National News

Reuters | Inmates working at a Vermont correctional unit's print shop managed to sneak a prank image of a pig into a state police crest that is emblazoned on police cars, and 30 cruisers sported the design for the last year, officials said on Thursday.

The Denver Post | Investigations completed by the Colorado Department of Human Services since 2007 indicate that social workers in 18 counties repeatedly failed to complete basic functions — such as interviews or follow-ups on assessments — in 43 cases where a child later died from abuse or neglect.

Americans United | Earlier this week, the House of Representatives approved H.R. 535, a resolution designating 2012 the “Year of the Bible.” Introduced by Rep. Rick Saccone (R–Elizabeth Township) and 36 other legislators, the measure insists that “biblical teachings inspired concepts of civil government that are contained in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.”

Raw Story | In the wide world of reporting, the nation of Finland is the very best place to be a journalist — or Norway (they’re tied for first). But in the United States, press freedoms are gradually sinking into the mire, and with them, so too goes the nation’s placement on the annual “Press Freedom Index” put together by Reporters Without Borders.

Fellow Geek | Sebastian Thrun originally created his “intro to Artificial Intelligence” as a bit of an experiment. He partnered with Peter Norvig, author of the definitive text on artificial intelligence and created a series of Youtube videos with interactive quizzes. They quickly had over 160,000 people signed up to take the class.

Reuters | Rape in the American armed forces is an issue that has quietly been gathering attention over the past decade. But it exploded with the power of suppressed fury at the Sundance festival's Friday afternoon screening of the documentary "The Invisible War," a devastating indictment of the government's inaction on the issue.

WTOC | Already, there has been some question into folks who cast their ballots on Saturday.  South Carolina's Attorney General, Alan Wilson has notified the U.S. Justice Department of potential voter fraud.  Wilson says an analysis found 953 ballots cast by voters were people who are listed as dead.

Raw Story | Staff at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office are upset over receiving an over-capacity in both adult and child bodies. With a limited amount of space, Cook County decided to pile bodies on top of one another in blue plastic tarps in the storage cooler.

Courthouse News Service | State troopers took Derena Madison into custody after a 2:30 a.m. traffic stop in which they arrested her friend for driving under the influence. When officers said they would tow the car, Madison exited to protest. Police arrested her for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct, putting her into handcuffs and restraining her feet with manacles.

End the Lie | Over two and a half years ago, Nick Christie was on a vacation with his wife Joyce in Lee County, Florida. According to his wife, Nick Christie was reportedly displaying signs of depression and erratic behavior, so she called authorities and asked for him to be taken to a hospital where he could receive his medication.

South Coast Today | Caswell is fighting a move by the U.S. Department of Justice to take his motel under a law that allows for the forfeiture of properties connected to crimes. In Caswell's case, the government is not claiming that Caswell committed any crimes, but says the motel should be shut down because of the drug-dealing that goes on among its guests.

ABC News | “This kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class,” Jordan said today from his Waterford home. “I maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else.”

CNN | An administrative law judge found the program's curriculum was teaching Latino history and culture "in a biased, political, and emotionally charged manner," and upheld state officials' findings that it violated a state law passed in 2010. The Tucson Unified School District had appealed a decision by the law's principal backer, then-state schools superintendent Tom Horne, to shut down the program.

Daily Mail | The disappearance of Teamsters union boss Jimmy Hoffa remains one of America's most enduring mysteries.  But now, nearly four decades after Hoffa vanished, his driver has claimed he knows where he is buried – and how he got there.  Marvin Elkind said Hoffa was killed by a mob enforcer and buried in the foundations of the towering General Motors’ HQ in Detroit, Michigan.

Firehouse.com | Jesse Russell Jr., 33, was convicted of arson in September for setting a fire at the Lake View Terrace Apartments that caused $30,000 worth of damage. He pleaded guilty to another count of arson for setting fire to a box truck in the 8400 block of East Washington Street.

Daily Mail | An off-duty police officer has been charged with executing a man in a sports bar - after an argument over a game of darts.  Riverside County sheriff's deputy Dayle Long, 42, allegedly shot Samuel Vanettes, 36, three times, leaving him to die on the floor of the bar in Murrieta, California.

Reason.com | From Fox 13 in Tampa comes the horrifying story of Nick Christie, a 62-year-old Ohio man who was detained by the Lee County Sheriff's Office for being publicly intoxicated. While Christie's wife asked that he be taken to the hospital, Lee County cops decided instead to strip Christie naked, tie him to a chair, cover his face, and then pepper spray him repeatedly, until he died:

New World Order Report Exclusive | A comprehensive explanation of what has been reported has now been disclosed to the public.  This article will constantly update with the most up to date facts released by media outlets.

