Arizona man arrested after rescuing and adopting drowning raccoon

When 57-year-old Stan Morris saw a raccoon drowning in the Colorado River, he decided to put his own health at risk by saving the struggling animal. Seven months later, the good-hearted deed landed Morris in jail.

Before his arrest, Morris and the raccoon he affectionately named "Sonny," had developed quite a bond, according to the Associated Press. Morris told police he first looked online to see if it was against the law to keep a raccoon as a pet. When he didn't find any information telling him otherwise, he decided to adopt Sonny.

Technically, it is legal to keep a raccoon as a pet in Arizona, but an owner must first obtain an exotic animal license or permit. Most states that do allow raccoon ownership recommend adopting one from a professional breeder.

Morris says Sonny became domesticated after being adopted. In fact, Arizona Game and Fish Department officers were only alerted to the situation when reports began surfacing of a man walking around town with a raccoon perched on his shoulders.

A look over the Game and Fish Department website gives the impression that Arizona doesn't care much for raccoons. Not only did the state arrest Morris for keeping Sonny as a pet, but it has a law that states a raccoon, "is the only animal in Arizona that can be legally taken with a firearm at night."

Still, even adopted raccoons have been known to bite owners or strangers who startle them. And some of the concern is for the raccoons themselves, who cannot be returned to the wild once domesticated as a pet. Raccoons typically live 10-15 years, making them a time commitment similar to that of a cat or a dog for any prospective owners

You would think Game and Fish would have better things to do than take pets from people. I think it would be more cost effective for the state to just give the owner some guidlines to keep the raccoon safely instead of putting the man in jail.Leave the jail space free for real criminals.

Benefits of a TSA Job.

NYC agent arrested in latest TSA theft

NEW YORK (AP) — A Transportation Security Administration agent stole $5,000 in cash from a passenger's jacket as he was going through security at John F. Kennedy International Airport, authorities said Thursday, the latest in a string of thefts that has embarrassed the agency.

Alexandra Schmid took the cash from a Bangladeshi passenger's jacket as it went along an X-ray conveyor belt Wednesday night in Terminal 4, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's police force.

Surveillance video showed Schmid taking the money from a jacket pocket, wrapping the cash in a plastic glove and taking it to a bathroom, Della Fave said.

The money hasn't been recovered, he said. Police are investigating whether Schmid gave it to another person in the bathroom.

The 31-year-old Schmid was arrested on a charge of grand larceny and suspended pending an investigation. Her attorney's name wasn't immediately known.

Schmid, who lived in Brooklyn, had worked for the TSA for 4½ years, TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said.

"We do hold our officers to very high standards, and we have a zero tolerance policy for theft in the workplace," Farbstein said.

Wednesday's arrest came the same day that a federal judge sentenced former TSA screener Ricky German to eight months in prison for trying to steal a laptop from a passenger at the Memphis airport in December 2010. German was convicted of theft by a government employee, depriving a citizen of his rights and making false statements.

The cases are part of a series of recent theft allegations against TSA employees:

— Last month, an agent who worked searching checked luggage at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport was suspended after the owner of a stolen iPad used the tracking feature on the device to locate it at the agent's home. Police found seven other iPads there.

—On Jan. 10, former TSA agent Paul Yashou pleaded guilty to stealing a $15,000 watch from a passenger's belongings at Los Angeles International Airport in May. He is awaiting sentencing.

— Two other former TSA agents at JFK were sentenced on Jan. 10 to six months in jail and five years' probation for stealing $40,000 from a piece of luggage in January 2011. The agents, Coumar Persad and Davon Webb, had pleaded guilty to grand larceny, obstructing governmental administration and official misconduct.

— Also in January, authorities charged an agent at Miami International Airport with swiping items and luggage and smuggling them out of the airport in a hidden pocket of his work jacket. He was arrested after one of the items, an iPad, was spotted for sale on Craigslist. Another TSA employee was arrested in July at nearby Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after an airline employee reported that the man slipped an iPad into his pants.

— In December, police charged a TSA screener at New York's LaGuardia Airport with lifting a laptop after a Detroit-bound passenger left it behind at the security station.

— Earlier last year, a TSA supervisor and one of his officers pleaded guilty in a scheme that lifted $10,000 to $30,000 from passengers' belongings at Newark Liberty International Airport. A federal judge sentenced the supervisor, Michael Arato, to 2½ years in prison and his subordinate, Al Raimi, to six months of home confinement.

Nice people, frisking your grandmother wasn't good enough, so now there are better benefits to the job........

Cupcake Destruction wars....

