pileofcrapola

People love Sonic Drive-In’s crushed ice so much they’ll buy it by the bagful. If you want some of the same slushy ice that chills your drink and is great for chewing, you can make it at home with this easy trick.

Read more...

Superhero movies may be hit or miss sometimes, but even mediocre movies often come with outstanding soundtracks. The best scores become ingrained in us. This playlist features some of the best superhero music of the last decade and a half.

Read more...

The weather is warming and my thoughts have turned towards ice cream. There’s something extra satisfying about whipping up your own frosty treats, but not everyone has an ice cream machine. Let’s run through a few of our favorite frozen desserts that you can make without any special equipment.

Read more...

As much as you might prepare for the birth of your child, chances are something unexpected will happen. Some moms have had glorious orgasms giving birth, while others’ experiences were more torturous. From uncontrollable poops to the need for new shoes, here are the gritty “secrets” about childbirth you might not have heard before.

Read more...

When it’s so hard to say no, it’s so easy to overcommit . Get around this issue by responding with a “Yes...if...” to requests for your time and energy that don’t have the highest value for you.

Read more...

If you want to cook chicken breasts that are juicy and tender every time, make sure you always follow this important step: Pound them all to the same thickness.

Read more...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Two weeks have passed since the bodies of eight family members were found on April 22 at four different homes in Ohio. No arrests have been made, and a motive for the Pike County killings remains unclear. Autopsies show the victims were shot, some of them multiple times. Here’s a look at the killings and what’s known:

THE DISCOVERY

At 7:49 a.m. on April 22, a breathless woman calls 911 saying two people appear dead in a home: “There’s blood all over the house.” Minutes later, a sheriff’s deputy requests “multiple ambulances due to multiple people down at multiple residences.” Seven bodies are discovered in three houses. At 1:26 p.m., another 911 call comes in with the report of an eighth body: “All that stuff that’s on the news. I just found my cousin with a gunshot wound.”

___

THE VICTIMS

Members of the Rhoden family found shot to death: 40-year-old Christopher Rhoden; his ex-wife, 37-year-old Dana Rhoden; their three children, 20-year-old Clarence “Frankie” Rhoden, 16-year-old Christopher Jr., and 19-year-old Hanna; Frankie Rhoden’s fiancée, 20-year-old Hannah Gilley; Christopher Rhoden Sr.’s brother, 44-year-old Kenneth Rhoden; and 38-year-old Gary Rhoden, a cousin. Hanna Rhoden’s 4-day-old baby girl was found unharmed beside her; another baby and a young child were also unharmed.

___

THE SHOOTINGS

The Hamilton County coroner says one victim was shot once, with others sustaining multiple gunshot wounds, including two victims shot five times and one victim shot nine times. The report didn’t specify which victim had which number of wounds. The coroner’s office says some victims showed signs of soft tissue bruising, consistent with the first 911 caller’s description of the victims having been beaten. A sheriff’s department report says a large amount of blood was found in the living room of the house where the first two victims were found; their bodies were located in a back bedroom.

___

THE INVESTIGATION

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has assigned multiple officers with the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation to work alongside the Pike County Sheriff’s Office. The Pike County prosecutor, the Hamilton County coroner and more than 20 other sheriff’s offices and Piketon police are assisting. The FBI and the DEA are providing some assistance on an as-needed basis.

___

THEORIES

Numerous theories on a motive abound, including a family rift, a revenge killing by outsiders or something related to drugs. DeWine has confirmed the presence of large marijuana growing operations at three of the four crime scenes. In 2012, DeWine said the seizure of 1,200 marijuana plants in Pike County was related to Mexican cartel activity. He has since downplayed the comment, but it led to speculation that the slayings were part of a drug rivalry. Other law enforcement officials familiar with the region say they doubt the cartel connection, saying there was no evidence of it in past years.

___

EVIDENCE

More than 100 items of evidence have been sent to the state crime lab for analysis. More than 450 tips have been received and state and Pike County investigators have spoken with nearly 130 witnesses. On Tuesday, authorities towed vehicles from the properties as part of the investigation.

___

FUNERALS

The victims were buried in three separate services. The first, for Gary Rhoden, was held in his hometown of South Shore, Kentucky, on April 28. The second, for Hannah Gilley, the fiancée of Frankie Rhoden, was held on April 30, in Otway, Ohio. The third, for the remaining six victims, was held at Dry Run Church of Christ church in West Portsmouth on May 2, with hundreds in attendance.

___

SUSPECTS

Officials haven’t announced suspects or even named “persons of interest.” That’s unusual when it comes to mass killings, in which the perpetrator is often quickly identified. The last time eight people were shot to death in Ohio was in 2011 near Akron. The killer targeted his girlfriend and her relatives and neighbors and fatally shot seven people before killing himself. In the Piketon case, the lack of arrests doesn’t mean authorities don’t have suspects. University of Dayton criminal law professor Thomas Hagel said, “The fact they have not run out and arrested someone right way is not unusual. They’re still building their case.”

___

Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/awhcolumbus. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/andrew-welsh-huggins

___

This story has been corrected to show the first name of the University of Dayton professor is Thomas, not Charles.

The post 2 weeks after 8 killed in Ohio, no arrests, few answers appeared first on WTOP.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A judge on Thursday said five tigers and five other animals seized from a northeast Ohio farm should be returned, though the state stood by its actions and maintained that the owner hasn’t met Ohio’s tightened restrictions on keeping exotic animals.

Owner Cyndi Huntsman of Stump Hill Farm in Massillon argued that her farm is a licensed educational facility and thus exempt from permit requirements. Her attorney, John Juergensen, said a related administrative appeal is still pending and that the seizure was premature and unnecessary because the animals weren’t endangering anyone.

The judge who signed off on the warrant that enabled the seizure granted Huntsman a preliminary injunction Thursday but agreed with a state veterinarian’s recommendation that the animals shouldn’t be sedated and moved again for two weeks, for their own health, Juergensen said.

“We felt like her due process rights were violated with this seizure and that it was a giant waste of taxpayer money,” Juergensen said.

Another hearing on the injunction is scheduled May 19.

A spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Agriculture said she couldn’t comment on Thursday’s legal developments because the state hadn’t yet seen the court documents, but she defended the animals’ removal.

“We stand by the actions that we took and still believe them to have been carried out lawfully,” spokeswoman Erica Hawkins said.

