Woman Allegedly Jumps Off Bridge Into Monongahela River, Leaves Three Children in Vehicle in traffic
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — A woman fell or jumped in the Monongahela River from the Homestead Grays Bridge, leaving three children between the ages of 1 and 9 in her SUV.
First responders did not make it to the scene until after the woman jumped or fell.
According to police, the woman stopped her SUV in traffic on the bridge and went to the railing.
Police discovered the three children and they were unharmed.
The children were taken to a local hospital for evaluation and will be turned over to CYF.
River rescue found the woman’s body around 9:15 p.m.and she was declared dead at the time of recovery.
The medical examiner has identified the woman as Stanlee Holbrook, a 26-year-old from McKees Rocks.
via: https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2019/06/14/homestead-grays-bridge/
The Sperminator’s 50th baby mama is a homeless 18-year-old from Harlem
The Sperminator strikes again — this time donating his seed to an 18-year-old who lives in an East Harlem shelter. Her daughter, due July 12, will make it number 50 for the serial sperm donor.
Ari Nagel, the 43-year-old CUNY math professor who donates his sperm to women across the globefor free, has racked up serious spawn this past year: 15 babies since last Father’s Day, bringing the grand total to 48. One woman is due to give birth in early July, followed by Kaienja Garrick, who lives in the East River Family Center, a family shelter with a shared bathroom and kitchen.
“I think it’s a nice shelter. It’s probably nicer than my apartment,” Nagel told The Post, adding that he didn’t know how old Garrick was when she reached out to him last August. “I never asked her age — I try to help whoever asks,” he said. “I think Kai is more mature than I was at her age after everything she has been through.”
Garrick has been on her own for about two years after leaving her mother’s Jamaica, Queens, home because “we fought a lot.” Without other family nearby (her father lives in Georgia), Garrick, who is unemployed, entered the shelter system.
Last August, a month after her 18th birthday, she decided to try to get pregnant.
“I knew if I could raise my little sister, I can raise my own baby,” she said of her 7-year-old sibling. “I’ve been taking care of her since she was born.”
Kaienja and her girlfriend of three years, Dee Slobert, ruled out going to a clinic, chalking it up to hassle and expense. (Slobert, 21, lives in a different Manhattan shelter with her mother and brother.)
That’s when Garrick did an online search for “free sperm donation” and found Nagel.
“I didn’t know what a ‘Sperminator’ is,” she said. But after a few Facebook exchanges, Garrick knew he was the one.
“He didn’t ask about anything,” she said. “It’s good not to ask a lot of questions — it’s a woman’s choice.”
They met up in Manhattan Beach last fall, where Nagel donated into a cup on the spot. Two weeks later, Garrick knew she was going to be a mom.
Last month, several members of Nagel’s “mom squad” — women who have given birth thanks to him — showed up at Garrick’s baby shower with diapers, clothes and cash.
“They were great and I’m so grateful,” said Garrick, adding that Nagel, who also attended, brought a Google Home electronic device for reading to the baby.
(Garrick didn’t get to meet all the women, however: She was hours late to the party, as she was getting her hair done, and some of the guests left before she arrived. Nagel cracked to Garrick’s father: “She’s only 18, you have to give her a break.”)
Garrick admitted it’s a bit much to process the multitudes of half-siblings her child will have.
“[Nagel] has so many kids, you don’t know who the siblings could be,” she said.
When her daughter eventually starts dating, she plans to inquire about the person’s family background — to make sure they’re not a relative.
She and Slobert have a name picked out for their daughter: Kaidee, a hybrid of their names.
Garrick hopes to soon score an apartment voucher through her caseworker for her, Kaidee and Slobert, who has plans to finish high school and one day work in engineering. (Slobert is currently unemployed and not enrolled in any school programs.)
Garrick said she will receive her own high school diploma later this month through the Department of Education’s Pathways to Graduation program.
Nagel is confident Garrick will be a good mom. “My 18 was different than hers — people mature at different ages, but better too young than too old,” he said, noting that infertility increases with age.
And Garrick brushes off skeptics, including her own mother, who don’t approve of her having a baby. “It’s not their decision — it’s mine,” she said.
She added that, unlike the five moms who have sued Nagel, Garrick has no plans to ask him for child support.
“I think it’s sad — it’s not like he charges us [for his sperm],” she said. “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be blessed to have a child. It’s hard to find people like that. Nothing’s free in this world.”
Meanwhile, the Sperminator continues spreading the love. Last week, he made sperm donations in Latvia and Thailand — where, according to Nagel, a 39-year-old Buddhist virgin paid for him to visit.
