Pinkberry Founder Busted in Homeless Beating

(NEWSER) - A surge in vicious, unprovoked assaults on homeless people has put weight behind efforts to reclassify such attacks as hate crimes, the New York Times reports. Attacks have risen as more people have been pushed onto the streets by the recession, and researchers say the assailants are generally men or, more often, teenage boys who see the homeless as easy targets and beat, burn, and kill them for sport. "A lot of what we see are thrill offenders," says one criminologist. More»

Cops: Eddie Fisher flips out in Denver

(NEWSER) - The drummer for alternative rockers OneRepublic was arrested after losing it in downtown Denver early yesterday morning. Eddie Fisher, 38, was busted on suspicion of assault, destruction of private property, and disturbing the peace, AP reports. "Things just got out of hand, and he snapped," the alleged victim, girlfriend Lona Rae, told a local TV station. "My entire cabinets are ripped off my walls. I had my feet up against the wall trying not to let him in, and he busted through the door and he pushed me through the cabinets." Fisher will appear today in court, where he might do well to remember the band's Grammy-nominated breakout hit, "Apologize," notes TMZ . More»

Bloggers cringe at marketing company plan

(NEWSER) - A plan to turn homeless people into 4G hotspots has digitalphiles at the SXSW Interactive Conference in Austin crying "exploitive" and "dystopian." In a nutshell, a marketing company wants homeless people to carry MiFi devices that would enable passersby to get online when their carrier service won't suffice, the Houston Chronicle reports. Customers who use the hotspot would fork over what they can—a couple of dollars, say. But would this help the homeless, or callously turn them into human modems? More»

Richard Codey spends night at shelter

(NEWSER) - A former New Jersey governor transformed himself into a homeless man and went undercover in Newark to spend the night in a shelter, reports MSNBC . "To find a place to take you if you were homeless was impossible, essentially," says Richard Codey, now a state senator. Codey heaped on make-up for an hour Monday to undergo his metamorphosis into Jimmy Peters, a mentally ill homeless person just released from the psychiatric ward. (See the video in the gallery.) More»

Labour lawmaker Eric Joyce charged with assault

(NEWSER) - Britain's Houses of Parliament are home to no fewer than nine bars in which thirsty lawmakers and staffers can enjoy subsidized booze, and Labour MP Eric Joyce apparently had a few too many in one of them on Wednesday night. The Scotsman has been charged with three counts of assault and suspended from his party after allegedly starting a brawl with Conservative MPs in a parliamentary pub, the Telegraph reports. More»