Report: Teacher's aide sent love letters to boy

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Officials at an elementary school rocked by teacher sex abuse claims are investigating yet another allegation of misconduct, this one involving a teacher's aide accused of sending love letters to an 11-year-old boy.

The mother of the fourth-grader told the Los Angeles Times that the aide, a woman the mother appeared to be in her 50s, sent at least three letters to her son in 2009, including one that read: "when you get close to me, even if you give me the chills I like that. Don't tell nobody about this!"

The allegations come as school district administrators move to replace the entire staff at Miramonte Elementary School as the Los Angeles Unified School District investigates two veteran teachers arrested last week.

Mark Berndt, 61, is charged with committing lewd acts on children, ages 6 to 10, between 2005 and 2010. The alleged acts include blindfolding children, feeding them semen, taping their mouths, and photographing them in a "game."

The furor led to two parents coming forward Thursday to complain that teacher Martin Springer, 49 who had worked at the school for 26 years, fondled two second-grade girls in his classroom.

Springer pleaded not guilty Tuesday after he was charged with committing lewd acts upon one girl in 2009. Bail was set at $300,000.

Police have set forth no connection between the cases, but parents' confidence has been badly shaken.

In the latest allegations to come to light, the teacher's aide wrote a letter signing herself "sad girl" because she was being transferred to another school, the mother alleged.

The mother went to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which directed her to the school. During a meeting that included the mother, her son, his teacher and an assistant principal, the teacher's aide acknowledged writing letters and said she had a grandmotherly affection for the boy.

The aide no longer works for the school system, district spokeswoman Gayle Pollard-Terry said.

The move to replace the entire has been met with mixed feelings.

Some parents applauded the decision, but others protested the move and circulated a petition calling for the staff at the school to be reinstated.

All 120 staff members at Miramonte will be replaced as of Thursday after a two-day school shutdown as part of Los Angeles Unified School District's investigation into the two veteran teachers arrested last week.

"It's the most severe action I've seen taken by a school district," said Terri Miller, president of Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation, an advocacy organization based in Las Vegas.

The decision Monday came after about three dozen people protested in front of the main doors of the school earlier in the day, some carrying a banner that read, "We the parents demand our children be protected from lewd teacher acts." It also followed a march later in the day, in which 100 angry parents marched from the elementary school to the nearby administrators meeting.

Mother Maria Jimenez said some parents would at least like to have been notified that this was being considered as many feel it's drastic. "They did this without advising us or consulting us," she said.

Parents on Monday night handed Superintendent John Deasy a petition with 400 signatures calling for open doors and allowing parents to observe classrooms and act as hall monitors.

But they did not want good teachers removed, said Martha Escutia, a lawyer and former state senator who is helping parents to organize a group named Mothers of Miramonte.

"This is not being very well received," Escutia said. "Some kids have established close relationships with their teachers."

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said he supported Deasy's decision to replace the staff.

"I think we need to do everything we can to make sure these kids, these students and their families, get the help that they need and to get to the bottom of how this happened," he said.

The school board on Tuesday voted unanimously to fire Springer. He has 30 days to file an appeal.

Berndt was fired in January 2011 after the district learned of a sheriff's department probe. He appealed and resigned six months later.

Miramonte's old staff will continue being paid and will be housed at an undisclosed location at least until August while each person is thoroughly interviewed, Deasy said.

Replacing teaching staffs at schools has been done in LAUSD and other schools, but in cases of chronically low academic performance. Teachers usually must reapply for their jobs, and the turnover does not also extend to support staff.

It's unclear whether any staffers will return to Miramonte. On Tuesday, they were packing up their classroom belongings to head to a nearby newly constructed school that is unoccupied, district spokesman Tom Waldman said.

The new principal will be a retired principal, while the rest of the new staffers, including some 90 teachers, are former district personnel who were laid off due to budget cuts in recent years, the district said.

