Florida – praag.org

Getting rid of ‘racist Old Dixie’

The Riviera Beach City Council in South Florida, US, will vote this week on the mayor’s proposal to rename the “racist” Old Dixie Highway after President Obama.

“Each member will vote Yay or Nay to rid this city of a street name that still invokes memories of racism and slavery in the Old South” said Mayor Thomas Masters, a local NBC affiliate reported.

The meeting was held in City Hall Chambers in Riviera Beach.

“We’re in the Dr. Martin Luther King celebrations in the city,” Mr. Masters said in January, The Palm Beach Post reported. “What better way to celebrate his legacy than to get rid of what he died for, which was getting rid of old Dixie.”

The mayor noted at the time that Old Dixie Highway intersects Martin Luther King Boulevard in the city, and “this may be one of the few places in America where you have a Barack Obama intersecting with Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard.”

Source: The Washington Times

Greening a drought

The spray-paint nozzle was aimed carefully at the edge as the painter stood back a few inches from the flat metal shovel meant to protect other surfaces. After laying down a couple of thin coats, he stepped back to admire his work.

The patch of grass had gone from a flat, yellowing green to a Wizard of Oz shade of emerald.

There are few people who see an upside to the record-setting drought in California, but Drew McClellan sees a path to business. Earlier this summer, when a friend began complaining about his browning front lawn, Mr. McClellan thought back to his childhood in Florida, where he often spotted golf courses using sprays to dye their greens. When a brief Internet search failed to show any local business offering a similar service, Mr. McClellan decided it was a prime opportunity.

And since he opened up shop in July, Mr. McClellan has been taking requests faster than he can keep up.

“No matter how weird people might think it is, everyone is getting to the point of considering something drastic,” Mr. McClellan said, taking a break from his other job working as a hair stylist at a retro-style barbershop.

As he and his wife sprayed down the lawn of Tony Felipe, who has lived in Long Beach for nearly 20 years, Mr. Felipe looked on with nods of approval.

For less than $400 — not much more than a regular water bill these days — he could see his lawn instantly turn green.

But even as browning grass or drought-resistant plants are popping up in front of ever more houses, few things are as alluring as a California green lawn, long a symbol of wealth and vitality.

Source: NYT

Florida jury awards smoker’s widow $23-billion in damages against RJ Reynolds Tobacco

Damages award the largest in Florida history

A Florida jury has awarded the widow of a chain smoker who died of lung cancer punitive damages of more than $23-billion in her lawsuit against the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company, the nation’s second-biggest cigarette maker.

The judgment, returned on Friday night, was the largest in Florida history in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by a single plaintiff, according to Ryan Julison, a spokesperson for the woman’s lawyer, Chris Chestnut.

Cynthia Robinson of the Florida Panhandle city of Pensacola sued the cigarette maker in 2008 over the death of her husband, Michael Johnson.

Johnson, a hotel shuttle bus driver who died of lung cancer in 1996 at age 36, smoked one to three packs a day for more 20 years, starting at age 13, Chestnut said.

“He couldn’t quit. He was smoking the day he died,” the lawyer told Reuters on Saturday.

After a four-week trial and 11 hours of jury deliberations, the jury returned a verdict granting compensatory damages of $7.3-million to the widow and the couple’s child, and $9.6-million to Johnson’s son from a previous relationship.

The same jury deliberated for another seven hours before deciding to award Robinson the additional sum of $23.6-billion in punitive damages.

Lawyers for the tobacco company, a unit of Reynolds American whose brands include Camel cigarettes, could not immediately be reached for comment.

But J Jeffery Raborn, vice-president and assistant general counsel for RJ Reynolds, said in a statement quoted by the New York Times that the company planned to challenge “this runaway verdict”. Such industry appeals are often successful.

Chestnut countered, “This wasn’t a runaway jury, it was a courageous one.”

Robinson’s lawsuit originally was part of a large class-action litigation known as the “Engle case”, filed in 1994 against tobacco companies.

A jury in that case returned a verdict in 2000 in favour of the plaintiffs awarding $145-billion in punitive damages, which at the time was the largest such judgment in US history.

That award, however, was tossed out in 2006 by the Florida Supreme Court, which decertified the class, agreeing with a lower court that the group was too disparate and each smoker smoked for different reasons.

But the court said the plaintiffs could file lawsuits individually. Robinson was one of them.

