Current Affairs

[Rogue Angel]

Hurricane Florence heads for Bermuda

HAMILTON, Bermuda - Florence intensified into the second hurricane of the Atlantic season Sunday as it headed for Bermuda, where residents installed storm shutters and hauled their yachts onto beaches.

Florence was expected to reach the tiny British territory Monday, according to the
National Hurricane Center in Miami. But was too early to tell whether it will make a direct hit.

The Category 1 hurricane, which had had maximum sustained winds near 80 mph early Sunday, was expected to become a Category 2 hurricane as it passes Bermuda, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The storm was expected to veer away from the U.S. coast as it turns north toward Bermuda, but forecasters said its large size could also create high surf and rip currents along parts of the eastern seaboard.

"Those waves will affect a good portion of the U.S. East Coast from basically Florida all the way up to the Cape Cod area" starting Sunday through the early part of next week, hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart said. "When those large swells come rolling in to the coastline they tend to produce dangerous and potentially deadly rip currents."

In Bermuda, skies turned gray and waves began to build Sunday morning as gusty winds blew in spits of rain.

Bermuda issued a hurricane warning, and the government urged its 65,000 residents to take precautions. The hurricane center said tropical storm force winds could hit the North Atlantic Island by Sunday afternoon.

"We are asking residents to please stay home. We are urging the public's cooperation so that emergency vehicles will have free passage on the roads," Derrick Burgess, minister of public safety, said at a news conference. "Also, we are discouraging the public from sightseeing as this puts everyone at risk."

He also encouraged the public to stock up on hurricane supplies and secure their homes, lawn furniture and any other loose items which could be affected by high winds.

At 11 a.m. EDT, the center of the hurricane was about 255 miles south-southwest of Bermuda and was moving toward the north-northwest near 13 mph.

The hurricane center said Bermuda was expected to get 5 to 8 inches of rain, with up to 10 inches possible in some areas.

Shopkeepers and homeowners boarded up windows and doors, with one closed flower shop bearing the sign: "We've gone away to chase away Florence. Back Tuesday."

In boatyards and marinas in Bermuda ? a wealthy island chain 640 miles east of the U.S. coast ? boat owners dragged their yachts onto beaches or secured their moorings.

At Pitts Bay marina, Bermudian Alan Hughes moved his 17-foot Boston Whaler away from the dock wall and tied it down.

"We are obviously concerned and cautious. It will be a tidal issue, with up to five or six foot tidal swells," he said.

At the Fairmont Hamilton Princess, the hotel distributed a disaster plan ? which included provisions for evacuation ? and told guests that patio furniture would be removed from their rooms.

Roy Riggio, a 72-year-old volunteer counselor with Medicare from New Canaan, Conn., said he and his wife, Barbara, arrived in Bermuda on Friday.

As other guests at the Fairmont were leaving, Riggio said he didn't believe the hurricane would deter him and his wife and he wanted a "window seat" at the hotel's restaurant on Sunday night to watch the storm.

"If not, I'm going to take pictures from my room ? I have a room up at the top of the hotel ? and I want to get some photos. I'm not a glutton for punishment, but it's exciting," he said.

Authorities said they were closing the island's only airport, Bermuda International Airport. Flights from New York and Miami scheduled to arrive late Saturday have been canceled.

Ferries stopped running Saturday afternoon and bus service was to end Sunday at 1 p.m.. Authorities have opened a shelter in the island's center, and the public utility has warned there may be power outages due to the high winds.

Public schools and government offices will be closed Monday.

Acting Police Commissioner Roseanda Young said arrangements have been made for tourists to leave after the airport shuts down, with commercial airlines and private jets helping out.

"All tourists have been given the opportunity to leave. Those still here have chosen to stay," she said.

Large ocean swells were affecting Bermuda and the northern coasts of the Caribbean islands, including Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the hurricane center said.

Bermuda requires newly built houses to withstand sustained winds of 110 mph. It also has a sturdy infrastructure with many of its power and phone lines underground.

Hurricane Fabian killed four people when it struck in 2003 as the strongest storm to hit Bermuda in 50 years. Fabian, a Category 3 hurricane with 120 mph winds, tore the roofs off several homes and left many of Bermuda's famed golf courses in ruins.

Florence follows on the heels of Tropical Storm Ernesto, which was briefly the season's first hurricane before weakening and drenching the East Coast last week. The storm was blamed for nine deaths in the United States and two in Haiti.

