Free Republic

A federal arraignment is set next week for a former Aptos elementary school recreation director accused of colluding with a Tiburon baby sitter to gain supervisory roles to create and exchange child pornography, according to court documents.

Last week, WCSC-TV reported that after Benjamin and Hope Jordan relocated to Charleston, S.C., they needed to find a baby sitter for their 7-month-old son, Finn, but what they found was a wolf in sheep's clothing. Benjamin and Hope wanted a loving, nurturing baby sitter, just like any other concerned parents who work during the day but have no family or friends to watch their child. They had done their homework and thought they had discovered her in 21-year-old Alexis Khan. She passed a background check and had credible work experience as a baby sitter, and both of Finn's parents...

Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday vetoed a major labor-backed bill that would have allowed child care workers, including family members, to unionize. The measure was pushed by Democratic leaders in the Legislature and introduced in the final days of the session. In vetoing the child care worker bill, AB101, Brown wrote to lawmakers that maintaining quality and affordable child care, along with ensuring fair working conditions are important goals. "Balancing these objectives, however, as this bill attempts to do, is not easy or free from dispute," the governor wrote in his veto message. "Today, California, like the nation itself is...

The Assembly is sending Gov. Jerry Brown a controversial bill that would unionize workers who receive state subsidies to care for children in their homes. Assembly Bill 101 cleared the lower house today, 48-23, after a lengthy debate. Republicans argued that unionizing home child care workers would hurt poor families because it would drive up their costs for hiring care. Democrats argued that child care workers deserve a seat at the table in negotiating with the state.

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — The next time you plan a movie night without the kids, you may have to provide more than just pizza for your babysitter. Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento are fast-tracking a bill that would require workers’ compensation benefits, meal breaks and paid vacation time for all “domestic employees”, including nannies, housekeepers and even babysitters. Assembly Bill 889, authored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), has already cleared the Assembly and is expected to receive overwhelming support from Senate Democrats, who control both houses of the California legislature. Under AB 889, parents legally become household “employers” and are...

An Oklahoma City man seeking sexual stimulation acted severely autistic and wore diapers to con baby sitters into caring for him, police reported. He told police he did it “for a sexual purpose,” court records show. Mark Anthony Richardson Jr., 21, twice this year fooled baby sitters into watching him at their homes in Oklahoma City, police reported. The baby sitters told police he would get sexually aroused when they cleaned him while changing his diapers, police said. Police said he grabbed the breast of one baby sitter's 18-year-old daughter during an overnight stay in September. Her mother told her...

It’s been a while since we’ve had a true contestant for the title of most depressing job offered to a law student. Sure, there have been a lot of jobs that offer $10 an hour, or even $0 an hour, for legal work. But at least those jobs were offering the opportunity to put long years of legal education to some sort of use. No, the most depressing jobs for would-be lawyers in this economy are jobs they could have easily gotten before they went to law school. Or college. Really, the most depressing job I’ve seen appeared last year,...

I was by Paddys at Misquamicut Beach, Rhode Island, it USED to be NON-state beach, no lifeguards anyways, I was 50 to 60 yards offshore, bobbing in the water, I am 6'4" so I need deep water to float 30 yards inland, 10 to 15 yards from the waterline, there was a sandbar, the waves were breaking over the sandbar, kicking up sand, making the water brownish lifeguard came over, blew his whistle for 2 or 3 minutes, I didn't know it was for me, I ignored it Some guy swam out to me, called me, I went in to...

About 17,000 upstate New York child care providers voted Friday to form a union represented by the Civil Service Employees Association. The workers voted to join Child Care Providers Together, bringing the total of unionized child care providers represented by CSEA in New York to 25,000. In May 2007, Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed an executive order granting home-based family child care providers the right to union representation. The order created four bargaining units: two in New York City and two covering the rest of the state. The United Federation of Teachers represents child care providers in New York City and...

A Utah mother was upset to see her 8-year-old son charged with lewd conduct after a 14-year-old babysitter allegedly initiated sexual conduct with the boy. While prosecutors dropped the charges against the boy, his mother is still concerned. The sexual conduct allegedly occurred during a game of "truth or dare" while the boy was being watched by the babysitter. Prosecutors said, while the babysitter initiated the contact, the young boy was a willing participant. "She dared my son to touch her breasts," says Michelle Grosbeck, the boy's mother. After hiring the teenager to baby sit, Grosbeck got the feeling something...

<p>IT was just another day on a movie set. An actor, who was struggling with alcoholism, asked a maid to bring him water. When she returned, the star's "sober companion" intervened, smelling the substance.</p> <p>"The bottle had vodka in it, and he took it away," said Chris Prentiss, co-director of the swank Malibu treatment facility, Passages, which employed the "companion."</p>