MUST HAVE TOYS THROUGH THE YEARS

http://www.boston.com/business/specials/holiday/2009/must_have_toys/

Mae Anderson

Associated Press

Friday, November 27, 2009

LINK TO PHOTO OF ZHU ZHU: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/27/BU6O1AR2UT.DTL#ixzz0Y5lSIoIE

Seeing a fully stocked shelf, she decided to hold off until Christmas.

That was "before I knew that the hamsters would soon be off the shelves and more scarce than an H1N1 vaccine," said Fowlkes, 32.

Now she can't find them anywhere.

Zhu Zhu Pets - which retail for about $10 and are aimed at 3- to 10-year-olds - are this year's bona fide must-have toy, following in the footsteps of past crazes for Tickle Me Elmo and Cabbage Patch Kids. On resale Web sites like eBay and Craigslist, they fetch $40 or more. Vital accessories such as the hamster car and funhouse are sold separately.

By many counts, the toy is an unlikely hit. They're in a field crowded with toy pets. The hamsters, which scurry around, make noises and drive cars, don't always work the way you expect and have a limited range of action.

"Honestly, I don't really get it," said BMO Capital Markets analyst Gerrick Johnson. "But I don't need to get it for a toy to be hot."

The toys do have several factors that make them compelling, Johnson said: fun accessories and scarcity - sometimes when something is hard to obtain it makes people want it more. One big thing going for them in tough economic times: They're cheap.

Unlike past hot toys made by large manufacturers like Mattel's Tickle Me Elmo and Tiger Electronics' Furby, Zhu Zhu Pets are made by tiny Cepia Inc. of St. Louis, with just 16 employees in the United States and 30 in China, making their success even more unlikely.

Just 6 years old, Cepia worked on an electronic dispensing device for consumer products before turning to toys.

The company was started by toy industry vet Russ Hornsby, 56.

The success of Zhu Zhu Pets wasn't entirely accidental. After being inspired by classic robotic toys, like the barking puppy dog who flips, Hornsby created a prototype. The craze sets Cepia up for a strong 2010. Hornsby estimates the company will sell $100 million in Zhu Zhu Pets by the end of the year. It's always hard to tell how long a toy will stay hot, but based on bookings, he says that will grow to $350 million to $400 million by the end of next year as production ramps up.

BMO analyst Johnson agreed 2010 will be big for Zhu Zhu Pets.

"I don't know what Chinese New Year is coming up, but as far as toys are concerned, next year will be the year of the hamster."

Brockton fire caused by children jumping on mattress

November 26, 2009 09:30 PM

Globe photo by George Rizer

Megan Lopes (center) and other burned-out residents talk with a Brockton fire official last night.

Jack Nicas

Globe Correspondent

A fire that tore through two Brockton triple-deckers Thursday night, driving 33 residents out of their homes, was started by children jumping on a bed, fire officials said today.

“They were bouncing up and down on two mattresses and a box spring that were up against a wall where a plug was,” said Brockton Fire Lieutenant Edward Williams.

The back-and-forth motion of the mattresses abraded a transformer for a cell phone charger, Williams said. “I believe they broke the plastic apart, and that caused a short circuit that either heated up enough, or caused sparks, to catch the mattress on fire.”

After the children were shooed out of the second-floor room for making too much noise, the fire flared up just after 8 p.m. at 609 Warren Ave. As the three-story apartment building ignited, its windows blew out, spreading flames to another triple-decker six feet away, Williams said.

Six Brockton engines and three ladder companies responded to the fire, knocking it down by 11:15 p.m. Two firefighters suffered puncture wounds and cuts, but neither was hospitalized, Williams said.

Fire officials estimate $150,000 in damages to the initial building, and $50,000 to the second.

The American Red Cross housed 21 of the residents last night, including eight children, Winnie Dimock, an official with the Red Cross Massachusetts Bay chapter, said today.

Two families, from the first and third floor of 609 Warren Ave., found their own housing, Williams said. They were not at the scene when Red Cross officials responded just before 10 p.m., Dimock said.

The Red Cross took in the three families from 613 Warren Ave. and the family of eight from the unit where the fire started. That family, which includes three children and three young adults just over 18, was the only family to lose all of their belongings, Dimock said.

