PAPILLION, Neb. –Authorities said a drunken driver showed up for his sentencing hearing drunk again.

Jason Botos, 30, was driven to court by his father and investigators said he was so drunk that he had to be helped inside and wasn’t able to make his court appearance.

“He was unable to get himself out of the vehicle, he was so intoxicated,” said deputy Sarpy County attorney Ben Perlman.

Investigators said Botos’ father asked deputies to help carry his son inside the courthouse.

Botos was scheduled to be sentenced for a drunken driving offense in September 2009. He was driving near Highway 75 and Cornhusker Road when his car jumped a curb and smashed into five other vehicles, critically injuring three people.

“Because he failed to appear for his court appearance, a warrant was issued,” said Perlman.

Deputies arrested Botos in the parking lot.

“He was kind of slumped over. Two deputies assisted him,” said Sarpy County Sheriff’s Deputy Tina Anderson. “He could not walk on his own.”

Inside the jail, Anderson put Botos through a breath test.

“The test showed he was at a 0.43,” she said, a level that is more than five times the legal limit.

Deputies sent him to a hospital to get checked out and then brought him back to a cell.

“He was coughing and curled up in a ball,” Anderson said.

Botos now faces a new charge and more jail time in a case that has authorities shaking their heads.

“This is a pretty rare case, and extreme case,” said Capt. Monty Daganaar of the Sarpy County Sheriff’s Office.

Botos will be sentenced on Tuesday. Between the new charge of failure to appear and the drunken driving conviction, he could get 18 months in jail.

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But the wolves were elusive, and villagers were hoping that state game officials would send in a helicopter to help track the animals, Village Council President Johnny Lind said.

“They’ve been looking and scouting around, and the wolves are definitely still around, but they’re smart, and they take off before you can get close to them,” Lind said.

Candice Berner, a special education teacher who traveled among several rural schools on the Alaska Peninsula, 475 miles southwest of Anchorage, was attacked while jogging and listening to her iPod Monday evening on the deserted, 3-mile-long road that leads out from the village to its small airstrip.

A native of Slippery Rock, Pa., she had been working in Alaska only since August. Her body was found by snowmobilers a short time after the attack. It had been dragged off the road and partially eaten, and was surrounded by wolf prints.

“Our investigation points to wolves being the most likely culprit. It is the only predatory animal that is active in the area that we’re aware of, and we also believe the wolves have been increasingly threatening to people in the area,” said Megan Peters, spokeswoman for the Alaska State Troopers. “They’ve been getting too close, circling, making people fearful for their safety.”

Christi Aleck, another resident of the village, said that while there are always wolves in the area, three to four have been lingering unusually close over the past week or so and have been sighted again since the attack.

“They come in at nighttime, not very far from the village, and they’re just kind of watching,” she said. “They’re waiting for somebody else to go out again, I guess.”

She said villagers are driving their children to school and keeping them indoors during recess.

“People are scared. Oh yeah, they’re scared,” she said. “Nobody’s walking around anywhere. I mean, wolves have always hung around in the wintertime, but they’ve never attacked anyone.”

The only known previous fatal wolf attack in North America over the last 100 years occurred in 2005, when a young geology student was attacked and partially eaten by a pack of wolves in northern Saskatchewan.

In at least two other cases, there were attacks — in Alaska and again in Saskatchewan — that were halted by rescuers before they became fatal.

“What the research shows is that in the last 10 or 20 years, as wolves have kind of re-colonized areas where they were extirpated around the turn of the 20th century, and as people have also developed more habits of going out into national parks and wilderness areas, we’ve had more aggressive encounters,” said Mark McNay, a retired Alaskan wildlife biologist who has studied wolf attacks.

Wildlife attacks in Alaska are relatively common. “Certainly we have bear maulings, we have people bitten by wolves, we have people that are stomped by moose,” Peters said. “Having an incident where a human and animal cross paths and it doesn’t end well, that’s normal. But we don’t have any other case on hand that we’re aware of where someone was actually killed by a wolf.”

Peters said state troopers had ruled out the possibility that Berner had died from any other cause and was later dragged away by wolves.

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The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi on Thursday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oxford on behalf of 18-year-old Constance McMillen, who said she faced some unhappy classmates after the Itawamba County School District said it wouldn’t host the April 2 prom.

“Somebody said, ‘Thanks for ruining my senior year,’” McMillen said of her reluctant return Thursday to Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton.

The lawsuit seeks a court order for the school to hold the prom. It also asks that McMillen be allowed to escort her girlfriend, who is a fellow student, and wear a tuxedo, which the school said also violated policy.

The district’s decision Wednesday came after the ACLU demanded that officials change a policy banning same-sex prom dates because it said it violated students’ rights. The ACLU said the district violated McMillen’s free expression rights by not letting her wear a tux.

McMillen said she never expected the district to respond the way it did.

“A lot of people said that was going to happen, but I said, they had already spent too much money on the prom” to cancel it, she said.

McMillen said she didn’t want to go back to the high school in Fulton the morning after the decision, but her father told her she needed to face her classmates.

“My daddy told me that I needed to show them that I’m still proud of who I am,” McMillen told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “The fact that this will help people later on, that’s what’s helping me to go on.”

The school board statement said it wouldn’t host the event “due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events” but didn’t mention McMillen. District officials didn’t return calls seeking comment Thursday.

At least one supporter has offered to help McMillen and her classmates hold an alternate prom.

New Orleans hotel owner Sean Cummings told The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson he was so disappointed with the school board’s decision he offered to transport the students in buses to the city and host a free prom at one of his properties.

“New Orleans, we’re a joyful culture and a creative culture here and, if the school doesn’t change its mind, we’d be delighted to offer them a prom in New Orleans,” he told the newspaper. “Concluding your high school experience should be a joyful one. One shouldn’t conclude that experience with all their friends on a negative note.”

Same-sex prom dates and cross-dressing are new issues for many high schools around the country, said Daryl Presgraves, a spokesman for GLSEN: Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a Washington-based advocacy group.

“A lot of schools actually react rather than do the research and find out what the rights of these students are,” said Presgraves.

McMillen says she hopes her fight will make it easier for gay students at other schools facing discrimination.

“I want other kids to know that’s it not right for schools to do that,” she said on CBS’s “The Early Show.”

In 2002, a gay student sued his school district in Toronto to allow him to attend a prom with his boyfriend. A judge later forced the district to allow the couple to attend and stopped the district from canceling the prom.

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., said a bill he’s introduced in Congress would make it illegal to discriminate against gay and lesbian school students. He said at least 10 states have such laws, and his bill is modeled after those.

“This situation with the prom is a perfect example of why we need to protect students from discrimination. In this case it’s a prom. It other cases, it’s getting beaten up or killed,” Polis said.

The school district had said it hoped a privately sponsored prom could be held.

Southside Baptist Church Pastor Bobby Crenshaw said he’s seen the South portrayed as “backwards” on Web sites discussing the issue, “but a lot more people here have biblically based values.”

Itawamba County is a rural area of about 23,000 people in north Mississippi near the Alabama state line. It’s near Pontotoc County, Miss., where more than a decade ago school officials were sued in federal court over their practice of student-led intercom prayer and Bible classes.

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Lizeth Pimentel was in “very critical condition,” unconscious and on a ventilator, hospital officials said.

“She’s very sick. The next 72 hours are critical,” said Andrew Reno, director of emergency trauma services at St.Mary Medical Center.

Pimentel was the only person in the vehicle, and the cause of crash is still under investigation, said Lisa Massacani, Long Beach Police Department spokeswoman.

Witnesses reported the crash off the Seventh Street bridge about 7:30 a.m. Thursday, said Joshua Johnson, Long Beach Fire Department spokesman.

According to witnesses, the woman’s SUV hit the guardrail and plunged face first into the water below.

“I was facing the other way and I heard a bang, I looked over and the next thing I saw was a truck headed face first into the water,” said Andrew Stone, who lives nearby. “It sank in about three minutes and nobody got out. I saw air bubbles and that was it.”

Six rescue divers searched by feel in about 15 feet of water with literally no visibility.

“You can’t even see your hand in front of your face,” Johnson said.

Divers found the vehicle sitting on the bottom of the river on its wheels with the rear hatch facing east.
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Forcible entry was required to enter certain areas of the vehicle, officials said.

An infant car seat, which was found during the search, had led rescuers to think that there might be others in the vehicle. It was later confirmed by family, identified through the vehicle’s license plate, that the victim was the only one in the car, Johnson said.

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The 29-year-old victim, whose name is being withheld by The Post, suffered fractures to her eye socket, skull and nose, and needed surgery and 50 stitches to close deep gashes to her face, police said.

The vicious assault occurred at around 2:15 a.m. in the basement bathroom of Social, a sprawling, three-story Irish pub on Eighth Avenue near 48th Street.

“He wanted to dance with her and she rebuffed him,” a source said.
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So the creep followed her to the bathroom and barged into the stall.

“She starts pulling her pants up and she fights him off, but it was a brutal physical assault on her,” the source said.

“She was seriously beaten.”

The victim, a registered pediatric nurse who lives on the Upper East Side, kicked and bit the man, but he pummeled her unconscious.

Investigators suspect the man may have slammed her head against the sink or toilet bowl.

Surveillance video taken from a police camera outside the bar captured the suspect — who cops described as a Hispanic man in his mid-20s — casually walking out, then looking at and shaking his right hand. Moments later, he appears on the video surveillance of a convenience store 200 feet away.

He remains at large.

When the woman didn’t return from the bathroom, a friend, who is also a nurse, went to look for her.

“She goes and finds her sprawled on the floor,” said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

Not realizing her friend had been assaulted, she called 911 and said the woman had passed out and hit her head.

An ambulance, but no police car, was dispatched.

“The friend did not report it as a crime,” a source said.

The woman was taken to Weill Cornell Medical Center, and when she came to several hours later, she told staffers there that she had been attacked and police were finally called.

The woman, who was found with her pants partially down, said she did not think she had been raped. A rape kit taken at the hospital later came back negative, sources said.

But cops “believe that there was an attempted sexual assault,” according to NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.

The victim, who is originally from Connecticut, underwent surgery and was in stable condition in a VIP wing of the hospital with her family by her side, sources said.

Police combed the bar, which is popular with the after-work crowd, for evidence yesterday. A manager there called the assault “horrible.”

“We’re cooperating with the police right now,” he said. “It can happen anywhere.”

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The 48-year-old victim, identified as Rose Mankos, was crushed by a northbound No. 6 train barreling into the 77th Street Station below Lexington Avenue as she tried desperately to claw her way back to the platform.

“She had one choice to make and seconds to make it,” said Alfonso McGruder, 55, of The Bronx, who witnessed the tragedy. “She didn’t make the one that would have saved her life.

Chad Rachman/N.Y.PostThe woman who was fatally struck by a northbound 6 train yesterday dropped this bag on the tracks and attempted to retrieve it before she was killed.

The woman who was fatally struck by a northbound 6 train yesterday dropped this bag on the tracks and attempted to retrieve it before she was killed.

“She tried to go under the platform because the train was bearing down on her. Then she tried to climb onto the platform, but she couldn’t do that. Then she just froze.”

Mankos lost her life trying to retrieve a nylon LeSportsac bag filled with exercise clothes, toiletries and her cellphone, sources said.

“People were yelling at the lady on the tracks when they saw the train coming,” said Hakeem Nhl, 53, a vendor on the opposite platform. “People were screaming, ‘Oh, my, God! Oh, my God!’ ”

Witnesses reported that the train operator sounded his horn eight times and attempted to brake.

“I think she just went into shock knowing that the train was seconds from hitting her. It looked like she just gave up,” McGruder said.

Mankos died as soon as she was struck at around 3:45 p.m.

“You could see some woman with her head stuck in between the train [and the platform] and her arms sticking out,” recalled witness Andrew Pistella, 30. “Some guy was screaming, ‘Is this real? Is this real?’ It looked like a mannequin.”

It was bedlam on the platform, with children, teenagers and old ladies shrieking hysterically, witnesses said.

“Who drops their [bag] down there, then jumps down there to get it?” Pistella asked.

Onlookers shouted for Mankos to lie down between the tracks or under the platform — perhaps thinking of “Subway Superman” Wesley Autrey, who saved a fallen passenger by climbing atop him in the trough between the tracks as a train rolled over them in 2007.

“I felt the thud when the train hit the body,” said Glenda Farr, 52, who was on the train. “I didn’t know it was a body. I lived upstate. You ever hit a deer or something? It was like that.”

A neighbor said Mankos lived alone in her Stuyvesant Town apartment.

NYC Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges said, “The message to our customers is clear: If you drop something on the tracks, do not attempt to retrieve it. Alert a transit employee or a police officer.”

Meanwhile, cops were investigating a separate incident in which a 50 year-old man was struck and killed by an eastbound No. 3 train at the Utica Avenue station in Brooklyn.

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Alice Via, 65, was arrested for investigation of animal cruelty and neglect. She ran what she called the San Diego Boxer Rescue and kept mostly boxers and Chihuahuas.

The dogs were confined in dirty cages stacked two high throughout the 750-square-foot home, said San Diego County spokesman Dan DeSousa. Most of the dogs had injuries to their feet and noses from trying to escape and some had skin and respiratory problems, he added.

“These dogs were kept in crates, from what we’re being told, up to 23 hours a day,” DeSousa said. Calling it appalling, he added, “It’s not the life for an animal.”

Via did not have a kennel license, DeSousa said, so she was limited to six dogs.

Via’s Web site, with a St. Patrick’s Day theme, featured mug shots of 45 dogs, including four that said they had been placed. The site also said 15 dogs were rescued in January and February and that the Web site had been updated on Monday.

Editors note: Here is a link to the website that was omitted from this article.

Via had good intentions, DeSousa said, and the animals were well fed, although many had no water in their cages.

“She got way in over her head. She had nobody to help her,” he said.

Authorities were called by a person who went to the home to check on a dog several days ago and was alarmed by the “overpowering” smell and unsanitary conditions, DeSousa said.

Via’s Web site said she was a member of the Rescue Alliance of Hairless & Other Breeds Inc., a nationwide 501c3 nonprofit animal rescue organization.

That group did not immediately respond to an e-mail asking about the affiliation.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s aides knew about concerns over ex-Rep. Eric Massa’s behavior as far back as October, Fox News has learned, raising the possibility that the scandal could dog Democratic leaders even though Massa is now out of office.

On top of that, a slew of outrageous reports and first-hand accounts of Massa’s sexual conduct dating back to his Navy days have emerged since his resignation Monday.

Though Massa pledged Tuesday on Fox News to “go away,” stories about him “groping” everyone from his Navy buddies to his staff members ensure the New York Democrat’s exploits will become the stuff of lore, and countless hours of cable talk, while his fellow party members are trying to concentrate on health care.

Pelosi, in an interview on PBS’ “The Charlie Rose Show” Wednesday, shook her head at the situation, saying “poor baby, poor baby” in response to Massa’s wavering allegation that he was forced out so health care reform could pass.

“This is a very sick person. He has been diagnosed with cancer — perhaps his judgment is impaired because of of his — the ethical issues that have as arisen, and he is no longer in the Congress,” Pelosi said.

Despite a report that the House ethics committee is ending its investigation into Massa, the panel has not yet formally announced the inquiry is over and a senior source told Fox News the probe remains open for the time being.

Though Massa resigned, the committee potentially could continue poking around if there are suspicions that Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer could have handled the situation better — the panel similarly investigated GOP leaders in the wake of the scandal over ex-Rep. Mark Foley’s lurid text messages to male pages.

Republicans are still weighing whether to bring up a measure calling on the ethics committee to keep its inquiry going. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., said Thursday that the matter deserves to be investigated further.

Fox News has learned that Pelosi’s aides learned last October that Massa was living with male staffers and asked Massa’s office to change that. According to The Wall Street Journal, Massa’s former chief of staff also told Pelosi’s staff that Massa’s language and conduct made some aides uncomfortable.

Pelosi’s aides learned about allegations of groping around the same time Hoyer and his staff learned in early February, sources say. Hoyer’s office claims it urged Massa’s office to refer complaints to the ethics committee.

Pelosi has said she did not personally learn about the allegations of misconduct until March 3.

But the allegations and bizarre anecdotes certainly didn’t end with the off-color remark — “What I really ought to be doing is fracking you” — which Massa admitted to making to a staffer at a wedding reception on New Year’s Eve. He originally described that comment as the lone offending incident that was exploited by his enemies to bring him down — but aides apparently complained about others and several of Massa’s former Navy shipmates have gone on record detailing a pattern of inappropriate behavior.

One shipmate told The Atlantic that Massa was known for giving “Massa Massages” to the other men on board.

The shipmate also said Massa once climbed up to his roommate’s top bunk to attempt to execute a sexual maneuver known as snorkeling — for more information go to UrbanDictionary.com.

“He wakes up to Massa undoing his pants trying to snorkel him,” the shipmate told The Atlantic.

On Fox News, Massa also said that he groped a male aide, but described it as playful and not sexual.

“Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn’t breathe and then four guys jumped on top of me,” he said. “It was my 50th birthday. It was ‘kill the old guy.’ You can take anything out of context,” Massa said.

The play was too much for his Chief of Staff Joe Racalto, who apparently was present among the bachelors who worked for and lived with Massa at a Washington, D.C., pad, where the guys participated in the rough play.

“My chief of staff had a conniption and said: ‘You can’t live there; It’s not congressional,’” Massa said.

Racalto is the one who reportedly went to Pelosi’s staff.

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The thing that no one seems to mention is that most of the country of Chile is located in the Andes Mountains. These mountains were formed by earthquakes.

