Topless protest; cop's self-incriminating video; Yellowstone nitwits
- Updated
Odd and interesting news from around the West.
- The Associated Press
- Updated
LOS ANGELES — A group of about 50 women and men walked topless Sunday in the oceanside Los Angeles neighborhood of Venice to demand that females get the same legal right as males to walk bare-chested in public.
The protesters are participating Sunday in the neighborhood's annual Go Topless march, one of several pro-topless marches planned for around the nation. The march in Venice was organized by gotopless.org, a group that calls for equal rights to go topless for women and men.
The marchers walked behind a giant inflatable pink breast that had the phrase "equal topless rights" written on it. One marcher carried a sign that said: "My Body Is Not A Crime."
"We're working toward freeing women's nipples and obtaining equal gender topless rights that are enforced worldwide," Beatrice Charles, a GoTopless spokeswoman who leads the organization's LA branch, tells the Los Angeles Times.
The protesters were countered at the start of the march by a group against allowing women to go topless in public that held up a giant inflatable Bible.
Last year, the Venice neighborhood community council passed by a 12-2 voter a resolution in favor of bringing topless sunbathing back to Venice Beach. Nude beaches are banned in Los Angeles County.
- Updated
RUIDOSO, N.M. (AP) — Residents in Ruidoso are outraged after they say the state rounded up a dozen horses without any notice.
KOAT-TV in Albuquerque reports (http://bit.ly/2bKCce9) that the state's Livestock Board have had them since Friday after someone registered a complaint.
Ruidoso's tourism director, Gina Kelley, says the horses are a staple of the area and have moved freely near the village for years.
She says residents volunteer to provide food and look after them.
Representatives from the Livestock Board did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Some horses are protected under federal law.
Residents have already raised more than $10,000 to buy the horses if they go up on the auction block.
An online petition asking Gov. Susana Martinez to step in has more than 2,000 signatures.
___
Information from: KOAT-TV, http://www.thenewmexicochannel.com/index.html
- Updated
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Juneau police are investigating a theft of four carved Tlingit shields that hung in the entryway of an elementary school.
The shields were taken last week between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning.
"They sort of formed a gathering spot for families who are entering the building and waiting for their children," Harborview Elementary School Principal Tom McKenna told the Juneau Empire (http://bit.ly/2c12vgU ). "It was also a spot where children were photographed to be honored for their achievements."
Anyone with information is asked to contact authorities.
"That's our primary interest: to have them returned," McKenna said. "This is uncharacteristic of the Harborview community. We're all upset about this, and we want them back."
It's been eight years since Tlingit artist Benjamin Schleifman was commissioned by the Juneau School District Indian Studies Program to carve the shields.
He said the theft is heartbreaking.
"I was really hoping somebody would've turned them in by now," Schleifman said. "It's art for kids, for God's sake."
Police official Erann Kalwara said the department estimates the shields are worth at least $1,000 apiece.
The theft of native art seems to be a growing trend, she said.
"This year really is when I've noticed this happening more," Kalwara said. "This is becoming more of an event recently. But overall more things are being stolen, which is a very sad thing for our community."
The shields carry more than a dollar value, McKenna said.
"The most important thing the community needs to know is that these are of extreme cultural and sentimental value for our school community," he said. "They are irreplaceable."
___
Information from: Juneau (Alaska) Empire, http://www.juneauempire.com
- Updated
GERLACH, Nev. (AP) — The start of Burning Man this week means a mix of excitement and bitterness to the tiny town of Gerlach.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports (http://bit.ly/2ckd1V1) that the 120 residents are divided over the value of the counterculture festival, which started Sunday.
Campers and cars parade through the historic mining town located about a 90-minute drive northeast of Reno for the events.
Some residents enjoy capitalizing on it by setting up booths to sell items such as suntan lotion and goggles.
Others say it brings unwanted traffic jams and RV owners stopping on their property.
