"Calif. school adds gay history class" Washington Post August 08, 2015
WASHINGTON — A high school in San Francisco is incorporating a gay history course into its curriculum.
Ruth Asawa School of the Arts is adding a college preparatory course that will ‘‘explore the American experience through a lens that isn’t usually discussed in traditional US history classes,’’ focusing on the gay rights movement, teacher Lyndsey Schlax said in a video on the school’s website.
The class, LGBT Studies, will look at the legalization of same-sex marriage, the US military’s ‘‘don’t ask, don’t tell’’ policy, and major gay-rights events such as the Stonewall riots in 1969 in New York.
Related: Stonewall Inn gets landmark status, a nod to LGBT history
I find that flag, in fact all flags, offensive. It's the banner under which we are led to war.
‘‘This is history. This is an experience that happened,’’ Schlax told the San Francisco Chronicle in an interview. ‘‘How can we not teach history? That’s what we do.’’
The course will be coupled with a class on ethnic studies, which will explore the history of minority groups in the United States, Schlax said.
The LGBT course will not teach students about sexual practices, officials at the public high school said.
In 2010, the San Francisco Unified School District proposed the addition of an interdisciplinary course on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history and literature as a way to reinforce its efforts to protect students against discrimination. But school budget cuts amid the recession put the plan on hold.
‘‘I’m glad we’re picking it up again as we get more money,’’ school board member Sandra Fewer told the newspaper.
You learn that le$$on, kids?!
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Too bad I tossed all the articles regarding Scouts and their leaders.
"Sex ad seen as revenge on FBI agent" Associated Press August 13, 2015
PITTSBURGH — A man has been charged with stalking and harassing an FBI agent who had investigated him by posting a fake Craigslist sex ad that included the agent’s phone number and address.
The interstate stalking charge against 47-year-old Frederick Banks of Pittsburgh was unsealed this week. A federal magistrate on Tuesday ordered Banks held until his trial, citing the potential threat to the agent and his family.
The agent isn’t named in the indictment and is identified only by his initials, T.P. He was working in Pittsburgh when he helped investigate Banks, who was sentenced to five years in prison for a 2003 case involving the sale of bogus and pirated computer software online, authorities and court records said. Banks returned to prison several times over the next decade before being released last year.
The agent had transferred to the Tampa area, where the Craigslist ad was posted June 25, according to a printout of it filed with the court.
The ad identifies the poster as a ‘‘married white boy’’ who is seeking a male sexual partner for himself and his wife, described as a ‘‘blonde gorgeous girl next door type.’’ The ad resulted in the agent getting two phone calls in response, prosecutors said.
That's it?
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"Indiana mayor faces prostitution charge" AP August 13, 2015
BATESVILLE, Ind. — An HIV-positive Indianapolis man has been charged with trying to blackmail a small-town Indiana mayor after the two had sex at the politician’s home.
Batesville Mayor Richard Fledderman, 60, was charged Tuesday with patronizing a prostitute, while Randy Wigle-Stevens, 42, has been charged with failure to disclose dangerous communicable disease status, prostitution, and intimidation, authorities said.
Indiana State Police said Wigle-Stevens went to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis on July 19 and alleged he had been sexually assaulted by the mayor. Police investigators have since uncovered conflicting tales of what happened.
According to a probable cause affidavit filed Tuesday, Fledderman told police he had been seeking a massage while his wife was out of town, and found Wigle-Stevens through a website. Detective Roger Drew said Fledderman later admitted he was looking for sex.
Why didn't he just go to a massage parlor?
Fledderman told Drew he paid Wigle-Stevens $170, including a $10 tip, for consensual sex at his Batesville home on June 7, 2014, according to the affidavit. Drew said Wigle-Stevens told him Fledderman forced him into a sex act.
Fledderman told police that the other man realized he was a public official and demanded $500 for his silence, saying he had DNA evidence of their encounter. Wigle-Stevens admitted seeing a badge reading ‘‘Mayor of Batesville,’’ and said he later called Fledderman asking for $250 for the extra two hours they spent discussing politics at the mayor’s house in Batesville, about 65 miles from Indianapolis.
Kind of dims his star, doesn't it?
Fledderman told Drew he met Wigle-Stevens in a parking lot and paid him $250, plus $20 for gas, and was given a brown bottle that Wigle-Stevens said held a paper towel with his DNA. Fledderman later discovered the bottle was empty, the affidavit says.
