In The News-The Unstable Edition

A Colorado teenager whose yearbook picture was rejected for being too revealing is vowing to fight the ban with her high school’s administration, but the editors of the yearbook insist it was their decision alone on the photo.

The five student editors of the Durango High School yearbook in Durango, Col., told the Durango Herald they were the ones who made the call not to publish a picture of senior Sydney Spies posing in a short yellow skirt midriff and shoulder-exposing black shawl as her senior portrait.

We are an award-winning yearbook. We don’t want to diminish the quality with something that can be seen as unprofessional,student Brian Jaramillo told the paper on Thursday.

Spies was joined by her mother, Miki Spies, and a handful of fellow Durango High students and alumni in a protest outside the school Wednesday after, she said, administrators informed her the photo would not be permitted because it violated dress code.

I feel like they aren’t allowing me to have my freedom of expression, Spies told the Herald.  I think the administration is wrong in this situation, and I don’t want this to happen to other people.

The five editors, who said their decision was unanimous, said Spies’ blame was misplaced, in both targeting the administration, and believing that it was a dress code issue.

They also offered her an opportunity to include the photo in the yearbook, just not as her senior photo.

If she (Spies) chooses to, the picture will run as her senior ad, not her senior portrait, Trujillo said.

Despite the clarification from her peers into how and why the decision was made, a meeting Spies initiated between herself, her mother, and the school’s principal, Diane Lashinsky, was held today as planned.

The editors all turned their backs on me and changed their minds,she told the Herald. I really do feel like they were intimidated by the principal.

Neither Spies nor the school responded to ABCNews.com‘s requests for comments today on the meeting’s outcome.

The Durango School District, which oversees the high school, issued the following statement to ABCNews.com

“The editors of Durango High School’s yearbook informed a senior student in December that her photo in question would not be included as a senior portrait in the yearbook and asked her to submit a replacement.   Durango School District 9-R’s administration supports this decision.

Prior to today’s meeting, the Spies family told local media they planned to meet with a civil lawyer in Denver to review their daughter’s case.

A Daly City man whose ex-wife poured boiling water over him and then clubbed him with a baseball bat died Friday, and she could now face murder charges, police said.

The victim, whose name hasn’t been released, was sleeping when his ex-wife, Jesusa Tatad, 39, poured boiling water over him Nov. 26 because she believed he was seeing someone else, authorities said. The couple was divorced but still lived together at a home on the 200 block of Coronado Avenue.

The ex-husband ran to the bathroom, where Tatad allegedly was waiting with a baseball bat and clubbed him in the head, police said.

Tatad was initially arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated mayhem and torture. She could now face a murder charge, said Daly City police Sgt. Michael Barton.

Submited by GodzillaKittyLovesCheese:

This is an older story, but just hear about it today and it was awesome!  He has been around in the news since 2005. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggie_(alligator) and he has a blog http://www.savereggie.blogspot.com/. 

LOS ANGELES — For months, the city’s most famous reptile eluded paparazzi and faithful fans, who gathered daily at the edge of an urban lake to catch a glimpse of the A-list alligator.

But when “Reggie” decided to come out, he did it in true Hollywood style: Swarmed by fans and photographers as it sunned by the water, it was whisked away with a police escort as TV helicopters gave chase and broadcast live footage of the cagey critter’s freeway journey to the zoo at rush hour.

“We were petting him, talking to him,” said a giddy City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, whose district includes the park. “I feel like I know him because I’ve invested a lot of time and energy in him.”

The 6½-foot alligator believed to be the elusive “Reggie,” who lurked in a city lake for two years, was wrestled into captivity Thursday. The wily beast became a celebrity as it eluded would-be wranglers and managed to disappear for 18 months until it recently resurfaced.

Bad timing may have ruined Reggie’s free rein at Harbor Regional Park’s Lake Machado.

The alligator was spotted on land about 3:30 p.m., as officials and wildlife experts met nearby to find a way to snag the gator.

“We were about to talk about strategies for catching him when somebody called and said ‘He’s out of the lake,’” said Hahn. “So we said, ‘Let’s go now, let’s get him.’”

The cold-blooded creature was sunning itself in an open fence erected several days ago in hopes of corralling it. Park officials closed a gate and Los Angeles Zoo reptile expert Ian Recchio hooked its neck.

Five or six men wrestled to restrain the thrashing alligator until his jaws could be duct-taped shut. Hahn was certain the alligator was Reggie.

Firefighters strapped it to a board and loaded it into an animal control truck for transport to the zoo.

A police car escorted the white truck as news helicopters followed.

Recchio said the zoo could quarantine the alligator 30 to 60 days. Introducing it into a pool of other alligators could take weeks.

Reggie was an illegal pet that outgrew its welcome and was allegedly tossed by a former policeman into the 50-acre lake.

When it was first spotted in the murky lake in August 2005, it became a sensation as crowds gathered to catch a glimpse. Locals named it Reggie, though its gender is not clear.

Before his death, “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin offered to help nab Reggie. The local newspaper kept note of how long the reptile had been at large with the words “Reggie Watch” on their masthead.

