues such as gun control, affirmative action and property rights. See how Sotomayor measures up with her new colleagues »
They also raised questions about some of her most controversial speeches and statements, including her hope that a “wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences” would reach a better conclusion than a white man “who hasn’t lived that life.”
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Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, helped close the debate by stressing the historic nature of the nomination.
“It is distinctively American to continually refine our union, moving us closer to our ideals. Our union is not yet perfected, but with this confirmation, we will be making progress,” Leahy said on the Senate floor.
“Years from now, we will remember this time, when we crossed paths with the quintessentially American journey of Sonia Sotomayor, and when our nation took another step forward through this historic confirmation process.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, took aim at what he claimed was Sotomayor’s inability to refrain from bringing her personal political opinions to bear on her rulings.
“This is the most fundamental test for any judge and all the more so for those who would sit on our nation’s highest court, where a judge’s impulses and preferences are not subject to review. Because I’m not convinced that Judge Sotomayor would keep this commitment, I cannot support her nomination.”
Several Republicans, however, bucked party leadership by voting in favor of Sotomayor.
Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, announced Thursday morning that he had decided to back Sotomayor after weighing a range of factors, including her education, experience and temperament.
“Judge Sotomayor is not the nominee I would have selected if I were president, but making a nomination is not my role here today,” Voinovich said.
Sotomayor’s Life
“My role is to examine her qualifications to determine if she is fit to serve. … Based on my review of her record, and using these factors, I have determined that Judge Sotomayor meets the criteria to become a justice on the Supreme Court.”
Voinovich was joined by Maine’s Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, New Hampshire’s Judd Gregg, Indiana’s Richard Lugar, Missouri’s Kit Bond, Florida’s Mel Martinez, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander. Video Watch the Senate vote »
In a telling political sign, none of the Republicans who voted for Sotomayor is seeking re-election in 2010. Conservative activists, including the powerful National Rifle Association, mounted a concerted effort to rally GOP opposition to Sotomayor.
The abortion issue also played a significant role in the nomination, with abortion-rights supporters backing Sotomayor and opponents urging her defeat.
“Today’s historic vote is a sign of progress for Americans who want a Supreme Court that values individual freedom and privacy,” said Nancy Keenan, head of the group National Abortion Rights Action League Pro-Choice America.
Charmaine Yoest, head of Americans United For Life, praised the 31 Republican senators who opposed Sotomayor for a “stunning vote of ‘no confidence’ in a nominee whose background of abortion advocacy and record of judicial interventionism raise serious questions about her fitness for the high court.”
Underlying the debate over Sotomayor was the larger political question of whether the Republican Party risked alienating Hispanic voters by opposing the first Latina nominee. The party’s share of the Hispanic vote dropped sharply in last year’s presidential election.
“If you meet all of the challenges that you are told you need to meet and still you can be told no, despite fidelity to Constitution, the law and precedent, then it sends a tough message to us as a community,” said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-New Jersey.
Sotomayor’s confirmation capped an extraordinary rise from humble beginnings. Her parents came to New York from Puerto Rico during World War II. Her father worked in a factory and didn’t speak English.
She was born in the Bronx and grew up in a public housing project, not far from the stadium of her favorite team, the New York Yankees. Her father died when she was 9, leaving her mother to raise her and her younger brother.
Her mother, whom Sotomayor has described as her biggest inspiration, worked six days a week to care for her and her brother, and instilled in them the value of an education.
Sotomayor later graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University and went on to attend Yale Law School, where she was editor of the Yale Law Journal.
She worked at nearly every level of the judicial system over a three-decade career before being chosen by President Obama to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court.
Accepting the nomination, Sotomayor thanked Obama for “the most humbling honor of my life.”
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After the selection, Sotomayor was touted by her supporters as a justice with bipartisan favor and historic appeal. She has served as a judge on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals since 1998. She was named a district judge by President George H.W. Bush in 1992 and was elevated to her current seat by President Clinton.
