Girl loses both legs after doctors mistake meningitis for ‘tummy bug’
A 7-year-old girl in England lost both of her feet to meningitis after doctors mistakenly sent her home saying she only had a “tummy bug,” according to a report Sunday.
“The damage was done within just a few hours,” the girl’s mother, Aimee Partridge, told The Sun, “Doctors then confirmed our worst fears.”
Little Brogan Partridge was vacationing with her parents in Cornwall in 2016 when she began vomiting after a day at the beach, according to the paper.
Her parents took her to an emergency room, where doctors misdiagnosed the deadly infection, she told the outlet.
“She did not seem herself. She’d had a sleepless night and was vomiting,” said Aimee Partridge, 28, of Birmingham. “They sent us home, saying she only had a tummy bug.”
But she later developed a bruise-like rash on her legs, and her parents rushed her back to the hospital.
Doctors then found high levels of bacteria in her blood, which eventually caused her so much pain she was forced to have her feet amputated.
“We were devastated when Brogan had to have her left foot amputated due to the septicaemia,” she said. “We were later told told she will need to have her right foot amputated too.”
Brogan is now 11 and uses prosthetic feet.
“She is determined to get her full independence back,” her mom said.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/10/13/girl-loses-both-legs-after-doctors-mistake-meningitis-for-tummy-bug/
Photo Credit: Caters News Agency
Newborn survives after being buried alive in shallow grave
A newborn girl miraculously survived being buried alive in a shallow grave in India in a suspected case of female infanticide.
The baby girl was placed inside a traditional earthen pot and buried about 3 feet below ground — and found when another villager dug down to bury his stillborn daughter, according to the Independent.
“At one point I thought that my daughter had come alive. But the voice was actually coming from inside the pot,” Hitesh Kumar said of his shocking discovery in the burial area in Bareilly on Thursday, according to the Independent, citing local reports.
A Bareilly police officer, who didn’t want to be identified, said the baby looked to be about 5 days old.
“They immediately called the cemetery guard, who said that he saw the parents there earlier,” he said. “It seems to be a case of female infanticide.”
The newborn, weighing just 2.4 pounds and found wrapped in a cloth and crying, was raced to the Special Newborn Care unit of the Maharana Pratap District Hospital.
Doctors believe she may have been there a short time and survived because her tiny size meant she needed little oxygen, according to the report.
“We are trying to find the parents of the baby and we suspect that this must have happened with their consent,” police chief Abhinandan Singh told reporters.
India has seen a decreasing number of girls, according to a government survey released in July, suggesting that illegal abortions of female fetuses continue despite a ban and government efforts to save girls. Girls are considered an expensive burden for families who have to pay dowries when they marry.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/10/14/newborn-survives-after-being-buried-alive-in-shallow-grave/
Photo Credit: Facebook
A man saw a list of his town’s school lunch debt and paid the entire bill
One man in Jupiter, Florida, decided that he could make a difference in his town by paying off the lunch debt for every child in the system. It all started with a Facebook post.
Angie Vyas-Knight, administrator of the “Jupiter Mamas” Facebook group, told CNN she was disgusted by national news stories about children who couldn’t afford to buy lunch at school. She asked the Palm Beach county school board for her district’s stats.
To spread awareness, she shared the list of nine schools’ outstanding lunch debt of $944.34.
Weeks later, the list made its way to Jupiter real estate agent Andrew Levy.
Levy decided he wanted to do something about the list, and paid the balance for all 400 kids in full. He knew that the kids in debt would go without eating or simply get a cheese sandwich.
“I thought that’s crazy. Food is something you shouldn’t have to think about. Children shouldn’t learn hungry,” Levy told CNN affiliate WPEC.
But he isn’t stopping there.
“I’m going to do either a GoFundMe page or a fundraising page that can raise money every quarter, so lunch debt never accumulates so that children never have to worry about a hot meal and parents never have to worry about paying the bill,” he said.
Sharing his small spark of kindness started a fire with those who found out about his personal initiative. Over 200 people offered to help on his Facebook alone.
With their help, Levy can start to not only tackle the lunch debt of Jupiter but the greater debt of Palm Beach County.
A spokeswoman for the district told CNN that the total school lunch debt was around $50,000 for over 180,000 enrolled students.
Photo Credit: pix11.com
North Carolina assisted living facility workers accused of running dementia resident fight club
Three employees at a North Carolina assisted living facility were arrested after police said they ran a fight club with elderly residents with dementia battling it out against each other.
The women were accused in court documents of watching, filming and even encouraging a fight between a 70-year-old woman and a 73-year-old woman at the Danby House assisted living and memory-care facility in Winston-Salem, Fox 8 High Point and other local media reported.