Department officials took the tigers, two pumas, two baboons and one chimpanzee from Stump Hill on Wednesday and moved them to the state holding facility east of Columbus after Huntsman refused to surrender them.

The animals were in relatively good condition and showed no ill effects from the transfer, Hawkins said.

She said the department had worked with Stump Hill Farm in Massillon on its efforts to get accreditation from the Zoological Association of America and thereby be exempt from the permit requirements, but took action after those attempts stalled and the state received information that Huntsman had improperly acquired more restricted animals.

One of the seized tigers was a former live “Obie” mascot for football games at nearby Massillon Washington High School.

The state had considered Stump Hill to be the last large facility not complying with the stricter rules Ohio enacted after a suicidal man released lions, tigers and other creatures from a Zanesville-area farm in 2011.

The agriculture director’s order to transfer the animals indicates that Huntsman had a state wildlife education permit issued only for a bald eagle, not other animals. Juergensen said the language isn’t limited that way.

In recent years, more than 110 animals have been seized by the state or surrendered by owners. The seizure at Stump Hill is the second-largest.

The post Judge says 10 seized animals should be returned to Ohio farm appeared first on WTOP.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Roddy Biggs was 13 and depressed, and had been seeing a therapist for six months before he revealed something he had denied even to himself: He was gay.

It took time because he hadn’t fully acknowledged his sexuality, but also because he had to trust the therapist, he said.

“Because I didn’t want to be gay myself, so I didn’t even open up to myself until then,” said Biggs, now a 23-year-old college student in Knoxville, Tennessee. It would have been devastating, he said, if the therapist had turned him away and told him to find another counselor.

“I would have felt defeated, and I would have probably actually killed myself,” Biggs said.

While it isn’t unusual for a teen like Biggs to need time before trusting a therapist enough to talk about his sexuality, some mental health professionals say, it illustrates the potential minefields ahead as Tennessee implements an unprecedented new law allowing counselors to refuse to treat people based on religious reasons or personal principles.

Beyond the war of words about whether the law discriminates against gay, lesbian and transgender people or protects professionals with deeply-held beliefs, it has sparked conversation about what it means for people seeking help.

The outcome could be messy and tragic, opponents say, because counseling requires people to trust someone enough to reveal intimate personal details.

Others question whether the government can force professionals to counsel people when it conflicts with their deepest moral principles and whether that would be in a patient’s best interest.

The law signed by Republican Gov. Bill Haslam last week took effect immediately, sending counselors and advocates scrambling to sort through its implications. So far, it hasn’t led to the kind of economic backlash that hit North Carolina in response to a law requiring transgender people to use only the bathroom of the gender on their birth certificates.

Tennessee’s law allows counselors to refuse to treat people as long as they refer patients to someone else.

The measure conflicts with the American Counseling Association’s code of ethics. The ACA says no other state has passed such a law.

Tennessee’s law requires all counselors, no matter their personal beliefs, to treat people who are in immediate danger of hurting themselves or others. But because many such people aren’t readily identifiable, some wonder how counselors will know.

The law also raises questions about timing.

The therapeutic relationship takes time to build, said Art Terrazas, ACA’s director of government affairs. It’s not like going to a medical doctor, where patients can quickly describe a cough or a problem joint.

“When you’ve gone to a few different sessions, and you’re getting help and they finally say, ‘OK, I don’t think I can help you,’ that is going to be devastating,” Terrazas said. “And they’re going to say, ‘Well then nobody can help me.'”

The law’s advocates see things from the other side — that of the religious counselor with sincerely held beliefs. They say the government can’t force people to turn their backs on their values.

Rules still bar counselors from abandoning or neglecting clients or refusing to see them based solely on sexual orientation or gender identity, said David Fowler, president of the Family Action Council of Tennessee, a faith-based socially conservative organization.

A few lawsuits have been filed nationwide over counselors’ refusal to treat gay patients. A graduate student sued after she was expelled from an Eastern Michigan University counseling program because she didn’t want to counsel a gay man whom she had never treated before over her religious beliefs. She settled with the university.

A year after the settlement, the ACA updated its code of ethics in 2014, barring counselors from referring clients elsewhere, based on personally-held values. The organization says the ethics code had already banned discrimination.

For Mary Beth and James T. “Dale” Berry, who run the Christian-based Ebenezer Counseling Services center in Knoxville, the ACA’s 2014 code of ethics — which Tennessee adopted into law — put their moral beliefs in conflict.

They say Tennessee’s new law restores the state to where it was with the ACA’s older code of ethics, which they found worked fine.

“We value every person — gay, straight, transsexual, male, female, black, white,” Dale Berry said. But both say they cannot affirm the actions of patients who do things contrary to their own moral beliefs. They say they wouldn’t give sex therapy to an unmarried heterosexual couple. And they say religious therapists shouldn’t be forced to counsel terminally ill people who want to end their lives.

Unless it’s a person in a mental-health crisis, both say it doesn’t serve a patient if the counselor fakes being aligned with the client’s values.

“They can tell when we’re conflicted,” Dale Berry said. “And it’s not good to be conflicted with your client; it sends a mixed message, then the client’s confused.” The client is better served, he said, by being referred to someone else.

Biggs, who went through his own successful therapy, said a counselor must put the patient first.

“I think it’s a counselor’s job to be there for people, to comfort people, and if someone is to the point in their life when they need counseling, they need to be accepted, to know that they can tell that counselor anything and the counselor will talk to them, guide them through it,” Biggs said. “And if the counselor can’t do it, then maybe they’re in the wrong profession.”

The post LGBT community braces for impact of new counseling law appeared first on WTOP.

MERRIMACK, N.H. (AP) — After a New Hampshire man fixing his roof died in a fall, firefighters and paramedics returned later to finish his project.

Members of the Merrimack Fire Department arrived at the home Wednesday afternoon to find a relative performing CPR on the victim. The severely injured man was rushed to a hospital, but was pronounced dead.

Fire Chief Michael Currier says that after the man died, six rescue team members were concerned that his roof repair wasn’t finished. With rain on the horizon, the firefighters and paramedics went back to the home thinking they’d put a tarp on the open roof.

After realizing that the project was nearly complete, the rescuers decided to fix the roof completely with help from the victim’s neighbors.

The post Man fixing his roof dies, fire crew returns to finish repair appeared first on WTOP.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A new legal document that claims a boy told Joe Paterno in 1976 that Jerry Sandusky had molested him has dropped like a bombshell and reignited debate about what the Penn State coach knew about his longtime assistant decades before his arrest.