Deasy said the new staff members are being vigorously screened for any previous complaints against them. Each of the approximately 90 teachers will be accompanied in class by a psychiatric social worker to address possible issues caused by the scandal and the midyear disruption.

The cost of the plan has not yet been determined, but Deasy said he was sparing no expense to understand how the abuse occurred over some years and no one reported it.

The district's investigation, which will be handled by an independent commission led by retired California Supreme Court Chief Justice Carlos Moreno, will include interviewing past students and staff at Miramonte.

School sex abuse expert Mary Jo McGrath, an attorney who has conducted some 350 abuse investigations, said the investigation could uncover more cases.

"It's not a witch hunt, it's just that someone is really looking," she said. "Cases start unpeeling like an onion. It's always the same pattern."

Berndt is charged with committing lewd acts on children, ages 6 to 10, between 2005 and 2010. The alleged acts include blindfolding children, feeding them semen, taping their mouths, and photographing them in a "game."

Berndt, who worked at the school for 32 years, remains jailed on $23 million bail and could face life in prison if convicted.

Springer pleaded not guilty Tuesday after he was charged with committing lewd acts upon one girl in 2009. Bail was set at $300,000.

Investigators said they know of no connection between the men. Berndt and Springer took their classes on at least two joint field trips in the past decade, according to the Los Angeles Times. •

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Teacher in LA molest case paid to resign

Mexican army finds 15 tons of pure methamphetamine

GUADALAJARA, Mexico (AP) — The historic seizure of 15 tons of pure methamphetamine in western Mexico, equal to half of all meth seizures worldwide in 2009, feeds growing speculation that the country could become a world platform for meth production, not just a supplier to the United States.

The sheer size of the bust announced late Wednesday in Jalisco state suggests involvement of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, a major international trafficker of cocaine and marijuana that has moved into meth production and manufacturing on an industrial scale.

Army officials didn't say what drug gangs could have been behind the dozens of blue barrels filled with powdered meth. Army Gen. Gilberto Hernandez Andreu said the meth was ready for packaging. There was no information on where the drugs were headed.

Jalisco has long been considered the hub of the Sinaloa cartel's meth production and trafficking. Meanwhile, meth use is growing in the United States, already the world's biggest market for illicit drugs.

The haul could have supplied 13 million doses worth over $4 billion on U.S. streets.

The Sinaloa cartel, headed by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, is equipped to produce and distribute drugs "for the global village," said Antonio Mazzitelli, the regional representative of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

"Such large-scale production could suggest an expansion ... into Latin American and Asian markets," Mazzitelli said. But he also noted, "it may be a product that hasn't been able to be sold, and like any business, when the market is depressed, stockpiles build up."

A senior U.S. law enforcement official in Mexico said the operation raided in Jalisco was "probably Sinaloa."

The official, who could not be quoted by name for security reasons, said Sinaloa may be trying "to reduce its reliance on Colombian cocaine by flooding the market with meth."

Reporters were shown barrels of white and yellow powder that filled three rooms on a small ranch outside Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city.

The lot around the house, which included an empty swimming pool, was littered with metal canisters and cauldrons used in the production process. While the equipment appeared makeshift and partially dismantled during a tour of the facility given to news media, it was apparently used intensively.

There were no people found on the ranch or arrests made, although it appeared 12 to 15 people worked there.

The seizure of such a large quantity of meth is expected to have a big impact on the U.S. meth market. A pound of meth can sell for about $15,000.

"This could potentially put a huge dent in the supply chain in the U.S," said U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Rusty Payne. "When we're taking this much out of the supply chain, it's a huge deal."

But that may not ultimately mean less meth in the U.S. Law enforcement officials in California's Central Valley, a hub of the U.S. methamphetamine distribution network, say a cutoff in the Mexican supply could mean domestic super labs will increase production.

"This will be a big seizure and will most likely slow down distribution for a short period of time until manufacturing can continue," said Robert Penal, a meth expert and former commander of California's Fresno Methamphetamine Task Force. "However, when there is an interruption in supply it is not uncommon for domestic super labs in California to start up operations to fill the void until the supply from Mexico can be restored."