“We have them in a hotel for the rest of the weekend,” Dimock said. “Then we refer them to other agencies for further assistance.”

Williams, from the fire department, said there is fire damage on several floors of the buildings and heat, water, and smoke damage throughout both. The buildings will be livable again, but it could be nearly a year until then, he said.

“Both of the buildings can be salvaged,” he said, “no doubt about it.”

Below is the Globe's account of the fire originally posted Thursday night.

Michael Corcoran, Globe Correspondent

A fast-moving fire jumped from one Brockton triple decker to a second one tonight, causing extensive damage to both buildings and leaving 18 residents, including five children, temporarily without homes on Thanksgiving.

The fire broke out just after 8 p.m., in the second floor of a three-story apartment building at 609 Warren Ave.,according to Brockton fire officials. The fire soon spread to a neighboring building at 613 Warren and continued to burn until 8:43 p.m., when firefighters extinguished the blaze.

Fire officials were not sure of the total damage late tonight but said it was “extensive.” The cause of the fire is under investigation. No initial injuries were reported.

Neighbors crowded the surrounding streets to watch as flames shot out of the top of one building.

The Red Cross was contacted to assist the 18 people who were knocked out of their homes. A Red Cross spokeswoman said the organization provides temporary housing to people who are displaced in a disaster.

Earlier in the day, a fire in North Reading also disrupted the holiday.

The blaze, caused by an electrical problem, destroyed two unoccupied homes on Swan Pond Road, North Reading fire officials said. Fire Captain Barry Galvin said that when they reached the homes on Swan Pond Road shortly after 6:30 a.m., the buildings were already engulfed.

The fire originated in a small "camp-style" house and spread to a larger house that was under construction. "Both structures were a total loss," Galvin said. The cause was an "electrical accident" in the smaller home, State Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan said. 

There were no injuries, officials said.

The positive side of the recession

The recession has not been bad news for everyone. Jessica Salter finds three businesses that are flourishing amid the gloom.

Jessica Salter

Telegraph UK
7:00AM GMT 26 Nov 2009

Prev Cindy and Robert Pellet, owners of Forsham Cottage Arks Photo: Tara Darby Jennifer Pirtle with a class at The Make Lounge. Photo: Tara Darby

When economists first warned us that Britain’s financial collapse might be as bad as the Great Depression, a national belt-tightening ensued. But while other G7 countries have managed to bounce back, Britain is still lagging behind, and the Bank of England says the country will take two years to regain its pre-crisis level of economic output.

Sales on the high street have struggled as the recession has thrown up a new set of values to live and enjoy life by. The businesses that are booming are the ones that reflect the shift from rampant consumerism to a more austere but creative way of living. While a girls’ night out may once have involved a new dress, <snip>tails and a taxi home, now you could be customising knickers over a glass of wine at an evening sewing class. And instead of buying organic fruit and vegetable boxes and free-range eggs, parents who are worried about what their children eat are embracing the Good Life by growing their own greens and keeping chickens.

Keeping chickens

Cindy Pellet looks fondly over her black-and-white speckledies as they clean each other’s beaks. 'They’re just like two little old ladies,’ she says. 'They no longer lay, but they have given us such good service I have to keep them.’

The retired hens spend their days modelling chicken houses, or 'arks’, to an increasing number of customers. Based near Ashford in Kent, Forsham Cottage Arks, the company Cindy, 52, founded 30 years ago with her husband, Robert, 57, now sells about 14 chicken arks a day, compared with three or four a week in 1979.

'People are buying chickens not only to save money on eggs. Keeping hens is also a step towards being a bit more self-sufficient and going back to traditional values, and I think that’s what people look to when the economy turns bad.’

According to a nationwide survey, an estimated 1,000 chicken sheds are being sold in Britain every week to people who want to keep chickens in their back gardens. B&Q, the garden equipment and DIY retailer, reported a threefold rise in sales of chicken coops last year, and riding on that success it is now planning to stock pigsties. Sales of vegetable seeds have massively increased, according to the seed company Suttons, which says that 70 per cent of seed sales are now vegetables, and 30 per cent flowers, reversing the trend of five years ago when 30 per cent of sales were vegetable seeds.

