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Thursday, December 7, 2017

How Son of Sam terrorized NYC during the summer of 1977

Read article : How Son of Sam terrorized NYC during the summer of 1977

They only had eyes for each other, and that gave their killer all the time he needed. Stepping from the darkness that shrouded the Hutchinson River Parkway service road, he thrust a .44-caliber revolver through the parked car's passenger window and fired five times. Alexander Esau, 20, and Valerie Suriani, 17, never had a chance.

As the two sweethearts lay dying, the gunman put down a letter on the bloody front seat between them.

I am a monster, he had written. I am the Son of Sam.

This, on the night of April 17, 1977, was the coming-out missive of a maniac, addressed to Capt. Joseph Borelli, the police detective heading the manhunt for the gunman who was targeting young women with long, dark hair.

I love to hunt. Prowling the streets looking for fair game tasty meat.

He had struck five times already. Three women were dead, four other people wounded. The papers had dubbed him "The .44 Caliber Killer."

Now he had given himself a name.

Son of Sam.

I'll be back. I'll be back.

Across the city, frightened young women began cutting off their hair, or hiding it under a hat, or dyeing it blonde. Young couples started avoiding lovers' lanes. Anxious parents swept their kids in from the streets as soon as the sun went down. The Son of Sam had put into motion a frenzy of fear unparalleled in the history of New York.

Daily News crime photos through the years

The killing had started the previous summer on a quiet street in the east Bronx. Eighteen-year-old Donna Lauria was the first to die.

She and her friend Jody Valenti had gone dancing in New Rochelle, then driven back to Donna's home on Buhre Ave. at about 1 a.m. Enjoying the warm night, the two young women lingered in Valenti's blue Cutlass to chat. Then a stranger approached.

"Now who is this?" said Lauria.

An instant later she was dead. Valenti, 19, was wounded.

There were three more shootings before police connected them:

Oct. 23, 1976: Robert Denaro, 20, wounded as he sat in a car with Rosemary Keenan, 21, on 160th St. in Flushing, Queens. Denaro wore his hair to his shoulders; the gunman apparently mistook him for a woman.

Nov. 27, 1976: Donna DiMasi, 17, and Joanne Lomino, 18, wounded as they sat outside the Lomino home on 282nd St. in Floral Park, Queens.

Jan. 29, 1977: Christine Freund, 26, shot dead near the Forest Hills, Queens, railroad station as she sat in a car with John Diel, 30.

A police task force was quietly assembled. Then, on March 8, there was another shooting, just a half-block from where Freund had died. The 19-year-old victim was Columbia University student Virginia Voskerichian. Eye to eye with her killer, she had reflexively raised a textbook to her face. The bullet tore through it.

Sam Carr, neighbor of David Berkowitz. (Daily News)

Three days later, Mayor Abe Beame and Police Commissioner Michael Codd publicly acknowledged that a serial killer was on the loose.

But, in a city that had seen 1,800 murders the year before, the news caused little more than a ripple of alarm.

That changed when Esau and Suriani died and cops read their slayer's letter. Under the direction of Inspector Timothy Dowd, 75 detectives and 225 officers checked out the 400 New Yorkers who had permits for .44-caliber revolvers, even attempted to trace all 28,000 Bulldogs manufactured by the Charter Arms Co. They investigated current and former mental patients. They consulted with psychics and astrologers. And they issued an unprecedented public plea for Son of Sam's surrender.

"We know you are not a woman hater," police said. "We know how much you have suffered. Please let us help you."

Sam liked the attention. In early June, he wrote to Daily News columnist Jimmy Breslin.

Hello from the gutters of New York.

Don't think because you haven't heard from me for a while that I went to sleep.

I am still here. Like a spirit roaming the night. Thirsty, hungry, seldom stopping to rest. Anxious to please.

On June 26, he shot Sal Lupo, 20, and Judy Placido, 17, as they sat in a car outside a Bayside disco. Both lived.

The fear spread. A police tip line started ringing off the hook as neighbors and co-workers reported each other, mothers tearfully turned in their sons, women handed over their husbands and lovers.

Son Of Sam, said the T-shirts hawked in Central Park. Get Him Before He Gets You.

He killed again on July 31, now in Brooklyn. Robert Violante and Stacy Moscowitz, on their first date, had gone to the movies, then driven to Shore Parkway and Bay 17th St. Under the light of a full moon, they walked hand in hand across a footbridge to the edge of Gravesend Bay then quickly returned to the car when Violante spotted a man watching them.

The stranger was faster. He dropped into a crouch and shot them both. Moscowitz was killed, Violante badly wounded.

Now there was mounting panic. Moscowitz wasn't even a brunette. Now Sam was shooting anyone.

Meanwhile, he had made a mistake.

Unable to find a parking space on the Bath Beach streets as he stalked Moscowitz and Violante, he had left his Ford Galaxie at a fire hydrant on Bay 17th St. For months he had craftily eluded the biggest manhunt in NYPD history. Now he had a parking ticket.

That ticket swiftly led to 24-year-old David Berkowitz of Pine St. in Yonkers. Examining the car parked outside his apartment, police spotted a rifle inside and waited.

Fifteen cops drew on Berkowitz when he showed up several hours later. He was carrying a manila envelope. Inside it was a .44, the gun that had killed six people and wounded seven.

Daily News Frontpage, April 18, 1977

(Daily News) LEE; Exported.; exp;

Daily News Frontpage, August 11, 1977

(Daily News) Exported.; exp;

Daily News Frontpage, June 5, 1977.

(Daily News) Exported.; exp;

Frontpage, August 11, 1977.

(Daily News)

"Okay," he said. "You got me."

The reign of terror was over.

The face of evil belonged to a pudgy postal worker who worked a 4-to-midnight shift sorting mail in the Bronx.

He told court-appointed psychiatrists that the killing spree had been ordered by his neighbor's dog. The neighbor, Sam Carr, had lived 6,000 years ago, Berkowitz explained.

After shooting Violante and Moscowitz, he said, he had gone home and dutifully written a $35 check to pay the parking ticket: "It's the law."

Doctors differed over his sanity. A judge finally ruled him competent to stand trial, and he pleaded guilty. On June 12, 1978, he was sentenced to 547 years in prison.

"I know a lot of victims' parents and stuff, you know, they always say `Why?' " mused David Berkowitz.

"I hate to disappoint all these people. They're not going to find out."

First published on November 3, 1998 as part of the "Big Town" series on old New York. Find more stories about the city's epic history here.

Tags:: archives; big town; history

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Saturday, January 6, 2018

Morning Report: Despite Health Crisis, Homeless Still Locked Out of Public Bathroom

Read article : Morning Report: Despite Health Crisis, Homeless Still Locked Out of Public Bathroom

California’s deadliest hepatitis A outbreak in 20 years has claimed the lives of 11 people in San Diego.

The virus disproportionately affects homeless people, because it spreads person-to-person and people living on the streets without easy access to basic amenities like restrooms struggle to maintain typical hygiene standards.

Despite that, a public restroom in the heart of a major homeless encampment in East Village remains locked day and night. Homeless people are allowed to go into the restaurant where the bathroom is housed to ask for a key, but many don’t know they have the option and others say restaurant workers often flatly refuse.

