Fears Of Terror Attacks Keep Plants Full Of Toxic Chemicals Hidden From Public. WASHINGTON (AP) -- Until the local fertilizer company in West, Texas, blew up last month and demolished scores of homes, many in that town of 2,800 didn't know what chemicals were stored alongside the railroad tracks or how dangerous they were. Even rescue workers didn't know what they were up against. "We never thought of an explosive potential," said Dr. George Smith, the EMS director who responded to the factory fire by running to a nearby nursing home to prepare for a possible chemical spill.
Firefighters feared that tanks of liquid ammonia would rupture. But while they hosed down those tanks to keep them cool, a different chemical -- a few tons of ammonium nitrate -- exploded with the force of a small earthquake. Smith and his colleagues should have known that ammonium nitrate was also a significant hazard. Around the country, hundreds of buildings like the one in West store some type of ammonium nitrate. By law, this shouldn't be a mystery. "Ignorance is bliss," he said. Roman noses sniff out huge marijuana factory hidden in Mussolini-era tunnel | World news.
Footage of the cannabis farm discovered in a disused Rome metro tunnel Link to video: Cannabis farm discovered in Mussolini-era tunnel beneath Rome Tipped off by the strong smell wafting into a suburban street, police in Rome have discovered a massive underground marijuana plantation in a disused railway tunnel built by Mussolini. Police seized 340kg of marijuana – with a street value of €3m (£2.36m) – from the plantation, which was lit by powerful halogen lamps and hidden behind a legitimate mushroom-growing business at the entrance to the tunnel. A fake wall had been built with revolving breeze blocks to conceal the marijuana plants.
The scale of the 4,000 sq metres plantation, which contained 1,000 plants, a drying room for harvested plants and a vacuum-packing machine, has led investigators to suspect one of Italy's mafia groups was behind it – possibly the Neapolitan Camorra. "The high temperatures recently probably made the smell more intense," said one police official. Jet Skier Breaks Through JFK Airport's $100 Million Security System - Page 1. <br/><a href=" US News</a> | <a href=" Business News</a> Copy A man whose jet ski failed him in New York's Jamaica Bay swam to John F. Kennedy airport, where he was easily able to penetrate the airport $100 million, state-of-the art security system. Daniel Casillo, 31, was able to swim up to and enter the airport grounds on Friday night, past an intricate system of motion sensors and closed-circuit cameras designed to to safeguard against terrorists, authorities said.
"I think he should be given dinner and a bottle of champagne for showing us our faults," said Nicholas Casale, an NYPD veteran and former MTA deputy security director for counterterrorism. Instead, Casillo was arrested after the incredible adventure that has stunned security officials. Casillo's night began innocently enough, as he and some friends were racing on jet skis in Jamaica Bay near JFK airport when his watercraft stalled. "It's outrageous," Casale said. Juggalos classified as a gang in FBI report. Pennsylvania Judge Sentenced For 28 Years For Selling Kids to the Prison System. Mark Ciavarella Jr, a 61-year old former judge in Pennsylvania, has been sentenced to nearly 30 years in prison for literally selling young juveniles for cash.
He was convicted of accepting money in exchange for incarcerating thousands of adults and children into a prison facility owned by a developer who was paying him under the table. The kickbacks amounted to more than $1 million. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has overturned some 4,000 convictions issued by him between 2003 and 2008, claiming he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles – including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea. Some of the juveniles he sentenced were as young as 10-years old. Ciavarella was convicted of 12 counts, including racketeering, money laundering, mail fraud and tax evasion.
His "kids for cash" program has revealed that corruption is indeed within the prison system, mostly driven by the growth in private prisons seeking profits by any means necessary. The Profits and Losses of Criminalizing Immigrants. Delcia Lopez/San Antonio Express-News/ZUMA Press When Jose Rios walked into a Bank of America branch last year, he hoped to open an account for the car repair shop he owned.
He didn’t expect to end up with a prison sentence. Days after Rios provided the bank with a home address and Social Security number, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents showed up at his house looking for him. (Rios said ICE agents later told him that Bank of America turned him in.) Rios wasn’t home. His wife, a pretty, sad-eyed woman of 38, answered the door. “They said, ‘if we don’t find [Jose], we come back for you,’” she said, sitting outside her daughters’ elementary school on a gorgeous California day while her smiling 2-year-old brought us handfuls of dainty red geraniums.
Both Jose and his wife, Marta, are undocumented immigrants. In an audition for a model undocumented immigrant, Rios, 34, probably wouldn’t make the final cut. Rios says he’s been paying for his mistake repeatedly. Fake bomb detector seller James McCormick jailed. Fraudster James McCormick has been jailed for 10 years for selling fake bomb detectors. McCormick, 57, of Langport, Somerset perpetrated a "callous confidence trick", said the Old Bailey judge. He is thought to have made £50m from sales of more than 7,000 of the fake devices to countries, including Iraq. The fraud "promoted a false sense of security" and contributed to death and injury, the judge said.
He also described the profit as "outrageous". Police earlier said the ADE-651 devices, modelled on a novelty golf ball finder, are still in use at some checkpoints. Sentencing McCormick, Judge Richard Hone said: "You are the driving force and sole director behind [the fraud]. " He added: "The device was useless, the profit outrageous, and your culpability as a fraudster has to be considered to be of the highest order. " One invoice showed sales of £38m over three years to Iraq, the judge said. Image copyright Avon and Somerset Police How the device was meant to work: 1.
