The father who police said fatally shot a 17-year-old boy in his daughter’s bedroom should be charged with murder, the victim’s distraught mother says.
Johran McCormick’s mother said she can’t believe her son was killed while sneaking around with the 16-year–old girl he was apparently dating, the Houston Chronicle reported Saturday.
Zakia McCormick also can’t understand why the man accused of firing the fatal shot Thursday is not behind bars.
“If you take a life, you give your life,” the newspaper quoted a teary Zakia McCormick as saying. “We’re suffering. Why isn’t he suffering too?”
She and the teen’s father Shawn Curley said the man should be charged with murder and sentenced to life behind bars.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the shooting and has said a grand jury will determine if charges are warranted.
Although a grand jury will review the case, prosecutor Warren Diepraam told MyFoxHouston.com Friday that it is unlikely that the father will be charged.
The father told investigators he heard noises coming from his daughter’s bedroom around 2:30 a.m. He went to investigate and found Johran in the room. The boy was shot once.
Fortune Magazine put together a list of today’s 50 greatest leaders and in a list consisting of people from all walks of life including, Pope Francis I (number 1), Apple CEO Tim Cook (number 33), and the Dalai Lama (number 9). Fortune Magazine tabbed our Yankee captain as number 11 on the list.
As he begins his 20th and final season in pinstripes, Jeter remains that type of role-model player that even a Red Sox fan must grudgingly respect. it’s not the five World Series rings he’s won or his team record for career hits. in a steroid-tainted, reality-TV era, Jeter, the son of two Army veterans, continues to stand out because of his old-school approach: Never offer excuses or give less than maximum effort.
It is enough of an honor that Fortune Magazine decided to name Jeter to this list, but Fortune felt Jeter was the only athlete deserving enough to make this list. Jeter has always been viewed as an above average player, but as far as his skill level goes, he has never been the undeniable best. That’s not what made him great. The thing that made Jeter great is a word that is so often associated with him: The intangibles.
Jeter was able to come into a starting role on the 1996 Yankees in his rookie season and by half way through that year, he was leading the team straight up to their first World Series title since 1978. Jeter did not relinquish that leadership role and in June of 2003, Jeter was named the 14th captain of the Yankees and has held that title for 11 years making him the longest tenured yankee captain.
It’s a great honor for Jeter to be named to Fortune’s 50 greatest leaders list, but it is also very much deserved.
Perhaps it’s just me, but this time of year seems to be the boring period between the fun of a nasty winter and the beginning of a well-earned spring. And I’m not just talking about the weather. American politics is on hiatus at this moment because it’s too early to get too riled up by the prospect of electing another do-nothing Congress, and since the one we have now is essentially done for the year, what else is there to talk about? The Affordable Care Act? Boring. Marriage equality? Done. The lost Malaysian plane? Probably found and the story will make a great movie one summer. Ukraine? Potentially deadly and maybe the foremost threat to world peace presently in the news.
This is not to say that these stories are not important because they are, but there doesn’t seem to be any movement or progress or yes-we-canism alive at the moment. The Republicans are still trying to figure out what it believes in and how it can appeal to groups that have shunned its message so far. The House will most likely remain in their hands, which guarantees us another two years of bills that will not become law until a GOP president is elected (shudder). And the Senate will probably also go red, but I’ve already treated that scenario.
I am not, though, down in the dumps. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments about whether religious companies can stop providing certain forms of birth control the ACA requires because it would be a violation of their religious rights. I’m thinking that Justice Roberts is aching to get back on the conservative horse he dismounted two years ago in the health care law case, but Justice Kennedy might be the wild card in this one. It is certain that Justice Scalia will lament the end of the republic if he’s on the losing side.