Lisa Halverstadt talked to some homeless people in the area, including one who has contracted hepatitis A, about the struggle to find clean restrooms in East Village.

A city spokesperson, once contacted by Voice of San Diego, said the city will put out a sign making clear that the restroom is available to whoever wants it, and reiterate with restaurant ownership that it is obligated to operate the restroom for the entire public.

The restroom went on lockdown in the first place because it was attracting crime. But the developers of the nearby Pinnacle towers – that big yellow one that looks like it’s still under construction – got permission to make their project taller and add more apartments by agreeing to build Fault Line Park and the restroom as public amenities.

We Stand Up for You. Will You Stand Up for Us?

State Judicial Watchdog Censures Kreep for Living Up to His Name

Judge Gary Kreep, who was elected to the bench in 2012, received the most severe penalty possible from the state’s Commission on Judicial Performance, except for removing him from office, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Thursday.

Four of the 10 commissioners voted to remove him from the bench. He received “severe public censure” instead.

He was facing 29 charges of misconduct, including jokingly calling a lawyer appearing in court a prostitute and making jokes about female lawyers who were pregnant. He also faced charges over his campaign while running for office.

None of this was particularly surprising for people who happened to follow Kreep’s election in 2012, though, as with most judicial seats, that’s a pretty small subsection of the public.

But he ran up a number of red flags back then, as memorably chronicled in a lengthy investigation by Dave Maass for CityBeat at the time.

Learning Curve: The Long-Running Fight Over School Start Dates

San Diego Unified voted last month to start its school year a week before Labor Day, just as it did last year but contrary to the wishes of a committee formed specifically to advise the school board on that question.

It turned into a pretty heated debate, with one committee member chastising the board for the process by which it made its decision.

And it turns out, it’s been a pretty heated debate for quite a while. In some states it’s even illegal to start school before Labor Day.

In her new issue of the Learning Curve, Maya Srikrishnan tackles an issue that seems to have started in the ‘80s as the tourism industry pressured schools to make sure they weren’t in session through August.

Other states have also cited financial savings for starting later, while in San Diego proponents for starting before Labor Day pointed to it helping student athletes, and giving students more time to prep for AP exams and other standardized tests.

Opinion: Cut GHGs by Focusing on Transportation, Not Shifting Energy Providers

In a new op-ed, Peder Norby, a former Planning Commissioner and consultant for Sempra Services, argues that the best way for the city to slash its carbon footprint is by committing to making most cars run on electricity, and redeveloping the city so people don’t have to drive as much, rather than taking over purchasing energy from SDG&E.

His argument comes as the city is starting to get serious about whether to make that switch, a wonky debate you’ll probably hear more about over the next year about a policy called community choice aggregation; earlier this year, Ry Rivard broke down what the issue entails and what we need to sort out.

In short, it’s about who buys the energy you use. Right now, that’s SDG&E, and it’s bound by state law to meet certain standards for how much of that energy comes from renewable sources like wind and solar power. But the city has committed to shifting to 100 percent renewable energy by 2035, and supporters of CCA say it’s the only way the city will ever reach that goal.

In a story earlier this week, Rivard framed it this way: Your feelings on the policy probably depend on who you hate more — the government, or SDG&E.

San Diego Explained: The New DA’s Involvement in a Case Gone Wrong

Few cases captured San Diego’s attention like the Stephanie Crowe murder case.

Crowe’s brother and his friends were initially charged with the crime, but those charges were dropped. A homeless man was then convicted of involuntary manslaughter before the case was overturned. The families of the three originally accused boys won millions in a settlement over the initial charges.

Summer Stephan, San Diego’s interim district attorney who is running for the full-time position in next year’s election, has said she was only moderately involved in the botched prosecution. On this week’s episode of San Diego Explained, Ashly McGlone shows her role went well beyond what Stephan suggested publicly.

The Charlottesville Rally Hits Home

• Speaking of Stephan, she took an interesting step Thursday. She released an open letter to the community, arguing that no one in San Diego should feel the events of Charlottesville are a world away. Instead, she said hate crimes are up 11 percent in San Diego, and pledged that her office would prosecute such crimes aggressively.

• Rep. Darrell Issa on Thursday called for a congressional hearing on white supremacist groups, writing to the House Judiciary Committee’s chairman that the committee owed it to the country to understand the persistence of hateful ideologies from groups like the Ku Klux Klan and other emboldened neo-Nazi groups, as Joshua Stewart reported for the Union-Tribune.

• Three California chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union – including the San Diego chapter – broke ranks with the national organization Thursday, issuing a statement saying the violence from white supremacist groups in Charlottesville wasn’t a freedom of speech issue.

In Other News

• It’ll cost $120 million just to restore all the buildings in Balboa Park to good condition, according to a new assessment from the city. (Union-Tribune)

• A few weeks ago, Republican Daniel Casara announced he was challenging fellow Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter for the East County congressional seat in 2018. He changed his mind; now, he’s challenging Democratic Rep. Scott Peters. (Union-Tribune)

• Talks to strike a new deal failed, so now the question of who should pay for the closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station could be headed back to court. (KPBS)

• Four years ago, former Mayor Maureen O’Connor agreed to pay back $2.1 million to her late husband’s charity, after she admitted to embezzling that much money while she struggled with a gambling addiction. An assistant U.S. attorney confirmed to the Union-Tribune Thursday that she’s yet to pay a dime.

• SDPD raided two marijuana dispensaries Thursday. (NBC San Diego)

• The San Diego Rotary named Mel and Linda Katz “Mr. and Mrs. San Diego” Thursday. (NBC San Diego)

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Monday, April 17, 2017

Baby girl left covered in nasty cuts after glass shower screen EXPLODED during her evening bath

Read article : Baby girl left covered in nasty cuts after glass shower screen EXPLODED during her evening bath

'CUT TO SHREDS'

Stacey Richards is warning people of the dangers of glass screens

A BABY girl was “cut to shreds” in a bath-time horror when a glass shower screen suddenly exploded.

Mum Stacey Richards was given her one-year-old daughter her normal evening bath when the shower screen exploded which sounded “like a gun shot”.

Daily Post Wales

Stacey Richards (right) was giving one-year-old Elsiee-Maie (left) her normal evening bath when the shower screen exploded

Wales News Service

Stacey described the sound of the glass shattering as being “like a gun shot”

Wales News Service

Elsiee-Maie suffered a number of cuts to her leg as a result of the acccident

Shards of glass rained down on Stacey’s daughter, Elsiee-Maie.

The child was covered in cuts as a result and the bathroom floor was drowned in glass.

Stacey, 24, said: “Last night I was giving Elsiee-Maie a bath as normal, she was sat there babbling away.

“Within a split second, it was like someone had fired a gun at the side of us, there was glass everywhere.

“Our glass shower screen had spontaneously exploded, never in my life have I moved so fast as I tried to shield her from being hurt.

“Elsiee-Maie’s dad came running in and grabbed her from me as I was shaking so much.

“My one-year-old was cut to shreds in what I can only explain as a freak incident. Elsiee-Maie was screaming, it was horrible and there was no warning.”

