COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) —— A high school student was suspended for 10 days for refusing to end a cell phone call with his mother, a soldier serving in Iraq, school officials said.
The 10-day suspension was issued because Kevin Francois was "defiant and disorderly" and was imposed in lieu of an arrest, Spencer High School assistant principal Alfred Parham said.
The confrontation Wednesday began after the 17-year-old junior got a call at lunchtime from his mother, Sgt. 1st Class Monique Bates, who left in January for a one-year tour with the 203rd Forward Support Battalion.
Cell phones are allowed on campus but may not be used during school hours. When a teacher told him to hang up, he refused. He said he told the teacher, "This is my mom in Iraq. I'm not about to hang up on my mom."
Parham said the teen's suspension was based on his reaction to the teacher's request. He said the teen used profanity when taken to the office.
"Kevin got defiant and disorderly," Parham said. "When a kid becomes out of control like that they can either be arrested or suspended for 10 days. Now being that his mother is in Iraq, we're not trying to cause her any undue hardship; he was suspended for 10 days."
WASHINGTON (AP) —— A lot of kids must look up when teachers call out "Emily" or "Jacob" these days. Those were the most popular babies' names last year —— and have been every year since the 1990s.
Emma and Madison were second and third for girls, just like the year before. Michael and Joshua for boys, like the year before.
The biblical name Jacob, the most popular choice for boys for the sixth straight year, also was at the top in the first count of names given to twins. Parents like to pair it with Joshua.
Emily claimed the top spot among newborn girls for the ninth year in a row, according to the Social Security Administration's tally for 2004, released Friday.
The staying power of the top names may have something to do with appealing to multiple ethnic or religious groups and having no widespread negative connotations.
"Old Testament names are popular with both Christians and Jews," said Cleveland Evans, associate professor at Bellevue University in Nebraska and president of the American Name Society.
Emily has literary associations including Emily Dickinson and Emily Bronte. "The images of Emily are such that you can think easily of a woman who is both beautiful and smart," Evans said.
None of the top names has a negative association that could hurt, the way Jason became unpopular after the "Friday the 13th" movies with a maniacal killer by that name.
New to the top 10 are Isabella and William, both rising from 11th. Alexis and Anthony dropped out.
Just in time for Mother's Day, the agency updates its most popular 1,000 names by tallying applications for Social Security cards.
Almost every state's most popular names appear on the national top 10, but there are exceptions. Jose was the most popular boy's name last year in Arizona and Texas, which are heavily Hispanic.
The top 10 for girls: Emily, Emma, Madison, Olivia, Hannah, Abigail, Isabella, Ashley, Samantha, Elizabeth.
For boys: Jacob, Michael, Joshua, Matthew, Ethan, Andrew, Daniel, William, Joseph, Christopher.
On the Net:
Social Security Administration: http://www.ssa.gov
NEW ORLEANS (AP) —— A man wanted in Alabama for allegedly kidnapping a banker's wife for ransom earlier this week was arrested in Louisiana on a federal fugitive warrant.
Michael Regis Duncanson, 55, was being held Friday in Orleans Parish Prison, pending a hearing on his possible extradition to Alabama. He was arrested Thursday at his apartment in Metairie on a warrant alleging he fled to avoid prosecution on the first-degree kidnapping charge.
Washington County Sheriff William Wheat said Duncanson was tracked by his phone card and a tip from an acquaintance who said he talked about robbing the bank. The victim also identified Duncanson from a photo, the sheriff said.
The woman, Virginia Beech, told police that she answered her door Tuesday morning, and a man forced his way in, pulled a gun and attached what he said was a bomb to her body.
The man then forced her into a car, made her call her husband demanding money and threatened her, she said. She was released unharmed about 25 miles from her home, authorities said.
Her husband, Ted Beech, said the bank was arranging to get the money but his wife was released before the transaction was made.
The extradition hearing for Duncanson was not immediately scheduled.
PARIS (AP) —— Police using software to spot the downloading of child pornography from the Internet raided homes in eight European countries, police said Friday.