Details of the testimony remain hidden inside a sealed deposition in Penn State’s court fight with the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association Insurance Company.

Paterno family members immediately dismissed the accusation, and even an attorney for victims of Sandusky cautioned that he did not know of irrefutable evidence supporting the claim.

Paterno, who died in 2012, had said that an assistant’s report in 2001 of Sandusky attacking a boy in the shower was the first he knew of such allegations against Sandusky.

Details of the 1976 claim were not included in the court document — a judge’s ruling in Penn State’s dispute with its insurer — and a lawyer for the company declined to comment.

Sandusky is serving a lengthy prison sentence for his conviction in the sexual abuse of 10 children. The university has also paid out more than $90 million to settle 32 civil claims involving Sandusky. How far back in time all the acts occurred has not been made public.

Penn State’s insurer claims there is evidence of several early acts of molestation by Sandusky, and not just the one by a boy who allegedly went to Paterno with his report in the 1970s, according to the ruling by Philadelphia Judge Gary Glazer. He said the events are described “in a number of the victims’ depositions.”

The insurer’s evidence includes an allegation that one assistant coach saw “inappropriate contact” between Sandusky and a child at the university in 1987 and a second assistant “reportedly witnessed sexual contact” between Sandusky and a child a year later, the judge said. Also in 1988, the insurer claims, a child’s report of his molestation by Sandusky was referred to Penn State’s athletic director.

The judge wrote there was no evidence that reports of the incidents went “further up the chain of command at PSU.”

In his ruling, the judge found that Penn State had to assume the costs of settlements stemming from claims over most of the 1990s because its insurance policies did not cover abuse or molestation.

When Sandusky abused children at his home or at events held by the children’s charity he started, “he was still a PSU assistant coach and professor, and clothed in the glory associated with those titles, particularly in the eyes of impressionable children,” Glazer wrote.

“By cloaking him with a title that enabled him to perpetuate his crimes, PSU must assume some responsibility for what he did both on and off campus,” he said.

Penn State issued a statement late Friday saying it has “no records from the time to help evaluate the claims,” noting Paterno could not defend himself.

Tom Kline, a lawyer who settled an abuse allegation with Penn State, said he and other lawyers were aware of claims dating back to the ’70s.

Kline said the new disclosure “provides one more link in the chain which has been repeatedly denied by those who refuse to come to terms with the tragic reality here.”

But another plaintiff’s lawyer in Sandusky scandal, Michael Boni, urged caution in weighing the new Paterno allegation.

“The headlines of these stories is Paterno knew of Sandusky’s molestation in the ’70s, ’76 or ’77. I’m unaware of direct, irrefutable evidence that that’s the case,” Boni said. “Believe me, I’m the last person to defend the guy, but I am the first person to believe in our justice system. And I think you need more than anecdotal evidence or speculative evidence.”

The coach’s son Scott Paterno called the new claim “bunk,” tweeting Friday that “it would be great if everyone waited to see the substance of the allegation before they assume it’s true. Because it’s not.” Sue Paterno, the coach’s widow, said in a letter to the Penn State board that the family had no knowledge of the new claims.

Defense attorney Al Lindsay said after speaking with Sandusky that his client denied that any of the incidents described in the court ruling occurred. Sandusky also maintained his innocence throughout the trial.

The school fired Paterno and removed his statue from the front of its football stadium — a decision that still rankles many fans and alumni — but his name adorns a university library, and the NCAA last year restored 111 of his wins vacated after Sandusky’s 2012 conviction.

Paterno was not charged with any crime, and his family is pursuing a lawsuit against the NCAA for commercial disparagement, arguing the association’s since-abolished consent decree with Penn State over the Sandusky scandal damaged their commercial interests and value.

In addition, three university officials await trial on criminal charges for their handling of the Sandusky scandal.

___

Scolforo reported from Harrisburg.

The post Judge’s order reopens questions about what Paterno knew when appeared first on WTOP.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A New York man who authorities say wrote a letter expressing his love for a 9-year-old autistic boy he was hired to baby-sit has been sentenced to 14 years in federal prison for having child pornography.

Federal prosecutors in Rochester say the boy’s parents fired 26-year-old Joseph Lamica, of Brighton, after discovered he was engaging in inappropriate behavior with their son.

The Churchville-Chili (CHYE’-lye) Central School District then barred Lamica from school grounds after he allegedly went to the boy’s school with the love letter.

Authorities say they later found notebooks filled with writings about his interest in young children, as well as child pornography and video of another child he babysat.

Lamica pleaded guilty to receipt of child pornography. He was sentenced Thursday. His lawyer says he deeply regrets his conduct.

The post Baby sitter who wrote love letter to 9-year-old sentenced appeared first on WTOP.

The last 11 touring elephants from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus kicked off their retirement in Florida on Friday with a buffet brunch of carrots, apples, celery, loaves of bread and lots of hay.

Circus spokesman Stephen Payne told The Associated Press the elephants arrived at the 200-acre Center for Elephant Conservation in central Florida after performing their final shows in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. They join 29 others already retired to the center after the circus announced last year it would stop using elephants in response to the number of cities and counties that passed ordinances prohibiting the use of bull hooks or nixing wild animal acts altogether.

Executives from Feld Entertainment, which owns the circus, have said it’s difficult to organize tours of three traveling circuses to 115 cities each year and fighting legislation in each jurisdiction is expensive.

Feld has a herd of 40 Asian elephants, the largest in North America. It will continue a breeding program and the animals will be used in a cancer research project.

On Friday, 23 of the herd dined on the buffet. All but one were female elephants. Smokey, the lone male, is neutered and can co-exist with the females peacefully.

“Smokey does not have the aggressive tendencies,” said Payne, adding that unaltered male elephants are solitary, territorial and highly aggressive.

The oldest elephant at the center is named Mysore; she is 70.

Elephants have been the symbol of this circus since P.T. Barnum brought an Asian elephant named Jumbo to America in 1882.

The circus will continue to use tigers, dogs and goats, and a Mongolian troupe of camel stunt riders joined its Circus Xtreme show. While animal rights activists decry the use of these animals, the elephants in particular were a problem, groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said. Elephants are social in the wild and enjoy living in family-like environments. Traveling the country in rail cars was inhumane and caused depression in the animals, activists said.