[EvolutionHasBegun]

Man Charged With Stealing Underwear
From Associated Press
September 12, 2006 7:17 PM EDT
DURHAM, N.H. - Police thought the young man found in a video store wearing nothing but a pair of women's underwear was the victim of a college prank.

It turned out that Joseph Greenquist, 18, of Londonderry, was later arrested on charges of breaking into apartments near the University of New Hampshire campus, stealing underwear and attempting to assault a woman. Police said a knapsack full of lady's undergarments was stashed nearby.

In one of the apartments, a woman was awoken by the intruder, police said.

"She was awoken by a male climbing on top of her while she was in bed," Deputy Chief Rene Kelley said. "She confronted this man, and after a short conversation, he fled the apartment."

Police said they don't know how Greenquist wound up in the video store.

"And they found the gentleman asleep on our couch, wrapped up in a pair of our drapes and basically naked except for a pair of women's underwear," store employee Maureen Paquette said.

Greenquist was scheduled to be arraigned in Dover District Court on Wednesday.

---

Information from: WMUR-TV, http://www.thewmurchannel.com/index.html

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[EvolutionHasBegun]

"hey there...whatcha doing?"

"trying to get me some, how bout you?"

"well i WAS taking a nap obviously....OH!! those are nice panties where did you get them?"

"oh i snatched them three rooms over...arent they darling?"

"they really are nice but i think you should go...im really not up for this sort of thing."

"oh well thats okay...ummm you dont mind if i take some of your panties do you?"

well anyway you get the idea... [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Pickles]

Students: Silent shooter showed no emotion

MONTREAL, Quebec (CNN) -- A gunman was killed by police and at least 19 students were wounded after a Wednesday shooting at Dawson College in downtown Montreal, police said.

One student later died of her wounds, police spokesman Olivier Lapointe said. Radio Canada quoted Montreal Police Chief Yvan Delorme as saying the victim was a woman in her 20s.

Initial reports indicated that as many as four people, including two gunmen, had been killed, but Delorme told CNN that only the single gunman was killed. Police were looking for other possible suspects, he said.

Delorme would not comment on a motive, but said the shootings were not hate crimes or terror-related. (Watch students flee the scene -- 1:38)

Three of the critically wounded were in operating rooms Wednesday afternoon, and three others were awaiting operations, a Montreal General Hospital spokeswoman said. Two other critically wounded victims were in the emergency room, she said.

All surgeries should be completed by Wednesday evening, she said.

The spokeswoman said at least 14 victims had been brought to area hospitals. Eleven patients were transported to Montreal General and four or five more had been taken to two other area hospitals to ease the burden on Montreal General, she said.

Among the wounds being treated were gunshots to the head, abdomen, chest, arms and legs, she said.

Police cordoned off the 12-acre campus after the incident and searched a nearby shopping mall for suspects, a police spokesman said.

A SWAT team was in the college because "we believe there might be other suspects inside the Dawson College," a Montreal police spokesman told reporters.

Police were using search dogs in a door-to-door search for the gunman or gunmen Wednesday afternoon, another spokesman said.

The shots were randomly fired in the cafeteria and atrium, and students said they didn't think anyone was targeted, said reporter Genevieve Beauchemin with the television station CFCF. Students told Beauchemin that at least one of the gunmen was dressed in black.

'He had no emotion'
A student told Global News in Montreal that one of the shooters was in his early 20s and was wearing a trench coat.

"He was saying nothing, just shooting. He told people to get away, and that was it," the student said.

Another student, Daniel Mightley, 21, said the shooting began outside the college. Mightley said he was heading to lunch when he saw one of the shooters to his right. The gunman, who was wearing a black trench coat and had a mohawk, fired a shot and "everybody just ran inside," he said.

"I saw his face and he had no emotion in his face whatsoever," Mightley said. "He was walking very slowly toward us and just shooting."

Mightley said he saw at least one person get shot.

Police had not yet determined how many people were shot, said Sgt. Giuseppe Boccardi.

"My understanding, at this moment, is that most of the students have exited the college grounds," Boccardi said.

Video showed students streaming from the campus after the midday shootings.

"People were literally running for their lives," said Beauchemin, describing what the students told her was a "stampede."

Emergency personnel and police, in bulletproof vests, wheeled people on two stretchers to ambulances. Boccardi said he couldn't provide a description of the victims.

