truesee's Blog

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1282125/Plane-passenger-sues-airline-failing-wake-landing.html

How Bad Is It Really for the Unemployed?

May 25, 2010 —

On some level, we all know that times are really tough for the millions of people the Great Recession threw out of work—and for the millions of others who are looking for their first job. Many of us have read that long-term unemployment (26 weeks or more) is at a record high. But sometimes it takes a new angle of vision to make you see just how difficult things are. My “aha” moment came over the weekend, when I read a recent survey that tracked the fate of a large sample of individuals who were unemployed as of last August. Here's a summary:

Of the 908-person sample, 67 percent remained unemployed but were still looking for work, and an additional 12 percent had given up and dropped out of the labor force. Only 21 percent had found jobs (only 13 percent full-time) and were currently employed. A stunning 28 percent of the newly reemployed had been looking for work for more than one year, and 6 percent for more than two years. Fifty-five percent accepted a pay cut in their new jobs; 13 percent took a cut larger than one-third of their previous salary.

Women (26 percent newly employed) did somewhat better than men (18 percent). Surprisingly, young adults (29 percent newly employed) did better than 30 to 49-year olds (21 percent). Not surprisingly, this is a terrible time to be over 50 and out of work: Only 12 percent of these older workers had managed to find jobs.

Blacks or Hispanics (22 percent newly employed) got jobs at a similar clip to whites (21 percent). Education and income mattered, but not as much as one might expect. Individuals with some college training were no more successful than those with a high school diploma or less, and only 28 percent of college graduates who were unemployed last August had found work in the interim. And while only 19 percent of those making less than $30,000 were newly employed, the numbers weren’t much better for those making $30-60,000 (22 percent) or $60,000 and over (26 percent).

In short, there has been no place to hide from the Great Recession, and the traditional formula—get a good education and be persistent—is not reliably producing the right outcomes. The American people know that something out of the ordinary is taking place: 63 percent believe that the economy is undergoing “fundamental and lasting changes,” versus only 37 percent who think it is experiencing a temporary downturn. This shift has consequences that go well beyond the economic. For many Americans, the old verities have been cast aside, with nothing to take their place. As far as they can see, they’ve done everything right, but their expectations have been upended and their life-plans disrupted. In these circumstances, people are bound to think that the country is on the wrong path, and they are bound to feel a combination of confusion and anger toward a political system that they see as having let them down.

President Obama has pledged to rebuild the U.S. economy on a new and more solid foundation. That’s vital. But so is restoring the belief that there is some relation between effort and reward. If the old rules are obsolete, we not only need new rules—a 21st century unemployment insurance system, say, or infrastructure investment and employment, or hours-reductions and job-sharing as an alternative to outright job loss—but also a political system that is prepared to back them up. It’s hard to see how we can make the hard choices needed to build our future unless ordinary Americans come once more to believe that there’s something in it for them.

"WARNING THIS MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO SOME"

http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-strip-search-drugs-story,0,1523696.story

The US Coast estimates that as much as 39 million gallons of oil has leaked into the Gulf of Mexico since an offshore oil rig exploded April 20.

The BP oil spill is now the worst in U.S. history.

The busted deep sea well is spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico at least four times faster than BP estimated; officials say 450,000 to 750,000 barrels have been spilled.

By comparison, the Exxon Valdez tanker spilled 257,000 barrels of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989. 

The new estimate is that between 18 million gallons and a worst-case 39 million gallons of oil have fouled the gulf since the April 20 rig explosion. 

"This is obviously a very significant disaster," said Marcia McNutt, director of the U.S. Geological Survey.

The news came as BP's last-ditch "top kill" attempt to choke the gushing well with heavy mud made some halting progress, and then stalled. 

The mud stopped the oil flow for several hours, but it restarted as soon as the mud stopped pumping, BP honcho Doug Suttles said.

The company said things were going according to plan and that it would resume pumping mud overnight. The goal is to slow the oil flow enough to allow engineers to cap the well with cement. 

"It's a work in progress. We need to let it play itself out," said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is in charge of the scene and who said he was cautiously optimistic. 

Officials said they hope to know today if the procedure, which has never been tried at such depths, was a success. 

In Washington, another head rolled: Elizabeth Birnbaum, the head of the Minerals Management Service, which oversees oil drilling, was forced to step down. 

