The commander of the 37th Training Group at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, has launched an investigation into a photo of 15 airmen posing with an open casket, in which another airman is posed with a noose around his neck and chains across his body.

“Da Dumpt, Da Dumpt …. Sucks 2 Be U” is written under the photo, which was emailed to Air Force Times.

In the picture, tech sergeants and staff sergeants stand with junior airmen surrounding the metallic casket, similar to those used to carry war dead home to the U.S.

The purpose of the photo, its inscription and its intended audience are not known. It surfaced one month after the public disclosure that the Air Force’s Port Mortuary at Dover Air Force Base, Del., had lost and mishandled the remains of hundreds of fallen troops.

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Air Force Secretary Michael Donley expressed regret Tuesday night that the photo might cause more turmoil for families of fallen troops.

“We take this matter seriously. [Air Education and Training Command] has initiated a commander directed investigation,” Donley said in a statement to Air Force Times. “Such behavior is not consistent with our core values, and it is not representative of the Airmen I know. It saddens me that this may cause additional grief to the families of our fallen warriors.”

The photo was taken by airmen with the 345th Training Squadron at Fort Lee, Va., said Gerry Proctor, spokesman for the 37th Training Group, which includes the 345th Training Squadron.

The photo is dated Aug. 23 — more than two months before the Dover story broke — and appears with a logo reading “All American Port Dawgs” in the upper left corner. “Port Dog” is a nickname for aerial porters; it comes from an aerial port unit coin circulated in the early 1990s.

Whatever its intended purpose was, it proved offensive to at least one soldier with the 82nd Airborne Division.

“I cannot help but picture the faces of my dead [soldiers] that we drug out of burning vehicles, dug out from collapsed buildings,” Staff Sgt. Elias Bonilla wrote in an email to Air Force Times.

Bonilla said the photo, together with the Dover revelations, made him worry that he could not trust the Air Force with transporting the remains of his men, especially because the photo included noncommissioned officers.

“I cannot understand the behaviors of the United States Air Force,” he wrote. “I refuse to accept that military personnel could be so far removed from their own identity as a military unit to permit such disgraceful conduct.”

Bonilla emailed the photo to Air Force Times after receiving it from a former soldier and Army spouse who asked not to be named because of concerns about the spouse’s career.

The image had appeared on Facebook in early October, the former soldier said, because a friend had been tagged in the photo. When the friend was questioned about the image, the former soldier said, the concerns were “laughed off.” The former soldier began emailing the photo to other friends, and it was then forwarded to Air Force Times on Monday.

The investigation was launched after Air Force Times sent the photo to Air Education and Training Command seeking comment. A request for comment from Air Force officials at the Pentagon was referred to AETC.

The amount of customer money missing from the collapsed trading firm MF Global may be more than $1.2 billion — double previous estimates — the trustee dismantling the firm’s brokerage unit said on Monday.

But the surprise finding, which caught regulators off guard, may be overstated, according to a person briefed on the investigation. Some regulators say they believe that the trustee double-counted $220 million that had been transferred between units of MF Global, this person said.

Still, the much higher number highlights the disarray of MF Global’s records and raises significantly the hurdle for tens of thousands of customers seeking to get their money back. The trustee’s estimate represents a significant portion of customer funds held by MF Global.

Regulators suspect that as investors and customers fled MF Global in the last week of October, the firm used some of the customer money for its own needs — violating Wall Street rules that customers’ money be kept separate from the firm’s funds. Much of that money may never return.

This horrific video allegedly shows a family law judge viciously beating his disabled 16-year-old daughter, who suffers from cerebral palsy, after catching her playing computer games.

The man, believed to be Court-at-Law judge William Adams from Aransas County, Texas, is seen repeatedly striking the girl using a leather belt as she whimpers in agony.

After delivering around 10 powerful strikes across her legs and backside, his wife then grabs the belt from him to take over, at which point he walks out only to return moments later with another belt so he can continue the beating.

New Black Panther Party Spokesman Chawn Kweli appeared on Larry O'Connor's radio show on Breitbart.tv and shared his unique ideas about the origins of homosexuality in the African-American community.

Just as the Obama administration unveils new measures it says will ease crushing student loan debt, the College Board is out with new figures showing the cost of college surged again this year, and student borrowing along with it.

Tuition and fees at public four-year colleges and universities jumped 8.3 percent nationwide for the 2011-2012 school year, the organization said. The numbers were skewed by California, which raised in-state tuition and fees by a whopping 21 percent this year. But even without California, costs rose seven percent, according to the College Board’s annual “Trends in College Pricing” report released on Wednesday.

 “State budgets are still tight, and states are appropriating less money per student than they were a year ago—much less than they were after adjusting for inflation a decade ago,” said Sandy Baum, an independent policy analyst for the College Board.

Neighbors in Portland got so sick of a house they suspected was an outpost for drug activity, that they took matters into their own hands.

KPTV reports that concerned residents started handing out "heroin for sale" fliers with the house's address. One of the fliers was sent to police and it piqued their interest.

“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Yeah, that’s great. But what do you want? What are your goals? What are your demands? What result are you looking for?

The beauty of being vague is that anyone who has any emotion can get caught up in the excitement and join your crusade. They’ll just get mad at something and assume that you’re both mad about the same thing. Put a few hundred of these people together, and boom. You’ve got a crowd, a headline and a lot of attention … but no message.

A lot of people on Twitter are saying I totally agree with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) demands and goals. The only problem is that I have no idea what their demands and goals are. And neither does anyone else. If all you ever do is stomp around, yell and hold up signs protesting a million different things, sure you’ll get some attention, but over time, you’ll just look foolish. You end up coming across like a three-year-old having a temper tantrum.

This is what’s happening to the OWS movement. They’re being discredited because no one has stepped forward and really stated what it is they’re after. The whole group is just coming across like a bunch of jacked-up, jobless, wannabe hippies. That’s not going to change anything in this country. You’ve got to state your goals clearly if you want to accomplish something.

So in the absence of any clear goals, let me comment and offer some helpful advice in some areas that seem to be getting a lot of disorganized OWS attention.

Black women are surging ahead of black men both socially and economically, leading to a ‘relationship crisis’, says a professor of family law. 

According to Ralph Richard Banks, as black men fall behind in education and income, they become less compatible with women of the same race, leading to black females becoming the ‘most unmarried’ group in American society. 

In his book Is Marriage for White People? How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone, Banks says the most obvious solution is for black women to marry outside their race. 

Banks cites figures claiming around one in ten black men in their early thirties are in prison and that two black women graduate from college for every black man, elevating the women into the middle classes, while the men remain in the lower classes. 

As a result, says Banks, many black women ‘marry down’, with the result that two out of every three black marriages failing, around twice the rate of white marriages, The Economist reported.

After 72 years of marriage they had only an hour's separation between them in their passing, yet their locked hands never let go.

The family of the Iowa couple say their life together was a real-life love story, never separated, even after their tragic car accident which sent them both to the hospital.

'They believed in marriage,' Dennis Yeager, the youngest son of Gordon Yeager, 94, and wife Norma, 90, told MailOnline. 'They chose each other and once they had committed, that was it.'

