– What a California drug task force probably expected to find when it raided a Mendocino County pot farm: pot. What it probably didn't expect to find: Bowe Bergdahl. The US soldier, charged with desertion after he went missing in Afghanistan and was held by the Taliban for five years, was one of the people present Tuesday when sheriff's deputies rushed the Redwood Valley site and rounded up 181 marijuana plants, the New York Daily News reports. Bergdahl had been staying with "old friends" on the property since Friday while on approved leave from the Army, the Anderson Valley Advertiser reports. He "apparently had no connection to the dope grow," the paper adds, and wasn't charged. By all accounts, Bergdahl was courteous and cooperative during the raid, with the Mendocino County sheriff telling the Advertiser that the soldier was "above politeness." "I'm not sticking up for the guy at all, but I will say this, he was very polite," the sheriff says, per the Daily News. "He was not resistant at all. He shook everybody's hand. He thanked us all." And even though he wasn't implicated in any crime, Bergdahl's high profile prompted authorities to make calls "all the way up to the Pentagon," which sent an Army major to bring Bergdahl back to his Texas base; he had been scheduled to return Wednesday. Bergdahl is currently awaiting a hearing to see if he'll face a court-martial. (Bergdahl has described his brutal treatment in captivity.)

Expand this summary.

Mendocino County Today: Thursday, July 23, 2015

 by AVA News Service, July 23, 2015

 BOWE BERGDAHL, the once-missing U.S. soldier in Afghanistan released in a prisoner exchange and later accused of desertion, was an unexpected visitor in Mendocino County this week. He was visiting old friends when the local dope team arrived on a marijuana raid. Bergdahl, who is awaiting military court martial, had an Army pass allowing him to be in Mendocino County. He apparently had no connection to the dope grow. Still military authorities were notified, and after calls "all the way up to the Pentagon," he was turned over a military escort who came to Ukiah to fetch him.

 SHERIFF TOM ALLMAN CONFIRMED Thursday morning that Sgt. Bergdahl was indeed in Mendocino County on Tuesday morning when the County's drug task force raided a property on Tomki Road, Redwood Valley. Bergdahl, who is on active duty while he awaits his court martial, "was not involved" in the marijuana operation, the Sheriff said, adding that Bergdahl was "above politeness" as several people from the home where Bergdahl was visiting were taken into custody. The Sheriff said Bergdahl had "readily produced his military ID." Instantly aware that the Sgt. was a high profile person, the Sheriff's Department quickly confirmed that Bergdahl was on an authorized leave to visit friends in Northern California and uninvolved with marijuana production.

 BERGDAHL had arrived last Friday at the remote property 7 miles northeast of central Redwood Valley, and was scheduled to return to the East Coast on Wednesday. He was not arrested. At the Pentagon's request, the combat veteran was transported by the Sheriff's Department to Santa Rosa where he was met by an Army major who was to accompany Bergdahl to his duty station near Washington.

 PLOWRIGHTS FINALLY FINED

 AV couple to pay $25,000 fine for water violations

 An Anderson Valley couple will be required to pay a $25,000 fine for violating a Cleanup and Abatement Order relating to illegal construction activities that allegedly caused sediment discharges into Little Mill Creek and its tributaries in Mendocino County, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board reported.

 The Cleanup and Abatement Order, issued in January 2011, alleges that Thomas R. Plowright III and Patricia Plowright had reconstructed existing roads, built new ones and used a bulldozer to move earthen material into watercourses, including Little Mill Creek outside of Philo.

 The creek feeds into the Navarro River and provides habitat for Steelhead trout and feeds streams that harbor Coho salmon. The alleged illegal construction activities violated the California Water Code and federal Clean Water Act.

 On Jan. 24, 2014, the Regional Water Board initiated an enforcement action against the Plowrights for failure to comply with the provisions of the Cleanup and Abatement Order. The Plowrights had failed to complete the full scope of the cleanup and replanting required under the order, and they did not monitor or report adequately to maintain compliance.

 On June 16, the Regional Water Board approved a stipulation for entry of judgment and proposed judgment.

 The judgment requires the Plowrights to pay $25,000 in penalties for water code violations, correct existing and ongoing violations and requires continued monitoring. All existing violations have been remedied, with the monitoring provisions required by the judgment still to be completed. The penalty will be paid to the State Water Resources Control Board’s Cleanup and Abatement Account.

 The North Coast Regional Board posted the proposed judgment on May 15, and Mendocino County Superior Court adopted the judgment on June 23.

 (The original incident occurred in the spring of 2010. It’s taken over five years for the creek damage case to make its way through the system.)

 MICHAEL KISSLINGER has died. Formerly a reporter for Mendocino County Public Radio and active in Ukiah-area civil affairs, Kisslinger leaves behind his wife, Anne Molgaard of First Five, an adult son, Zane, and a daughter, Aleyna.

 Michael Albert Kisslinger - age: 60 (January 26, 1955 to July 20, 2015 )

 Michael Albert Kisslinger, 60, died of natural causes on Monday, July 20th, 2015, in Ukiah. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, one of three children of Robert Leo and Jean (Farbstein) Kisslinger. He grew up and attended public primary and high schools in University City, Missouri. He then spent the next eleven years attending three different universities pursuing seven different fields of study. He began his educational journey at Washington University in St. Louis, spent time at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and eventually acquired a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Enology and Fermentation Science from University of California, Davis. Later, he earned a Master’s Degree in Negotiation and Conflict Management from California State University, Dominguez Hills.

 Michael married Anne Cecile Molgaard in 1994 in Hopland, CA. They have two children, Zane and Aleyna. Michael was a man of many talents and skills, and spent time employed as a winemaker, conflict manager, nonprofit consultant, grantwriter, library technician, substitute teacher, and radio host. He was a professional folk dancer, got by in several languages, had a second degree black belt in Aikido, and was a nationally ranked Judo master as a teenager. Michael loved to cook, play cribbage, read science fiction, and volunteered with many community service groups throughout Mendocino County. He was curious, gregarious, and deeply interested in people and their stories. He loved long elaborate puns. But although he had many and varied interests, Michael’s children were his most enduring source of love, pride and accomplishment.

 Michael is survived by his daughter Aleyna, son Zane, and wife Anne. He also leaves his sister Donna Kisslinger Abram (Bill), brother Frank Kisslinger, and his daily morning canine companion, Hana. He was predeceased by his parents.

 Friends are invited to a memorial gathering on Thursday, July 23rd, at 6 pm in the picnic area of Todd Grove Park. Rabbi Shoshanah Devorah will preside, and light refreshments will be served. Please consider bringing a lawn chair.

 Funeral services will be held privately in the Gan Yarok section of Fernwood Cemetery in Mill Valley. Michael had often expressed a wish for a green burial in a natural setting with the least impact to the environment, rather than internment in a matzohleum.

 In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to The Community Foundation of Mendocino County.

 * * *

 UNFORTUNATE CIRCUMSTANCES

 “Communication and Conflict Management Skills for Community Based Organizations” Workshops at County Libraries in August — Canceled. Do to unfortunate circumstances, Mendocino County Library’s scheduled public workshops on “Communication and Conflict Management Skills for Community Based Organizations” at Ukiah and Fort Bragg libraries have been cancelled.

 THE REDUNDANT and still proposed Coast trash transfer station did not get its anticipated rubber stamp from a joint meeting of the Supervisors and Fort Bragg City Council. The meeting was postponed until August 18th in Ukiah. Fish and Wildlife is threatening a lawsuit if the $5 million project proceeds. There is an existing transfer station at Pudding Creek owned and operated by Waste Management which could easily accommodate the relatively small added burden of trash now processed at Caspar.

 ON TUESDAY, July21, 2015, at approximately 11:30 PM, a Mendocino County Sheriff's Deputy was on routine patrol and noted a vehicle parked in an unusual place, partially hidden, behind Hopper's Dairy, a business located at 17707 N. Hwy 1, Fort Bragg, Ca. The deputy checked the area on foot and saw a subject in the darkness behind one of the delivery trucks, who was trying to sneak away. The deputy engaged the subject, recognizing him from prior contacts as John Cooley Jr., 38, of Fort Bragg. Subsequent investigation revealed that the locks had been broken off of the back of two of the delivery trucks and their doors were open. A broken lock was subsequently located in Cooley's pocket, and a large wrench was located, along with a piece of the broken lock, near one of the trucks. Cooley, who is on probation in addition to currently being out of custody on bail pending court appearances for a recent theft arrest, was arrested for two counts of burglary, possession of burglary tools, committing an offense while out on bail, and violation of probation. John Cooley Jr. was lodged at the Mendocino County Jail for Burglary, Possession of Burglary Tools, Crimes commit while on Bail and Violation of Probation and is being held with bail set at $45,000.

 CATCH OF THE DAY, July 22, 2015

 JOSE BARRIGA-BARRERA, Ukiah. Probation revocation.

 ERIN BLACKWELL, Ukiah. Probation revocation. (Frequent flyer.)

 DANIEL BUTLER, Ukiah. Drunk in public, violation of county parole.

 JOHN COOLEY JR., Fort Bragg. Burglary, possession of burglary tools, offenses while on bail, probation revocation.

 DARLENE DAVIS, Covelo. Conspiracy, probation revocation.

 LONNY ELLIOTT, Ukiah. Violation of protective order, probation revocation.

 DILLON FOWLER, Cincinnati, Ohio/Ukiah. DUI, resisting.

 KENNETH HANOVER, Covelo. Arson, conspiracy.

 WILLIAM KING, Fort Bragg. Failure to appear, probation revocation.

 DANYELL LINDSEY, Sacramento/Ukiah. Suspended license.

 BRYAN LOCKWOOD, Ukiah. Drunk in public, probation revocation.

 NATHAM MORALES, Covelo. Probation revocation.