Tom Farmer, director of the Tennessee Methamphetamine Task Force, believes the seizure could have a big impact in his state. Tennessee led the nation in clandestine meth lab busts in 2010 with 2,082, but the majority of meth in the state comes from Mexico.

Farmer said the Mexican meth is often made without pseudoephedrine, an ingredient commonly found in cold and allergy pills, which has been banned in Mexico and restricted in the United States. Most meth made in clandestine U.S. labs is made with pseudoephedrine, making it a more powerful high, he said.

"Meth users prefer domestic dope," Farmer said. "What they end up using is a combination of both. They'll use the local dope for special occasions, but when it comes to feeding their habit, they'll revert back to Mexican meth."

The Mexican army said troops received several anonymous tips and found the big drug stash in the township of Tlajomulco de Zuniga, near the Jalisco state capital of Guadalajara. The army statement said that "the historic seizure (is) the most important in terms of quantity of methamphetamines (seized) at one time."

The previous biggest bust announced by the army came in June 2010, when soldiers found 3.1 metric tons (3.4 tons) of pure meth in three interconnected warehouses in the central state of Queretaro, along with hundreds of tons of precursor chemicals used to make meth. A giant underground lab was also found in Sinaloa state.

Those other seizures were believed to be linked to the Sinaloa cartel.

The size of the Jalisco bust stunned Steve Preisler, an industrial chemist who wrote the book "Secrets of Methamphetamine Manufacture" and is sometimes called the father of modern meth-making.

"I have never seen quantity in that range," Preisler wrote. But he added: "The amounts of precursors they were importing would produce multi-tons of product."

Preisler was referring to the dramatic increase in seizures in Mexico of chemicals used to make methamphetamine, usually imported from countries such as China.

In December alone, Mexican authorities seized 675 tons of a key precursor chemical, methylamine, that can yield its weight in uncut meth. All of the shipments were headed for Guatemala, where the Sinaloa cartel is also active. Officials in Guatemala, meanwhile, seized 7,847 barrels of precursors in 2011, equivalent to about 1,600 tons.

The supply of methamphetamine in the United States has been growing, mainly due to its manufacture in Mexico, according to U.S. drug intelligence sources.

Between 2007 and 2009, seizures of methamphetamine by U.S. authorities along the Mexican border increased by 87 percent, according to the 2011 U.N. World Drug Report, the most recent statistics the U.N. has available.

Eighty percent of the meth caught being smuggled into the U.S. is seized at the Mexican border, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center.

Few drugs do as much widespread damage — both to users and the general public — as meth, which is highly addictive. It's produced with volatile chemicals that can lead to explosions.

Chronic use can lead to psychosis, which includes hearing voices and experiencing hallucinations. The stimulant effect of meth is up to 50 times longer than cocaine, experts say, so users stay awake for days on end, impairing cognitive function and contributing to extreme paranoia.

Users are known to lose massive amounts of weight, suffer scabs on their bodies and even lose teeth to "meth mouth" caused when saliva dries up and decay takes over. •

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Debt Collector Allegedly Makes Bogus 911 Suicide Call on Elderly Oregon Woman

When Anne Sessions, 85, of Lane County, Ore., fell behind in her credit card payments, she said an aggressive debt collector harassed her to the point of calling the police with a phony claim she threatened to commit suicide, costing her $1,055 in medical bills. Now she is suing for $250,000 over the incident, which led to an involuntary hospital visit.

Sessions fell behind on her credit card payments in 2010 after unanticipated financial setbacks, potentially facing foreclosure. As she survived on a fixed income from Social Security and a "very modest" pension, she was strapped.

