Denver - The Air Force charged three of its cadets with sexual misconduct on Thursday, including one accused of rape, just over a week after the government revealed a rise in reports of sexual assault at military academies.
The three cadets all attended the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, but were involved in separate incidents over the past 15 months, the military said.
"Sexual misconduct is a particularly egregious offense and we have a zero tolerance policy in the Air Force," Colonel Tamra Rank, vice superintendent of the academy, said in a statement. "We expect the best from our cadets, and do not tolerate unacceptable behaviors."
The charges came after the Department of Defense said last week that U.S. military academies had seen reports of sexual assaults rise sharply to 65 in the last academic year from 41 previously, and announced new policies to help victims.
In September, the U.S. Government Accountability Office had said the military needed greater leadership and oversight to prevent sexual harassment in its ranks.
Rank said that while the three Colorado cases were separate, the men were charged simultaneously because investigations in their cases were recently completed.
Society's Child
© WFAA-TV/Associated Press
This undated file photo provided by WFAA-TV News shows Jakadrien Lorece Turner, a Texas teen who ran away more than a year ago, her family said.
This undated file photo provided by WFAA-TV News shows Jakadrien Lorece Turner, a Texas teen who ran away more than a year ago, her family said.
U.S. immigration officials say they're investigating the circumstances of the case involving Jakadrien Lorece Turner, but that they followed procedure and found nothing to indicate she wasn't who she claimed to be - an illegal immigrant from Colombia.
The girl, who ran away from home more than a year ago, was recently found in Bogota, Colombia, by the Dallas Police Department with help from Colombian and U.S. officials.
The Colombian government said the U.S. embassy on Thursday submitted the necessary documents for Jakadrien to return, but it wasn't clear exactly when she might be back in the U.S.
U.S. immigration officials deferred questions about when the teen might return to the State Department, which said it was aware of the case but declined to comment further, citing privacy reasons.
© The Washington Post
The Orange County Rescue Mission is handing out flashlights and whistles to the homeless, in an effort to help them protect themselves, said Jim Palmer, the group's president.
Palmer's group is encouraging area homeless to sleep in groups, or better yet, come inside to a shelter.
"Our goal is to get them into those beds and fill those beds," he said.
Darryl Bossier, 49, said he sleeps outside the Orange County administration building in downtown Santa Ana - one of a dozen transients who use the benches that zigzag across the courtyard as a place to rest each night.
"I'm a watchdog. I don't want them to get anybody," Bossier said of the killer, adding he sleeps only about four hours a night. "Who wants to wake up next to somebody dead?"
© AP
Their deaths in a murder-suicide on New Year's Day has rocked the tight-knit community of Naval aviators as investigators try to find out what happened in the condominium on the picturesque peninsula of Coronado, an enclave of 24,000 just across the bay of San Diego that recorded only one homicide in 2010.
There were no eyewitnesses, investigators say, and they have found no motive yet for the eruption in gunfire that also killed one of the pilot's sisters and a 31-year-old man the group had just befriended at a nightclub only hours before the incident.
John Robert Reeves, 25, shot himself in the head, and the three others with him were murdered, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department said, citing autopsy results. Fellow Navy pilot David Reis, also 25, was killed by a gunshot wound to the torso, and his 24-year-old sister, Karen, suffered a gunshot wound to the head and chest, officials said. Matthew Saturley, 31, of suburban Chula Vista, was shot multiple times.
Sheriff's Capt. Duncan Fraser said there were no outstanding suspects in the case, and police have found no evidence indicating there was an exchange of gunfire, although he declined to say if Reeves was the shooter, explaining that "we don't have forensic evidence yet to say that definitively."
© Dr. Mike Gorman
Dr. Mike Gorman has taken out an SBA loan to keep his rural solo practice running in Logandale, Nev. "If things don't improve fast, I will have no choice but to close my doors," he said.
Dr. Mike Gorman has taken out an SBA loan to keep his rural solo practice running in Logandale, Nev. "If things don't improve fast, I will have no choice but to close my doors," he said.
This quiet reality, which is spreading nationwide, is claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists.
Industry watchers say the trend is worrisome. Half of all doctors in the nation operate a private practice. So if a cash crunch forces the death of an independent practice, it robs a community of a vital health care resource.
"A lot of independent practices are starting to see serious financial issues," said Marc Lion, CEO of Lion & Company CPAs, LLC, which advises independent doctor practices about their finances.