The Interior Department agency has long been criticized by environmentalists as too cozy with Big Oil. In 2008, its regulators were caught in bed with energy lobbyists - literally - trading drugs and sexual favors.

BP had estimated the flow at 5,000 barrels a day. The USGS said it's really between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels - and possibly as much as 25,000 barrels per day.

Suttles said the 5,000-barrel estimate was always iffy and said the amount of the flow had no bearing on the firm's efforts to stop it. 

"I don't believe that at any time we have misled anyone on this," he said. 

A new Gallup poll showed the spill has dramatically changed American attitudes about the environment. 

Americans have shifted starkly from giving a slightly higher priority to energy production over environmental concerns last month to strongly backing the environment over energy this month.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/05/27/2010-05-27_gulf_oil_spill_the_worst_in_us_history_coast_guard_reports_surpassing_exxon_vald.html#ixzz0pDHEIXYV

Child TV star Gary Coleman hospitalized in Utah

JENNIFER DOBNER

Utah Valley Regional Medical Center spokeswoman Janet Frank said Coleman, 42, was admitted to the Provo facility on Wednesday but she couldn't release any other details.

Coleman lives in Santaquin, which is 55 miles south of Salt Lake City.

The actor is best known for his stint on TV's "Diff'rent Strokes," which aired from 1978 to 1986.

In February, Coleman suffered a seizure on the set of "The Insider."

Coleman's Utah attorney, Randy Kester, said he had communicated by text message with Coleman's wife, Shannon Price, and that the family did not want to release any additional details at this time.

"Anything they could say would be premature because they don't know the full extent of his condition right now," Kester told The Associated Press. 

Price and her father released a statement Thursday to KUTV-TV saying Coleman was taken to the hospital with "a serious medical problem." The statement asks for prayers, adding "we hope those prayers are answered and that Gary will be able to recover and return home soon."

Coleman has lived in Utah since 2005, when he came here to star in the movie "Church Ball," a comedy based on basketball leagues formed by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He met Price on the movie set and married her in 2007. 

Coleman has had a string of financial and legal problems, in addition to continuing ill health from the kidney disease he suffered as a child. Coleman has had at least two kidney transplants and has ongoing dialysis.

Last fall, Coleman had heart surgery that was complicated by pneumonia, Kester said. 

In February, Coleman pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor criminal mischief charge related to an April 2009 domestic violence incident at his home. Recent health issues have caused several follow-up hearings in Coleman's case to be delayed, Kester said.

 AP – FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2008 file photo, actor Gary Coleman appears on the the NBC 'Today' program in

50 Cent Loses A LOT Of Weight

First Posted: 05-26-10 06:04 PM   |   Updated: 05-27-10 08:38 AM

Huffington Post 

50 Cent has lost a shocking amount of weight for his upcoming movie 'Things Fall Apart,' in which he plays a cancer-ridden football player.

According to ThisIs50.com, he dropped from 214 pounds to 160 over the course of just nine weeks with a liquid diet and working out three hours a day.

50 is co-producing the film with Randall Emmett, his partner in Cheetah Vision Films. Pictures of his dramatic transformation are below (scroll down for before photo).

PHOTOS:

Before:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1281753/The-Illustrated-Lady-Woman-tattoos-world-flaunts-inked-body.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-internet-date-turned-robbery,0,5424929.story

Second-grader brings home porn DVD from school

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Bay News 9

Investigators say a teacher at Rock Crusher Elementary School accidentally handed out a disc with pornography on it.

CITRUS COUNTY (Bay News 9) -- A Citrus County family was shocked when a DVD that was handed out to a second-grade class contained pornography.

Dana Hill's 8-year-old daughter brought home a DVD that was passed out to her class at Rock Crusher Elementary School. When Hill's daughter and her 12-year-old son put it in the DVD player, a pornographic movie came on.

"I was in disbelief. I said, 'No, that can't be what you are telling me,' and I was very shocked and angry and embarrassed at the same time," Hill said.

Her daughter's teacher put together 19 discs at home with pictures from the school year on them. They were handed out, and according to the sheriff's office, somehow one of those discs got mixed up with a pornographic DVD.

"I'm still trying to deal with it," Hill said.

Hill says her kids watched a few minutes of it and realized something was wrong. Hill called the sheriff's office. Investigators say what happened was a mistake.

Citrus County sheriff's officials say as of now there will be no criminal charges.

