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(Oct 6, 2017 9:05 AM CDT) As one university faces a lawsuit over its refusal to host white nationalist Richard Spencer, another is reluctantly conceding to the idea. The University of Florida says it will allow Spencer to speak on its campus on Oct. 19 in what will be the alt-right leader's first college event since an August rally at the University of Virginia that culminated in a deadly demonstration a day later, reports the Washington Post. UF initially denied a request from Spencer's National Policy Institute for a September event citing security concerns. Spencer then hired an attorney who threatened the school with a lawsuit, and UF announced Thursday that NPI would pay a standard fee of $10,500 to rent a space and provide security on campus on Oct. 19, reports the Gainesville Sun. No one at the University of Florida invited Richard Spencer. The racist ideas espoused by this organization and this individual conflict with the values of this institution, UF says in an email to students, per the Independent Florida Alligator. But UF must allow the free expression of all viewpoints, a university rep adds, noting the school will pay some $500,000 for additional security on campus and in Gainesville for which it is unable to bill Spencer's NPI. Spencer, who is concerned about violence at the event, says the fact that so much money is going to have to be spent on security results directly from people who want to shut down free speech and we need to fight this. He adds it will be an exciting event. I expect good intellectual push-back from the students, he says. That's part of the fun of it all.

(Dec 9, 2016 9:36 AM) The Russian doping scandal just keeps getting bigger: A new report implicates 1,000 athletes in 30 sports over recent years, along with officials at various levels of government. The upshot is sure to be increased pressure to penalize Russia ahead of the 2018 Winter Games. In the report--which amplifies an earlier one in July--World Anti-Doping Agency investigator Richard McLaren lays out 1,166 immutable facts he says prove Russia to be guilty of an institutional conspiracy between 2011 and 2015, per the New York Times. This involved cheating on an unprecedented scale at the 2012 London Olympics, where athletes were given a cocktail of steroids ... to beat the detection thresholds, McLaren says. The Russian Anti-Doping Agency says accusations of cheating haven't been proven, reports USA Today. Though his initial report helped ban 30% of Russia's delegation from the Rio Games, McLaren's investigation continued. American athletes, for example, have discussed boycotting the world championships in bobsled to be held in Sochi in February over lingering concerns about doping. Coaches and athletes have been playing on an uneven field, McLaren says, per the AP. It's time that this stops. New evidence presented in the report shows Russian officials swapped or tampered with urine samples, including those of 15 medalists at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Samples from female athletes, for example, had male DNA. IOC's president has said he supports lifetime Olympic bans for athletes and officials involved.

(Oct 17, 2016 3:05 AM CDT) Democrats disgusted by the firebombing of a GOP office in Orange County, NC, set up a GoFundMe page to help reopen it and blew past their $10,000 goal within hours Sunday. Thank you all for showing that Americans are thirsty for civility and decency, and that we love our democracy above all our differences, wrote the page's creators, who stressed that they were ordinary voters, not Democratic officials. Police are still searching for the attackers who threw a firebomb into the Republican headquarters in Hillsborough overnight Saturday and spray-painted Nazi Republicans leave town or else on an adjacent building, the Hill reports. The fundraising page--which was criticized by some LGBT activists opposed to the state's controversial bathroom law --was closed after reaching $13,000 in donations. Gov. Pat McCrory denounced the attack as an attack on our democracy. Hillary Clinton tweeted Sunday that the attack was horrific and unacceptable, while Donald Trump tweeted: Animals representing Hillary Clinton and Dems in North Carolina just firebombed our office in Orange County because we are winning. The Charlotte Observer notes that Democrats and independents outnumber Republicans 5 to 1 in the county, which lies to the west of Durham.

(Nov 2, 2016 9:31 AM CDT) A tweet from Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold offered a first glimpse to the masses Tuesday of something that's long been reported but not yet seen: the portrait of Donald Trump that Trump bought for $20,000 using money meant for his Trump Foundation charity. Artist Michael Israel, a speed painter who the Post says whipped up the 6-foot-tall depiction in five or six frenzied minutes during a 2007 charity gala at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, released the public pics of the painting for the first time Tuesday. Melania Trump initially bid $10,000 during the event's auction, then was cajoled into doubling that; half the proceeds went to Israel, half to the children's charity the event was being held for. And those well versed in tax law say if that now-elusive painting is hanging in either one of Trump's homes or businesses, he could be breaking self-dealing laws. The only hint as to where the painting may be: Israel's former manager, who revealed in September that he was told by Melania to send the painting to a Trump golf club in Westchester, NY, where she planned to display it in the boardroom or the conference room. The Hill notes that Trump paid $10,000 funneled from the Trump Foundation for another portrait of himself in 2004, with an eyewitness saying that painting is on display in Trump's National Doral Miami resort. (Meanwhile, a nude painting of Trump has caused quite a ruckus.)

(Dec 1, 2017 2:59 PM) A McDonald's manager will get a $110,000 reward for tipping off police about a man accused of killing four people and terrorizing a Florida neighborhood for 51 days, the AP reports. Tampa police chief Brian Dugan said at a news conference Friday that Delonda Walker will receive every penny of the reward money. Her tip to police on Tuesday led to the arrest of 24-year-old Howell Emanuel Donaldson III.

