Dethroned Miss California Alleges Racial Bias

From the AP

A Hispanic woman who won the Miss California USA contest only to have her crown yanked days later sued the pageant Thursday for half a million dollars, alleging rigging and racial bias.

The pageant director rejected the claims, saying winners during his tenure have been some of the pageant’s most racially diverse ever.

Christina Silva, 24, was crowned Miss California USA on Nov. 25. Three days later, the pageant’s executive director, Keith Lewis, told her “there has been a mistake and you are not the winner,” according to the lawsuit filed in Superior Court.

Raquel Beezley, 21, was subsequently crowned.

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Stacey Marie Oberley Stole An Autistic Woman’s Identity To Buy A BMW And Maserati

From Foxnews.com

Police are searching for a Houston stripper who stole the identity of a disabled Wisconsin woman to buy a BMW and a Maserati, according to officials and reports.

Stacy Marie Oberley, 28, is wanted on a warrant for giving a false statement to obtain credit, according to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office in Houston.

Oberley, a dancer at Houston area men’s clubs, allegedly stole the Social Security number of an autistic woman in her 20s and used it to buy a 2006 BMW as well as a 2005 Maserati, police told the Houston Chronicle. Both cars are valued at more than $113,000.

The dancer was already on probation for narcotics trafficking, but that probation is being revoked, the paper said.

Oberley is described as 5-foot-8 and 115 pounds. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 713-222-8477 or the Harris County Sheriff’s Office at 713-755-6055.

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Neil King Loses 140lbs In Nine Months On A Diet Of Baked Beans

From skynews

A diet of baked beans helped Neil King to lose 140 pounds in nine months. In fact, since June 2007, he’s eaten more than half a ton of them, about 1,500 cans.

Prior to dieting, King ate a full English breakfast, which at its heart consists of bacon and eggs and may include sausage, toast, and stewed tomatoes, for lunch, and drank eight pints of lager in the pub after tea.

King, from Halstead in Essex, England, made the switch from boozing to beans after being told he was at risk for bowel cancer.

And his high fiber diet has been gas-free since he stopped having toast with his beans, it is reported. The diet helped King go from 420 pounds to 280 pounds.

Speaking to Britain’s Mirror, King said, “Some people think I’m mad but I love the taste and the weight has been dropping off.”

King apparently eats six cans of beans each day, and has them with rice for lunch and with potato for his afternoon tea.

His wife Cheryl told the Mirror, “He’s like a new man.”

Baked beans contain little fat and are full of fiber, although it is best to go for a low-salt variety.

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Joseph Manzanares Arrested After Arguing With Girlfriend Over Which Gang The 4 Year Old Son Should Join

From Foxnews.com

A couple can’t agree on which gang their 4-year-old toddler should join.

A fight about the decision led to a public disturbance with the father’s arrest. Joseph Manzanares went to the video store where his girlfriend worked, threatened to kill her and knocked over several video displays, police told KMGH Denver.

Police arrested Manzanares at his home, Commerce City police Sgt. Joe Sandoval told KMGH Denver.

The girlfriend told authorities they were fighting over which gang their son should join. The girlfriend, who is black, is a member of the Crips while Manzanares, who is Hispanic, belongs to the Westside Ballers.

“They have different ideas on how the baby should be raised,” Sandoval said. “Basically, she said they cannot agree on which gang the baby would ‘claim.’

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Yearning For Zion Ranch Raided; Men Surrounded Temple And Prayed

From CNN.com

Nearly 60 men surrounding the temple of a polygamist sect in Texas dropped to their knees, prayed and wept openly — but never violently resisted — as law enforcement officers raided the building they hold sacred.

Authorities on Thursday wrapped up nearly a week at the YFZ (Yearning For Zion) Ranch, where they say a 16-year-old girl had called social workers and timidly recounted being beaten, choked and sexually assaulted by the 49-year-old man who had fathered her child after their “spiritual marriage” last year.

Two people were arrested and 416 children were taken into state custody at the ranch — which is run by founder Warren Steed Jeffs’ Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. At the ranch, authorities say, men routinely took multiple wives, and girls as young as 13 were forced into sexual relationships with adult men.