Two strong earthquakes shook Chile Thursday as Sebastian Pinera prepared to take office as the country’s new president.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured a 7.2 magnitude quake in Chile’s Libertador O’Higgins region, about 124 kilometers from the capital Santiago. It followed a magnitude 5.1 quake centered in the Arucania, Chile region, about 555 kilometers south of the capital.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries from the new quakes. A major 8.8-magnitude earthquake in February killed hundreds of people.

The new quakes came as dignitaries gathered in the capital to witness Mr. Pinera succeed Chile’s first female president, socialist Michelle Bachelet, who is barred from a second consecutive term.

Mr. Pinera, a Harvard-educated economist, is expected to steer the Chilean economy toward more free market policies.

The inauguration marks the first time a conservative has led the country since democracy was reinstated in 1990.

Ms. Bachelet leaves office with high public approval ratings – despite criticism over the government’s initial response to the 8.8 magnitude quake that rocked the South American country February 27.

Wednesday, the head of Chile’s emergency management agency resigned in the fallout over the failure to issue a clear warning about the tsunami that followed the quake.

The Chilean government has said reconstruction will cost about $30 billion and that it will take about three or four years to rebuild the country.

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The Rams announced the sad news on Twitter. Olsen had been fighting mesothelioma.

Olsen was a member of the Rams’ “Fearsome Foursome” with Deacon Jones, Roosevelt Grier and Lamar Lundy. Olsen was a defensive tackle who allowed his fellow defenders to pressure quarterbacks.

Merlin Olsen was a marauder on the field by a nice, gentle man off the field.

Olsen had a second career on TV. He was an actor who appeared on Little House on the Prairie and was the lead in Father Murphy. He also was an analyst on NFL games for NBC.

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Maybe he should have thrown in Park Place, too.    We here at the BrokenCountry don’t get it.  Politicians spend our money like its Monopoly money all day long.  Perhaps this guy intended to run for office.

A man discovered bleeding from the head at a routine traffic stop in Witchita, Kansas, told police he was the victim of an angry drug dealer – upset that he paid for a hundred dollars worth of crack cocaine using Monopoly money weeks before, St. Louis‘ KSDK NewsChannel 5 reported.

“The man from whom he had bought the drugs was upset and invited him over to his house, and upon arrival struck him in the head several times with a handgun, and other people jumped into the fray,” Gordon Bassham, a spokesman for the police department, told NBC.

The man’s injuries were not life-threatening, and he has since stopped cooperating, but Witchita police are still determined to find the dealer and put him in the big house – without passing go and collecting $200.

“That was not a get out-of-jail-free card,” Bassham told NBC.

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A simple early morning disturbance call ended with the death of a gay-porn actor.

And it was all captured on video.

Deputies with the Bay County Sheriff’s Department in Florida arrived at the Executive Inn after Andrew Grande (known professionally as Dustin Michaels), 23, allegedly got into a fight with a female friend, according to Panama City Beach’s WJHG.

Police attempted to handcuff Grande, who had reportedly swallowed a bag of marijuana. When he resisted, police Tasered him.

A camera crew from Zoo Productions was at the scene and captured the moments before the incident, as well as after.

Once he was struck by the powerful electrical jolt, Grande yanked the wires from his chest but showed signs of choking. Police tried to help, with one performing the Heimlich maneuver.

Every effort by police to remove the object from Grande’s throat failed. Paramedics later arrived and removed the bag, but it was too late.

Grande was pronounced dead at Bay Medical Center.

“It’s a tragic situation for our officers,” said Sheriff Frank McKeithen, and “a tragic situation for this young man and his family.”

However, he said, it never would have happened had Grande co-operated with police.

“If he’d … allowed them to handcuff him, it would have been over,” the sheriff said. “This would not have happened.”

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Devon Baldwin, 18, of the Bronx, was stabbed twice in the torso, and Kalimah Tresdale, 20, was slashed in the hand in the 3p.m. incident in the underground walkway of the Columbus Circle subway station, cops said.

Both victims were taken to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell, where Baldwin was in stable condition.

Tresdale was treated and released.

Nathaniel Flores, 17, and Rafael Anderson, 17, both students at Independence High School on 10th Ave. at 56th St., were arrested in the stabbing.

Police sources said the victims know the suspects and that the fight apparently stemmed from an earlier incident at Independence High.

It was not immediately clear if Baldwin and Tresdale are also students at Independence High.

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Police Sgt. Tom Lorenz says 21-year-old Natalie Mejia was being held Wednesday in jail in the Los Angeles suburb on suspicion of cocaine for sale or distribution, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Lorenz says Mejia was a passenger in a car driven by 28-year-old Peter Asencio Tuesday night when Asencio was pulled over for speeding.

Police say Mejia had just dined at a restaurant in Burbank and was heading to the airport and late for a flight. Lorenz says Asencio was arrested on the same drug charge. Police determined that Asencio also was driving with a suspended license.

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In a statement, Hard Rock officials say they were quote, “extremely saddened by the loss of Randy, and our hearts and prayers go out to the family.”

Authorities are still investigating the death. Randy Kwasniewski had joined Morgans Hotel Group in 2006, and became chief executive of the Hard Rock after Morgans bought the hotel and casino east of the Strip a year later.

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I am so sorry for Corey, his mother Judy, his family, my family, all of our fans, and of course my son who I will have to find a way to explain this to when he gets home from school.

This is a tragic loss of a wonderful,beautiful,tormented soul, who will always be my brother,family, and best friend. We must all take this as a lesson in how we treat the people we share this world with while they are still here to make a difference. Please respect our families as we struggle and grieve through this difficult time.

I hope the art Corey has left behind will be remembered as the passion of that for which he truly lived. ~ Corey

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The team who made The Cove, a film about Japanese dolphin hunting which won best documentary at this weekend’s Academy Awards, employed its covert camera techniques on a visit to The Hump in Santa Monica, one of California’s most highly-regarded sushi restaurants.

Whale meat, or kujira, is often available in Japanese fish markets but is illegal in America, and the documentary team’s investigation was conducted in conjunction with law enforcement officials who later raided the restaurant.

California state prosecutors told the New York Times that the restaurant was likely to be charged with violating federal laws against selling marine mammals, an offence punishable by a year in prison and a $20,000 (£13,000) fine.

The restaurant, which on its website urges “truly adventurous” sushi lovers to “leave yourselves in our hands”, has so far refused to comment.

The documentary team says it began investigating the restaurant in October last year after being tipped off by friends that The Hump – reportedly named after pilot slang for the Himalayas – had raw slices of whale on its menu.

Two animal rights activists wearing a specially-created tiny camera were dispatched to the restaurant for a $600 dinner of omakase, a sushi meal in which the chef selects the dishes.

The pair, both vegans, were filmed taking a few hesitant bites of thick pink slices of meat – identified by waiters as whale and costing $60 a plate – before they surreptitiously transferred it to a plastic bag.

According to an affidavit in the case, restaurant staff suggested the whale meat had come from a Mercedes parked behind the restaurant.

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What I want to know is why a person would bring a meat thermometer to a movie theater in the first place.

The woman who was talking on a cell phone during a movie didn’t take to kindly to being ’shushed’ by another moviegoer. Or at least her boyfriend didn’t.

In a drama that turned more lively than the one on screen, the boyfriend allegedly attacked and stabbed the ’shusher’ in the neck. With a meat thermometer.

According to KTLA:

The stabbing occurred last Saturday at the Cinemark 22 theater at 2600 West Avenue I in Lancaster, according to Detective Richard Cartmill of the Lancaster sheriff’s station.

Deputies say that while the movie was playing, a woman was talking on her phone and the victim asked her to turn it off.

The victim was attacked by the woman’s boyfriend and another man. Deputies say he was stabbed in the neck with a meat thermometer.

The stabbing victim is expected to survive and is recovering at a local hospital. Two others who tried to help the victim were also injured, according to KTLA.

According to Sheriff’s officials, the suspects were described as black males. One man was wearing an orange hat with an orange jersey and the other man was dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt.

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The attractive divorcee, 39, has been fired by hospital bosses over allegations she had THREE such romances.

And she has been “debadged” by the Macmillan cancer support charity.

Dale, who worked as a community Macmillan nurse for nearly 13 years, met the men through her job at Queen Elizabeth NHS Hospital in King’s Lynn, Norfolk.

Their terminally-ill wives were being treated there.

And following their deaths, she embarked on relationships with the grieving widowers.

She currently lives with Stephen Ellis, 50, whose long-term partner Mel died of cancer last year.

An NHS source said: “Sara was a very popular member of the team at the hospital. When the allegations surfaced people were genuinely shocked.

“She has been off work for some time but her colleagues were only told she had been dismissed a couple of weeks ago.

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“It has been kept quite hush-hush although word quickly got round about the allegations against her.

“Macmillan nurses do an amazing job in supporting cancer patients day in day out. And this is a really unfortunate episode.”

Dale, who had two children with her ex-husband, was first hauled before hospital bosses last year.

They were alerted when a number of NHS Trust top brass – including the Head of Cancer Services, Director of Nursing and Chief Executive – were tipped off in anonymous letters.

Dale went off sick – and was fired in January following a hearing over her “professional conduct”.

Her case is expected to be referred to the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Dale, who is still free to work as a nurse, could be struck off if found guilty of bringing her profession into disrepute.

Her relationships came after her divorce and were not conducted at the same time.

She began one more than a year after her lover’s partner died.

She started dating Steve months after Mel passed away – and now lives with him in South Wootton, Norfolk.

No details are known about the third alleged romance.

Speaking to The Sun at her detached home yesterday, she denied the third fling.

She said: “The hospital was told I’d had three relationships with men who had lost their partners to cancer. But I have had two.

“One of them was long-term and we were together for nearly ten years. And the other is the one I am in now, who I love.”

She added: “I have never had an affair with a patient’s partner.” Last night a spokeswoman for the NHS Trust confirmed a nurse had been sacked.

She said: “A Macmillan nurse has been dismissed following an investigation into allegations made regarding her professional conduct.

“A hearing took place under the Trust’s disciplinary policy and procedure at which one of the allegations was upheld and she was dismissed with immediate effect.

“The matter will now be referred to the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s conduct committee.

“As a result of the hearing this individual is no longer a Macmillan nurse or entitled to hold the Macmillan name in her job title.”

Steve Richards, Macmillan director for London, East Anglia and the South East, said: “This individual was employed by the Trust as a palliative care nurse in 1998 and Macmillan funded the post until 2000.

“After that date no charity funds were used to pay for the post. We support the Trust’s decision and the nurse no longer holds the Macmillan name.”

Mr Richards added: “There are over 4,500 Macmillan health professionals in the UK who give much-needed support and care to hundreds of thousands of cancer patients and their families.

“This is an isolated incident and all our nurses are expected to maintain the highest standards of care and professional conduct.” There was no mention of the sacking on Dale’s Facebook page last night – and she was still listed as working at the hospital.

Under her personal details she has written: “I have worked as a Macmillan Nurse for the last 13 years and love it – except the NHS is a challenge.

“Oh i also have a mad labrador who sheds lots of hair and speaks. I am hoping to start writing as i need a new challenge.”

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Colleen R. LaRose, whom he met in Ennis, Texas, left the couple’s Montgomery County apartment Aug. 23, the day after his father’s funeral, without telling him, he said.

“I came home and she’s gone. She packed up and left. Didn’t see it coming, didn’t know,” Gorman told the Daily News last night. “I was upset, worried. Maybe something happened to her. You don’t know.”

Yesterday, Gorman, of Pennsburg, 48 miles northwest of Philadelphia, said he finally found out – by reading about her on the Internet.

A federal grand jury indicted LaRose, who also called herself Fatima Rose, allegedly for providing material support for terrorists and for plotting with others to kill a Swedish artist who had depicted the pro-phet Muhammad as a dog.

“I don’t know the details. I don’t want to know them,” said Gorman, who appears to be an easygoing guy with a mustache and beard. Interviewed at his office in Quaker-town, he was dressed in a green and black plaid shirt, black jeans and work boots, and was holding a half-smoked cigarette.

“She never talked about international events, about Muslims, anything,” he said. “It’s very strange. I still can’t believe it.

“The whole thing is crazy.”

A few weeks after LaRose, 5-foot-2 with dirty-blond hair, disappeared, taking most of her clothes, two FBI agents visited him. He said they questioned him, including what she did during the day and whether she used the computer. Nothing to tip him off, he added.

In November or December, Gorman said, he was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury to testify. He said he had been asked about his passport, whether he had given it to her. He said he told the jury no. She was charged with stealing the passport in the indictment.

Prosecutors and agents told him that they were in the middle of an investigation and could not share the details.

He said he figured: “Let them do their job. I don’t want anything to do with it.

“She seemed normal to me. She got mad about some things and happy about others,” he said. Asked what she would get mad about, he replied: “If I was not home when I was supposed to be, that I don’t spend enough time with her, that I work too much.”

As owner of a company that manufactures custom parts for radio towers, he said, “I work until the job gets done.”

The couple lived with his father in a second-floor apartment in a four-unit building on Main Street in Pennsburg. “She was a good person, taking care of my Dad, taking him to the doctor.”

His father sat in a lawn chair on the balcony, said neighbors. “He asked me to go for a cup of coffee,” said Joan Noon, 66, a next-door neighbor.

LaRose didn’t work, and had not graduated from college, but, he said, she was fun to be with.

“I wouldn’t have stayed with her if she was not nice,” he added.

“That’s why when I came home and she was gone, it was a shock to the system.”

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Officials say that they believe that drugs were involved and Haim may have died from an overdose.

Officials said his death appears to have been accidental. Celebrity news Web site TMZ reports that, according to police sources, he died of an apparent overdose.

The 38-year-old actor had reportedly been struggling with drug addiction.

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Haim died at 3:30 a.m. Wednesday of an apparent accidental overdose, according to the LAPD’s North Hollywood Division.

He was found unresponsive at an Oakwood apartment, near Burbank, police said.

His mother was at the home at the time.

The actor, who has struggled with drug addiction, was pronounced dead Providence St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Burbank, police said.

Haim was a teen heartthrob in the 80s and appeared in several movies, including “The Lost Boys” along with fellow teen idol Corey Feldman.

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Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Allen White rejected a motion by attorneys for “Dr. Phil” McGraw and the network that maintained the suit by Shirley Rae Dieu and Crystal Matchett infringed on their First Amendment right to air a topic of public interest.

“There is no discernible public interest in these two plaintiffs,” White said, adding that their complaint focuses on their treatment by the show’s staff and not on statements made by anyone.

Dieu, 56, of Irvine, and Matchett, 26, of Westland, Mich., filed separate suits last year that were later consolidated by White into one complaint. The allegations include fraud, negligent misrepresentation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Dieu and Matchett agreed to take part in a 2007 episode of the show in which they spent a week in a residence called “The Dr. Phil House,” which was wired with cameras and microphones, according to the defense’s court papers. The women participated with four other people and the show’s topic was the difficulties they all had in interacting with other people.

At one point a nudist came to the house to join the others for dinner, defense court papers state.

“This incident was part and parcel of the scenarios being used at the house
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to focus each of the participants on their ability to tolerate unique individuals and situations, and to resist their own judgmental character,” the defense court papers state.

The claims of both women also are barred by releases they signed agreeing to appear on the show, McGraw’s attorneys contend.

But in a sworn declaration, Matchett said she was offended by the nude man’s appearance.

“As a naked man ran into the house, I was in shock and total disbelief of what was happening, feeling violated and disgusted,” Matchett stated. “I heard … Dieu scream, ‘How dare you’ while covering her eyes and running into the bedroom.” Matchett also says she was pressured by a show staff member to sign the release and never had the chance to read it.

Dieu says in her declaration that after she and Matchett retreated to a bedroom “horrified and crying,” a show staff member banged on the door yelling, “Come out, come out Shirley and see the naked man.”

The location for “The Dr. Phil House” was a “cramped, windowless … house on a sound stage in a bad neighborhood,” according to Matchett.

Kelli L. Sager, a lawyer for McGraw and CBS, declined to comment on the ruling.

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Amy V. Beck, 33, a sixth-grade English and social sciences teacher at David Starr Jordan Middle School, will be arraigned on four counts of unlawful sex with a person under 16, and one count of oral copulation with a person under 16.

Teacher Amy Beck, who admitted to having sex with a student

Beck turned herself in at the Burbank police station Monday, telling authorities she had been having “an inappropriate sexual relationship” with one of her male students from March to September of 2009, said Sgt. Robert Quesada of the Burbank Police Department.

Investigators confirmed the story with the student.

“She just came in because she was feeling guilty and the guilt had been bothering her so much that she had to get it off her chest,” Quesada said.

“The detectives knew that that’s why she came in, to relieve that guilt that she’s been carrying since last year.”

She was booked into Burbank Police City Jail on Monday and was being held on $400,000 bail.

Beck’s arrest came just days after she resigned from the school with a short letter that gave no indication of why she was leaving, according to Gabe Soumakian, assistant superintendent for human resources for the Burbank Unified School District.

The student, now 15, is no longer at the school, Soumakian said. School officials have found a substitute teacher to finish the rest of the year.

News of the arrest spread quickly Tuesday at the middle school, where incredulous students swapped the latest information on the former teacher. Many described Beck as a nice teacher who often talked about her three children and her husband, a police officer. Some even said she was their favorite.

“She was really awesome and helpful and stuff,” said an eighth-grade student who was in Beck’s class as a sixth-grader. “She was really cool. I didn’t think she could have done it.”

Several parents expressed shock that the alleged crime could have occurred at the school, which has consistently performed well academically.

