LINK TO STORY AND AUDIO TAPE OF BOY:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2010/03/03/2010-03-03_now_landing_your_plane__a_schoolboy.html

March 02, 2010

Oh, baby! Surprise guest joins wedding party

CLAUDIA BOYD-BARRETT
BLADE STAFF WRITER

Invitation or not, Tova Phillips wanted to be at his parents' wedding reception.

He didn't quite make it, though.

By the time he arrived on Saturday, the wedding party had moved to Flower Hospital in Sylvania, where his mother gave birth to the precocious party-crasher.

"I don't think anybody expected it," Jamie Phillips said as she held her tiny son in her arms yesterday, her wedding veil still lying next to the sink in her hospital room. "It was a running joke, but when it actually happened everybody was like, 'You've got to be kidding!'•"

Tova's surprise arrival was a possibility the newly married Mr. and Mrs. Phillips of South Toledo hadn't taken too seriously when they planned their wedding two weeks ago. Both said they wanted to "do the right thing" and get married before the baby was born. The little boy was due March 7, so the couple thought they had a few days to spare. Still, Mr. Phillips had packed two hospital bags in the car, just in case.

Mrs. Phillips said she started feeling contractions as she walked down the aisle with her father at Calvary Assembly of God. She dismissed them as Braxton Hicks contractions, the type that are felt throughout pregnancy but do not signal labor.

Even when her water broke while she sat down to eat at the reception table, Mrs. Phillip imagined she might have a bladder problem. "I didn't have any pain, so I thought: Did my water just break, or am I having trouble controlling my bladder today?" Mrs. Phillips said, laughing.

As discreetly as she could, Mrs. Phillips described how she got the attention of her best friend and maid of honor, Mary Anthony, who, by pretending to fix the bride's shoe, confirmed that the baby was indeed on the way.

The news took even Mrs. Phillips by surprise. "Try to pretend nothing's going on when you've got 100-plus people in front of you!" she said. "All I could think was, 'How can I get out of here?'•"

It didn't take long for the word to get out, though. A few minutes later, Ms. Anthony announced the impending birth to the guests.

Mrs. Phillips' sister, Jessica Meyers, said she couldn't believe what was happening. "I really thought they were kidding," Ms. Meyers said. "Everybody had been joking about it since before the wedding. I thought it was a joke."

When Mrs. Phillips arrived at the Flower Hospital maternity ward in her wedding dress and veil, the nurses were surprised too.

"We'd never seen anything like it," nurse Meghan Junga recalled. "We were excited. It was very fun. She made my day."

Clinical Manager Cindy Ziemkiewicz, who has worked at Flower Hospital since 1975, said she'd never seen anyone arrive at the ward in a wedding dress before.

"I thought I'd seen all the firsts," Ms. Ziemkiewicz said. "This shows you just never know."

Yet despite the unexpected end to their wedding, the new Mr. and Mrs. Phillips said they wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

"I'm absolutely thrilled, I'm still floating," said a beaming Mr. Phillips, as he cradled his son. "I've got my wife and my son and I couldn't be happier. It's all I need."

LINK TO PHOTO:

http://www.toledoblade.com/article/20100302/NEWS16/3020359

Cape Cod on Line

STAFF WRITER

March 02, 2010

HYANNIS — A newlywed couple's honeymoon got off to a rocky start Monday when they were forced to spend their first night as husband and wife in separate jail cells.

The bride, Marissa Ann Putignano-Keene, 22, of 77 Winter St., Hyannis, was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon — a car — after she allegedly tried to run over another woman and that woman's son. The other woman later told police that she had previously been in an intermittent intimate relationship with the groom. The groom, Timothy Keene, 37, also of 77 Winter St., was charged with disorderly conduct and taken into protective custody. Keene is a Level 2 registered sex offender and was convicted of lewd and lascivious behavior in 2000.

Putignano-Keene was also charged with disorderly conduct and injury to property — a fence — and taken into protective custody.

Police said the couple was intoxicated.

According to the Barnstable police, the incident took place Monday evening in the parking lot near the intersection of North Street and Barnstable Road. Patrol Officer David Foley was driving in the area when he spotted what appeared to be a disturbance in the parking lot with a crowd starting to gather and traffic slowing as drivers and passengers turned to watch.

Patrolmen John Pass and Jason Sturgis arrived and the three officers separated the people involved. According to the police report, Putignano-Keene and Keene told police they were married at Barnstable Town Hall and afterward split a bottle of champagne.

Later as Putignano-Keene drove through the North Street parking lot she spotted a woman familiar to her husband.