Almost half of the U.S. population now lives in a household where at least one member receives government benefits, new Census data has revealed.

Analysis during the first quarter of 2010 found that a worrying 48.5 per cent of people lived in households that were dependent on state handouts.

The figure is considerably higher than in the third quarter of 2008, at the height of the recession, when it stood at 44.4 per cent.

The rise has been blamed on high unemployment, poor recovery from the recession, and an increase in the number of government programmes. 

The Census found that 14.5 per cent shared a home with a person on Medicare, and 16 per cent lived with someone on Social Security.

But it was means-tested programmes that accounted for the most highly utilised, with 34.2 per cent of the population receiving support from food stamps, subsidised housing and healthcare support from Medicaid.

Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are believed to be flooding Social Security's disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency.

Disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner and wife Huma Abedin are expecting a boy, it has been reported.

Mrs Abedin, a personal aide and deputy chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, revealed she was pregnant in the middle of her husband's humiliating Twitter sexting scandal in June.

After choosing to stay with the man who had so publicly betrayed her, Mr Weiner's wife has now revealed she is going to have to put up with double the testosterone levels in her house.

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

Jacqueline Kennedy spoke of her disgust towards Martin Luther King after claims the civil rights leader tried to arrange a sex party while in Washington for a march.

In explosive tapes to be revealed later this month, the former first lady also tells how she could barely look at images of the iconic leader after he apparently also made derogatory remarks at JFK's funeral.

Jackie Kennedy's relationship with Dr King Jr became strained as a result of wire taps arranged by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

Barely out of nappies, four-year-old Maddy Jackson is already on the road to womanhood.

Sporting fake C cup breasts and padding on her bottom, she is the latest shock contestant on Toddlers and Tiaras, the U.S. reality show revealing the surreal world of beauty pageants.

In an attempt to mimic her curvaceous icon, country singer Dolly Parton - who is known for her ample cleavage - the toddler is shown sporting detachable bust and butt enhancements, before performing live on stage.

With the extra padding concealed under her Barbie pink Lycra catsuit, Maddy's tiny frame is transformed into an hourglass silhouette.

Barely able to string a sentence together, many will be shocked by the images of the peroxide blonde trying to emulate the appearance of a woman in her late 20s.

Celebrated poet Maya Angelou is hopping mad over a paraphrased quote set in stone on the new Martin Luther King Jr memorial.

The original quote, pulled from a speech the civil rights leader gave in Atlanta two months before his 1968 assassination was: 'If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice.

'Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.’

A mother was filmed apparently blowing marijuana smoke into her baby's mouth to get her to stop crying.

Jessica Callaway, 21, has been charged with child abuse and is also accused of beating her 10-month-old daughter because she would not stop crying and threatening to kick her in the mouth.

Callaway told police she carried out the alleged abuse because she was having a 'bad day' and had trouble picking an outfit to wear for a night out.

And I think this is standard operating practice. Do what we want, or we will make government trouble for you. 3M claims an investment company conspired with high-powered lobbyist Lanny Davis in a smear campaign to "coerce" it into pay "tens of millions of dollars...to save them from the consequences of yet another unprofitable investment," a screening test for methicillin-resistant Straphylococcus aureus...

What a shock. 

A far left protester was arrested at a protest last week in Milwaukee. The violent leftist was accused of battery.

Raised in a $1.5 million Barrington Hills, Ill., home by their attorney father, two grown children have spent the last two years pursuing a unique lawsuit against their mom for "bad mothering" that alleges damages caused when she failed to buy toys for one and sent another a birthday card he didn’t like.

The alleged offenses include failing to take her daughter to a car show, telling her then 7-year-old son to buckle his seat belt or she would contact police, "haggling" over the amount to spend on party dresses and calling her daughter at midnight to ask that she return home from celebrating homecoming.

Last week, at which point the court record stood about a foot tall, an Illinois appeals court dismissed the case, finding that none of the mother’s conduct was "extreme or outrageous." To rule in favor of her children, the court found, "could potentially open the floodgates to subject family childrearing to ... excessive judicial scrutiny and interference."

This heart-wrenching photo shows how a Navy SEAL’s dog refused to leave his master’s side during an emotional funeral.

Petty Officer Jon Tumilson, 35, killed in the major U.S. helicopter crash in Afghanistan this month, was remembered by around 1,500 mourners.

But it was his Labrador retriever Hawkeye that really captured the public’s emotions in the photo taken by Mr Tumilson’s cousin, Lisa Pembleton.

The Obamas' summer break in Martha's Vineyard has already been branded a PR disaster after the couple arrived four hours apart on separate government jets.

But according to new reports, this is the least of their extravagances.

White House sources today claimed that the First Lady has spent $10million of U.S. taxpayers' money on vacations alone in the past year.

Karla Washington worries how she will afford new school uniforms for her five-year-old daughter.

Washington, an undergraduate student, earns less than $11,000 a year from a part-time university job.

The salary must cover food, rent, health care, child care and the occasional splurge on a Blue's Clues item for her only child.

'My biggest fear is not providing my daughter with everything that she needs to be a balanced child, to be independent, to be safe, to feel like she is of value,' said Washington, 41.

he Monroe County Sheriff's Department is working to solve a case of vandalism that turned life-threatening.

John King was shot in the arm last week when he surprised a man trying to slash the tires on the truck at his Lambertville home.The word "scab" was also scrawled on the side.

King says he became suspicious when he saw an outside security light outside go on.

When he stepped out of his front door, the man fired one shot and ran off.

King is the owner of the largest non-union electrical contracting company in the area.

Diane Daniel and her husband, Wessel, were like any other happy newlywed couple when they wed in 2004 - blissfully in love and looking forward to their new lives together.

But two months after the wedding, the new bride's world collapsed when her husband delivered a bombshell: he wanted to live life as a woman. 

Wessel, 46, who now lives as Lina, has transitioned from male to female within the last year. 

And here by her side all along has been Diane, a writer who has inspired hundreds with her candid re-telling of the emotional ordeal in a new article entitled, 'Goodbye Husband, Hello Wife.'

Evergreen Solar Inc., the Marlboro clean-energy company that received millions in state subsidies to build an ill-fated Bay State factory, has filed for bankruptcy.

Evergreen, which closed its taxpayer-supported Devens factory in March and cut 800 jobs, has been trying to rework its debt for months. The company announced today it is seeking a reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware and also reached a deal with certain note holders to restructure its debt and sell off certain assets.

The company also said it will lay off another 65 jobs in the United States and Europe, mostly through the shutdown of its Midland, Mich., manufacturing facility. That would leave Evergreen with about 68 workers according to a headcount listed in the bankruptcy filing.

The financially strapped U.S. Postal Service is proposing to cut its workforce by 20 percent and to withdraw from the federal health and retirement plans because it believes it could provide benefits at a lower cost.

The layoffs would be achieved in part by breaking labor agreements, a proposal that drew swift fire from postal unions. The plan would require congressional approval but, if successful, could be precedent-setting, with possible ripple effects throughout government. It would also deliver a major blow to the nation’s labor movement.

