Miami-Dade camping law may clash with Supreme Court ruling

When Miami-Dade commissioners voted unanimously this month to ban overnight camping at “county facility property,” they opened the doors to debate about how police should apply the measure to homeless people.

The action was a clear shot at the Occupy Wall Streeters who flooded public spaces, including outside County Hall, in the summer of 2011.

In addition to making it illegal to camp on county property, the measure toughens permitting rules for public gatherings and permissible “free speech’’ zones. It also gives police the authority to arrest violators, including the homeless.

But a 25-year-old court ruling could present a conflict, some legal observers say. A 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Pottinger vs. The City of Miami case found that Michael Pottinger and about 6,000 other homeless people in Miami could not be harassed or punished for occupying public property because doing so would violate their fundamental right to travel, and to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.

The new ordinance specifically provides that if police direct a homeless person occupying a county facility to leave, the officer first must look for sleeping space for the homeless person at a county shelter. If there is none, or if the person refuses the option, he or she can be arrested for trespassing if they remain or return to the space.

An ACLU lawyer said the measure could again open the door for police to harass and arrest homeless people.

“We’re prepared to litigate should there be issues in the future,” said attorney Dan Palugyai, who sits on the board of the Greater Miami Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. “Our past experience tells us it’s likely, even probable.”

During the commission meeting, County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said the homeless — at least in Miami — were protected from arrest by the Pottinger case.

The new law defines impermissible camping as the “setting up of tents, shacks, or shelters for sleeping activities or making preparations to sleep [including the laying down of bedding for the purposes of sleeping], from the hours of sunset to sunrise.”

Miami First Amendment lawyer Tom Julin said he’s troubled by that wording.

“They’re not allowing the general public to do the same type things that they, or organizations they approve of, do in a park,” he said, referring to the ING Miami Marathon and some concerts at Bayfront Park, both of which allow people to spend the night, even if there is no formal permission granted.

Commissioner Lynda Bell, who sponsored the ordinance, said it was “not meant to harm anyone.’’ After some homeless advocates expressed concern, the language was added directing police to first find shelter for homeless people and to arrest only as a last resort.

“We obviously think it’s legally sufficient,’’ said Assistant County Attorney Danny Frastai.

Still not entirely clear: How the new law would apply to county parks like Matheson Hammock Park or Haulover Beach Park. At the final meeting before the full board of Miami-Dade County Commissioners when the ordinance was adopted, it was amended from not allowing camping on “county property,” to not allowing it on “county facility property.”

“We interpret facility to mean some type of structure, like a building,” said Frastai. “If it’s a park that has a structure, we’d have to look at it.”

That’s just sloppy language, noted Palugyai, the homeless advocate. “Hopefully, there will be opportunities to clean it up.” The Occupy Wall Street crowd gathered on the west lawn at County Hall in Miami from the summer of 2011 until February, when they were finally evicted. The county says it spent $17,000 cleaning up the mess left behind.

Though the group obtained a permit to camp out there, Miami-Dade Internal Services Director Lester Sola said they should have been directed to a different spot. He blamed the confusion on vague wording in the old code, which was what led to the revision. During the discussion, Commissioner Jean Monestime wanted to know why the county needed to legislate a camping ban.

“My apprehension here is we may be opening a can of worms here.”

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Police offer ‘virtual ridealongs’ via Twitter

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Riding side by side as a police officer answers a call for help or investigates a brutal crime during a ridealong gives citizens an up close look at the gritty and sometimes dangerous situations officers can experience on the job.

But a new social media approach to informing the public about what officers do is taking hold at police departments across the United States and Canada — one that is far less dangerous for citizens but, police say, just as informative.

With virtual ridealongs on Twitter, or tweetalongs, curious citizens just need a computer or smartphone for a glimpse into law enforcement officers‘ daily routines.

Tweetalongs typically are scheduled for a set number of hours, with an officer — or a designated tweeter like the department’s public information officer — posting regular updates to Twitter about what they see and do while on duty. The tweets, which also include photos and links to videos of the officers, can encompass an array of activities — everything from an officer responding to a homicide to a noise complaint.