That woman told police she had just left work and was cutting through the parking lot, accompanied by her son, when the newlywed couple drove by. The woman told police Putignano-Keene rolled down the driver's side window and began swearing and using sexually-charged language.

The woman said she and her son were walking away when she heard the car engine roar and saw the car heading directly towards them, causing them to jump out of the way. She said Putignano-Keene then backed the car up, turned and in the process crashed into a fence behind Alberto's Ristorante, which backs onto the parking lot.

Police charged Putignano-Keene and took her and her new husband into protective custody. They spent the night in separate cells at the Barnstable police station and were released Tuesday.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/01/3d-sidwalk-art-that-will_n_478649.html

Police: Girl, 13, Attacks Principal

KOCO 5

LINK TO VIDEO:

http://www.koco.com/news/22710823/detail.html

Naomi Campbell's model misbehavior: Cops hunting for supermodel after assault on limo driver

Rocco Parascandola, Kerry Burke and Bill Hutchinson
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

 

Originally Published:Tuesday, March 2nd 2010, 4:43 PM
Updated: Tuesday, March 2nd 2010, 6:25 PM

 

Grant/AP

Cops are hunting for Naomi Campbell after she assaulted her limo driver in Midtown on Tuesday afternoon, police sources said.

Wanted: Supermodel with a short fuse.

Cops are hunting for Naomi Campbell after she assaulted her limo driver in Midtown on Tuesday afternoon, police sources said.

Campbell slapped and slugged the 27-year-old driver, then bolted from the black Cadillac Escalade at E. 58th St. and Second Ave. just after 3 p.m.

She was last seen running away from the scene.

"There has been a criminal complaint made out against her. She's obviously aware of it," a police source said. "She will either turn herself in or we'll go out and get her like anybody else."

The driver reported the incident to police, who were canvassing the area.

Campbell's spokesman, Jeff Raymond, cautioned against "a rush to judgment."

"Naomi will cooperate voluntarily, and there is more to the story than meets the eye," Raymond said without elaborating.

It was just the latest tantrum thrown by the temperamental beauty.

In 2008, she pleaded guilty to assaulting a pair of police officers during a fit at Heathrow Airport.

The previous year, she pleaded guilty to tossing a cell phone at her maid in Manhattan and was sentenced to anger management classes and community service.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/03/02/2010-03-02_naomi_campbell_in_trouble_again_cops_hunt_supermodel_after_assault_on_limo_drive.html#ixzz0h4AB9Owg

Drug gangs taking over U.S. public lands

The Associated Press

March 1, 2010

SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. - Not far from Yosemite's waterfalls and in the middle of California's redwood forests, Mexican drug gangs are quietly commandeering U.S. public land to grow millions of marijuana plants and using smuggled immigrants to cultivate them.

Pot has been grown on public lands for decades, but Mexican traffickers have taken it to a whole new level: using armed guards and trip wires to safeguard sprawling plots that in some cases contain tens of thousands of plants offering a potential yield of more than 30 tons of pot a year.

"Just like the Mexicans took over the methamphetamine trade, they've gone to mega, monster gardens," said Brent Wood, a supervisor for the California Department of Justice's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. He said Mexican traffickers have "supersized" the marijuana trade.

Interviews conducted by The Associated Press with law enforcement officials across the country showed that Mexican gangs are largely responsible for a spike in large-scale marijuana farms over the last several years.

Local, state and federal agents found about a million more pot plants each year between 2004 and 2008, and authorities say an estimated 75 percent to 90 percent of the new marijuana farms can be linked to Mexican gangs.

In 2008 alone, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, police across the country confiscated or destroyed 7.6 million plants from about 20,000 outdoor plots.

Growing marijuana in the U.S. saves traffickers the risk and expense of smuggling their product across the border and allows gangs to produce their crops closer to local markets.

Distribution also becomes less risky. Once the marijuana is harvested and dried on the hidden farms, drug gangs can drive it to major cities, where it is distributed to street dealers and sold along with pot that was grown in Mexico.

About the only risk to the Mexican growers, experts say, is that a stray hiker or hunter could stumble onto a hidden field.

The remote plots are nestled under the cover of thick forest canopies in places such as Sequoia National Park, or hidden high in the rugged-yet-fertile Sierra Nevada Mountains. Others are secretly planted on remote stretches of Texas ranch land.

All of the sites are far from the eyes of law enforcement, where growers can take the time needed to grow far more potent marijuana. Farmers of these fields use illegal fertilizers to help the plants along, and use cloned female plants to reduce the amount of seed in the bud that is dried and eventually sold.

