Monday, May 25, 2015
Online Dating Site Hack Exposes Millions Of Users' Sexual Preferences
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This Teacher Let Her Student Shave Her Head After He Was Bullied For His Buzz Cut
“If he makes fun of you then he’s making fun of me too.”
Tori Nelson is a fourth-grade teacher at Winlock Miller Elementary School in Washington. Last week, she was getting ready to begin her class when she noticed one of her students, Matthew, was in tears outside.
Tori Nelson
Nelson explained that Matthew has a scar on the back of his head, so he had a bald spot. Another boy noticed it, and began to make fun of him.
Nelson tried to get Matthew to come inside, but he refused.
“I was kind of running out of options,” she said.
Nelson had an idea. She told Matthew if he came inside, he could buzz her hair off at lunch. That way, she said, “if (the other boy) makes fun of you, then he’s making fun of me too.”
Tori Nelson
Matthew agreed, and at lunch he buzzed Nelson’s hair off to match his.
Tori Nelson
This Teacher Let Her Student Shave Her Head After He Was Bullied For His Buzz Cut
Report: Cleveland Reaches Settlement With Justice Department Over Policing
Federal officials last year alleged that Cleveland Police had engaged in “a pattern or practice of using excessive force.”
A protester is arrested after the acquittal of Cleveland Officer Michael Brelo on Saturday.
Tony Dejak / AP
Officials with the city of Cleveland and the Department of Justice have reached a settlement agreement that will determine what action will be taken after federal investigators last year alleged a pattern of unconstitutional behavior by the city's police, the New York Times reported Monday.
Citing “people briefed on the case,” the newspaper said the terms of the settlement may be announced Tuesday.
It comes after DOJ investigators published a report last December that alleged Cleveland police officers routinely used unnecessary and excessive force against suspects, violating their constitutional rights.
The federal report also found “an unnecessary, excessive or retaliatory use of less lethal force [by Cleveland Police] including Tasers, chemical spray and fists.”
Then-Attorney General Eric Holder announced at the time that city and federal officials would come together to “set in motion a process that will remedy these issues in a comprehensive — and court-enforceable — manner.”
John Minchillo / AP
Cleveland's mayor, Frank Jackson, largely rejected the report's findings.
“We believe we have a problem in the Division of Police,” Jackson said after its release. “We do not believe it is a systematic failure.”
News of the reported settlement comes just days after Officer Michael Brelo was acquitted on involuntary manslaughter charges over the 2012 deaths of two unarmed black suspects. Some 137 shots were fired into the pair's vehicle by police — 49 of which came from Brelo's gun. However, the judge was unable to determine whether the shots fired by Brelo were those that killed Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams. Hours of protests followed the court's decision.
Cleveland was also the scene of the fatal shooting of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old who was killed by police while brandishing a toy gun in a playground.
Report: Cleveland Reaches Settlement With Justice Department Over Policing
Bomb Squad Destroys Pressure Cooker Found Near U.S. Capitol
Police said Sunday that Israel Shimeles was arrested after a bomb squad destroyed a pressure cooker and other items left in a “suspicious” car on the National Mall.
A bomb squad on Sunday successfully destroyed a pressure cooker that was located in a “suspicious” car close to the Capitol in Washington, D.C., said a U.S. Capitol Police spokeswoman, according to the Associated Press.
The automobile was empty and left on the National Mall, Police Lt. Kimberly Schneider told the Associated Press. She said Capitol Police officers spotted the car around 5 p.m.
Schneider said that an odor of gasoline was detected along with a pressure cooker. She said the bomb squad was called because the automobile was “suspicious in nature.”
The area along 3rd Street between Independence Avenue and Constitution Avenue was temporarily closed off while the bomb squad investigated on Sunday.
The area was closed off while the bomb squad known as the Hazardous Devices Section destroyed “items of concern in the vehicle including the pressure cooker.”
She also told the AP that this included a controlled detonation of the items. A loud bang was heard around 7:45 p.m., according to the New York Times.
Nearby, a Memorial Day concert was held on Capitol west lawn, starring Gloria Estefan, with hundreds of people in attendance, FOX 5 DC reported.
The owner of the car was found and Schneider identified him as Israel Shimeles of Alexandria, Virginia. He was arrested by Capitol Police and charged with “Operating After Revocation.”
Pressure cookers are used to make explosive devices and were used in the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombings that killed three and wounded 260 people.
Bomb Squad Destroys Pressure Cooker Found Near U.S. Capitol
Sunday, May 24, 2015
A Homeschooling Program Promoted By The Duggars Has Troubling Advice On How To Handle Sexual Abuse
The program, the Advanced Training Institute, has been frequently mentioned on the Duggars’ TLC show and blog for years.
The revelations come after it was revealed the eldest Duggar son Josh was accused of sexually abusing his younger sisters when he was a teenager.
Duggar, who is now 27 and a father of three, with another child on the way, released a statement last week in which he confessed to acting "inexcusably." He also resigned from his position on the Family Research Council.
His parents, Jim Bob and Michelle, who star with him on the TV show 19 Kids and Counting, said in a statement that their son made "some very bad mistakes" but has confessed and recovered.
Josh Duggar and his family.