Supporters of Burning Man say the festival brings community and freedom of artistic expression that you can't find anywhere else.
The 9-day event in the Black Rock Desert is expected to draw 70,000 people.
___
Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com
- Updated
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Las Vegas police are investigating after a man was shot in front of Planet Hollywood hotel-casino.
Authorities say the shooting occurred early Sunday after two men got into an altercation near the entrance to the Miracle Mile Shops.
Police spokesman Charles Jenkins says the fight escalated when one man pulled out a handgun and allegedly shot the other.
Jenkins says the victim was taken to the hospital but his injuries are not life-threatening.
The suspect is still at large.
Police did not release the names of the suspect or the victim.
- Updated
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — A former inmate is suing a Bernalillo County jail, alleging he was raped by his cellmate and mocked by guards.
The Albuquerque Journal reported (http://bit.ly/2bJmoez) Sunday that the ex-prisoner filed the lawsuit earlier this month against the Metropolitan Detention Center, the county sheriff's office and other officials.
According to the victim, the authorities were told of several similar unwanted sex acts.
The victim's attorney, Shannon Kennedy, says no cases are being thoroughly investigated.
Jail spokeswoman Nataura Powdrell-Moore says all sexual assault allegations are investigated by the jail and the sheriff's office.
Sheriff's spokeswoman Felicia Romero says a team assigned to investigate sex crimes in the jail is looking into the case in the lawsuit.
She says allegations made in the last several months since the team was assigned have been unfounded.
___
Information from: Albuquerque Journal, http://www.abqjournal.com
- Updated
MADRAS, Oregon (AP) — A long-time pilot and flight instructor from Alaska died Saturday when his biplane crashed during an air show in central Oregon.
Sixty-one-year-old Marcus Bruce Paine appeared to be attempting a very low altitude loop when his Boeing Stearman plane crashed around 3 p.m. Saturday.
Jefferson County Sheriff Jim Adkins said officials with the Federal Aviation Administration were attending the Airshow of the Cascades at Madras Airport when the crash occurred, and the agency is investigating along with the sheriff's office and the Madras Police Department.
Paine lived in Anchorage, had extensive military experience and had been a pilot for more than 20 years, according to his biographical information on the airshow's website. The description said Paine's flight school teaches aerobatic flight, stall and spin awareness and other topics.
- By KEITH RIDLER Associated Press
- Updated
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Federal officials say more endangered sockeye salmon will complete the trip upstream to central Idaho this year because of structural changes at two Snake River dams in Washington state.
Officials say success with the new systems at Lower Granite Dam and Little Goose Dam, which pull cold water from deep in the reservoirs for the fish ladders, could lead to similar changes at other dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers.
The changes to the dams made by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers follow the massive die-off of sockeye salmon in the Columbia Basin in 2015.
A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report earlier this year cited hot water throughout the basin as the cause, but also noted a lack of action by federal managers as playing a role.
- Updated
SILVERDALE, Wash. (AP) — A U.S. Army veteran says he's incredibly grateful after receiving the kidney of a teenage Kitsap County girl who died after she fell off a ladder.
KOMO-TV reports (http://goo.gl/BRI6AM ) that 16-year-old Emily Ramm was climbing up a ladder at a construction site at Silverdale Elementary School on Aug. 13 to get a better view of a meteor shower when she fell.
She was an organ donor, and one of her kidneys was donated to Daniel Mendoza, who served 27 months in Iraq and returned to the U.S. with kidney failure.
Mendoza says he had been waiting more than four years for a new kidney. He says he's sorry for the family's immense loss, but that there are no words to describe how grateful he is.
The family has yet to meet face-to-face with Mendoza, who lives in Fredrickson near Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Tara Vasey, the girl's aunt, says she can't wait to meet Mendoza, and that her niece would have loved to know that the soldier received her kidney.
___
Information from: KOMO-TV, http://www.komotv.com/
- By TOM VOGT The Columbian
- Updated
VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — Ernie Whitesel never had a chance to know his father. He was 6 years old when his dad parachuted into France as part of the D-Day invasion.
