LAPD's new hiring guidelines raise eyebrows

The LAPD has recently changed their hiring guidelines, which in the past were criticized for being too laz when it came to recruits who had experimented with hard drugs in the past. Under today's roles, if a recruit had a little bit of cocaine in the past, that's fine. Heroin, meth and other "harder" drugs are not, even if it was in the distant past. Critics say that it sends the wrong message to have police officers who have done drugs, while arrested people for doing drugs. LAPD officials say that it's wrong to penalize someone for a mistake they did in the past. KTLA's Eric Spillman has more in the link below.
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Contractor scams plague Katrina victims

After the wreckage that Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent failure of the levees left behind, there is a lot of opportunity for rebirth in the city. Unfortunately, there's also a lot of opportunity for scammers as well. Unlicensed contractors are going around, pretending to be skilled laborers. They collect down payments on their "services," pretending that they'll rebuild a home, only to never be heard from again. While there are about 20,000 licensed contractors in New Orleans alone, the FBI estimates that there are about that many unlicensed repairmen in the area as well, many of them crooked.
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(Click here for the FBI's page on Katrina investigations.)

Principle resigns after shooting kittens

Wade Pilloud has resigned as principle of a school in Indus, Minnesota after shooting and killing two orphaned kittens on school property last month. Mr. Pilloud says that he shot the kittens to spare them from starving to death after their mother was killed in an animal trap. "I currently own two [cats] myself," he told a local newspaper. "I am not a cat hater. I did not want the animals to suffer." The former principle could face felony charges of possession of a firearm on school property and reckless discharge of a firearm. The case is currently under review by a court.
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Prosecutors: 18-year-old conned elderly man of thousands

Confidence men can be any race, height, gender or weight. Or of any age, as prosecutors in Queens are claiming. Natasha Marks is accused of conning a man - 83 at the time - when she was only 18. The two met outside a supermarket and bonded. During their relationship, Marks is accused of talking the elderly man out of "hundreds of thousands of dollars," claiming she needed to pay medical bills.
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M&M's lead to retrieval of Munch masterpiece?

Police in Norway announced today that they have recovered two masterpieces by the artist Edvard Munch that were stolen two years ago from a museum in Oslo. The pieces recovered were Munch's Madonna and the iconic The Scream. Police have remain tight-lipped on how the art was recovered or who stole them.

One prevailing theory is that a convicted bank robber tipped the police off, saying that he pulled off a big heist to distract the police away from the art museum.

There was a reward of $2 million for information leading to the retrieval of the masterpieces. In addition, the company that produces the candy M&M's recently added an additional bonus of 2 million dark chocolate M&M's to the pot.

Court puts Moussaoui trial exhibits online

Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker in the September 11, 2001 attacks, was on trial for two months. And in those two months, the prosecution and defense submitted 1,202 items for exhibit. And now, the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Virginia has released all of the exhibits to the public on their website. According to ABC, this is the first criminal case for which a federal court has provided access to "all" exhibits online.

In the documents available online, you can watch video clips, telephone and 911 phone calls and pictures presented before the jury. Some of the pictures are gruesome to look at, as they show body parts being recovered following the September 11th attacks. In also includes memos and information from the FBI, CIA and NSA concerning Moussaoui and other hijackers.

Now, this isn't "all" of the exhibits... There are still some classified reports shown to the jury, plus some videotapes dispositions of Moussaoui's roommate Hussein Al Attas and Faiz Bafana, a senior Jemmah Islamiyah member who discussed Moussaoui's dreams to fly a plane into the White House. Those tapes are viewed as witness testimony and will not be released at this time. (Read the full article)

Click here to view the exhibits on the court's website. (Viewer/listener discretion is strongly advised.)

Michael Ray Aquino pleads guilty in spy case

Remember a long time ago when there was news about a man who was spying against the U.S. government, even inside the White House? That man is Michael Ray Aquino, a former Philippine Police Chief who allegedly collected intelligence from a former U.S. Marine as part of a coup plot. And on Monday, Mr. Aquino entered a guilty pleas to the charge of unauthorized possession of classified U.S. government documents.

Aquino, 40, was working at an Army base in New Jersey as an intelligence analyst for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. By making the guilty plea, Aquino has avoided a more serious charge of espionage and possible life sentence. He could potentially serve as little as three to six years for spying.

Aquion is scheduled for sentencing on October 30. (Read the full article)