D.C. police have announced they have made a synthetic drug bust amounting to more than 260 pounds. This is the largest quantity of this kind that officers have seized throughout the city’s history.

According to law enforcement officials and prosecutors, the synthetic drugs have a street value of approximately $2.3 million and had been destined for sale throughout the nation’s capital. There were 19,247 small packets of  strawberry-flavored “Bizarro”, a synthetic type of marijuana that is highly dangerous. The total weight of the drugs was at around 265 pounds.

“This is a massive and unprecedented seizure”, declared Assistant Police Chief Peter Newsham.

The drug bust operation was a joint effort by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Maryland State Police and Homeland Security. It has been established that the drugs reached Washington D.C. from the West Coast.

The accused, 33-year old Siraj Issa, of Northwest Washington, and 41-year old Yenework Abera, of Alexandria, had met with undercover officers at a warehouse in northwest Washington, where the drugs had been delivered. The narcotics had first been discovered by police officers at a shipping company located in Maryland, and were sent to the storage facility later on.

Based on a statement released by the police, the arrested ’were playing a major role in the distribution’. The 2 men will be federally charged with synthetic cannabinoid possession with intent to distribute and they face a maximum sentence of 20 years, if found guilty.

Currently, the two men are being detained following orders by a U.S. Disctrict Court judge, and their preliminary hearing will commence on September 8. According to Joseph Roll Conte, Issa’s lawyer, he is due to plead not guilty. Abera’s legal adviser has not made a comment so far.

It is believed that most synthetic drugs found on the market have actually been manufactured in China. Although they are usually linked with marijuana, their formula is ever-changing and can include other mind-altering substances. They are normally sold in the street or in stores, wrapped in colorful packages with cartoon characters drawn on them.

Sometimes they are mixed with PCP (colloquially known as Angel Dust) and priced at $20 to $40 per pack, costing less than marijuana on occasion. Although they have been around for several years, their popularity has spiked recently.

439 overdoses related to these drugs were recorded by district paramedics in June, approximately 15 per day, which is 8 times the amount from last year’s corresponding month. The ubiquity of synthetic marijuana  has also increased the number of violent crimes in the city, because it can make users more agitated and cause psychotic effects such as extreme anxiety, paranoia and hallucinations.

Due to these harmful consequences, police have been given the authority to close down shops selling the drug, and identifying dealers has become one of the main priorities.

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As the kids are getting ready to go back to school in a couple of weeks, certain districts are facing an unusual shortage of teachers for the next year.

Certain schools, where the working conditions are not very good and there are more students every year, find it very difficult to fill all the vacant positions. Most of them report that they are in desperate need of science, math, languages and special education teachers.

This situation hardly comes as a surprise, given the fact that the payment is still not very good for teachers and the demands are harsher every year. This is what prompts many of them to seek jobs somewhere else, without a hint of regret.

However, this makes it even harder for administrators to fill these positions and it seems that the only solution is to allow the remaining teachers to teach subjects that are outside their initial area of expertise. For instance, the authorities in Oklahoma have released more than 200 certifications that enable educators to teach other subjects as well.

It is a bitter reality that the officials must deal with and, apparently there is hardly any solution to it:

“It’s just brutal right now trying to get people certified. They may have a degree in underwater basket-weaving, and I’m trying to get them a certificate in elementary education,” said Tony O’Brien, who is a superintendent of Newcastle Public Schools.

Even if this situation does not occur everywhere, the states that have lower budgets and a large number of residents find it extremely hard to find teachers because they simply have very few to chose from.

This is why certain districts have started to focus their attention on this problem and try new approaches, such as offering bonuses, sending recruiters to job fairs and colleges and even launching campaigns aiming to fill the teaching vacancies.

It remains to be seen if these solutions will fix the problem and fill the thousands of teaching positions that are currently vacant all over the United States.

There are many reasons why teachers decide to leave their jobs. Among them, the fact that the recession is over might be prompting some of them to look for better-paid positions that give them fewer headaches.

Websites that are designed for and dedicated to teachers in America are filled with articles and posts that point out how frustrating such a job can get and how much is demanded from educators nowadays, which somewhat also cripples their autonomy in the classroom.

