National News

Reason.com | Via Carlos Miller at Photography is Not a Crime comes the news that the Orange County DA finally released security footage of the brutal beating death of 37-year-old Kelly Thomas, a homeless man from Fullerton, California.

Courthouse News Service | Chicago police may be on the hook for releasing a white, 21-year-old mentally ill woman into a high-crime, black neighborhood where she was raped and badly brain damaged, the 7th Circuit ruled.

Sun Sentinel | When Broward Sheriff's deputies David Wimberley and Brian Swadkins arrested Troy Baldeo at a 7-Eleven in Tamarac in 2010, Wimberley turned in two reports that described the suspect using words like "boisterous," "yelling" and "clenched fists."

NewWorldOrderReport.com and the Troubleshooter Network | After serving 17 more days in the massive jail once named after him, former Arapahoe County Sheriff has been released on "good behavior" and served a total of 25 days in jail for the charges he struck a plea deal with.

Associated Press | Duane Eleby, a suspected drug courier, was all set to sneak 10 pounds of cocaine through a security checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport last February with the help of a former Transportation Security Administration employee and a screener.

Yahoo News - The Sideshow | ABC affiliate KVIA reports that 19-year-old Angie Gomez faces a felony charge and is being held on a $50,000 bond after being arrested on Friday. She is charged with starting a fake charity after falsely claiming to be suffering from leukemia.

Jonathan Elinoff - Life is full of expectations and disappointments... Agreements and misunderstandings... Schedules and chaos... Projections and creations... Reality and fantasy... But more than anything, life is full of busy people all trying to get somewhere but most are stuck traveling directions they don't understand... Until its too late

CNN | It was just another Tuesday evening in a normally quiet neighborhood in Pearland, Texas, where kids are often found playing with one another and driving go-carts.  A family had just returned from Galveston on a spring break excursion, when upon their return, all of a sudden the unthinkable happened.

USA Today | The incident unfolded in October when the two Coral Springs officers came upon an SUV stopped in the left lane of a roadway, apparently with two blown tires.  The newspaper says prosecutors are now investigating whether the officers filed false documents relating to the encounter.

ACLU | If you live in one of 48 states, right now there's a proposal sitting on your governor's desk from a company called Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). That for-profit corporation is offering to buy and run prisons across the nation. In exchange, states must agree to keep the prisons at least 90 percent full. Two articles in  USA Today examine the ethical concerns raised by the proposal.

Reuters | The family of a 17-year-old African-American boy shot to death last month in his gated Florida community by a white Neighborhood Watch captain wants to see the captain arrested, the family's lawyer said on Wednesday.

Army Times | FORT BRAGG, N.C. — The two young daughters of a decorated Green Beret who died trying to rescue them from a burning house near Fort Bragg will be laid to rest with their father at Arlington National Cemetery.

ARS Technica | Listening to the nightly news, you'll often hear the weather forecaster mention jet streams moving weather systems around. These are located about 10 km above sea level, where they also affect commercial aircraft. Much higher up, around 100 km above the surface of the Earth, there is a high-altitude jet stream that moves a lot of air around from the equator to the poles—at nearly 100 m/s. We don’t understand this jet stream as well, but it coincides with regions of strong electrical turbulence that can affect radio and satellite communications.

The Guardian | Savannah Hardin, 9, died after being forced to run for three hours as punishment for lying to her grandmother.  Roger Simpson said he saw a little girl running outside her home but did not give it a second thought. Police said he witnessed a murder in progress.

Courthouse News Service | A federal judge ordered a central Missouri school district to stop using Internet filtering software that blocks access to gay, lesbian and transgender issue-related websites.  U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey issued a preliminary injunction against the Camdenton R-III School District.

Gizmodo | Some lamentable sucker in California sold a locked safe on eBay for $123 with a warning of "WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET. NOTHING MORE AND NOTHING LESS." The "nothing less" bit came back to bite him in the accumulation of wealth when the buyer cracked open the safe and found $26,000.

Business Insider | The Nashville Scene's Jeff Woods reports that a bill that would ban teaching Tennessee grade schoolers about homosexuality has made it out of a state House subcommittee Wednesday and will now go before the full legislature.

Physorg | The state's legislative commission on Wednesday approved regulations that were vetted by car manufacturers, insurance companies, law enforcement officials and others.  Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles Director Bruce Breslow says the DMV is now developing licensing procedures for companies that want to test self-driving cars in Nevada.

Click 2 Houston | Security camera footage from a well-known gay bar has played a key role in a hit-and-run investigation of a former Houston City Councilman, who is now a conservative talk show host, Local 2 Investigates reported on Wednesday.

Philadelphia Media Network | Retired Philadelphia Police Capt. Ray Lewis, who gained national attention with his defiant, in-uniform protest and subsequent arrest at Occupy Wall Street, made his first appearance with Occupy Philly on Monday afternoon.

ABC News | Attorneys for the biological children of the Florida multi-millionaire who adopted his adult girlfriend have asked a judge to throw out what many consider to be a sham adoption enacted so the man can keep his money as he faces a $100 million lawsuit.

Dominion of New York | For almost 30 years — from 1983 to 2012 — the New York Police Department went about arresting people under laws that state and federal courts had long declared unconstitutional, cuffing and booking almost 22,000 people. In 2010, federal judge Shira A. Scheindlin finally held them in contempt of court. Yesterday, she signed an order approving what is effectively their punishment: a $15 million class-action settlement that could generate individual payments of as much as $5,000.

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.