Monroe Woodbury Teen Plots Attack

Police have in custody an unnamed 15-year-old teenager accused of plotting a Columbine-like attack on his High School, Monroe-Woodbury, in Orange County, New York.

During a search of the teen's home Monday, the statement said police found bottles containing gasoline, items that could be used as fuses, a torch, a machete, three propane tanks, two computers and even a black trench coat similar to the ones worn by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the teens who killed 12 students and a teacher in Columbine, Colo., in 1999 before killing themselves.

According to authorities, the youth said that he had been bullied and that he had "a lot of hatred" for kids at the school. He also admitted that he had been trying to acquire an assault weapon "that could hold as many rounds as possible" .

The attack was supposed to take place on April 20, 2010 to mark the 11th anniversary of the incident at Columbine High School. The police said that the teen's parents were unaware of the items that he had collected or of his plan to attack the school.

The teen is currently under observation in a psychiatric facility.

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Mixed-Race Couple Denied Marriage License

Beth Humphrey, 30, and Terence McKay, 32, both of Hammond, La. were in love and decided to get married. They went to Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell for the marriage license. He refused because Beth was white and Terence was black and he doesn't do mixed-race marriages.

He suggested that they get someone else to sign the marriage certificate....which they did. They are now happily married....no thanks to Keith Bardwell.

Before continuing any further, I am going to go ahead and call Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell from Hammond, in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana a racist. A racist who has no business being a Justice of the Peace, sworn to uphold the laws of the United States of America.

This issue was decided by the Supreme Court on June, 12, 1967 when it declared: "The Government cannot tell people who they can and cannot marry." See Loving vs Virginia and the story behind the ruling.

“Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival,” wrote Chief Justice Warren. “Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”

This has been the law of the land for over 40 years.

According to JP Keith Bardwell, he refused to issue a marriage license out of concern for the children of such a marriage and that it has been his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long. He refutes the notion that he is a racist.

"I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way," Keith Bardwell told AP. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else” Bardwell said. "My main concern is for the children."

After having discussions with both blacks and whites, he said he has come to the conclusion that: "Most of black society does not readily accept offspring of such relationships, and neither does white society."

"I don't do interracial marriages because I don't want to put children in a situation they didn't bring on themselves," Bardwell said. "In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer."

Beth Humphrey said she called Bardwell on Oct. 6 to inquire about getting a marriage license signed. She says Bardwell's wife told her that Bardwell will not sign marriage licenses for interracial couples.

According to the Census Bureau, Tangipahoa Parish is about 70 percent white and 30 percent black.

Humphrey says the case boils down to discrimination.The couple said they plan to consult the U.S. Justice Department about the matter.

Beth Humphrey is an account manager for a marketing firm. Terrence McKay is a welder and they had just returned to Louisiana. Humphrey says she plans to enroll in the University of New Orleans to pursue a masters degree in minority politics.

"That was one thing that made this so unbelievable," she said. "It's not something you expect in this day and age. We are looking forward to having children, and all our friends and co-workers have been very supportive. Except for this, we're typical happy newlyweds."

The ACLU sent a letter to the Louisiana Judiciary Committee, which oversees the state justices of the peace, asking them to investigate Bardwell and recommending "the most severe sanctions available, because such blatant bigotry poses a substantial threat of serious harm to the administration of justice."

"It is really astonishing and disappointing to see this come up in 2009," said American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana attorney Katie Schwartzmann. "He knew he was breaking the law, but continued to do it."

The NAACP branch of Tangipahoa Parish has also gotten involved. It has forwarded the case to the state and national levels of the civil rights group, calling for Keith Bardwell to resign because of his refusal to issue the marriage license.

“He’s an elected public official and one of his duties is to marry people, he doesn’t have the right to say he doesn’t believe in it,” said Patricia Morris, president of the NAACP branch of Tangipahoa Parish, located near the Mississippi line. “If he doesn’t do what his position calls for him to do, he should resign from that position.”

Keith Bardwell said that in the 34 years he has been a justice of the peace he has never married couples of different races.

“I do not, do not, do mixed-race marriages,” he said. “I  always guide them to another justice of the peace. They can go other places and get married. A justice of the peace does not have to marry anybody,” Bardwell said.

In my opinion.... No one should have to put up with the racist attitudes of a bigot masquerading under the pretense that he cares what happens to the children of mixed-race parents. It is none of his business. No one asked for his opinion much less his permission to get married. If he can't do his job without interjecting his personal biases then he should not be a Justice of the Peace. He should resign or be removed from office.....in my opinion.

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Zarchary Christie and the Spork

6-year-old Zachary Christie is a first-grader at Downes Elementary School in Newark, Del., He received a 45-day suspension from school. His crime - he took a camping utensil that contained a spoon, fork, bottle opener and knife (commonly called a spork) to school.