Police departments say virtual ridealongs reach more people at once and add transparency to the job.

“People spend hard-earned money on taxes to allow the government to provide services. That’s police, fire, water, streets, the whole works, and there should be a way for those government agencies to let the public know what they’re getting for their money,” said Chief Steve Allender of the Rapid City Police Department in South Dakota, which started offering tweetalongs several months ago — https://twitter.com/rcpdtweetalong — after watching departments in Seattle, Kansas City, Mo., and Las Vegas do so.

On the day before Thanksgiving, Tarah Heupel, the Rapid City Police Department’s public information officer, rode alongside Street Crimes Officer Ron Terviel. Heupel posted regular updates every few minutes about what Terviel was doing, including the officer citing a woman for public intoxication, responding to a call of three teenagers attempting to steal cough syrup and body spray from a store and locating a man who ran from the scene of an accident. Photos were included in some of the tweets.

Michael Taddesse, a 34-year-old university career specialist in Arlington, Texas, has done several ridealongs with police and regularly follows multiple departments that conduct tweetalongs.

“I think the only way to effectively combat crime is to have a community that is engaged and understands what’s going on,” he said.

Ridealongs where “you’re out in the elements” are very different than sitting behind a computer during a tweetalong and the level of danger is “dramatically decreased,” he said. But in both instances, the passenger gains new information about the call, what laws may or may not have been broken and what transpires, he added.

For police departments, tweetalongs are just one more way to connect directly with a community through social media.

More than 92 percent of police departments use social media, according to a survey of 600 agencies in 48 states conducted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s Center for Social Media. And Nancy Kolb, senior program manager for IACP, called tweetalongs a “growing trend” among departments of all sizes.

There is no set protocol and departments are free to conduct the tweetalong how they see fit, she said.

In Ontario, Canada, the Niagara Regional Police Service conducted their first virtual ridealong in August over a busy eight-hour Friday night shift. The police department’s followers were able to see a tweet whenever the police unit was dispatched to one of the more than 140,000 calls received that night.

Richard Gadreau, the social media officer for the police department, said officers routinely take people out on real ridealongs, but there is a waiting list and preference is given to people interested in becoming an officer.

With tweetalongs, many calls also mean many tweets. Kolb said departments are cognizant of cluttering peoples’ Twitter feeds.

That’s why the Rapid City Police Department decided to create a separate account for the tweetalong, Allender said.

Kolb also said officers are careful not to tweet personal or sensitive information. Officers typically do not tweet child abuse or domestic abuse cases, and they usually only tweet about a call after they leave the scene to protect officers and callers.

But Allender, the chief of police in Rapid City, said tweetalongs also show some of the more outrageous calls police deal with on a regular basis — like the kid who breaks out the window of a police car while the officer is standing on the sidewalk.

“Real life is funnier than any comedy show out there and not to make fun of people, embarrass them or humiliate them, but people do funny things,” Allender said. “… I mean, that guy deserves a little bit of ridicule, and everyone who would be watching would agree. That’s just good clean fun to me.”

___

Rapid City Police Department’s “Tweetalong” account: https://twitter.com/rcpdtweetalong

___

Follow Kristi Eaton on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kristieaton

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Wall Street cliff-hanger as markets gyrate

Wall Street rode a wild roller-coaster yesterday as it clung to hope that Washington’s fumbling team might get back into formation and punt their way out of the fiscal cliff crisis.

Stocks nose-dived during the day over fears a budget deal was all but dead in the House, wiping nearly 150 points from the Dow Jones industrial average, and also dragging down the Nasdaq and Standard & Poor’s 500 index for double-digit setbacks.

But in the final minutes of trading — after stubborn House rebels abruptly reversed course and vowed to reconvene at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday for another try at a compromise — stocks swiftly recovered almost all their session losses.

Despite the market’s response, a deal remains far from certain, according to Cameron Hinds of Wells Fargo Private Bank.

“We would still say it’s a long shot that they would be able get something done by Monday,” Hinds said.