Pfc. Lester Ernest Whitesel Sr. died on June 6, 1944. He is buried in an American military cemetery in Normandy, and there is not even a photograph to remember him by.
Now a Prairie High School student has created a salute to the life and times of the soldier, with the help of her former middle school history teacher, reported The Columbian (http://bit.ly/2by8uJq).
Ally Orr, who will be a junior at Prairie, and Pleasant Valley teacher Irene Soohoo were among 15 student-teacher teams from around the nation chosen for a Normandy Scholar grant.
The Sacrifice for Freedom assignment called for the 15 students to learn all they could about a soldier from their home state, then honor him with a eulogy at his grave in France.
Orr selected Pfc. Whitesel, a native of the Grays Harbor area. Whitesel was a member of Company G, 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division.
Orr chose Whitesel because he was the only southwest Washington soldier among the candidates, which also made it much easier to visit his hometown of Hoquiam.
But researching a "silent hero" — a fallen soldier with an untold story — can, by its very nature, be challenging.
Local museum volunteers in Hoquiam provided some background on Lester and his father, Louis Whitesel (WHITE-sul). Other sources included the 1930 census.
"He was 16 and living with an uncle," Orr said, but that created another question. "Why wasn't he living with his father?"
When a genealogy website provided some family links, Orr and Soohoo mailed letters to the addresses. The responses included a telephone call from Ernie Whitesel, who now lives in Arizona.
Orr learned that young Lester's father remarried twice. After living with two different stepmothers, the boy moved in with an uncle. He went to work at the uncle's meat-cutting business, and never went to high school.
Orr and Soohoo also researched Whitesel's role in the Normandy invasion. Company G was dropped behind enemy lines; the mission was to capture and hold a bridge near the village of Sainte Mère Église.
Army records don't indicate how or where Whitesel was killed, but they do note that Sainte Mère Église was the first town in France to be liberated during World War II.
When the 15 teams of teachers and students visited France in June, they were able to see where the events of D-Day took place and meet some local residents with firsthand accounts.
They attended lectures, studied original documents and took field trips guided by historians. They visited a church that had been an improvised medical station, where wounded soldiers were treated.
"You can still see bloodstains on the pews," Soohoo said.
And they visited the Normandy American Cemetery, which overlooks Omaha Beach. At Pfc. Whitesel's grave, Orr delivered the eulogy she had written. She noted that when he enlisted, Whitesel was 28 years old, married, and the father of a child. "You left your family to fight in a raging war that affected everyone, but had to leave your only child, Ernie Whitesel, who was 4 years old.
"Exactly how and when you died is unknown .
"You were not just a number, one of 10,000 casualties. You were a person remembered and loved after so many years by your only child."
That child — Ernie is now 79 — was amazed that a high school student in another part of the country would put so much work into telling his father's story. Orr even knew something that he didn't know.
"I thought my dad was 26 when he died, and he was 30," Ernie Whitesel said by phone.
He visited Normandy in the 1950s, he said, back when Ernie was in the Army himself.
"When I was stationed in Germany — I was 18 at the time — I visited his gravesite," the Phoenix resident said.
But some doubts remain. The D-Day defenses included traps designed to kill American paratroopers.
"The Germans filled bogs over 6 feet deep, and these men were wearing 80-pound packs. They'd just disappear."
As he recalled standing at his father's grave, "I don't even know if his remains are there," Ernie Whitesel said. "Nobody can tell me anything."
Orr's findings and the Normandy Scholars group's travels in Normandy have been documented in a hardcover book, filled with color photographs of the area where Whitesel fought and died.
Orr's research also will be the basis for a website she and Soohoo have been working on.
The experience has given the 16-year-old student another perspective on the era she has been studying. Many of the soldiers who were part of the D-Day invasion were younger than some of her fellow Prairie High students.