WASHINGTON — A continuing weak economy and last month’s bipartisan tax cut legislation will drive the government’s deficit to a record $1.5 trillion this year, a new government estimate predicts.

The eye-popping numbers mean the government will continue to borrow 40 cents for every dollar it spends.

The new Congressional Budget Office estimates will add fuel to a raging debate over cutting spending and looming legislation that’s required to allow the government to borrow more money as the national debt nears the $14.3 trillion cap set by law. Republicans controlling the House say there’s no way they’ll raise the limit without significant cuts in spending, starting with a government funding bill that will advance next month.

The CBO analysis predicts the economy will grow by 3.1 percent this year, but that joblessness will remain above 9 percent this year. Dauntingly for President Obama, the nonpartisan agency estimates a nationwide unemployment rate of 8.2 percent on Election Day in 2012.

The latest figures are up from previous estimates because of bipartisan legislation passed in December that extended Bush-era tax cuts, unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless and provided a 2 percent payroll tax cut this year.

That measure added almost $400 billion to this year’s deficit, CBO says.

The deficit is on track to beat the record of $1.4 trillion set in 2009. That figure reflected huge outlays from the Wall Street bailout. The nonpartisan budget agency predicts the deficit will drop to $1.1 trillion next year.

“The fiscal challenge confronting us is enormous. To solve this problem, it will require real compromise and a great deal of political will,” said Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D. “We need to have both sides, Democrats and Republicans, willing to move off their fixed positions and find common ground.”

The chilling figures come the morning after Obama called for a five-year freeze on domestic agency budgets passed by Congress each year. But those nondefense programs make up just 18 percent of the $3.7 trillion budget, which means any upcoming deficit reduction package - at least one that begins to significantly slow the gush of red ink - will require politically dangerous curbs to popular benefit programs, which include Social Security, Medicare, the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled, and food stamps.

Neither Obama nor his GOP rivals on Capitol Hill have yet come forward with specific proposals for cutting such benefit programs. Successful efforts to curb the deficit always require active, engaged presidential leadership but Obama’s unwillingness to thus far take chances has deficit hawks discouraged. Obama will release his 2012 budget proposal next month.

“Somebody is going to have to bite the bullet and get this process going,” said Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan group that advocates fiscal responsibility. “And that somebody has to be the president.”

Obama has pointedly steered clear of the recommendations of his deficit commissions, which in December called for politically difficult moves such as increasing the Social Security retirement age and reducing future increases in benefits. It also proposed a 15 cents a gallon increase in the gas tax and eliminating or scaling back tax breaks - including the child tax credit, mortgage interest deduction and deduction claimed by employers who provide health insurance - in exchange for rate cuts on corporate and income taxes.

“I find the president moving in the same directions as (the deficit commission), certainly the same goals,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who served on the panel and voted for its controversial findings. “Stay tuned.”

CBO predicts that the deficit will fall to $551 billion by 2015, down to a sustainable 3 percent of the size of the economy.

But under its rules, the CBO assumes that recently extended cuts in taxes on income, investment and people inheriting large estates will expire in two years. If those tax cuts, and numerous others, are extended, the deficit for that year would be almost three times as large.

Tax revenues, which dropped significantly in 2009 because of the recession, have stabilized. But revenue growth will continue to be constrained because of the slow pace of economic growth and the extension of Bush era tax cuts passed by Congress in December. The CBO projects revenues to be 6 percent higher in 2011 than they were two years ago, which will not keep pace with the growth in spending.

As a share of the economy, tax revenues in 2011 are projected to reach their lowest levels since 1950. The CBO projects that tax revenues will be 14.8 percent of GDP in 2011, which would be 0.1 percentage point lower than in 2009.

“The United States faces daunting economic and budgetary challenges. The economy has struggled to recover from the recent recession, which was triggered by a large decline in house prices and a financial crisis - events unlike anything this country has seen since the Great Depression,” the CBO report says.

Separately, almost a dozen Republican senators endorsed a proposal by Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget. The version is stricter than a bipartisan balanced budget amendment that fell one vote short in the Senate in 1997. It requires a two-thirds vote in Congress to raise taxes, among other provisions backed by tea party activists. No Democrats have signed on to the measure.

Cops: Driver was on strong prescription drugs

WESTERLY, R.I. (WPRI) - A school bus driver is now charged with driving under the influence of drugs.

Kerri Guarino, 51, was behind the wheel when her bus slammed into a large rock on Hiscox Road on a morning back in December.

Five children had to be treated for minor injuries, Westerly police said Friday. Thirteen were on the bus in all — all of them between three and seven years old, according to police.

“I heard something happening, and I was walking with my dogs,” Victoria Diffin said Friday night. She lives near the crash site. “When we went [to see], the policemen were already moving the kids.”

Investigators said Friday afternoon in a news release that she had multiple prescription drugs in her system — noted as “schedule III and IV” drugs — according to blood test results. Those types of drugs can include addictive opiates such as oxycodone.

