Threats

SAN DIEGO - A veteran teacher at a Catholic school has lost her job because school officials are worried her ex-husband, now serving a jail sentence for domestic abuse and stalking, will pose a danger to students and teachers when he is released. When Martin Charlesworth, 41, showed up at Holy Trinity School in El Cajon in January, school officials put the school on lockdown and called police. By coming to the school, he was in violation of a restraining order, court records indicate.

SAN DIEGO - A veteran teacher at a Catholic school has lost her job because school officials are worried her ex-husband, now serving a jail sentence for domestic abuse and stalking, will pose a danger to students and teachers when he is released. When Martin Charlesworth, 41, showed up at Holy Trinity School in El Cajon in January, school officials put the school on lockdown and called police. By coming to the school, he was in violation of a restraining order, court records indicate.

Car dealers have found a new way to profit from people with money trouble: leasing them hand-me-down vehicles. The deals are pitched to customers as the cheapest way to drive a used car off the lot, with the added benefit of an easy escape for those who can't keep up with the payments. Few customers are told about the advantages on the other side of the trade. Leases can allow dealerships to sidestep interest rate caps, and there are fewer financial disclosures rules than with a conventional car loan.

Under pressure from lawmakers and flight attendants, the Transportation Security Administration said it would indefinitely prohibit passengers from carrying small pocket knives on planes - a ban that began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The decision is a dramatic reversal for TSA chief John Pistole. Two months ago he decided to lift the ban, saying the move would enable airport security officers to focus on bigger threats, such as explosives. Just days before the TSA planned to lift the ban April 25, Pistole said he was temporarily putting off the policy change to consider the comments and concerns of a security panel made up of pilots, flight attendants and other airline workers.

Threatening graffiti found in three men's restrooms led Oakland University to cancel campus classes, sports and cultural activities for two days. The school in Rochester sent out a security alert Saturday after finding one threatening message, and officials said they found similar messages in men's restrooms in two other buildings. The school didn't reveal contents of the threats.

A 15-year-old boy Friday admitted that he posted criminal threats on the website Wikipedia last month that targeted fellow students at Glen A. Wilson High School, officials said. The teen admitted to six counts of making criminal threats, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. A seventh charge was dismissed, Robison said. The teenager was charged in connection with the posting of two threatening messages on the Wikipedia entry for Wilson High on April 16 and 17. In the messages, he threatened to shoot six students and "a good majority" of the school badminton team.

The 1st Amendment doesn't protect hostile Internet banter among teenagers if the messages can be taken as genuine threats of harm, a California appeals court has ruled in a case that more clearly defines when free expression crosses a line into cyber-bullying. The 2-1 ruling by the 2nd District Court of Appeal will allow a lawsuit to go forward that was brought by the father of a 15-year-old student at the elite Harvard-Westlake School in Studio City. The father's lawsuit accuses six of his son's classmates and their parents of hate crimes, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress caused by their posting of death threats and anti-gay diatribes against the boy on his website.

In a town where beer is champagne and bratwurst is caviar, the plump, German luncheon link has become embroiled in a bizarre racial dispute that is sizzling hotter this summer than a backyard barbecue. The City Council Friday voted to censure Michael McGee, a flamboyant black alderman who has previously threatened urban guerrilla violence against whites, for his part in a product tampering scare last weekend.

After three years of analysis, a team of federal scientists has come up with a list of the greatest threats to the survival of reef-building corals. And it has ranked the proximate threats, weighing into decades of scientific debate over the biggest culprit that's devastating coral reefs around the world. The ranking comes with a proviso, one that raises a topic that most coral reef biologists avoid out of fear of a backlash. “The ultimate factor for each of these proximate threats, excepting natural physical damage and changes in isolation, is growth in human population and consumption of natural resources,” reads the intro to the chart above.

Kaufman County, Texas, still doesn't have justice for its two slain prosecutors. But it has a new district attorney and yet another man charged with making threats against public officials. "There is danger," Erleigh Norville Wiley, a Kaufman County judge appointed by Gov. Rick Perry to become the county's top prosecutor, told reporters Thursday afternoon. "But, I mean, we're all in danger in Kaufman County until we've figured out who's done these horrible things to Mike and Cynthia and Mark.” Investigators were still following leads in the recent slayings of Dist.

