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A 46-year-old woman who locked her 11-week-old twins in her car while she went shopping has been ordered to stay away from the department store and attend parenting classes.
Amanda Nejat left the babies alone for at least 40 minutes while she returned items to high-end shopping mall Nordstrom in Pleasanton, California, in February.
The mother, of Danville, pleaded no contest on Thursday to misdemeanor child endangerment at Alameda County Superior Court, according to the Contra Costa Times.
Concern: Amanda Nejat allegedly left her 11-week-old twins in her car in the a mall parking lot in California while she shopped for 40 minutes
Under the plea agreement, Judge Jacob Blea ordered Nejat to stay away from Nordstrom and banned her from leaving her children unattended.
She'll also pay a $1,000 fine and must attend 52 counseling sessions and 26 parenting classes.
Authorities said that another shopper was walking through the mall's parking lot in February when she heard cries from inside a Cadillac Escalade and peeked through the tinted glass.
Seeing no adult and the two babies in child seats, she alerted Pleasanton police and then security officers at the shopping centre.
Claims: Nejat originally told police she had popped into the Stoneridge Shopping Center to use the restroom - but surveillance footage showed her in shops
Security waited at the vehicle until Nejat returned. She was told to wait for police officers.
She claimed she had popped to the shopping centre to use the restroom, but surveillance footage showed she had been inside for 40 minutes.
She later admitted she had been returning items to the mall, police said.
Nejat's alleged actions appear at odds with her role as program director at the Bay Area Surrogacy Program, at which she gives new parents advice.
A professional online profile says that she provides 'comprehensive service guiding growing families with information, critical knowledge and support from beginning to post birth needs' in her role.
Officer Larry Cox from the Pleasanton Police Department said the passerby, a mother herself, had become concerned at the babies' cries.
Hidden: A passerby heard babies crying and peeked through the tinted windows to see the children inside. She alerted mall security officers and police
'She kind of did a double take when she first heard this,' he told the Patch. 'As a parent, you know the difference between an infant cry and the cry of an older child.'
He added that Nejat had been cooperative when she returned to her car, where security officers and the witness were waiting.
'She didn't try to flee or anything like that,' he added.
She was taken into police custody after her husband Frank took their children home.
Several missing after roof collapses at Canadian shopping mall - Daily Telegraph
Emergency officials quickly cleared out the mall and closed surrounding roads after the collapse triggered a gas leak. Mayor Rick Hamilton declared a state of emergency.
Ontario Provincial Police said 22 people were taken to hospital but none were seriously hurt.
Joe Drazil, a Zellers store employee, said several cars appeared to have fallen through the gaping hole near some escalators.
"You can see the roof with the cars hanging inside," he said. "Everybody was cleared from the whole mall. After that, there was numerous police and emergency vehicles coming from all over."
Source: AP
People missing after roof collapse at Canada mall - New Zealand Herald
Rescue teams and dogs searched through the rubble at a shopping mall in Canada where a roof collapsed through two floors, leaving several people missing and 22 people slightly injured.
Authorities said no casualties have been reported and the names of the missing continue to be crossed off the list as members of the community account for their loved ones. But a number of people remain unaccounted for since the collapse Saturday afternoon at Algo Centre Mall in the northern Ontario city of Elliott Lake.
Stephan Powell of Toronto Fire Services said 40 members of the Heavy Urban Search and Rescue team were removing pieces of the structure in an effort to extricate anyone who might have been trapped.
Kate Matuszewski, a spokeswoman for city, said emergency services were removed at one point Saturday due to safety issues.
Ontario Provincial Police Inspector Percy Jollymore urged anyone worried about missing loved ones to check in at an information center where police are tracking those who are unaccounted for.
A portion of the roof that serves as a parking area crumbled down two floors into an area near the food court, exposing metal and concrete supports.
Emergency officials quickly cleared out the mall and closed surrounding roads after the collapse triggered a gas leak. Mayor Rick Hamilton declared a state of emergency.
Ontario Provincial Police said 22 people were taken to hospital but none were seriously hurt.
Joe Drazil, a Zellers store employee, said several cars appeared to have fallen through the gaping hole near some escalators.
"You can see the roof with the cars hanging inside," he said. "Everybody was cleared from the whole mall. After that, there was numerous police and emergency vehicles coming from all over."
