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Gwinnett inmate charged with trying to hire hitman

 

Joel Provano

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Gwinnett County jail inmate has been charged with trying to hire a hitman.

Man chainsaws giant middle-finger salute to neighbours as feud boils over into court

 

Residents of Frogmore Cres, Park Orchards, yesterday said they had been caught in the middle of a street war after the man moved into the peaceful area, the Herald Sun reported.

A neighbour said a long-running feud started soon after complaints were made to Manningham Council that the man, 47, had cleared trees on his property in the renowned green wedge.

As the tension in the street reached boiling point, the man chainsawed a 1.2m sculpture of a middle finger out of wood and sat it up in his front yard as a message to his neighbours.

to the Herald Sun and would not comment on whether he had followed orders to remove the statue.

"Leave me and my family alone, I have nothing to say," he said.

Another neighbour, too scared to be named, said the man had terrorised dozens of residents.

"He is the neighbour from hell," the neighbour said.

"We would all be quite happy if he just packed up and went away.

"We've had to endure 18 months of this."

At Ringwood Magistrates' Court last week the court heard a neighbour, John Washbourne, was assaulted after he asked the man to turn off a leaf blower that was sending dust and debris into the caravan Mr Washbourne was cleaning.

The court was told the man headbutted Mr Washbourne, shoulder-barged Mr Washbourne's wife, Judy Lewis, and put the leaf blower in their faces.

After being visited by police following the assault, the man ignored an order to turn down music.

Defence lawyer Paul Lawrie said the man had begun to adopt strategies to avoid conflict and wanted to resolve all matters.

But residents said they were still fearful of the man.

The offender pleaded guilty to charges relating to the assault, sculpture and failure to turn off his stereo and was convicted and fined $700.

In a separate hearing, he was fined $10,000 by Manningham Council after pleading guilty to removing vegetation and doing earthworks without a permit.

 

New York

The debt-and-deficit bill signed into law on Tuesday forestalled a dangerous federal government default. But it will also slash aid to states already reeling from the recession, almost certainly forcing them to curtail services and raise revenues to pay for programs once bankrolled by Congress.

The bill, which the Senate approved and President Obama signed into law Tuesday, will eventually raise the government’s debt limit by more than $2 trillion in exchange for equivalent savings. Congress will achieve nearly $1 trillion of those savings by cutting domestic discretionary spending – including funds for education, health care, job training – to its lowest level in over half a century, as a share of the GDP.

“State budgets are already devastated,” says Ethan Pollack, a senior policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. “This deal just makes it far worse and shifts a lot of the pain onto state and local governments.”

When state lawmakers hashed out budgets for the fiscal year that began in July, 42 states and the District of Columbia faced a collective budget gap of $103 billion, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), which tracks state spending. Because every state except Vermont requires a balanced budget, almost all were compelled to slash services, raise taxes, or both.

The law passed Tuesday will shrink the government’s non-security, domestic, discretionary spending by about $500 billion over the next 10 years, according to the CBPP. Nearly a third of those funds typically flow to states.

States rely on federal aid to pay for many popular programs, including Head Start, work study, energy and housing subsidies, highway repair, and emergency response. With fewer federal dollars available, states will need to restrict their own resources to vital institutions, while cutting or charging fees for less-crucial services.

Taxpayers can expect larger class sizes, fewer police officers, and more potholes, says Jo Comerford, executive director of the National Priorities Project, a left-leaning non-profit that monitors government spending.

“We’re way past cutting the fat or program efficiencies,” says Ms. Comerford. “Now we’re into cuts that are really affecting quality of life and forcing really hard choices.”

States’ painful budget decisions are likely to extend beyond fees and service cuts.

Since August 2008, state and local governments have trimmed workforces at a rate of about 10,000 to 20,000 positions per month, according to the CBPP. Reduced federal aid will likely mean more state-level job and benefits cuts, which in turn could slow states’ recoveries.

When workers receive lower pay or lose their jobs, they consume less, and the ripple effect continues throughout the state’s economy, costing even more jobs,” says a June report by the CBPP

Still, most states are relieved to see a deal that averts government default – particularly the handful of states that faced credit rating downgrades if the federal government failed to pay its bills. In addition, the ballooning federal deficit was unsustainable, says Robert Ward, deputy director of the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y.

“If Congress had done nothing, what would the impact have been for states then?” asks Mr. Ward. “It’s hard to argue that the status quo could simply continue forever.”

The deficit reduction law includes a second phase of cuts worth up to $1.5 trillion. The plan calls for a joint committee in Congress to recommend savings, which could take the form of tax increases, entitlement reforms, or more spending cuts. If the recommendations aren’t acted upon by the end of the year, automatic reductions of $1.2 trillion will be applied to defense and domestic programs, including Medicare.

