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Commercial Appeal reports a DeSoto County teacher and football coach is among 15 people arrested by Southaven police during an undercover sting for prostitution.


Mark Alan Hogan, 44, was charged along 10 other men with solicitation of prostitution during the sting Friday at an area hotel. Hogan, of Southaven, is an assistant football coach and science teacher at Center Hill High School in Olive Branch.

Katherine Nelson, communications director for DeSoto County Schools, said in a statement that Hogan is on administrative leave while an internal investigation is underway. Hogan was not at school Monday, according to Nelson.

Though she was surprised about the educator’s arrest, parent Tiffany Holman said she was glad that at least it didn’t involve inappropriate contact with students.
“It seems you hear every other day of a teacher somewhere being involved in sexual activity with a student,” said Holman, whose son, a junior at Center Hill, plays soccer and has had classes with Hogan. “At least if it was going to happen, he was involved with other consenting adults.”

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ABC News reports New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio shared a backslapping hug with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and told lawmakers they had an obligation to allow a tax hike on the city's wealthier residents as he continued pressing for his universal prekindergarten proposal at the state Capitol on Monday. 

De Blasio needs Albany's OK before the city can approve the tax to fund his signature proposal. But Cuomo, a fellow Democrat, has been cool to an election-year tax increase and it was not clear whether the state Legislature would consent. De Blasio used his appearance before a state budget hearing Monday to argue that Albany has the obligation to honor the "city's right to self-determination" by letting taxes on the wealthy be increased.

"We're not asking Albany to raise the state income tax by a single penny to pay for universal pre-K and afterschool programs in New York City," de Blasio told lawmakers. "We're simply asking Albany to allow New York City to tax itself."
De Blasio released a report Monday saying the pre-K program would reach 53,000 children who need it by September and up to 73,000 by the next year. The new mayor says a small increase in the tax rates on New York City residents who make $500,000 or more annually is the only steady, reliable way to cover the $340 million annual cost. Cuomo, stressing his support for statewide universal pre-K, wants to fund it with existing money in the budget.

De Blasio's tax lobbying comes at an unwelcome time for Cuomo, who is promoting a broad tax relief program that includes politically popular property tax freezes. But both men played down suggestions of personal friction Monday. They welcomed each other with a hearty hug at a press event about their shared goal of getting a $10 billion federal Medicaid waiver.

"This is someone I've have had the honor of working with for almost 20 years," de Blasio said. "So I hope people understand when there's this depth of personal relationship, that we talk about a variety of issues all the time."

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Daily Callerreports police say a high school teacher in Walpole, Mass. wearing only a ski hat, ski goggles and a towel ambled down to his mailbox early Monday morning, then dropped the towel and began thrusting his hips in the direction of the mailbox.

Two women say they witnessed parts of the bizarre incident, reports local FOX affiliate WFXT.

Norfolk County Agricultural High School teacher Marc Mertz trotted from his house, which is secluded behind some trees, down a snow-covered driveway to his mailbox at the edge of what appears to be a reasonably busy road. He was allegedly wearing a towel, a winter hat, goggles and nothing else.

Initially, an unidentified female driver spotted him. The woman said she then drove by a second time—because of course she did. That’s when she saw Mertz without the towel. He was wearing nothing from about the nostrils down.

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Daily Mailreports illegal immigrants must be able to become citizens in order to keep America safe, the man charged with protecting the country has declared.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said that around 11 million people who are in the country illegally have 'earned the right to be citizens'.

Mr Johnson said: 'An earned path to citizenship for those currently present in this country is a matter of, in my view, homeland security to encourage people to come out from the shadows.

'It is also, frankly, in my judgment, a matter of who we are as Americans.

He used his speech to more than 270 mayors at the United States Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C. to call for 'comprehensive, common sense, immigration reform'.

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