Fairfax prom queen is actually a guy...

Sergio Garcia, a gay student, beats out the female candidates. His campaign started out as a bit of a stunt, but it ended up generating dialogue about gender roles on the L.A. campus.
By Ari B. Bloomekatz May 28, 2009
Sergio Garcia stood in the gymnasium and told the senior class at Fairfax High School not to worry: If he was elected, he wouldn't wear a dress."I will be wearing a suit," Garcia said, "but don't be fooled, deep down inside, I am a queen!"



Garcia, 18, spent most of his years at Fairfax openly gay and wanted to be part of the Los Angeles school's prom court -- but not as prom king. He felt that vying for prom queen would better suit his personality, so he decided to seek that crown, running against a handful of female classmates.He said it started out as a bit of a stunt and challenge -- he wasn't sure the school would allow it. But his campaign for queen ended up being serious and sparking dialogue about gender roles on campus.A few days before the dance and election, the contenders gave short speeches on why they deserved the crown.
"At one time, prom may have been a big popularity contest where the best-looking guy or girl were crowned king and queen. Things have changed and it's no longer just about who has the most friends or who wears the coolest clothes," Garcia told the crowd of seniors. "Sure, I'm not your typical prom queen candidate. There's more to me than meets the eye."The audience erupted in applause after his speech, and a group of his female friends spent the rest of the week wearing pink crowns and campaigning for him.On Saturday night at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, wearing a charcoal-gray tuxedo and a black bow tie, he was named prom queen."I felt invincible," Garcia said.He's among the first male students in Southern California to take the title usually owned by female high school beauties."It just shows how open-minded our class is," said Vanessa Lo, 18, the school's senior class president. more

Mother arrested on a felony neglect charge for not providing child with dental care

MANATEE COUNTY - Police say a Palmetto mother neglected to provide her child with needed dental care, which led to severe tooth decay.AC =
Tamika S. White, 19, was arrested Wednesday on a felony neglect charge.
Her daughter, whose age was not listed, has suffered from tooth pain for more than a year, according to a Palmetto Police Department report.
The child's grandmother urged White to take the child to the dentist.
White took the child to a dentist who told her the child had bottle mouth -- tooth decay common in infants and toddlers, the report said.
But White's Medicaid coverage would not pay for the treatment, and she refused to seek money for treatment through child-support payments from the child's father, police said. more

Victoria Gotti home is under foreclosure

Victoria Gotti's palatial Long Island estate -- which she and her sons once flaunted in the reality show "Growing Up Gotti" -- is now under foreclosure.
Despite a vast fortune amassed by her late father, Gambino boss John "Dapper Don" Gotti, the flashy Mafia princess has skipped two years of loan payments and will lose her home in tony Old Westbury, according to court records.
The 46-year-old former reality-TV star owes $650,000 to lender JPMorgan Chase -- a debt secured by a mortgage on the nearly $4.2 million mansion that she won in her divorce with ex-husband Carmine Agnello.
"I was awarded full ownership of marital property . . . and all I inherited was a house with millions of dollars' worth of debt," Gotti told The Post yesterday. more

Man bit by snake while sitting on toliet

TAIPEI (Reuters) - A Taiwanese man became a sitting target for a snake, which bit his penis as sat on the toilet at his rural home, local media reported on Monday.
"As soon as he sat down, he suddenly felt a knife-like pain and reacted instinctively by standing up," the China Times said. "When he looked down, he saw the big snake."
The 51-year-old man, from Nantou County, was under medical care with minor injuries, a director at Puli Christian Hospital said.more

Woman arrested after flicking cigarette on baby

A Copperas Cove woman was in custody Wednesday after a cigarette was flicked at her 1-year-old baby girl during an argument.
Amanda Briscoe, 30, is charged with injury to a child.
She was arrested Tuesday night.
Police say she and her husband were arguing at their home when the cigarette was flicked, producing a shower of ashes that caused a small burn on the infant’s scalp.
The girl did not require hospital treatment, police said Wednesday.

