A local waitress who fired her gun at three fleeing robbers is now out of a job.
Heather "Shorty" Burkinshaw-Stanley learned Friday by phone that she was terminated from her job at Waffle House a day after the restaurant was robbed.
Three men ate a meal and then, instead of paying, gave the cashier a note warning everyone in the building would be shot if money in the cash register wasn’t handed over to the trio.
After they departed on foot, Stanley retrieved a gun from her own car in the parking lot and fired over the heads of the robbers.
"I wasn’t sure if they were coming back or not," she said Friday afternoon following her dismissal. "I was in fear for my life, my co-workers’ lives, and I did what I thought was right."
Corporate spokesman Pat Warner declined to discuss specifics of a personnel matter but said local managers do the hiring and firing with consultation from the home office.
Like most businesses, the company has internal security measures but doesn’t ask workers to be heroes. Employees are trained on how to act in the case of a robbery. That training must go something like "cower in the corner in a puddle of your own urine".
"We want people to feel safe on both sides of the counter," he said. WTF is that supposed to mean? Does this include the employees somehow?
Stanley had worked at the Waffle House at 1363 S. Highway 29 for almost two years. A video about the incident can be accessed on times-herald.com. I imagine Heather could always come back as a customer. Wearing a large coat. In the summer. And stare at the manager.
Thursday’s incident comes in the wake of a surge in robberies at Newnan-area Waffle Houses. A restaurant on Highway 154 at Interstate 85 was robbed twice in one month this fall. Robbers be advised: Well, I know of one Newman, Georgia Waffle house that welcomes your business. Head on down there with your squirt guns 'cause the only one with any balls got fired.
#7
Props to Shorty for being spunky, but shots fired over their heads sounds more peevish than defensive. But we've all had days like that. Waffle House should give her job back if she promises not to fire unless she has a clean shot.
[YAHOO] A gunman stormed a house party and killed 11 people, including his former wife and 8-year-old son, before shooting himself in the head during a New Year's party in the southeastern Brazilian city of Campinas late on Saturday.
Police in the state of São Paulo said the shooter, identified as 46-year-old Sidnei Ramis de Araújo, is believed to have been angry over a split with his wife, Isamara Filier, 41, and their son João Victor.
Three other people remain hospitalized, police said, while four people survived the attack unharmed, including one party attendee who managed to flee to a bathroom and phone the police when the shooting began.
Survivors, according to a police front man, said that just before midnight, the shooter jumped over a fence surrounding the house, burst through a door and began firing even as he berated Filier for taking their son.
Araújo possibly sought to take advantage of the commotion of New Year's Eve to disguise the shooting, police said.
One neighbor told local television that he and his family heard shots, but had thought they might be fireworks until one of the maimed ran to their property, bleeding and pleading for help.
Despite high rates of crime and violence in Brazil, including significant problems with assaults against women, the attack alarmed Latin America's biggest country on a holiday associated with family gatherings.
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[New Orleans Advocate] "CNN Tonight" anchor Don Lemon was the most liquored name in news Saturday night.
Lemon, who co-hosted the network's New Year's Eve coverage from New Orleans, ended the night with a freshly pierced ear, a tequila hangover and the distinction of being the first TV personality of 2017 to have his microphone cut off during a live broadcast.
Lemon had just ordered up another in a night-long series of rounds -- pouring some, drinking many from behind the bar at the Spotted Cat Music Club on Frenchmen Street -- when the network apparently had heard enough.
"I need a little more. Pour me a little more. A little more. Perfect," Lemon was heard saying just after the clock struck midnight. "So, 2016 was awful."