Friday, July 14, 2017

Award-winning PGI Homes' Casa de Antigua boasts 'wow' factors

Read article : Award-winning PGI Homes' Casa de Antigua boasts 'wow' factors

The chandelier in the great room is one of the wow factors at Casa de Antigua.(Photo: Blaine Johnathan Photography, Blaine Johnathan Photography)

It took 34 hours for gloved workers to string the 2,000 crystals on 790 strands to create the chandelier that hangs as a focal point in the family room. Yet that is not the only "wow" factor. There’s a secret room, an elevator that is similar to a bank chute, and a floating wine display.

These "wow" factors were some of the reasons that PGI Homes’ Casa de Antigua in Cape Coral recently won two Aurora Awards. The home won for Best Single Family Detached Home in the 4,000 to 5,000 square foot category, and for Best Master Bathroom in a home priced between $1 million and $2 million.

"It was like putting together a puzzle," said Anthony Farhat, president of PGI Homes as he spoke of the intricate chandelier.

The chandelier has more than 2,000 prisms. (Photo: Andrea Stetson/Special to The News-Press)

His wife,Tia Farhat, designer director of PGI Homes, said that chandelier is definitely one of the biggest wow factors in Case de Antigua. There is also a smaller crystal chandelier in the kitchen.

"That is my thing," she said. “I think the chandeliers are the jewelry of the house and I love bling and I blinged it out on that one."

Another focal point in the great room is the wine room that has glass walls and wine bottles that are filled with crystals, suspended in layers and look like they are floating.

"We took that inspiration of the bling again," Tia Farhat explained. "We custom made the wine rings. I know whoever purchases the house will fill it with real bottles. Those bottles have crystals."

Around the corner is a very unusual elevator.

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The elevator is 100 percent vacuum operated like the ones in a bank drive-thru. (Photo: Andrea Stetson/Special to The News-Press)

"The elevator is 100 percent vacuum operated," Anthony Farhat described. "It is a pneumatic tube like the one that's used in a bank drive-thru. It is 37 inches and 360 degrees of glass."

The tube takes up much less room than a standard elevator and is also a unique visual feature.

"The pneumatic tube, that is super cool," Tia Farhat added. "It is like when you are at a bank teller and it just sucks it up like air pressure. It is also cool that it is open with all the glass. You still have that open feeling. I love it. It is a good use of space."

Farhat believes one of the reasons the home won for best master bathroom is the secret room. Behind a set of high double doors is a hidden room with a washer and dryer and a small sitting space. Farhat said a safe can be installed there or it can just be used as a small private room.

"We are starting to do more secret rooms in homes now," Anthony Farhat said. "We are seeing more people liking it."

The other advantage is this small laundry room is right in the master bathroom. While there is another larger laundry room at the other side of the house, Farhat said having one in the master suite is very convenient for the homeowners.

Another convenience is the European-style kitchen cabinets that open up instead of to the side. Farhat said that makes it easy to leave all the cabinets open while cooking and no one will hit their head on a door.

Farhat added another little touch when he created a pool caddy just inside the door leading to the pool bathroom. This area has cabinets for towels and other pool supplies.

There are other features that led to the design award in Casa de Antigua. The home has two, two-car garages for a total of four garages. A dual fireplace has two sides that can be seen in both the great room and the den. It burns ethanol which is scent-free.

Huge 24-by-24 inch shiny white porcelain tile makes the floor look almost like an ice skating rink. White quartz by the fireplace and a flat-screen television add to that modern white look.

Casa de Antigua in Cape Coral won two Aurora Awards" width="540" height="405" />

Casa de Antigua in Cape Coral won two Aurora Awards this year. (Photo: Blaine Johnathan Photography, Blaine Johnathan Photography)

The four-bedroom, five-bathroom home features two bedrooms downstairs and two more upstairs. All the bedrooms are en suites. Farhat describes the home as having one master bedroom and three mini-masters.

An upstairs living room and one of the upstairs bedrooms leads to a large covered terrace that overlooks the pool and canal. The pool area includes an infinity-edge pool and spa, a summer kitchen, and a terraced area leading to the water. There is also a boat dock and a little sitting area near the water.

The upstairs terrace has a view of the pool and canal. (Photo: Andrea Stetson/Special to The News-Press)

Farhat said there is no other home like Casa de Antigua.

"We never build the same house twice," he said.

Casa de Antigua spans 4,036 square feet under air and a total of 6,001 square feet of living space. It is priced at $2.39 million, fully furnished.

Farhat said he was honored to receive the Aurora award for Casa de Antigua. He also won Auroras for another Cape Coral house, Casa de Nautica, that is already sold.

The 36th annual Aurora awards cover homes in the Southeastern United States, offering awards in 55 categories. More than 400 entries were received this year. Judges are from the homebuilding industry, and represent the many areas of building and design, as well as geographic diversity.

Double doors in the master bathroom lead to a secret room. (Photo: Blaine Johnathan Photography, Blaine Johnathan Photography)

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Friday, December 1, 2017

Market Size, Growth and Forecast Analytics Prices from USD $500 — BioPortfolio.com

Read article : Market Size, Growth and Forecast Analytics Prices from USD $500 — BioPortfolio.com

Summary
Bath and Shower Products includes all shower gels and other personal hygiene products designed to be used in the shower, as well as liquid bath products such as bubblebaths and bath time washing gels and lotions. Also includes nonliquid products added to baths such as bath bombs, beads and salts. Bath and Shower Products Personal Hygiene Market in Bulgaria Outlook to 2020: Market Size, Growth and Forecast Analytics is a broad level market review of Bath and Shower Products market of Bulgaria. The research handbook provides the uptodate market size data for period 20112015 and illustrative forecast to 2020 covering key market aspects like Sales Value and Volume for Bath and Shower Products and its variants Liquid Bath Products, Shower Products and Other Bath Products.

Sales Values in the handbook are depicted in USD $ and local currency of Bulgaria and Volumes are represented in M Units.

Furthermore, the research handbook details out Sales Value for top brands for the year 2012 to 2015 and overall market sales by Distribution Channel Hypermarkets and Supermarkets, Convenience Stores, Department Stores, Dollar Stores, Variety Store, Cash and Carries and Warehouse clubs, eRetailers, Food and Drinks specialists, Drug stores and Pharmacies, Health and Beauty Stores, Other general retailers and others where ever applicable.

The research handbook acts as an essential tool for companies active or planning to venture in to Bulgaria's Bath and Shower Products Personal Hygiene market. The comprehensive statistics within the report provides insight into the operating environment of the market and also ensures right business decision making based on historical trends and industry model based forecasting. This is an ondemand research handbook and will be delivered within 2 working days excluding weekends of the purchase.

Note: Certain content / sections in the research handbook may be removed or altered based on the availability and relevance of data.

Key Findings
Overall Bath and Shower Products Personal Hygiene market value and volume analytics with growth analysis from 2011 to 2020. Sales Value and Volume analytics for variants of Bath and Shower Products; Liquid Bath Products, Shower Products and Other Bath Products Value terms for the top brands. Distribution channel sales analytics from 20122015.

