Archive for the ‘In The News’ Category

GEORGETOWN, Del. —  A former Georgetown high school teacher has been sentenced to five years in prison for having sex with a 15-year-old student.

Twenty-seven-year-old John Thompson was a highly regarded social studies teacher at Sussex Central High School until his arrest last summer.

Superior Court Judge Richard Stokes sentenced Thompson to 25 years in prison Friday, with all but five years suspended. He is not to have any contact with his former students.

Thompson pleaded guilty last month to third-degree rape, unlawful sexual contact and unlawful delivery of a prescription drug.

It wasn’t the first such case at the school. Former Sussex Central principal Dana Goodman was sentenced to four years in prison in 2008 for having sex with a student.

Joseph Reyes, an Afghanistan veteran and law student, converted to Judaism when he married Rebecca Shapiro in 2004. When they split up in 2008, Rebecca won primary custody of their daughter and Joseph got regular visitation. The Reyeses had allegedly agreed to raise their child Jewish, but Joseph, seeking to expose his 3-year-old to his Catholic faith, had her baptized last November. When Rebecca found out, she obtained a temporary restraining order prohibiting Joseph from “exposing Ela Reyes to any other religion other than the Jewish religion during his visitation.” But Joseph then took his daughter to Catholic mass on Jan. 17, with a local TV news crew in tow, prompting his ex-wife’s lawyers to demand he be held in criminal contempt—with a maximum punishment of six months in prison. Can a court decide what religion your child will be?

Joseph Reyes says no, and once he decided to fight for his religious liberty in the courts of cable television, complicated legal issues were reduced to black and white. Headlines shrieked that a father faced jail time for exposing his daughter to God. The case sounds very constitutional. But instead of legal analysis we’ve mostly gotten typically nasty divorce-court spitballs. For instance, Joseph now says he wasn’t really Jewish. He says he converted to Judaism “under duress” to mollify his in-laws, and that Rebecca is a bully. And he and his lawyer requested, and won, a new judge because the original judge, Edward Jordan, is Jewish. None of this has anything to do with the actual case, but it does get the blood pressure soaring.

Since Joseph doesn’t dispute that he violated the restraining order, the only important issue here is whether a family-court judge can order divorcing spouses to raise a child in just one religion. In her court pleadings, Rebecca Reyes argues that she has sole custody of Ela, that the couple agreed to raise the child Jewish and sent her to a Jewish preschool, and that exposure to another religion would “confuse” her.

Joseph, in his pleadings, says Ela was not harmed by her baptism, and that under Illinois law a noncustodial parent can attend religious services with his or her child unless there is “proof of harm to the child” or it “interferes with the custodial parent’s selection of the child’s religion.” Finally, Joseph says the restraining order violates his religious freedom. And that’s the stuff headlines are made of.

I polled family lawyers as to how often they had come across an order like Judge Jordan’s. Some said it’s uncommon; others disagreed. But one thing is clear: family courts interfere with constitutional freedoms all the time. A family-court judge infringes on your right to free speech when he bars you from speaking ill of your ex-husband in front on the kids. She can prevent you from interstate travel if you seek to move your child away from your ex. The Bill of Rights isn’t the last word in divorce proceedings, but when a court restrains fundamental constitutional freedoms, like speech, travel, or religion, it’s usually for an important reason: the best interest of your child. This is the interest we hear about least in the Reyes case, amid the fulminating over parental rights.

As Joseph Gitlin, a prominent Chicago family lawyer, points out, in Illinois the custodial parent is permitted, by statute, to “determine the child’s upbringing, including, but not limited to, his education, health care, and religious training.” This necessarily means the other parent will be shut out of such decisions. The tricky question in the Reyes case is whether religion is more a zero-sum proposition or a buffet table. How does exposing a child to two religions differ from exposing her to two languages or teaching her to play two instruments?

Missouri family lawyer Michael Albano warns that back when family-court judges could micromanage parental religious practices, lesbians, for instance, were denied custody and could not even associate with their partners. “Courts cannot police every situation,” he says, and that means “generally allowing both parents to expose the child to their religious beliefs.” When forced to, some state courts have struck down divorce decrees requiring a single religion for a child; others have upheld them. As Judge Jordan learned, attempting to balance one parent’s religious freedom against the other parent’s religious exceptionalism rarely works, because, as Joe Gitlin puts it, for most of us “there’s always only one way to heaven, and it’s mine.” But either way, every lawyer I spoke to agreed that there are plenty of good ways to modify custody arrangements. Violating those arrangements on live television isn’t one of them

RIVERSIDE, Calif. —  Authorities say a father has been arrested for investigation of attempted murder and torture after his two baby girls were found bound, gagged and left on a bedroom floor in Riverside County.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Steve Brown says deputies responded to the home in the Indian Hills area Friday on a report of a family disturbance.

Brown says the infants, ages 1 1/2 and 18 weeks, also had visible injuries on their faces and heads.

Their father, 23-year-old Jeremiah Scott, had fled before deputies arrived, but was later found in the neighborhood and arrested.

Brown says the babies’ injuries did not appear to be life threatening and they were transported to a hospital for treatment.

Scott is being held on $1 million bail.

(Feb. 26) — A 19-year-old woman says she lost her job at a popular clothing store after refusing to remove her Muslim head scarf.

When Hani Khan, who was born in New York and is of Indian and Pakistani descent, interviewed for a job at a Hollister store at a mall in Hillsborough, Calif., she was wearing a traditional Muslim hijab, or head scarf. 

“The manager mentioned the store’s ‘look policy’ and said I’d have to wear either a white, navy or gray-colored scarf,” Khan told AOL News. “I was fine with that.”

For the next six months, Khan worked without incident in the store’s stock room, a job that required she occasionally go out on to the floor to replenish the supply of clothing. 

But on Feb. 9, Khan said a district manager paid a visit to the store, which is owned by Abercrombie & Fitch, and that’s when her troubles began. Though Khan never met or spoke to the manager that day, she said she was aware of him looking at her. 

Six days later, on Feb. 15, Khan came to work and the manager was waiting for her. “He told me he wanted me to speak to a person at Abercrombie & Fitch human resources,” Khan said, “And he handed me a phone.”

The woman on the other end of the call informed Khan that the scarf was a violation of the store’s dress code, which Khan says emphasizes a “natural look, a beachy kind of thing.” Khan says she was told that employees were not allowed to wear any sort of head covering, and that the HR person asked if she would stop wearing the hijab to work. 

