The Daily Populous

Gold Coast police urging victims to drop complaints to improve crime statistics

Gold Coast police officers are trying to paint a better picture of the official crime rate by “soliciting” victims to withdraw complaints, a damning report has found.

The Queensland auditor general’s report also warns crime statistics collated and released by the state’s police service should be “treated with caution”.

“The Queensland Police Service has an unacceptable amount of crime data across the state that is incomplete, inaccurate, and wrongly classified,” it reads.

Officers in the Gold Coast district had multiple methods designed to make victims withdraw their complaints, thereby increasing the clearance rate, it was found.

The scathing report also found a practice of altering crime data statistics by Gold Coast officers had “gone unnoticed or unchallenged at senior levels”.

“Gold Coast staff reported that an unhealthy focus on achieving performance targets, rather than data quality, has contributed to these results,” it states.

“Police Minister Mark Ryan needs to come clean and indicate just how bad the crime situation really is,” Mander said in a statement. »

Mystery of the missing mercury at the Great Salt Lake

Authored by unews.utah.edu

Mercury measurements in waterfowl surrounding the lake led to a rare human consumption advisory for ducks.

Instead, it’s part of a story involving a large-scale unplanned chemistry experiment, a sometimes-stinky lake, and ducks – in which the mercury did not disappear.

Because the north arm has no major river inflow, it’s much saltier than the south arm. »

Jonathan Demme, Oscar-Winning Director of ‘Silence of the Lambs,’ Dies At 73

Authored by indiewire.com

Jonathan Demme, the filmmaker whose career ranged from the David Byrne documentary “Stop Making Sense” to the Oscar-winning “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Philadelphia,” died this morning in New York.

READ MORE: Watch: Jonathan Demme and the Close-Up Shot: A Video Essay.

The cause was esophageal cancer and complications from heart disease, according to a source close to the family. »

The Living Disappeared - During Argentina’s military dictatorship, some 500 babies were born in secret torture centers or kidnapped. A group of grandmothers spent the next four decades searching for them, becoming activists, then icons. But hundreds remained missing. One of them was named Martín.

Authored by story.californiasunday.com

The Living Disappeared During Argentina’s military dictatorship, some 500 babies were born in secret torture centers or kidnapped.

A group of grandmothers spent the next four decades searching for them, becoming activists, then icons.

Some of the detainees heard the cries from the floor below and asked the guards what would happen to it. »

Fox News anchor joins lawsuit alleging racial discrimination, harassment at network

Authored by money.cnn.com

Fox News' legal troubles grew even larger Tuesday, with new plaintiffs, including an anchor, joining a suit alleging racial discrimination and harassment at the network.

The suit is now headlined by Kelly Wright, a black reporter and anchor who has been with Fox News since 2003.

The litigation began last month, when two black women filed a lawsuit saying they faced "top-down racial harassment" from Judith Slater, Fox's now-former comptroller. »