Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Charles Manson, whose “Manson family” followers killed nine people in 1969 and whose death sentence became nine life sentences after the state of California, United States, outlawed the death sentence, died on Sunday in a hospital in Bakersfield of natural causes, according to the California Department of Corrections.

Manson inspired, but did not participate in, what became known as the Tate-LaBianca murders. On August 9, 1969, at the home of actress Sharon Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski, followers of Manson stabbed five people to death: Tate, who was more than eight months pregnant; Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folgers coffee fortune; celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring; director Voityck Frykowski; and Steven Parent who knew the caretaker of the estate. On August 10 they further killed wealthy Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. The seventh and eighth victims were Hollywood stuntman Donald Shea, and musician Gary Hinman. In 1971, after a year-long trial, Manson was convicted of ordering the first seven murders and sentenced to death. Eventually he was convicted of the other two murders as well.

“Helter Skelter”, the name of a song by The Beatles, and “pig” were scrawled in blood at the murder sites. According to prosecutors, Manson meant the killings to be blamed on blacks, setting off a race war in the US, to be followed by a new social order led by Manson.

Manson’s sentence was commuted to nine life terms after a 1972 Supreme Court of California decision outlawed the death penalty. He was in prison for more than four decades, and was an inmate at the California State Prison, Corcoran when he died. He made twelve unsuccessful applications for parole, the last in 2012. Sources told TMZ that he was hospitalized in Bakersfield several days before his death. If his family do not claim his body within ten days, it will be disposed of at state expense, probably by cremation.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced yesterday that Simplicity Inc. is recalling nearly one million baby cribs after two infant deaths have been linked to a design failure.

Simplicity Inc. supplies cribs to large American big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart Inc., and several other giant retailers including Target Corp. and Big Lots Inc.

A dangerous gap can be created if the drop-side of the crib has been installed upside-down, and thus becomes detached. That space can cause infants to be suffocated.

Parents are being urged by the company to check their Simplicity cribs to make sure the drop-side was installed correctly and is not a safety hazard. The cribs being recalled have these model numbers: 4600, 4605, 4705, 5000, 8000, 8324, 8800, 8740, 8910, 8994, 8050, 8750, 8760 and 8996.

The affected cribs cost between US$100 and $300, and were sold between January of 1998 through May of 2007.

Two separate deaths have been reported because the drop-side was installed upside down. Fifty-five non-fatal entrapment cases have been reported. And, the CPSC is now investigating a third infant death involving a newer-style crib.

Simplicity Inc. says the faulty cribs were made in China. However, according to CPSC, the recall is about the design flaws that the U.S. manufacturers designed into the product, not a made-in-China problem.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

New Jersey’s state legislature has passed a bill that will legalize medicinal marijuana for patients with chronic disease. The state’s outgoing Governor, Jon Corzine, said that he will sign the bill before he leaves office next week. Upon passage of the bill, New Jersey will become the 14th state in the nation to permit medical marijuana.

Patients with a prescription would be able to purchase up to 2 ounces (56.7 grams) of cannabis per month. The bill specifies that only certain chronic diseases are eligible, ALS, AIDS, cancer, muscular dystrophy, and multiple sclerosis. The bill specifically bans the unlicensed growing of cannabis, driving under the influence of the drug, and only allows six licensed dispensaries in the state.

One of the supporters of the bill, Assemblyman Reed Gusciora said that “I truly believe this will become a model for other states because it balances the compassionate use of medical marijuana while limiting the number of ailments that a physician can prescribe it for”.

Opponents of the bill point to California where they say that cannabis is too loosely regulated. Governor-elect Chris Christie said that “I think we all see what’s happened in California,” he said. “It’s gotten completely out of control.”

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Chris Christie, governor of the US state of New Jersey, complained on ABC’s Sunday morning talk show This Week that TV series Jersey Shore promotes a negative image of the state.

Prompted by a feature in The New York Times on Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, one of the stars of the MTV show, interviewer Jake Tapper asked the governor whether he thought the series was positive or negative for the state. Christie unequivocally answered that the show was “negative for New Jersey… It takes a bunch of New Yorkers, drops them on the Jersey Shore, and tries to make America feel like this is New Jersey”. He concluded, “I can tell people: they want to know what New Jersey really is? I welcome them to come to New Jersey any time.”

In a wide-ranging interview the governor also faced questions about local and national politics, including New Jersey’s US$11 billion budget deficit. Specifically, he was challenged over his plans to not pay $3 billion into public pension funds, payments described by the interviewer as a “legal obligation”. He said that he “wasn’t going to put $3 billion into a failing pension system” and that there would be further reforms of pensions and health benefits.

Christie was further questioned over his ongoing conflicts with teachers unions. He responded that “we can’t have one sector of our society sheltered from the ravages of the recession, at the cost to people who have been hurt by the recession the most”, citing the example of construction unions in New Jersey currently suffering unemployment between 35 and 50%.