nice

Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants could receive health care coverage from their employers under the bills winding their way through Congress, despite President Obama's explicit pledge that illegal immigrants would not benefit.

The House bill mandates, and the Senate bill strongly encourages, businesses to extend health care coverage to all employees. But the bills do not have exemptions to screen out illegal immigrants, who usually obtain jobs by using false identities and are indistinguishable from legal workers.

A rough estimate by the Center for Immigration Studies suggests that the practical effect of the mandates would be that about 1 million illegal immigrants could obtain health insurance coverage through their employers.

la times

Transsexual L.A. Times sportswriter found dead

Sat Nov 28, 2009 3:18pm EST

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LOS ANGELES, Nov 28 (Reuters) - A Los Angeles Times sportswriter who made headlines by announcing he was becoming a woman, then returned to work as a man, has been found dead in a suspected suicide, the paper reported on Saturday.

Mike Penner, a 25-year veteran of the Times sports staff, was found dead at his Los Angeles home at age 52. The paper said suicide was the suspected cause of death.

"He was one of the most talented writers I've ever worked with," Times Sports Editor Mike James told the paper in a blog on its website. "He was a gentle man, a kind man. It's just a tragedy."

Penner stunned colleagues and readers in April 2007 with a column announcing that he was a transsexual and would become a woman.

"How do you go about sharing your most important truth, one you spent a lifetime trying to keep deeply buried, to a world that has grown familiar and comfortable with your facade?" Penner wrote.

His column became one of the most-read articles on the paper's website and was widely reprinted on the Internet and discussed on sports talk-radio programs.

Under a new byline, Christine Daniels, the writer chronicled the transformation on a blog titled "Woman in Progress." But by October 2008 Penner had quietly gone back to work as a man.

$$$

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mayor Michael Bloomberg's narrower-than-expected reelection campaign cost the billionaire some $102 million, or about $183 per vote, The New York Times reported on Friday evening, making him the top-spending self-financed politician in U.S. history.

Data on the mayoral election released on Friday found Bloomberg's run for a third term in office, which required special legislation overturning a city law that held the mayor to a maximum of two terms, was the most expensive campaign in municipal history, the Times said.

Bloomberg, the richest man in a city with no shortage of millionaires, surpassed past campaign expenditures of $85 million in 2005 and $74 million in 2001, the report said.

The spending continued until the election's final hours, as Bloomberg's campaign placed prerecorded calls shortly before polls closed in which the mayor implored voters to go out and vote for him.

Bloomberg defeated city comptroller William Thompson by fewer than five percentage points, a margin far smaller than polls had predicted, after he pressed the City Council to change the city's voter-approved term-limits law last year to allow him to run for a third term

dead man walkin

CBS 2 HD recently met a Brooklyn man who lived after his heart quit for 47 minutes, and it's all thanks to a team of doctors who refused to give up until they brought him back from the dead.

"These doctors did not stop," Joe Tiralosi said, fighting through tears to find the words to describe his experience. "Without them, and I'm serious when I tell you, I wouldn't be here."

Tiralosi is a medical miracle. He's been to the edge and back, to a place most people don't return from. Now he's at home in Brooklyn, but three months ago he literally died.

"I think miracle best describes it," Tiralosi said.

Tiralosi suffered sudden cardiac arrest. His heart stopped beating for 47 minutes.

"Not a moment goes by that I don't take for granted every second because I know it only takes the blink of an eye to lose your life," he said.

Last week, the 56-year-old father of two returned to New York Presbyterian Hospital to thank the medical team who saved his life and share his story with CBS 2 HD.

On Aug. 17, Tiralosi walked into the emergency room feeling sick and disoriented. He collapsed a minute later.

"The doctors themselves were responsible for giving my chance to live again," Tiralosi said.

Doctors Rahul Sharma and Flavio Gaudio led the team who worked on him.

"It's a miracle for which it is difficult to find words," Dr. Gaudio said.

candy

You'll recall -- and we'll never forget -- Tori Spelling's mom was sued by Lourdes Serrano, who claimed, among other things, Candy was a tightwad boss, making her clock out for 10-minute breaks twice a day and not paying the downtime.

We just got legal docs showing the case settled last Tuesday. The terms are confidential. We're told the maid got chump change -- but someone in Candy's camp said, "Maybe in maid money it's a lot."

fatty

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A Pennsylvania university's requirement that overweight undergraduates take a fitness course to receive their degrees has raised the hackles of students and the eyebrows of health and legal experts.

Officials at historically black Lincoln University said Friday that the school is simply concerned about high rates of obesity and diabetes, especially in the African-American community.