Wigle-Stevens appeared in court Wednesday and was released on his own recognizance. His trial is scheduled for Feb. 16. Wigle-Stevens told the Associated Press by telephone that he had no comment; Fledderman could not be reached for comment.
Police say Wigle-Stevens was diagnosed with HIV 20 years ago.
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Who benefited from the life insurance policy?
"Fatal insurance plot brings life term" Associated Press August 14, 2015
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — A man convicted of planning a massive Indianapolis house explosion that killed two neighbors was sentenced Friday to life without parole.
A judge ordered consecutive life sentences for Mark Leonard, 46, after saying he was the main person behind the November 2012 blast that killed the couple and damaged more than 80 homes.
‘‘I do think he was the prime mover of these events,’’ St. Joseph County Superior Court Judge John Marnocha said. ‘‘He orchestrated them.’’
The life sentences will be served consecutively. Leonard was sentenced to another 75 years on conspiracy and arson charges.
Marnocha said Leonard turned the house into a bomb in what prosecutors described as a plot to trigger a natural gas explosion at his then-girlfriend’s house to collect $300,000 in insurance....
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That's a hot plot.
"Michigan official reportedly tried to hide affair" Associated Press August 08, 2015
LANSING, Mich. — A Michigan lawmaker had an e-mail sent to his Republican supporters falsely claiming he had been caught having sex with a male prostitute, apparently believing such a smear campaign would help distract attention from an alleged extramarital affair between him and a female lawmaker, a newspaper reported Friday.
??????????????????????????
The Detroit News obtained two recordings secretly made in May by a then-aide of state Representative Todd Courser, a Tea Party-backed social conservative from Lapeer. In the recordings, Courser asks the aide, Ben Graham, to e-mail GOP activists and operatives from an anonymous account to create ‘‘a complete smear campaign’’ against him.
In the recordings, Courser tells Graham that he and state Representative Cindy Gamrat had received identical texts about their relationship.
Graham said when he refused to send the e-mail, he was stripped of some of his duties and eventually fired. The sexually explicit e-mail was sent out two days later.
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It's guys like him that gives gays a bad name.
"A teen who spent nearly 40 days in custody before a judge cleared him of throwing an ice-encrusted snowball is suing the Detroit school district, saying his rights were violated by a malicious prosecution. Dominique Rondeau, 18, was accused of throwing a snowball that shattered a school police car’s windshield in December 2013. The case was dismissed after officers looked at a video in court and couldn’t identify Rondeau as the person who threw it."
That gives Detroit a bad name.
"Detroit boy, 11, fatally shoots 3-year-old" New York Times August 07, 2015
An 11-year-old Detroit boy has been charged with manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a 3-year-old, the first such case that a prosecutor could recall involving a person so young.
Prosecutors said in a statement that the 11-year-old boy had been visiting his father on the east side of Detroit on Monday when he took a handgun from a bedroom closet and tossed it out a window.
The boy, who was not identified because of his age, retrieved the gun, then jumped into a vehicle parked in the yard. The 3-year-old got into the car with the boy, and was subsequently shot in the face, the statement said.
The Detroit Free Press reported that the 11-year-old was charged with manslaughter Wednesday afternoon at a preliminary hearing in juvenile court. He looked lost, the newspaper reported.
Related: Detroit Free Press wins mug shot appeal
“I cannot remember a time when we have charged someone so young with taking a life,” the Wayne County prosecutor, Kym L. Worthy, said in the statement.
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Also see:
"A Michigan woman, Candy Lawson, 44, of Corunna, kept her disabled adult sister locked in a closet for six or seven years with little food, water, or clothing and only a bucket for urination, authorities said Friday."
Now if she had worked for the CIA....
Related: Ex-Detroit mayor loses bid for retrial
Where is the love in Michigan, 'eh?
First gay couple married at West Point attacked in N.Y.
Kentucky clerk defies order to issue same-sex marriage licenses
Ky. pupils handcuffed, suit charges
The school cop was simply acting out a scene from Shades of Grey. It was done out of love.
Couples sue to overturn Miss. ban on gay adoptions
Fla. parents sue over birth listing
Court says Colo. baker can’t cite religion to refuse customers
None of this is flying in North Dakota.
Four couples share a wedding date, and a golden jubilee
Won't be seeing that anymore, nor will you be seeing any Sunday Globe Specials tomorrow. They are history going forward.
Pleasant dreams, readers.
UPDATE: Reluctant Ky. clerk won’t have to issue marriage licenses for now
What a nightmare.