“It’s scary,” said Jessica Sefchick, who was waiting to pick up her child. “Bad things happen all the time and I definitely try to keep my kids sheltered and safe, but this always kind of throws me because it seems to be happening everywhere.”

“That’s very disturbing,” said William Delacerda, whose son is a sixth-grade student at the school. “Hopefully the situation gets resolved and hopefully there’s more scrutiny on the teachers. Hopefully they’ll take steps to prevent it from happening again.”

One neighbor in Beck’s tree-lined Burbank neighborhood of single-family homes could not believe the news when told by a reporter.

“I guess you really never know your neighbors, do you?” said a nearby homeowner who asked not to be named. The neighbor, who mostly spoke with Beck’s husband, said the Becks were a nice family.

Burbank police asked anyone with information about the case to contact Detective Wally Schilling at

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Bavasi would then finish the statement: “He could have been a Hall of Famer, but he had million-dollar legs and a 10-cent head.”

Davis, one of the fastest, flashiest and electrifying players of his generation when he roamed the Dodger outfield in the 1960s and ’70s, but someone who eventually couldn’t outrun his own mistakes, was found dead Tuesday at his home in Burbank. He was 69.

Burbank police Sgt. Robert Quesada said Davis was found by a neighbor, and no foul play is suspected.

Dodger fans remember how the pitch of Vin Scully’s voice would rise when Davis hit a ball into the gap, following “The 3 Dog” as he rounded first and flew into third with his helmet somewhere near second base. Davis got the nickname because he wore No. 3, often batted third in the lineup and annually led the team in triples.

He was one of Los Angeles’ most gifted homegrown products, a four-sport star at L.A.’s Roosevelt High who had 9.5-second speed in the 100-yard dash and set a state record in the long jump. Scout Kenny Myers signed Davis during the summer of 1958, the year the Dodgers moved to L.A., and promised him within two years he’d be the team’s starting center fielder. It came true; Davis replaced future Hall of Famer Duke Snider full-time by 1961.

In his 14 seasons with the team, Davis was a two-time National League All-Star, a three-time Gold Glove winner, and set L.A.-franchise records for hits (2,091), extra-base hits (585), at-bats (7,495), runs (1,004), triples (110) and total bases (3,094). A career .279 hitter, Davis still has the mark for the Dodgers’ all-time hitting streak, with 31 games in 1969.

Author Roger Angell wrote about him in 1962: “(Davis) is the first player I have ever been tempted to compare to Willie Mays. Speed, sureness, a fine arm, power, a picture swing – he lacks nothing.”

On a Dodger team that made three trips to the World Series in the ’60s on pitching and speed, the 6-foot-2, 180-pound Davis – pushing along Maury Wills, and running down fly balls behind Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale – was a star attraction.

Although he put his name in the record book for most errors in a World Series game – three, all during the fifth inning of Game 2 of the 1966 Fall Classic against Baltimore, in Koufax’s last game – Davis also set a World Series record the year before against Minnesota with three stolen bases in Koufax’s 7-0 victory in Game 5.

But as his legs began to give out on him, his motivation questioned by team officials and following a trade to Montreal (for eventual Cy Young Award-winning relief pitcher Mike Marshall) before the 1974 season, Davis’ life and career began to tailspin. He bounced around to four other teams and two more in Japan before he finished with the Angels in 1979 as a part-time designated hitter.

Bavasi, the Angels’ GM at the time, was again just trying to help Davis out, knowing he had money problems.

“I spent it as soon as I got it because I always knew there would be more,” Davis once told the Montreal Gazette. “I spent it on women, clothes, cars …”

He experimented with Buddhism, and was known as someone moody to deal with. He became very despondent for a long time after his second wife died after falling off a cliff near their home in Hawaii in the late ’70s.

Davis also dealt with post-career drug problems that landed him in jail after he threatened to kill his parents – brandishing a samurai sword – and burn down their Gardena home if they didn’t give him $5,000 in 1996.

The Dodgers tried to help him as well as they could in the past few years, having him as part of the speakers’ bureau so he could council kids who had substance-abuse problems.

During a 2006 interview, Davis said playing in L.A. was a blessing for him.

“People always remembered me; this is my hometown,” he said.

Dodgers owner Frank McCourt said in a statement released by the team: “Willie Davis was beloved by generations of Dodger fans and remains one of the most talented players ever to wear the Dodger uniform. Having spent time with him over the past six years, I know how proud he was to have been a Dodger. He will surely be missed and our sincere thoughts are with his children during this difficult time.”

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The arrest of a suburban Pennsylvania woman known by the alias Jihad Jane, who was allegedly plotting with Islamic radicals abroad to kill a Swedish cartoonist, has raised concerns about homegrown terrorists in the United States who may be difficult to to spot.

“This woman might as well have advertised in the Washington Post,” former White House counterterrorism official and ABC News consultant Richard Clarke said on “Good Morning America” today. “It was easy for the FBI to find her but there are other people who are much more covert.

“There will likely be more attacks,” Clarke added. “Hopefully, they will be small and hopefully we can catch them early.”

Colleen R. LaRose, 46, of Montgomery, Pa., was arrested in October 2009 and charged with trying to recruit Islamic fighters and plotting to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist who made fun of Muslim prophet Mohammed, according to a federal indictment unsealed today.

The FBI kept the case secret while it looked for more suspects in the United States and abroad. The case was made public after seven men were arrested in Ireland this week, suspected of plotting to kill the Swedish cartoonist.

LaRose was arrested in Philadelphia Oct. 16, 2009, and has been in federal custody ever since. If convicted, she faces a potential sentence of life in prison and a $1 million fine.

LaRose could easily fit the part of a soccer mom. She was described by neighbors as an average housewife.

“Oh, my God, unbelievable, I can’t believe that,” one neighbor told ABC News.

Another said the news was an “amazing, shocking surprise.”

Authorities say LaRose’s U.S. citizenship and appearance made her appealing to the Islamic radicals she first contacted on the Internet.

LaRose is better known to federal authorities as Fatima Rose or Jihad Jane. LaRose called herself JihadJane in a YouTube video in which she said she was “desperate to do something somehow to help” ease the suffering of Muslims, according to news station WPVI.

The indictment, obtained by ABC News, charged LaRose with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, and making false statements to a government official and attempted identity theft.

She is also accused of making false statements to a government official and of attempted identity theft, a passport she allegedly stole with the intention of giving to an Islamic fighter. The court papers alleged that LaRose reached out through the Internet to jihadist groups saying she was “desperate to do something to help” suffering Muslim people, and that she desired to become a martyr.

She stated in her e-mails “that her physical appearance would allow her to ‘blend in with many people’ which ‘may be a way to achieve what is in my heart,’” the indictment stated.

In her e-mails with five unindicted co-conspirators in South Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, LaRose allegedly agreed to recruit men and women for jihad, to raise money for Islamic fighters, and agreed on the Internet to one jihadist’s request to “marry me to get me inside Europe.”

In March 2009, the indictment stated, she allegedly received a directive to “got to sweden… find location of [Resident of Sweden] … and kill him … this is what i say to u.” LaRose was instructed to kill Vilks in a way that would frighten “the whole Kufar [non-believer] world.”

Federal officials identified the target as Lars Vilks, who had drawn Muhammed with the body of a dog.

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Using e-mail, YouTube videos, phony travel documents and a burning desire to kill “or die trying,” a middle-aged American woman from Pennsylvania helped recruit a network for suicide attacks and other terrorist strikes in Europe and Asia, according to a federal grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday.

Colleen R. LaRose, who dubbed herself “JihadJane,” was so intent on waging jihad, authorities said, that she traveled to Sweden to kill an artist in a way that would frighten “the whole Kufar [nonbeliever] world.”

With blond hair and green eyes, the 46-year-old woman bragged that she could go anywhere undetected, boasting in one e-mail that it was “an honour & great pleasure to die or kill for” jihad, or holy war, the indictment said.

“Only death will stop me here that I am so close to the target!” she wrote.

The indictment doesn’t say whether the Swede was killed, but LaRose was not charged with murder. Authorities refused to identify the artist or to say whether the case was related to arrests in Ireland earlier Tuesday.

Irish police said they had detained seven people in the southern counties of Waterford and Cork in connection with an alleged plot to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who had depicted the prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog.

In the indictment, authorities said LaRose solicited funds for terrorist organizations, helped arrange phony passports and other travel records, and used the Internet to recruit women to kill in Europe and men in Asia. LaRose was arrested Oct. 15 in Philadelphia.

Federal officials cited her as an example of how terrorists sometimes boldly operate inside the United States, fearless of the world watching them on the Internet.

“A woman from suburban America agreed to carry out murder overseas and to provide material support to terrorists,” said David Kris, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s National Security Division. That, he emphasized, “underscores the evolving nature of the threat we face.”

Michael L. Levy, the U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, said the case shows “the use terrorists can and do make” of communicating through e-mails and videos around the world. He called LaRose “yet another very real danger lurking on the Internet.”

The other danger, authorities said, is that radical jihadists are turning to home-grown U.S. citizens to carry out their plots. “Terrorists are looking for Americans to join them in their cause,” Levy said, adding that LaRose “shatters any lingering thought that we can spot a terrorist based on appearance.”

But her possible motivation was not clear Tuesday night.

“She appeared to be one of those people who spend a lot of time online and go to all these radical websites and chat rooms,” said one law enforcement source, who, like others interviewed, requested anonymity when discussing the case.

“If there was some moment in her life that changed her, I don’t know,” another law enforcement source said.

Officials said she began to respond to Internet requests from conspirators abroad and to take a leading role in ongoing plots. They said she stole a U.S. passport and “transferred or attempted to transfer it in an effort to facilitate an act of international terrorism.”

The indictment, which also mentioned but did not identify five unindicted co-conspirators, said that LaRose first came to the attention of the FBI in June 2008 when she posted a comment on YouTube under the user name “JihadJane.” She stated that she was “desperate to do something somehow to help” Muslim people.

By December of that year, she was allegedly e-mailing one of the conspirators about her desire to become a shahed, or martyr.

A second conspirator e-mailed her in January 2009 about a similar commitment, the indictment alleges. “I tried twice but I wasn’t successful . . . [but] I will . . . try until Allah will m[a]ke it easy for me,” the conspirator told LaRose.

By February 2009, the indictment said, LaRose was telling one of the conspirators that her physical appearance would allow her to “blend in with many people,” which “may be a way to achieve what is in my heart.”

In March, a third conspirator, in Asia, invited LaRose to “come here and get the training” so that they can “deal in bombs and explosives effecti[v]ely.” The conspirator told LaRose that she was special because she could “get access to many places” because of her nationality, the indictment says.

One conspirator asked LaRose, also known as “Fatima LaRose,” to “Marry me to get me inside Europe.” She agreed, the indictment says.

She also e-mailed the Swedish Embassy in Washington, asking for instructions on acquiring permanent residency in Sweden. One collaborator allegedly told her: “Go to Sweden . . . find location [of an unidentified Swedish resident] . . . and kill him . . . that is what I say to u.”

LaRose allegedly agreed. “I will make this my goal till I achieve it or die trying,” she e-mailed back. “I agree that it is good I blend in.”

The indictment said LaRose also was involved in soliciting “urgent funds for sisters” overseas. By August of last year, she seemed intent on putting plans into action, according to the indictment. “I will be away from here in a couple days. . . . Then . . . I will get to work on importan[t] matters,” she wrote.

Authorities said she removed and concealed her computer hard drive in her home in Pennsburg, Pa., a rural spot between Philadelphia and Allentown. She left for Europe and joined an online community hosted by the Swedish resident she was believed to be targeting.

Some of her former neighbors in Pennsburg were shocked by the allegations. Others seemed to take them in stride.

“She was the weird, weird, weird lady who lived across the hall,” said Eric R. Newell, 36, who works for a National Football League sports agent. “We always called her the crazy lady.”

His wife, Kristy, recalled that LaRose “talked to her cats all the time.”

The Newells, who moved out of the four-unit building about 18 months ago, said LaRose rarely left her apartment except at night, when she would go drinking and get into fights. They never heard her discuss politics or extremist plots, they said.

“We knew she was crazy,” Newell said. “We never knew she was dangerous.”

A downstairs neighbor, Renee Herbert, said LaRose often had two young children with her and, for a time, lived with a boyfriend and the boyfriend’s ill father.

If convicted of the charges against her, LaRose could face life in prison and a $1-million fine.

Other women caught up in terrorism cases in the U.S. include Lynne F. Stewart, a New York attorney convicted in 2005 of passing prison messages from a radical sheik to his followers on the outside urging violent attacks. And last month Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani who lived in Boston but is not a U.S. citizen, was convicted in New York of attempting to kill U.S. military and law enforcement officials.

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Black women had the highest rate of infection at 48 percent and women were nearly twice likely as men to be infected, according to an analysis by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About 21 percent of women were infected with genital herpes, compared to only 11.5 percent of men, while 39 percent of blacks were infected compared to about 12 percent for whites, the CDC said.

There is no cure for genital herpes, or herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), which can cause recurrent and painful genital sores and also increases the likelihood of acquiring and transmitting the AIDS virus. It is related to herpes simplex virus 1, or oral herpes, which causes cold sores.

Several drugs are available to treat herpes symptoms and outbreaks, including acyclovir, which is available generically or under the Zovirax brand name, and valacyclovir, known generically as Valtrex — both made by GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK.L). Ganciclovir, sold as Zirgan, is made by privately-held Sirion Therapeutics, Inc.

The CDC estimates that more than 80 percent of people with genital herpes do not know they are infected.

“The message is herpes is quite common. The symptoms can be often very innocuous,” Dr. John Douglas of the CDC said in a teleconference.

“Because herpes is so prevalent it becomes … a really important reason to use condoms on a consistent and correct basis with all of your partners,” Douglas said.

Douglas said the increased rate of infection in blacks is not do to increased risk behavior but likely due to biological factors that make women more susceptible as well as the higher rate of infection within black communities.

The CDC estimates that there are 19 million new sexually transmitted disease infections every year in the United States, costing the health care system about $16 billion annually.

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First Amendment be damned . . . If Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn had his way, any journalist who called Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a dictator would quickly find himself behind bars.

Penn, appearing on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday, defended Chavez during a segment in which he detailed his work with the JP Haitian Relief Organization, which he co-founded.

“Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it” said Penn, winner of two Best Actor Academy Awards. “And this is mainstream media, who should — truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.”

It was just the beginning of a busy weekend for Penn. When asked on CBS’ “Sunday Morning” about those who question his motives for his humanitarian work in Haiti, he said:

“Do I hope that those people die screaming of rectal cancer? Yeah. You know, but I’m not going to spend a lot of energy on it.”

Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News’ senior judicial analyst, said the same constitutional protection that applies to journalists also applies to Penn, who can say pretty much anything he wants in the “political arena” — aside from an immediate incitement of violence.

“What he is saying is protected, as wacky and weird as it is,” Napolitano told FoxNews.com. “But the substance of what he’s saying would be absolutely contrary to the First Amendment, which fully protects all political opinions. So if a journalist says Dick Cheney should go to jail, the journalist is privileged to say that.”

“Mr. Penn is calling for a communist-like regime in which journalists who criticize the government are sent to jail because of that criticism,” Napolitano added. “That is utterly un-American and hasn’t happened here since the Civil War.”

Lis Wiehl, a former federal prosecutor and Fox News legal analyst, echoed Napolitano’s comments, saying Penn’s statement is “completely counter” to First Amendment protections.

“Unless you’re yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre, i.e. stirring up immediate violence, you have the right as an American to voice your opinion, even if others (including Penn) disagree,” she wrote FoxNews.com. “And, yes, Penn has the right to voice his opinion as well — that’s the beauty of the First Amendment. And, don’t forget, truth is an absolute defense to any defamation or slander lawsuit.”

According to a study by the Business and Media Institute, news coverage pertaining to Chavez from 1998 to 2006 found the Venezuelan president’s human rights record was mentioned in only 10 percent of stories, and he was described as a leftist in 12 percent of stories.

Napolitano, meanwhile, said Penn apparently prefers “thuggery” to democracy.

“In light of his ignorance of freedom of speech, his wishing rectal cancer on his detractors, and his embracing tyrants, Mr. Penn obviously prefers thuggery to democracy,” he continued. “Were he free to do so, he’d be a tyrant. Now we’ll see if he can get me jailed for saying that!”

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The allegations surrounding the New York Democrat date back at least a year, and involve “a pattern of behavior and physical harassment,” according to one source. The new claims of alleged groping contradict statements by Massa, who resigned his office on Monday after it became public that he was the subject of a House ethics committee investigation for possible harassment.

Massa had said that the allegations were limited to his use of “salty language” with his staff. He apologized for making some inappropriate comments and argued he was being unfairly vilified. Days later, Massa accused the White House and Democratic congressional leaders of trying to oust him from office to improve their chances of passing health care reform legislation. Massa could not be reached for comment Tuesday, and no one answered the phone at his home in New York or his campaign office. Staff at his former congressional offices declined to relay messages to him and said they did not know how to reach him.

According to two sources familiar with the probe, Massa’s former deputy chief of staff Ron Hikel provided the information about the staffers’ allegations to the House ethics committee three weeks ago. Hikel had earlier sought advice from Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s office about brewing internal complaints, the sources said, and had been urged to report the allegations to the committee.

Hikel, reached at his home Tuesday, declined to comment on the ethics investigation.

Also on Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs dismissed Massa’s charges of a conspiracy to force him from office as “silly and ridiculous” in an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America. He urged looking at Massa’s erratic and changing statements about why he was resigning office.