Teachers who have already left their jobs say that they could not stand the hostility of certain lawmakers and the pressure they felt due to the increase in compulsory testing. Moreover, in spite of the rigorous demands, teachers’ salaries haven’t been raised for almost ten years.

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It seems law enforcement officials have been quite successful at making their way to the newest press releases lately.

Four Police officers from Southern California are facing accusations of having physically and verbally abused children at a boot camp, according to a statement issued by the authorities from the San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Office, on Wednesday, August 5.

They were arrested on the 4^th of August and were released after paying a $20,000 bail, said Tony Cipolla, who is the sheriff office’s spokesman.

Patrick  Nijland, aged 47, Marissa Larios, aged 36, Edgar Gomez, aged 35 and Carlos Gomez-Marquez, aged 31 were instructors at Leadership Empowerment and Discipline Boot Camp that lasted the whole weekend between May 17 to 24. This was held at the National Guard base in San Luis Obispo.

About 40 children attended this boot camp program that was being held for the 17^th time. This was a program designed especially for children who exhibit disciplinary problems and are considered to be at-risk individuals.

However, the corrective measures the four officers applied were extremely harsh and included verbal abuse and sometimes severe physical abuse. One of the boys who attended the program returned home with a fractured hand.

After the boot camp was over, many parents filed complaints. The investigation started on the 28^th of May, after receiving reports of child abuse from Family Services and the  Los Angeles County Department of Children. According to these reports, 15 children, whose ages varied from 12 to 17, claimed they had been beaten and verbally abused.

These children’s injuries ranged from bruises to the face and ribs to finger fractures. The four officers now face multiple charges, from willful cruelty to a child to abuse under color of authority. For now, they have been placed on administrative leave.

“We really take no pleasure in arresting members of the law enforcement profession. But at the end of the day, we realize that no one is above the law,” said Tony Cipolla.

The arrested officers’ lawyers have not released any statements yet.

The case is due to be submitted to the San Luis Obispo County district attorney’s office, where a decision will be made regarding whether or not their criminal charges will be filed.

Image Source: fox43

 

Following the high-profile killings carried out by police members against African-American people, many Americans feel that more needs to be done to ensure racial equality, according to the new nationwide polls. Activists and politicians seem to believe this too.

The new report issued by the Pew Research Center shows that about 60 percent of the Americans interviewed think not enough is done for the equal rights of people living in the United States. This number is higher by almost 15 percent compared to last year’s  46 percent.

“There’s been a lot of work by a lot of organizations over the years talking about race and poverty and equity. In Newport News, people want to be left alone, they want to be safe and they want everyone to be treated equally,” said Mayor McKinley Price , who has been extremely concerned with the issue.

Only last month, a police officer fatally shot 23-year-old Kawanza Jamal Beaty and people are still waiting for the results of the investigation. Earlier this year, the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody in Baltimore prompted an extremely violent reaction from the people. Michael Brown, another black man died after he was fatally shot by a Ferguson police officer last year.

These cases got a lot of coverage in the media and had people thinking that police officers are generally biased  when it comes to African-American suspects and some would  not hesitate to mistreat them based on the color of their skin.

The new polls show that the number of white American who believe there is a lot of injustice done against black people is also starting to increase. Thus, polls show that 53 percent of the whites now think there is still much work to be done to have African-Americans benefit from a really fair treatment. This number is up by 14 percent compared to last year’s poll.

Polls also show that most African-Americans think very little is done for them to feel they have equal rights. It was shown that an alarming 90 percent of them believe this.

Moreover, now 50 percent of all Americans consider racism a very big issue, while the polls carried out over the previous years show  that only a quarter of them believed that.

The Pew Research Center surveyed about 2,000 people and overall margins of about 2.5 percent were taken into account before releasing the report.

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Many journalists traveled to the Indian Ocean island of Reunion this week in order to get fresh information regarding the newly discovered wing fragment that allegedly belongs to the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. However, they found themselves witnessing a completely different series of events, as the Piton de la Fournaise volcano on the island erupted.

Piton de la Fournaise means Peak of the Furnace and the extremely active 530,000-year-old volcano, erupts even a few times a year. Therefore, the only ones who were alarmed by the eruption were the journalists and the tourists who has never seen anything like that in their entire lives. And it must have been quite odd to see the locals going about their business as usual, instead of sounding out the alarm, clearing the areas and being actually scared by the whole situation.