Huffington Post | As WBEZ reports, creditors in the state have figured out ways around laws that prevent them from putting debtors in jail, and the number of people being issued arrest warrants linked to unpaid bills is growing. Collection agencies can reportedly file a lawsuit requiring a court appearance, and if the defendant doesn't show up for their hearing, an arrest warrant can be issued.

Associated Press | Jose Guerena Ortiz was sleeping after an exhausting 12-hour night shift at a copper mine. His wife, Vanessa, had begun breakfast. Their 4-year-old son, Joel, asked to watch cartoons.  An ordinary morning was unfolding in the middle-class Tucson neighborhood - until an armored vehicle pulled into the family's driveway and men wearing heavy body armor and helmets climbed out, weapons ready.

The Guardian | US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week.

WIRED | U.S. District Court Judge John Mendez didn’t know what to make of the man standing in his courtroom for sentencing on September 7, 2010. Dave Sanders was a successful corporate sales executive—a widower who was raising his three young children in a suburb outside Sacramento, California. His shoes gleamed from the energetic polishing he’d given them that morning, and his buzz cut gave him the appearance of an earnest, middle-aged Boy Scout

UTNE | These last weeks, there have been two “occupations” in lower Manhattan, one of which has been getting almost all the coverage -- that of the demonstrators camping out in Zuccotti Park.  The other, in the shadows, has been hardly less massive, sustained, or in its own way impressive -- the police occupation of the Wall Street area.

Washington Post | Penn State football coach Joe Paterno arrives home Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011, in State College, Pa. (Matt Rourke - AP) I was never harmed by Sandusky, but I could have been. When I was 15, my mother, then looking for a little direction for her teenage son, introduced me to the Second Mile’s Friend Fitness program. It was a program resembling Big Brother, Big Sister with a weekly exercise regimen.

NBC Philadelphia | It is strange that Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar never prosecuted Jerry Sandusky on child-rape charges 13 years ago, some speculate, because Gricar was known for being fiercely independent and hard on crime.

MSNBC | The bakery was about to shutter in September when Ali, a former staffer, learned of its demise and decided to save it — keeping it in the same spirit of its original owner, Morris Rosenzweig, a Jewish immigrant from Bialystok, Poland, who founded the shop in 1920.

Courthouse News Service | A widow says a regional SWAT team killed her husband, a Marine veteran, in a botched raid not even aimed at him, riddling their house with 72 bullets while she and their 4-year-old son were in it.  Vanessa Guerena says police refused to allow paramedics to help her husband, 26-year-old Jose Guerena, after the SWAT team shot him repeatedly while serving a search warrant on May 5.

The Salt Lake Tribune | While at a hearing before a District Court judge, the man said he was from Mexico and he was in the country illegally. He pleaded guilty. The court then allowed him to report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and he was deported to Mexico, court document say.

WSWS | Thousands of protesters participated in a day of marches and demonstrations in Oakland, California Wednesday. The actions were held eight days after a violent attack by police on the Occupy Oakland movement resulted in more than 100 arrests and the near-fatal wounding of a young Iraq War veteran, Scott Olsen.

Russia Today | Finding a scandal within the ranks of the NYPD these days is like shooting fish in a barrel — or, to update the idiom, like pepper-spraying protesters in a pen.  Every hour it seems a new story emerges, and today we have a Brooklyn crack fiend to thank for our daily fodder.

UCLA Newsroom | In Africa 140 years ago, David Livingstone, the Victorian explorer, met Henry M. Stanley of the New York Herald and gave him a harrowing account of a massacre he witnessed, in which slave traders slaughtered 400 innocent people. Stanley's press reports prompted the British government to close the East African slave trade, secured Livingstone's place in history and launched Stanley's own career as an imperialist in Africa.

New York Times | Friends and relatives crowd into Su Zhen Chen’s small apartment in an East Village housing project, bearing food and solace for her and her husband. A community leader sometimes shows up to pay respects, or a military official arrives with papers to sign. Adults gather in the cramped living room for hushed chats in Chinese as children do homework at the kitchen table. For Ms. Chen, these are welcome distractions.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution | Still, enough evidence exists to prove that some laborers were victims of murder, not disease, according to historians Frank and Bill Watson. And while it's likely the unrecovered bones may have been too degraded to yield testable DNA, one set of remains found apart from the main ossuary might still be positively identified and returned to Ireland.