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Randolph College Students Toured Nevada Brothel

From the AP

Nicki Amouri hands her camera to a friend, throws her arm over another and smiles wide as she leans in for a shot with the monument her class came to visit.

It’s a typical field trip memento — except that Amouri is in a brothel. The monument is a fluffy, queen-sized bed in a Western-themed party room reserved for VIPs and big spenders.

Amouri was one of a dozen Randolph College students who toured the Chicken Ranch, a legal bordello in the desert 60 miles outside Las Vegas. Thursday’s class trip, which included seminars from the working girls, capped a course on American consumption and “the ideas that consume us.”

“I think it’s fascinating, this is fun for me,” said Amouri, a junior at the private liberal arts school in Lynchburg, Va., that until last year admitted only women. “Not many people get to do this.”

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Va Police Hunt For Snipers Along I-64

From foxnews.com

Virginia State Police were hunting Thursday for multiple gunmen suspected of shooting at motorists at three different locations along busy Interstate 64.

A 20-mile section of the major highway was reopened after being closed overnight and into the early morning hours while officers pursued what they believe were more than one sniper.

No one was seriously hurt in the shootings. Two people were treated and released at the hospital for very minor injuries, according to state police Col. Steve Flaherty. It wasn’t immediately clear whether they were wounded by bullets or shattered glass.

Flaherty told reporters Thursday that at least four cars were struck by bullets along an 11-mile stretch of the freeway Wednesday night, beginning shortly before the first call came in about 12:10 a.m.

“I really don’t have a good feel for how long this went on,” Flaherty said. “We have evidence that it was more than one suspect.”

He downplayed the characterization of the shooters as “snipers,” saying they could just be pranksters.

Flaherty said it appears that it was the same type of gun used in all the shootings, reports of which came in over about a half-hour period. Ballistics tests were being conducted, and he said officers weren’t ready to make a determination as to the kind of weapon used.

 

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Jason Abbott Slashes 4 To Death in Alaska Fishing Town

From AP

A young man wielding a 5-inch knife stabbed four people to death in a small Alaska fishing and tourist town before officers subdued him with a stun gun, police said.

Jason Abbott, 18, was taken to the jail in Sitka on Tuesday and is awaiting charges, Police Chief Sheldon Schmitt said.

Officers found the bodies of three people just before noon at a two-story home just two blocks from the police station, police said. A fourth person found in the house later died at a hospital.

Abbott’s relatives owned the home, police said, though they did not release their identities.

Police received a call from a man outside the house who told the dispatcher that there was a “guy outside stabbing people,” Scmitt said. The dispatcher said she could hear people screaming in the background.

Investigators with the state crime lab in Anchorage have flown to the city of 9,000 people to help Sitka police, Schmitt said.

Abbott had been arrested Sunday on a domestic violence charge, police said. They had no other details of his criminal history and could not say whether he was still in school.

The public defender’s office said they had not yet been assigned the case.

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Police Investigating Baby In Salt Lake City That Was Advertised “For Sale” Online

From Foxnews.com

Police are searching for a baby in Salt Lake City that was advertised “for sale” on a local online classified listing.

Salt Lake City police were contacted March 21 by employees of KUTV-TV after someone listed a 6-month-old girl as “for sale/adoption” on the station’s classified Web site, officials said.

The child was listed under “Baby & Children Items” at a cost of $6,560, police said. The name of the person selling the little girl was listed as Pauline Burgman, police said.

“We’re still in the process of trying to identify the poster of the ad,” Det. Jeff Bedard of the Salt Lake Police Department told FOXNews.com. “At this point, we’ve not been able to either validate or debunk this story.”

The station took the listing off its Web site. According to a KUTV.com news story, the girl was described as “used,” but “beautifule [sic] and affectionate with so much love to offer.”

The Salt Lake City Police Department is asking anyone with information as to the whereabouts of the child to call 801-799-3000.

 

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Nude Photo Of France’s First Lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy To Hit NY Auction Block

From the AP

A nude photo of France’s first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is to be auctioned off at a sale next month in New York City, an auction house said.