Taking stock of his offspring, he said: “It would be crazy if I was raising them on my own, but there are over 50 amazing, loving moms that are doing a great job raising the children.
“Although I struggle financially, I feel rich with joy and love and am so blessed to be a part of so many wonderful families.”
Photo Credit: nypost.com/Stefano Giovannini; Brian Zak
Strawberry Moon 2019: Best times to watch and a special viewing bonus
Article via CNN
It’s time for another noteworthy celestial event. Be sure to cast your gaze toward the sky for 2019’s Strawberry Moon. And for the keen-eyed, there’s a heavenly bonus with a prominent appearance from one of our fellow planets.So you’re not disappointed or confused, first things first: The moon isn’t going to actually look like a big, round strawberry. That’s because in North America, the name comes from Algonquin tribes of Native Americans. This full moon was their sign to harvest wild strawberries, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac. This moon has other names in other parts of the world. In Europe, you may hear it called the Honey Moon, Mead Moon or the Full Rose Moon. In the Southern Hemisphere, it can go by Oak Moon, Cold Moon or Long Night Moon, according to EarthSky.org.
In the Eastern Time Zone of the United States, that will happen at 4:30 a.m. Monday, June 17. On the West Coast with Pacific Time, the peak will be 1:30 a.m. On the other side of the globe, New Delhi, India, will see peak time of 2 p.m. See the upper right side of the timeanddate.com page to get the time for your location.But remember, peak time doesn’t mean your only viewing time. As The Old Farmer’s Almanac points out, the moon will appear full to viewers on Father’s Day (Sunday, June 16) shortly after sunset.
For the best impression, take a look not at peak time but while the moon is still low on your horizon, says CNN meteorologist Judson Jones.”My favorite time to watch the full moon is as it is rising over the eastern horizon. When the moon is low on the horizon, it allows you to capture the view with objects in the foreground, making the moon appear bigger,” Jones said.”Say you are in the city, and you’re watching between a couple of buildings or over the skyline, it will make it feel that much bigger and give it more impact.” He adds that if you’re around the ocean, a lake or mountains, the perspective could be very pleasing.
Special guest
Now, about that heavenly bonus. You may notice a bright object floating just above the moon. That will be not a star, but Jupiter. The solar system’s largest planet actually made its closest approach to Earth in 2019 back on June 10, but it’s still showing prominently in the night sky. Even ordinary binoculars should yield impressive viewing results.
What’s next?
For those who like to follow earthly and celestial events, we’ve got the summer solstice coming up in just a few days — on Friday, June 21.And the next full moon after the Strawberry is the Full Buck Moon on July 16.
Healthy eating can turn into dangerous obsession, researchers say
Article via UPI
“Orthorexia is really more than just healthy eating,” said researcher Jennifer Mills. “It’s healthy eating taken to the extreme, where it’s starting to cause problems for people in their lives and starting to feel quite out of control.”
When eating healthy becomes an around-the-clock obsession, it could be a sign of trouble.
An extreme preoccupation with clean eating is an eating disorder called orthorexia nervosa. Though less well-known than anorexia nervosa or bulimia — and not as well-documented — a new study review says orthorexia can also have serious emotional and physical consequences.
“Orthorexia is really more than just healthy eating,” said review co-author Jennifer Mills, an associate professor of health at York University in Toronto. “It’s healthy eating taken to the extreme, where it’s starting to cause problems for people in their lives and starting to feel quite out of control.”
The review of published research from around the world on the disorder was recently published in the journal Appetite.
Mills and her colleague Sarah McComb looked at risk factors and links between orthorexia and other mental disorders. Orthorexia, unlike some other eating disorders, is not yet recognized in the standard psychiatric manuals.
Healthy eating to the extreme
No clear line divides healthy eating from orthorexia’s extreme eating.
The foods someone with orthorexia might avoid are the same as those someone with healthy habits might avoid — such as preservatives, anything artificial, salt, sugar, fat, dairy, other animal products, genetically modified foods or those that aren’t organic.
It boils down to whether avoiding foods leads to obsession — excessive time and energy thinking and fretting about what to eat. Some people may eliminate numerous categories of food and eat only a very small number of things.
People with orthorexia are typically less concerned about cutting calories than with the perceived quality of their food.
“They often are taking more and more time thinking about the foods they’re needing to purchase, particular foods, that makes it really difficult for them to just live their lives,” said Lauren Smolar, who wasn’t involved with the review. She is director of programs for the nonprofit National Eating Disorders Association. “It can result in malnutrition or weight loss in a really difficult and potentially dangerous way.”
