Mom says Ohio day care handed her ‘lifeless’ 2-month-old daughter
CLEVELAND – Multiple investigations are underway into the death of a 2-month-old Ohio newborn. The child’s mother says the infant was “lifeless” when she picked her up from a Cleveland home day care Tuesday.
The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office identifies the child as Di’Yanni Griffin.
“She was everything to me,” said Griffin’s mother, Taylor Bush, with a strained voice.
Bush said when she picked up her child from Nana’s Home Daycare in Cleveland on Giddings Road, she realized her baby needed immediate medical attention.
“So I go to walk out the door and I close the door behind me so I’m like, ‘Hey, mama baby.’ I realize her neck is, just, she’s just lifeless,” said Bush.
According to Bush, she went back inside the day care, began CPR on the baby and called 911. She said they were taken by ambulance to the hospital where Griffin was pronounced dead.
“When you handed me my daughter, my daughter was basically already dead,” said Bush.
Cleveland police said they are awaiting an official cause of death from the medical examiner’s office. If it’s determined the baby died under suspicious circumstances, investigators will resume the investigation.
Meanwhile, a Cuyahoga County Children and Family Services spokesperson said they are also investigating the circumstances of the baby’s death; that’s in addition to state investigators and a childcare licensing unit.
A spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services released the following statement:
“ODJFS is monitoring this tragic situation very closely. County JFS agencies are responsible for inspections of in-home child care, with oversight by ODJFS. The county agency is conducting an investigation and actively working with child protective services and law enforcement. ODJFS would make the final determination on whether to suspend Nana’s Home Daycare license if the county agency recommends suspension.”
The day care owner, Danielle Townsend, said she was not present during the incident. However, she remains adamant the child was alive while in her sister’s care, who also works at the day care.
“My sister calls me and says, ‘Call her mother,'” said Townsend. “I said, ‘Well, her mother just texted me; what’s wrong?’ She said, ‘The baby is breathing fast.'”
Townsend said she has worked at day care facilities for 15 years and has operated her own for the past three years.
According to Townsend, she tried calling Bush but could not get in touch. She said Bush, who lives above the day care, was already on her way to the facility. Townsend said no one from the day care called 911 when they noticed the child breathing fast.
While sitting on the steps of a front porch in tears, Bush said she begged to have a little girl and now cannot imagine life without her daughter.
“I’m hurt; I blame myself,” said Bush.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/06/20/mom-says-ohio-day-care-handed-her-lifeless-2-month-old-daughter/
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Live rat falls from Buffalo Wild Wings ceiling as customer watches; store temporarily closed
Buffalo Wild Wings has temporarily shut down a Los Angeles location for repairs and cleaning after a customer claims a live rat drop dropped from the ceiling and onto a menu sitting on a table this week.
The customer, Alisha Norman, told NBC Los Angeles she heard something above her before the rat crash-landed onto her table. Norman was visiting Los Angeles from Texas.
“I knew the rat was going to be injured because it hit like a Mack truck,” she told NBC Los Angeles.
The incident happened at a complex undergoing construction, a Buffalo Wild Wings spokesperson said in written statement to USA TODAY on Friday. The chain believes construction was responsible for the situation and hopes to reopen the location soon, the statement says.
Norman told the station she asked for help from a manager, who proceeded to use two plates to pick up the rat and dump it into a trash bag. The manager blamed ongoing construction in the restaurant for the situation.
The manager also took care of her bill for the meal, Norman said. She isn’t angry about the incident, she told NBC Los Angeles.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Veterinarians find 19 baby pacifiers in bulldog’s stomach
BOSTON — A Boston veterinary hospital got quite a surprise recently when a family brought in their bulldog after he stopped eating.
The Angell Animal Medical Center found 19 baby pacifiers in the dog’s stomach.
It started in April when the Wellesley family noticed that their 3-year-old dog, Mortimer, started getting nauseous before meals. His owner, Emily Shanahan, brought Mortimer to the vet, who prescribed medicine to take care of the issue.
