2/19/2014::And in other news

Tennessee Weighs The Cost Of A Free College Education

Pretty soon, going to community college in Tennessee may become absolutely free. Republican Gov. Bill Haslam unveiled the proposal in his annual State of the State address this week.

Haslam is trying to lift Tennessee's ranking as one of the least-educated states. Less than a third of residents have even a two-year degree. But a community college free-for-all has been tried elsewhere, though not sustained, and there's always a nagging question.

"So I know you're wondering," Haslam said. "How do we pay for this?"

Syrian girl stoned to death for joining Facebook

While you were busy liking someone's post or uploading that cute photograph of your puppy, a young Syrian girl was reportedly being stoned to death in Syria.

Her crime? She had opened a Facebook account.

The incident took place in the Syrian city of Rakka. The girl, Fatoum Al-Jassem, was sentenced to death by stoning by Al-Reqqa religious court after ISIL militants took her to the court.

James Jugo Charged With Manslaughter After Deadly Dispute Over Chicken Foot

A Florida man beat his roommate to death during a dispute over a cooked chicken foot, authorities say.

James Jugo, 52, admitted to detectives in Tampa that he attacked his roommate, 56-year-old Benjamin Calderon, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Police say that the men began fighting Friday morning when Jugo snatched a chicken foot from a skillet that Calderon was cooking with.

Polish priest held over Dominican Republic sex abuse claims

Police in Poland have arrested a Catholic priest suspected of committing sex offences against children in the Dominican Republic.

The 36-year-old, identified only as Wojciech G, is accused of molesting boys while serving as a parish priest on the Caribbean island.

He denies the accusations.

[,,,]
In the latest case, Wojciech G was arrested at his home near Krakow on Monday and is expected to be formally charged on Tuesday.

Are Pedophiles Getting Free Pass in South Dakota?

A bill in the South Dakota legislature that appears intended to give several dozen Native American childhood-sexual-abuse plaintiffs their day in court may do just the opposite. According to several legislators, Senate Bill 130 is supposed to fix problems caused by a 2010 law that retroactively blocked the Native lawsuits against the Catholic Church, which ran the boarding schools where the abuse allegedly took place.

However, others claim the new proposal makes matters worse by reinstating the statute of limitations in effect “on the date the abuse occurred,” according to the bill’s language. For the plaintiffs in question, that was the mid-20th century, when the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse shut the courthouse door three years after the abuse, or one year after the victim turned 18—a birthday that’s long past for them.

SB 130’s final sentence slams the door and locks it, according to attorney Michael Shubeck, of the Law Offices of Gregory Yates, in Rapid City; he and Yates have Native clients whose cases were terminated under the 2010 law. Shubeck noted that in a kind of circular logic, this part of the bill says that if a legislative action (like the 2010 law) killed valid cases, SB 130 would revive them.