The Texas comptroller's office has admitted leaving the personal information of 3.5 million Texans unencrypted on a computer server open to the public. The information included Social Security numbers, dates of birth, names, mailing addresses, and driver's license numbers.
Officials at Missouri's Republic High School have banned Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five and Sarah Ocker's Twenty Boy Summer after one resident complained the books advocate ideas contrary to the Bible.
Tara Keener saw her 5-year-old son slumped over in his seat on the school bus and several children standing over him. Thinking something was wrong, she got on the bus and went to him. It turned out he was just asleep. Now Perry County, Pennsylvania, prosecutors have charged her with unlawfully entering a school bus, a charge that carries a potential sentence of one year in jail and a $2,500 fine.
European soccer champions FC Barcelona were in Washington, D.C., to play an exhibition game against Manchester United, and they decided to get in some practice on the National Mall. Police broke up the practice because the team did not have authorization to run on the mall.
The Elyria, Ohio, police department suspended Officer Jay Loesch for five days after he struck a suspect who was handcuffed to a bed. The man had allegedly struggled with officers when they tried to arrest him and at the hospital told Loesch "The night they shot Jimmy they should have killed you, too" referring to the murder of another officer.
The Sanford, Florida, police department has fired Officer DeAnthoy Shamar after he tried to use a teenage Explorer Scout in an undercover investigation. Shamar planned to let the teen buy drugs from a suspected drug dealer. Shamar did not inform superiors of his plan and told the scout not to tell his father, who is also a police officer. Shamar has been the subject of 25 internal investigations in his nine years with the department. In 12 of those, officials found he was guilty of some violation of department rules or other wrongdoing.
The Atlanta Police Department is investigating two officers caught on video ticketing cars that were parked illegally and forcing the drivers to move only to park illegally in those spots themselves.
About 75 bystanders watched as a suicidal man walked into the ocean near Alameda, California. The man's mother called 911, and police and firefighters came but did nothing. Even after the man had drowned, they refused to go into the water. Finally, one of the bystanders went in and retrieved the man's body. Firefighters said they didn't have the necessary training and equipment to rescue the man. Police officials also said they could not risk they safety of their officers.
Each member of the Boston Bruins is supposed to get a day with the Stanley Cup, and winger Nathan Horton had a parade planned in his home town of Dunnville, Ontario. But the person bringing the cup got to the airport 23 minutes before the flight was to leave, and Transportation Security Administration rules say that all checked baggage must get to the airport no less than 30 minutes before the flight leaves. So they would only allow the cup to be placed on a later flight, causing it to arrive late.
Texas state trooper Don MacFarlane has been charged with official repression and assault for grabbing and pushing a passenger on an Austin bus. MacFarlane stepped onto the bus to tell the driver the bus was over the crosswalk and making it difficult to see traffic. As he left, someone shouted "Hey, we got places to go, bro." MacFarlane came back on board and confronted the man he thought said that. The man insisted he was talking to someone else, so after staring at him a few seconds. MacFarlane left the bus again. This time someone laughed. MacFarlane got back on the bus, grabbed one of the men, told him to get off the bus and threatened to take him to jail. When the man protested that he hadn't done anything, MacFarlane pushed him and got off the bus again.
Former San Diego police officer Anthony Arevalos has been charged with 21 felonies, including sexual battery by restraint and assault and battery by an officer. Five women claim that he made sexual comments, touched them inappropriately, and said he could keep them out of jail in exchange for sexual favors during traffic stops.
Schuyler County Sheriff Don Schieferdecker admits calling a colleague a "little fag jew boy" on Facebook. But he insists it was just "a harmless joke between friends and employees that I wasn't aware of that was going out worldwide."
New York's legislature has approved a bill requiring warning labels on sippy cups and baby bottles. The bill was pushed by the state dental association which claims that allowing kids to continually sip fruit juice or milk can cause tooth decay.
San Diego's auditor's office has recommended that residents be forced to get licenses for their cats. Officials say that requiring a license would make the city safer, because owners would have to show proof their cats had been vaccinated before they could get a license. Oh, and it would raise $25 for the city each time someone got a cat.
California's Division of Occupational Safety and Health has fined Hustler Video $14,175 for not using condoms in pornographic videos it produced. Another production company, Forsaken Films, was fined $12,150 for not providing condoms to performers.
The Slants are an Asian-American band based out of Portland, Oregon. With their popularity growing, the band's attorney suggested they trademark their name. But the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected the band's application, citing the fact that "slant" is a racial slur for people of Asian descent.
Victoria Brice Magnum has sued former Bandera County, Texas sheriff Weldon Tucker and three deputies for allegedly forcing her to abandon her baby by the side of the road. Deputies stopped Magnum earlier this year for a broken taillight then arrested her for driving without a valid license. They took her to jail but left her two-year-old daughter in a child seat in her car. Sheriff's officials say that one deputy remained behind in his patrol car to watch the child until Mangum's mother showed up. But they also say that after the incident the entire department received training in how to handle arrests in which a child is involved.
Three people were injured in an ATV crash involving a Miami Beach police officer. The officer, who was supposed to be patrolling the beach on the ATV, has not been publicly identified, but Police Chief Carlos Noriega has acknowledged that the department is looking into allegations he was seen in a bar drinking before the accident and that he was carrying a female passenger on the ATV, whom he had picked up in the bar, at the time of the crash.
Police in Belarus have arrested 1,700 people for anti-government protests since June, including Konstantin Kaplin, who was convicted of clapping in public—protestors display their anger by clapping—and fined $200. Kaplin denies the charge, noting that he has just one arm.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Cpl. Mike White drove to a house in the Fraser Valley because of a report that several shots had been fired. He didn't see anything unusual, so he didn't get out of his car to investigate. If he had, he might have seen the two people in the house who had been shot. Four days later, a neighbor discovered the corpse of Guthrie Jolan McKay. The neighbor also found Lisa Dudley, alive but badly injured. Dudley died while being transported to the hospital. White was docked a day's pay for not properly investigating the reported shots.
In North Carolina, officials with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools say they made a few mistakes. It turns out that 11 students who "graduated" from Garinger High School didn't actually have enough credits to graduate. They found out only after the graduation ceremony where the students received their diplomas. Among those 11 students was the class "valedictorian." She's currently in summer school, and officials are now re-running the numbers trying to figure out who the real valedictorian is.
Arlene Tessitore says officials at Memorial Middle School in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, forced her two daughters to take an explicit sexual quiz despite their protestations and without her knowledge. School officials admit giving students the quiz but say they were forced to give out the survey as a requirement for a federal grant.
Emil Linnell called Sweden's emergency dispatch service several times complaining that he could not breathe and asking for an ambulance. But each time, the nurse handling the calls insisted that Linnell sounded just fine. So an ambulance never came. A neighbor found Linnell dead two hours later. An autopsy revealed he died of a ruptured spleen.
Health officials in Maryland have warned summer camp operators to get parents' permission before letting campers use sunscreen. They had also originally warned them to be cautious in allowing staff to assist campers in applying sunscreen and not to allow campers to aid each other applying sunscreen, but after some criticism, they seem to be backing down. Officials say the rules were meant to prevent improper touching.
A sergeant and a deputy with the Floyd County, Georgia, sheriff's office have resigned, and two other deputies have been suspended after they took photos of the girlfriend of a jail inmate hugging another man in an attempt to humiliate him. The photos were taken at a party hosted by one of the deputies, and the woman was a probationer. As a condition of her probation, she was not supposed to drink alcohol, but she did at the party, so the deputies were also punished for helping her violate the terms of her probation.
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