On Q Professional Investigations

Somebody talked about fight club.

Three Delaware day care employees have been accused of encouraging toddlers to fight each other while the children were under their care.

CBS Philly reported that Tiana Harris, 19, Lisa Parker, 47, and Estefania Myers, 21, employees of the Hands of Our Future Daycare in Dover, were arrested after a cellphone video emerged of them allegedly encouraging two 3-year-olds to fight in an organized battle.

Police said in the video one child is heard yelling, “He’s pinching me!” A day care worker allegedly responded, “No pinching, only punching.”

“It was a difficult video to watch,” Dover Police Capt. Tim Stump told FoxNews.com. “One of the kids involved ran over to one of the adults for protection, but she turned him around back into the fight.”

The video was taken in March, Stump said. Two of the suspects could be seen encouraging the fight, while the other filmed it with her cellphone camera, he said.

Stump said neither of the toddlers suffered serious injuries, but said it was “painfully clear that they were hurting each other.”

“The bottom line is that the kids were whaling on each other and the adults were doing nothing to stop it,” Stump said. “In fact, they were egging it on.”

Parents of day care students went to a meeting Monday and were informed about the alleged video. Stump said the parents voiced concern, but commended them for their composure.

“It’s very disturbing to think anything like that could go on,” Amy Bickerling, whose 4-year-old son is enrolled at the center, told Delaware Online. “I know these teachers. I go on all the field trips. I’ve never seen anything irregular.”

Stump said a full investigation is under way. There is no evidence yet to suggest these fights occurred more than once, but authorities will be conducting interviews with some of the students, he said.

He called the suspects “cooperative” and said they posted $10,000 bond.

The three women were charged with assault, endangering the welfare of a child, reckless endangering and conspiracy.

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Apple is now the most valuable company of all time.

Shares are rising again, continuing the sharp run-up of the past few weeks that has propelled the tech juggernaut to its all-time high.

The stock recently rose 1.8% at $660, pushing Apple’s market capitalization up to $619 billion, FactSet data show. The previous historical record for top market cap belonged to Microsoft, whose market value topped out at $616.3 billion in December 1999, according to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices.

Now Apple holds the distinction as the most valuable company by market capitalization.

Apple’s market cap is also more than $200 billion greater than Exxon Mobil – the second biggest company right now clocking in at $405 billion. Microsoft, Wal-Mart and IBM round out the top five.

Rumors of new iPhone and iPad products have been running rampant of late, helping to give shares their latest boost. Many analysts anticipate an iPhone 5 launch is coming in September.

Last week, Jefferies boosted its price target on Apple to $900. Earlier this year, two firms slapped $1,000 price targets on the company, while predicting Apple’s market cap will top $1 trillion. (Our friends at All Things D point out the stock price would have to hit about $1072 for Apple to become the world’s first trillion-dollar company).

Apple’s sway on major benchmark indexes has been well documented for much of the year. But the latest figures from Silverblatt underscore just how important Apple’s rally is for the rest of the market.

The S&P 500′s tech sector is up 16% since October 2007 when the broad market hit its all-time peak, he says. But stripping away Apple from the calculation and the sector is down 3.7% throughout that same time frame.

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Sibongile Sikhuze pointed to his bandaged right knee, showing where a bullet entered and exited. He then raised his right palm, struck by a rubber bullet when he tried to surrender.

“They ordered us to lie on the ground. People were falling all around me,” Sikhuze told CNN Saturday, two days after police opened fire on striking miners.

“Another bullet grazed my head. I didn’t think I’d come out alive. That’s why I raised my hands. I thought we would all perish there. We were surrounded by the police.”

Saturday, thousands of people gathered outside the platinum mine, angry about the incident’s toll: 34 mine workers killed, 78 others wounded, 259 arrested on various charges, including malicious damage to property, armed robbery, illegal gathering and possession of weapons.