Wells Fargo began calling Sessions "numerous times" and threatened legal action if she did not make payments, the suit said. She tried to explain that she did not have the money to pay the account and still provide for her basic needs, but "the words and tone of the collection calls were intended to, and did, make plaintiff feel like a deadbeat when, in fact, she had always paid her bills until experiencing financial difficulties, as so many others have during this time," according to the complaint, filed in Multnomah County Court.

Sessions says she worked out a payment plan with Wells Fargo, and the calls had stopped until February 2011, when a Wells Fargo employee called her on a Sunday.

As that employee "continued to badger her," Sessions told him "that such harassment was bad policy, and 'could have serious consequences' including leading people to abandon their homes or even potentially committing suicide."

Throughout the conversation," she told him she was concerned about other people who might be enduring the same kind of harassment she was facing," according to the suit.

The employee "immediately seized on" her statement and "began engaging in a highly inappropriate line of questioning," the suit states.

He then asked if she was considering suicide, to which she replied, "of course not." But the employee asked, "'But ... if you did, how would you do it -- hurt yourself?"

She responded that she currently "had no intention whatsoever of committing suicide, but that, in the abstract, she might consider it some years down the road, if, for instance, she was diagnosed with a terminal disease."

But the employee "continued to ask [Sessions] additional inappropriate questions about how she might kill herself."

Sessions said she told the employee she "intended to continue to pay [Wells Fargo] once per month as agreed until she had funds to fully catch up on the three payments that were in arrears," but the employee was "offended and angered" because she would not give him a specific date.

Within 30 minutes of the call, Sessions said three police officers arrived at her home and told her that the employee had called 911 and reported she had made "multiple suicide threats" during the collection call, requesting police be sent to her home.

The police then "forcibly" took her to the local hospital emergency room, "over her objections," then told the hospital personnel that she was suicidal.

She was held at the hospital for "several hours," and seen by a doctor and the hospital's crisis staff. She was released after they reported they felt "strongly" she was not a threat to herself or others, the suit states.

One week later, she received a bill from the hospital for $712, and a few days later $343 for physician charges. Without medical or other insurance, she now owed $1,055 for the unnecessary hospital visit, in addition to her credit card debt.

When she called Wells Fargo to complain, she asked to speak to the same employee and his co-worker told her he was not there.

When Sessions told the co-worker about the 911 call, "the employee laughed loudly and plaintiff could hear her calling out something like 'Hey Chuck ... that woman you called the police on got taken to the hospital by the police,'" according to the suit.

Sessions said she heard "loud laughter in the collections center and the female employee proceeded to congratulate defendant Gajewski on how effective his call had been in a way that [Sessions] was certain to hear."

She said the incident caused her extreme anxiety, embarrassment, depression, feelings of worthlessness, and loss of sleep, among other effects, causing non-economic damages in the amount of $250,000.

Chris Flamm, executive director of Clarke Balcom Law in Portland, which represents her, said Sessions is a vulnerable person who debt collectors take advantage of.

"Creditors and debt collectors use harassment to collect money," Flamm said. "People don't know they have rights but they do. We file complaints against debt collectors and creditors when they break the law, and harassment like this is against the law."

Debt collectors generate more complaints to the Federal Trade Commission than any other industry, according to the government agency. In 2010, there were 144,159 filings against collection companies, the second largest category of complaints to the FTC. There were 250,854 identity theft -related complaints in 2010, or 19 percent of all complaints.

Lisa Westermann, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo, said the company cannot discuss the specific details of the pending lawsuit.

"What we can tell you is that team members are instructed to report suicide or other violent type threats to the police department," Westermann said. "At that point, the situation is between the customer and the police department."

"If that's their policy, that's their policy," Flamm said in response. "Ms. Sessions did not make a suicide threat."

Flam said Sessions is "outraged" by what happened to her and hopes it does not happen to other people. •

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Cops: Ohioan stuck son in dryer, then turned it on

CAMBRIDGE, Ohio (AP) — Police say an Ohio man who stuck his 3-year-old son in a clothes dryer as punishment and then turned it on is facing child endangerment charges.