“I told her that it was part of my religion, and that it is meant to promote modesty,” Khan said. “Really, it’s just a symbol, like a Jewish person wearing a yarmulke, or a Christian wearing a cross.”

Khan’s arguments apparently did not sway the HR representative, who informed Khan that she was being taken off the schedule. 

Asked to comment on this story, Abercrombie & Fitch’s press relations department did not return phone messages. On the company’s corporate Web site, however, the following text appears under a heading marked “Diversity & Inclusion”:

At Abercrombie & Fitch we are committed to increasing and leveraging the diversity of our associates and management across the organization. Those differences will be supported by a culture of inclusion, so that we better understand our customers, enhance our organizational effectiveness, capitalize on the talents of our workforce and represent the communities in which we do business.

Khan said that after her conversation with the HR representative, she left work feeling stunned and confused. “I’ve worn the hijab since kindergarten,” Khan said. “Nobody has ever had a problem with it. Even after 9/11, teachers and neighbors have always been very supportive.”

After relaying the story to her parents, Khan decided to contact the Bay Area chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations for advice on how to handle the situation.

CAIR drafted a letter on Khan’s behalf, expressing concern that the “look policy” was in violation of federal nondiscrimination laws. Zahra Biloo, CAIR’s programs and outreach director, said her organization got no response. 

On Feb. 22, Khan was contacted by Hollister’s district manager and told to report to the store for a meeting. There, Khan says, she was again handed the telephone to speak with Abercrombie & Fitch’s HR representative, who asked one more time whether she planned to remove the head scarf. “I told her no, it was a part of who I am.” 

The HR person then informed Khan she was fired, and the district manager in the store had her final paycheck ready and waiting. 

“This is a disappointing action especially because it is so blatantly illegal,” Biloo said. “And what’s worse is that Hani was fired over the phone from someone at a high level in the company.”

CAIR has filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and notes that this is not the first time that Abercrombie & Fitch has been accused of violating federal law. In September, another Muslim teenager filed suit against the company in Tulsa, Okla., claiming that the reason she was denied employment was because she, like Khan, wore the hijab. 

In 2004, Abercrombie & Fitch agreed to a $50 million settlement with the EEOC over accusations that the company routinely promoted white employees over minorities, and followed discriminatory practices in order to cultivate an all-white image in its retail stores. 

Khan says that since being fired, she has been in contact with many of the employees at the store. “They want to know why this is a problem now,” Khan said, “after I’d been working there for so long.”

A minister at First Congregational Church of Palo Alto, United Church of Christ, Eileen Altman heard about Khan’s situation, and sent Abercrombie & Fitch a letter expressing her concerns.

“I think the message the company is sending here is that their corporate image is more important than accommodating religious expression,” Altman said. “I’d hope they would accommodate the needs of Muslim employees just as they would Christian or Jewish ones.”

Not all of the community reaction has been positive, however, and after news outlets began reporting her story, Khan has been the target of death threats.

Biloo hopes that a combination of legal action and public pressure will lead Abercrombie & Fitch to reconsider their employee dress code.

“On a personal note,” Biloo said, “if they wouldn’t hire me, I don’t think I want to buy their clothes.”

Pennsylvania parents are suing their son’s school, alleging it watched him through his laptop’s webcam while he was at home and unaware he was being observed.

Michael and Holly Robbins of Penn Valley are suing the Lower Merion School District, its board of directors and the superintendent. The parents allege the district unlawfully used its ability to access a webcam remotely on their son’s district-issued laptop computer.

The lawsuit seeking class-action status was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The suit said that on November 11, an assistant principal at Harriton High School told the plaintiffs’ son that he was caught engaging in “improper behavior” in his home and it was captured in an image via the webcam.

According to the Robbinses’ complaint, neither they nor their son, Blake, were informed of the school’s ability to access the webcam remotely at any time. It is unclear what the boy was doing in his room when the webcam was activated or if any punishment was given out.

Doug Young, a spokesman for the Lower Merion School District, said the district would only remotely access a laptop if it were reported to be lost, stolen or missing.

Young said if there were such a report, the district first would have to request access from its technology and security department and receive authorization. Then it would use the built-in security feature to take over the laptop and see whatever was in the webcam’s field of vision, potentially allowing it to track down the missing computer.

Young said parents and students were not explicitly told about this built-in security feature.

To receive the laptop, the family had to sign an “acceptable-use” agreement. To take the laptop home, the family also would have to buy insurance for the computer.

In an “acceptable-use” agreement, the families are made aware of the school’s ability to “monitor” the hardware, he said, but it stops short of explicitly explaining the security feature. He termed that a mistake.

Young added that mistakes might be made when combining technology and education in a cutting-edge way.

All 2,300 students at the district’s two high schools were offered laptops to “enhance opportunities for ongoing collaboration and ensure that all students have 24/7 access to school-based resources,” according to a message on the superintendent’s Web site, which the suit quoted.

Young said the district is proud of the laptop program and the ability to close the technology gap between students who have computers at home and those who don’t. But he acknowledged schools will have to take a step back to re-evaluate the policies and procedures surrounding the program.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania isn’t involved in the litigation, but its director, Vic Walczak, criticized the school district’s action.

“Neither police nor school officials can enter a private home, physically or electronically, without an invitation or a warrant. The school district’s clandestine electronic eavesdropping violates constitutional privacy rights, intrudes on parents’ right to raise their children and may even be criminal under state and federal wiretapping laws,” Walczak said “… George Orwell’s ‘1984′ is an overused metaphor, but it applies here in spades. Part of the school officials’ punishment should be to retake ninth-grade civics class.”

Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation who specializes in electronic privacy, also said the school may have broken federal wire-tapping laws. He called the school district’s action “foolish and dangerous,” saying the matter could prove to be a warning to other districts.

Multiple requests for further comment from the Robbinses’ attorney, Mark Haltzman of Lamm Rubenstone LLC, went unanswered.

There was no profanity, no hate. Just the words, “I love my friends Abby and Faith. Lex was here 2/1/10 :)” scrawled on the classroom desk with a green marker.

Alexa Gonzalez, an outgoing 12-year-old who likes to dance and draw, expected a lecture or maybe detention for her doodles earlier this month. Instead, the principal of the Junior High School in Forest Hills, New York, called police, and the seventh-grader was taken across the street to the police precinct.

Alexa’s hands were cuffed behind her back, and tears gushed as she was escorted from school in front of teachers and — the worst audience of all for a preadolescent girl — her classmates.

“They put the handcuffs on me, and I couldn’t believe it,” Alexa recalled. “I didn’t want them to see me being handcuffed, thinking I’m a bad person.”

