Tag Archive: OHIO


Massive line of storms puts one in five in US at risk for severe weather

Filed under: Earth Watch Report, Extreme Weather, Global Disaster Watch, Storms — 2 Comments
June 12, 2013

Earth Watch Report  -  Storms

 

….

Meteorologists from Chicago to Washington warn system could be the ‘worst severe weather outbreak’ of the year

 

  • Associated Press in Chicago
  • guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 12 June 2013 16.12 EDT

 

Washington DC derecho storm damage

A derecho last June left millions of people around Washington DC without power for days. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

 

An unusually massive line of storms packing hail, lightning and tree-toppling winds could affect more than one in five Americans on Wednesday as it rolls from Iowa to Maryland.

Meteorologists were even warning about the possibility of a weather event called a derecho, which is a storm of strong straight-line winds spanning at least 240 miles. The storms are also likely to generate tornadoes and cause power outages that will be followed by oppressive heat, said Russell Schneider, director of the National Weather Service’s storm prediction center in Norman, Oklahoma.

“We’re becoming increasingly concerned that a major severe weather event will unfold,” Schneider said. “The main thing is for folks to monitor conditions and have a plan for what to do if threatening weather approaches.”

For the first time this year, the center was using its highest alert level for parts of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. The storms will start in the late afternoon in eastern Iowa, Schneider said, and could hit Chicago around rush-hour.

The area the weather service considers to be under heightened risk of dangerous weather includes 74.7 million people in 19 states.

Wednesday “might be the worst severe weather outbreak for this part of the country for the year,” said Jeff Masters, meteorology director at Weather Underground.

 

Read Full Article Here

 

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wjz-13

 

June 12, 2013 11:26 PM
Severe Weather

Reporting Bob Turk

WASHINGTON (AP/WJZ) — An unusually massive line of storms packing hail, lightning and tree-toppling winds Wednesday could affect more than one in five Americans as it reaches Maryland from Iowa.

Meteorologists were even warning about the possibility of a weather event called a derecho, which is a storm of strong straight-line winds spanning at least 240 miles. The storms are also likely to generate tornadoes and cause power outages that will be followed by oppressive heat, said Russell Schneider, director of the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.

“We’re becoming increasingly concerned that a major severe weather event will unfold,” Schneider said. “The main thing is for folks to monitor conditions and have a plan for what to do if threatening weather approaches.”

Bob Turk reports a derecho forming in the Chicago area could possibly make its way to the region Thursday. There are two parts to this storm, Thursday morning and Thursday afternoon into early evening. The first part is primarily rain and the second part could bring us thunderstorms and even possibly tornadoes.

STORM TIMELINE:

  • Thursday morning: Rain, varying in intensity and locally heavy in parts. Some thunderstorms are possible
  • Thursday afternoon and early evening (2 p.m. until 10 p.m.): Severe thunderstorms are possible with heavy rain, damaging winds and possible tornadoes
  • Late Thursday evening (after 10 p.m.): The region will slowly be drying out

For the first time this year, the center was using its highest alert level for parts of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. The storms could hit Chicago around rush hour, Schneider said. Wednesday night’s White Sox game against the Toronto Blue Jays was postponed in anticipation of bad weather.

 

Read Full Report  Here

 

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CBS Chicago

High Risk: Severe Storms Could Bring Tree-Toppling Wind, Tornadoes

June 12, 2013 8:23 AM

Weather_Graphic_June_12

UPDATED: 6/12/2013 3:40 p.m.

CHICAGO (CBS) – The National Weather Service was anticipating a major severe weather outbreak in the Chicago area, starting Wednesday afternoon, with the likelihood of very strong storms, large hail, high winds, and a risk of tornadoes.

CBS 2 Meteorologist Megan Glaros reports there is a high risk for severe weather, a rarity for the Chicago area. It’s something more common in Tornado Alley in the central part of the country around Oklahoma and Kansas.

Strong storms in counties west of Chicagoland began to fire up around 3:40 p.m. Storms will continue through as late as 10 p.m. The highest chance of the most severe weather will happen around rush hour and continue into the evening.

In Lee and Ogle counties, a Tornado Warning was issued around 3:50 p.m., and is expected to expire at 4:30 p.m.

A Thunderstorm Warning has been issued for the entire Chicago area until 9 p.m.

National_Weather_Service

 

 

Read Full Report  Here

 

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How the IRS spun out of control. Speaking of spin….. Harassing Letters came from DC and California not Cincinnati

Filed under: bureaucracy, Government, Government Overreach, Lack Of Transparency, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Secrecy, Special Interests, Taxation, Unethical — 10 Comments
May 19, 2013

 

Little guidance from Washington and a flood of new nonprofits left the Cincinnati office overwhelmed.

 

IRS scandal

Ousted IRS acting Commissioner Steven Miller knew trouble was brewing as early as March 2012. Election season was well underway when tea party groups started to complain of IRS harassment over their requests for tax-exempt status. (Andrew Harrer, Bloomberg / May 17, 2013)

 

 

By Joseph Tanfani, Matea Gold and Melanie Mason, Washington Bureau

May 18, 2013, 9:42 p.m.

 

WASHINGTON — Steven Miller, the top enforcement official at the Internal Revenue Service, thought he might have trouble on his hands.

Election season was well underway in March 2012 when tea party organizations started to complain angrily of IRS harassment over their requests for tax-exempt status. The media was looking into it. Congress had picked up the scent.

Miller dispatched an advisor to Cincinnati, where a field office handles applications from nonprofits, to figure out what was up. What he learned would blow up into a crisis that would damage the agency’s reputation and lead to his ouster last week.

With little oversight from Washington, agents in Ohio had been singling out some conservative groups for extra scrutiny, seeking to make sure they were not too heavily involved in politics to qualify as tax-exempt.

Worse yet, the agents had sent the organizations letters with numerous intrusive questions, including the groups’ positions on political issues and the names of their donors.

Miller failed to tell Congress what he knew for more than a year, despite repeated queries from House committees. On Friday, at times chagrined and combative as he spoke to House members, Miller called the IRS’ focus on conservative groups “obnoxious” and described what happened as “horrible customer service.”

No evidence yet suggests that the IRS agents in Cincinnati had a political agenda. But ample evidence has emerged in congressional testimony and in an inspector general’s report that they were overwhelmed by an influx of applications from new politically oriented nonprofits. At the same time, they were left to fend for themselves, unsupervised by Washington managers who never created rules on how to evaluate the new groups.

“Cincinnati basically became an island of its own out there,” said Paul Streckfus, a former IRS attorney. He suggested the missteps and clumsy response stemmed from a “hidebound” and insular culture at the IRS. “They don’t trust outsiders,” he said. “They know they’re always under attack, and they have a bunker mentality: ‘If we keep our heads down long enough, we will survive the latest onslaught.’”

