http://www.wkbw.com/news/local/jac-leroy-138314344.html

Le Roy, N.Y. (WKBW) – An environmental team working with activist Erin Brockovich was forced off the Le Roy High School property over the weekend.

They were there to collect soil and water samples.

Brockovich and her team are looking into a potential environmental cause for the strange tic-like symptoms of more than a dozen students. Officials at the school said that those tests were already conducted, and came up with negative results.

After researching, Brockovich said she discovered a train derailment in the early 1970's spilled gallons of toxic chemicals just four miles from the school. According to federal documents, Brockovich said environmental agencies did not investigate the spill for more than 20 years. She said there is also a report that some of the chemicals spread to the school through rainwater runoff.

Brockovich thinks chemicals may already be in the soil of the athletic field. She said parents and students claim that they have seen an orange substance in the air, and on their shoes and sports gear when students play on the field.

“Every year when water rises, the chemicals from the bedrock pulse and come out into the ground water,” Brockovich said.
</snip>

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/lifestyle/consumerhealth/news/article_1688106.php/Le-Roy-N-Y-Teen-Mystery-Illness-May-Be-Environmental-Says-Top-Neurologist

Le Roy, N.Y. Teen Mystery Illness May Be Environmental, Says Top Neurologist

A strange neurological mystery illness is affecting over a dozen teens at a high school in upstate New York, resulting in debilitating twitches, pain and spasms.

The CBS News affiliate in New York reports that high school students are stricken with an unexplainable set of symptoms.

One student, Thera Sanchez, awoke up from a nap with tremors and shaking. "It's very heartbreaking to me to be honest, knowing that right now I can't do what I love," she told CBS News.

Other students also had the onset of shaking, stuttering and uncontrollable body shaking and pain just as suddenly and without warning.

This condition has completely baffled the medical community in Genesee County town, reported first by CBS 2 news Maurice Dubois.

CBS News reports that even the local neurologists are having a hard time understanding why this is happening in the small community.
</snip>

http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-incidents/cursed-concordia-born-bad-ended-up-worse-20120116-1q1w2.html

Cursed Concordia 'born bad, ended up worse'

If maritime superstitions are to be believed, the Costa Concordia was doomed from the moment it was launched.

When a grand christening ceremony was held in July 2006 in the port of Civitavecchia, the ceremonial champagne bottle failed to smash against the hull of the luxury liner - now on its side in the sea as rescue workers hunt for missing passengers - and wet the bow.

In a video capturing the moment, some among the crowd - which included supermodel Eva Herzigová - can be heard gasping as the bottle is hurled from a height and bounces, unbroken, off the side.

It is a sign some seafarers consider to be a harbinger of bad luck. Ominously, the Titanic was never christened.

"It was born bad and ended up worse," the Italian newspaper Il Giornale pronounced in a headline about Friday's tragedy.
</snip>

http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/story/Police-take-down-Occupy-Syracuse-camp/lc4xe737EUCJ84LAicdQqA.cspx

Syracuse, New York - (WSYR-TV) - News is breaking in Downtown Syracuse, where police moved in overnight to takedown the Occupy
Syracuse encampment on South Salina Street.

Police arrested seven people on trespassing charges after they moved in about 3:30 Thursday morning. Syracuse DPW crews have dismantled the tents at the camp site.

Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner ordered the protesters out by 8 a.m. Wednesday, city officials were concerned that propane tanks and space heaters at the site had become a fire hazard.
</snip>

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2088411/Costa-Concordia-T-shirt-harbour-masters-tirade-Captain-Schettino-sell-online-12.html

Harbour master Gregorio De Falco - the man who told the cowardly Costa Concordia captain to 'Get Back on Board for xxxx's sake' - today woke up to find himself a national hero.

Headlines in Italian newspapers roared 'De Falco Idol' and 'Thank you Captain' as De Falco tried to play down the infamous four minute recording berating Francesco Schettino.

T-shirts with the phrase in Italian 'Vada a Bordo, Cazzo' (Get on board, damn it*) were being snapped up for £12 after an enterprising online clothing store advertised them on the web.

</snip>



(*Cazzo is "prick" in Italian)

http://gcaptain.com/costa-concordia-update-italian/?37534

<snip>
Antonio Belardo, a local official, said the ship deviated from its “usual” route in order to give passengers a view of Giglio’s port. That meant navigating a strait, so that the ship could skirt a stretch of the small island’s coastline that faces mainland Italy.

Gianni Onorato, managing director of Carnival Corp.’s Costa Cruises, which operated the ship, told reporters on Saturday that the course taken by the ship Friday evening was “not a defined route for passing Giglio.” However, Mr. Onorato said it would be “incorrect to say the ship was off course,” adding that he was unaware of all of the possible routes available to the captain at the time.

“It’s difficult to say at this moment what happened,” Mr. Onorato said, adding that the company was cooperating with authorities to “shed light on the causes of this tragedy that is unprecedented in our 64-year history.”

Italian media reported that the boat hit a grouping of rocks known as Le Scole, located about one kilometer, or a half-mile, off the coast of Giglio.
</snip>