Alexa is no longer facing suspension, according a spokeswoman for the New York City Department of Education. Still, the case of the doodling preteen is raising concerns about the use of zero tolerance policies in schools.

Critics say schools and police have gone too far, overreacting and using well-intended rules for incidents involving nonviolent offenses such as drawing on desks, writing on other school property or talking back to teachers.

“We are arresting them at younger and younger ages [in cases] that used to be covered with a trip to the principal’s office, not sending children to jail,” said Emma Jordan-Simpson, executive director of the Children’s Defense Fund, a national children’s advocacy group.

There aren’t any national studies documenting how often minors become involved with police for nonviolent crimes in schools. Tracking the incidents depends on how individual schools keep records. Much of the information remains private, since it involves juveniles.

But one thing is sure: Alexa’s case isn’t the first in the New York area. One of the first cases to gain national notoriety was that of Chelsea Fraser. In 2007, the 13-year-old wrote “Okay” on her desk, and police handcuffed and arrested her. She was one of several students arrested in the class that day; the others were accused of plastering the walls with stickers.

At schools across the country, police are being asked to step in. In November, a food fight at a middle school in Chicago, Illinois, resulted in the arrests of 25 children, some as young as 11, according to the Chicago Police Department.

The Strategy Center, a California-based civil rights group that tracks zero tolerance policies, found that at least 12,000 tickets were issued to tardy or truant students by Los Angeles Police Department and school security officers in 2008. The tickets tarnished students’ records and brought them into the juvenile court system, with fines of up to $250 for repeat offenders.

The Strategy Center opposes the system. “The theory is that if we fine them, then they won’t be late again,” said Manuel Criollo, lead organizer of the “No to Pre-Prison” campaign at The Strategy Center. “But they just end up not going to school at all.”

His group is trying to stop the LAPD and the school district from issuing the tickets. The Los Angeles School District says the policy is designed to reduce absenteeism.

And another California school — Highland High School in Palmdale — found that issuing tardiness tickets drastically cut the number of pupils being late for class and helped tone down disruptive behavior. The fifth ticket issued landed a student in juvenile traffic court.

In 1998, New York City took its zero tolerance policies to the next level, placing school security officers under the New York City Police Department. Today, there are nearly 5,000 employees in the NYPD School Safety Division. Most are not police officers, but that number exceeds the total police force in Washington, D.C.

In contrast, there are only about 3,000 counselors in New York City’s public school system. Critics of zero tolerance policies say more attention should be paid to social work, counseling and therapy.

“Instead of a graduated discipline approach, we see … expulsions at the drop of a hat,” said Donna Lieberman, an attorney with the New York branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“If they have been suspended once, their likelihood of being pushed out of the school increases,” she said. “They may end up in jail at some point in their life.”

One of Lieberman’s clients was in sixth grade when police arrested her in 2007 for doodling with her friend in class. The child, called M.M. in court filings to protect her identity, tried to get tissues to remove the marks, a complaint states.

Lieberman says police subjected M.M. to unlawful search and seizure. A class-action lawsuit, filed in January on behalf of five juveniles, is pending. It maintains that inadequately trained and poorly supervised police personnel are aggressive toward students when no criminal activity is taking place.

Several studies have confirmed that the time an expelled child spends away from school increases the chance that child will drop out and wind up in the criminal justice system, according to a January 2010 study from the Advancement Project, a legal action group.

Alexa Gonzalez missed three days of school because of her arrest. She spent those days throwing up, and it was a challenge to catch up on her homework when she returned to school, she said. Her mother says she had never been in trouble before the doodling incident.

New York attorney Joe Rosenthal, who is representing Alexa, plans to file a lawsuit accusing police and school officials of violating Alexa’s constitutional rights. New York City Department of Education officials declined to comment specifically on any possible legal matters.

“Our mission is to make sure that public schools are a safe and supportive environment for all students,” said Margie Feinberg, an education department spokeswoman.

Several media outlets have reported that school officials admitted the arrest was a “mistake,” but when asked by CNN, Feinberg declined to comment specifically on the incident. She referred CNN to the NYPD.

The NYPD did not return CNN’s repeated phone calls and e-mails. It is unknown whether charges will be pressed against Alexa.

Kenneth Trump, a security expert who founded the National School Safety and Security Services consulting firm, said focusing on security is essential to the safety of other students. He said zero tolerance policies can work if “common sense is applied.”

Michael Soguero recalls being arrested himself in 2005 when, as principal at Bronx Guild School, he tried to stop an officer from handcuffing one of his students. A charge of assault against him was later dropped. He says police working in schools need specific training on how to work with children.

In Clayton County, Georgia, juvenile court judge Steven Teske is working to reshape zero tolerance policies in schools. He wants the courts to be a last resort. In 2003, he created a program in Clayton County’s schools that distinguishes felonies from misdemeanors.

The result? The number of students detained by the school fell by 83 percent, his report found. The number of weapons detected on campus declined by 73 percent.

Last week, after hearing about 12-year-old Alexa’s arrest in New York, he wasn’t shocked.

“There is zero intelligence when you start applying zero tolerance across the board,” he said. “Stupid and ridiculous things start happening.”

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children issued an alert Tuesday after a former Red Wing teen ran away with Jonathon “The Impaler” Sharkey, the self-proclaimed vampire who in 2006 ran for Minnesota governor.

LOUISVILLE, Ohio — A crime in Louisville, Ohio has left Stark County resident shocked and angered.

A 20-year-old man was accused of applying a tattoo on the backside of a little girl.

“I cannot come up with a reasonable explanation for why somebody would tattoo a child, no,” Louisville Police Chief Andrew Turowski said.

Turowski said Lee Deitrick used an improvised tattoo gun to put the letter “A” on the 1-year-old’s rear end.

Deitrick is charged with felony child endangering and is locked up on a million dollar bond.

Police said they have no motive and no other suspects. Children’s services is also investigating.

(WTOL) – Orlando Reyes-Cairo was hired as a professor of Spanish at Owens Community College in 1999, which is one year after he got out of jail for attempted unlawful sexual conduct with a 13-year-old boy in north Toledo.

Representatives of Owens Human Resources Department say there was not a policy in place in 1999 to do to do background checks or to require potential employees to disclose such convictions. Reyes-Cairo served one year in prison for the conviction.

Students say they are uncomfortable having a convicted sex offender as a teacher. William Hiatt dropped the class after learning of Reyes-Cairo’s criminal record and says the professor should not be working there. “He may never do anything, but there’s always the remote chance that he could do something,” said Hiatt.