“Last week, he, on Wednesday, was having a recurrence of cancer. On Thursday, he was guilty of using salty language. On Friday, we learned he’s before the Ethics Committee to be investigated on charges of sexual harassment,”Gibbs said. “So, look, I think, clearly, his actions appear to be in the appropriate venue in the Ethics Committees to look at, but we’re focused not on crazy allegations but instead on making this system work for the American people rather than work for insurance companies.”

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A photo first posted to the humor Web site FunnyJunk.com and later to the Latino Web site Guanabee.com shows packages of Mattel’s Ballerina Barbie and Ballerina Theresa dolls hanging side by side at an unidentified store. The Theresa dolls, which feature brown skin and dark hair, are marked as being on sale at $3.00. The Barbies to the right of the Theresa dolls, meanwhile, retain their original price of $5.93. The dolls look identical aside from their color.

Editors at Guanabee.com said the person responsible for the photo told the Web site that it was taken at a Louisiana Walmart store. The person did not return e-mails from ABCNews.com.

A Walmart spokeswoman, who could not verify the exact store shown in the photo, said that the price change on the Theresa doll was part of the chain’s efforts to clear shelf space for its new spring inventory.

“To prepare for (s)pring inventory, a number of items are marked for clearance, ” spokeswoman Melissa O’Brien said in an e-mail. “… Both are great dolls. The red price sticker indicates that this particular doll was on clearance when the photo was taken, and though both dolls were priced the same to start, one was marked down due to its lower sales to hopefully increase purchase from customers.”

“Pricing like items differently is a part of inventory management in retailing,” O’Brien said.

But critics say Walmart should have been more sensitive in its pricing choice.

“The implication of the lowering of the price is that’s devaluing the black doll,” said Thelma Dye, the executive director of the Northside Center for Child Development, a Harlem, N.Y. organization founded by pioneering psychologists and segregation researchers Kenneth B. Clark and Marnie Phipps Clark.

“While it’s clear that’s not what was intended, sometimes these things have collateral damage,” Dye said.

Other experts agree. Walmart could have decided “that it’s really important that we as a company don’t send a message that we value blackness less than whiteness,” said Lisa Wade, an assistant sociology professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles and the founder of the blog Sociological Images.

Last year, Wade posted a blog entry on another case where a black doll was apparently priced less than its white counterpart at an unidentified store. Wade said that when white dolls outsell black dolls, it’s usually because black parents are more likely than white parents to buy their children dolls of a different race.

“Most white parents wouldn’t think to buy a black doll for their child, even if they believe in equality and all those things,” she said.

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Natalie Wood once said in a televised interview that her greatest fear was of dark seawater. Later, in November 1981, she drowned in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Catalina Island, California.

The star’s drowning death is one of Hollywood’s most enduring mysteries. Although the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office ruled that Wood’s death was an accident, and the sheriff says the case is closed, others say there are pieces of the puzzle that don’t make sense.

The actress’ sister, Lana Wood, and the captain of the yacht Natalie Wood sailed with her husband, actor Robert Wagner, are asking the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office to re-open the case. So far, authorities have not responded to the request.

Lana Wood told CNN that she believes a highly charged argument between her sister and husband on the yacht’s back deck preceded Wood’s drowning. She told CNN she does not suspect foul play.

Dennis Davern, the former captain of the yacht, “The Splendour,” broke his long silence with a detailed account in “Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour,” a book he wrote with his friend Marti Rulli. It was published in September.

Davern also believes Wood’s death was a direct result of the fight with Wagner.

Wood first appeared as a child in “Miracle on 34th Street” and starred with some of Hollywood’s top leading men — James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause” and Warren Beatty in “Splendor in the Grass.” She also starred in “West Side Story.”

Wagner’s success came later, on television. He starred in two long-running series, “It Takes a Thief” and “Hart to Hart.”

The couple married in 1957, divorced in 1962, then remarried in 1972. They often sailed their yacht off the coast of California and they invited Wood’s then co-star, Christopher Walken, to join them on a sail on Thanksgiving weekend, 1981.

Walken and Wood had been filming “Brainstorm” at the time and the Hollywood rumor mill was abuzz with speculation that Wagner was jealous over Walken. Walken has not spoken publicly about Wood’s drowning, and authorities have said he witnessed only the events leading up to an argument between the couple.

Wagner and his representatives did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. But Wagner admitted his jealousy in his book “Pieces of My Heart, ” also published in September. He acknowledged that there had been a fight with Wood, writing that he smashed a wine bottle on a table.

In a lengthy interview with CNN, Davern said he now believes the investigation of Wood’s death was incompetent and suggested there was a cover-up. He said he regrets misleading investigators by keeping quiet at Wagner’s request.

After Wagner argued with Walken and broke the wine bottle, Wood left in disgust and went to her stateroom, Davern told CNN. Walken also retired to a guest room, Davern added, and Wagner followed his wife to their room. A few minutes later, Davern said, he could hear the couple fighting.
They’d moved their fight outside. You could tell from their animated gestures they were still arguing.
–Dennis Davern, yacht captain

Embarrassed, Davern said he turned up the volume on his stereo. At one point, Davern recalled, he glanced out of the pilot house window and saw both Wagner and Wood on the yacht’s aft deck. “They’d moved their fight outside … you could tell from their animated gestures they were still arguing,” he said.

A short time later, Wagner, appearing to be distraught, told Davern he couldn’t find Wood. Davern searched the boat but couldn’t find her. He noticed the rubber dinghy also was missing.

Wagner shrugged and poured them both drinks, Davern said. He suggested his wife had probably gone off in a temper.

Wagner’s story, as told in his book, differs from Davern’s. He maintains that after the argument with Walken, Wood went to her room and prepared for bed while he and Walken sat on the deck, cooling off.

Wagner writes that he went to check on Wood, but she wasn’t there. He maintains that he and Davern searched the boat and noticed the dinghy was missing. Wagner wrote that he assumed his wife had gone ashore on her own.

He radioed the restaurant on shore where they’d had dinner and called the harbor master to see if anyone had seen Wood.

Detective Duane Rasure, the lead investigator for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, confirmed that Wagner notified the harbor master that his wife was missing.

But Davern claims those phone calls did not happen immediately. The harbor master at the time, Doug Odin, told CNN he was contacted around 1:30 a.m. He summoned the U.S. Coast Guard, which arrived to begin a daylight search at 5 a.m.

Lt. Roger Smith, a lifeguard with the Los Angeles Fire County Department, questioned Wagner about the delay in summoning help. Wagner said he assumed Wood was “probably just party-hopping on other boats, that’s the kind of woman she is … and I want to keep this out of the public,” Smith told CNN.
She was such a little thing.

Wood’s body was found floating in the water about a mile away from the yacht. Investigator Rasure said the official theory is that Wood was awakened by the sound of the dinghy hitting the side of their yacht. Police believe she went to re-tie the dinghy but slipped on the boat’s swim step and fell into the water.

The dinghy was found about a mile away from the yacht — and from where Wood’s body was found. “It seems she might have hung onto the dinghy but then got separated from it,” Smith said.

According to police reports, Wood was found wearing a long nightgown, socks, and a down jacket.

Rasure told CNN he believes Wood was dragged underwater by her jacket. “She was such a little thing,” he said.

The autopsy report shows Wood had two dozen bruises on her body, including a facial abrasion on her left cheek, and bruises on her arms. Rasure said he believes the injuries were sustained from falling overboard and struggling in the water.

“My sister was not a swimmer and did not know how to swim, and she would never go to another boat or to shore dressed in a nightgown and socks,” said Lana Wood. She said she believes Davern.

“He was a close family confidant and trusted friend to my sister. He is not a liar,” she told CNN.

She said that when she learned her sister was dead, she went immediately to the house to see Wagner. “Robert was laying on their bed, devastated and when I walked into their bedroom he looked up at me crying and whispered, ‘It was an accident, you have to believe me, it was an accident.’ ”

She added, “I don’t think R.J. ever got over Natalie’s death. She was the love of his life.”

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SACRAMENTO — California state Sen. Roy Ashburn, whose personal life became the subject of rumors in the wake of a DUI arrest last week, announced Monday that he is gay, but he defended his numerous votes against gay rights bills.

“I am gay . . . those are the words that have been so difficult for me for so long. But I am gay,” Ashburn told conservative radio talk show host Inga Barks in an on-air interview.

A Sacramento TV station last week reported that unnamed sources saw Ashburn at a gay bar the night before his arrest last Wednesday on suspicion of DUI. The speculation set off a media frenzy, rekindling rumors that Ashburn lived a closeted life.

Gay-rights advocates seized on the news to point out Ashburn’s votes against gay rights legislation and his appearance several years ago at a rally in support of a proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage.

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A source told us, “They were riding up in the elevator when a man in a blue uniform with ‘hotel’ written on his shirt started to talk Spanish to Pepe (inset). They both got off on the same floor, and Pepe and his wife went into their suite. They then heard a knock on the door.

It was the man in the elevator, who said, ‘I am here to fix your air conditioner.’ They let him in, and he took valuables including Emilia’s jewels — thought to be worth millions — and fled.” The Palm Beach-based couple, in town for Oscar celebrations, were unhurt but shaken up.

Hotel security is believed to have ID’d the perp from videotape but no arrests have been made. Fanjul confirmed to us, “We were victims of a robbery at the hotel. He took my wife’s jewelry that was both valuable and sentimental. We are OK and have reported the incident to the police.”

The LAPD said they didn’t yet have details and a Four Seasons rep didn’t get back to us.

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Listen ladies, there are a lot of crazy ways that licensed doctors change a persons appearance, but using DAP caulking is not one of them.

The only logical conclusion one can make is that these are six of the dumbest women on the planet.

The women checked into hospitals in the county after their procedures, apparently administered by unlicensed providers, went horribly wrong, state health officials said. The women underwent surgery and were given antibiotics. No arrests have been made.

Different from medical-grade silicone, the substance used in the botched procedures was believed to be a diluted version of nonmedical-grade silicone.

“The same stuff you use to put caulk around the bathtub,” said Steven M. Marcus, executive and medical director of the New Jersey Poison Information and Education System, who learned about the bizarre procedures through a committee he sits on that monitors outbreaks in the metropolitan area.

“What a tragedy,” said Gregory Borah, chief of plastic surgery at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick.

Using over-the-counter silicone can cause abscesses that he said resemble “a big zit.”

Borah, also president of the New Jersey Society of Plastic Surgeons, said the botched procedures underscore the need for patients who seek augmentation to have it administered by a licensed professional in a sterile setting.

A plastic surgeon doing buttocks augmentation would make an incision to develop a pocket underneath the muscle and shape the buttocks with inert medical-grade silicone, Borah said. He noted it is a relatively uncommon procedure in most practices and that he has done only two in his 24-year career.

By the time he tells patients of the potential risks — from anesthesia, scarring and silicone shifting when patients sit down — they often change their minds.

Breast and cheek augmentations are the most common procedures, he noted. Borah said buttock augmentation is more popular in some cultures than others.

The state Department of Health and Senior Services did not identify the women or release any details about their ethnicity. It also did not say where the “unlicensed medical provider or providers” performed their procedures.

“Fortunately, these women are being treated and are recovering,” said Tina Tan, the state epidemiologist. “But there is the potential for more serious complications if these infections are not treated early and properly.”

Investigators have not determined if the six cases, which began to be reported in mid-February, are related, but they have stoked concern among officials that such injuries are more common than previously thought.

Health officials issued an alert to state hospitals and doctors about the cases and the potential for more victims.

Marcus said there have been other incidents over the past couple years of providers providing implants of nonmedical-grade silicone, then getting put out of business — only for other shady providers to surface.

“Caveat emptor: Buyer beware,” Marcus said. “If it looks too cheap, there’s probably a reason it’s too cheap.”

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Zachary Tucker, left, and Sean Fitzgerald were arrested Tuesday night on suspicion of second-degree tampering.

COLUMBIA, MO. — Two students on Friday apologized for scattering cotton balls outside the black culture center at the University of Missouri in Columbia.

Zachary E. Tucker, 21, who is from the St. Louis area, and Sean D. Fitzgerald, 19, used “inexcusable judgment,” according to a joint statement issued by their attorneys.

The incident was part of a series of foolish acts last Friday that included riding a tiger statue and hoisting a pirate flag at the ROTC building, the statement said.

The two were arrested Tuesday evening on suspicion of a felony hate crime and were released on bond. Neither has been charged, and prosecutors are not likely to decide what, if any, charges will be filed until Monday, said Ryan Haigh, an assistant Boone County prosecutor.

Both students have been suspended from the university.

Police said that between 1:30 and 2 a.m. on Feb. 26, cotton balls were scattered across the front lawn and sidewalk at the front door of the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center.

The incident offended students who felt it harkened to days of slavery on cotton plantations.

Police arrested Tucker, a senior majoring in psychology, and Fitzgerald, a freshman majoring in political science, after receiving an anonymous tip.

The statement from the attorneys notes that neither man has a criminal record.

“This type of behavior is totally out of character for these young men, and they hope for the opportunity to prove this to the community,” the statement said. “Fitzgerald and Tucker apologize to each and every person who was hurt and offended by their actions.”

Marcus Mayes, a graduate assistant with the culture center, said he had not seen the statement but based on what he heard, he felt it was “a start.”

“It’s good they acknowledged what they did was wrong,” he said.

Tucker’s attorney, Christopher A. Slusher, said his client wants to continue attending school but declined to discuss what university officials told him about that possibility.

Tucker has met with Nathan Stephens, director of the Black Culture Center, to personally apologize. Stephens said he accepted the apology and offered to help mentor Tucker in cultural sensitivity.

“My desire for him is to learn and grow from this and to become a better person,” Stephens said.

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Massa, while acknowledging he made an “inappropriate” remark, defended himself Sunday against the firestorm of criticism he’s endured since it was revealed last week that he was the subject of a House ethics probe. Speaking on his local radio show on WKPQ-FM, he accused House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of lying and the Democratic Party of pushing him out of Congress over sexual harassment allegations in order to pass health care reform.

Massa, who supports a robust government health insurance plan, was one of 39 House Democrats who voted against the health care bill last year.

Massa said the incident that got him in trouble occurred at a staff member’s wedding reception on New Year’s Eve.

“I was with my wife. And in fact we had a great time. She got the stomach flu,” he said.

Massa said he had just gotten up to sing Auld Lang Syne and had finished dancing with the bride and bridesmaid — in full view of cameras — when he sat back down at a table with male staff members.

That’s when he made the “inappropriate” remark.

“One of them looked at me and, as they would do after, I don’t know, 15 gin and tonics, and goodness only knows how many bottles of champagne, a staff member made an intonation to me that maybe I should be chasing after the bridesmaid, and his points were clear and his words were far more colorful than that.

“And I grabbed the staff member sitting next to me and said, ‘Well, what I really ought to be doing is fracking you,’” he said.

“And then [I] tousled the guy’s hair and left, went to my room, because I knew the party was getting to a point where it wasn’t right for me to be there. Now was that inappropriate of me? Absolutely. Am I guilty? Yes.”

But Massa said the staff member “never said to me that he felt uncomfortable” and “never went to anybody.”

Rather, he said “somebody went to another staff member who was uncomfortable for him. It was a third-party political correctness statement.”

Massa, 50, announced last Wednesday that a recurrence of cancer made him decide not to seek re-election in the fall. But two days later, following persistent reports about an Ethics Committee inquiry into inappropriate remarks made to a male staffer, he announced he would resign. The resignation is expected to become official on Monday.

On Sunday, the first-term congressman claimed that the “forces that be” orchestrated a character assassination against him to push him out for the sake of the health care bill.

“Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill and this administration and this House leadership have said, quote-unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill, and now they’ve gotten rid of me and it will pass. You connect the dots,” Massa said.

“The future of the Democratic Party rests on passing this health care bill. They can get anyone to say anything about me concerning anything at all and in fact they did.”

Massa said he didn’t know about the substance of the harassment complaint until after he announced he would not seek re-election — he said he caught wind of an ethics inquiry after the wedding, but assumed it was about a separate matter.

And he said the accounting provided by Hoyer and his staff is a fabrication.

Hoyer’s office claims the majority leader’s staff was notified the week of Feb. 8 about the allegations, that Hoyer was “immediately informed” and that he told his staff that Massa should refer the matter to the Ethics Committee within 48 hours, or he would do so himself. According to Hoyer’s office, Hoyer learned “within 48 hours” from the ethics committee staff and Massa’s staff that the Ethics Committee had been contacted.

“Steny Hoyer has never said a single word to me at all, not ever, not once,” Massa said on Sunday.

“Not a word. This is a lie. It’s a blatant false statement. And that’s what triggered me to understand what in fact is going on.”

Hoyer, though, did not claim he spoke directly to Massa.

“Mr. Hoyer was asked if he knew of the allegations before they were made public, and he answered yes,” Hoyer spokeswoman Katie Grant said Monday when asked about Massa’s radio show. “We then released a statement clarifying his knowledge of the situation.”

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“Now they’ve gotten rid of me and it will pass,” said Massa, who was one of 39 Democrats who voted against an earlier House version of the health care bill last November.

“Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill, and this administration and this House leadership have said, ‘they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill, and now they’ve gotten rid of me and it will pass.’ You connect the dots,” Massa said, according to a separate story in Roll Call.

During a weekly radio program, Massa also provided more detail about what led to an ongoing investigation by the House ethics committee. He acknowledged making an inappropriate remark to staff member after dancing with a bridesmaid at a wedding. He said the ethics complaint came not from that staffer, but from another at the table.

Last week, On Politics reported here that Massa planned to leave Congress after his term ended this year. In a conference call with reporters, he cited a recurrence of cancer, which he had previously battled in 1996, as the reason for his departure.

