Calista241
Calista241's JournalWoman who encouraged boyfriend to kill himself via text sentenced to 15 months in jail
Source: LA Times
A Massachusetts woman who badgered her depressed boyfriend to kill himself in text messages was sentenced Thursday to 15 months in jail in a novel manslaughter case that examined the question of whether words can kill.
Juvenile Court Judge Lawrence Moniz gave Michelle Carter a 2 1/2-year jail sentence but said she had to serve only 15 months of that. He also sentenced her to five years of probation.
Michelle Carter was 17-years-old when 18-year-old Conrad Roy III rigged up a generator to his pickup truck and poisoned himself with carbon monoxide. Carter had sent numerous text messages telling Roy to “just do it” and was on the cell phone with him during the suicide, at one point ordering him back into the truck when he got cold feet and exited to gasp for air.
...
In his verdict, however, Judge Lawrence Moniz, focused his ruling on her telling Roy to "get back in" after he climbed out of his truck as it was filling with carbon monoxide and told her he was afraid. The judge said those words constituted "wanton and reckless conduct" under the manslaughter statute.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-teen-texting-suicide-20170803-story.html
Maryam Mirzakhani, first woman to win maths' Fields Medal, dies (Nobel Prize for Mathematics)
Source: BBC
Maryam Mirzakhani, the first woman to receive the prestigious Fields Medal for mathematics, has died in the US.
The 40-year-old Iranian, a professor at Stanford University, had breast cancer which had spread to her bones.
Nicknamed the "Nobel Prize for Mathematics", the Fields Medal is only awarded every four years to between two and four mathematicians under 40.
It was given to Prof Mirzakhani in 2014 for her work on complex geometry and dynamical systems.
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40617094
San Jose serial cat killer gets 16-year sentence
Source: SF Gate
A serial cat killer in San Jose who pleaded guilty to torturing and dismembering a number of beloved neighborhood felines was sentenced Friday to a maximum term of 16 years in jail.
Robert Farmer, 26, pleaded guilty in October to 21 felony counts of animal cruelty. Though Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Sharon Chatman imposed the strictest sentence she could on Farmer, she did not require him to register as a sex offender as county prosecutors had requested.
Prosecutors and owners of the cats alleged that Farmer had sexually abused one of the slain felines, but the judge rejected that argument.
The owners of the dead cats — police say he killed up to 16 of them, though only four bodies were recovered — say that Farmer terrorized their Cambrian Park neighborhood in south San Jose for months, causing pet owners to keep outdoor cats inside as animal after animal disappeared.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/San-Jose-serial-cat-killer-gets-16-year-sentence-11290539.php
What kind of insanity possesses people to do stuff like this?
FBI nominees most memorable case? Jailing of ex-Brave Pat Jarvis
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Christopher Wray, the Atlanta attorney who is President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI, has had a long career in private practice and at the U.S. Justice Department on which to hang his hat.
That includes a guilty plea squeezed out of Sept. 11 terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, and working as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s personal attorney during “Bridgegate.”
But according to the Washington Times, Wray listed the 1999 prosecution of former Atlanta Braves pitcher Pat Jarvis on a questionnaire that asked him to name his most memorable case. By way of explanation, there was none:
Mr. Wray, in his committee filing, did not explain why he felt the Jarvis case so significant.
Read more: http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2017/07/07/fbi-nominees-most-memorable-case-jailing-of-ex-brave-pat-jarvis/
Federal judge blocks California ban on high-capacity magazines
Source: The Sacramento Bee
A federal judge has temporarily blocked a voter-approved California law that would have forced gun owners to get rid of high-capacity ammunition magazines by this Saturday.
U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, who is based in San Diego, issued a preliminary injunction Thursday that found the law was likely unconstitutional because it prevented people from using firearms that employed “whatever common magazine size he or she judges best suits the situation.” The law would have barred people from possessing magazines containing more than 10 bullets.
“The State of California’s desire to criminalize simple possession of a firearm magazine able to hold more than 10 rounds is precisely the type of policy choice that the Constitution takes off the table,” the injunction read.
Benitez added that “a final decision will take too long to offer relief, and because the statute will soon visit irrevocable harm on Plaintiffs and all those similarly situated a state-wide preliminary injunction is necessary and justified to maintain the status quo.”