Owens VP of Human Resources, Cynthia Eschenburg, says the school created a policy three years ago to cover background checks and criminal disclosure. She says they reviewed Reyes-Cairo’s case and decided to keep him on staff. ”He was a low-level offender. There have been no complaints of continued behavior. Not any complaints at all regarding this instructor,” she said.

Reyes-Cairo would not agree to an interview but did say by phone: “I should have been taken off the registration list after ten years. That has expired, and now they have added extended registration. It is totally unfair.” He also said he never committed the crime.

Rate jumps for first time in decade, raising alarm among experts

WASHINGTON – The pregnancy rate among teenage girls in the United States has jumped for the first time in more than a decade, raising alarm that the long campaign to reduce motherhood among adolescents is faltering, according to a report released Tuesday.

The pregnancy rate among 15-to-19-year-olds increased 3 percent between 2005 and 2006 —the first jump since 1990, according to an analysis of the most recent data collected by the federal government and the nation’s leading reproductive-health think tank.

Teen pregnancy has long been one of the most pressing social issues and has triggered intense political debate over sex education, particularly whether the federal government should fund programs that encourage abstinence until marriage or focus on birth control.

“The decline in teen pregnancy has stopped — and in fact has turned around,” said Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research for the Guttmacher Institute, the nonprofit, nonpartisan research group in New York that conducted the analysis. “These data are certainly cause for concern.”

‘More creative’
The abortion rate also inched up for the first time in more than a decade — rising 1 percent — intensifying concern across the ideological spectrum.

“One of the nation’s shining success stories of the past two decades is in danger of unraveling,” said Sarah Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. “Clearly, the nation’s collective efforts to convince teens to postpone childbearing must be more creative and more intense, and they must begin today.”

The cause of the increase is the subject of debate. Several experts blamed the increase in teen pregnancies on sex-education programs that focus on encouraging abstinence. Others said the reversal could be due to a variety of factors, including an increase in poverty, an influx of Hispanics and complacency about AIDS, prompting lax use of birth control such as condoms.

“It could be a lot of things coming together,” said Rebecca Maynard, a professor of economics and social policy at the University of Pennsylvania. “It could be we just bottomed out, and whenever you are at the bottom, it tends to wiggle around. This may or may not be a sustained rise.”

The report comes as Congress might consider restoring federal funding to sex-education programs that focus on abstinence. The Obama administration eliminated more than $150 million in funds for such groups, but the Senate’s health-care reform legislation would reinstate $50 million.

The new findings immediately set off a debate over funding. Critics argued that the disturbing new data were just the latest in a long series of indications that the focus on abstinence programs was a dismal failure.

“Now we know that after 10 years and over $1.5 billion in abstinence-only funding, the U.S. is lurching backwards on teen sexual health,” said James Wagoner of Advocates for Youth, a Washington advocacy group.

Supporters of abstinence programs, however, said the findings provided powerful evidence of the need to continue to encourage delayed sexual activity, not only to avoid pregnancy but also to reduce the risk for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

“Research unmistakably indicates that delaying sexual initiation rates and reducing the total number of lifetime partners is more valuable in protecting the sexual health of young people than simply passing out condoms,” said Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association, who blamed the increase on several factors.

“Contributors include an over-sexualized culture, lack of involved and positive role models, and the dominant message that teen sex is expected and without consequences,” Huber said. The Obama administration is launching a $110 million pregnancy prevention initiative focused on programs with proven effectiveness but has left open the possibility of funding some innovative approaches that include encouraging abstinence.

Sharp rise in 70s, 80s
The rate at which U.S. teenagers were having sex rose steadily through the 1970s and 1980s, fueling a sharp rise in teen pregnancies and births. That trend reversed around 1991 because of AIDS, changing social mores about sex and other factors, including greater use of contraceptives, which pushed the U.S. teen pregnancy rate to historic lows.

The U.S. rates still remained higher than those in other industrialized countries.

The decline in teen sexual activity had leveled off starting about nine years ago, and the teen birth rate began to increase in 2005. It wasn’t known before if the increase was due to more pregnancies or fewer abortions and miscarriages. For the first time, the new analysis uses those factors in calculating the teen pregnancy rate.

The analysis examined data on teenage sex and births collected by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics and data on abortions collected by the CDC and Guttmacher — the two best sources of such data.

The abortion rate among teenagers rose 1 percent in 2006 from the previous year — to 19.3 abortions per 1,000 women in that age group, the analysis found. Taking that and miscarriages into account, the analysis showed that the pregnancy rate among U.S. women younger than 20 in 2006 was 71.5 per 1,000 women, a 3 percent increase from the rate of 69.5 in 2005. That translated into 743,000 pregnancies among teenagers, or about 7 percent of women in this age group.

“When birth rates go up and down, it could be the result of kids getting fewer abortions,” said John Santelli, a professor of population and family health at Columbia University. “This shows that it’s a true rise in pregnancies.”

The rate remained highest for blacks but increased for all racial groups. Among blacks, the rate increased from 122.7 per 1,000 in 2005 to 126.3. For Hispanics the rate rose from 124.9 per 1,000 women to 126.6. Among whites, the rate increased from 43.3 per 1,000 women to 44.0.

(CNN) — Police tentatively identified remains found on a remote farm as the Virginia Tech student who disappeared in October during a Metallica concert.

Morgan Harrington, a 20-year-old education major, went to the concert at the University of Virginia’s John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Virginia, on October 17. She was separated from her friends and was the subject of repeated searches.

Police said skeletal remains were found in a hay field on a 700-acre farm with no public access point.

Police said there was significant evidence, but declined to specify what leads them to believe the remains are Harrington’s. They said however an autopsy should confirm the identity.

During the concert, Harrington left her friends to use the restroom, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said Wednesday, and when she did not return they called her on her cell phone at 8:48 p.m. She told them she was outside the arena and could not get back in because of its policy, Geller said, but told them not to worry about her and that she would find a ride home.

There are restrooms inside the arena, Geller said, and police do not know how or why Harrington got outside. Witnesses who saw her outside the arena said she did not appear to be with anyone, Geller said.

At about 9:30 p.m. that night, witnesses reported seeing a person matching Harrington’s description walking on a nearby bridge, Geller said. No further sightings were reported.

Harrington’s purse, with her identification and cell phone inside, was found the following day in an overflow parking lot near the arena, Geller said. A friend had driven Harrington’s car to the concert, she said, and so was still in possession of the car keys when they got separated.