"We know we're in the midst of an obesity epidemic," said James L. DeBoy, chairman of Lincoln's department of health, physical education and recreation. "We have an obligation to address this head on, knowing full well there's going to be some fallout."

sign me up

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) - A 39-year-old Southern California man has been arrested for misdemeanor child annoyance after allegedly paying a teenager $31 to spit in his face. The Ventura County Sheriff's Department says Charles Hersel was arrested Wednesday in a sting operation at a mall in Thousand Oaks. He's free from jail pending a court hearing.

A sheriff's statement says Westlake High School students claimed Hersel paid them to yell profanities, spit and slap him in the face. Several also claimed he offered them cash to urinate and defecate on him.

A motive wasn't clear.

Authorities say Hersel contacted some teens through the MySpace social networking site.

Hersel couldn't be reached for comment Friday. He had no listed phone number in Thousand Oaks.

taser

Cop Tases 10-Year-Old Girl

Arkansas mother suggested stun gun treatment for unruly daughter

NOVEMBER 18--An Arkansas cop tasered an unruly 10-year-old girl after her mother called police to report that the child was crying, screaming, and refusing to go to bed. The tased girl, Kiara Medlock, is about 65 pounds and 4' 6", according to her father. Anthony Medlock, a truck driver who does not live with the fifth grader and her mother, provided TSG with a recent photo of his daughter, which can be seen at right. According to the below Ozark Police Department report, when Officer Dustin Bradshaw arrived at the residence last Thursday, he found the girl "screaming, kicking, and resisting every time her mother tried to touch her." Bradshaw added that, "Her mother told me to tase her if I needed to." After Kiara continued to refuse her mother's instructions, the cop concluded that "there was not going to be a peaceful resolution of the issue." Bradshaw warned the girl that she was "going to jail," but the child continued kicking and crying and resisted his attempt to handcuff her. During the tussle, Kiara "struck me with her legs and feet in the groin, reported Bradshaw, who countered with a brief "stun to her back" with his Taser. The child, not surprisingly, "immediately stopped resisting and was placed into handcuffs. She would not walk on her own and I had to carry her to my police car." Kiara was then transported to a youth shelter. (1 page)

weed

Police discovered a marijuana growing operation this afternoon on a property just 25 feet from the back door of the Los Angeles Police Department's Topanga Station, authorities said.

The marijuana plants were discovered after a search warrant was served about 3 p.m. on the property in the 8400 block of Canoga Avenue, LAPD officer Gregory Baek said.

He said officers launched an investigation about a week ago after smelling marijuana. Investigators were at the scene, and no additional details were available.

OBER rIP

Ken Ober moved to Comedy Central after his stint at MTV.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• MTV pop-culture game show first aired in 1987
• Ober, 52, found dead at home, his agent says
• "Remote Control" helped launch careers of Adam Sandler, Denis Leary, Colin Quinn

RELATED TOPICS

• MTV Networks Company
• Obituaries

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Ken Ober, whose MTV game show "Remote Control" was among the network's first forays into non-music programming, has died at age 52, his agent said Monday.

Ober hosted five seasons of "Remote Control," a pop-culture quiz show that featured contestants strapped into easy chairs to answer questions from categories such as "Dead or Canadian?" The show first aired in 1987 and helped launch the careers of comedians Adam Sandler, Denis Leary and Colin Quinn, who was the program's announcer.

Ober later moved behind the camera as a producer of the Comedy Central program "Mind of Mencia" and the CBS comedy "The New Adventures of Old Christine."

Ober's agent, Mark Measures, said Ober was found dead at his home in Los Angeles. No cause of death was immediately known.

911

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - Jacksonville police say Reginald Peterson needs to learn that 911 is not the appropriate place to complain that Subway left the sauce off a spicy Italian sandwich.

Police said the 42-year-old man dialed 911 twice last week so he could have his sub made correctly. The second call was to complain that officers weren't arriving fast enough.

Subway workers told police Peterson became belligerent and yelled when they were fixing his order. They locked him out of the store after he left to call police.

When officers arrived, they tried to calm Peterson and explain the proper use of 911. Those efforts failed, and he was arrested on a charge of making false 911 calls.

Peterson did not have a listed phone number.

wow

Tenn. trooper suspended over white pride e-mail

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Fri Nov 13, 3:40 pm ET

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A Tennessee state trooper who accidentally sent an e-mail proclaiming white pride to 787 state employees has been suspended for 15 days without pay and will have to attend diversity training.

The e-mail from Trooper Brent Gobbell states, in part, "You rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us. But, when a white police officer shoots a black gang member ... you call him a racist." It also includes a list of racist epithets.

The state Department of Safety says Gobbell sent the e-mail to himself so he could print a copy. He did not realize he had also sent it to hundreds of state employees.

An investigation revealed that Gobbell later deleted his responses to the original e-mail and attempted to delete the original too. Gobbell has apologized.

spiderman

A Spider-Man impersonator was arrested on outstanding criminal warrants Wednesday after an incident in which he allegedly slugged a man near the Hollywood & Highland complex, police said.

