N.J. couple en route to their wedding killed in fiery chain-reaction crash in Pa.
A New Jersey couple on their way to get married in Pittsburgh were killed in a fiery chain-reaction crash last week on Interstate 78 in Berks County, Pennsylvania.
Kathryn M. Schurtz, 35, and Joseph D. Kearney, both of Jersey City, died in the collision Wednesday afternoon in Windsor Township.
Their car was struck from behind by a tractor-trailer and pushed into another tractor-trailer, according to Pennsylvania State Police. Three other tractor-trailers were also involved.
Kearney is originally from Pittsburgh, according to his Facebook profile.
Schurtz is a 2001 graduate of Union Catholic High School who grew up in Fanwood. She earned her bachelor’s degree at George Washington University according to an obituary published Sunday.
Schurtz went onto receive a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Notre Dame. She worked as the head of platform partnerships for Oracle Data Cloud in New York.
Schurtz is survived by her parents Joseph and Karen as well as a sister, brother-in-law and nephew. Visitation will be held Monday at Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church in Scotch Plains from 4 to 8 p.m. Monday and 10 to 11 a.m. Tuesday.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Kathryn M. Schurtz Scholarship Fund at Union Catholic High School in Scotch Plains.
Article via NJ.com
Azealia Banks Praises Russ For Fingering Technique: “DJ Fingerblast” Is Still “Corny AF”
She claims to understand the reason for the “F*ck Russ” trend.
Azealia didn’t leave her fans hanging in terms of the identity of this person. The female emcee some details through text posts shortly after her spoken rant which seemed to link Russ to the previous uploads to her stories. After being upset about his alleged attempt to “play her,” Azealia had both positive and negative things to say about him.
Her nicknaming him “DJ Fingerblast” is a testament to her claim of his being a “finger popping champion.” Regardless of his sexual prowess, Azealia still thinks the “Zoo” rapper deserves to be the subject of ridicule through “F*ck Russ” chants.
Article via HotNewHipHop
Former Ohio judge who brutally beat wife arrested after she is stabbed to death
Lance Mason served just nine months in prison for assault
A former Ohio judge who served just nine months in prison for brutally beating his wife four years ago has been arrested after she was found stabbed to death.
Aisha Fraser’s body was discovered in the driveway of her home in the city of Shaker Heights on Saturday.
Lance Mason, her estranged spouse, was initially taken to hospital after crashing into a police car at the scene and is now being held in custody.
In 2014 Mason punched Fraser around 20 times after the couple argued while returning from a relative’s funeral.
He repeatedly slammed her head into the dashboard, armrest and passenger window of a car and bit her on the face during the attack.
The couple’s six- and four-year-children were in the vehicle at the time, according to NBC News.
Mason also broke Fraser’s orbital bone and left her with injuries so severe that she required reconstructive surgery, according to WKYC.
He was removed from his position as a judge shortly afterwards and pleaded guilty in 2015 to attempted felonious assault and domestic violence.
The former judge was sentenced to 24 months in prison for the assault, yet served just nine.
After Mason was released from prison he was hired in 2017 by Cleveland mayor Frank G Jackson, subsequently serving as the director of Cleveland’s minority business development.
Aisha Fraser was killed on Saturday (Shaker Heights Teachers Association )
Mr Jackson fired the former judge on Saturday, after his arrest.
WKYC reported that that Mr Jackson sent his “deepest condolences to the family of Ms Aisha Fraser, especially to her children”.
Mason’s earlier conviction bars him from ever returning to work as a judge.
The victim had worked as a teacher for two decades and a Gofundme page set up by the Shaker Heights Teachers’ Association is collecting donations in Fraser’s name.
Proceeds will go to her two young daughters.
The Shaker Heights Police Department said in a statement that the investigation into the teacher’s death is “ongoing”.
Article via Independent
Referee banned for using rock/paper/scissors backed by 100s of officials
The referee banned for using rock/paper/scissors to decide kickoff has been backed after hundreds of fellow officials got in on the act.
Referees across grassroots matches in England used rock/paper/scissors ahead of their games after ref David McNamara was banned for using that method before a Women’s Super League match. McNamara was suspended for three weeks by the Football Association.
“A lot of us were thinking of David,” referee Ryan Hampson told BBC Sport. “We wanted to show solidarity.”