Guarino is also facing an enhanced penalty for having children in the vehicle while allegedly driving drugged. She is due in court for arraignment on Jan. 14.

No one answered the door at Guarino’s Westerly home on Friday night.

Digging into her background and history, Eyewitness News found Guarino also allegedly struck an illegally parked car with her school bus on Pierce Street in November. Police said no one was hurt in the incident.

Police say marijuana placed in pizza boxes

NEWPORT, R.I. (WPRI) - Police say oregano wasn’t the only herb found inside the pizza boxes coming from a Newport pizza parlor. Now, the owner is facing charges.

According to police, the franchise owner of Ronzio Pizza on Broadway was selling marijuana from the business; putting the drugs right inside the pizza boxes.

Police said they began investigating after receiving several tips from neighbors.

Over the course of a month, undercover officers made several drug purchases out of the business. Police said during the transactions, the drugs were placed in a pizza box, along with the pizza.

During the bust, investigators said they found about four ounces of marijuana in the basement, which has a street value of about $1,000. Investigators also seized $1,266 in cash, a security system and a 2003 Mazda.

Police arrested the owner, Manual Periera, 38, and charged him with possession with intent to deliver marijuana.

The investigation is ongoing, police said.

A goat confiscated from a suspected drunk driver near Hemet is unharmed and could be adopted out if its owner does not step forward, authorities said Friday.

The goat was discovered riding shotgun in a car stopped Tuesday night by a California Highway Patrol officer. While the driver remained inside the car, his passenger in the back seat leapt out and tried to run away but fell down.

Authorities suspected the goat was stolen after the driver and passenger denied ownership.

“It just sounds like they were on a drunken joyride, and the goat became their new buddy along the way,” said John Welsh, spokesman for the Riverside County Animal Services Department.

The goat was brought to the new Western Riverside County/City Animal Shelter, where it was keeping company with a deer and several horses while waiting for its owner. Welsh said the animal shelters normally deal with cats and dogs, but more exotic creatures such as ferrets, tortoises and peacocks are not unheard of.
“What’s really funny is that the officer that got called out to the goat this time is the same officer that responded to a goat wandering around a Carl’s Jr.” last year, Welsh said. “She is our official goat officer now.”

Sometimes, Welsh said, people like to adopt a sweet-natured goat to keep their horses company.

Pennsylvania’s subsidized health insurance for low-income working people will likely end next month, officials on Gov.-elect Tom Corbett’s transition team said Tuesday, leaving more than 40,000 people with less palatable options and dashing the hopes of more than 400,000 on the waiting list.

“AdultBasic is not sustainable,” said Kevin Harley, a spokesman for the transition, referring to the insurance program that began under Republican Govs. Tom Ridge and Mark Schweiker, and was expanded by outgoing Gov. Rendell, a Democrat.

Staff for the incoming and outgoing governors traded accusations Tuesday about who was responsible for the program’s demise, but both agreed that the money - a combination of tobacco-settlement revenues and donations from the state’s four Blue Cross plans - would run out around Feb. 28 for the fiscal year that ends June 30, and that no good alternative was in place.

“There is no apparent source of funds,” said David F. Simon, chairman of the transition team for insurance matters and chief legal counsel of Jefferson Health System.

To provide “as soft a landing as possible,” Simon said, the team had negotiated an agreement with the Blue Cross companies to waive their normal restriction on people with preexisting conditions who move from adultBasic to the Blues’ current Special Care plans for low-income people.

Those plans cost several times as much as adultBasic and provide far fewer benefits - a maximum of four doctor’s office visits a year for most issues, including both primary care and specialists, for example.

“Special care is horrible insurance,” said Gene Bishop, an internal medicine doctor at Pennsylvania Hospital and a physician consultant to the Pennsylvania Health Law Project, one of several advocacy groups that condemned the move.

“When I was in practice and I first saw someone with that insurance, I thought they were mistaken. Who would sell someone insurance that you can only go four times a year?” said Bishop. A doctor should see someone with diabetes at least that often, she said, just to meet medical guidelines for managing the person’s condition, not counting anything else that might happen, such as contracting the flu.

Kathy Dabanian, a 52-year-old house cleaner who lives in Sellersville, Bucks County, has been enrolled in adultBasic almost since the beginning, when doctors at Doylestown Hospital suspected she had Lyme disease.

Since then, she has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a chronic condition involving pain and fatigue, and osteoporosis, a thinning of the bones. The state plan has been a lifesaver, she said, covering doctor’s visits and providing discounts on antibiotics and medications that relieve joint pain.

“I realized that I was really lucky with adultBasic,” she said.

When she heard recently that the program might be discontinued, “I got panicked,” she said.

She visited her doctor Monday in hope of squeezing in appointments for any follow-up she needs.

PennACTION, an advocacy group, announced protests across the state for Friday, including one outside Independence Blue Cross headquarters in Philadelphia.

Health advocates have been hoping for an agreement that would somehow continue adultBasic until 2014, when key provisions of the federal health-care overhaul would kick in, replacing programs such as this one.