The situation was calm, but tense, as police stood on guard near the protest and helicopters conducted surveillance.
Desperate relatives, meanwhile, continued searching for miners who have not been unaccounted for.

A day after South African President Jacob Zuma visited the scene of the shootings, a controversial, but popular, politician called on Zuma to resign.

“The minister of police (Nathi Mthethwa) must step down because this massacre was committed under his supervision,” said Julius Malema. “The same thing with President Zuma.”

Malema, former president of the Youth League of the ruling African National Congress, was banned in April from taking part in party activities after he gave a speech critical of Zuma.

He and the youth league helped propel Zuma to power in 2009. But in recent years Malema has become one of Zuma’s fiercest critics, accusing his administration of failing to improve the lives of the poor.

“A responsible president says to the police you must keep order, but please act with restraint,” Malema told the crowd. “He says to them use maximum force. He has presided over the killing of our people, and therefore he must step down. Not even apartheid government killed so many people. ”

Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega on Friday said police “were forced to utilize maximum force to defend themselves.”
Zuma told South Africans that they must come together to overcome national challenges, as they had done before.

“This is not a day to apportion blame,” Zuma said. “It is a day for us to mourn together as a nation. It is also a day to start healing.”

The tragedy began unfolding a week ago when miners went on strike demanding pay increases at the mine near Rustenburg, about two hours northwest of Johannesburg.

“When there is a rock fall, it is generally the drillers who are the victims,” wrote journalist Greg Marinovich in the Daily Maverick newspaper. “It is the most dangerous job in the business.”

The miners, who earn $300 to $500 a month, wanted their salaries raised to $1,500.

It came as no surprise that their multi-national employer, Lonmin, said no to the whopping increase. The world’s third-largest producer of platinum said the strike was illegal.

The violence was believed sparked by a rivalry between two unions that wield a lot of power and influence in South Africa. The unions, accused of trying to outdo each other in negotiating wages, denied instigating the clashes.

Tensions at Marikana had mounted throughout the week.

The striking miners carried traditional panga machetes and gathered Thursday around a small hill. By then, at least 10 other people were dead from incidents that had occurred in the days before. Among them were two police officers who were hacked to death.

Journalists who were at Marikana said police seemed fed up with the miners and determined to resolve the issue.

“Yesterday the police were clear that today we are going to disarm them and remove them from the hill because the gathering is illegal,” Xolile Mngambi, a reporter for CNN affiliate ETV, said Friday.

By Thursday afternoon, another round of negotiations among the striking miners, the unions and Lonmin had failed.

A heavily armed police Tactical Response Team moved in to disperse the miners.

To hear Phiyega, the police commissioner, describe it, the police weighed all their options and decided to fence in the miners with barbed wire — to compartmentalize them into more manageable groups.

“The armed protesters moved toward the police,” she said. “They were driven back with tear gas and rubber bullets. But when they fired, police used maximum force.”

But journalists at the scene could not say whether the protesters fired first.

“We cannot say to you the police were provoked,” Mngambi said.

Then, the police unleashed a barrage of gunfire. One witness said it went on for three minutes.

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Remembering a clunky password could become a thing of the past, according to researchers at Iowa State University.

Morris Chang, an associate professor of engineering, and his team are working on keystroke authentication — a way of identifying you by the way you type and how long you pause between keystrokes. Ultimately, such a technique could block unauthorized users based on their typing patterns from gaining access to an account.

Using biometrics to identify and authenticate users isn’t new — think fingerprint recognition or iris scans. But those are one-time verifications. What makes keystroke authentication more secure is the fact that typing patterns are continuously monitored.

Also, there’s an added layer of security.

“You can steal passwords,” says Chang. “But you can’t steal biometrics.”

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Federal regulators announced fraud charges Friday against a company they said was operating a $600 million Internet Ponzi scheme “on the verge of collapse.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission accused ZeekRewards.com, its parent company, Rex Venture Group, and Rex Venture head Paul Burks of luring more than 1 million investors worldwide into the scheme, which began in early 2011.