In a notice informing employees of its proposals — with the headline “Financial crisis calls for significant actions” — the Postal Service said, “We will be insolvent next month due to significant declines in mail volume and retiree health benefit pre-funding costs imposed by Congress.”

During the past four years, the service lost $20 billion, including $8.5 billion in fiscal 2010. Over that period, mail volume dropped by 20 percent.

The USPS plan is described in two draft documents obtained by The Washington Post. A “Workforce Optimization” paper acknowledges its “extraordinary request” to break its labor contracts.

“However, exceptional circumstances require exceptional remedies,” the document says.

“The Postal Service is facing dire economic challenges that threaten its very existence. . . . If the Postal Service was a private sector business, it would have filed for bankruptcy and utilized the reorganization process to restructure its labor agreements to reflect the new financial reality,” the document continues.

In a white paper on health and retirement benefits, the USPS said it was imperative to rein in health benefit and pension costs, which are a third of its labor expenses.

For health insurance plans, the paper said, the Postal Service wanted to withdraw its 480,000 pensioners and 600,000 active employees from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program “and place them in a new, Postal Service administered” program.

Almost identical language is used for the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System.

Talks between Verizon and striking workers continued on Thursday as the company enlisted the help of the FBI to look into alleged incidents of sabotage at some of its network facilities.

Spokesman Rich Young said the company, based in New York City, has discovered more than 90 acts of sabotage since the strike began last weekend.

He said wires had been cut in some places, causing the loss of phones and Internet service for residences and businesses.

A White House photographer was allowed to take and widely distribute a photo from the ceremony Tuesday for the return of the remains of 30 American troops killed in a weekend helicopter crash in Afghanistan despite the Pentagon's claim that any public depiction of the scene would violate the wishes of bereaved families.

News media coverage of the ceremony had been banned by the Pentagon over the objections of several news organizations.

Pentagon officials had said that because 19 of 30 of the American families of the dead had objected to media coverage of the remains coming off a plane at Dover Air Force Base, no images could be taken. In addition, the Pentagon rejected media requests to take photos that showed officials at the ceremony but did not depict caskets.

President Barack Obama attended the ceremony, called a "dignified transfer," for those killed in the worst single loss of the nearly 10-year war. An official White House photo of a saluting Obama was distributed to news media and published widely. It also was posted on the White House website as the "Photo of the Day." It showed Obama and other officials in silhouette and did not depict caskets.

Doug Wilson, head of public affairs at the Pentagon, said the department did not know the White House photographer was present and had no idea a photo of the event was being released until it became public. He said the photographers who routinely travel with the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were not allowed to go to the event, and no official Pentagon photos were taken or released.

An Army sergeant convicted of murdering two fellow soldiers in Iraq was spared the death penalty today.

Sgt. Joseph Bozicevich, 41, was sentenced to life in a military prison without parole for shooting and killing his infantry squad leader and another colleague after they criticized his poor performance.

Mr Bozicevich had claimed that he fired blindly at Staff Sgt. Darris Dawson, 24, and Sgt. Wesley Durbin, 26, after the men threatened him with guns for not signing a written critique that could have cost him his rank.

Eyewitnesses said that after the shooting, Mr Bozicevich had to be restrained facedown on the ground as he yelled 'Just f****** kill me!'

The Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department released 911 audio from the opening night of State Fair. These tapes display the graphic details of the attacks, some of which were racially motivated. We also spoke with someone who could put that part of the story in perspective.

Most callers tell dispatchers they see a racially motivated melee. One caller told dispatchers, "A whole bunch of black dudes f----- jumped on me. I'm bleeding all over."

West Allis Police recently released a statement on what took place at State Fair on opening night. They say there are currently nine assaults, one robbery without a weapon and one attempted robbery with a weapon being investigated.

Polar bears drowning in an Alaskan sea because the ice packs are melting—it’s the iconic image of the global warming debate.
 
But the validity of the science behind the image—presented as an ignoble testament to our environment in peril by Al Gore in his film An Inconvenient Truth—is now part of a federal investigation that has the environmental community on edge.
 
Special agents from the Interior Department’s inspector general's office are questioning the two government scientists about the paper they wrote on drowned polar bears, suggesting mistakes were made in the math and as to how the bears actually died, and the department is eyeing another study currently underway on bear populations.

Billionaire financier George Soros is being sued for $50 million by his former lover - a 28-year-old Brazilian soap star who claims he physically abused her and broke a promise to give her a Manhattan apartment.

Adriana Ferreyr claims her 80-year-old former boyfriend slapped her across the face and placed his hands around her neck in a bid to choke her while they argued about the $1.9miilion flat.

The details of the acrimonious split are to be aired in Manhattan Supreme Court, where Miss Ferreyr yesterday filed her $50 million suit.

Here's something to keep in mind as you follow this evening's congressional debate over the debt ceiling.

According to the latest daily statement from the U.S. Treasury, the government had an operating cash balance of $73.8 billion at the end of the day yesterday.

Apple's last earnings report (PDF here) showed that the company had $76.2 billion in cash and marketable securities at the end of June.

In other words, the world's largest tech company has more cash than the world's largest sovereign government.

A lovestruck young man arranged for his friends to shoot him in the hope his injuries would win back his girlfriend.

Jordan Cardella, 20, believed his pain and suffering would entice his lost love back into his arms.

He hoped his girlfriend would have a change of heart of seeing him lying injured in hospital and agree to go back out with him.

But the plan backfired after his ex-girlfriend wanted nothing to do with him and two friends who took part in the shooting ended up in court.

The bizarre shooting plan was branded ‘phenomenally stupid’ by prosecutors when Michael Wezyk and Anthony Woodall appeared in court on gun charges.

As he outlined the case, Prosecutor Christopher Rawsthorne said ‘This has to be the most phenomenally stupid case that I have seen. It's unbelievable what happened here.’

With her pink jacket and strands of pearls, Hillary Clinton looked both elegant and professional when she visited the Norwegian Embassy today.

And while fashion was likely the last thing on her mind, her choice of outfit could not have been more well-timed given that she was the subject of cutting criticism from Project Runway judge Tim Gunn last night.

In an interview with George Lopez, the fashion expert, 57, accused Mrs Clinton of favouring unflattering mannish clothes, and that she should use her position to send a more positive message about American fashion.

A shocking video has been released allegedly showing police officers tasering and beating a homeless man to death who they claim was resisting arrest.

Though the video is not clear, eye witnesses say the homeless man - Kelly Thomas, 37 - was unable to put up any resistance and was lying on the ground on his front when the attack took place on July 5.

His screams and cries for his father can be heard amid the tasering noises.

When Americans think of poverty, we tend to picture people who can’t adequately shelter, clothe, and feed themselves or their families.

When the Census Bureau defines “poverty,” though, it winds up painting more than 40 million Americans — one in seven — as “poor.”

Census officials continue to grossly exaggerate the numbers of the poor, creating a false picture in the public mind of widespread material deprivation, writes Heritage Foundation senior research fellow Robert Rector in a new paper.

