Ex-official seeks clemency in deadly crash

Only on News 13: Student killed in accident was drunk
News 13 has exclusive details about a fatal accident that killed a Winter Park High School Student. It turns out the 16-year-old Victim was drunk. One of Kason Bailey's friends said he had been drinking heavily on Oct. 8 and drinking Four Loko. The accident happened a few moments after Bailey purchased two more Four Loko drinks from a nearby store. He was trying to run across Aloma Avenue when he was hit by two different cars. A shrine in his memory remains at the scene more than two m...

Jury gets fatal crash case
The panel began deliberating Wednesday afternoon after impassioned pleas from lawyers on both sides of a Lawsuit in Federal Court in Detroit. A lawyer for Gary Weinstein, an Oakland County jeweler whose family was wiped out by Thomas Wellinger in a 2005 drunken-driving crash, urged the jury to hold the driver's employer responsible. "Had UGS acted as a reasonable and prudent business ... this accident would have never happened," attorney Frank Guerra I...

Hasta La Vista, Handicapper General Schwarzenegger
I’m not sure if he intended it this way, but there’s a moment in Joel Kotkin’s new article on the last days of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s failed administration that sums up everything about the modern left — or at least the Green Supremacist left — in a single paragraph. It’s the last one quoted here: Of course, apologists point out, quite correctly, that many signature corporations are keeping their headquarters in the Golden State-after all not many CEO...

Report: Student killed on Aloma drank Four Loko
A 16-year-old Winter Park High School Student was drunk on Four Loko when he was struck and killed by two vehicles in October, according to a CFNews13.com report. According to the report, Kason Bailey had just purchased two more Four Loko cans from a nearby store and had been drinking heavily when he was hit on Aloma Avenue on Oct. 8. The report says a Medical Examiner's report revealed that his blood Alcohol level was .210, almost three times the legal limit, when he was hit. To read the full ...

Former Maersk seaman testifies he was raped
PORTSMOUTH A former Maersk Line Ltd. seaman who alleges he was raped by South Korean Police while on shore leave in 2008 gave jurors his account Tuesday of what led to his Lawsuit against the shipping company. The 50-year-old Mat hews County man, who was fired by the captain of the Maersk Rhode Island, says the company was negligent under maritime law and did not provide him needed medical treatment. He's asking for $50 million in the suit. The plaintiff's name is being withheld in keeping with ...

Kathleen Brown moves to Chicago as her brother takes office
Former state Treasurer and former Gubernatorial Candidate Kathleen Brown will be relocating to Chicago to become Investment Firm Goldman Sachs ' chairman of Investment Banking, as her brother Jerry Brown enters the Governor's office, according to Goldman Sachs spokesman Michael DuVally. Kathleen Brown has been with the firm since 2001 and is currently based in California, where she heads the firm's Public Sector and infrastructure banking division for the western region, DuVally said. As part ...

California: Mom Shot at Strip Mall Used Body to Protect 2 Year Old Son
A mother loading her 2-year-old son into an SUV used her body to protect the toddler before she was shot and killed in an ensuing midday gunbattle at a Sacramento strip mall, sheriff's officials said Wednesday. Monique Nelson, 30, had just strapped her son into his car seat when she was struck in the chest Tuesday, and detectives believe she positioned herself to protect her son, Sacramento County Sheriff's Sgt. Tim Curran said. "She was found with her body over the young child," he said. "So...

Sacramento shootout: 2nd victim dies from injuries
(12-16) 04:00 PST Sacramento - -- A mother loading her 2-year-old son into an SUV used her body to protect the toddler before she was shot and killed in a gunbattle at a Sacramento strip mall, sheriff's officials said Wednesday. Monique Nelson, 30, had just strapped her son into his car seat when she was struck in the chest, and detectives believe she positioned herself to protect her son, Sacramento County Sheriff's Sgt. Tim Curran said. "She was found with her body over the young child," he...

Mother's final act saved son in barbershop shooting, authorities say
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Christmas portrait came out beautifully: a smiling Monique Nelson clasping the hand of her 2-year-old son, Jayden, with snow-capped mountains in the background. Minutes later, a more harrowing scene came into focus: the 30-year-old woman shielding her son’s body as bullets flew around them in a south Sacramento County Parking Lot. It was that final act of Nelson’s Motherhood that likely saved Jayden’s life Tuesday afternoon, detectives said. Sheri...

Mom shot at strip mall used body to protect son, 2
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A mother loading her 2-year-old son into an SUV used her body to protect the toddler before she was shot and killed in an ensuing midday gunbattle at a Sacramento strip mall, sheriff’s officials said Wednesday. Monique Nelson, 30, had just strapped her son into his car seat when she was struck in the chest Tuesday, and detectives believe she positioned herself to protect her son, Sacramento County Sheriff’s Sgt. Tim Curran said. "She was found with her body...

Jerry Brown reflects as Pat Brown gets his due at the Hall of Fame
Gov.-elect Jerry Brown recalled that his late father, Gov. Pat Brown, was "a go-getter" who would "just keep going, keep pushing." "I once took him to the monastery. He got so bored and so restless…. He did not like meditating." The onetime Jesuit seminarian was saying a few words Tuesday night about his dad, who was being inducted posthumously into the California Hall of Fame, a creation in 2006 of First Lady Maria Shriver and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Save Up to 90%: Sign up for our f...

CA Supreme Court Won't Block Prop. 14
Sacramento - The California Supreme Court has decided not to hear a request to block the state's new election process. The state's High Court on Wednesday denied a request to block Proposition 14, which will move the state to an Open Primary system next year. Gautam Dutta, attorney for opponents of Proposition 14, says an appeal is still pending before the appeals court in San Francisco. Under the new system, only the top two vote-getters will advance out of the primaries into the general electi...

