An explosion sparked a large fire at an oil storage facility in Smith County, Texas, on Monday night, KLTV reported.
Firefighters from at least three area departments responded to the blaze at the Vess Oil Corp. The flames could be seen from miles away.
At the time of this writing, no injuries or deaths have been reported, KETK reported. Cause of the explosion is also unknown.
The homeless man participating in a highly-publicized software coding tutorial was arrested earlier this morning by the NYPD. According to NYC programmer and self-proclaimed entrepreneur Patrick McConlogue, “Journeyman” Leo was arrested for trespassing in a city park within the confines of the 10th Precinct, which includes Chelsea. McConlogue tells us Leo was “picked up for sleeping on a bench that he normally doesn’t sleep on.” NYC Parks are closed from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.
The timing is unfortunate—McConlogue and Leo are scheduled to appear on The Today Show Wednesday morning to talk about their project. McConlogue discovered that Leo was arrested when he went to meet him for their daily tutorial. “His hat was there and his coffee was knocked over, so I knew something happened.” A friend of Leo’s directed McConlogue to a nearby traffic cop who saw the arrest, and he confirmed that Leo was in custody at the 10th Precinct station house.
McConlogue says he was told that it could be days or even weeks until Leo is released, depending on a number of variables. And it may be even longer until he gets the laptop back. McConlogue showed officers the receipt for the laptop he purchased for Leo, but without the serial number the NYPD will not turn it over. “They have to bring it to some processing center, which takes more time,” he says. “We can’t prove ownership.”
In August, McConlogue anounced that he would offer Leo, a homeless person he frequently saw on his way to work, $100 or the opportunity to learn how to code. Leo chose the latter, and for the past couple of months McConlogue has been teaching Leo all about coding. He tells us it’s been going well.
H/T – gothamist
A couple of Louisiana Walmart stores will be stuck with most of the bill after food stamp recipients went on a colossal shopping spree when a power outage temporarily lifted their spending limits, state officials said today.
Police were called to Walmart locations in Mansfield, La., and Springhill, La., on Saturday as shoppers cleaned out store shelves.
Springhill Police Chief Will Lynd said some customers were pushing more food than any household could store in a refrigerator and freezer.
“I saw people drag out eight to ten grocery carts,” Lynd said. One person hauled away more than $700 worth of groceries, the chief said.
The Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services’ spokesman Trey Williams said the retailers who chose not to use the emergency procedures that limit sales up to $50 per cardholder during an emergency would be responsible for any additional amount spent over eligible benefit balances.
H/T – abcnews
Montia Parker, an 18-year old former cheerleader captain at a Minneapolis high school, has been sentenced to 3 years in prison for “pimping out” a younger team mate to generate extra income for herself. Even worse, her 16-year old victim has a learning disability.
Apparently, Parker put up several online ads promoting the girl for sexual services, and even drove her to some of her customers. From one job, the girl performed oral sex for one of her customers, made $60 from the job, and was forced to turn all the money over to Parker.
The victim’s family urged the judge to give Parker the harshest punishment possible. The family says the girl has since isolated herself from others, changed schools, and has lost interest in cheerleading.
In addition to her 3-year sentence, Parker will also be registered as a sex offender and will appear in all nationwide databases.
So let’s see where we stand at this moment with the brand spanking new teacher evaluation system in New Jersey. This is the law that is going to revolutionize teaching and learning by making sure that students are mastering content and skills and teachers are doing their jobs to ensure learning in the classroom. For those of us not covered by a standardized assessment, the key is the SGO, or Student Growth Objectives, that is supposed to measure student growth (duh).
How are we doing this? By taking the measure of our students at the beginning of the year. Then we’ll evaluate them again in a few months to see how much they’ve learned. In other words, welcome to testing-mania.
The overwhelming majority of teachers in New Jersey have already given an assessment to their students, usually in the form of a test. Most of these tests ask for knowledge and skills that students haven’t been taught yet. The assumption, then, is that when we re-give these tests again in February or March, the students will have learned the information because they’ve been, well, taught it. Students learn, teachers have done their jobs, numbers go up, salaries are paid.
So what’s the problem? Plenty. Most of these tests are low stakes and mean virtually nothing to the students, while meaning everything for the teachers. In addition, there is no measurable data that says that this is a viable method for objectively evaluating teachers. And districts are getting mucho creative with SGOs in ways that even the Christie Administration didn’t envision.