Some in the animal rights community wondered if the Feld family’s decision had anything to do with the fallout over “Blackfish,” a documentary exploring why the orca Tilikum killed SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau in 2010.

The documentary argues that killer whales in captivity become more aggressive to humans and each other. Since it aired, several entertainers pulled out of performances at SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. parks, and Southwest Airlines ended its marketing partnership.

The company announced in 2015 that it would retire the full herd to the center by 2018. But once officials began planning details, they realized they could do it sooner because building the new structures to house the retiring elephants didn’t take as long as they originally thought, company officials said. It costs about $65,000 yearly to care for each elephant.

The Center for Elephant Conservation is located in rural Polk City, between Orlando and Tampa.

Animal rights activists have long alleged that circuses have mistreated elephants.

In 2014, Feld Entertainment won $25.2 million in settlements from a number of animal-rights groups, including the Humane Society of the United States, ending a 14-year legal battle over allegations that Ringling circus employees mistreated elephants.

While the elephants will be retired, they will be used for research purposes. Payne said the extent of the research is confined to blood draws.

“We’re hoping that 55 million years of elephant evolution can teach us something about cancer,” he said.

Cancer is much less common in elephants than in humans, even though the big animals’ bodies have many more cells. That’s a paradox known among scientists, and now researchers think they may have an explanation — one they say might someday lead to new ways to protect people from cancer.

Follow Tamara Lush on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tamaralush

The post Unpack the trunk: Ringling’s elephants retire to Florida appeared first on WTOP.

DALLAS (AP) — Two young children found chained and leashed outside a San Antonio home had suffered hundreds of scars and injuries from months, perhaps years, of abuse, a sheriff’s official said Friday.

Doctors who treated the children after they were found April 29 determined they had old injuries indicating a long period of abuse. One of them also was suffering from hypothermia and had a broken arm resulting from the way she was tied to a garage door using a dog leash, Bexar County sheriff’s spokesman James Keith said.

Authorities initially said the children were 2 and 3 years old, but Keith says they may be a year older.

“Unfortunately, child abuse is a major problem here, and in this case we’re just glad we were able to find these children before any further harm could occur to them,” Keith said, explaining that deputies went to the home after a neighbor called about a child who could be heard crying for hours.

The girl’s brother was found tethered to the ground by a dog chain that was clamped to his ankle. Several piles of human feces were found nearby, and the boy was wet, indicating he was left in the rain.

“There was obvious evidence that a switch had been used on the children,” Keith said, referring to a slim tree branch.

Keith said the two children, along with six others found alone inside the home, are in state custody. The six other children showed no apparent signs of physical abuse, but investigators are determining whether they may have suffered mental anguish, Keith said. Those children range from 10 months to 10 years old.

The mother of the two children found outside, 30-year-old Cheryl Reed, is charged with two counts of injury to a child with bodily injury and was being held Friday at the Bexar County jail. She was arrested Thursday at a San Antonio motel.

Keith said investigators are still trying to learn the relationship between Reed and two others who have been charged in the matter: Deandre Dorch, 36, accused of injury to a child by omission, and Porucha Phillips, 34, facing counts that include injury to a child by omission.

Phillips is the mother of the six children found in the home and Dorch is the father to some. Phillips, who is pregnant, is being held at the Bexar County jail, and authorities were searching Friday for Dorch.

Reed at some point left to travel to California where she needed to address a child-protective matter in that state, Keith said, and had promised to pay Phillips and Dorch, either for rent or to look after her two children. The couple became angry when Reed failed to pay, and Dorch may have threatened her, according to Keith.

It appears the trio moved with their children to San Antonio from California in November, he said.

Investigators do not know who tied up the two children found in the back yard, but Keith said they had been under the couple’s care since February.

It wasn’t clear if Reed had an attorney who could address the allegations against her, but an attorney for Phillips told the San Antonio Express-News that he had spoken only briefly with her.

“She’s just trying to figure out what happened, just like I am and the police,” Alan Futrell told the paper. “It’s too early to say anything.”

___

Follow David Warren on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/WarrenJourno .

The post Texas children tied outside had hundreds of scars, injuries appeared first on WTOP.

LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) — A semi carrying beehives crashed on a Wyoming highway, unleashing millions of bees that hovered in a giant swarm over the roadway.

The Laramie Boomerang reports (http://bit.ly/24xuflz ) beekeepers were called out to handle the buzzing mass, which Wyoming Highway Patrol Trooper Aren Peter said stretched a football field length in every direction.

Peter says the driver apparently fell asleep at the wheel and the truck veered off the roadway, landing on its side. Peter said the driver refused medical attention and was more worried about recovering the bees and getting back on the road.

Peter says he remained in his car while responding to the crash for fear he would get stung.

___

Information from: Laramie Boomerang, http://www.laramieboomerang.com

The post Millions of bees released in interstate crash appeared first on WTOP.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — The Secretary of the Navy hopes to see Keenan Reynolds immediately pursue a career in the NFL.

Reynolds was a record-setting quarterback with the Midshipmen before being selected by the Baltimore Ravens in the sixth round of the NFL draft Saturday.

There is a Department of Defense rule that states Reynolds is obligated to serve in the Navy for two years after graduating. But Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said, “I’m confident that we can work something out for Keenan to do both — to serve his country and to play professional football.”

Mabus made the comment Thursday during an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show.

Mabus says the Naval Academy is checking the rules to see if Reynolds and serve his commitment and play football, too.

Reynolds is expected to get his first taste of NFL action Friday at the Ravens rookie camp.

___

AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

The post Secretary of Navy backs Reynolds’ NFL bid with Ravens appeared first on WTOP.

WASHINGTON — A wild turkey is wandering the streets of Old Town, Alexandria. It was spotted Thursday on the north side of Old Town and in the Del Ray area.

“There have been multiple calls,” said Alexandria City Police Spokeswoman Crystal Nosal.

“A lot of people are seeing large birds we believe to be wild turkeys around Alexandria today and the past few days.”

Nosal says the calls are from concerned citizens who just want to make sure the birds are all right.

“If they’re in the roadway or they’re causing an issue then we try to send Animal Control out to round them up,” Nosal said.

Those wild turkey sightings keep coming into dispatch, clarifying: the foul, not the liquor. Be careful out there. #TrueStory

— Alexandria Police (@AlexandriaVAPD) May 5, 2016

The Chief of Animal Services for the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria tells WTOP he thinks it’s just one bird that’s wandering around.