Synopsis
Bath and Shower Products Personal Hygiene Market in Bulgaria Outlook to 2020: Market Size, Growth and Forecast Analytics is a broad level market review of Bath and Shower Products market of Bulgaria. The research handbook provides the uptodate market size data for period 20112015 and illustrative forecast to 2020 covering key market aspects like Sales Value and Volume for Bath and Shower Products and its variants Liquid Bath Products, Shower Products and Other Bath Products. The research handbook also provides analytics on Sales by Brands and by Distribution Channel.

ReasonsToBuy
Get access to authoritative and granular data on the Bath and Shower Products Personal Hygiene, market and fill in the gaps in understanding of trends and the components of change behind them.

Enhance your understanding of the market to update your strategic and tactical plans based on volume and value changes, brand dynamics and distribution trends.

Analyze the components of change in the market by looking at historic and future growth patterns.

Use the data to understand future patterns of the market trends from winners and losers to category dynamics and thereby quickly and easily identify the key areas in which you want to compete in the future.

Original Article: Bath and Shower Products Personal Hygiene Market in Bulgaria Outlook to 2020: Market Size, Growth and Forecast Analytics Prices from USD $500

Monday, February 19, 2018

Monday Profile: Joe P. Ruthven took risks, led the way for Lakeland - News - News Chief

Read article : Monday Profile: Joe P. Ruthven took risks, led the way for Lakeland - News - News Chief

Founder of The Ruthvens warehouse business started small, building large

Marilyn Meyer @marilyn_ledger

LAKELAND — Joe P. Ruthven had been telling his children he’d retire when he turned 90, but now he’s thinking 100 would be a better age.

At 90 years and 1 month old, he walks two to three miles several times a week with his wife, Judy, and follows her lead in eating a healthy vegetarian diet. He takes only one prescription medication; his energy is strong.

A few hours behind the wheel of his car is no problem so he can easily visit any of the 85 properties built by the warehouse development firm he founded and owns, The Ruthvens. All the properties are within 25 miles of the downtown office at 41 Lake Morton Drive.

“Joe P. Ruthven’s impact on Lakeland is huge,” said Weymon Snuggs, chief operating officer for Citizens Bank & Trust. “Through his warehouse development business, he has helped bring new companies into the area, creating jobs for our community while providing space for businesses of all sizes.”

Ruthven knows what it is like to be a struggling small businessman, to dream, take risks and put in long, hard, worrisome hours. He likes to give a boost to small tenants and is delighted when they succeed.

“I know of several situations that a business was having some challenges and he was working with them,” Snuggs said. “Joe and his family are so great in the care that they give the tenants. These are not just someone leasing their property; these are people with relationships that Joe and the other Ruthven family members have built.”

Although The Ruthvens owns 3.5 million square feet of warehouse space, the company is still growing. Showing his company’s warehousing complexes near Lakeland Linder Regional Airport, Ruthven points out acreages he’s purchased, some ready to go into development, others still lying fallow.

“Have you ever seen so many trucks?” he asks, as he pulls alongside a 100,000-square-foot building leased to Forward Air, a logistics company that distributes goods to retailers, employing 100 workers and 50 drivers.

He rattles off the variety of products distributed or manufactured under The Ruthvens-leased space: cotton balls, tomatoes, Purina foods, spice packets, caskets, rum, water, pharmaceuticals, clothes, vitamins and a wide variety of suppliers to Publix.

“Joe was ahead of the curve in warehousing, before it was in vogue, long before Amazon and O’Reilly’s came to Lakeland,” said Gene Strickland, a former Lakeland city manager who became friends with Ruthven in the late 1960s and early 1970s when Ruthven was on the City Commission.

“Many times The Ruthvens puts in a small unit, a company leases it and grows into a bigger unit,” Strickland said. “I credit Joe with not only what he did in building the warehouses but the spinoff of what he did, the ripple effect.”

Ralph Allen, a financial adviser and chairman of the family-owned firm Allen & Co, “I am sure if it was not for The Ruthven efforts, many businesses would not have started business interests in Lakeland.

"The Ruthvens were able to be a partner of the city of Lakeland, the Lakeland Economic Development Council and the Chamber of Commerce to convince outside businesses that Lakeland was business friendly, a good place to open plants and businesses," he said. "Joe has always been a super salesman for Lakeland.”

Ruthven said arrival of Amazon’s million-square-foot warehouse/fulfillment center has been a huge boon to the Lakeland economy.

“When companies in New York or California or anywhere in the country or abroad hear that Amazon came here, they know Lakeland has been checked out thoroughly and they want to come too,” Ruthven said.

Keeping The Ruthvens’ buildings in the 100,000 square-foot and under range allows the company the latitude to recover if a leasee moves out, or worse, if a tenant’s business fails, Ruthven said.

The early years

Joe Perry Ruthven was born on July 9, 1927, to Agnes and Joe Ruthven, the third of five children, on a small farm in Chesterfield County, S.C. There was no electricity, no running water; chores began at 5 a.m. and picked back up after school.

He grew up during the height of the Great Depression in one of the poorest counties in South Carolina. He recalls one sharecropper family from a nearby farm so destitute their children went naked until his mother made them clothes out of flour sacks, and later, regular clothes.

And he recalls the changes that came after President Franklin’s Roosevelt’s Work Progress Administration and other relief programs came to the area.

His family did relatively well and each year his dad tried to add 10 acres to the farm where they grew tobacco, cotton and other crops, he said.

But he realized early-on that he did not want to be a farmer, staring at the rear end of a mule, he said. Still, the work ethic of a sunrise to sunset day stuck.

“I guess I carried that over into the rest of my life,” Ruthven said.

He had graduated from high school just before his 16th birthday and spent a couple of semesters at the University of South Carolina before enlisting in the Navy at 18. He was in boot camp when the Japanese surrendered, ending World War II.

While thousands upon thousands of troops were returning from overseas, he was assigned tug boat duty at Norfolk, Va., helping pull into harbor the huge ships bringing the battle-weary men back to American soil.

They would discharge 4,000 to 5,000 men as they came off the ship, pay in hand and nowhere to go, except maybe downtown Norfolk, before heading home, Ruthven said.

"We and everyone from the area knew not to go downtown after a ship had come in; it was wild," he said.

“But I’ve often thought it would have been better for the men if they would have sent them to a base for a while; let them acclimate," he said. "But they came directly off the ships and back into civilian life.”

When Ruthven was discharged from the Navy, “I stopped by the farm only three days, long enough to get my clothes and head back to the university," he said. "I knew if I stayed longer, Dad would have me behind a mule.”

Ruthven said, that he as walked back on campus his first day, he saw a couple of girls shooting pool and stopped to introduce himself. One of them was Jeanette "JJ" Chiles of Lakeland, who would later become his wife. The couple had two sons and a daughter. JJ died in 1982. In 1984, he remarried, to Judy Story.

The GI bill paid his tuition and, for spending money, he took a part-time job with JC Penney.

Upon graduation with a business degree in 1948, Penney's offered him a full-time job at $200 a month which sounded OK but then BF Goodrich gave him a better offer, $250 a month, he said.