 DAVID PETERS, Covelo. DUI, failure to appear.

 THOMAS SANDERS, Ukiah. Drunk in public. (Frequent flyer.)

 JACQUELINE SMITH, Fort Bragg. Vehicle theft, possession of meth for sale, probation revocation.

 JOHN ZERANGUE, Ukiah. Pot possession for sale.

 REMEMBERING ROSIE MARIE GROVER

 by Jodie Martinez

 Early in the morning of July 19, 1985, while most of Ukiah was asleep, the Greyhound bus from San Francisco arrived in town, making its usual stop at the Yokayo Shopping Center on South State Street to let off passengers.

 The Ukiah passenger who left the safety of the bus that morning between 3:30 and 4 a.m. was Rosie Marie Grover. She had been spending the summer after her freshman year at Ukiah High in the Bay Area, staying with relatives in Hayward, where she had a summer job at an ice cream parlor. She was planning to use the money she earned for school clothes that fall.

 It was not the first job Rosie had held. Like many girls her age, she was an occasional babysitter, caring for the children of family friends and acquaintances while their parents enjoyed a night out or attended a community event. She also earned her own money by taking housecleaning jobs, and was described by her mother, Marilyn Hall, as “very independent.”

 Jackie Tupper, manager of the Deep Valley Mobile Home Park at the south end of Ukiah, where Rosie and her family lived, described her as a “very pretty, very sweet girl.”

 On that day 30 years ago, Rosie Grover arrived in Ukiah to find only a dark, deserted parking lot at the Greyhound depot.

 It was a Friday, and there had apparently been confusion over who would meet her. Relatives in Ukiah were expecting her on the afternoon bus, and those in the Bay Area thought someone would be meeting the early bus.

 Earlier, Rosie had telephoned the mother of a friend she wanted to visit that weekend. The friend’s mother later said that she had told Rosie her son would not be home that weekend, and that she herself had a broken-down car and would be unable to meet the bus.

 “I didn’t expect her on any bus,” she said. “Rosie, somehow, got it into her head that I would be there if my car were fixed. I think she wanted to come home so bad that she got it into her head somebody would be there.”

 No one was. Rosie was alone … she was frightened … she was 15.

 In many ways, Rosie Grover has become Ukiah’s child. Throughout the community – from her friends, her family, parents of every age child, even those of us who never knew her in life – we wish we could have been there when she stepped off that Greyhound bus to see her safely home.

 Rosie was wearing blue jeans, a white blouse, a pink sweater, pink shoes and pink socks. She was facing a walk home of more than a mile to a part of town that even today, three decades later, has little street lighting. She was also carrying a suitcase and a backpack.

 There were no cell phones, and “text” referred only to a book, not a form of communication. Rosie, carrying her luggage, turned south on State Street toward home.

 When she reached Foster’s Freeze on the east side of State Street near Talmage Road, she used a nearby pay phone to call for help, reaching the Ukiah office of the California Highway Patrol.

 Rosie’s first words to the CHP dispatcher were: “Yes. I wanted to know if somebody could come get me because I don’t have a way home and I just got off the bus.”

 The dispatcher told her “We don’t provide transport at all. Where do you have to go?”

 “I just have to get down the street a little ways and I don’t want to walk by myself because I’m really afraid,” Rosie answered.

 Asked if she were at the Greyhound bus depot, Rosie said she had walked as far as Foster Freeze.

 “OK,” the dispatcher said. “You should call the police department. I don’t know if they provide transport; the highway patrol doesn’t, not in the city limits anyway.”

 In addition to being frightened, and probably tired, Rosie knew that as a teenager she wasn’t supposed to be out late at night.

 “The police department? OK. Will I get into trouble for curfew even though it’s not my fault?,” she asked the dispatcher.

 “I don’t know,” the dispatcher replied. “It would be your parents that would get in trouble, not you.”

 “Oh, yeah, OK,” Rosie said. “Thank you.”

 “OK. Good-bye,” the CHP dispatcher replied.

 Rosie may then have tried to call her mother, whose phone rang that morning about that time, but when Marilyn Hall answered there was only a dial tone.

 Two hours later, Rosie’s lifeless body was found in the dry bed of Doolan Creek just off State Street. She had been raped, strangled, stabbed repeatedly and bludgeoned. Every bone in her face was broken.

 Before the morning was out, 21-year-old Richard Dean Clark, who had reported finding her body, was behind bars. He was a drifter, who had been staying with friends in the 700 block of South State Street. The night Rosie was killed he had spent the night in a car owned by one of the friends, and told police he had seen her walking on State Street.

 Clark confessed that he killed Rosie when she told him she was going to report him for having raped her. He told police that he thought his reporting finding the body would keep him from becoming a suspect.

 Even three decades later, the “community revulsion” over Rosie’s death has not diminished. Richard Dean Clark was convicted of raping and murdering her, with a special allegation that he killed in order to avoid arrest. His 1987 murder trial was one of the few moved out of the county due to the extensive pre-trial media coverage. Clark was prosecuted by the state Attorney General’s Office, and a San Jose jury recommended that he receive the death penalty, a recommendation adhered to by the presiding judge.

 Clark, now 51, has been on Death Row at San Quentin since Dec. 19, 1987. At the time he was convicted of killing Rosie, he was unable to read or write, but through attorneys he has avoided being put to death for nearly 28 years now.

 His 2009 appeal worked its way through the court system, with numerous time extensions along the way, and after four-and-a-half years was denied by federal District Court Judge William Alsup on March 31, 2014.

 Within a month, a new appeal was filed with the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

 A week after her death, Rosie Grover was laid to rest in a corner of Ukiah’s Russian River Cemetery nearest the high school where she would have been a sophomore in the fall of 1985.

 Sunday evening, on the 30th anniversary of her death, a new memorial tree and bench at McGarvey Park in Ukiah will be dedicated in Rosie’s honor by friends and family.

 In a social media post, Rosie’s friend Denise Smith Mazan wrote the following:

 “July 19th marks the 30-year anniversary since my lifelong friend Rosie Grover’s life was tragically taken from her. A very sweet soul, Brian A Wells, who didn’t even know Rosie, but like so many people in Ukiah was impacted by the loss, decided to raise money to have a tree planted and bench installed in her honor.... Rosie’s death changed my life, and so many others. But her life is what mattered, the smiles she brought, the laughs, her loyalty. I had known Rosie since kindergarten, so just 10 short years until her death, but she has been in my life for 40 years and will continue to do so for the rest of my life.

 “This bench can just be a bench where people relax, or like my mom did at this very park when she was pregnant with me, sit and take a break on her walk to and from work. Or this bench could be more... Rosie’s life wasn’t perfect, but she always chose to put a smile on her face and bring happiness to the world. We all live with crazy stress, but life has a way of taking care of itself; you never know when that life will be gone. So choose to bring happiness to the world, your family, your friends, yourself.

 “Thank you, Rosie Grover, for that forever smile that we will never forget. I love you forever.”

 A footnote: Rosie Grover’s death led to a statewide change in CHP policy. “That was the impetus for making the policy change,” a Ukiah CHP dispatcher said in 2005. “Now we will make those phone calls” rather than leave it up to the person in need. If the agency having jurisdiction “were unable to respond, we would respond with our own officers,” local CHP Capt. Steve Bernard told a Daily Journal reporter on the 20th anniversary of Rosie’s death.

 (Courtesy, the Ukiah Daily Journal)

 FRIENDS OF OUTLET CREEK

 CA DFW database shows over $2 million expended for Salmonid Habitat Restoration in Outlet Creek Watershed

 Re: Grist Creek Aggregate — 500,000 ton per year Asphalt Plant on Outlet Creek approved with NO CEQA REVI EW

 Is there a new Streambed Alteration Agreement for this property?

 To: Angela Liebenberg

 CA Dept. of Fish and Wildlife

 Re: CEQA Review Coordinator for Mendocino Co.

 Hi Angela - this is a follow up to the email below which I sent on 7/21/15. Please see the attached summary of grant expenditures for Salmonid Habitat Restoration in the Outlet Creek Watershed, which the Friends of Outlet Creek are trying to protect from a new 500,000 ton per year asphalt plant which has been approved by the County of Mendocino with no CEQA review. Attached is a data base query result from the CA Dept of Fish and Wildlife data base; https://map.dfg.ca.gov/bios/?al=ds168. The query is a summary of grant funds expended in the Outlet Creek Watershed for Salmonid Habitat Restoration and Improvement, and shows a total of over $2,000,000 spent. The Friends of Outlet Creek are concerned that the threats to endangered Coho, Chinook and steelhead will be significantly increased with the installation of a new asphalt plant in the floodplain of Outlet Creek. We hope that you or someone in your agency would have concerns about this asphalt plant project and the potential it presents for fish habitat degradation in the Outlet Creek watershed, due to increased sediment delivery and point source pollutants entering the waterway. Please contact me if you have questions or comments. Thanks

 Glen Colwell, Willits

 707-836-6595

 PS. Hi Angela,

 I was referred to you by Laurie Harnsberger in the Eureka CA Fish and Wildlife office, and understand that you are the current CEQA review coordinator for Mendocino Co. I also left you a voice message around noon today on your office line. To begin, I've attachment a 2011 12-page Streambed Alteration Agreement between the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) and Mr. Brian Hurt representing Grist Creek Aggregates, LLC. (Permittee). There are a total of six attachments with this message; The project for which attached Streambed Alteration Agreement Notification #.1600-2011-0138-R1 was issued was never completed by the applicant. However, the applicant, Grist Creek Aggregates, has now received and Authority to Construct Permit for a 500,000 ton per year asphalt plant to be installed in the flood plain of Outlet Creek, from the Mendocino Air Quality Management District, and is not being required by the County of Mendocino to follow CEQA. The project is proceeding with no environmental review whatsoever, (the County is dodging an weaving to avoid identifying this as a "project" under CEQA; no Neg Dec has been issued and no agency is identified as the Lead Agency as required by CEQA), and is being grandfathered as a "vested right" under guidance by the Mendocino Co. Board of Supervisors. The Friends of Outlet Creek has filed a lawsuit (also attached) in the Superior Court of Mendocino County to require CEQA compliance. We are seeking support from your agency for the attached lawsuit in the form of letters on official letterhead, etc. supporting our position that CEQA compliance for this project is mandatory. We are a small hand full of property owners along Outlet Creek, struggling to defend this watershed - WE NEED HELP! Any assistance your agency can provide is much appreciated! I hope we can talk soon to discuss this urgent issue. There will be a public meeting to hear our APPEAL before the MCAQMD (Air District) Hearing Board this coming Friday 7/24 at 10AM in the City of Ukiah Council Chambers. I know this is extremely short notice, but if there is any chance you could attend this hearing, we would be so very grateful. Any guidance you can provide would also be greatly appreciated.