The scandal, which appears to have started with one specialist in Cincinnati, was slow-building, born of a dysfunctional bureaucracy and a fateful reorganization years ago that placed more authority in the hands of accountants and lawyers 500 miles from headquarters in Washington.

“In my view, there was a failure of management in D.C. to get their hands around this early enough,” said Marvin Friedlander, who retired in 2009 after 41 years with the IRS. “Cincinnati should have reached out to Washington headquarters people, and Washington should have gotten ahead of the curve.”

The inquiry has put a spotlight on an obscure branch of the IRS, the Tax Exempt/Government Entities Division, which is largely housed in an office building in downtown Cincinnati.

Former employees describe staff in the Cincinnati office as well-intentioned but overworked, struggling to keep up with more than 60,000 applications a year from groups that want to be classified as tax-exempt, such as churches, chambers of commerce, PTAs and advocacy groups.

The applications are reviewed by about 200 people in a “determinations unit,” about 140 of those in Cincinnati. To keep ahead of the flood, former employees say, the staff frequently resorts to shortcuts.

“That office is given direction to move as quickly as possible, but also be accurate,” said Philip Hackney, an assistant law professor at Louisiana State University who worked in the IRS chief counsel’s office from 2006 to 2011. “It’s impossible. They miss a lot of stuff.”

The agency has had to work with a smaller staff — overall, the exempt division has about 860 people, Miller told Congress last year, down nearly 10% from its peak. Once, lawyers from national headquarters regularly compiled briefings on emerging issues and conducted weeklong training sessions in Cincinnati. But those were scrapped in 2004.

In years past, the office had spent little time worrying about so-called social welfare organizations formed under section 501(c)4 of the tax code, instead focusing more attention on charity groups.

But that changed in 2010, after the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United. Political operatives stepped up their use of social welfare groups as vehicles to spend hundreds of millions to shape the outcome of elections — all of it from hidden sources. Social welfare organizations are not required to reveal their donors, unlike political committees.

To qualify, however, such groups cannot have politics as their “primary purpose.” But the rules don’t say how much political activity is too much. That fraught issue was left in the hands of agents with mostly accounting backgrounds who were ill-suited to deal with questions of politics and the 1st Amendment.

In the past, former employees said, similarly tricky situations would have been kicked up to IRS lawyers in Washington. That changed after an IRS reorganization a decade ago.

“The concern was that the lawyers in D.C. had other work to do, and Cincinnati should be able to handle most or all of the cases,” said Friedlander, a former branch chief in the exempt organizations division.

 

Read Full Article Here

 

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Documents: IRS letters harassing conservative groups came from Washington, DC headquarters and from California offices, despite Inspector General’s focus on Cincinnati employees

  • Tax agency has admitted targeting tea party groups and other conservative organizations for special, politically motivated scrutiny
  • IRS inspector general focused on wrongdoing in Cincinnati, Ohio office and ignored abusive letters coming from other cities
  • MailOnline found letters from IRS’s Washington, D.C. headquarters, and from IRS offices in two southern California cities
  • The American Center on Law and Justice is threatening to sue the IRS if 27 tea party groups aren’t granted tax-exempt statuses by Friday

By David Martosko In Washington

PUBLISHED: 18:27 EST, 15 May 2013 | UPDATED: 18:31 EST, 15 May 2013

 

Letters from the IRS to tea party-related organizations in Oklahoma City and Albuquerque, New Mexico show that IRS headquarters in Washington, D.C., and two satellite offices in California, were directly involved with sending harassing letters to conservative organizations that sought tax-exempt status.

The IRS has acknowledged only the involvement of its Exempt Organizations office in Cincinnati, Ohio, which typically makes most decisions about granting or denying tax-exempt status to non-profit organizations.

And Wednesday afternoon, CNN cited a congressional source in reporting that the acting IRS Commissioner – whom President Obama fired later in the day – had identified two ‘rogue’ employees, both in Cincinnati, whom he thought were responsible for targeting right-wing organizations with tactics that were not applied to left-wing or non-political groups.

This letterhead from the IRS headquarters in Washington, DC, accompanied a probing letter directed at a tea party group. The IRS Inspector General investigated only similar communications from the agency's Cincinnati officeThis letterhead from the IRS headquarters in Washington, DC, accompanied a probing letter directed at a tea party group. The IRS Inspector General investigated only similar communications from the agency’s Cincinnati office

 

Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel, American Center for Law and Justice, says his group will sue the IRS if it doesn't grant tax-exempt status to 27 tea party groups by Friday
Lois Lerner

Jay Sekulow (L) says his American Center for Law and Justice will sue the IRS if it doesn’t grant tax-exempt status to 27 tea party groups by Friday. Lois Lerner (R) is a civil servant, not a political appointee, heads the IRS office the handles tax-exempt groups

Steven Miller then the acting IRS Commissioner, described the two employees as being ‘off the reservation,’ according to the CNN source.

Miller, added CNN, had emphasized that the problem was not confined to just two staffers.

Tuesday’s report from the IRS Office of Inspector General, however, focused exclusively on the Cincinnati office.

This IG’s review, according to the report ‘was performed at the EO [Exempt Organizations] function Headquarters office in Washington, D.C., and the Determinations Unit in Cincinnati, Ohio.’

The Washington staffers involved, the IG report continues, were in charge of reviewing materials prepared in Cincinnati. ‘As part of this effort, EO function Headquarters office employees reviewed the additional information request letters prepared by the team of [Cincinnati] specialists,’ the report reads.

IRS El Monte, Calif. office
IRS Laguna Niguel office

IRS offices in the California towns of El Monte and Laguna Niguel sent politically motivated letters to tea party groups, suggesting that the problem reached beyond the Cincinnati office where the IG report focused

One letter, sent to a northern California organization, demanded to know about its links with the Redding (Calif.) Tea Party Patriots. 'Tea party' was one phrase that reportedly triggered a 'Be On The Lookout' noticeOne letter, sent to a northern California organization, demanded to know about its links with the Redding (Calif.) Tea Party Patriots. ‘Tea party’ was one phrase that reportedly triggered a ‘Be On The Lookout’ notice among IRS employees looking for politically conservative applicants for tax-exempt statuses

Nothing in the report describes letters sent by IRS employees in California or the District of Columbia.

Yet an April 21, 2010 letter to the Albuquerque Tea Party organization, containing a preliminary list of 10 questions, came from the IRS’s Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division in Washington, D.C. The group responded on June 10.

Seventeen months passed before the IRS responded on November 16, 2011. That letter, similar in scope and tone to other intrusive IRS letters that have drawn national attention, also came from the Washington, D.C. IRS office. It included an additional 28 questions.

A separate letter came to Patriots Educating Concerned Americans Now (PECAN), a Redding, California conservative group, from an IRS office in the Orange County, California town of Laguna Niguel.

That letter, dated January 31, 2012, asked 55 questions, including a demand for ‘complete copies of the organization’s website that is accessible to members only.’

