FOX News
Saturday, April 12, 2008

A Texas sergeant and his son recently found themselves separated not only by an eight-hour time difference, several bodies of water, hundreds of miles and a war, but by a high school official who suspended the boy for answering his dad’s call during class.

Cove High School in Texas, where half the students have at least one parent deployed, justified the punishment against Brandon Hill by saying he had violated the no-cell-phone policy when he took the call from his father, who is serving in Iraq.

“I have been going through a lot of stress lately and my dad’s like my best friend, so I go to him for everything,” the sophomore told FOX News on Saturday.

“I needed to talk to him, so my mom got a hold of him on Yahoo and told him to call me, so I answered the phone call in class.”

When he learned of his son’s punishment, Master Sgt. Morris Hill said he was unsettled.

“When my wife told me, I was pretty disturbed by it,” he said in a phone call from Iraq.

“I was pretty shocked, considering that several months before we left I had talked to the … assistant principal and thought everything was fine,” Morris Hill said.

“Since my kid’s been going to the school we’ve had a pretty good working relationship.”

And when his mother, Patricia Hill, tried to contact school officials, she received no response until her son’s story garnered media attention.

The matter has since been resolved, Patricia Hill said, but she added that more must be done to protect children around the country from being punished in similar circumstances.

Associated Press
Thursday, June 14, 2007

PETERBOROUGH, Ontario (AP) — A judge has ruled that a 24-year-old Canadian man is not allowed to have a girlfriend for the next three years.

The ruling came after Steven Cranley pleaded guilty on Tuesday to several charges stemming from an assault on a former girlfriend.

Cranley, who has been diagnosed with a dependent personality disorder, attacked his girlfriend in an argument after their breakup.

He tried to prevent her from phoning the police by cutting her phone cord and punched and kicked her. He finally stabbed himself with a butcher knife when police did arrive, puncturing his aorta.

Doctors say Cranley has difficulty coping with rejection and runs a high risk to re-offend if he becomes involved in another intimate relationship.

Justice Rhys Morgan said Cranley “cannot form a romantic relationship of an intimate nature with a female person.

“That is the only way I can see the protection of the public is in place until you get the counseling you need.”

Cranley had already served 146 days in pre-trail custody, which Morgan said was enough jail time in this case.

His lawyer says the no girlfriend order is the first of its kind that he has encountered.

BBC | Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Republicans in the US Senate have blocked a vote of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Democrats have been trying to force Mr Gonzales to resign over the sacking of eight federal prosecutors last year.

He is backed by President George W Bush however, who dismissed the vote as “political” and said he would determine whether Mr Gonzales was effective.

Republicans said the non-binding vote was a “waste of time” and Democrats failed to gain enough support.

The resolution would have needed the support of 60 senators to take it to a final vote.

But the Democrats could only muster 53 votes in favour, seven short of the total required.

The resolution stated that the attorney general “no longer holds the confidence of the Senate and of the American people”.

Domestic issues

The row stems from accusations that Mr Gonzales concealed from Congress a political motivation behind the sacking of the federal prosecutors.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said: “The attorney general has shown he doesn’t have the credibility to lead the department,” he said.

But Republican minority whip Senator Trent Lott described the Democrats’ motion as “a very disappointing spectacle”.

However some prominent Republicans, including Chuck Hagel and John McCain have said Mr Gonzales should resign or be fired.

Senator Arlen Specter, the most senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was concerned that the vote was a political manoeuvre by the Democrats - but nonetheless, he had no confidence in Mr Gonzales.

At a news conference earlier in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, Mr Bush said Mr Gonzales had committed “no wrongdoing”.

“They can try to have their votes of no confidence, but it’s not going to determine who serves in my government,” he said.

The BBC’s correspondent in Sofia says US reporters following Mr Bush focused on entirely domestic issues - a sign that the president’s brief respite from his political troubles at home is now over.

The no confidence vote came in the wake of the White House decision to choose a new chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in order to avoid a row with Congress.