 Glen Colwell, Willits

 707-836-6595

 FROM THE PRESS DEMOCRAT: SLAIN LAYTONVILLE SENIOR ‘SPECIAL’

 Laytonville victim “was going to be an important person.”

 On the day his good friend was arraigned in his killing, Laytonville High School senior Teo Palmieri was remembered by people who knew him as a smart, creative boy headed toward a bright future. Laytonville High School senior Teo Palmieri was a brilliant, creative boy headed toward a bright future when his life was cut short during an inexplicable, middle-of-the-night knife attack, allegedly by Talen Barton, the close friend he had convinced his family to take in.

 http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/4235058-181/laytonville-slaying-victim-was-going

 * * *

 CANADIAN COVERAGE OF LAYTONVILLE MURDERS

 California double-homicide horrifies Canadian's relatives in Manitoba — Theodore Norvell's extended family is grateful that he survived attack

 by Karen Pauls, CBC News

 L-Theodore Norvell, an engineering professor at Memorial University in St. John's, was attacked while visiting relatives in California. (Memorial University)

 R-Kathleen Martens, a cousin of Theodore Norvell's wife, says the extended family is shocked and horrified. Several relatives have flown to California to help support the family. (CBC)

 * * *

 Family members of Theodore Norvell in Manitoba are shocked and horrified over a vicious attack in California that killed two people and critically injured him and one other person.

 Norvell, 52, of St. John's, N.L., suffered multiple life-threatening stab wounds to the chest and neck early Sunday morning.

 Their 15-year-old daughter, Saskia Schulz-Norvell, was also in the home at the time, but she was not hurt.

 However, Norvell's brother-in-law, Coleman Palmieri, 52, and 17-year-old nephew Teo were killed in the attack.

 His sister, Dr. Cindy Norvell, 54, suffered stab wounds when she tried to intervene. She is also in serious condition.

 Their 14-year-old daughter wasn't injured.

 The Canadians were on an annual visit to see Norvell's sister and her family near Sacramento. His daughter was planning to attend a summer youth camp nearby with her cousin.

 Theodore Norvell's wife, Cheryl Schulz, who is originally from Morris, Man., has rushed to California.

 "They're dealing with immediately their health, stabilizing their lives," Martens said.

 "Down the road, I don't think they can see all the steps that need to be taken. There's not only the murders, funerals, hospitals, there's the criminal justice side of it. The home is a crime scene, so they're staying with family and friends."

 A GoFundMe account has already been set up to help both families pay for the medical expenses.

 Talen Barton, 19, appeared in court on Tuesday. He is charged with murder, attempted murder and falsely imprisoning the two teenage girls.

 Barton is in Mendocino County Jail in his own cell, away from other inmates. He was not granted bail and will be back in court in two weeks.

 Police said Saskia Schulz-Norvell called 911 and was able to keep Barton calm. Shortly after, Barton took the phone and engaged in a lengthy conversation with the dispatcher.

 Barton is said to have admitted stabbing four people in the home. The dispatcher talked Barton into putting the knife down and surrendering to police.

 "Adults would've cowered at his feet," Martens said.

 "Your dad is bleeding out and you're in the middle of this crisis situation. I don't know what she was thinking, but to stay calm and make the call and summon help as quickly as she did. I know she saved lives. In my mind, she's a hero."

 Theodore Norvell is a computer science engineering professor at Memorial University in St. John's.

 The attack has touched his friends and colleagues.

 "We were shocked and saddened to hear the news," said Dr. Dennis Peters, head of the university's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

 "Dr. Norvell is a well-respected, dedicated member of our faculty. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family during this critical time."

 Norvell loves to sail and is a longtime fencing coach.

 "Theodore Norvell is Rhys' fencing coach. We are devastated to learn of this tragic event and our thoughts and prayers are with the family," Kelly Ann Marshall wrote on the GoFundMe site.

 "Dr. Norvell is my favorite professor, and I'm so sorry he is at the center of such a grave tragedy. My condolences and thoughts go out to him and his family — happy to help however I can," Scott Wood added on the site.

 Local media in California is reporting that Teo Palmieri lobbied his family to let Barton live with them, after Barton got into trouble for allegedly trying to hit his foster mother with a 15-pound hand weight.

 "You just never know what can happen," Martens said.

 "They … treated him just like a son. He lived with them, so I can't imagine once they come out of everything, if they'll ever have time to process it or understand it — someone they loved and trusted."

 (Courtesy, Canadian Broadcasting, Manitoba)

 STATE COULD BAN BOBCAT TRAPPING AT UPCOMING MEETING IN FORTUNA

 by Ryan Burns

 Two weeks from now, on Aug. 4 and 5, the California Fish and Game Commission will hold its regular meeting here in Humboldt County, at Fortuna’s River Lodge Conference Center, and during its Wednesday session the commission is scheduled to decide whether or not to ban bobcat trapping statewide.

 It’s a controversial issue, with some groups lining up exactly as you’d expect — environmental nonprofits supporting a ban, trappers and hunters opposing — while others say more information is needed before a decision is made.

 Here in Humboldt, the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) has joined the campaign supporting a ban. In an action alert posted on its website, EPIC points out that commercial bobcat trapping in the state is largely driven by the foreign market value for the cats’ pelts, particularly in China and Russia.

 The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, meanwhile, opposes the ban, saying the Fish and Game Commission lacks the authority to take such a sweeping action and should instead take the alternative approach: establishing no-trapping buffer zones around state and national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, where trapping is already prohibited. (Hunting bobcats would still be allowed, as would trapping problem bobcats, such as those threatening livestock.)

 These two options — a statewide ban or a zone-based approach — represent the two alternative paths that the Fish and Game Commission could take as a means of implementing a state law that passed two years ago: Assembly Bill 1213, aka the Bobcat Protection Act of 2013. That law focused on the area surrounding Joshua Tree National Park, where bobcat trapping had become a hot-button issue after trappers illegally captured and killed a number of bobcats on private property. But the law also instructed the commission to consider extending the ban to lands “within, and adjacent to, preserves, state conservancies, and any other public or private conservation areas identified to the commission by the public as warranting protection … .”

 Those are pretty vague criteria, and late last year the commission started discussing the possibility of making those protected areas really big — as in, big enough to encompass the entire state.

 Some background

 Bobcat trapping used to be a relatively big business in California. Until the 1970s there were no protections for bobcats and no restrictions on the “take” or “harvest” of the animal. But in 1971, with domestic and international demand for bobcat pelts rising, the state legislature gave the species non-game status. Since then California has issued trapping licenses and kept track of how many are killed each year during the official trapping season, which runs from Nov. 24 through Jan. 31.

 During the 1977-78 season more than 20,000 bobcats were killed in California, but shortly thereafter the bottom began to drop out of the market.

 Bobcat pelts, like pretty much every other market, are subject to the laws of supply and demand. The average price for a pelt dropped from a high of $167.33 in 1986-87 to just $17.91 three years later, and the take numbers have been comparatively low ever since.

 But demand began to rise again in the early 2000s, driven by people in Russia and China (and, to a lesser extent, Eastern Europe) who want the thick, soft pelts for fur coats and showpieces. While the official stats from Fish and Wildlife put the average price of pelts at $390 in the 2013-14 season, wildlife advocates say they’ve gone as high as $2,100 apiece. The cost of an annual trapping license, meanwhile, is just $115.

 To many, this practice seems fundamentally barbaric and morally wrong. (The San Francisco Chronicle, for example, quoted a fourth-grader who said, “It is disgusting that people are killing the beautiful bobcats.”)

 Natalynne DeLapp, executive director of EPIC, agreed that it’s a moral issue, but said it’s also an economic and scientific one. The bobcat is an important and highly adaptable mid-sized predator, DeLapp said. She added that while both options before the commission would help protect the species, a trapping ban makes more financial sense.

 EPIC has joined forces on this issue with the Center for Biological Diversity, which estimates that the zonal approach to bobcat management would cost nearly $600,000 per year, far more than the state brings in from trapping licenses and shipping tags for sales and exports.

 “When we write our comments [to the commission] we do have to look at the issue from an economic standpoint to justify our larger reasoning, which is the intrinsic value” of bobcats, DeLapp said.

 How many bobcats?

 Both EPIC and the Center for Biological Diversity call attention to the fact that Fish and Wildlife’s estimate of the total statewide bobcat population — 72,000 — is more than 35 years old, and a somewhat dubious figure to begin with.

 When Governor Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown signed AB 1213 into law in October 2013, he issued a signing statement [pdf here] calling for a new bobcat population survey, though no such effort has been undertaken.

 Dr. Greta Wengert is the assistant director of the nonprofit Integral Ecology Research Center, based in Blue Lake, and she has studied bobcats fairly extensively in northwestern California and the southern end of the Sierra Nevada range. But she also doesn’t know how many bobcats there are in California.

