The Insane Clown Posse -- a white rap group whose members paint their faces like clowns -- is planning to sue the FBI for classifying its fans, who call themselves "Juggalos," as a criminal gang.
Here's is the FBI's "National Gang Threat Assessment," which describes the Juggalos -- without any hint of irony -- as a " a loosely-organized hybrid gang ... rapidly expanding into many US communities":
"Most crimes committed by Juggalos are sporadic, disorganized, individualistic, and often involve simple assault, personal drug use and possession, petty theft, and vandalism."
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The section on the Juggalos is accompanied by this photo of a woman posing with a gun. It carries the filename, "juggalette-with_possible_firearm."
The annual "Gathering of the Juggalos" is going on right now, at Cave-in-Rock, Ill. It's basically a sort of drug-fueled, booze-drenched Woodstock that attracts up to 100,000 suburban youths, annually. Here's a description of what it's like, per the Village Voice: It makes the Mardi Gras ritual in which women gather strings of beads look tame.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The man suspected of killing 12 during a midnight premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises" so impressed officials at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign neuroscience program, the program agreed to waive his tuition and fees and offered him a $22,660 annual stipend.
The University of Illinois recently released documents from Holmes' application to the program, according to the Denver Post, which first reported the documents Friday.
Holmes applied to the university's neuroscience program in 2011 before ultimately deciding to attend the University of Colorado Denver.
In his acceptance letter, professor J. Lee Beverly told Holmes, "Those who met you ... during your interview visit felt that your personal and professional qualities are truly outstanding and that you will be an excellent match for our program," according to the Post.
Holmes also included in his application a photo of him posing with a llama, which seemed to be a big hit with the neursocience department.
Holmes ultimately decided to attend University of Colorado.
"Glad we put the $$ and effort into bringing him," neuroscience program coordinator Samuel Beshers wrote in an email when he found out, according to the Post.
The scene in Times Square Saturday afternoon came straight out of a horror film.
When police tried to arrest a man who appeared to be smoking marijuana, he pulled a kitchen knife and began swinging it wildly, the New York Times reported Saturday.
Then police drew their guns. They reportedly fired at him a number of times until he was dead.
From the Times report:
"Out-of-towners on a red double-decker tourist bus gawked at the unfolding drama, a bit more of the New York experience than they had bargained for. Nervous onlookers peered out from restaurant and shop windows, the flashing lights of Times Square lending a bizarre atmosphere, which grew even wilder as a crowd gathered, attracted by the commotion."
The odd chase was unusual even by Times Square standards, the Times reported.
“I almost had a heart attack,” Brazilian tourist Priscilla Rocha told the Times. “Everyone started running.”
But they had fights that on occasion became violent, the Times reported.
Jonah went to the police and said Dina had tried to choke him back in 2008. The next year, as their marriage was imploding, Dina reportedly told police her husband elbowed her in the chest.
Then Jonah met an ophthalmic technician who was said to be "full of life."
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It's not clear when Shacknai met Rebecca Zahau, according to the July 2011 article in the LA Times.
She was an ophthalmic technician near Phoenix, and her ex-boss described her as being wonderful with patients.
"Rebecca was a person who was full of life," Michael Trier, chief executive of Horizon Eye Specialists & Lasik Center, told the LA Times.
The couple eventually began spending time at Shacknai's historic mansion in Coronado, Calif. known as the Spreckels Mansion.
In September 2010, Dina asked Jonah not to leave their son, Max, alone with Rebecca.
Rebecca neglected to say she had been married or caught shoplifting, Dina Shacknai said.
The now-deceased woman also gave Dina a last name she'd never used before in this country, according to Dina. So Max's mom told her ex not to leave Zahau alone with her son.
"These things are concerning. As a mother, you want to know who's taking care of your child," Dina said.
Raymond Roth, an unemployed telecommunications manager, faked his own drowning on July 28 only to be stopped for speeding in South Carolina.
He certainly isn't the first to try this admittedly drastic way of escaping from the daily grind.