In all the homes of 100 people were searched in France, Sweden, Italy, Denmark, Poland, Norway, Malta and the Netherlands, police in Sweden said.
French police said they had taken about 20 suspects into custody by Friday and found 4,625 photos of child pornography, as well as 137 videos showing children.
Annethe Ahlenius, who heads the child pornography unit for Sweden's National Police, said the operation, which began Monday, "has gone according to plan" so far.
The homes of 15 people were raided in Sweden, Ahlenius said.
She said police in the different countries will have to analyze the contents of the seized computers before the suspects can be prosecuted.
"It will be months before we see charges, unfortunately," Ahlenius said.
The operation was coordinated by a European task force set up in 2004 to strengthen police cooperation between EU countries to fight Internet crime.
Investigators identified suspects using French computer software that monitors the Internet, the French Gendarmerie said.
"This operation is only a first step in efforts at the European level to coordinate the fight against child pornography on the Internet, identify victims and detect organized groups," it said in a statement.
GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) —— The prospect of ringing, flickering slot machines just a cannon shot away from the battlefield at Gettysburg has some historians and preservationists up in arms.
Last week, a group of 10 investors unveiled plans to seek a casino license from the state as part of a proposed Gettysburg Gaming Resort and Spa.
It would be a mile and a half from Gettysburg National Military Park, the battle ground where in 1863 thousands of men gave "the last full measure of devotion," as Abraham Lincoln put it in his Gettysburg Address.
"It would be a desecration of their memory and sacrifice to establish such a tawdry, tasteless enterprise next to their fields of honor," historian James M. McPherson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning authority on the Civil War, wrote in an e-mail.
Kent Masterson Brown, a civil rights lawyer in Lexington, Ky., who has written books on the Gettysburg campaign and chaired the park's advisory commission, said: "If anything, we at this hour of the country's history need to make sure that these places are maintained as hallowed grounds."
Lead investor David LeVan, a Gettysburg businessman known in town for contributing generously to preservation efforts, said the casino would be respectful of the area's history. He said it would not have a Civil War theme or be visible from the highest points in the park.
The site of the proposed casino was of relatively minor importance in the three-day battle — some Confederate troops gathered there before heading off to fight.
And the area is already pretty well developed. The 42-acre site consists of open fields, a house and a golf range. But it is at the end of one of two busy commercial strips that flank the park, and it sits across the three-lane U.S. Route 30 from a hotel and entertainment complex under construction.
One leading Gettysburg preservationist said the casino could be a good thing: It could boost the park's visibility and help battlefield devotees raise money to save more important sites.
"You can't always save it all, so you have to know where your battle is," said Kathi Schue, president of the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association.
Situated in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania's dairy country close to the Maryland state line, the 6,000-acre Gettysburg park wraps around the town of Victorian storefronts and 200-year-old brick mansions. In and around the park, some 1,300 monuments and plaques mark the spots where 162,500 Union and Confederate soldiers fought and where 10,000 died in what proved to be the turning point in the war.
Some 70 privately owned parcels lie inside the park, and some battle sites lie outside its boundaries, creating a complicated task for preservationists.
For instance, the one-time site of a huge field hospital where thousands of troops were treated and hundreds were once buried is now privately owned land outside the park. Squeezed between a Staples and a trailer park, it is up for sale as a hotel site.
The Gettysburg casino investors are seeking to capitalize on Pennsylvania's 10-month-old law legalizing slot machines. They say the casino would draw gamblers from Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
Gettysburg would not be the first place where gambling piggybacked onto battlefield tourism: Vicksburg, Miss., where Gen. Ulysses Grant won one of his biggest victories, boasts four floating casinos and a military park.
However, a 1996 study by the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau found that few gamblers visited the battlefield.
WEST WENDOVER, Nev. (AP) —— Tormented by a technical glitch and facing uncertain weather, a British team will try for a third time Saturday to break the speed record for electric-powered vehicles. It could be the team's final opportunity before it packs up for England.
Crews had to scrub a run on a state highway early Friday after blaming the cold, damp Nevada desert for causing an arcing flame to issue from the car's nose cone. The culprit was in a controller that sends power to the motors.