"People in my grade are looking forward to college." For those in the war, she said, they knew it could be "the end for them."
___
Information from: The Columbian, http://www.columbian.com
- The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — A group of about 50 women and men walked topless Sunday in the oceanside Los Angeles neighborhood of Venice to demand that females get the same legal right as males to walk bare-chested in public.
The protesters are participating Sunday in the neighborhood's annual Go Topless march, one of several pro-topless marches planned for around the nation. The march in Venice was organized by gotopless.org, a group that calls for equal rights to go topless for women and men.
The marchers walked behind a giant inflatable pink breast that had the phrase "equal topless rights" written on it. One marcher carried a sign that said: "My Body Is Not A Crime."
"We're working toward freeing women's nipples and obtaining equal gender topless rights that are enforced worldwide," Beatrice Charles, a GoTopless spokeswoman who leads the organization's LA branch, tells the Los Angeles Times.
The protesters were countered at the start of the march by a group against allowing women to go topless in public that held up a giant inflatable Bible.
Last year, the Venice neighborhood community council passed by a 12-2 voter a resolution in favor of bringing topless sunbathing back to Venice Beach. Nude beaches are banned in Los Angeles County.
RUIDOSO, N.M. (AP) — Residents in Ruidoso are outraged after they say the state rounded up a dozen horses without any notice.
KOAT-TV in Albuquerque reports (http://bit.ly/2bKCce9) that the state's Livestock Board have had them since Friday after someone registered a complaint.
Ruidoso's tourism director, Gina Kelley, says the horses are a staple of the area and have moved freely near the village for years.
She says residents volunteer to provide food and look after them.
Representatives from the Livestock Board did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Some horses are protected under federal law.
Residents have already raised more than $10,000 to buy the horses if they go up on the auction block.
An online petition asking Gov. Susana Martinez to step in has more than 2,000 signatures.
___
Information from: KOAT-TV, http://www.thenewmexicochannel.com/index.html
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Juneau police are investigating a theft of four carved Tlingit shields that hung in the entryway of an elementary school.
The shields were taken last week between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning.
"They sort of formed a gathering spot for families who are entering the building and waiting for their children," Harborview Elementary School Principal Tom McKenna told the Juneau Empire (http://bit.ly/2c12vgU ). "It was also a spot where children were photographed to be honored for their achievements."
Anyone with information is asked to contact authorities.
"That's our primary interest: to have them returned," McKenna said. "This is uncharacteristic of the Harborview community. We're all upset about this, and we want them back."
It's been eight years since Tlingit artist Benjamin Schleifman was commissioned by the Juneau School District Indian Studies Program to carve the shields.
He said the theft is heartbreaking.
"I was really hoping somebody would've turned them in by now," Schleifman said. "It's art for kids, for God's sake."
Police official Erann Kalwara said the department estimates the shields are worth at least $1,000 apiece.
The theft of native art seems to be a growing trend, she said.
"This year really is when I've noticed this happening more," Kalwara said. "This is becoming more of an event recently. But overall more things are being stolen, which is a very sad thing for our community."
The shields carry more than a dollar value, McKenna said.
"The most important thing the community needs to know is that these are of extreme cultural and sentimental value for our school community," he said. "They are irreplaceable."
___
Information from: Juneau (Alaska) Empire, http://www.juneauempire.com
GERLACH, Nev. (AP) — The start of Burning Man this week means a mix of excitement and bitterness to the tiny town of Gerlach.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports (http://bit.ly/2ckd1V1) that the 120 residents are divided over the value of the counterculture festival, which started Sunday.
Campers and cars parade through the historic mining town located about a 90-minute drive northeast of Reno for the events.
Some residents enjoy capitalizing on it by setting up booths to sell items such as suntan lotion and goggles.
Others say it brings unwanted traffic jams and RV owners stopping on their property.
Supporters of Burning Man say the festival brings community and freedom of artistic expression that you can't find anywhere else.