ZeekRewards is a companion to the penny auction site Zeekler.com. Visitors to the the ZeekRewards site were told that by paying subscription fees and becoming “affiliates,” they could share in the company’s profits.

In fact, the SEC said, the payouts the firm made came from the funds of new investors, “in classic Ponzi scheme fashion.”

“The obligations to investors drastically exceed the company’s cash on hand, which is why we need to step in quickly, salvage whatever funds remain and ensure an orderly and fair payout to investors,” the SEC’s Stephen Cohen said in a written statement.

The SEC said it has frozen the roughly $225 million in investor funds that remain in the company’s bank accounts. So far, the agency said, ZeekRewards has paid out some $375 million to investors, while Burks allegedly siphoned off millions for himself in the process.

Burks has agreed to settle the SEC case without admitting or denying wrongdoing, paying a $4 million penalty and forfeiting his stake in the firm.

The SEC can only pursue civil charges. Burks could still face further charges from subsequent criminal investigations.

Lawyers for Burks and Rex Venture did not immediately return requests for comment.

“Penny auctions” are a controversial kind of online sale in which prospective buyers compete over a set period of time with bids that increase by increments of one cent.

Participants pay a separate, non-refundable fee for each bid they make. An expensive item like an iPad might therefore sell for a seemingly unbelievable list price of $30, even though participants in the auction paid many times more than that in total to place their bids.

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Seven students forced to eat lunch on their New Jersey school’s gymnasium floor for two weeks as punishment won a $500,000 legal settlement, their attorney said Tuesday.

The 2008 incident involved fifth-grade students at Charles Sumner Elementary School in Camden, N.J., who were disciplined after one child spilled water as he tried to lift a jug onto a cooler, according to lawyer Alan Schorr.

The students filed a federal lawsuit against the Camden Board of Education, which agreed to the settlement, Schorr said.

Discord
He said the incident took place against a backdrop of discord between the black and Hispanic populations in the impoverished southern New Jersey city. The children were Hispanic.

Schorr said the vice principal, who was African-American, punished all 15 students in a bilingual class by making them eat off paper liners normally used on lunch trays. (While there were 15 students in the class, only seven sued.)

“The African-American kids were eating at tables, with trays, taunting these Hispanic kids who were forced to eat on the ground,” Schorr said.

The vice principal has since transferred.

CourierPostOnline.com reported that the board of education had approved the settlement but not admitted any guilt.

It added:

“Under the settlement, the students will split $280,000, which works out to $31,428 each. Their attorney, Alan H. Schorr of Cherry Hill, will get $220,000.”

The children’s teacher was fired after encouraging them to tell their parents about the punishment. The teacher won a $75,000 settlement earlier.

Neither school officials nor their lawyers could be reached for comment.

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Call them the unlikely voters.

A nationwide USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll of people who are eligible to vote but aren’t likely to do so finds that these stay-at-home Americans back Obama’s re-election over Republican Mitt Romney by more than 2-1. Two-thirds of them say they are registered to vote. Eight in 10 say the government plays an important role in their lives.

Even so, they cite a range of reasons for declaring they won’t vote or saying the odds are no better than 50-50 that they will: They’re too busy. They aren’t excited about either candidate. Their vote doesn’t really matter. And nothing ever gets done, anyway.

“I don’t think Obama helped us as much as he promised,” says John Harrington, 52, a heavy-equipment operator from Farmington, Minn., who was among those surveyed. Since 2008, when Harrington voted for Obama, the financial downturn has forced him to sell his home in Arizona, move to Minnesota to be near a daughter and put him on the road to Nebraska, North Dakota and Iowa to find work.

His wife “loves” Obama and is sure to vote in November, but he’s not certain whether he’ll get there this time.

Even in 2008, when turnout was the highest in any presidential election since 1960, almost 80 million eligible citizens didn’t vote. Curtis Gans, director of the non-partisan Center for the Study of the American Electorate, predicts that number will rise significantly this year. He says turnout could ebb to levels similar to 2000, when only 54.2% of those eligible to vote cast a ballot. That was up a bit from 1996, which had the lowest turnout since 1924.