Shopper Jean-Marc Hayward was having coffee when the roof collapsed about 20 feet (6 meters) from him. He said a big hunk of concrete tumbled down through two floors and that it sounded like an explosion.
Hayward said he saw one man with a bloody face. Hayward, a dwarf who has trouble with his legs, said he couldn't run out.
"I was sucking in dust," he said.
Hayward and others have said the mall roof has leaked water for some time. There have long been buckets and tarps around the mall to collect leaking water, Hayward said.
"It's obvious there has been a lot of damage in the structure because of the water," Hayward said. "A couple of years ago they said they fixed all the leaks in the mall, but they didn't. You could tell every time it rained."
Powell could not confirm if rescue officials had been briefed about the water leaking issue.
The two-level mall in this northern Ontario community is approximately 200,000 square feet (18,580 sq. meters). It houses a grocery store, restaurants, a number of retail outlets, a hotel, and the constituency office for a member of the provincial parliament.
Calls to the management office and the Algo Inn hotel attached to the mall were not answered.
- AP
Duty-Free Limit Rules: Canadian Cross-Border Shoppers Planning Bigger Hauls Under New Regulations - huffingtonpost.ca
OTTAWA - Canadians are in a U.S. shopping state of mind this summer thanks to changes in regulations that allow them to buy more without paying duty, a new survey suggests.
The Canadian Press-Harris Decima poll on relaxed cross-border shopping limits that went into effect June 1 found a large majority in favour of the changes — and 54 per cent of those planning a trip stateside said they intended to spend more.
Additionally, four in 10 said they were likely to purchase more duty-free goods.
The telephone survey of 1,000 was conducted between June 14 and 18 and is considered accurate plus or minus 3.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
As outlined in the March budget, the duty-free threshold on stays longer than 24 hours rose to $200 from $50 beginning this month. The limit on stays longer than 48 hours increased to $800 from the current two-tiered levels of $400 and $750, depending on the length of stay.
In the poll, seven in 10 Canadians said they supported the higher duty-free limits, and eight of 10 of vacationers to the U.S. backed the changes.
"The potential number of Canadians travelling to the U.S. this summer is over four million," said Patricia Thacker, Harris Decima's vice-president of travel and leisure.
"With 54 per cent likely to purchase more under the new duty-free limits, that's over two million Canadians spending more in the U.S. this summer alone."
The changes have been criticized by the Retail Council of Canada as just one more blow to merchants who cope with higher costs and must compete with U.S. competitors that often get a better deal from suppliers.
With the new rules in place for a little more than three weeks, it is still too early to determine if Canadians have stepped up their shopping habits, said Karen Proud of the Retail Council. But she believes there will be an impact on retailers.
"We've seen increases in cross-border shopping ever since the loonie gained parity," she said. "There's been an increase of Canadians shopping in the U.S. and a decrease in Americans coming across the border to shop here.
"The (higher limits are) just added incentive."
Proud said Ottawa erred in enacting the duty-free changes, which now match those in the U.S., in isolation of other measures to help Canadian retailers compete, including reducing tariffs and tackling the supply management system that protects dairy and poultry farmers in Canada.
"Those products are some of the most cross-border shopped. Dairy, eggs, milk, we know people are filling up their trunks with groceries and then shopping for everything else they can pick up and basically being waved through the border," she said.
A comparison study published by the Bank of Montreal in April found that despite the near-parity of the Canadian and U.S. dollars in most months since 2007, consumer items are still on average 14 per cent more expensive in Canada, and that is before the HST tax is added. Some surveys have found a bigger gap.
The report estimated that Canadian store owners lose about $20 billion a year to cross-border shopping, although with many shoppers not reporting purchases, the exact worth of cross-border shopping is difficult to calculate.
BMO economist Doug Porter, who has done the price comparison list for several years, said today's shoppers would likely realize somewhat fewer savings because the loonie has dropped below parity in recent weeks. On Friday, it was trading below 98 cents U.S.
But Porter said that in general his findings stand, and the latest hit on Canadian retailers likely will be significant.
"Cross-border shopping tends to be downplayed by officials and the impact on the Canadian economy, but I do think it's quite significant," he said. The higher limits will just add further juice to what already looked like a "pretty robust cross-border outlook."
Wow! A 46-year-old who has to be told not to leave her children unattended. Isn't that basic common-sense? She got off lightly in my opinion.
- kay, US, 24/6/2012 19:23
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