The 9-day event in the Black Rock Desert is expected to draw 70,000 people.
___
Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Las Vegas police are investigating after a man was shot in front of Planet Hollywood hotel-casino.
Authorities say the shooting occurred early Sunday after two men got into an altercation near the entrance to the Miracle Mile Shops.
Police spokesman Charles Jenkins says the fight escalated when one man pulled out a handgun and allegedly shot the other.
Jenkins says the victim was taken to the hospital but his injuries are not life-threatening.
The suspect is still at large.
Police did not release the names of the suspect or the victim.
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — A former inmate is suing a Bernalillo County jail, alleging he was raped by his cellmate and mocked by guards.
The Albuquerque Journal reported (http://bit.ly/2bJmoez) Sunday that the ex-prisoner filed the lawsuit earlier this month against the Metropolitan Detention Center, the county sheriff's office and other officials.
According to the victim, the authorities were told of several similar unwanted sex acts.
The victim's attorney, Shannon Kennedy, says no cases are being thoroughly investigated.
Jail spokeswoman Nataura Powdrell-Moore says all sexual assault allegations are investigated by the jail and the sheriff's office.
Sheriff's spokeswoman Felicia Romero says a team assigned to investigate sex crimes in the jail is looking into the case in the lawsuit.
She says allegations made in the last several months since the team was assigned have been unfounded.
___
Information from: Albuquerque Journal, http://www.abqjournal.com
MADRAS, Oregon (AP) — A long-time pilot and flight instructor from Alaska died Saturday when his biplane crashed during an air show in central Oregon.
Sixty-one-year-old Marcus Bruce Paine appeared to be attempting a very low altitude loop when his Boeing Stearman plane crashed around 3 p.m. Saturday.
Jefferson County Sheriff Jim Adkins said officials with the Federal Aviation Administration were attending the Airshow of the Cascades at Madras Airport when the crash occurred, and the agency is investigating along with the sheriff's office and the Madras Police Department.
Paine lived in Anchorage, had extensive military experience and had been a pilot for more than 20 years, according to his biographical information on the airshow's website. The description said Paine's flight school teaches aerobatic flight, stall and spin awareness and other topics.
- By KEITH RIDLER Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Federal officials say more endangered sockeye salmon will complete the trip upstream to central Idaho this year because of structural changes at two Snake River dams in Washington state.
Officials say success with the new systems at Lower Granite Dam and Little Goose Dam, which pull cold water from deep in the reservoirs for the fish ladders, could lead to similar changes at other dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers.
The changes to the dams made by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers follow the massive die-off of sockeye salmon in the Columbia Basin in 2015.
A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report earlier this year cited hot water throughout the basin as the cause, but also noted a lack of action by federal managers as playing a role.
SILVERDALE, Wash. (AP) — A U.S. Army veteran says he's incredibly grateful after receiving the kidney of a teenage Kitsap County girl who died after she fell off a ladder.
KOMO-TV reports (http://goo.gl/BRI6AM ) that 16-year-old Emily Ramm was climbing up a ladder at a construction site at Silverdale Elementary School on Aug. 13 to get a better view of a meteor shower when she fell.
She was an organ donor, and one of her kidneys was donated to Daniel Mendoza, who served 27 months in Iraq and returned to the U.S. with kidney failure.
Mendoza says he had been waiting more than four years for a new kidney. He says he's sorry for the family's immense loss, but that there are no words to describe how grateful he is.
The family has yet to meet face-to-face with Mendoza, who lives in Fredrickson near Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Tara Vasey, the girl's aunt, says she can't wait to meet Mendoza, and that her niece would have loved to know that the soldier received her kidney.
___
Information from: KOMO-TV, http://www.komotv.com/
- By TOM VOGT The Columbian
VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — Ernie Whitesel never had a chance to know his father. He was 6 years old when his dad parachuted into France as part of the D-Day invasion.
