Common Sense Evaluation

Talk about a culture of corruption?

Notice that the word Democrat doesn’t appear until well into the story.

11 public officials arrested in federal corruption probe.

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A sham company set up by the FBI paid bribes to nearly a dozen public officials — including Passaic Mayor Sammy Rivera, city Councilman Marcellus Jackson and Assemblyman Alfred E. Steele — who were arrested this morning in a widespread corruption sting, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Jackson took $16,500, Steele took $15,500 and Rivera $5,000 in return for their influence in awarding public contracts, federal officials allege in criminal complaints. The government says its evidence includes conversations recorded secretly during the 18-month probe at a series of meetings in restaurants, parked cars and hotels.

After allegedly collecting $5,000 during one of the meetings, at a Newark restaurant. Steele secured contracts with the Paterson Board of Education and Housing Authority. Cash payoffs of $3,000 and $1,500 to Steele are also documented by the government. One of them was given to him at his legislative office in Paterson, the federal complaints allege.

Rivera also boasts of his influence after allegedly taking $5,000 in cash from a cooperator while parked in a car in Passaic, the complaints say.

“I make the [expletive] decision,” Rivera allegedly says during another conversation. “And believe me, I’ve got the four [expletive] votes on the council. So let’s stop [expletive] and let’s get this thing rolling.”

The defendants — a collection of mayors, state legislators, and school board officials from Atlantic, Essex and Passaic counties — are to appear in federal court early this afternoon in Trenton.

They include former Passaic city Councilman Jonathan Soto, who is accused of taking $12,500.

Those charged are accused of demanding and accepting cash bribes in return for their influence in awarding contracts for roofing services and insurance brokerage from school districts and municipalities, according to criminal complaints unsealed with the arrests.

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Here is some more bizarre news. This time from London.

Sisters keep mother’s body in cold storage.

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Almost every week, according to their family, two sisters, Josephine and Valmai Lamas, pay a visit to their mother: to see her, to sit with her and to make sure that she is looking her best.

It is a devotion that transcends death and social convention, for their mother, Annie, died ten years ago.

Since then, she has been kept in cold storage in a funeral parlour in northwest London. Her body, which was treated originally in formaldehyde, has wasted since then, according to a relative of the sisters.

Below the waist, her corpse is said to have withered to a skeleton; above it, tight leathery skin stretches over the bones.

Still, Valmai, 52, a bank worker, is said to visit her every Saturday lunch-time to sit with the corpse in the funeral parlour. Her older sister, Josephine, 59, a caterer, is said to visit separately, to touch up her mother’s lipstick and foundation and to place fresh padding in her stomach cavity.

A family source told The Sun newspaper: “Enough is enough. Valmai and Josie have been diligently visiting their mother’s corpse for more than ten years but it’s getting ridiculous now. The body has degraded to the extent that it is just a skeleton with a bit of stretched scaly skin on the head. It’s horrific – like a character from a horror film that has had all its blood drained by a vampire.”

A postmortem examination of their mother’s death reportedly revealed that she had died from an embolism brought on by leg vein thrombosis. Josephine, of Chiswick, West London, and Valmai, of Harrow, were said to have been unhappy with the verdict, and asked a local funeral parlour to keep their mother’s body while they sought a second opinion.

For £20 a week, G. Saville and Sons of Wembley, have kept the sisters’ mother refrigerated. Phillip Saville, a funeral director, told The Sun: “We are simply acting on the family’s wishes and keeping Annie ‘alive’ in this way, for visiting seems to be what they want to do.

“No health and safety violations have been breached and the corpse does not smell. There are no laws saying people can’t keep a corpse for years after registering the death, though it is normal to bury the body after just two weeks.”

When contacted by The Times last night, a spokesman for the funeral parlour refused to comment. In addition to the cost of storing their mother’s body, the sisters are said to have spent £2,000 on five wooden coffins, four of which have rotted while they and their contents were awaiting burial.

Yesterday a source within the family was reportedly calling for a halt to the visits, and for their mother to be buried or cremated.

“They don’t seem to think that what they’re doing is in any way bizarre,” the source said. “But it’s disturbing. Josie asked a funeral home to keep her mum in cold storage until they were happy enough to bury her. But that is more than a decade ago.”

Josephine Lamas could not be contacted last night.

Valmai told The Sun: “I have always been a very private person and I am not interested in discussing any issues in my life.”

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When a man called his wife evil, she responded by hitting him over the head with a mug of ice cream.

Woman allegedly attacks her husband.

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A Framingham man told police he called his wife evil on Monday, and she responded by slamming him in the back of the head with a coffee mug full of ice cream and stabbing him.

Carleen Brown, 51, was charged with the 5:30 p.m. attack on her husband with left him with five medical staples in the back of his head and a cut on his arm, police Lt. Paul Shastany said.

Police went to 318 Bishop St. at 5:39 p.m. after the victim, whom police did not identify, called to report the attack.

He had a cut on his right forearm and a serious laceration on the back of his head, the lieutenant said.

The pair had been arguing about food when the incident occurred.

“He referred to her as ‘evil,’ which set her off,” Shastany said.

When the husband’s back was turned, Brown slammed the coffee mug she was eating ice cream out of into his head, the lieutenant said.

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Previously:
Cheetos Don’t Cause Injury, People Do