I think it is a lost turkey or some kind of bird in Old Town #Alexandria. #poorthing pic.twitter.com/9uOgHUqBTd

— Sheila Ryan (@SheilaRyanDC) May 4, 2016

Animal Service officers already relocated the bird once to a heavily-wooded area in National Cemetery where it first was spotted, near the Masonic Temple south of Duke Street.

Brian Rees said people shouldn’t try to approach or interact with wildlife … which is exactly what happened Wednesday when a baby beaver turned up in Northwest near the Van Ness Metro Station along Connecticut Avenue.

The post Wild turkey spotted wandering around Old Town appeared first on WTOP.

Is your new best friend waiting for you at the 2016 Pet Fiesta?

The annual event sponsored by Good Dogz Inc. will feature more than a dozen rescue groups that will bring pets in need of homes to meet potential owners at the Fiesta this Saturday at Reston Town Center.

The free event runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and will also feature fun for the whole family. Here’s what is planned:

Live Music and a dog fashion show. See live event schedule.

Tails on Trails Dog Walk — This is a scenic walk to raise money to help homeless dogs find homes. The route will take you and your furry pal around the Reston Town Center on a walk along the W&OD trail, sidewalks & footpaths. The Dog walk begins at 10 a.m., rain or shine. Cost: $20 for one dog, $5 for additional dogs, payable online.

Pet contests — including best dressed, best trick, best howl and a Frosty Paws eating competition.

Vendors — Lots of cool pet products and services will have demonstration booths.

Photo: 2015 Pet Fiesta/Gooddogz.org via Facebook

The post Saturday: 2016 Pet Fiesta at Reston Town Center appeared first on WTOP.

HANOVER, Va. (AP) — Authorities say 68 dogs found living in poor conditions have been rescued from a home in Hanover County.

Local media outlets report Hanover County Animal Control, with assistance from the Hanover County Sheriff’s Office, executed a search warrant at the property on Tuesday.

Sheriff’s deputy Karen Godfrey said in a statement Thursday that the dogs were found living in “unhealthy living conditions, both inside and outside the residence.”

As a result, Godfrey says the canines were rescued and taken to various animal shelters for safe keeping and veterinary care.

Authorities are determining charges against the dog owners.

The post Deputies: 68 dogs rescued from ‘unhealthy living conditions’ appeared first on WTOP.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A San Francisco penguin that once sported a wetsuit after losing his feathers and who starred in a children’s book has died at the age of 33, officials said this week.

The California Academy of Sciences announced that Pierre the penguin, the oldest bird in the academy’s colony of African penguins, died recently from kidney failure.

In the wild, African penguins have an average lifespan of 15-20 years.

During his lifetime, Pierre had several mates with whom he produced 16 chicks, 27 grand-chicks, and 11 great grand-chicks. His lineage is represented worldwide. African penguins were classified as an endangered species in 2010 and are at very high risk of extinction in the wild.

In 2007, Pierre’s feathers didn’t grow back after a difficult molt. Without his waterproof feathers, Pierre had trouble keeping warm and the other birds in the colony began to pick on him.

Biologists designed a neoprene wetsuit for him and he wore the suit for several weeks in 2008 while his feathers grew back.

Shortly after Pierre, his mate Homey, and 18 other African penguins were introduced to their new home in Golden Gate Park, in the rebuilt California Academy of Sciences building where the colony resides today. Two years later, the story of Pierre’s wetsuit was published in a children’s book titled “Pierre the Penguin, A True Story.”

Pierre hatched on February 16, 1983 at The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore and was raised by his parents in Maryland until he was a juvenile. In June 1983, Pierre was sent to the California Academy of Sciences with 15 other African penguins to start the new penguin colony.

The academy’s African penguins are part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Species Survival Plan, aimed at maintaining genetic diversity of captive populations through controlled breeding and collaborative exchange of offspring among partner zoos and aquariums, said spokeswoman Kelly Mendez.

The post Penguin that wore a wetsuit and starred in kid’s book dies appeared first on WTOP.

Last fall, a rider to a must-pass federal budget bill kicked down the barricade that has prevented government debt collectors from annoying hundreds of millions of consumers with auto-dialed, pre-recorded robocalls. Lawmakers hate the bill, but they won’t consider any legislation to close the loophole. The White House’s own analysis of the loophole shows that it won’t really bring in any more money, and could actually be a revenue loser, but the administration isn’t doing anything to roll back the changes. Attorneys general hate it too, but they enforce laws instead of writing them. With an August deadline looming, the Federal Communications Commission has no choice but to move forward with making the loophole as palatable as possible.

Sources confirm to Consumerist that the FCC has voted to adopt a notice of proposed rulemaking, which should be made public today or tomorrow.

Though the proposed rules do allow for the government — and collectors working on the government’s behalf — to make robocalls for the purpose of collecting debts owed to the federal government, the FCC has tried to bake in a handful of restrictions to keep this from becoming a free-for-all.

First, consumers would retain the right to stop debt collectors from calling them. These robocalls would need to clearly disclose this right when the call is made.

Additionally, debt collectors would not be allowed to place robocalls to friends or family members of the alleged debtor.

Perhaps the most important rule — and one we predict will receive the most pushback from the collections industry — robocalls would be limited to three per month. Given that some debt collectors have been known to place more than three robocalls in a single day, the industry might find this too restricting.

Let’s pause for a moment out of respect for the poor debt collectors of the world.

Speaking of which, supporters of the loophole — including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Apollo Education [parent company of University of Phoenix], and DeVry Education — continue to argue that these robocalls actually benefit consumers, calling them an “important consumer protection [that] will help those struggling with student loan debt.”

Translation: It will allow us to blast out cheap, automated phone calls so that we can annoy people into paying up.

We’ve not seen the final language of the proposal, so we can’t judge whether or not these restrictions will be effective. Additionally, the rules may change after the 30-day open commenting period, which will kick off after the text is made public on the FCC site.

Powering on your computer only to find that all of your downloaded music, including original content, is nowhere to be found is an understandably devastating situation. But it’s one that has apparently happened to several Apple Music users since the service launched last year. 

The ordeal, detailed in a blog post on Velluma Atlanta, has taken users by surprise and left many wondering why the music service would take it upon itself to delete files from users’ hard drives.