Last week, the Bush administration decided that General Peter Pace would be given such a rough ride in his Senate hearings that it was not worth the effort involved in having his contract renewed.

The White House has also lost an important vote on its main domestic programme - immigration reform.

IFILM
Monday, March 5, 2007

Sen. Clinton offers a new dialect for her African American church supporters.

Associated Press | February 21, 2007

WEATHERFORD, Texas (AP) — Some people in Weatherford got billion-dollar scares this week after they opened their electric bills. Richard Redden’s bill said he owed more than $24 billion.

Pam Pearson, of Weatherford Electric, said a printing company made a mistake and nearly 1,400 customers received erroneous late notices.

Pearson said customers who received the inaccurate bills will get the correct ones later this month and won’t face any late fees.

Meanwhile, Redden said he guesses his family shouldn’t have run the heater quite so much.

Weatherford is about 20 miles west of Fort Worth.

Zogby International | February 13, 2007

Online survey finds general public, media conference attendees agree that traditional news outlets could do a better job

A majority of Americans (55%) in an online survey said bloggers are important to the future of American journalism and 74% said citizen journalism will play a vital role, a new WE Media/Zogby Interactive poll shows.

Most respondents (53%) also said the rise of free Internet-based media pose the greatest opportunity to the future of professional journalism and three in four (76%) said the Internet has had a positive impact on the overall quality of journalism

The survey results were released by Pollster John Zogby as part of a conference of media industry insiders hosted by the University of Miami. In the national survey of adults, 72% said they were dissatisfied with the quality of American journalism today. A majority of conference–goers who were polled on the subject agreed – 55% said they were dissatisfied, and 61% said they believed traditional journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news.

Nearly nine out of 10 media insiders (86%) said they believe bloggers will play an important part in journalism’s future.

The Zogby Interactive survey of 5,384 adults nationwide was conducted Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2007, and carries a margin of error of +/- 1.4 percentage points. The Zogby Interactive survey of 77 members of the media who attended the Miami conference carries a margin of error of +/- 11.4 percentage points. While periodic audits show the results from Zogby telephone and Internet surveys closely track each other, a companion telephone survey of this topic was not conducted.

Dissatisfaction with today’s news reportage is greater among those nationwide online respondents who identified themselves as conservative – 88% said they were unhappy with journalism, while 95% of “very conservative” respondents said the quality of journalism today is not what it should be. Among those respondents identifying themselves as liberal, 51% said they are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism. Dissatisfaction levels were also highest among older respondents – 78% of those age 65 and older said they are dissatisfied. Most respondents (65%) also said they believe traditional journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news, with the highest levels of dissatisfaction with traditional journalism among those age 70 and older (74%), the very conservative (95%), and libertarians (89%).

Despite concerns about its quality, 72% of those in the national survey said journalism is important to their community. More respondents (81%) said Web sites are important as a source of news, although television ranked nearly as high (78%), followed by radio (73%). Newspapers and magazines trailed – 69% said newspapers and 38% said magazines were important. While blogs were rated as important sources of news by 30% of the online respondents, they were not considered as good a news source as the backyard fence – 39% said their friends and neighbors are an important source of information.

However, a majority of the nationwide online respondents said Internet social networking sites and blogging will play in important role in the future of journalism. But they added that trustworthiness will be important to the future of the industry – 90% said trust will be key.

Liberal and progressive respondents were more likely to say newspapers are their most trusted source than those with more conservative ideological mindsets. But radio is the most trusted source for 28% of those who describe themselves as “very conservative”, compared with just 9% of liberal respondents.

More online respondents nationwide said the Internet was their top source of news and information (40%), followed by television (32%), newspapers (12%) and radio (12%). The youngest adults in our poll, those age 18-24, were far more likely to say they mostly get news from Internet sites – 58% said the Internet is their main destination for news, with television coming in second at 18%. Fewer than one in 10 in this age group said they get the majority of their news from newspapers.

For a detailed methodological statement on this survey, please visit:
http://www.zogby.com/methodology/readmeth.dbm?ID=1170