The Pellets decided to set up the business when Robert was made redundant from his job as a printer at the Kent Messenger, the weekly news­paper where he had worked for 17 years. Faced with two mortgages, one for the house and another for his 'horse-mad’ wife’s paddock, Robert started developing the chicken houses he used for their own hens into arks which they could sell commercially. Now the couple employ 23 staff, including their daughter, Tracey, 31. Their office is across the garden from their house and on its wall is a framed picture of Robert proudly holding up the first egg his chickens laid.

'We’re the original Good Lifers, we have had chickens, pigs, goats, dogs, horses and grow all our own vegetables,’ Cindy laughs. 'It’s important to be aware of the food chain, and if you feed your own chickens there is no better way of controlling the quality of what you eat.’

In addition to the chicken arks (the bestselling Boughton starter kit, including ark, floor liner, feed holder, water fountain and nest sawdust shavings, costs £395), the Pellets sell accessories ranging from electric fencing to automatic door openers. Three times a year, the couple also run a one-day £85 poultry course from a rented room at a nearby golf club. Today, two middle-aged couples, a man in his thirties with a ponytail and a woman in her forties, none of whom have owned chickens before, are on the course. Pellet is busy doling out cups of tea and biscuits while Fred Ham, an international chicken show judge, is turning a brown hen over to demonstrate a healthy chicken. 'You want a nice big eye at this end, which shows that there are no respiratory problems, and a clean white bum at the other end, which shows there are no digestive problems,’ he says. 'If you have got both of those, whatever happens in between will be fine.’

Sewing lessons

Dressed in tight jeans and Converse trainers, Jennifer Pirtle does not look like the type of woman who runs a craft workshop. But then her workshop, based in a converted Georgian house, with light streaming in through floor-to-ceiling windows, is a world away from a sewing class in a chilly church hall.

Pirtle, 41, who was born in California, founded the Make Lounge, where participants learn skills from sewing to cake decoration and jewellery making, three years ago after struggling to find an evening class that fitted in both with her job as a magazine writer and her life as a mother.

'I checked with some girlfriends and found that there was a real market for this kind of class,’ she says. 'My classes are full of women mainly aged between 25 and 40, either with jobs that do not allow them to be creative or busy mums who need a bit of time to carve out for themselves.’

To test her idea, in April 2007 Pirtle began running a few classes in a shared studio near Angel in north London. A year later, with the help of a private investor, she moved around the corner to her current location in Barnsbury Street – after eight months she had broken even. Now, with a team of 30 freelance coaches, she runs about 25 classes a week. 'Part of the Make Lounge’s success is down to the recession,’ she says. 'There is this make-do-and-mend mentality, but mainly people don’t just want to charge meaningless items to their credit card, they want to put a bit more thought into it.’

The courses, described as 'the price of an evening out or less’, range from basic sewing lessons (£34 for two hours), to Italian leather belt making classes (£45 for three hours). All include materials, wine and nibbles. 'The women who come to my classes want their clothes to be personal,’ Pirtle says. 'So instead of the same fast, throw-away fashion everyone else is buying, they come away with a stylish item and a skill.’

According to a recent survey by the climate change charity Global Cool, the average woman in Britain spends £470 a year on clothes she never wears, wasting £11.1 billion in the process. With this in mind, Pirtle designed her creative alterations course. 'Most women have items at the back of the closet, probably with their tags still on, that they can then redesign rather than spend money on new clothes,’ she says.

The Make Lounge is tapping into a national trend: according to hotcourses.com, Britain’s largest course-finding website, there has been an 84 per cent increase in the number of internet searches for dressmaking tuition. John Lewis, the department store chain, reports similar findings: sales of buttons are up nearly 50 per cent on last year, zips are up 20 per cent, and the chain’s own-brand sewing machines have sold over 200 per cent more than this time last year in its Oxford Street store.

With 5,000 subscribers to her weekly newsletter, and at least 10 women a day signing up, in September Pirtle opened a retail shop (which, if it is successful, she will take online) and she is looking into renting more workshop space. Her biggest challenge is not getting women through her doors but making crafting appeal to men too. 'When the rare men do come to our workshops, they really enjoy it.’