James Pinkstone says he was told by an Apple support rep that the company’s new Music subscription service deletes files from its users’ computers after evaluating and comparing the files with Apple’s own database.

According to the Velluma blog post, once files are compared to Apple’s database for matches, the original files are removed from the internal hard drive.

“If Apple Music saw a file it didn’t recognize—which came up often, since I’m a freelance composer and have many music files that I created myself—it would then download it to Apple’s database, delete it from my hard drive, and serve it back to me when I wanted to listen, just like it would with my other music files it had deleted,” Pinkstone wrote.

While Pinkstone outlines several issues with the system, including the fact that users would lose access to the song database if they aren’t connected to WiFi or instances in which Apple’s matches aren’t accurate or result in lower quality tracks, the biggest problem is that if a user hasn’t backed up their files lately, they could be gone forever — or at least until they have enough time to re-download them.

The issue certainly shows why it’s important to create backups of your files, a notion seconded by the blog iMore, which suggests the deletion of files from users’ hard drive is likely a result of Apple’s confusing system, not a nefarious plot to clear your music library.

“Apple Music should never automatically delete files off your primary Mac’s hard drive unless you specifically delete them first,” Serenity Caldwell writes.

The confusion starts with the way in which Apple Music operates. Once someone subscribes to the service it scans their music library and matches any tracks to its own streaming library.

This is done so that when you’re on a second device — like a smartphone or iPad — you can stream the tracks at their highest quality without taking up space on the machine, iMore points out.

The process results in two libraries; one stored on your original computer with all your original files, and an iCloud-stored library that can be used on other devices.

iMore suggests that users likely get tripped up after these matches are completed and they move on to use a secondary device.

“Any songs you play on those devices are sourced directly from your iCloud Music Library, and even if you download them locally, they can be removed from your device if your iPhone’s storage space dips too low,” iMore states.

If for some reason you have deleted the original copy from your computer, you can re-download the track from your iCloud Music Library, which could result in a lower quality track.

Users who press delete on a song in their iTunes Library when Apple Music or iTunes Match is enabled will be greeted with a confusing pop-up that states: “This will delete this song from your iCloud Music Library and from your other devices. To keep this song in your library and on your other devices, you can remove this download instead.”

By pressing the “remove download” option users are sending their local file from their hard drive to their trash. The content won’t officially be removed from your computer unless you dump your trash.

The song, however, is left in the iCloud Music Library.

While iMore says the system might be helpful for some users, it should only ever be used on a secondary computer or secondary iTunes Library — never for your master library.

“As such, I’ve advised from the beginning to always keep a master copy of your original library when using streaming services that match your library, and back up that library before signing up for anything cloud-related,” Caldwell writes.

Of course, understanding the confusing system doesn’t help bring back anyone’s deleted files, or fix issues with Apple Music’s matching service.

“iCloud Music Library is always going to be complicated, and people are going to make mistakes because of it. And if they don’t have backups, those mistakes might be costly,” Caldwell says.

Bloomberg News recently reported that Apple Music is looking to redesign its overly complicated user interface in an attempt to better compete with more established streaming services.

We’ve reached out to Apple for details on its system, and will update this post when we hear back.

Apple Stole My Music. No, Seriously. [Vellum Atlanta]
No, Apple Music is not deleting tracks off your hard drive — unless you tell it to [iMore]

To root out the education brokers who guide international students to fake colleges that are only visa mills, the Department of Homeland Security set up its own fake university. Yet should the institution’s students, most of whom came from China and India, have known that the school wasn’t legit when it had full government approval and accreditation?

This spring, the University of Northern New Jersey was finally exposed as a fraud, but a fraud perpetrated by the federal government, meant to catch the brokers. These go-betweens charge students thousands of dollars to place them in programs that might keep them in the country. Many students simply paid their broker, who in turn paid the fake university. Were they simply well-meaning visitors or immigrants who thought that was just how things work here?

22 alleged brokers were arrested as a result of the sting, and they helped a total of 1,076 UNNJ “students” obtain visas, many of them using their status as UNNJ “students” to work in the United States. People who enrolled had typically come over to attend real colleges as normal international students, graduated, and wanted to find a way to stay longer, yet didn’t qualify for other visa programs.

Some of the students now claim that they didn’t really understand that enrolling in a school and not attending classes for years on end wasn’t normal. There are plenty of internships, co-op work programs, and online programs in this country, after all. The school was also fully accredited and was on the Department of Homeland Security’s list of approved schools to issue student visas.

Yet the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t believe this excuse, and the fake university’s forner students will face immigration hearings. They could be deported, or banned from immigrating to or even visiting the United States.

Students at Fake University Say They Were Collateral Damage in Sting Operation [New York Times]

Federal health and safety regulators have opened an investigation into a listeria outbreak related to the recent recall of more than 350 different varieties and brands of frozen vegetables after eight people from three states — two who later died — became infected with strains of the bacteria. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with the Food & Drug Administration, are collaborating with state health officials to investigate the outbreak that may have begun three years ago.

According to the CDC, eight people infected with the outbreak strains of listeria have been reported from Maryland, California, and Washington since September 13, 2013.

Two of the illnesses were reported in 2016. The remaining six illnesses were reported between 2013 and 2015, and were identified through a retrospective review of the PulseNet database.

The CDC reports that all eight people were hospitalized, including one from Maryland and one from Washington who died. However, officials say listeriosis was not considered to be a cause of death for either person.

Three of the eight ill people, or their caregivers, were interviewed by health officials using a questionnaire that asked about a variety of foods.

Two of these three people reported buying and eating frozen Organic by Nature brand frozen vegetables in the month before the illness began.

The CDC reports that listeria was first found in CRF products during a routine product-sampling program conducted by the Ohio Department of Agriculture.

Officials with the Department collected packages of frozen vegetables from a retail location and found listeria contamination in True Goodness by Meijer brand frozen organic white sweet cut corn and from True Goodness by Meijer brand frozen organic petite green peas.

“Epidemiologic and laboratory evidence available at this time indicates that frozen vegetables produced by CRF Frozen Foods of Pasco, WA and sold under various brand names are one likely source of illnesses in this outbreak,” the CDC says. “This is a complex, ongoing investigation, and updates will be provided when more information is available.”

Investigations are ongoing to determine if food sources used to manufacture CRF Frozen products could explain some of the illnesses.

“CDC and state and local public health partners are continuing laboratory surveillance through PulseNet to identify additional ill people and to interview them,” the CDC says.