Tis The Season To Crack Down on Drunk Driving
(Alex Goldmark, Transportation Nation) The Department of Transportation kicked off the annual Holiday Drunk Driving Crackdown Monday. Specifically, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood wants Law Enforcement to get tougher on drunk drivers who refuse to take roadside breathalyzer tests with the use of on-call judges and blood tests. Law enforcement officials say too many drivers know that refusing to take a roadside breathalyzer improves their odds of beating a conviction. Secretary LaHood thin...

Woman gets probation for crash that killed Chicago man
A woman pleaded guilty today to driving drunk and causing a crash that killed a Chicago man last February. Bria L. Farrar, 25, of the 2100 block of 76th Avenue in Elmwood Park, was sentenced Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court to 30 months of Probation and 200 hours of community service after pleading guilty to reckless homicide and aggravated DUI involving a fatality. As part of Farrar's sentence, Judge John Scotillo also imposed a curfew. Farrar was behind the wheel of a Hyundai Sonata at ...

Appeals court halts sale of Calif. state buildings
(12-13) 21:57 PST San Jose -- A state appeals court abruptly halted this week's scheduled sales of 11 state properties Monday, including the California Supreme Court and Public Utilities Commission headquarters in San Francisco, while it considers opponents' arguments that the deal is an illegal giveaway of Taxpayer funds to private profiteers. The order by the Sixth District Court of Appeal in San Jose was a stunning turnabout from a San Francisco judge's decision Friday that opponents had no...

CA Court halts sale of state assets to close budget gap
 With a growing state Deficit and and unbalanced Budget, the state of California decided to hold a going out of business sale, and unload some of its inventory of Real Estate in order to narrow the distance between the state’s appetite for spending and financial reality. Governor Schwarzenegger, in a rare display of Free Market thinking and political fortitude, asked the legislature for the authority to sell some of its assets, in an attempt to balance the state’s Budget, as is ...

ED DRISCOLL: Hasta La Vista, Handicapper General Schwarzenegger.
ED DRISCOLL: Hasta La Vista, Handicapper General Schwarzenegger. ...

JOEL KOTKIN: Hasta La Vista, Failure. Schwarzeneggers fiscal street cred was undermined by his
JOEL KOTKIN: Hasta La Vista, Failure. “Schwarzenegger’s fiscal street cred was undermined by his support for unessential new bond issues for such things as Stem Cell research and High-speed Rail. He threw financial prudence out the window in order to appease his business cronies and faithful media claque, particularly those working for mainstream eastern media.” And, I think, his wife. In retrospect, you ...

End of Schwarzenegger era draws new media interest
When movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger became Governor of California seven years ago, the world's media descended on Sacramento to chronicle what they saw as a startling, only-in-California event. Dozens of television crews and newspaper reporters covered Schwarzenegger's election and inauguration - including those from Austria, his native country, and from as far away as Indonesia. By and by, global media interest in Schwarzenegger waned but as he enters the last days of his governorship, it's...

The loud ticking from California [Darleen Click]
Victor Davis Hansen spends 3 weeks biking through California’s Central Valley I wanted to witness, even if superficially, what is happening to a state that has the highest sales and income taxes, the most lavish entitlements, the near-worst public schools (based on federal Test Scores), and the largest number of Illegal Aliens in the nation, along with an overregulated Private Sector, a stagnant and shrinking Manufacturing base, and an elite environmental ethos that restricts commerce an...

McDonald's sued for marketing Happy Meals to children
A Sacramento mother and the Center for Science in the Public Interest filed a Lawsuit Wednesday against McDonald's Corp., alleging that its practice of giving toys with Children's meals is deceptive to children. The organization had been threatening to sue McDonald's since last summer, claiming that the Happy Meals toys constitute a method of circumventing parental control and teach children unhealthy eating. The complaint, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, also accuses the company of fal...

Will Middle Eastern Countrys Laws Prevent Fans From Getting Drunk At 2022 World Cup?
When FIFA announced that the 2022 World Cup would be held in the tiny Middle Eastern country of Qatar, a resounding “Whazah?” reverberated throughout the world. For one, Qatar is extremely hot in the summertime (like, 108 degrees hot). Also, the country’s laws seem to have it out for general public boisterousness, which is a staple of any good World Cup. According to the U.S. Bureau of Consular Affairs, “incidents involving insults or obscene language/gestures often resul...

Anti-Morales governor removed in Bolivia
LA PAZ, Bolivia - A top opposition Governor in Bolivia has been ousted by his province's legislature on charges of charged with dereliction of duty and causing economic damage. Opponents of Evo Morales claim Mario Cossio is a casualty of a campaign by Bolivia's leftist president to remove all serious opposition. Thursday's unseating of Cossio by a legislature dominated by Morales supporters leaves opposition governors in control of just two of Bolivia's nine provinces. The charges were fil...

Ryan lawyers seek hearing to have ex-governor released
Lawyers for George Ryan have called for a hearing next week on their request to have the former Governor released early from his 6 ½-year Prison sentence so he can care for his terminally ill wife. Ryan's attorneys on Wednesday said that Ryan's wife, Lura Lynn, has only months to live after doctors this week discovered she appears to have aggressive, incurable Cancer. They are seeking a hearing for Dec. 22. Ryan has sought to have U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer throw out his 2006 convic...

Images of Muhammad
True to its title, this study by a Professor of Islamic studies at the American University of Beirut chronicles the myriad images of Muhammad throughout the ages from the eighth-century biography by Ibn Ishaq to twentieth-century polemics and apologetics. Unfortunately, the book omits the more troubling images, the ones echoed in the behaviors of today's more troubling Muslims. Such an approach has an ancient pedigree: Writing some 1,200 years ago, Ibn Hisham, editor of the earliest biography o...