They have been regular critics of Corbett, who was among a group of state attorneys general who sued to overturn that aspect of the law that requires people to have health-insurance coverage or face penalties. Corbett and others believe the mandate is unconstitutional.

Without that provision, supporters of the law say, much of the bill would fall apart because people would avoid applying for insurance until they needed it, raising costs beyond what the market could bear.

Pennsylvania’s adultBasic is among the more generous plans offered by states for low-income working people, with premiums of just $36 a month.

It was originally funded, in 2002, entirely by tobacco-settlement money. As that money was diverted to pay for other things, however, Rendell reached an agreement with the Blues in 2005 to pay a percentage of their revenues into a fund that would support and expand the program.

That agreement ran out in December and was replaced by a temporary agreement, negotiated by Senate Republicans last summer, for the Blues to contribute an additional $51 million to keep the program afloat through June. Rendell administration officials maintain that they said both then and later that the money was not enough, and that when the Blues’ payments from the previous agreement also came in short, the shortfall recently became even clearer.

The Corbett team insists that the Rendell administration should have found a way to fund the program; Rendell officials say they suggested alternatives to the transition team.

“We told everybody that the money was going to run out. If I was staying on as governor I would be asking for a supplemental appropriation,” Rendell said Tuesday in response to a question during a news conference about education. The incoming administration, he said, “should find a way to renegotiate with the Blues.”

But Simon, the Corbett transition’s insurance chair, said the Blues would not be open to giving additional money.

The Blues have not been officially informed that the program will end, a spokeswoman said. They are obligated to send a letter to subscribers 30 days in advance.

Rendell administration officials said they had been hoping a solution would be reached and that the letters would not need to go out. Corbett transition officials said they had been pushing the administration to send them.

“It would say we regret to inform you that funding for the adultBasic program will be exhausted as of February 2011. We urge you to explore any alternatives,” Simon said.

Ruth Stoolman, a spokeswoman for Independence Blue Cross, which provided the subsidized adultBasic coverage in Southeastern Pennsylvania, said, “We are disappointed that the state wasn’t able to secure additional funding. It leaves 12,000 of our members without coverage.

“Unfortunately, people are going to have to find other options. Special Care is an option. It is not a perfect option, but it is an option,” Stoolman said.

CUMBERLAND COUNTY, Pa. — Two Cumberland County girls remain hospitalized in fair condition after an accidental shooting over the weekend.

Lauren and Natalie Rhodes, who are 10 and 11 years old, were getting in a car Sunday morning at their Blossom Terrace home in Boiling Springs.

Their mother, Jane Rhodes, was removing a rifle and muzzleloader from a passenger seat when it went off, hitting one of the girls in the leg and the other in the pelvis, state police said.

Troopers were told both weapons had been left in a safe position so they shouldn’t have accidentally fired.

“We’re not exactly sure why it went off. At this point, it appears to be a very freak mishap that potentially could have cost the two girls greater serious injury than what they sustained,” said state police Trooper Tom Pinkerton.

The guns were left in the car by the family’s father and son, who had been hunting the day before, police said.

No charges will be filed.

READING, Pa. — Someone apparently trying to start the year off with a clear conscience prompted a bomb squad to report to a post office where workers discovered a suspicious package addressed to police.

Northern Berks Regional Police Chief Scott Eaken said the package turned out to contain electronics and other items stolen from cars in the area last summer.

Suspicions were raised by wires visible inside the box left in the Blandon Post Office lobby Tuesday morning.

Eaken said postal workers were also suspicious because the box was labeled “return to Northern Berks” but had no delivery or return address.

Police suspect the person who dropped off the package was suffering from a guilty conscience.

Eaken said officers took fingerprints from some of the items and will continue to investigate.

Adam Trump

Trisha Edelman

In July, Trisha Edelman went to her ex-boyfriend’s apartment to pick up their toddler daughter for visitation.

Once she was in the apartment, Adam Trump pulled a gun on her, Edelman told police. First, he threatened to kill himself, then he forced her to the bed and tried to smother her with a pillow as he threatened to kill her.

Edelman managed to calm him down and flee the apartment with the couple’s daughter and call police, who arrested Trump.

But Edelman — who her mother said was 18 weeks’ pregnant — was not as lucky when she apparently drove to Trump’s New Cumberland town house early Tuesday.

That’s when police say Trump likely shot the 21-year-old in the stomach while she was in her car and carried her to his town house.

Trump was lying in his bed next to the body when officers entered his apartment around 3 a.m. Wednesday, police said. They said he admitted to shooting Edelman.

It was one day before Trump, 25, was due in court to face aggravated-assault charges in connection with the July incident. He had been free on $150,000 bail.

Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed said authorities don’t know why Edelman apparently drove to the apartment. He said he didn’t know the custody arrangements. The couple’s daughter wasn’t there at the time of the shooting.

“This young lady did everything she was supposed to do, and she’s dead,” Freed said, adding she couldn’t avoid him because they had a child together.

Police learned that Edelman might be in danger Tuesday when Hampden Township. police received a call from her mother, Gina Edelman, saying she was worried about her daughter.

