http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2785370/Police-mistakenly-think-black-teen-home-burglar.html

officers pepper sprayed a black teenager in his white foster parents' home after they mistook him for a burglar, authorities have said.

Cops responded to the home in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina after a neighbor saw 18-year-old DeShawn Currie entering his family's home through an unlocked side door.

The teenager, who moved in with the Tyler family a year ago, said he was stunned when three police officers entered the home and demanded to know who he was.

'They was like, "Put your hands on the door",' DeShawn told WTVD. 'I was like, "For what? This is my house." I was like, "Why are y'all in here?"'Cops pepper sprayed black teen inside his white foster family's home after assuming he was a burglar
Neighbors in Fuquay Varina, North Carolina called cops after seeing DeShawn Currie, 18, enter his family's home through an unlocked door
When officers entered the home, they refused to believe the teen lived there - and demanded to know why he didn't appear in any family photos
DeShawn has been with the family for about a year; they recently moved to the neighborhood and do not yet know all their neighbors
When the teen became angry, officers pepper sprayed him 



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Tip-dependent waitresses endure sexual harassment

Waitresses put up with high levels of sexual harassment because they have to survive on tips.

That's according a report by the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a workers' rights group for the restaurant industry.

"Living off tips makes an industry already rife with sexual harassment even more dangerous," according to the report, which surveyed 688 current and former restaurant workers in 39 states.

The report said the problem was particularly bad for waitresses, many of whom have an hourly pay of $2.13, the legal federal minimum pay for tipped employees. The reliance on tips to earn a living wage causes waitresses to put up with the high levels of inappropriate behavior from customers, co-workers and management, the report says.

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"Tipped workers in $2.13 states reported that they were three times more likely to be told by management to alter their appearance and to wear 'sexier,' more revealing clothing than they were in states where the same minimum wage was paid to all workers," said the report.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/07/news/restaurant-sexual-harassment/index.html?iid=HP_LN&hpt=hp_t2

quote from interview played on radio - he said "I need to keep my property values up" or something close to that.



RIVERSIDE – Mike Soubirous is a prodigious water user, pumping more than 1 million gallons per year at his lushly landscaped home on a hot, windy, Southern California hilltop.

Soubirous also is a member of the Riverside City Council, and one of his jobs in that position is to make decisions for the Riverside’s water utility. In July, Soubirous voted with the rest of his council colleagues to impose tough new water conservation rules in this desert city of 317,000.

Yet as California’s drought worsened from 2012 to 2013, Soubirous consumed enough water to supply eight California households — more than any other water official in the state.

Soubirous knows he should cut his water use to set a good example, he told The Center for Investigative Reporting. But he has a one-acre lot with cascades of flowering shrubs and a weeping willow tree, and summer temperatures hit 100 degrees. Conservation isn’t that simple, he said.

“Do I have to sell my house to set that example, or do I have to just abolish all my shrubs?” Soubirous asked. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how I can reduce my water rate.”

http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2014/10/06/california-water-officials-arent-following-own-call-for-conservation/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2783065/A-Florida-man-wore-f-police-shirt-court-hearing-against-state-troopers-won-case.html

Burns writes on LiveLeak.com that he routinely records police. He was doing just that while police were kicking some citizens off a Florida roadside. 

'It was public property and I was told they were only being kicked out to "ruin their fun,"' Burns wrote on LiveLeak. 

After there was nothing left to record, Burns drove off. Police then followed him, he says, with six police cars pulling behind him when he was stopped. 

Burns says an officer forced him to remove a Fraternal Order of Police sticker, which the cop claimed was obstructing the numbers of his license plate.





[iA Florida man who recently wore a shirt that read 'f*** the police' to a court squabble with state troopers somehow managed to walk out a winner.

Michael Burns of Broward County complained to the judge that he'd been unfairly targeted by officers who were angry that he'd been recording them on video as they broke up a roadside gathering.