So he went into the tire business. He moved his growing family three times as he went up the management ladder over the next decade.

Coming to Lakeland

In 1957, he and friend Eugene “Blackie” Black decided to start a tire store in Lakeland. Ruthven’s father-in-law Lawton Chiles Sr., gave Jeanette a lot at 600 Memorial Blvd. for the store.

After hiring an architect to design the building and a carpenter to pull permits and supervise, the two partners supplied the labor. Five months later, they opened an OK Tires.

They had spent most of their combined $10,000 on the move and construction so struggled to stock the store, but managed to do it after securing a $1,000 loan, plus securing a supply of retreads and used tires.

That first year, he and Black did all the work: sales, changing tires, bookkeeping and keeping the place shined. At the end of the year, they had made $7,500. After that, they not only survived, they grew and started hiring employees, including Ruthven’s two brothers, Jerry and William Ruthven. Eventually, the partners opened a second OK Tires store.

In the late 1960s, the home company, OK Tires and Rubber, wanted a warehouse in Central Florida and asked Ruthven if he could find a 10,000-square-foot space near a railway.

"I was interested in branching out into real estate," he said.

After looking at available spaces, he decided to build the warehouse and lease it back to the company. A friend, Kirk McKay, agreed to sell him 10 acres on Mine & Mill Road with only $100 down and a personal note, starting Ruthven on a new career.

The acreage was large enough that he was able to double the square footage and quickly found a second tenant for the other 10,000 square feet.

In those early days, Ruthven bought most of his lots with $100 down and a personal note — not something anyone could do now, he said. “A lot of the people had inherited property and were paying taxes on it so wanted to get rid of the land.”

Financing the construction was another issue, especially because he was building on speculation, something others were not doing. He would go from bank to bank trying to get loans, he said.

“I would get turned down about three times more often than I was approved,” Ruthven said.

But after the loan officers realized he was able to lease the space and he was making the mortgage payments, it became easier to get financing.

“I don’t think we have ever missed a mortgage payment,” Ruthven said, although there were times when he was worried whether he could put groceries on the table.

In 1974, after 17 years in the tire business, he and Black sold OK Tires, Black’s wife wanting to return to South Carolina and Ruthven wanting to go full time into real estate.

The office

When Jeanette Chiles and Joe P. Ruthven married on Sept. 4, 1949, his parents stayed at the Lakeshore Hotel at 41 Lake Morton Plaza. Some 25 years later, Ruthven bought the old 32-room hotel.

“I thought it would be fun to run a hotel,” but it only took a day to change his mind, he said. That first morning, a retired professor, a 97-year-old man, who rented a room came downstairs and said he was going to take a bath.

Ruthven said, OK, but then the old man said someone had to sit with him.

“I told the woman who was working the desk with me, you sit with him and I’ll stay at the front desk to answer the phone."

From there as he watched the comings and goings, he realized a staff member kept coming from the back room to get clean sheets.

“It took me until 6 o’clock that night to figure out they were running a small prostitution ring out of the back room — $10 whether they stayed an hour or all night. I fired them all.”

“It was only two blocks from City Hall and no one over there knew what was going on,” Ruthven said, still amazed more than four decades later.

Ruthven was looking for an office so decided to convert the stately hotel. It took two years to reconfigure the 1920-era building. Since then, it has been renovated twice to fit the needs of The Ruthvens.

“It is challenging” to keep up a 100-year-old building, he said, recounting a recent country-wide search for tiles when the roof leaked.

Politics

When Ruthven and Jeanette Chiles married, her younger brother, Lawton, was still a student. But Lawton Chiles later became one of Lakeland’s most famous native sons, a Democratic politician who served in the Florida House and Florida Senate through most of 1958 through 1970, the U.S. Senate from 1971 through 1989, and as governor of Florida from 1990 until his death on Dec. 12, 1998.

Even before he met his brother-in-law, Joe P. Ruthven was a confirmed Democrat.

“One day when I was about 11 or 12, I came home from school and there was a truck with lumber in it," he said. "Several young men with the Civilian Conservation Corps were there to build our family an outhouse.”

Seeing what Roosevelt and the Democrats were willing to do to help his family and his community, “I decided right then I would be a Democrat for the rest of my life.”

Ruthven said he and other family members often had helped Chiles with campaign duties so it was not much of a leap when he he decided to run for Lakeland City Commission. He served on the commission from 1969 through 1971, the last year as mayor. Schools were being integrated and racial tensions were high, Ruthven said.

A 1971 editorial in The Ledger summing up the year and Ruthven's service said, “racial problems at Lakeland High School drew the mayor into the news as an intermediary. His Youth and Adult Community Relations Committees opened unprecedented links of communications between the races in the city, the school got a new principal and the year ended on a note of optimism.”

And, the editorial continued, “long-simmering tensions in the Washington Park Homes public housing project surfaced strongly this year, leading to a barrage of charges and counter-charges among tenants and Housing Authority officials. Again the mayor became involved, this time with a bi-racial investigation committee which promised to hear all viewpoints and seek long-range ways to improve the relationship between tenants and city.”

Ruthven said Dr. John S. Jackson, an African-American physician, worked closely with him; the two attended community meetings together, bolstering one another. And at the schools, Willy Speed, a coach at Kathleen High School worked alongside him.

There was a lot of unrest and “I am glad that time is behind us,” Ruthven said.

Marilyn Meyer can be reached at marilyn.meyer@theledger.com or 863-802-7558. Follow her on Twitter @marilyn_ledger.

Saturday, December 2, 2017

New 'bath salts' zombie-drug makes Americans eat each other — RT America

Read article : New 'bath salts' zombie-drug makes Americans eat each other — RT America

Move over, mild hallucinations! The newest narcotic ravaging the US isn’t bought on corners or pilfered from pharmacies, but sold legally in stores under an unassuming name. Bath salts are all the rage, but are users becoming flesh-hungry monsters?

In 2010, the American Association of Poison Control Centers received only about 300 reports relating to the usage of “bath salts,” a man-made substance available across the country that, if consumed, can cause extreme side-effects. By the end of 2011, poison control received an additional 6,000 calls about the drug and now, after a rash of bizarre incidents where the substance was believed to play a role, bath salt abuse is becoming a nation-wide epidemic.

By May 1, 2012, the US Poison Control Centers have seen 1,007 reports already this year related to bath salt abuse — nearly four times what they experienced in all of 2010.

Bath salts are still legal in much of the United States, but a string of recent episodes where Americans believed to be under the influence of the narcotic engaged in zombie-like behavior has brought the drug to the forefront of the public’s attention.

"Bath salts can cause psychosis, agitation and paranoia. They can basically turn a person into a wild beast. I have treated bath salt users in the emergency department who have extreme paranoia and super human strength to the point that they can break through handcuffs," Dr. Daniel Bober, a psychiatrist, tells Miami’s KPLC News. And distributors, he says, are able to continuously find markets for the drug because it is easy to make, cheap to sell and easy to deter law enforcement.

"Bath salts is the name street chemists are giving the drug in order to skirt the law and fly below the radar of law enforcement," Dr. Bober adds.