The Zanesville Times Recorder reports that 40-year-old Jamial Bayly is scheduled for a video arraignment Thursday in Cambridge Municipal Court.

Guernsey County Sheriff Michael McCauley says deputies went to the Cambridge home Sunday after getting a tip from family members.

The sheriff says the father acknowledged putting the boy in the dryer earlier in the day. Deputies didn't see any visible injuries on him. McCauley says he doesn't know how long the boy had been in the dryer.

The sheriff says the boy was released to his mother, who wasn't home when deputies arrived.

Cambridge Municipal Court records don't list an attorney for Bayly. •

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NH 14-year-old shoots self in face in cafeteria

By GARRETT BRNGER

WALPOLE, N.H. (AP) — A 14-year-old shot himself in the face in a New Hampshire elementary school cafeteria filled with dozens of students eating lunch, officials said Friday.

The teen, identified by a relative and fellow students as Hunter Mack, was hospitalized after shooting himself around 11 a.m. at Walpole Elementary School in southwestern New Hampshire. Police locked down the school for several hours, but no one else was injured.

Cheshire County Attorney Peter Heed told The Associated Press the student might have been upset about a "relationship issue" with a girl.

"It clearly involved a relationship issue; I think that is fair to say," Heed told the AP.

As of Friday afternoon, the student was in serious condition in the intensive care unit.

"Our hearts go out to the family of this young man and our thoughts go out to all of the students that were in the school at this time," Heed said at an afternoon news conference.

He did not say what kind of gun the student used or where he might have obtained it.

"We're all just waiting to hear about our little boy," said Cindy Mack, whose cousin is the boy's father. "He's a wonderful little boy. He's an avid hunter — like his name. He is very smart. He won prizes at school. He shot his first deer last year. He's a great, great kid."

Ethan Symonds, a seventh-grader who was sitting at a table near the boy in the cafeteria, said he heard something "a little bit louder than a chip bag popping." He said he did a double-take, saw blood, and ran.

Seventy of the school's approximately 170 students were in the cafeteria at the time. Nick Phillips, an eighth-grader in the student's home room, said he had been passing notes during the week saying he was depressed, but it wasn't clear why.

Parents received automated calls about the lockdown at about 1 p.m. They were allowed to come to the school to pick up their children, some of whom were interviewed by police.

"The state of New Hampshire is offering whatever assistance it can to the community, along with all of our thoughts and prayers," Gov. John Lynch said in a statement.

Walpole, a town of about 3,000, is several miles from the Vermont state line and about 15 miles northwest of Keene.

Walpole Elementary School, which includes grades 5-8, is one of five schools that recently began participating in an experiment aimed at reducing bullying and meanness in New Hampshire schools.

The Courage to Care curriculum, developed at the University of New Hampshire, includes videos, activities and games emphasizing empathy, caring for others, understanding power, courage and being respectful in cyberspace. Half of the seventh graders in each participating school are enrolled in the program initially, while the other half serve as control groups to compare the curriculum's effects. •

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Mom who threw tot in NY river can go home to India

By JENNIFER PELTZ

NEW YORK (AP) — A mother who tossed her toddler into the Hudson River after suddenly spiraling into psychosis can return to her native India and her children, a judge said Friday after she reached a rare form of agreement with prosecutors to resolve her attempted-murder case.

Devi Silvia will continue treatment and medication in India, with New York authorities monitoring her progress during five years of probation.

Her lawyers called it a just result for a woman whose conduct was driven by a mental illness that emerged only in the days before she threw her daughter into the chilly river off Manhattan's Upper West Side, then leaped in herself, in May 2010.

"Ms. Silvia has always been a tremendously caring and loving mother, who at the age of 34 had no prior symptoms of mental illness and had no idea what was happening to her at the time of the incident," the law firm that represented her, Bingham McCutchen LLP, said in a statement. "Ms. Silvia has been in full remission now for nearly two years, and she has been a model patient in every category."