Harrington was reported missing the day after the concert, when she did not show up at her parents’ home to study for a math exam with her father.

Working with police and the Texas-based Laura Recovery Center, the Harringtons organized community searches, saying they would not give up home their daughter would be found.

The couple was joined at a press conference after her disappearance by Ed Smart, whose daughter Elizabeth was abducted in 2002. She returned home nine months later after police found her in the custody of suspect Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee.

Harrington said he reached out to Smart last week to seek advice on how to go through the disappearance of a child.

Harrington was wearing a black Pantera T-shirt, a black miniskirt, black tights and black boots when last seen.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – January 15, 2010 – Fort Washington, PA – In consultation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), McNeil Consumer Healthcare, Division of McNEIL-PPC, Inc., is voluntarily recalling certain lots of OTC products in the Americas, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Fiji (FULL RECALLED PRODUCT LIST BELOW). The company is initiating this recall following an investigation of consumer reports of an unusual moldy, musty, or mildew-like odor that, in a small number of cases, was associated with temporary and non-serious gastrointestinal events. These include nausea, stomach pain, vomiting, or diarrhea. This precautionary action is voluntary and has been taken in consultation with the FDA.

Based on this investigation, McNeil Consumer Healthcare has determined that the reported uncharacteristic smell is caused by the presence of trace amounts of a chemical called 2,4,6-tribromoanisole (TBA). This can result from the breakdown of a chemical that is sometimes applied to wood that is used to build wood pallets that transport and store product packaging materials. The health effects of this chemical have not been well studied but no serious events have been documented in the medical literature. A small number of the product lots being recalled were associated with the complaints of an unusual moldy, musty, or mildew-like odor, and some of these lots were found to contain trace amounts of TBA. In December 2009, McNeil Consumer Healthcare also recalled all lots of TYLENOL® Arthritis Pain 100 count with EZ-OPEN CAP related to this issue. McNeil Consumer Healthcare has now applied broader criteria to identify and remove all product lots that it believes may have the potential to be affected, even if they have not been the subject of consumer complaints.

In addition to the product recall, McNeil Consumer Healthcare is continuing their investigation into this issue and is taking further actions that include ceasing shipment of products produced using materials shipped on these wood pallets and requiring suppliers who ship materials to our plants to discontinue the use of these pallets. We will continue to closely monitor and evaluate the situation and consult with the FDA.

Consumers who purchased product from the lots included in this recall should stop using the product and contact McNeil Consumer Healthcare for instructions on a refund or replacement. For these instructions or information regarding how to return or dispose of the product, consumers should log on to the internet at www.mcneilproductrecall.com or call 1-888-222-6036 (Monday-Friday 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern Time, and Saturday-Sunday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time). Consumers who have medical concerns or questions should contact their healthcare provider. Any adverse reactions may also be reported to the FDA’s MedWatch Program by fax at 1-800-FDA-0178, by mail at MedWatch, FDA, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20852-9787, or on the MedWatch website at www.fda.gov/medwatch.

The affected product lot numbers for the recalled products can be found on the side of the bottle label.

McNeil Consumer Healthcare Division of McNeil-PPC, Inc. markets a broad range of well-known and trusted over-the-counter (OTC) products.

FULL RECALLED PRODUCT LIST (PDF – 112.40 KB)

(Jan. 14) – A former chief U.N. weapons inspector was recently arrested on charges of making unlawful sexual contact with a minor over the Internet, again.

Scott Ritter, who searched Iraq for weapons of mass destruction from 1991 to 1998, has been accused of using an online chat client to send sexually explicit videos to an undercover officer posing as a 15-year-old girl, the Pocono Record reports.

The incident allegedly took place in February 2009, but Ritter wasn’t arrested until November because investigators had to obtain court orders to search his cell phone and computer for evidence. He is presently free on $25,000 bail and is set to face trial March 9.

Ritter won praise during the early 2000s for penning articles criticizing the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq. He also authored several books critiquing the U.S. intelligence community.

Yet during that time, he downplayed a 2001 arrest on similar online child-sex charges, which were eventually dropped. He said that criticism of him based on that incident was a politically motivated reaction to his outspoken anti-war stance.

The ex-Marine, who resides in Delmar, N.Y., has twin daughters who are 16 years old. A copy of the affidavit with testimony from the undercover officer is available on The Smoking Gun (warning: extremely graphic content).

(CNN) — Even before her 18th birthday, Maria had already been enslaved by a gang of human traffickers and held in captivity for four months in her homeland of Mexico.

While a prisoner, Maria witnessed a sickening trade in human life and recalls how young girls were drugged, forced into prostitution and then murdered.

What makes Maria’s story so special is that she was one of the lucky ones who were able to escape.

Maria, whose real name we aren’t using, used to live in the border town of Ciudad Juarez.

The city is home to two drug cartels that fight a bloody turf war for lucrative smuggling routes to America.

In a four-day period, 41 people were murdered, while over the past decade, 450 women were killed and 3,000 went missing.

“Today girls are still going missing but their bodies are never found,” Miguel Perea, a local journalist told Britain’s Channel 4.

“There’s no trace of them and their mothers and families of these girls — they haven’t got a clue what’s happened to them.”

Maria described how at the age of 16 she was lured off the streets by a young man who promised the world, but delivered nothing but pain.

She was raped, drugged and sold for sex. “They took a gallon of gasoline and started pouring it over a girl,” Maria said.

“One of the men told me if you don’t do as I say I will do the same to you.

“I wanted to look away, but they didn’t let me. Even though the girl was on fire they kept hitting her and they were laughing as if they were enjoying what they were doing.”

Maria described a cross-border trade in young children and babies — with orders coming in regularly from the U.S.

“They stole the children and one of the gang members took a six-year-old kid that I had to look after for three hours.

“He told me he wanted to see his mummy then I started crying and said ‘I don’t think you’re ever going to see your mummy again.’”

The claims that Maria made were so serious that she was asked by the Department of Homeland Security to come to the U.S. to tell her story.

Mexican authorities accompanied Maria on her trip to Houston to work alongside U.S. authorities on the case.

The U.S. State Department estimates that more than 20,000 people are trafficked into the U.S. each year — mainly destined for the sex trade.

Authorities have launched an immediate investigation into Maria’s story.

“I want to tell the story so that in the near future, other girls don’t go through the same,” Maria said.

“Women are sold, they are abducted, bought and even killed by these men.

“If these men are ever found, jail won’t be enough to make them pay for the way they’ve made us feel.”