Mental workouts

Octavius Black bounces in his chair excitedly and, struggling to keep his voice down, leans across the table. 'The secret for organisations to escape a recession is different each time,’ he says. 'In 1980 it was strategy. In 1991 it was technology. This time it is people. Those organisations who engage their employees, rather than dismissing them as “lucky to have a job”, will be the ones that emerge fastest and strongest.’

Then he laughs loudly, because it is not much of a secret. Since the recession there has been a 50 per cent increase in uptake of courses run by the Mind Gym, the company Black co-founded 10 years ago with his business partner, Sebastian Bailey. Courses cost £75 each per employee and range from 90-minute mental workouts with titles such as 'Wood for the Trees’ and 'Me, Me, Me’, to board games and paired interviews, rather than presentations.

The Mind Gym now boasts a client list comprising 40 per cent of companies from the FTSE 100. 'We worked with a retailer who was cutting 40 per cent of roles,’ Black, 41, says. 'As a result of applying the Mind Gym techniques to the remaining employees they remained sufficiently motivated to work split shifts through the night and delivered the best customer service in 21 years.’

After graduating from Oxford in 1989, Black began working as a management consultant. He cites an early career blip as 'working for the tycoon Robert Maxwell at the time Mr Maxwell jumped ship’. In 1991 Black led the sales and marketing side of a fledgling communication consultancy as it grew from nine to 100 people before being snapped up by the American advertising giant Omnicom. He continued working there until he founded the Mind Gym in 2000.

The original idea came from a discussion over dinner. 'We were sitting at the table pondering trends,’ he explains. 'We started thinking that if the 1980s was the decade of the body and the 1990s was the decade when people started taking care of their soul with feng shui and yoga, then the decade of the mind had to be coming.’

Now the Mind Gym, whose head office is in Kensington, London, has more than 100 freelance coaches who have worked with more than half a million people, and in 2006 they opened an office in New York.

'Brain training is a bit like medicine at the turn of the 20th century,’ Black says. 'Much of it is like the old apothecaries – the personal view of the person who is proposing them. We’re like the first doctors with the science to back it up.’

He points out a study recently commissioned by the Mind Gym which uses psychology and neuroscience to illustrate that people who have the best work-life balance are those who work the longest hours and are self-employed. 'That is just the opposite of what you would imagine. But things are not as they are; they are as we see them. If we can train people to look at the world in a certain way they will have more energy, achieve more and be far happier.’ Black, who has already had one breakfast meeting before 9am and is itching to bound away to another, is testament to the science. 'I just love my job, so it doesn’t feel like working,’ he beams.

Shaq Pays For Slain N.C. Girl's Funeral

Moved By Shaniya Davis' Story, Basketball Star Shaquille O'Neal Covers Burial Costs

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP)

 

Shaniya Davis, of Fayetteville, N.C., was reported missing was found dead Nov. 16. (File)

WRAL

 

WRAL

Basketball star Shaquille O'Neal paid for the funeral of a 5-year-old North Carolina girl after being moved by national news coverage of the case of Shaniya Davis, who police say was kidnapped and killed.

The Cleveland Cavaliers player was touched by the stories he saw and got in touch with the family to see what he could do to help, a spokeswoman for O'Neal said Thursday.

More than 2,000 people attended the girl's funeral Sunday. Her body was found Nov. 16 beside a rural road.

Her mother, Antionette Davis, who had reported the child missing six days earlier, is charged with human trafficking and child abuse involving prostitution. Mario McNeill is charged with murder, rape and kidnapping in the case.

"I was sitting at home watching it on the news and the story brought a tear to my eye," O'Neal told The Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper.

Corey Breece, of Rogers and Breece Funeral Home, which handled the service, declined to tell the Fayetteville Observer newspaper how much it cost but added that a child's funeral "averages around $4,500."

A man who answered the phone at the funeral home Thursday told the AP that only the owner could comment and that he was away.

Shaniya Davis' father, Bradley Lockhart, and his family had set up a trust fund in memory of Shaniya to help raise money to pay for the funeral. Lockhart was not available to talk Thursday, said a man who answered the phone at his home.

O'Neal is recovering from a shoulder injury that has sidelined him for six straight games since getting hurt Nov. 12 against Miami.