TLC
A Homeschooling Program Promoted By The Duggars Has Troubling Advice On How To Handle Sexual Abuse
A Girl With Down Syndrome Who Is Fighting Cancer Is Trying To Meet Taylor Swift
Victoria Marsh is getting help from Delaware’s Dover Police Department in her goal to meet her idol.
A Girl With Down Syndrome Who Is Fighting Cancer Is Trying To Meet Taylor Swift
New Orleans Officer Fatally Shot In Squad Car
The body of the officer, who worked with the city’s housing authority, was found Sunday morning.
"It's a very hard thing to which one of your colleagues lose their life in the line of duty," Harrison said, adding that the crime is under investigation.
The officer's body was discovered around 7.am. local time, he said.
HANO Police Chief Robert Anderson said it was the first on-duty death of an officer in the department's history.
"It's a horrible day for us," Anderson said. "Truly sad. This is a young officer that was taken way too soon."
Grief counsellors have been made available to officers, Anderson and Harrison said.
"The death of this HANO police officer is an unspeakable tragedy, and a vile and cowardly act. Tragedies that involve our men and women in uniform affect our entire city and touch every member of our law enforcement community. We are deeply saddened by this loss, and our hearts and prayers are with the officer's friends and family and with the entire HANO family during this very difficult time.
"NOPD and HANO will work very closely to identify and arrest those responsible for this heinous assault. NOPD and HANO are part of the same close-knit law enforcement family that puts their lives on the line to protect and serve the people of New Orleans. Never are we more aware of the risk they face every day than we are on terrible days like this.
New Orleans Officer Fatally Shot In Squad Car
"A Beautiful Mind" Mathematician John Nash And Wife Killed In Taxi Crash
The genius, who struggled with schizophrenia, was played by the actor Russell Crowe in the 2001 biopic A Beautiful Mind.
Mathematician John Nash and his wife Alicia, whose lives were the subject of the Oscar-winning film A Beautiful Mind, were killed Saturday in a taxi crash in New Jersey, police told BuzzFeed News.
John Forbes Nash and his wife Alicia at the Oscars in 2002.
Fred Prouser / Reuters
The pair were killed at the New Jersey Turnpike around 4:30 p.m. ET on Saturday when the cab they were traveling in crashed while trying to pass another vehicle, New Jersey state police spokesman Sgt. First Class Gregory Williams said.
The couple, who were not believed to have been wearing seat belts, were thrown from the vehicle and died on scene, Williams said.
The cab driver was injured in the crash and flown to hospital, he said.
Renowned for his work in game theory, the former Princeton University professor won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994.
Charles Rex Arbogast / ASSOCIATED PRESS
"A Beautiful Mind" Mathematician John Nash And Wife Killed In Taxi Crash
Evacuations Ordered As "Life Threatening" Floods Douse The Great Plains
High water swamped parts of Texas and Oklahoma late Saturday and early Sunday. Crews rescued dozens of stranded people and record high rivers prompted evacuation orders.
The National Weather Service warned that the flooding had created a “dangerous and life threatening situation” in parts of Oklahoma and Texas. Flash flood warnings covered dozens of counties, while wind and high water reportedly wreaked havoc on roads and buildings.
Evacuation orders had been issued Saturday night in Elk City, Oklahoma, and Wichita Falls, Texas, the Associated Press reported.
Evacuations Ordered As "Life Threatening" Floods Douse The Great Plains
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Arrests In Baltimore Plunge Even As The Murder Rate Soars
Some have speculated police in Baltimore are staging a work “slowdown.”
Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts speaks at a press conference regarding the death of Freddie Gray on April 30.
Andrew Burton / Getty Images
In the weeks following the death of Freddie Gray and arrest of all six Baltimore police officers involved, the city's troubled western district has seen its murder rate skyrocket and arrests plunge.
Across the city, 100 people have been killed so far this year, far outpacing the 71 homicides by the same time in 2014. This week alone, at least 19 people were shot, four of them fatally, according to a Baltimore Sun count.
In the western district, the 28-day period ending on May 16 saw six homicides, up from only two in 2014, according to police data. Non-fatal shootings in the district over the same period jumped from only five in 2014 to 20 this year.
Meanwhile, arrests are down sharply in the city. In the three weeks after Gray's death on April 19, officers made 1,452 arrests, the data shows. By comparison, the data reveals that during the same three-week period in 2013 and 2014, police made well over 2,000 arrests:
Jim Dalrymple II from Baltimore police data / Via data.baltimorecity.gov
Police data also shows arrests have declined in recent weeks as compared to earlier this year. The first 15 days of May, for example, had fewer arrests than any previous half-month period in 2015.
Arrests In Baltimore Plunge Even As The Murder Rate Soars
Man Accused Of Kidnapping Ex-Girlfriend, Killing Her, Is Killed By Police
Authorities suspect James Barton Horn Jr. shot and killed his ex-girlfriend and her son after she escaped from his home, where she was being kept in a crate. He was shot and killed by police Saturday.
James Barton Horn Jr.
Missouri Police Department via AP
James Barton Horn Jr. had been on the run since April, after he was charged with kidnapping an ex-girlfriend and repeatedly locking her in a wooden crate over the course of four months.