SAN FRANCISCO – The first federal trial to determine if the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from outlawing same-sex marriage got under way Monday, and the two gay couples on whose behalf the case was brought will be among the first witnesses.

The proceedings, which are expected to last two to three weeks, involve a challenge to Proposition 8, the gay marriage ban approved by California voters in November 2008.

Regardless of the outcome, the case is likely to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it ultimately could become a landmark that determines if gay Americans have the right to marry.

About 100 people demonstrated outside the federal courthouse. Most were gay marriage supporters who took turns addressing the crowd with a microphone. About a dozen gay marriage foes stood in the back of the gathering and quietly held signs demanding the ban remain in place.

Two hours before trial was scheduled to start, the high court blocked video of the proceedings from being posted on YouTube.com. It said justices need more time to review that issue and put the order in place at least until Wednesday.

Over the weekend, Proposition 8’s sponsors sought to block YouTube broadcasts. Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who is overseeing the trial, had approved the plan last week, saying the case was appropriate for wide dissemination because it dealt with an issue of wide interest and importance.

Rick Jacobs, chairman of the Courage Campaign, a Los Angeles-based gay rights organization, said supporters of same-sex marriage were disappointed with the decision to bar cameras and called on the high court to lift its ban Wednesday.

“It’s time that the debate about marriage equality is seen for what it is — a debate over the rights of our friends and families to live their lives freely,” he said.

At trial, Walker intends to ask lawyers on both sides to present the facts underlying much of the political rhetoric surrounding same-sex marriage. Among his questions are whether sexual orientation can be changed, how legalizing gay marriage affects traditional marriages and the effect on children of being raised by two mothers or two fathers.

“The case is intriguing, exciting and potentially very significant because it addresses multiple important questions that, surprisingly to many, remain open in federal law,” said Jennifer Pizer, marriage director for the gay law advocacy group Lambda Legal. “Can the state reserve the esteemed language and status of marriage just for heterosexual couples, and relegate same-sex couples to a lesser status? Are there any adequate public interests to justify reimposing such a caste system for gay people, especially by a majority vote to take a cherished right from a historically mistreated minority?”

The sponsors of Proposition 8, which passed with 52 percent of the vote, won permission to defend the law in court after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown refused to. The attorney general and the governor are defendants in the case because of their positions in state government.

Lawyers for the measure’s backers plan to argue that because same-sex marriage still is a social experiment, it is wise for states like California to take a wait-and-see approach. Their witnesses will testify that governments historically have sanctioned traditional marriage as a way to promote responsible child-rearing, and that this remains a valid justification for limiting marriage to a man and a woman.

While other courts have wrestled with the constitutional issues raised by prohibiting same-sex marriages — the Supreme Court last took a look at the issue 38 years ago — Walker’s court is the first to employ live witnesses in the task. Among those set to testify are the leaders of the Proposition 8 campaign, academic experts from the fields of political science, history, psychology and economics, and the two plaintiff couples — Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier, who live in Berkeley, and Paul Katami and Jeffrey Zarrillo, who live in Los Angeles.

Chad Griffin, a political consultant who helped spearhead the lawsuit, said the four were recruited to represent California couples who say they would get married were it not for Proposition 8 because they lead lives indistinguishable from those of other couples, gay or straight, who have jobs, children and a desire for the social stamp of approval that matrimony affords, Griffin said.

“Our story, I think, is pretty ordinary,” said Perry, 45, the title plaintiff in the case registered on legal dockets as Perry v. Schwarzenegger. “We fell in love, we want to get married and we can’t. It’s pretty simple.”

The women have been together for almost 10 years and since 2004 have been registered domestic partners, a legal relationship that in California carries most of the benefits and obligations of a full-fledged marriage.

by Larry Geller

On January 11, 1935, Amelia Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Honolulu, Hawaii to Oakland, California. The distance was 2,048 miles. The flight was also the first civilian flight to carry a two-way radio.

I don’t know if any commemoration is planned for Monday, but there ought to be something. Given the gender bias of the day, it is very significant that the first “person” to make this flight was a woman.

To read more, there is the Wikipedia entry, and an official website. I noted that Earhart took then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt “on an impromptu late-night flight over the nation’s capital–two iconic women leaders looking down over the most powerful city in the world.” Awesome.

There are Hawaii photos on a Department of Transportation website here.

Earhart taught at Purdue University. A comprehensive collection of photos, maps and documents is on their website. There is also a biography of her in a guide to her papers. It describes her 1935 flights:

In 1935, Amelia became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to the American
mainland, landing in Oakland, California. With this flight, Amelia became the first person to
fly solo across the Pacific Ocean and the first person who had flown solo across both the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. That same year, she became the first person to fly solo from Los
Angeles to Mexico City, by official invitation of the Mexican government.

In Honolulu, there is a memorial stone in a cutout along Diamond Head road called Amelia Earhart Lookout. It usually goes unnoticed by tourists stopping to snap photos of surfers just offshore. The view is excellent. Enough people know about it that the image of Earhart’s airplane is usually kept bright and shiny. The memorial was sponsored by Honolulu resident Genigna Green, who was killed in an auto accident in California in which Mrs. Amy Earhart, Amelia’s mother, was injured, in 1938. The memorial was created by sculptor Kate Kelly.

The inscription on the plaque reads
“Amelia Earhart
First person to fly alone from Hawaii to North America
January 11, 1935″

The airplane in the upper left glows because the brass has been rubbed clean and shiny by numerous visitors.

Here is the location of the memorial if you’d like to drive over on Monday for your own commemoration.

The Google satellite pic shows location of memorial stone at one side of an ample parking area. The spot has a great view of the coast—to me, it resembles the Mediterranean coastline around Nice looking towards Italy.

(CNN) — Paula Sladewski, a 26-year-old who once modeled for Playboy, was identified Wednesday by Miami police as the person found dead and “burned beyond recognition” in a trash bin on Sunday.

Now, police are asking for the public’s help to put her killer behind bars. Whoever the murderer is, police said, they are nothing short of a “monster.”

“It’s so horrific. They’d have to be a monster. It’s a dastardly act,” North Miami police spokesman Lt. Neal Cuevas told CNN. “It’s the most heinous thing that a person can do to another person.”

Sladewski’s body was found Sunday night after firefighters extinguished flames coming from a large trash bin near a propane business.

When they put out the fire, they saw a body. But there was barely any way to identify it.

“It was just total, total, disfigurement,” Cuevas told CNN. “You couldn’t even tell that it was a woman or a man or even what race.”

