Messed Up News for the Month of July 2006.
Police: 80-Year-Old Traded Crack For Sex
POSTED: 2:46 pm EDT July 12, 2006
UPDATED: 3:30 pm EDT July 12, 2006
PITTSBURGH -- An 80-year-old man from Bloomfield pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges that he traded crack cocaine from his home, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported.
Pittsburgh police first arrested Felix Cocco in November 2005 after he had been dealing drugs from his back porch for almost a year and then again in February 2006, police said.
Police confiscated crack, a digital scale, packing materials and a pistol during that first arrest.
Cocco had wanted to remain sexually active after his wife died three years ago and turned to prostitutes, his defense attorney, Martha Bailor, said.
Assistant District Attorney Matt Wholey said he would forgo seeking mandatory sentences that would put Cocco in prison for at least seven years if Cocco and Bailor agreed to a six-to-18 month jail term.
Bailor said she was concerned about her client's vulnerability in jail, so Manning has ordered a presentence evaluation of Cocco's health.
Manning also put Cocco on house arrest, where he will wear an electronic-monitoring bracelet until he is sentenced on October 2.
New Study: 1/3 Of Pittsburgh Students Drop Out
POSTED: 11:35 am EDT July 13, 2006
PITTSBURGH -- More than one-third of all Pittsburgh Public Schools students, and nearly half of all black male students, drop out, according to a study.
The Rand Corp. study, which said the dropout rate was average for a large urban district, was commissioned by Superintendent Mark Roosevelt and presented to the school board Wednesday night.
Researchers tracked 6,100 students from their entry into high school until the time they graduated or dropped out, and found that 64 percent of students graduate within five years.
Females had a 69 percent graduation rate compared with a 59 percent rate for males, the study said. White students had a 70 percent graduation rate compared with 59 percent for blacks.
The study also said that while 64 percent of black female students graduate, only 51 percent of black male students do so.
"The thing that jumps out at me is the great disparity within schools," Roosevelt said.
Graduation rates of the schools in the district varied from 52 percent to 85 percent, according to the study.
Message Found In Bottle Gets Man Honeymoon Trip
POSTED: 3:00 pm EDT July 13, 2006
UPDATED: 6:15 pm EDT July 13, 2006
ARANSAS PASS, Texas -- A message discovered in a bottle turned into a honeymoon trip for a Texas man.
John Reed was fishing on a Gulf Coast beach in 2003 when he found an old rum bottle that was sealed. Documents inside said the bottle was one of 12 tossed in the ocean in 1987 off Grand Cayman Island in a promotion for a rum maker, a resort and the Cayman Islands.
Inside were free certificates for a plane ticket, a hotel stay and rum.
Reed gave them to his parents as a present, but they gave the certificates back to him to use for his honeymoon. Reed said he plans to marry in late July.
A Tortuga Rum spokeswoman said Reed will get two round-trip airline tickets to Grand Cayman Island, a six-day stay at a resort and a case of rum.
Seven of the original 12 promotional bottles have yet to be redeemed.
Police Dog Blamed For Pickup Hitting Woman
POSTED: 12:40 pm EDT July 13, 2006
OGDEN, Utah -- The dog did it.
That's what police in Ogden said about how one of their pickup trucks got put in gear and ran over a woman.
Authorities said Ranger, a German shepherd, was left in the truck while an officer went to check on a domestic disturbance call. The engine was running to give the dog air conditioning.
But police believe Ranger hit the shift on the steering column. The truck rolled forward, running down Mary Stone as she went to her mailbox. It then plowed through Stone's yard, into a car in the driveway.
Stone is hospitalized with a fractured pelvis and tailbone. Her husband said she had tire marks on her clothes. He's fuming that he's heard nothing from police -- not even an apology.
Investigators are looking to see if the Ford had some sort of malfunction, since a driver is supposed to step on the brake to put it into drive.
Murderers Sue Prison Over Nudie Magazine Ban
ACLU Thinks Ban Violates Rights
POSTED: 1:03 pm EDT July 12, 2006
INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana prison officials are being sued by inmates who want their Playboys.
The suit seeks to overturn a Department of Correction policy that bars girlie magazines. The policy went into effect July 1 and bars printed material that contains nudity or other sexual content.
Two inmates said the ban is a violation of their civil rights.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis seeks class-action status on behalf of more than 20,000 state prisoners.
