National News

The Chicago Tribune | Chicago police arrested about 175 Occupy Chicago protestors in Congress Plaza just after 1 a.m. Sunday, about 90 minutes after police issued their first warning that the group was violating municipal code.  Police completed the last arrests and cleared the plaza of protesters at 3:30 am, more than two hours after arrests began.  The protesters will likely be cited with municipal violations and face fines, police said.

Video | Group of Citi Bank customers attempt to close accounts as a form of protest - 2 dozen are locked inside bank until police arrive, 5 cops take down woman

Telegraph | Bonny Reservoir, a much-loved tourist spot in eastern Colorado, is being drained after the state exceeded its allowance under a 1942 agreement with its neighbours on sharing the Republican River.  The case has highlighted growing tensions over the security of the water supply to the west of the US, which in recent years has suffered repeated droughts, prompting warnings of disaster.

Occupy Dallas | Reports are coming in from the OccupyDallas security team that law enforcement is now stationed on three sides of the park, including a mixture of US Marshalls, Dallas Police and County Sherrifs. As a precaution, the members of OccupyDallas are gathering together on the front lawn of Pioneer Plaza to keep safe.

Tech Dirt | We've been covering for a while now how Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have been very concerned over the secret interpretation the feds have of one piece of the PATRIOT Act. They've been trying to pressure the government into publicly explaining how they interpret the law, because they believe that it directly contrasts how most of the public (and many elected officials) believe the feds are interpreting the law.

Courthouse News Service | The girl, who was 14 when she says she was raped, says MySpace and News Corp. "had actual knowledge that users of the MySpace website were capable of posting nude and/or pornographic images of minors without restrictions or oversight in place, and had actual knowledge of users posting such images."

KRQE | Santa Fe Police said a man, who accidentally struck a little girl in a grocery store parking lot, was beaten by her family members.  Derrick Manuel, 49, said he didn't see the girl run in front of his truck in the parking lot of Smith's on Cerrillos Road. When he got out of his pickup to check if she was okay, Manuel said three men jumped him.

Guardian | It began as the brainchild of activists across the border in Canada when an anti-consumerism magazine put out a call in July for supporters to occupy Wall Street.  Now, three weeks after a few hundred people heeded that initial call and rolled out their sleeping bags in a park in New York's financial district, they are being joined by supporters in cities across the US and beyond.

Media Matters | Fox News has begun attacking participants of the "Occupy Wall Street" protests across the country, claiming they are "deluded" and have "absolutely no purpose or focus in life." Fox's attacks stand in stark contrast with its relentless promotion and support of the tea party protests of 2009 and 2010.

Business Week | Police should be barred from forcing New York transit workers to abandon their routes and transport anti-Wall Street demonstrators arrested for disorderly conduct, an employees’ union told a federal judge.

Alternet | It's raining in Liberty Plaza Saturday afternoon as the shrunken crowds fall in around the Occupy Wall Street media center, which still isn't allowed a tent. They're keeping the laptops and livestream (which reports 13,000 viewers at one point, from around the world) under a large picnic umbrella and some tarps, and every now and then the call "mic check!" rings out and someone jumps atop a table to relay the latest from the protesters kettled on the Brooklyn Bridge, cuffed, and being loaded onto giant NYPD buses for dispersal to various locations.

San Francisco Chronicle | Oakland police officials will not say what the footage from Sept. 25 depicts, citing an ongoing investigation. But the fact that the shooting was captured at all illustrates a profound change in law enforcement, with officers increasingly strapping on cameras along with their guns, radios and handcuffs.

CBS | Cameron Todd Willingham's convictions were upheld several times before he was put to death, and recent media reports looking into whether Willingham may have been innocent glossed over evidence that showed he murdered his children, Perry told reporters after addressing the Texas Association of Realtors members at a luncheon.

Democratic Underground | Demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street campaign march into the courtyard of New York Police Department headquarters in New York September 30, 2011. Protesters who have camped out near Wall Street for two weeks gathered on Friday to march to police headquarters over what they viewed as excessive force and unfair treatment of minorities and Muslims.

New York Post | This just might be the smoking gun we’ve been waiting for to break the festering “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal wide open: the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives apparently ordered one of its own agents to purchase firearms with taxpayer money, and sell them directly to a Mexican drug cartel.

New York Daily News | The father-in-law of a missing Utah woman was busted Thursday after cops investigating the disappearance uncovered a trove of X-rated, secretly recorded videos of women and girls, including some of his daughter-in-law.