 “I don’t think anyone has a good estimate at all,” she said.

 A more important consideration is the bobcat population in each specific ecosystem, Wengert said. She described bobcats as “a cosmopolitan species,” meaning they live not only in forest ecosystems, where they interact with fishers, martens and mountain lions, but also on the outskirts of urban areas in Southern California, where they’re threatened by development and habitat encroachment.

 Circumstantial evidence suggests that bobcats are not a threatened species from a statewide perspective, according to Wengert. For one thing, the harvest numbers are low compared to both the past and to other states. “From a population perspective, the amount [of bobcats] harvested each year does not seem like it will affect the overall bobcat population,” she said.

 But again she mentioned that specific bobcat communities could indeed be threatened.

 “I feel like there’s a lot of information missing on which to base decisions, and it [regulation] may have to become a local question,” Wengert said.

 The zonal approach to bobcat management aims to take those sensitive bobcat populations into consideration.

 More than 500 bobcats were killed here during the boom season of 1987-88, but there hasn’t been more than 10 harvested in any year since the 2000-01 season. (The blank spaces reflect gaps in the data, not years with no harvest.) The low prevalence of trapping here might be due to the fact that desert-dwelling bobcats tend to have thicker, softer and more spotted pelts than those of cats living this far north, Wengert said.

 Regarding the original law, Wengert said Joshua Tree National Park is known for having “really healthy bobcat populations.” That being the case, trapping done outside the park is not likely to threaten the overall population.

 “It’s almost like they’re surplus animals,” she said, before quickly adding, “That’s only from biological perspective. Ethics are a different issue; I’m not gonna go there.”

 The legislative process

 The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors doesn’t go there either, though they do oppose the ban. Back in January, the board unanimously voted to send a letter [pdf here] opposing that option to the heads of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the California Fish and Game Commission. As Board Chair Estelle Fennell recently explained to the Outpost, the supervisors’ opposition to a ban was based not so much on a philosophical or ethical stand as on procedural concerns. (Siskiyou County supervisors sent a letter articulating the same objections in March.)

 “It was actually based on a request from [Humboldt County’s] own Fish and Game Advisory Commission,” Fennel said. “Their concern, and subsequently the board’s, was about circumventing the legislative process.” As the board sees it, an outright state ban on bobcat trapping was duly considered and rejected by the state legislature back in 2013, during debate on the law itself. Implementing the ban now would be overstepping the commission’s authority, the board letter argues.

 Furthermore, Fennell noted, the board thinks the Department of Fish and Wildlife should undertake the population survey requested by Governor Brown.

 The Department of Fish and Wildlife, for its part, has endorsed the zonal approach, basing its argument on numbers and science. (The agency suggests charging a new annual bobcat trapping validation fee of $1,137 to offset the increased costs of management.) But Sonke Mastrup, executive director of the Fish and Game Commission, said morality issues are not beyond the scope of the five-member commission’s criteria for making such decisions.

 “As I like to tell folks, the commission’s job is to balance what the science calls for and what the public will tolerate,” Mastrup said. “Science is certainly a foundation, but it’s not the only thing that goes into to making a decision.”

 The commission will also consider public testimony and other information provided during the course of deliberations. But Mastrup said that, so far, advocates for a total ban have focused on the moral aspect.

 “Based on the testimony I’ve been hearing, it’s more about the morality or ethics of whether we should be allowing people to commercially exploit bobcat furs,” Mastrup said. “Mostly [the testimony] boils down to: We just don’t like it.”

 (And if you’re at all prone to such feelings, browsing websites like CagingBobcats.com or the Facebook photos of Camtrip Cages will likely stir your sympathies.)

 Mastrup said it’s also possible that no decision will be reached at the Fortuna meeting. The commission could opt to implement one of the two options, it could postpone the decision or it could say it doesn’t like either option and come up with another approach altogether.

 EPIC will host a “teach-in” the Monday before the hearing from 6-8 p.m. at the Arcata Community Center’s Arts and Crafts Room. The event will also address a couple other items on the commission’s agenda, including a request to list the Pacific Fisher under the California Endangered Species Act as well as EPIC’s own petition to add the Humboldt marten to that list.

 As for the bobcats, there’s at least one point on which seemingly everyone agrees: Better data is sorely needed.

 “The bottom line for me,” Wengert said, “is that the state really needs to invest in really good bobcat population numbers.”

 Thus far there have been no specific proposals to do so.

 If you’d care to attend the meeting (or live-stream it through cal-span.org), you can download the agenda ahead of time here.

 (Courtesy, LostCoastOutpost.com where more charts and graphs can be found.)

 WEST NILE CASE DISCOVERED IN MENDOCINO COUNTY. — On Tuesday July 22, the first case of West Nile Virus in Mendocino County since 2014 was reported by local health officials. They do not know if the infected individual was infected in Mendocino County or elsewhere. The patient attributed the infection to mosquito bites while out of state during the incubation period. The patient is reportedly recovering. The California Department of Public Health reported that the state's first West Nile virus death of this year occurred earlier this week in Nevada County, when a senior citizen died of the virus. No other human West Nile cases have been reported this year in California, according to www.westnile.ca.gov. Contracting West Nile does not always produce symptoms, but severe symptoms occur in less than 1% percent of those infected, including high fever, headache, neck stiffness, disorientation, tremors, coma, convulsions, muscle loss, numbness, paralysis and vision loss. The symptoms can last for several weeks and neurological effects may be permanent. Mild symptoms occur in up to 20% cases such as fever, headache, body aches, nausea, vomiting and/or swollen lymph glands or a rash on the chest, stomach and back. Officials estimate that about 80% of those infected do not exhibit symptoms do not feel ill. Persons over 50 are at a higher risk to develop serious symptoms. Precautions include avoid spending time outdoors at dawn and dusk when mosquitoes are most active; wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts when outdoors and use insect repellent; eliminate standing water where mosquitoes breed; and make sure screens do not allow the entry of mosquitos.

 photo by Annie Kalantarian

 I AM THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN MAJOR-GENERAL

 I am the very model of a modern Major-General,

 I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,

 I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical,

 From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;

 I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical,

 I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,

 About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news---

 With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

 I'm very good at integral and differential calculus,

 I know the scientific names of beings animalculous;

 In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,

 I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

 I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's,

 I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox,

 I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,

 In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous.

 I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,

 I know the croaking chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes,

 Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,

 And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.

 Then I can write a washing bill in Balylonic cuneiform,

 And tell you every detail of Caractacus's uniform;

 In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,

 I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

 In fact, when I know what is meant by "mamelon" and "ravelin",

 When I can tell at sight a chassepôt rifle from a javelin,

 When such affairs as sorties and surprises I'm more wary at,

 And when I know precisely what is meant by "commissariat",

 When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern gunnery,

 When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery:

 In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy,

 You'll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee---

 For my military knowledge, though I'm plucky and adventury,

 Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;

 But still in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,

 I am the very model of a modern Major-General.

 --Gilbert & Sullivan

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2OcbeGqbpU

 photo by Susie de Castro

 ON LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY

 Trump may not be the “cornpone Fascist” we were expecting, but that’s certainly the role he’s trying to play, and he’s got the qualifications. Donald Trump is good at one thing, and one thing only. He is a self-promoter, and he understands television. Everything he does on TV is well-conceived and on-point. His presentation doesn’t appeal to me, but I’m not his target audience. Trump is aiming at the WWE (Pro Wrestling) demographic, and he’s nailing it. It’s as if Trump has hired Vince McMahon to be his campaign manager.

 Trump’s appearance is as absurd as the things he says, and his tactic of responding to the consequences of his bluster with more bluster is perfect. Our current corporate-owned media exists to sell the image of people in bathtubs (via Viagra, of course), and portrays every single opinion as being of equal value to every other opinion, unless of course that opinion runs counter to the consume/waste cycle, in which case the opinion isn’t reported at all. So Trump’s panderings to the violent revenge fantasies of the lower middle class are reported with the same weight as anything else, and more screen time because Trump is the best-known of any of the candidates not named “Hillary.”

 Sure, America has an illegal immigration problem. Seeing as we have an enormous Southern border that is as unsecurable as our even longer Northern border, and a huge economic disparity with the neighboring nations to the South, there will be large numbers of migrant workers regardless of legal status. If that’s really a huge problem, the solution is to imprison those who hire illegal workers at sub-market wages. Since we’re not going to do that, it’s a moot point, and a malevolent political football at best. I think most of us would pay an addition 5% for fresh produce, and 15% for landscaping and light construction work, but even were we given the opportunity, it’s far more likely the “American Workers Only” premium would be skimmed off by corporate interests, and the work still done at slave-level wages.

 As for the rest of Trump’s cultural mythological nonsense, it’s pitch-perfect. Nobody had more unearned advantage in the world than the American blue-collar worker post-1945, and nobody in America has lost more ground in the past 40 years. A windfall is not the “new normal,” but to the uneducated worker who got used to being able to support a family on a single 40-hour paycheck, without more than a high school diploma, reversion to the mean feels like malicious deprivation. Trump’s cleverness is to feed the fears and resentments of the lower-middle class, presenting those who have cut into the temporary high-water-mark that class achieved until about 1970 as the villains, while avoiding any discussion of how that one-time advantage happened in the first place, and certainly no real discussion of why that status is evaporation now. Hint: it’s not the illegal immigrants coming here to do work at wages we can’t afford to accept.

 Anyway, cartoonishness is a regular feature of populist Fascists. Trump won’t be elected because the Elites still have enough control of political finance to prevent that, and Trump doesn’t actually want the job in the first place. Work is not exactly what Donald Trump does. He will, however, push the pool of candidates further to the Right than it has ever been before. He will accept honorary status as a celebrity with no obligations to anyone other than himself.