So, we thought we'd take a look at other professionals who faked their own deaths. The culprits span from a British lawmaker to a Colombian doctor.
Marcus Schrenker used a plane crash to fake his death.
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Schrenker, a financial adviser from Indiana, was caught up in of legal, financial, and marital problems when he decided to fake his own death, according to The New York Times.
Investors told a judge in 2009 Schrenker had illicitly taken money from accounts, charged outrageous fees, and forged signatures on investment documents, The Associated Press reported at the time.
In January 2011, Schrenker took off in his plane from an Indiana airport en route to Florida.
While flying over Alabama, law enforcement determined Schrenker parachuted from the plane after they found cut lines in tree branches and a parachute that was traced back to Schrenker, CNN reported in 2009.
Police eventually found Schrenker hiding out at a campground in Florida. Schrenker ultimately admitted he called in a fake distress message to air traffic control and had planned for the plane to crash.
He pleaded guilt to destruction of an aircraft and causing the Coast Guard to respond when he didn't help and was sentenced to 51 months in prison, according to CNN.
Hedge fund manager Samuel Israel III faked suicide and quoted the theme from MASH.
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Israel was riding high in the 1990s when his company Bayou Funds capitalized on rising technology stocks.
However, Israel lost millions in investor money. To hide the failure, he created a bogus accounting firm to audit the company's financials.
Israel ultimately became addicted to painkillers and turned to shadowy figures who advised him to break the law. He was finally sentenced to 20 years after pleading guilty to his frauds.
Rather than serve his prison sentence, Israel faked his own suicide, writing the words "Suicide is Painless," on his car, which he left parked at Bear Mountain.
In 2008 he ultimately turned himself after setting off an international manhunt, The New York Times reported at the time.
Gandaruban Subramaniam was on the lam for 20 years before getting caught.
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Gandaruban Subramaniam, a 60-year-old Singaporean businessman, was being hounded by creditors after his car-rental business failed in 1987.
To escape, his family claimed he was killed by Tamil Tiger rebels. Renuga Devi Sinnaduray, his wife, said he died without leaving a will, allowing her to cash in on three life-insurance policies, the Brisbane Times reported in 2008.
Subramaniam fled to Sri Lanka where he hid for more than 20 years. He was captured when he tried to re-enter Singapore using a fake passport.
Gandaruban pleaded guilty to insurance fraud. Renuga was charged with conspiracy to cheat and served a year behind bars, according to the Brisbane Times.
The murder of a woman in Chongqing, China, on Friday has resulted in a huge search for the suspected killer, Zhou Kehua, according to Chinese media.
Shanghai Daily reports that a gunman shot the woman, her companion, and a guard as he grabbed the woman's handbag. Images posted online show a bloody scene outside of the bank.
Zhou Kehua is the suspect named by police, and there is much speculation that he is also the man responsible for a series of similar crimes in the city of Nanjing stretching back to 2004. Shanghai Daily reports that the Nanjing robber was once dubbed "the most dangerous man in China" for a string of attacks and bank robberies that left at least 6 dead.
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict's former butler Paolo Gabriele, who was arrested last May in an investigation into leaks of documents alleging corruption in the Vatican, was on Monday ordered to stand trial on charges of aggravated theft.
In a 35-page document on the case which rocked the Holy See, the Vatican also revealed that the butler had an accomplice, a computer expert who worked in the Vatican bureaucracy. The layman, who was named as Claudio Sciarpelletti, was also ordered to stand trial on charges of aiding an abetting a crime.
We've already written about former University of Nebraska graduate student Pete Simi's experience interviewing the man who killed six Sikhs when he opened fire on their temple.
And now, more details about Wade Michael Page's rather twisted views of life in America are coming to light in exclusive interviews Simi shared with MSNBC's Chris Hayes.
From Simi's interview:
“A faggot drives by in front of your house and you go, ‘hey [expletive] faggot,’ that’s a hate crime, he goes to the cops," Page told Simi. "It’s a felony, you violated his civil rights. [Expletives] call you a honkey, they’ve got freedom of speech. ... You have not been oppressed like they have been. ... A lot of Jews like to think they’re white but it’s a hate crime if you call them a dirty Jew because they will pull some racial religious [expletive] out of their ass.”