For example, many teachers who plan on taking leaves for maternity or other family concerns, have been told to administer both a pre-and post-assessment in as little as 6 weeks, so the district has a record of their progress. This flies in the face of everything we know about education and assessment, and is using time as the relevant factor and not learning. Why don’t I just do a Monday-Friday assessment cycle and be done with it. I can teach anyone how to write an effective thesis in a week if that’s all I’m going to measure.
It’s also becoming clear, as I speak to colleagues and monitor the news, that administrators and school boards are tying bonuses to the percentage of staff that has an SGO. The law says that classroom teachers must have them, but leaves it up to the district as to whether nurses, guidance counselors and other support staff must have them. Tying SGOs to a bonus virtually guarantees that all staff will be responsible for an SGO, and it’s up to the district to develop one.
Are we connecting student health rates to nurses? How many students come to see them over a three month period? Do we want more students to visit the nurse or fewer? What’s the difference between taking blood pressure and earning a 4 under the Danielson model and earning a 3?
For guidance counselors, are we tying failure rates to counselors? College acceptances? If a child is crying on the way in to the counselor’s office but smiling on the way out, is that an effective SGO?
The dirty truth is that there’s really no way to know. It’s the same for teachers. Once we administer the test/evaluation, then that becomes the default assessment that we’re going to focus on for three months. The tests rule. And it will get even worse come the spring when teachers covered by a state test enter the maelstrom and sweat out their number through the summer.
This evaluation system is taking money, time and resources away from education. It’s not scientifically valid. It wastes time. It’s a step backwards, and it insults teachers everywhere by assuming that they are not effective.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest
The woman shot dead by a Brooklyn cop after she crashed a stolen car was part of a violent crew who police say forced a man into his home at gunpoint, robbed him and shot him as he ran away.
Shantel Davis, 23, took a bullet in the chest during a wild struggle with police after she tried to drive away from the smashup on Church Ave. and E. 38th St. in East Flatbush on Thursday, cops said.
No gun was found on Davis. Her rap sheet — which included robbery and drug busts — shows she was no stranger to run-ins with the law.
Davis was due in court Friday on charges stemming from an attack on April 23, 2011 — when she and a band of brutes allegedly held a man hostage as they robbed his Clarendon Road apartment, court papers show.
The heist netted cash, video games and jewelry, the documents show. But the thieves threatened to take 29-year-old Ralph Ragoobar to East New York and torture him for more loot. He managed to break free and started running down the street, court papers show.
That’s when Davis’ crew opened fire, striking the fleeing man three times in the back and once in the leg. He survived the wounds.
“I was shot five times,” Ragoobar told the Daily News. “I just want to move on with my life.”
Davis and two others were later booked on charges that included kidnapping, attempted murder and weapons possession.
Davis was out on $25,000 bail when two narcotics cops saw her blow a red light at E. 48th St. and start speeding westbound down Church Ave. about 5:35 p.m. Thursday, cops said.
The two plainclothes officers — who sources identified as Detective Phillip Atkins, 44, and Police Officer Daniel Guida, 27 — began to follow Davis in their unmarked car as she sped through a series of red lights before she crashed, cops said.
Davis was driving a 1998 Toyota Camry that she allegedly stole the week before. Armed with a pistol — and just a block away from her E. 52nd St. home — Davis approached the car’s owner, Vilma Craig, 57, and told her to hand over the keys, sources said.
“She had the gun pointed at me,” Craig told the Daily News Friday. “She took my car, my pocketbook and everything in the car.”
It was not clear whether the two cops knew the car was stolen when they approached Davis after she wrecked it.
The 5-foot-6, 185-pound Davis slid into the passenger side of the car in an attempt to flee, cops said.
After a brief struggle with Guida, Davis hopped back in the driver’s seat and tried to drive away.
Atkins, holding his service-issued Smith & Wesson 9-mm., began to grapple with the frantic woman and tried to stop her from putting the car into gear.
But Davis managed to put the car in reverse and hit the gas. During the struggle, Atkins fired one shot, hitting Davis in the chest and killing her.
It was announced that Adrian Peterson’s two-year-old son had died from the injuries he suffered after he was allegedly attacked by his mother’s boyfriend Joseph Patterson. Patterson now faces up to 40 years in prison if he is convicted of child abuse.