'Security Theater'? TSA Confiscates Woman's Frosted Cupcake

A Massachusetts woman who flew home from Las Vegas this week says an airport security officer confiscated her frosted cupcake because he thought its vanilla-bourbon icing could be a "security risk."

Rebecca Hains told ABCNews.com today that a Transportation Security Administration agent at Las Vegas- McCarran International Airport seized her cupcake, saying the frosting sitting atop the red velvet cake was gel-like enough to violate regulations.

The incident took place Wednesday.

Hains, a teacher, said the cupcake was a gift from one of her students. She was traveling with her husband and toddler, and thought her young son might get hungry on the long trip home.

The cupcake was packaged in a glass container with a metal lid, which was why it attracted the attention of the scanner in the first place.

The TSA agent didn't know what to do with the cupcake, so she called over her supervisor, Hains said.

"The TSA supervisor, Robert Epps, was using really bad logic - he said it counted as a gel-like substance because it was conforming to the shape of its container."

"We also had a small pile of hummus sandwiches with creamy fillings, which made it through, but the cupcake with its frosting was apparently a terrorist threat…I just don't know what world he was living in," said Hains, speaking of the TSA officer.

Hains said she had flown from Boston to Las Vegas with two cupcakes without any problems.

"The TSA at Logan Airport said the cupcakes looked delicious and told us to have a great trip. But in Las Vegas, they were dangerous. They shouldn't be delicious in one part of the country and a security threat in the other."

Hains called the TSA "security theater."

"You'd expect them to be consistent. If they're doing what they claim to be doing and actually protecting travelers, they would be applying their rules using critical thinking. He gave no indication that really thought the cupcake was a threat."

"This really isn't about the cupcake, it's about the bigger issue and it's indicative of the fact that broader reforms need to be made to the TSA because they are not keeping us safe," said Hains.

"In general, cakes and pies are allowed in carry-on luggage," TSA spokesperson James Fotenos told ABC News affiliate WCVB. Fotenos added that they were looking into why this cupcake was confiscated.

This TSA ust keeps getting better and better....

Own a Purse Go to Jail...........

Florida teen detained by TSA for design on her purse

It's not unusual for 17-year-old to find themselves in hot water with the fashion police. But on a flight from Virginia to Florida, Vanessa Gibbs found herself detained by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) over the appearance of her purse.

And just to be clear, it wasn't the content inside the purse that the TSA objected to. No, agency officials took exception with the design of a gun on Gibbs' handbag.

"It's my style, it's camouflage, it has an old western gun on it," Gibbs told News4Jax.com. Gibbs didn't run into any trouble while traveling north from Jacksonville International Airport. But on her way back home, TSA officials at Norfolk International Airport pulled her aside.

"She was like, 'This is a federal offense because it's in the shape of a gun,'" Gibbs said. "I'm like, 'But it's a design on a purse. How is it a federal offense?'"

After TSA agents figured out the gun was a fake, Gibbs said, they told her to check the bag or turn it over. By the time security wrapped up the inspection, the pregnant teen missed her flight, and Southwest Airlines sent her to Orlando instead. The changed itinerary created no small amount of anxiety for Gibbs' mother, who was already waiting for her to arrive at the Jacksonville airport.

"Oh, it's terrifying. I was so upset," said Tami Gibbs, the teen's mom. "I was on the phone all the way to Orlando trying to figure out what was going on with her. It was terrifying."

Less terrifying is the actual design on the purse, which is only a few inches in size and hollow. "I carried this from Jacksonville to Norfolk, and I've carried it from Norfolk to Jacksonville," Vanessa said. "Never once has anyone said anything about it until now."

Nonetheless, the TSA says the design could be considered a "replica weapon," something that the agency has banned since 2002. Just imagine what would have happened if Gibbs had also been wearing stiletto heels.

Another reason not to step foot in an US airport.......IT is only going to get more nuts.....

Too bad homeowners didn't start a fire.

Teen rescued after 10 hours in chimney of Ga.

Associated Press

NORCROSS, Ga. (AP) — Atlanta-area authorities say a teenage burglary suspect was pulled from a chimney by firefighters after being stuck there for more than 10 hours.

Police say the 17-year-old boy was taken into custody after being freed from the chimney around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at a home in Norcross, northeast of Atlanta.

Gwinnett County police Cpl. Jake Smith tells The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the teen was charged with burglary and giving false information to a police officer.

Smith said a neighbor heard someone yelling for help from her neighbor's chimney.

Authorities tell the Gwinnett Daily Post the teen was screaming when fire crews arrived and told the firefighters he had been stuck there since 3 a.m. Tuesday.

