California church holds service, potentially exposing 180 to coronavirus
More than 180 people were potentially exposed to the coronavirus after a California church defied state lockdown orders to hold a service — and a congregant with the virus attended.
The unidentified person attended a Mother’s Day service at Palermo Bible Family Church — and tested positive for COVID-19 the next day, according to Butte County Public Health and the Los Angeles Times.
The infected person is now in home isolation, and the other congregants were notified of their exposure and also directed to self-quarantine, according to officials.
The public health department is working to arrange testing for everyone in attendance.
Large gatherings are banned in the state, and local officials said the church puts its worshipers at risk by holding a service.
“At this time, organizations that hold in-person services or gatherings are putting the health and safety of their congregations, the general public and our local ability to open up at great risk,” Danette York, director of the department, said in a statement.
“Moving too quickly through the reopening process can cause a major setback and could require us to revert back to more restrictive measures.”
In a since-deleted Facebook post, pastor Mike Jacobsen said an asymptomatic congregant attended the service and woke up the next day “needing medical attention.”
He said he would “never with knowledge put anyone in harms [sic] way.”
“For 7 weeks we have been kept out of our church and away from our church family,” he added. “I am fully aware that some people may not understand that for our church it is essential to be together in fellowship.”
When contacted by the LA Times, Jacobsen declined to immediately comment, saying he needed more time to think about it before making a statement.
In a Facebook Live Bible study last week, Jacobsen said the church should stay open because many of its members are “young believers” in need of community.
“You wouldn’t take an infant out of the arms of their mother and expect them to survive on their own,” he said.
“We’ve really tried to raise the bar and do a good job with what we’ve been given,” the pastor said of virtual services, “but it’s not the same as being together in fellowship with one another.”
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Illinois woman arrested for spitting in nurse’s face, claiming to have coronavirus
AURORA, Ill. (KMOV.com)— An Illinois woman who claimed to have COVID-19 was arrested Monday after spitting in a nurse’s face at an Aurora hospital.
Cynthia Meyers, 33, of Oswego, Illinois, checked herself into Mercy Hospital on North Highland Ave because she was having trouble breathing and claimed to have tested positive for the virus prior.
While getting medical treatment, police said the 33-year-old decided she wanted to leave.
The nurse told her that she needed to sign discharge paperwork but she allegedly refused. Meyers then lunged towards the nurse and spat on her, officials said.
She was arrested and charged with aggravated battery to a nurse. It is unknown if Meyers had tested positive.
Illinois has seen 90,436 cases with the majority of those patients in the Chicago area. In late March, Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin and Aurora Police Chief Kristen Ziman both announced they had contracted the coronavirus.
Photo Credit: kmov.com
Missouri woman gave birth at work, left baby to drown in a toilet
MILAN, Mo. (AP) — A woman who gave birth in a bathroom at a Missouri meatpacking plant was charged with murder for allegedly leaving her newborn to drown in a toilet.
Makuya Kambamba, 28, of Kirksville, was jailed without bond after being charged Friday with first-degree murder and several other counts in the baby’s May 6 death. No attorney is listed for her in online court records.
Investigators said in court documents that Kambamba gave birth in a restroom at the Smithfield Foods plant in Milan, where she works, KTVO-TV reported. Court papers say she told officers that she saw the infant moving as he was face down in the toilet. Kambamba said didn’t check on the baby boy again until about 30 minutes later, when a Smithfield nurse entered the restroom.
An autopsy revealed evidence consistent with a drowning victim.
Photo Credit: kmov.com/Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office
Maryland mom left her two children in the car while she went into a nail salon, police say
A Baltimore mom has been charged after leaving her two children in the car while she was in a nail salon, police say.
An officer responded to a call of child neglect on May 13 and found a 3-month-old boy and a 3-year-old girl inside a parked car, Baltimore County Police said. The weather was in the 70s.
The responding officer broke a window of the car to reach the children and first responders arrived soon after “to make sure they were not in distress,” police said.
Authorities found the mother inside a nail salon that had its shades drawn and charged her with two counts of misdemeanor for an unattended child, according to police.
They also told the salon to shut down and the owners complied.
Last week, Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski announced personal services, including nail salons, were to remain closed.
Photo Credit: kmov.com
Police officer told homeowner he could contact Ahmaud Arbery shooting suspect for help with potential trespassers, text message shows
A text message obtained by CNN shows a Glynn County police officer told the owner of a home under construction near the Georgia coast that he could contact Gregory McMichael for help with potential trespassers seen in surveillance video from his property. Months later, Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son, Travis McMichael, 34, would be arrested for the February 23 fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, who was jogging through the neighborhood and, according to attorneys for Arbery’s family, seen in surveillance footage from the property that day.
