FDA advisers vote to take Vicodin, Percocet off market

A 75-year-old Bristow, Va. woman has paid $345 as compensation for damages and is serving three months of probation, the result of her hammer attack on equipment in a Manassas, Va. Comcast Corp. office in August.

The consumer, Mona Shaw, said she took a hammer to the phone handsets and shoved a computer monitor off the counter after she failed to get a response by the company to her lack of phone service.

“I couldn’t think of another way to get their attention. I really couldn’t,” she said in an interview.

Shaw, a retired nurse, has a heart condition and was stressed and angered after what she said was a botched upgrade to a triple-play bundle. The subscriber said everything went wrong before she packed a hammer in her purse and went in person to the local office: the installer didn't come on the appointed day, Aug. 13, but two days later; the installation left them with incoming calls only; an attempt to remedy that left them with no service at all; an in-person visit to the Manassas office resulted in a two-hour wait, only to be told the supervisor she was waiting to see had gone home.

When a complaint to the Virginia state Corporations Commission did not elicit a response from Comcast, she packed her hardware, she said. She marched past a waiting line, started hitting things with her hammer and asked repeatedly, “Have I got your attention now?” The incident ended with Shaw’s arrest; she’s now barred from entering the local cable office.

That’s fine, she said. She has DirecTV now, and she’s returned to Verizon for phone service and has added digital-subscriber line service, she said. But some part of Comcast still thinks she's a customer: before a reporter's call on Oct. 10, she got a voice mail message thanking her for being a customer and advising her they planned to come to her place Oct. 11 "as part of her service contract,” she said, chuckling.

Fear of the "pretty stocky black guy" who turned out to be an undercover cop made Florida state representative Bob Allen perform the actions that led to a charge of solicitation to commit prostitution, Allen told police in documents aired by the Orlando Sentinel.

Allen was arrested July 11 in a Titusville, Fla., public park restroom after he offered the officer $20 to let him perform oral sex, police said.

The charge, a second-degree misdemeanor, is punishable by a year in county jail and a $500 fine. Allen says he is innocent and that he will not resign from the legislature. He did resign late last month from the board of the Girls and Boys Town of Central Florida, cable TV station Central Florida News 13 reported.

He is scheduled to be arraigned August 23.

In a taped statement and other documents released last week, Allen, 48, told police that he was intimidated into offering sex.

"I certainly wasn't there to have sex with anybody and certainly wasn't there to exchange money for it," the Sentinel quoted him as saying.

Rather, he said, "this was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park," Allen said. He said he feared he "was about to be a statistic."

Titusville police told the Sentinel that they were investigating a nearby condo burglary when they saw a disheveled, unshaved man enter and leave the park restroom three times. They decided to send in Officer Danny Kavanaugh.

In a statement Kavanaugh said he was drying his hands in a stall when Allen peered—twice—over the stall door, then joined Kavanaugh inside.

"This is kind of a public place, isn't it?" Kavanaugh quoted Allen as saying, according to the Sentinel. Allen then suggested "going across the bridge; it's quieter over there."

When Allen was loaded into the patrol car, the statement said, he asked if "it would help" that he was a state legislator.

"No," the officer said.

Soon after taking office in 2001, Allen was one of 21 Florida legislators to sign Gov. Jeb Bush's friend-of-the-court brief supporting the state's ban on gays adopting children.

In March he cosponsored an unsuccessful bill that would have enhanced penalties for "offenses involving unnatural and lascivious acts," such as indecent exposure. (Barbara Wilcox, The Advocate)

This Year's Red, White and Blue Fourth of July in Houston Presents America's Largest Land-Based Fireworks Show and an Evening Chock-Full of Family Activities

During the first half of the week rain chances will be 80%

They know their body parts, and that men are different, but they have not SEEN a man's parts. They know that men stand to tinkle and they are eduacated about good touches and bad touches. And I've told them that "it" is what he uses to tinkle and that it is not to be touched or examined in any way. My 9 year old understands and realizes that it is his private area but she still seems a little secretly curious. My 3 year old just has a mind of her own and will try to touch and figure things out for herself. And I have seen male dogs at the pet stores and dog parks.... I was uncomfortable so I stopped taking my girls anywhere that allows dogs. And none of our friends have male dogs. So if I rehomed him, the chances of them seeing another male dog is very slim to none. I don't want to rehome him, he is such a sweet boy. He gives no problems at all. No behavioral problems, no potty accidents, good temperament... that is my only concern. So rehome or maybe I can keep shorts on him at all times. What do you think??