The woman, 46-year-old Sandra Kay Sutton, told police Horn kept her in the box when he left the house. A bucket filled with urine and feces was later found inside the box in a bedroom, according to multiple news outlets.
Sutton escaped April 30, calling police after running to a neighbor's home, but Horn was not found.
Thursday, Sutton and her 17-year-old son, Zachary Wade Sutton, were found shot to death in Clinton, Missouri, sparking a wide manhunt for Barton in the area.
A $5,000 reward for information on his whereabouts was issued Friday.
On Saturday, Henry County Sheriff Kent Oberkrom told the Associated Press Horn was killed in the J. N. Turkey Kearn Memoria Wildlife Area in Missouri, where officers found him hiding in the closet of a building.
Oberkrom said officers were led to the area after receiving a tip Saturday morning.
Horn was asked to surrender, but threatened officers with a weapon, Oberkrom told the Associated Press. Oberkrom did not say what type of weapon Horn was using.
He was shot and killed by officers.
Man Accused Of Kidnapping Ex-Girlfriend, Killing Her, Is Killed By Police
Cleveland Cop Found Not Guilty Of Manslaughter After Firing 49 Shots At Unarmed Black Couple
Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams died on Nov. 29, 2012 following a high-speed police chase and 137 shots fired — 49 of which came from Officer Michael Brelo’s gun.
Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo was found not guilty of all charges on Saturday in the deaths of two unarmed suspects in a 2012 police shootout.
Mark Duncan / AP
Russell and Williams died on Nov. 29, 2012 following a high-speed police chase and 137 shots fired -- 49 of which came from Brelo's gun.
Authorities did not find a weapon inside Russell's Chevy Malibu, and every shot fired was from a Cleveland Police Officer's gun.
The incident began when a different police officer, John Jordan, pulled the duo over for a signal violation. Jordan also suspected them of drug activity.
Russell then took off, and another officer, Vasile Nan, mistook his car backfiring for a gunshot. Russell led officers on a 22-minute, high-speed chase that eventually involved 62 police cars and more than 100 officers.
Russell and Williams were each shot more than 20 times. Investigators found that police fired in two separate waves. The first hail of gunfire lasted about 17 seconds and the seconds was about 5 seconds.
Timothy Russell
Michelle Russell
Investigators said Brelo had jumped on the hood of Russell's car and fired shots through the windshield.
Judge O'Donnell said he could find beyond a reasonable doubt that Brelo fired at least one shot that could have caused their deaths of both victims.
Other officers, he said, also fired shots that were fatal.
However, Judge O'Donnell said he could not find beyond a reasonable doubt that Brelo's shots alone caused their deaths, finding him not guilty of voluntary manslaughter.
Cleveland Cop Found Not Guilty Of Manslaughter After Firing 49 Shots At Unarmed Black Couple
A 40-Pound Woman Has Detailed Her Shocking Descent Into Anorexia In A Heartbreaking Video
Rachel Farrokh and her husband Rod Edmonson have raised over $100,000 through a GoFundMe page to try and get her into a hospital they say is her last hope. WARNING: Some images may be disturbing.
Rachael Farrokh, 37, says in the video made last month that she is finally speaking out about her illness, which she has been battling for "quite a while now."
A 40-Pound Woman Has Detailed Her Shocking Descent Into Anorexia In A Heartbreaking Video
Friday, May 22, 2015
Man Convicted Of Killing D.C. Intern Chandra Levy To Get New Trial
Attorneys argued a key witness lied during the trial, and prosecutors on Friday withdrew their objections for a new trial.
Ho New / Reuters
Attorneys for Ingmar Guandique had been asking for a new trial for a year, under the argument that a key witness gave misleading testimony during the 2010 trial, the Associated Press reported.
Guandique's previous cell-mate, attorneys argued in court motions, gave false or misleading testimony and prosecutors should have either known, or investigated further, attorneys argued.
In a four-page motion filed Friday, prosecutors said they believed the conviction was correct, but that, "the interest of justice will therefore be best served" by withdrawing their opposition to a new trial.
Ingmar Guandique.
Jacquelyn Martin / ASSOCIATED PRESS
Levy's disappearance back in 2001 caught international headlines and round-the-clock coverage when it became known, after her disappearance, that she had been romantically involved with former Rep. Gary Condit, a California Democrat.
Levy, who was from Modesto, California, had been an intern at the Bureau of Prisons at the time.
Her body was found in 2002, and Condit was ruled out as a suspect. That same year, he lost his seat in the House of Representatives after losing the Democratic primary.
Guandique was sentenced to 60 years in prison, and has maintained his innocence.
Man Convicted Of Killing D.C. Intern Chandra Levy To Get New Trial
To Avoid A Water War, California Farmers Agree To Rare Cuts
Farmers in the fertile San Joaquin River Delta have agreed to a plan that will require them to cut their water usage by 25%.
Water is pumped into a field that will be planted with rice on May 8, 2015 in Biggs, California.
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
As California's drought continues to grip the state, regulators and a group of farmers have agreed to rare voluntary water cutbacks.
The farmers are all located in the fertile San Joaquin River Delta and have agreed to a plan that will require them to either cut their water use by 25%, or leave 25% of their land fallow. The plan was proposed by the farmers and accepted Friday by the State Water Resources Control Board.