Vietnamese man dug up wife's corpse 'so he could hug her'

A Vietnamese man dug up his wife's corpse and slept beside it for five years because he wanted to hug her in bed, it has been reported.

11:30PM GMT 26 Nov 2009

Telegraph Uk

The 55-year-old man from a small town in the central province of Quang Nam opened up his wife's grave in 2004, moulded clay around the remains to give the figure of a woman, put clothes on her and then placed her in his bed, Vietnamnet.vn said.

The man, Le Van, told the website that after his wife died in 2003 he slept on top of her grave, but about 20 months later he worried about rain, wind and cold, so he decided to dig a tunnel into the grave "to sleep with her".

His children found out, though, and prevented him from going to the grave. So one night in November 2004 he dug up his wife's remains and took them home, Vietnamnet reported.

The father of seven said neighbours did not dare visit the house for several years.

"I'm a person that does things differently. I'm not like normal people," he was quoted as saying.

Prison raffle offers inmates chance of a 'day out'

Prisoners have been offered the chance of winning a day out of jail as top prize in their Christmas raffle in a move which has angered victim support groups.

Lucy Croft

Telegraph UK
1:43PM GMT 26 Nov 2009

Inmates at HMP Kirkham, near Blackpool, Lancashire, have been told they could enjoy a whole day of freedom if they enter the $1 draw.

The raffle is open to the 590 prisoners held at the category D jail, some of whom will include rapists, murderers and other violent offenders coming to the end of their sentences

However, to be eligible for entry in the draw, they must first volunteer to cook Christmas dinner for the elderly at the nearby Milbanke Day Centre.

The reward, which has been condoned by Justice Secretary Jack Straw, has angered the families of violent crime victims.

Patsy McKie, 62, who set up Mothers Against Violence after her son Dory was shot dead, said: "They should not be releasing people on this basis. Prisoners shouldn't be rewarded for whatever they have done.

"Anyone could win that prize – even the most dangerous man who is coming to the end of his sentence. They should be looking at the individuals and whether they have been rehabilitated enough to be in the community and society."

HMP Kirkham, a former RAF training base, is an open prison for offenders considered to be low-risk, yet it has a serious problem with drug abuse and holds the dubious record of having more prisoners abscond than any other jail in the UK.

Almost 1,000 inmates absconded in the space of five years, between 1998 to 2003.

Prisoners are released on license from the open prison as part of their rehabilitation, but this is the first time the prison has offered freedom as a raffle prize.

The concept is allowed under the Incentives and Earned Privilege Scheme, introduced in 1995, which aims to encourage good behaviour by allowing inmates certain privileges such as wearing their own clothes or watching TV in their cells.

However, the draw has even been condemned by the Prison Officers Association.

A spokesman said: "I think, as a prison officer, prisoners buying raffle tickets with public money to win a day out where they can go out and enjoy themselves is fundamentally wrong. I'm very disappointed if that's what is happening at Kirkham."

Michael Jack, Conservative MP for Fylde, Lancashire, said: "I think the scheme to encourage prisoners to contribute to wider society through cooking a Christmas meal for elderly people who are considerably less well off than they are is a good idea.

"But to then link it to time out of prison, I think is incorrect."

A spokesman for the Prison Service admitted that the raffle has been planned, but denied there would be any risk to public safety.

"Public protection is our top priority and the rehabilitation of offenders is a vital part of this process," he said.

"HMP Kirkham holds low-risk prisoners in open conditions. All prisoners are rigorously risk-assessed before release on temporary licence and no prisoners are released if there are concerns for public safety.

"Only prisoners who meet the eligibility criteria are granted temporary release."

In January 2004 Kirkham became the first prison in England, along with HMP Morton Hall, to trial the Intermittent Custody Scheme, dubbed "weekend prison", which was later abandoned in November 2006.

The scheme had allowed some inmates to be released at weekends while others took their place with the aim of enabling prisoners on short sentences to remain in employment, housing and spend time with family.

Russian bride's revealing wedding dress is web sensation

A bride’s startlingly revealing wedding dress has become an internet sensation.

Tom Chivers
Published: 6:12PM GMT 25 Nov 2009

The bride wore...not a lot Photo: Wedinator

Originally posted on Wedinator a site dedicated to showcasing wedding photo disasters from around the world, the image has now been reposted on hundreds of blogs across the web.