 We’ve gotten to the point in the decline of Empire when people embrace magical solutions, no matter how fantastical. Wicker airport facilities, human sacrifice disguised as Sport, large-scale persecution of scapegoats; all these and more will become increasingly prevalent. Clowns will pop up to sell us easy magic, and some of the clowns will be revealed in time to be monsters.

 No matter who gets elected next November, the corporate interests will get more of the wealth of the public diverted into their hands, and history will show the next President to be more like Commodus than Marcus Aurelius.

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  ||||| This time, he stuck around.

 He’s been charged with desertion, but controversial POW Bowe Bergdahl didn’t try to get away when he got caught in the middle of a California drug raid, the Daily News has learned.

 Bergdahl, 29, just happened to be at a location in California’s Redwood Valley when it was raided by sheriff’s deputies Tuesday. Several arrests were made after cops seized 181 marijuana plants, authorities said.

 Bowe Bergdahl, rescued U.S. soldier, charged with desertion, faces life imprisonment

 Bergdahl, who was not charged, was taken in for a field interview, treated as a witness and released.

 Bergdahl, who was not charged, was taken in for a field interview, treated as a witness and released. (Uncredited/AP)

 "I'm not sticking up for the guy at all, but I will say this, he was very polite,” said Mendocino County Sheriff Thomas Allman. “He was not resistant at all. He shook everybody's hand. He thanked us all.""

 Allman said Bergdahl had paperwork indicating that he had arrived in California last Friday, and was scheduled to leave Wednesday.

 Bergdahl was released in the custody of the U.S. Army, and is currently stationed at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, where he remains on active duty.

 He currently has a job doing administrative duties, an Army spokesman said.

 Bergdahl who was AWOL when he was captured by the Taliban, was exchanged last year for five senior Taliban officials held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. (AP)

 The soldier, who was AWOL when he was captured by the Taliban, was exchanged last year for five senior Taliban officials held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

 Bowe Bergdahl read Miranda rights during first interview with Army investigator about 2009 capture

 After a White House Rose Garden ceremony celebrating his release after five years in captivity, the Army announced that Bergdahl had been charged with one count of desertion for leaving his unit. Several soldiers died searching for him before he was finally released.

 Bergdahl’s case is currently “awaiting an article 32 hearing,” which is the equivalent of a grand jury hearing to see if it he will face a court martial, the spokesman said. |||||


Write an article based on this summary:

– "They went through a pure hell, no doubt," says an Arkansas sheriff's detective about the ordeal two small children somehow managed to survive—all thanks to the eldest of them, a 3-year-old named Kylen. The boy was found wandering alone on a state highway near Camden, Arkansas, on Monday, CNN reports. He was scraped up and "extremely traumatized," says Ouachita County Sheriff's Detective Lt. Nathan Greeley, per CNN. It was upon trying to reconnect the child with family that they learned his mother, Lisa Holliman, had last been seen going to the grocery store on Thursday; she also had a 1-year-old son. A search led to Holliman's overturned car in a ravine, apparently the result of a single-car crash and not visible from the road. The infant was found strapped in his car seat alive; Holliman, 25, had been ejected and was dead. "We're still trying to determine the timeline, but the mother was last seen Thursday," Greeley said. "This is one of the most remarkable things I've ever experienced in my 11 years at this department." Holliman's father, James, tells KARK that Kylen was able to unstrap himself and exit the car through the sunroof. "When he climbed out of that car, seeing his mother dead like that like she was, he tried to wake his mom up," he says. The boys survived without food and water; the temperatures were high and thunderstorms came through the area. "It's nothing short of a miracle," says Greeley. But still, a tragedy: Holliman's family learned she was four weeks pregnant at the time of her death. The crash remains under investigation.

(CNN) A 3-year-old boy and his 1-year-old brother were on their own -- possibly for as many as four days -- after surviving a single-vehicle crash that killed their mother in south Arkansas.

 The older of the two boys was found Monday morning after authorities received a 911 call about a boy who was seen walking by himself in a rural area on a state highway near Camden, Arkansas, Ouachita County Detective Nathan Greeley told CNN.

 The boy was covered in cuts and scrapes and appeared to have been outside for an extended period, Greeley said.

 "You could tell he was extremely traumatized," Greeley said.

 The 3-year-old boy who, along with his 1-year-old brother, survived a car crash that killed their mother in south Arkansas.

 Officials gave the boy a bath, food and a change of clothes and distributed a description of him. A family member contacted the sheriff's office and told authorities that the boy's 1-year-old brother was likely nearby, Greeley said. The relative also said the children's mother had not been seen since going grocery shopping on Thursday.

 Read More ||||| EXCLUSIVE: Grandfather Calls Toddler 'Hero' for Saving Infant Brother after Mother Killed in Wreck Copyright 2018 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Video

 OUACHITA COUNTY, Ark. - Along busy Highway 24 in Ouachita County, deputies say a wrecked car with a mother and her two small children inside went unnoticed for two days.

 "She takes them everywhere she goes," says James Holliman.

 James is in disbelief his daughter Lisa Holliman, 25, is dead.

 "I'll never get up and see her, I'll never get to talk to her, laugh with her. My baby's gone," says Holliman.

 It's what unfolded after the wreck deputies say is nothing short of a miracle.

 "They went through a pure hell, no doubt," says Ouachita County Sheriff's Detective Lt. Nathan Greeley.

 Holliman's three-year-old grandson Kylen managed to get out of his car seat, through the sunroof then up a small hill filled with bushes.

 "When he climbed out of that car, seeing his mother dead like that like she was, he tried to wake his mom up," says Holliman.

 Greeley says when they found the car, they found the boys' mother nearby and Kylen's one-year-old brother still fastened to his car seat.

 "He was somewhat turned sideways, in a position upside down," says Greeley.

 Investigators say it's by the grace of God the children survived not only the wreck, but made it two days without food or water.

 "It was hard to see my grandson, you know, laying there like that... all cut up," says Holliman.

 Holliman says losing his daughter may be the hardest thing he'll go through. He says it's even more difficult knowing his daughter was four weeks pregnant.

 "We just found that out at the hospital that she was pregnant. We didn't know. We lost two," says Holliman.

 Both boys suffered dehydration.

 The one-year-old is recovering at Arkansas Children's Hospital and is expected to survive.

 The cause of the wreck remains under investigation. |||||


Article:
A shooting at Azana Salon & Spa, across the street from Brookfield Square Mall, left at least three dead. Police set up a perimeter as they search for suspected gunman, Radcliffe F. Haughton. Credit: Alex Wroblewski

 By of the

 Zina Haughton was a sought-after hair stylist who decorated her work station with photos of her two daughters and saved for a year to take them to Disney World.

 To her customers, Haughton, 42, was a wonderful, warm person who remembered their children's names and was happy to talk about her two daughters. She rarely talked about her husband, Radcliffe F. Haughton, the man police say stormed into Azana Salon & Spa in Brookfield Sunday morning armed with a gun, killing three women and injuring four more.

 Authorities did not release the names of the dead and wounded Sunday; they did confirm that Haughton's two daughters were safe.

 "She never talked negatively about her husband," said Sarah Justin, a customer of Haughton for six years. "She did say she was exhausted because she was working so many hours, because this had been going on for years. He was in school and she was supporting the family."

 But there clearly was turmoil.

 Haughton reported to police Oct. 4 that her tires were slashed while she worked at the spa. Four days later, she obtained a temporary restraining order against her husband, and last week a Milwaukee County court issued a four-year restraining order.

 Justin became a customer through a friend, Kristin Guadagno. She liked how Haughton cut her hair, and asked for the name of the stylist. She's been a customer six years now, and had Haughton style her hair on her wedding day.

 As is common with many stylists, Haughton developed relationships with her customers. Azana employees are described as tight-knit - the owner used the word "family" Sunday night - and Haughton's chair and station were immediately to the left when customers walked in the entrance.

 "She was a wonderful mom," Guadagno said. "She had two daughters who were the foundation of her family. She was their everything. She worked so many hours every week to provide for them and take them on nice trips."

 Haughton took her daughters to see the Broadway show "Wicked" in Chicago, and to the Wisconsin Dells. She worried about her elderly parents in Chicago, especially since her mother is recovering from a broken hip. She told her customers she wished she could spend more time with her parents.

 When Guadagno's father died on Halloween three years ago, she called to see if Haughton could possibly squeeze her in, even though it was a busy Saturday. Haughton made time for her. And then on the day of the funeral, Haughton took care of her hair again, as well as her mother's.

 Guadagno's daughters, ages 4 and 6, got their hair cut by Haughton as well. When her oldest daughter heard about the shooting Sunday morning, it was difficult for the young girl to process the news.

 "She's devastated in a 6-year-old way. She's asking why Zina can't cut her hair, and does this mean she can never get her hair cut anymore."

 'Tried dragging her'

 While authorities continued to piece together a timeline of the tragedy, witnesses reported Radcliffe Haughton - who was called "Rad" by his estranged wife - came into the salon and went past the receptionist.

 One salon victim heard shooting a short time later, according to Doug Epker of East Troy, who visited the woman at the emergency room where she was treated for a gunshot wound to the leg.

 "She said the gunman came in and she hid for a little bit but he wasn't looking for her; he passed her up," Epker said. "And she came back out of hiding and that's when she got shot."

 After the 22-year-old woman was wounded, Epker said, the shooter "tried dragging her upstairs, but her hip, where she was shot, it broke her bone and she couldn't walk, luckily, otherwise she might not be alive."

 The woman told Epker she saw Radcliffe Haughton drop the clip from his pistol. The woman managed to escape by finding an open door and rolling down a hill toward police.

 Later Sunday, the four wounded - the other three are ages 30, 32 and 40 - were being treated for gunshot wounds to their extremities at Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa. All were expected to survive. Three women underwent surgery while the fourth was admitted to the hospital but didn't require surgery, hospital officials said.