Tim Moran, a spokesman for the board, told BuzzFeed News the plan affects those who have land that abuts rivers. Those landowners have the right to pull water directly out of those rivers — a concept known as "riparian rights." Moran said there are as many as 2,000 farms in the area that fall into the category, about half of which are candidates for the program.
"Part of their motivation is they want to demonstrate that they are participating and trying to help the drought situation," Moran added.
But the cuts represent a kind of imperfect solution for many farmers, some of whom believe the state has no right to cut their water use in the first place.
A dust devil kicks up dirt as it forms over a field in Madera, California.
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Thomas McGurk is an elected board member of the Stockton East Water District and told BuzzFeed News that farmers in the region proposed the cuts in order to be proactive.
McGurk farms outside the Delta, where he said there is currently sufficient water. But nearby Delta farmers in his county, he said, are anxious as the state moves closer and closer to requiring cuts.
"That was to avoid a court fight," McGurk added of the voluntary program. "[State] lawyers were ready to go to court."
Lynn Miller's family has been farming in the region for 144 years, when her great grandfather arrived. Miller told BuzzFeed News her water rights are 114 years old and currently enable her to grow oats and alfalfa on nearly 200 acres. She described a meeting of hundreds of farmers Thursday to discuss the voluntary cutbacks as "intense" and said that reducing water use will mean significant loss of revenue.
"If somebody asked you, 'Will you take a 25% hit on your income?' what would you think?" she said.
Miller added that California's complex water rights system guarantees farmers with riparian rights priority access to the water, and attorneys representing the farmers have tended to agree that the state couldn't force cuts. Nevertheless, rather than fight the State Water Resources Control Board in court, farmers will likely choose to participate in the voluntary cutback program.
"People are driving around asking each other, 'Hey, what are you going to do?'" Miller said. "There's a limited amount of water. We're willing to do our part if this is going to help."
Jerry Robinson, who farms a couple thousand acres "right in the middle of the delta," agreed that farmers in the region want to show that they're contributing to conservation efforts. And like Miller, he expressed skepticism that the State Water Resources Control Board could curtail riparian rights.
But Robinson is also willing to make cuts and was in the midst of looking at which crops to reduce when he spoke with BuzzFeed News. The idea is that if additional cutbacks are imposed, they won't apply to those who already made reductions.
"They have assured us this year that for the people that get into this program, the State Water Resources Control board will not bother us on that land any more this year," he said.
To Avoid A Water War, California Farmers Agree To Rare Cuts
This Mostly Latino City Is So Tough On Immigrants They Call It “Little Arizona”
Escondido, California, has a mostly Latino population and an immigrant mayor. It has also adopted some of the harshest anti-illegal-immigration measures in the country.
Escondido residents protest a proposed shelter for migrant children at a meeting of the city council.
Sandy Huffaker / Reuters
There are more Latinos in Escondido, California, than people of any other ethnicity. And yet, over the last decade, this city just north of San Diego has made a name for itself as one of the most unfriendly places in the country for undocumented immigrants.
Surveys have consistently shown that Latinos tend to oppose restrictive immigration measures, but Latinos have been rarely represented in Escondido's city government. The result is a strange paradox: a heavily Latino city with a Spanish name led by an immigrant mayor whose administration has committed to an aggressive approach to stopping illegal immigration.
The city's approach is so harsh that immigrants in Escondido call their home “Little Arizona,” in reference to the state's history of passing laws against the undocumented. Nearly half of Escondido's 148,000 residents are Latinos, many of whom are undocumented or are permanent legal residents. Non-Hispanic whites, meanwhile, constitute 42.6% of the population.
There is only one Latina on the city council, Olga Diaz. But Diaz has been unable to counter the prevailing approach championed by the city's mayor, Sam Abed, who regularly brings up the fact that he is a legal immigrant from Lebanon when he explains his positions on immigration.
“We are not a sanctuary city,” Abed told BuzzFeed News. “You cannot come here and do what you want.”
During last summer's border crisis, Escondido, which means “hidden” in Spanish, refused to accept a housing facility for unaccompanied Central American minors, prompting a lawsuit from the ACLU. The lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday, accuses Escondido of manipulating local zoning laws to prohibit the facility and of citing unfounded land use concerns as a pretext to discriminate against the migrant children.
Abed counters that the city's decision had nothing to do with immigration and everything to do with land use. “We don't want it built anywhere in the city, because the land use does not allow it anywhere in the city,” Abed told BuzzFeed News.
Yet in interviews when the facility was still being debated, Abed explicitly said he was concerned about illegal immigration. “Why Escondido?” he said in a June interview with local radio host Mike Slater that was cited in the ACLU's complaint. “We have been disproportionately impacted in the past by illegal immigration, and we had to take some policy measures to stop the influx of people to our city.”
The proposed facility provoked heated exchanges between Escondido residents during meetings of the council and planning committee. Some residents opposed to the shelter stuck to concerns about traffic and noise, but others worried about undocumented children carrying Ebola or opposed rewarding people who had broken the law by coming into the country illegally.
“We're telling our children: If you don't like the law, then it's OK to break it,” Orv Hale, an Escondido resident, said during a council meeting in October.