(Jan 10, 2018 1:49 PM) ProPublica takes a look at a little known green-card program that allows people overseas to shell out hefty sums for the privilege of coming to America to work grueling factory jobs. It's EB-3, and in a perfect world it allows companies that can't find enough American workers to bring in unskilled immigrants. The problem, however, is that the system seems rife with abuse: It has been co-opted by a handful of companies (mostly poultry processors) and foreign consultants who have used it to bring in immigrants willing to work for low pay in often-dangerous jobs, writes Michael Grabell. Those foreign consultants make money by recruiting people in South Korea, China, and elsewhere to apply, though they couch their services as migration assistance to stay within the law. Many of the takers are middle-class Asians willing to shell out for US citizenship. The story highlights the case of Yongho Yeom, a South Korean native and computer engineer who paid $26,000 to a migration agency, then landed in South Carolina in 2015 to work the graveyard shift for $8.50 an hour at the House of Raeford chicken processor. He did it to provide an American future for his two daughters. Critics say the EB-3 program has been abused by companies who would prefer to bring in cheap foreign labor rather than improve pay and working conditions. But Yeom, who recently opened his own business, has no regrets. It was very, very difficult work; there's no question about that, he says. On the other hand ... they provided a sponsorship through this chicken plant. For us who want to come to the US, it's a very valuable program. Click for the full story.

(Mar 14, 2017 6:14 PM CDT) Giving new meaning to fashion police, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is drawing criticism from its own deputies over the decision to replace their uniforms' silver-colored belt buckles for gold-colored ones. The Los Angeles Times reports the department is spending $300,000 to replace belt buckles, belt snaps, baton rings, and key holders to make them better match the bronze badges, lapel pins, and tie clips worn by deputies. Sheriff Jim McDonnell says the change from silver to gold will make deputies look more professional, which will in turn lead to suspects giving them more respect. They need to exude command presence, McDonnell says of his deputies. But those deputies aren't so sure new belt buckles are the way to do it. The president of the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs says the department is in turmoil and has more pressing needs. The union issued a statement against the new belt buckles on Tuesday, the Los Angeles Daily News reports. The union says the sheriff's department has an annual budget deficit of $250 million, which has left it with 300 deputy positions and 1,000 professional staff positions unfilled. Deputies work back-to-back shifts, and detectives and administrators are pulled away from their regular work and sent out on mandatory patrols. While the union understands the desire to have a professional uniform appearance, it says this is not the time to do it.

(Apr 14, 2017 5:34 PM CDT) Delta is letting employees offer customers almost $10,000 in compensation to give up seats on overbooked flights, hoping to avoid an uproar like the one that erupted at United after a passenger was dragged off a jet. In an internal memo obtained Friday by the AP, Delta Air Lines said gate agents can offer up to $2,000, up from a previous maximum of $800, and supervisors can offer up to $9,950, up from $1,350. United is reviewing its own policies, including incentives for customers, and will announce any actions by April 30, a spokesperson said. The airline would not disclose its current compensation limit. Other airlines did not immediately comment on whether they would raise their ceiling. Ben Schlappig, a travel blogger who first wrote about the Delta compensation increase, said it shows Delta is trying to reduce forced bumping. He said he couldn't imagine many situations in which people wouldn't jump at nearly $10,000. Delta no doubt hopes that gate agents and their supervisors won't need to make maximum offers, and the financial cost to the airline is likely to be limited. If Delta paid $9,950 to every person it bumped involuntarily last year, that would total $12 million. Delta earned nearly $4.4 billion. After the incident last Sunday, critics questioned why United didn't offer more when no passengers accepted the airline's $800 offer for volunteers to give up their seats. If you offer enough money, even the guy going to a funeral will sell his seat, said a retired United pilot.

(Dec 28, 2017 6:00 PM) Cops in Toronto are pleading with the public to help them solve a hefty Christmas Day heist. The Daily Meal reports on the theft of an extremely large quantity of veal, as it's worded in a police release. The meat (and the 48-foot refrigerated trailer it was being stored in), which was worth about $30,000, was lifted from a North York commercial address sometime between 3pm Monday and 5am the next day. A police spokeswoman says the trailer was apparently hooked onto a getaway vehicle and driven off the lot, per the Toronto Star. The trailer, which belongs to meat distributor White Valley, has a blue W and the company's name on its side, as well as the Ontario plate K5885K. Anyone with information is urged to call 416-808-3100 or use other contact info cited in the release.

(Sep 27, 2017 5:17 PM CDT) The Trump administration defended its decision Wednesday to sharply curtail the number of refugees allowed into the US to 45,000 next year, even as global humanitarian groups decried the move and called the number far too low. The 45,000 cap, to be formally announced by President Trump in the coming days, reflects the maximum the US will admit during the fiscal year that starts Sunday, although the actual number allowed could be far lower, the AP reports. Even if the cap is ultimately hit, it would reflect the lowest admissions level for the US in more than a decade. Lowering the cap reflects Trump's opposition to accepting refugees and other immigrants into the US, an approach that has already driven down refugee admissions. President Obama had wanted to take in 110,000 in 2017, but the pace slowed dramatically after Trump took office and issued an executive order addressing refugees. The total admitted in the fiscal year that ends Sunday is expected to be around 54,000, officials said. In 2016, the last full year of Obama's administration, the US welcomed 84,995 refugees.

(Feb 22, 2017 4:53 PM) Tarek El-Messidi tells a story about the prophet Muhammad standing in observance of a Jewish funeral procession because, as he said, Is it not a human soul? To show that kind of respect to their Jewish cousins is one of the reasons El-Messidi and fellow Muslim-American activist Linda Sarsour started an online fundraiser after they saw the news about destruction at a Jewish cemetery in Missouri over the weekend, the Washington Post reports. According to CNN, vandals defaced and knocked over more than 170 headstones at Chesed Shel Emeth Society cemetery. Muslim-Americans stand in solidarity with the Jewish-American community to condemn this horrific act of desecration, the fundraising page states. El-Messidi and Sarsour started the fundraiser Tuesday with the goal of raising $20,000 by late-March. They reached that goal in three hours. By Wednesday afternoon, the fundraiser had exceeded $90,000. Sarsour and El-Messidi say the extra funds will go to the dozens of Jewish community centers that have faced anti-Semitic attacks and bomb threats this year. Through this campaign, we hope to send a united message from the Jewish and Muslim communities that there is no place for this type of hate, desecration, and violence in America, the pair state on the fundraising page. Since the election, both Muslim and Jewish communities have been increasingly targeted in hate crimes.