But since then, the House ethics committee announced it was investigating Massa and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said his office had been made aware of “allegations of misconduct” against Massa in early February. On Friday, Massa announced he would resign effective today.

But according to Roll Call, Massa also left open the possibility of rescinding his resignation: “I’m not going to be a congressman as of 5 o’clock [Monday] afternoon,” he said. “The only way to stop that is for me to rescind my resignation. That’s the only way to stop it. And the only way that’s going to happen is if this becomes a national story.”

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The search for Amber Dubois had produced few leads until 17-year-old Chelsea King disappeared Feb. 25, last seen wearing running clothes in a park about 10 miles south of where Amber was last seen walking with a man. A body presumed to be Chelsea’s was found in a shallow, lakeside grave five days after Chelsea disappeared.

Searchers found Amber’s skeletal remains early Saturday in Pala, a small town in the Pala Indian Reservation, a sparsely populated area that occupies more than 12,000 acres in north San Diego County, said Escondido Police Chief Jim Maher. The county medical examiner’s office confirmed later in the day the remains were Amber’s through dental records, he said.

Maher declined to answer questions during a news conference Sunday because he said the discovery was part of an ongoing murder investigation. He said a “lead” brought investigators to the reservation, but he did not elaborate.

“I certainly had hoped that when the day came to do a press conference on Amber it would be under much different circumstances, but that was not to be,” he said.

Amber’s parents, Maurice Dubois and Carrie McGonigle, appeared distraught at his side. Maurice Dubois briefly thanked everyone who searched for Amber since her Feb. 13, 2009, disappearance near Escondido High School, particularly volunteers.

“They were the most dedicated people you could ever imagine,” he said. “Without them, we couldn’t have done anything.”

John Albert Gardner III, 30, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to murdering Chelsea and raping or attempting to rape her and attempting to rape another woman in December, a potential death penalty case.

A spokesman for the San Diego County district attorney’s office, Paul Levikow, declined to comment Sunday on the investigation into Amber’s death.

Gardner was registered as a sex offender in Escondido, a north San Diego suburb, from January 2008 to January 2010, with some gaps, police say.

He served five years of a six-year prison term for molesting a 13-year-old neighbor in San Diego in 2000; he saw her at a bus stop and lured her to his home to watch movies. He completed parole in September 2008.

Amber was last seen walking with a man about 200 yards from Escondido High School by a woman who used to drive her to middle school, her father said. Another neighbor reported seeing her about 300 yards from school. She never appeared on school surveillance cameras.

Amber, a Future Farmers of America member, left home with a $200 check to buy a lamb. It was never cashed, fueling suspicion of foul play.

There was no physical evidence recovered, hindering early search efforts, her father said. Calls reporting sightings of the girl poured in, but none panned out.

After Gardner was arrested Feb. 28 outside a Mexican restaurant in Escondido in connection with Chelsea’s disappearance, Amber’s father said he strongly suspected the same man was behind his daughter’s abduction. He noted that the girls had some identical features — 5-foot-5, thin, blue-eyed — and that Gardner was living nearby at the time.

“They’re both beautiful girls. There are so many similarities it’s scary,” he said Thursday.

Gardner is being represented by Michael Popkins, a public defender who declined to speak with reporters after Wednesday’s arraignment. No one answered the phone at the public defender’s office Sunday night.

Physical evidence was quickly recovered when Chelsea went missing, sparking a massive, round-the-clock search that involved 1,500 law enforcement officials and thousands of volunteers.

Chelsea’s death sparked outrage in her hometown of Poway, a wealthy suburb that borders Escondido.

A court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Matthew Carroll, recommended the maximum sentence allowed under law for Gardner in 2000, calling him an “extremely poor candidate” for treatment and a “continued danger to underage girls in the community.”

He faced a maximum sentence of nearly 11 years in prison under a plea agreement, but prosecutors urged six years.

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Adam Gadahn, pictured with Pizza Hut table cloth on his head, was arrested in Pakistan

Adam Gadahn, an American spokesman for al Qaeda, has been arrested in Pakistan, a senior Pakistani government official source told CNN.

The official said Gadahn was arrested Sunday in Karachi.

Several U.S. officials told CNN that they have no indication that Gadahn has been captured.

News of the arrest came hours after Islamist Web sites posted video of Gadahn praising a November shooting rampage at the U.S. Army base in Fort Hood, Texas. On the video, Gadahn said the Army major charged with gunning down 13 people “lit a path” for other Muslim service members to follow.

Gadahn has routinely posted lengthy videos on Islamist online forums.

In 2006, he was indicted on charges of treason and providing material support to terrorists. The U.S. government has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to his capture.

Gadahn grew up on a California farm, and was home-schooled until age 17. A year later he moved in with his paternal grandparents, who were secular Jews. He converted to Islam at the Islamic Society of Orange County, California, but was banned from the mosque two years later after hitting its chairman, Haitham Bundjaki.

In 1997 Gadahn began working for a California charity suspected of having ties to al Qaeda. He moved to Pakistan in 1998.

His family has said they last heard from him in 2002. In 2004, the FBI identified him as part of an al Qaeda cell that was planning attacks aimed at disrupting that year’s presidential election in the United States.

In October 2004, he began appearing in disguise in al Qaeda videos. Gadahn dropped the disguise in 2006.

In 2008, he renounced his U.S. citizenship and destroyed his passport in another al Qaeda video.

In his video message posted online Sunday, Gadahn says Muslims should emulate the alleged Fort Hood shooter.

“I believe that defiant Brother Nidal is the ideal role model for every repentant Muslim in the armies of the unbelievers and apostate regimes,” Adam Gadahn says in English in the video.

Maj. Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist and a U.S.-born citizen, is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder in the November 5 killings. Hasan is also facing 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder and is eligible for the death penalty.

“The Mujahid brother Nidal Hasan is a pioneer, a trailblazer and a role model who has opened a door, lit a path and shown the way forward for every Muslim who finds himself among the unbelievers and yearns to discharge his duty to Allah and play a part in the defense of Islam and Muslims.”

Gadahn also cites in Sunday’s video the U.S. and allied buildup in Afghanistan, where the United States is in the process of adding about 30,000 troops.

“It is rapidly becoming clear that this already hot global battle is about to get even hotter,” he says. “This is a war which knows no international borders and no single battleground, and that’s why I am calling on every honest and vigilant Muslim in the countries of the Zionist-Crusader alliance in general and America, Britain and Israel in particular to prepare to play his due role in responding to and repelling the aggression of the enemies of Islam.”

In December, Gadahn released a video message in English offering condolences to “unintended Muslim victims” killed in attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. It was a rare example of al Qaeda offering condolences to the families of those killed in the group’s own attacks.

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On Saturday the family of Linkous released a statement to Rolling Stone magazine saying “It is with great sadness that we share the news that our dear friend and family member Mark Linkous took his own life today. Linkous was 48-years-old.

Linkous had established himself as one of alternative rocks greatest artists, having worked with legends like Tom Waits and PJ Harvey while releasing four albums. In 1996 Sparklehorse began attracting larger audiences due to their tour with Radiohead but it was during that it became apparent Linkous had a drug problem.

In one highly publicized incident Linkous “died” for two minutes after mixing alcohol and Valium with anti-depressants. He was unconscious for 14 hours with his legs pinned beneath him, cutting off circulation to the limbs. When he was found doctors tried to lift him up and straighten his legs but a potassium build up due his position while unconscious caused a heart attack. Doctors were able to revive Linkous but he nearly lost his legs as a result.

The exact nature of the Sparklehorse singer’s death has not been announced.

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The press release was given out by the Daviess County, Kentucky, Detention Center, and it concerns a most unusual assault by an arrested woman on a deputy of the facility.It all started when a women named as Toni Tramel was picked up Thursday on charges of public intoxication and was brought to jail.

There, while she had to change her clothing in order to get into an inmate’s uniform, it seems that the woman didn’t like the fact that her jailer, a woman as well, observed the inmate closely while she was undressing.In her intoxicated state, Toni Tramel took off her bra and, much to the surprise and consternation of the officer, squeezed her breasts and squirted milk into the jailer’s face and neck.

It is the Tristate Homepage where this detail of the so-called assault can be found, and the same website also quotes from the detention center’s press release. It says

that the officer was able to “decontaminate herself” and “clean the bio-hazard off her.”

As unbelievable as the story may sound, within a day it has made the rounds and can even be found on a news outlet in Nepal, eKantipur.com.It also tells us not only that the drunk woman now faces a felony charge of third degree assault on a police officer, but that this assault is so criminal in nature that bond was set for the woman at US $10,000.

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The young bulldog, named Spike, had been abused repeatedly over the past few months.

During his short life, Spike has sustained a hip fracture, a broken leg, three broken teeth and injuries to his ears, according to ASPCA Assistant Director Joseph Pentangelo.

The pup, which is being treated at the ASPCA hospital, is also virtually blind in his right eye.

“If this witness had not reported this cruelty to the ASPCA, Spike may well have continued to suffer abuse at the hands of his owner,” said Pentangelo.

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Johnny Pride, a Santa Clarita City Council candidate and reality-show contestant who had been arrested for allegedy raping two 14-year-old girls, was released from custody Saturday because of “insufficient evidence,” authorities said.

The District Attorney’s Office rejected the case, but Los Angeles County sheriff’s officers plan to continue investigating in an effort to develop more evidence, according to Sgt. Dan Scott of the Sheriff’s Special Victims Bureau. Pride was released from custody at 1:30 a.m. Saturday, Scott said.

“The investigation is ongoing, including further investigation into the processing of DNA evidence,” the Sheriff’s Department said in a written statement. Pride, 26, a self-described businessman, comedian, model and actor, was arrested in Valencia on Thursday with an accusation that he raped the two girls at his Valencia apartment after plying them with alcohol on Feb. 27.

Pride is one of 11 candidates in Santa Clarita’s April 13 election.

He has been a contestant on dating reality shows including Fox’s “The Battle of the Bods” and ABC’s “The Conveyor Belt of Love.”

Pride could not be reached for comment Saturday. But his father, Gerry Scarpitta, a teacher living in Yuma, Ariz., said the District Attorney’s Office rejection of the case is “proof that the city of Santa Clarita is as corrupt as I thought it was.”

“They’ve deliberately been harassing my son, but this time they attacked him with the full force of their authority,” said Scarpitta, 57.

“They did this unethical, immoral thing. What they did was just unconscionably wrong; it was an abuse of power. They had him arrested and I believe they knew all along they didn’t have sufficient evidence.”

Scarpitta accused officials of having his son arrested because he had challenged the “corrupt power structure” in Santa Clarita. The father said federal or state authorities should investigate the city because it is “out of control.”

Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore declined to respond directly to Scarpitta’s accusations. But he said the girls came to the department, reported the alleged incident and the department investigated.

“We have a search warrant issued by a judge, signed by a judge and the district attorney said there was insufficient evidence,” Whitmore said. “So we would have no response to his accusations.”

However, Whitmore said sheriff’s officials are continuing the investigation and are awaiting the processing of DNA evidence.

“The interviews (with the girls) were quite extensive, their stories matched and when we served the search warrant, what they told us was all verified in the apartment itself,” Whitmore said. “Everything they told us was exactly the way it was, even down to some minor details. It was pretty complete, pretty exacting.”

District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said Saturday she did not immediately have more information on why prosecutors rejected the case.

Scarpitta said the arrest was the second in the city’s attempt to derail his son’s City Council bid.

Pride, a walk-on coach and substitute playground supervisor at Canyon High School for less than a month in 2008, was fired after an arrest for trespassing during a track meet at the high school, which he also attended as a student.

Scarpitta said he didn’t know if his son would sue for false arrest, but he said he’s “very displeased with the way they have treated my son.”

“He’s strong, he’s courageous, he’s generous, he’s kind, he’s concerned about people and interested in people. He wants to help. He founded a nonprofit organization and he has a very good heart. He’s really ready to help the community and this is the response he’s gotten.”

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Even as the White House juggles several enormous issues at once, the public takes its cues about the president’s chief concern from how he spends his time, energy and capital. As Obama himself put it on Wednesday, from now until Congress takes a final vote on a health care overhaul, “I will do everything in my power to make the case for reform.”

That kind of now-or-never campaign means America can expect a debate consumed by health care, again, for weeks.

The White House is trying mightily to focus it on real people and the human cost of inaction. But there will be no escaping the same slog that turned off so many people in 2009 — congressional process, arm-twisting and doomsday rhetoric.

So what unfolds over the next few weeks will affect millions of Americans and alter the course of Obama’s presidency. He has a shrinking window in which to find enough votes within his party to pass health care legislation so he can free himself to spend more bully pulpit time on the single issue that has stoked the public ire since he became president — disappearing jobs.

Polling shows the economy remains a bigger personal worry to people than the cost, access and coverage problems endemic to the health care system.

There is a huge economic element to health care as people struggle to pay premiums or keep their insurance. Yet to many, the astounding loss of jobs is a singular issue that demands constant, bold attention.

It is just this competition — the economy versus health care — that helped define Obama’s grueling first year in office and prompted howls within his own party for a recalibrated jobs-first agenda.

Obama responded with a State of the Union speech on Jan. 27 that was remarkably focused on the economy, dwarfing all other issues. “Creating jobs has to be our number one priority in 2010,” Obama emphasized the next day at a stop in Tampa, Florida.

Yet it was always the reality that Obama would consolidate his attention on health care again, at least for one last blitz. Beyond all the policy implications, Obama has spent a year on it and never intended to let that effort go to waste.

The White House’s political calculation is that the next few weeks are their last chance to push through an overhaul of health coverage. But aides also know it cannot drag on, as every day focused on process overshadows their message.

There is no expectation within the West Wing that voters’ moods will change until they see their lives improving. Senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said the plan is to keep plugging away on an agenda to shore up the economy for the long haul.

“We’re going to still be out there on jobs,” Axelrod said, dismissing any worry that the economy-first message will be obscured. “We’re going to be focused on health care for the next few weeks, but we’re still going to be doing jobs.”

To get votes, Obama is lobbying lawmakers, many of whom are teetering in this election year. He’s calling on his 2008 campaign supporters to push Congress for a vote. He’s staging health care events in Philadelphia and St. Louis this coming week.

“They are looking at the election in November, and they need to have one big victory that they can claim,” said Michael Lind, policy director of the economic growth program at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank. “This is not the victory they would have chosen, because even if it does help the economy, it won’t help most people for years to come. The problem is, there just doesn’t seem to be the ability to do anything significant about jobs this year.”

The House and Senate have passed versions of a $35 billion bill that offers a tax break to companies that hire workers and extends federal highway programs, but even supporters doubt it will create many jobs. By comparison, the economic stimulus bill enacted last year — and not nearly spent out yet — was an $862 billion measure.

Lawmakers plan more steps this year. But there is less political will to keep spending on big jolts to the economy.

Obama has always argued that overhauling health care is not just about health, but also an economic imperative for families who will suffer “if we let this opportunity pass for another year or another decade or another generation” — a message he conveyed Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address.

Part of Obama’s final argument to Democratic lawmakers is that getting health care done will give them momentum on other issues. It’s possible that the opposite is true, and a defeat now could undermine him on other fronts.

Maryland’s Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley said Obama understands that the rising costs of health care are hurting U.S. economic interests long term. Still, he urged Obama to finish up this priority and pivot back to a heavier jobs message.

“If we wrap this up, if we get this passed, it will become clear that health care was always about jobs,” he said.

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Next time you run into one of these pigs, thank them for being greedy pigs that think they are worth two hundred grand a year. Bob

Reporting from Sacramento – Like many other state employees, prison nurse Nellie Larot was hit last year with furloughs that cut her salary: It dropped $10,000, to $92,000.

But she more than made up for it by working extra shifts, raking in $177,512 in overtime, according to state records. Her total $270,000 in earnings last year eclipsed the $225,000 paid to Matthew Cate, head of the entire state prison system.

Despite Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision to furlough workers three days a month to save money, many employees are taking home paychecks fattened by overtime — more than $1 billion of it last year.

The total overtime paid in 2009 actually dropped slightly, by $64 million from the year before. But it was up from the $808 million paid in 2005 and $598 million in 2004.

“People want more money,” said Larot. The furloughs, which began in February 2009, cut her monthly pay by many hundreds of dollars. Without overtime, she said, “it would be a hardship.”

Records show that the top 50 recipients of overtime last year each received more than $100,000 in extra compensation. Most were from the departments of corrections and mental health, which account for more than half of the overtime doled out by state agencies; 35 of the top 50 were registered nurses.

Other top earners include prison guard Lt. Randall Rowland, who collected $133,000 in overtime pay, and California Highway Patrol Officer Kerry Comphel, who received $127,000.

The rising overtime “is unfathomable,” said Jon Coupal, president of the anti-tax Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. “It just shows the extraordinary disconnect between the public sector and the real world. No business would operate this way.”

State Auditor Elaine Howle has also raised red flags. A review by her office found that more than 100 nurses and psychiatric workers on the state payroll had at least doubled their salaries with overtime, working as many as 90 hours a week.

Two nurses at Napa State Hospital were paid more than $1.3 million combined in overtime during a five-year period ending in mid-2008, Howle found. Beyond the cost to taxpayers, Howle worried that large amounts of overtime could impair nurses’ performance and jeopardize patients.

“It needs to be better managed so you don’t have employees working significant amounts of overtime and potentially raising health and safety issues,” Howle said in an interview.

The auditor had warned in October that furloughs and layoffs would probably increase overtime costs in some agencies, and she called for the state to renegotiate its union contracts to set caps.