The council voted 4 to 1 against the shelter. The lone dissenting vote was Diaz, the only Latina on the council. Diaz is the second Hispanic person elected to the council in Escondido's history. The first, Elmer Cameron, was elected in 1996 — he is of Mexican descent, but he didn't discuss his ethnicity during his campaign, and his family had changed their surname from Carreras when he was a child.
Pro-immigration protester Juanita Gonzales holds up a poster while demonstrating outside the Escondido City Hall, north of San Diego, July 22, 2014.
Sandy Huffaker / Via Reuters
A 2011 voting rights lawsuit forced the city to change from citywide council elections to district-based ones, creating one district out of four with a predominantly Latino population. After the city switched to district-based council elections in 2013, another Latina, Consuelo Martinez, ran for the single majority-Latino district but narrowly lost. Angela S. Garcia, a researcher at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego, said this probably had to do with the fact that many of Escondido's Latinos are immigrants, and even many of those with legal status are permanent residents, not voting citizens.
The result, Garcia said, is that “there's a feeling among Latinos in Escondido that the city council is against them, not for them.”
Diaz, the only Latina council member, was elected to the city council in the years following Escondido's first notorious effort to restrict undocumented immigration, a 2006 ban against renting property to people without legal status. The ACLU challenged the ban in court and reached a settlement with the city in which they agreed to repeal it.
In the following years, the police department set up networks of roadblocks and checkpoints intended to catch drunk or unlicensed drivers. The police said the sole concern was public safety, but Latino activists said the checkpoints were designed to catch and deport undocumented immigrants.
The city also banned parking on front yards and attempted to pass a law that restricted how many cars could park on the street in a predominantly Latino neighborhood. Garcia said these measures were aimed disproportionately at people who live several families to a single household — immigrants. “It's a thinly veiled, facially neutral way of restricting” immigrant communities, Garcia told BuzzFeed News.
Then there was the unusual “Joint Effort” agreement between the Escondido Police Department and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, which placed ICE agents inside the city's police headquarters and allowed them to patrol alongside the city's officers. It is highly informal — there is no memorandum of agreement between the police department and ICE. “There's nothing that's in writing,” Garcia said.
An ICE spokesperson confirmed that there is no formal memorandum of agreement governing the Joint Effort program.
Abed told BuzzFeed News that, other than the rental ban in 2006 and the partnership with ICE, Escondido's measures have not been about immigration, but rather have been about public safety and quality of life.
Patricia Serrano, an activist and undocumented immigrant who has lived in Escondido for 20 years, said the ICE partnership has made undocumented immigrants live in constant fear of deportation. “The city has been very hostile to people,” Serrano said. “They don't treat the illegal population as if we were human beings.”
Garcia, the researcher at UCSD, said that the new district-based elections, coupled with the fact that many U.S. citizen children of immigrants are growing to voting age and becoming politically engaged, may change the political balance in Escondido in coming years. “If I had to put money on it,” Garcia said, “I would say Escondido won't be able to continue down this path for too much longer.”
For now, however, Abed and his allies on the council remain comfortably in power. Diaz, the sitting Latina council member, ran against Abed for mayor in last year's election. Abed won handily.
“She is for illegal immigration. She is for leaving them alone, she is against the checkpoints,” Abed told BuzzFeed News. “And she was crushed in the election.”
This Mostly Latino City Is So Tough On Immigrants They Call It “Little Arizona”
Mother Found Pushing Her Dead Toddler On Swing Set, Possibly For Hours
A sheriff’s deputy in Maryland was checking on the welfare of the mother when he discovered the toddler on the swing set had been dead for hours. The mother is undergoing a medical evaluation, authorities said.
Starflamedia / Getty Images
A young mother is being evaluated after a sheriff's deputy found her at a Maryland park Friday pushing her dead 3-year-old on a swing, possibly for hours.
Authorities believe the toddler had been deceased for several hours when the deputy found her, and that the 24-year-old mother may have been pushing him on the swing at Wills Memorial Park in La Plata, Maryland, since the previous day.
“She was able to answer some questions for us,” Diane Richardson, a spokesperson for the Charles County Sheriff's Office, told BuzzFeed News Friday.
Investigators were still trying to understand what happened to the child as of Friday afternoon.
Deputies were called at 7 a.m. when a resident near the park said the woman had been pushing the child for hours. The mother, Richardson said, had been seen near the same swing set, pushing the boy, since the previous day.
“She was seen there (yesterday), and we don't know if she ever left,” Richardson said.
The deputy wanted to start performing CPR, but realized the child had been dead for several hours.
“It was really difficult for the officer to encounter the situation,” Richardson said.
There were no obvious signs of trauma on the child, who was taken to the medical examiner to determine a cause of death.
The mother, who was not immediately identified, was also taken to a nearby hospital to be evaluated, Richardson said.
She talked briefly with authorities, Richardson said, but declined to offer details.
Investigators have reached out to the woman's family and are canvassing the neighborhood near the park to piece together what happened.
The case is being handled as a death investigation, and the woman has not been arrested.
“It's a very sad situation,” Richardson said.
Mother Found Pushing Her Dead Toddler On Swing Set, Possibly For Hours
14-Year-Old Boy Shot Dead In The Bronx
The teen allegedly got into an argument with two people on the way to school. There are no arrests and the investigation is ongoing.