It also asked a series of pointed questions about PECAN’s relationship to the Redding Tea Party Patriots, an overtly political organization.

Under mounting pressure, President Barack Obama announced Wednesday in the East ROom of the White House that acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller would be stepping downUnder mounting pressure, President Barack Obama announced Wednesday in the East ROom of the White House that acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller would be stepping down

Steven Miller, shown here in a CBS report, is the highest-profile official to resign under pressure from the Obama administrationSteven Miller, shown here in a CBS report, is the highest-profile official to resign under pressure from the Obama administration. Miller informed IRS employees in a face-saving email that he would be leaving weeks from now, ‘as my acting assignment ends in early June’

A third IRS letter to a group called Oklahoma City Patriots In Action, or the OKC PIA Association, came from an IRS office in El Monte, California, an eastern suburb of Los Angeles, on February 9, 2012.

It included 59 questions, including a demand for a list showing the time, date, place and ‘content schedule’ for every ‘public rally or exhibition’ the group had ever conducted.’for or against any public policies, legislations [sic], public officers, political candidates, or like kinds.’

‘Please state whether you provide any advocacy training to your members and to the general public,’ another question read. ‘If yes, describe in detail your advocacy training and provide copies of any publications concerning such training.’

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which represents all three groups, provided MailOnline with a letter from the IRS in Washington, D.C. in which the agency said it still had not decided whether to award the Albuquerque Tea Party tax-exempt status.

That letter was dated April 16, 2013, more than three years since the group filed its initial application.

Jay Sekulow, the ACLJ’s chief counsel, scoffed at the idea of the IRS scapegoating a pair of its Cincinnati employees, given the letters he has seen from offices three time zones apart.

The Tea Party Patriots and other right-wing groups provided a powerful rallying force during the 2010 midterm elections, but were targeted the same year by the IRSThe Tea Party Patriots and other conservative groups provided a powerful rallying force during the 2010 midterm elections. It was around the same time that the Obama administration’s IRS began targeting such groups that applied for tax-exempt nonprofit status

 

Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. George Russell (L) will testify alongside the now-former acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller before the House Ways and Means Committee on May 17Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. George Russell (L) will testify alongside the now-former acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller before the House Ways and Means Committee on May 17. Also shown is IRS Deputy Commissioner for Services and Enforcement Linda Stiff

 

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The Administration made a big show of the head of the IRS resignation, but guess what ? IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office

Filed under: bureaucracy, Corruption, Fraud, Government, Government Overreach, Hypocrisy, Indoctrination, Lack Of Transparency, Loot and Pillage, Politics, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Psy - Ops, Secrecy, Special Interests, Taxation, Unethical — Leave a comment
May 16, 2013

By
@jparkABC


@stevenportnoy

May 16, 2013 6:15pm
gty internal revenue service building ll 130412 wblog IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office

(Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.

Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.

Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.

Grant announced today that he would retire June 3, despite being appointed as commissioner of the tax-exempt office May 8, a week ago.

As the House voted to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act Thursday evening, House Speaker John Boehner expressed “serious concerns” that the IRS is empowered as the law’s chief enforcer.

“Fully repealing ObamaCare will help us build a stronger, healthier economy, and will clear the way for patient-centered reforms that lower health care costs and protect jobs,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said.

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Ohio prosecutors may seek execution for Ariel Castro

Filed under: Community, crime, Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It, Depravity, Kidnapping / Abduction, Murder, Rape — Leave a comment
May 10, 2013

 

The BBC visits Lorain Avenue in Cleveland to find out how the missing girls cases impacted a community

 

Ohio prosecutors have said they plan to seek aggravated murder charges that could carry the death penalty, against the man suspected of imprisoning three women for about a decade.

 

The charges relate to alleged forced miscarriages suffered by one victim.

 

Ariel Castro, 52, was arraigned in court earlier for the kidnap and rape of Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 23 and Michelle Knight, 32.

 

Ms Berry escaped on Monday and was able to raise the alarm.

 

Cuyahoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty said the murder charges were based on evidence from one of the women held captive in Mr Castro’s house that he had impregnated her, then physically abused and starved her in order to induce miscarriages.

‘Private prison’

“I fully intend to seek charges for each and every act of sexual violence, rape, each day of kidnapping, every felonious assault, all his attempted murders, and each act of aggravated murder he committed by terminating pregnancies that the offender perpetuated against the hostages during this decade-long ordeal,” Mr McGinty told a news conference.

 

Tim McGinty, prosecutor: “These women desperately need a chance to heal before we seek further evidence”

 

“My office will also engage in a formal process in which we evaluate to seek charges eligible for the death penalty.

 

“This child kidnapper operated a torture chamber and private prison in the heart of our city,” he added.

 

Earlier on Thursday, Mr Castro appeared in court in Cleveland, handcuffed and dressed in blue overalls. He did not enter a plea.

 

He is charged with four counts of kidnapping, covering the three initial abduction victims and Jocelyn, Ms Berry’s six-year-old daughter, who was apparently conceived and born in captivity.

 

The former school bus driver also faces three counts of rape, one against each woman.

 

Read Full Article Here

 

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Cleveland rescue: The mystery of 2207 Seymour Avenue

 

A view of Seymour Avenue

 

 

Ariel Castro’s house at 2207 Seymour Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio, is yet to give up many of its secrets.

 

What lies inside the run-down clapboard house where Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight are said to have spent their captivity?

 

The house appears to have been the scene of a double life – as Mr Castro’s home and as a kidnap den where he is alleged to have held three women captive for almost a decade.

 

The two-storey building stands right in the middle of a tree-lined street in Cleveland’s West Side neighbourhood – a working-class area home to a close-knit community.

 

Few details have been confirmed about what it contains, but some facts are known.

 

Mr Castro bought the house in 1992 for $12,000 (£7,750), according to the Cuyahoga County Auditor’s office. In 2012, it was valued at $36,100 (£23,300).

 

The property currently faces repossession over the non-payment of taxes, with Mr Castro owing some $2,501 (£1,615) in taxes for the period 2010-12.

 

The property has four bedrooms, a bathroom, a 760sq ft (71sq m) basement, two porches and an attic. There is also a detached garage.

 

They [the women] had no ability to leave the home or interact with anyone other than each other, the child and the suspect”

US law enforcement official

 

The continuing investigation and charges of kidnap and rape levelled at Mr Castro centre on what happened to the women while they were in the house.

 

Ariel Castro’s son, Anthony – who says he visited the house just two weeks ago – told MailOnline that the doors to the basement, the attic and the garage were always padlocked and family members were not allowed to go there.

 

Anthony Castro described his father as a violent and controlling man, who beat him and nearly killed his mother in the early 1990s.

 

After years of abuse, his mother decided to move out of the house in 1996, taking him and his three sisters with her, Mr Castro said.