“Most news stories on poverty feature homeless families, people living in crumbling shacks, or lines of the downtrodden eating in soup kitchens,” Rector says. “The actual living conditions of America’s poor are far different from these images.”

When the city of Cambridge issues paychecks to its public employees, nearly two dozen workers find a federal tax on their income that their colleagues don't have to pay.

Like many people, these 22 school and city workers chose to put their spouses on their employer-provided health insurance. Because they're in a homosexual relationship, the value of that health coverage is considered taxable income by the federal government.

But starting this month, Cambridge will become what is believed to be the first municipality in the country to pay its public employees a stipend in an attempt to defray the cost of the federal tax on health benefits for their same-sex spouses.

The city employees hit by the extra tax pay an additional $1,500 to $3,000 in taxes a year and officials estimate the stipends would cost the city an additional $33,000.

Laura Adiele wasn't expecting any trouble when she put her hair up, packed her bags, and headed for SeaTac to catch a flight to Texas.  So, she was quite surprised when she was pulled out of the security line after having gone through the Advance Imaging system (that see-through technology) and told she needed a pat-down.

"When I first heard her say, 'We're going to have to pat you down,' I thought she was talking about my body. I was turning around and putting my arms out and she said, 'no, we're going to have to examine your hair,' and I said, 'no, we're not going to do that today and you're going to have to get security or your supervisor,'" said Adiele.

Adiele claims she looked around, saw plenty of other women with "big hair, ponytails" who weren't being searched, and it made her mad.  She felt it was discrimination, that she as a black woman with an afro tucked up into a curly bun, was being selected for hand-screening when women of other races weren't.  She had nothing to hide but just didn't want strangers feeling her hair.

"This is a disaster," said Mark Miller, the Wisconsin Senate Democratic leader, in February after Republican Gov. Scott Walker proposed a budget bill that would curtail the collective bargaining powers of some public employees. Miller predicted catastrophe if the bill were to become law -- a charge repeated thousands of times by his fellow Democrats, union officials, and protesters in the streets.

Now the bill is law, and we have some very early evidence of how it is working. And for one beleaguered Wisconsin school district, it's a godsend, not a disaster.

The Kaukauna School District, in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin near Appleton, has about 4,200 students and about 400 employees. It has struggled in recent times and this year faced a deficit of $400,000. But after the law went into effect, at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, school officials put in place new policies they estimate will turn that $400,000 deficit into a $1.5 million surplus. And it's all because of the very provisions that union leaders predicted would be disastrous.

Having spent months on the front line, the last thing a soldier would want is to cooped up in a box.

But for this military father clambering inside an enormous wrapped present was worth it to see the smiles on his childrens' faces when they opened it.

The father has organised the emotional surprise with his wife while he was believed to have been serving in Afghanistan.

John Lennon was a closet Republican, who felt a little embarrassed by his former radicalism, at the time of his death - according to the tragic Beatles star's last personal assistant.

Fred Seaman worked alongside the music legend from 1979 to Lennon's death at the end of 1980 and he reveals the star was a Ronald Reagan fan who enjoyed arguing with left-wing radicals who reminded him of his former self.

In new documentary Beatles Stories, Seaman tells filmmaker Seth Swirsky Lennon wasn't the peace-loving militant fans thought he was while he was his assistant.

He says, "John, basically, made it very clear that if he were an American he would vote for Reagan because he was really sour on (Democrat) Jimmy Carter.

A three year old boy has been left fighting for his life after being 'sold' by his babysitter to two men who raped and tortured the toddler.

Police said the boy from Oklahoma was forced to drink bleach and had part of his skull torn off during the horrific assault.

His face, eyes and throat were all covered in chemical burns and he had been hanged from a ceiling with a dog collar.

Investigators said Jennifer Chapman, who was looking after the boy, allegedly offered the boy to two men for sex in exchange for methamphetamine.

The two men allegedly raped and tortured the boy for several hours before returning him to 43 year old Chapman at the Oklahoma motel where she was staying with the boy's mother Leana Lauck.

According to police when Ms Lauck, 31, saw the injuries to her son she decided against taking him to hospital for urgent treatment and instead began taking meths with her friend.

An arrest report revealed that the boy, who has not been named, suffered for 18 hours before he was taken to hospital.

Mouse droppings coat the surfaces, desks and computers. Trash cans lie overturned in classrooms. The floors are littered with thousands of spat out sunflower-seed shells.

MS 344, the Academy of Collaborative Education in Harlem, is New York's worst-performing middle school. It is also known as the school from hell.

And the pupils are the worst part. They assault teachers, destroy the facilities and steal from each other in the halls. They are out of control.

Since last year the Department of Education has twice tried, and failed, to shut the school down.

After 34 years of teaching sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I recently retired at age 64 at 80 percent of my pay for life. This calculation was based on a salary spiked by summer teaching, and since I no longer pay into the retirement fund, I now receive significantly more than when I “worked.” But that’s not all: There’s a generous health insurance plan, a guaranteed 3 percent annual cost of living increase, and a few other perquisites. Having overinvested in my retirement annuity, I received a fat refund and—when it rains, it pours—another for unused sick leave. I was also offered the opportunity to teach as an emeritus for three years, receiving $8,000 per course, double the pay for adjuncts, which works out to over $200 an hour. Another going-away present was summer pay, one ninth of my salary, with no teaching obligation.

June 21: The handgun once owned by notorious gangster "Al" Capone, is displayed at Christie's auction house in London.

LONDON –  A handgun once owned by gangster Al Capone was sold at auction Wednesday for $108,447.

Christie's auction house in London said the Colt .38 revolver was sold to an anonymous bidder in the room.

The gun was manufactured in 1929, the year of the St Valentine's Day Massacre, when seven people were killed in Chicago amid ongoing battles between Capone's gang and a rival group.

Capone ruled the Chicago underworld in the 1920s through racketeering and profiting from a ban on alcohol -- a period known as Prohibition.

Read More: http://www.publicnewsnow.com/world-news/item/130824-al-capones-gun-auctioned-for-over-100000

On May 11, 2010, Plaintiff Hillwood Investment Properties III, Ltd. ("Hillwood"), a five percent owner of the World Champion Dallas Mavericks, filed its Original Petition claiming that majority owner Mark Cuban ("Cuban") has made a "litany of questionable, business, financial and personnel decisions" regarding the World Champion Dallas Mavericks. Hillwood claims that Cuban has been "careless and reckless" in his decision-making, allegedly causing Hillwood to "lose substantial invesment value." Finally, Hillwood claims that the World Champion Dallas Mavericks are "insolvent and/or in imminent danger of insolvency," and seeks to take the team away from Cuban and hand the World Champion Dallas Mavericks over to a court appointed receiver.

On June 12, 2011, the World Champion Dallas Mavericks defeated the Miami Heat to claim the franchise's first NBA championship. A true and correct photo of one of the many victory celebrations is incorporated herein:

Under Hillwood's ownership, the team was deemed the "worst franchise" in all of professional sports. Under Cuban's stewardship the Mavericks have become one of the league's most successful teams and are now NBA champions. Accordingly, there can be no genuine question that Hillwood's claims of mismanagement lack merit and Hillwood's claims should be disposed of on summary judgment.

