The Morning Briefing - September 10, 2015
BURLINGTON – Mystery surrounds a 1,000-pound cannon unearthed outside an American Legion hall. Area historians and archaeologists are debating whether the buried 4½-foot cannon, founded in surprisingly good condition on Wednesday, was left behind by Hessian troops who occupied Burlington in 1776 or if was an American Legion display buried back the 1930s, the Burlington County Times reports. That's about the time the American Legion Hall updated its outdoor monument to include a statue of a World War I soldier and a more modern cannon. Workers who are installing a handicapped-access ramp are now poking around the site for more artifacts. Maybe they'll dig up a Revolutionary War frigate or a sloop.
STATEWIDE – When is a “standardized test” not standard? When students can opt not to take it. No joke. High school juniors now have the choice of taking the controversial PARCC test for English, or they can take the Advanced Placement test or the International Baccalaureate test in English. State education officials see this as a nice compromise with ticked-off parents and students who complain that all these standardized tests are messing with actual classroom time. But if not all kids take the PARCC, wouldn’t the results include a huge asterisk?
NEW BRUNSWICK – Every so often a crime spree at Rutgers University hits the news, prompting a new crop of students to demand more safety. Each time, the university springs to action. With the latest round of students on campus, and the alleged crime spree by some RU football players, the university is springing into action again. Rutgers is offering window alarms and light timers to nearly 10,000 students who live off the College Avenue campus. Plus, more cops and more security cameras, on top of the more cops and more security cameras from the last round.
NEWARK – To the airline passenger who thought he could just wander out to the jet way at Newark Liberty International Airport and wait there for his flight, we say: this is not 1960. A passenger who missed his connection to Fort Lauderdale decided it would make more sense to pass through an alarmed door and wait on the runway, as opposed to the gate, last night. This prompted a full police response, as one would expect, with a full scan of an unoccupied plane at United Airlines Gate 74, NJ.com reports. The man was charged with trespassing and likely stripped of his peanut privileges for five years.
PATERSON – Perhaps the city has a crime problem - especially when cops now need to beef up security when the mayor ventures out to attend church. On Labor Day, Mayor Jose "Joey" Torres was celebrating the 10 a.m. mass at St. John’s Church, while someone was outside, smashing the window of his city-owned Chevrolet Suburban and making off with the mayor’s radio, the Paterson Press reports.
ATLANTIC CITY — Give a girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world, or at least capture the Miss America crown. That's what the pageant's 52 contestants hope when they unveil their unusual footwear at Saturday's "Show Us Your Shoes" parade. Each will wear shoes to represent their home state – everything from snowflakes and butterflies to dinosaurs and alligators. Miss New Jersey's shoes have dice and Monopoly money, a nod to Atlantic City. Miss Idaho's stilettos are garnished with potatoes; Miss Vermont's are black sequined snow boots; and Miss New Hampshire's pumps sport a toy elephant and donkey, a nod to the Presidential primary, or her affinity for the zoo.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
WASHINGTON, PA. – There’s no escaping women. That is the message from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which has slapped a “men’s only” barbershop with a $750 fine for gender discrimination. Problems surfaced when a woman booked an appointment at the shop, a dude haven where beer flows and all magazines somehow portray naked woman serving men watching sports. The Observer-Reporter said the barber shop refused to cut her hair, citing her gender, and offered to pay for her haircut somewhere else. She did finally leave and promptly filed a complaint with the state. To finish this story, please reread the first sentence.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was this day in 1935 that “Popeye” was first broadcast on NBC.Yet kids still refused to eat spinach and everyone wanted to ask Olive Oyl out for a malted.
WORD OF THE DAY
Eye-servant – noun
Definition: A lazy servant who only works within sight of his employer.
Example: “Every time I walk into the office, Joe starts typing furiously. What an eye-servant.”