Because of the July incident, Freed said his office and police moved quickly to search for Edelman, a Cumberland Valley High School graduate, after her mother reported her missing on Tuesday.

“We knew about the previous case in which she was a victim, and she did have a [protection-from-abuse order],” Freed said. “So Hampden [police] immediately responded, talked to her mother and then started to try to take steps to locate her.”

Trump was charged with homicide. He is being held in county prison. Freed said a decision about whether to charge Trump in connection with the death of Edelman’s fetus will depend on the results of an autopsy today and a check of Pennsylvania law.

According to court documents, Gina Edelman told police her daughter had left her home about 4 p.m. Monday, saying she was not feeling well. The next morning, Gina Edelman received a text asking “Where’s Trisha?” from Trisha’s boyfriend, Brian Morris, with whom she shared a home on Elk Court in Hampden Township.

Gina Edelman found that her daughter had not arrived for work that morning, none of her friends had heard from her, and she had not updated her Facebook page. Gina Edelman told police it was unusual for her daughter to stay out of touch.

Police used cell phone signals to locate Trisha Edelman and Trump at Trump’s rented town house on 15th Street.

He had lived at the two-story home a short time. At the time of the incident in July, he lived in Mechanicsburg, Freed said.

Freed said police at first were concerned they could be facing a dangerous hostage situation and that Trump might be armed. They found Edelman’s car parked at his town-house complex, then obtained a key to the apartment from the landlord.

Freed said police found Trump and Edelman in an upstairs bedroom. When a police officer tried to determine Edelman’s state of health, Trump said only, “She’s dead,” he said.

An officer reported seeing a handgun next to the body, and Freed said there was a shotgun in the town house as well.

Freed said the handgun that Trump was accused of using in July was recovered by police around that time, and he said it appeared that the handgun and shotgun recovered Wednesday were stolen.

Court records show Trump and Edelman had problems before July. In February 2008, Trump was charged in Silver Spring Township with simple assault against Edelman, but the charge was reduced to a harassment conviction.

In June 2007, he had been charged with possession of a controlled substance, found guilty and ordered to pay a fine of $700 and serve 12 months of probation.

The communications system malfunction that caused a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Frankfurt to divert to Toronto late Monday was caused by a pilot spilling coffee.

Reacting to the spill, the pilot changed the transponder code, and while turning the dial the Boeing 777 sent out a radio message indicating a hijacking, according to Canadian transportation authorities.

The crew was able to fix the faulty message, but the captain of Flight 940 decided to land the plane rather than fly across the Atlantic Ocean with a potential communications issue.

“During a period of light turbulence, a cockpit crew member’s beverage spilled, causing issues with the airplane’s communications equipment,” United spokesman Rahsaan Johnson tells AOL Travel News.

“The plane never lost contact with air traffic control and followed standard operating procedures, landing safely in Toronto where we could begin to re-accommodate our customers,” Johnson says.

The plane, with 241 passengers and 14 crew on board, landed without incident at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.

The passengers were flown back to Chicago and housed in hotel rooms overnight. An additional flight has been added to fly them to Frankfurt on Tuesday, Johnson says.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) - A teenager who supervised an 8-year-old who shot himself with an Uzi submachine gun at a 2008 gun fair testified Friday that he told the boy’s father that “it wasn’t a good idea” to let the child fire it.

Michael Spano was a witness on the fourth day of the trial of Edward Fleury, whose company co-sponsored the exhibition at the Westfield Sportsman’s Club. Fleury has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and other charges in the death of Christopher Bizilj of Ashford, Conn.

Spano said he offered the micro Uzi because Dr. Charles Bizilj wanted his two sons to shoot an automatic weapon and a regular Uzi the father had picked out was failing to fire in automatic mode.

“I told him it wasn’t a good idea because it shoots fast and kicks hard,” said Spano, who was 15 when the shooting occurred.

Christopher’s brother Colin, then 11 years old, fired the micro Uzi first. Then Christopher came up to the firing line. Spano said he had one hand on Christopher and one on the gun.

“He was shooting fine, then something happened,” Spano said. “I ran over to my father, and I told him the gun hit the kid in the face.”

Spano’s father, Domenico Spano of New Milford, Conn., and Carl Giuffre of Hartford, Conn., brought the machine guns to the gun fair and had machine gun licenses. Both have pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and await trial.

Also Friday, a female juror was dismissed after crying during a sidebar conference with the judge and lawyers. Fifteen jurors remain, including 12 who will deliberate the case and three alternates. Officials would not say why the juror was dismissed.

Testimony is to resume Monday.

On Thursday, jurors watched video of the shooting, taken by the boy’s father. It showed the front of the Uzi kicking back toward Christopher’s head and part of his skull appearing to fly off, a sight that prompted a collective gasp in the courtroom.

Prosecutors maintain that Fleury was responsible for illegally allowing the underage boy to fire a machine gun at an exhibition he had promoted as safe and legal.

Michael Spano, who didn’t have a machine gun license and wasn’t certified as a firearms instructor, testified that Fleury knew he was going to work on the firing line as a range officer the day of the shooting.