Hampson said players had requested rock/paper/scissors before he took control of the match in Lancashire.
“Without me saying a word, four players came up to me and said: ‘Are we getting on the rock/paper/scissors today?’ as they had seen coverage of the issue,” he said.
Law 8 states that before the match or extra time, “a coin is tossed and the team that wins the toss decides which goal it will attack in the first half of the match.”
“We can’t condone anyone deliberately breaking the laws of football,” Ref Support UK chief executive Martin Cassidy said. “However, we understand hundreds took part.
“The level of support should send out a message that the punishment was disproportionate. This suggests people are willing to face a possible charge from the FA or their county FA as they feel so strongly about it.”
However, not everyone is behind this heart-warming act of solidarity.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right. Referees are law-enforcers and not law-breakers,” a Southern Sunday League spokesperson told the BBC. “This action is unprofessional, and it brings the game into disrepute.
“Doing this due to a forgotten coin is one thing, but this is a step too far.”
READ SPORTS NEWS AT ESPN
3rd Autopsy Finds Evidence of Foul Play in Gym Mat Death: Kendrick Johnson’s family is trying to get case re-opened
A third autopsy has been done in the strange case of a teen found dead in a rolled-up gym mat in January 2013, and this one found evidence of foul play. Kendrick Johnson’s parents have had two of the three autopsies done, as they continue to insist the 17-year-old’s death was no accident, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. The Georgia sophomore was found upside down in the mat in his high school’s gym; state and local investigators believe he got stuck inside while reaching for a pair of sneakers. The state medical examiner’s office found that he died of positional asphyxia, meaning that he suffocated due to the position he was trapped in. The Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office classified his death as accidental, and Kenneth and Jackie Johnson have been fighting that finding ever since; they have had their son’s body exhumed twice, per the Valdosta Daily Times.
The two autopsies done at their request found the teen died of non-accidental blunt force trauma between his neck and abdomen. The Johnsons believe their son was killed by two sons of a local FBI agent, though video evidence showed they were not near the Lowndes High School gym at the time Johnson was last seen alive. A federal investigation was opened into the teen’s death and ultimately found no evidence of foul play. Because of that, the Journal-Constitution says the impact of the latest autopsy will likely be “minimal.” But WALB reports that in addition to the latest autopsy, the Johnsons submitted an affidavit to the local sheriff’s office stating that they were told this year someone killed their son by hitting him in the chest with a 45-pound dumbbell and that surveillance footage was edited to remove more than an hour of video. They are hoping to get the case re-opened.
via: http://www.newser.com/story/267414/3rd-autopsy-finds-evidence-of-foul-play-in-gym-mat-death.html
Florida Woman Made 13-Year-Old Girl Walk Naked In Public
A Florida woman is facing a child abuse charge after she allegedly punished a 13-year-old girl by forcing her to walk naked down a road.
Rosalie Contreras, 34, was arrested Thursday evening on one count of child abuse related to the incident, which happened around 4 p.m. that day in Dade City.
The victim’s relationship with Contreras has not been disclosed, but the girl told deputies Contreras wanted to punish her for misbehaving, according to BayNews9.com.
Contreras allegedly drove the girl to a remote location, made her remove her clothes and then made the girl walk naked and barefoot down the road while she followed in her car.
When another car came driving by, deputies said, Contreras made the girl get back in the car. The suspect allegedly slapped the victim, punched her back and twisted her breasts, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
The teen victim later called police and reported Contreras for child abuse. Deputies said she showed bruises and red marks that allegedly came from Contreras.
Police said Contreras admitted to taking the victim out to the location and claimed an unnamed person would not let her spank the girl.
Investigators said Contreras allegedly admitted to hitting and injuring the girl, according to ABC Action News.
Contreras was booked into the Pasco County Jail where she remains, according to jail records.
Woman fatally shot as husband was cleaning gun
CORINTH, N.Y. — Police say an upstate New York woman was killed in an apparent accident when a shot discharged as her husband was cleaning his gun.
New York state police say 34-year-old Ashley Rosenbrock was shot Thursday night in her home in Corinth. She was pronounced dead at Saratoga Hospital.
Police said Saturday that Rosenbrock’s 35-year-old husband, Eric Rosenbrock, was “performing maintenance” on his legally owned handgun when it went off.