“Sometimes a savage beating is necessary, violence plays a big part of the skinhead life … sometimes violence gets out of hand and things happen that shouldn’t happen but at least it teaches people a lesson: the next time they won’t [expletive] with skinheads.”
Simi met Page while researching white supremacist groups in California.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The secret-busting organization WikiLeaks says it's been the victim of a sustained denial-of-service attack which has left its website sluggish or inaccessible for more than a week.
In a statement released late Saturday the group said the assault intensified around the beginning of August and has since expanded to include attacks against affiliated sites.
Denial-of-service attacks work by overwhelming websites with requests for information. WikiLeaks has said it's been flooded with 10 gigabits per second of bogus traffic from thousands of different Internet addresses.
Josh Corman, with online content delivery company Akamai, characterized that as "a bit larger" than attacks commonly seen in the past few years.
WikiLeaks, which has angered officials in Washington with its spectacular releases of classified U.S. documents, remained inaccessible Sunday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled last year prosecutors can't get in trouble for "subjective ill-will," meaning prosecutors have the right to file charges against you out of spite as long as they have the evidence to back it up.
And now, a group of former judges and prosecutors, headed up by SCOTUSblog's Tom Goldstein, are asking the Supreme Court to reverse the appeals court's decision, The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog reported Friday.
In its brief, filed Thursday with the high court, the group argues prosecutors' motives when filing charges are an important part of the judicial process.
"An indictment (or superseding indictment) filed in bad faith is no less dangerous to the integrity of the criminal justice system than a vexatious or frivolous one, and deserves no less sanction," according to the brief, posted by Law Blog.
The Eleventh Circuit's controversial ruling overturned a Florida court's decision that ordered prosecutors to pay legal fees for a doctor after finding prosecutors were prejudiced against Ali Shaygan, a doctor accused of illegally prescribing pain medications.
That doctor came under government scrutiny after one of his patients died while taking methadone.
Shaygan's doctor moved to suppress the doctor's statements to investigators, and the government threatened doing so could be very bad for Shaygan, Reuters' Alison Frankel previously reported.
A 141-count indictment against Shaygan ensued.
Former Sixth Circuit appeals court judge Nathaniel Jones and former Tenth Circuit judge Michael McConnell, among others, joined Goldstein in his brief.
The LIBOR investigation – which accuses banks of knowingly submitting false data that distorted one of the world's most important financial benchmarks – has put the CFTC and its chairman in the spotlight.
On Sunday, the New York Times profiled Gensler, revealing a regulator who made the switch to the private sector while retaining the intensity of a banker.
Gensler joined the Treasury Department after an 18-year career with Goldman.
During the Clinton administration, Gensler spearheaded the expansive deregulation of an industry he's now policing aggressively, the Times reported.
And he's regulating that industry with the fervor of a man who's not only a former longtime banker but also a marathon runner and rock climber.
He pushes his staff to finish their work quickly. Last year an earthquake forced his staff out of the building, so he had them gather in a small cafe so they wouldn't lose a few hours of work, the Times reported.
From the Times article:
"Mr. Gensler, a father of three daughters, agrees that he has yet to shake his penchant for deal-making. When negotiating over the wording of a rule, he still props up his socked feet on an employee’s desk, a habit common to bankers. His efforts now, however, are directed at reforming the industry that once made him millions."
Marijuana usage among city teenagers jumped by more than 5 percent since 2005, reaching its highest level during Mayor Michael Bloomberg's 10-year reign as head of New York City.
A survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, first reported Monday by the New York Post, found that 17.7 percent of big city teens were smoking weed last year, compared to just 12.3 percent in 2005.
“Every kid my age does it, but it is not a good thing,’’ 16-year-old Brooklyn resident Catherine Reyes told the Post. “They can end up in bad situations.”
The report also found that nearly 38 percent of teenagers have admitted to having sex. Of those, about half had sex before turning 13, according to the Post.