It was not immediately clear what led to the altercation, which was reported about 12:30 p.m. in the 6800 block of Hollywood Boulevard. But it's the latest in a string of incidents involving movie characters and celebrity look-alikes who vie for space -- and attention -- along the tourist-filled corridor that includes Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Christopher Loomis, 39, was being held on outstanding misdemeanor warrants in lieu of $5,500 bail, police said.

The incident began when Los Angeles Police Department patrol officers received a radio call reporting battery by a man in a Spider-Man costume. When they arrived, they encountered four people dressed as the web-slinging crusader.

"They stopped one, it wasn't him," said LAPD Lt. Beverly Lewis. "They stopped the second, and it was the suspect."

hello sir

Busted For 911 Phone Sex

Florida man dialed up cops from shower "to have some fun"

NOVEMBER 12--Meet Joshua Basso. The Florida man was arrested yesterday after allegedly placing a series of obscene 911 calls during which he asked a female operator about her breasts and whether she would have sex with him. When confronted by cops, Basso would not say whether he was masturbating while talking to the operator, as he claimed during the calls, according to a Tampa Police Department report. The 29-year-old rooming house resident admitted placing the calls, but "did not think he would get in trouble for calling 911." That miscalculation resulted in Basso being charged yesterday with a misdemeanor count of misusing the 911 system (he was booked into the Hillsborough County jail, where the below mug shot was taken). Asked why he chose to dial 911 from among "all the numbers he could have called," Basso told police that his LG cell phone was out of minutes and he "called 911 because it was free." (3 pages)

donkey

Two satirical bloggers who staged an interview with a donkey were sent to prison in Azerbaijan Wednesday, following a two-month trial for assault, the father of one told CNN.

Adnan Hadjizadeh 26, and Emin Milli, 30, were accused of hooliganism after an altercation in a cafe in July.

Hadjizadeh was imprisoned for two years and Milli was sentenced to two and a half, Hadjizadeh's father, Hikmet, told CNN by phone from Baku, the capital of the oil-rich former Soviet republic.

reward

The Good Samaritan who found the script for "Twilight: New Moon" in a St. Louis dumpster -- and then returned it -- says the reward she got from the movie's production company is actually costing her big-time in the end.

Casey Ray tells TMZ she's grateful Summit Entertainment coughed up two tickets to the film's L.A. premiere and after party on November 16 -- but the cost of traveling expenses is biting her in the behind.

Ray says the round-trip tickets for her and her niece cost $1,200 -- plus another bundle to pay for a hotel and whatever other expenses the duo happens to rack up.

We spoke to a rep for Summit who says Ray's complaint comes as a complete surprise. The rep said Ray had no problems with the reward package -- which also includes a walk down the red carpet and a signed copy of the script by the movie's lead actors -- when she agreed on it back in May ... and Summit hasn't heard a peep from Ray since.

boycott

Victoria, Texas (pop.55,000) is a town about 80 miles west of Houston .

Local Hispanic leaders there, in opposition to pending Immigration Legislation, boycotted all Caucasian owned businesses in the Victoria area this past weekend as a demonstration of their economic impact on the community. The boycott was declared a success by the Hispanic community, noting that revenue in Caucasian owned businesses was down by 19%.

Business owners declared the boycott a success as well, pointing out that shoplifting was reduced by 77%, money orders sent out of the country were down by 97%, and the cost of daily clean-up and trash collection was down by 84%. Shoppers reported that they could actually hear English being spoken throughout the community for the first time in recent memory, and customers actually paid for purchases with real money, not government debit cards.

ufo

TN's "flying saucer" house sold

Photo source.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — A Cincinnati woman’s $135,000 bid bought the flying saucer-shaped house on a mountainside in Chattanooga.

An auctioneer who conducted the sale Saturday said the buyer, Pearl Johnson, did not want to talk about the transaction. Auctioneer Terry Posey said he thought she bought it as a second home.
Posey said Monday the auction of the 38-year-old structure on a curving road to Signal Mountain attracted worldwide attention and he was surprised the bidding did not go higher.
One of the house’s unique features is a retractable staircase that lowers to the ground, which one led to an interesting domestic dispute.
A neighbor, Ron Parimore, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that former owners in the 1970s got in an argument and the wife pulled up the stairway, drove her husband’s truck underneath it so he couldn’t get the stairs down and left him stuck inside.

shocker

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE - News;NYSE:FRE - News), the second largest provider of U.S. residential mortgage funding, on Friday posted a loss of $5 billion in the third quarter and predicted it would need more government support amid a "prolonged deterioration" in housing.

Increases in the value of securities Freddie Mac held over the period helped buoy its net worth, however, erasing its need to tap government funds for a second straight quarter to stay solvent while continuing to buy and guarantee home loans.