The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimony which contained inconsistencies even at the time of the trial. Since then, all but two of the state's non-police witnesses from the trial have recanted or contradicted their testimony.

Steve Watson & Alex Jones / Prisonplanet.com | A monumental new scientific opinion poll emerged which declares that only 16% of people in America now believe the official government explanation of the September 11th 2001 terror attacks.  According to the new New York Times/CBS News poll, only 16% of Americans think the government is telling the truth about 9/11 and the intelligence prior to the attacks:

A Utah company that ran a network of domestic and international schools for troubled teens is being sued by more than 350 former students who claim they were denied food and medical care, lived in filth and suffered extreme physical and sexual abuse.

Tremble the Devil | Apparently police in California are expecting things to get even hairier than they already are, since they’ve carted out military-grade armored tactical vehicles – basically the Barry Bonds version of  the Humvee.  As the level of drug-related violence in Mexico has shot through the roof, perhaps it make sense to assume that it will begin to bleed across the border and into southern California – but all the same it’s gotta be just a wee bit unsettling for the average California to see these things rumbling down their streets.

Huffington Post | New York magazine reported some telling figures last month on how delayed-notice search warrants -- also known as "sneak-and-peek" warrants -- have been used in recent years. Though passed with the PATRIOT Act and justified as a much-needed weapon in the war on terrorism, the sneak-and-peek was used in a terror investigation just 15 times between 2006 and 2009. In drug investigations, however, it was used more than 1,600 times during the same period.

Think Progress | New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) has long been known for her vitriolic rhetoric against undocumented immigrants. Just this week, she slammed presidential contender Rick Perry (R-TX) for once supporting the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform.

Associated Press | A man with an AK-47 assault rifle shot an entire group of five uniformed National Guard members eating breakfast at a Nevada IHOP on Tuesday, killing two of them and another person in a hail of gunfire.

Courthouse News Service | A man who was eating a taco at a Raleigh bus stop says a cop swept-kicked him to the ground, broke his leg and arrested him, then hauled him before a judge who sentenced him to 30 days in jail for contempt, because he could not stand on his broken leg.  Lynwood Earl Artis sued Raleigh police Officer James Rollins, Wake County and its sheriff, and others, in Federal Court.

Puget Sound Anarchists | Richard "Dickie" Shafer was one of the first people to pop into City Hall, introduce himself to the new city administrator and offer to help out as needed. He was known for letting customers at his excavation business slide awhile if they couldn't pay the bill.

Gizmodo | Anonymous, after a relatively large period of doing nothing, are back with a vengeance. Even without their (arrested) de facto leader Topiary, they've punched Texan law enforcement squarely in their gut: a giant email leak, internal documents, addresses. Anon's back.

Burlington Free Press | Eight helicopters on loan from the Illinois National Guard were expected to arrive Tuesday night in Vermont to help the Vermont National Guard deliver food, medicine, water and other supplies to 13 Vermont towns cut off from the rest of the state in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene.

Mother Jones | One day last November, a group of teenage girls dressed in long khaki skirts and modest blouses stepped onto the stage at an Independent Fundamental Baptist church in Maryland where Jeannie Marie (a military spouse who asked that her last name not be used) attended services with her family.

Washington Post | The girl in the photo is young and lithe, a figure skater in a short blue dress, striking a pose on the ice. She keeps her head high as she arches her back, and her right arm reaches up, like a ballet dancer’s in a Degas painting.

Fact or Fiction | Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow (@JPBarlow) highlighted two recent news stories that demonstrate the degree to which the U.S. criminal justice system casually crushes the lives of poor defendants, while coddling the rich.

Huffington Post | The 40-year-old actor, who starred in hit films in the 1980s like "The Goonies" and "Stand By Me," told Nightline that the biggest threat to children in show business is something that just isn't talked about -- pedophilia.

The Denver Post | A Denver mother whose son died after she was unable to fill his multiple prescriptions because pharmacists kept telling her he was not eligible for Medicaid — even though records proved he was — has filed a lawsuit against the city and county of Denver.

The Atlantic Wire | With British Prime Minister David Cameron authorizing the use of rubber bullets and water canons in wake of the turbulent London riots spreading through Britain, questions have been raised about how authorities in the U.S. would respond to a similar domestic disturbance threatening the nation's stability.