Marilyn Latish McKey, 32, Tonacia Yvonne Tyson, 20, and Taneshia Deshawn Jordan, 26, were each charged with assaulting disabled persons, according to the reports.
Winston-Salem police announced their arrests Friday following an investigation into a June complaint of elder abuse at the facility.
“When you’re talking about someone who can’t take care of themselves, we’ve got to give specific attention to that,” Lt. Gregory Dorn told Fox 8.
Documents from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services show that during the filming of the fight one of the combatants was heard yelling “let go, help me, help me, let go” as McKey, Tyson, and Jordan continued to watch, the Winston-Salem Journal reported.
According to the documents at some point one of the staffers told the resident to “stop screaming (expletive),” the paper reported.
Danby House said in a statement that McKey, Tyson, and Jordan were fired in June when managers were alerted to the situation.
“Additional staff training and a more rigorous vetting process for all new and existing employees at Danby House have been implemented,” the statement said.
via: https://www.foxnews.com/us/north-carolina-assisted-living-facility-dementia-fight-club
Photo Credit: Winston-Salem Police Department
Confirmed: Billy Porter Will Play the Fairy Godmother in Upcoming CINDERELLA Film
BroadwayWorld recently reported on a rumor that Billy Porter would be joining the cast of the upcoming Cinderella film from Sony, starring Camila Cabello.
According to Deadline, Porter confirmed that he is joining the film in a Q&A Saturday evening at the New Yorker Festival. He will take on the role of the Fairy Godmother.
It was also recently rumored that Idina Menzel would be joining the cast as the evil stepmother.
The adaptation is described as a modern retelling of the classic story of Cinderella. It is directed and written by Kay Cannon, and will star Camila Cabello.
James Corden produces with Leo Pearlman.
Cinderella is set to shoot in London in February next year.
Billy Porter is a Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award-winning singer, composer, actor, playwright and director from Pittsburgh, PA. He currently stars Pray Tell on the FX television series Pose.
He originated the role of ‘Lola’ in the Broadway hit Kinky Boots, which won him 2013 Tony, Grammy, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards. Other theatre: Shuffle Along, Miss Saigon, Five Guys…, Grease, Smokey Joe’s…, Dreamgirls, Angels in America,The Merchant of Venice, Radiant Baby, Birdie Blue, Songs for a New World, Ghetto Superstar (one-man show),Topdog/Underdog, King Lear.
As a recording artist, Porter’s solo albums include his first CD, Untitled, on A&M records, At the Corner of Broadway + Soul – LIVE on Sh-K-Boom Records, and Billy’s Back on Broadway, on Concord Records.
Article via BroadWayWorld
Tyra Banks Talks Being In An Emotionally Abusive Relationship
Supermodel Tyra Banks is opening up on Sunday’s episode of Uncensored where she speaks about being in an emotionally abusive relationship. Though the mother of one didn’t state who she was speaking about in the show’s video preview, she did say it involved an ex whom she was in a long-term relationship with.
Speaking in the video preview, Tyra stated the following.
“I remember being kind of judgmental for women that were in bad relationships. And I’m just like, ‘Get out. Come on, like what are you doing? Leave him! I don’t get it.’ Until I experienced it myself. I was in a relationship for many years, and we probably broke up 14-15times. There were things that he said and made me feel like, I couldn’t leave, or if I left I had to go back.”
Tyra did a good job of hiding that she was going through so much when she was in the relationship. You may see the video preview with Tyra Banks in the player below.
Tyra Banks has a three-year-old son, York Banks Asla, with her ex-boyfriend Erik Asla. It’s still unknown if Tyra was specifically referring to Erik or another ex-boyfriend from her past. Tyra opened up about a very emotional time in her life and touched on a few points in the preview.
First, Tyra explained that she never understood fully what women in abusive relationships go through or why it is so hard to leave until she was in an abusive relationship herself. She isn’t alone in her sentiments as most women who are in similar situations would readily agree that they never saw themselves being a victim or staying in a relationship that isn’t positive or helpful.
Tyra also made it clear that the abuse was only emotional and never physical. She stated the following.
“He never hit me, but I would say there were blows to my spirit, blows to my emotional well-being every day. He was a master at being able to be happy and nice to everybody else but whispering these negative things to me.”
What do you think of Tyra Banks openness about what she went through? Are you going to watch Tyra Banks on Uncensored Sunday?
Article via CelebrityInsider
New Jersey girl, 10, dies after being ‘ejected’ from festival ride, police say
A 10-year-old girl in New Jersey has died after falling off a ride at a festival, officials said.
The child was at the Deerfield Township Harvest Festival in Cumberland County after 6 p.m. on Saturday night when she was “ejected from an amusement ride,” according to New Jersey State Police.