Man found with $200K in stolen cheese, police say. MADISON, Wis. - One man is facing criminal charges in New Jersey after detectives found a truck he was driving with roughly $200,000 worth of stolen Muenster cheese from Wisconsin. Veniamin Konstantinovich Balika, 34, of Plainfield, Ill., was arrested at the Vince Lombardi Service Area off the New Jersey Turnpike. New Jersey State Police Detective 1 Oliver Sissman said he allegedly provided false paperwork to the distributor of K&K Cheese in Cashton last week to get the 42,000 pounds of cheese loaded onto his 18-wheel truck. "This is the first time this has ever happened to us," said Kevin Everhart, the general manager of K & K, which operates under the Old Country Cheese Factory label.
The Monroe County company processes 120,000 pounds of fresh milk every day from more than 200 Amish milk producers in the area. Fullscreen Man found with $200K worth of stolen cheese, police say Share Embed This video can not be played on your device "There's a black market for everything," said Sissman. As economy flails, debtors' prisons thrive. (MoneyWatch) Thousands of Americans are sent to jail not for committing a crime, but because they can't afford to pay for traffic tickets, medical bills and court fees.
If that sounds like a debtors' prison, a legal relic which was abolished in this country in the 1830s, that's because it is. And courts and judges in states across the land are violating the Constitution by incarcerating people for being unable to pay such debts. Ask Jack Dawley, 55, an unemployed man in Ohio who between 2007 and 2012 spent a total of 16 days in jail in a Huron County lock-up for failing to pay roughly $1,500 in legal fines he'd incurred in the 1990s. The fines stemmed from Dawley's convictions for driving under the influence and other offenses. After his release from a Wisconsin correctional facility, Dawley, who admits he had struggled with drugs and alcohol, got clean. But if he put his substance problems behind him, Dawley's couldn't outrun his debts. Such stories are by no means unusual. To Find Insider Trading, Follow The Kids' Money.
In New York and Washington, government regulators are cracking down on insider trading, the illegal practice in which people with internal information about important company events make stock market trades before ordinary investors find out what's happening. In recent months, regulators have launched a series of high-profile arrests and investigations. Even Congress has gotten into the spirit of things, voting to ban insider trading by members. Now, social scientists are muscling in on the action, too. In a new study accepted for publication in the Journal of Finance, Henk Berkman at the University of Auckland, Paul Koch at the University of Kansas and Joakim Westerholm at the University of Sydney have uncovered a novel way to spot insider trading. The researchers tracked half a million stock market accounts over a 15-year period between 1995 and 2010. The accounts were in Finland on the Nasdaq OMX Helsinki Exchange.
Why Finland? Police teach tactics for handling 'sovereign citizens' Two police officers and two people who considered themselves "sovereign… (Alan Spearman, The Commercial…) GREENSBORO, N.C. — With his shaggy hair, bushy mustache and obstinate ways, Jeffrey Allen Wright was well known to sheriff's deputies in Santa Rosa County, Fla. Wright, 55, drove around with a phony license plate. When stopped, he refused to produce a driver's license. Once he threatened to sue a deputy who pulled him over. After he was fined for traffic offenses in September, Wright paid with counterfeit money orders.
He broke out windows with a handgun, then pointed the weapon at officers, police said. When Det. Finch teaches police and public officials around the country how to deal with self-described "sovereign citizens" like Wright. Violent confrontations are rare, but the FBI says at least six police officers have been killed by sovereigns since 2000. The agency calls sovereigns — who number between 100,000 and 300,000 — a "domestic terrorist movement. " Facing Protective Orders and Allowed to Keep Guns. Rajah Bose for The New York Times Stephanie Holten of Washington State says she is still seeing a counselor to work through trauma from when her ex-husband, Corey Holten, held her at gunpoint in her home last year.
Her former husband, Corey Holten, threatened to put a gun in her mouth and pull the trigger, she wrote in her petition. He also said he would “put a cap” in her if her new boyfriend “gets near my kids.” In neat block letters she wrote, “ He owns guns, I am scared .” The judge’s order prohibited Mr. About 12 hours after he was served with the order, Mr. “I remember thinking, ‘Cops, I need the cops,’ ” she later wrote in a statement to the police.
Ms. For all its rage and terror, the episode might well have been prevented. Advocates for domestic violence victims have long called for stricter laws governing firearms and protective orders. In these most volatile of human dramas, they contend, the right to bear arms must give ground to the need to protect a woman’s life. What rights should Dzhokhar Tsarnaev get and why does it matter? | Glenn Greenwald. (updated below [Sun.]) Shortly before Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, an American citizen, was apprehended last night, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham advocated on Twitter that the Boston Marathon bombing suspect be denied what most Americans think of as basic rights. "If captured," Graham wrote, I hope [the] Administration will at least consider holding the Boston suspect as [an] enemy combatant for intelligence gathering purposes.
" Arguing that "if the Boston suspect has ties to overseas terror organizations he could be treasure trove of information", Graham concluded: "The last thing we may want to do is read Boston suspect Miranda Rights telling him to 'remain silent.'" Once Tsarnaev was arrested, President Obama strongly suggested that he would eventually be tried in court, which presumably means he will at some point have a lawyer (something that Graham, along with John McCain and Liz Cheney, last night opposed).
"And so the FBI will surely ask 19-year-old Tsarnaev anything it sees fit. CAIR speech. Facial-recognition tech played no role in ID'ing bomb suspects. While surveillance video provided key images of the men suspected of planting bombs at the Boston Marathon, police use of facial-recognition software proved unhelpful in revealing their identities. Despite several images of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from the scene of the deadly bombings and the existence of images of the brothers in official government databases, facial-recognition software was unable to put names to their faces, Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis told the Washington Post in an interview published Saturday.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has a Massachusetts driver's license, while Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the elder brother who died Friday after a shootout with police, had been the subject of an FBI investigation, the Post noted. After a dozen forensic experts spent days combing through hundreds of hours video and thousands of still images to construct a timeline of events, law enforcement use of facial-recognition software "came up empty," according to the Post.