The investigation is ongoing and no charges have been filed.
The Post-Star of Glens Falls reports that Eric Rosenbrock is a science teacher in the Lake George school district and the father of three young children with his wife. The couple had an 18-month-old daughter who died from an infection five years ago.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/11/17/woman-fatally-shot-as-husband-was-cleaning-gun-cops/
Days Away From Mars, NASA Awaits ‘The Seven Minutes Of Terror’
Article via Forbes
Flying the freeway to Mars, the robotic probe InSight nears the end of its 301-million-mile cruise with nary a hitch and hardly a hiccup.
But looming just ahead is the exit ramp—the Martian atmosphere.
“There’s a classic term for it,” says Rob Grover of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “The seven minutes of terror.”
That’s approximately the time InSight takes to land, a spooky 70-mile descent from the top of the atmosphere down to the ground.
Says Grover: “There is very little room for things to go wrong.”
Yet hundreds of things must go right, all without NASA’s backseat driving; during landing, there’s no joysticking.
“We can’t fly the vehicle in ourselves,” Grover says. “The flight computer on board has to do it on its own. Everything has to work perfectly by itself.”
And for those seven minutes: “Our hearts will be pounding.”
On left, the cruise stage, now separated; on right, the backshell containing the lander.Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
InSight lands November 26, the Monday after Thanksgiving, at 11:47 AM Pacific Time (2:47 PM Eastern).
Before the clock starts: The cruise stage—its delivery done—detaches from the capsule containing the lander.
Then the capsule—just before reaching the atmosphere—points itself, “tilting down 12 degrees,” says Grover. NASA’s leeway is minuscule, only “plus or minus a quarter of a degree.” Too shallow an angle, and the spacecraft skips off the atmosphere. Too steep, and it burns up.
And now the terrifying part.
Illustration: EDL (entry, descent, and landing) is underway.Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
InSight thunders in at 12,300 miles per hour—almost three-and-a-half miles per second.
Friction roasts it. The temperature on the heat shield hits 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.
Friction also brakes it; within two minutes, the speed of the spacecraft slows by more than 90 percent.
Yet it’s still going 1,000 miles per hour.
At seven miles up—commercial airliners fly about that high—the parachute opens. Within 15 seconds, the heat shield jettisons. For the first time, the lander is exposed to Martian air.
Another 10 seconds, and the three legs deploy. One mile above the ground, the lander falls from the backshell. Descent engines turn on. Touchdown velocity is 5 miles per hour.
Illustration: InSight lander, with parachute, descending.Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
Illustration: InSight, legs extended, touching down.Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
Much could happen. The parachute might not open properly. The falling heat shield could graze the lander. Descent engines may not shut off. A large surface rock could sit in the way. One of the legs might not release and lock.
Those scenarios, though unlikely, are not implausible. Any of them could cause an erratic landing.
“If the lander were to tip over,” says Grover, “it doesn’t have the ability to right itself. We would be stuck in that position. The science would be very difficult to do.”
Not helping any of this: The probe touches down during dust storm season.
“A global dust storm can blow up in a matter of days,” acknowledges Grover. But NASA isn’t fretting.
“We’ve been rehearsing for that,” he says. “We’ll land successfully in just about any conditions thought possible during the season.”
Right now, atmospheric dust is minimal; weather at the landing site appears normal.
Illustration: the InSight lander, deployed on the Martian surface. InSight will study the “inner space” of Mars, says NASA—its crust, mantle, and core. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
Grover—a 17-year JPL veteran, including six years on InSight—admits “there’s a lot of anticipation” at NASA about the landing.
“A combination of excitement and nervousness,” he says. “But there’s a sense we’ve done everything we can.”
Any surprises from the mission, he expects, will be good ones.
“There’s magic around it,” he says, “even better than Christmas.” Just get past those seven minutes.
Worse than opioids: Alcohol deaths soar among the middle aged, women
Alcohol kills more people each year than overdoses through cancer, liver cirrhosis, pancreatitis and suicide, among other ways.
The last time lawyer Erika Byrd talked her way out of an alcohol rehab center, her father took her to lunch.
“Dad, I know what alcohol has done to me,” she told him that day in January 2011. “I know what it has made me do to you and mom. But that wasn’t me.”