Elizabeth Graddy, an attorney for the homeowner, Larry English, said the text exchange occurred on December 20, 2019. In it, English sends a video clip from his surveillance camera to the police officer. The officer responded, telling English that one of English’s neighbors is Gregory McMichael, a retired police officer and retired investigator in the local district attorney’s office. McMichael “said please call him day or night when you get action on your camera,” the officer wrote in his text message to English. CNN has reached out to the Glynn County Police Department for comment but has not heard back.McMichael and his son, the alleged shooter, were arrested May 7 and charged with felony murder and aggravated assault in the death of Arbery. Attorneys for the elder McMichael said in a statement Friday that their client “did not commit murder,” pointing out that he’s been charged as party to the crime. The attorneys, Frank and Laura Hogue, said they are aware of “several other critically important facts” that portray “a very different narrative” for the killing.Travis McMichael’s attorneys made similar comments on Thursday, saying he had “been vilified before his voice could even be heard.” “The truth in this case will exonerate Travis,” the statement said.
Arbery was running in the Satilla Shores neighborhood outside Brunswick on February 23 when he was followed by the McMichaels and fatally shot, according to a Glynn County police report.
Gregory McMichael told police after the shooting that he and his son pursued Arbery because they thought he looked like a suspect in a series of recent break-ins, the report says. A struggle ensued between Arbery and Travis McMichael, who was armed with a shotgun, according to the report and a video that appears to show the incident. Arbery was shot three times, including twice in the chest, according to a Georgia Bureau of Investigation autopsy report.
No string of break-ins was reported in more than seven weeks before Arbery’s death and there was only a burglary report after a gun was stolen from an unlocked vehicle in front of the McMichaels’ home, police said.The two men were arrested two days after the 36-second video was published, sparking widespread outrage that the suspects, who are white, had not been arrested more than two months after Arbery, an African American, was killed.
Video clips show other people on the property
Surveillance video from English’s construction site on February 23 appears to show Arbery minutes before he was killed. The footage appears to show him looking around but never touching anything and eventually, walking away.Earlier this week, English said he never accused Arbery of any wrongdoing. “I don’t want it to be put out and misused and misinterpreted for people to think that I had accused Mr. Arbery of stealing or robbery, because I never did,” English told CNN’s Chris Cuomo Tuesday night. By the time English had seen the clip, Arbery was already dead, according to Graddy, the attorney for English. Multiple security video clips obtained by CNN show unidentified people on other occasions entering English’s home, which was under construction.
In a video from February 11, another person is seen in the home. A 911 caller who identified himself as Travis McMichael that day said he saw a man go into the house, according to a Glynn County police report. English told CNN he could not identify the individual in the February 11 footage and said he did not report the incident to the police. In a statement to CNN on Friday, Graddy said the man in the February 11 video appears to be the same man filmed in the house last fall and on December 17. She said the man may have come into the house for water, adding there are water sources both behind the house and in front of it. In the December 17 footage, the man is seen wiping his mouth and “what sounds like water can be heard” before he jogs away, Graddy said in a statement. Attorneys for Arbery’s parents said they have reviewed a number of surveillance videos released by English’s attorney. They confirmed Ahmaud Arbery appeared in one video but were unable to confirm that he appeared in the others. The statement from the attorneys said people were frequently on the construction site both day and night but “Ahmaud Arbery seems to be the only one who was presumed to be a criminal.”
Article via CNN
11 firefighters injured, multiple buildings damaged after explosion in downtown L.A.
Eleven firefighters were injured and multiple buildings were set ablaze after an explosion in downtown Los Angeles Saturday, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.
The blast was reported around 6:30 p.m. while firefighters were responding to a fire at a one-story structure at 327 E. Boyd St., just outside Little Tokyo, according to LAFD.
LAFD Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas said the firefighters did what they usually do: Some went in through the front of the building, and the rest went up on the roof. But things didn’t seem right, he said.
The smoke pressure inside was escalating and it was getting hotter.
The officer in charge directed everybody to get out quickly, and as they were trying to leave, the explosion rang out, the fire chief said.
“Our firefighters came down the aerial ladder from the roof with their turnout coats on fire,” the chief said.
A mayday call was transmitted over the radio.
“The kind of call I always dread is a significant incident, with the potential of a lot of our firefighters injured,” the fire chief said, standing at the scene of the explosion next to the rescue ambulance of Fire Engine 9, which belonged to the crew with the injured firefighters.
The fire appears to have started at Smoke Tokes Warehouse Distributor, a supplier for businesses that make butane honey oil, LAFD Captain Erik Scott said during a news conference. Terrazas said firefighters found small butane canisters inside and outside.