Pfc. Lester Ernest Whitesel Sr. died on June 6, 1944. He is buried in an American military cemetery in Normandy, and there is not even a photograph to remember him by.
Now a Prairie High School student has created a salute to the life and times of the soldier, with the help of her former middle school history teacher, reported The Columbian (http://bit.ly/2by8uJq).
Ally Orr, who will be a junior at Prairie, and Pleasant Valley teacher Irene Soohoo were among 15 student-teacher teams from around the nation chosen for a Normandy Scholar grant.
The Sacrifice for Freedom assignment called for the 15 students to learn all they could about a soldier from their home state, then honor him with a eulogy at his grave in France.
Orr selected Pfc. Whitesel, a native of the Grays Harbor area. Whitesel was a member of Company G, 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division.
Orr chose Whitesel because he was the only southwest Washington soldier among the candidates, which also made it much easier to visit his hometown of Hoquiam.
But researching a "silent hero" — a fallen soldier with an untold story — can, by its very nature, be challenging.
Local museum volunteers in Hoquiam provided some background on Lester and his father, Louis Whitesel (WHITE-sul). Other sources included the 1930 census.
"He was 16 and living with an uncle," Orr said, but that created another question. "Why wasn't he living with his father?"
When a genealogy website provided some family links, Orr and Soohoo mailed letters to the addresses. The responses included a telephone call from Ernie Whitesel, who now lives in Arizona.
Orr learned that young Lester's father remarried twice. After living with two different stepmothers, the boy moved in with an uncle. He went to work at the uncle's meat-cutting business, and never went to high school.
Orr and Soohoo also researched Whitesel's role in the Normandy invasion. Company G was dropped behind enemy lines; the mission was to capture and hold a bridge near the village of Sainte Mère Église.
Army records don't indicate how or where Whitesel was killed, but they do note that Sainte Mère Église was the first town in France to be liberated during World War II.
When the 15 teams of teachers and students visited France in June, they were able to see where the events of D-Day took place and meet some local residents with firsthand accounts.
They attended lectures, studied original documents and took field trips guided by historians. They visited a church that had been an improvised medical station, where wounded soldiers were treated.
"You can still see bloodstains on the pews," Soohoo said.
And they visited the Normandy American Cemetery, which overlooks Omaha Beach. At Pfc. Whitesel's grave, Orr delivered the eulogy she had written. She noted that when he enlisted, Whitesel was 28 years old, married, and the father of a child. "You left your family to fight in a raging war that affected everyone, but had to leave your only child, Ernie Whitesel, who was 4 years old.
"Exactly how and when you died is unknown .
"You were not just a number, one of 10,000 casualties. You were a person remembered and loved after so many years by your only child."
That child — Ernie is now 79 — was amazed that a high school student in another part of the country would put so much work into telling his father's story. Orr even knew something that he didn't know.
"I thought my dad was 26 when he died, and he was 30," Ernie Whitesel said by phone.
He visited Normandy in the 1950s, he said, back when Ernie was in the Army himself.
"When I was stationed in Germany — I was 18 at the time — I visited his gravesite," the Phoenix resident said.
But some doubts remain. The D-Day defenses included traps designed to kill American paratroopers.
"The Germans filled bogs over 6 feet deep, and these men were wearing 80-pound packs. They'd just disappear."
As he recalled standing at his father's grave, "I don't even know if his remains are there," Ernie Whitesel said. "Nobody can tell me anything."
Orr's findings and the Normandy Scholars group's travels in Normandy have been documented in a hardcover book, filled with color photographs of the area where Whitesel fought and died.
Orr's research also will be the basis for a website she and Soohoo have been working on.
The experience has given the 16-year-old student another perspective on the era she has been studying. Many of the soldiers who were part of the D-Day invasion were younger than some of her fellow Prairie High students.
"People in my grade are looking forward to college." For those in the war, she said, they knew it could be "the end for them."
___
Information from: The Columbian, http://www.columbian.com
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