"It's an electrical gremlin," said Colin Fallows, 54, a retired Royal Air Force propulsion technician, bending over to inspect the low-slung "e
motion" car.
Driver Mark Newby, 46, walked away in disbelief as his second attempt to run was foiled.
"This car has proven to be durable and reliable. It made 15 runs in the U.K. perfectly. And just now, these minor glitches are surfacing," he said.
With a forecast calling for days of rain, Newby said he could drive on damp but not wet pavement, which could send his car skidding out of control at the speed he hopes to achieve, more than 300 mph. "My No. 1 priority is to get home in one piece," he said.
Newby was hoping for a break in the weather early Saturday. It could be his last opportunity to commandeer a state highway, although his team was negotiating for an extra day.
Trying to stay upbeat despite nagging technical problems, Newby said, "These things happen. You look at NASA — the billions they spend and the challenges they still face."
The team is to trying to eclipse the record for an electric car weighing more than 2,200 pounds by using a vehicle with 52 batteries and no mechanical gears. Newby was ready to make a second attempt before dawn Friday on a 7.2-mile straight and flat section of the highway 38 miles south of West Wendover, Nev.
But the dew-covered car kept shorting out when the power was turned on.
"I suspect it has something to do with the moisture," said Steve Ruddell, a senior vice president for e
motion sponsor ABB, a Swiss company with 103,000 employees that's known as the General Electric of Europe.
ABB supplied a pair of industrial motors for the car that can be overworked for brief intervals turn out 500 horsepower — as much power as a 2005 Chevrolet Corvette with a 7-liter, V8 engine. But getting power to those motors is proving troublesome.
Nevada agreed to shut down Route 93A for the torpedo-shaped car's attempt to top 300 mph — which would shatter the old mark of 245 mph, set by an American team in 1999 using a similarly streamlined car powered by thousands of "AA" batteries.
That record was set on Utah's nearby Bonneville Salt Flats, which are too wet at this time of year for speed racing.
An Ohio State University team said it deserved recognition for already having broken the 300 mph barrier — but the Buckeye Bullet got a push start to hoard battery power for higher speeds.
It averaged 314.9 mph over two runs.
Newby said he was operating under stricter protocols of the Federation Internationale de L'Automobile, the motor sports governing body, which did not sanction or certify Ohio State's run last October on the Salt Flats.
Newby will get no push start, and he'll have to make two runs in less than an hour, swapping batteries in between.
Ohio State's turnaround took four hours.
Newby and Fallows, both Britons, accelerated their car to 190 mph on a practice run Wednesday and said they were confident of topping 300 mph — if the weather and the car's electronics cooperate.
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) —— A New York University student was charged with bank fraud after depositing $43 million in bogus cashier's checks into Swiss and American accounts and trying to withdraw the money, prosecutors said Friday.
Hakan Yalincak, 21, also faces civil charges that he convinced two investors to sink $2.8 million into a nonexistent hedge fund and spent the money on luxury items and university donations.
He wept in court as U.S. Magistrate Judge Joan Margolis ordered him jailed until a detention hearing Thursday. "I have a graduation on Wednesday," Yalincak said.
Yalincak, a senior mathematics student whose parents donated $21 million to NYU last year, deposited millions of dollars in fake certified checks, then shuffled the money around to avoid getting caught, according to an indictment unsealed Friday.
At one point, he had $25 million in Connecticut and nearly $18 million in Switzerland, prosecutors said. In March, Yalincak tried to withdraw $1.7 million, but by then the banks had discovered the counterfeit checks and frozen his accounts.
"He's a smart kid. He has some gift in investing and people had confidence in him," said Yalincak's attorney, Robert Chan.
A spokesman for NYU said the university has received $1.25 million of the Yalincak family's $21 million donation. He said the school was reviewing the donations and any money that was improperly donated would be returned.
BOSTON (AP) —— Attention, time travelers: Amal Dorai hopes you enjoyed the party he's throwing this weekend.
Dorai, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is hosting a Time Traveler Convention on campus this Saturday. Make plans now, because it's the last such party.