IO9 | Most of us regard Kurt Vonnegut's classic novel Slaughterhouse-Five as a masterpiece of thought-provoking science fiction, but the School Board of Republic High School in Missouri felt differently. They decided to ban the novel.

The Miami Herald at SunSentinel.com | As the Department of Juvenile Justice's investigation into the July 10 death of Eric Perez, 18, continued Monday, authorities revealed that the lockup's top administrator, Superintendent Anthony Flowers, was among four employees suspended last week. Another two employees, a guard and a supervisor, were fired.

A man whose homeless, schizophrenic son died last month from injuries sustained in police custody told CNN on Thursday that he turned down a $900,000 settlement offer from the city of Fullerton, California, and intends to sue.

USA Today | More than two dozen Mexican soldiers accidentally invaded Texas in Humvees on Tuesday after allegedly losing sight of the border line between the two countries, The Monitor reports.  The 33 soldiers were quickly processed by U.S. authorities and allowed to return to Mexico, the paper says.

Daily Caller | “Today the NAACP has taken a major step towards equity, justice and effective law enforcement,” said NAACP president and CEO Benjamin Jealous. “These flawed drug policies that have been mostly enforced in African American communities must be stopped and replaced with evidenced-based practices that address the root causes of drug use and abuse in America.”

Video | San Francisco Bay News - Vanya Samokovareva and roommate Ralitsa Dzhambazova, two female students from Bulgaria discovered the hidden cameras in their apartment and reported it to a local news station as well as police

ABC15 | An Arizona town has put more than half of its police department on leave and officers tell ABC15 they feel it’s retaliation for speaking out against their boss.  William Ponce said he now feels he could lose his job with the Quartzsite Police Department after he, and eight other officers, came forward and accused the police chief of misconduct and abuse of power.  “I feel this is retaliation against the officers that signed this letter and came forth speaking out against corruption,” said Ponce.

Russia Today | Back in 1998, White’s then wife, Tina, reported to police that her husband had sexually abused their adolescent daughter. The detective involved in the case was Richard McKinley, and despite making it clear to his superiors that he was romantically involved with Mrs. White, he was allowed to continue working on the case.

Wall Street Journal | In John Hughes’s classic 1985 movie “The Breakfast Club,” Andrew Clark (played by Emilio Estevez, pictured) is forced serve an entire Saturday in detention for, in the character’s words, taping “Larry Lester’s buns together.”

BBC | Bank of America (BoA) has posted its biggest quarterly loss after agreeing an $8.5bn (£5.2bn) settlement related to sub-prime mortgages.  The US's largest bank made a loss of $8.8bn in the three months to the end of June, lower than analysts had expected.

KHOU | A little-known Texas law and a foreclosure could have a man in Flower Mound living on easy street.  Flower Mound's Waterford Drive is lined with well-manicured $300,000 homes. So, when a new neighbor moved in without the usual sale, mortgage-paying homeowners had a few questions.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education | In a stark demonstration of the failure of campus judicial procedures, the University of North Dakota (UND) has found a student guilty of sexual assault despite the fact that local police refused to charge him with a crime and instead charged his accuser for lying about the incident. Former student Caleb Warner has been banned by UND from stepping foot on any state public campus for three years

My Fox NY | We hear a lot of complaints about security screeners groping airline passengers.  But now, a Colorado woman is accused of putting her hands on a TSA agent at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix.  Court records show 61-year-old Yukari Mihamae grabbed the left breast of the female agent Thursday at the Terminal 4 checkpoint.

The Agitator | Under Michigan’s asset forfeiture law, 80 percent of the cash the deputies seized will go directly to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department. The other 20 percent goes to the local prosecutor. Medical marijuana is legal under Michigan law but is of course still illegal under federal law. And apparently there’s some debate about the legality of dispensaries.

Examiner | Roughly 75 young demonstrators gathered at the Civic Center station around 4:30 p.m. to protest the July 3 police-involved shooting death of Charles Hill and the fatal 2009 shooting of Oscar Grant. (Mike Koozmin/The Examiner)

Vegas Inc | In three decisions last week, the court sided with homeowners who complained they tried to save their homes through the state’s foreclosure mediation program, but that lenders either didn’t provide the right documentation or didn’t send someone with decision-making authority to the mediation.

Arizona Daily Star | The Western Arizona town of Quartzsite was in a state of upheaval Monday after the Town Council ousted the mayor from power and declared a state of emergency, all because of an online video that shows a woman being arrested.