Mexican gang plots can often be distinguished from those of domestic-based growers, who usually cultivate much smaller fields with perhaps 100 plants and no security measures.

Some of the fields tied to the drug gangs have as many as 75,000 plants, each of which can yield at least a pound of pot annually, according to federal data reviewed by the AP.

The Sequoia National Forest in central California is covered in a patchwork of pot fields, most of which are hidden along mountain creeks and streams, far from hiking trails. It's the same situation in the nearby Yosemite, Sequoia and Redwood national parks.

Even if they had the manpower to police the vast wilderness, authorities say terrain and weather conditions often keep them from finding the farms, except accidentally.

Many of the plots are encircled with crude explosives and are patrolled by guards armed with AK-47s who survey the perimeter from the ground and from perches high in the trees.

The farms are growing in sophistication and are increasingly cultivated by illegal immigrants, many of whom have been brought to the U.S. from Michoacan.

Growers once slept among their plants, but many of them now have campsites up to a mile away equipped with separate living and cooking areas.

"It's amazing how they have changed the way they do business," Wood said. "It's their domain."

Drug gangs have also imported marijuana experts and unskilled labor to help find the best land or build irrigation systems, Wood said.

Moyses Mesa Barajas had just arrived in eastern Washington state from the Mexican state of Michoacan when he was approached to work in a pot field. He was taken almost immediately to a massive crop hidden in the Wenatchee National Forest, where he managed the watering of the plants.

He was arrested in 2008 in a raid and sentenced to more than six years in federal prison. Several other men wearing camouflage fled before police could stop them.

"I thought it would be easy," he told the AP in a jailhouse interview. "I didn't think it would be a big crime."

Stewart said recruiters look for people who still have family in Mexico, so they can use them as leverage to keep the farmers working - and to keep them quiet.

"If they send Jose from the hometown and Jose rips them off, they are going to go after Jose's family," Stewart said. "It's big money."

When the harvest is complete, investigators say, pot farm workers haul the product in garbage bags to dropoff points that are usually the same places where they get resupplied with food and fuel.

Agents routinely find the discarded remnants of camp life when they discover marijuana fields. It's not uncommon to discover pots and pans, playing cards and books, half-eaten bags of food, and empty beer cans and liquor bottles.

But the growers leave more than litter to worry about. They often use animal poisons that can pollute mountain streams and groundwater meant for legitimate farmers and ranchers.

Because of the tree cover, armed pot farmers can often take aim at law enforcement before agents ever see them.

"They know the terrain better than we do," said Lt. Rick Ko, a drug investigator with the sheriff's office in Fresno, Calif. "Before we even see them, they can shoot us."

In Wisconsin, the number of confiscated plants grew sixfold between 2003 and 2008, to more than 32,000 found in 2008.

Wisconsin agents used to find a few dozen marijuana plants on national forest land. Now they discover hundreds or even thousands.

"If we are getting 40 to 50 percent (of fields), I think we are doing well," said Michigan State Police 1st Lt. Dave Peltomaa. "I really don't think we are close to 50 percent. We don't have the resources."

Vast amounts of pot are still smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico. Federal officials report nearly daily hauls of several hundred to several thousand pounds seized along the border. But drug agents say the boom in domestic growing is a sign of diversification by traffickers.

Officials say arrests of farmers are rare, though the sheriff's office in Fresno did nab more than 100 suspects during two weeks of raids last summer. But when field hands are arrested, most only tell authorities about their specific job.

When asked who hired him, Mesa repeatedly told an AP reporter, "I can't tell you."

Washington State Patrol Lt. Richard Wiley said hired hands either do not know who the boss is or are too frightened to give details.

"They are fearful of what may happen to them if they were to snitch on these coyote people," Wiley said of the recruiters and smugglers who bring marijuana farmers into the U.S. "That's organized crime of a different fashion. There's nothing to gain from (talking), but there's a lot to lose."

http://www.wbaltv.com/video/22705544/

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/03/01/2010-03-01_wiseguys_tickets_charged_with_hacking_into_ticketmaster_livenation_to_illegally_.html

Jonathan Saltzman and John R. Ellement

Globe Staff

Boston police said today they feared thousands of people will descend on the Hynes Convention Center later this week for a bridal show – only to discover the "show" was an Internet scam.

"What we found out is that there is no show,'' Detective Steve Blair said at police headquarters this afternoon. "It was a scam.''