This week, the Marine Corps Times published an article claiming that bath salt abuse among members of the US military was on the rise. Navy Lt. George Loeffler, chief psychiatry resident at Naval Medical Center San Diego, says that not only is the drug “so popular in the military,” but that “They actually market it to the fact that that they don’t pop positive on the standard urine drug screen.”

In early 2011, newspapers in small towns such as Cranford, New Jersey and Easton, Pennsylvania were reporting that users were snorting, smoking or injecting bath salts to get high, only to be transformed into an uncontrollable psychotic state. Last March the mother of William J. Parisio told the Star-Ledger that her son was believed to be under the influence of bath salts when he was charged with the murder of his girlfriend; a PA couple made repeated 911 calls for help in catching a nonexistent criminal a month later after experiencing severe hallucinations, Lehigh Valley’s The Morning Call reports; elsewhere, the use of bath salts was linked to an incident where a man slayed a goat while wearing woman’s underwear.

Last month, however, the now infamous encounter between a homeless man and a suspected bath salt user reignited discussion of the drug. On May 26, a 31-year-old man stripped a homeless person naked under a highway overpass and attempted to eat his victim’s face for minutes until police shot the suspect dead — but not before he devoured three-fourths of his fleshy feast. Officers investigating the Miami, Florida incident say that they believe bath salt use could have played a role, and less than a month after that episode, similar accounts have been reported: police say that, across the US, there have been no fewer than three incidents since late May where persons high on bath salts tried to literally eat other humans.\

“The packaging would say something like ‘DEA Compliant’ or ‘Not for Human Consumption. If Consumed Call the Poison Control Center,’ ”Louisiana Poison Center Director Mark Ryan tells the Christian Science Monitor. “It was almost like the manufacturer was thumbing their nose at us.”

“People thought: ‘How bad could it be? It’s called bath salts,’ ” Chief Deputy Troy Morton from the Penobscot Country Sheriff’s Department in Maine adds to the Monitor. “Once it got here and people learned about it, it took off like fire because it was legal, and it was extremely cheap.”

What people are paying, however, is hardly a bargain. Ingredients in bath salts — usually concentrated with a substantial dose of methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) — can cause hallucinations, psychosis and dangerous behavior. As the drug first a surge in use, authorities described its effects as a high similar to LSD-induced trips that could sometimes include amphetamine-like palpitations and paranoia. After the latest outbreak of bizarre incidents, though, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was pressed to publically say, no, the “CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms).”

Witnesses of bath salt abuse think they might know what is to blame, though.

"I never thought I'd find her in the condition she was in,"Tonya Phillips tells Virginia’s News Leader of encountering her daughter during a bath salt binge. "I was shocked. Her eyes were sunk back in her head. She had sores, almost like boils, on her body from the bath salts. It just eats them up. You could tell by looking at her she was dehydrated, she was just skin and bones. She was hallucinating bad. It was horrible."

The US Congress is currently considering legislation that, if passed, would ban many MDPV as well as mephedrone and dozens of other chemicals found in bath salts and synthetic drugs. North of the border, lawmakers hope to MDPV as a Schedule 1 narcotic of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, making its possession and trafficking on par with that of heroin and cocaine.

Notwithstanding roadblocks, bath salts — or at least its main ingredients — will be banned in Canada by this fall. Because the man-made core ingredients of the designer drug are usually factory-created compounds that emulate the effects of other narcotics, though, scientists that can continue to one-up law enforcement by synthesizing drugs quicker than the feds can identify them.

Friday, March 17, 2017

How a "48 Hours" producer got an interview with Bruce Beresford-Redman in a Mexican prison

Read article : How a "48 Hours" producer got an interview with Bruce Beresford-Redman in a Mexican prison

Bruce Beresford-Redman in his Cancun, Mexico, prison cell spoke to "48 Hours Mystery" in his first and only TV interview

CBS News/48 Hours Mystery

(CBS) - The line was long - the odds were much, much longer.

It was seven in the morning and already baking hot when my colleague, Ana Real, and I arrived at the Mexican prison where American television producer Bruce Beresford-Redman is being held. Beresford-Redman is accused of smothering his wife, Monica, and dumping her body in a sewer during a family vacation in Cancun in 2010.

Watch a preview of Saturday's 48 Hours Mystery "Fatal Episode: The Producer's Story"
Video: Bruce Beresford-Redman on speaking out
Video: Bruce Beresford-Redman on losing hope

It was visiting day at the prison as we took our place on line with families burdened by bundles of food, crying children and the sadness of separation.

For us, the burden was lighter, but still significant. We wanted to get an interview with the reality TV producer caught in a real life nightmare, an accused murderer who'd never spoken before - and now was locked away in a place where getting a camera crew inside seemed logistically impossible.

"48 Hours" and CBS correspondent Troy Roberts have been working this story since it first broke almost two years ago. When Bruce Beresford-Redman was suddenly extradited from California, Ana Real and our veteran CBS colleague Avi Cohen happened to be on a fact-finding mission to Cancun -- timing is everything.

Our team began meeting with lawyers, prison officials, even the army general in charge of regional prison security. In the chaotic courtroom where he sat confined in a cage during six days of pretrial proceedings that made "Midnight Express" seem like "Midnight in Paris," Ana and Avi even approached a reluctant Beresford-Redman himself.

As the week went along, Beresford-Redman seemed ever more willing to speak with us. In fact on the last day of the pretrial hearing, he actually requested a visit from Ana. Originally from Nicaragua, Ana has a calm but forceful power with the guards. They placed Ana on Beresford-Redman's visiting list and agreed informally, to put me on the list as well.

Once we were safely inside prison walls -- as safely as a pair of news producers from America can be inside a Mexican prison -- we skirted the chaotic yard, full of thumping disco music and cigarette smoke. We found Beresford-Redman in his cell. Through two sets of bars, it's open to the elements -- heat, dust, rain, roaches and mosquitoes. There are bare wires in the ceiling, but no electricity. Water dribbles from a tap in a concrete trough at the back of the cell. Next to a filthy shower pipe and a clogged toilet there is human excrement smeared in a mural on the wall - a gift, he says, from the last occupant. He lacks a reliable supply of even the most basic provisions - clean drinking water, bug repellant, aspirin. Meals consist of mostly of bean gruel delivered in a plastic laundry hamper which is dragged down the hallway three times a day and ladled into a bowl. Bruce is only allowed to leave his 6 x 12 cell if there is a visitor or a court appearance. He spends 24 hours a day, seven days a week in this cramped cell he shares with another English speaking prisoner. This space may well be where he spends the rest of his life.

Given that horrifying reality, the reality TV producer from L.A. seemed in remarkably good spirits. He was especially pleased to be let out of his cell for the first part of our visit. Having not received a single visitor other than his lawyers, he was eager to talk about all manner of things - and talk we did - for more than four hours.

I've been in the news business for almost 20 years and have often found persuading people to give interviews a distasteful part of the job. Since it frequently hinges on your ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes and see the world through his or her eyes, it can be really difficult, too.