This year, perhaps 90 million Americans who could vote won’t. “The long-term trend tends to be awful,” Gans says. “There’s a lot of lack of trust in our leaders, a lack of positive feelings about political institutions, a lack of quality education for large segments of the public, a lack of civic education, the fragmenting effects of waves of communications technology, the cynicism of the coverage of politics — I could go on with a long litany.”

There’s also the relentlessly negative tone of this year’s campaign. The majority of TV ads don’t try to persuade voters to support one candidate but rather to convince them not to back the other guy. Romney ads portray Obama as a failed president and a liar. Obama ads describe Romney as a heartless corporate raider whose firm has laid off American workers while he parked some of his fortune in a Swiss bank account. (Both candidates dispute the truthfulness of the other side’s commercials.)

“I really don’t know much about him, but from what I hear, he’s all about putting taxes on the middle-class people, and I’ve heard that he’s put his money in overseas accounts,” Jamie Palmer, 35, a mother of three from St. Joseph, Mo., says of Romney, echoing accusations made in Democratic ads. “I think that’s wrong.”

So will she vote? Not a chance.

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With their expectations soaring, young illegal immigrants across the country are preparing to apply for a temporary reprieve from deportation that the Obama administration is offering. For the first time, as many as 1.7 million of them could be allowed to work legally and live openly in this country without fear of being expelled.

The program is President Obama’s most ambitious immigration initiative by far, a sweeping exercise of executive authority after Congress failed to pass the Dream Act, legislation he supported that would have given legal status to the young immigrants. It is a major bid by Mr. Obama to win back Latino voters who were souring on him after his administration deported nearly 1.2 million immigrants, most of them Latinos, in the last three years.

The initiative to defer deportations, which Mr. Obama announced in June, officially starts on Wednesday, when a federal immigration agency will begin accepting requests.

This weekend, the small offices of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, a nonprofit group, were jammed with people seeking information about the program. Despite the baking heat, the lines stretched out the front door, to the end of a long city block. Similar crowds have flocked to immigrant and student organizations in other states for advice.

The program, which grants two-year deportation deferrals and work permits to illegal immigrants brought here as children, creates a herculean job for the federal agency in charge, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Agency officials are expecting the biggest load of paperwork in the shortest amount of time for a new program since 1986, when more than three million immigrants who were here illegally became legal residents under an amnesty.

Because deferrals are temporary and must be renewed after two years — when Mr. Obama may no longer occupy the White House — administration officials have been uncertain how many illegal immigrants would come forward to apply.

The work permit young immigrants can receive with the deferral opens many doors that have been firmly shut. They can obtain valid Social Security numbers and apply for driver’s licenses, professional certificates and financial aid for college.

On Saturday at the Los Angeles coalition, which is known as Chirla, many immigrants said they had calculated that the benefits would outweigh their doubts. All day, staff members offered hourlong presentations about the applications to groups of 200 or more immigrants, and still hundreds of people were turned away at closing time.

Although coalition counselors urged caution, many immigrants were not holding back their excitement.

“It’s like giving us wings to the people that want to fly,” said Noe Torres, now 26, who said he had been living illegally in California since his parents brought him here from Mexico when he was 4.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research organization, about 1.2 million foreign-born people are eligible to apply now, with another 500,000 children reaching the minimum eligibility age of 15 in coming years. By far the largest number — about 460,000 — live in California, with big populations in Florida, New York and Texas as well.

Immigrants who qualify for deferrals are generally the same ones who would have been eligible if the Dream Act had passed. But unlike that proposal (and the 1986 amnesty), the new program, formally called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, suspends deportations but does not confer any legal status or open any future path to citizenship.