According to police, someone set up a bogus website and created accounts on Twitter and Facebook, all to promote "The Boston 411 Bridal & Home Show 2010.'' The promotions claimed it would be held at the convention center March 5-7.

Blair said today an estimated 5,000 people paid at least $15 a person and that about 200 businesses also paid fees, ranging from $350 to $4,000. The payments were made through PayPal, police said.

Police said they began their investigation last week, but decided to hold a press conference today to alert the victims about the scam so they could cancel any travel plans they had for coming to Boston.

Police set up a special e-mail account they want victims to use so they can gather evidence in the case. The address is victims.bpd@cityofboston.gov.

The scammer or scammers have not yet been identified, but on the website announcing the bridal show, a woman by the name of Jamie Edwards of Boston appears to be the contact person for the fake event. The site includes a Boston-area telephone number.

Jimmy Jay was at police headquarters today listening as Blair briefed the press on the scam. Jay, 60 and of Weymouth, said he lost time and money to the scammer.

After a series of conversations with Jamie Edwards, Jay produced radio ads for the show in return for getting the cut-rate price of $335 for booth rental, he said.

"I am shocked,'' he said. "It amazes me that this would happen, that I'd get caught up in this sort of thing because I am pretty sharp.''

Jay said he personally knew 55 vendors who fell prey to the scam.

"I'm in disbelief,'' he said.

The scam included the Twitter account of theboston411. Today, the account indicated that it had been active since last fall and that it was used to 'tweet' announcements of the bridal show beginning Sept. 23.

5,200 strip for nude photo shoot at Sydney Opera House by photographer Spencer Tunick

EDS NOTE: NUDITY Members of the public begin to gather to watch as nude people gather on the steps of the Sydney Opera House to pose for a photo by Spencer Tunick of the U.S. , Monday, March 1, 2010. Some 5,200 people stripped down for the commissioned photo that is title "Mardis Gras: The Base." (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft) (Rick Rycroft, AP / March 1, 2010)

Home seized for dental bill -- fight goes on

Pamela Manson

The Salt Lake Tribune

02/25/2010 06:30:06 PM MST

A Salt Lake City woman who could lose her house over an unpaid dental bill has been granted another round in her fight to keep it.

The Utah Court of Appeals on Thursday said Capri Ramos can ask a trial court judge to void the sale of her house at a county auction in 1996.

Ramos bought the Glendale home for $51,000 in 1994 with a low-income homeowners loan from Salt Lake City. She has continued living there and making payments on the home during the fight over ownership.

In 1995, Ramos was charged $68 for dental treatment for her daughter and failed to pay the bill. Collection agency North American Recovery sued her and Ramos did not contest the action.

The Salt Lake County sheriff's department then was ordered to sell Ramos' real estate to pay off the debt, which had reached $958 with interest and added fees. The house was sold at auction for $1,550 and transferred to Salt Lake City-based Jarmaccc Properties LLC.

Court records indicate Ramos was served with notices of the sale, but she has claimed she knew nothing of it until 1998.

Ramos paid $1,200 to Jarmaccc through a bankruptcy and sued in 3rd District Court for return of the house. She claims the title should be returned under her bankruptcy plan and that there were inaccuracies that voided the 1996 sale documents.

Ramos won the case, but the Utah Court of Appeals returned the home to Jarmaccc in 2008 after ruling Ramos should have filed her lawsuit by 2002

Advertisementat the latest.

The Utah Supreme Court overturned that ruling last year and sent the case back to the Court of Appeals to consider Ramos' arguments that the sale should be voided.

On Thursday, that court said it needs more information and sent the matter to 3rd District Court for a hearing on whether Ramos had notice of the sheriff's sale and whether the sale price was "grossly inadequate," among other factors.

LINK TO ORGINAL STORY:

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_13605591?IADID=Search-www.sltrib.com-www.sltrib.com

Flight Attendants' Fight Cancels Trip

A Delta Connection Flight was Canceled After the Crew Got Into a Fight

SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
Feb. 26, 2010

Flights are routinely canceled because of weather delays or mechanical problems, but passengers trying to fly from Rochester, N.Y., to Atlanta Thursday found their trip canceled for another reason: the flight attendants reportedly got into a fistfight.

Passengers told local news channel YNN Rochester that the flight, a Delta Connection flight from Rochester, N.Y., to Atlanta, was canceled after the two female flight attendants started fighting.

"Apparently they got into a fistfight on the plane," passenger Steve Mazur told local news YNN. "The pilot decided to kick everyone off the plane."

"They told us we had to get off the plane because stewardesses were fighting," passenger Corey Minton, also told YNN Rochester.