More than 100 Green Bay teachers dressed in red packed the School Board meeting room on Monday to say they feel betrayed by a recent school district directive that would require them to work longer hours and lose planning time.

 The Green Bay School District recently sent a memo to teachers indicating they would be required to work an extra half-hour a day and would lose planning time to make room for staff and other meetings.

This brought teachers — many emotional — to the School Board, saying they feel betrayed that they weren't first consulted about the changes. Many said morale among Green Bay teachers is low and expressed worry these changes could be the tip of the iceberg.

A woman allegedly raped and threw her boyfriend's 17-month-old daughter against a blunt object, killing her, it has today emerged.

Molly Jane Roe, 24, of Bells, Tennessee, is accused of throwing Maleeya Marie Murley while looking after her.

The toddler was rushed to hospital with a severe brain injury but died several hours after being admitted.

A medical examination also revealed she had been subject to a sexual assault before she died.

They also found a bite mark on her back and bruising on her hip and stomach.

Roe is accused of abusing the child at the home of her father Phillip Murely Jr.

Fifty-one-year-old Guy Hornedeagle from Lake Andes South Dakota was arrested last week for DUI on a riding lawnmower.

Read more: http://www.publicnewsnow.com/us-news/item/126581-man-arrested-for-dui-on-lawnmower

Buying $141.78 worth of lobster, steak and Mountain Dew with a Bridge card violates no laws or rules.

 But turning around and selling the stuff for 50 percent of its value, well ... that's a different matter.

Louis Wayne Cuff, a 33-year-old Menominee man was arraigned in 95th District Court in Menominee last week for food stamp trafficking, a felony. Cuff's arrest resulted from a month-long joint investigation by the State Department of Human Services' Inspector General and the Menominee County Sheriff's Department. Cuff allegedly bought the lobster, steak and Mountain Dew and resold it for 50 cents on the dollar.

We know of at least one Chicago rapper who won't be getting an invite to the White House anytime soon.

Lupe Fiasco called out President Barack Obama this week, calling his fellow Chicagoan "the biggest terrorist."

The comments came in an interview with CBS News Tuesday while discussing the political content of his music.

"My fight against terrorism, to me, the biggest terrorist is Obama in the United States of America. I'm trying to fight the terrorism that's actually causing the other forms of terrorism. You know, the root cause of terrorism is the stuff the U.S. government allows to happen. The foreign policies that we have in place in different countries that inspire people to become terrorists."

• Ophelia De'lonta, born Michael Stokes, is housed in a men's facility 

• De'lonta sleeps and showers alone but is not segregated from male inmates

• She is serving 70 years for robbery, drugs, weapons and other charges

• At least 12 other inmates have castrated themselves over the past 14 years

Crouched in her cell, Ophelia De'lonta hoped three green disposable razors from the prison commissary would give her what the Virginia Department of Corrections will not - a sex change.

It had been several years since she had felt the urges, but she had been fighting them for weeks. But like numerous other times, she failed to get rid of what she calls 'that thing' between her legs, the last evidence she was born a male.

Months after the October castration attempt, De'lonta filed a federal lawsuit Friday claiming the state has failed its duty to provide adequate medical care because it won't give her the operation. 

She says the surgery is needed to treat her gender identity disorder, a mental illness in which people believe they were born the wrong gender.

A two-year-old girl died from suspected malnutrition months after being released from foster care to her biological parents.

Though no one has been arrested, police say that the parents of Vyctorya Sandoval, from Los Angeles, are suspects in the investigation.

When she died, bruises covered her body, a rib was fractured and blood tests suggested she died thirsty and hungry.

One former couple is airing their grievances very publicly.

A New Mexico man lashed out at his ex-girlfriend by spending $1,300 on a highway billboard with the text: 'This Would Have Been A Picture Of My 2-Month Old Baby If The Mother Has Decided To Not KILL Our Child!'

The billboard shows a picture of Greg A. Fultz, 35, holding the outline of an infant.

Chief U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ordered that specific religious words including "prayer" and "amen" are forbidden at Texas Medina Valley Independent School District graduation. The judge didn't stop there either, he also ordered that the terms "invocation" and "benediction" be removed from the graduation program.

Because so many people have obviously commented without reading the stories I linked. Here are some KEY facts about the Judge's ruling. 

U.S. District Judge Fred Biery granted the temporary restraining order this week. It prohibited students from asking audience members to join in prayer, bow their heads, end remarks with "amen," or even use the word "prayer."

The ruling instructed students to instead modify their remarks to be "statements of their own beliefs." The judge did allow students to make the sign of the cross, wear a yarmulke or hijab, or kneel to face Mecca

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/7591229.html

http://www.kltv.com/story/14775727/texas-judge-no-prayer-at-high-school-graduation

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110601/us_ac/8567369_judge_orders_texas_public_school_to_remove_prayers_from_graduation_ceremony_1

Two days after she laid her beloved soldier husband to rest Emma Weaver opened the laptop he'd had in Afghanistan and was overcome with emotion.

There were two Word documents on the desktop, one called 'Dear Emma,' the other marked 'Dear Kiley' for the couple's baby daughter.
Mrs Weaver realised her darling husband Todd, who was killed by an IED on his second tour of Afghanistan in September 2010, had written both his leading ladies goodbye letters in the event of his death.

Mrs Weaver, from Hampton, Virginia, took a deep breath and opened the files.

'Well if you are reading this, I guess I did not make it home and therefore, I was not able to remind you again of how much I love you,' U.S. Army, 1st Lieutenant, Weaver wrote.

'Although it may seem like my life was cut short, I lived a life that most can only dream of. I married the perfect woman. I have a beautiful daughter that amazed me every day.'

Credit Suisse Group AG (CS), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) andRoyal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS) each borrowed at least $30 billion in 2008 from a Federal Reserve emergency lending program whose details weren’t revealed to shareholders, members of Congress or the public.

The $80 billion initiative, called single-tranche open- market operations, or ST OMO, made 28-day loans from March through December 2008, a period in which confidence in global credit markets collapsed after the Sept. 15 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

Units of 20 banks were required to bid at auctions for the cash. They paid interest rates as low as 0.01 percent that December, when the Fed’s main lending facility charged 0.5 percent.

• He holds back tears in grovelling on-air apology 
• Ingraham pens scathing response on Facebook page

It's a cut-throat world, the business of U.S. talk show hosting.

And when your wares are you words, any slip up can turn the lights down and cameras off on even the most cushioned of careers.

That's what MSNBC talk show host Ed Schultz found when he branded talk-rival Laura Ingraham a 'right-wing slut' live on air.

After MSNBC bosses suspended him without pay, Schultz issued a grovelling on-air apology in which he begged forgiveness not only from Ms Ingraham and his audience, but from the company, his wife and children.

 It's like a flash mob gone bad. Security footage from a Manhattan Dunkin' Donuts shows a group of youths climbing on counters, throwing chairs and throwing tables in a violent attack on workers.

It happened at the Dunkin' Donuts on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village.  A $2,000 hot chocolate machine was reportedly destroyed in the attack.

Similar attacks have targeted other stores in the neighborhood in the previous weeks.