 

“It’s astonishing to even think… that I was so close to that. That I was physically at the house two weeks ago while that was going on, it’s a lot to grasp,” he said.

 

What did Ariel Castro’s neighbours know?

 

Police are yet to release any pictures from the inside of the property, but one law enforcement official has described the conditions there as “abysmal at best”.

 

“They (the women) had no ability to leave the home or interact with anyone other than each other, the child and the suspect,” the official told the New York Times.

 

Media reports also suggest that the authorities have discovered chains and tape inside the house allegedly used to restrain the women.

 

A police report suggests the women were all initially kept chained in the cellar, but eventually allowed to live on the second floor of the house.

 

One report cites the victims as saying the “big inside door” of the home was usually locked when Mr Castro went out. On Monday, he apparently forgot to lock it as he went to a nearby McDonald’s.

 

Even so, Amanda Berry was afraid to break open the locked storm door because “she thought Ariel (Castro) was testing her,” said the police report.

 

Instead, she tried to get the attention of neighbours to help; her screams were heard by Charles Ramsey who lived across the street and came to the rescue.

 

Police say officers were sent to the house twice, in 2000 and 2004.

 

In March 2000, Ariel Castro reported a fight on the street – but no arrests were made. In January 2004 police went to the address after Mr Castro, then a school bus driver, reportedly left a child on a bus. No-one appeared to be in the house.

 

An investigation later found no criminal intent by Mr Castro, police told local news site Cleveland.com.

Several miscarriages

Rather than celebrating their birthdays, in a bizarre ritual, the captor would apparently give his victims cake to mark their “abduction day”, one victim’s cousin was quoted as telling US media.

 

In recent years, the kidnapper was occasionally seen walking in the area with a young girl – apparently Jocelyn, whom he fathered with Ms Berry and with whom he also visited relatives, reported the New York Times.

 

One cousin from Ohio said Mr Castro had visited with a well-presented girl a couple of years ago, whom the suspect had introduced as his granddaughter.

 

Apparently the suspect had insisted Jocelyn was not told the names of Ms Knight or Ms DeJesus in case she repeated them in public.

 

Read Full Article Here

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Cleveland Kidnapping Case Starts To Take Form

Filed under: Community, crime, Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It, Kidnapping / Abduction, Rape — Leave a comment
May 9, 2013

Cleveland Reporter: ” R.I.P. Is Scrawled On The Wall In The Basement” Amanda Berry Kidnapping

Les Grossman

Published on May 7, 2013

“Piers Morgan Live” invited Kevin Freeman to share his intimate knowledge of a story that’s equal parts joyous and saddening.

As three women — Amanda Berry, Georgina “Gina” DeJesus, and Michelle Knight — begin the challenging process of reintegrating into society following nearly a decade in captivity, the man who’s covered the story for Cleveland’s Fox 8 revealed a detail he’d picked up through his sources:

“The letters R.I.P. — Rest in Peace — are scrawled on the wall in the basement and there’s a woman’s name which would lead you to believe that another woman was in there at some time,” Freeman told Piers Morgan. “They also say that one of the girls told investigators that that woman was with them for a while and then one day, she woke up and the girl was no longer there.”

After interviewing Freeman, the host then spoke live with a mother and her daughters. Anita Lugo, Faliceonna Lopez, and Nina Samoylicz all live in the neighborhood where the three Castro brothers are said to have held the women captive and on Tuesday evening Faliceonna revealed details of the day in she believes she saw one of the abducted women:

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Neighbors Saw Naked Girls Chained on Leashes. Amanda Berry Kidnapping

Les Grossman

Published on May 7, 2013

Three women who disappeared in Cleveland a decade ago were found safe Monday, and police arrested three brothers accused of holding the victims against their will. A timeline of key events in the case:

_ Aug. 23, 2002: Michelle Knight, 20, vanishes. She was last seen at a cousin’s house near Lorain Avenue and West 106th Street.

_ April 21, 2003: Amanda Berry, 16, disappears after leaving her job at a Burger King at the corner of Lorain Avenue and West 110th Street, a few blocks from her home.

_ January 2004: Police go to Ariel Castro’s home at 2207 Seymour Ave., about 3 miles from where Knight and Berry were last seen. No one answers the door. Child welfare officials had alerted police that Castro, a school bus driver, apparently left a child unattended on a bus. Police later spoke to Castro and determined there was no criminal intent.

_ April 2, 2004: Georgina “Gina” DeJesus, 14, disappears while walking home from school. She was last seen at a telephone booth at the corner of Lorain Avenue and 105th Street.

_ November 2004: Psychic Sylvia Browne tells Berry’s mother, Louwana Miller, on “The Montel Williams Show” that her daughter is dead.

_ March 2, 2006: Miller, 43, dies after being hospitalized with pancreatitis and other ailments. She had spent the previous three years looking for her daughter.

_ November 2011: A neighbor, Israel Lugo, said he heard pounding on some of the doors of Castro’s house, which had plastic bags on the windows. Lugo said officers knocked on the front door, but no one answered. Officers walked around outside the house and left, Lugo said.

_ April 2, 2013: Family and friends of DeJesus gather for a vigil on the corner where she was last seen on the ninth anniversary of her disappearance.

_ May 6, 2013: Knight, Berry, DeJesus and a 6-year-old girl believed to be Berry’s daughter are found at Castro’s home. Police arrest three brothers, Ariel Castro, Pedro Castro and Onil Castro, in connection with the women’s disappearances.

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Cleveland officer says naked lady story is false

CNN CNN

Published on May 7, 2013

CNN’s Erin Burnett asks whether there were any signs that could have tipped cops off sooner to the alleged kidnapping. For more CNN videos, visit our site at http://www.cnn.com/video/

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Kidnapping suspect Ariel Castro arraigned in court

CNN CNN

 

 

Published on May 9, 2013

Ariel Castro, accused of kidnapping and raping three women, is arraigned and ordered held on $8 million bond.

 

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3 long-missing women freed in Cleveland: Latest developments

By CNN Staff
updated 5:33 AM EDT, Thu May 9, 2013
Watch this video

Three separate cases, one rescue

(CNN) — Three long-missing women — Amanda Berry, 27; Georgina “Gina” DeJesus, 23; and Michelle Knight, 32 — and a 6-year-old daughter apparently born to Berry in captivity were found alive Monday in Cleveland, police said. The women are believed to have been abducted years ago — in 2002, 2003 and 2004 — and held captive at a man’s home, according to police.

Three suspects, all brothers, including the home’s main resident, Ariel Castro, 52, were arrested. On Wednesday, a prosecutor said that Castro is being charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape. His brothers are not being charged in the case.