(Apr 21, 2017 8:37 AM CDT) Tales of Amy Schumer's generosity continue: While jogging around Chicago on April 13, Schumer stopped in at the Six Corners Mattress Firm, hoping to find a bathroom, reports People. Employee Sagine Lazarre, not recognizing the visitor, quickly showed her the way. But when Schumer had done her business, she returned to Lazarre and asked which mattress she liked the best. Lazarre pointed to a $2,000 mattress, and Schumer immediately bought it for her, per WGN. Schumer, who identified herself as an actress and comedian, told me she wanted to buy it for me as a thank you for letting her use the bathroom, Lazarre says. Mind blown, she adds she Googled the name on Schumer's credit card after the actress left the store and only then realized she had previously seen her stand-up comedy. I'm still in shock, says Lazarre, who notes the mattress is a perfect fit in her new apartment. (Schumer previously left a massive tip on a $77 bill.)

(Jan 16, 2018 8:51 AM) The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened above 26,000 for the first time Tuesday morning, and the Wall Street Journal reports that the latest 1,000-point rise took only a dizzying and record seven trading days. The asterisk to that record is that it won't be official until the Dow closes above 26,000. The Journal notes that the records keep falling faster: The Dow took only 23 trading days to hit 25,000 from 24,000 on Jan. 4, and the previous 1,000-point milestone (which actually happened twice: getting to 11,000 and 21,000) took 24 trading days. The Dow is trading at 26,062 as of this writing.

(Jul 18, 2017 12:50 PM CDT) Jesus Armando Escobar, 36, was exiting a Florida interstate on Saturday morning at the same time Antonio Santiago Wharton, 33, was driving a Mack truck loaded with scrap metal on the overpass above him. Wharton lost control of the truck going around the curve and it overturned, dumping a 7,000-pound metal pipe off the overpass and onto the roof of Escobar's van. Yet somehow, the father of three suffered only minor injuries--despite the fact that the roof of the van on the driver's side was crushed by the nearly four-ton piece of scrap metal, WFTV reports. I thought it was a fatality, to be honest with you. But they came out and said, 'Nope, he's only got scratches,' says a worker with AATR Orlando, a towing service. A state trooper who saw the scene and read other troopers' notes tells WESH Escobar was alert and walking around soon after the accident. Authorities say Escobar, who was released from the hospital the same day the accident happened, may have been killed had he been in any other seat. That's the exit everybody takes to go to SeaWorld with their kids. So if it had been somebody with a family full of children, it would have been a catastrophe, Escobar's lawyer says Escobar, who doesn't remember the incident, told him. The lawyer tells News4Jax his client's injuries include a significant head laceration and a neck fracture that will keep him in a neck brace for weeks, and says the family is hoping to reach a settlement in the case. Wharton received a careless-driving ticket; the load was properly secured, but authorities are investigating whether speed was an issue. (In another miraculous incident, a new dad fell 47 stories and survived.)

(Nov 23, 2017 12:40 AM) Police are searching for thieves who swiped more than 1,800 gallons of vodka from a Los Angeles distillery. Investigators say the suspects sawed through dead bolts to get inside a storage room at the Fog Shots distillery, the AP reports. Company representative Art Gukasayan says the thieves made away with about 90% of the company's holiday inventory and that the take was worth about $278,000. KABC-TV reports that detectives are examining surveillance footage that shows three men behind a razor wire fence. One of them climbs the fence and knocks the camera over before the break-in.

(Jun 3, 2017 7:29 AM CDT) A self-confessed former terrible racist surprised a Greenville, SC, pastor with a plea for forgiveness--and a fat donation. Rev. Michael Sullivan tells WSPA he was floored when he read the letter signed by Anonymous Donor. The missive dated May 13 (which can be seen in its entirety at CNN) reads, I am white and used to be a terrible racist. ... Due to Christ's teachings, I am appalled at my former thoughts and words. Tucked inside the envelope was a $2,000 check. I send this donation as a heartfelt apology to the African-American community, as a sign of God's love for you, and as a sign of my love for you as well, the letter read. Sullivan says, When I read the letter, I said 'Wow ... Look at how God works.' I don't care whether we are talking black or white [or] whether we are talking about Christian or Islamic, Sullivan continues. If we can hear the heart of this man as being a heart that represents all of us, I think all of us can become better. The gift, which Nicholtown Presbyterian Church will devote in part to youth outreach, as well as the donor's change of heart inspired Sullivan as he planned his Sunday sermon. As to the identity of the mystery donor, Sullivan has no idea, but he'd like to find out. I [want] to find the guy so I could embrace him, he says. (This just days after LeBron James declared that being black in America is tough. )

(Jan 9, 2017 5:05 PM) Last month, Texas thieves made off with $90,000 worth of ... bees. A Danbury beekeeper says he discovered 300 of his honey bee colonies were missing from a cattle ranch on Dec. 17, the Houston Chronicle reports. Randy Verhoek's bees are typically unattended as they spend the winter on properties around Brazoria County. Verhoek, who calls the still-at-large suspects bee rustlers and lowlife thieves, has filed a police report, and police are asking anyone who sees bee boxes branded with the letters HHI to get in touch.