The CDC's report had a bevy of other bad news for Bloomberg, who's earned himself the nickname the "Nanny" mayor for his work to regulate most aspects of New Yorkers' health. About 28 percent of city teens are overweight or obese and about 21 percent drink soda, the Post reported.
The CDC's findings might breathe new life into Bloomberg's plan to ban 16 ounce sodas in New York. The plan received widespread backlash when it was first proposed.
Na Cola Darcel Franklin, 31, should have been standing at the altar on Saturday - instead she was in a prison cell, charged with murdering her fiance.
Police said Franklin and Billy Rafael Brewster, 36, were arguing at their home in Pennysylvania in the early hours of Saturday.
ABC News reported that Franklin allegedly stabbed Brewster twice with a kitchen knife, police said.
"One of the stab wounds punctured his heart," Luksa said.
When police arrived at the apartment, shortly after 2 a.m., they found Brewster bleeding from chest wounds. He died 90 minutes later in hospital, less than seven hours before the wedding.
The New York Daily News reported that during her court appearance on Saturday afternoon, Franklin told District Judge Donna Butler, "You got to check again," unable to comprehend that Brewster was dead, the Allentown Morning Call reported.
She cried, rocked herself back and forth and eventually choked out, "I ... did ... not ... kill ... him ... on ... purpose."
Just days after revealing that late Beastie Boys rapper Adam Yauch's will forbid use of his music in any advertisements, the Beastie Boys are suing Monster Energy Drink for just that
Monster used the Beastie Boys' music and images without permission in a web ad for their "Ruckus in the Rockies" event which occurred on May 5. Yauch died of Cancer on May 4.
The suit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in New York on Tuesday, says:
Monster caused a link to a downloadable audio recording (the "MP3") embodying a 23-minute medley of excerpts from the Beastie Boys Sound Recordings, the Beastie Boys Musical Compositions and the sound recordings and musical compositions comprising the additional Beastie Boys MP3 Copyrights … in conjunction with the Video, together with an offer that the MP3 was available for free download.
The songs in the "medley" included "Pass the Mic" and "So Whatcha Want."
The suit says that Yauch's estate, as well as remaining Boys Mike Diamond and Adam Horovitz, are suing for copyright infringement and violation of the Latham act—which protects trademark and endorsement, seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction.
They are also seeking damages of $150,000 for each individual infringement, which could end up being very costly since Monster allegedly sampled a mix tape.
A frustrated former law student had a rather graphic suggestion for the San Diego Padres after the team rejected her for jobs about 30 times.
Taylor Grey Meyer, who was even rejected from a minimum-wage job selling tickets at the Padres' Petco Park, drafted an angry response after the team offered her a networking opportunity that would cost her $459, Deadspin reported Thursday.
"I realize I may be burning a bridge here, but in the spirit of reciprocity, I would like to extend you a counter-offer to suck my dick," Meyer wrote in her letter, which was posted by Deadspin. "Clearly, I don't have one of these, so my offer makes about as much sense as yours. But for the price you're charging to attend the even, I'm sure I would have no problem borrowing one."
But the Padres don't seem too upset about her response.
"Taylor's letter was too incredible for anyone to get offended," a member of the Padres sales department told Deadspin. "I'm more impressed than angry."
Meyer claims she sees the letter in two colors.
"People either think I'm an idiot who is finished in pro sports but really, I never even had a chance to get started," she told Deadspin. "Or they take it how it was meant to be read, as a fed-up letter by an overqualified applicant who is exhausted from applying to jobs and constantly being rejected."
Meyer recently dropped out of California Western Law School because she couldn't afford the loans, Above The Law reported Friday.
In a tearful press conference, St. John The Baptist Parish Sheriff Mike K. Tregre said his officers were ambushed this morning, resulting in the deaths of officers Brandon Nielsen, 34, and Jeremy Triche, 28.
The early-morning incident began when "a gunman opened fire" on an officer working traffic detail at the Valero plant parking lot in the area.
Officers Scott Boyington and Jason Triche were injured in today's shooting.