The massive recall of CRF Frozen-produced vegetables began last week when the company announced that 15 frozen vegetable products sold at Costco and Meijer may contain listeria.

CRF suspended operations at its Pasco facility following the initial voluntary recall, so a thorough review could be conducted.

Since then, CRF revised the initiative, recalling all frozen fruits and vegetables processed at its plant in Pasco, WA since May of 2014. That includes 358 different varieties of frozen fruits and veggies sold under 42 brand names at major retailers, including Walmart, Safeway, BJ’s, Costco, Aldi, and Meijer, in all 50 states.

If you have any questions about a product that you’ve purchased or about the recall in general, call CRF Frozen Foods at 844-483-3866. You can also e-mail CRF8364@stericycle.com.

Here are the brands that you should look for in your freezer. If you identify any of them, check the item against the FDA’s recall list. Unfortunately, there isn’t really any way to simplify checking, with almost 350 different products involved.

• Bybee’s
• C.H. Belt’s
• Chef Maxwell
• Columbia River Organics
• Correct Choice
• Earth’s Pride
• Emerald Farms
• Endico
• Farmer’s Bounty
• Fiesta Mart
• Great Value (Walmart)
• The Inn
• James Farm
• Kirkland Signature (Costco)
• Life Foods
• Live Smart
• Mity Fresh
• Mountain Mist
• Northwest Growers Select
• Organic by Nature (Costco)
• Parade
• O Organics (Safeway)
• Overhill Farms
• Panda Express
• Pantry Essentials (Safeway)
• Price First (Walmart)
• Quirch
• Safeway Kitchens
• Schwan’s
• Season’s Choice (Aldi)
• Simply Nature (Aldi)
• Trader Joe’s
• True Goodness (Meijer)
• USDA Bulk Packs
• VIP
• Wellsley Farms (BJ’s)
• Wild Oats
• Veggie Maria

Six years after Facebook launched a feature that scans uploaded photos to see if it can recognize faces and suggest people to tag, a lawsuit about the social media site’s facial-recognition tech has been given the go-ahead by a federal court.

The lawsuit [PDF], filed in 2015 by a group of three Facebook users from Illinois, alleges that Facebook violated an Illinois state law, the Biometric Information Privacy Act, by failing to properly alert users to the fact that Facebook was collecting and storing a massive database of potentially hundreds of millions of users’ faces. Facebook is also accused of failing to publicly reveal its retention policies for biometric data.

While Facebook users can opt out of the “Tag Suggestions” feature, the lawsuit claims that the company doesn’t make it easy.

“In fact, since the Tag Suggestions feature was rolled out, Facebook has kept its biometrics data collection practices out of its privacy policies and has instead placed ambiguous statements about the true nature of its Tag Suggestions program on remote sections of its website (such as in its “Help Center” or the now defunct “Notes” sections),” reads the complaint. “Uncovering these remote sections not only requires a user to know about Tag Suggestions in the first place, but also requires them to affirmatively seek out more information through multiple layers of additional pages.”

In response to the lawsuit, Facebook argued that the plaintiffs could not bring the case under Illinois law because they had, as part of the Facebook terms of use, agreed that California law governs any disputes with Facebook.

While the court found that the plaintiff users had indeed agreed to the Facebook terms of use, it ultimately determined that Facebook could not use this clause to negate the Illinois state law.

In a ruling [PDF] released yesterday, the District Court judge found that Facebook’s requirement that all disputes be governed by California law runs “contrary to a fundamental policy of Illinois” and that Illinois “has a greater interest in the determination of this case.”

“There can be no reasonable doubt that the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act embodies a fundamental policy of the state of Illinois,” explains the court, noting “if California law is applied, the Illinois policy of protecting its citizens’ privacy interests in their biometric data, especially in the context of dealing with ‘major national corporations’ like Facebook, would be written out of existence.”

It seems likely that Facebook will appeal the court’s ruling, as it could set a consumer-friendly precedent.

Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, tells Bloomberg that the court in this case if effectively saying that “state law will be applicable in cases where a national company attempts to try cases in their own state without applying all states’ laws.”

Two passengers in different states who were sexually assaulted by Uber drivers are suing the company, and the judge in this case just made an important ruling: drivers’ status as independent contractors rather than employees doesn’t mean that the company can’t be sued for sexual assaults that drivers commit against their passengers.

Yes, this is an actual argument that the company’s attorneys made in the lawsuit. People who receive their employment assignments from an app are, in most cases, legally independent contractors, but that’s something that regulators will need to sort out in the next few years as these services grow.

Uber recently settled a massive California class action lawsuit filed on behalf of drivers, who remain independent contractors instead of employees, but will receive cash settlements from the company if the settlement is approved. Drivers’ status simply hasn’t been challenged yet up to the highest state or federal courts.

The judge didn’t say that Uber drivers are employees, but that if they were employees, these cases would be no different from situations where employees have assaulted people they come in contact with while performing their jobs.

“Assaults of this nature are exactly why customers would expect taxi companies to perform background checks of their drivers,” the judge wrote. “Holding Uber liable could also forward the underlying policy goals of respondeat superior, including prevention of future injuries and assurance of compensation to victims.”

The first plaintiff (called Jane Doe 1, in Massachusetts) had her claim for negligent hiring, supervision, and retention of the driver who assaulted her dismissed. The other driver accused of assault had a 12-year-old domestic violence charge on his record that Uber missed because its background checks only go back 7 years. The driver accused of assaulting Doe 1 was a recent immigrant who had only been in the country for 3 years, and a more extensive background check wouldn’t have turned up any other relevant information.

That claim was dismissed, but the rest of the lawsuit will be allowed to go forward. “The Court applied existing California law to our facts and denied Uber’s attempt to dismiss based on the weak argument that drivers are not employees,” plaintiffs’ attorney Jeanne Christiansen said in a statement e-mailed to Consumerist.

Judge Says Uber Can’t Kill Sexual Harassment Lawsuit On Contract Employee Grounds [Buzzfeed]
ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO DISMISS (PDF)

We get it: Cruises can be expensive, and often the food and drink at ports of call can be pricier than what you pay back home. But that doesn’t mean you have to bogart the free coffee and donuts at the homeless shelter near the dock.

For many cruise ships making the trip up the Pacific coastline to Alaska, the small city of Ketchikan is the first stop heading north, allowing travelers to get off the ship for a bit, walk around and do a bit of shopping before moving on to the next port.