 Throughout the day Sunday, government leaders and candidates in the upcoming elections released statements about the Brookfield shootings.

 Gov. Scott Walker called Sunday's events "a terrible act of senseless violence."

 "Our hearts go out to the victims' families and our prayers are with them and the survivors," Walker said. "In the coming days, we will band together as a state and a community to seek justice for the victims and comfort those left behind."

 President Barack Obama's office released a statement saying the president called Walker and Brookfield Mayor Steven Ponto offering condolences.

 "The president told the Governor and Mayor that he had spoken with FBI director (Robert) Mueller and had directed him to make sure that the federal government continues to provide whatever resources are necessary to support the ongoing response and investigation to this horrible event."

 U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, the running mate of Obama's election opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, also issued a statement of condolences.

 "We will not allow the evil responsible for this heartbreaking event to triumph over the spirit of the people of Wisconsin," Ryan said. "I ask all Americans to keep those affected by this event in their hearts, minds, and prayers today."

 Meanwhile, Zina Haughton's customers were left wondering why the husband of the hair stylist they had grown to consider a friend could commit such a horrible, senseless act.

 "She was a warm and loving person. She remembered all my kids' names, she would always ask how your kids are doing and she'd ask about my mom and dad. I'm really shocked by this," said Justin. "That upsets me in a way because something must have been going on. To think she was holding herself together."

 Jim Nelson of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report. ||||| A county dispatcher in Wisconsin says the suspect in a mass shooting at a spa outside Milwaukee has been found dead.

 Police and swat team members respond to a call of a shooting at the Azana Spa in Brookfield, Wis. Sunday,Oct. 21, 2012. Multiple people were wounded when someone opened fire at the spa near the Brookfield... (Associated Press)

 Police and swat team members respond to a call of a shooting at the Azana Spa in Brookfield, Wis. Sunday , Oct. 21, 2012. Multiple people were wounded when someone opened fire at the spa near the Brookfield... (Associated Press)

 This photo provided by the Brookfield Police Dept. shows Radcliffe Franklin Haughton, 45, of Brown Deer, Wis. Deputies are searching for Haughton on Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012, who's suspected of wounding... (Associated Press)

 Spectators and media look toward the Azana Spa as police and swat team members respond to a call of a shooting at the Azana Spa in Brookfield, Wis. Sunday , Oct. 21, 2012. Multiple people were wounded... (Associated Press)

 A police officer responds to a call of a shooting at the Azana Spa in Brookfield, Wis. Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012. Multiple people were wounded when someone opened fire at the spa near the Brookfield Square... (Associated Press)

 This photo provided by the Brookfield Police Dept. shows Radcliffe Franklin Haughton, 45, of Brown Deer, Wis. Deputies are searching for Haughton on Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012, who's suspected of wounding... (Associated Press)

 Christine Bannister is a dispatch supervisor for Waukesha County communications center. She says 45-year-old Radcliffe Franklin Haughton, of Brown Deer, has been found dead. She could not provide more details.

 Police say three people were killed and four wounded in the Sunday morning shooting at the Azana Day Spa. Authorities spent much of Sunday afternoon looking for the gunman.

 They say they believe the shooting was related to a domestic dispute.

 The spa is a two-story, 9,000-square-foot building across from a major shopping mall in Brookfield, a middle-to-upper class community west of Milwaukee.

 THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

 Police launched a manhunt Sunday afternoon for a gunman they believe opened fire at a suburban Milwaukee spa, killing three people and wounding four before fleeing.

 Authorities said they believed the shooting was related to a domestic dispute. The man they identified as the suspect, Radcliffe Franklin Haughton, 45, of Brown Deer, had a restraining order against him.

 The shooting happened about 11 a.m. at the Azana Day Spa, a two-story, 9,000-square-foot building across from a major shopping mall in Brookfield, a middle-to-upper class community west of Milwaukee. Hours later, a bomb squad descended on the building, and Police Chief Dan Tushaus said an improvised explosive device was found inside.

 Haughton's father, Radcliffe Haughton, Sr., told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Florida that he had last spoken to his son a few days ago, but didn't have any indication anything was wrong.

 He had a message for his son: "Please just turn yourself in or contact me."

 Authorities located a vehicle belonging to Haughton outside of Brookfield, but there were no other signs of him. The mall, a country club adjacent to the spa, a nearby hospital and other buildings were locked down as police searched for Haughton. At an afternoon news conference, authorities begged for the public's assistance in finding him, and urged anyone with information about him to contact police.

 Tushaus described the situation as "fluid and ongoing," saying officers were initially focused on reaching and helping the victims. The victim's names were not released by authorities, and a hospital treating the victims also was put on lockdown. Staff members were being escorted into the building, and critically injured patients were being accepted with a police escort. Officers were stationed at all main entrances to the facility.

 A sea of ambulances and police vehicles collected at the scene shortly after the shooting. A witness, David Gosh of nearby West Allis, told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel he was returning from duck hunting with his father and a friend when he saw a woman emerge from the spa, screaming, as she ran into traffic. The area is near an interstate and a busy commercial road.

 "She ran right out into the street was pounding on cars," Gosh told the newspaper. He said that moments later, a man with a handgun ran out, and appeared to be chasing her, then went back inside.

 People inside the mall were patiently awaiting updates, and for word they could leave. Gina Kralik, a bartender at Red Robin Gourmet Burgers in the mall, said by telephone that the restaurant was still locked down as of about 3 p.m. She said 18 people were there -- all employees except for a couple reporters who managed to get in. She said people were allowed to leave at one point, but then the police decided not to let anyone come or go from the mall.

 "We're just sitting watching the news and also trying to find out what's going on," she said.

 Police released little about Haughton other than a physical description and a photo. They said he was wearing a grey sweater, jeans, and carrying a white and black backpack. They said he was 6-foot-2, and more than 200 pounds.

 Online court records showed a temporary restraining order was issued against Haughton in Milwaukee County Circuit Court on Oct. 8 because of a domestic abuse complaint. Haughton appeared in court Thursday, when a no-contact order was issued and he was told to turn all his weapons over to the sheriff's department.

 It was not clear who sought the restraining order, but his father said he was married.

 It was the second mass shooting in Wisconsin this year. Wade Michael Page, a 40-year-old Army veteran and white supremacist, killed six people and injured three others before fatally shooting himself Aug. 5 at a Sikh temple south of Milwaukee.

 The shooting at the mall took place less than a mile from where seven people were killed and four wounded on March 12, 2005, when a gunman opened fire at a Living Church of God service held at a hotel. |||||Summary:

– Horrifying news from Wisconsin: A man estranged from his wife walked into her workplace today and opened fire, killing three women and wounding four more before fatally shooting himself, police said. Authorities found the body of Radcliffe Haughton, 45, at the spa where his wife, Zina Haughton, worked in suburban Milwaukee. But police say the discovery was slowed by an improvised bomb found on the scene, the AP reports. Haughton's relationship with his wife had heated up this week when she placed a restraining order against him in a domestic dispute, and he was ordered to hand in all his firearms. But he allegedly carried a handgun into the two-story, 9,000-square-foot Azana Salon & Spa this morning, shooting at women and chasing one out into the parking lot before she escaped, the Journal-Sentinel reports. Of the four injured women, one is undergoing surgery and is in critical condition; the others are in stable condition or better. Meanwhile, scary eyewitness accounts are coming in, including one from a bystander who saw a woman running outside the building: "She was screaming, yelling, crying, hysterical," he said. "She was pleading for help. She kept saying, 'My mother was shot.'"


Since 1955, when amateur fossil hunter Francis Tully discovered the unlikely prehistoric creature in a coal mining area near Morris, the thing that would be named the Tully monster has presented one of the great puzzles in paleontology.

 Much as the people of Metropolis wondered whether Superman flying overhead was a bird or a plane, scientists have struggled to classify these fossils that showed traits associated with several disparate animal types and such abnormalities as eyes mounted on an external bar and a long, toothy proboscis.

 "If you put in a box a worm, a mollusk, an arthropod and a fish, and you shake, then what you have at the end is a Tully monster," said Carmen Soriano, a paleontologist at Argonne National Laboratory.

 The Tully's renown stretched even to the Illinois state legislature, which named it the official state fossil in 1989, some 308 million years after it inhabited the shallow salty waters that turned into the state's Mazon Creek geological deposits, in Grundy County, one of the richest fossil troves on Earth.

 Now, though, Tullimonstrum gregarium has a home on the Tree of Life rather than in the biological category known as the "problematica." Utilizing the synchrotron X-ray machine at Argonne and the Field Museum's collection of 2,000 Tully specimens, a team from those two institutions, Yale University and the American Museum of Natural History announced in a paper published in the journal Nature Wednesday that "The Tully monster is a vertebrate."

 Below that headline, the paper describes Tully as belonging "on the stem lineage to lampreys," a find that "resolves the nature of a soft-bodied fossil which has been debated for more than 50 years."

 "This is one of the mysteries that I heard about since I was a kid," said Soriano. "To be able to study, to basically 'unmonsterize' the monster, is really exciting."

 "Resolving this is a big deal," said Scott Lidgard, the Field's associate curator of fossil invertebrates and another of the paper's authors. "It's one of the examples used in textbooks around the world as what are called 'problematica,' " creatures that defied ready classification and were sometimes thought to be examples of extinct phyla, or animal categories.

 "This is kind of a poster child for that sort of evolutionary puzzle," Lidgard said. The finding "changes it from a mystery to a fishlike organism that is probably on the lineage leading to what we would recognize as lampreys."

 It's also a big moment for those who study lesser prehistoric animals and realize, said Lidgard, that "we're never going to be as popular as dinosaurs and fossil birds."

