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Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Feb 18, 2015
February 18, 2015
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Doggin' it:
This year's Westminster Kennel Club dog show at Madison Square Garden is history and Miss P, a four-year-old Beagle from British Columbia, won Best in Show, beating six other finalists for the top prize. The beagle, which is owned by EDDIE DZIUK and LORI and KAITLYN CRANDLEMIRE of Enderby, Miss P is formally known as Ch Tashtins Lookin For Trouble. The Crandlemires say they're planning to retire Miss P after her big win last night, although part of the perks that come with her title include a meeting with DONALD TRUMP, and a walk-on part in the Broadway musical, "Kinky Boots."
Reserve Best in Show (or the second place winner) went to Skye terrier Good Time Charlie from Oyster Bay, NY, who was also the Terrier group winner. Other finalists included:
--Matisse, the Portugese Water dog was the triple working group winner
--Liz, an English Springer Spaniel won the sporting group
--The standard poodle, Flame, was the winner of the non-sporting group
--The old English sheepdog Swagger was the winner of the herding group
--Rocket, the Shih Tzu, co-owned by PATTY HEARST, was the winner of the toy group.
Patty, who's now 61 and known as PATRICIA HEARST-SHAW, told reporters "People move on. I guess people somehow imagine you don't evolve in your life. I have grown daughters and granddaughters and other things that normal people have."
As you might remember, Patty --who's the granddaughter of newspaper mogul WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST, was kidnapped by a gang of radical terrorists called the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974 when she was a student at the University of California at Berkeley. The group forced her to join them robbing a California bank and then put out a poster of her holding a machine gun and calling her "Tania."
She was later captured and convicted of bank robbery and a weapons charge, spending almost two years in prison until then-PRESIDENT CARTER commuted her sentence to time served. PRESIDENT CLINTON later issued her a pardon in 2001. Afterward, he married her bodyguard and the rest, as they say, is history.Sexual Harassment:
A new survey from Cosmopolitan says sexual harassment is still widespread in the American workplace. The study of more than two-thousand full- and part-time female employees by polling firm SurveyMonkey finds roughly one in three women ages 18 to 34 has been sexually harassed at work. The problem is worst in the restaurant industry, where 42 percent of women say they've experienced it, but it's also affected 36 percent of women in retail, 31 percent in science/tech, 31 percent in arts/entertainment, and 30 percent in the legal field.
Eight in 10 of those who were sexually harassed at work say it involves speech; 44 percent of women who were sexually harassed say they've encountered unwanted touching and sexual advances. About one in four received lewd texts or e-mails.
Most women polled --75 percent-- say they were targeted by male co-workers and about half were harassed by male clients or customers, compared to 38 percent by male managers. Another 10 percent say their harasser was a female co-worker. (The results exceed 100 percent because some respondents had been harassed multiple times.)
The Cosmopolitan survey shows some confusion about what harassment is: 16 percent of women answered "no" when asked outright if they've been sexually harassed at work but answered "yes" to experiencing sexually explicit or sexist remarks at their jobs.
NOREEN FARRELL of the nonprofit civil-rights law firm, Equal Rights Advocates, says a lot of people who call their hotline aren't sure. "Then they tell us they're getting persistent comments and dating requests and co-workers are calling women bitches," she says. "Nearly 100 percent of those callers are experiencing harassment."
Comments singling out a worker for being a woman, and which are severe or pervasive enough, can add up to a hostile work environment, a legal definition of harassment. It's not a criminal offense (unless it involves a crime like rape or assault), but companies can be held liable under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, a law that says you can't discriminate against someone based on their sex. A complaint can warrant a civil lawsuit against an employer and a monetary payout for damages.
Cosmo's survey finds 70 percent of women who've been harassed did not report it, whether to a manager or an attorney. (Kaye) -
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