An argument today in the Bronx led to the death of 14-year-old Christopher Duran, right.
Photo courtesy of family
NEW YORK — The NYPD has identified the 14-year old boy who was shot dead on Friday morning in the Bronx as Christopher Duran.
The shooting happened near the intersection of East 167th Street and and Sheridan Avenue. Duran got into an argument with two men, the authorities said. The argument escalated and one of the men shot the teen.
“He was coming downstairs to go to school when they got him. It looks like they were waiting for him,” said a woman who lives in the building. She said the victim came from a Dominican family.
Police are looking for two suspects, who witnesses described as either a dark-skinned Latino or black male, and another Latino male. Both were seen fleeing the scene.
The former wore all black, and the latter was clad in “a light colored hooded sweatshirt with dark sleeves, blue jeans and a red bandana covering his face,” according to a statement released by the NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Public Information (DCPI).
A police source said the shooting may be gang-related.
Emergency medics found the child with two gunshot wounds to the chest and one to the head. The boy was pronounced dead at the scene.
14-Year-Old Boy Shot Dead In The Bronx
Meet The 11-Year-Old Genius Who Just Graduated From College And Wants To Be President
What did you do today?
Tanishq Abraham, an 11-year-old boy with an abnormally high IQ, graduated from American River College in Sacramento, California, on Wednesday with three degrees, putting all of your past achievements to shame.
NBC News / Via nbcnews.com
Abraham first began taking a class in astronomy at River College, his local community college, at age seven, while he was still being homeschooled in high school-level subjects by his parents.
Last year he reportedly passed California's early-exit high school exam, officially graduating high school, and enrolled in college full time.
NBC News / Via nbcnews.com
Abraham lives in Sacremento with his parents and his 6-year-old sister, Tiara. Both of the siblings reportedly joined MENSA, a high IQ society, when they turned four years old.
They spend their free time singing, painting, and playing computer and video games. But Abraham says his favorite past-time is writing articles articles for NASA.
Meet The 11-Year-Old Genius Who Just Graduated From College And Wants To Be President
Josh Duggar Apologizes Amid Sex Abuse Allegations, Quits Family Research Council
According to a 2006 police report obtained by In Touch, Duggar admitted to fondling his sisters while they slept when he was a young teenager. In a statement, the now 27-year-old said he deeply regrets his actions.
Josh Duggar and his wife, Anna, on the reality TV show “19 Kids and Counting.”
TLC
The oldest son of the Duggar family, made famous by TLC's 19 Kids and Counting, responded to reports Thursday that he had molested his sisters as a teenager.
Joshua Duggar, now 27 with children of his own, wrote on Facebook that he had acted “inexcusably,” and was sorry.
“I understood that if I continued down this wrong road that I would end up ruining my life,” he wrote. “I sought forgiveness from those I had wronged and asked Christ to forgive me and come into my life.”
He also on Thursday resigned his position as executive director of FRC Action, the Family Research Council's nonprofit group which lobbies for “faith, family, and freedom” — including advocacy against abortion and marriage rights for same-sex couples.
“Josh believes that the situation will make it difficult for him to be effective in his current work. We believe this is the best decision for Josh and his family at this time. We will be praying for everyone involved,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said in a statement.
The Duggar family — then 17 children and counting — poses for a photo in 2008.
Beth Hall / ASSOCIATED PRESS
According to a 2006 police report obtained first by In Touch, the Springdale, Arkansas, police department were first notified in December 2006 of suspected sexual abuse involving Duggar.
Harpo Studios in Chicago — the production company founded by Oprah Winfrey —had received an email that day warning against putting the Duggars on TV with some details of alleged molestation involving Josh Duggar.
“They are not what they seem to be,” the email said. “I think you should know the truth before they make a complete fool of you and your show.”
According to the police report, a family friend had found a letter about the incidents tucked inside a book he or she had received from the Duggars as a loan.
In an interview with authorities in 2006, Jim Bob and Michelle recounted several instances where their children said Josh had fondled the breasts and vaginal areas of his sisters while they were sleeping as well as another instance outside their home. The instances took place in 2002 and 2003, and the Duggars told authorities they then sent their son to a Christian program involving hard work and counseling. Michelle Duggar in a later interview said they had actually sent their son to a friend in Little Rock, Arkansas who ran a home remodeling business who acted as somewhat of a mentor.
Since Josh had returned home, the Duggars said there had been no more incidents. His sisters had forgiven him, and the family received support from several members of their church. Jim Bob Duggar said he had spoken about it with a state trooper he knew, who gave Josh a “stern talk.”
Investigators interviewed several of the Duggar children who described what they remembered about what happened. Most said things had been better in recent years, but one sibling said they did not feel safe at home.
The statute of limitations for the alleged crime — second degree sexual assault — is three years, and Josh Duggar did not face charges.
Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar on Facebook said the difficult experience brought their family closer to God.
“Back 12 years ago our family went through one of the most difficult times of our lives. When Josh was a young teenager, he made some very bad mistakes and we were shocked,” they said.
“We pray that as people watch our lives they see that we are not a perfect family. We have challenges and struggles everyday.”