 The Tully monster is named for its assemblage of features, not for any sort of fearsome size. The biggest of the many, many specimens that have been found suggested a maximum length of about 18 inches and typical length of 12.

 But because Mazon Creek fossils are so well preserved, there is a lot of Tully to study. Skeletons have not survived, but detailed impressions in stone have.

 "If you see the specimens, they are typically well preserved," Soriano said. "It's not that they are a blob in the rock."

 Tully, a pipefitter for Texaco and lifelong fossil hound, described his find to the Tribune in a story in 1987, also the year of his death:

 "I found two rocks that had cracked open from natural weathering. They held something completely different. I knew right away. I`d never seen anything like it. None of the books had it. I`d never seen it in museums or at rock clubs. So I brought it to Chicago to the Field Museum to see if they could figure out what the devil it was."

 The first scientific paper describing the Tully monster, and giving it its vivid Latin name, came in the mid-1960s from one of Lidgard's predecessors at the museum, who "thought it was a worm," Lidgard said.

 Later papers proposed that it was a "free-swimming shell-less snail," he said, and then a conodont, extinct eel-like creatures very rare in the fossil record.

 "I've been looking at this thing for 30 years," said Lidgard. "Years ago I had a stab at it, thinking it might be related to squids. We gave up. We didn't publish anything."

 What got the ball rolling again was Lidgard hearing about Victoria McCoy, a Yale grad student exploring the Mazon Creek deposits who would become the paper's lead author.

 They met at a 2014 conference, and the following year, an assembled team spent three weeks at the Field studying its Tully specimens.

 The Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, southwest of Chicago, came into the picture because of its advanced imaging techniques using the Advanced Photon Source, an electron accelerator and storage ring that "provides ultra-bright, high-energy storage ring-generated x-ray beams for research in almost all scientific disciplines," according to Argonne.

 "The thing with these machines is they are incredibly powerful microscopes," Soriano said. "We can get information not only on the morphology of the sample, but also on the structure, on the composition."

 It allows people "to see what no one saw before basically," she said.

 What the scientists saw, as they studied the Argonne imagery, digital photographs of the fossils and the fossils themselves were characteristics that tied the Tully monster to lampreys.

 A chemical analysis of the eye stalks, for instance, showed the presence of zinc, "very similar to the material in the eyes of vertebrate fossil fishes," said Lidgard.

 "Tully is usually preserved so that you're looking down on its back," he added. "Every so often you can see its side. In those twisted fossils we found a very few where we think we can distinguish openings we interpret as openings to a particular kind of gill structure present in very primitive fishes like lampreys."

 And they were able to find the animal's gut trace, as well, the shadow of its digestive system, in the lower part of the body, which suggested that what had previously been thought to be a gut trace up on the back was in fact a notochord, a flexible rod in the back.

 That made it a primitive vertebrate, he said. He does not recall a moment where somebody said, "Hey, lamprey!", but recalls that "it became more and more clear," he said. "As those results started to come in, it was pretty convincing right away." ||||| Since it was first uncovered more than a half a century ago, this kooky-looking creature known as the “Tully monster” has puzzled paleontologists who, frankly, could not make heads, tails or claws of its fossilized remains.

 The creature was named after Francis Tully, the amateur who discovered it in 1958 in the Mazon Creek in Illinois. The state has designated the monster as its official fossil.

 Some thought the 300-million-year-old creature was a mollusk, like a snail. Others assumed it was an arthropod like an insect or crab. And others believed it was some sort of worm.

 Now, a team of researchers from Yale University say they have figured out the monster’s identity: It’s a vertebrate most closely related to the lamprey, an underwater bloodsucker.

 They published their findings on Wednesday in Nature.

 To come to their conclusion, team members first pored over 1,200 Tully monster specimens from museums. They closely examined the creature’s features, like its torpedo-shaped body and triangular tail, the proboscis that looks like an elephant’s trunk with sharp teeth, and the eyes on the side of its head, which resemble a hammerhead, but are similar to eye stalks found in crabs and insects.

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 “The frustrating thing is that these morphological features are not typical of any group,” said Victoria McCoy, a paleontologist and lead author on the paper. “But they do not rule out any group very easily.”

 The clue that led them to closing the cold case was a lightly colored structure scientists had previously identified as the creature’s gut. Only it wasn’t a gut.

 “We discovered that this feature was the notochord, the primitive backbone,” said Dr. McCoy.

 Photo

 Most guts in the fossilized record are dark and appear three-dimensional. But the Tully monster’s structure was light and appeared two-dimensional.

 “It didn’t make sense to us that there would be this one animal that would fossilize its gut completely differently,” she said.

 After finding that the creature had a primitive backbone, they could classify it as a chordate, which is a family of species that includes all vertebrates. Then they had to narrow down the type of chordate to which it was most similar. By further examining the notochord, the fossil sleuths noticed that the structure curved down as it went through the creature’s tail.

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 In animals like sharks, the notochord curves up into the top fin of the tail, and in some fish it goes through the middle of the tail. But in lampreys the notochord curves down.

 “There was no big ‘Aha!’ moment that pointed to the lamprey. But put together, the strongest evidence was that it could be a lamprey,” Dr. McCoy said. “The coolest thing is finding out that as weird as it looks, it is part of a familiar group of animals.” |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– It's been more than half a century since Francis Tully found the monster that has since defied classification. Now, scientists say they know where the prehistoric oddball that lived some 308 million years ago fits on the Tree of Life: "The Tully monster is a vertebrate," according to research published Wednesday in Nature. That's a big step for the creature Tully discovered when he was hunting for fossils in the Mazon Creek geological deposits southeast of Chicago in 1955. Previously the Tully monster, with its torpedo body, hammerhead-like eyes, and long proboscis filled with sharp teeth, had been categorized as "problematica"—"creatures that defied ready classification," the Chicago Tribune reports. Some have speculated that Tullimonstrum gregarium—which, despite its name, is only about a foot long—was related to snails, worms, or insects and crabs, reports the New York Times. "If you put in a box a worm, a mollusk, an arthropod, and a fish, and you shake," one paleontologist tells the Tribune, "then what you have at the end is a Tully monster," Some have even floated the idea that the Tully monster was a tiny version of the Loch Ness Monster, per Smithsonian. However, the researchers found that Tully is related to the lamprey, an "underwater bloodsucker," as the Times puts it. Using a synchrotron X-ray machine, researchers were able to determine that what was previously thought to be the creature's gut was actually a notochord, "the primitive backbone," study lead Victoria McCoy tells the Times. "The coolest thing is finding out that as weird as it looks it is part of a familiar group of animals." Check out a graphic of the Tully monster. (A 90 million-year-old fossil indicates T. rex got smart before it got big.)


Here is a news article: CLOSE Arizona Republic columnist E.J. Montini on one size fits all policies that can lead to a Kindergartener being referred for sexual misconduct after pulling his pants down on a playground. The Republic

 Stack of school books and apple on desk in empty classroom. (Photo: Getty Images) Story Highlights A kindergartner was given a referral for sexual misconduct after pulling his pants down on the playground.

 Experts say young children may not understand the infraction terminology.

 Districts say uniform discipline policies help keep things consistent, but allow flexibility to handle individual cases.

 An angry Surprise mother has raised questions about discipline appropriate for young children after a school gave her kindergarten son a sexual-misconduct referral when he pulled his pants down on the playground.

 The mother said that her son is too young to understand what sexual misconduct means and that he pulled down his pants, exposing himself, not out of sexual intent but because he was intimidated by another student.

 She said her son was asked to sign the referral form, which was to stay in his student record while he is a student in the Dysart Unified School District. The boy was given a one-day lunch detention, the mother said.

 Dysart Assistant Superintendent Jim Dean said that administrators followed policy, which categorizes the act of pulling one's pants down as sexual misconduct, and that the boy's signature was not an admission of guilt but an acknowledgment that he had received due process.

 ROBERTS: Kindergartner is a sex offender? Really?

 An attorney for the boy's mother said he later worked out a confidential agreement with the district that removed the sexual-misconduct categorization from the boy's record.

 Tashia Abry, assistant research professor at Arizona State University's T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, said the incident raises serious questions.

 "Is it really fair to characterize this behavior in this context, in this circumstance, as sexual misconduct?" Abry said. "That's a question worth asking and that we should be asking ourselves, because this is a child's school record, and it's not something to be taken lightly."

 The question is difficult for experts to answer.

 Though clearly defined codes of conduct and consequences are important, many younger children, especially kindergartners, may not understand, said Mary Anne Duggan, an assistant research professor at the School of Social and Family Dynamics.

 "Children live in a very concrete world at that age," Duggan said. "I don't know how much they could understand of any of that."

 A label could be detrimental to a child who still is developing a sense of self, because the child could internalize it, Duggan said.

 Instead, administrators should focus on the behavior when talking with a child to help the child understand that the action was bad, but that it doesn't make the child bad.

 "Kids do things, and they just need (to be) put back on the right path ... rather than adults using adult words with kids that don't even really apply," Duggan said.

 School districts are required to report certain behavior infractions, as defined by state and federal standards, to the Arizona Department of Education, including indecent exposure or public sexual indecency. For indecent exposure, the standard stipulates the person is "reckless" about whether the other person present would be offended or alarmed.

 There were 535 such reported incidents in the 2010-11 school year, 624 in 2011-12 and 717 in 2012-13, according to department data. But after receiving a call from a parent who said her 5-year-old was disciplined for indecent exposure, officials are concerned those numbers are overstated.

 "It appears that, like the parent that called us, there could be other situations where young children were given a violation of indecent exposure, (but) when you read this definition, it's really not possible," said Jean Ajamie, Education Department director of school safety and prevention.

 The department plans to analyze the data and determine whether training is necessary to educate schools on how to properly report incidents in accordance with the state and federal standards, she said.

 Districts have the authority to expand a violation definition in their policies and impose discipline as they see fit, but following state standards when reporting data to the state is paramount to compiling uniform data, Ajamie said.

