Two police officers were charged Wednesday in the death of a mentally ill homeless man in Southern California who was beaten and repeatedly shocked with a stun gun during his arrest, authorities said.

Officer Manuel Ramos was charged with one count each of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in the death of 37-year-old Kelly Thomas after a violent confrontation on July 5 with officers, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said at a news conference.

Police Cpl. Jay Cicinelli was charged with one count each of involuntary manslaughter and excessive force, he said.

Rackauckas said a review of the evidence showed Thomas was acting "in self-defense, in pain and in a state of panic."

How good is a government job? We all know that government workers get generous pensions, job security and health benefits.

Now a new USA Today analysis reports that it's almost impossible to lose a federal job.

Federal Employees who work at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration, or more than a dozen other government agencies "are more likely to die of natural causes than get laid off or fired...."

Death is the "primary threat" to their job security.

The federal government fired only about one-half of one percent of its entire workforce last year. In the private sector, the percentage of workers who get fired for "poor performance" is 5 times higher.

How much do you get paid with that kind of job security?

Twice as much as private sector counterparts.

Give me a break.

A young woman who is starving to death after being diagnosed with a paralysed stomach has been told that NHS bosses refuse to fund an operation to save her.

Rudi Hargreaves, 22, has shrunk from a healthy 10st to a skeletal 5st 10lb after being diagnosed with the crippling condition last year.

Within weeks of being diagnosed with gastroparesis, Rudi found her size 12 clothes were hanging off her - as her stomach became unable to digest food at a normal rate.

Casey Anthony's parents have received several death threats in the days since she was found not guilty of first-degree murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee, a report says.

Sheriff's spokesman Capt. Angelo Nieves said George and Cindy Anthony have received at least a half-dozen phone calls in which death threats were made, reports the Orlando Senitnel.

Authorities are now investigating the threats and checking the credibility.

"We are assessing," Nieves said, reports the paper. "We are also making an effort to indentify the callers."

On Thursday, Judge Belvin Perry sentenced Anthony to one year in jail, to be served consecutively, on each of four counts of providing false information to law enforcement as well as a fine of $1,000 for each count, plus court costs.

If you will be contacting agencies, businesses, or organizations for any reason relating to the care of an estate after a death, you will need certified copies of the death certificate.

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Five deaths and multiple injuries were reported after a tractor trailer crashed into a Amtrak train on Friday near Reno, according to Nevada Department of Transportation.

The driver of the truck is confirmed dead and 3-to-4 more on-board the train are dead, said Nevada State Trooper Dan Lopez. Bodies are being recovered from the wreck and an exact head count of all on-board has not been confirmed, he added.

Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno say they received nine injured passengers from the Amtrak crash. And of those nine, two are in critical condition, four in serious, and three in fair condition, according to Dan Davis of Renown.

There was no word on the ages or genders of the patients. Davis noted that the hospital may be receiving 4-to-6 more throughout the night.

Friday at about 11:20 a.m. the Amtrak’s California Zephyr train carrying 204 passengers and 14 crew members running from Chicago-to-Emeryville, Calif. collided with a tractor trailer on US-95.

Nurses casually stepped over a patient as he lay dying on a  hospital floor.

Peter Thompson, 41, was left in a corridor for ten hours before someone noticed he had passed away.

In a final act of indignity, hospital auxiliaries pulled his lifeless body across the floor in a manner his family described as like ‘dragging a dead animal’.

The scenes which shame the NHS were all captured on CCTV. Staff thought Mr Thompson was merely drunk and left him to ‘sleep it off’.
Yesterday a coroner condemned the death as ‘wholly preventable’.
An inquest heard that the father-of-one, who had consumed a cocktail of drink and drugs, could have been saved had he received emergency treatment. 
The hospital’s accident and emergency department was just 200 yards away.

Last night it emerged that three nurses face a disciplinary inquiry over their inaction.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian — embraced as a compassionate crusader and reviled as a murderous crank — died early this morning.

Known as Dr. Death even before launching his fierce advocacy and practice of assisted suicides, Kevorkian, 83, died at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, where he had been hospitalized with kidney and heart problems.

His attorney, Mayer Morganroth, said it appears Kevorkian suffered a pulmonary thrombosis when a blood clot from his leg broke free and lodged in his heart. With Kevorkian was his niece Ava Janus and Morganroth.

Friends and family paid tribute to victims of the Joplin tornado on Friday, beginning the grim task of burying the dead as officials said the savage storm's death toll had risen to 132 people.

As the first funeral began just over the Kansas border, city officials said the body count had gone up by six from the previous day. The state meanwhile worked to pare down the list of people missing and unaccounted for since the deadliest single U.S. twister in more than six decades.

The original list of 232 missing or unaccounted for residents had dropped to 156 by Friday, Missouri Department of Public Safety deputy director Andrea Spillars said, adding that at least 90 people on the initial list had been located alive.

But at least six others were identified as among the dead, and some new names had been added to the scroll of the missing. Authorities had cautioned for days that while they believed many on the list were alive and safe, others likely had been killed.

Terrill said there's no correlation between his bill and Edgar's death, noting that the child died in July, months before the law took effect, and that the law provides an exception for emergency medical care. "To the extent that these illegal alien paren

An illegal immigrant who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in a car crash that killed two teenage girls was sentenced Monday to 24 years in prison. Police said Alfredo Ramos' blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit on March 30 when hi

For millions of people who live or have resided in rural areas in Mexico or Latin America, an inch-long insect known as "la chinche besucona" or "the kissing bug" brings on anything but love. It causes heart disease, then possibly death.

An accused drunken driver was in the country illegally when he drove onto a sidewalk in southwest Houston last week and fatally struck a toddler walking with her parents, authorities said. Gissela Silvestre, 23 months, died from her injuries Oct. 16 after

Police have issued a murder warrant for the arrest of Ernesto Pina Reyes, a 20-year-old resident alien living in Denton, Texas, in connection with the death of Melanie Goodwin. Reyes remains at large.

HILLSBORO, OR -- A Hillsboro man will spend at least 25 years in prison after a jury convicted him of felony murder in the death of his girlfriend’s 20-month-old daughter. Ramon Rodriguez Moreno, 28, will be sentenced Thursday. Under Oregon’s sentenci

The illegal immigrant who fatally shot a Phoenix police officer on Tuesday had been arrested by Scottsdale police last year, just two months after he was deported from the country. Scottsdale police say they did not know Erik Jovani Martinez, 22, had been

A visual interface to The Times' Homicide Report Based on county coroner data and Times research | Updated August 6, 2007