TEHRAN ( Iran says it did not KILL BLOGGER who died last week ) In JAIL for blogging

Jailed Blogger Not Tortured Before Death, Iran Says

 

Published: November 12, 2012     

TEHRAN — An influential Iranian lawmaker said Monday that a blogger who died last week while in captivity had not been tortured during interrogations.

      

 

“According to a preliminary report, no traces of beating were seen on his body,” the lawmaker, Alaeddin Borujerdi, told the semiofficial Islamic Students News Agency. However, Mr. Borujerdi, who heads the National Security and Foreign Policy Committees in Parliament, called for further investigation into the case, a rare instance in which Iran’s Parliament and judiciary followed up a human rights complaint that was first raised internationally.

Iran’s judiciary also confirmed the death of the blogger, Sattar Beheshti, 35, acknowledging that five bruises were found on his body, but said the cause of death was still being investigated. He was held in the Kahrizak police prison south of Tehran, where three people died during the antigovernment protests in 2009.

“His body showed no fractures of bones, nor did his skull,” a judiciary spokesman, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, told reporters at his weekly news conference on Monday. He added that a doctor in Evin prison, where Mr. Beheshti was held temporarily before being transferred to Kahrizak, had reported that the blogger was “extremely exhausted” and had recommended a psychiatric evaluation.

The death of Mr. Beheshti, a government critic who was regarded as a relatively minor figure among Iran’s bloggers, has provoked outrage among both opponents and supporters of Iran’s leaders. Foreign-based opposition media have said he was tortured to death, while officials and pro-government bloggers were upset that state news media initially ignored the matter, creating a long silence that made the authorities appear indifferent.

The judiciary spokesman said Mr. Beheshti was arrested on Oct. 30 upon the request of Iran’s cyberpolice, known here as FATA.

Since its establishment in January 2011, FATA has arrested several bloggers who had been critical of Iran’s leaders, and also a group of youths who had created a “hot or not” contest on Facebook rating profile pictures of boys and girls.

Mr. Beheshti’s Web site, “My Life for My Iran,” criticized Iran’s financial contributions to the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon. On his Web site Mr. Beheshti posted pictures of Lebanese youths having parties alongside images of Iranians living in poverty.

A day before his arrest, Mr. Beheshti published a post saying that officers had warned him in a telephone call that his “mother should soon don a black shroud because you refuse to shut your big mouth.” But, he added, “I will not remain silent even at the moment of my death.”

Victoria Secret ( NATIVE American groups lash out at war bonnet ) Cultural stereotyping

The annual Victoria's Secret fashion show taped last Wednesday caused a minor stir last week — but not because of any sexy underwear on display.

Model Karlie Kloss (pictured at left) set off some controversy when she walked the runway wearing a Native American headdress (also called a war bonnet), a culturally insensitive faux pas that led the company to pull the footage of the offending outfit from its planned Dec. 4 broadcast.
Several Native American groups called the lingerie company out for the blunder. Native Appropriations, a blog covering imagery of indigenous cultures, accused the retailer of "egregious cultural appropriation, stereotyping, and marginalizing of Native peoples." Ruth Hopkins, a columnist for a Native American news site, wrote that "after years of patronage and loyalty to the Victoria's Secret brand, I am repaid with the mean-spirited, disrespectful trivialization of my blood ancestry and the proud Native identity I work hard to instill in my children." Putting a headdress on a white model is particularly offensive, she wrote, because among the Sioux tribe, war bonnets are exclusively worn by men, with each feather symbolizing an act of valor.

CALIFORNIA ( 2 are Dead after eating soup with poisonous MUSHROOMS )

• Enlarge PhotoAmanita phalloides

Two residents of an elderly care center are dead and four people are in the hospital after a caregiver allegedly served soup made from poisonous wild mushrooms.

The deceased victims are 86-year-old Barbara Lopes and 73-year-old Teresa Olesniewicz, who lived at the Gold Age Villa in Loomis, Calif., according to the Sacramento Bee. A caregiver reportedly foraged mushrooms on the grounds of the senior living center before using them in a meal.

The poisonings are believed to be accidental, and the caregiver who allegedly prepared the soup is one of the people hospitalized, Sheriff's Lt. Mark Reed told the Associated Press. The three others hospitalized were elderly residents of the Gold Age Villa.

The variety of poisonous mushrooms that were used in the soup is yet unknown, but Dr. Todd Mitchell, a Santa Cruz, Calif., doctor who is reportedly consulting on treatment of one of the patients, told NBC News that the patient is suffering from amatoxin poisoning. [10 Most Common Poisonous Plants]

ARIZONA ( Woman runs HUSBAND over with family SUV ) Because he failed to vote

Police say a woman who was upset over the outcome of the presidential election ran over her husband because he didn't participate in his civic duty.

