Breaking News Thread Version 2.0

[Peelz]

damn impressive!

thanks

[Colorado700R]

Paris, France (CNN) -- French police believe they've gotten to the bottom of a series of robberies in which teenage girls exposed their breasts to distract men withdrawing money from Paris cash machines.

Two teenagers have been charged with three hold-ups, but they will be prosecuted as juveniles since they are under 18, according to the Paris prosecutor's office.

Police say that on August 7, a man inserted a card into a cash machine in central Paris to withdraw money when two young females approached him and asked for money. The girls waved a newspaper at the man in an attempt to distract him, but the technique didn't work.

So the girls tried another strategy: One of them bared her breasts and put her hand on the man's genitals while the other took the opportunity to withdraw 300 euros, police said.

The two teenagers also are accused of stealing a total of 400 euros in two other Paris ATM robberies on August 17, the prosecutor's office said.



Funny it doesn't mention how the dude was incompasitated by armpit hair and a foul stank

[Krandall]

The girl lydia hangs out with is from Paris. Definitely no armpit hair or stank...

[Colorado700R]

The girl lydia hangs out with is from Paris. Definitely no armpit hair or stank...

FYI that's a dude.........and the underlying reasoning for your attraction

[Krandall]

[disco]

China's nine-day traffic jam stretches 100km

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j7mCeh43Lk-RIXgcK3jGiDODQt0A


BEIJING — Thousands of vehicles were bogged down Monday in a more than 100-kilometre (62-mile) traffic jam leading to Beijing that has lasted nine days and highlights China's growing road congestion woes.

The Beijing-Tibet expressway slowed to a crawl on August 14 due to a spike in traffic by cargo-bearing heavy trucks heading to the capital, and compounded by road maintenance work that began five days later, the Global Times said.

The state-run newspaper said the jam between Beijing and Jining city had given birth to a mini-economy with local merchants capitalising on the stranded drivers' predicament by selling them water and food at inflated prices.

That stretch of highway linking Beijing with the northern province of Hebei and the Inner Mongolia region has become increasingly prone to massive jams as the capital of more than 20 million people sucks in huge shipments of goods.

Traffic slowed to a snail's pace in June and July for nearly a month, according to earlier press reports.

The latest clog has been worsened by the road improvement project, made necessary by highway damage caused by a steady increase in cargo traffic, the Global Times said.

China has embarked in recent years on a huge expansion of its national road system but soaring traffic periodically overwhelms the grid.

The congestion was expected to last into mid-September as the road project will not be finished until then, the newspaper said.

The roadway is a major artery for the supply of produce, coal and other goods to Beijing.

[Krandall]

just read about that @ lunch today. Crazy!

[disco]

Whoa!  100mph wreck caught on cruisers dash cam.

http://www.wdtn.com/dpp/news/video%3A-i-675-crash-caught-on-tape

Dukes of Hazzard style going on here.

[Colorado700R]

Amazing that he survived!!

[rappyfreak]

Epic fail for Kitt and the Hoff!!!

[Spartan]

boost!

[Krandall]

He literally tried taking an exit "Ramp"


ba dum crish!

[disco]

Speak Ebonics?  DEA has a job for you!

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/23/hire-fluent-ebonics-speakers-dea-jobs/

It may be raising some eyebrows, but the Drug Enforcement Administration insists it needs to hire at least nine people fluent in Ebonics.

The DEA's Atlanta office has been looking for Ebonics "linguists" since at least May, when job vacancies were posted online.

According to one posting, the linguist's duties would include "monitoring varying numbers of communications intercepts during any given shift" and then providing "reliable and accurate transcriptions."

An agency official, said there is nothing "racial" about the job, and described white rapper Eminem as "one of the best speakers of Ebonics there ever was."

"There are words that people use that I never used," the official said. "It's a dialect that certain people use, and we see a need for it."

The DEA also sees a need for linguists who speak scores of other languages and dialects, including Jamaican Patois. The DEA is looking to hiring such linguists too.

As for why the DEA office is looking for nine Ebonics speakers -- on a contract basis -- the official said that would cover teams of three working three different shifts.

[socalrappy700]

Bitch owed me money.


http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b196807_paris_hilton_ok_after_attempted_home.html?cmpid=rss-000000-rssfeed-365-topstories&utm_source=eonline&utm_medium=rssfeeds&utm_campaign=rss_topstories


These days, when Paris Hilton wakes up and finds a strange man in her house, it actually is cause for alarm.