The website Heavy.com has found pictures of the alleged attacker Joseph Patterson
Check out the pictures below:
The alleged attacker of Adrian Peterson’s son who died this afternoon from the injuries (Credit: Heavy.com)
The alleged attacker of Adrian Peterson’s son who died this afternoon from the injuries (Credit: Heavy.com)
The alleged attacker of Adrian Peterson’s son who died this afternoon from the injuries (Credit: Heavy.com)
Heavy.com is also reporting that Patterson has another child and was previously arrested for assaulting a three-year-old.
Joseph Patterson, the alleged attacker of Adrian Peterson’s son, had previously been arrested for assaulting a three-year-old (Credit: Keloland.com)
CBS South Dakota has more on the past of the alleged attacker Joseph Patterson.
“Court documents reveal the 27 year old has been arrested multiple times on various charges. He was arrested in 2004 for violating a protection order, but that was later dropped by the prosecutor. A 2012 arrest for aggravated assault was also dismissed by a prosecutor. Patterson has served time in jail for Eluding officers in 2010. He was also sentenced to five days in jail after pleading guilty to simple assault last year.”
Maybe he fit the profile.
On Friday, Jack Lamar Roberson was shot dead by police inside his own home after overdosing on his diabetes medication. His 8-year-old daughter was in the home at the time.
Now, the family of the Georgia man is claiming that the cops weren’t within their rights and instead of offering assistance, they killed Roberson without asking any questions.
The case is dredging up the same sentiments as the killing of an unarmed Jonathan Ferrell, the young man who was shot to death by North Carolina police after he crashed his vehicle.
Roberson’s story began when his fianceé, Alicia Herron, called 911 because she noticed Roberson acting erratically after taking pills to control his blood sugar. But instead of sending paramedics, the dispatcher sent police officers to their home.
Officers with the Waycross Police Department said that upon entering the home, Roberson started toward them “aggressively armed with two items used as weapons.” But Herron disputes that claim, saying that the scene played out like a “silent movie.”
“They just came in and shot him. He didn’t say nothing, the police didn’t say nothing, anything, it was like a silent movie. You couldn’t hear anything, all you could hear were the gun shots go off and I seen them going into his body and he just fell down.”
She and Roberson’s mother also said that he was not carrying a weapon, despite the police report.
“We had no weapons in this house whatsoever,” Roberson’s mother, Diane Roberson, said to the Florida Times Union. “My gentle lamb … He kissed me every morning, made me breakfast in bed, and they said he had two weapons.”
Herron denied he was armed too: “He didn’t have nothing in his hands at any time or period at all before they came, any time while they were here, anything,” she said to First Coast News.
Let’s just make this clear from the outset: Steve Lonegan is not going to defeat Cory Booker in the New Jersey Senate election next week. Yes, I know that only having a 13 point lead puts Booker in the endangered category, and his wealthy, powerful allies are worried about hum not winning by 20 points, but they need to get real.
He’s winning and he will win, but in the meantime he’s not running a stellar campaign and there’s something about Steve Lonegan that makes you want to watch him for a while. Like a really bad car accident or a singer who’s so off key you smile while listening to them or someone who reminds you of a character out of 1984. After a time, though, you realize that he wants to be taken seriously and that’s when you disengage. That will happen next week.
Lonegan probably isn’t saying it now, but he’s got to be unhappy with Chris Christie’s choice to schedule this election separately from the gubernatorial election in November. Christie’s original argument was that having the Senate election on the same date would pull in more Democrats, who would support Booker, to also vote for Barbara Buono. The real loser, though, will be Lonegan, who would otherwise gain some supporters who are showing up to vote for the governor. Or maybe Christie really doesn’t like Lonegan and cares not whether he wins. In any case, this openly helps Christie, who has made a Trenton career by making sure that his needs are taken care of.
This will be the last election that Christie will win, so in the end, he and Lonegan will end their elective political careers the same way. Meanwhile, Cory Booker will have six years to sharpen his running skills before he too considers a national campaign.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest
Here’s a surprise: the shutdown was planned months ago. So the pleadings and forthright looks we’ve been getting from Ted Cruz and the orange-tinged scoldings from John Boehner and the laments of the lack of compromise by Republicans everywhere have been fakes. Falsehoods. Frauds. Wait for it…Lies.
What the Republican Cadre, because it’s no longer a viable political party, has done is reprehensible. From the beginning, and I mean 2009, they have tried to obstruct President Obama’s agenda and wait out the electoral clock for four, and now eight years while they plot their way back to power. Thank heavens that they don’t, in fact, know how to do that effectively on the national stage. They will continue to win House seats, though a new poll suggests otherwise, but they’ve fallen farther behind when it comes to women and Hispanics, and we know how viable you are when that happens. In the meantime, all they have is obstruction.