But Hill says something needs to happen so a mistake like this doesn't happen again. She also says she and her kids are still waiting for an apology.

"I have had no approach from the teacher -- regardless if it's through the school board or through the school -- with an apology. She has made no approach at all," Hill said.

Sheriff's officials say the teacher has been out of the classroom on leave, and the teacher who handed out the DVDs was a substitute.

School district officials say an internal investigation has been done, but a decision on a possible punishment has not been made yet.

Officials expect a punishment to be decided in the next few days.

LINK TO VIDEO:

http://www.baynews9.com/content/36/2010/5/26/623226.html

Gwinnett teacher quits after affair with student

AJC exclusive: 1 alleged tryst happened in classroom during school hours

Keenon Aampay Hall, 29, left a promising career as an English teacher at the Gwinnett County school amid allegations that she seduced a senior who came to her for homework help. An investigative file on the case compiled by the school system’s human resources division contains the student’s accounts of sexual trysts at a hotel, a friend’s home and in the teacher’s classroom during school hours. The report also says that pornography was found on Hall’s Gwinnett County schools laptop.

The student, a player on Shiloh’s football team who is to graduate Friday, claimed that Hall gave him gifts and pressured him to commit to their six-month relationship by giving her a baby, according to the file. When he declined, the student’s family said, Hall gave him a failing grade, prompting him to report the relationship to school officials.

“The allegation of the inappropriate behavior came to light because the teacher decreased the student’s grade,” Gwinnett schools spokeswoman Sloan Roach said.

Gwinnett County Public Schools police are investigating the incident. The governor recently signed a new law making it illegal for teachers to have sex with students, even if the sex is consensual. In addition, the Georgia Professional Standards Commission, which has the authority to revoke Hall’s teaching certificate, is scheduled to review the complaint next week.

Hall, elected by her colleagues as Shiloh’s Teacher of the Year, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

“I am very disturbed by this situation, I think she should have been terminated,” said Ericka Pender, the teen’s mother, from her North Carolina home. “She wanted the relationship to go further and was threatening my son. She said she was going to make him fail.” 

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is not publishing the name of the student because it does not generally identify victims of sexual crimes.

Sid Camp, executive director of Gwinnett’s Division of Human Resources, told the state that Hall “admitted to having a sexual relationship with the student.” Hall wrote a brief statement to the school district saying that it was a “consenual relationship,” misspelling the word. She said at least one other teacher knew about the romance.

Connie Hall said her daughter is a stellar teacher admired by peers who went out of her way to help students learn. Keenon Hall went to Shiloh in 2004 as a substitute and worked her way from a teacher’s assistant to a respected certified teacher and cheerleading coach, her mother said. She said her daughter eventually became overwrought with stress caused by mouthy teens, pushy parents and administrators who failed to support hard-working teachers. She began to lose sleep and shed hair over her $35,600-a-year job, her mother said.

“She loved teaching and thought she could change the world,” said Hall, who says she tried to push her daughter to seek a higher-paying profession. “My daughter didn’t have any inappropriate relationship with no under-aged student. She resigned for medical reasons, that’s what her paperwork shows.”

The student recently told Shiloh administrators in a written statement: “One day in October I came after school for some extra studying with my teacher Kennon Hall ... She began touching me on my leg and then asked me when I was going to let her molest me. ... We began to laugh, then she asked me again, this time handing me a phone number and asked me to call. ...”

According to the file, the student said that the teacher once paid for a cab to pick him up and take him to a hotel.

“We entered the room ... then she gave me some vodka and ask me do I enjoy drinking?” he wrote. “I told her lies about being a good drinker, but honeslty after one drink I was done. She began feeling my man parts and we had sex.”

The teen also told administrators that Hall gave him cash, a cell phone and had sex with him in a classroom, an encounter the teacher denies. The student said the teacher eventually turned on him because he didn’t want to get too serious. “What made Kennon Hall mad ... is the fact that I would not give her a baby.”

Hall’s peers had voted her Shiloh High Teacher of the Year in the fall. Her name was touted in school bulletins; she gave inspirational speeches; and was recognized at a Gwinnett County awards dinner with other top district teachers. Her parents, who attended the banquet, said they were proud but wondered why she never got her Teacher of the Year ring.