Authorities said the child fell off a ride titled “Extreme,” and “as a result, she sustained serious injuries.”
The 10-year-old was airlifted to Cooper University Health Care in Camden, where she was pronounced dead at 7:20 p.m.
Before news reports emerged of the girl’s death, festival organizers wrote on Facebook that a parade scheduled for Sunday had been canceled, but said “all other festivities will continue.”
Article via FoxNews
SpongeBob Squarepants Is A ‘Violent,’ ‘Racist’ Colonizer, College Professor Says
You know you know the answer. It’s SpongeBob SquarePants, the iconic cartoon character loved by kids and adults alike, who on Friday turned 20 years old.
The animated sponge spends his days getting into wacky adventures along with his buddies Patrick Starfish, Squidward Tentacles, and Mr. Krabs. And without speaking down to children, the lovable, absorbent square doles out some life lessons along the way.
But a University of Washington professor thinks SpongeBob is violent and racist.
Yes, seriously.
Holly M. Barker has penned a piece titled, “Unsettling SpongeBob and the Legacies of Violence on Bikini Bottom.”
“Billions of people around the globe are well-acquainted with SpongeBob Squarepants and the antics of the title character and his friends on Bikini Bottom. By the same token, there is an absence of public discourse about the whitewashing of violent American military activities through SpongeBob’s occupation and reclaiming of the bottom of Bikini Atoll’s lagoon. SpongeBob Squarepants and his friends play a role in normalizing the settler colonial takings of Indigenous lands while erasing the ancestral Bikinian people from their nonfictional homeland,” reads the abstract for Barker’s piece.
Barker’s abstract asserts that SpongeBob has colonized Bikini Bottom — the underwater home to the lovable characters — and claims the cartoon is “whitewashing” the “violent American military activities” against natives on Pacific islands, specifically the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, used by the U.S. military for nuclear testing:
This article exposes the complicity of popular culture in maintaining American military hegemonies in Oceania while amplifying the enduring indigeneity (Kauanui 2016) of the Marshallese people, who maintain deeply spiritual and historical connections to land — even land they cannot occupy due to residual radiation contamination from US nuclear weapons testing — through a range of cultural practices, including language, song, and weaving. This article also considers the gendered violence of nuclear colonialism and the resilience of Marshallese women.
The Bikini Atoll remains uninhabitable, and some conspiracy theorists claim the cast of SpongeBob SquarePants were mutated by the testing.
Barker declares that as an “American character” allowed to live there, SpongeBob showed his privilege of “not caring about the detonation of nuclear bombs.”
“SpongeBob’s presence on Bikini Bottom continues the violent and racist expulsion of Indigenous peoples from their lands (and in this case their cosmos) that enables U.S. hegemonic powers to extend their military and colonial interests in the postwar era,” she wrote.
Barker even rips the theme song, saying it denounces Bikini Bottom as full of “nautical nonsense.”
“The song’s directives, ensconced in humor, provide the viewer with an active role in defining Bikini Bottom as a place of nonsense, as the audience is instructed ‘If nautical nonsense be something you wish… drop on the deck and flop like a fish,’ ” she wrote.
Barker says the children’s show is full of gender bias as well, writing, “all of the main characters on the show are male.” Sandy Cheeks, a squirrel that lives underwater with the aid of an old-fashioned diving suit, is, of course, a female, but Barker says she’s just a token.
In conclusion, Barker writes, “We should be uncomfortable with a hamburger-loving American community’s occupation of Bikini’s lagoon and the ways that it erodes every aspect of sovereignty.”
Nautical nonsense, indeed.
Article via DailyWire
Transgender Activist Mentioned In Dave Chappelle’s ‘Sticks & Stones’ Netflix Special Dies
A transgender comedienne, actress and activist who was referenced in Dave Chappelle’s Sticks & Stones Netflix special has died.
Daphne Dorman, who lived in San Francisco, died by suicide, according to the Office of Transgender Initiatives for the City & County of San Francisco.
In a “hidden extra” of the Netflix special, Chappelle talked about becoming friends with a transgender woman.
Dorman confirmed that she was the person Chappelle was referring to, even changing her Twitter bio to reflect it:
“Yep, I’m the Daphne that Dave Chappelle is talking about in Sticks & Stones,” she wrote, adding “Actress. Activist. Author. Advocate. Amazon.”
Chappelle claimed that Dorman was “laughing the hardest” at the jokes. But not everyone was laughing. Some claimed the comedy was transphobic.
Dorman posted a goodbye message on Facebook on Friday. “I’ve thought about this a lot before this morning. How do you say “goodbye” and “I’m sorry” and “I love you” to all the beautiful souls you know? For the last time.”
Dorman was a software engineer and held at senior position at Vineti, a software automation and analytics company for cell and gene therapies.
