Inmate IQ scores: Supreme Court to look beyond death row test results

Inmate IQ scores: Supreme Court to look beyond death row test results, Inmate IQ scores should not be used to determine mental disability for death row prisoners. The Supreme Court has a majority of five justices voicing their skepticism. According to ABC News on Mar. 3, Florida is one of a handful of states that can prevent an inmate from claiming to be mentally disabled if their IQ score is above 70.

Five justices, enough to form a majority, pointed repeatedly to the margin of error inherent in IQ and other standardized tests.

Inmate IQ scores are being scrutinized in the case of Freddie Lee Hall. He is an inmate on death row in Florida. Hall's lawyers claim that his IQ score, which is just above 70, indicated that the is mentally disabled. This disability would bar him from execution.

Some medical professionals feel that inmate IQ scores as high as 75 can still indicate mental disability. Court justices said that other should be considered before making this determination.

Hall has been on death row for 35 years. Although medical professionals say he is mentally disabled, an IQ test is not enough to substantiate this. The high court is looking at how states determine mental disability of inmates 10 years after barring the execution of the mentally disabled.

photo : cbs
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ZR1 Blue Devil Corvette Recovered From Sinkhole

ZR1 Blue Devil Corvette Recovered From Sinkhole, The National Corvette Museum has started recovering the eight cars that fell into the sinkhole that appeared in the museum last month.

The museum, which is located near the assembly plant where Corvettes are built, houses more or less 80 vehicles. The sinkhole appeared in the museum’s Skydome and swallowed eight vehicles. The hole has grown to 30 feet deep and 40 feet across. Cars that fell into the hole include a 2009 White 1.5 Millionth Corvette, 2001 Mallet Hammer Z06 Corvette, 1993 Ruby Red 40th Anniversary Corvette, 1992, White 1 Millionth Corvette, 1984 PPG Pace Car, 1962 Black Corvette, 2009 ZR1 Blue Devil, and the 1993 ZR-1 Spyder.

                                                       ZR1 Blue Devil Corvette

The first vehicle to make it out of the sinkhole is the “Blue Devil” that made its way out of the doorway using its own power. The “Blue Devil” was driven a short distance and the only problem that they saw so far was an oil leak.

Museum authorities reported that the vehicle came out nearly intact, but Chevrolet will still meticulously inspect it. Chevrolet has also offered to restore all the cars that fell into the hole, and all of them will be displayed in the museum for the public until August 3.

A timeline for the other vehicles’ recovery was also provided by the museum. Next to be recovered is the Ruby Red 1993 40th Anniversary Corvette, followed by the 1962 Black Corvette that will be recovered tomorrow. The latter is said to be tricky to retrieve as a big concrete slab is partially resting on the front part of the car. They will be using two cranes to lift the concrete slab and the car at the same time.

The museum has positioned webcams throughout the Skydome and time-lapse videos have been provided by the museum on their official YouTube channel.
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Car Insurance Premiums

Car Insurance Premiums, Most people are looking for low car insurance premiums. The choices you make about the coverage you want contribute to the cost of your car insurance premium.

Car Insurance Premiums

Auto Insurance Premiums

Companies may look at a variety of factors to determine your car insurance premium including:

What You Buy
How many coverages you buy
The deductibles

Find out more about types of auto insurance coverage.
What Kind of Car You Drive

If you are buying or selling a car, you will need to re-evaluate your auto insurance needs.

Generally, the more expensive the car, the higher the auto insurance price.
Where You Drive

Generally, due to higher rates of vandalism, theft, and accidents, urban drivers pay a higher auto insurance price than those in small towns or rural areas.
How Much You Drive

People who use their car for business and long-distance commuting normally pay a higher car insurance premium than those who drive less.
Your Age, Sex and Marital Status

Accident rates are higher for all drivers under age 25, especially young males and single males. Car insurance prices in most states reflect these differences.
Your Driving Record

Accidents, regardless of fault, may impact the rate. Drivers in accidents generally must pay higher car insurance premiums than those who are accident-free for several years.
Your Credit History

Credit history can be a powerful predictor of future auto insurance losses. Many insurance companies consider certain credit characteristics in addition to many other factors when determining an individual's car insurance premium.
What Can I Do to Save Money on My Auto Insurance Premium?

If you're shopping for a car, consider how your choice will affect car insurance premiums.

Some insurers increase premiums for cars more susceptible to damage or occupant injury, and lower rates for those that fare better than the norm.

Ask about auto insurance discounts for good students, insuring more than one vehicle, accident-free driving, and others.

Consider joining a car or van pool, or finding other transportation to work. If you reduce your driving mileage enough, you may lower your car insurance price.

Drive carefully.

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Snake eating croc is caught on camera

Snake eating croc is caught on camera, A snake has eaten a crocodile in an epic duel captured by onlookers at a Queensland lake.

The whopper python took on the croc at Lake Moondarra, near Mount Isa, on Sunday. A Mount Isa woman, Tiffany Corlis, was having breakfast nearby when canoeists racing on the lake alerted her about the endurance battle playing out nearby.