As our conversation entered its fourth hour, I realized Beresford-Redman was actually eager to get his story out -- and afraid he wouldn't have another chance. I had a cell phone in my pocket and knew that while it would have been nice to have a fully rigged television camera to do a formal sit down interview, in this new media age the phone was all I really needed. A cell phone interview would be enough to bring this powerful story to millions of viewers in the United States. It would be as raw -- and real -- as the nightmarish prison itself. All we needed was a quiet spot to talk.

And that's how I wound up wedged into the bathroom -- Beresford-Redman standing up against the shower wall in the back of his cell -- with my cell phone, interviewing him for close to 40 minutes for a national network television.

Contributed by "48 Hours Mystery" producer Josh Yager

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Is water the next 'drug' for Mexico’s cartels?

Read article : Is water the next 'drug' for Mexico’s cartels?

Aug 14, 2017

What it's like when narcos run your privatized water system, Tamara Pearson reports.

A pipa, or water truck, filling up the underground well for shops in Puebla city. Credit: Tamara Pearson

It's rainy season here in Puebla, Mexico, and water is dripping through my concrete roof, taking chunks of plaster and paint from the ceiling with it. Ironically, we still don't have enough running water to shower everyday. Other people here have no running water at all, and our drainage system is in a state of utter abandonment.

Yet we all pay 10 times the rates of the rest of Mexico, because here in Puebla – unlike the rest of the country – our water is privatized. What's more, the men at the helm of the consortium that run it are a collection of corrupt millionaire and billionaire businessmen who have allegedly laundered money for some of the region's biggest drug cartels.

Throughout much of Mexico large, usually black, tinacos (water tanks) dot the roof tops of our concrete slums and towns. A lot of us have running water for just 15-30 minutes, twice a week, so we fill up the tinacos to cover the rest of the time. Many of the older tanks are made of asbestos, while the newer ones are a solid black plastic. A friend who lives around the corner has only a large container of water in his bathroom, while those in wealthier areas often have underground storage and much more regular water.

Most of us, however, have just 400 litres of water to last the household a week. In the US, a single person consumes that amount per day. In my home, we wash our clothes in a bucket, recycle that water to flush the toilet, collect the water from the shower for flushing, and only flush around once or twice a day. Showers are quick and had every three days or so.

My water bill is 630 pesos per month, while in neighboring Tlaxcala state, people pay 50 pesos per month. Everyone here has stories of being unfairly charged for water, or of going without any water for a year or two – despite constant complaints to the water company, Aguas de Puebla.

I was duly awarded a debt of 115,000 pesos when I first moved into my tiny apartment, located in the poor side of inner-city Puebla. For perspective, that's nearly four years’ worth of minimum wage. I spent four months battling the water company to get that corrected – spending 45 minutes each way on public transport to talk to them directly in their head office, and ringing them on a daily basis. Each time, they asked me to bring in more documents, placing the paperwork burden on me, instead of on themselves as the ones who made the mistake. They gave me excuses and promises that it would be resolved in three weeks’ time and to come back then, and even redirected me to other departments – ‘I'll put you through to water meters, maybe they can help with your case.’

Ultimately, some firm phone calls to the head of public relations of the company, with support from an incredible journalist friend, saw me meeting directly with PR, finally, the figure was fixed in their system in a matter of minutes. At the time, I put it down to the bureaucratic, inhumane habits of private corporations, but later I would realize just how much more sinister the problem was.

Water tanks on the rooftops of inner-city Puebla. Credit: Tamara Pearson

Illegal privatization

‘Baja California was the first state in Mexico to plan to privatize its water, but protests and resistance stopped that. Puebla was the second state,’ Fernando, an indigenous water activist in the Peoples Against the Privatization of Water group told me. He asked that I not include his last name, given the arrest warrants pending on a number of water activists, and the risk involved.

In 2013, the Puebla state government justified the privatization of water by arguing that the incoming company would invest the money necessary to improve the service, eliminate leaking pipes that saw 30 per cent of all water lost, and expand the reach of piped water. It passed the Water Law, that would allow the new company to set prices without oversight and to hire other private companies, and put out a call for bids in September that year. The government awarded the bid to Concessions Integrales, also known as Aguas de Puebla, three days before the consortium was actually formed and legally able to participate in a bid for tender. Though the governor had talked about a 30 year deal, that was extended to 60 years.

Narco business

No one imagined that one of the main companies behind Enrique Peña Nieto's presidential election campaign in 2012 would ultimately end up running Puebla's water supply system, in a consortium made up of other corrupt and scandalous companies.

Monex, Epccor, and Grupo Financiero Interacciones are the main companies involved in Aguas de Puebla, though reports of their exact shares in ownership vary. Monex itself told the press that it owned a ‘third’, but added that exactly who has how many shares was a ‘banking secret’.

Monex made news at the time for running Peña Nieto's campaign strategy of buying votes through the distribution of pre-paid cards, and funneling money to his campaigning fund. Reports suggest that this money, however, likely came from the Juarez Cartel – one of the oldest and most powerful criminal organizations in the country.

Mexico's election court ultimately ruled that there hadn't been any fraud, but many are skeptical of this ruling because Mexico's courts are known for their extremely high levels of corruption and political interference. Additionally, it wasn't the first time that Monex had allegedly been involved with major drug cartels. An investigation conducted by newspaper Reforma found a working relationship with the Arellano Feliz cartel in 2003, and with the Colombian cartel, Valle del Norte, in 2006. In 2008, Spanish authorities found that the Beltran Leyva cartel had changed some 78 million euros through Monex and a company called Intercam.

Epccor is owned by Juan Gutierrez, who is also president of Aguas de Puebla, and who also owned the company Gutsa, a key financial backer of the 1994 PRI presidential campaign (Peña Nieto's party). Gutierrez's companies have been repeatedly fined for mismanagement. Epccor, with it connections in the government, regularly receives contracts for public works like hospitals, roads, and airports; consistently spends more than it originally declared in its budget, and delays completion by years. The most recent case was a hospital which has spent nine years so far under construction, and still isn't finished.

Grupo Financiero Interacciones, run by the infamously corrupt and excessive rich Hank family, has strong links to the PRI and to the Juarez Cartel. Grandfather Hank, Carlos Hank Rhon, is a billionaire, and his family has been the subject of numerous reports of drug laundering on a massive scale, as well as assisting cartels with drug shipments, and large-scale public corruption. A World Policy Report from 1995 went so far as to describe Carlos Hank as the "primary intermediary between the multinational drug trafficking enterprises and the Mexican political system,” and Hank has been investigated for money laundering by Mexican, Swiss, and French judges.

One key strategy Hank is alleged to have used, was to buy food products with the money cartels made from selling cocaine in the US. Hank's companies had a monopoly on these food products, which they then sold back in Mexico. The Hank family has also colluded with Mexican state authorities to gain permits for their rooster fighting and horse racing, and to get significant debts pardoned. Son Jorge Hank Rhon has also been accused of using the gambling business for drug trafficking links and to launder money.

An Aguas de Puebla office. Credit: Tamara Pearson

A broken system

With corrupt narcos running Puebla’s water, it's no surprise that the system is beyond dysfunctional. People have accused the company of charging for non-existing debts, of water supply issues and random bill increases, and of charging up to 3,000 pesos (a good month's wage) for meters to be installed. Some areas are supplied with contaminated water, whole suburbs have gone without water for weeks, the company charges to check people's broken connections, and people report that their meters aren't working but the company refuses to repair them and keeps charging an incorrect rate. People facing errors like mine tend to wait a year for a resolution, if they get any at all.