Sotomayor presided over about 450 cases while on the district court. Before her judicial appointments, she was a partner at a private law firm and spent time as an assistant district attorney prosecuting violent crimes.
Teacher Forces Student To Smoke 42 Cigarettes In 2 Hours
Aug 7th
Well although the kid needed a wake up call I don’t think feeding the habit did the trick nice try though. They need to send some nuns to that school along with some yard sticks. I bet the smoking problem would dissappear.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — A Malaysian teacher forced a student to smoke 42 cigarettes in two hours as punishment after finding the boy had a cigarette and lighter, a news report said Thursday.
A school official confirmed that the English teacher subjected the student to the unusual punishment but said the teenager was made to smoke fewer than 42 cigarettes. He declined to elaborate.
He said the teacher was upset when she found that her model student had a cigarette and a lighter in his locker in the school in the northern island of Langkawi.
The boy also smelled of cigarettes, said a school official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. He said the school apologized to the boy’s uncle, who lodged a police report when he found out about the punishment.
“This is not normal. We don’t do that often,” the official said.
He said it was up to the state’s education department to take action against the teacher, but officials there could not be immediately reached Thursday.
Police on Langkawi could not be reached for comment.
The New Straits Times daily quoted the 16-year-old boy as saying he was made to smoke 42 cigarettes — four at a time for more than two hours. The punishment was witnessed by other teachers and students.
In 2007, another Malaysian teacher was reprimanded after she made almost 140 teenage girls squat in a pond at a boarding school as punishment for clogging the toilets.
The punishment caused an outcry, leading to Malaysia’s Education Ministry to announce it would issue specific guidelines on how teachers should discipline students.
The government permits boys to be whipped with a rattan cane in schools for such offenses as smoking, vandalism and harming others.
WTF!!! Robbing The Homeless?
Apr 27th
The economy must be getting bad if the homeless are being robbed or murdered! These two stories both came from this week’s news. Two homeless men were robbed and one of them was actually murdered by three teenagers that plotted to rob and kill him. What the hell!!!
Homeless man robbed at RV park
By Record Searchlight staff
Originally published 09:03 a.m., April 27, 2009
Updated 09:03 a.m., April 27, 2009
A Missouri man was robbed of several thousand dollars early this morning while he slept at a friend’s at the Sacramento River RV Park in Redding, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Department reported.
Terry Lee Muzzy, 49, a transient, had the money in his wallet form a settlement. He had come to visit friends and had been staying in the RV park about a week when he was robbed, according to a sheriff’s department press release.
Unknown people forcibly took Muzzy’s wallet from him at about 1:30 a.m., the sheriff’s department reported.
Deputies are continuing their investigation.
By Ryan Sabalow
Originally published 11:56 a.m., April 24, 2009
Updated 05:21 p.m., April 24, 2009
Albert Curtis Sanchez
Three Redding teens plotted on Saturday to find a homeless man, beat him and take what little he had because “he was an easy target,” police said today.
And after they beat Timothy Lee Alcorn, 48, so severely that he eventually died from his wounds, they went out and robbed another homeless man on the same day Alcorn’s body was found, Redding Police Sgt. Dean Stainberg said this morning at press conference.
Stainberg described Alcorn’s beating as brutal in its ferocity. The three teens, aged 15, 16 and 18, armed themselves with weapons and plotted how they’d carry out their attack, Stainberg said.
Two of the boys hid, while the third went down to speak with Alcorn in a wooded area behind Masonic Avenue. When Alcorn’s attention was diverted, the other two hit him from behind, Stainberg said.
“The beating was savage,” Stainberg said.
The teens dragged their unconscious victim under a bush and left him, Stainberg said.
Alcorn later regained consciousness and was spotted about 10:30 p.m. Saturday by a man on nearby Lake Boulevard, who called police. The witness, Ryon McCullough, 29, said he asked Alcorn, who appeared drunk and covered in blood, if he was OK.
McCullough called 911 and two officers were sent to the area, but they couldn’t find Alcorn, Stainberg said.