“She earned it,” her father, Dennis Hall, said. “I believe this is the action of Principal [Gwen] Tatum. It definitely opens the county up for a defamation lawsuit. ... How can seven years of teaching and a reputation be destroyed because of the word of one knucklehead? I think that’s wrong.”

Hall has a bachelor’s degree from Georgia State University and has completed her master’s work, her parents said. On an application for her Gwinnett job she wrote that she was “uniquely qualified” because she has “a passion for education and working with children.”

The student, now 18, relocated to Georgia from North Carolina to live with his uncle, Jason Pender, a football coach at Shiloh High. Ericka Pender allowed her son to leave home so he could focus on academics his senior year and graduate instead of getting distracted by old friends in Winston-Salem.

Coach Pender said his nephew had been dating a teenager at school and didn’t seem any more stressed than most seniors trying to get into college. “I wondered how he got the cell phone when he was not working,” Pender said. He grew concerned when the teen’s progress report in English “went from an A to a D or F.”

The student has accepted a full scholarship playing football at a North Carolina university. His excitement over graduation, however, is tempered with the buzz of students who giggle about the affair with Hall, his mother said.

“Everyone talking about it bothers him,” Pender said. “I’m ready for him to graduate, come back home and go to college so this can be behind him.”

How we got the story

Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter D. Aileen Dodd received a tip from a source about reports of a teacher-student relationship at Shiloh High. Dodd sent a letter to Gwinnett County Public Schools requesting a copy of the teacher’s personnel file, the incident investigation and referral letter to the Georgia Professional Standards Commission. She later interviewed the parents of the teacher under investigation, family members of the student, other students and the Gwinnett County District Attorney for the story.

LINK TO PHOTO OF TEACHER:

http://www.ajc.com/news/gwinnett-teacher-quits-after-536249.html

Tea party win embarrasses GOP establishment

PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer – Wed May 26, 6:53 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Chalk up another win for the tea party. And another embarrassment for the Republican establishment.

Tea party favorite and two-term state lawmaker Raul Labrador defeated Vaughn Ward, a Marine reservist heavily recruited by national Republicans, in Idaho's primary on Tuesday. Ward's loss comes on the heels of several other races in which GOP establishment candidates stumbled as the anti-Washington mood takes hold.

National Republicans had coached Ward and had made him one of their first named recruits, known as "Young Guns." He also had the backing of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

On Wednesday, the GOP wasn't talking about Ward.

"We look forward to continuing to work with Raul Labrador and are focused on the election in November," said Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Republicans who hope to win 40 or more House seats to seize back control of the House have set their sights on districts like Idaho's 1st, where Republican presidential candidate John McCain won 62 percent of the vote in 2008. The seat is held by a conservative first-term Democrat, Rep. Walt Minnick.

Ward, a decorated Iraq veteran, was an early front-runner and built a 6-to-1 fundraising edge, but Labrador entered the race and capitalized on Ward's mistakes.

Allegations of plagiarism surfaced as Ward was caught using issue papers from other campaigns and then, during the final days before the primary, it was discovered he used President Barack Obama's 2004 speech to the Democratic National Committee to launch his GOP campaign.

"He was the front-runner, here we are, his empire starts crumbling. It's kind of embarrassing," said state Sen. Monte Pearce, one of his chamber's most conservative members.

"I saw people at the store, people in the polls, everybody just shaking their heads," Pearce said.

In several House races, establishment-backed Republicans have faltered.

Last week, another recruit, Jeff Reetz, lost his Kentucky primary to a tea party favorite. Mary Beth Buchanan lost her primary challenge in Pennsylvania. In February, Ethan Hastert, the son of the former Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert, lost his GOP primary.

Both parties' have seen preferred candidates fail to reach a head-to-head matchup in November. Sen. Arlen Specter lost his Democratic primary to Rep. Joe Sestak last week despite help from Obama and his vaunted campaign machine.

That same night, tea party favorite Rand Paul won his Kentucky Republican primary and vanquished the hand-picked candidate recruited by the Senate's most powerful Republican, Mitch McConnell, in his home state. A week later, libertarians said they would mount a campaign against Paul — the son of libertarian darling, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas — because he had become too cozy with Washington.

"People are feeling the implications of the decisions being made in Washington and they're feeling it at home," said Pete Seat, a spokesman for former Republican Sen. Dan Coats, who is running against incumbent Rep. Brad Ellsworth for Indiana's open Senate seat.