To be eligible, illegal immigrants must have been in this country and under age 31 on June 15, when the program was announced. They must have come to the United States before they were 16 and have lived here continuously for at least five years. They must be in school, or have graduated from high school or honorably discharged from the military.

An immigrant convicted of a felony, a serious misdemeanor (including a sexual abuse or drug violation), or three less serious misdemeanors will be rejected, as will anyone deemed to pose a threat to national security. There is no time limit for applications, which involve a $465 fee. In general, there is no appeal if an application is denied. But immigrants may apply again — and pay the fee again.

Homeland Security Department officials frame the program as part of the administration’s efforts to make good use of enforcement resources by focusing on deporting convicted criminals while avoiding noncriminals with strong family ties in the United States, particularly students.

To reassure wary parents who are here illegally, homeland security officials have said that application information will not be shared with enforcement agents.

Although the immigrants call themselves undocumented, they came to Chirla on Saturday with armfuls of documents tracing their time in the United States: school transcripts, awards for academic achievements and sports victories, high school and college diplomas, letters of recommendation, pay stubs, bank statements, rent checks, tax returns.

The advocates’ message was to avoid denials by taking time to get it right the first time. “We don’t want people to rush to apply,” said Angelica Salas, the coalition’s executive director.

But many immigrants see the program as a long-awaited release for pent-up academic and job aspirations. Cesar Cruz, 19, said he is a freshman at a community college and wants to earn a doctorate in bioengineering. He said his parents brought him here illegally from El Salvador when he was 10.

Mr. Cruz said he was eager for the day when he would give his fingerprints for the application. “I’ve been a good boy, you could say,” he said. “I want to help out my parents and show them their efforts weren’t for nothing.”

Hazar Parra, now 25, said she has been here since she was 7 and has just finished her training to be a nurse. A work permit would come just in time to allow her to apply for her state certificate.

Ms. Parra said she worried that her application might expose her mother, who is also here illegally. “My mom decided I should do it,” she said. “Basically, for me to do better and succeed, she’s willing to risk everything.”

White House and homeland security officials opted to entrust the huge effort to Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that issues immigration documents, rather than to enforcement agencies. The effort will be paid from fees, officials said, with no taxpayer dollars invested.

The agency has had a short time — 60 days — to prepare for the program, and its staff has been working long shifts. But its director, Alejandro Mayorkas, said it was ready to deliver “a positive and seamless customer experience.”

Still, until the applications start pouring in, Mr. Mayorkas has carefully resisted giving benchmark figures of how many officers will be dedicated to reading the applications, and how long it will take to approve or deny them.

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A man whose jet ski failed him in New York’s Jamaica Bay swam to John F. Kennedy airport, where he was easily able to penetrate the airport $100 million, state-of-the art security system.

Daniel Casillo, 31, was able to swim up to and enter the airport grounds on Friday night, past an intricate system of motion sensors and closed-circuit cameras designed to to safeguard against terrorists, authorities said.

“I think he should be given dinner and a bottle of champagne for showing us our faults,” said Nicholas Casale, an NYPD veteran and former MTA deputy security director for counterterrorism.

Instead, Casillo was arrested after the incredible adventure that has stunned security officials.

Casillo’s night began innocently enough, as he and some friends were racing on jet skis in Jamaica Bay near JFK airport when his watercraft stalled. After calling for and receiving no help, he managed to swim towards the only thing he could see, the runway lights at JFK.

Once he made it to land, Casillo climbed an eight-foot barbed-wire perimeter fence and walked undetected through the airport’s Perimeter Intrusion Detection System and across two runways into Delta’s terminal 3.

Unnoticed until then, Casillo walked into the airport dripping wet and wearing his bright yellow life jacket.

When he was eventually spotted by a Delta employee, police charged Casillo with criminal trespassing.

“It’s outrageous,” Casale said. “Why in 2012 do we not have a security system throughout our airports?”

This is not the first time an airport’s security systems failed.

In March, a black jeep sped down a runway at Philadelphia’s international airport. That incident came on the heels of another in California, when a BMW slammed through the airport fence when the driver reportedly lost control.