Over the roughly four days before the river plunge, the former high school math teacher from the southeast Indian state of Tamil Nadu thought she saw a strange bright light coming from her bedroom door during the night, had the idea that God had sent someone to clean her kitchen and felt her 6-year-old and people at the child's school were giving her unusual and frightening looks, prosecutors have said.

On the morning when Silvia and her younger daughter, Jessica Prithiviraj, would end up in the river, the mother believed she heard a dog in a playground tell her she also was a dog, then heard a voice command her to leap into the river as she and the toddler walked alongside it, prosecutors said in November, when they agreed to let her resolve the case by pleading not guilty because of mental illness. The Manhattan district attorney's office made only a handful of such pacts last year; they're sanctioned by state law for cases in which prosecutors believe an insanity defense would prevail at trial.

"I don't know what I was doing," Silvia said during her plea.

Jessica, then 21 months old, was blue and motionless and wasn't breathing when rescuers plucked her and Silvia from the roughly 50-degree water, prosecutors said. Both mother and daughter recovered. Silvia was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Silvia, a former math teacher in her homeland, had been in the United States for several years because her husband was working here. A relative took Jessica and her older sister back to India after their mother's arrest.

After about three months in a psychiatric hospital jail ward, Silvia was released on $10,000 bail and was ordered to attend psychiatric treatment five days a week.

Her plea could have meant psychiatric hospitalization, but doctors found she's now healthy enough not to need it, Assistant District Attorney Patricia Bailey said Friday.

Silvia "is thrilled to be able to rejoin her family," said Bingham McCutchen. Firm partner Daniel M. McGillycuddy appeared in court on Silvia's case.

If Silvia develops problems while under treatment in India, a court can order her brought back to New York. •

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Honduras prison fire kills more than 350 inmates

By Mayra Navarro | Reuters – 2 mins 45 secs ago

COMAYAGUA, Honduras (Reuters) - A massive fire raged through an overcrowded prison in Honduras, killing more than 350 inmates, many of them trapped and screaming inside their cells.

The blaze began late on Tuesday night at the prison in Comayagua, about 75 km (45 miles) north of the capital Tegucigalpa and killed 359 people, said Danelia Ferrera, a senior official at the attorney general's office.

"It's a terrible scene ... Our staff went into the cells and the bodies are charred, most of them are unrecognizable," Ferrera told Reuters, adding that officials would have to use dental records and DNA in many cases to identify those killed.

Ravaged by violent street gangs, brutal drug traffickers and rampant poverty, Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world, according to the United Nations.

The cramped Honduran jails suffer frequent riots and clashes between rival gangs, although it was not yet clear if the Comayagua blaze - one of the worst prisons fires ever in Latin America - was started deliberately or was an accident.

At least eight surviving prisoners said one of the inmates had set fire to a mattress, one government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Chaos erupted as the blaze swept through the prison.

"We heard screaming from the people who caught on fire," one prisoner told reporters, showing fingers he fractured escaping the blaze. "We had to push up the roof panels to get out."

Injured inmates were filmed being carried out of the jail, some crawling with visible burns.

By the time Red Cross volunteer Jose Manuel Gomez arrived, all he could for many was gather up their remains.

"We're placing them into bags in parts because when we grab them, they disintegrate," he said.

It was the third major prison fire in Honduras since 2003 with dilapidated jails packed at more than double their capacity across the Central American nation.

Worried and angry relatives surrounded the prison on Wednesday morning, at one point throwing rocks at police and trying to force their way inside the prison.

Police responded by firing shots into the air and shooting tear gas at protesters, most of whom were women.

President Porfirio Lobo said he had suspended the director of the Comayagua prison and the head of the national prison system to ensure a thorough investigation.

He promised to "take urgent measures to deal with this tragedy, which has plunged all Hondurans into mourning."

Police reported that one of the dead was a woman who had stayed overnight at the prison and the rest were inmates, but noted some of those presumed dead could have escaped.