More than two-thirds of the federal funds flowing to states go to mandatory programs, including cash assistance and Medicaid. Medicaid alone accounts for nearly half – about $248 billion – of the $586 billion states will receive from the federal government this year.

For this reason, many analysts are convinced the joint committee will recommend changes to Medicaid, possibly restricting the number of recipients and shifting more costs to the states.

“Medicaid will almost certainly be on the table,” says Ward. “The looming deficits are just too big to ignore, and too big to close with tax increases or military reductions alone.”

Though Congress has yet to target specific programs for reductions – the most severe of which won’t take effect until after the 2012 elections – advocacy groups are already bracing for a new era of austerity.

In New York City, a group called New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts planned to meet on Wall Street Tuesday afternoon to protest the debt law.

“We’re calling people out to vent their frustration with the cutbacks at the federal level,” said Larry Hales, one of the group’s co-founders, before the event.

Mr. Hales, who lives in Jersey City, N.J., has been unemployed since 2009, when he was laid off from a job as a community organizer. Earlier this year, Hales’ unemployment benefits expired, and the state stopped sending him a monthly cash assistance check. He says he doesn’t expect either to be restored.

'Extra sugar' investigation leads to prostitution arrest for Rockaway Dunkin Donuts worker

The Daily Record 

6:52 AM, Aug. 2, 2011

PRESS FILE PHOTO ~

 

ROCKAWAY — A 29-year-old woman working the night shift at Dunkin Donuts is facing prostitution charges for allegedly taking breaks from selling donuts and coffee to provide sexual services in exchange for money.

Melissa Redmond, 29, of Mine Hill, was arrested after a six week investigation known as “extra sugar” that began when police got a tip that people could go to the Dunkin Donuts on Route 46 and arrange a liason with Redmond.

“I had gotten an anonymous tip,” Detective Sgt. Kyle Schwarzmann, who led the investigation. “She was a night time employee (working 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.), supposedly a very good one.’’

Schwarzmann began gathering information and doing surveillance at the scene. He noticed on multiple evenings that she would go out to cars to see customers and would spend 10 or 15 minutes there, he said.

“Sometimes I 'd even see money changing hands,’’ Schwarzmann said, adding that sometimes the cars would stay in the parking lot and other times they would drive to another nearby location.

An undercover operation was developed wth the assistance of Officer Robert Koehler and Officer Scott Haigh acting as the undercover “John.”

“He went in plain clothes through the drive thru window,’’ Schwarzmann said. “He spoke to her and she said if he wanted a good time to call her and she gave him her phone number.”

Haigh parked in the parking lot and Redmond allegedly came out, approached him and gave him a specifc price list for her services.

Haigh returned on another occasion and inquired about her services, was offered a new, and lower, price so he said he needed to go to a bank machine but would return with the money.

When Haigh returned, they drove to the back of the building and the arrest was made. Redmond was then processed, served her complaint and released.

No one at the Dunkin Donuts wanted to comment Monday morning.

Associated Press

For the AJC

Israel Nieves emailed this picture of himself to his girlfriend when she tried to leave him, Orange County court records show. (Orange County Courts / August 1, 2011)

Jason Rodriguez, a handsome and talented Valencia Community College student, was caught in the cross hairs of a scorned teen's rage.

The 19-year-old amateur bodybuilder's life was cut short after he was shot in the head and neck Feb. 2. Eighteen-year-old Israel Nieves is charged with murder in the shooting that fatally injured Rodriguez — whom detectives say Nieves lured to an east Orange County neighborhood using Facebook.

Investigators said the motive was jealousy over Rodriguez's new relationship with Nieves' ex-girlfriend, who had broken up with him in November and filed a domestic-violence injunction against him.

Months after the shooting, Orange County sheriff's detectives unraveled the tangled technological web that led to Rodriguez's death.

The accused murderer — who is also a suspect in rape case and a lewd and lascivious case — is being held without bond at the Orange County Jail.

Rodriguez moved to Orlando from Gibsonton, south of Tampa, six months before his death to pursue an education in sports medicine and physical therapy. He worked at Publix and lived with a close friend he knew from East Bay Senior High School.

In his obituary Rodriguez was described as "very loving, outgoing, strong young man who struck the hearts of all who came across his path." Efforts to reach Rodriguez's family and friends were unsuccessful.

Court records show Rodriguez began dating a 20-year-old woman at the beginning of the year. It was her ex-boyfriend, Nieves, that investigators say is responsible for killing Rodriguez.

But while dating that woman, Rodriguez met another woman on Facebook. Or so he thought.