The complaint argues the ban on sexual content won't just apply to magazines like Playboy, Hustler and Easy Rider. The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana said National Geographic, daily newspapers and private sexually-explicit letters could also be restricted under the policy. Lawyers said said the policy is so broad that it could keep inmates from receiving intimate letters from loved ones or even some great works of art and literature.
The two plaintiffs named in the complaint are Ernest Tope, 53, an inmate at the Pendleton Correctional Facility who is serving a life sentence for murder, and murder and auto theft convict Wade Meisberger, 34, who is held at the Miami Correctional Facility near Peru.
Astronauts Lose Spatula In Space
POSTED: 1:25 pm EDT July 12, 2006
HOUSTON -- Ever rummage through your kitchen drawers, wondering what you did with the spatula?
That's sort of what happened in space Wednesday.
While out on a spacewalk, one of the shuttle Discovery astronauts was using a spatula to spread some sealant. Then, all of a sudden, it was gone -- nowhere to be found.
Don't worry about it crashing down on your head here on Earth. NASA said stuff has been lost before during spacewalks and nothing bad ever happened.
The spatula was being used as the astronauts tested some new repair techniques that might someday be needed to fix the shuttle. They squeezed out a putty-like sealant, then patted it down. But bubbles kept appearing, which slowed the whole thing down.
School Web Site Sends Readers To Porn Page
POSTED: 10:01 am EDT July 10, 2006
UPDATED: 11:25 am EDT July 10, 2006
STONE MOUNTAIN -- School administrators were shocked to discover that a DeKalb County middle school's Web site included a link to a porn site, Atlanta TV station WSB reported.
Readers using the Stone Mountain Middle School's Web site could find the link on the site's student resources section.
The section includes links to educational sites such as the DeKalb Public Library, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and NASA.
Among the 36 links was a link to a porn site called Black Girl Magazine.
Black Girl Magazine was a legitimate magazine aimed at middle- and high-school girls, according to founder and publisher Kenya Jordana James.
James said it never contained any pornography.
James is a senior at a local high school who has won numerous awards for her magazine.
But she allowed the rights to the domain name to lapse.
Earlier this month, someone on the Caribbean island of Curacao picked up the rights to the name for a porn site.
School officials said they immediately removed the link from the school's Web site when the television station alerted them to the problem.
"In the future we will monitor (the Web site) a lot closer," DeKalb County School District spokesman Dale Davis said in a statement.
POSTED: 2:46 pm EDT July 12, 2006
UPDATED: 3:30 pm EDT July 12, 2006
PITTSBURGH -- An 80-year-old man from Bloomfield pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges that he traded crack cocaine from his home, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported.
Pittsburgh police first arrested Felix Cocco in November 2005 after he had been dealing drugs from his back porch for almost a year and then again in February 2006, police said.
Police confiscated crack, a digital scale, packing materials and a pistol during that first arrest.
Cocco had wanted to remain sexually active after his wife died three years ago and turned to prostitutes, his defense attorney, Martha Bailor, said.
Assistant District Attorney Matt Wholey said he would forgo seeking mandatory sentences that would put Cocco in prison for at least seven years if Cocco and Bailor agreed to a six-to-18 month jail term.
Bailor said she was concerned about her client's vulnerability in jail, so Manning has ordered a presentence evaluation of Cocco's health.
Manning also put Cocco on house arrest, where he will wear an electronic-monitoring bracelet until he is sentenced on October 2.
New Study: 1/3 Of Pittsburgh Students Drop Out
POSTED: 11:35 am EDT July 13, 2006
PITTSBURGH -- More than one-third of all Pittsburgh Public Schools students, and nearly half of all black male students, drop out, according to a study.
The Rand Corp. study, which said the dropout rate was average for a large urban district, was commissioned by Superintendent Mark Roosevelt and presented to the school board Wednesday night.
Researchers tracked 6,100 students from their entry into high school until the time they graduated or dropped out, and found that 64 percent of students graduate within five years.
Females had a 69 percent graduation rate compared with a 59 percent rate for males, the study said. White students had a 70 percent graduation rate compared with 59 percent for blacks.
The study also said that while 64 percent of black female students graduate, only 51 percent of black male students do so.
"The thing that jumps out at me is the great disparity within schools," Roosevelt said.
Graduation rates of the schools in the district varied from 52 percent to 85 percent, according to the study.
Message Found In Bottle Gets Man Honeymoon Trip
POSTED: 3:00 pm EDT July 13, 2006
UPDATED: 6:15 pm EDT July 13, 2006
ARANSAS PASS, Texas -- A message discovered in a bottle turned into a honeymoon trip for a Texas man.