Video showed dark plumes of smoke billowing over the area and flames shooting up from at least one of the buildings as sirens wailed in the background.
“Significant explosion — very high, very wide, rumbling the entire area— and firefighters were coming out with obvious damage and burns,” Scott said.
All 11 firefighters were hospitalized, three of them in critical condition and one in serious condition, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti said. LAFD had previously estimated that 10 firefighters were hurt.
Four firefighters will be going to the burn intensive care unit, two were placed on ventilators for swelling of their airways from inhalation of the superheated gases, and the others suffered varying burns to their upper extremities, ranging from very serious, to moderate, to minor, according to Dr. Marc Eckstein, attending physician at L.A. County USC Medical Center, where the firefighters were being treated.
“We have every anticipation the firefighters will pull through,” the doctor said.
Doctors said all of the crew members were alert when they were brought in, and that it could have been even worse.
“We know we’re at risk when we go to any emergency, but we never want to see this happen,” department spokesman Nicholas Prange said.
LAFD upgraded the incident to “a major emergency” shortly after the explosion, and over 230 firefighters responded to the fire, going into defensive mode as they battled the flames, authorities said.
LAFD reported firefighters extinguished the bulk of the fire around 8:10 p.m.
But firefighters responding to the blast were met with a difficult situation, pouring water on the flames from outside as they were unable to go inside of the buildings, Prange said.
“We’re always worried about a secondary explosion, we don’t know what caused the first one and we’re trying to avoid this incident becoming even worse if the second one does happen,” Prange told KTLA.
Crews later went into offensive mode, attacking and extinguishing the fire.
It remains unclear what set off the explosion and whether there were hazardous materials involved. Scott said the cause of the blast is under investigation and that a hazmat team responded to the scene.
As the flames raged earlier in the evening, Prange told people in the area to find a way to shelter themselves from the smoke, saying even a tent would help. The explosion rang out just a few blocks away from Skid Row.
The explosion drew onlookers, and concerned residents took to social media to share video of the flames.
Article via ktla
Child abuse reports are down during the pandemic. Experts say that’s a bad sign
Article via CNN
A drop in child abuse would usually be welcome news — but with schools closed and kids at home, experts believe that the recent decline in calls to child abuse and neglect hotlines might really mean more cases are going unnoticed.
Figures provided to CNN from states across the country show considerable drops in child abuse reports as social distancing measures have kept people home and kids out of sight. In Massachusetts alone, reports of alleged child abuse dropped almost 55% from 2,124 in the first week of March to just 972 by the last full week in April, according to data provided by the state. Compared to last year, Connecticut, California, Michigan, Kentucky, New Hampshire and Louisiana have all seen double-digit percentage drops as they’ve implemented their own stay-home orders.
Teachers, coaches and other adults who interact with children and are legally required to report signs of abuse can’t always see red flags over Zoom or other remote connections — if they’re able to get in touch with at-risk kids at all. And kids who are at-risk are less able to signal distress if their abusers are in the background of calls. “When children are no longer visible to the vast majority of people who are trained and required to report, and then you see this kind of decline, we get super concerned,” said Melissa Jonson-Reid, a professor of social work research at Washington University in St. Louis.
Children’s advocates say they’re also having a harder time finding ways to intervene before abuse starts in at-risk families. Paula Wolfteich, intervention and clinical director of the National Children’s Advocacy Center, told CNN that mitigation measures have hampered their contact with at-risk families and handicapped the organization’s ability to help.”The kids that we normally can see and support and — and families that we can support, our hands are tied and we’re unable to do that as well as we usually do,” she said.Wolfteich said because families are “sort of on lockdown and isolated,” her organization has seen a stream of reports including “substance abuse involvement, there’s domestic violence in the home and then, you know, physical abuse is going on.”The strains on families are only rising as financial hardships grow for millions of Americans.
The US lost 20.5 million jobs in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — by far the most sudden and largest decline since the government began tracking the data in 1939. Anna Gassman-Pines, a Duke University professor whose expertise includes the effects of unemployment on children, told CNN that this kind of financial strain will likely have an outsized impact on already at-risk children. “In very stressed communities where there have been a lot of job losses — even the families where the adults have managed to maintain employment — that community has an increased risk for child maltreatment because of concerns of everyone in that community about uncertainty around their jobs, feelings of instability, worry about the future,” she said. “Or it may even be that those who remain employed have less earnings,” she said. “So there are a lot of reasons why, in communities that have been particularly hard hit by job losses, that increases the risk for everyone in that community.”
Rates of reported child neglect, for example, increased by 24.28% between 2007 and 2009 during the Great Recession, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services.