WATSONVILLE, Calif. - She introduced herself as Sarani Hernandez and said in Spanish that she needed help. She took a seat in the lobby of the police station. Officer Elizabeth Sousa was asked to talk to her. It was a quiet morning a few days after Thanksgiving. She listened as the woman began telling the story of an abduction. Her two boys were being held in Juarez, Mexico, she said; they were U.S. citizens. Hernandez opened her cellphone to a picture of Edwin and Angel, sent as evidence they were still alive.

Most utility players are versatile defenders who can play two, three and sometimes four infield positions, spot up in the outfield and give you a decent at-bat. They're not strapping middle-of-the-order sluggers who hit 30 to 35 homers a year. In Mark Trumbo, who has started 26 games at first base, 12 at designated hitter, 11 in right field and seven in left field this season, the Angels have a 6-foot-4, 235-pounder who is breaking the utility mold. "I don't know in history of many cleanup hitters who play first base, left field, right field and DH," third base coach Dino Ebel said.

BEIJING -- North Korea's latest missile launch comes after months of fiery rhetoric directed against South Korea, Japan and the United States, including threats of an imminent nuclear war. The provocations eased with the conclusion of annual joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States at the end of April, although fresh naval drills this month prompted renewed warnings from the North. The three missiles fired off North Korea's east coast Saturday were short-range surface-to-ship or surface-to-surface missiles, rather than the new medium-range Musudan missile that analysts feared could threaten U.S. troops in Okinawa or Guam, according to an initial assessment by the South Korean Defense Ministry.

At least a dozen schools were put on lockdown, streets were sealed off and a wave of law enforcement swept across eastern Los Angeles and Santa Monica early Thursday after an anonymous caller threatened to "shoot up" a campus. A 19-year-old Santa Monica College student was arrested 90 minutes later on campus when he surrendered to school psychological services after police identified him as the person who had called 911, saying he had a gun and was going to attack a school and shoot himself on campus.

Anonymous calls and threats made to schools in the Los Angeles area disrupted classes and created confusion Thursday morning as police descend on campuses placed on lockdown. Several law enforcement agencies -- the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the California Highway Patrol and Los Angeles, Monterey Park and Santa Monica police -- tried to sort out the threats and determine their legitwhether they are legitimate. There are variations to the threats. In Monterey Park, a gunman threatened to shoot up a large, unspecified school, which prompted the evacuation of East L.A. College and numerous schools in the area.

Santa Monica police have detained a 19-year-old student believed to be connected to threats against at least six area schools. Santa Monica police Sgt. Candice Cobarrubias said the student was located on the campus of Santa Monica College without a weapon and detained for questioning about 9:35 a.m. Authorities were in the process of lifting the lockdown at the college and surrounding schools, she said. Lockdowns were also lifted at several schools in Monterey Park. Sources familiar with the investigation said authorities were able to contact the student on his cellphone.

ST. LOUIS - Law enforcement officials are investigating threats that were made against Rep. Todd Akin, the Missouri Republican who sparked controversy when he said that women's bodies can somehow prevent pregnancy in the instance of a “legitimate rape.” Akin spokesman Steve Taylor said in a statement that the congressman “has received threats of rape of his official staff, family and the congressman himself along with suggestions that the...

Yemeni officials on Sunday dismissed the threat posed by Al Qaeda in their country as "exaggerated" and downplayed the possibility of cooperating closely with the United States in fighting Islamic militants, even as the U.S. and Britain temporarily closed their diplomatic outposts in Yemen because of unspecified Al Qaeda threats. The statements by Yemen's foreign minister, chief of national security and Interior Ministry came a day after the region's top American military commander vowed to step up U.S. military support for the beleaguered Arabian Peninsula nation.

Santa Monica College, John Adams Middle School and Will Rogers Elementary in Santa Monica were placed on lockdown Thursday morning as police investigated a threat, an official said. College officials sent an email to students advising them police were working on a call of a man with a gun on campus. Students were warned to stay away from the campus until further notice. On the other side of town, the campus of East Los Angeles College was evacuated Thursday morning after an anonymous caller threatened to "shoot up" an unknown campus in the Monterey Park area.

All schools in Monterey Park have been placed on lockdown and East Los Angeles College has been evacuated after an anonymous caller threatened to "shoot up" an unknown campus Thursday morning, authorities said. The shooting was supposed to happen at 8 a.m., the caller said. Officers have been deployed to all Monterey Park schools and 10 campuses have been locked down. Monterey Park police Chief Jim Smith said no gunman has been seen. He cautioned: "It's really sketchy information.