The Florida high court also let stand the jury’s findings that cigarettes are defective, dangerous and cause disease, and that Big Tobacco was negligent, meaning those issues did not have to be re-litigated in future lawsuits. – Reuters

S. African child porn ring: more people investigated

Police are investigating another 44 people with possible links to an international child pornography ring, and have obtained at least 30 search warrants so far, a spokesman said on Friday.

“We did an investigation on 50 suspects… we then obtained 30 search warrants early in August,” said Lt-Gen Solomon Makgale.

“We executed those warrants and that’s how we arrested those six. The six are part of the 50.”

Police had followed up on a tip-off from Interpol last Thursday and arrested six men in four provinces for possession of child porn.

The accused were arrested in Lichtenburg, Bloemfontein, White River, Douglasdale, Florida, and Potchefstroom.

They were a teacher, a retired school principal, a headmaster, a lawyer, a dermatologist, and a businessman.

Since the arrests, they had appeared in various South African courts separately and had their cases postponed.

Makgale said police were trying to obtain the remaining 20 search warrants.

He could not confirm a report in The Times that among the alleged paedophiles were top executives of banks, insurance firms, legal practices, and IT companies.

On Wednesday, the newspaper reported the case had links to Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Western Europe, and Australasia.

It reported that children as young as five were believed to have been groomed to have sex with each other and adults. – Sapa

US man held after murdering wife and posting pic on Facebook

A US man was being quizzed by police on Thursday after gunning down his wife and posting a gruesome picture of her dead body on Facebook, authorities said.

Derek Medina, 31, was being questioned by detectives in Miami after turning himself in earlier Thursday following the shooting death of wife Jennifer Alfonso, 26.

In a macabre twist, Medina had apparently posted a picture showing his slain wife’s blood-soaked body on Facebook, under the caption “RIP Jennifer Alfonso,” before giving himself up.

In a status update posted shortly before the photo was uploaded, Medina wrote: “You will see me in the news.”

“Im going to prison or death sentence for killing my wife love you guys miss you guys takecare Facebook people you will see me in the news,” he wrote.

“My wife was punching me and I am not going to stand anymore with the abuse so I did what I did I hope u understand me.”

Police said Medina drove himself to the South Miami Police Department following the shooting.

“Officers then responded to the listed location where they found the victim deceased from apparent gunshot wounds, as well as the victim’s daughter, 10, who was unharmed,” a statement said.

“The motive is unknown at this time.”

Medina’s Facebook page showing the picture of his dead wife was up for several hours before being taken down later Thursday.

Beneath the photo — which was shared 170 times before the page was closed down — were comments from people who appeared to be friends with the dead woman.

“That is my friend there, Jennifer Alfonso,” one woman wrote.

“What happened?” asked another.

Local media reports quoted Medina’s father, Derek Medina Sr, as saying his son had killed his wife after a violent domestic dispute.

“He just said that his wife picked up a knife on him, and they had a big fight, and he shot her,” Medina said.

According to the Miami New Times blog, Medina once penned a self-help book online entitled: “How I Saved Someone’s Life and Marriage and Family Problems Thru Communication.”

Medina’s neighbors meanwhile described him as a self-appointed neighborhood watchman who patrolled the area with a concealed gun.

“He walks around with a concealed gun, so he tries to be the neighborhood watch guy,” neighbor Yoshi Dade told NBC Miami.

“He’s always there late (at) night, and he’s weird to me. He’s always kind of looking around and trying to be a hero.” – AFP

Race boycotts loom as Jesse Jackson calls Florida ‘Apartheid state’

The Rev. Jesse Jackson has called to boycott the “apartheid state” of Florida if the Department of Justice does not lodge a civil rights case against George Zimmerman.

“Trayvon is a symbol of a deeper malady,” the reverend said in a CNN interview Thursday.

“No doubt, the inclination is to boycott Florida, stop conventions, to isolate Florida as a kind of apartheid state” if the DOJ does not act, Jackson said.

Jackson charged that homicides against blacks have tripled since stand your ground laws were put in place in Florida. The Daily Caller reported Tuesday that the law actually benefits blacks in the state disproportionately, saying blacks made about a third of Florida’s total stand your ground claims in homicide cases, a rate nearly double the black percentage of the state’s population.

“The majority of those claims have been successful, a success rate that exceeds that for Florida whites,” the Daily Caller said.

Martin Luther King III said at a recent NAACP convention that if supporters of Trayvon Martin really want to put their money where their mouths are, they can boycott the Florida orange juice industry.

“The true way generally when people don’t understand your plight is when you decide to exercise your buying power elsewhere,” he said at the Orlando, Fla., convention, CBS reported.