Despite making no attempt to get in the judge's good graces and even with his vulgar t-shirt display, video someone took in the courtroom clearly shows Burns getting out of a ticket.


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Geoffrey Holder, a multi-talented dancer, artist, director, actor, and composer best known for his role as a Bond villain, died in New York yesterday of complications from pneumonia, the New York Times reports. He was 84. An unmistakable presence, Holder stood 6'6" and possessed a booming voice with a Caribbean lilt that seduced American audiences in the 1970s. Holder admitted that his greatest claim to fame was on TV ads for 7Up (it's "absolutely maaarvelous," he'd say), but his role as Baron Samedi in the James Bond film Live and Let Die (1973) remains widely known. He also played Willie Shakespeare in the first Doctor Dolittle (1967) and the "mystical Punjab" in Annie (1982), People reports.

http://www.newser.com/story/196887/live-and-let-die-villain-dead-at-84.html?utm_source=part&utm_medium=united&utm_campaign=rss_entertainment

School Districts Getting Rid of 'Dangerous' Swings

'It's a matter of liability,' Washington district says
Swingsets are becoming a thing of the past at school playgrounds in a Washington state school district because insurance companies have decided they're too hazardous. "It's just really a safety issue; swings have been determined to be the most unsafe of all the equipment on a playground," a spokesman for Richland School District in the Tri-Cities area tells KEPR, which notes that some 200,000 emergency room visits happen across the country every year after playground accidents—and that most swing injuries happen when unwary children walk behind or in front of a moving swing.

The school district says the swings are being phased out after pressure from insurance companies. Some parents have objected to the move, which isn't unique to the district: Neighboring school districts have also been getting rid of swingsets and other "risky" playground equipment like merry-go-rounds in recent years. "I don't necessarily disagree with the parents [who want swings]. I grew up with them," the Richland district's executive director of support services tells the Tri-City Herald. "But it's a matter of liability."


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First they came for the merry-go-rounds. Then the monkey bars disappeared. Now, the swings are on their way out.

When Badger Mountain and Tapteal elementary students arrived for school this fall they discovered that the schools no longer have swing sets.

Richland School District officials had them replaced this summer, and some parents aren’t happy about it.

But the phasing out of swings and other traditional playground fixtures isn’t new. Kennewick schools don’t have them and Pasco removed them from their school playgrounds more than 20 years ago. The reason? Mostly because of the risk of students being hurt.

“I don’t necessarily disagree with the parents (who want swings). I grew up with them,” said Mark Panther, Richland’s executive director of support services. “But it’s a matter of liability.”

Richland has been gradually removing swing sets for more than a decade, he said.

Districts are required to have certified staff inspect playgrounds and determine any possible risks the equipment can pose to children.

That’s led school officials to remove metal objects, which can have sharp edges or become too hot in the sun, or anything that moves with a child and can lead to a fall, such as swings and merry-go-rounds.

Read more here: http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2014/10/02/3183360_richland-schools-removing-swings.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/10/cory_booker_leads_jeff_bell_by_15_points_in_nj_senate_race_poll_finds.html

Per free republic

Game Of Thrones and Twilight films blamed for huge rise in number of huskies being abandoned

Wolf-like dogs are in fashion thanks to fantasy TV show and vampire drama

But huskies require a lot of care and record numbers are being abandoned

There has been a 700 per cent jump in the number of huskies being ditched  

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Fans of the show, which has featured ‘direwolves’ played by Northern Inuit dogs, are thought to have rushed to buy similar breeds because of their beautiful looks – without thinking through the practicalities of owning such large, energetic pets.

Named Taboo, Taco, Tacona, Taloola, Tasha and Taz, the six husky puppies are part of a litter of nine – seven girls and two boys. Their mother, Tala, gave birth to them six weeks ago at the Blue Cross centre in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, after being found pregnant, hungry and wandering the streets.






http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2741829/Game-Of-Thrones-Twilight-films-blamed-huge-rise-number-huskies-abandoned.html