Doctors list shrinking insurance reimbursements, changing regulations, rising business and drug costs among the factors preventing them from keeping their practices afloat. But some experts counter that doctors' lack of business acumen is also to blame.
Unprovoked attack occurred near Orlando construction site, officials say
A Florida Highway Patrol trooper was attacked in Orlando early Thursday by a man wearing a Darth Vader mask, authorities said.
Michael Cole, 28, of Orlando, was arrested on felony charges of resisting arrest and battery on an officer.
According to the FHP, a construction worker informed the trooper around 2:45 a.m. of an intoxicated man wearing a Darth Vader mask who was walking in the middle of a road near Summerlin Avenue and Anderson Street.
A Florida Highway Patrol trooper was attacked in Orlando early Thursday by a man wearing a Darth Vader mask, authorities said.
Michael Cole, 28, of Orlando, was arrested on felony charges of resisting arrest and battery on an officer.
According to the FHP, a construction worker informed the trooper around 2:45 a.m. of an intoxicated man wearing a Darth Vader mask who was walking in the middle of a road near Summerlin Avenue and Anderson Street.
© The Associated Press
Police spokeswoman Irene Thomas says authorities want to question the woman who used a Taser on the victim.
Thomas says "it's just a matter of why" the woman attacked the 61-year-old victim who was wearing a salwar-kameeze, the Indian tunic paired with loose pants, while shopping at Walmart on New Year's Day.
Police say two women are seen on a store surveillance video following the victim through a couple of aisles, but the attack was not captured. One woman acted as a lookout while a second woman shocked the victim.
The victim, who had two small marks on her back, does not want to be identified since the attackers are still on the loose.
Source: The Associated Press
Film shot in the neighborhood features kid actors toting guns
The streets of Harlem are being run by baby-faced gun-toting kids who aren't afraid to pull the trigger and leave a bloody trail of bodies in a new independent film that's quickly making the rounds uptown.
There's wild shoot outs, drugs and sex in Toddlers - shot in Harlem using neighborhood kids as young as 12 making their acting debut.
The DVD, released last month, has anti-violence activists charging the movie glorifies guns. They're thinking about boycotting the video store selling the film.
Director Termaine (M5) Brown insisted he's not promoting gun violence, just showing a harsh reality.
© Viorel Florescu/New York Daily News
Termaine (M5) Brown (with glasses) and some of the actors of his new independent film Toddlers. From left are Jordan Pena "il tune," Pedro Cruz and Henry Sanchez "Chicky Thing."
Termaine (M5) Brown (with glasses) and some of the actors of his new independent film Toddlers. From left are Jordan Pena "il tune," Pedro Cruz and Henry Sanchez "Chicky Thing."
The streets of Harlem are being run by baby-faced gun-toting kids who aren't afraid to pull the trigger and leave a bloody trail of bodies in a new independent film that's quickly making the rounds uptown.
There's wild shoot outs, drugs and sex in Toddlers - shot in Harlem using neighborhood kids as young as 12 making their acting debut.
The DVD, released last month, has anti-violence activists charging the movie glorifies guns. They're thinking about boycotting the video store selling the film.
Director Termaine (M5) Brown insisted he's not promoting gun violence, just showing a harsh reality.
A British Red Cross doctor was kidnapped at gunpoint in Pakistan yesterday.
Dr Khalil Dale is understood to have been abducted by unidentified assailants close to his base in Quetta, in the troubled south-western Baluchistan province earlier today.
A spokesman for the charity said colleagues were "very concerned" for his welfare.
Dr Dale, a health programme manager who was seconded to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), was abducted as he made his way home in a clearly-marked ICRC vehicle at around 1pm local time.
His assailants are said to have bundled him into a car some 200 meters from an ICRC residence, in an upscale housing complex.
"Today begins a new era, a new time in public education in our country," Bush proclaimed in Princeton, N.J., as he signed the bill into law on Jan. 8, 2002. "As of this hour, America's schools will be on a new path of reform, and a new path of results."
But 10 years later, results matching Bush's rhetoric haven't yet arrived -- and the law itself is unlikely to change any time soon.
Comment: For more information on the education crisis in America see:
American Education's Failure: The Cause and Cure
Who Controls Our Children ? (Public Education Dumb Down Kids)
You can't blame teachers for quitting when entire families are hostile to education