A person with orthorexia might be so focused on types of food and how that food is prepared that it becomes impossible to eat anything not made at home.
“It can lead to all kinds of related problems, like isolation, or not being able to eat at other people’s houses or not being able to eat in a restaurant for fear that the food won’t have been prepared in a very pure, clean way,” Mills said. “Those are the kinds of things that might lead someone to feel that it’s taking over their life.”
Cultural trends could be fueling those fears, Mills said. With the internet and social media, people have unlimited access to information — some of it good and some not based on scientific evidence.
Eating trends that restrict certain foods are concerning, said Smolar, who added that dieting is one of the biggest triggers for eating disorders. All foods are good in moderation, she said, and a diverse diet is best.
Though many think of eating disorders as a problem affecting young women, orthorexia appears to be experienced equally by men and women, the study found. People who follow a vegan or vegetarian diet or who have a poor body image are at a higher risk.
For some, the underlying cause is another eating disorder, and clean eating is seen as a socially acceptable way to restrict calories, Mills said. For others, obsessive-compulsive or anxiety disorder may manifest in the need to eat in this very rigid way.
“In that sense it is very similar to what we see in other kinds of obsessive-compulsive disorder, where somebody might be afraid that they’re going to get sick or they’re going to be getting exposed to germs if they don’t wash their hands enough or if they don’t do something in a very particular way,” Mills said.
Getting help
Orthorexia should be taken seriously, Mills said.
Talk to your primary care doctor about any concerns. Meeting with a psychologist who specializes in anxiety disorders, eating disorders or body image also can be helpful, she said.
NEDA offers an online screening tool that assesses risk and a helpline where you can talk through concerns and learn about resources.
“As awareness grows, more people are recognizing symptoms and seeking opportunities for help,” Smolar said. “It’s something that I think we still have a lot to learn about.”
More information
Do you have an eating disorder? The National Eating Disorders Association has an online screening tool.
House panel to hold hearing on reparations for slavery next week
(CNN) — A House panel will hold a hearing next week on the topic of reparations for slavery.
The House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties is set to hold a hearing June 19 on legislation that would establish a commission to study the consequences and impacts of slavery and make recommendations for reparations proposals. The hearing is titled “H.R. 40 and the Path to Restorative Justice.”
The bill is sponsored by Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas. The bill would create a commission of 13 members who would compile a report of findings and recommendations on the issue and send it to Congress. Former Democratic Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, who served until 2017, had previously introduced legislation on reparations repeatedly over the span of multiple sessions of Congress.
For decades, reparations for slavery has mostly been an idea debated outside the mainstream of American political thought.
Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates put a spotlight on the subject with a widely-read piece, “The Case for Reparations,” in 2014 in The Atlantic.
“The real issue is whether and how this nation can come to grips with the legacy of slavery that still infects current society,” Jackson Lee said in a statement in January.
“While we have focused on the social effects of slavery and segregation, its continuing economic implications remain largely ignored by mainstream analysis,” Jackson Lee said, adding, “These economic issues are the root cause of many critical issues in the African-American community today, such as education, healthcare and criminal justice policy, including policing practices.”
The issue of reparations has gotten attention in the 2020 Democratic primary with Democratic candidates, including Sens. Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren as well as former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, addressing the issue on the campaign trail.
In April, Booker introduced a companion version of the bill in the Senate.
During a CNN town hall in Jackson, Mississippi, in March, Warren argued that because of housing and employment discrimination, “We live in a world where the average white family has $100 (and) the average black family has about $5.”
“So I believe it’s time to start the national full-blown conversation about reparations in this country,” Warren said. “And that means I support the bill in the House to appoint a congressional panel of experts, people that are studying this and talk about different ways we may be able to do it and make a report back to Congress, so that we can as a nation do what’s right and begin to heal.”
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Mom ‘beheaded son, 9, after stabbing him 12 times because he wanted to be a girl’
A mom is accused of beheading her nine-year-old son after stabbing him a dozen times because he told her he wanted to be a girl.
Then she reportedly got her lesbian lover to help her remove all the skin from his face before butchering his body.
The pair were said to have even used a knife to try to gouge out the boy’s eyeballs to prevent possible recognition.
They tried to burn some of him on a barbecue but failed so instead stuffed his remains in a suitcase dumped in a sewer, police said.
Other parts were found in two backpacks at their home in Brazil.
Mum Rosana Cândido, 27, and Kacyla Pessoa, 28, are said to have confessed all to the police in Samambaia, about 20 miles from capital Brasilia.
They face homicide, torture and concealing a corpse charges.