The regional flight was operated by Memphis-based Pinnacle Airlines. A company spokesman acknowledged that the flight was canceled and that two flight attendants had a disagreement, but disputed the fact that the there was a physical altercation.

Pinnacle Airlines spokesman Joe Williams told the Associated Press that the fight started just as Delta flight 887 returned to the gate after a passenger became ill.

Williams said that despite what passengers said there was no physical contact between the two women. He said he did not know the reason for the fight, which he called a "verbal disagreement."

The two Pinnacle Airlines flight attendants were removed from duty pending an airline investigation. Williams said the airline found alternate travel plans for passengers.

http://www.nileguide.com/blog/2010/02/26/6-secret-airport-museums/

WASHINGTON — The White House called for a "simple up-or-down" vote on health care legislation today as Speaker Nancy Pelosi appealed to House Democrats to get behind President Barack Obama's chief domestic priority even it if threatens their political careers.

In voicing support for a simple majority vote, White House health reform director Nancy-Ann DeParle signaled Obama's intention to push the Democratic-crafted bill under Senate rules that would overcome GOP stalling tactics.

Republicans unanimously oppose the Democratic proposals. Without GOP support, Obama's only chance of emerging with a policy and political victory is to bypass the bipartisanship he promoted during his televised seven-hour health care summit Thursday.

"We're not talking about changing any rules here," DeParle said. "All the president's talking about is: Do we need to address this problem and does it make sense to have a simple, up-or-down vote on whether or not we want to fix these problems?"

DeParle was optimistic that the president would have the votes to pass the massive bill. But none of legislation's advocates who spoke on Sunday indicated that those votes were in hand.

"I think we will get to that point where we will have the votes," predicted Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., a member of the Senate Democratic leadership. "I believe that we will pass health care reform this spring."

In a sober call to arms, Pelosi said lawmakers sometimes must enact policies that, even if unpopular at the moment, will help the public. "We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress," she said. "We're here to do the job for the American people."

Pelosi said it took courage for Congress to pass Social Security and Medicare, which eventually became highly popular, "and many of the same forces that were at work decades ago are at work again against this bill."

It's unclear whether Pelosi's remarks will embolden or chill dozens of moderate House Democrats who face withering criticisms of the health care proposal in visits with constituents and in national polls. Republican lawmakers unanimously oppose the health care proposals, and many GOP strategists believe voters will turn against Democrats in the November elections.

Pelosi, from San Francisco, is more liberal than scores of her Democratic colleagues. But she generally walks a careful line between urging them to back left-of-center policies and giving them a green light to buck party leaders to improve their re-election hopes.

Her comments seemed to acknowledge the widely held view that Democrats will lose House seats this fall — maybe a lot. They now control the chamber 255 to 178, with two vacancies. Pelosi stopped well short of suggesting Democrats could lose their majority, but she called on members of her party to make a bold move on health care with no prospects of GOP help.

"Time is up," she said. "We really have to go forth."

As a result, a new plan would call for the House to pass the Senate bill and send it to Obama. The Senate would then use budget reconciliation rules to make several changes demanded by House Democrats. Those rules prohibit filibusters.

Exactly what the legislation would look like remained a matter of negotiation within Democratic ranks. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, "is working with his caucus, the White House and the House leadership on strategy and next steps," Reid spokesman Jim Manley said Sunday.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky renewed his party's demand that Obama and the Democrats start over and write a bipartisan health care bill. He said that while the reconciliation process has been used to pass legislation in the past, it should not apply to health care legislation.

"There are a number of other Republicans who do not think something of this magnitude ought to be jammed down the throats of a public that doesn't want it through this kind of device," McConnell said.

Pelosi said that "in a matter of days" Democrats will have specific legislative language on health care to show to the public and to wavering lawmakers. She predicted voters will warm up to the bill once they understand its details.

"When we have a bill," she said, "you can bake the pie, you can sell the pie. But you have to have a pie to sell."

At that point, added House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, top Democrats will make their pitch to their members.

"Within the next couple of weeks we're going to have a specific proposal and start counting votes to see whether or not those proposals could pass," he said.

Pelosi appeared on ABC's "This Week" and CNN's "State of the Union." DeParle and Cantor were on NBC's "Meet the Press," Hoyer was on CBS' "Face the Nation," while Menendez appeared on "Fox News Sunday" and McConnell spoke on CNN.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/politics/pelosi_career_dems_support_health_rv5IyPk9kkDq3eM9vaiVJJ/1#ixzz0grnDLf48