Well, I wish I was in New Orleans, I can see it in my dreams,
Arm-in-arm down Burgundy, a bottle and my friends and me
Hoist up a few tall cool ones, play some pool and listen
To that tenor saxophone calling me home
And I can hear the band begin When the Saints Go Marching In,
And by the whiskers on my chin, New Orleans, I'll be there
I'll drink you under the table, be red-nosed, go for walks,
The old haunts what I wants is red beans and rice
And wear the dress I like so well, and meet me at the old saloon,
Make sure that there's a Dixie moon, New Orleans, I'll be there
And deal the cards roll the dice, if it ain't that old Chuck E. Weiss,
And Claiborne Avenue, me and you Sam Jones and all
And I wish I was in New Orleans, 'cause I can see it in my dreams,
Arm-in-arm down Burgundy, a bottle and my friends and me
New Orleans, I'll be there
[Independent] Following her untimely death, Star Wars fans across the world paid tribute to Carrie Fisher, the actor behind the iconic character, Princess Leia. In New Orleans, thousands took to the streets to honour Fisher, many dressed as the tough-talking princess.
Organised by the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus - who celebrate all things Star Wars - the parade saw members of the community join in merriment to celebrate Fisher’s life.
"This is a public demonstration of our love for Princess Leia," Brooke Ethridge - a member of the Leijorettes, a dancing group made up of fans who dress like Princess Leia - told the Associated Press.
"Our first instinct was to hit the streets and parade and celebrate Princess Leia and Carrie Fisher."
[WAPO] A hotel guest who had gone to the roof of the Dupont Circle Hotel to see the sights shortly after New Year’s was killed when he fell into a boiler shaft and tumbled 10 floors to the basement, according to the D.C. police and fire departments. 'Here, hold my beer.'
It took firefighters about an hour to retrieve the man’s body. It happened Sunday shortly before 2:30 a.m. at the nine-story hotel in the 1500 block of New Hampshire Avenue NW. The hotel is owned by the Doyle Collection group.
"It looks like a fall," said Rachel Schaerr, a spokeswoman for the D.C. police. "He went up to the roof to catch a really good view."
Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Jerry Knowles wants to put a stop to the sanctuary campus movement in his state as soon as he and his legislative colleagues get back to work in January.
He circulated a co-sponsorship memo in December in an effort to find like-minded lawmakers to help push a bill that would cut off state funding to any institution of higher education that sets itself up as a "sanctuary campus" to protect illegal immigrants.
Knowles' memo followed by only a few days the news that two Pennsylvania schools ‐ Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania ‐ had pledged to refuse to allow federal authorities on campus without a warrant. They directed their campus law enforcement not to communicate, coordinate or cooperate with federal authorities regarding undocumented individuals on campus and refuse to share information about undocumented students with federal agencies unless presented with some form of legal process.
In other words, Swarthmore and Penn administrators are setting their schools up as sanctuary campuses.
That is an attitude that Knowles finds abhorrent.
"By declaring themselves ‘Sanctuary Campuses,' these institutions of higher learning are blatantly disregarding federal law, thumbing their noses at the taxpayers of Pennsylvania," Knowles said. "Turning a blind eye to the issue of illegal immigrants on campuses for the sake of making some kind of political statement on this nation's immigration policy is unconscionable."
Thomas E. Spock, chairman of the Swarthmore Board of Managers, and Valerie Smith, president of Swarthmore, issued a statement in which they claimed the school had no choice but to go sanctuary, given President-elect Trump's anti-DACA attitude.
"Swarthmore College supports the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and urges its continuation in the next administration," Spock and Smith wrote. "Accordingly, we reaffirm our commitment to ensure that undocumented and DACA students continue to be admitted without regard to their financial status and continue to have full access to financial aid."
The three top administrators at the University of Pennsylvania threw down a similar gauntlet in late November.
"Let us be unequivocally clear: We are and remain resolute in our commitment to Penn's undocumented students, and will do all that we can to ensure their continued safety and success here at Penn," read a statement signed by Penn President Amy Gutmann, Provost Vincent Price and Executive VP Craig R. Carnaroli.
This is not just a Pennsylvania issue. The Associated Press reported the president of the Southern Illinois University system had promised to explore the idea of setting SIU up as a sanctuary campus.
