Upstate New York man threatens to kill former President George W. Bush to get into 'relationship' with his daughter

An unhinged New York man threatened to kill former President George W. Bush so he could get into “a relationship” with his daughter Barbara Pierce Bush.


“Bush will get his,” Pittsford, New York, resident Benjamin Smith, 44, screamed after authorities tracked him to Lexington Ave. and E. 28th St. in Kips Bay — a short distance from the first twin’s Greenwich Village home -- at 6:15 a.m. Friday, officials said.

Investigators arrested Smith after a loaded Rossi .38-caliber rifle and a container of gasoline were found in his vehicle.

The Secret Service had been looking for Smith for more than 12 hours, after he left a note with his mother threatening to kill the 43rd President and disappeared with the rifle, authorities said.“I have to slay a dragon and then Barbara Bush will be mine,” he wrote, according to court documents. 

Via nydailynews.com

EXCLUSIVE: Meet New York City’s first professional cuddler

Ali C. runs a snuggle business out of her Manhattan apartment. Her business, Cuddle U NYC, is similar to other cuddle businesses that have popped up in Portland, Rochester and San Francisco. She charges $80 for an hour to lay in bed with her.

Her therapy sessions trade in the leather couch for a memory foam mattress.

Manhattan transplant Ali C. is billing herself as the city's first professional cuddler, holding emotionally-charged snuggle sessions out of her Financial District studio apartment.

"It's a very healing experience,” Ali, 47, who asked that her last name not be disclosed due to privacy concerns, told The Daily News. “People are very vulnerable during the process.”

The expert nuzzler launched her unorthodox venture, Cuddle U NYC, in November and has already had more than 30 clients — all men except for one female — come to her doorman building.

Ali’s cuddle business — she strictly prohibits any unwanted advances or sexual contact with a legal waiver — is modeled after similar services that have popped up in Portland, San Francisco and Rochester, N.Y.

It’s a peculiar phenomenon that is being replicated throughout the country — and uncharted waters for city regulators.

A city Law Department spokesman said the agency wasn’t aware of any statutes on the books that govern cuddling.

The state Office of the Professions, which governs therapy services such as acupuncture and massage in the city, has no regulations or licenses for “snuggling,” a spokesman for Gov. Cuomo said.

Ali’s rates are comparable to a massage parlor: $60 for 45 minutes of spooning, $80 for one hour. An overnight stay, which has yet to be requested, is $500.

She even offers a $200 movie and cuddle package, but is waiting for someone to take her up on the offer before buying a TV for her minimalistic apartment.

A tissue box sits on a metal chair next to her full-sized mattress at all times, she said.

“They're absolutely necessary," she said. “There's a lot of tears.”

Prospective nestlers must make social media profiles and related websites accessible, as well as provide a copy of their driver’s license. A pre-snuggle interview is also conducted.

“My vetting process is pretty stringent,” she said. “My creepy meter is pretty finely tuned.”

Ali first flirted with the idea of touch therapy at a nursing home as a teenager in Detroit. She’d place her hand on the arms of ill people and watch their mood change instantly. She said eventually like to expand her fledgling service to people with disorders such as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“I was a really shy kid, at home there wasn't a lot of affection,” she recalled. “I had nobody to cuddle me and hold me and tell me it's going to be alright."

Read more: nydailynews.com

Shocking video shows teacher stuck in the middle of a classroom fight with no one helping her

A shocking video shows a teacher helplessly stuck in the middle of a classroom fight - with no one coming to her aid.

The footage, recorded by a teenage boy in the class at Gibbs High School in St Petersburg, Florida, shows two young girls exchanging a war of words with their classmates egging them on.

The female teacher initially stands between the girls, trying to get them to calm down, but then the students start lashing out at each other - and she can do nothing but stand back and watch.

Other students clear tables to make way for the fight, while they encourage the girls to scrap.

The fighting students can be seen pulling each other's hair, slapping each other's faces and dragging each other across the floor in the four-minute footage.

The teacher can do nothing but abandon any effort to continue teaching the class.