Regional Pilots earn Low Pay of $12.50 hour

Pilots who work for regional airlines can earn as little as $12.50 per hour, less than the average hourly wage of a New York City taxi driver, FOXNews.com has learned.
Hourly wages for regional pilots start at $12.50, according to Avjobs.com. In comparison, a cabbie in New York averages $17 an hour, the city's Taxi & Limousine Commission officials told FOXNews.com.
Regional pilots, who carried 160 million American passengers across America last year, receive the same FAA-approved training as their counterparts at larger airlines, but they must endure low pay and long hours, among other hardships, if they hope to reach the "major leagues," according to a former National Transportation Safety Board official. more

Springfield man gets 90 days for shooting wife during sex

URBANA — A Springfield man was sentenced to serve 90 days in jail Tuesday, May 12, despite the victim’s claims that a shooting last November was accidental.
Timothy Havens, 38, of Hilliard Street, was sentenced to serve the time in a case in which he was accused of shooting his wife with a handgun. He had called 911 to report that he shot his wife “during sex.”
Champaign County Common Pleas Court Judge Roger Wilson also ordered Havens to serve 80 hours of community service, attend anger management counseling, pay a $300 fine and serve three years probation. He was also ordered not to have contact with the victim. He did receive credit for time already served.
Havens had previously pleaded guilty to one count of violating a protection order and one count of assault.
Champaign County Prosecutor Nick Selvaggio said the case was complicated, in part because the victim maintained that the shooting was an accident throughout the investigation.
However, he also argued some of the evidence in the case did not seem to match the story and there had been a history of violence in the home.
The victim had also filed a protection order, which meant Havens should not have been in the home when the shooting occurred. Even after the shooting, both Havens and the victim were trying to reconcile and continued to violate the protection order, he said.
Kevin Lennen, Havens’ attorney, argued Havens has never been in serious legal trouble previously, and stressed that the victim had maintained the shooting was accidental from the beginning.
He said because the victim had filed with the court to rescind the protection order, there was some confusion about whether they were allowed to see each other.
However, Wilson said he believes both parties simply ignored the protection order, and should be kept apart for now.

Photo of controversial fly pver is released

CNN) -- The White House indicated Wednesday that a report and a photo from the controversial low-altitude New York flyover by a 747 plane used as Air Force One could be released this week.

A 911 caller on the day of the flyover said, "There's a plane falling. There is a big aircraft falling
Earlier, White House officials had said that there were no plans to release photos to the public.
But the tone seemed to change on Wednesday.
"The report, I believe, will be concluded at some point this week. We'll release its findings and release a photo," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said during his daily press briefing.
The review, led by Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, will focus on "why that decision was made and to ensure that it never happens again," Gibbs said.
The flyover, officials said, was a training mission -- it was also a classified government-sanctioned photo shoot.
Military officials also estimate that the mission and the photo shoot, aimed updating file photos of Air Force One -- cost around $328,835 in taxpayer money. more

Two other Florida prisons zapped visiting kids with stun guns

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yahooBuzzArticleSummary = "The Indian River and Martin lockups shocked visitors, prompting 10 suspensions. Two more state prisons have acknowledged incidents in which guards zapped visiting children with handheld stun guns, bringing to three the number of facilities where the unapproved demonstration was used on "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day."";
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Two more state prisons have acknowledged incidents in which guards zapped visiting children with handheld stun guns, bringing to three the number of facilities where the unapproved demonstration was used on "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day."
On Friday, the Department of Corrections said that several kids visiting Franklin Correctional Institution in the Panhandle on April 24 were shocked by a guard who was demonstrating what corrections officers do at work. On Tuesday, the department revealed that children visiting Indian River Correctional Institution in Vero Beach and Martin Correctional Institution in Indiantown were also zapped with 50,000-volt electronic immobilization devices.
The devices used on the children, who are between the ages of 8 and 14, require bodily contact. Used on unruly inmates, the devices usually knock victims to the ground, cause a few minutes of disorientation and leave two small burn marks.
The daughter of the warden at Indian River was among the victims.
Frank Gonzalez, the owner of Self-Defense USA, a large stun gun company in San Diego, describes the 50,000-volt shock as "similar to grabbing a live wire in your house with a wet hand — like a hard punch in the stomach with the added trauma of electricity running through your body." more

Dad accused of using dog shock collar on his kids",

A Salem man was arrested Tuesday for putting an electric dog collar on each of his four children and shocking them.
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Todd Marcum, 41, said he did it "because he thought it was funny," Salem Police Lt. Dave Okada said.
The four children, ages 3, 6, 8 and 9, had been shocked while wearing the collar at least once, according to a statement from their father, Okada said.
Marcum told police that he would chase the 3-year-old boy around with the collar, making him cry at the thought of being shocked. Okada said that because of the boy's behavior, it is likely that the children were shocked more than once.
Oregon Department of Human Services workers on Tuesday summoned police to Marcum's Salem home.
Marcum was taken into custody on four charges of first-degree criminal mistreatment. He is in the Marion County jail.
The four children were left in the custody of their mother, Okada said. The case has been handed over to DHS.
Dog shock collars are used in training and to control barking, said John Seroczynski, the national sales manager for D.T. Systems.. more