VIOLENT GANGS, DRUGS

Honduras' notoriously violent street gangs, known as 'maras', gained power inside Hispanic neighborhoods in the United States in the 1980s and then spread down into Central America. Their members wear distinctive tattoos and are involved in drugs and weapons trafficking, armed robbery and protection rackets.

A local police chief read out the names of 457 survivors outside the prison on Wednesday, but relatives still clamored for more information.

"This is desperate, they won't tell us anything and I think my husband is dead," a crying Gregoria Zelaya told Canal 5 TV as she stood by a chain link fence.

Officials were not sure of the cause of the fire.

"There is one hypothesis that is was a short circuit in the electrical system, or (an inmate) set fire to a mattress," said Ferrera who was at the scene. "But there is not a definitive cause yet, we are still investigating."

Across Honduras, prisons are filled to double their capacity with about 12,500 prisoners in jails meant to hold 6,000. The Comayagua prison housed more than 850 inmates -- well above its limit of around 500.

In 2003, a fire broke out after a riot in another prison in northern Honduras, killing 68 people. A scandal ensued when an investigation found that police and prison staff had shot and stabbed inmates in the melee.

The government pledged to improve the crumbling prison system but just a year later more than 100 prisoners were killed in a fire in San Pedro Sula. Survivors of that blaze said guards fired on inmates trying to escape or left them locked up to die.

Honduras had more than 80 homicides per 100,000 people in 2009, a rate 16 times that of the United States, according to a United Nations report last year. A slow and inefficient justice system has stretched jails to bursting point.

The country is a major narcotics trafficking transit point for South American cocaine moving north to consumers in the United States, and authorities say they are grappling with a growing presence of violent Mexican drug cartels.

A political crisis ripped through Honduras in mid-2009 when a widely-condemned coup toppled the democratically elected president but the country has been trying to heal divisions since Lobo was elected later that year. •

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California Man With Half an Arm Sues Starbucks, Alleging Discrimination

By LYNEKA LITTLE | ABC News

Starbucks is facing allegations of discrimination from a job applicant who claimed he was "blatantly" discriminated against because of a disability during a job interview at one of the coffee chain's San Diego stores.

In court documents filed on Feb. 8 at the Superior Court of the State of California in the County of San Diego, Eli Pierre, who was born with half of a left arm, alleged he "was not hired for the position because of his disability, despite his capable work history."

According to the complaint, obtained from Pierre's attorney, Joel Larabee, on Feb. 1, after Pierre mentioned that his disability was not a problem for a barista position, a hiring manager stated, "Oh, at our store our syrups are up high, and I have to extend my whole body to pump it. You can't work here with one arm."

"We employ many individuals with a wide range of disabilities. A disability such as Mr. Pierre's would not disqualify him, or any other candidate, for employment at Starbucks," a spokesperson for Starbucks told ABC News.

"Based on our initial investigation, we found that Mr. Pierre's description of what occurred during the interview is vastly different than our own," said the spokesperson, who told ABC News that Pierre was considered for the position based on his responses in the interview and qualifications.

"We decided not to move forward with Mr. Pierre's application for the Mission Valley location," the spokesperson told ABC News.

The complaint filed by Pierre alleges that because of interruptions, the interview for the barista position only lasted for about 10 to 15 minutes. After mentioning a part time-position at Victoria Secret, the interviewer turned to the shift manager and stated, "maybe he can help you find the right bra size."

The complaint states Pierre was "shocked and offended" by the remark "after being discriminated against based on his disability."

The suit stated there was "no discussion of any possible accommodations of Pierre, no discussion of whether he actually needed any accommodations, no discussion about how he could perform the essential job functions and no discussion of his past experience, which may be analogous to the position and duties at Starbucks.

"Pierre was simply summarily dismissed based on his appearance/disability/perceived disability ... without further investigation that Pierre could not do the job," stated the complaint.

Pierre was upset by what allegedly occurred.