Josh Duggar Apologizes Amid Sex Abuse Allegations, Quits Family Research Council
Thursday, May 21, 2015
An Oklahoma Man Is Still In Prison Because Of A Paperwork Error
In 2010, then-Gov. Brad Henry signed off on David Johns’ parole release. But the paperwork didn’t get filed in time and the next governor reversed the decision.
State Capitol, Oklahoma City
Dennis Macdonald / Getty Images
An Oklahoma man who has spent three decades behind bars is still in prison long after the governor approved his release, thanks to a legal technicality that could only have occurred in the state.
David Johns was convicted of murder in 1983 and sentenced to up to life in prison. Over his next two decades behind bars, he worked his odd jobs, obeyed the rules, and tried to keep his head down, he said. The parole board, he said, didn't need much of a reason to reject a convicted murderer.
But, it turned out, the parole board was not the problem. Johns has faced the board four times since 2004, and every time it has recommended that the governor of Oklahoma approve his release. In 2010, Gov. Brad Henry did approve John's release.
Yet Johns remains in prison, because the state official charged with filing the necessary paperwork did not do so before Henry left office. Henry's successor, Gov. Mary Fallin, reversed Henry's decision to grant Johns parole, along with more than 30 others. Johns was a mere filing away from release, but now he does not know if he will ever leave prison.
“I still don't understand how that was allowed to happen,” Johns told BuzzFeed News. “How can I still be in prison when the governor signed off on my release?”
In 1981, he and two other men, Williams Warren and Roy Grayson, robbed and fatally shot Tom Crossland, a 68-year-old retired grocer, in front of his house in Muskogee, Oklahoma. One witness said Johns, who is black, pulled the trigger; and one witness said Warren, who is white, did. Johns and Warren were convicted of murder.
Nevertheless, in 2004 and 2007, the parole board recommended Johns for release. Oklahoma, however, is the only state in the country that requires its governor to sign off on every parole board recommendation. (In 2012 the law changed so as to only apply to violent offenders.) Both years, Gov. Brad Henry rejected the recommendation. In 2003 and 2004, Henry rejected less than 20 percent of parole board recommendations, according to a Criminal Justice Center study. But John's crime had been relatively high-profile.
Then in January 2010, Gov. Henry approved Warren's parole release. Several months later, the parole board again recommended Johns for release, and on Jan. 9, Henry's final day in office, he approved Johns' parole.
Johns had prepared for his freedom. He had applied for and was accepted into a welding school in Tulsa, which offered him a grant to help pay the tuition. He enrolled in a work-release transitional program.
David Johns has been recommended for release by the parole board four times since 2004.
Oklahoma Department of Corrections
In late March, though, Johns' case manager in prison told him that there had been a sudden change: He would not go free. Gov. Mary Fallin, who succeeded Henry in office, had decided to keep him behind bars. (Fallin did not respond to an interview request for this story.)
As Johns' lawyers, Scott Adams and Laura Deskin, learned, Fallin was able to invalidate the release because of a procedural technicality in Oklahoma. A release is not official when the governor signs off on it; the secretary of state must file the paperwork. By the time Henry left office, he had signed the papers for Johns' release but Oklahoma Secretary of State Susan Savage had not yet filed them, because the releases were signed in the last few hours of Henry's governorship.
“As far as I know, what happened to David is unique,” said Deskin. “I have been trying to find if there was a similar situation that has happened in another state but nobody seems to have the exact rules that we do that allowed this.”
When the papers reached new secretary of state Glenn Coffee, Henry was no longer governor. As news outlets reported at the time, Coffee wasn't sure whether it would be legal to file orders from a person who was no longer in office. So Fallin reviewed the not-yet-official parole papers and rejected more than 30 of them, according to Johns' lawyers, including Johns'. Johns' lawyers appealed Fallin's decision, arguing that the release should have been official the moment the governor signed it. Otherwise, Deskin said, that would essentially strip the governor of any power he has on his last day of office, which is when governors often sign off on a backlog of paroles and pardons.
Henry approved release on more than 300 cases in his final days in office, according to the Oklahoma Pardons and Parole Board. But when they researched Oklahoma case law, they found that Fallin's reversal was legitimate. The state's highest court had ruled in 1924 that the secretary of state had the authority to not sign a governor's commutation or pardon order, in a precedent that has since also applied to parole.
“Anything that the governor chooses to do has to be authenticated by the seal of state and recorded by the office of the secretary of state,” said Deskin. “It is not an official act until the secretary of state does that.”
In 2013, Johns again faced the parole board. The five members unanimously voted to recommend him for release. According to Department of Corrections spokesperson Terri Watkins, Johns has not picked up any disciplinary marks on his record over the last decade in prison.
Gov. Fallin rejected the recommendation. Over her years in office, Fallin has rejected more than half of the cases that reach her desk, according to a report by the Northpointe Institute of Public Management.
Now Johns, who is 55, said he wonders if there is anything he can do to get his freedom. He requested a commutation of his sentence. In June the parole board will consider the request, said Lynn Mihandoost, general counsel at the Oklahoma Pardons and Parole Board. If the board votes it forward, the request then goes to the governor's office.
“I keep getting so close,” Johns said. “I want to believe that I'll be out one day soon.”