Here are recent developments:

New developments:

– Angel Cordero, who helped rescue Amanda Berry and her daughter, said he told her they had to leave quickly before the suspect returned home. “I said, ‘Let’s get out of here, because if that guy arrives he’s going to kill us. If he finds me here, he is going to kill me. He’ll kill you.” Cordero also told CNN en Español that Berry’s daughter did not appear accustomed to being around many people. She was wearing only a diaper and a sullied shirt, the rescuer said.

Previously reported developments:

Amanda Berry’s sister asks for privacy
 

– The three women and the child were rescued Monday after, according to a neighbor, screaming was heard coming from the home.

 

– Charles Ramsey and Cordero say they responded to the screaming by helping to kick in the door to help her escape.

Smart’s advice for 3 women found

– Ramsey and Berry called 911, authorities said. “Help me, I am Amanda Berry,” she begged the operator. “I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been missing for 10 years. And I’m here, I’m free now.”

– Authorities are discussing who might receive a reward for information that led to the three long-missing women, said Cleveland police Deputy Chief Ed Tomba. He singled out Charles Ramsey, Castro’s neighbor who helped free Amanda Berry and later called police. “Mr. Ramsey deserves something,” said Tomba. “He is the true key to the case.”

– While Amanda Berry was on another line, a 911 dispatcher calmly, briefly related to police officers her account of having been held captive for a decade, according to a recording of the call. One police officer responded moments later that they were on the road where Berry was and would be there soon.

– In addition to Berry, police found DeJesus and Knight at the home; all three said they were held captive there, according to authorities.

– Police later arrested Ariel Castro, who’s identified as a former school bus driver, and his two brothers. All three Castro brothers were together when they were arrested, at which time authorities felt “we had enough probable cause to bring them into custody,” said Tomba. But over the course of the investigation, officials “found no facts to link” Onil and Pedro Castro to the kidnapping case.

– Onil and Pedro Castro are set to appear Thursday morning in Cleveland Municipal Court related to outstanding warrants out on both men for misdemeanor cases, Victor Perez, chief assistant prosecutor for the city of Cleveland, said late Wednesday afternoon.. Tomba said that the judge will then determine whether the two men get credit for time served and are released.

– Ariel Castro faces charges on four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape, said Perez.

He will be arraigned Thursday morning on the seven charges — each of them first-degree felonies — in Cleveland Municipal Court, then his case will be transferred to a Cuyahoga County court. The prosecutor’s office for that county will handle the case, with a grand jury deciding on an indictment that could include additional counts, according to Perez.

– In charging documents for Ariel Castro released Wednesday, police said that Castro lured Knight into his vehicle on Lorain Avenue on August 22, 2002, took her to his home, and over the subsequent years “repeatedly sexually assaulted” her. Police laid out the same scenario for Berry, who was allegedly lured into Castro’s vehicle on the same road on April 21, 2003. DeJesus was allegedly lured into Castro’s vehicle on April 2, 2004, and, like the other two women, sexually assaulted repeatedly in the subsequent years.

– Ariel Castro has been talking with investigators since his arrest, said Tomba. “We don’t see or anticipate any other victims of his.”

– Knight, of Cleveland, had been last seen on August 22, 2002, and was reported missing by a family member the next day, said Martin Flask, Cleveland’s public safety director. She was 21 at the time, according Cleveland police.

– Berry was last seen after finishing her shift at a Burger King in Cleveland in 2003. It was the eve of her 17th birthday.

– DeJesus, of Cleveland, disappeared nearly a year later, in April 2004. She was 14.

– The three women hadn’t left Ariel Castro’s property and had only gone outside “on two separate occasions … briefly” in the years in which they were held captive, said Flask.

– The man who allegedly held the young women captive would often test them by pretending to leave, then returning suddenly to discipline them if they made any move to escape, the same source told CNN. Amanda Berry — the 27-year-old captive who pushed to get free Monday — “just knew” that (suspect Ariel) Castro was gone at the time and “had hit her breaking point,” according to the source.

– The women “relied on each other for survival,” a law enforcement source with firsthand knowledge of the investigation said. The three interacted during their captivity, though they were typically kept in separate rooms, according to the source.

– A paternity test will be conducted to determine whether Ariel Castro is the biological father of the 6-year-old daughter of Berry who was freed Monday, said Tomba. The girl was born while her mother was held captive.

– When Berry escaped, the two other young women also being held in the house could have run but chose not to, the law enforcement source with firsthand knowledge of the investigation said. The two other women who did not flee had “succumbed” to “their reality,” the source said, describing them as brainwashed and fearful.

– None of the three women was bound on the day they were freed, according to the source. Earlier, Cleveland’s police chief told NBC’s “Today” show that “we have confirmation that they were bound, and there (were) chains and ropes in the home.”

– The freed women are “safe and healthy,” Perez said late Wednesday afternoon.

– Michelle Knight’s missing persons report from the Cleveland Police Department describes her as having “mental abnormalities”; many family members seemed to be unaware that she was missing.

– The mother of Michelle Knight told NBC on Wednesday that she cried when she heard her daughter was found. Barbara Knight told NBC that she had been looking for her daughter during the years she was gone. “She’s probably angry at the world because she thought she would never be found but thank God that somebody did.” She was asked what she would say to Michelle if and when she got to see her. “I love you and I missed you all this time,” she said.

– Michelle Knight was at Cleveland’s Metro Health Medical Center on Wednesday morning, hospital spokeswoman Tina Shaerban-Arundel said. The spokeswoman did not say what Knight was being treated for, but did say that Knight “is in good condition.” On Tuesday, the hospital said that it had released all three rescued women. Shaerban-Arundel said Wednesday that the hospital stood by its Tuesday statement, but she did not elaborate.

 

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Amanda Berry, Georgina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight were all kidnapped roughly ten years ago in the Cleveland area and were held captive in a home until yesterday when a neighbor heard Berry screaming for help. Three men have been arrested.

Filed under: Bravery/ Heroic Acts, Community, crime, Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It, Depravity, Kidnapping / Abduction, Rape — Leave a comment
May 7, 2013

Three Ohio women found alive after being missing for a decade; 3 men arrested

WOIO TV via AFP – Getty Images

Amanda Berry (right) was reunited with her sister on Monday after Berry and two other women were found alive in a house in Cleveland, Ohio.

By Andrew Rafferty and Matt DeLuca, NBC News

“Help me, I’m Amanda Berry.”

With one frantic 911 call on Monday evening, three women missing for years were found in a Cleveland house where they had been held against their will by three brothers, police in Ohio said.

“I’ve been kidnapped,” Berry, who disappeared a decade ago, told the dispatcher. “I’ve been missing for 10 years and I’m out here. I’m free now.”

Authorities heaped praise on Berry, now 27 and the mother of a 6-year-old.

“The real hero here is Amanda,” said Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba.

Berry and two other women, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, went missing between 2000 and 2004 in separate incidents. The women were all between the ages of 14 and 20 when they vanished.

Neighbors and relatives celebrated the happy ending, but for some, the years had taken their toll. Berry’s mother died in 2006, not knowing whether her daughter was alive or dead.