(May 3, 2017 4:40 PM CDT) An unarmed missile capable of sending a nuclear bomb across the world was launched Wednesday from a California military base amid rising tensions between the US and North Korea. The unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile blasted off from a silo at 12:02am from Vandenberg Air Force Base and delivered a single re-entry vehicle to a target about 4,200 miles away at Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, the Air Force Global Strike Command said. The test took 10 months to plan. It was the latest aimed at checking the readiness and accuracy of a weapon system that forms part of the US nuclear force. The US has about 450 of the missiles. Each can travel about 8,000 miles. It was the second such launch in seven days, the AP reports. The launches came amid US expressions of concern about North Korea's nuclear capability. Per the Los Angeles Times, the Air Force said the purpose of Wednesday's test was to ensure the missile is reliable and can function as an effective nuclear deterrent. New missile tests by North Korea and its progress toward developing a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the US have made it one of the top US national security concerns. The US has sent warships to the region to deter North Korea from conducting another nuclear test. But President Trump on Monday said he might be willing to meet with Kim Jong Un. If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it, Trump told Bloomberg News.

(Jan 26, 2017 8:44 AM) Want to join the ranks of those allowed into Donald Trump's winter White House ? You'll have to double what you would've spent in 2016 for a Mar-a-Lago membership fee, which was increased Jan. 1 from $100,000 to $200,000, sources close to the resort tell CNBC. Bernd Lembcke, the club's managing director, confirmed the price spike in an email Wednesday, per Bloomberg. And although Donald Trump Jr. has now reportedly been named the official director of the club in his father's stead, Norm Eisen--President Obama's former chief ethics lawyer and part of an advocacy group that's filed a lawsuit against Trump for violating the Constitution's Emoluments Clause--says what's going on at the Palm Beach, Fla., estate is nothing more than naked profiteering that would have been more befitting a kleptocrat like Louis XVI. Mar-a-Lago is certainly a lot more crowded now that he's president, one member concedes to the Washington Post. The club's fee had reached $200,000 in the past, but had been slashed back to $100,000--the CNBC sources say the cost was cut in 2012 after the Bernie Madoff hubbub, while Lembcke tells the New York Times that it was reduced in 2010 due to the recession. In addition to the reinstated $200,000 initiation fee, members must also pay $14,000 in annual dues (plus tax on the whole deal). But while one ethics watchdog rep calls the increased fee an unacceptable development that demeans the presidency, Lembcke tells the Times that plans for this price boost were put in place before the election. He does add that since Trump's win, there's been a sudden surge in application requests.

(Feb 7, 2017 3:22 AM) Every week, sometimes twice a week, a military facility in Syria executes more people than the United States executes in a year, according to a hard-hitting Amnesty International report on the human slaughterhouse that is Saydnaya Prison. Syria has been secretly killing up to 50 people at a time, mostly civilian opponents of the regime, in mass hangings at the prison, executing up to 13,000 people between 2011 and 2015, according to the report. It notes that there's every reason to believe that the executions continue to this day. The executions are in addition to the estimated tens of thousands of deaths in prisons across Syria since the beginning of the civil war that were due to torture or inhumane conditions, the Guardian reports. The only legal process inmates go through before they're executed is a one- or two-minute hearing at a Military Field Court, according to Amnesty, which spoke to 84 witnesses, including former guards, in the course of its investigation. A portion of the report: Throughout this process, [the prisoners] remain blindfolded. They do not know when or how they will die until the noose was placed around their necks. Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty's Beirut office, says upcoming peace talks cannot ignore the findings. The horrors ... [were] authorized at the highest levels of the Syrian government, aimed at crushing any form of dissent. She calls for Iran and Russia, the regime's closest allies, to push for an end to Syria's murderous detention policies.

(Jan 1, 2018 11:30 AM) A massive fire New Year's Eve in a multi-story parking garage in Liverpool, England, destroyed around 1,400 cars, with one exploding every few seconds at the height of the blaze, authorities say--but no humans or animals were seriously injured. Horses had been stabled in the garage before performances at the Liverpool International Horse Show, but they were moved to safety inside the nearby Echo Arena, the AP reports. Firefighters say six dogs that had been left in cars were rescued, including four from a vehicle on the roof of the seven-story structure and two that were saved from the second floor before the fire took hold, reports the Guardian. Police say an accidental fire within a vehicle caused other cars to ignite. The fire was brought under control Monday morning. The horse show was canceled and shelters were opened for people--and horses--needing emergency accommodation. Visitor Kerry Matthews tells the BBC that he left his car in the parking garage while visiting the city for New Year's Eve. A fireman said the whole car park is on fire. He said, 'What level is your car on?' We said six, Matthews says. He said, 'Well, you best go and have a couple of drinks to celebrate [the] new year because you're not going to get your car back.'

(Jul 26, 2017 5:31 PM CDT) The world's tiniest violin might not be enough to express one man's loss, allegedly at the hands of his ex-wife. The Japan Times reports 34-year-old Midori Kawamiya was arrested Tuesday, accused of destroying her ex-husband's $950,000 violin collection in 2014 as the two were divorcing. Authorities say Kawamiya admitted to breaking into Daniel Olsen Chen's apartment in Nagoya but denied destroying his collection, which the BBC reports was comprised of 54 violins and 70 bows. Kawamiya, a Chinese national, was arrested this week--more than three years after the alleged crime--when she returned to Japan from China. The 62-year-old Chen, who both collects and builds violins, says it will probably take him the rest of his life to repair his collection, the Violin Channel reports. The most valuable of the destroyed violins--said to be worth nearly $450,000 on its own--is believed to have been a Nicola Amati instrument from Italy. (The saga of a Stradivarius stolen in 1980s ends on a high note.)