The unnamed woman, believed to be Russian, is shown getting out of a limousine wearing a white dress, the top half of which consists of two small, strategically positioned semicircles over a dramatic embonpoint.

Predictably the internet’s fashion commentators have not been uniformly complimentary. One, the author of a blog post called “The Five Sluttiest Wedding Dresses”, describes it as “the equivalent of the groom wearing a codpiece”.

Others have wondered whether the choice of a white dress is perhaps misleading, while others make the inevitable puns: “They make a lovely pair” seems to be the most common.

Wedinator, which has been running since February, includes among its other catastrophic nuptials a video of a public proposal gone hideously wrong , and CCTV footage apparently showing a bride cheating with the groom’s best man during the reception.

$50K Tentatively Approved In Middle-Finger Case

Butler Man Flipped Bird At Pittsburgh Police Officer

POSTED: 10:08 pm EST November 24, 2009
UPDATED: 12:56 am EST November 25, 2009

Hackbart, 35, of Butler, wasn't done using his middle finger.

"I heard a voice outside the car telling me not to do that and that frustrated me too. So, I flipped that person off and that turned out to be a police officer," Hackbart said. "I tried to explain to him it was constitutionally protected, what I did. He did not want to hear it and gave me a citation."

The incident launched a federal civil rights case, which was postponed indefinitely at the request of lawyers on both sides. The case has tentatively ended with the City Council's approval Tuesday of a proposed $50,000 settlement. Another vote is scheduled next week for final approval.

Hackbart said his lawsuit was about change -- not money.

"Put some sort of policy in place that the officers are trained better and there is some sort of supervision in officers writing tickets so people don't have to go through what I went through," Hackbart said.

Hackbart said there's lesson for all to learn from his obscene gesture.

"I don't advocate people using the middle finger for (any) reason, any situation, 24 hours a day, but if someone ran across a certain situation in mind, at least he knows his rights," Hackbart said.

Of the proposed $50,000 settlement, Hackbart said he would receive only $10,000. His lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union would split the remaining $40,000.

LINK TO VIDEOS

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/21717388/detail.html

Police: Paralyzed man watched robbers break in

Man lay defenseless as robbers searched home

DAVE STEPHENS
Tribune Staff Writer
November 24. 2009 6:11PM

A paralyzed man, unable to get out of his bed, was forced to watch two men rob his home Sunday and could only call for help after a friend arrived, police said.

St. Joseph County police say the robbery occurred at a home on Grove Street, west of the South Bend city limits, sometime in the early evening.

Sgt. Bill Redman, St. Joseph County police spokesman, said police were called to the home about 8:50 p.m. on the report that a robbery had taken place.

Police arrived to find the homeowner, who said his home had been broken into by two men, one who placed a T-shirt over the paralyzed man's face as the robbers searched the home.

The homeowner told police said he thought the two men had been slowly driving by his home and through the neighborhood all day in an older model blue pickup truck, as if checking to see whether anyone was home.

Police said the two men broke into the home by breaking a rear window. After placing the shirt over the homeowner's face, they then stole his laptop computer and a $100 bill that the man had on a dresser.

The man told police that the two men then left, leaving him unable to call police or close the window that had been broken.

A friend stopping by the home was able to call police, but officers were unable to find the blue truck or any suspects.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/zap-classic-thanksgiving-tv-episodes,0,7982201.photogallery

Update: Holiday turkey stolen from freezer of Jackson woman with two kids; suspect described as 300-pound man

By Fredricka Paul | Jackson Citizen Patriot

November 25, 2009, 12:10PM

Susan Sobiegray's attempts to help a homeless man backfired this week when he kicked in her front door and stole her Thanksgiving turkey.

Sobiegray and other neighbors had been helping the man with food and a place to stay in recent weeks. But Jackson police say he broke into Sobiegray's apartment about 11 p.m. Tuesday in the 400 block of W. Michigan Avenue.

"He raided the fridge like it was gold in it," Sobiegray said. "It was ridiculous. He threw all the food all over the kitchen floor, which wasn't much."

The suspect, described as a 300-pound, 6-foot man who is bald with blue eyes, fled with Sobiegray's 13-pound bird, said Jackson police Lt. Chris Simpson.

