Tag: candy
21 students hospitalized after eating Valentine’s Day candy
ATLANTA — School officials said 21 students from a middle school south of Atlanta have been taken to hospitals after eating candy and snacks on Valentine’s Day.
Authorities with the city of South Fulton said it appeared that the Sandtown Middle School students became ill after eating some type of candy Thursday. They said the children experienced shortness of breath and other reactions.
City spokeswoman Ashley Minter-Osanyinbi said the students were taken to two local hospitals.
Fulton County Schools spokeswoman Susan Romanick said the students were first evaluated by paramedics, and then taken to two Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta campuses.
Romanick said she didn’t know what type of candy and snacks were eaten. She said that question is part of an investigation being done by the school system’s police department.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/02/14/21-students-hospitalized-after-eating-valentines-day-candy/
Man Faces Life In Prison For Stealing $31 Worth Of Candy
A New Orleans man could spend the rest of his life in jail after allegedly shoving “$31 worth of candy bars into his pockets at a Dollar General store.”
The man, 34-year-old Jacobia Grimes, is being charged by prosecutors under the state’s “habitual-offender law.”
Grimes has five prior convictions for theft. All of Grimes convictions “involved thefts of less than $500.” His last conviction was for stealing “some socks and trousers.”
Grimes appeared in court last week and pled not guilty. He faces a potential sentence of 20 years to life. He has already spent 9 years in jail for his previous convictions.
The decision to come down hard on Grimes met a skeptical audience from Judge Franz Zibilich, who is overseeing the case.
“It’s not even funny, 20 years to life for a Snickers bar, or two or three or four,” Zibilich said. If Grimes is found guilty, Louisiana law could leave Zibilich little discretion over the sentence.
Louisiana’s habitual offender law has been in place for 30 years. The result has been that “[s]entences of several decades, or even life, for nonviolent crimes are not unusual in Louisiana.” In other states, individuals convicted of similar crimes “would have received a much shorter sentence or no jail time at all.”
Grimes’ case is an example of how Louisiana became the “world’s prison capital.” A 2012 expose by The Times-Picayune found that the state imprisons more of its citizens than any other states and its incarceration rate is “nearly five times Iran’s, 13 times China’s and 20 times Germany’s.”
A major factor driving Louisiana’s massive inmate population is money. Each prisoner costs Lousiana an average of $18,800 per year. Sending Grimes to prison for 20 years would cost the state around $376,000.
“A majority of Louisiana inmates are housed in for-profit facilities, which must be supplied with a constant influx of human beings or a $182 million industry will go bankrupt,” The Times-Picayune reported.