The next day, after Alcorn was reported missing, investigators found two blood spots in the area, but they couldn’t locate the victim. On Monday, a friend of Alcorn’s family, 51-year-old Tom Smitherman of Shasta Lake, found the body and called police.
Stainberg declined to reveal what weapons the teens allegedly used in the attack. He also declined to reveal what the teens allegedly took from Alcorn.
The trio later admitted to investigators that they robbed another homeless man on Monday in the same homeless encampment behind Masonic Avenue, Stainberg said.
The victim in that case hasn’t come forward, Stainberg said.
Anyone with information on the alleged beating and the robbery is asked to call Redding police investigators at 225-4211.
On Thursday afternoon, the two younger boys were arrested at the Redding Library. The 18-year-old, Albert Curtis Sanchez, was arrested around 6 p.m. at a West Street apartment.
Each of the boys likely faces charges of murder, robbery and kidnapping. They’re likely to be arraigned on Monday afternoon, said Shasta County District Attorney Jerry Benito.
Prosecutors are still trying to determine whether the two juveniles will be identified and tried in adult court, Benito said.
Benito hinted that the teens likely would be tried as adults, saying at the press conference that his office has a history of prosecuting teens as adults in past murder cases.
“The impact on the victim and the victim’s family is the same whether the perpetrator is 17, 15, 16, or 18,” Benito said.
Alcorn’s mother and father said at the press conference that the death of their son was senseless, and they wept in front of reporters while they described his life.
Hershel Alcorn said before breaking down in tears that his son often gave away his food stamps to families who were worse off than he was.
Timothy Alcorn’s mother, Charlayne, said that though her son fought a battle with alcohol, he remained a good Christian all his life.
“It’s horrible for us to go through this,” she said. “There’s no rhyme or reason for it.”
Redding Police Capt. Paul Grooms said Saturday’s beating reminds him of case he investigated back in 1994 involving a year-old, unsolved beating death of a homeless man.
Paul Edward Jordan, then 28, was driving around in a pickup truck with two teens when he came upon a “bum” dozing in a sleeping bag, under a railroad trestle in south Redding.
They stopped and Jordan got out of the truck. He picked up a large stick out of a nearby fire pit, hit Steven George Atchison, the 44-year-old transient, several times and then got back in the truck and drove off.
Atchison died from the head injuries, and was later found dead, still in the bag, by passersby.
The case went unsolved for more than a year. A tip led Grooms to Jordan, who eventually pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to 16 years- to- life in prison.
Grooms said Jordan didn’t like homeless people in the area and he picked Atchison to attack because he was vulnerable.
Bring On The Cuban Cigars!
Apr 13th
Wow… okay how long has it been since the Cuban missile crisis. I applaud Obama on lifting these restrictions. Besides now all the spring breakers can head down to Cuba rather than risk hanging out in Mexico. I think the world should just chill out and smoke some Cuban cigars…
Eased U.S. Restrictions on Cuban-American Travel to Cuba Angers Some Cuban-American Lawmakers
President Obama directed his administration Monday to allow unlimited travel and money transfers by Cuban Americans to family in Cuba, and to take other steps to ease U.S. restrictions on the island.
Monday, April 13, 2009
President Obama directed his administration Monday to allow unlimited travel and money transfers by Cuban Americans to family in Cuba, a decision that drew quick criticism from two Cuban-American congressmen.
Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs and presidential aide Dan Restrepo made the announcement during his daily briefing with reporters, ahead of the president’s attendance this weekend at a Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.
“The president is taking some concrete steps today to bring about some much needed change that will benefit the people of Cuba, that will increase the freedom they have and more importantly to allow Cuban Americans to see their families and send them money,” Gibbs said.
“We want to increase the flow among Cubans and between Cubans and the outside world,” Restrepo, a special assistant to the president for western hemisphere affairs, said.
Republican Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida and Mario Diaz-Balart — both of Florida — called the president’s decision a “serious mistake,” and decried any policy changes that could bring the Cuban government income while its leadership continues to oppress individual liberties like freedom of speech.