The video shows one of the teens throwing a chair and then running up to grab a donut.

A few of the attackers also grabbed drinks out of a refrigerator near the door, and they all quickly ran from the store.

It was an era that defined a generation. The Great Depression marked the bitter and abrupt end to the post-World War 1 bubble that left America giddy with promise in the 1920s. Near the end of the 1930s the country was beginning to recover from the crash, but many in small towns and rural areas were still poverty-stricken. These rare photographs are some of the few documenting those iconic years in colour. The photographs and captions are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color. The images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, shed a bleak new light on a world now gone with the wind.

We first told you about Britney Campbell of San Francisco in March -- she's the eight-year-old aspiring pageant queen already dabbling in Botox and virgin waxes, courtesy of her mom, Kerry. The pair appeared on Thursday's "Good Morning America" to talk about the extreme beauty regimen with Lara Spencer.

Spencer asked Britney questions worthy of a horrifying "Law & Order: SVU" episode: can you show me where you do it? Can you point on your face? Of the Botox, Britney remarked, "It hurt sometimes, but I get used to it," and of the waxing, "It was super, super hard to deal with that...I just don't think it's ladylike to have hair on your legs," however adding that she won't do it again. At least not for a while.

The Obama's sure know how to pick their guests, don't they. On one hand we have a rapper named "Common" who raps about killing cops and burning Pres. Bush. Now we have an admitted racist, Jill Scott who apparently cannot stand to see her black friends marry white women. "I felt my spirit wince."

She continues her racist rant: "Was I jealous? Did the reality of his relationship somehow diminish his soul's credibility? The answer is not simple. One could easily dispel the wince as racist or separatist, but that's not how I was brought up. I was reared in a Jehovah's Witness household. I was taught that every man should be judged by his deeds and not his color, and I firmly stand where my grandmother left me."

If the answer isn't a simple and resounding "NO", then in my opinion, you are racist. If you weren't brought up in a racist or separatist home, then why would you have a problem with a black man and a white woman in a relationship?

And there's more: "These harsh truths lead to what we really feel when we see a seemingly together brother with a Caucasian woman and their children. That feeling is betrayed."

Betrayed? Really? Come on. Just face it Mrs. Scott, you are a racist. "Some might find these thoughts to be hurtful. That is not my intent. I'm just sayin'"

In the motion the insurance giant MBIA just filed against Credit Suisse (dated April 29, filed today), there's an interesting conversation between a handful of Credit Suisse bankers.

The subject of the emails: Why did we give a $1 million loan to a stripper?

The conversation begins on April 10, 2007, when Credit Suisse's Jeffrey Martin realizes that the stripper's first payment, due 2/1/07, hasn't been paid.

In the same motion, MBIA says that "Credit Suisse is now the subject of an investigation by the SEC, which issued a subpoena this week seeking the same types of documents as MBIA seeks with this motion." (The stripper loan might not be connected to the SEC's subpoena, however included in the email chain is a message where someone writes, "someone should go to jail for this.")

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/credit-suisse-sec-subpoena-1-million-loan-stripper-never-paid-emails-jail-fraud-2011##ixzz1LxogyQyt

Here’s an opportunity to relive your high-school poetry classes.

First Lady Michelle Obama has scheduled a poetry evening for Wednesday, and she’s invited several poets, including a successful Chicago poet and rapper, Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., AKA “Common.” However, Lynn is quite controversial, in part because his poetry includes threats to shoot police and at least one passage calling for the “burn[ing]” of then-President George W. Bush.

Back in 2003, First Lady Laura Bush held a poetry evening, and she invited several poets to reprise the work of Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman. Although none of those poets had urged violence against a president, Bush canceled the event after left-of-center poets protested and threatened to disrupt the event.

BOSTON — President Barack Obama’s father was forced to leave Harvard University before completing his Ph.D. in economics because the school was concerned about his personal life and finances, according to newly public immigration records.

Harvard had asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service to delay a request by Barack Hussein Obama Sr. to extend his stay in the U.S., “until they decided what action they could take in order to get rid of him,” immigration official M.F. McKeon wrote in a June 1964 memo.

Harvard administrators, the memo stated, “were having difficulty with his financial arrangements and couldn’t seem to figure out how many wives he had.”

ExxonMobil’s earnings are from operations in more than 100 countries around the world. During the first quarter, more than three-quarters of our operating earnings came from outside of the United States.

The part of ExxonMobil’s business that refines and sells gasoline, diesel and other products in the United States represents less than 6 percent – or 6 cents on the dollar – of our earnings.

Why so little? Because we actually buy more crude oil to refine into gasoline and diesel in the U.S. than we produce ourselves. And these purchases are made on the open market at the prevailing rates.

Now it's unclear what statement Berget is trying to make here, but it is clear, it's not a pleasant one for him. We spoke with a dietician to find out how a body reacts when you stop feeding it.

If Rodney Berget actually hasn't eaten in a week, it's more than likely he's in a very bad mood.

Hy-Vee Registered Dietician Jessica Waltner says he's probably, "pretty fatigued, tired, weak, probably and then mentally you might be pretty irritable, maybe feeling down, depressed."

http://www.fallspress.com/news/news/local-news/item/666034-south-dakota-prison-guard-killer-rodney-berget-refuses-food-what-will-that-do-to-his-body?

Here is another fine example of the trend of violence in fast food restaurants. Two black females beating the hell out of a white patron, while several black employees stand by and watch. One black male manages to provide the facade of assistance to the white victim in this brutal attack.

The two black females exit, then re-enter the store to continue the beating, until a an older white woman attempts to stop them from dragging the white victim outside into the parking lot. note: the black male employees have disappeared from camera view, even though they are plenty well capable of stopping the attack.

At the end, the white victim is beaten until she has a seizure, at which point the camera operator warns the black female attackers to flee, because the police are on the way. Note: he makes sure to repeatedly tell the criminal attackers to flee, instead of keeping them there for the police to apprehend.

He is known for dressing inmates in pink underwear and feeding them green baloney.
And now America's toughest Sheriff has come up with a new initiative to give the public a voice in law enforcement - an online Mugshot of the Day competition.

Arizona-based Joe Arpaio, known for his uncompromising stance on crime, is letting the public browse through the mugshots of those arrested each day and then vote for their favourite.

White House Dossier has obtained evidence of a secret pilot program testing the new "Healthy Kids" school lunch menu on children at an elementary school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. WHD has been provided a private memo that was sent by an agent of the first lady's office to the White House last week. In it, the agent describes some horrifying scenes of disruption and delinquent behavior.

A cafeteria worker who tried to serve a plate of green pepper strips was attacked by a student with an ice cream scoop demanding to have "Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey or some suitable alternative."

Two weeks ago, several students seized control of the kitchen's deep fryer and dropped their "oven-baked fish nuggets" in it in order to ratchet up the flavor. Others armed with salt shakers ran behind the cafeteria line and and added significantly to the sodium content of the food before being forcibly removed by security.

A 16-year-old northern Indiana girl has been charged as an adult with four felonies and a 14-year-old has admitted juvenile charges of battery and confinement in connection with an attack on a 17-year-old special needs boy.