Nancy Lyerla, a leader of the largest union representing state nurses, noted that some medical and mental health facilities have to be staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. She said the union had warned state officials that furloughs would create staffing gaps that would have to be filled by employees working overtime at time-and-a-half pay.

“They didn’t look at what it costs to replace the people on furlough,” Lyerla said.

The effect of the furloughs is to cut most workers’ regular pay by about 14%, and the state expects to save $1.2 billion this way in the current fiscal year. But on an individual basis, furloughs have not always saved money.

The unpaid time off saves the state $13,650 annually in pay to Larot, but her overtime last year went up nearly twice that amount — by $25,000 — from the year before.

Schwarzenegger, who ordered the furloughs to reduce a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall, has taken steps to reduce overtime, his representatives said. The governor signed legislation last year stopping employees from receiving overtime pay in weeks when they also take leave time. He also directed department heads to manage the furloughs so that they do not result in overtime.

Still, “there are some facilities that require 24/7 coverage,” said Aaron McLear, a spokesman for the governor.

That is the case where Larot works, in the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy. She “legitimately earned” her overtime, with much of it spent overseeing newly admitted inmates on suicide watch, according to Luis Patino Jr., a spokesman for the California Prison Health Care Receivership.

Patino described Larot as “an exemplary employee who takes time off when necessary to maintain her safety and well-being and that of the inmates under her watch.”

Howle’s audit found that other sites, including wards at Napa State Hospital, frequently overstaffed their shifts. Mental health officials said some units did not accurately report patient and staffing needs to the central office that gives work assignments, and Howle said a consultant should be hired to evaluate whether common staffing levels are justified.

“Overtime has been gamed in California for decades,” said Coupal. “Clearly there is a lack of oversight. This needs to be clamped down.”

Larot dismissed criticism that employees are taking advantage of a broken system.

“I don’t know why people are complaining about the overtime. We work the overtime,” she said. “I don’t think it’s anybody’s business.”

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Kane Gorny was so desperate for a drink that he rang police to beg for their help.
They arrived on the ward only to be told by doctors that everything was under control. The next day his mother Rita Cronin found him delirious and he died within hours.

She said nurses had failed to give him vital drugs which controlled fluid levels in his body. ‘He was totally dependent on the nurses to help him and they totally betrayed him.’

A coroner has such grave concerns about the case that it has been referred to police.

Sources say they are investigating the possibility of a corporate manslaughter charge against St George’s Hospital in Tooting, South London.

Mr Gorny, from Balham, worked for Waitrose and had been a keen footballer and runner until he was diagnosed with a brain tumour the year before his death.

The medication he took caused his bones to weaken and he was admitted to St George’s for a hip replacement in May last year. The operation left him immobile and unable to get out of bed.

His 50-year-old mother says that he needed to take drugs three times a day to regulate his hormones. DAlthough he had stressed to staff how important his medication was, she said, no one gave him the drugs.

She said that two days after his hip operation, while Miss Cronin was at work, he became severely dehydrated but his requests for water were refused.

He became aggressive and nurses called in security guards to restrain him.

After they had left, he rang the police from his bed to demand their help.

Miss Cronin, who is divorced from her son’s father Peter, said: ‘The police told me he’d said, “Please help me. All I want is a drink and no one is helping me”.

‘By this time my son was confused due to his lack of medication and I think the nurses just ignored him because they thought he was just being badly behaved.

‘They were lazy, careless and hadn’t bothered to check his charts and see his medication was essential.’

That evening, Miss Cronin visited him. She said: ‘I told Kane to behave himself because I thought he had been causing trouble – and I feel so bad about that now. I thought maybe he was having a bad reaction to the morphine he was on but in fact it was because he had not had his medication.’

The next morning she visited him before going to work. ‘He was delirious and his mouth was open,’ she said. ‘I gave him a drink of Ribena.

‘I told three nurses there was something wrong with my son and they said, “He’s fine” and walked off. I started to cry and a locum doctor who was there told me not to worry.

‘Eventually the ward doctor came round, took one look at Kane and started shouting for help.’

Miss Cronin was asked to leave her son’s bedside. ‘He died an hour later,’ she said. ‘I didn’t even realise he was dying. I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye.’

The death certificate said Mr Gorny had died because of a ‘water deficit’ and ‘hypernatraemia’ – a medical term for dehydration.

His mother added: ‘When I went back to the hospital I was told that all the nurses had been offered counselling as they were so traumatised, but nothing was offered to me.

‘The whole thing is a disgrace. This hospital has a brilliant reputation and boasts of its excellent standards and safety record.

‘But as soon as my son walked into that ward, his death warrant was signed. Of the 32 people who were involved in my son’s care, every one made a mistake that ultimately led to his death, from the consultant to the care assistant.

‘There has been an internal investigation but St George’s never made it public and it was a whitewash-After his death the hospital never phoned me or wrote to me to apologise. How could this happen in the 21st century?’

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: ‘Detectives from the Homicide and Serious Crime Command are investigating the death of Kane Gorny at St George’s Hospital after this was referred to us by Westminster Coroner’s Court.’

A spokesman for St George’s Hospital said: ‘We are extremely sorry about the death of Kane Gorny and understand the distress that this has caused to his family.

‘A full investigation was carried out and new procedures introduced to ensure that such a case cannot happen in future.

‘We have written to the family to explain the actions that have been taken and to answer their concerns about Mr Gorny’s care. The family has also been invited to meet with trust staff to discuss the case in detail.’

The tragedy emerged a week after a report into hundreds of deaths at Stafford Hospital revealed the appalling quality of care given by many of the nurses.

This week a task force called on nurses to sign a public pledge that they will treat everyone with compassion and dignity.

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The couple neglected their own baby, because they were busy raising a virtual one. They were so indulged in raising their virtual baby, Anima, in the popular Korean RPG, “Prius Online”.

“The couple seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life, because they didn’t have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby,” said Chung Jin-won, a police officer.

“They indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby.”

It is unfortunate that this virtual infant had more of its parents attention than the one that they could actually hold, love and care for. It is sad that this premature baby’s life ended in a premature death, as well.

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The first time a high profile athlete is accused of causing harm to a woman, one has a tendency to think the lady might just be after his money. But the second time that athlete’s name comes up, one starts to think he might have a problem.

Yahoo! Sports reports that Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has been accused of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old college student in a Georgia nightclub. This accusation comes on top of Roethlisberger already facing a lawsuit for allegedly raping a woman at a Lake Tahoe hotel and casino.

While Roethlisber has not been charged in either case, it’s clear he needs to re-think some things like where he hangs out and who he hangs out with.

Ryan Tollner, Big Ben’s agent had this to say:

“Last night, Ben and his friends met a group of women and everyone mingled together throughout the evening. We have spoken to law enforcement. Based on information currently available, an allegation was made against Ben, which appeared to be dismissed after a preliminary investigation last night. Obviously, given the prior accusation against Ben, we are skeptical of motive, but we will continue to cooperate with everyone involved.”

I’ll stand by innocent until proven guilty, but if a guy who seemed as squeaky clean as Tiger Woods is capable of such grandiose sexually immorality, Big Ben could certainly have done this.

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Navy Cmdr. Maurice “Mo” Kaprow was stunned to watch then-Cmdr. Holly Graf in action. He saw her for the first time after arriving aboard her ship, the destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill, in Italy just before the Iraq war began in 2003.

A Jewish rabbi and a Navy chaplain, he’d been sent to the Churchill on temporary assignment as the vessel readied for war. Usually pulling out of port is a methodical and precise process. “But I never in my life saw such chaos as there was on that bridge — Holly Graf began yelling and screaming rudder orders, engine orders, insulting people,” Kaprow recalled Friday. “I’d never seen anything like this.”

It got more bizarre as the ship pulled out of Sicily’s Augusta harbor. “Just after clearing the breakwater the ship began to rumble and shake — now she’s screaming even louder because nobody knows what’s happening,” Kaprow recalls. “I begin to hear young sailors’ voices from the fantail and they’re singing, `Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead.’” Kaprow remembers being perplexed at the sudden song. “Then someone came up to me and said, `We’ve ran aground. She’s finished” — assuming the accident would mean the end of their commander’s career.

“They were jumping for joy and singing on the fantail.” Actually, one of the ship’s props had broken, but the crew’s reaction still amazes Kaprow. “I was flabbergasted.”

Kaprow left the Navy last month after a 20-year career and visits to some 200 ships. Morale aboard the Churchill was the worst he says he ever saw — even on the eve of war with Saddam Hussein, where the Churchill launched Tomahawk missiles from the eastern Mediterranean toward Iraq. “I think the lady is mentally unbalanced,” Kaprow says. “I don’t believe she ever should have had command.”

The Navy removed Graf from command of the guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens in January for “cruelty and maltreatment” of her crew. But Kaprow’s account makes clear that such conduct also occurred on the first ship Graf commanded. His tale is noteworthy because, unlike most others who witnessed Graf in command, Kaprow was an independent Navy outsider not subject to Graf’s orders.

Questions continue to swirl about how Graf not only retained her command, but kept getting promoted despite reports from eyewitnesses like Kaprow. Graf has declined interview requests, and there has been scant support offered for Graf by Navy colleagues on naval blogs or elsewhere. One admiral expressed concern Friday over what he called a “lynch mob” mentality about the case, as even conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh weighed in: “This woman sounds like a real Cruella de Vil.”

The man known as the “combat rabbi” aboard the Churchill found the environment aboard the ship to be “weird, absolutely weird.” Graf would talk to some of her officers but not to others. She would show up at the daily morning intelligence briefing in apparel Kaprow had never seen on a Navy warship before. “She’d be wearing black slippers,” he says, “with one fuzzy ball on each one.”

Then there were the tirades. “She would argue with the briefers, belittling them,” Kaprow says. “Just absolute vile stuff that I had never heard from a C.O. before.” (See pictures of crime in Middle America.)

After about 10 days aboard the Churchill, concerned about poor morale on the eve of war, Kaprow visited Graf in her stateroom. “I told her, `I’m getting some vibes — you’re a nice lady and you have a hard job’ — I’m telling her some of the junior officers are concerned and are really upset,” Kaprow recalls. “I’m giving her the spiel and she just goes bonkers and cuts me off. She said she didn’t want to talk about it.” (See the best pictures of 2009.)

For the rest of his time aboard, they didn’t speak to each other. “I became a pariah and she just refused to talk to me,” Kaprow says. “When she saw me eating in the wardroom she’d come in and grab her food and run away — she would not talk to me.” Kaprow can’t explain how Graf continued to rise up the Navy command ladder. “Certain people in the Navy are preselected for command, and no matter what happens the Navy will make sure that it happens,” he says.

After more than a month on Graf’s ship, Kaprow left for the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt to tell Graf’s superior what he had witnessed. He was the second senior officer from the ship to complain to superiors about Graf. “I told all of this to the commodore,” Kaprow says, “but I don’t know what happened to it from there.” Back on the Churchill, officers — who knew that Kaprow was meeting with the commodore — waited anxiously for a change in the Churchill’s command climate. It never came.

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This time its Democratic Rep. Eric Massa who will resign from Congress on Monday, only days after reports first surfaced that the freshman New York lawmaker was under investigation by the House ethics committee for allegedly sexually harassing a male staffer.

Massa was preparing the news in the Corning Leader, his local newspaper, but several media outlets were already reporting the news Friday afternoon.

In a statement released Friday, Massa directly addressed the ethics issue for the first time, acknowledging that he used language that might have made staffers uncomfortable. But he did not specifically address any specific sexual harassment allegations.

“I own this reality. There is no doubt in my mind that I did in fact, use language in the privacy of my own home and in my inner office that, after 24 years in the Navy, might make a Chief Petty Officer feel uncomfortable,” Massa said. “In fact, there is no doubt that this Ethics issue is my fault and mine alone. But in the incredibly toxic atmosphere that is Washington D.C., with the destruction of our elected leaders having become a blood sport, especially in talk radio and on the internet, there is also no doubt that an Ethics investigation would tear my family and my staff apart.”

Massa, who was elected in November 2008, announced earlier in the week that he would not be seeking a second term following a cancer scare in December.

He initially dismissed as “unsubstantiated” a POLITICO report that he was being scrutinized for improper advances to a junior aide in his office. In fact, he mentioned this report in his resignation statement Friday afternoon.

“At no point prior to this had any member of the Ethics Committee communicated with me directly – if fact I first read it on the internet,” Massa said.

The ethics committee formally announced on Thursday night that Massa was under investigation by the panel, although Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Jo Bonner (R-Ala.), the chairwoman and ranking member of the committee, did not announce the reason for their probe.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) also publicly acknowledged that his staff had told a former Massa aide that he should report the Massa harassment allegation to the ethics committee or else Hoyer would take it to the ethics panel himself. Ronald Hikel, Massa’s former deputy chief of staff and legislative director, was then interviewed twice by ethics committee investigators.

Massa’s assertion that he did not learn that he was under investigation by the ethics committee until after making his retirement announcement appears to contradict the facts of the case.

Joe Racalto, Massa’s chief of staff, told a Rochester TV station on Thursday that he was interviewed by ethics committee investigators several weeks ago in regards to the sexual harassment allegations against Massa, well before the case became a public scandal or Massa announced his intentions to leave the House.

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On his apparent MySpace page, where he encourages people to vote for him in the upcoming election, Pride says he will change the city for the better. “I’m going to paint this town a new positive and brighter future!”

Pride has appeared on two reality TV shows: The Conveyor Belt of Love” and “The Battle of the Bods.” He worked at a local high school for less than a month in 2008 and said he started a non profit to bring school children classroom supplies, but it was never registered to the state, according to Santa Clarita’s town newspaper The Signal.

The exact details of the alleged crimes could not be released because the victims were minors, said sheriff’s Detective Brian Hudson of the Special Victims Bureau, which is heading up the investigation.

Detectives arrested Pride on Thursday at 5:37 p.m. He was being held in lieu of $500,000 bail.

Pride was arrested just hours after participating in a candidates’ forum at a Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

Pride, a model and actor, has appeared in at least two reality television shows, including “The Conveyor Belt of Love,” in which he wore only bikini briefs and held a dog, and in “The Battle of the Bods,” which showed Pride wearing only boxer-briefs.

During his campaign for City Council, he said he works often with children and claimed to have started a nonprofit organization to bring them school supplies. However, the group he described was never registered with the state, as nonprofits are required to do.

Pride worked briefly for the William S. Hart Union High School District at Canyon High School in 2008 for less than a month, said district spokeswoman Pat Willett.

He was a walk-on coach and a substitute campus supervisor, though it was not clear which sport he coached, she said.

Just after he announced his candidacy, Pride’s MySpace profile listed his hometown as “YOUR MOMS (sic) VAGINA” and his occupation as “Your moms (sic) boyfriend!”

He later changed his profile and told The Signal his MySpace profile had been hacked.

At the SCV Chamber of Commerce candidates’ forum, Pride spoke about his involvement with the city’s youth and families.

Jackie MacDougall, the co-founder of SCVmomsblog.com, asked all the candidates why they were the best choice for families.
Pride responded:

“Two years ago, I was a member of the city, state and national (Parent Teacher Association) and I have coached for the last three years in the city and I have dealt with numerous mothers,” Pride said. “And I’ll tell you what, I‘ve never seen a more active group.”

The crowd laughed.

“Well, in a different way I’ve dealt with them, not in that way. I’ve heard their concerns and I know their struggle for safety, and they want the best for their children and I have dealt with that first-hand. So I know what they are looking for, and that is why I think I would be a great representative for the mothers out here.”

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Jurors deliberated about 18 hours over three days before reaching a verdict in the case of Yazeed Essa, who was accused in the cyanide death of his wife, Rosemarie.

The courtroom in Cleveland, Ohio, was packed with Rosemarie Essa’s family members, many who broke into tears when the verdict was announced shortly after 1 p.m. ET.

Prosecutors alleged during the six-week trial that Essa laced his wife’s calcium supplements to escape a loveless marriage. He faces life in prison, and would not become eligible for parole in 20 years.

During deliberations, jurors asked Judge Deena Calabrese if they could break open a calcium capsule to determine whether that required any special skill or knowledge — a request the judge granted.

The trial included testimony from more than 60 witnesses who told the story of a philandering doctor, his many mistresses and an international manhunt that crossed three continents and ended with his arrest in Cyprus in October 2006, some 18 months after his wife’s death.

Defense attorneys pointed to a lack of physical evidence linking Essa to the tainted supplements and urged jurors not to convict him for his playboy lifestyle.

Two of Essa’s mistresses testified, one saying she never loved Essa and another saying she believed him when he promised to be her soul mate.

Rosemarie Essa’s friends said the 38-year-old mother of two and former nurse believed she was in a happy marriage. She was driving to the movies in the family Volvo when she felt ill, passed out and hit another vehicle before rolling to a stop against a curb.

She died at a hospital. An autopsy revealed more than four times the lethal amount of cyanide in her system. Nine cyanide-laced capsules were found in her calcium supplements.

Before she crashed, Rosemarie Essa called a friend from her car, prosecutor Anna Faraglia told jurors in her closing argument. Essa told the friend, Eva McGregor, that she was beginning to feel sick to her stomach and wondered if a supplement her husband had given her was making her ill.

McGregor testified for the prosecution. So did the two mistresses: Marguerita Montanez said that they often trysted at a local Motel 6 but that the relationship was just about sex, and Michelle Madeline said that she fell hard for Essa and that he appeared to be in love with her.

Essa’s defense suggested that other women were responsible for his wife’s death, but Essa did not not take the witness stand during the trial.