Miami Herald | A Miami Police officer was arrested at gunpoint and charged with reckless driving after allegedly leading the Florida Highway Patrol on a seven-minute chase in his squad car at speeds that reached 120 mph on Florida’s Turnpike in Broward County earlier this month.

The Guardian | Oakland's independent police review body will examine the clashes between riot officers and protesters that left an Iraq war veteran in a critical condition as Occupy protestors prepare to rally at the same spot for a third night of protests.

Navy Times | Cmdr. Jay Wylie, 40, who commanded the Everett, Wash.-based ship until he was fired April 27, is scheduled to appear in a courtroom at Naval Base San Diego and has been charged with one count of rape, two counts of aggravated sexual assault, two counts of abusive sexual contact, one count of sodomy, two counts of maltreatment, three counts of conduct unbecoming an officer and four counts of violating general orders, according to the charge sheet.

Tamps Bay Online | The decision by the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Lakeland to decline the appeal of the Islamic Education Center of Tampa sends the case back to Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Richard A. Nielsen. Nielsen's decision in March to allow the case to proceed under "ecclesiastical Islamic law" drew national attention when the ruling was criticized by conservative bloggers.

Business Insider | Marines around the world are outraged by the injuries inflicted by police on Scott Olsen at Tuesday's Occupy Oakland protests. Olsen is in a medically-induced coma after getting hit in the head by a police projectile.

Alternet | The NYPD has been under fire in recent months for illegal searches resulting in thousands of low-level marijuana arrests, mostly of people of color. As corrupt as this practice is, testimony from Stephen Anderson, a former NYPD narcotics detective, shows it's just the tip of the iceberg.

Press Publications | "I am here to ask the administrators to please give back those raises," said P.J. Kapfhammer, who is running for a seat on the board. "I understand the logistics of it. I understand the numbers. I'm asking the leaders of the school to give back the raises and put it toward busing, or programming, or something that got stripped in the last couple of years. Lead this district. Turn this negative into a positive. I'm asking that they think before they take these raises."

Jersey Journal | Nearly 150 years after a Union Army captain pilfered a book of court records from a county courthouse in Virginia during the Civil War, the Jersey City Free Public Library has returned the 220-year-old spoil of war to its rightful home.

ACLU | The Fourth Amendment strictly prohibits warrantless intrusions into private homes and the Constitution's protections apply to both citizens and non-citizens alike. In the absence of a judicially authorized warrant, there must be voluntary and knowing consent; ICE officers forcing themselves into someone's home does not constitute consent.

The Star | When Doreen Wallace fell and broke her hip in the lobby of a Niagara Falls hospital, she figured at least she’d get help — and fast.  But that’s not what happened.  Instead, the 82-year-old Wallace — who was leaving with her son after visiting her dying husband at Greater Niagara General Hospital on Oct. 8 — was told by staff no one could help her until an ambulance was called.

Alternet | USA Today says that at some point this year, student loan debt will exceed $1 trillion, surpassing even credit card debt. Felix Salmon says the number is closer to $550 billion. Either way total student loan debt is rising as other debts have tailed off. Delinquency has increased, too, since the height of the financial crisis.

In the UCLA Bruins vs. Arizona Wildcats game on Thursday, October 20, 2011 a college kid fan dressed as a referee runs on the field, blows a whistle while waiving his hands, and stops the UCLA/Arizona college football game on ESPN. Mayham and fights between the two teams broke out after the incident where two players were ejected.

The Observer | He arrested one of the protestors outside, and slammed her into the wall, and pushed her back into the bank. We all saw him at the precinct with us. He was laughing with the fellow white shirt cops, telling them about what we’d been saying, basically. It was a bit startling how inside their information was – how they were being paid to go to these protests and put us in situations where we’d be arrested and not be able to leave.

Cincinnati.com | A federal judge on Tuesday told police temporarily to stop issuing tickets to Occupy Cincinnati demonstrators camping out in a city park, while the protesters’ lawyers and city leaders try to hammer out an agreement on issues in the protesters’ federal lawsuit against the city.

CBS | The NAACP and the ACLU have filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Philadelphia and the company that handles its advertising at the airport, over the rejection of an airport ad promoting criminal justice reform.

Business Insider | A list of 10 states are shown with pictures

On the October 15, 2011 episode of Saturday Night Live, Congressman Ron Paul is the only character not mocked. I daresay he will be the breakout character of this season on SNL, and while SNL doesn't often get it right, they have the Ron Paul character nailed down to a T.