"You only need one," he said. "The chance that anybody shows up is small, but if it happens it will be one of the biggest events in human history."
There's no dress code. No need to R.S.V.P. Refreshments (chips and dip) will be provided.
Dorai only asks his guests to show proof they come from the future: Bringing the cure for cancer, a solution for global poverty or a cold fusion reactor would suffice.
In case MIT is long gone by the time a time machine is invented, Dorai's invitation includes geographic coordinates for the East Campus Courtyard (42:21:36.025 degrees north, 71:05:16.332 degrees west).
To spread the word, Dorai asked friends to scribble invitations on pieces of acid-free paper and slip them into obscure library books. He is also giving media interviews and posting his thoughts on a Web site.
"The World Wide Web is unlikely to remain in its present form permanently," he wrote. "We need volunteers to publish the details of the convention in enduring forms, so that the time travelers of future millennia will be aware of the convention."
The convention starts at 8 p.m. For dramatic effect, time travelers are encouraged to show up at 10 p.m. sharp. In between, revelers will take in a lecture on time travel by an MIT physics professor and listen to student bands belting out time-themed songs.
MIT physics professor Alan Guth is weighing an invitation to speak at the convention. Guth's work involves applying theoretical particle physics to the early universe, but he said he has dabbled in writing about time travel theories.
"Most of us would bet it's impossible, but none of us can prove it's impossible either," he said.
Dorai doesn't consider himself a believer or a skeptic.
"I'm an experimentalist," he said. "If there's only going to be one, it should be here at MIT."
Apart from the near-certainty that time travel is impossible, Dorai sees another potential problem. "If thousands of time travelers come, then the MIT police might try to shut the party down," he said.
SAN JOSE (AP) —— The woman accused of fabricating a story about finding a finger in a bowl of fast-food chili arrived in San Jose on Friday and will likely be arraigned early next week on charges of attempted grand larceny and grand larceny.
Anna Ayala, 39, who's in custody at the Santa Clara County Jail, maintains she bit down on a 1 1/2 inch-long finger fragment while dining with her family March 22 at a San Jose Wendy's.
Ayala was arrested April 21 at her suburban Las Vegas home on a warrant issued in San Jose, where police branded the finger incident a hoax. Authorities said the finger did not appear to have simmered in chili.
Ayala waived extradition April 26 and told a Las Vegas judge she was eager to return to California to clear her name and reputation.
Wendy's executives say the finger did not enter the food chain in its ingredients. Employees at the San Jose franchise were found to have all their fingers, and no suppliers of Wendy's ingredients reported any hand or finger injuries, the company said.
Investigators have said they don't know where the finger came from, and Dublin, Ohio-based Wendy's has offered $100,000 for information on where the digit originated.
Ayala, who has insisted she is innocent, faces a maximum seven-year sentence if convicted in the finger incident, and she faces at least 16 months more if convicted of an unrelated grand larceny charge that she allegedly bilked a woman of $11,000 in a soured deal over a mobile home two years ago. Ayala's family has vowed to sue San Jose police for false arrest and prosecution.
Ayala's attorney, Frederick Tait Ehler of San Jose, did not return phone calls Friday.
David Boyd, who is prosecuting the case on behalf of the Santa Clara County District Attorney, confirmed that Ayala will be arraigned Monday or Tuesday in Santa Clara County Superior Court, but he refused to discuss details of the case, including the evidence that investigators and law enforcement officials may have gathered against Ayala.
"There's nothing we're going to talk about," Boyd said in a phone interview Friday afternoon.
Ayala's husband was arrested this week near Las Vegas on unrelated charges. Jaime Plascencia, 43, was arrested Wednesday on a fugitive warrant out of San Jose and faces charges of identity theft, failure to pay child support, child abandonment and fraudulent use of official documents.
Plascencia, who does not have any children with Ayala, was being held in a Las Vegas jail without bail but may also have to return to San Jose. An extradition hearing was scheduled for Monday in Las Vegas.
Posted in Backpage on Saturday, May 7, 2005 12:00 am
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