Commentary: Man up and be a real dad

Imagine looking at the man whose DNA you carry standing in your home, telling you those chilling words, as he wields a shotgun.
The frightening image is a scary thought. But according to former Major League Baseball star Darryl Strawberry, it was an actual scene, one that begins his book, "Straw: Finding My Way."
I vividly remember the towering home runs hit by the former star, who played for four big league teams, including the New York Mets and Yankees -- and of course, the many times he was in the news for failing drug tests, beating wives, getting cancer twice, going to prison. He was a man fighting enormous demons.
Yet as I read the book, there is one consistent theme that runs throughout and that sheds a spotlight on a figure that continues to plague neighborhoods all across the country: the missing-in-action father.
Strawberry makes a point repeatedly in "Straw" that he does not blame his dad for the trials and tribulations in his life; he says all decisions he made willingly. But he does speak to the issue of having a father who, by Strawberry's account, while technically in the house, was a raging drunk who spent his paycheck doing what he wanted, showing no love and affection towards his children, viciously beating Strawberry and his brother, all while telling them that they would be nothing in life. Watch Darryl Strawberry talk to Roland Martin about his father » more

Chrysler Won't Pay Back U.S. Loans

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man arrested for allegedly throwing his ex-girlfriend's 4-month-old baby out of a car window

A man was caught in Tampa Tuesday for allegedly throwing his ex-girlfriend's 4-month-old baby out of a car window, killing the child.
Richard Anthony McTear Jr., 21, was arrested Tuesday morning, hours after police say he tossed the infant boy onto Interstate 275, according to Hillsborough County authorities.
Police say he got into a fight with the baby's 17-year-old mother and attacked both of them.
He then fled with the child in his blue Chevrolet Impala.
The baby, Emanuel Wesley Murray, was found dead near the interstate about 4 a.m. just as police were preparing to issue an Amber Alert, FOX affiliate WTVT reported. more

Texas police shake down drivers, lawsuit claims

TENAHA, Texas (CNN) -- Roderick Daniels was traveling through East Texas in October 2007 when, he says, he was the victim of a highway robbery.

Police in the small East Texas town of Tenaha are accused of unjustly taking valuables from motorists.

The Tennessee man says he was ordered to pull his car over and surrender his jewelry and $8,500 in cash that he had with him to buy a new car.
But Daniels couldn't go to the police to report the incident.
The men who stopped him were the police.
Daniels was stopped on U.S. Highway 59 outside Tenaha, near the Louisiana state line. Police said he was driving 37 mph in a 35 mph zone. They hauled him off to jail and threatened him with money-laundering charges -- but offered to release him if he signed papers forfeiting his property.
"I actually thought this was a joke," Daniels told CNN.
But he signed.
"To be honest, I was five, six hundred miles from home," he said. "I was petrified." more

More Americans taking drugs for mental illness

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Many more Americans have been using prescription drugs to treat mental illness since 1996, in part because of expanded insurance coverage and greater familiarity with the drugs among primary care doctors, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
They said 73 percent more adults and 50 percent more children are using drugs to treat mental illness than in 1996.
Among adults over 65, use of so-called psychotropic drugs -- which include antidepressants, antipsychotics and Alzheimer's medicines -- doubled between 1996 and 2006.
"What we generally find is there has been an increase in access to care for all populations," said Sherry Glied of Columbia University in New York, whose study appears in the journal Health Affairs.
"Mental health has become much more a part of mainstream medical care," Glied said in a telephone interview.
In 2006, they said 16 percent of adults 65 and older had some form of mental health diagnosis. more

Microsoft lays off workers, more job cuts coming?

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Justices Toss Appeals Court Ruling Against FCC, in regards to Janet Jackson Breast Case

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Cowboys scout paralyzed after canopy collapse

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In a statement late on Sunday the team said scouting assistant Rich Behm, 33, had sustained a fracture that "caused a severing of the spinal cord ... causing permanent paralysis from the waist down." more

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