Optimistic market-watchers hoped the 6:30 p.m. sit-down — coming just two hours before the kickoff of the Washington Redskins game against the Dallas Cowboys — might also hasten an emergency remedy.

The Redskins were expected to draw most of the town’s political figures back to the nation’s capital for the win-and-in playoffs game.

Sunday also provides some lawmakers a face-saving chance to score public points and raise their low approval ratings with their pre-game session.

Despite trading upheavals, shares held onto their impressive gains for the year, with the Dow ahead 7.19 percent, the S&P up 12.76 percent and the Nasdaq gaining 14.62 percent.

The session closed with the Dow off 0.14 percent, or 18.28, for the day to 13,096.31, and the S&P down 0.12 percent, or 1.74, at 1,418.09.

The Nasdaq slipped 0.14 percent, or 4.25, to 2,985.91.

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Drug overuse in cattle imperils human health

KANSAS CITY, Mo. --
Two children seriously injured in the Joplin, Mo., tornado in May 2011 showed up at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City suffering from antibiotic-resistant infections from dirt and debris in their wounds.

Physicians tried different drugs, but at first nothing seemed to work.

Blame the overuse of antibiotics in livestock, according to the doctors familiar with their cases.

“These kids had some really highly resistant bacteria that they clearly had not picked up in a hospital,” said Jason Newland, director of the Children Mercy’s antibiotic stewardship program.

Newland and other doctors believe those infections are part of the price we are paying for a half-century of overusing antibiotics in cattle and other meat animals in the United States.

“If you look at tonnage, 80 percent of the total of all the antibiotics we use in the States is used in meat animals,” Newland said.

As in humans, bacteria growing inside animals that are given antibiotics can develop a resistance to the medicines, Newland explained. That resistant bacteria can then be transferred to the soil through animal waste.

During severe storms, such as the EF5 tornado which killed 161 people in Joplin, that contaminated soil can end up in open wounds, and even modern medicine is challenged in combating the serious infections that can occur.

“We are increasingly treating kids with antibiotic-resistant infections who were at the last antibiotic we could possibly use on them,” Newland said. “In the next 20 years, will we see antibiotics resistant to everything?”

A yearlong investigation by The Kansas City Star found a multimillion-dollar-a-year pharmaceutical arms race in the beef industry is not just about curing sick cows.

It’s also about fattening cattle cheaply and quickly, driven in part by efforts to maximize profits, according to food safety advocates. In fact, the same number of cattle today are producing twice as much meat as they did in the 1950s because of genetics, drugs and more efficient processing.

Despite decades of warnings, the federal government has failed to pass meaningful regulation of animal drug use, failed to adequately monitor the harmful residues they leave behind, and failed to stop the consumption of meat contaminated with such substances.

Consider:

•  Last year, an Arizona lab discovered a strain of antibiotic resistant MRSA in meat that can infect humans. MRSA is the potentially fatal staph infection that sometimes races through hospitals.

•  Mexico rejected contaminated meat that U.S. rules allow Americans to eat. A shipment of U.S. beef in 2008 contained high levels of copper, a byproduct of industry and antibiotics, which can damage kidneys. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which hasn’t set allowable amounts of copper in meat, couldn’t stop it from distribution in the United States.

•  Until it tightened monitoring this year, the government couldn’t even stop the sale of meat containing arsenic, one of the residues found in cattle treated with antibiotics. High levels of the poison can cause vascular disease and hypertension in humans. Many U.S. veterinarians who specialize in treating cattle said in a recent survey that they were concerned about the overuse and improper use of antibiotics and other drugs. Some blamed salesmen intent on making more money. Based on sales data alone, the amount of drugs used in livestock is increasing, and beef samples are showing greater numbers of antibiotic-resistant pathogens.

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Man set on fire Christmas night, Miami-Dade police are investigating

A 44-year-old man was set on fire Christmas night at a gas station in central Miami-Dade County. He was burned over 75 percent of his body but remained alive Wednesday as his family pleaded for help in finding his attackers.