During the course of this morning's investigation into the first shooting that injured Boyington and Jason Triche, Neilsen and Jeremy Triche were led to a trailer where a second shooting happened.
As the officers were interviewing two people outside the trailer, a third person left the unit with an assault weapon and "ambushed my two officers," Tregre said.
While he wouldn't give many details, Tregre, who has been sheriff for only 45 days, said the investigation is ongoing.
"It's been a very difficult day," Tregre said in the news conference, which was broadcast by WWLTV.
The investigation began when two police officers were shot this around 5 a.m. near a Valero plant parking lot in Laplace, La., WWLTV reported the time.
Plant workers were evacuated after the shooting. A twitter feed that monitors police scans suggested early this morning that the suspect had been armed with an AK47. That specific model has not been confirmed.
Earlier reports stated two officers and two civilians had been shot. That has been updated to say two officers died and two officers were shot.
Police confirmed to WWLTV that two suspects are in custody and one suspect is still at large.
Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino first spoke about Assange's fear of being extradited the U.S. because of his WikiLeaks publications.
He said Assange has been fighting for freedom of speech and freedom of press.
"We think that extradition of Assange is viable ... outside of the EU, guaranteeing his safety," he said (according to the RT translation).
Patino said that if Assange is extradited to the U.S., he would be tried by a military tribunal. He says that Assange must answer to allegations in Sweden but has not been afforded his full rights in the case.
"Asylum ... is a human privilege that is fundamental... based on the foundation of human protection, and their should be no distinction... Asylum belongs to the set of rules that should be recognized at an international level and it overrides local regulations."
Patino said that the rights for political asylum, citing several international pieces of legislation, override any other treaty that opposes them.
"Based on intangible rights and values, against unilateral attitudes by states, this should strengthen international politics."
He said neither the UK nor Sweden showed a willingness to reach an agreement.
"Ecuador made it clear to Sweden that we wanted to have an interview with them and we didn't want to interfere with whatever is happening there. Sweden didn't accept our proposal. Ecuador requested some guarantees from Sweden that Assange would not be [sent] to the United States, and they denied."
"We trust that the UK will offer the necessary guarantees so that both governments can act properly, respecting international rights and the rights of asylum. And we trust that the excellent relationship between the two countries will remain intact."
Here is Sweden's response:
Sweden's Foreign Ministry says it is unacceptable that Ecuador is hindering Swedish legal process - spokesman
Before making his statement, the FM spoke about yesterday's threat from the UK that authorities would storm the Ecuadorian embassy and arrest Assange.
The Ecuadorian government said it would consider such an action a "hostile and intolerable act."
Former UK ambassador Craig Murray said that the decision to enter the Ecuadorian embassy would "be, beyond any argument, a blatant breach of the Vienna Convention of 1961" and that "Not even the Chinese government tried to enter the US Embassy to arrest the Chinese dissident Chen Guangchen."
The 40-year-old Australian arrived at the embassy on June 19 as he sought to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for preliminary questioning over allegations that he sexually assaulted two women.
Authorities in Wisconsin released audio Wednesday from 911 calls made during the Aug. 5 shooting at a Milwaukee-area Sikh temple.
Gunman Wade Michael Page killed six people when he opened fire on the temple. He ultimately died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
In the calls, posted by TMJ4, a woman claims she was hiding in the temple during the shooting.
"We need help. Somebody is shooting," the woman told the dispatcher. When asked if she could see the shooter, the woman said "I don't know. We are hiding. Thank you."
Gunshots can be heard in the background of a separate call.
Another caller reported seeing Page go into the temple.
"Some guy is shooting a gun," the caller told the dispatcher, according to TMJ4. "Some temple or something. We saw him go in there."
A plane flying from New York to Moscow had to make an emergency landing in Iceland today after an anonymous caller claimed five suitcases were filled with bombs.
Below is a video stream that recorded the scene outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London immediately after Julian Assange was granted political asylum by the government of Ecuador:
The section on the Juggalos is accompanied by this photo of a woman posing with a gun. It carries the filename, "juggalette-with_possible_firearm."
Image may be NSFW.