They are also accused of tearing off Cândido’s son Rhuan’s penis a year ago during horrifying home-made surgery.
The two women are said to have told investigators they committed the gruesome crimes because Rhuan “wanted to become a girl.”
He was also apparently the result of a rape.
Cândido reportedly claimed the lad was a “burden” and she “felt hatred and no love” for him.
Rhuan’s dad, who lives in Acre, is said to have told officers that Cândido run away with the boy five years ago when he lost custody.
She then went to live with Pessoa and her daughter, who, now aged nine, has been put into care.
Police chief Guilherme Melo said that the cruelty of the crime had shocked hardened investigators.
“She killed her son, quartered, decapitated, plucked the skin and tried to get rid of the body. It was a very terrible case,” he told O Tempo.
via: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/mum-beheaded-son-9-after-16519913
Photo Credit: mirror.co.uk
Family Thought They Took Brother Off Life Support — Only To See Him Walk Through The Door. Wrong man taken off life support in Illinois
CHICAGO Ill. (CNN) – A Chicago man died after wrongfully being taken off life support.
On May 13, a hospital social worker called the sisters of Alfonso Bennett and told them he was in ICU. Once they arrived at the hospital they couldn’t identify him.
“They had him on a ventilator and they had a tube in his mouth.” said sister Rosie Brooks.
Hospital staff told his relatives he had been beaten badly, especially in the face. He was found near 47th and Wabash on April 29.
The man reportedly has a background and is rarely in touch with his four sisters. One sister said a nurse told her police identified him through mugshots and not fingerprints because of budget cuts.
“You don’t identify a person through a mugshot versus fingerprints. Fingerprints carry everything.” said sister Brenda Bennett-Johnson.
The sisters said the man responded to commands by raising his hand, but never opened his eyes.
The sisters signed papers to take him off a ventilator and gave permission for doctors to perform a tracheotomy.
Then he went into hospice.
After making funeral arrangements, the sisters received a call from one of their other sisters.
“‘Brenda! Brenda! It’s Alfonso! It’s Alfonso! It’s Alfonso.’ I said, ‘You’re kidding!’ I almost had a heart attack.” Bennett-Johnson said.
Alphonso Bennett was alive and had walked through the door.
“It’s sad it happened like that. If it was our brother and we had to go through that, that would have been a different thing. But we made all kinds of decisions on someone that wasn’t our family,” Bennett-Johnson said.
The police are now searching for the man’s relatives.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
There is going to be a same-sex couple in “My Little Pony”
Article via CBS
The writers of “My Little Pony” have confirmed that the latest season of the show will see two new characters – Aunt Holiday and Aunt Lofty. The first episode that includes the same-sex couple will air on June 15, right in the middle of Pride month.
When a photo of the characters was tweeted by a fan account, “My Little Pony” writer Michael Vogel commented on the image: “What a cute couple!!!!!”
A fan then raised the question — are the two rainbow ponies in the photo romantically involved? “Well they aren’t sisters so….” Vogel responded. When the fan asked for clarification, Vogel explained, “When I say ‘cute couple’ I’m saying that Aunt Holiday and Auntie Lofty are a cute couple. Yes.”
Some fans pointed out that the couple exists in the “My Little Pony” books, but had not been included in the animated show — until now.
Vogel then included his fellow writers, Nicole Dubuc and Josh Haber in the conversation. “Hey hey!!! @NicoleDubuc, @joshhaber and I doin what we can to bring more EQuality to EQuestria!! #PrideMonth” he wrote.
After the tweets started getting widespread attention online, the writers began sharing the media coverage. “I get more and more proud of season 9 with every episode. Way to go,” Haber wrote. Aunt Holiday and Aunt Lofty make their debut on the show in the season’s 12th episode.
“Man… Lyra and BonBon are gonna be PISSED about all this coverage,” Vogel joked about the other characters in the animated children’s show.
The addition of LGBTQ characters in “My Little Pony” follows the inclusion of a same-sex marriage in “Arthur” last month.
The premiere episode of the 22nd season revealed Mr. Ratburn is gay. In “Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone,” Arthur’s beloved teacher gets married to a man.
However, the episode did not originally air in one state, as Alabama Public Television (APT) chose ban it.
The decision was made back in April when the local PBS station was notified about the content of the episode APT programming director Mike Mckenzie told AL.com.
It is unclear how the same-sex couple in “My Little Pony” will be received by viewers when it airs on Discovery Kids this Saturday.
Bella Thorne Reveals She’s Been ‘Hacked and Threatened’
Article via HollywoodLife
Bella Thorne retaliated to threatening text messages by posting the blackmail messages along with a powerful note reclaiming her “power” to Twitter.
