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A New Jersey business owner used a drone to drop damaging dye into pools at homes and a motel in Atlantic County in recent weeks, authorities said. Patrick Spina IV, 45, of Absecon, was arrested at his business in Galloway on Friday after Absecon police and other law enforcement agencies tracked the drone back to Comfort Solutions Heating and Cooling, officials said. Absecon police began investigating Aug. 13 after homeowners called to say a drone hovering over their pool dropped a dye into it. The dye turned the pool water “an alarming shade of green.” Police then got reports from...

A spate of mass brawls in German outdoor swimming pools has led to calls for better security at the popular summer bathing spots. As temperatures soar across the country, many people traditionally head for their local municipal outdoor swimming pool. But over the last few years the start of summer has also been plagued by headlines of violence and mass brawls at open-air pools. And this summer is no different. A number of incidents have been reported in the last week alone. On Wednesday evening dozens of police officers cleared and shut down an outdoor swimming pool in the Berlin...

Outbreaks of a parasitic infection linked to swimming pools and water playgrounds are increasingly being reported to CDC, with twice as many outbreaks in 2016 as in 2014. At least 32 outbreaks caused by Cryptosporidium (also known as “Crypto”) linked to swimming pools or water playgrounds in the United States were reported in 2016, compared with 16 outbreaks in 2014, according to preliminary data published today in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The parasite can spread when people swallow something that has come into contact with the feces (poop) of a sick person, such as pool water contaminated with...

Swiss authorities recently denied citizenship to a pair of Muslim sisters, 12 and 14, who refused to take part in their school's swimming lessons alongside boys of their age group in the city of Basel. According to USA Today, the girls had applied for citizenship a few months ago, but their request was denied this week. “Whoever doesn’t fulfill these conditions violates the law and therefore cannot be naturalized,” Stefan Wehrle, president of the naturalization committee, told TV station SRF on Tuesday. Reports do not indicate the nationality of the Muslim family, but the episode is yet another reminder of...

Police in Lower Saxony have said that sporadic group sexual assaults have been reported at swimming pools in 2016, what they call a “new phenomenon.” […] This type of crime is “notable” because sexual crimes are usually “almost exclusively” committed by people acting alone. In all the instances of crimes carried out by groups — what the police describe as “a new form of criminality” — the perpetrators were not German, police say. …

Linky only.

Swimming pools are a much greater danger to black children and teens than they are to other kids, a new government study shows. Black children ages 5 to 19 drown in swimming pools at a rate more than five times that of white children, the research found. That suggests a lot of blacks are not learning to swim, said the lead author, Dr. Julie Gilchrist of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Swimming is a life-saving skill, not just another sport, she said. …

Here is some excellent analysis that shows that swimming pools kill more children than guns, despite the fact that we have more guns than swimming pools in this country: http://www.m1-garand-rifle.com/firearms-versus-swimming-pools.php When you factor in the number of pools relative to that of guns, the analysis shows that a child is 52 times more likely to die in a swimming pool than by a gun shot. We need to outlaw swimming pools, in order to save the lives of children. I am all for pool control. We must fight to ensure that the pool builders lobby does not undermine our attempt...

<p>The Justice Department on Thursday issued a 60-day stay of execution for hundreds of thousands of public pools which had been required to install ramps and wheelchair lifts by today or else face lawsuits over violating disability laws.</p>

Many hotels are faced with making improvements to pools by Thursday or falling out of compliance with the latest accessibility laws for disabled people. Hoteliers must have pool lifts to provide disabled people equal access to pools and whirlpools, or at least have a plan in place to acquire a lift. If they don't, they face possible civil penalties of as much as $55,000. There are about 51,000 hotels, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association, and most have pools. The lifts are required by regulations made in 2010 stemming from the Americans With Disabilities Act, a civil rights...

President Obama's Department of Justice -- led by Attorney General Eric Holder -- has found a new way to make the Americans with Disabilities Act pay off for Democratic trial lawyer campaign donors. Since the ADA first became law in 1990, the DOJ has been issuing "guidelines" that businesses must follow to comply with a multitude of the nation's civil rights laws. For example, if a restaurant bathroom has a light switch that is 52 inches above the floor, then that business is in compliance. But if the light switch is 53 inches above the floor, than the restaurant owner...