Article via Deadline
Candidate for Sheriff in South Carolina Preemptively Releases Photo of Himself in Blackface
A Republican sheriff candidate in South Carolina is trying to own up to his “mistakes.” But critics say he’s missing a key component: an apology.
In a campaign ad posted Tuesday on Facebook, Craig Stivender, who is running for sheriff of Colleton County, South Carolina, lists off his perceived faults: a ticket for driving without a license, getting divorced and remarried, fender benders that were his fault and losing his temper at work.
But then he transitions to something a little more controversial. He went to a party dressed in blackface. And he included a photo of himself from that night in his campaign video..
He sets the scene: It was “about 10 years ago” and, as a young police officer at a Halloween party, he dressed up as Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory, a notorious drug trafficker.
“I did it to disparage a criminal whose actions hurt our community and country. That was a different time,” he says in the advertisement of the party.
“Today we understand that type of costume is troubling to many. To those who may be upset, I understand your disappointment. But I value honesty, so I’m opening my campaign with transparency,” he added.
Just a ‘Halloween costume’
Stivender never actually says the word “blackface,” though he shows a photo of himself in costume. He also does not say that the costume might be perceived as racist. He also doesn’t say, “I’m sorry.”
Instead, the man who hopes to be sheriff said his revelations are a part of his attempts to be transparent and honest, saying, “I want to tell you at the start of my campaign some things that politicians would try to hide, things my opponents may try to use to tarnish my integrity.”
But critics weren’t so sure.
On Facebook, some pointed out the ad seemed to be merely a way to save himself from the political blowback that could have come in the future, rather than a genuine apology.
“There is a difference between announcing … just so your political opponents don’t out you and apologizing for having the wrong belief’s [sic] in the past,” Matt Christy wrote in the comments section under Stivener’s ad .
Others pointed out that 10 years ago was 2009 — blackface wasn’t the norm then, either.
“If my Grandparents knew in the 50s that it wasn’t a good look, there’s no excuse for you not to know in 2009, with all of this vast internet,” said K Lamont James.
“I supposed he missed the whole Ted Danson thing in 1993?” Marilyn Gerber wrote, referencing the actor’s scandal when he appeared at a comedic roast of Whoopi Goldberg, with whom he was in a relationship at the time, in blackface.
Some people did praise Stivender and the ad, though. Richard Bounds wrote, “Got my vote! I wish he’d run for the House of Representatives.” H Don Davis said, “Awesome message Craig! Wish you the best! You’ll make a excellent sheriff!”
CNN reached out to Stivender through email.
He said he was on a 24-hour shift at the police station, so couldn’t talk. But he did say he stood by his previous statements and the video.
Stivender told CNN affiliate WCSC that at the time he “had no idea what blackface was.”
“It just happened to be a Halloween costume for me.”
He told WCSC the photo was a mistake, but when asked if he apologized for the photo, he referred back to the video, saying it wasn’t his “intention to hurt anyone’s feelings or make fun of anyone.”
He repeated that it was just a Halloween costume.
Public figures in blackface
This isn’t the first time a public figure was seen wearing blackface. In South Carolina, a photo of Brant Tomlinson, then a candidate for Kershaw County Council, circled social media in 2018.
Tomlinson told CNN affiliate WACH that he and three other college students dressed up as characters from “Cool Runnings,” a movie about a Jamaican bobsled team, a decade ago. In a statement regarding the incident, he didn’t apologize, instead writing that the photo was spread by one of his political opponents in a “smear campaign” effort. He didn’t win the election.
More recently, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said this year that he dressed up in blackface to mimic Michael Jackson in a 1980s dance contest. Northam apologized for his actions and also made plans to dedicate himself to “healing that pain” of racial inequality.
Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring also admitted to appearing in blackface at a party in 1980 during his years at the University of Virginia. He wrote that he accepts full responsibility for his conduct and that he had an “inexcusable lack of awareness and insensitivity to the pain my behavior could inflict on others. It was really a minimization of both people of color, and a minimization of a horrific history I knew well even then.”
The problem with blackface
Blackface has a long and painful history. The most public version of it consisted of white actors who would darken their skin with makeup to look stereotypically “black.” Though the shows were meant to be funny to white audiences, they demeaned black people by reinforcing white notions of superiority and portraying black people using racist clichés and tropes — all while much of the entertainment industry remained unwilling to hire black professionals in front of, or behind, the camera.
Some people have argued that wearing blackface essentially equates another person’s race or ethnicity to a costume or a joke.
And given the history, which has been discussed widely in the era of social media, some say that the harm of the behavior exists regardless of whether a person says they intended to cause harm or not.
Photo Credit: Courtesy Stivender for Sheriff/Facebook