Including a $1.3 billion dividend payment on senior preferred stock bought by the Treasury in previous quarters, Freddie Mac's third-quarter loss increases to $6.3 billion.

The home funding company's loss comes amid a rise in provisions for credit losses to $7.6 billion in the quarter, up 46 percent compared with the previous quarter, as delinquencies worsened on loans it guarantees. Provisions will remain high this quarter, it added.

"I would say we are just beginning to see the impact of the chargeoffs on their guarantee book," said Janaki Rao, vice president of mortgage research at Morgan Stanley in New York.

my yob

Man Stabbed Self To Keep Job

Torn uniform pants led Blockbuster worker to hatch bizarre plan

NOVEMBER 3--Meet Aaron Siebers. The 27-year-old Denver man, a Blockbuster employee, was skateboarding yesterday afternoon when he fell and ripped his uniform pants. Due to work last night--and concerned about getting "written up" by Blockbuster superiors for not wearing his work-issued khakis--Siebers came up with a harebrained idea. Instead of just calling in sick, he stabbed himself in the leg and showed up at work claiming to have just been attacked by three Hispanic males. Siebers, who told cops he was assaulted as he walked toward the Blockbuster in Edgewater, had a deep stab wound in one leg and several other minor cuts on his face and stomach. As investigators began hunting for the assailants, they reviewed surveillance video from outside a Target store where Siebers claimed the attack occurred. The footage, however, showed no such assault. Confronted by cops, Siebers, pictured in the below mug shot, admitted that he had stabbed himself. He told investigators about the skateboarding accident, the resulting ripped pants, and how "he did not want to lose his job so he stabbed himself in the leg," according to an arrest affidavit sworn by Officer Shawna Naumann. As a result, Siebers was named in acriminal complaint charging him with filing a false report and obstructing police, both misdemeanors. (3 pages)

911

Woman calls 911 to report herself as drunk driver

(AP) – 1 day ago

NEILSVILLE, Wis. — The call came into the 911 dispatcher: "I don't want to hurt anybody. I'm drunk." And with that, Mary Strey, 49, of Granton, reported herself as a drunken driver about three miles northeast of Neilsville in central Wisconsin.

Clark County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Jim Backus said Monday that Strey's call on Oct. 24 led deputies to cite her for misdemeanor drunken driving with a blood-alcohol level double the legal limit to drive. She makes her first court appearance Dec. 10.

Backus said drunken drivers reporting themselves is rare.

In the 911 call, Strey said she wanted to report a drunken driver and the dispatcher asked if she was behind the suspect vehicle. "I am them," Strey said. She then followed the dispatcher's advice to pull over and turn on her flashers, telling him she had been "drinking all night long."

It was unclear if Strey has hired an attorney yet.

911

Woman calls 911 to report herself as drunk driver

(AP) – 1 day ago

NEILSVILLE, Wis. — The call came into the 911 dispatcher: "I don't want to hurt anybody. I'm drunk." And with that, Mary Strey, 49, of Granton, reported herself as a drunken driver about three miles northeast of Neilsville in central Wisconsin.

Clark County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Jim Backus said Monday that Strey's call on Oct. 24 led deputies to cite her for misdemeanor drunken driving with a blood-alcohol level double the legal limit to drive. She makes her first court appearance Dec. 10.

Backus said drunken drivers reporting themselves is rare.

In the 911 call, Strey said she wanted to report a drunken driver and the dispatcher asked if she was behind the suspect vehicle. "I am them," Strey said. She then followed the dispatcher's advice to pull over and turn on her flashers, telling him she had been "drinking all night long."

It was unclear if Strey has hired an attorney yet.

the bird

WOODSTOCK, Ill. (CBS) ―

Click to enlarge

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Kane Kellett was on the McHenry County Sheriff's 10 Most Wanted List.

McHenry County Sheriff's Office

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If you flip someone off in traffic, you might get angry stares or a nasty honk of the car horn, but if you do it in court, expect much more severe consequences.

A McHenry County man found that out the hard way.

Kane Kellett, 24, raised his middle finger while he was being sworn in to face home invasion charges at a rights hearing, the Daily Herald reported. He also hurled profanity at Judge G. Martin Zopp.

Zopp promptly gave Kellett six months in jail for contempt of court.

Kellett was wanted on charges of aggravated battery and assault. He is accused of attacking two people, including a pregnant woman last month in Crystal Lake, Deputy Police Chief Dennis Harris told CBS 2.

He is accused of punching the woman in the face and kicking her in the ribs after she fell on Oct. 13. He is also charged with a home invasion on Oct. 14, in which he forced his way in by kicking down a door to a multi-family home in Crystal Lake, battered a resident with a flashlight, and fled once police were called, Harris said.