(Nov 29, 2017 3:44 PM) What goes up must come down. CNBC reports that bitcoin passed the $11,000 mark for the first time Wednesday just hours after surpassing $10,000 for the first time. Wednesday was the sixth day in a row the cryptocurrency hit a record high, increasing its value 15%, according to Reuters. But later Wednesday, the value of a bitcoin plummeted to as low as $9,300, the AP reports. Regardless, that's still a massive increase over the $1,000 value of a bitcoin at the start of the year. And the CEO of CryptoCompare tells Business Insider the passing of $10,000 was a seminal moment for bitcoin. The cryptocurrency market as a whole is now worth more than $330 billion total. The recent meteoric rise of bitcoin has brought increasing warnings of a bubble set to burst. Even if you believe in bitcoin, the velocity of the move is a sign that it is parabolic, CNBC's Jim Cramer says. And parabolic moves don't last. It appears few people are actually using bitcoin as currency, instead stockpiling it in hopes of increasing their capital. What's happening right now has nothing to do with bitcoin's functionality as a currency--this is pure mania that's taken hold, research fellow Garrick Hileman tells Reuters. Hileman says people need to be very careful about the coming burst. But it appears few are heeding his message. One provider signed up more than 300,000 new bitcoin users over the Thanksgiving holiday. And one analyst predicts the bubble is going to get a lot bigger still--say $40,000 by the end of 2018.

(May 31, 2017 2:32 PM CDT) Be careful what you like online, especially if you're in Switzerland--it may get you in trouble for defamation. In what Fortune reports could be a first, a court there has fined an unidentified man the equivalent of more than $4,000 after he liked defamatory comments on Facebook that accused an animal rights activist of racism and anti-Semitism. The activist, Erwin Kessler, had been the subject of heated Facebook conversations in 2015 about which animal welfare groups should be allowed in a vegan street festival, reports the Swiss daily Tages Anzeiger. In stark contrast, a US federal court ruled in 2013 that an online like is protected by the First Amendment. Kessler sued over a dozen people involved in those online exchanges, several of whom have already been convicted for comments they made, reports the Guardian, but this latest fine appears to be the first time someone has been convicted for merely pressing like. The court, however, ruled that even though the defendant didn't write the comments, he clearly endorsed the unseemly content and made it his own. A defense attorney says that if courts want to prosecute people for simply liking content, we could easily need to triple the number of judges in this country, adding it could easily become an assault on the freedom of expression. (See how Facebook likes are linked to lower self-esteem.)

(Apr 27, 2017 7:13 AM CDT) United Airlines says passengers will now be offered up to $10,000 to surrender their seats on overbooked flights--and those who still refuse won't be hauled out of their seats by law enforcement. The airline issued a report Thursday detailing 10 changes it is making after the Chicago incident earlier this month, reports the Washington Post. United's report says its mistakes on April 9, when 69-year-old David Dao was dragged out of his seat by aviation police, included trying to make space for off-duty crew members at the last minute by bumping passengers involuntarily, only offering $800 in compensation to try to persuade people to give up their seats, and calling police when Dao refused to get off the plane. In a statement, United CEO Oscar Munoz described the incident as a turning point and the start of a shift toward becoming a better, more customer-focused airline. Reuters reports that other changes announced by United include a no questions asked policy on bags it permanently loses, for which passengers will be paid $1,500 starting in June. The report also details how passengers are selected for involuntary bumping, the AP notes. Those without frequent flyer status who paid the least for their ticket are most at risk. No word on any policy changes involving falling scorpions or dead bunnies, though United says staff will receive annual training for the most difficult situations.

(Jan 18, 2017 12:03 AM) It would be an insult to the bottom-feeders of the animal kingdom to compare them to burglars police are seeking in Humboldt County, Calif. Police say they're investigating the theft of an urn containing the ashes of Ryan Wagner, a 6-year-old boy who died from cancer in 2011, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Ryan's parents say that after the urn and other items, including the courage beads the boy was given during his treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, were stolen from a safe during a December burglary, the $5,000 reward they offered became a ransom when they were told of a threat to dump out the ashes. On the Bring Ryan Home Facebook page, mom Anita Wagner says they handed $5,000 in small bills to local lawyer Kathleen Bryson last Friday and she returned 45 minutes later with the ashes and other belongings. Bryson tells the Lost Coast Outpost that her client contacted her after learning that people he knew had the ashes and planned to dump them out. Bryson says she gave the family her $500 fee and doesn't believe her client had any share of the reward. The burglars--I don't know how they sleep at night, she says. Ryan's dad, Joshua Wagner, says he suspects Bryson's client is the real thief and is disgusted that the person appears to have gotten away with it. He says the family now plans to scatter Ryan's ashes and set [him] free. (These thieves mistook a man's ashes for cocaine.)

(Apr 19, 2017 4:18 PM CDT) Prosecutors in Massachusetts moved to throw out more than 21,000 drug convictions on Tuesday, five years after a chemist at the state drug lab was caught tampering with evidence and falsifying tests, the AP reports. The state's highest court had ordered district attorneys in seven counties to produce lists by Tuesday indicating how many of approximately 24,000 cases involving Annie Dookhan they would be unable or unwilling to prosecute if the defendants were granted new trials. The ACLU said Tuesday night that 21,587 cases had been recommended for dismissal. It said that would be the largest dismissal of criminal convictions in US history. The cases would be formally dismissed by court action, expected Thursday, the ACLU said. Dookhan pleaded guilty in 2013 to obstruction of justice, perjury, and tampering with evidence after being accused of falsifying her work as far back as 2004. Prosecutors said Dookhan admitted testing only a fraction of a batch of samples, then listing them all as positive for illegal drugs. Her motive, they said, was to boost her productivity and burnish her reputation. She was sentenced to three years in prison and was paroled last year. Many of the drug case defendants have already completed their sentences, though some probably remain in prison because of other charges not contaminated by the lab scandal. About 2,000 cases had been resolved before Tuesday.