Three suspects are under arrest — former school-bus driver Ariel Castro, 52, and his brothers Pedro, 54, and O’Neal, 50, Cleveland police said. A search warrant related to the arrest was executed by police at an address on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland, police said.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson said at a Tuesday press conference that there are many unanswered questions: “Why were they taken, how they were taken and how they remained undetected in the city of Cleveland for all this time?”

The three women were taken to nearby Metro Health Medical hospital, along with Berry’s child, officials said.

All three women were released from the hospital Tuesday morning, the hospital said in a statement, after reporting earlier in the morning that they had been in “fair condition.”

“The nightmare is over,” said Cleveland FBI Special Agent in Charge Stephen Anthony. “These three young ladies have provided us with the ultimate definition of survival and perseverance. The healing can now begin.”

Amanda Berry, Georgina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight were all kidnapped roughly ten years ago in the Cleveland area and were held captive in a home until yesterday when a neighbor heard Berry screaming for help. NBC’s Kristen Dahlgren reports and former FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt discusses the case.

The three disappearances had stumped police in Cleveland and shaken the community for years. Berry was reported missing on April 21, 2003 after she phoned her sister to say she was getting a ride home from her job at a fast food restaurant. About one year after that, 14-year-old DeJesus vanished while walking home from school.

Police said their records showed two visits to the home in recent years. In 2000, they responded to a call about a fight from Ariel Castro. In 2004, after Castro was accused of leaving a child on a bus, authorities went to the house but no one was home.

Authorities said they never stopped looking for the missing women, running down tips and even digging up two backyards. The break came when Berry summoned the courage to escape.

Neighbor Charles Ramsey said he was at home when he saw a man from across the street running to the house next door. When Ramsey went outside, he said, he saw a young woman who said she was trying to escape the house.

“This girl is kicking the door and screaming,” Ramsey said. “She says, ‘I’ve been kidnapped and I’ve been in this house a long time and I want to leave right now.’”

When the door would not open Ramsey helped kick it down, he said, then allowed Berry to call 911. The young woman carried her child through the broken door, and told Ramsey it belonged to her captor. It’s unclear who is the child’s father.

Cleveland Police Deputy Chief Ed Tomba discusses some of the details surrounding the case of three Ohio women, missing for nearly a decade, who were found alive after one of them escaped to call 911.

Police then entered the house and brought out DeJesus and Knight, according to Ramsey.

Police said they have not fully debriefed the victims.

“You can only imagine the scene last night at the hospital with the family and the friends…it was chaotic,” Tomba said.

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‘Can I help?’ Neighbor Charles Ramsey tells of role in discovery of missing women

Neighbor Charles Ramsey tells of role in discovery of missing women photo NeighborCharlesRamseytellsofroleindiscoveryofmissingwomen_zps95fff606.jpg

Charles Ramsey, a neighbor who helped rescue the missing Ohio women after hearing screams for help, tells reporters in Cleveland how the situation unfolded.

By John Newland, Staff Writer, NBC News

Neighbor Charles Ramsey has told how he heard screams coming from an Ohio home and went to investigate — a decision that led to the discovery of three women missing for years.

To the neighbors, the house on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland seemed normal. There was nothing to indicate that inside — in addition to the resident they had come to know — were women who had disappeared in separate cases about a decade ago.

That changed on Monday.

“This girl is kicking the door and screaming,” Ramsey told NBC station WKYC-TV. “So I go over there … and I say, ‘Can I help? What’s going on?’ And she says, ‘I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been in this house a long time. I want to leave right now.’”

Ramsey, who lived across the street and let the woman use his phone to call 911, described being stunned when he realized that the woman was Amanda Berry, who had been missing for 10 years.

Ramsey told reporters he had barbecued with the 52-year-old man who lived in the house. Police said that the man and two of his brothers, ages 50 and 54, had been arrested.

There were more surprises to come for Ramsey, other neighbors and the police. Also found in the house were Gina DeJesus, 23, who had been missing for nine years, and Michelle Knight, 30, who had been missing for 11 years.

Neighbor Mike Iwais, who has lived for years in a house just a couple of hundred feet from where the women were found, told The Plain Dealer newspaper of his shock.

“I used to see him walking around all the time,” the paper quoted him as saying. “But I never saw nothing crazy. This is unbelievable. It’s a miracle they found him, and it’s a miracle those girls are alive. It’s a blessing from God.”

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EXCLUSIVE PICTURES INSIDE THE CLEVELAND KIDNAP HOUSE: Son of ‘abductor’ reveals how father padlocked doors to basement, attic and garage because ‘we weren’t allowed to go there’

  • Photos show Ariel Castro in front of padlocked doors to the basement
  • Son Anthony, 31, revealed how his father would beat him and once nearly beat his mother to death as she recovered from brain surgery
  • Expressed his shock at the kidnappings and said they had no idea women were hidden behind the doors they were forbidden from opening
  • But said his sister believes their father was capable of the crimes
  • Just three weeks ago, Castro asked his son whether he thought police would ever find one of the victims, Amanda Berry

By Michael Zennie In Columbus, Ohio

PUBLISHED: 14:38 EST, 7 May 2013 | UPDATED: 16:55 EST, 7 May 2013

Ariel Castro padlocked the doors leading to his basement, his attic and his garage and never allowed his family inside, his son has exclusively revealed to MailOnline.

Chilling photographs from 2001 show a grinning Castro, who is accused of holding three women captive for a decade, standing in front of a locked door – behind which unimaginable horrors may have been unfolding in the basement.

By that point, one of his alleged victims, Michele Knight, had already been missing for a year.

In an interview with MailOnline, his son Anthony Castro, 31, has spoken of his shock at his father’s alleged crimes and revealed how Ariel Castro asked him just weeks ago whether he believed the kidnapping of Amanda Berry – one of his victims – would ever be solved.

‘If it’s true that he took her captive and forced her into having sex with him and having his child and keeping her hidden and keeping them from sunlight, he really took those girls’ lives,’ he said.

Signs: In a photograph taken in 2001, suspect Ariel Castro stands with a former girlfriend in front of a padlocked door, which led to the basement, at his home on Seymore Avenue, ClevelandSigns: In a photograph taken in 2001, suspect Ariel Castro stands with a former girlfriend in front of a padlocked door, which led to the basement, at his home on Seymore Avenue, Cleveland

‘He doesn’t deserve to have his own life anymore. He deserves to be behind bars for the rest of her life. I’m just thankful they’re alive.’

Among his infrequent contact with his father, who separated from his mother in the 1990s, one recent conversation particularly stands out in Anthony’s mind.

In mid-April, he says, his father asked him whether he thought police would ever find Amanda Berry, who escaped the Cleveland home on Monday afternoon.

When Anthony said he thought Berry was likely dead because she had been missing so long, Ariel responded: ‘Really? You think so?’