Firefighters freed him by lowering a rope from the top of the chimney.

Another Santa Claus wannabe.......

The only way to fly................

Bay Area woman trapped in airport for eight days–all for lack of a $60 baggage fee

By Chris Lehmann | The Lookout

Sure, hurricanes and unseasonal blizzards can create major delays in air travel. And the ordinary air traveler faces plenty of exasperation via the heightened, and not always rational, security measures of the Transportation Safety Administration.

But Terri Weissinger, a native of Sonoma County, Calif., has suffered a new scale of airport indignity: Seeking to start a new life in Idaho, Weissinger was condemned to eight days in the limbo of the San Francisco International Airport--because she was unable to pay the fee her airline assessed for an additional piece of checked baggage.

As Michael Finney, a correspondent with the local ABC news affiliate KGO, reports, Wessinger, "was broke" when she left for the airport. (You can watch Finney's report in the video clip above.)

"She had nothing but an airline ticket and $30 in her pocket." She also hadn't traveled by air in the last five years--meaning that when she stepped to the ticket counter to check her bags, she was in for a serious case of sticker shock. The U.S. Airways agent checking her in told her that it was cost $60 to check both her bags. Weissinger offered to pay the fee when she arrived in Idaho, but the agent declined. She also offered to leave one bag there at the San Francisco Airport. That, the agent explained, would be in violation of security regulations.

Wessigner's next move was to try to scare up the full fee by calling friends in the area. She came up empty, and by the time she'd finished working the phones, she missed her flight. That's when things started to get truly Kafka-esque. To get a new flight "she'd have to pay her bag fees plus $150 in change fees," Finney notes. Without a place to stay nearby, Weissinger stayed the night at the airport. She awoke to more bad news: U.S. Airlines explained that, since she couldn't pay a change fee, she'd have to book a new flight from scratch. That would run about $1,000.

For the next week, Weissinger could do nothing but wander up and down the San Francisco air terminal. At one point, she says, she was treated for anxiety at the terminal's medical clinic; when she sought police assistance, she reports, she was nearly brought in on vagrancy charges. Her ordeal stretched out over eight days--and it only came to an end with the generous assistance of parishioners at a chapel called "The Airport Church of Christ." They gave her $210 that covered the original fee arrangement that Weissinger was able to restore with U.S. Air--the $150 change fee together with the $60 to check her bags.

Weissinger says that she never saw any baggage fee notification when she booked her flight on the online travel service Orbitz--nor did her travel itinerary carry any such notification. There is, however, one small silver lining in this whole grim Tom Hanks-style saga: Weissinger was traveling in April, and since then, federal rules have forced online travel services and airline reservation sites to feature prominent notification of baggage fees prior to booking a flight. As for U.S. Airways, an airline representative told Finney that "We have apologized to Ms. Weissinger, but unfortunately are unable to offer a refund. When you purchase a non-refundable ticket, you accept the terms and conditions. If a passenger cannot travel with their bags, they need to make other arrangements."

Translation: A U.S. Airways apology and $60 will get you two checked bags.

I guess I would be in Jail.....................

Texas Mother Given 5 Years Probation for Spanking Her Daughter

June 20, 2011 at 11:21 am , by Holly Lebowitz Rossi

Rosalina Gonzales, a mother of three from Corpus Christi, Texas, was sentenced to five years’ probation, a $50 fine, and parenting classes after pleading guilty to spanking her two-year-old daughter on the rear-end last December under the charge of “Injury to a Child.” Gonzales did not use an object to spank her daughter, and the spank did not leave a bruise, but when the child’s grandmother noticed red marks, she took the child to the hospital.

The grandmother has custody of Gonzalez’s three children, though Gonzales is working with local Child Protective Services to regain custody.

At the sentencing hearing, 214th District Court Judge Jose Longoria admonished Gonzales that spanking is not acceptable in this day and age.

“You don’t spank children today,” said Longoria, “in the old days, maybe we got spanked, but there was a different quarrel. You don’t spank children. You understand?”

A Child Protective Services spokesperson told KZTV, a Corpus Christi station, that though the law does not forbid spanking, the practice is criminal when it injures a child.

What is your opinion of spanking as a form of discipline?

Being that I have not been a parent, but believe in strict discipline, I would have no problem is whacking my offspring on their butt, for disciplinary purpose.

If it was today, I guess they would haul Sister Mary Ambrose one of my teachers in grammar school, my Father, my Mother all off to jail.

Yes, I believe you shouldn't abuse your kids, but where does the govmint, get in creeping into our homes this much and telling you how to discipline your kids........