The Texas Tribune reported students are circulating petitions at Texas State, the University of Texas at Austin and University of North Texas asking their administrators to "guarantee students privacy by refusing to release information regarding the immigration status of students, staff, and/or university community members."
This is all about DACA, the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and the fear the Trump administration is going to start rounding up students and shipping them back to wherever their parents came from.
WBUR reported Massachusetts universities have "quietly counseled" their DACA students who traveled overseas for the holidays to get back to the United States before Trump takes office.
"(Trump) is going to take away all the executive orders under President Obama, so it's very likely that the DACA students may be undocumented yet again," said associate professor Laila Hlass, the director of the Immigrants' Rights Clinic at Boston University Law School. "And now the immigration agency has all of their information, so they could easily be put onto a deportation list, and they could be prioritized, if that's what this administration wants to do."
More than 550 college and university presidents nationwide signed a statement calling on business, civic, religious and nonprofit organizations to support an effort to ensure DACA continues after President-elect Trump takes his right hand off the Bible and moves into the White House on Jan. 20.
"This is both a moral imperative and a national necessity. America needs talent – and these students, who have been raised and educated in the United States, are already part of our national community," read the statement. "They represent what is best about America, and as scholars and leaders they are essential to the future."
Rep. Knowles said Pennsylvania higher-education leaders who make the decision to go with a sanctuary campus to protect their DACA students had better be prepared to pay the consequences of essentially breaking federal law.
"The intent of this bill is very simple, it just requires universities or colleges in the state of Pennsylvania to comply with federal law," Knowles said. "If they choose to not comply, they will forfeit their state funding. Go by the rules or you don't get the money. We cannot begin to select which laws we want to obey, and which laws we want to ignore and break."
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) took a similar stand as soon as he heard that colleges and universities in his state might set up sanctuary campuses.
"Texas will not tolerate sanctuary campuses or cities," Abbot tweeted. "I will cut funding for any state campus if it establishes sanctuary status." Losing all federal even before state funding would put a financial spike through most school's heart. Hopefully everyone follows up on their statements.
#1
And they should make it so any school claiming to be sanctuary is denied all grants, scholarships, loans to any student going there. Any student with loans must begin immediate payments or go to jail. Then charge school administration members with RICO violations in conspiring to violate federal law. Make the petulant crybabies squeal.
What's your bet on when it goes down in flames, dear Reader? Based on nothing at all I'm putting down three weeks.
[AA.TR] Representatives of the government and opposition on Saturday reached a deal for peaceful political transition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... As part of the deal, President Joseph Kabila will step down after elections get held in 2017.
Talks between the government and opposition took place under the mediation of the National Episcopal Conference of Congo (CENCO).
Discussions that began on Dec. 9 finally came to fruition after several blockages. Participants finally agreed on several issues of divergence.
The political compromise signed in the presence of diplomats accredited in the DRC under the eye of the Catholic bishops notes: the retention of Joseph Kabila in power until the election and effective establishment of his successor; the primacy is granted to the Rally of the Opposition, which will appoint a Prime Minister; the setting up of a committee to monitor the agreement; the exclusion of any referendum; the organization of elections before the end of 2017; the end of prosecution of pro-democracy movements and opponents.
In his speech to the nation, a few hours before the signing of the agreement, Congolese president Joseph Kabila welcomed the agreement that will emerge from these direct talks and called on all the institutions of the Republic to get involved in its implementation.
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[YAHOO] Guatemalan authorities have seized more than 1,500 pounds (680 kilograms) of cocaine from a boat off the coast of the Central American nation.
Police front man Jorge Aguilar said Sunday that the Guatemalan navy's Pacific forces intercepted the vessel carrying 35 packages of the drug on New Year's Eve.
Two Ecuadorean men and a Colombian were detained. The cocaine is believed to have originated in Ecuador.