Her name was "Ty Ann," and in mid-January, they began texting and emailing. The two spoke once on the phone and had one video chat. Detectives interviewed a childhood friend of the suspect who said Nieves asked her to call and perform the video chat with Rodriguez as a prank and pretend she was "Ty Ann," adding validity to the online flirtation.

After almost two weeks of online communication, Rodriguez agreed to meet the woman at her house near the corner of Pavilion Drive and Holly Springs Circle.

Fatal 'date'

On Feb. 2 at around 10:15 p.m., Rodriguez pulled up to the house and waited in his green Honda Accord for "Ty Ann." He then sent a text message to his roommate about his impending date.

"Heading to the chick house ... by Valencia like right there I'll text for the I'm good," the message said, implying that Rodriguez would let his friend know everything was OK.

He was shot 12 minutes later.

A witness driving in the area at the time of the shooting told detectives the suspect stood next to the car and fired. The gunman saw the witness and began chasing after the vehicle, shooting at it at least twice, records show.

The witness told deputies the shooter was wearing a bandana over his face and a skull cap on his head and had on a red long-sleeved sweat shirt, dark pants and white shoes.

Rodriguez was rushed to Orlando Regional Medical Center where his family and friends stood vigil, hopeful that his strength and youth would overcome the injuries. He died a week later.

While Rodriguez was hospitalized, detectives worked feverishly to track down the suspect. After interviewing Rodriguez's closest friends and delving into phone and computer records, homicide Detective Brian Cross learned about "Ty Ann."

Elaborate ruse

Nieves went to great lengths to cover his technological tracks, detectives said.

He created a fake email address to make a phony Facebook profile using the name "Ty Ann." Nieves also used an iPod Touch software application to create a fake phone number that he used to exchange text messages with the victim, detectives found.

Computer-forensic investigators traced "Ty Ann" back to Nieves' cellphone, iPod Touch, email accounts and iTunes accounts, records show.

In April, investigators executed a search warrant at Nieves' parents home and found a black ski mask, black bandana, black gloves and a .32-caliber revolver in his bedroom.

That same day Nieves spoke with detectives and initially denied he had anything to do with the slaying. But soon Nieves began crying and admitted to creating the fake profile to "scare" Rodriguez and prove to his ex-girlfriend that Rodriguez was cheating on her, records show.

He claimed the night of the shooting he was drinking alcohol and smoked "embalming fluid," according to court records.

"I hope I never kill anybody. I don't know. I just had a blackout. I don't know what happened after that. I really don't," Nieves told detectives. "I never wanted him dead or anything. I don't remember shooting the gun. I was drinking a lot."

The relationship between Nieves and his former girlfriend was tumultuous from the start. Three months in, the woman said Nieves threw a punch at her, but missed and put his hand through the wall.

When she tried to break up with him, he emailed her a picture of himself with a gun in his hand. In October, Nieves forced her into his bedroom, put a knife to her neck and then traced the tip along her face, according to court records.

Then he raped her, she said. The Sentinel is not identifying the woman because she is the victim of a sex crime.

In November, Nieves threatened to hurt her family. Instead of acquiescing to his demands, she told her mother about the abuse and together they called the Sheriff's Office. Days later, an Orange County judge ordered Nieves to stay away.

Nieves is charged with her rape. He is also accused of having sex with a 14-year-old girl after sneaking into her home, records show. Nieves met that girl on Facebook as well.

He pleaded not guilty in both sex-crime cases. Nieves declined to be interviewed, and efforts to reach his parents were unsuccessful.

Digital dangers

Rodriguez's slaying was the fifth investigated by Orange County in 2011 and the first domestic-violence-related slaying, according to local advocates who track such crimes. Because Rodriguez was killed by a romantic rival, Harbor House of Central Florida counts his death in its tally.

"We are seeing the number of collateral victims rise over the years," said Harbor House CEO Carol Wick. "People think that in domestic violence that it's just the victim who is in danger, but the new boyfriend or girlfriend could also become targets of the batterer."

But the case also sheds light on the dangers of social media, and the way young people often trust that people are who they say they are in cyberspace.

Rodriguez could have safeguarded himself by meeting "Ty Ann" in a public place, instead of planning a one-on-one meeting, said Hemu Nigam, founder of SSP Blue, a California-based Internet-safety company.

"In a digital environment, individuals have to realize that everything that can happen in the real world can happen online as well," Nigam said. "What that teaches us is that you have to treat your online life like your real life."

A Chicago television station is being slammed by journalists and civil rights leaders after it took a 4-year-old's quotes out of context in a report about a shooting in his neighborhood.

CBS local station WBBM reenforced negative racial stereotypes in its editing of a June 29 interview with a neighborhood kid about the shooting of two teens in the Park Manor section of Chicago, the NAACP and the Maynard Institute for Journalism charge.