But it didn’t help and Mortimer eventually stopped eating entirely.
Shanahan went to Angell, where they took an X-ray and discovered the pacifiers.
Vets think Mortimer had been taking the pacifiers from Shanahan’s two children over the course of months.
The pacifiers were removed using a medical scope that did not require surgery. Mortimer recovered and is back at home.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/06/20/veterinarians-find-19-baby-pacifiers-in-bulldogs-stomach/
Photo Credit: nypost.com/AP
11-year-old boy died in crash after spider on mom’s hand sparked chaos
An 11-year-old boy died in a horrific car crash in the UK after a spider dropped onto his mom’s hand as she drove — sparking a frenzy that sent her car careening into a 4×4 hauling a trailer of sheep, a probe of the case revealed this week.
Tristan Silver and his sister, 8-year-old Branwen, were in the car one morning in May 2018 near Tregaron, Ceredigion, Wales, as their mom, Cloud Younger, drove them to school, an inquest heard this week, according to the BBC.
Suddenly, the arachnid landed on Younger’s left hand, causing Branwen, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, to start screaming hysterically, Younger said during her first interview, the outlet reported.
Younger turned her attention to her daughter to calm her down.
But she was so distracted that her Subaru drifted onto the wrong side of a highway and hit a black Mitsubishi towing a trailer full of sheep in the village of Olmarch, Ceredigion coroner Peter Brunton revealed during the inquest.
When cops initially Younger asked why she didn’t stop, she replied, “No comment,” according to the report.
Younger did not provide any evidence at the inquest, and when the coroner asked her if she had anything to add, she replied, “If I could remember more, I would have said more,” the outlet reported.
It’s unclear how fast Younger was driving on the 60-mph road, but the Mitsubishi driver, farmer David Glyndwr Jones, testified that his car was almost at a standstill after it was struck, according to the report.
“At first it was straddling the white line, about a quarter of the vehicle on the wrong side,” Jones said. “Then it came all the way over to my side and I could see it wasn’t going to stop.”
“All this happened in about six seconds — I just had enough time to warn my wife and brace myself,” he added. “I feel devastated by what happened. I don’t understand why she didn’t see us and drive back to her side.”
Brunton called the entire ordeal “an extremely sad and tragic inquest,” according to the report.
The investigation comes down to the manner in which Younger was driving during the “catastrophic seconds” she turned her attention to her daughter, she said.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/06/20/11-year-old-boy-died-in-crash-after-spider-on-moms-hand-sparks-chaos/
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Man who won $30M lottery while in middle of divorce ordered to share winnings
PONTIAC, Mich. — A suburban Detroit man who was in the middle of a divorce when he won more than $30 million must share the lottery windfall with his ex-wife.
The Michigan appeals court says a marriage isn’t over until it’s over. It means Mary Beth Zelasko can keep $15 million awarded by an arbitrator, although she and Rich Zelasko had been separated for two years when he bought the Mega Millions ticket in 2013. Their divorce wasn’t final until 2018.
In a court filing, an attorney for Rich Zelasko said, “Rich was lucky, but it was his luck, not Mary’s, that produced the lottery proceeds.” But arbitrator John Mills said the ticket was marital property. The couple had agreed to have Mills make certain decisions during the divorce case.
The appeals court last week found no errors.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Married teachers found guilty of sexually abusing teen student
A pair of Pennsylvania teachers has been found guilty of sexually abusing a former student, according to reports.
Nicodemo Baggetta, 30, and wife Ruth Ann Baggetta, 37, were convicted Wednesday by a jury in Lackawanna County that deliberated for roughly 90 minutes after the teen — who is now 19 — detailed a two-year sexual relationship she said she had with Nicodemo Baggetta that began when she was just 16, WNEP reports.
The teen told jurors that Baggetta’s wife not only knew about the ongoing sexual abuse, but encouraged it.
The former student also previously told investigators that Ruth Baggetta consented to whatever sexual contact Nicodemo Baggetta desired so that he would “get it out of his system” before the couple got hitched, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by the Scranton Times-Tribune.