He made the comments in the context of condemning “stand your ground” laws. He’s not the first to raise the idea of boycotting Florida’s citrus growers and sellers in the days since George Zimmerman was acquitted of the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin — but he is one of the highest-profile figures to do so.

Hundreds of protesters at Philadelphia’s Love Park called for the same action on Sunday, just hours after learning of the acquittal. – The Washington Times

Blacks benefit most from self-defense law in Florida

African Americans benefit from Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law at a rate far out of proportion to their presence in the state’s population, despite an assertion by Attorney General Eric Holder that repealing “Stand Your Ground” would help African Americans.

Black Floridians have made about a third of the state’s total “Stand Your Ground” claims in homicide cases, a rate nearly double the black percentage of Florida’s population. The majority of those claims have been successful, a success rate that exceeds that for Florida whites.

Nonetheless, prominent African Americans including Holder and “Ebony and Ivory” singer Stevie Wonder, who has vowed not to perform in the Sunshine State until the law is revoked, have made “Stand Your Ground” a central part of the Trayvon Martin controversy.

Holder, who was pressured by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other progressive groups to open a civil rights case against acquitted neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Martin, criticized Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law in a speech Tuesday before the NAACP.

The law was not invoked by Zimmerman’s defense team but was included in instructions to the jury.

“We must confront the underlying attitudes, the mistaken beliefs and the unfortunate stereotypes that serve too often as the basis for police action and private judgments. Separate and apart from the case that has drawn the nation’s attention, it’s time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhood,” Holder said to applause in his speech before the NAACP Tuesday.

“These laws try to fix something that was never broken. There has always been a legal defense for using deadly force if — and the ‘if’ is important — if no safe retreat is available. But we must examine laws that take this further by eliminating the common-sense and age-old requirement that people who feel threatened have a duty to retreat, outside their home, if they can do so safely. By allowing and perhaps encouraging violent situations to escalate in public, such laws undermine public safety,” Holder said.

“The list of resulting tragedies is long and, unfortunately, has victimized too many who are innocent. It is our collective obligation; we must stand OUR ground to ensure — (cheers, applause, music) — we must stand our ground to ensure that our laws reduce violence, and take a hard look at laws that contribute to more violence than they prevent,” Holder said.

But approximately one third of Florida “Stand Your Ground” claims in fatal cases have been made by black defendants, and they have used the defense successfully 55 percent of the time, at the same rate as the population at large and at a higher rate than white defendants, according to a Daily Caller analysis of a database maintained by the Tampa Bay Times. Additionally, the majority of victims in Florida “Stand Your Ground” cases have been white.

African Americans used “Stand Your Ground” defenses at nearly twice the rate of their presence in the Florida population, which was listed at 16.6 percent in 2012. – dailycaller.com

Florida jury finds George Zimmerman not guilty

A Florida jury on Saturday found George Zimmerman not guilty in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin, in a case that sparked a national debate on race and guns.

The panel of six women, which was sequestered, deliberated more than 16 hours over two days until nearly 10 p.m. on Saturday (0200 GMT Sunday).

Zimmerman appeared stoned-faced as the verdict was announced, but then showed a slight smile of relief. His parents embraced each other and his wife was tearful.

Zimmerman, 29, said Martin, 17, attacked him on the night of February 26, 2012, in the central Florida town of Sanford. Prosecutors contend the neighborhood watch coordinator in his gated community was a “wannabe cop” who tracked down the teenager and shot him without justification.

The jury could have convicted him of second-degree murder or manslaughter.

What happened in Sanford that February night may never have gone beyond the back pages of a local newspaper if police had immediately arrested Zimmerman.

But he walked free for more than six weeks after the shooting, because police believed his claim of self-defense, triggering protests and cries of injustice across America.

It also drew comment from President Barack Obama, forced the resignation of Sanford’s police chief, and brought U.S. Justice Department scrutiny to this town of 54,000 residents not far from Disney World in Orlando. – Reuters

Racist T-shirt mocks Trayvon Martin’s killer

Expanding the definition of “cracker,” a t-shirt featuring the photo of the man who shot Trayvon Martin is now available for purchase.

As seen at left, the shirt has a picture of George Zimmerman and the words “Pussy Ass Cracker.” Zimmerman, a 28-year-old Hispanic, killed Martin, 17, last month while acting as a neighborhood watch captain in Sanford, Florida.

The shirt’s “pussy ass cracker” line is apparently a reference to lyrics from the rapper Plies’s song “100 Years,” which bemoans stiff sentences handed out by racist judges.