And the health care law will survive because about six million people will have signed up for insurance through the exchanges or Medicaid and throwing them off the rolls is just too mean for even today’s Republican Party. The law needs fixing and that’s where the focus is going to be in 2014 and 2016 and 2018 as companies and states decide that insurance is too expensive and want employees to sign up for the policies on the website. This will be revolutionary and the effect will be profound. I’m not surprised that neither party is really talking about this out loud, but it’s almost certain to come to pass sometime within the next five years.
As for Vlad the Invader, I’m not ruling out a bit of shooting in Ukraine or areas local to it. It will depend on whether he heeds the economic warnings his aides are no doubt giving him. My sense is that Putin will ask for something big in return, negotiate, and take something smaller that gives him a say in Ukraine, but not the whole country. In the end, Ukraine will make a deal with the EU, but will always need to watch its eastern back.
All of this is in the future, and you can feel free to pay attention to it since you’re obviously not winning $1 billion dollars on March Madness because nobody has a perfect bracket left. The best we can hope for is common sense and pride in a job well done. Some things never change.
(AP) — President Barack Obama isn’t giving up his BlackBerry — at least not for now.
The White House is shooting down the notion that Obama’s device is caught up in a pilot program designed to transition away from BlackBerry smartphones.
The pilot program is being carried out by the White House Communications Agency. It’s part of the Defense Department and is responsible for making sure Obama has communications capabilities wherever he goes.
But White House spokesman Jay Carney says the Executive Office of the President isn’t participating in any pilot programs affecting their hand-held devices.
U.S. government agencies have been one of the last bastions for BlackBerry Ltd. The company pioneered the smartphone in 1999 but has since been hammered by competition from the iPhone and Android-based rivals.
And while they advised people to take the penalty instead of getting health care, you can bet that all the nuts at Fox News have health care.
On Saturday’s episode of Cashin’ In, Fox News host Eric Bolling encouraged young Americans to “take the penalty” they’ll have to pay if they don’t sign up for the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
“With the deadline for signing up for Obamacare just a week away,” Bolling said, “selling it might not be a slam dunk, even for LeBron James.”
Bolling then played a pitch for the ACA featuring James, before cutting to “new goofy videos to push healthcare.” He then complained that the Obama administration is spending “$17 million of our tax dollars, per a month, to get young people to buy into Obamacare.”
His guest, Jonathan Hoenig of Capitalistpig.com, replied that he found the advertising campaign “just so uncouth, not just the fact that we’re spending $20 million a month on it, but that we’re trying to convince young people that statism is good — that self-sacrifice is good.”
“What does the president think of young people?” Hoenig asked. “That they’re knuckleheads, that they don’t know a good deal, that they’re idiots. In fact, almost 90 percent of young people find it’s cheaper not to sign up for Obamacare and take the penalty, and of course, none of it has anything to do with free markets or a free society.”
“Fiscally speaking,” Bolling replied, “young people probably should take the penalty.”
It starts early. A new report issued by the Education Department shows a troubling trend – Black students are more likely to be suspended from U.S. public schools – even as tiny preschoolers.
The racial disparities in American education, from access to high-level classes and experienced teachers to discipline, were highlighted in a report released Friday by the Education Department’s civil rights arm.
The suspensions — and disparities — begin at the earliest grades.
Black children represent about 18 percent of children enrolled in preschool programs in schools, but almost half of the students were suspended more than once, the report said. Six percent of the nation’s districts with preschools reported suspending at least one preschool child.
Advocates long have said get-tough suspension and arrest policies in schools have contributed to a “school-to-prison” pipeline that snags minority students, but much of the emphasis has been on middle school and high school policies. This was the first time the department reported data on preschool discipline.
Earlier this year, the Obama administration issued guidance encouraging schools to abandon what it described as overly zealous discipline policies that send students to court instead of the principal’s office. But even before the announcement, school districts have been adjusting policies that disproportionately affect minority students.
Overall, the data shows that black students of all ages are suspended and expelled at a rate that’s three times higher than that of white children. Even as boys receive more than two-thirds of suspensions, black girls are suspended at higher rates than girls of any other race or most boys.