"My kids and I are by ourselves, and there is no one to help us," Sobiegray said. "I feel really bad that I helped him to have him turn around and do this."

After seeing the story Wednesday on mlive.com/jackson, Brian Giroux, owner of Engineered Building Systems, volunteered to help.

"Any type of situation like this at this time of year is unacceptable," Giroux said.

Giroux provided the family with a turkey, stuffing, vegetables and a small ham. She was also given groceries such as juice and milk. The incident remains under investigation. 

Update: Holiday turkey stolen from freezer of Jackson woman with two kids; suspect described as 300-pound man

 Fredricka Paul | Jackson Citizen Patriot

November 25, 2009, 12:10PM

Susan Sobiegray's attempts to help a homeless man backfired this week when he kicked in her front door and stole her Thanksgiving turkey.

Sobiegray and other neighbors had been helping the man with food and a place to stay in recent weeks. But Jackson police say he broke into Sobiegray's apartment about 11 p.m. Tuesday in the 400 block of W. Michigan Avenue.

"He raided the fridge like it was gold in it," Sobiegray said. "It was ridiculous. He threw all the food all over the kitchen floor, which wasn't much."

The suspect, described as a 300-pound, 6-foot man who is bald with blue eyes, fled with Sobiegray's 13-pound bird, said Jackson police Lt. Chris Simpson.

"My kids and I are by ourselves, and there is no one to help us," Sobiegray said. "I feel really bad that I helped him to have him turn around and do this."

After seeing the story Wednesday on mlive.com/jackson, Brian Giroux, owner of Engineered Building Systems, volunteered to help.

"Any type of situation like this at this time of year is unacceptable," Giroux said.

Giroux provided the family with a turkey, stuffing, vegetables and a small ham. She was also given groceries such as juice and milk. The incident remains under investigation.

Teacher Toe-Licking Video Sparks School Controversy

Parents Say Teacher Engaged In Inappropriate Conduct

MOORESVILLE, Ind. -- A battle is brewing between some parents and the Mooresville Consolidated School Corp. over a teacher some feel is involved too intimately with children.

Superintendent Curt Freeman was aware of another incident in which Monaghan sent inappropriate text messages to some students.

In both cases, Freeman said Monaghan used poor judgment, but Monaghan now coaches the girl's swim team.

Parents said Monaghan has been engaging in inappropriate contact with children for years.

Sheila Reecer's daughter said some of the behavior she had witnessed between Monaghan and her teammates happened to her, too.

"She came home and she was real upset and she goes, 'Mom, I need to talk to you about something that happened during softball,'" Reecer said. "She said she had walked past him in the dugout a couple of times, he would just rub his hand across her stomach."

Rob Allen said incidents reached beyond the softball field and that Monaghan disciplined his daughter in a classroom in front of her classmates.

"He bent her over his lap and spanked her, and I didn't find this out until later on down the road," Allen said.

Sheila Helton said she pulled her 15-year-old daughter off the softball team after Monaghan began sending her text messages she felt were inappropriate.

"She came to me one day and said, 'Mom, I think my coach is weird,'" Helton said. "11:30, 12 o'clock at night, some of the messages were, 'What are you doing? I'm bored.'"

Adair said that Monaghan began texting his daughter before he put a stop to it.

"I don't allow no man … I'm a grown man. I don't text kids," he said. "What do you text a kid for when you're a grown man?"

Helton said contact with her daughter went beyond texting and got uncomfortably physical after Monaghan allegedly told her daughter that she didn't need her knee wrapped, but rubbed.

"She said he looked at her and said, 'How does it make you feel when I rub your leg?'" Helton said. "She said, 'That freaked me out, mom.'"

The school corporation refused to respond to 6News' inquiries about Monaghan.

"Please tell me you're not recording me right now," said Susan Haynes, the school's community relations coordinator, when asked if Freeman would comment.

Freeman backed out of a scheduled interview and issued a statement that said, in part, that students were interviewed and didn't feel threatened and that no laws were broken.

"If they're not going to do anything about this, I'm not going to have my daughter trapped in a dugout somewhere with this man," Reecer said.

"You're messing with my baby … but me getting in trouble wasn't going to do her any good," Allen said.