She grabbed her camera and took a series of shots that documented the enormous snake’s assault on the much smaller croc, which was about a metre long.

By the time Corlis started watching, the python had already coiled its body around the crocodile and was beginning to strangle it.
snake eats crocodile The overmatched croc fought hard at the start.

“[The crocodile] was fighting at the start, so it was trying to keep its head out of water and survive,” she told ABC North West Queensland Radio on Monday. But as the morning sort of progressed, you could tell that both of them were getting a little weaker.

“Finally, the croc sort of gave in and the snake had uncoiled for a little while and had a brief break and then actually started to consume the crocodile.”

Corlis said it was amazing to witness. “It was just unbelievable,” she said. “We were sort of thinking that the snake had bitten off a little more than it could chew.

“But it did. It actually ate the crocodile.”
snake eats crocodile The crocodile-shaped snake starts to digest its dinner. Photograph: Tiffany Corlis via ABC Northwest Queensland/AAP

The aftermath showed the overstuffed snake lying still, where presumably it stayed for some time as it digested its dinner.

“When you actually looked at the snake, you could actually see the crocodile’s ridges, legs and everything inside its belly,” Corlis said.
rnoon.

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Teen Sues Parents for Cash, College Tuition. Does She Have a Case?

Teen Sues Parents for Cash, College Tuition. Does She Have a Case?, A New Jersey teenager claiming that her mother and father tossed her out of their home and cut her off financially is suing them for immediate support, current private-school fees and future college tuition. The parents, meanwhile, say that daughter Rachel Canning, 18, moved out voluntarily after refusing to abide by their rules.

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“We love our child and miss her. This is terrible. It’s killing me and my wife,” Rachel's father, Sean Canning, a town administrator and retired police officer, tells the Daily Record. “We have a child we want home. We’re not Draconian and now we’re getting hauled into court. She’s demanding that we pay her bills but she doesn’t want to live at home, and she’s saying, ‘I don’t want to live under your rules.’” The rules, he notes, include reconsidering her relationship with a boyfriend who may be a bad influence, being respectful, and abiding by her curfew. He and his wife, Elizabeth, who live in suburban Lincoln Park, about 25 miles outside of New York City, have kept their daughter’s car because they paid for it, says Canning, and he admits that they did stop paying Rachel's tuition at the private Morris Catholic High School. A hearing is scheduled to take place on Tuesday in the Morris County Superior Court.

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For months, Rachel — an honor student, cheerleader, and lacrosse player — has been living with the family of her best friend and classmate, Jaime Inglesino, whose father, attorney John Inglesino, is bankrolling Rachel’s lawsuit. He’s also requesting in the lawsuit that the Cannings reimburse him for the legal fees, so far totaling $12,597, according to the paper.

Rachel’s attorney, Tanya Helfand, is not taking calls as she prepares for Tuesday's hearing, her office tells Yahoo Shine. Rachel did not return a call from Yahoo Shine, and the Morris County court was closed on Monday due to inclement weather. But the Daily Record reports that, in the suit, Rachel alleges that her parents decided to cut her off “from all support both financially and emotionally” as of her 18th birthday, which was November 1. Her suit also demands the following of the Cannings: that they take care of an outstanding $5,306 Morris Catholic tuition bill; pay their daughter’s current living and transportation expenses; and free up her existing college fund, as she’s already been accepted to several universities.

It’s not unheard of for youngsters to take legal action against their parents for various offenses — from a pregnant Texas teen who sued her parents for allegedly pressuring her to get an abortion, to a pair of Illinois siblings in their 20s who sued their mom (unsuccessfully) for bad mothering. Even so, the Canning case is an extremely unusual one, according to experts in family law. That’s because similar suits typically involve either a divorce situation, with parents disagreeing on a child’s financial support, or a fight for emancipation, in which a teen is declared financially independent from parents.

“This young woman is actually saying, ‘I want the court to compel my parents to continue to support me financially. That’s what’s unique in this case,” Mary Coogan, assistant director of the nonprofit Advocates for Children of New Jersey, tells Yahoo Shine. “So this young lady is in a unique situation because it does become very fact-sensitive. There’s really no law directly on point.” What families in similar situations have done, in Coogan’s experience, is to file for what’s called a “family crisis petition,” in which the court will try to mediate an agreeable outcome between the parents and their child.

Talking the situation through would be a better route than a lawsuit, Kenneth Neumann, a New York divorce mediator and psychologist with the Center for Mediation & Training, tells Yahoo Shine. “We often use the legal system as a way to deal with disagreements when we should be using therapy or mediation,” he says, noting that Rachel’s case is “extremely rare,” and that he’s “not had a case like this in 30 years,” with the most unique angle being that the parents are not in disagreement. Unfortunately for Rachel, Neumann says, “I don’t think she has much of a case. This sounds like just another 18-year-old who got into a thing with her parents.”

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photo : Rachel Canning/Facebook

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