It was a mystery why Darrell Brackett was set ablaze at the U-Gas station at 4700 NW 27th Ave. Miami-Dade police said they were treating the investigation as possible attempted murder.

“This is a human being,” his mother, Bridgett Brackett, told reporters as she stood outside Jackson Memorial Hospital, where her son was being treated. “This is not an animal.”

Was it a random attack? A robbery gone wrong? Police said only that they were still investigating.

It happened Tuesday night, about a half hour before midnight, police said. Earlier in the evening, Darrell Brackett and his girlfriend had a cookout at their home, his mother said.

Afterward, they took their guests home. After dropping them off, Brackett and his girlfriend were heading home when their van ran out of gas near Northwest 49th Street and 23rd Avenue.

Stay in the van, Brackett told his girlfriend, according to his mother. He would walk to a gas station.

He made to the U-Gas, police said, where he paid for some gas and walked over to a pump. What happened next remained unclear to authorities Wednesday.

What police do know is that they got calls saying a man on fire was running in the middle of the street.

Bridgett Brackett said a woman who saw her son in flames rushed over to help him. She got him to the ground and rolled him in the dirt of the median, which put out the flames.

Brackett’s mother said he told her that he had only asked some men at the gas station a question, and that he told the woman who rescued him, over and over, “They didn’t have to do this to me.”

The woman kept talking to him, trying to keep to him alert, asking him questions until help arrived and got him to Jackson, his mother said

Back at the van, Brackett’s girlfriend became worried when he didn’t return. At first, she figured he got caught up talking to some people, Brackett’s mother said. After awhile, she left the van and walked to a corner store to borrow a phone so she could call Brackett’s cellphone.

It went to voicemail.

She was leaving when the store clerk told her to come back. It was the police, calling back after the number appeared on Brackett’s phone.

They told her what happened.

Wednesday night, Bridgett Brackett said doctors told her they had placed her son in a medically induced coma to help him recover. He was burned over about 75 percent of his body, she said, including his waist, parts of his legs and his head.

The only parts that weren’t burned were his thighs, his mother said, because his thick jeans protected them.

Bridgett Brackett spent Wednesday at the hospital, constantly answering her cellphone. It seemed to ring every five minutes with another person who had heard the news and couldn’t believe what had happened to Darrell, a man who worked at a landscaping company and enjoyed coming home and hanging out with his girlfriend.

She said she knew her son wasn’t perfect, and that he had his ups and downs.

Records show Brackett had been arrested several times, mostly for drug possession and petty crimes, but he never spent time in prison.

He wasn’t one to argue, his mother said. “He would avoid trouble by walking away.”

The Brackett family also hopes to find the woman who helped put out the flames. They want to thank her.

“We’re just praying,” Bridgett Brackett said, “and taking it day by day.”

Detectives asked anyone with information to call Miami-Dade County Crime Stoppers, anonymously, at 305-471-8477.

Information from Miami Herald news partner WFOR-CBS 4 is included to this report.

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George H.W. Bush in intensive care

HOUSTON — Former President George H.W. Bush has been admitted to the intensive care unit at a Houston hospital "following a series of setbacks including a persistent fever," but he is alert and talking to medical staff, his spokesman said Wednesday.

Jim McGrath, Bush's spokesman in Houston, said in a brief email that Bush was admitted to the ICU at Methodist Hospital on Sunday. He said doctors are cautiously optimistic about his treatment and that the former president "remains in guarded condition."

No other details were released about his medical condition, but McGrath said Bush is surrounded by family. Bush has been hospitalized since Nov. 23.

Earlier Wednesday, McGrath said a fever that kept Bush in the hospital over Christmas had gotten worse and that doctors had put him on a liquids-only diet.

"It's an elevated fever, so it's actually gone up in the last day or two," McGrath told The Associated Press earlier in the day. "It's a stubborn fever that won't go away."

But he said the bronchitis-like cough that initially brought the 88-year-old to the hospital has improved.