While Monaghan no longer coaches softball, his new position as swim coach gives some parents pause.

"So they go from softball uniforms to girls in bathing suits. Go figure that, and I don't like it," Adair said.

Freeman and Monaghan refused repeated requests to be interviewed for this story.

LINK TO VIDEO

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/21717422/detail.html

WSB-TV

Posted: 5:13 pm EST November 24, 2009Updated: 5:57 pm EST November 24, 2009

Kim Jong-il bans World Cup coverage - unless North Korea win

Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, has banned the World Cup from being shown in his country – unless they win.

Ben Leach
6:40AM GMT 25 Nov 2009

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il Photo: EPA

The Supreme Leader has ordered state-run television not to broadcast live games, and to only screen highlights of North Korea's victories.

The ruling means that 99 per cent of the country's 29 million population will not be able to find out who wins the competition unless the 350-1, outsiders win it.

 Games between other nations will be banned from the airwaves, while any highlights of North Korea's matches will be heavily edited to ensure that they look like the better team.

All advertising in the stadiums will also be blurred out – along with opposition fans, The Sun newspaper reported.

Mike Breen, author of highly-respected book Kim Jong-il: North Korea's Dear Leader, said: "Like everything else there, the regime will have complete control over the World Cup.

"North Korea will not pay for the TV rights, which means they will not be able to screen live games on state television. They are more likely to get footage from South Korea and then it will be heavily edited to suit the regime.

"Only the ruling elite with access to other satellite channels will be able to watch games involving other countries.

"The majority of the population will have to make do with very one-sided highlights packages hours, and possibly even days, after the game. Any loss will either be ignored or given the smallest of mentions.

"Once North Korea are knocked out, I would be amazed if there were any mention of the World Cup at all."

It is the first time that North Korea has qualified for the World Cup in 44 years.

The last time they qualified was in England in 1966 when they pulled off one of the biggest shocks by beating Italy 1-0 to reach the quarter finals.

41-year-old pacifist DJ discovers his real father is legendary serial killer Charles Manson: report

Brian Kates
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

 

Tuesday, November 24th 2009, 9:44 AM

 

AP

'I'm a peaceful person - trapped in the face of a monster,' DJ Matthew Roberts told London's The Sun newspaper about the discovery that his biological father is Charles Manson (pictured).

Who's your daddy?

Oh,  It's Charles Manson.

A 41-year-old man, who was adopted as a 10-year-old and raised in Illinois, spoke out recently about the harrowing discovery.

"It was like finding out your father is Hitler," Matthew Roberts told The Sun newspaper.

Roberts found out about his long-lost daddy about a dozen years ago after using a search agency to find his birth mother. The birth mother told him that she had been raped and that the 1960s Helter Skelter killer was his father.

A year after Roberts' birth in 1968, Manson and his 'Family' of followers committed nine murders in Los Angeles over five weeks, including the stabbing of pregnant actress Sharon Tate. She was the wife of film director Roman Polanski.

"I'm a peaceful person - trapped in the face of a monster," Roberts said. "My hero is Gandhi. I'm an extremely non-violent, peaceful person and a vegetarian. I don't even kill bugs."

The truth of Roberts' birth unfolded gradually as he and his mother began to write each other.

At first she refused to pass on details, but ultimately she revealed that she had been captivated by Manson and joined his cult in San Francisco.

When his mother saw Roberts' photograph she said her suspicions were confirmed. The killer and his son share nearly identical facial features and they have the same thick, dark hair.

Roberts has corresponded with his unrepentant father, now 75 and confined for life in California's Corcoran State Prison.

The mass killer confirmed he is Roberts' father, and recalled the times he spent with Matthew's mother in a string of ten rambling handwritten notes and postcards signed with a swastika - the same symbol he has tattooed on his forehead.

"He sends me weird stuff and always signs it with his swastika," Roberts said. "At first I was stunned and depressed. I wasn't able to speak for a day. I remember not being able to eat."

But, he added: "He's my biological father - I can't help but have some kind of emotional connection. That's the hardest thing of all - feeling love for a monster who raped my mother. I don't want to love him, but I don't want to hate him either."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/11/24/2009-11-24__report.html#ixzz0XpibqpQt