Locals explained that the Peak of the Furnace volcano erupts roughly once every few months, so they are actually accustomed to the most part of it. Data reveals that since the 1600’s, the Reunion volcano has erupted some 160 times. Naturally, something so majestic as a volcano eruption cannot leave anybody completely unimpressed, but since many Reunion citizens have lived there all their lives, they now know what to do in case of a new eruption and so they can act fast, so that nobody gets hurt.

Piton de la Fournaise is also incredibly useful for research, because the high frequency of eruptions provides locals with extensive research material. Therefore, Reunion must be a true volcano specialists’ heaven, because they actually get the chance to create their study setting before the actual eruption and in the event that an improvement to the technology that they use is found after the eruption itself, they have enough time to make the necessary modifications, but they do not have to wait for years and years until the next eruption happens.

“We have many monitoring tools measuring things like seismic activity, volcano deformation and gas emissions. It’s a natural laboratory where we can better understand volcanic eruptions.” said local observatory volcano specialist, Aline Peltier, as reported by the Associated Press.

As for the journalists who are currently in Reunion, they seem to have gotten a completely different story than the one they set out to cover. It remains to be seen what has happened to the aircraft wing identified prior to the accident, as insufficient information has been provided on that matter for the moment.
Image Source: telegraph.co.uk

A 15-year-old boy was accused of murdering 12-year-old Kailey Vijil after luring her out of her home.

The boy, whose name is not being disclosed because he is a minor, knocked at the door of her home in suburban Salt Lake City, Utah on Thursday, July 16, just before midnight. Kailey’s sister, aged 14 answered the door at first.

The boy asked the girl if she would like to help him find his lost cat. She refused, so the teenager asked Kailey the same thing. Unfortunately, Kailey accepted to go with him in search for his pet. The girl did not know the boy.

About an hour and a half after she disappeared, she was reported missing, at 1:30 a.m. on Friday, by her mother. The police soon arrived at the scene and started searching the area. It was the girl’s cell phone that took them to her lifeless body, which they found in a horse pasture.

The girl had been strangled and had a shirt wrapped around her neck. The autopsy revealed that she had indeed died from strangulation.

The charging documents show that the teenage boy admitted to having been with Kailey in the field on Thursday night, after they left her home. They also reveal that it was not the first  time the boy attempted to do something like that.

Before going to Kailey’s home, he tried to lure another girl, aged 11, using the same trick to get her out of the house. In that case, the girl’s family showed up and interfered with his plans. Her grandmother later spoke to the police and told them where he lived.

Even if, on Monday, the judge implied this might also be a case of sexual assault , the charges that were filed on the 21^st of July did not contain such allegations.

District Attorney Sam Gill stated that there is no need to “speculate on future charges” yet.

According to reports, the teenage boy accused of murder does not have a clean record. It seems that he has been arrested before, on smaller charges, such as theft, burglary, or possession of drug paraphernalia.

The boy is now charged with aggravated murder, but he is not at risk of facing death penalty because he is still a juvenile.

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Months after the incident was considered a hoax a lawyer was charged in the case of California woman abduction. The victim, Denise Huskins, said she was abducted for ransom, but police accused her of making up her own kidnap in an attempt to mirror the Gone Girl movie.

Last month Matthew Muller of Orangevale, California was charged after he was arrested in San Francisco Bay Area. According to the FBI he was involved in a home-invasion robbery very similar to the kidnapping.

On March 23 the 29-year-old woman was taken from her Vallejo house where she lived together with her boyfriend. A group of individuals broke into the house and tied up her boyfriend, Aaron Quinn. His lawyers explained that the man woke up to a bright light in his face and that he was bound and drugged by two individuals. Quinn reported the incident and said that the kidnappers demanded a ransom of $8.500.

After two days Huskins returned safe in her Huntington Beach hometown just a few hours before the ransom was due and she claimed she was simply dropped off there. That is why police in Vallejo considered the case a hoax.