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/article158965184.html
Seattles Minimum Wage Hike May Have Gone Too Far
Source: Five Thirty Eight
As cities across the country pushed their minimum wages to untested heights in recent years, some economists began to ask: How high is too high?
Seattle, with its highest-in-the-country minimum wage,1 may have hit that limit.
In January 2016, Seattle’s minimum wage jumped from $11 an hour to $13 for large employers, the second big increase in less than a year. New research released Monday by a team of economists at the University of Washington suggests the wage hike may have come at a significant cost: The increase led to steep declines in employment for low-wage workers, and a drop in hours for those who kept their jobs. Crucially, the negative impact of lost jobs and hours more than offset the benefits of higher wages — on average, low-wage workers earned $125 per month less because of the higher wage, a small but significant decline.
“The goal of this policy was to deliver higher incomes to people who were struggling to make ends meet in the city,” said Jacob Vigdor, a University of Washington economist who was one of the study’s authors. “You’ve got to watch out because at some point you run the risk of harming the people you set out to help.”
Read more: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/seattles-minimum-wage-hike-may-have-gone-too-far/
This contradicts what I've heard anecdotally, but thought I'd post it here.
Harley-Davidson enters race to buy Italian rival Ducati: sources
Source: Reuters
U.S. motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson (HOG.N) is lining up a takeover bid for Italian rival Ducati, potentially bringing together two of the most famous names in motorcycling in a deal that could be worth up to 1.5 billion euros ($1.67 billion), sources told Reuters.
Indian motorcycle maker Bajaj Auto (BAJA.NS) and several buyout funds are also preparing bids for Ducati, which is being put up for sale by German carmaker Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE).
A deal with Harley-Davidson would bring together the maker of touring bikes like the Electra Glide that are symbolic of America with a leading European maker whose high-performance bikes have a distinguished racing heritage.
Milwaukee-based Harley-Davidson has hired Goldman Sachs to work on the deal, one source familiar with the matter said, adding tentative bids were expected in July.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-ducati-m-a-idUSKBN19C1XX?il=0
As a Ducati rider, I'm not super excited about this.
How Cats Used Humans to Conquer the World
Sounds about right.
From The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/cat-domination/530685/
Sometime around the invention of agriculture, the cats came crawling. It was mice and rats, probably, that attracted the wild felines. The rats came because of stores of grain, made possible by human agriculture. And so cats and humans began their millennia-long coexistence.
This relationship has been good for us of course—formerly because cats caught the disease-carrying pests stealing our food and presently because cleaning up their hairballs somehow gives purpose to our modern lives. But this relationship has been great for cats as species, too. From their native home in the Middle East, the first tamed cats followed humans out on ships and expeditions to take over the world—settling on six continents with even the occasional foray to Antarctica. Domestication has been a fantastically successful evolutionary strategy for cats.
Carrie Fisher Died From Sleep Apnea, Other Factors
Source: CBS Washington
LOS ANGELES — Carrie Fisher died from sleep apnea and a combination of other factors, but investigators were not able to pinpoint an exact cause, coroner’s officials said Friday.
Among the factors that contributed to Fisher’s death was buildup of fatty tissue in the walls of her arteries, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office said in a news release late Friday. The release states that the “Star Wars” actress showed signs of having taken multiple drugs, but investigators could not determine whether they contributed to her death in December.
Her manner of death would be listed as undetermined, the agency said.
Read more: http://washington.cbslocal.com/2017/06/17/carrie-fisher-sleep-apnea/
Officer who shot Philando Castile found not guilty
Source: CNN
Jeronimo Yanez, the Minnesota police officer who fatally shot Philando Castile during a traffic stop last year, was found not guilty of second-degree manslaughter Friday.
He also was acquitted of two counts of intentional discharge of firearm that endangers safety.
A Minnesota jury has reached a verdict in the manslaughter trial of Jeronimo Yanez, the officer who fatally shot Philando Castile during a traffic stop last year.
Yanez is on trial for one count of second-degree manslaughter and two counts of intentional discharge of firearm that endangers safety because Castile's girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter were also in the car.
Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/16/us/philando-castile-trial-verdict/index.html
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Gender: Do not displayHometown: Atlanta
Home country: US
Member since: Sat Jun 1, 2013, 01:19 AM
Number of posts: 5,586