At some point, she called for help, but it is not clear when, Pinellas County Schools spokeswoman Melanie Marquez Parra told the Tampa Bay Times.

A campus monitor, two administrators and another teacher responded to the fight, Parra said. On the video, a group can be seen pulling the two girls apart.

She would not reveal the grade or name of the teacher because it could identify the students.

St. Petersburg police spokesman Mike Puetz told the Times that officers were not called to the scene.

'The (school resource officer) wasn't aware of this until well after it was over,' he said. 'It is our understanding that the school is handling it internally.'

The video of the fight was posted on Facebook and later removed - but it continued to circulate.

The student who filmed the fight, as well as the two students involved, are now both facing punishment, which could be anywhere between suspension, school reassignment and expulsion.

Board members said that Gibbs High has struggled with a poor reputation due to the number of fights on campus, and said they feared that this incident would only worsen that belief.

'I am extremely hurt because we have really been making strides and Gibbs itself has been making strides,' board member Rene Flowers said. 'Now you have this situation that sets it back.'

She added that she was stunned to see the disrespect the students showed the teacher.

Lisa Wheeler-Brown, president of the Council of Neighborhood Associations, agreed.

'Number one, I don't see how this could go on in a classroom - the students could just blatantly disrespect the teacher and the other students who want to learn,' she told the Times.

'It's a sad reality that in too many of our classrooms, teachers spend just as much time trying to keep control as they do teaching.'

Last year, Gibbs High School issued 76 out-of-school suspensions for fighting, the most of any Pinellas high school. It also had the highest rate of suspensions, with 20.5 percent of students suspended for at least one day last year.

But Parra said the number of school arrests had dropped, from 23 this time last year to 13.


Via dailymail.co.uk

Pennsylvania teacher and mother of three accused of sexting and having sex with student

The relationship allegedly started when a teacher approached her student at the high school prom and asked if he'd like to work out at her gym.

For several months last summer, Erica Ann Ginnetti, 33, sent photos of herself in a thong and had sex with the boy in a parking lot, authorities said, according to several local reports.

She was arraigned Friday on 13 charges including sexual assault of a student, corruption of a minor and disseminating obscene material to a minor, reported WCAU-TV in Philadelphia.Prosecutors allege she sent explicit photos of herself undressing, as a well as videos in which she performed sex acts on herself, the station said. The school is located about 20 miles from downtown Philadelphia.

The Lower Moreland High School instructor and the student admitted their affair when questioned by police last week.

Officers were acting on a tip to the statewide ChildLine sexual abuse hotline. A caller said Ginnetti had sent inappropriate photos to the student, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The teacher, who has three children, was released Friday on $50,000 bail and outfitted with a GPS monitoring device, KYW-TV in Philadelphia reported.

Tycoon Ups Dowry For Lesbian Daughter

A Hong Kong property tycoon has doubled the dowry for any man who marries his lesbian daughter. The sum now stands at a cool $120 million.

Cecil Chao Sze-tsung told Malaysian newspaper Nanyang Siang Pau on Monday that he has not finished trying to arrange a straight match for openly gay Gigi Chao, 33. The last time he made the offer of a reward — then a mere $60 million — 20,000 suitors applied.

“I don’t want to interfere with my daughter’s private life,” said Cecil, not too convincingly. “I only hope for her to have a good marriage and children as well as inherit my business.”

News of the offer has left Sean Eav, Gigi Chao’s partner for nine years, “distraught,” reports the the South China Morning Post. Gigi Chao has spoken of the couple’s anguish at her father’s behavior and told the Post that she has repeatedly asked him to stop offering the bounty.

Gigi Chao is a highly respected LGBT activist in Hong Kong and a founding member of the local gay rights group Big Love Alliance.

Read more: Cecil Chao Ups Dowry For Lesbian Daughter | TIME.com http://newsfeed.time.com/2014/01/23/tycoon-upsets-gay-daughter-by-offering-120-million-dowry-to-any-man-who-marries-her/#ixzz2raGIovWi