“President Obama has committed a serious mistake by unilaterally increasing Cuban-American travel and remittance dollars for the Cuban dictatorship,” they said in a joint statement.
But Restrepo said the U.S. is getting out of the business of interfering with Cuban families, as should the Cuban government.
“We think the positive benefits will weigh outweigh any of the negative effects,” Restrepo said.
Given these changes will benefit the regime in Havana, it would be wise in the implementation to place some reasonable limits on this type of travel and the amounts that can be sent to Cuba.
Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who is also of Cuban descent, said now that the president has called for more interaction, the administration should work to advance liberties from the Cuban government.
“The administration is right to call on the Cuban government to end the onerous charge of 20 percent on remittances. Lowering remittance charges and allowing travel for Cuban families wishing to see relatives abroad are two steps the Cuban regime could immediately take that would show change in Havana,” he said.
About 1.5 million Americans have relatives on the island nation that turned to communist rule in 1959 when Fidel Castro seized control. Castro’s brother, Raul, now serves as president.
Obama also directed his administration to lift restrictions on communications, including authorizing U.S. telecommunications firms to establish fiber-optic cable and satellite telecommunications facilities linking the United States and Cuba and licensing those service providers as well as satellite and radio providers to operate with Cuban companies.
American cell phones with service contracts from the U.S. work on some parts of the island, but service is not always reliable and depends on the phones’ specifications.
Other steps taken Monday include expanding the things allowed in gift parcels being sent to Cuba, such as clothes, personal hygiene items, seeds, fishing gear and other personal necessities.
Last May, former President George W. Bush announced a new policy that people living in the United States could include cell phones in gift parcels sent to Cubans. At the time, Bush aides said that U.S. residents could pay for the cell service attached to phones they send.
Sending money to senior government officials and Communist Party members remains prohibited under Obama’s new policy. Restrictions imposed by the Bush administration had limited Cuban travel by Americans to just two weeks every three years. Visits also were confined to immediate family members.
Francisco Hernandez, head of the exile group the Cuban American National Foundation, was once a staunch supporter of travel restrictions but supported Obama’s announcement, saying he hopes it will inspire both sides to reconsider long-held positions.
It will help Cubans become more independent of the state “not only in economic terms but in terms of information, and contacts with the outside world,” said Hernandez, who was imprisoned by the Cuban government for nearly two years after participating in the 1961 failed Bay of Pigs invasion.
Miami travel agent Tesie Aral said her phone has been ringing nonstop in anticipation of the announcement, with a tenfold increase last Friday alone.
“People were already planning to travel more based on their ability to go every 12 months,” said Aral, owner of ABC Charters. “Whether they can travel more frequently than that depends on the economy.”
Obama had promised to take these steps as a presidential candidate.
“There are no better ambassadors for freedom than Cuban Americans,” Obama said in a campaign speech last May in Miami, the heart of the U.S. Cuban-American community. “It’s time to let Cuban Americans see their mothers and fathers, their sisters and brothers. It’s time to let Cuban American money make their families less dependent upon the Castro regime.”
Also in that Miami speech nearly a year ago, Obama promised to depart from what he said had been the path of previous politicians on Cuba policy — “they come down to Miami, they talk tough, they go back to Washington, and nothing changes in Cuba.”
“Never, in my lifetime, have the people of Cuba known freedom. Never, in the lives of two generations of Cubans, have the people of Cuba known democracy,” he said then. “This is the terrible and tragic status quo that we have known for half a century — of elections that are anything but free or fair; of dissidents locked away in dark prison cells for the crime of speaking the truth. I won’t stand for this injustice, you won’t stand for this injustice, and together we will stand up for freedom in Cuba.”
He also promised to engage in direct diplomacy with Cuba, “without preconditions” but with “careful preparation” and “a clear agenda.”
Some lawmakers, backed by business and farm groups seeing new opportunities in Cuba, are advocating wider revisions in the trade and travel bans imposed after Castro came to power.