Another prosecutor, Steven Dever, played a video clip for the jury of Madeline testifying about how Essa said she’d fit into his family.

“He had spoken to me, and he had said, ‘You will be the only mommy that they remember.’ He said ‘Rosie’s parents will come to love you as a daughter.’ ”

Madeline also testified that she and Essa remained intimate after his wife’s death, even while she took care of his children.

Dever said the testimony clearly showed Essa’s motive.

“He doesn’t want to get divorced from Rosie,” Dever said. “He wants to replace Rosie. The defendant wants to end the relationship but continue the lifestyle he has grown accustomed to — not as a divorced doctor, but as a widower doctor.”

The defense countered that that while he was a cad and a cheater, Yazeed Essa was no killer. Attorney Steven Bradley told the jury that Essa enjoyed his lifestyle and wouldn’t jeopardize it. Because his wife was unaware of his infidelities, he had no motive to kill her, Bradley argued.

“Why would somebody turn their whole life upside down, put everything at risk that they’ve been working for?” Bradley asked.

He acknowledged, “It is difficult not to look over here with anything other than disgust and disdain when you look at Yazeed Essa. But none of that is evidence. None of that proves anything.”

Bradley said nothing directly proved that Essa laced the calcium capsules or even gave one to his wife.

Prosecutor Dever got the final word before the judge read jurors 34 pages of instructions and sent them to the jury room at midday Tuesday to deliberate.

Dever pointed out that Yazeed Essa’s brother, Faris, sent him money after Essa fled to Lebanon. After Essa was captured in Cyprus and was in jail, he admitted to Faris that he had poisoned his wife, Dever added.

Essa ran even before his wife’s death was officially listed as a homicide, the prosecutor alleged.

“The coward gets out of Dodge, and he runs,” Dever told the jury. “He leaves his children behind. There’s no testimony about a goodbye. No testimony about a message being sent.”

He added, “One day he’ll get the question, ‘Why did you leave us, Daddy?’ ”

“One day these children will go on a journey and come back to this room and try to find out what happened to their mother. What your decision will be will complete the accounting of the life of Rosemarie Essa,” Dever said, urging jurors to find the truth.

“What they need to find solace is the truth,” he said, drawing tears from Rosemarie Essa’s family members. “Only with the truth can Rosie rest at peace. Only with the truth can justice be done.”

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The arrest is raising new question about Ashburn — an outspoken opponent of gay rights — who has been spotted frequently at gay bars in Sacramento.

West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon — who is openly gay — says he has seen Ashburn in gay hotspots a number of times. He says while he respects Ashburn’s right to privacy, but not when it involved hypocrisy.

“You can’t just live a double life in politics anymore,” said Cabaldon. “To live a secret life and at the same time be attacking exactly the same people you are one of, but you are too ashamed to admit, that’s the hypocrisy for folks whether you are gay or not. It’s just unacceptable in politics.”

Cabaldon posted his frustration on Facebook about six months ago saying “It wouldn’t bother me so bad to see Roy Ashburn at Badlands with a boy if he didn’t have such a bad voting record on gay rights.”

Cabaldon is speaking up again after learning Ashburn was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving near the Capitol after leaving Faces, a gay nightclub. The owner of Faces says he can’t confirm that Ashburn was there because the club was packed with more than 400 patrons for a Latin Drag Queen Beauty Pageant.

“Even politicians have personal lives and they are nobody else’s business. But how you vote — and when you claim to be something that you are not, and use that to discriminate then it becomes the public’s business,” said Cabaldon.

Ashburn served six years as a state Assemblyman before being elected to the State Senate. According to Project Vote Smart, Ashburn’s voting record shows he has voted against every gay rights measure in the State Senate since taking office including Recognizing Out-Of-State Same-Sex Marriages”, Harvey Milk Day and Expanding Anti-Discrimination Laws.

CBS13 has attempted to talk to Ashburn, but he was absent from the capitol for a second day. We’ve also attempted to contact him at home and his office, but have gotten no response.

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The death was confirmed at 6:49 a.m., about 12 minutes after the crash was reported along the freeway’s southbound lanes at the Duncan Canyon Road overpass.

Southbound traffic was backed up about two miles to Sierra Way. Emergency vehicles were forced to use the freeway’s right shoulder in order to bypass the traffic jam.

Falling asleep behind the wheel is the suspected cause of the fiery fatal crash, according to California Highway Patrol investigators.

“The initial report is: He possibly fell asleep, drifted onto the shoulder and rear-ended a big rig,” said CHP Officer Jeff Briggs. “The vehicle subsequently caught fire and burned.”

The resulting SigAlert was canceled at 7:51 a.m. The victim’s name is not available.

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That’s right. Reynolds figured while in the hospital for bypass surgery, that he may as well lose the “Coon Skin Cap” look of that old road kill on his head, and instead have a custom made hair helmet installed.

“The hair helmet operation was a complete success” said Dr. James Rosenblat, chief surgeon of hair helmet technology.

Rosenblat said “These new hair helmets serve a dual purpose. They look and feel like real hair and they will protect Mr. Reynolds in the event that he falls like doddering old codgers sometimes do.”

Burt sees his new look as a real woman attractor and hope to get out on the prowl as soon as his heart will allow it.

Its not as if anyone will notice that Burt is an old man, what with his wrinkled up pruned face and his new hair helmet, he will be the new stud of West Palm Beach.

Reynolds also went out and bought some new wheels. It is rumored that Reynolds called “The Scooter Store” and got a super charged scooter to get about town on. Bob

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State Sen. Roy Ashburn was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol at about 2:00 a.m. on March 3 when his state-issued vehicle was observed being driven erratically. The driver, identified as Ashburn, was taken in and charged for driving under the influence. Channel 13 reported that unidentified sources said the senator had been at Faces, a popular gay nightspot, prior to his arrest.

In a March 4 article, the online news site Talking Points Memo characterized Ashburn, who is married and has four children, as “a fierce opponent of gay rights” who had led anti-marriage equality rallies.

Ashburn issued a contrite apology, stating, “I am deeply sorry for my actions and offer no excuse for my poor judgment. I accept complete responsibility for my conduct and am prepared to accept the consequences for what I did.”

Ashburn will not be able to drive for a month and the vehicle he was in at the time of his arrest has been impounded, reported online news site Bakersfield.com on March 3. If the state senator receives the same penalties as do others arrested for drunk driving, the article said, Ashburn could face three years of probation, fines of up to $1,000, attendance at a “DUI offender program,” and two days’ jail time.

It is uncertain how the arrest–or his reported presence at a gay bar–will affect Ashburn’s prospects for re-election. He already faces a fellow Republican for in the upcoming race for the seat he occupies in the state senate.

Anti-gay lawmakers who are alleged to engage in sexual activity with members of their own gender have attracted significant media attention in recent years.

Among the high-profile cases in lawmakers with records of voting against gay equality measures is the arrest of former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, who was charged with soliciting another man for sex in an airport restroom, and a 2006 scandal involving Republican Sen. Mark Foley, who allegedly exchanged sexually charged text messages with teenaged male pages and young men who had formerly been pages. A 2009 documentary titled Outrage noted that rumors have long swirled around Florida governor Charlie Crist, who supported a successful ballot initiative to amend the state’s constitution in a way that bars marriage equality for gay and lesbian families.

The film also traced the careers of other anti-gay politicians rumored to be closeted gays themselves, such as Republican Congressman David Drier, a California representative.

In California, marriage equality was legal for six months in 2008, until voters narrowly approved Proposition 8, which rescinded marriage rights for gays, in November of that year.

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SAN DIEGO — The convicted sex offender charged in San Diego with killing Chelsea King is under investigation in last year’s disappearance of a 14-year-old girl and an attack on another teen.

Escondido police say they’re investigating whether John Albert Gardner III is responsible for the disappearance of Amber Dubois, who vanished while walking to school last year.

In Riverside County, sheriff’s Capt. Joseph Cleary says there are similarities between Gardner and the description of a man who tried to force a 16-year-old into his car last October in Lake Elsinore — where Gardner now lives. The girl got away.

On Wednesday, Gardner pleaded not guilty to killing King, who was 17. Authorities believe a body found in a lakeside grave this week is hers.

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Black history month

I don’t get why these teachers are in trouble. Didn’t the black community defend O.J. Simpson and claim he was innocent in the murders of Ron Goldman and Nicole Simpson? O.J. was portrayed as a hero in the black community after he beat the rap.

The same with Dennis Rodman. Rodman has drug and alcohol problems. Is this not what the people of the black community call a hero? I am just curious here. I see these people portrayed as hero’s all day long on BET and MTV.

RuPaul is just pure comedy. There is clearly something wrong with that . . . um . . . whatever it is. Anyway, I think its kinda funny that these teachers decided to point this out to the black community. Bob

LOS ANGELES – Three Los Angeles elementary school teachers accused of giving children portraits of O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman and RuPaul to carry in a Black History Month parade have been removed from their classrooms, a school district spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Children from other classes at the school displayed photos of more appropriate black role models, such as Nelson Mandela, Harriet Tubman and President Obama, Los Angeles Unified School District spokeswoman Gayle Pollard-Terry said.

The incident occurred Friday at Wadsworth Avenue Elementary School in South Los Angeles, where the student body is more than 90 percent Latino.

District Superintendent Ramon Cortines placed the teachers – all white men who teach first, second and fourth grades – on administrative leave on Tuesday while an investigation is conducted, Pollard-Terry said.

“The superintendent will not let anyone make a mockery out of Black History Month,” she said.

The issue was brought to district officials’ attention by the Los Angeles chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People after the organization received a complaint early Monday, chapter President Leon Jenkins said.

Jenkins said he felt the teachers acted in concert to mock black heroes and children’s innocence.

“These are not the people we want our young people to emulate or believe these people represent the best of the African-American community,” Jenkins said. “It’s hard for the NAACP to believe this was a mistake.”

Simpson, a former American football star, is serving a nine-year prison sentence for robbery and kidnapping. He was famously acquitted in 1995 of murdering his ex-wife and her friend.

RuPaul is a drag queen performer. Rodman, a former basketball star, has gained notoriety for bad boy behavior on and off the basketball court.

Some parents at the school on Wednesday said the issue was overblown.

Sharon Tinson, who has two daughters at the school and attended Friday’s celebration, said she had been surprised to see Simpson displayed in the parade. But she noted that Simpson, like Rodman, was a great athlete before falling from grace. RuPaul simply has an alternative lifestyle, she added.

She noted the event also included a tribute to pop singer Michael Jackson, who has also had a checkered career.

“I kind of laughed at it,” Tinson said. “I wasn’t offended.”

Gabriel Blackson, whose son attends the school, said he also took a larger view of the ruckus.

“These guys were heroes before. People make mistakes,” he said. “I think they show kids they can be somebody, to push them to be somebody.”

Jenkins said he is calling for the teachers to be fired.

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In virtually every branch of California state government, unions are in complete control of every aspect of how the state is run. Imagine a much larger version of General Motors. This is exactly why the state is in financial ruin and the very same reason that General motors failed . . . BECAUSE OF THE UNIONS!

John Albert Gardner, this rotten piece of excrement that got a minimal sentence because of a liberal legal system, was on the police radar for other molestation charges and a suspicion in another young lady that disappeared.

That’s right. Why did this happen? Because the state of California is so bloated with worthless personnel that it can no longer manage itself from Sacramento. Its an absolute travesty.

You have police unions that tell their rank and file that its not their job to arrest and deport illegal aliens, fire departments that keep the overtime going by making sure that there is never enough firemen, prison guard unions that make sure there are plenty of criminals and not enough jails, teachers unions that make sure that they pass along enough criminals to keep all the above busy for life, and Sacramento, which is hell bent on running the state into the socialist abyss in order to keep their own jobs.

California is doomed. The state is full of welfare recipients disguised as firemen, police, teachers, prison guards and every other branch of government that is unionized and pre-programmed to pass the work onto the next guy.

Because of this broken system, California and its liberal legal system, which thinks that a pizza thief should get 50 years while a pedophile should only get six years is destine to fail.

Judges negate any initiatives passed by vote by the people. Attempts to make the system tougher on all of the miscreants that have invaded the decent people of California are routinely struck down by the socialist courts.

When will it end? When the state of California files for bankruptcy and busts out the very unions that have created a system that is completely broken and allows losers and fat stupid people to run these precious arteries of the California government that are supposed to safety for the people.

Let Chelsea King be a martyr. Let here memory be a legacy left on California law enforcement and the state as an example of what is not supposed to happen in the first place.

My heart goes out to the family of Chelsea King. This poor kid is gone. Her blood is not only on the hands of John Gardner, but on the state of California itself, and all the law agencies that completely dropped the ball because it was more important to them to NOT do what they were hired to do in the first place. Protect Chelsea King. JD

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This miscreant would still be in jail if it were not for the liberal California legal system. JD

Criminal charges will be filed Wednesday against a convicted sex offender suspected of murdering 17-year-old Chelsea King, prosecutors said.

Meanwhile, authorities tried to confirm that a body found in a lakeside grave was that of the San Diego County student who has been missing for nearly a week.

District attorney’s spokesman Paul Levikow did not immediately specify the charges planned against John Albert Gardner III, saying the complaint was still being written. The counts will be disclosed at an arraignment later in the day, he said.

The 30-year-old Lake Elsinore man was arrested Sunday on suspicion of murder and rape.

Police said a spray-painted message found on the garage of the suspect’s mother read, “Chelseas (sic) blood is on you. Move out.” Police did not know who painted it.

Gardner lived at the home in 2000 when he molested a 13-year-old neighbor. The home is down the street from an elementary school and near the park where King was last seen Thursday wearing running clothes.

A piece of paper taped to the front door told visitors to leave.

As prosecutors prepared their case against Gardner, the county medical examiner’s office worked to confirm King’s body had been pulled Tuesday from a shallow grave on the south shore of Lake Hodges.

An investigator was meeting with King’s parents at their Poway home, said Lenore Aldridge, a medical investigator.

It was not clear if fingerprints, dental records or other methods of identification were being used.

County Sheriff William Gore said the body was likely King.

Thousands of people joined the search after the teen failed to return from a run near the lake on Thursday.

Mourners held a candlelight vigil Tuesday night for the popular straight-A student at Poway High School.

“What bothers me most is the kids don’t feel safe anymore,” Traci Barkerball, King’s teacher for three years, said between hugs of grieving students. “Their sense of security has been taken away from them.”

Brent King, Chelsea’s father, thanked supporters on the lawn of St. Michael’s Church in Poway, northeast of San Diego. Some people in the audience fought to control their sobs as he spoke.

“One of the nicknames that I’ve always called my daughter is my Angel. She’s my angel forever,” he said. “I want to thank you. Chelsea wants to thank you.”

Someone shouted, “We love you,” and Brent King replied, “We love all of you.”

Gardner was arrested after police said a piece of physical evidence tied him to King. No further details were provided.

Gardner pleaded guilty in May 2000 to molesting the 13-year-old female neighbor and served five years of a six-year prison term. Prosecutors said he lured the victim to his home with an offer to watch “Patch Adams,” a 1998 movie starring Robin Williams.

The girl was beaten before escaping and running to a neighbor.

Gardner “never expressed one scintilla of remorse for his attack upon the victim” despite overwhelming evidence, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo.

He had faced a maximum of nearly 11 years in prison under terms of a plea agreement, but prosecutors urged six years.

Dr. Matthew Carroll, a psychiatrist who interviewed Gardner, wanted a stiffer punishment, saying in court documents that he was a “continued danger to underage girls in the community.”

Gardner was on parole for three years, until September 2008, state records show.

San Diego police said Gardner also was linked to an assault on a 22-year-old Colorado woman who managed to fend off her attacker on Dec. 27 in Rancho Bernardo Community Park on the northern edge of San Diego, where King’s 1994 BMW was found with her belongings inside.

San Diego police Capt. Jim Collins declined to describe the evidence connecting Gardner to the December assault but said a swab taken from the victim’s elbow did not match Gardner’s DNA.

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King’s devastated parents attended a vigil Tuesday night in their daughter’s honor to thank the tight-knit community that has spent nearly a week trying to bring her home.

“One of the nicknames I always used to call my daughter is my angel, and she’ll be my angel forever,” Brent King said.

King’s body was found about 10 feet from the shore of Lake Hodges, a half mile from where she parked her car to go jogging in the park last week.

The discovery, San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said, “was made by one of the searchers. Looking from the water up the shoreline [the searcher] spotted something that looked suspicious, and investigated and … by moving some small debris … found Chelsea’s body.”

Her body was found six days after King went missing Feb. 25 and two days after police arrested John Albert Gardner III, a convicted sex offender whose DNA they said was found on King’s clothing near where police believe she was abducted.

Gardner, 30, is being held on suspicion of rape and first-degree murder and is scheduled to be charged today in a San Diego court. Prosecutors may include special allegations that would make Gardner eligible for the death penalty.

Former FBI agent and ABC News consultant Brad Garrett said the location of the body likely means King was attacked shortly after she started her jog.

“”This was probably a blitz attack. where he sees her jogging and attacks her,” he said, adding that it’s not uncommon for murderers to leave their victims near the site of the crime.

Police said Gardner, who was arrested in 2000 for committing lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14, may also be connected to the disappearance of Amber DuBois, a 14-year-old who disappeared near San Diego on her way to school in February 2009.

DuBois’ grandmother, Sheila Welch, is demanding a crackdown on known sex offenders.

“It makes me want to throw up. How many times are we going to continue to let this happen?” she asked. “Whose child is it going to be next?”

Garrett said that although police have said Gardner is not cooperating with investigators, authorities from the region should be pulling “every assault case, every missing child that fits Mr. Gardner’s MO.”