The suspect, 38-year-old Matthew Muller was taken in custody at this home in South Lake Tahoe. On June 29 a federal warrant was issued for his arrest in connection with Husinks’ abduction. He is kept in Dublin, at the Santa Rita Jail. He seems to have been educated at Harvard Law and had worked at a law firm in San Francisco, Kerosky, Purves & Bogue. According to the State Bar of California in 2014 he lost his license to practice. It seems that the lawyer did not manage to file the right documents for one of his clients and afterwards he refused to return the sum of money he was paid.

The police connected him with the kidnapping after they discovered a pair of goggles in his truck. They were the same pair which Huskins was wearing at the moment she was kidnapped. They also discovered a water pistol with a laser pointer and a flashlight. The ones who abducted Huskins sent photos with these objects to the newspaper.

Muller did not cooperate with the bar’s investigation so the State Bar Court recommended his disbarment in January.  The state Supreme Court ordered his disbarment in June.

Image Source: Daily Mail

Some people are just lucky. Imagine taking a walk in the park one day and come across an 8-carat diamond. It does sound like a made-up story, but a woman from Longpont, Colorado did find a big diamond while she was out for a walk in a state park in Arkansas. At first, the woman, Bobbie Oskarson, thought she had found a quartz crystal, mostly because of its shape and size. But when a park representative confirmed that she had discovered a real 8-carat diamond, the woman couldn’t believe her luck.

According to the woman, she found the gem in a search field known as the “Pig Pen”. The field, which stretches on more than 37 acres, is located close to the state park known as the Crater of Diamonds. The area was named “Pig Pen” because when it rains the field gets real muddy.

According to the experts who examined the stone, it is a white diamond, a little smaller than a quarter. Apparently, this is in top five of the largest diamonds discovered by a state park visitor since 1972. Ms. Oskarson told the local news that she is extremely excited about her discovery and she is planning to keep it. The lucky woman even gave her 8-carat diamond a name; she calls it Esperanza, after her own niece.

Waymon Cox, a park representative, talked about the discovery and said that these “lucky diamond findings” occur because the search field is plowed regularly.

Regular plowing and rain increase the visitors’ chances to find the gem in this search field. Cox added that more than 30 diamonds were discovered by visitors in 2015.

However, approximately 100 years ago, in 1906, more than 75,000 diamonds were discovered in the area. The biggest diamond that was discovered in this state park is the Uncle Sam Diamond, a 40-carat diamond, which is also the largest diamond ever discovered in the U.S.

Ms. Oskarson will be able to keep her diamond because the search field has a “finders keepers” official policy that allows anyone who discovers a diamond in this area to make it their own.
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Authorities in New Mexico has said this morning that the body of a former head chef at the White House was found off a hiking trail in the Taos area Sunday night, after he had disappeared for more than a week.

Walter Scheib, a 61-year old chef who served under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush at the White House, was found dead by a search party who was looking after him since Wednesday. The former White House head chef had disappeared at the end of the previous week, with his abandoned car found near the start of the trail being the only indication of his whereabouts.

New Mexico State Police have not offered an official cause of death yet, waiting for the searchers to gather enough details about circumstances in which Scheib died. Scheib went hiking on June 13th and didn’t return, prompting his girlfriend to report his disappearance to the police.

His vehicle was found parked at the beginning of the Yerba Canyon trail, a 4-mile trek which takes hikers through the bottom of a canyon gradually climbing to over 3,700 feet over the sea level. Search and rescue parties were sent out immediately in the area, with air surveillance offered by the New Mexico National Guard and U.S. Air Force proving difficult to execute due to the constant mountain peaks and spread out vegetation.

Walter Scheib became head chef at the White House in 1994, after he had previously graduated at New York’s Culinary Institute of America and held a similar position at luxurious hotels throughout Florida and West Virginia. He was personally appointed in the position by then First Lady Hillary Clinton.

During his tenure as the White House head chef, Scheib focused its kitchen on American recipes, adding seasonal ingredients to them. As he was in charge of preparing meals for formal dinners, his dishes were served to a wide range of world leaders including Boris Yeltsin, Nelson Mandela, Jacques Chirac or Tony Blair.

After leaving the White House in 2005, Scheib worked mostly as a culinary consultant, sometimes appearing on chef shows or preparing meals for fundraisers. He wrote a book about his time at the White House which was published in 2007.