During the course of their relationship, Ruth and the teen even performed a sex act on the depraved hubby together, according to the affidavit.
“These teachers were predators,” District Attorney Mark Powell told the newspaper after Wednesday’s verdict. “It is clearly unacceptable and I think the jury found that.”
The teen said the sexual relationship ended in December 2017 — at which point the Baggettas were married.
The couple was arrested in March 2018 after a former Lakeland High School student told a therapist that she had been intimate with Nicodemo Baggetta, who was working at the time as a special education teacher at Fell Charter School in Simpson. Ruth remains on unpaid suspension as the band director at Lakeland High School, the Times-Tribune reports.
The teen also testified to engaging in specific sex acts with Nicodemo Baggetta, who, along with his wife, were led from the courtroom in handcuffs after a judge revoked their bail following their convictions.
The Baggettas previously acknowledged during testimony Tuesday that they allowed the then-sophomore to spend nights at their home, but insisted they were trying to help her deal with family issues.
An attorney for the couple said they intend to appeal their conviction on charges of institutional sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of a minor and furnishing alcohol to a minor. Ruth Baggetta was also convicted of failure to report suspected child abuse.
They each face up to seven years in prison, although state sentencing guidelines recommend prison terms ranging from three to 12 months, attorney Paul Walker told the newspaper.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/06/20/married-teachers-found-guilty-of-sexually-abusing-teen-student/
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Maleah Davis’ casket is colored with rainbows, “My Little Pony,” and lots of pink
Maleah Davis — the 4-year-old found dead after she went missing in early May — will be buried in a colorful, one-of-a-kind casket, a tribute to her memory and her grieving family.
The casket was built and donated by SoulShine Industries to the Davis family.
“The casket is the most important part of remembering somebody, so it should be special,” said company owner Trey Ganem told CNN.
Ganem said that he received over 200 calls from the community asking him to make a casket for the Davis family. She will be buried in a private funeral on Saturday.
“It was such a blessing to provide something special for this loving family,” Ganem said.
The casket designer Courtney Sublett told CNN she worked closely with the family and the theme quickly became apparent. The final product was a white casket covered with rainbows, the color pink, “My Little Pony,” and even a portrait of Maleah.
“It’s such a tragic thing, I’m glad we could bring a little light to her story,” Sublett said.
The funeral home that is hosting the funeral, Richardson Mortuary, has been collecting flowers and condolences on behalf of the family, CNN affiliate KTRK.
Toys and teddy bears are also being collected at the apartment complex where the Davis family lived. A sign says that the items will be displayed at the funeral and then donated to the Houston Fire Department.
Meleah’s remains were found in Arkansas on May 30, according to Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo. Her mother’s former fiancé, Derion Vence, is charged with tampering with a corpse in connection to Meleah’s death.
Photo Credit: pix11.com/SoulShine Industries
Mother slapped her daughter when girl said she had been molested
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. – Newly published court documents reveal the heartbreaking response a mother had to her daughter’s confession she had been molested, WJLA reported.
The 13-year-old girl told social workers there were incidents of abuse dating back to 2016 reportedly involving Mahlik “Moon” Kone, a friend of the girl’s mother. According to WJLA, Kone would frequently stay in the family’s apartment where he would then sneak into the girls’ bedroom and initiate unwanted touching.
The girl reportedly told social workers Kone would threaten her with violence and was known to carry a gun.
Eventually, the girl turned to her mother for support, but she received the opposite. WJLA reported the girl’s mother slapped her and told her to “shut up.” Later, she reportedly told Kone what her daughter had said.
According to court documents, Kone then threatened violence against the girl for telling her mother and warned her not to tell anybody else.
The girl’s mother has since died, but police have not shared information regarding her death, WJLA reported.
Kone was formally taken into custody Monday, six months after an arrest warrant was issued for him. He has a hearing scheduled for July 12.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
8 Social Media Tips for Small Businesses
The small business world can be a grind working in and on the business to reach goals and milestones and grow.