“What’s going to drive him is, ‘What’s in this for me?’” Garrett said. “At some point the death penalty might be placed off the table if he can tell them about other situations.”

Authorities Monday also linked Gardner to an attack on 23-year-old Candice Moncayo, who identified Gardner from a mug shot as the man who attacked her weeks before along the same running path where King disappeared.

Moncayo was able to fend off her attacker by elbowing him in the face and running away.

“Candice was reached by police to see if the man matched up with the man who attacked Chelsea King,” Moncayo’s sister, Kayla Moncayo, told ABC News today. “She looked at the pictures and told police, ‘He’s the same guy.’”

Moncayo’s sister said she hoped the information police learned could help them convict Gardner.

“When we heard about Chelsea King, immediately my family was concerned that it was the same man,” said Kayla Moncayo. “We pray that Candice can provide helpful information and Chelsea will be found.”

Kayla Moncayo, the opinion editor for the Silver Spur, the Rancho Bernardo High School newspaper, wrote about her sister’s attack shortly after it took place. The story ran last Friday, one day after King disappeared.

Candice Moncayo was running on the trail when she “was tackled and thrown to the side of the running trail, caught off guard and without warning,” her sister wrote.

“I thought he was going to rape me,” Moncayo said of the overweight man who tackled her. “So I told him he would have to kill me first.”

“He picked her up by the shoulders and began shaking her relentlessly,” she wrote.

Moncayo fought her attacker, elbowing hard him in the nose. The shot made her assailant pause, allowing her to get out of his grasp and run away.

“All that was left of the … attacker were the bruises he left on her and the DNA the police were able to swab from her elbow,” according to the article.

“She is shaken up, but she’s a strong girl,” Kayla told ABC News today. “She has the joy of the lord on her.”

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Woodland CA- A Yolo County judge on Monday sentenced a man who walked out of a store with a package of cheese in his trousers to seven years and eight months in prison.

Prosecutors had originally sought a life sentence for Robert Ferguson under the state’s “three strikes” law. They dropped that bid last month, saying a psychological report had convinced them that a life sentence wasn’t warranted.

At Monday’s hearing, Deputy District Attorney Clinton Parish urged Judge Thomas Warriner to consider at least one of Ferguson’s prior strikes – one for burglary and another for assault with a deadly weapon – and to sentence him to a lengthy term.

Parish said Ferguson was a career criminal who wouldn’t change. He had 13 prior convictions and had spent 22 of the past 27 years behind bars, yet still would not obey the law, the prosecutor said.

In 1994, Ferguson had escaped a three-strikes sentence, “Yet here we are again,” Parish said.

Defense lawyer Monica Brushia told the judge that Ferguson’s six prior burglary convictions occurred 30 years ago. His misdemeanor assault conviction was for throwing a soda can at one of his siblings when he was a teen, she said.

No weapons or injuries were associated with his crimes, Brushia told the judge.

She argued a psychologist’s report had concluded Ferguson was bipolar and had trouble controlling impulses to steal during manic phases.

His latest crimes were so petty that they hardly merited a prison sentence, she argued. “We’re talking about a pack of cheese,” she said.

On Jan. 6, jurors convicted Ferguson of two counts of petty theft for snatching a woman’s wallet from the counter of a 7-Eleven store and for stuffing a bag of Tillamook shredded cheese worth $3.99 into his pants at Woodland’s Nugget Market.

The Yolo County District Attorney’s Office charged the thefts as felonies.

When it came time to sentence Ferguson on Monday, Judge Warriner chose a middle ground. He accepted a probation department recommendation to disregard the prior strikes and to sentence Ferguson to the upper term for petty theft with priors.

The judge gave Ferguson 825 days of credit for his time in jail awaiting trial and said Ferguson would be required to serve half his sentence in prison. He will be eligible for parole in less than three years.

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Let the Leno-Letterman jousting resume. Jay Leno’s return to “The Tonight Show” Monday was watched by about 6.6 million viewers, according to early Nielsen ratings, up about 25 percent from his average viewership in the first quarter last year.

David Letterman’s “Late Show” on CBS was watched by 3.8 million, about average for his program. Among adults 18 to 49, Mr. Leno averaged a 1.6 rating and Mr. Letterman averaged a 1.1. “It’s good to be home,” Mr. Leno said as he opened his monologue Monday night.

“The Tonight Show” was the No. 1 late-night program when Mr. Leno handed it over to Conan O’Brien last spring. In the months that followed, the “Late Show” routinely beat Mr. O’Brien’s “Tonight” in total viewers. In January, after NBC canceled Mr. Leno’s 10 p.m. talk show and announced a plan to move him back to 11:35 p.m., Mr. O’Brien exited the network.

It is not surprising that Mr. Leno received a ratings bounce on Monday, given that his “Tonight Show” return was heavily promoted during the Winter Olympics on NBC last month.

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The rest of America needs to take a close look at the Chelsea King case here in California. This is the direct result of a liberal socialist judges and state legislature that remain soft on crime, even after the Polly Klaas case.

Richard Allen Davis, who was convicted of murdering Polly Klaas and sentenced to death, had a long and extensive history as a felon and a pedophile. He was routinely released or given light sentences by our liberal judicial that seem to believe that virtually everyone can be rehabilitated. When will these simple sons of bitches that have subjugated the legal system in California realize that some people just cannot be rehabilitated?

Flash forward to the Chelsea King case. The suspect in the case, John Albert Gardner III, 30, was arrested on suspicion of murder and rape after investigators found several pieces of unspecified evidence. Gardner, 6 feet 2 and weighing 230 pounds, pleaded guilty in 2000 to molestation charges involving a 13-year-old girl.

A psychiatrist at the time recommended that Gardner be given the maximum sentence, which was at least 10 years in prison. San Diego County prosecutors recommended a six-year term. “It is my opinion that [the defendant would be a continued danger to underage [girls] in the community,” said the psychiatrist in the court documents.

Authorities were not sure Monday how much time Gardner actually served in prison. According to the Megan’s Law website, he lives in Lake Elsinore in Riverside County, but was visiting his mother in San Diego County last week. At the time of his arrest, Gardner’s pants were damp, authorities said.

It was not clear Monday if Gardner was providing any information regarding Chelsea’s whereabouts. Authorities were focused on the 14 miles of shoreline of the shallow lake, where FBI dive teams on rafts scoured the murky water. Hundreds more volunteers searched the desolate trails winding around the lake.

“It’s rugged terrain: sloughs, rocks, vegetation, hills. It’s not easy, but it’s not deterring them,” said Jan Caldwell, a spokesman for the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.

Friends and relatives described Chelsea as an outgoing overachiever with a passion for literature who had been accepted to several colleges. She played French horn for the San Diego Youth Symphony and tutored other students.

Her parents, who live in a gated community, didn’t like her to jog alone. It was one of the few rules they had to set for their daughter. “They wanted her to study less and have more fun,” Mikkelson said.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday President Obama will soon propose a health care bill that will be “much smaller” than the House bill but “big enough” to put the country on a “path” toward health care reform.

A senior administration official told Fox Obama’s proposal will be introduced Wednesday.

“In a matter of days, we will have a proposal,” Pelosi said, pointing to Obama’s forthcoming bill. “It will be a much smaller proposal than we had in the House bill, because that’s where we can gain consensus. But it will be big enough to put us on a path of affordable, quality health care for all Americans that holds insurance companies accountable.”

Melody Barnes, a top Obama domestic policy adviser, did not dispute Pelosi’s characterization of the new plan as smaller in scope – and quite possibly in cost – than either the House or Senate health care bills.

“It’s going to be matter of drawing on these different ideas and coming up with the right proposal,” Barnes said in an exclusive interview with Fox. “That’s what my colleagues are working on. That’s what they’re talking with Congress about. We’ll see what it looks like when the proposal is sent forward.”

Asked how White House staff is putting the new proposal together, Barnes said they are “borrowing” from conversations at Thursday’s health care summit.

“We’re going to be borrowing from those conversations…to come up with a bill that we hope can receive bipartisan support,” Barnes said.

When asked if White House staff, as Press Secretary Robert Gibbs indicated Friday, would work on GOP ideas for health reform over the weekend, Barnes identified two: tort reform and allowing insurers to sell policies across state lines.

“They (the summit participants) talked about medical malpractice reform and found possible areas of common ground there and so that’s something they (White House staff) will be looking at,” Barnes said. “They (summit participants) talked about purchasing insurance across state lines doing that, though, in a way to make sure people are treated fairly. So, I think we’ll look towards those issues and we will be drawing upon that. The conversation that took place at Blair House was important to us, because we wanted to hear what the leadership in Congress had to say.”

Pelosi’s remarks came during an event to highlight stimulus spending in Broomfield, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. When asked how Democrats could push health care through this year, Pelosi said the following:

“Freeze the design on the bill. See what the Senate can do; it’s essential for us to know what the Senate can do,” Pelosi said. “And then we will take up the bill on the House side.”

As for the results of Thursday’s health care summit, Pelosi said:

“People said it’s theater. Theater is about 2 and half 3 hours. Seven hours is about a commitment a dedicated commitment to get a job done. I heard a few good suggestions that we may be able to work into a bill. The American people can’t wait any longer. Now we’ll see what we can incorporate into the bill.”

White House and Democratic sources hasten to add late today that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not mean to suggest the new plan would constitute a retreat from comprehensive health care reform.

Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami said the speaker was trying to say the new Obama health care proposal would take its policy cues from the Senate health bill and the ideas Obama posted online a week ago.

Elshami did not deny Pelosi’s comments about a “much smaller” bill could fairly be interpreted as suggesting a step back from the Senate bill. Instead, Pelosi has come to regard the Senate bill itself as “much smaller” than the House bill, Elshami said.

White House officials also said Obama’s not dramatically scaling back his proposal. No one was prepared to discuss a price tag, but it appears the ballpark 10-year figure of $1 trillion remains.

The revisions, it appears, will focus on adding GOP ideas on tort reform and selling insurance across state lines. White House Domestic Policy Adviser Melody Barnes spoke extensively to Fox today about White House staff dealing with these two issues over the weekend (see post below).

Democrats described inclusion of medical malpractice and selling insurance across state lines as a last-ditch effort to win Republican support. Already, White House officials and Democrats have begun to argue that bipartisanship can be defined as legislation including Republican ideas, even if Republicans unanimously vote against it.

“How Republicans vote on their ideas is up to them,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday. “Bipartisanship can’t simply be none of your ideas and all of our ideas. That’s not bipartisanship.”

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Wolk died Sunday in New York, hours after completing a recording session with Hall, who was working on a solo album, the duo’s manager, Jonathan Wolfson, said Monday. Wolfson said the cause of death was believed to be a heart attack.

Wolk had been scheduled to appear Monday night on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” with Hall and Oates.

A busy session musician, he appeared on literally scores of recordings with such varied artists as Bette Midler, Billy Joel and Avril Lavigne. He played bass on several of Elvis Costello’s recordings, accordion on Robert Palmer’s “Heavy Nova” and guitar on Carly Simon’s “Coming Around Again.”

He was also the bass player in NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” house band from 1986 to 1992 when it was led by guitarist G.E. Smith.

On his Web site, Wolk described himself as “that guy with the hat” who people had seen performing with Hall & Oates since 1981. In later years he also became the band’s music director.

“Daryl used to refer to him as the ampersand in Hall & Oates,” said Wolfson, adding both members of the duo were crushed by the loss.

“It’s not if I will go on, but how,” Hall said in a statement. “T-Bone was one of the most sensitive and good human beings that I have ever known.”

Oates called him “peerless.”

“Any instrument that he touched resonated with a sensitivity and skill level that I have never experienced while playing with any other musician,” Oates said. “He possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of styles and musical history which he referenced to support all the artists that he played with over the years.

“He became our band’s musical director over time, leading by example and by the deference and respect that everyone who played alongside him so rightfully accorded him. He made everyone he played with better.”

Wolk grew up in the New York City suburb of Yonkers. His family played the accordion, he told Guitar Digest in 2003, and he won a statewide championship on the instrument at age 12.

But it was seeing the Beatles perform on television’s “Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964, he said, that led him to talk his father into buying him an electric guitar.

He studied art briefly after graduating high school, then turned his full attention to music.

Wolfson said information on funeral arrangements and survivors was pending.

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The search continues for a missing teenage honor student Chelsea King in Southern California.

Chelsea’s parents, Brent and Kelly King appeared on “The Early Show” from Rancho Bernardo, Calif., with Marc Klaas, president of the Klass Kids Foundation. Klaas became an advocate for missing children after his 12-year-old daughter, Polly, was kidnpapped and killed in 1993.

The Kings said they’re still holding out for what they’ve wanted from day one of their search — for their daughter to come home.

Brent said, “We want our baby back. Bring her here.”

As for the arrest of John Albert Gardener, the registered sex offender brought in in connection to Chelsea’s disappearance, the Kings said they haven’t resigned their daughter to death.

“My daughter is an incredibly strong girl and we’re an incredibly strong family,” Brent said. “I have not given up hope that my daughter is out there and neither has that community. … Until I hear differently, I believe she’s alive.”

Kelly King said her daughter has a spirit stronger than an evil can conquer.

“It’s just who she is,” Kelly said. “And something like this, as horrific as it may be, she’s a thousand times stronger than this.”

However, Brent said, as he’s learned of Gardener’s past, it’s gotten “past the point of horrifying.”

“It disgusts me,” he said.

For more with the Kings and Klaas, who has counseled the couple since the disappearance of their daughter, click on the video below.

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Camera and media whore Kate Gosselin didn’t waste any time cashing in the promotional value to her appearance on the new cycle of “Dancing with the Stars” that starts March 22. The announcement was made around 10 p.m. on “The Bachelor,” and two hours later, she was on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” chatting it up with Kimmel.

And while she was on Kimmel’s show, she promoted an appearance on Tuesday’s “Good Morning America” — when her dance partner will be announced.

No plans yet for her to appear on “World News with Diane Sawyer” or “Nightline” later in the week. I’m kidding about those two, but I wouldn’t be surprised. What a blitz.

Reality TV’s “super mom,” as ABC now calls her, said she is doing the show because she “really wants to learn how to dance.” But she also said she intends to win. When Kimmel asked if she was competitive, Kate Gosselin said, “Have you seen my show?”

Kate said she sees Nicole Sherzinger, of the Pussycat Dolls, and actress Pamela Anderson (“Baywatch”) as her chief competition.

Whoever her partner is, he is going to have to train on what Gosselin described as “makeshift dance floor” in the basement of her Pennsylvania home several days a week, and then fly out with her to Los Angeles each week for the show. That’s quiote a concession ABC is making for her, but she says the producers did not let her pick her partner.

She said she “did suggest a person” who she thought would be a good partner, but the producers “said he’d be too quiet” for her.

“I asked for a miracle worker,” she told Kimmel.

“Well, if each of your children votes [for you], that’s like a thousand votes a week,” Kimmel said.

This is shaping up as one hype-o-rama.

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A good night for Laura Cummings meant being allowed to sleep on the kitchen floor in her family’s North Collins home.

Usually in the weeks leading up to her death, she was forced to sleep shackled to a metal chair with a sack over her face.

Days were even more nightmarish for the 23-year-old mentally disabled woman, who was held captive and brutalized, allegedly by her own mother and half brother, according to an Erie County Grand Jury indictment returned Friday.

Cummings’ short life ended Jan. 21 with a long, tortuous death and a trail of missed chances to get her to safety.

A grand jury indicted Cummings’ mother, Eva M. Cummings, 51, and her half brother, Luke J. Wright, 31, on charges related to the homicide, but authorities continued to be confounded by the apparent lack of community concern for the defenseless woman’s welfare.

“There were a lot of people who knew what was going on and said nothing, and that is a sad commentary on the human condition,” said District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III.

Clues and reports about mistreatment inside the apartment at 2052 Sherman Ave. popped up frequently over the years.

Siblings and other relatives said they called Child Protective Services and Adult Protective Services. Whispers floated around town, including at the food pantry, that Cummings was being tied up at home.

“This is the problem today — nobody wants to get involved,” added Caroline Lee, who lives down the street from the Cummings apartment.

The pantry was one of the few places in town where Laura Cummings, a petite woman with short brown hair who rarely made eye contact with people, was seen in public away from her home.

Lee called Laura Cummings’ younger brother, Richard, about the suspected abuse, and Richard contacted Erie County Adult Protective Services.

“They never went inside the household and they never filed for a warrant to go inside,” said Richard Cummings, who is serving in the Air Force and is stationed in North Carolina. “I’m wondering why .‚.‚. Adult Protective Services didn’t do anything about it.”

Instead, the abuse intensified over the last few months of Laura’s life, said investigators. “Starting in November, there’s a significant escalation of her debasement as a human being,” Senior Trial Counsel Thomas M. Finnerty of the DA’s Office said. “It was happening on a daily or nightly basis.”

Finnerty, who has prosecuted a number of heinous crimes in his 17 years in the DA’s office, called it “the worst case I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s sadistic, and it’s allegedly sustained over a long period of time,” he said.

That was especially true of the unlawful imprisonment of Laura Cummings, in the weeks preceding her death.

“She’s restrained more often than she’s not,” Sheriff’s Capt. Ronald L. Kenyon said.

At other times, she was treated as an inanimate object, draped with a blanket so that visitors who stopped by the apartment wouldn’t know she was there, according to authorities.

Eva Cummings and Luke Wright were indicted on a total of 15 charges in connection with the suffocation death of Laura Cummings. They are expected to be arraigned at 2 p.m. Monday before Erie County Court Judge Sheila A. DiTullio.

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