The image was taken by photographer Michel Comte in 1993, when Bruni-Sarkozy was one of the world’s most coveted models. In the black-and-white photo, she strikes a pigeon-toed pose, her hands covering her crotch.

The photo is expected fetch $3,000 to $4,000 at the auction, to be held at New York’s Rockefeller Plaza, according to the Web site for Christie’s auction house.

An official at French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office declined Tuesday to comment on April 10 sale, saying it concerned the leader’s private life.

Sarkozy divorced his second wife in October and married the Italian-born former model — now a successful singer — in February, after a quick courtship.

 

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Madeline Nuemaann Dies After Parents Pray For Healing

From the AP

strong>An 11-year-old girl died after her parents prayed for healing rather than seek medical help for a treatable form of diabetes, police said Tuesday.

Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said Madeline Neumann died Sunday.

“She got sicker and sicker until she was dead,” he said.

Vergin said an autopsy determined the girl died from diabetic ketoacidosis, an ailment that left her with too little insulin in her body, and she had probably been ill for about 30 days, suffering symptoms like nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite and weakness.

The girl’s parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, attributed the death to “apparently they didn’t have enough faith,” the police chief said.

 

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Virginia Man Bitten By A Rattlesnake In His Luggage

From the AP

Maybe he heard a faint rattling around in his luggage, but he surely never assumed the sound came from a stowaway snake sealed in his bag and waiting to attack.

Alas, that’s what happened to Andy Bacas, an Arlington man who was taken to the hospital Monday after being bitten by what authorities believe was a juvenile canebrake rattlesnake.

Bacas, a rowing coach at Yorktown High School, told fire and rescue personnel that he reached into his luggage Monday morning after returning from a team trip to South Carolina when he felt a sharp pain. That’s when he saw the nearly foot-long snake and quickly slammed the luggage shut with the snake inside, said Chief Ben Barksdale, spokesman for the Arlington.

 

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High School Cheerleader, Stephanie Kuleba Dies Of Apparent Breast Surgery Complications

From Foxnews.com

She was captain of her high school cheerleading squad, a nearly straight-A student and a soon-to-be pre-med student at the University of Florida.

But now, 18-year-old Stephanie Kuleba is dead, and her friends and family are pointing to breast augmentation surgery as the cause, The Palm Beach Post reported.

“She was a role model for a lot of people,” her friend Vicky Goldring, 16, told the paper. “She was incredibly smart. She wanted to help people. She was just a happy 18-year-old girl.”

Kuleba died Saturday of what friends believe were complications from the plastic surgery she had the previous night, though no official cause of death has yet been released, the Post reported.

A friend speaking on behalf of her grieving family told the newspaper that Kuleba had an extreme reaction to the anesthesia.

“The surgery itself was very personal,” Perlman told the paper. “She passed away from complications during surgery.

 

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Teacher Whom Made Student Go To The Bathroom In Lunchbox Under Review

From cfnews13.com

The Orange County School District has called an Orlando teacher in for the second round of review, one week after a student accused the teacher of making him go to the bathroom in a lunchbox.

The Orange County School district is tightlipped about the investigation of Jameeka Chambers. But News 13’s Emily Lampa, who first reported this story, talked to a representative from the school district Monday morning who said it is possible that Chambers has already submitted her resignation.

If Chambers has handed in her resignation, there could be confirmation whether or not the sixth-grade language arts teacher admitted telling one of her students at Meadowbrook Middle School to go to the bathroom in a lunchbox.

If Chambers did not submit her resignation Monday morning, that means the investigation is still open and the earliest that information could be available would be at an upcoming school board meeting in two weeks.

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Suspected Serial Killer, Gary Michael Hilton, Helped Produce A Movie About A Serial Killer

From FOXNEWS.com

The suspected serial killer who confessed to killing North Georgia hiker Meredith Emerson, and who has since been charged in another murder, may have come up with his twisted plot years ago, WCTV reports.

Authorities say Gary Michael Hilton helped produce a horror movie about a serial killer in 1995. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is in contact with the film’s producer.

The film, “Deadly Run,” was about a serial killer who releases women in the woods so that he can hunt them. The film’s producer, Samuel Rael, says Hilton suggested, “go ahead and let some beautiful women out in the woods and then they could be hunted down like prey,” WCTV reports.