Any talk of compromise or negotiation is not to be trusted. They don’t want to delay the health care bill, they want it gone. They also want Dodd-Frank repealed and for the XL pipeline to be built and they want no new taxes in any economic or tax bill they’d support. And who won the 2012 elections?
But, oddly, they seem to love Medicare and are falling over themselves to fund some parts of the federal government if they believe it will help them. Wait long enough, and they’ll CR themselves into opening the whole thing in a week or so.
Just to make things worse, Boehner is now disavowing his comments from last week that suggested some compromise. He and the far right will now take us to default if the president won’t do as he says. The crash is coming, it won’t be pretty and the GOP will take the fall.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and on Twitter @rigrundfest
Idella Carey, mother of Miriam Carey killed at the hands of Washington police Thursday, said her daughter began suffering from postpartum depression after giving birth in August 2012.
Mariam Carey was shot to death outside the U.S. Capitol after trying to ram her car through a White House barrier.
Interviews with some of those who knew the Stamford resident suggested she was coming apart well before she loaded her 1-year-old daughter into the car for the 275-mile drive to Washington, D.C. Carey had sustained a head injury in a fall and had later been fired as a dental hygienist about a year ago, according to her former employer, Dr. Brian Evans, a periodontist in Hamden. He wouldn’t say why, only that after a few weeks out from work, she returned and was terminated.
Federal investigators believe that Carey drove straight to the nation’s capital and that the violence unfolded immediately upon her arrival.
After ramming into the barricades, Carey, apparently unarmed, led police on a chase down Constitution Avenue to the Capitol, where she was shot in a horrifying chain of events.
Amy Carey-Jones, a sister of Miriam, said on CNN’s ‘Anderson Coopers 360’ Friday that there should’ve been “another way instead of shooting and killing an individual.” Another sister, Valerie Carey, said their sister “did not deserve to have her life cut down” at age 34.
A next-door neighbor, Erin Jackson, said Carey doted on her daughter, Erica, and was pleasant. Jackson said. “She seemed very happy with her daughter, very proud of her daughter.” The daughter was miraculously unharmed and was taken into protective custody.
Experts say symptoms of postpartum depression include lack of interest in the baby; mood swings between sadness and irritability; scary thoughts of something bad happening to the baby; and, in severe cases, suicidal thoughts.
Police say they’re confident Carey’s actions weren’t an accident, but that she intentionally meant to ram into the guard barrier surrounding the Whitehouse.
The tragedy of African migrants who pay with their lives to reach Europe to escape poverty or some type of persecution or another occurring all around this great, big world of ours, became a human drama, as hundreds perished in a matter of hours off the Italian coast on Thursday.
A 66-foot smuggler’s boat, carrying 500 migrants from Eritrea, Ghana and Somalia, caught fire near the Lampedusa port, Italian authorities said. Panick struck those onboard who stampeded to one side, causing the boat to flip over and carry hundreds of men, women and children, many of whom could not swim, overboard into the Mediterranean Sea.
Italian coast guard boats carrying divers headed out from the southern island of Lampedusa again on Friday to recover more bodies but choppy waters hampered their search for the hundreds still missing. On Friday officials said 155 people were rescued, but with an estimated 250 people still missing the death toll of 111 is expected to rise. Four babies and one pregnant woman were among the dead.
Pope Francis called Friday “day of tears,” denouncing the “savage” system that he said drives people to leave their homes for a better life, yet doesn’t care when they die in the process. Though many of the vessels carrying these emigrants aren’t even seaworthy, migrants still attempt the journey in search of a new life, with plenty of traffickers who’ll take their money. Smugglers often charge thousands of dollars a head for a spot on these overcrowded, battered boats with the obligatory ‘no life jacket’.
Fortress Europe, an Italian observatory that tracks migrant deaths, reported that at this time of year, when the sea is fairly calm, boats carrying migrants from Africa and the Middle East land on Italian shores almost every day. An astonishing 6,450 people have died in the Canal of Sicily alone between 1994 and 2012.
A young Tunisian man, believed to be one of the crew members and a suspected trafficker, has been detained. Prosecutors have opened an inquiry for multiple murder, and one for facilitating illegal immigration.