President Obama's Department of Justice -- led by Attorney General Eric Holder -- has found a new way to make the Americans with Disabilities Act pay off for Democratic trial lawyer campaign donors...The DOJ has been issuing a growing wave of such guidelines over the years, reaching an ever larger portion of business activities. In September 2010, the DOJ issued guidelines for "recreational facilities," including a new rule that all public access swimming pools must provide a lift capable of moving disabled patrons from their wheelchairs into the water... On Jan. 31 of this year, DOJ granted the industry's call...

Memorial Day weekend is here which means it's the official start of swimming pool season. This year though, you may want to think twice before jumping in and making a splash. There has been a nationwide recall of 1 million pool and spa drain covers that could trap you or your child, despite their federal "seal" of approval. "We're finding out the laboratories misrepresented their testing procedures," said Albert Rizzo, of Rizzo Pools in Newington. Rizzo says the timing couldn't be worse. "If you have one main drain, I would tell you not to swim in the pool. Now I...

Pools can be dirty, toxic and full of many things that make kids and adults sick. Fecal matter is just the tip of the iceberg. Children with dirty diapers are adding to unsafe swimming pools. When 1 in 5 adults admit to urinating in swimming pools, how much urine must be in public swimming pools? Nitrogen from urine can actually eat chlorine. Sweat and suntan lotion can also damage chlorine in pools.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon has begun drawing up plans to send troops and equipment to the U.S. border with Mexico, where hundreds of thousands of migrants enter the country illegally each year, a defense official said on Friday. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld discussed border issues at the Pentagon with his Mexican counterpart, Defense Minister Gen. Gerardo Clemente Ricardo Vega. Mexico and the United States share a 2,000-mile border. "The U.S. and Mexican governments continue to work together to control the border and collaborate on these important efforts," said U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman. "This cooperation...

Norwegian oil company Hydro announced on Monday a promising oil discovery under the oil and natural gas fields already producing at the enormous Troll field in the North Sea. The Oslo-based petroleum and light metals group said prospects for developing the find in the deeper rock structures were promising because the oil is so close to an existing offshore field. Hydro said further tests and drilling will be needed to determine the amount of additional oil that could be produced. Troll is Europe's largest natural gas field currently in operation, and also produces 260,000 barrels of oil per day from...

They're pulled from backyard pools and bathtubs each year, tiny limp bodies, blue and not breathing. A young life can vanish quickly under water. A survivor can endure a lifetime of disabilities. Either way, families are torn apart by an almost always preventable tragedy. Standard summer companions in our desert climate, swimming pools can be deadlier for children than guns. A child is 100 times more likely to die in a swimming accident than in gunplay, writes Steven D. Levitt, University of Chicago economics professor and best-selling author. Levitt analyzed child deaths from residential swimming pools and guns and found...

Nov. 4, 2004, 12:10AM Bin Laden has more to say Terrorist claims Iraq's 'black gold' bedazzled Bush By NADIA ABOU EL-MAGD Associated Press CAIRO, EGYPT - Terror mastermind Osama bin Laden claimed in new video footage broadcast Wednesday that President Bush ignored warnings against invading Iraq because he was dazzled by the country's "black gold" and ended up leading the United States into a quagmire. The full video, portions of which were broadcast Friday, was posted on a Web site used by Islamic groups Wednesday. The tape shows the author of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks accusing Bush of acting...

While Democratic convention bigwigs hobnob in the air-conditioned FleetCenter and swank function rooms, city kids will find gates to some neighborhood swimming pools padlocked because of security and traffic concerns. Pools in Cambridge and Somerville will be closed early during the July 26 Democratic National Convention week ``to facilitate area traffic flow,'' while the Lee Wading Pool on the Esplanade has been closed entirely to make way for a state police command post. ``There was no need to close that pool,'' Mark Horan, spokesman for Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone, said of the state's decision to shut down Latta Brothers Pool...

Playing Pool S.F. has great swimming pools, but political insanity makes them all but useless to families and kids BY MATT SMITH When diagnosing complex societal malaise, the simplest and most obvious symptoms can be telling. Where beat cops solicit bribes, there's corruption all the way to the top. Where people support leaders with a brutal past -- the Augusto Pinochets, the Efrain Rios Montts, and the Kurt Waldheims of the world -- social critics aptly fret over culturewide inhumanity. Where citizens contemplate leadership by movie stars -- Reagans, Beattys, Schwarzeneggers, etc. -- one sees polity in the thrall of...