Last year at JFK there was a huge uproar over that same perimeter fence, when it was knocked out by weather and remained down for days.

New York Port Authority officials tell ABC News this time around they “took immediate action to increase its police presence with round the clock patrols of the facility’s perimeter and increased patrols by boat of the surrounding waterway.”

“We have called for an expedited review of the incident and a complete investigation to determine how Raytheon’s perimeter intrusion detection system-which exceeds federal requirements-could be improved. Our goal is to keep the region’s airports safe and secure at all times,” the Port Authority said in a statement.

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Relatives of the deranged knife-wielding man gunned down by cops in Times Square say they are upset about the NYPD’s use of deadly force in the confrontation.

“It doesn’t take 12 bullets to kill one person,” the dead man’s aunt, Margaret Johnson, told The News.

“I think it could have been done another way.”

But NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the fatal shooting at the Crossroads of the World was appropriate.

Police fired 12 times at Darrius Kennedy, 51, after he lunged at them with a knife Saturday afternoon, sending tourists running for cover.

“I think the police responded appropriately,” Kelly told reporters Sunday.

Mayor Bloomberg also said the shooting appeared to be justified.

“He had a knife and he was going after people,” the mayor told reporters. “It’s just one of those terrible unfortunate events.”

Kennedy, who had ten prior arrests, was within three feet of the officers and was threatening them when they unloaded their weapons, according to NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.

The confrontation began when a cop spied Kennedy smoking marijuana at 44th St and 7th Ave. just after 3 p.m. Saturday.

Kennedy grew belligerent, and when police attempted to cuff him, he struggled free, pulling an Ikea kitchen knife with a six-inch blade out of his pocket and waving it over his head.

He backed down 7th Ave for seven blocks as more cops amassed.

“He’s not fleeing,” Browne said. “He’s backing up continuing to menace them and members of the public nearby with the knife.”

Kennedy was pepper-sprayed six times by four cops to little effect.

“He’s repeatedly told throughout this period to drop the knife,” Browne said.

Two police cars pulled onto the sidewalk, attempting to block Kennedy’s path down 7th Ave. as he approached 37th St.

The madman squeezed past the first vehicle before its driver could get out, but officers from the second car jumped out to confront him.

“He comes at them,” Browne said.

As Kennedy lunged at the two cops with his knife, they fired 12 times. Neither officer had discharged their weapon in the line of duty before, police said. Both are from the Midtown South precinct.

One officer, age 33, fired nine times. His partner, age 40, fired three times.

Kennedy was hit at least seven times, official said. He died at Bellevue Hospital from gunshot wounds to the chest, groin, left arm and left calf.

Kennedy was taken to the same hospital by cops in October 2008 for a psychiatric evaluation after he was picked up for knocking over garbage cans in Times Square.

A month later he was arrested after yelling curses at motorists as he walked amongst traffic on Broadway near W. 66th St.

When police moved in to arrest him, he threatened them with a screwdriver.

“I”m gonna f- you up,” Kennedy told cops, according to NYPD officials.

He was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, menacing, reckless endangerment, and resisting arrest in the 2008 incident.

He was sentenced to 40 days in jail after pleading guilty to resisting arrest.

He has additional prior arrests stretching back to 1978, cops said, for harassment and possession of marijuana, weapons and stolen property.

But Kennedy’s family remembered him as an easy-going musician who played bass in church in his hometown of Hempstead, L.I., though they admitted to losing touch with him in recent years.

“I think they could have given him a warning shot, probably a shot in the leg or arm,” said Kennedy’s cousin, Kathy Johnson.

“I know they’ve got to protect the people, but at the same time, you took somebody’s life.”

NYPD officials said the department uses deadly force sparingly. Eight people were fatally shot by police last year.

“As a big city department, we’re probably the most restrained in the country when it comes to deadly force,” Browne said.

WATCH the video from the scene.

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