Earlier this week, at a meeting of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly, the operator of First City Homeless Services, a downtown day shelter in the city, revealed that not all of the people who visit the shelter are homeless, especially during the cruise season between May and September.

“The season opened this week, and one of the hidden items that happens as a result of the proximity of the day shelter to downtown and the cruise ships is we do often get the husband who doesn’t want to go shopping anymore to come to the shelter to sit — seriously — to drink our free our free coffee, use our free bathrooms, and eat our free donuts,” she explained to the Assembly. “So proximity to downtown for the day shelter even benefits the cruise agencies.”

While the shelter is seeking more money from the Borough, it’s not looking to bar the cruise ship freeloaders.

“We are for the homeless, but we’re also for the community, for anybody, who needs a safe place to stay,” the shelter’s services manager tells the Seattle Times. “This door is open for anybody who needs resources… I just can’t see myself turning somebody away for a cup of coffee even if they’re not from here or they’re using the bathroom or if they needed a break from walking around.”

Streaming music, that once-reviled technology that had big record companies shaking in their boots, is turning into quite the industry darling. Warner Music Group has certainly changed its tune, announcing today that streaming music is now bringing in more revenue for the company than any other single source of recorded music.

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, as Warner Music has already seen streaming music sales overtake digital downloads, as of last year. This new milestone is a big one, the company said, claiming it as an industry first.

“We are now the first major music company to report that streaming is the largest source of revenue in our recorded music business, surpassing our revenue from physical formats,” Stephen Cooper, Warner Music Group’s CEO said in a press release reporting results for its second fiscal quarter.

Warner’s streaming music revenue rose $72 million in the quarter, with half that coming from sales outside the U.S. Downloads declined by $17 million, and physical revenue dropped by $6 million. Recorded music sales are up in general, rising by 10% overall.

Warner and other music companies would like an even larger chunk of that streaming revenue, of course, and have been pushing services like YouTube to close the “value gap,” Billboard notes, which means the disparity between how fast streaming music is growing and ad-supported streaming revenue. The music industry has argued that protections called “safe harbors” make it possible for user-generated videos to monetize videos that aren’t posted by the copyright holders of that music.

Cooper touched on that issue during the earnings call, while not calling out YouTube specifically.

“We fully support this unified movement to clarify copyright legislation around so-called ‘safe harbors’ in order to create the conditions necessary for the improved monetization of music,” he said. “It is imperative that we ensure a fairer correlation between the massive consumption of music via services built around user-uploaded content and the value generated for artists, songwriters and rights holders.”

However prevalent it may be, texting while driving is unsafe and, in most places, against the law. What those laws don’t address is the liability of the person on the other end of that text message. If you’re safe at home texting someone who then crashes their car, could you be held liable? It’s a possibility, according to some recent court rulings.

A Pennsylvania driver is currently being sued for wrongful death and negligence by the estate of a motorcycle rider who she killed with her vehicle when she was allegedly distracted by reading and responding to text messages on her phone.

The judge in this lawsuit was recently asked to determine if the two men who were texting the driver at the time of the incident could also be held accountable.

Both men — one of them the driver’s husband — raised preliminary objections, arguing that they should not have to face these allegations because Pennsylvania state law only prohibits drivers from texting while operating a vehicle and makes no mention of the responsibilities or liabilities of someone sending texts to the driver.

However, the judge ruled [PDF] in March that the lack of a specific law outlawing the sending of texts to a driver doesn’t automatically mean the sender of those texts is free of any liability.

The court’s rationale is that, if the texter knows — or has good reason to believe — that the person they are texting is operating a vehicle, they may ultimately share some responsibility if that other person crashes their car while reading or responding to the texts.

This ruling does not say that the two men are definitely liable or that they even did anything wrong; it only means that the lawsuit against the texters can continue.

In making this decision, the PA court relied heavily on a 2013 ruling by a New Jersey appeals court that also involved the culpability of someone who sent a text to a driver involved in a car crash.

“We hold that the sender of a text message can potentially be liable if an accident is caused by texting,” wrote the appeals court, “but only if the sender knew or had special reason to know that the recipient would view the text while driving and thus be distracted.”

At the same time, the appeals court affirmed the lower court’s decision to grant summary judgment in favor of the texter — a young teen who had messaged the driver immediately before he crashed into a couple on a motorcycle, resulting in each of the two victims losing their left leg.

The court said that had not presented sufficient evidence in their appeal to prove that the teen texter knew her friend was driving when she sent him the message.

Additionally, in order to hold a third party liable for the bad behavior of the driver, the court explained there would need to be a “special relationship” between the two, wherein the third party could have exerted some control over the driver’s conduct. The appeals court determined that no special relationship existed in this case, and that there was no evidence that the texts sent to the driver “actively encouraged him to text her while he was driving.”

“Even if a reasonable inference can be drawn that she sent messages requiring responses, the act of sending such messages, by itself, is not active encouragement that the recipient read the text and respond immediately, that is, while driving and in violation of the law,” reads the ruling.

The New Jersey court also rejected the umbrella argument that someone is liable simply because they know the person they are texting is driving. After all, one could send a text to a driver not expecting that person to see or respond to the message until later.

“[A]dditional proofs are necessary to establish the sender’s liability,” explained the court, “namely, that the sender also knew or had special reason to know that the driver would read the message while driving and would thus be distracted from attending to the road and the operation of the vehicle.”

Thus, while the court believes that remote text message senders can be liable if the person they are chatting with crashes their vehicle, it’s not a slam-dunk case for anyone who tries to bring a liability claim against the texter.

Though the Pennsylvania and New Jersey rulings don’t definitively settle the issue, University of South Carolina law professor Bryant Walker Smith tells Vocativ.com that these developments — along with the recent lawsuit against Snapchat for its speed-measuring feature, and New York’s “textalyzer” legislation — the legal system is starting to take distracted driving seriously.

“People often see distracted driving as a socially acceptable sin, a kind of inside joke writ large, an innocuous guilty pleasure in which everyone indulges,” says Smith. “The same used to be true of drunk driving, smoking and physical abuse [and other] actions with actual victims. These legal developments could signal that a similar change in thinking is underway regarding distracted driving. They could also help accelerate that change.”

Ridiculously cheap underwear, the new best coffee maker, and Anker’s new robot vacuum kick off today’s best deals.

Read more...