(Apr 7, 2017 9:50 AM CDT) No one should have to go through this, not children, adults, elderly, Stephen Blumberg tells CBS Boston, and a jury apparently agreed with him. The cause of Blumberg's emotional turmoil: a fake, inflammatory Yelp review of his Massachusetts jewelry store posted by the son of a competitor, per NBC Boston. A jury decided March 22 that Adam Jacobs, whose father owns Toodie's Fine Jewelry, had purposely put up a false, multi-paragraph diss about Blumberg's store, Stephen Leigh Jewelers, in August 2013; Jacobs has to now pay Blumberg $34,500 for emotional distress, the Patriot Ledger reports. The guest who supposedly wrote the review said he'd visited Blumberg's store to buy a diamond engagement ring and left this place sick to my stomach, calling the shop the biggest thief on the South Shore. But Blumberg, who tells NBC he was incensed by the review, says that interaction never took place--and he started digging to find out who the Adam J. who'd posted it really was. His months-long detective work had him sifting through other Yelp reviews written by the same person and calling those reviewed businesses; eventually he was able to connect the dots. Blumberg says he had never met Jacobs, who works at his father's store, before this and had no beef with either him or his dad. The jury did let Toodie's, which had also been named in Blumberg's December 2013 complaint, off the hook. An attorney for Toodie's and Jacobs says his clients are glad about Toodie's vindication, but disappointed about the decision on Jacobs, which they may appeal. (A petsitting company decided a bad Yelp review was worth up to a $1 million.)

(Mar 14, 2017 11:15 AM CDT) From the outside, Philadelphia's Roosevelt Inn may look any other motel. It's actually the city's epicenter of human trafficking, according to prosecutors. In a lawsuit filed Friday, a 17-year-old girl details how she was sold into sexual slavery at the 107-room motel in 2013, held there for months at a time over two years, and forced to engage in sex acts with 1,000 men double, triple and quadruple her age, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. The suit is the first to be brought under a Pennsylvania law allowing sex trafficking victims to seek compensation from establishments that profited from the abuse, reports the Washington Post. However, the motel's resident manager, also named in the suit, says he was unaware anything of the kind was taking place. I was always in the office, Yagna Patel, 72, tells CBS Philadelphia. I didn't see anything wrong. The men responsible for forcing the teen to work as a prostitute have already been convicted, but now the teen is seeking $50,000 in damages from the motel for essentially allowing it to happen. It is a flagrant and blatant example of a motel looking the other way, says a lawyer for the teen, who has escaped the life and is living elsewhere in the city. Law enforcement authorities do not sound surprised about the lawsuit. Almost every trafficking investigation we have, we see the victim is at Roosevelt Inn, says an assistant DA. (Sex trafficking previously thrived in this sleepy state.)

(Jul 19, 2017 1:55 AM CDT) An estimated 40,000 mink destined to become coats were freed from a central Minnesota fur farm in what the local sheriff calls an act of domestic terrorism. Stearns County Sheriff Don Gudmundson says he believes animal rights nitwits freed the animals but didn't steal any of them, the Pioneer Press reports. It's pretty hard to steal 30,000 to 40,000 mink, the sheriff says. What are you going to do, put them in a trunk? They'd chew your fingers off. Investigators say the burglars, who struck late Sunday or early Monday, dismantled part of an exterior fence before freeing the animals from their cages. A fur industry group is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the perpetrators. Fur farm co-owner Dan Lang says that since the mink were raised in captivity and have no survival skills, releasing them was a death sentence, 9News reports. Hundreds of the animals have already been found dead, though others are believed to have killed chickens at a nearby farm. If the perpetrators actually cared about animals they wouldn't release thousands of mink to die out in the heat, Gudmundson says. We've already got reports of chickens killed. Don't they care about God's chickens? Officials say that if many of the predators do survive long term, they could end up killing off a lot of the local wildlife.

(Apr 19, 2017 12:11 AM CDT) The McDonald's employees who bravely held up the order of an armed and dangerous customer could be in line for a big payday. Police were able to catch up with alleged Facebook killer Steve Stephens after drive-thru workers at the Erie, Pa., McDonald's recognized him Tuesday morning and tried to stall him, meaning the workers could be in line for the $50,000 reward offered by the FBI, ATF, and US Marshals Service for the arrest of the fugitive, TMZ reports. Stephens, on the run after allegedly killing an elderly man in Cleveland, wasn't arrested: He shot and killed himself after a police chase, but law enforcement officials say there's still a very good chance that the workers could get the reward.

(Nov 17, 2016 7:34 AM) Donald Trump has many fearing for the future of women's reproductive freedom, but last week's election outcome wasn't all bad for Planned Parenthood. The organization has seen an unprecedented outpouring (of) support in the days since in the form of 160,000 donations, including 20,000 in Mike Pence's name, reports the Indianapolis Star. The future vice president--who as governor of Indiana signed legislation banning abortion in the case of a fetal anomaly, per NBC News--isn't intentionally driving the generosity. Twitter users have been encouraging people to donate to Planned Parenthood using Pence's official contact information so he'll receive a certificate in response, and 20,000 have followed suit, including Amy Schumer. Pence, meanwhile, is keeping mum.

(Apr 2, 2017 11:12 AM CDT) Ford is recalling 53,000 2017 F-250 trucks because they can roll away even when they are parked due to a manufacturing error, reports the AP. Ford says drivers should use the parking brake to make sure that parked cars don't move. Dealers will also replace the defective part for free, but Ford doesn't have the replacement parts yet. It will notify owners when the parts are available. The recalled trucks have 6.2-liter engines. They were built at a Kentucky plant from October 2015 through Thursday and sold in North America. The company says it is not aware of accidents or injuries due to this defect.