Police say a total of 28,258 pounds (12,818 kilograms) of cocaine was seized during 2016.
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[YAHOO] At least five people were killed over the New Year's weekend in the resort city of Acapulco, including three men found decapitated in a central neighborhood, officials said Sunday.
The three severed heads were found Saturday on a residential street on the roof of a car, with the bodies inside. The killings were confirmed by a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Later the same day, unknown gunniesshot up police who were assisting at the scene of a traffic accident in a tourist quarter near the beach, killing one officer. City government front man Jose Luis Mendez said it was not clear why the officers were attacked.
Early Sunday, a taxi driver was bumped off in his cab on a road that leads out of the city.
At least 35 people have been killed along Acapulco's touristy beach areas this year, something that rarely happened in the past, as narco gang violence plagues the city and the surrounding state of Guerrero.
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[Daily Caller] Food stamp enrollment dropped by 25,000 people in Arkansas in 2016, after the state reinstated work requirements limited individuals to three months of benefits unless they found or trained for a job, Arkansas Online reports.
Arkansas stopped granting waivers to work requirements January 1, 2016, and by April, 9,000 people were off of food stamps, also called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Another 15,000 more lost their benefits between April and November, a spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Human Services told Arkansas Online.
Nationwide enrollment in the food stamps peaked at 47 million people in 2013, after President Barack Obama allowed states to waive work requirements for the program in qualified counties while the economy recovered.
More than 44 million people are still on food stamps according to Department of Agriculture data, but that number is dropping as states reinstate the work requirements even before required to do so by federal law.
[GP] After eight dark years of turbulent relations with anti-Israeli American President Barack Obama a new era is on the horizon.
President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team, led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, has been pushing for Netanyahu to attend the January 20th festivities.
US President-elect Donald Trump’s team has "aggressively courted" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend the incoming president’s January 20 inauguration, according to a report on Saturday by the New York Post.
President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team, led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, has been pushing for Netanyahu to attend the January 20th festivities and for the two world leaders to meet before then, a source told the Post.
"There’s a plan for Trump to meet with Netanyahu," said the source. "They’re talking all the time. And Netanyahu is talking about possibly going to the inauguration."
#3
Maybe Bibi can sit on the dais right next to the Churchill bust that will be returning to the West Wing. Bringing Israel back to the place a trusted ally deserves is great symbolism and heartening on so many levels.
Two men shot to death Sunday morning in the North Side Uptown neighborhood are the first two reported homicides of 2017 in Chicago, after a bloody 2016 saw 780 homicides in the city.
The two men were shooting at each other inside of a business in the 4600 block of North Broadway at 4:25 a.m., according to Chicago Police. A 38-year-old man was shot in the chest and right leg and a second man, between the ages of 35 and 40, was shot multiple times in the right side, police said.
They were both taken to Illinois Masonic Hospital, where they were pronounced dead, police said. "They're dead, Jim"
The Cook County medical examiner's office did not immediately provide information on the fatalities, which are believed to be the first homicides of 2017. They should be proud
Last year ended with 780 homicides in the city, according to Sun-Times records. Heyjackass sez 790
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A local waitress who fired her gun at three fleeing robbers is now out of a job.
[New Orleans Advocate] "CNN Tonight" anchor Don Lemon was the most liquored name in news Saturday night.
[Independent] Following her untimely death, Star Wars fans across the world paid tribute to Carrie Fisher, the actor behind the iconic character, Princess Leia. In New Orleans, thousands took to the streets to honour Fisher, many dressed as the tough-talking princess. 
[Daily Caller] Food stamp enrollment dropped by 25,000 people in Arkansas in 2016, after the state reinstated work requirements limited individuals to three months of benefits unless they found or trained for a job, Arkansas Online reports.
Two men shot to death Sunday morning in the North Side Uptown neighborhood are the first two reported homicides of 2017 in Chicago, after a bloody 2016 saw 780 homicides in the city.