Fleury’s lawyer, Rosemary Scapicchio, asked Spano: “You trusted Mr. Bizilj to make the best decisions for his own children, right?”

“Yes,” Spano said.

Scapicchio has repeatedly argued that some of the responsibility for Christopher’s death falls on his father. Prosecutors have said that Charles Bizilj was not charged because he based his decision to allow his sons to fire the gun on information from others who should have known it was too dangerous.

Bizilj testified Thursday he thought the event would be safe and well-supervised. When asked by prosecutor William Bennett if he had thought about safety, Bizilj said, “You can imagine this has gone through my head a thousand times.”

Bizilj acknowledged under cross-examination that he signed a liability waiver before the shooting and told reporters shortly afterward he believed it was a tragic accident. Bizilj later filed a lawsuit for negligence against the Westfield Sportsman’s Club, Fleury and two others. It was settled last month for about $700,000, but Fleury wasn’t part of the settlement, Scapicchio said.

Michael Spano also said under cross-examination Friday that several police officers saw children shooting machine guns at the event and never told anyone to stop or that it was illegal.

Later Friday, the jury got its first glimpse of the Uzi that killed Christopher when state police Sgt. John Crane demonstrated how it works.

Crane also testified that, after watching the video, he believed the micro Uzi wasn’t positioned the correct way on Christopher when the accident happened. He said the back portion of the gun that extends toward the shooter for stabilization was positioned unfirmly under Christopher’s arm instead of firmly on his shoulder.

“It appeared to me that he was unsure where to place his hands, where to place the shoulder stock,” Crane said. “When the gun fired, the gun rotated, allowing the barrel to come in contact with his head.”

Scapicchio questioned Crane’s expertise on micro Uzis and recoil. Crane said on cross-examination that he had never fired a micro Uzi before he shot the one Christopher used during his examination of the gun afterward.

Scapicchio has argued that state law doesn’t prevent minors from shooting machine guns if they’re accompanied by others with gun licenses.

COOS BAY, Ore. (AP) — Members of Paranormal Studies & Investigations of Oregon cringe when a reporter describes their spirited pursuits as a hobby.

“We’ve always been very passionate about it,” said group co-founder Laura Schier.

Besides, what they do is a business now.

In recent weeks, the four-year-old ghost hunting club set up shop in downtown Coos Bay, selling apparel, spiritual bric-a-brac and, soon, a variety of digital devices to capture evidence of orbs, mists, disembodied voices and other anomalies.

Call it a paranormal pro shop.

Does this thing have a ghost of a chance of surviving?

Undoubtedly, club members say.

They have no illusions of turning big profits and quitting their day jobs. They say whatever money the new store makes goes right back into funding road trips for investigations beyond the Bay Area and for buying expensive ghost-chasing equipment.

“And it makes it a little more accessible for people who want an investigation to come and see us face to face instead of just calling,” Schier said.

The club sells only merchandise, not services. Consultations and investigations are performed gratis.

“What we do is not scientifically proven,” said founder Donna Stewart.

“I don’t think you should charge for that.”

They say provoking spirits for profit is strictly ta-BOO! in the paranormal community.

“It’s for our benefit, anyway. It’s our research,” added tech specialist Josh Woods.

The club primarily services Western Oregon, averaging about two investigations a month. Clients are generally folks who want an explanation for the things that go bump in the night.

Though all members are believers - save for Donna Stewart’s husband, Rick, the hardened skeptic of the bunch - they approach each case with a healthy dose of doubt.

“A lot of times, we find logical explanations for the things they’re experiencing,” Schier said.

However, they’ve amassed a chilling amount of evidence: photos of phantoms, video footage of creeping specters and audio recordings of otherworldly voices.

They’ll eventually display their best footage on a monitor for walk-ins to watch.

Their new shop at 530 N. Broadway is more than a retail establishment. A workstation in the back features a hodgepodge of audio and video equipment members use to examine evidence.

A typical investigation yields about 32 hours of audio and video recordings, and all of it must be painstakingly dissected.

Before they had this centralized location, they had to share their findings and individually review them.

Now, multiple members can share the duties at once in the back room.

“It allows us to get back to our clients much quicker,” Schier said.

“What used to take a week takes only days.”

The club also will broadcast its twice-weekly Internet radio show from here. Woods said the show averages about 2,000 to 3,000 listeners the world over.

It features interviews of geek-favored celebrities such as Battlestar Galactica’s Richard Hatch and Dustin Pari, star of Syfy Channel’s Ghost Hunters International. Even American Idol contestant Kris Allen joined the show for conversation about sasquatch.

“He’s a bigfoot fanatic,” Stewart said.

PSI of Oregon comprises 10 certified members. These are the ones who have put in the hours to investigate in a professional capacity. They split rent and utilities for the new shop.

The club is fielding more and more membership requests, a trend perpetuated by the popularity of ghost-centric reality shows on cable television.

The club has three trainees, all it can handle for now.

“TV is giving it a lot of recognition,” Schier said.

But the publicity isn’t always welcome.