The Times of Munster reports the 14-year-old girl wept Monday as she admitted the charges from the attack and other charges from unrelated incidents. Monday. She faces a May 9 sentencing.

Police have said the two girls lured the boy to a home April 9, threatened him with a knife, then handcuffed and sexually battered him.

Recent studies have shown that the wage gap shrinks—or even reverses—when relevant factors are taken into account and comparisons are made between men and women in similar circumstances. In a 2010 study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30, the research firm Reach Advisors found that women earned an average of 8% more than their male counterparts. Given that women are outpacing men in educational attainment, and that our economy is increasingly geared toward knowledge-based jobs, it makes sense that women's earnings are going up compared to men's.

Should we celebrate the closing of the wage gap? Certainly it's good news that women are increasingly productive workers, but women whose husbands and sons are out of work or under-employed are likely to have a different perspective. After all, many American women wish they could work less, and that they weren't the primary earners for their families.

It looked so good she could almost taste it.

Fox 5 News San Diego morning anchor Shally Zomorodi got pranked on camera by coworker Raoul Martinez, who convinced her to lick and smell an iPad for a fake segment about a new iPad feature.

Martinez said a new app would engage the mouth and nose.

Obama has known Titcomb since high school

Titcomb arrested for allegedly soliciting an undercover officer posing as a prostitute

His father was a judge... and starred in Hawaii Five-O

One of President Obama's close friends has been arrested in a prostitution sting operation.

Robert 'Bobby' Titcomb, 49 - a long time friend of the President - was arrested after he allegedly approached an undercover police officer posing as a prostitute in the downtown area of Honolulu.

Titcomb was one of four arrested during the sting, according to the Honolulu police department.

"I'm just going to be honest with you. There's not much we can do next week or two weeks from now," the president told workers at a wind turbine plant. It's a theme Obama's struck before as he tries to show voters he's attuned to a top economic concern with gas prices pushing toward $4 a gallon.

"Gas prices? They're going to still fluctuate until we can start making these broader changes, and that's going to take a couple of years to have serious effect," Obama said.

He is universally known as the activist who championed the rights of black people - but a new book also claims Malcolm X was bisexual who had an affair with a white man.

The book, written by one of New York's foremost African-American scholars, says Malcolm X had a relationship with a white businessman.
The bisexual claims are sure to re-ignite the controversy first stirred in a 1991 biography that detailed Malcolm X's alleged gay experiences.

The new book, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable, also claims that one of the men who assassinated Malcolm X escaped justice and is alive and well.

If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?

Every state in America today except for two—Indiana and Wisconsin—has more government workers on the payroll than people manufacturing industrial goods. Consider California, which has the highest budget deficit in the history of the states. The not-so Golden State now has an incredible 2.4 million government employees—twice as many as people at work in manufacturing. New Jersey has just under two-and-a-half as many government employees as manufacturers. Florida's ratio is more than 3 to 1. So is New York's.

Police said they found the man in deplorable conditions.

BELLAIRE, Ohio -- Police said a Bellaire man had to be removed from his home on Washington Street Sunday.
Police said the man's skin had become attached to the fabric of the chair after he sat in it for two years

Authorities said he was sitting in his own feces and urine and maggots were visible.

Police were called in to help transfer the man to the hospital.

'We are at tipping point... We WILL become insolvent, the question is when'

Fed has done its job - pressure is on lawmakers, says official
A senior Federal Reserve official warned today that America is going broke as fears grow the Libyan bombardment could cost more than $1 billion.

With the U.S. now fighting three wars, the massive new military drain on the budget could not have come at a worse time as the nation is trying to claw itself out of recession.

The first day of Operation Odyssey Dawn had a price tag of well over $100million for the U.S. in missiles alone, according to estimates.

Bucking a national trend of raising cigarette taxes, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Rhode Island have considered reducing theirs, hoping to draw smokers from other states and increase revenue.

Supporters argue reducing the tax by a dime would make New Hampshire more competitive with Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts, while opponents say that even if the state experienced higher sales as a result it still would lose millions of dollars in revenue.

It's very unusual for states to lower the tax, University of Illinois at Chicago economics professor Frank Chaloupka says. The increase in sales isn't enough to offset the drop in state tax revenue, he says.

Instead of lowering the tax, states have enacted 100 increases over the past decade, he says.

No, it's a not a story from the Onion. It's AFP reporting on the actions of Associated Press photographers and journalists:

US news agency staff stage 'byline strike'

Journalists and photographers at the US news agency the Associated Press (AP) are withholding their bylines to protest management's stance in contract talks, their union said.

"Staffers recognize the tough times, but they also understand that quality journalism at AP means attracting and retaining the best employees," Tony Winton, president of the News Media Guild, said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Guild said AP reporters and photographers were withholding bylines and personal equipment "in protest over the news agency's proposals that would threaten job security, dramatically raise medical costs, and freeze wages."

Yeah, that'll show em.

A boy who almost died from a ruptured appendix has spoken about his moving experience on TV, saying he met his great grandfather in heaven.

The extraordinary claims by Colton Burpo, come after he was misdiagnosed in 2002 with flu while his family, from Imperial, Nebraska, were on a trip to Colorado. By the time they returned home, the then 4-year-old was seriously ill and had to undergo emergency surgery twice.

As he lay on the operating table, Colton, now 11, says he went to heaven. A book of his 'experience' has since become a New York Times Best Seller.

A beauty queen has told how she shot and killed a burglar as he wrestled with her fiance during a break-in in the middle of the night.

Police are investigating the death of Albert Hill at 3am in an incident at the Florida mansion which Meghan Brown shares with fiance Bobby Planthaber Jr.

The 2009 Miss Tierra Verde had opened the door to him on March 12 in the early hours thinking he was a friend needing a bed for the night.

Just before the nurses took her newborn baby from her for the final time, they asked Carolyn Savage if she would like them to make up a 'bereavement box' for her to take home.

She said she would — well aware that, in time, mementos of the all-too-short moments she had spent with baby Logan would help her come to terms with her loss.

Carolyn recalls watching a nurse hold one little foot while a clay imprint was made; then smiling, somehow, for photographs, as Logan lay on her chest. In all, she spent 45 minutes with her 'feisty little man'.

The Dayton Police Department is lowering its testing standards for recruits.

It's a move required by the U.S. Department of Justice after it says not enough African-Americans passed the exam.

Dayton is in desperate need of officers to replace dozens of retirees. The hiring process was postponed for months because the D.O.J. rejected the original scores provided by the Dayton Civil Service Board, which administers the test.

Under the previous requirements, candidates had to get a 66% on part one of the exam and a 72% on part two.

The D.O.J. approved new scoring policy only requires potential police officers to get a 58% and a 63%. That's the equivalent of an 'F' and a 'D'.

The lunatic left is at it again. They've taken a fact, twisted it beyond recognition, and convinced themselves that it's something it isn't.

The background: Premiere Radio Networks said it offers paid actors for call-ins to radio hosts. They explained later that the service is designed for FM entertainment shows, not AM talk shows, but libs had already jumped to the conclusion that Premier-syndicated talk shows like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity must be using those paid actors.