A first-year student who didn't give her name said she saw one victim who had been shot in the leg being helped across the street, and another who had been shot in the stomach lying on the sidewalk.

"We were just sitting in class, and we were listening to the teacher and we heard guns going off," the student said. "We looked outside and everyone was screaming and crying and there were people that got shot that were running away.

"And then our teacher left, and he came back and said the gunmen were inside and we had to leave."

Dawson College will be closed until Monday, Radio Canada reported.

The college has 7,000 day students and 3,000 night students, according to the Dawson Web site.

In Canada, students as young as 16 can attend colleges, which generally serve as bridges between high schools and universities.

This is not the first shooting at a Montreal college. About 17 years ago, Marc Lepine opened fire at Ecole Polytechnique. Fourteen female students were killed in the December 1989 shooting before Lepine killed himself.

Lepine left behind a three-page letter blaming feminists for his not being able to get into the school. [img]frown.gif[/img]

[EvolutionHasBegun]

ATM Reprogrammed to Deliver More Cash
From Associated Press
September 13, 2006 6:24 PM EDT
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - Police were looking for a man who reprogrammed a gas station ATM to give out four times as much money as it should.

Surveillance footage shows a man walking into the gas station at 6:17 p.m. on Aug. 19, swiping an ATM card and punching in a series of numbers, breaking the machine's security code. The automated teller machine was reprogrammed to disburse $20 bills but record it was a $5 debit to his account, Virginia Beach Police spokeswoman Rene Ball said.

He returned a short time later and took out more money, but authorities did not say how much. The card was prepaid and can be purchased at several locations, so police are not sure who is behind the theft.

No one noticed until nine days later, when a customer told the clerk that the machine was giving out more money than it should.

Police are investigating the incident as fraud.

---

Information from: The Virginian-Pilot, http://www.pilotonline.com

such a waste...with that kind of knowledge he coulda made hella money without having to do this...

[Rogue Angel]

damn... i hadn't read that story about the shooter yet... i saw the headline and was trying to get to it all day at work, but i kept almost getting pinched for being on my board... LOL... after being late today, i kinda thought that MIGHT be a bad thing... *L*.... all i can say is damn... *shaking head*.....

and lmao about the other one... i was thinking eXACTLY the same thing.. .uh, if you had the brains to pull that off... shouldn't you have the brains to know you dont HAVE to pull it off if you have that sort of knowledge? DUMBASS.... LOL.

[Rogue Angel]

Originally posted by EvolutionHasBegun:
"She was awoken by a male climbing on top of her while she was in bed," Deputy Chief Rene Kelley said. "She confronted this man, and after a short conversation, he fled the apartment."

<font size="3" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">*cackles*... how much convo do you have to HAVE when you wake up and some freako psychotic perv in women's undies is crawling on top of you? I would've liked to have been a fly on the wall for THAT one...

personally, for ME, there would have been a short introduction... my fist to his nuts... LOL. end of conversation.

[Rogue Angel]

...why the hell haven't i heard about THIS??? i thought it was the story of the guy in CA that assaulted the little kid that tackled his son!! this is fuuuucked up!!!! [img]frown.gif[/img]

Baseball coach convicted of two lesser counts

UNIONTOWN, Pa. -- A youth baseball coach accused of offering an 8-year-old money to bean an autistic teammate so he couldn't play was convicted Thursday of two lesser charges against him, and evaded more serious charges.

A jury convicted 29-year-old Mark R. Downs Jr. of corruption of minors and criminal solicitation to commit simple assault, Fayette County authorities said.

Downs was acquitted of criminal solicitation to commit aggravated assault, and jurors said they were deadlocked on a charge of reckless endangerment. The judge declared a mistrial on the endangerment charge.

Authorities said Downs offered to pay one of his T-ball players $25 to hit a 9-year-old autistic teammate with a ball while warming up before a June 2005 playoff game.

Earlier, defense attorney Thomas Shaffer told jurors that Downs was telling the truth when he denied offering to pay Keith Reese Jr. to hurt Harry Bowers, a mildly autistic and mildly retarded boy.

But Reese had testified about Downs' offer, saying he purposely threw a ball that hit Bowers in the groin then threw another ball that hit him in the ear on Downs' instructions.

Reese's father, Keith Sr., testified that Downs acknowledged after the game that he did something "ignorant" and confessed to the deed.