Cuevas, who was in the area when the call came in, said the trash bin and body were still smoldering when he arrived. Police were able to identify the body through dental records late Tuesday night, he said.

Police are trying to figure out how a model from Michigan, who appeared in a 2003 Playboy video, ended up burned beyond recognition inside the trash bin — and who put her there.

“This was a brutal, horrible, disgusting murder, and this monster or these monsters need to be brought to justice,” Cuevas said.

The only timeline police have comes from Sladewski’s boyfriend, who was vacationing with her. Because he was the last one to see her, police are considering him a person of interest, but he has not been named as a suspect.

Police said they would consider whoever was the last known person to see her alive a person of interest. Right now, they have no suspects, Cuevas said.

The boyfriend is “devastated and traumatized” by news of the death, said his attorney, Marc Beginin.

“He desperately wants this crime solved and anybody involved brought to justice,” Beginin said.

The boyfriend, whom police did not identify, reported Sladewski missing to police and also tried to find her by calling hospitals and jails, interviewing people and hiring a private investigator, Beginin said. The boyfriend also has met with investigators for 12 hours, the attorney said.

“The Miami police are pursuing all leads and doing their jobs. However, ultimately, he doesn’t need to be a person of interest,” he said.

The couple arrived in Miami on Thursday to ring in the new year by watching Lady Gaga perform, police said.

Cuevas told CNN that Sladewski’s boyfriend said they went to Club Space on Saturday and remained until about 7 a.m. Sunday, when they got into an argument.

When he was thrown out of the club after the altercation, Sladewski decided to stay, her boyfriend told police.

That was the last time her boyfriend saw her, according to police. Cuevas said when Sladewski did not return to their hotel by Monday, her boyfriend called police and filed a missing person report.

Sladewski’s sister, Kelly Farris, was battling back tears at a news conference Wednesday night. She said her sister had been dating the man for about two years, and he had called her Monday to say she was missing.

Farris said she had last seen her sister, who lived in Michigan and California, at Christmas.

“She loved life, she was full of life,” Farris said, beginning to sob. “She went on a lot of vacations. She was a great person.”

Farris said her family was devastated by the news of Sladewski’s death, especially given the nature of how she was found.

“I couldn’t imagine anything like this happening, you know,” Farris said. “We can’t even give her an open casket. We can’t even see her again.”

Farris pleaded with anyone who saw her sister at the club or afterward to contact police.

“She did not deserve to die in this way,” she said.

And until her sister’s killer is found, Farris said she can’t imagine what she will do.

“I can’t see myself going back to work,” Farris said. “I can’t see myself living a normal life until I know whoever did this pays for it.”

Vershire, Vermont (CNN) — Armed with a law degree, an SUV that serves as a mobile office and her own harrowing personal history, 58-year-old trucker-turned-lawyer Wynona Ward navigates the back roads of rural Vermont.

Her mission: to aid victims of domestic violence.

Ward is the founder of Have Justice Will Travel, a group that works to end the generational cycle of abuse by giving free legal representation and support services to isolated — and often desperate — low-income people and their children.

“For domestic violence victims in rural areas, it can be very devastating,” Ward said. “They’re out there on these back roads, with no access to in-town services. Many do not have telephones; some do not have a driver’s license or automobile. So we go to them.”

Do you know a hero? Nominations are open for 2010 CNN Heroes

In 1991, Ward was a 40-year-old truck driver with no college degree. She was also harboring a past full of horrific sexual and physical abuse. Then, one phone call from a family member changed everything.

“My husband and I were driving a tractor trailer unit across the country and [learned that] a child in my family revealed that she had been abused by my brother,” Ward said. She says the same child had been sexually abused by her grandfather — Ward’s father — years before.

“I knew what she was going through. It took me back to my own childhood where I was abused in a very similar way. I just said, you know, I’ve got to go home. This can’t happen anymore.”

Ward’s own childhood was marked by extreme poverty, violence and abuse. Her father raped her before she was 3, and the abuse continued throughout her childhood, Ward said. Her father also beat Ward’s mother and siblings.

“When my father sexually abused me, it was very traumatic,” Ward said. “But what was much more traumatic for me was when I watched him beat my mother, choke my mother, throw things at her.

“Many times, I wondered why she didn’t die, because the abuse was so bad.”

Ward said that this type of in-home abuse is not uncommon in many rural areas and that not only is it generational, it’s also frequently ignored — and often unreported.

“Very often, when the neighbors heard screaming coming from our home, they just turned their heads. And when we heard screaming coming from their homes, we turned our heads, too, because it was an accepted way of life.”

School was Ward’s salvation and safe harbor. A good student, she began dating a classmate named Harold at age 13. She left home at 17, married Harold when she was 18, and tried to put her past behind her.

But when the recurring pattern of sexual abuse surfaced in her family again, Ward was moved to action.

“I decided I was going to go and hang all the sex offenders that there [were],” Ward said. “But instead, I learned that I could be more helpful working in family law, where women and children really needed the help and where I could be there for them on a daily basis.”

Ward became a volunteer victim’s advocate and worked with her family members to convict her brother for abusing the child in her family. Along the way, she realized she had a passion for law.

At 44, Ward became the first person in her family to graduate from college. She went on to Vermont Law School, graduating when she was 48.

“At that point in time, I didn’t feel 48,” she said, laughing. “I was just ready to go to work.”

With the help of a grant, Ward established Have Justice Will Travel at her kitchen table. Since 1998, the group has provided nearly 10,000 victims with legal and social services.

“[We] work with these women so they can become strong and independent and self-reliant and be able to support themselves and their children,” Ward said.

Ward works closely with victims’ advocacy groups to help provide a “complete package,” including shelters, hot line information, housing, clothing and legal support. Her group’s services include transportation to and from court hearings and free legal representation.

Ward divides her time among client visits, grant-writing and fundraising. She sees hundreds of clients each year, driving more than 30,000 miles annually in her truck — which is equipped with a radio, scanner, cell phone, computer and printer. Some of her clients don’t have electricity. Driving herself into the most remote areas of Vermont, Ward said she’s been able to reach victims who otherwise wouldn’t have access to support services.

Asked what keeps her going, Ward said, “I think about my mom sitting at our kitchen table, trying to figure out how to make the last 10 cents last to feed us all.

“[Have Justice Will Travel] would have … said to my mother, ‘Yes, you are being abused, and it is not OK. You do not have to put up with this. You do not have to be a submissive wife. And you do not have to put up with having someone beat you. We can help you. We can help you to get out.’”