Rael said that when he heard about the murder charges against Hilton, it was nearly word for word from their movie.

 

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Drew Peterson Says He Misses Stacy; Blames Media For His Evil Portrayal

From the AP

Jobless and with no prospects, Drew Peterson spends his days taking care of his four children: cooking meals, washing clothes, helping with homework. All the while, he does so knowing that most of the world believes he killed his last two wives.

Nearly five months have passed since Stacy Peterson vanished from the couple’s home in this Chicago suburb. Peterson is a suspect in her disappearance, and authorities are also trying to determine if he had any role in the 2004 death of his ex-wife.

The 54-year-old former police officer knows that he could be locked up anytime, and that is part of why he allowed The Associated Press into his home for an exclusive interview.

“I am now dealing with the court of public opinion, which is filled with my jury pool,” explained Peterson, who conducted the interview last week with his attorney’s blessing.

 

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Message In A Bottle Drifts 1,735 Miles In 21 Years

From the AP

Merle Brandell and his black lab Slapsey were beachcombing along the Bering Sea when he spied a plastic bottle among the Japanese glass floats he often finds along the shore of his tiny Alaskan fishing village.

He walked over and saw an envelope tucked inside. After slicing the bottle open, Brandell found a message from an elementary school student in a suburb of Seattle. The fact that the letter traveled 1,735 miles without any help from the U.S. postal service is unusual, but that’s only the beginning of the mystery.

About 21 years passed between the time Emily Hwaung put the message in a soda bottle and Merle Brandell picked it up on the beach.

“This letter is part of our science project to study oceans and learn about people in distant lands,” she wrote. “Please send the date and location of the bottle with your address. I will send you my picture and tell you when and where the bottle was placed in the ocean. Your friend, Emily Hwaung.”

Brandell, 34, a bear hunting guide and manager of a local water plant, said many of the 70-plus residents of Nelson Lagoon were intrigued by his find. Beachcombing is a popular activity in remote western Alaska. Among the recent discoveries was a sail boat that washed onto shore last October.

 

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I-95 Shut Down In Philly After A Six Foot Crack In Pillar Found

From the AP

A three-mile stretch of Interstate 95 was shut down early Tuesday, backing up commuter traffic for miles, as workers began emergency repairs on a 6-foot crack in a concrete pillar supporting the major corridor through the Northeast.

The work required closure of both northbound and southbound lanes of the highway north of the city’s central business district, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation spokesman Gene Blaum said.

The fracture ranged from 2 inches to several inches wide. “Obviously, we feel it could compromise the strength of that section of the highway,” Blaum said.

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Three More Bodies Recovered From Crane Collapse Site

From the AP

Three bodies were recovered Monday at the scene of a crane collapse that pulverized a town house on Saturday. Seven people were killed in the tragedy.

Rescuers retrieved the bodies of a woman and two construction workers from the rubble.

The woman had been visiting from Miami to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and see a friend who lived in the town house, said John LaGreco, owner of Fubar, a saloon on the ground floor of the town house.

The woman was in her friend’s second-floor apartment at the time of the accident, he said. Her friend was rescued, he said.

The crane rose 19 stories and was attached to an apartment tower under construction when it broke away Saturday and toppled like a tree onto buildings as far as a block away. Workers had managed to move large pieces of the crane away by Monday.

 

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Second Suspect In UNC Student, Eve Carson’s, Murder Surrenders

From the AP

The second suspect charged with murdering the University of North Carolina student body president surrendered peacefully to police early Thursday, authorities said.

Lawrence Alvin Lovette Jr., 17, was arrested by Durham patrol and SWAT officers several hours after they surrounded a home where he was hiding, said Durham police Lt. Robert McLaughlin Jr. Authorities had received an anonymous tip that Lovette was in the house, McLaughlin said.

Lovette and Demario James Atwater, 21, of Durham, are both charged with first-degree murder in Eve Carson’s death. The 22-year-old from Athens, Ga., was found lying on a street about a mile from the Chapel Hill campus on March 5. She had been shot several times, including once in the right temple.

 

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