[Rogue Angel]

Charges filed in Missouri baby kidnapping

Mother, newborn reunited; suspect held on $1 million bond

UNION, Mo. - The woman who authorities say slashed the throat of a young mother and then stole her baby was charged Wednesday with kidnapping and assault and ordered held on $1 million bond.

Franklin County prosecutor Robert E. Parks filed the charges against the woman authorities previously identified as Shannon Beck. Court documents name her as Shannon Torrez, 36, of Lonedell, but note that she is also known as Shannon Beck.

Earlier Wednesday, Stephenie Ochsenbine cradled her newborn daughter and told a national TV audience she couldn?t describe the feeling.

?The last several days have been draining, just exhausting. But I can handle anything now,? the 21-year-old woman said on NBC?s ?Today? show, her neck bandaged after her throat was slashed during Friday?s abduction.

Asked what it was like to have her baby, Abby, back in her arms, she replied: ?It?s indescribable.?

?She belongs with me,? Ochsenbine told MSNBC. ?We?re doing great now, we?re whole again and she?s very content, actually. Said father James Woods: ?I just wanted to hug her.?

The suspect was arrested Tuesday after her sister-in-law, Dorothy Torrez, contacted authorities. Franklin County Sheriff Gary Toelke said she had recently miscarried a full-term fetus.

?She?s the hero,? Toelke said of Dorothy Torrez. ?She?s the one that made it happen.?

Birthmark led to suspicions
Dorothy Torrez became suspicious when she noticed makeup on the forehead of the baby her sister-in-law was claiming to have delivered a few days earlier.

Authorities said she rubbed off the makeup and found a strawberry-red birthmark that matched the description provided by investigators who had been searching for the baby.

She contacted police, and hours later a healthy 11-day-old Abigale Lynn Woods was reunited with her parents. Shannon Torrez was taken into custody.

Ochsenbine told police Friday a woman entered her rural home, attacked her with a knife and stole the baby, who was a week old at the time.

During the search for Abby, investigators had profiled the abductor as someone who had a child die recently or as someone who could not have children.

Shannon Torrez lives just a few miles from Ochsenbine?s home near Lonedell, FBI Special Agent Roland Corvington said.

The suspect told her sister-in-law on Sunday that she had given birth, the FBI agent said. Visiting Shannon Torrez the next day, Dorothy Torrez persuaded her sister-in-law to take the baby to see a doctor, and on Tuesday the two women went to St. Louis for that doctor?s visit.

Baby appeared well taken care of
That?s when she discovered the birthmark and confronted her sister-in-law, who gave her the baby. Abby was handed over to authorities at about 5 p.m.

?An outstanding ending, obviously,? Toelke said. ?You talk about a lead breaking the case, and this was it.?

Health care officials said it appears Abby had been well cared for.

The small rural eastern Missouri communities near where Abby was abducted celebrated her safe return. The clerks at a convenience store in St. Clair drew a cardboard sign that said ?Welcome home Abby.?

?We were upset and now we?re excited and we can?t even concentrate,? clerk Debbie Young said.

?It was a tear-jerking time for the whole town,? said Regina Hampson, manager of the only gas station in town.

[Rogue Angel]

E. coli outbreak has spread to half the states
People in 25 states have been infected, three possible deaths

WASHINGTON - The outbreak of E. coli has now spread to half the states.

As of Friday afternoon, infections had been reported in 166 people in 25 states. That?s up from 157 victims in 23 states on Thursday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The infection has been associated with consumption of fresh spinach and public health officials are urging people not to eat raw spinach.

Of those infected, 88 have been hospitalized, including a Wisconsin woman who died. Two other deaths have been reported in suspected cases ? a child in Idaho and an elderly woman in Maryland ? but those cases are still being investigated.

States newly reporting cases as of Friday were Maryland, three cases, and Tennessee, one.

Other states reporting cases are Arizona (4), California (1), Colorado (1), Connecticut (3), Idaho (4), Illinois (1), Indiana (8), Kentucky (8, up 1), Maine (3, up 1), Michigan (4), Minnesota (2), Nebraska (8), Nevada (1), New Mexico (5), New York (11), Ohio (20), Oregon (5), Pennsylvania (8, up 1), Utah (17), Virginia (2, up 1), Washington (3), Wisconsin (42, up 1), and Wyoming (1).

*shivers*... glad i pick my spinach outta the garden... [img]wink.gif[/img]