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Minnesota Star Tribune reports a north-central Minnesota high school math teacher and adviser was charged Friday with having sex with one of his female students on at least three occasions, once at a Twin Cities hotel and two other times in his car.


Paul Joseph Johnson, 48, of Backus, Minn., was charged in Beltrami County District Court with third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving the 16-year-old girl from Bemidji, Minn.
Johnson was arrested Wednesday evening, appeared in court Friday and remains jailed.
A statement from Voyageurs Expeditionary School in Bemidji said Johnson “has been placed on unpaid administrative leave effective immediately” as the investigation continues.

Johnson’s bio posted on the charter school’s website said this is his fifth year at Voyageurs and added that he is married, and has three grown children and four grandchildren.

According to the criminal complaint, the girl told sheriff’s investigators that she had been “involved in a romantic sexual relationship [with Johnson] for quite some time” that included sexual intercourse.

One encounter occurred in October while Johnson was in a Twin Cities hotel while in the metro area for a teachers conference, she said.

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Philly . COM reports most teenagers do dumb things. But not trying-to-rob-Joe-Galiano dumb.


Galiano is the owner of Suburban Armory, the gun shop on MacDade Boulevard in Collingdale, Delaware County. There is a giant gun-shaped sign on the roof. Inside, Galiano is surrounded by guns, including the .45-caliber pistol on his hip. Can't miss it.
And the police station is just around the corner from the shop.

Despite these conspicuous crime deterrents, two teenagers nonetheless decided to throw on burqas and pull a silver handgun on Galiano about 1:40 p.m. yesterday in a botched attempt to stick him up, police said.

"They had the whole-body Muslim garb," Collingdale Police Chief Robert Adams said. "They came in with the gun and pointed it for a holdup."

Galiano, faced with the incongruous image of a male dressed in female Muslim garb waving a gun around, decided to make use of one of the many firearms at his disposal.
"It doesn't make any sense," Adams said of the attempted robbery. "He carries a gun and it's right out there in the open. He pulled it out and shot."

Cops say Galiano fired one shot at the teens, ages 15 and 17. Neither was struck, but the .45-caliber blast apparently made them see the error of their ways. They ran from the store.

One of the teens hopped onto the SEPTA Route 114 bus toward Chester and tried unsuccessfully to hide in the back. Police apprehended him and found the silver handgun on the floor of the bus.

The other teen was arrested behind a trolley stop, covered in mud and sweating profusely. Police say they recovered the burqas, a backpack with duct tape and other evidence between the Suburban Armory and the trolley stop.

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WashingtonPost reports a rejuvenated al-Qaeda-affiliated force asserted control over the western Iraqi city of Fallujah on Friday, raising its flag over government buildings and declaring an Islamic state in one of the most crucial areas that U.S. troops fought to pacify before withdrawing from Iraq two years ago.

The capture of Fallujah came amid an explosion of violence across the western desert province of Anbar in which local tribes, Iraqi security forces and al-Qaeda-affiliated militants have been fighting one another for days in a confusingly chaotic three-way war.

Elsewhere in the province, local tribal militias claimed they were gaining ground against the al-Qaeda militants who surged into urban areas from their desert strongholds this week after clashes erupted between local residents and the Iraqi security forces.

In Fallujah, where Marines fought the bloodiest battle of the Iraq war in 2004, the militants appeared to have the upper hand, underscoring the extent to which the Iraqi security forces have struggled to sustain the gains made by U.S. troops before they withdrew in December 2011.

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Daily Mailreports a Utah man has vowed to starve himself until state officials stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples following a recent landmark court ruling. 

Trestin Meacham, 35, said he was disappointed when U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby ruled December 20 that the state's ban on same-sex marriage violates gay and lesbian couples' constitutional rights.

The decision came as a shock to many in the state, where two-thirds of voters approved the ban in 2004.

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