Bella Thorne, 21, isn’t letting some stranger on the internet control her. The actress‘ Twitter was hacked on June 13, with a troll posting explicit messages with offensive language, and today, two days later, Bella took the “power” back and posted the threatening messages she received from (presumably) the hacker. “F*** and the power u think you have over me,” Bella said in her tweet, which showed the exchange of text messages and her explicit images the person was threatening to share. “I’m gonna write about this in my next book.”
Bella boldly decided to share the texts, refusing to let the other person hold the images over her any longer. “Feels so weird someone I don’t know looking at my personal sh*t,” Bella texted the hacker after they sent her an explicit selfie she took. The person texted back with more pics of Bella, saying that they “got all the videos” and shared more images of Bella’s body that she didn’t consent to that person viewing.
The “The Life of a Wannabe Mogul: Mental Disarray” author posted a screenshot note with a lengthy message along with the screenshots of the threatening text message conversations. “For the last 24 hours I have been threatened with my own nudes I feel gross, I feel watched, I feel someone has taken something from me that I only wanted one special person to see,” Bella said.
“For too long I let a man take advantage of me over and over and I’m [expletive] sick of it, I’m putting this out because it’s MY DECISION NOW U DONT GET TO TAKE YET ANOTHER THING FROM ME,” Bella continued. “I can sleep tonight better knowing I took my power back. U can’t control my life u never will.”
Bella then said that she presented the photos she was threatened with. “In other words here’s my boobies,” the star said. “So here [expletive] u, and the last 24 hours I have been crying instead of celebrating my book while doing my book press. Oh yea, the fbi will be at your house shortly, so watch. your Mother. [Expletive]. Back.”
Fecal Transplant Patient Killed by Superbug Traced to Donor Stool
Article via Gizmodo
An aesthetically unpleasant but genuinely promising medical treatment—a fecal transplant—may come with more serious risks than previously thought. This week, the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about the treatment, after receiving reports of two people coming down with serious drug-resistant infections following the procedure. One patient ultimately died.
Fecal transplants, or fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), have been explored as a way to reset the delicate bacterial environment of a person’s gut. A recipient’s gut microbiome is scrubbed out as much as possible with heavy-duty antibiotics, then the donor’s gut bacteria is transplanted over, which will hopefully seed the gut with a healthy balance of bacteria again. Most FMTs are performed via an enema, though doctors are studying if a capsule of the donor’s gut bacteria taken orally can work just as well.
A gut microbiome imbalance is thought to contribute to conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and possibly even metabolic diseases like obesity. So far, though, the clearest potential for FMT has been for people with a recurrent, often excruciating infection of Clostridium difficile, or C. diff. Cure rates of recurrent C. diff with FMT have hovered as high as 90 percent in small trials.
FMT at this point is an experimental treatment, however. And trials are still ongoing that are trying to figure out how to make the procedure as effective and safe as possible. According to the FDA, the two superbug infections were spotted in such a trial.
The patients were part of an investigational FMT trial, and received a transplant from the same donor. Soon after, they developed an invasive infection caused by multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli (E.coli). Despite doctors’ efforts, one patient didn’t make it through. In the aftermath, the donor’s remaining samples were tested and the same E. coli strain was discovered.
“FDA is informing members of the medical and scientific communities and other interested persons of the potential risk of transmission of [multidrug-resistant organisms] by FMT and the resultant serious adverse reactions that may occur,” the agency said in its safety communication.
It’s likely that the pre-existing health of both patients contributed to the severity of their illnesses, since both had weakened immune systems. But the infections could have been prevented had doctors in the trial been looking for these bacteria in donors to begin with, the FDA said.
In 2013, as FMT trials began taking off, the agency announced it would take a hands-off approach in regulating its early use for C. diff infections (generally, any new drug or treatment for a disease needs to go through a lengthy FDA approval process before it can be widely available). So long as patients were told upfront about the potential risks and experimental nature of the treatment by doctors, it would be less strict in approving or supervising new clinical trials. But as a result of these tragic cases, the agency is now demanding that all investigational trials preemptively screen their donors for risk factors that would make them more likely to have superbugs, as well as to test their donor samples for these bacteria. Doctors should tell their volunteers beforehand about these now-discovered serious risks, too.
“Today’s safety communication underscores the importance of why new therapies are thoroughly studied to ensure the benefits of taking them outweigh the risks to patients, and we will continue to aggressively monitor clinical trials to ensure patients are protected when safety concerns arise,” Peter Marks, director of FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in an FDA statement.