Police allege Holly Solomon ran over her husband after they had an argument over the 2012 presidential election.

/Maricopa County Sheriff's Office

Holly Solomon, 28, chased her 36-year-old husband Daniel Solomon with the family Jeep SUV on Saturday night over a political argument stemming from the fact he didn't vote, CBS station KPHO in Phoenix, Ariz. reported. She pinned him between the underside of the SUV and the curb when he tried to run for help.

The husband told investigators that Solomon believed her family was going to face hardship from President Barack Obama's re-election.

Witnesses told police that Solomon followed her husband in her car through a parking lot while screaming at him. He hid behind a light pole to protect himself while Solomon circled several times. She struck him as he tried to make a break for the main road.

There were no signs Solomon was impaired either by alcohol or drugs, KPHO said.

She was booked on an aggravated assault and domestic violence.

Her husband remains in critical condition at Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn Medical Center, news outlet Arizona Republic reported.

It's not clear whether Solomon has a lawyer. She had no listed phone number.

CULVER City ( Woman Raped on Bus for 10 MINUTES ) L .A county

Woman raped for 10 minutes on Metro bus, authorities say

November 8, 2012 | 7:13pm

 

An 18-year-old woman was raped for about 10 minutes on a Metro bus as it drove through Culver City, authorities said Thursday evening.
The attack took place in the rear of the near-empty bus Wednesday evening and went unnoticed by the driver, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
"During the rape, an unknown witness, the only passenger on the bus, attempted to get the driver's attention," the department said in a statement.
But the suspect left the 217 bus before the driver became aware of the assault, according to the department. The suspect got off at the last stop where the bus makes its turnaround at Sepulveda Boulevard near Slauson Avenue.
The victim was described by authorities as having the mental capacity of a 10-year-old. She reported the attack to the driver after the suspect was gone.
Detectives said the attacker is African American and between 18 and 20 years old. He is 5-feet 8 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall with short-cropped hair and was wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt with narrow horizontal stripes, authorities said.
Detectives were also seeking the witness. Anyone with information is asked to call authorities at (866) 247-5877. Anonymous tipsters call call (800) 222-8477.

FLORIDA ( Woman arrested for masturbating in STARBUCKS ) Yes you read it right !

A woman was just taken into custody after she was allegedly caught masturbating in a Florida Starbucks and, when cops came, they found a glass pipe with cocaine residue in her purse.
Um, have you heard of anything more disturbing? I can't imagine this woman doing something so stupid and gross, and in a public place, no less!
According to a police report obtained by TheSmokingGun.com and reported by the New York Daily News, 29-year-old Jennifer Piranian told police officers that she wasn't feeling well when they found her in the Manatee County Starbucks coffee house. The cops had a different story, though, according to Brandenton Police spokesman Josh Cramer:

We got called there by someone who said she was masturbating. She was high on crack with her hands going everywhere. No one could ever say for sure what she was doing, and I'm pretty sure the video didn't show anything definitive. But her hands went into her pants when she was wigging out.

Well, talk about one WEIRD story! It's one thing for this woman to be dumb enough to do cocaine, but a whole other level to carry it with her in her purse and then go to Starbucks–to masturbate! Seriously, what was she thinking? I'm pretty much looking at this one and saying EW.

ARIZONA Donation to California called ' Money Laundering' (Romney's campaign backers)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — An $11 million campaign contribution from an Arizona nonprofit that gave money to a group fighting Gov. Jerry Brown's tax initiative represents the largest case of campaign "money laundering" in state history, California's political watchdog agency charged Monday.

Americans for Responsible Leadership reported the source of its contribution to a political action committee that is active in the November election after the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously Sunday that the group must turn over its records.

 

        http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/nov/05/ariz-donation-to-calif-called-money-laundering/?page=1#article               

 

But the disclosure on the eve of Election Day reveals little about the actual source of the money. It shows that ARL received the $11 million from a group called Americans for Job Security through a second intermediary, the Center to Protect Patient Rights. Both are federally registered nonprofits that are not legally required to disclose the source of their funds.

Americans for Job Security has been active in the presidential race, pouring millions of dollars into swing states for independent expenditure ads supporting GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and other Republican candidates, and the Center to Protect Patient Rights distributed more than $44 million to more than two dozen conservative advocacy groups during the 2010 midterm elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.