In the story, a freelance photographer working for the station asked the boy about the shooting. When it aired, the boy said, "I'm not scared of nothing."
The photographer followed up with, "When you get older are you going to stay away from all these guns?"

The boy replied "no" and that's when the quote got edited on the aired version.

On the clip that aired, the freelancer asked "No? What are you going to do when you get older?" and the boy simply replied "I'm going to have me a gun!"

The anchors then commented in horror and the story moved on.

But, according to a clip of the whole interview, the freelancer asked "You are? Why do you want to do that?" and the boy then added, "I'm going to be the police!"

The discrepancy was first pointed out in a report by the Maynard Institute - and has since earned condemnation from the NAACP and professional journalism groups.

"Airing a video of the boy saying he wanted a gun that edits out the context simply reinforces stereotypes that African American males are violent, even preschoolers," Dori J. Maynard, President of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, said in the article published by the institute.

Late last week, Jeff Kiernan, WBBM vice president and news director Jeff Kiernan apologized in an email to Poynter.org about the sound bite.

"We accept responsibility for the mistakes that were made, both in the reporting and editing of the story," he said. "The video of the child should not have aired. As soon as news management identified the problem, they took immediate steps to ensure that the video would not air in subsequent newscasts. In addition, we have followed up with our employees to make sure that we all have learned from the mistakes that were made."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/08/01/2011-08-01_chicago_tv_station_takes_fouryearolds_quote_out_of_context_in_story_about_shooti.html#ixzz1TsW1Ov7W

Indian man has hysterectomy after doctors find uterus

An Indian farmer and father of two had a hysterectomy after doctors discovered a "full female reproductive system" in his lower abdomen.

(Mark Blinch/Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. health insurance companies must offer women free birth control and other preventive health care services under Obama administration rules released on Monday, a historic decision supported by family planning groups and opposed by conservative groups.

The rules from the Health and Human Services Department are part of the nation's healthcare overhaul and largely follow recommendations from an advisory group released last month.

The U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, commissioned by the Obama administration, recommended that all U.S.-approved birth control methods -- including the "morning-after pill," taken shortly after intercourse to stop a pregnancy -- be added to the list of preventive health services.

The recommendation faced opposition from conservative and religious groups that balked at using taxpayer money to cover birth control, especially the "morning-after pill."

The guidelines go into effect on Monday, requiring insurers to provide free coverage of preventive care services for women in all new plans beginning in August 2012.

"These historic guidelines are based on science and existing literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.

The HHS added an amendment allowing religious institutions to choose whether to cover contraception services in their insurance. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had urged the HHS to exclude birth control as a service.

The adoption of the recommendations is a win for organizations such as the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and Planned Parenthood.

"Eliminating cost sharing for these crucial preventive services will make needed care more accessible and will improve the health of millions of women," said Iowa Democratic Senator Tom Harkin, who had urged HHS to accept the report's guidelines.

The health department's guidelines followed the IOM's recommendations to require free screening for gestational diabetes, testing for human papillomavirus in women over 30, counseling for HIV and sexually transmitted infections, lactation counseling, screening for domestic violence and yearly wellness visits.

Research suggests that the public supports adding birth control to the list of services.

A Thomson Reuters/NPR survey in May found 76.6 percent of respondents believe private insurance plans, without government assistance, should cover some or all costs associated with birth control pills.

The HHS will hold a press conference on the new guidelines on Monday. To read the guidelines, visit http://www.hrsa.gov/womensguidelines .

(Additional reporting by Andrew Seaman and Anna Yukhananov. Editing by Maureen Bavdek and Robert MacMillan)

 

 

No co-pay required for birth control new U.S. guidelines:

 

First Posted: 6/10/11 03:01 PM ET  Updated: 7/11/11 11:17 PM ET

 

My big fat geek wedding! Web guru creates program that will let computer conduct ceremony

Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 6:23 AM on 30th July 2011

 

When Miguel Hanson and Diana Wesley get married today, they won't stand before a gray haired minister holding a Bible.

Instead, they'll be looking at a 30-inch monitor.

Mr Hanson, a Houston, Texas web developer and IT consultant, created a  minister software program when the couple couldn't get a friend to serve as the minister at their wedding.

 

 

AP Photo/David J. Phillip

Miguel Hanson, right, kisses his fiancee Diana Wesley by the computer Thursday, July 28, 2011, in Humble, Texas. The couple couldn't get a friend to serve as the minister at their wedding, so they decided to create their own. When Miguel Hanson and his fiancée Diana Wesley get married on Saturday, a computer will conduct the ceremony.

 

 

Next best thing: The couple couldn't get a friend to serve as the minister at their wedding, so they decided to create their own