Bush was visited on Christmas by his wife, Barbara, his son, Neil, and Neil's wife, Maria, and a grandson, McGrath said. Bush's daughter, Dorothy, was expected to arrive Wednesday in Houston from Bethesda, Md. The 41st president has also been visited twice by his sons, George W. Bush, the 43rd president, and Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida.

Bush and his wife live in Houston during the winter and spend their summers at a home in Kennebunkport, Maine.

The former president was a naval aviator in World War II — at one point the youngest in the Navy — and was shot down over the Pacific. He achieved notoriety in retirement for skydiving on at least three of his birthdays since leaving the White House in 1992.

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Deadline to apply for free foreclosure case reviews is Monday

Florida residents who believe they suffered from shoddy foreclosure practices have through Monday to apply for a free case review that could net them up to $125,000 if wrongdoing is found.

The program, which is overseen by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, began in November 2011 with an estimated 4 million eligibility letters mailed nationwide.

As of late September, just 3.8 percent of Floridians who were sent letters about their eligibility for the review have applied.

Cases are eligible for review if the foreclosure was on a primary residence in some stage of foreclosure during 2009 and 2010. The foreclosure had to have been handled by one of 24 banks or mortgage servicers named in consent orders crafted in response to findings of foreclosure deficiencies. The affected servicers can be found at independentforeclosurereview.com.

Problems contacting borrowers who may have been evicted from foreclosed homes, as well as borrower fatigue in applying for aid programs probably contributed to the limited response, some foreclosure defense attorneys said.

“A lot of these homeowners have been promised a lot of things in the past that were never fulfilled,” said attorney Ron Kaniuk, of Sachs Sax Caplan in Boca Raton. “It’s the law of diminishing returns. Once you are disappointed a few times, you stop filling stuff out.”

The Independent Foreclosure Review is separate from the $25 billion attorneys general settlement reached in February.

Nationwide, the return rate of borrowers responding to eligibility letters was about 5.3 percent through Sept. 27. Since then, an additional 121,677 borrowers have applied nationwide, said Bryan Hubbard, a spokesman for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The original deadline to apply for the review was April 30. It was pushed back to July 31 and then Dec. 31.

Reviewers are looking for several problems including failure to put a homeowner on a permanent loan modification after he or she successfully completed a trial period, foreclosing on a borrower while he or she was current on payments under a loan modification, and not providing a borrower with proper notification during a foreclosure.

Remediation to borrowers can include credit fixes, reimbursement of improperly charged fees, and lump-sum payments of between $500 and $125,000.

For more information about the Independent Foreclosure Review, call 1-888-952-9105.

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Outdoorsy fun for the New Year’s holiday

So, as Miss Ella once sang, What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?

Many of you, of course, will ring in 2013 with champagne and dancing at one of the clubs in Miami Beach or downtown Miami — and many of these same people will wake up with a hangover Tuesday only to wonder why they spent $2,000 to be in the same space as R&B/hip-hop act Drake and a DJ at the Fontainebleau or depressed that they spent $1,500 for a VIP table at the Catalina’s Studio 54 party to hear ’70s disco when they could have played Donna, Gloria and the Village People at any old time on iTunes for a few houseguests.

Clubbing not your thing? Good thing you live in South Florida, where going outside generally makes sense at this time of year. Here are some suggestions for activities, with an accent on the great outdoors and even a little fitness thrown in for good measure.

King Mango Strut

The annual spoof of the Orange Bowl Parade — or whatever some politician wants to call it now, as in ‘La Gran Naranja’ — has been “putting the ‘nut’ back in ‘Coconut Grove’ since 1981,” its ads tout. This time around, being an election year should provide plenty of fodder, and not just the silliness going on in West Kendall and Brickell, where some people are still waiting to cast a vote in the presidential race. (Obama won, go home.) The snarky parade pokes good-natured fun at the people and things behind the events that made the news snap during the year. This year’s grand marshal will be Clint Eastwood’s chair, fresh from the Republican National Convention.

This year’s parade takes place at 2 p.m. Sunday in downtown Coconut Grove on the corner of Commodore Plaza and Main Highway. The wacky participants turn left onto Main Highway and then left onto Grand Avenue at CocoWalk. Get comfy along the street and prepare to giggle. Call the Mango Hotline at 305-582-0955 for information.