By the time she died three months later, Byrd had blocked her parents’ calls because they kept having her involuntarily committed. They once had a magistrate judge hold a hearing at her hospital bed. He ordered herto undergo a month of in-patient treatment.
Byrd, who died in April 2011 at the age of 42, is among the rising number of people in the United States who have been killed by alcohol in the last decade.
It’s an increase that has been obscured by the opioid epidemic. But alcohol kills more people each year than overdoses – through cancer, liver cirrhosis, pancreatitis and suicide, among other ways.
From 2007 to 2017, the number of deaths attributable to alcohol increased 35 percent, according to a new analysis by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. The death rate rose 24 percent.
One alarming statistic: Deaths among women rose 67 percent. Women once drank far less than men, and their more moderate drinking helped prevent heart disease, offsetting some of the harm.
Deaths among men rose 29 percent.
While teen deaths from drinking were down about 16 percent during the same period, deaths among people aged 45 to 64 rose by about a quarter.
People’s risk of dying, of course, increases as they age. What’s new is that alcohol is increasingly the cause.
“The story is that no one has noticed this,” says Max Griswold, who helped develop the alcohol estimates for the institute. “It hasn’t really been researched before.”
The District of Columbia, less than 10 miles away from the Venable law office where Byrd was a partner, had the highest rate of death from alcohol in the country, according to the institute’s analysis. Georgia and Alabama came in second and third.
Alabama, in fact, ranked third among states with the strongest alcohol control policies, as rated by medical researchers in a 2014 report published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
States can influence drinking – especially dangerous binge drinking – with policies such as taxes on alcohol and restrictions on where and when it can be sold.
Psychologist Benjamin Miller, chief strategy officer at the nonprofit Well Being Trust, says the larger health challenges in the South are to blame for high alcohol death rates. Southern states typically rank near the bottom in national rankings in cancer, cardiovascular disease and overall health.
Oklahoma, Utah, Kansas and Tennessee rounded out the five states with the strongest alcohol control policies, the researchers reported. States with more stringent alcohol control policies had lower rates of binge drinking, they found.
Nevada, South Dakota, Iowa, Wyoming and Wisconsin had the weakest alcohol control policies.
David Jernigan, a professor at Boston University’s school of public health who has specialized in alcohol research for 30 years, notes that the beer industry holds considerable sway in Wisconsin.
Binge drinking is sending far more people to the emergency room, a separate team of researchers reported in the February 2018 issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
The researchers, who looked at ER visits from 2006 to 2014,found the largest increases were among the middle aged – especially women. The number of teenage binge drinkers landing in the ER during that time actually declined.
States can influence drinking – especially dangerous binge drinking – with policies such as taxes on alcohol and restrictions on where and when it can be sold.
Psychologist Benjamin Miller, chief strategy officer at the nonprofit Well Being Trust, says the larger health challenges in the South are to blame for high alcohol death rates. Southern states typically rank near the bottom in national rankings in cancer, cardiovascular disease and overall health.
Oklahoma, Utah, Kansas and Tennessee rounded out the five states with the strongest alcohol control policies, the researchers reported. States with more stringent alcohol control policies had lower rates of binge drinking, they found.
Nevada, South Dakota, Iowa, Wyoming and Wisconsin had the weakest alcohol control policies.
David Jernigan, a professor at Boston University’s school of public health who has specialized in alcohol research for 30 years, notes that the beer industry holds considerable sway in Wisconsin.
Binge drinking is sending far more people to the emergency room, a separate team of researchers reported in the February 2018 issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
The researchers, who looked at ER visits from 2006 to 2014,found the largest increases were among the middle aged – especially women. The number of teenage binge drinkers landing in the ER during that time actually declined.
Older, often lifelong drinkers don’t need only to have their stomachs pumped. They frequently have multiple complications from their drinking.
Their often bulbous bellies need to be drained of fluid, which builds up from liver cirrhosis, and their lungs cleared of aspirated vomit, says Dr. Anthony Marchetti, an emergency room doctor at Upson Regional Medical Center in Thomaston, Georgia.
They might also have brain hemorrhages or internal bleeding, because booze prevents their blood from clotting properly.
By middle age, Marchetti says, long-term drinking can also lead to heart failure, infections due to immune suppression, a type of dementia from alcohol-induced brain damage, stomach ulcers and a much higher risk of cancer.
Read more 12News