Friends and family of Susan Powell launched a three-day social media blitz on Monday to help find the missing Utah mother of two who disappeared almost a month ago.

Friends saturated social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter, and organized a mass e-mail campaign to spread information about Powell through the Internet, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Powell, 28, was last seen on Dec. 7, when her husband says he left their suburban home in West Valley City at about 12:30 a.m. to take their two boys, ages 2 and 4, camping in freezing conditions. Police have named her husband as a “person of interest” in their investigation.

Kiirsi Hellewell, Powell’s friend, posted a slideshow with pictures of the missing woman on YouTube and is hoping her disappearance will become a popular topic on Twitter, the Tribune reported.

Organizers said there will also be a purple ribbon campaign to raise awareness of her disappearance and Facebook users are being asked to change their profile pictures to a purple ribbon.

“We’re hopping today that by giving everybody so many different options to become involved online that we can actually make this go viral and people can see Susan’s face and here about her situation in every corner of the world,” family spokeswoman Shelby Gifford said in an interview Monday with Fox News.

Powell’s husband, Joshua Powell, reported her as missing on the same day when she failed to show up for her stockbroker job at Wells Fargo and her children were not dropped off at day care.

Police have seized several items from the family’s home but have not charged Joshua Powell in connection to the disappearance. Authorities are seeking cell phone records, though police have declined to say whose phone records are being examined, the Tribune reported.

Authorities are also trying to determine where her husband traveled in a rental car two days after his wife was reported missing. He reportedly logged hundreds of miles on the rental vehicle.

Joshua Powell rented the car for 24 hours while police had his minivan in custody to process it for evidence.

Powell has declined to speak again with police and local news crews were reportedly turned away from his father’s house over the weekend.

Friends of Powell’s told the Deseret News that they have turned over to police e-mails that she sent them last year, in which she reportedly wrote that she feared her husband.

They also said Powell kept a notebook at her work desk that detailed threats allegedly made by her husband in 2008, according to the newspaper.

FRIDAY JAN 1st 6 PM

CHATTOOGA COUNTY, GA (WRCB) — The mother accused of tattooing her own children invited Eyewitness News inside her home today to set the record straight.

“We were making it look like it was a cross,” said Jo-Jo Marsh, “so the kids could have something they could say it was.”

Jo-Jo Marsh shows Eyewitness News the tattoo on her son’s hand. The mark is a cross-like symbol left by a home-made tattoo gun with a guitar string as a needle.

“We didn’t even break the skin barely,” said Marsh, “they are very tiny, just through a few layers, on the top, they will fade away, that’s how minuscule this is.”

Marsh and her husband, Jacob Bartels, face child cruelty charges after detectives found the same mark on six of the couple’s seven children. One of the children is just 10 years-old.

“There was a seven year-old child that they determined was too young for the tattoo at this time,” said Chattooga County Sheriff John Everett.

The couple’s 17 year-old has a larger tattoo on the arm. Marsh admits her husband used the gun to draw it too, but insists she tested it first to make sure her children were not harmed.

“These tattoos are so minuscule, they will fade away,” said Marsh.

We asked Marsh if she knew it was illegal to tattoo children in the State of Georgia.

“Oh God no,” she responded, “that’s why I was tripping so hard, that’s why I was so upset.”

Marsh defends her actions saying the kids were begging for tattoos like hers.

She told us multiple times during our interview that she changed the needle each time.

Marsh believes as the children’s guardian, she should have the right to tattoo them if she chooses.

“Shouldn’t I have say so over what goes on in my child’s life,” said Marsh, “I have custody of my child, I’m not going to hurt my child.”

The Department of Family and Children’s Services has stepped in to investigate the tattooing that Sheriff deputies estimate to have happened around Thanksgiving.

The children were removed from the home temporarily, but Marsh says her children were released back to her under a parent plan until case heads to court.

A court date has not been set for Bartels or Marsh.

FRIDAY JAN 1st 1 PM

CHATTOOGA COUNTY, GA (WRCB) – A North Georgia couple is accused of tattooing six children with a homemade device.

Patty Jo Marsh and Jacob Edward Bartels were arrested Monday when the mother of one of the children discovered a tattoo on her daughter’s hand and contacted police.

Marsh and Bartels are accused of tattooing a small “x” on the hands of six juveniles, ranging in age from 10 to 17. Each faces multiple charges including child endangerment and cruelty to children charges.

Both suspects are out on bond. The Department of Family and Child Services is a part of the investigation.

Chattooga County officers tell Channel 3 Eyewitness News that while in jail, Marsh told officers she didn’t know it was illegal to tattoo children.

Stay with WRCBtv.com and Channel 3 Eyewitness News for more on this developing story.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Seven women on a 562-mile Antarctic ski trek reached the South Pole Thursday, 38 days after they began their adventure to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Commonwealth.

“I’m incredibly proud of the team and I think … if we can do this then you can do anything that you like to and that’s the message that we really want to send to everyone,” team leader Felicity Aston said in a message from South Pole Thursday.

Skiing six to 10 hours a day, the Commonwealth Women’s Antarctic Expedition trekked an average of 15 miles a day, each hauling a 176-pound sled of provisions and shelter to reach the United States-operated Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station science base.

The expedition comprised women from Brunei, Cyprus, Ghana, India, New Zealand, Singapore and Britain.

Frostbite blackened the fingers of one of the original team of eight, Kim-Marie Spence, from Kingston, Jamaica, just three days into the journey which began Nov. 23, forcing her to leave the expedition.

The group faced blinding blizzards, winds in excess of 80 miles an hour, hidden crevasses and temperatures that plummeted to minus 42 degrees Fahrenheit, its Web site said.

The expedition had an inauspicious start when new tents were damaged by a roaring gale at Patriot Hills base camp in an area of Antarctica overseen by Argentina. The women had to borrow tents while they sewed patches on their own.

“We’re all incredibly happy and we’re standing here, seven women at the bottom of the planet, with a biggest smiles on our faces right now,” Aston said.

After the tough trek across the frozen landscape, their priorities were “first of all … to get a good sleep and to have something really good to eat,” she said.

They will then be airlifted from the pole back to their starting point, a commercial expedition base at Patriot Hills in east Antarctica, near the bottom of South America, and then to fly back to London via Chile.

On the return journey the women will take their first showers since November.

Amundsen-Scott Station honors polar explorers Roald Amundsen, who reached South Pole in December 1911, and Robert F. Scott who reached the pole the following month.
The 53-nation Commonwealth links together mainly former colonies of Britain.