The ball drop

You can go traditional and watch the ball drop in downtown Miami at the Bayfront Park Amphitheater New Year’s shindig. The free event features music and the midnight countdown for the dropping of the Big Orange, followed by fireworks. Be there at 301 N. Biscayne Blvd. Call 305-358-7550.

Just want the fireworks part? Miami Beach’s New Year’s Eve Party offers a free fireworks celebration at midnight on the beach near Ocean Drive and Eighth Street, if you can tear yourself away from Carl Cox at Mansion and Calvin Harris at Liv. Call 305-673-7400.

Bike It

Shark Valley, on the Tamiami Trail about 35 miles into the Everglades, is a real South Florida experience. Cycle amid gators — and we’re not talking the University of Florida variety. Alligators, wading birds and turtles frolic freely in the greenery along the 15-mile round-trip bike path. A multilevel observation at the midpoint offers a nice break spot for a boxed lunch or photo ops. There are no shortcuts, but you can opt for a tram tour. Call 305-221-8776.

Other leisurely bike rides around town include the shaded 13 or so miles of the Old Cutler Trail in South Miami, and you can pop over to Pinecrest Gardens for the Sunday Green Market, one of South Florida’s best farmers markets. North Dade residents aren’t too far from the restored Hollywood Beach Broadwalk for some nice ocean views while cycling or strolling.

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Jessica Simpson’s Christmas tweet seems to confirm pregnancy rumor

(Reuters) – U.S. actress, singer and fashion designer Jessica Simpson sent a Christmas Twitter message that apparently confirms media rumors that she is pregnant – showing a photo of her daughter Maxwell with the words “Big Sis” spelled out in sand.

The picture’s caption reads “Merry Christmas from my family to yours.”

Simpson had her first child, Maxwell Drew Johnson, in May. She has since become a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers.

A representative for Simpson was not immediately available for comment.

Simpson rose to fame as a teen pop star and became a household name after starring in a TV reality show with her then-husband Nick Lachey, a member of the boy band 98 Degrees. The pair divorced after three years of marriage.

She went on to star in the 2005 film version of “The Dukes of Hazzard” and re-invented herself as a country singer in 2008. She currently designs apparel, accessories and other fashion products and is a mentor on the TV contest “Fashion Star.”

Simpson’s fiancé, Eric Johnson, is a former U.S. professional football player whose career spanned seven seasons for both the San Francisco 49ers and New Orleans Saints. (Reporting By Mary Wisniewski and Paul Simao)

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Lady Gaga Documentary Announced

The nearly 33 million Little Monsters who follow Lady Gaga on Twitter got a massive Christmas present this morning as the singer revealed she'll soon be coming to a theater near you!

VIDEO - Lady Gaga Hosts Fame Picnic in Paris

"Merry Christmas little monsters," Gaga wrote. "Terry Richardson is making a #LadyGagaMOVIE documenting my life, the creation of ARTPOP + you!"

"Thank you for being so patient waiting for my new album ARTPOP I hope this gets u excited for things to come. I love you with all my heart!" Gaga announced her fourth album on August 6, 2012 and featured several of the songs in contention for inclusion on her recent Born This Wall Ball. Although no release date is yet known, it's rumored to be due out in Spring 2013.

VIDEO - The Secret Lady Gaga Never Told Beyonce

Gaga has previously collaborated with Richardson on countless magazine covers and 2011's Lady Gaga x Terry Richardson photobook.

Lady Gaga won't be the only major musician to be featured in a documentary next year. It was revealed on November 26 that HBO would be airing a Beyonce documentary on February 16, 2013.

VIDEO - Get A Sneak Peek at Beyonce's Documentary

The film promises extensive first-person footage -- some of it shot by Beyonce on her laptop -- in which she reflects on the realities of being a celebrity, the refuge she finds onstage and the joys of becoming a mother after giving birth to her daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, in January 2012. Watch a sneak peek below.

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