Members say they’re concerned certain programs are giving ghost hunting a bad rap. Some celebrity investigators go to extremes to get a rise out of supposed entities - bloodletting, name-calling and performing live burials, among other techniques they view as unethical.

“We don’t think that’s a proper approach,” Schier said.

The Bay Area’s rich history makes it a hot spot for haunting. At least two other paranormal clubs operate locally, though PSI of Oregon is the only one to become a certified business.

It’s considering becoming a nonprofit organization and hopes to embark on an educational mission of teaching youths the do’s and don’ts of ghost hunting.

“It’s not your average local business,” Stewart said.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) – A Jefferson woman has been sentenced to 30 days in jail and 60 months of supervised probation after pleading guilty to charges of sexual assault of an animal and criminal mistreatment.

The Statesman Journal reports that Rachel Petterson and her now ex-husband, Sam Petterson, were arrested in April after police found home video of them sexually assaulting dogs.

Marion County Judge Mary James ordered Petterson on Thursday to undergo a sex offender evaluation.

Deputies found video of the woman and dogs while investigating sex abuse and child pornography allegations against her husband.

He was charged with child pornography and was sentenced last year to 43 years in prison.

PENDLETON, Ore. (AP) — During the past year, agronomist Sean Currans found himself fulfilling a unique role far away from home.

The owner of Rugged Country Plants in Milton-Freewater spent the last 12 months living on Command Operating Base Basra in southern Iraq. When he went off base, he wore a bullet proof vest and helmet. He was accompanied by an interpreter. He worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture bringing Iraqi farmers up to date on modern agriculture techniques.

“The reality is Iraq has been isolated for 30 years and has not been adopting new technologies,” Currans said.

For instance, Iraq was the date palm capital of the world 30 years ago, he said. There were once 30 million date palm trees, but that number has dropped to 2 million today. Those left only produce about 10 percent of their potential because of neglect and out-of-date farming practices.

Date palms took up a big portion of Currans’ time.

Last March, Currans attended a date palm conference in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. There he met representatives from Phoenix Agrotech, a California company.

Six months later he set up an exchange program between Iraqi date palm farmers and the American company.

“They had a very enlightening and wonderful time,” Currans said. “The Iraqis came back full of compliments and praise for the hospitality and generosity of the Californian host, all the things they’ve learned and all the new practices.”

Since then, Agrotech employees traveled to Basra to help the Iraqis design model farms.

Currans had the freedom to find this problem and begin building ways to address it because of the way the USDA program he works for operates. “You go and see what’s going on in a province,” he said.

“You use your background and experience to see what you can do to help them develop agriculture to a more productive level. Professionally, it’s quite interesting the amount of latitude we were given to address what issues we thought were most important.”

Currans was able to address another more complicated and cultural issue, too.

Before the U.S. invasion in 2003, Currans said, most farming was heavily controlled by the government. Supplies like seeds and fertilizers came from Baghdad. Then, after harvest, the government bought the crops.

“With the 2003 invasion, that system quit working and hasn’t worked since,” Currans said.

The government is pushing for privatization, for farmers to work things out on their own. But only in the last year, Currans said, has the government begun to make progress in that direction.

“It is a big change and a big shock to the farmers,” he said. “They’re being told to go to a place where they haven’t been before.”

To help the Iraqis cope with these big changes, Currans decided to focus on a basic skill well known to farmers in the west: communication.

American farmers get together all the time.

They meet at conferences, agricultural supply offices, or at the local cafe for coffee. “They talk to each other as neighbors,” Currans said. “Iraqis don’t have that kind of cooperative communication as their culture. They don’t know what their neighbor is doing. They don’t talk to each other.”

So Currans worked to get farmers together. He brought them to conferences, or to meals and meetings.

Then he and his interpreter would say to the farmers, “We’d like to be helping but we don’t know how to do that. What do you guys think? What do you think is needed? What are your challenges? What are your problems? Let’s talk about this and work on it together.”

This is all new for Iraqi farmers.

“Freedom of speech and the ability to organize and coordinate is not a part of their world view,” Currans said. “They haven’t had the opportunity to get together and talk about things.”

In a way, he said, he was bringing a very basic form of democracy to the Iraqis. After living under first communist rule, and then under a dictatorship, the farmers weren’t used to having someone ask what they needed.

Currans came home to Milton-Freewater just before Christmas. He is home for three weeks before leaving again for a second year in Iraq. He has many goals, including expanding on his date palm program. Also, by the time his second year is done, he hopes he has taught the farmers enough about communication that they can keep talking.

“I hope to have enough organizing meetings with the farmers to where they have a relationship with each other and with the government,” he said. “When I’m gone, I hope they can carry on those things for more functioning dialogue in the province because they got used to doing it when I was there.”

Though he enjoys the work and looks forward to his next steps, Currans knows there is only so much he can do in a year.

“It’s real clear to me it’s going to be Iraqis rebuilding Iraq,” he said. “Americans are not going to do it. It’s going to have to be them coming up with the appropriate solutions for their own situation. I hope to help them take another step in that direction.”