At that time, according to police, Berry was locked in the basement of his father’s home.

‘The house was always locked,’ remembered Anthony, who appeared visibly tired but reacted with poise throughout the interview. ‘There were places we could never go. There were locks on the basement. Locks on the attic. Locks on the garage.’

 

'House of horrors': Anthony Castro and his father stand in front of the door to the basement in 2001

‘House of horrors’: Anthony Castro and his father stand in front of the door to the basement in 2001

Family: A photo from the late 1990's shows Pedro Castro (top right) and his nephew Anthony (seated center)Family: A photo from the late 1990′s shows Pedro Castro (top right) and his nephew Anthony (seated center)

Ariel Castro, 52, was arrested with his two brothers, 54-year-old Pedro and 50-year-old Onil after Berry, now 26, dramatically escaped from the house on Monday, a decade after she vanished.

Berry was rescued from the home, along with 23-year-old Gina DeJesus, who disappeared in April 2004 at age 14, and 32-year-old Michele Knight, who vanished in 2000 when she was 20.

The women and a six-year-old girl who was born to Berry while she was in captivity were whisked away to hospital. They have now been released and are in a safe location, authorities said.

Details have started to emerge of the horrors they experienced in the house, with authorities reportedly discovering chains and tape to restrain the girls inside the home.

Police sources also told NewsChannel5 that there were multiple pregnancies among the three women but that they suffered miscarriages after they were beaten or because they were so malnourished.

The Castros’ close links to the long-running investigation have also emerged. Pedro Castro told a TV crew last July that a police forensic excavation being conducted in the neighborhood for Berry’s body was ‘a waste of time’.

Shock: Anthony Castro has said he is horrified at news his father, Ariel Castro, allegedly kidnapped three girls and held them captive at his home for a decade. Anthony's uncles have also been arrestedShock: Anthony Castro has said he is horrified at news his father, Ariel Castro, allegedly kidnapped three girls and held them captive at his home for a decade. Anthony’s uncles have also been arrested

Missed: Anthony said his mother moved them from Castro's home following years of abuseMissed: Anthony said his mother moved them from Castro’s home following years of abuse

Speaking to MailOnline on Tuesday, Anthony Castro, a banker who lives in Columbus, Ohio, depicted his father as a violent, controlling man who nearly beat his mother to death in 1993 while she was recovering from brain surgery.

'Abused': Anthony said his father beat his mother, Nilda Figueroa, who passed away last year‘Abused’: Anthony said his father beat his mother, Nilda Figueroa, who passed away last year

Speaking to MailOnline from his apartment, which is dotted with numerous family pictures, Anthony said his father was secretive and barred him from entering certain rooms when he wasn’t around.

Anthony said he last visited his father’s home two weeks ago, though he was not invited inside. He said he never suspected that his father could be keeping three women captive in the basement.

‘The only thing I can express is a tremendous level of shock,’ he said. ‘To those girls, it’s beyond comprehension what happened to them. It’s just a nightmare. I just feel so horrible for them. Unspeakably horrible.’

Ariel’s ex-wife Grimilda ‘Nilda’ Figueroa – Anthony’s mother – moved Mr Castro and his three sisters out of Ariel’s house in 1996 after years of violent abuse.

Anthony said he now speaks with his father just a few times a year – and seldom visits his house.

‘I haven’t been at that house for longer than 20 minutes for longer than I can remember,’ he said. ‘And we’re talking since high school. Late 90s.’

Anthony said neither he nor his three sisters have had much of a relationship with Ariel Castro.

‘Having that relationship with my dad all these years when we lived in a house where there was domestic violence and I was beaten as well… we never were really close because of that and it was also something we never really talked about,’ he said.

Painful memories: Anthony, pictured looking through old family photos, said he rarely spoke to his fatherPainful memories: Anthony, pictured looking through old family photos, said he rarely spoke to his father

 

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Steubenville Ohio : No denying Pervasive Rape Culture in The US.

Filed under: Community, crime, Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It, Depravity, Rape, Sex Scandals, Signs Of The Times — 10 Comments
March 17, 2013

CNN grieves that guilty verdict ruined ‘promising’ lives of Steubenville rapists

By David Edwards
Sunday, March 17, 2013 13:41 EDT
CNN Candy Crowley reports on guilty verdict in Steubenville rape trial

CNN broke the news on Sunday of a guilty verdict in a rape case in Steubenville, Ohio by lamenting that the “promising” lives of the rapists had been ruined, but spent very little time focusing on how the 16-year-old victim would have to live with what was done to her.

Judge Thomas Lipps announced on Sunday that Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16, would be given a maximum sentence after being found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl while she was unconscious. Richmond could be released from a juvenile rehabilitation facility by the age of 21 and Mays could be incarcerated until the age of 24.

CNN’s Candy Crowley began her breaking news report by showing Lipps handing down the sentence and telling CNN reporter Poppy Harlow that she “cannot imagine” how emotional the sentencing must have been.

Harlow explained that it had been “incredibly difficult” to watch “as these two young men — who had such promising futures, star football players, very good students — literally watched as they believed their life fell apart.”

“One of the young men, Ma’lik Richmond, as that sentence came down, he collapsed,” the CNN reporter recalled, adding that the convicted rapist told his attorney that “my life is over, no one is going to want me now.”

At that point, CNN played video of Richmond crying and hugging his lawyer in the courtroom.

“I was sitting about three feet from Ma’lik when he gave that statement,” Harlow said. “It was very difficult to watch.”

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Hacker Group Anonymous Leaks Chilling Video in Case of Alleged Steubenville Rape, Cover-Up

Published on Jan 7, 2013

DemocracyNow.org – We turn to Steubenville, Ohio, where members of a high school football team allegedly raped an underage girl and possibly urinated on her unconscious body over the course of an evening of partying in late August. The young men chronicled their actions on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. But after many in the town of Steubenville, including the high school football coach, rallied to the players’ defense, the hacker group “Anonymous” vowed to release the accused players’ personal information unless an apology was made. Anonymous has since released a video showing a male Steubenville high schooler joking about the alleged victim. We’re joined by three guests: Monika Johnson Hostler, president of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence; Kristen Gwynne, an associate editor at Alternet; and “X”, a member of the hacktivist group Anonymous using a pseudonym.

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Steubenville rape and India gang rape show India isn’t so ‘backward’

By The Christian Science Monitor
Friday, March 15, 2013 21:05 EDT
Steubenville protest 010512 by roniweb via Flickr CC

The December 2012 gang rape in New Delhi, India, deserves the public condemnation and outrage that it has brought. But much of the commentary on the case has gone beyond this, holding up the case as evidence of India’s larger flaws. The subtext writes India off as a backward and incorrigible third world country, whose primitive norms and lack of rule of law put it outside of modern democracies with more reliable norms and laws.