The good-time heiress got quite the scare this morning, when she woke up to discover an armed home invader in her Hollywood Hills compound.

"I'm OK," she told E! News exclusively. "Just scary, thank GERD he didn't get in."

The Los Angeles Police Department arrived at Casa Hilton around 6:30 a.m. and took a man into custody.

"So Scary, just got woken up to a guy trying to break into my house holding 2 big knifes," Hilton tweeted this morning. "Cops are here arresting him."

There's been no word on whether he made off with any of Paris' possessions, if he was working alone or how he was caught (besides "in the nick of time"), but a spokesman for the LAPD told E! News that there were no injuries and confirmed that he never made it into the house.

But despite Paris' tweet, they have yet to comment on whether the man had any weapons on him at the time.

Still, as this is hardly an isolated incident, she may want to think about moving. Or at least about cutting back on the number of all-access home tours she gives to the media.

[Colorado700R]

WTF!!!!!!!!!! 

Appeals court rules Stolen Valor Act unconstitutionalBy Bill Mears, CNN
August 18, 2010 1:13 p.m. EDT
Washington (CNN) -- Lying about military honors is not a crime, a federal appeals court has ruled, tossing out the prosecution of a California public official who falsely claimed to have won the prestigious Medal of Honor.

The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 there was inadequate "compelling governmental interest" when Congress passed the Stolen Valor Act in 2006.

Xavier Alvarez had won a seat on the Three Valley Water District Board of Directors in 2007, and at his first open meeting claimed to be a retired Marine who won the Medal of Honor in 1987. The highest military decoration awarded by the U.S. government is sometimes mistakenly called the Congressional Medal of Honor. "I got wounded many times by the same guy," Alvarez declared, according to court records. "I'm still around."

While the three-judge panel ruled Alvarez's free speech rights were violated, they showed little sympathy for his actions, calling them "nothing but a series of bizarre lies."

"We have no doubt that society would be better off if Alvarez would stop spreading worthless, ridiculous, and offensive untruths," the panel concluded in its ruling, handed down Tuesday. "But, given our historical skepticism of permitting the government to police the line between truth and falsity, and between valuable speech and drivel, we preemptively protect all speech, including false statements, in order that clearly protected speech may flower in the shelter of the First Amendment."

Alvarez was prosecuted on one count of falsely verbally claiming to have received the medal. He had conditionally pleaded guilty, reserving his right to later appeal on constitutional grounds. He was fined $5,000, given three years' probation, and resigned last fall from the utility board based in Claremont, California.

There was no word whether the Justice Department will appeal the opinion to the Supreme Court.

The split ruling noted Alvarez apparently "makes a hobby of lying about himself." Acquaintances told the FBI he claimed to have won the Medal of Honor during the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis in Iran in 1979, or during the Vietnam War. He also spread stories he was a former professional hockey player and a police officer.

Beyond the circumstances of this appeal, the broader constitutional concerns deal with the power of the government to limit certain types of speech, particularly those made by public officials and those made during election campaigns.

The Supreme Court has been split in recent years whether false statements of fact should be protected under the Constitution, except in very limited circumstances. The Justice Department had argued Alvarez's statements deserved no legal protection because they had little value, and that there was a larger societal need to "protect speech that matters," in this case the valor and integrity of military heroes who rightfully earned their medals.

A dissenting judge in the case, Jay Bybee, agreed. "The Supreme Court has regularly repeated, both inside and outside of the defamation context, that false statements of fact are valueless and generally not within the protection of the First Amendment."

The high court in April struck down another congressional law, this one designed to stop the sale and marketing of videos showing dogfights and other acts of animal cruelty. The 8-1 majority said it was an unconstitutional violation of free speech.

"The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the government outweigh its costs," said Chief Justice John Roberts of the 1999 law. He concluded Congress had not sufficiently shown "depictions" of dogfighting were enough to justify a special category of exclusion from free-speech protections.

The government lawyer in charge of defending the animal cruelty law was then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan, now the newest justice on the Supreme Court. Her colleagues in their ruling had nearly completely rejected her position in the case.

The federal Stolen Valor Act was designed to "protect the reputation" of military decorations, citing "fraudulent claims surrounding the receipt of the Medal of Honor [and other Congressionally authorized military medals, decorations, and awards]." Similar laws have been in place since 1948. Other federal judges have recently found the Stolen Valor Act to be similarly unconstitutional.

As for Alvarez, he is currently in the California State Prison in Centinela, convicted separately earlier this year for defrauding the water district, according to court records.

The medals case is U.S. v. Alvarez (08-50345).