In May this year, communities from the south of the city protested and closed roads after going weeks without water, while Aguas de Puebla still charged them for it. They said that when they did get water, it ‘smelt bad and was yellow,’ while other communities went for three months without water because the company couldn't be bothered to fix the pump.

Businesses have also complained about large bills, pointing out at least six companies in the city that have monthly bills that amount to millions in pesos, ‘without a clear explanation why,’ they told a press conference.

Internally, workers at Aguas de Puebla have also complained stating that they were threatened with being fired on a daily basis and weren't paid promised bonuses. They said they were told not to inform people how rates were calculated, leading to people paying more than they should and they also claimed that the company had cut the petrol budget for company vehicles by 60 per cent, making it difficult for workers to go out and do repairs.

Aguas de Puebla does roll out the red carpet for some of its clients, however. ‘Many years ago, governor Mario Marin signed an agreement with Nealtican and Santa Maria Acuexcomac – towns in the valley of the Popo volcano – for their water,’ Fernando said. In exchange, the towns got sports courts and roads, but their good quality water is delivered by Aguas de Puebla to the wealthy part of town – Angelopolis, while ‘the worst water goes to the poor suburbs, where there's scarcity.’

Jugs of water for sale. Credit: Tamara Pearson

Nothing lives without water

‘We can live without petrol, without electricity, but not without water. The government and the companies it colludes with think to themselves, if petrol is hugely profitable, how much money can you make from water?’ Fernando explained.

Indeed, even before the narco companies took over our water, it was already a big-profit industry and essentially privatized. Those facing water shortages, and those who can't drink their piped water, are forced to buy bottled water from private companies.

In 2014, Mexico was the largest consumer of bottled water in the world with almost US$8 billion in revenue that year and 234 liters consumed on average per person annually. The companies dominating the bottled water industry here are Danone (47 per cent), Coca-Cola (19.4 per cent) and Epura (7.1 per cent). Many people buy water in 20 litre jugs, or garafones, and in that case, small, local water providers account for around half of the market.

People lacking piped water will also pay pipas – large trucks that look a bit like tanker trucks – to pump water into their roof-based plastic water tanks. In Mexico City, some 40 per cent of water distributed this way is sold illegally.

The bottled water companies have also waged marketing campaigns to promote distrust in the quality of piped water.

Across Mexico, some 9 million people have no water pipes in their homes and a further 13 million people have piping, but the water is contaminated and leads to skin conditions and gastrointestinal infections. Seventy-five percent of the population live with water scarcity, but big business won't be offering a hand any time soon.

Tamara Pearson is a long time journalist based in Latin America, alternative pedagogy teacher, and author of The Butterfly Prison. She blogs at Resistance Words.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

The Big List of bathroom attacks

Read article : The Big List of bathroom attacks

gender-restroom

President Obama has used his bully pulpit in the past few weeks to tell North Carolina and the rest of the nation that men who say they are women must be allowed to share bathrooms and showers with women and girls.

And he’s ordered essentially the same thing for public schools, under the threat of losing federal funding.

The latest moves in his sexual-alternative agenda, which many commentators are describing as an “obsession,” follow his advocacy for “same-sex marriage” and for transgenders in the military and governmental positions.

Just say no! The petition that rejects Barack Obama’s transgender agenda.

Critics say Obama’s policy gives perverts the opportunity to attack women and children.

The president’s supporters are demanding evidence, and now the non-profit legal group Liberty Counsel has responded.

While it’s too soon to know the impact of the recent changes, the organization has posted a list of 50 instances in which a man assaulted, attacked, endangered or harassed a girl or a woman in a women’s restroom or locker room. Only a few dating back further than five or six years ago.

See Liberty Counsel’s long website list of men attacking women or children in restrooms and locker rooms.

For example, only last month, James Thomas Shoemaker, 19, was accused in Pennsylvania of using a phone “to look at 10-year-old girls in Sheetz restroom.”

“The girl told her mother, who was waiting for her outside the bathroom, that a man was in the adjoining stall using his cell phone camera to record her has she used the facilities. Employees called the police, who found the man still in the bathroom an hour later, using his phone to access pornography, while in the stall, as well as using the camera on the phone to look under other stalls in order to view women next to him.”

Included is a link to the original report by a Fox affiliate.

The report said police say Shoemaker “intentionally went into the women’s bathroom, and while he was in there he used his phone to access pornographic images on his web browser.”

“Shoemaker then used his phone’s camera to look over the stall to see into the adjoining stall that was occupied by the victim. The suspect also used his phone/camera to look under the stall door to see if anyone else was in the women’s bathroom.”

In an interview on the topic with Alan Colmes, a left-leaning talk show host, Anita Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, said women need to be armed and to avoid places, such as Target stores, where they know they could meet a man in the restroom.

She had tweeted earlier: “I’m taking a Glock .45 to the ladies room. It identifies as my bodyguard.”

She told Colmes, who challenged her on whether transgender restroom laws would have any impact on crimes, that she already had a list of at least 20 different crimes in Target restrooms. The store chain recently announced its policy of allowing people to use restrooms and changing rooms according to their gender “identity.”

She said the impact of the new policies may not have changed statistics already, but it puts “a bull’s-eye on the women.”

See the interview:

“The perverts out there are actually targeting women and they know they get away with it,” she told Colmes.

The blog Before It’s News reported a man who had been convicted as a voyeur approached Target staffer Candace Spivey and told her a story about shopping for a dress for his wife.

But Spivey recognized the man and the story he was telling because he had tried it on her several years before when she worked at another store. She turned on her phone camera and videoed him as he fled from the store and across the parking lot (be forewarned about offensive language).

He later was arrested for reckless driving while fleeing, and reports say police now are asking other women to come forward if they were approached the same way.

Another case on Liberty Counsel’s long list took place in February at a women’s locker room in Seattle where an unidentified male entered and began to undress.

“Women went to the staff who asked the man to leave, but the man stated that since Washington law had changed, he had a right to be in the locker room of his choice.”

And last last year, in William County, Virginia, police reported a “peeper dressed like a woman” was arrested at Potomac Mills.

“Man dressed as woman suspected of filming multiple women, including a woman and her 5-year-old daughter, in mall restrooms. The suspect in multiple incidents, a 30-year-old man used a bag to conceal a camera to film women as they used the restroom facilities.”

Other cases come from Fort Myers, Florida; England; Palmdale, California; Bakersfield, California; Dalls: and Everett, Washington, where a man admitted he took a shower in the women’s locker room “for purposes of sexual gratification.”

A man undressed in front of children in a Walmart restroom, another man wore a women’s swim suit and exposed himself to children and another unidentified male was being sought for indecent exposure to children ages 5-10.

Said Liberty Counsel: “Laws and policies allowing men open access to private spaces designed for women puts women at risk of attack. Increasing publicity will make women and girls targets for rapists, pedophiles and voyeurs.”

The organization said new reports of attacks were being added to the list.