The unfortunate truth is that India’s reported rape rate, and even the slightly higher rate in New Delhi where the gang rape occurred, is less than that of typical European and American rates. In the days following the attack, scores of protests were held all over India but mostly in the New Delhi region where the attack occurred. Democracy went on the move, as thousands upon thousands of people joined in the calls for justice.

The Indian reaction to the incident is in many ways more gratifying and promising than reactions to American rape cases. Take the Steubenville, Ohio, case, which began trial on Wednesday. It has not generated nearly as much public outrage as the case in India. If there is a larger lesson that the gang rape and the public outcry that followed teach us about India, it is one of promise and hope, not alienation and despair.

But commentators have painted a different picture. Lakshmi Chaudhry wrote in The Nation: “[T]here is only one India, a social Darwinian nation where there is no rule of law; where might always makes right, whether your power derives from your gender, money, caste or sheer numbers, as in the case of a gang rape….The young girl who paid an astronomically steep price for an evening out at the movies proved that the so-called ‘new India’ exists in a bubble built on the delusion of safety.”

Is India indeed “a social Darwinian nation,” to be marked off from other, civilized democracies?

According to UN figures, India’s reported rape rate is 1.8 per 100,000 population (Delhi City’s is 2.8), as compared, for example, to Ireland’s 10.7, Norway’s 19.2, or America’s 27.3. Of course, given the intimate nature of the offense and its social stigma, the actual rape rates are generally higher than these official rates based on reports to police. By last official US estimate, only a half to a third of rapes are reported; and it could be that the reporting rates are even worse in other countries, including India. But the larger picture suggests that the India rape problem may not be that different from the West’s.

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Melowese Richardson, who has worked in polling for 25 years, said she voted twice in November’s election . Allegations that she may have voted as many as Six times are being investigated

Filed under: Corruption, Fraud, Politics, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Unethical, Voting — Leave a comment
February 20, 2013

Did Ohio grandmom vote SIX times in presidential election? Obama supporter under new investigation admitting casting ballot twice

By Beth Stebner

PUBLISHED: 11:58 EST, 20 February 2013 | UPDATED: 12:34 EST, 20 February 2013

An Ohio woman who has admitted voting for President Obama twice in last year’s election is now being investigated for casting a total of six ballots.

Melowese Richardson, who lives in Cincinnati, told a local television station that she voted as an ‘absentee’ as well as at the polling station because she ‘certainly wanted my vote to count.’

But authorities are now concerned the grandmother may have voted six times using the names of other people in Hamilton County.

kEarly and often? Melowese Richardson told a local Cincinnati news station that she voted twice for Obama during the November elections

 

kRallying point: Mr Obama pictured at a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, two days before his election; he won 50.7 percent of the popular vote in the state

Richardson, a veteran poll worker of 25 years, told Cincinnati station WCPO-TV, that she voted twice for President Obama at the polls in November.

‘I, after registering thousands of people, certainly wanted my vote to count, so I voted,’ she said.

The Hamilton County Board of Election’s director, Amy Searcy, told MailOnline that a certain amount of ‘anomalies’ pop up during every election. This year, she said, there were more than 80.

‘As we nailed down the anomalies, some required further information,’ she explained, adding that some refused to return phone calls or answer subpoenas.

Ms Searcy said that she was not allowed to publically comment on the board’s on-going investigation, but said that they could make a ruling by Friday, their next board meeting.

‘The law requires us to report the facts the prosecutor’s office for further investigation and to Jon Husted, the Ohio secretary of state,’ she said.

But Fox News reported that three other absentee ballots in the names of different people were submitted to the Board of Elections from Richardson’s address on Nov. 1.

It is claimed that the handwriting on those ballots is similar and that they were all received together – and on the same day that Richardson’s absentee ballot arrived at the office.

Richardson, who says the other voters live at her house, told the local station that the votes were ‘absolutely legal votes’.
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Handicapped Woman Refuses Smart Meter — Has Power Cut in the Dead of Winter

Filed under: Acts of Kindness, Community, Complacency / Apathy, Corporate Assault on Our Lives And Our Health, Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It, Government, Justice — Leave a comment
February 10, 2013

RFM/Smart Meter Issues…

Findlay912

Uploaded on Feb 8, 2013

Brenda Hawk did not want the electric company coming on to her property and replacing her analog electric meter with a “smart meter” on her house. One of the reasons being that it is a RFM (radio frequency meter), and would interfere with her pace maker. So, they turned off the power to her home at the electric pole, in the middle of the winter, with freezing temperatures, on a handicapped woman with a pace maker and breathing issues.

….

UPDATED: Handicapped Woman Refuses Smart Meter — Has Power Cut in the Dead of Winter

Feb. 9, 2013 2:31pm
The Blaze.com

UPDATE: Office of Ohio Governor Kasich intervenes. Details posted below.

A handicapped woman in western Ohio has to battle the freezing winter weather this weekend because she refused to allow the local power company to install a “smart meter” on her property.

Handicapped Ohio Woman Has Power Cut for Refusing Smart Meter for Health Reasons

Brenda Hawk has a pacemaker for her heart and because her brain was injured in a car accident, she requires a breathing machine in order to sleep at night. She does not want the new radio-frequency emitting meter because of the health problems these devices have been said to cause. But American Electric Power AEP-Ohio, the local power company, has persisted in their push to swap out Hawk’s analog meter and replace it with the new one.

TheBlaze spoke with Hawk on Saturday. At the time, she was using a kerosene heater to stay warm in the freezing weather. Hawk gave us a basic timeline on the story.

In October of last year, a utility worker arrived on her property and announced that he had removed her old analog power meter and replaced it with a new one. Hawk told him that she had not approved the meter swap and requested that the old one be restored. A series of phone calls between Hawk, the power company and the sheriff’s office was enough to get the new meter pulled out and the old one re-installed.

Fast forward to Jan. 24, 2013. A certified letter from AEP executive Ralph Rocca, Jr. arrived at Hawk’s home announcing that she would be getting a new meter or her power would be cut off. Her efforts to contact Rocca were not successful. All that Hawk wanted was a guarantee from the company that the new meter’s electrical signals would not interfere with her pacemaker. The company could not give her that assurance and it was her position that unless and until they did, no “smart meter” would be installed.

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Rising Appalachia: Scale Down

Filed under: Activism, Beauty Of Nature, Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It, Environmental, Humanity, Nature, Preservation, Taking Matters Into Our Own Hands — 1 Comment
January 24, 2013

Uploaded on Feb 24, 2010

Artist: Rising Appalachia (R.I.S.E.)
Song: Scale Down
Album: Evolutions In Sound: Live
Directed by Scott B. McKibben
DP: Scott B. McKibben
Camera 2: Imoto Harney
Editor: Scott B. McKibben

For more information on Rising Appalachia go to http://www.myspace.com/risingappalachia

A music video by Scott McKibben Photography and Captain Crazy Productions 2010

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