Monday, 11-27-06: A crowd of demonstrators in New York was angry about the shooting of an unarmed black man by five police officers. They fired more than fifty shots. Sean Bell was two hours from being married. The five officers were immediately put on paid leave, of course. The incident stemmed from an undercover operation at a strip club, which is where Sean had his bachelor party. Wednesday, 11-29-06: Fistfights and shoving matches broke out in the Mexican Congress yesterday. Leftists tried to stop the inaugeration of the new President-elect by storming the podium and trying to take over the chamber. Conservatives, surrounded by security guards, pushed them back. Leftists are angry because they say Calderon stole the election. He won by less than one percentage point. Obrador, his rival, is making plans for a parallel government. Politics is more lively there.... Seven guards and a nurse at a juvenile boot camp in Bay County, Florida, were charged with manslaughter yesterday. A 14-year-old in their care died. He collapsed after a forced run, and they beat him. They didn't realize they were in front of a security camera. Martin Anderson's death caused the closure of this boot camp and three others in Florida. Thursday, 11-30-06: Brandon Mayfield has settled with the government out of court for $2 million dollars. He's the local Muslim who was arrested two years ago on charges of being a terrorist involved in the Madrid bombing. His home and office were broken into and bugged in secret, without any way he could challenge what was going on. It later turned out the FBI had made a mistake. In local news, an impoverished woman who came here from Ethiopia a decade ago wound up working for a doctor's family in Salem, and she was bullied and deceived into working 90 hour weeks for no pay. She wasn't able to get free till a friend helped her get to the FBI. Now she's suing for $1 million. The US Department of Justice estimates that 700,000 people a year are trafficked across international borders, around 16,000 into the US. Most are for sexual slavery, but 30% are for domestic labor. Those who exploit foreign workers are often otherwise upstanding members of the community. Friday, 12-1-06: A scientist says he's found that the Great Pyramids of Giza were constructed in part with concrete blocks. If true, this is the earliest known use of concrete, 2500 years before the Romans used it widely. His finding is quite controversial. Brandon Mayfield says that the way he knew his family was being watched by the FBI is that they don't wear shoes in the house. Two weeks before he was arrested, they found shoe prints in the carpet in his son's bedroom. Once they found all the clocks in the house blinking, and there hadn't been a power outage. He says his two weeks in jail were "dark and ugly." Saturday, 12-2-06: The Supreme Court is hearing a case in February known as the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" dispute. A principal suspended a student for displaying that phrase on a banner. He was standing on a sidewalk across the street from the school while the Winter Olympics torch passed through Juneau, Alaska. It's a freedom-of-speech case.