SEATTLE — A newly-engaged Seattle woman who was burned in an attack over the weekend in Puerto Rico has died.

Kate Donahue, 25, died Thursday afternoon at a Miami hospital with her framily and friends at her bedside, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

Her fiancé, 28-year-old Jesus Sanchez was also fatally injured in the attack. He died on Tuesday at the Puerto Rico trauma center.

Sanchez and Donahue had flown to Puerto Rico so she could meet his family after he proposed, and the attack happened there on New Year’s Day.

Police said that during a gathering of Sanchez’s relatives, Sanchez’s uncle Justino Sanchez Diaz splashed gasoline or kerosene on nine people, then set them on fire.

Three other people were killed in the attack.

Sanchez and Donahue were a fun couple with lots of friends, and they enjoyed dancing and frequented a piano bar in Seattle where he proposed, said Rob McMurray, who shared a condominium apartment with both of them.

He recalled thinking it odd that Sanchez, who owned the condominium, asked him if it was OK if Donahue moved in.

“That’s the kind of guy he was,” McMurray said in a phone interview. “They were wonderful, generous, caring people.”

The couple was part of a group of 14 people that suspect Sanchez Diaz, 45, had invited to the house he shared with his parents and sister for an early New Year’s dinner, authorities said.

Police said Sanchez Diaz already had doused the walls with gasoline and set canisters with fuel under furniture, including the dining room table. As the group sat down to eat, he came out with a tank of propane gas, doused people with kerosene and set them on fire with a homemade torch, police said.

“It was something nobody expected,” local police Lt. Francisco Rosado said. “We haven’t even had five murders in the last decade.”

Family members have not speculated on a motive, and police say Sanchez Diaz has kept silent and refused to eat since his arrest.

Donahue worked as a nurse for Group Health and Sanchez was a Boeing engineer. They were to be married in Seattle’s Kerry Park in July.

Attorneys are beginning to question and select jurors today for the trial of Hazelynn Stomps — a 57-year-old woman accused of murdering her husband, whose burnt remains were found on the couple’s large Corbett-area property.

Jury selection is scheduled to continue Monday. Opening statements by the attorneys could begin Tuesday. The trial is expected to last about two weeks, in the courtroom of Multnomah County Circuit Judge Richard Baldwin.

Stomps has been jailed since February 2009 on accusations that she murdered her husband, Jerry Stomps. Authorities say she made up an elaborate story about how she and her husband had been attacked by two men near Oxbow Park and the Sandy River.

On Feb. 6., 2009, a passer-by found her lying by the side of a road near a bridge. She told police she was thrown from the bridge by the men. She was brought to Legacy Emanuel Hospital, where she was treated for a broken hip and at least one broken rib. Investigators said she appeared eager to give them information over the next several days so they could find her husband.

After days of searching for Jerry Stomps, investigators found no trace of him.

As time passed, they began to suspect Hazelynn Stomps.

By the afternoon of Feb. 12, 2009, detectives began to press her to tell the “truth.” At that point, investigators knew blood on a gun seized from the home was human, and that burned bones on the property were also human. DNA tests later determined the blood and bones belonged to Jerry Stomps, 60.

Hazelynn’s trial was delayed from last year after she hired a new attorney, Randall Vogt. Prosecutors Kirsten Snowden and Annie Shoen are representing the state.

An Oklahoma City man seeking a “friend” who shares his “fetish for flatulence” told police he was sexually assaulted by a man he met online, according to police report released today.

The 27-year-old man told police Friday he exchanged phone numbers in January with another man, who sent text messages with graphic sexual questions and comments, some of which the victim saved and showed to police.

The victim agreed to meet the man March 27 and went to his Oklahoma City apartment about 11 p.m. because the man said he would “fart for me,” the victim told police.

The police report said the victim has autism.

The man took the victim into his bedroom and began to sexually assault him, which the victim said he pretended to enjoy because he was scared and is “not much of a fighter,” according to the report. The victim told police the man threatened to beat him up.

The man told the victim to leave about 1 a.m. because his mother was going to wake up and leave for work soon, the report states. The victim did not report the incident until Friday because he was embarrassed, he told police.

A man who was told he could not enter the Oklahoma County jail with a cell phone was arrested after he attempted to set papers on fire in the jail entrance, sheriff’s deputies said.

On Dec. 29, Joshua Steven Kiehl, 23, was told he could not go into the jail with his cell phone. Kiehl walked out of the detention center lobby, pulled out a lighter and attempted to set fire to papers in a newspaper rack in the exit area, a news release from the sheriff’s office states.

Deputies stopped Kiehl from setting the fire and asked him to leave, but Kiehl refused, the news release states.

The deputies then tried to arrest him, and Kiehl became violent, striking one of the deputies in the chest and arms, sheriff’s deputies said.

Three deputies and several jailers assisted in getting Kiehl under control.

Kiehl was being held in the Oklahoma County jail in lieu of $20,000 bail on complaints of attempted first-degree arson, possession of contraband in a penal institution, resisting arrest, and assault and battery upon a police officer, the sheriff’s office said.