Owners and employees wear a lot of hats and often excel at filling a lot of roles.
The day-to-day requirements of sales, operations, payroll, invoicing, service, and fulfillment take a ton of time and energy.
Something that gets squeezed out is marketing.
The marketing mix for a small business often covers the essentials and things that are closest to the bottom line.
These are often identified as the website and campaigns that impact lead or sales generation closest to the last click or to the conversion. Those include things like email marketing, SEO, and paid search.
Often, social media is left out of that mix or only done in a way that meets a bare minimum to show the business is real.
Social media doesn’t have to be a massive commitment or time investment. It also doesn’t have to be a big mystery as to how it could impact the business and fit into the marketing mix.
By working smarter and not harder, you can use eight tips to put together a social media strategy that makes sense for the resources you have and ultimately can engage your audience and positively impact your business.
1. Identify Personas
There are a lot of resources that speak to the process of persona development and how it can help in the content marketing and overall marketing strategy for your business.
If you haven’t defined who the target audience is for your products, services, or offering, then you should start here.
You don’t have to go through a massive branding or research project to get to the info you need.
If you don’t know where to start, I suggest jumping into your current Google Analytics account and activating the interests section and seeing which affinity groups are noted.
If you don’t have the luxury of current data, you can dig into the Google Ads display planner and Facebook ad planning tools to explore the options for interests, demographics, and behavior and see how the categories and targeting fit with your understanding of your clients or customers.
Using any working or refined models of specific personas, you can save time and fine tune your messaging and targeting in the social media networks to cast the right-sized net and get specific enough with your content.
2. Know the Customer Journey
We all typically know the most about what step or two is the best at driving engagement, sales, or leads. That may be a specific marketing channel, a campaign, or even a category of content.
The problem is that most companies don’t have a 1-touch customer journey that results in a sale on their first visit.
The customer journey can be a little difficult to get a complete picture of, but there are ways to look at what content is resonating with your audience before they convert and you can talk with them to see what they find valuable in making their decision.
There are reporting platforms that can tie it all together, but at the very least, you should get some visibility into the steps in the funnel that customers go through ultimately as they research before buying.
3. Track Everything
If you’re finding challenges with the first two tips, it is likely because you don’t have as much data or information as you’d like. I’m glad you’re still reading and made it this far.
Tracking and measuring are critical for digital marketing.
Without capturing data, you’re left with using industry trends or just giving it your best guess based on what you know about your industry and the things that work in the offline world.
Make sure that all pages on your site are tracked in Google Analytics.
Ensure that all content you are deploying in email, social, and other sources uses UTM tracking parameters so it can be properly categorized in Google Analytics.
Find ways to utilize promo codes and other source codes to merge offline and online data.
The more you can track and measure, the more informed you can be as you evaluate the worth of your time and dollars in your content investment and specifically when you deploy it through social.
4. Use Agile Methods
Ebooks, whitepapers, webinars, and long-form content may be the perfect thing to use to engage and resonate with your audience.
However, these are all big investments to make in the content creation stage before even deploying.
A great way to test out social and figure out the right types of content, frequency of posting, targeting options (for sponsored and ad content), timing, etc., is to perform more frequent, smaller tests.
Agile marketing has become a valuable strategy in recent years. It features an agile mindset similar to what you’d expect in software development and other disciplines.
As a small business, you probably don’t have the time or budget for a statistically significant sample size anyway, so go all in with a wide range of content and options and see what works before you invest a ton into a single piece of content or single strategy by which you plan on judging the viability of social as a channel.
5. Repurpose Content
Where possible, you could and should look for opportunities to leverage existing content and sources.
If you created a great blog post as part of your SEO strategy, test it on social?
If you’re creating content for your email audience, repurpose some of it on social.
By using content in more than one place, you can get a better return on investment for individual pieces of content, plus get more data and see how it performs across various channels.
Also, just because something is evergreen or a tip is not new, that doesn’t mean it isn’t to your audience.