An Oklahoma Man Is Still In Prison Because Of A Paperwork Error
Women Go Topless To Protest Killings Of Unarmed Black Women By Police
Demonstrators took to the streets of San Francisco to draw attention to the police-related deaths of black women. The movement was spurred by the recent report “Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women.”
The demonstrators, composed primarily of black women, blocked traffic during the morning rush hour, and honored the names of women like Aiyana Stanley-Jones and Rekia Boyd, who have been recent victims of fatal police brutality.
Following the release of the African American Policy Forum’s report “Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women,” social justice organizations announced a national day of action to draw attention to black women who have been gunned down.
Women Go Topless To Protest Killings Of Unarmed Black Women By Police
ISIS Justifies Taking Of Yazidi "Slave-Girls" As Concubines
The extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria admits that its fighters have taken Yazidi slaves in justifying the action in an English language publication this week.
Displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community cross the Syria-Iraq border at Feeshkhabour border point, in northern Iraq.
Khalid Mohammed / AP
ISIS is justifying the enslavement of Yazidi women, writing in an English-language publication that many of them have been taken as concubines and converted to Islam.
The extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, however, scoffed at characterizing the practice as rape, arguing that the taking of “slave-girls” is established and condoned under Islamic law.
“I write this while the letters drip of pride,” read an article in the ninth issue of Dabiq, a glossy magazine published by the group. “We have indeed raided and captured the kāfirah women, and drove them like sheep by the edge of the sword.”
It is at least the second time the group has addressed the topic of ISIS fighters taking Yazidi slaves as it has expanded its stronghold in Iraq and Syria.
A report issued by Amnesty International late last year detailed some of the horrors Iraq's Yazidi minority have experienced at the hands of ISIS fighters.
Yazidis, who lived in a semiautonomous part of northern Iraq alongside Kurds, have been targeted by ISIS as part of a “deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing in northern Iraq,” according to the report.
Hundreds of men were reported to have been killed or forced to convert to Islam under death threats, while women and girls were reportedly enslaved and “gifted” to loyal fighters.
In the latest issue of Dabiq, the writer also addresses fierce criticism that has been aimed at the group since reports of rape and enslavement of the Yazidi women were made public, a practice that many argue is at odds with mainstream Islam.
“I further increase the spiteful ones in anger by saying that I and those with me at home prostrated to Allah in gratitude on the day the fist slave-girl entered our home,” the article states.
ISIS Justifies Taking Of Yazidi "Slave-Girls" As Concubines
Suspect In D.C. Mansion Murders Is Likely In Brooklyn Area, Police Say
Authorities said in a Thursday press conference that the suspect wanted for the murder of the Savopoulos family and their housekeeper had recently worked for the company that Savvas Savopoulos was CEO of.
Wint is suspected in the May 14 murders of Savvas Savopoulos, 46, his wife, Amy Savopoulos, 47, their 10-year-old son, Philip, and their housekeeper Veralicia Figueroa, 57.
The four people were found dead in the family's $4.5-million home near D.C.'s embassy row after it was set on fire.
Police have said they believe the family was possibly held hostage for hours before they were killed.
They identified Wint as a suspect by testing DNA found on the crust of a Domino's pizza that had been delivered to the home.
According to authorities, Wint had recently been an employee of American Iron Works Inc., where Savopoulos was president and CEO.
Lanier didn't say whether the victims knew Wint personally.
Suspect In D.C. Mansion Murders Is Likely In Brooklyn Area, Police Say
A Mom Wore A Cap And Gown And Walked For Her Son At His Graduation A Week After He Died In A Car Crash
Aaron Dunigan was a popular senior and quarterback at Illinois' Thornton Fractional North High School and was set to play football at Southern Illinois University in the fall. But that all ended after he was killed in a car crash last weekend.
The 18-year-old was on his way back from prom, where he was voted prom king, when the car he was riding in crossed a median and crashed into another car, NBC Chicago reported.
Another teen in the car, Mike Crowter, was badly injured, and a 56-year-old driver in another vehicle was also killed.
On Wednesday, Dunigan's mom, Katherine Jackson, donned a cap and gown and attended the graduation ceremony that her son never got to see.
In an emotional moment, she also accepted her son's diploma for him. Jackson herself had never graduated.
“[My son] knows his mom never walked the stage,” she told NBC Chicago before the ceremony. “I’m going to be his legs and he’s going to be my wings and we’re going to go up there and get our diploma.”
She added that she was grateful for all of the support from the teen's many friends.
“My son has left a little piece of him in all of them,” she said, “and every time I hug one of them I get a little piece of my baby back.”
Though he was badly injured in the crash, Dunigan's friend, Mike Crowter, also attended the ceremony in a wheelchair.
As he stood and embraced Dunigan's mother, the two wiped away tears.
“Don't be sorry, baby,” she told him. “Don't cry. This is a good thing.”
The 45-year-old said she isn't harboring any anger at the boy who was driving the car her son was riding in.
“I want to hold him and let him know that Aaron loves him too,” she said. “It's nobody's fault.”
BuzzFeed News has reached out to Jackson for comment.
A Mom Wore A Cap And Gown And Walked For Her Son At His Graduation A Week After He Died In A Car Crash
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