 When it comes to discipline, Abry said, clearly defined policies help teachers and administrators enforce rules more readily because there is a prescribed course for them to follow.

 "It can promote consistency and transparency," she said.

 Most Valley districts have such policies. The policies have a discipline matrix that defines the various behavior-infraction categories and outlines a range of consequences. The policies vary in the number of infraction categories, specific definitions, range of consequences and how they are applied across grades.

 Several districts have "sexual misconduct" or "sexual offenses" categories that include public display of affection, indecent exposure, sexual abuse and sexual conduct with a minor. Others have separate categories for specific sexual offenses.

 Dysart's policy is uniform for all students to ensure that expectations are clear to parents and students and ensure a safe environment, Dean said.

 "There are standards of conduct that are inappropriate on a school campus regardless of the grade level of the student," he said. "Exposing oneself is never going to be appropriate in any school situation."

 Despite the uniformity, Dean said, administrators thoroughly investigate each incident and consider individual circumstances, including age, before making discipline decisions.

 Depending on the district, consequences for an infraction in one of the sexual categories could range from a conference with the student to short-term suspension and up to expulsion for more serious infractions.

 A range of consequences adds to the flexibility administrators have to handle each incident, said Helen Hollands, a Mesa Public Schools spokeswoman.

 That flexibility is key with younger students, because they often make mistakes, said Jim Cummings, a Glendale Elementary School District spokesman.

 "They're kids, and they need to learn," he said, "and when they do make mistakes, you can use those as teaching moments to teach them the difference between right and wrong, to teach them good behavior from bad behavior."

 Uniform discipline policies stem from the rise of zero-tolerance policies in the 1990s, said Doug Ward, director of the public-safety leadership division at Johns Hopkins University's School of Education.

 Those policies originally focused on drugs, alcohol and weapons in schools as people became more fearful of crime in the 1980s and '90s, but schools soon started including other behaviors, including bullying and sexual harassment, he said.

 Child sexual-abuse scandals with organizations like the Boy Scouts of America and the Catholic Church also fueled fear and prompted the criminal-justice system to implement tougher penalties for sex crimes, Ward said. Schools, which reflect society, soon followed suit.

 "People felt the need to protect children even more," Ward said. "A lot of laws were enacted, and I think schools responded with a zero tolerance of sexual crimes and activities."

 Although people convicted of sexual crimes are required to register as sex offenders and often carry the societal stigma that comes with it, Ward said, students who are disciplined for sexual infractions likely will not face the same stigma, because school records are protected.

 Top 10 discipline infractions statewide

 School districts are required to report certain behavior infractions to the Arizona Department of Education. Here are the top 10 most commonly reported* infractions across the state during the 2010-11 through 2012-13 school years.

 10. Non-sexual harassment, 6,184.

 9. Endangerment, 6,225.

 8. Sexual harassment, 6,719.

 7. Dangerous items, 7,519.

 6. Vandalism of school property, 7,623.

 5. Bullying, 14,989.

 4. Threat or intimidation, 18,565.

 3. Drug violation, 19,391.

 2. Assault, 20,302.

 1. Fighting, 42,133.

 *The data are self-reported based on local school policies and procedures, and the Arizona Department of Education does not have a validation strategy in place to ensure accuracy, so the data only give an idea of what is happening at a state level.

 Source: Arizona Department of Education

 Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/1rUo5rY ||||| SURPRISE, Ariz. (CBS Las Vegas) – A mother is upset after her 5-year-old son received detention for what his school is calling “sexual misconduct.”

 Eric Lopez, a kindergartner at Ashton Ranch Elementary School, pulled his pants down on the playground this past spring. The child received detention and has a note within his permanent file at the school. At the time of the incident, his mother wasn’t notified nor did school officials inform her that her son signed a note in the assistant principal’s office.

 “He did not know that he could ask for me,” Eric’s mother, Erica Martinez, told KTVK. “He’s 5.”

 Dysart Unified School District has a policy that states a parent does not have to be present for a disciplinary meeting unless the student requests his or her parent.

 For the past two months, Martinez has been fighting to have the sexual misconduct label removed from her son’s file citing that her son’s actions were not sexual in any way. But the district has denied her appeal and the assistant superintendent is defending the school’s actions.

 “Our school district uses consistent language for disciplinary infractions in order to provide clarity and track discipline data accurately,” assistant superintendent Jim Dean said in a written statement to KTVK.

 He explained that the district must follow the state and federal guidelines and definitions that are set to define a sexual offense.

 AZ SAFE is an initiative sponsored by the state which helps districts collect information and clarify it. The state recommends that each district take into account the age and maturity of a student before placing their actions in the sexual offense category.

 The mother does not think that her son’s age was taken into account when the Dysart Unified School District labeled his “depantsing.”

 But Dean shared that the district does not focus on labels when they discipline students.

 “Even though the discipline labels are consistently used and the discipline form is consistent from grades K-12 to ensure all legal mandates are met, the discussion the administrator has about a situation and consequences are age appropriate,” Dean said to KTVK. “The discussion with a kindergarten student is focused on the specific action, not on the label that is used for classifying the infraction.” |||||
A summary of this is?

– An Arizona mom wants answers as to why her 5-year-old kindergartner now has a "sexual misconduct" stamp on his permanent school file. Erica Martinez says her son, Eric Lopez, pulled down his pants and exposed himself when another student at Ashton Ranch Elementary School "intimidated" him on the playground. The superintendent of the Dysart Unified School District says administrators labelled the event as "sexual misconduct" per school policy, but Martinez argues her son doesn't even know what that means and his actions were far from sexual, the Arizona Republic reports. Eric was asked to sign a "sexual misconduct" referral without Martinez present, CBS News previously reported—though school officials say the signature only indicates he received due process. Eric spent a lunch period in detention, but the referral will stay in his school record while he remains in the district. "This is a child's school record, and it's not something to be taken lightly," an expert notes. Labels like "sexual misconduct," another adds, could hurt a child this age if they're internalized. Kids need to be "put back on the right path ... rather than adults using adult words with kids that don't even really apply," that expert says, but the school says it's just following state guidelines for defining certain types of misbehavior. The status of Lopez's case is unclear—CBS reported last month that his mother's appeal to have the mark removed from his file was denied, but the Republic says she has not yet formally appealed.


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 Close ||||| While taking her son Ethan to Egelston hospital on Monday, August 7th in order to have stitches removed resulting from a vicious dog attack on Christmas eve, Tracy suffered a stroke brought on by a large brain aneurysm. She lost consciousness in the lobby of Egelston and was rushed over to Emory for an emergency surgery to relieve pressure on the brain and stop the bleeding from the aneurysm. She is now stable and currently in a deep medically inducted coma but still shows signs of brain activity. The road too recovery is going to be very long. Prayers for Tracy and her family are greatly needed and appreciated during this difficult time. It was a miracle that she was already in the hospital when it occurred. The doctors believe that saved her life. We are praying for another miracle to happen and lead to a full recovery ||||| - Tracy Fain suffered a brain aneurysm and stroke last week. Sadly, she's now been declared brain dead. Her son, Ethan, was brutally attacked by two dogs on Christmas Eve. He was at the doctor getting his stitches out after a recent reconstructive surgery when his mother collapsed.

 "I said ‘Here I am. I'm old, lived my life. Why couldn't I have went instead of her?’" Fain's mother Sandra Moore said.

 Moore is heartbroken. Her world shattered into a million pieces the day she lost her daughter.

 "I've just been so upset over it. I'm just about to give up myself," said Moore.

 Just eight months ago, Fain's 7-year-old son was severely injured when he was mauled by a neighbor's dogs. He lost an ear in the attack.

 Then, on August 7, Fain was at a post-op appointment with Ethan at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta's Egleston campus when she collapsed, suffering a brain aneurysm and massive stroke.

 Family members clung to hope that Fain would make a full recovery, but she took a turn for the worse over the weekend. Moore was called to the hospital. She pleaded with her child to keep fighting.

 "I just told her that she had to fight harder. That that baby needed her, how much I loved her, and how much we all needed her," said Moore.

 Moore prayed for a miracle.

 "I prayed all day going to the hospital, the day they said her brain started swelling again. I prayed all day, but it didn't work. It's in God's hands," said Moore. "I just wonder why? Just like my grandson, I wonder why never have the answers."

 On Tuesday, doctors declared the wife and mother of two brain dead, a devastating blow for the family, coming just months after Ethan's incident and the sudden death of Fain's nephew in July.

 "It's just unreal," said Moore. "I know I just don't know how much more we can take."

 Anyone who wants to donate to the family's online account at https://www.gofundme.com/496vn2w. |||||
A summary of this is?

– "It's just unreal," Sandra Moore tells Fox 5. "I just don't know how much more we can take." Moore's grandson, 7-year-old Ethan Fain, was mauled by two dogs who pulled him out of a tree and attacked him last Christmas Eve in Georgia. Ethan lost his right ear and suffered serious damage to his left ear; his injuries required 300 stitches, the New York Daily News reports. Now another tragedy has befallen the family. On Aug. 7, Ethan was with his mom, Tracy Dowdy Fain, at the hospital getting stitches from a reconstructive surgery removed, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Suddenly, Fain, who had complained of a headache, collapsed. Doctors found Fain suffered a brain aneurysm and stroke. Her daughter, Jessica Dowdy, says she wouldn't have survived if she wasn't already in a hospital when it happened. In the coming days, the swelling in Fain's brain got worse, and she was declared brain dead Tuesday. “Her body is still here, but her soul is gone,” Dowdy says. The family still hasn't told Ethan. “All he knows is mommy is sick and the doctors are trying to make her better like they made him better,” Dowdy says. A GoFundMe account has been set up for Fain, who also lost a nephew last month.