School administrators deemed Zachary to be in violation of their zero-tolerance ban on weapons, and he may have to attend the district's reform school.

See Video Clip Below:

Zachary's mother, Debbie Christie, is speaking out against the suspension and saying he should not have to face 45 days of reform school as a consequence.

"I got a call from the principal, telling me to come down, that Zach had carried a dangerous weapon into school and was going to be suspended," Christie told "Good Morning America"

School administrators deemed Zachary to be in violation of their zero-tolerance ban on weapons, and he may have to attend the district's reform school.

The decision has been widely criticized as being too harsh, and Debbie Christie started a Web site with a petition of support that garnered thousands of  signatures.

At the school board meeting supporters came out to rally for change. The board relented and changed its rules. Children in kindergarten and first grade will only be faced with a three to five day suspension.

See Video Clip Below

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Mom Charged in Quadriplegic's Death

Lorrie Mae Thomas, 40, will stand trial on 6 counts including murder, child abuse and welfare fraud in the death of her 9-year-old quadriplegic, adopted daughter, Shylae Myza Thomas. So said Judge Tracy Collier-Nix of 68th District Court in Flint, Mi. at a hearing on Oct., 13, 2009.

Investigators believe Shylae had been dead for six weeks before police found her body, wrapped in a garbage bag and stuffed in a 33-gallon container filled with mothballs, her feet hanging over the side, in a storage unit at 9125 N. Saginaw Rd. in Vienna Township on April 22, 2009.

At the time of her death 9-year-old Shylae weighed only 33 lbs. The doctor who performed the autopsy said the cause of death was a combination of neglect, malnourishment and dehydration. Shylae suffered from quadriplegia because of a "suffocation issue" in her crib at 3 weeks of age.

"You don't even really need an autopsy or an expert to tell you that this 9-year-girl at 33 pounds was starved to death," Assistant Prosecutor Marcie Mabry said after the hearing.

See Video Clip Below

The state Department of Human Services began to suspect something might be wrong after a worker went to Thomas' house at 1041 E. Pierson Rd. near I-475 to check out a tip that Shylae and another child there were being neglected. Thomas had 7 other children.

The DHS worker asked about Shylae and was told that she was on the way to Virginia where Thomas was planning to relocate to. The worker became suspicious when Thomas was unable to provide a contact number to the person who had Shylae. Eventually the police were called in.

A police investigation turned up information that Shylae had been dead for weeks and her body was being kept in a storage unit at the Stor & Lock storage facility. They found Shylae's body there about 4 a.m. on Wednesday, April 22. Thomas was arrested and her other children were placed in DHS custody.

Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton described the child’s living conditions as filthy, ‘For her to have to live like that, and then to die and be stuffed into a bag and plastic bin in a storage facility, just breaks my heart,’ he said.

Judge Tracy Collier-Nix's ruling came at the end of a three-day preliminary hearing that began June 3 and continued Oct. 1.

At the hearing prosecutors played a recording of a phone conversation with Thomas from jail just days after her arrest in which she uses an expletive to describe police and said she had planned to retrieve Shylae's body from the storage unit and bury it.

"I did not murder her," Thomas said in the April 25 call.

After the hearing, defense lawyer Mark Clement said Thomas found Shylae dead at home and panicked — fearing that her own children would be taken from her if she reported the death. He said Thomas denies that she starved the girl and says she was feeding her.

Lorrie Mae Thomas is scheduled to be arraigned Monday, Oct. 19, 2009 in circuit court.

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A Black and Blue "Moon"

A German man, angry at being put off a train because he had no ticket, did something rather rude....He pulled his pants down and planted his bare buttocks on the door of the train - a practice known as "mooning" - as it pulled off, giving the staff a view they will never forget.

That's when things went terribly wrong for him. See the story below:

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German man mooning at railway staff in a departing train got his trousers caught in a carriage door and ended up being dragged half naked along the platform, out of the station and onto the tracks.

The 22-year-old journalism student shoved his backside against the window of a low-slung double-decker train when staff forced him off in Lauenbrueck for traveling without a ticket, a spokesman for police in the northern city of Bremen said.

"It's a miracle he wasn't badly hurt," the spokesman said on Monday. "This sort of thing can end up killing you."

Instead, dangling by his trousers, the man got pulled along for about 200 meters, all the while managing to keep his legs away from the wheels of the train.

The ordeal ended when a passenger pulled the emergency brake. Rescues services were called in, causing rail services between Bremen and Hamburg to be suspended for over an hour, delaying 23 trains.

The man -- unharmed except for cuts and bruises -- now faces charges of dangerous interference in rail transport, insulting the train staff, and may face sizeable a compensation claim for the delays he caused, police said.

"He was full of remorse when I talked to him," the spokesman said. "And he advised others not to try the same thing."

(Reporting by Dave Graham; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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