(Nov 27, 2017 6:59 AM) Just $20 changed her plight, and his life--and now a homeless man wants to help others with his sudden good fortune. Kate McClure started a GoFundMe for 34-year-old Johnny Bobbitt Jr. after the destitute veteran used his last 20 bucks on her when her car ran out of gas on a Philly interstate earlier this month. Her crowdfunding effort on Bobbitt's behalf has since surpassed $375,000, and the new friends appeared together on Good Morning America on Sunday to talk about everything that's happened since they first met, ABC News reports. I just got her gas to help her get back on her way, Bobbitt said. I wasn't expecting anything in return. Wearing sunglasses on GMA due to an infection in his eye from wearing his contacts too long on the streets, Bobbitt explained it can get lonely in his situation, but that McClure and her boyfriend, Mark D'Amico, have just treated him like a regular person. In an interview with the BBC, Bobbitt added he's blown away by the generosity from McClure, D'Amico, and everyone who's donated. Per GMA, Bobbitt actually asked the couple at one point to halt the fundraiser, which they did for all of 12 minutes before people insisted they still wanted to donate. McClure is arranging to hire a lawyer and financial adviser for Bobbitt, who says he plans to offer some of the cash that's come his way to organizations that help people in need. Everybody out there is facing some kind of struggle, so if I can touch their life, the way mine was touched, [it'd be] an amazing feeling, he said. I want to feel the feeling on the opposite end. His sudden windfall will also help him purchase a home, per WQAD. One thing no one should expect him to splurge on, however, is a luxury vehicle. There won't be no brand new car, he said, because buying used is smarter.

(Aug 10, 2017 8:42 AM CDT) A retired corporate executive said in a lawsuit that she spent $150,000 on a matchmaking service that set her up with a string of highly incompatible suitors, including men who were married, mentally unstable, or felons, the AP reports. Darlene Daggett, former president for US commerce for the QVC home shopping channel, settled the lawsuit against Kelleher International hours after it was filed in federal court last week, per the Philadelphia Inquirer. Per the suit, the 62-year-old Daggett, a divorced mom of four, wanted someone to spend her retirement with and felt social dating sites did not provide her with the degree of screening and privacy she was looking for. She said she paid $150,000 for a CEO Level membership with Kelleher International that guaranteed her matches from around the globe, but then endured a series of bad courtships that fell short of what the service promised. Her attorneys described one match as a disgraced New York judge who was censured for sleeping with an attorney, court records show. Another said he was waiting for his terminally ill wife to die before he began dating again. Another claimed he suffered from trauma that caused him to lie uncontrollably. Daggett said she later pursued a stalking complaint when that relationship turned sour, and that suitor is now awaiting sentencing on a $10.5 million federal bank fraud case. Kelleher CEO Amber Kelleher-Andrews, a former actress who appeared on Baywatch and Melrose Place, said in a statement that her company is responsible for thousands of marriages over the years. It doesn't always work out, Kelleher-Andrews said, adding her company works to end courtships fairly and reasonably.

(Dec 15, 2016 12:32 PM) Yahoo announced Wednesday that hackers lifted info from more than 1 billion accounts--said to be the largest single data breach ever of an email provider--and more bad news emerged later that day about who some of the account owners were. Per Bloomberg, upward of 150,000 military and government workers had accounts infiltrated in the August 2013 hack, meaning everything from names, telephone numbers, and birthdates to passwords, alternate email accounts, and security questions are now in the hands of cybercriminals and a national-security risk. The workers had provided their official government accounts to Yahoo as a backup in case their email became inaccessible. Account owners include everyone from FBI agents, White House staff (past and present), and service members from every branch to NSA and CIA employees, among others. This new info was discovered when cybersecurity researcher Andrew Komarov stumbled across a database of pilfered Yahoo user info being covertly sold online; he intercepted the database and alerted government officials (who, in turn, told Yahoo, which hasn't confirmed this report to Bloomberg). What this could mean for overseas spies is an easier time at their jobs, as they now may have an alphabetized hit list of targets. It could also throw a wrench in Yahoo's sale to Verizon. We will review the impact of this new development before reaching any final conclusions, a Verizon rep tells the New York Times. Komarov doesn't think the hack was done by a foreign state, but by pros with potential spammer customers. He tells Bloomberg that individual consumer privacy was potentially ... destroyed ... several years ago without [consumer] knowledge. (Everything you need to know about the hack, via Time).

(Jan 25, 2017 8:40 AM) It's stock market history: The Dow Jones industrial average eclipsed 20,000 for the first time Wednesday, triggering cheers from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, reports the AP. The Dow hit the mark upon opening for the day. The Wall Street Journal notes that the Dow was under 18,000 as recently as Nov. 4, but the markets have since spiked, buoyed in part by President Trump's promise of infrastructure projects.

(Jan 10, 2017 3:57 PM) A hacker has released the information of more than 1.5 million e-sports players and fans following a failed extortion attempt, Mashable reports. According to PC Gamer, the Esports Entertainment Association was hacked sometime over Christmas. The hacker then threatened to release users' information unless ESEA paid them $100,000. ESEA flatly refused, stating, We do not give into extortion and ransom demands. True to their word, the hacker over the weekend released users' information, including email addresses, usernames, passwords, security question answers, private messages, IP addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, names, and more. ESEA says it's already fixed the security problem exploited by the hacker and that stolen passwords are still encrypted and should be hard to crack. We apologize for the incident that has taken place as it is our responsibility to do everything possible to secure the data of our users, the competitive gaming site states.