John Reed was fishing on a Gulf Coast beach in 2003 when he found an old rum bottle that was sealed. Documents inside said the bottle was one of 12 tossed in the ocean in 1987 off Grand Cayman Island in a promotion for a rum maker, a resort and the Cayman Islands.
Inside were free certificates for a plane ticket, a hotel stay and rum.
Reed gave them to his parents as a present, but they gave the certificates back to him to use for his honeymoon. Reed said he plans to marry in late July.
A Tortuga Rum spokeswoman said Reed will get two round-trip airline tickets to Grand Cayman Island, a six-day stay at a resort and a case of rum.
Seven of the original 12 promotional bottles have yet to be redeemed.
Police Dog Blamed For Pickup Hitting Woman
POSTED: 12:40 pm EDT July 13, 2006
OGDEN, Utah -- The dog did it.
That's what police in Ogden said about how one of their pickup trucks got put in gear and ran over a woman.
Authorities said Ranger, a German shepherd, was left in the truck while an officer went to check on a domestic disturbance call. The engine was running to give the dog air conditioning.
But police believe Ranger hit the shift on the steering column. The truck rolled forward, running down Mary Stone as she went to her mailbox. It then plowed through Stone's yard, into a car in the driveway.
Stone is hospitalized with a fractured pelvis and tailbone. Her husband said she had tire marks on her clothes. He's fuming that he's heard nothing from police -- not even an apology.
Investigators are looking to see if the Ford had some sort of malfunction, since a driver is supposed to step on the brake to put it into drive.
Murderers Sue Prison Over Nudie Magazine Ban
ACLU Thinks Ban Violates Rights
POSTED: 1:03 pm EDT July 12, 2006
INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana prison officials are being sued by inmates who want their Playboys.
The suit seeks to overturn a Department of Correction policy that bars girlie magazines. The policy went into effect July 1 and bars printed material that contains nudity or other sexual content.
Two inmates said the ban is a violation of their civil rights.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis seeks class-action status on behalf of more than 20,000 state prisoners.
The complaint argues the ban on sexual content won't just apply to magazines like Playboy, Hustler and Easy Rider. The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana said National Geographic, daily newspapers and private sexually-explicit letters could also be restricted under the policy. Lawyers said said the policy is so broad that it could keep inmates from receiving intimate letters from loved ones or even some great works of art and literature.
The two plaintiffs named in the complaint are Ernest Tope, 53, an inmate at the Pendleton Correctional Facility who is serving a life sentence for murder, and murder and auto theft convict Wade Meisberger, 34, who is held at the Miami Correctional Facility near Peru.
Astronauts Lose Spatula In Space
POSTED: 1:25 pm EDT July 12, 2006
HOUSTON -- Ever rummage through your kitchen drawers, wondering what you did with the spatula?
That's sort of what happened in space Wednesday.
While out on a spacewalk, one of the shuttle Discovery astronauts was using a spatula to spread some sealant. Then, all of a sudden, it was gone -- nowhere to be found.
Don't worry about it crashing down on your head here on Earth. NASA said stuff has been lost before during spacewalks and nothing bad ever happened.
The spatula was being used as the astronauts tested some new repair techniques that might someday be needed to fix the shuttle. They squeezed out a putty-like sealant, then patted it down. But bubbles kept appearing, which slowed the whole thing down.
School Web Site Sends Readers To Porn Page
POSTED: 10:01 am EDT July 10, 2006
UPDATED: 11:25 am EDT July 10, 2006
STONE MOUNTAIN -- School administrators were shocked to discover that a DeKalb County middle school's Web site included a link to a porn site, Atlanta TV station WSB reported.
Readers using the Stone Mountain Middle School's Web site could find the link on the site's student resources section.
The section includes links to educational sites such as the DeKalb Public Library, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and NASA.
Among the 36 links was a link to a porn site called Black Girl Magazine.
Black Girl Magazine was a legitimate magazine aimed at middle- and high-school girls, according to founder and publisher Kenya Jordana James.
James said it never contained any pornography.
James is a senior at a local high school who has won numerous awards for her magazine.
But she allowed the rights to the domain name to lapse.
Earlier this month, someone on the Caribbean island of Curacao picked up the rights to the name for a porn site.
School officials said they immediately removed the link from the school's Web site when the television station alerted them to the problem.
"In the future we will monitor (the Web site) a lot closer," DeKalb County School District spokesman Dale Davis said in a statement.