The data doesn’t explain why the disparities exist or why the students were suspended.
“It is clear that the United States has a great distance to go to meet our goal of providing opportunities for every student to succeed,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a news release.
One of four gubernatorial candidates introduced to California Republicans recently is a registered sex offender who spent more than a decade in state prison, convicted of crimes including voluntary manslaughter and assault with intent to commit rape.
Glenn Champ, 48, addressed hundreds of GOP delegates and supporters Sunday at the site of the state party’s semi-annual convention. Introduced by party chairman Jim Brulte and allotted 10 minutes, Champ spoke in between the main GOP candidates, former U.S. Treasury official Neel Kashkari and state Assemblyman Tim Donnelly of San Bernardino County.
Champ, a little-known political neophyte from the Fresno County community of Tollhouse, did not directly mention his criminal past during his speech but said, “In my life, I’ve been held accountable because of my stupidity. I do not want anyone else to be enslaved because of their lack of knowledge.”
Champ’s rap sheet is lengthy. Court records show that in 1992, he pleaded guilty to carrying a concealed firearm. In 1993, he was convicted of two counts of assault with intent to commit rape and as a result was placed on the state’s sex-offender registry.
In March 1998, he accepted a plea deal on a charge of loitering to solicit a prostitute; later that year, he pleaded no contest to a voluntary manslaughter charge after hitting a man with his vehicle, for which he was sentenced to 12 years in state prison, according to court records.
In their first protest since their leader Fred Phelps died earlier this week, Westboro members were met with peaceful signs from counter protesters.
The Westboro Baptist gang members were protesting at a Lorde concert. With them they brought the usual “God hates everybody” signs. But they were met by another group of protesters clearly offering condolences to the passing of Mr. Fred Phelps. The counter protesters carried signs that read, “Sorry for your loss.”
“We realized that it wasn’t so much about antagonizing them but sending out the countered safe that we are here for people who need that message and need that positivity” Megan Coleman, who helped make the sign, said according to Kansas’ KSHB.
But apparently, the good deed was lost to the Westboro members. “I don’t even know what they’re saying,” Westboro Baptist Chuch member Steve Drain said.
Im not surprised that the Westboro members couldn’t see the good deed. Hate is all they know, so the good deeds of others are confusing.
In his weekly address, President Obama continued his push to raise the minimum wage and the importance of of recognizing women and their contribution in the workplace.
The town of Longview, Texas paid Nugent $16,000 to not appear at the town’s Fourth of July Festival. According to KLTV, a city spokesman said Nugent was “not the right feel for this kind of community event.”
The city had reached a verbal agreement with Nugent, scheduling the rocker as the headliner who would play inside the Maude Cobb Convention and Activity Center during the town’s Independence Day celebration. To break that agreement, the town paid Nugent half of his guaranteed performance fee of $32,000 from Maude Cobb’s annual budget.
The move comes amid criticism of comments Nugent made about President Barack Obama in January 2014, calling him a “subhuman mongrel.” Nugent, who campaigned with Texas Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott amid the controversy, apologized for those comments in February.
Police in Lincolnton say they have arrested a man who sucked a woman’s toes at Walmart by claiming to be studying podiatry.
Michael Brown, of Concord, was arrested around 9 p.m. Thursday and charged with misdemeanor assault on a female. Officials say Brown is a registered sex offender.
Officers with the Lincolnton Police Department said the incident happened Monday around 11:15 a.m. when a man, who claimed he was a podiatrist student, started a conversation with a woman in the store.
That woman, Erika Porras, told police that he convinced her to try on several pair of shoes in the shoe department.
“At one point the suspect took the victim’s foot, put it into his mouth and sucked the victim’s toes,” the report states.
“I was shocked,” Porras told WBTV, “He asked me not to tell anyone and said he would pay for my groceries.”
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