"I got angry about it. I mean, I've never been told I can't do anything," Pierre told 10News. "She said, verbatim, I 'can't work here with one arm.'

"I've been employed for 11 years. I am fully capable of running circles around most people who have two hands in the service industry," Pierre added.

According to 10News, Pierre had previously worked as a bartender and a waiter.

"Eli, when he worked here, was completely amazing. ... He can carry more than somebody I have ever seen with two arms," said Shawn Zambarda, Pierre's previous employer told 10News.com.

In his lawsuit, 25-year-old Pierre has accused Starbucks of wrongful failure to hire in violation of public policy, wrongful failure to hire and discrimination in violation of the Federal Employment and Housing Act, failure to take steps reasonably necessary to prevent discrimination in violation of FEHA, failure to make reasonable accommodations and failure to engage in the interactive process in violation of FEHA, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

"While we allege that Pierre could competently perform the job duties (of Barista) with minimal or no accommodations, our main concern in this lawsuit is that no interactive discussion took place to evaluate any potential limitations or accommodations," Larabee, Pierre's attorney, wrote in a statement to ABC News. "A decision was simply made on the spot without further exploration, based on ill-placed preconceived ideas of the limitations of his disability, and a lack of information, that Pierre could not do the job."

He continued, "No person with a disability should be told in a job interview that she or he cannot do something without proper due diligence of any limitations or accommodations being afforded. This is contempt prior to investigation and is unlawful in the State of California."

According to the lawsuit, Pierre is seeking payment of all statutory obligations and penalties as required by law; punitive damages; costs of suit; loss of income incurred and to be incurred according to proof, among other things.

"We have been advised that Mr. Pierre has filed a lawsuit based on his claims, and look forward to responding," a Starbucks spokesperson told ABC News. •

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Valentine's gift blamed for Calif. power outage

Associated Press – 12 hrs ago

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — A Valentine's Day gift is being blamed for a power outage in Southern California.

Southern California Edison spokesman David Song says a helium-filled balloon scored a direct hit on the company's Fontana substation Tuesday night, knocking out power to 15,099 customers.

Song tells The Press-Enterprise (http://bit.ly/wgrjI7 ) the balloon was likely a Valentine's gift. He says it dropped into the substation at about 8:40 p.m.

Song says a utility crew rushed to the station and had the power restored by 9:51 p.m.

The substation was the second to encounter problems in Southern California on Tuesday night. A Huntington Beach substation went out at 7:42 p.m., affecting 21,285 customers. Song says power was restored there at 10:38 p.m.

The cause of that outage wasn't immediately known.

Song says balloon-caused outages occur most often around Valentine's Day and in June during school graduations. •

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The Most Polite Burglar Ever?

By Alyssa Newcomb

An Indiana man seemed to have all the qualities of a perfect house guest: He cooked, he cleaned, he even folded the laundry.

There was just one problem: He wasn't invited into the South Bend, Ind., apartment where he had made himself at home.

Police arrested Keith Davis, 46, after he broke into a neighboring apartment Monday night through an unlocked window, according to reports.

The apartment's tenant, Ashley Murray, noticed something was wrong when she arrived home from a bingo hall.

"Well, to be truthful, he really seemed like he really thought this was his home," Murray told ABC 57.

After authorities arrived, Murray noticed Davis had cooked chicken and onions in a pan. Not only had he made dinner, but he had swept the floor, folded her clothes and put a sheet and pillow on her couch.

Davis was taken into custody and faces a Class D felony charge for residential entry, according to ABC 57.

He didn't steal anything but food, according to the reports. For that, Murray knows she is lucky.

"He drunk up my orange juice, but it's cool because he swept up my floor and folded my clothes," she told WNDU.

Davis is being held at the St. Joseph County jail. •

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I hope you all have asked the Lord Jesus to be your Savior and are living a life dedicated to Him! He's coming back in the clouds for us anytime now! Be ready! -Missygirl*

# posted by Missygirl : 1:16 PM