(Nov 14, 2016 12:37 PM) One minute you're registering for monogrammed guest towels and a $1,090 vase; the next, you're embroiled in a lawsuit over a $125,000 engagement ring. Such is the sad story of former Manhattan couple Bradley Moss and Amy Bzura, who were engaged to be married Oct. 29. For reasons not specified in the lawsuit, the wedding did not occur, even though Bzura had posted on Instagram just a week before the nuptials were supposed to take place, I can't wait to be your nagging and annoying Jewish wife. You mean everything to me. On Nov. 3, Moss asked in a letter to Bzura that the ring be returned, the New York Post reports. She has willfully and maliciously refused, per the lawsuit Moss then filed. Moss, who runs a pipe supply company, and Bzura, an advertising professional, started dating in June 2012 and cohabitated for more than three years on the East Side. They got engaged on Nov. 7, 2015, which is when the square emerald-cut diamond engagement ring came into play. Moss's lawsuit calls for its return, or for Bzura to pay him its cash value plus interest. The suit also calls for the court to determine additional punitive damages. As Yahoo News reports, New York is a no-fault state when it comes to such matters, which likely means Bzura will be required to return the ring even if she's not the one who called off the engagement. (Police say a Florida woman attacked her fiance over a recycled engagement ring.)

(Jul 30, 2017 5:33 AM CDT) A spectacular fire at a music festival in Spain forced the evacuation of over 20,000 concertgoers in Barcelona, the regional government said. Images showed towering flames consuming a large outdoor stage Saturday night at the Tomorrowland electronic music festival held at Barcelona's Parc de Can Zam. Barcelona firefighters said there were no serious injuries during the concert evacuation, reports the AP, but the event's private security treated 20 people for minor injuries or anxiety. CNN puts the number of those evacuated at 22,000. Firefighters are investigating the cause of the fire. The Tomorrowland website published a statement saying the stage caught fire due to a technical malfunction. The festival in Barcelona was one of several offshoot events of a main Tomorrowland festival in Belgium. Organizers say the Barcelona event has been canceled following the fire.

(Feb 13, 2017 1:02 AM) More than 100,000 people fled their homes in northern California on Sunday as an emergency spillway next to America's tallest dam threatened to collapse and unleash what authorities called a catastrophic amount of water along the Feather River. While the evacuation took place, emergency repairs were performed on the spillway at the 770-foot Oroville Dam, with helicopters dropping rock-filled containers, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The cities of Oroville, Yuba City, and Marysville were among those under mandatory evacuation orders. Saturday, when a hole developed in the main spillway, was the first time the emergency spillway was used since the dam was completed in 1968. Authorities say the dam itself remains structurally sound, reports the Los Angeles Times. Officials said Sunday night that the immediate danger was subsiding because the level of the man-made Lake Oroville had dropped below the level of the emergency spillway for the first time in more than 24 hours, the Sacramento Bee reports. But authorities warned that the danger of catastrophic flooding remains, with the main spillway still in danger of collapse because water was released so quickly along it to relieve pressure on the auxiliary spillway, causing further erosion. The AP reports that the evacuation order covered 188,000 people in Yuba, Sutter and Butte counties and that people were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic out of the area more than five hours after the order was issued.

(Apr 27, 2017 12:22 PM CDT) Each year, more than 100,000 women around the world die from hemorrhaging after giving birth, mainly in underdeveloped nations. But the Guardian reports a cheap, safe drug that's been used for other conditions may be able to reduce that number, to the tune of 30,000 lives saved annually. A study in the Lancet followed 20,060 women in 21 countries who started to bleed after childbirth. At the hospital, women were given a placebo or tranexamic acid, an OTC drug used in industrialized countries as a skin lightener or to help with heavy periods; nearly one-third of those given the real deal survived. These results emerged only if the drug was administered within three hours after hemorrhaging began. Study lead author Haleema Shakur says of the women in that group who died, some took too long to get to the hospital after bleeding started, while others may have died from underlying sicknesses. Study co-author Ian Robert notes tranexamic acid's original purpose when it was created 50 years ago--NPR gives credit to Utako Okamoto, a female doctor in Japan--was to stop bleeding after childbirth, but its inventors couldn't sway doctors to do trials. Now we finally have these results, Roberts tells the Guardian. There are issues with how scalable the drug would be (most women take it via a tablet, which may take too long to be absorbed to be effective), but other alternatives are being examined, such as injection, a capsule under the tongue, and even a pre-birth tablet for high-risk cases. Plus, the side effects don't appear to be significant, and the low cost is a major draw: It's said to cost around $3 in the UK, and one-fourth that in Pakistan, per NPR. If you can save a life for approximately $3, then I believe that's worth doing, Shakur says. (Sweden has a giving birth in a car class.)

(Jan 22, 2017 7:31 AM) A trucker has lost his marbles in the Indianapolis area, literally, jokes Indiana State Police rep John Perrine. A truck carrying 38,000 pounds of marbles lost its trailer Saturday on southbound Interstate 465, near Pendleton Pike, reports WXIN. The marbles spilled out on the shoulder and in the median. There were no injuries, notes the AP, but a lane of traffic in that area was affected by the cleanup during much of the day. No other vehicles were involved in the crash, notes RTV6.

(Jan 16, 2018 4:13 PM) Losses by industrial and technology companies pulled stocks lower Tuesday, erasing an early gain that sent the Dow Jones industrial average past 26,000 points for the first time. In the end, the Dow fell 10 points, less than 0.1%, to 25,792, per the AP. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 9 points, or 0.4%, to 2,776, and the Nasdaq composite lost 37 points, or 0.5%, to 7,223. Also of note, General Electric slumped 3% after reporting a $6.2 billion write-down. Media company Viacom dropped 7% following reports that it's not in talks to merge with CBS, and Energizer surged 14.5% after saying it will acquire the battery and lighting assets of Spectrum.