As long as the information is still accurate and relevant, there’s no harm in sharing something that has been on your site for a couple of years.
Your hidden gems of quality content might be a little too hidden or limited to just your search or other audiences. Using content you know works and resonates is a solid strategy for testing on social as well.
6. Learn From Your Competition
When asked how often a company should be posting on social media and what types of content, I can never right away answer the question directly for them.
The answer is always “it depends.” I don’t have a special best practice number of times to post per week or month. It is all relative to the industry and audience.
Competitors are a great place to look for cues and help. Don’t assume that any or all of your competitors are doing it right.
Do know that you can look externally at their social profiles and see:
- How often they post.
- What days of the week and times of the day they post.
- How large their follower bases are.
- What specific types of organic, sponsored, and ad content they post.
- Which types of posts get the most engagement.
Whether capturing all of this in a spreadsheet or other format, you can quickly see patterns that emerge in what is working and what isn’t.
I recommend doing this type of basic research or study before arbitrarily deciding what your social plan should be.
7. Plan for Times When You Don’t Have Time
Even if you’re 100% committed to staying on the social media plan, things will happen.
With the hats that you wear, you’ll get pulled into something that is a higher priority. Or, maybe you’ll get to take a vacation and unplug.
Regardless, there will be times when you don’t have time to focus on social media. That’s OK!
Plan for the times when you don’t have the time and attention now.
Build a content calendar and framework. Know who is posting what content and when.
If you can spread the roles around to others and make sure everyone is committed and following the plan and guidelines, you can ensure that the content strategy, implementation in social, and testing process won’t fall apart the second that other things take attention away from it.
Like other endeavors in business and in life, if you fall off, get back on soon. Stick with it as there’s value in the information gained and meaningful connections made by utilizing social media in your digital marketing mix.
8. Optimize Like You Would in Other Channels
Know that there are going to be some home runs as well as some strikeouts. Take an optimization and agile mindset into social like you would in search marketing.
Set a period of time that you want to test, set your strategy, and then optimize through testing.
- For ads and sponsored content, you can A/B test.
- For organic content, you can at least compare and contrast the different pieces of content, messages, types of posts, and see how they perform if you can control enough of the variables.
Always be testing!
Conclusion
There are a lot of reasons why social media is not at the top of the priority list in the marketing mix of small businesses. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be effective.
There’s also no reason it should be the biggest investment you make.
Smart strategies that are designed to stay on track and properly leverage social through:
- Utilizing content you already have.
- Properly measuring performance.
- Having a system that is less likely to break down are all important aspects to leveraging the power of social to help grow your business.
More Resources:
- Top 9 Benefits of Social Media for Your Business
- Why Social Media Marketing Is Crucial for Your Local Business
- Should I Outsource My Social Media? 6 Questions to Ask Yourself
Article via SearchEngineJournal
Janet Mock’s historic Netflix deal: First trans woman to establish overall deal with major studio
Janet Mock’s latest deal is one of its kind.
Mock, the director, producer and writer for the FX series “Pose” has signed a three-year multimillion-dollar deal with Netflix, making her the first known transgender woman to make an overall deal at a major studio.
Under the agreement, Mock will produce new series exclusively for Netflix, and the streaming giant will have a first-look at her features projects.
“There’s potential to introduce hundreds of millions of viewers to trans people, and showing people who may not understand us, that we can tell our own stories,” Mock said in a video on one of Netflix’s Twitter accounts.
Mock, 36, also will serve as an executive producer and director on Ryan Murphy’s upcoming Netflix series “Hollywood.”
Despite this new pact with Netflix, Mock will still be able to continue as a writer-director on “Pose,” an LGBTQ drama set in New York.
Mock, who worked at People magazine for years as an editor, was born in Hawaii and transitioned as a teenager. She publicly talked about her sexuality in a 2011 Marie Claire article. Her 2014 memoir is considered the first mainstream account from a young transgender person.
Photo Credit: Getty Images