Teen burglar breaks into home, asks sleeping couple for wifi
Palo Alto(CA), July 28: Police arrested a 17-year-old burglar last weekend after he entered an occupied residence overnight and awakened the sleeping residents. Officers later connected him to a nearby bicycle theft that had occurred the same night.
On Sunday, July 22, 2018, at about 12:31 a.m., our 24-hour dispatch center received a call from a couple in their sixties reporting they had just awakened to a stranger in the bedroom of their home in the 700 block of East Charleston Road. The male victim reported he had shoved the suspect out of his house and then called police. Officers responded immediately and detained the suspect without incident about a block away.
The investigation revealed that the couple had been asleep in their bedroom when they were awakened by the unknown suspect speaking to them and asking to use their WiFi network. The suspect was wearing something covering over his face. The male victim got out of bed, confronted the suspect, and pushed him down the hallway and out the front door of the house before calling police. No one was injured.
When officers found the suspect, he had a black T-shirt wrapped around the back of his neck under his sweatshirt. Officers believe that was what had been covering his face during the burglary. Officers determined the suspect had climbed into the home after cutting a screen covering an open window in the side yard. The suspect initially lied to police about his identity. The suspect’s motive for entering the home is unknown, but the victims reported that two kitchen knives were missing from a kitchen drawer. Police did not recover any weapons (including those kitchen knives) in the possession of the suspect.
Police arrested the suspect, a 17-year-old male from Palo Alto, for residential burglary (a felony), prowling (a misdemeanor), and providing false information to an officer (a misdemeanor). Officers transported him to Santa Clara County Juvenile Hall. In accordance with our standard release of information procedures, no additional information on the suspect is available since he is under the age of 18. We do not release booking photographs of juveniles in such situations.
During the afternoon of July 22, our 24-hour dispatch center received a call of a bike theft from a backyard that had occurred overnight at a home in the 3800 block of Middlefield Road. Officers learned that at around 11:45 p.m. on July 21, a resident in her twenties noticed the suspect was outside her bedroom window, standing in the home’s side yard, and motioning that he wanted to talk to her. The woman notified another resident of the home, an adult in his late teens, and together the two of them confronted the suspect in the side yard. The suspect asked to use their WiFi network because he was out of data. The residents ordered the suspect to leave, and they watched him ride away on a bicycle. They did not notify police at the time.
The following morning, the male resident realized that his bicycle, which had been in the backyard, was missing. The residents reviewed their surveillance video and saw the suspect stealing the bike from the backyard and moving it to the front of the home prior to returning to the side yard and making contact with the female resident.
Officers checked the area for the stolen bicycle and found it near the location where police had detained the suspect. Officers returned the bicycle to the victim and are recommending that the District Attorney’s Office add a charge of misdemeanor petty theft against the suspect.
Overnight burglaries of occupied homes are very rare in Palo Alto. Police recommend securing side yard gates with a padlock, and promptly reporting any suspicious behavior to authorities. Detectives are investigating to see if this suspect may be connected to any other crimes in Palo Alto or the surrounding area.
Courtesy: www.cityofpaloalto.org
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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