That was clear in Virginia on Wednesday. The Hampton Roads Tea Party endorsed businessman Ben Loyala over auto dealer Scott Rigell, establishment Republicans' favored candidate. The activists said they rejected Rigell because his auto dealership participated in the taxpayer-funded Cash for Clunkers program that was part of Obama's economic stimulus plan.

___

Associated Press writers Jessie L. Bonner in Boise, Idaho, and Roger Alford in Frankfort, Ky., contributed to this report.

http://www.wreg.com/news/nationworld/sns-viral-ardi-rizal-story,0,474234.htmlstory

Ex-city bus driver Oneshia Shade (in an earlier photo above) says she needed psychiatric help after being spat upon two years ago.

Roca/NewsOneshia Shade

Spitting hurts!

An ex-city bus driver who took five months sick leave after a rider spat on her insisted Tuesday she needed the recovery time after the harrowing - and gross - attack.

"I needed the help of psychiatrists in order for me to regain some sort of composure to be able to deal with people," Oneshia Shade said. "I felt extremely vulnerable."

Shade defended the practice after the MTA revealed that dozens of bus drivers took an average 64 paid days off last year after getting hit with spit.

One even took 191 days, officials said. 

Stung by criticism from MTA board members, NYC Transit said yesterday it plans to give some cases extra scrutiny.

"The cases that seem to be extreme, we're going to go back and look at them and see if there are incidents of abuse," said Joe Smith, NYC Transit vice president of buses.

The drivers are paid through the state workers' compensation program, with NYC Transit picking up some of the tab, officials said.

"We realize not all of the [cases] are unwarranted, but some may be," an agency spokesman said.

Shade was spat on nearly two years ago in the Bronx by a rider angry about delays.

She said she was struck on the cheek and in the eye - and she immediately started worrying that she would catch a disease.

Shade said she still gets tested regularly.

Reports of spitting at bus drivers are on the rise. There were 88 incidents last year, up from 67 the prior year, according to revised numbers released by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority yesterday.

Last year, 49 victims took time off, while 25 took time off the prior year. The number of days off more than doubled to 3,024 from 1,443, according to officials.

It's unclear if more people are spitting or jumpier drivers are reporting more incidents after the December 2008 stabbing death of a driver, officials said.

Shade said the spitting attack was the second time she was assaulted on duty and it brought up memories of a bloodier attack. 

In 2001, two teenage girls stabbed Shade - then six months pregnant - in what cops suspected was part of a gang initiation, she said.

"The fact that I was assaulted a second time on a bus made me feel extremely vulnerable," she said. "I felt unsafe. It's nerve-racking. Just talking about it brings back that fear. You relive the event."

Shade's unborn daughter wasn't injured in the stabbing, but was born premature and required physical therapy, Shade said. The culprits were never captured, raising the possibility that Shade again could encounter them at a bus stop in the future, she said.

"Most victims don't return to the scene of the crime," she said. "But for bus operators, it's different."

Two years after the stabbing, Shade was fired in a dispute with the MTA over her leave. A legal battle dragged on until June 2007, when NYC Transit settled the case and allowed Shade to return to work, she said. In December, she moved to a union position on the West Side of Manhattan.

A NYC Transit spokesman declined to comment.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/05/26/2010-05-26_feeling_extremely_vulnerable_she_took_five_months_to_recover_i_needed_my_sick_le.html#ixzz0p46MpBBD

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wedding-dress-revenge-divorced-man-wifes-gown-101/story?id=10678044

AP: Obama to Skip Wreath Laying Ceremony at Arlington on Monday

Doug Powers 

May 25, 2010 11:20 AM

President Obama went to Arlington Cemetery to lay the wreath last year, but this year Obama’s handing the wreath to Plugs and heading off to the more welcoming political climes of Chicago:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama plans to spend a long holiday weekend in Chicago.

The White House says Obama and his family will travel to their hometown on Thursday and stay through the weekend. It will be their first trip back home since a visit for Valentine’s Day weekend in February 2009.

On Monday, Obama is scheduled to participate in a Memorial Day ceremony at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Ill.

In Obama’s absence, Vice President Joe Biden will participate in the customary wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington.

Obama will however make it back to Washington in time next week to honor Paul McCartney, who has sacrificed so much for the freedoms we enjoy.

Update: Obama will alter vacation plans slightly and travel to the Gulf on Friday.