Enter poor, dumb Ed Schultz.

While falsely accusing Limbaugh and Hannity of using these fake calls, Schultz confessed that he has used fake callers and said the fakes were actually Democratic Party staffers calling in from their congressional offices.

The link above doesn't work, use this one: http://www.ihatethemedia.com/ed-schultz-admits-guilty-doing-what-he-falsely-accuses-rush-limbaugh-of-doing

"The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently required the nation's airlines to disable the oxygen generators located in all aircraft lavatories to eliminate a potential safety and security vulnerability. The airlines completed the work on the 6,000 aircraft in the U.S. fleet on Friday, March 4.

"The FAA, along with other federal agencies, identified and validated the potential threat, then devised a solution that could be completed quickly.

Government payouts—including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance—make up more than a third of total wages and salaries of the U.S. population, a record figure that will only increase if action isn't taken before the majority of Baby Boomers enter retirement.

Even as the economy has recovered, social welfare benefits make up 35 percent of wages and salaries this year, up from 21 percent in 2000 and 10 percent in 1960, according to TrimTabs Investment Research using Bureau of Economic Analysis data.

Eight years later the authorities got a break in the case that had frustrated them for so long. Woodmansee talked a 14-year-old newspaper delivery boy into his house where he supplied him with beer and liquor then attempted to strangle him. The boy was able to escape and ran home to tell his father who then called police.
Woodmansee was taken to police headquarters where investigators ask him about Jason. Woodmansee confessed to sexually assaulting and killing the child, police said.
Authorities searched Woodmansee's house and found Jason's skull and other bones on top of his dresser. A journal which detailed Jason's gruesome death was also discovered.
Superior Court Judge Thomas H. Needham ordered that the journal and other evidence sealed. The Judge said that the details provided in Woodmansee's journal were too disturbing and graphic for the Foreman family to see. The details include how Woodmansee sexually assaulted, removed the flesh from the bones of Jason Foreman, then shellacked his bones.

Read more: Father Of Brutally Murdered Son Vows To Kill Son's Murderer If He Is Released From Prison Early http://publicnewsnow.com/us-news/item/6385-father-of-brutally-murdered-son-vows-to-kill-sons-murderer-if-he-is-released-from-prison-early#ixzz1G2UGZR1k

This just reinforces what I have said all along that teacher pay doesn't improve education and that throwing more money at government schools IS NOT the answer. Don't get me wrong, teachers deserve decent salaries, after all who else would want to deal with other people's kids all day?

The average teacher in Milwaukee earns (with benefits) just over $101,000 per year. (That's a hell of a lot of money for working 9-10 months a year!) That is a lot of money for the taxpayers to fork over to pay for these salaries. $101,000 is double what an RN in WI makes! (Click here is average salaries in WI.) For those that don't want to click the link, here are a couple average salaries: a Staff Accountant earns $41,833, an HR Manager earns $58,356, a Sr. Software Engineer earns $78, 610. Teachers on the other hand, $101,000.

For $101,000 you would expect that those students would outperform national averages, right? The answer is absolutely not. (For the record, I didn't believe that the students would perform better.) By my count there were only 40 schools that met state standards, 13 of which are private schools and many others are selective or charter schools.

The study goes further and finds that when the bar is lowered to include schools that meet at least 75% of the state's standards in reading and math, "the percentage of kids being served with a decent education rose to about 33%."

33% - THIRTY THREE PERCENT!!!! That's absolutely abhorrent! There really is no other word to describe the state of government schools in Milwaukee.

Abhorrent.

Tucked on the south side of Milwaukee off Oklahoma Ave., Veritas High School has about 180 students, a college preparatory curriculum and a reputation for helping kids succeed.

According to a new study, the charter high school also has the distinction of being the only non-selective public high school in the city meeting at least 75% of the state's standards in reading and math.

That scarcity of good schools available to all children in Milwaukee - especially at the high school level, on the north and northwest sides, and in a few areas of the densely populated south side - is the focus of a new study by a Chicago nonprofit that has been tracking the distribution of "performing schools" in urban districts since 2003.

A new study by a Chicago nonprofit finds that quality schools in Milwaukee are scarce, especially at the high school level, on the north and northwest sides, and in a few areas of the densely populated south side. Related story

Click on a marker or school name to learn more about the school's test scores and enrollment capacity.

It's hard to make ends meet on that.

There is always the cry that teachers have to buy "supplies" for their Students out of their own pockets.

I can't help but think there's a reason for that -- that each year, a greater proportion of dollars earmarked for education goes to salaries, and is deducted from supplies. $60,000 in actual money Salary plus $41,000 per year in benefits package. In a normal negotiation, management is a genuine adversary to the workers. Workers have a strong interest in ...

U.S. gasoline prices increased nearly 33 cents in two weeks, the second-biggest two-week jump in the history of the gasoline market, according to a new survey of filling stations.

The latest Lundberg Survey of cities in the continental United States was conducted Friday. It showed the national average for a price of self-serve unleaded gasoline at $3.51, an increase of 32.7 cents from the last survey two weeks earlier, survey publisher Trilby Lundberg said.

An Army soldier died early Sunday morning and his friend was behind bars after a game of Russian roulette. At about 2 a.m. Anchorage police were called to an Eagle River home, where a 26-year-old male had been shot in the abdomen.

Police are not releasing his name, but say he is originally from North Carolina and was taken to Providence Hospital where he was later pronounced dead. He belonged to the 3rd Maneuver Enhancement Brigade at Joint Base Elmenford-Richardson.

PARK (KTLA) -- A Sigalert was issued early Monday morning on the 10 Freeway, after a dead body was found in the roadway.

The California Highway Patrol received a call about a body in the westbound lanes of the 10 at Crenshaw Boulevard around 3:45 a.m.

A motorist reported seeing a vehicle stopped in front of a body in the number four lane. That vehicle left the scene, according to the witness, who remained behind to try to divert traffic.

John F Kennedy Jr smoked marijuana and brought a book on Tantric sex on holiday to Jamaica with his former girlfriend, she has revealed in a memoir.

Christina Haag said he packed the racy Thai volume because it had been 'highly recommended' by a friend - and he winked at her when she saw it.

The couple, who called each other 'chief' and 'king', also cheated death twice during an ill-fated kayaking expedition which left her convinced they were about to die.

These shocking before and after images reveal in stark and simple terms the cost drug addiction takes on the human face.
'From Drugs to Mugs' is the follow up to the controversial 2004 'Faces of Meth' release which highlighted the effects of methamphetamine use.

Released in the hope that they will make kids think twice about ever touching drugs the pictures show how addicts have lost teeth and scratched their skin to the bone.

A married couple allegedly treated their three adopted children like animals - keeping them in cages and feeding them pet food.
Prosecutors said the parents subjected the children to a horrific regime of abuse that included regular beatings and being starved - all while being paid $1,500 a month to 'care' for them.

Sonja Kluth, 57, is accused of beating the children - two boys aged 15 and 11 and a girl aged nine - with the buckle ends of belts and broom handles until they lost consciousness.