A substitute gym teacher turned into a schoolyard bully after he got into a fight with an 11-year-old Westchester student over a dodgeball game, called him a “crybaby,” and put him in a chokehold, New Rochelle police said. Daniel Sanabria, 58, of New Rochelle, denied putting the boy in a chokehold and said he didn’t call him any names.
A gold dispensing vending machine? Get outta here!
Vending machines that dispense bars of gold have been unveiled by a German company keen to sell the precious metal at airports across Europe. TG-Gold-Super-Markt, based near Stuttgart, developed the idea after interest in gold investment increased.
The IRS walks back on taxing work provided cell phones.
The Internal Revenue Service is backing away from proposals to more uniformly enforce a law that taxes personal use of employer-provided cellphones. IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman on Tuesday asked Congress to repeal the 20-year-old law to ensure that neither companies nor workers will be subject to taxes for employees’ personal use of work cellphones. The request is a turnabout from last week, when the IRS proposed measures to improve enforcement of the law, which is now widely ignored by employers and employees.
A startling number of children are falling through the cracks at one Chicago Public School. More than half of the kids didn’t even pass the eighth grade. As CBS 2’s Jim Williams reports there is fierce debate about who’s to blame. It is a debate that has gone on for years in poor communities: do you blame the schools for the students’ poor performance or do you blame their parents?
Two prominent gay figures, activist David Mixner and widely read blogger Andy Towle, have pulled out of a Democratic National Committee fundraiser later this month amid growing calls to confront the administration at what was supposed to be its first large scale opportunity to bring in gay cash. “I will not attend a fundraiser for the National Democratic Party in Washington next week when the current administration is responsible for these kind of actions,” Mixner wrote of a motion to dismiss a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act that drew a parallel between same-sex marriage to incestuous marriage.
President Barack Obama, whose gay and lesbian supporters have grown frustrated with his slow movement on their priorities, is extending benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, a White House official said. Obama planned to announce his decision Wednesday in the Oval Office, the official said. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because Obama had not signed a presidential memorandum putting his plan into place. The decision is a political nod to a reliably Democratic voting bloc that has become impatient with the White House in recent weeks.
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Houston has so far weathered the recession better than most of the country’s major metropolitan areas, according to a report released today by the Brookings Institution, which found that Houston’s housing prices were the most resilient in the country. Despite a rising unemployment rate, Houston’s overall economy ranked fourth out of the country’s 100 biggest cities as of March, the report found, placing it just behind Austin and just before Dallas.
Hamas reportedly foiled an attempt by Palestinian terrorists to kill former US president Jimmy Carter during his visit to the Gaza Strip on Tuesday. Israeli security sources said they had learned of plans to target Carter and had passed on the information to his security detail in “real time.”
China on the verge of becoming the second largest market for debt slammed luxury carmaker Porsche.
Porsche is pinning its hopes on China’s burgeoning rich to lift the debt-ridden sports car maker out of the doldrums. The German car maker said China may usurp Germany as its second largest market – after the US – over the next three years, on the back of demand for the Panamera sports sedan.
Lawyer gets ticket for flashing headlights. Demands apology from police after judge tosses citation.
A Washington lawyer got out of a ticket for flashing his car lights, but now he’s demanding an apology from Montgomery County police. Mark Zaid said he was driving in Bethesda recently when another driver traveling in the opposite direction flashed his lights, warning him that police had set up an enforcement zone. Zaid said he flashed his lights back as a courtesy.
An Anchorage police officer shot and wounded a 17-year-old boy pointing what the officer thought was a scoped hunting rifle at people in the parking lot of a restaurant late Monday night. The rifle, however, turned out to be a pellet gun, and the youth, who was shot in the arm, told investigators he wasn’t pointing it at anyone, police said.
New York drivers top the list of pissed off drivers.
White-knuckled Big Apple drivers are the nation’s worst for road rage — and they’re proud of it! A new study puts New York City drivers at No. 1 on the list, knocking Miami motorists from the top perch for the first time in three years.
A 27-year-old Mesa man apparently tried to kill himself Tuesday by rigging a sword to his steering wheel and ramming his car through a block wall, police said. Nathan Ryan’s car ended up at the bottom of a swimming pool in the 1300 block of North Dakota Street in Chandler, and he went to the hospital with wounds that were not a threat to his life, said Sgt. Joe Favazzo, Chandler police spokesman.
Under a new law signed by Gov. Charlie Crist on Tuesday, the DNA of any person accused of a felony will be added to a state database. Florida is the 20th state to require police to take a DNA sample, such as a mouth swab, of everyone charged with a felony. The state will hold on to that sample, even if the felony charge is dismissed.
Woman busted for her fourth DUI on her way to AA meeting.
Cops caught a woman in what they called “a serious conflict” – driving erratically with an open pint of vodka in the car, en route to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Noreen Menard, 48, told cops that’s where she was headed when she was pulled over by Spencer police responding to calls of her Nissan Sentra reportedly swerving in and out of lanes on Route 9 early Saturday evening.
He may be the ultimate mama’s boy. A Brooklyn man is accused of donning a wig, nail polish and dresses to impersonate his dead mom and collect $115,000 in Social Security and rent subsidies.
Quote of the day.
If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad, he should see it with representation.
-The Farmer’s Almanac