National figures on child abuse and neglect reports related to the coronavirus will be collected by HHS as part of the federal fiscal year 2020, which ends on September 30 — but that data isn’t due to be publicly released until January 2022. The coronavirus pandemic has prompted an unprecedented shutdown that has taken kids out of sight in a way that experts and advocates haven’t seen before. Nadine Burke Harris, the surgeon general of California and a pediatrician with expertise in childhood trauma, described to CNN the challenge of issuing public health directives while balancing competing interests.
“Well, you know certainly when we’re thinking about the remain-at-home order we are thinking about all of these things. We’re thinking about the economic impact, right, we’re thinking about these stress-related secondary impacts. We’re thinking about safety and well-being and looking at the death toll related to the — the virus,” she said. “So all of this is being considered.”
Jonson-Reid stressed the particular dangers facing young children, like a lack of knowledge about the resources they can use for relief. “They have to know that there’s the possibility of assistance,” she said. “And you can imagine it would be pretty scary to just sort of get on a phone and call some stranger to ask for help when no one has ever mentioned that that’s even possible.”In recent weeks, some Democratic lawmakers have pushed for emergency funding for the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act — one of the few federal child welfare programs that help fund state initiatives to respond and prevent child neglect and abuse. “Investing in programs that support families and keep children safe is more important than ever,” said an April letter to Senate leadership signed by Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and others. “Existing federal programs with infrastructure and expertise are already in place to address these challenges,” said the letter. “However, they currently lack the financial support to effectively combat the new challenges presented by this crisis.”
Jonson-Reid hopes lawmakers will “use this time to see the strain that we’re putting on families during the pandemic” and take steps to invest in child welfare programs. The outbreak, she posited, is a time to “not just prepare to go back to business as usual, but to say, ‘This is a time to invest in our families,’ so that we are saving these long-term costs related to delinquency, educational outcomes, mental health, health outcomes across the board.”
Anyone worried about the possibility of abuse or neglect can contact the national child abuse hotline: 1-800-422-4453 or childhelphotline.org. Crisis counselors answer calls 24/7 and provide crisis intervention, information, and referrals.
Man shoots down drone, gets hit with felony charges in Minnesota
The drone’s owner was taking aerial images of a meat-processing facility.
A Minnesota man is facing two felony charges for shooting down a drone, The Free Press reports.
The incident began when an unnamed man flew a drone over Butterfield Foods, a producer of meat products—including chicken—in the Southern Minnesota town of Butterfield. The man later told a sheriff’s deputy he was trying to prove that chickens were being slaughtered because of the pandemic.
Two employees approached the man and asked him what he was doing. Soon afterwards, someone else shot the drone out of the sky. The man says his drone cost $1,900.
The authorities arrested 34-year-old Travis Duane Winters and charged him in Watonwan County District Court, The Free Press says. Officials say Winters admitted to shooting the drone. He faces charges of criminal damage to property and reckless discharge of a weapon within city limits.
This is not the first time someone has shot down a drone. We reported on several such shootings in 2016 and 2017. In one case, a man sued a neighbor who shot his drone when it flew over the neighbor’s land. A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit on procedural grounds, finding that it should have been filed in state, not federal, courts.
The Federal Aviation Administration has said that shooting down a drone is illegal under the same federal aviation laws that make it illegal to shoot down a crewed aircraft. But we don’t know of any cases of people being prosecuted under those laws.
Article via ArsTechnica
Woman, 5-year-old boy drown at home of former Boston Red Sox OF Carl Crawford (report)
A woman and a five-year-old boy who was reportedly under her care drowned on Saturday in a pool at the Houston home of former MLB outfielder Carl Crawford, per the Houston Chronicle.
Per police, as recorded by the Chronicle, the boy began struggling to breathe while he swam in the pool, and the woman — who was 25 — jumped in to try to help him. Per a local CBS affiliate, which took video of Crawford speaking to police, attempts to resuscitate both the woman and child via CPR were unsuccessful at the scene. Both were unresponsive when transported to the hospital, where they were declared dead.
Article via MassLive
Blac Chyna producing NSFW docuseries on porn site OnlyFans
Cue the cameras: Blac Chyna is heading up a docuseries about adult site OnlyFans.
Called “OnlyCam: LA,” the show premieres at 8 p.m. May 17 on streaming site the Zeus Network.
Rob Kardashian’s ex, whose real name is Angela White, will give an in-depth look at the lives of on-camera sex workers, who have seen their earnings explode since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
OnlyFans, a service that allows individuals to buy subscriptions for private video content from creators, has been a boon for sex workers, who can take their NSFW content to a more intimate online platform.
The steamy documentary executive produced by Chyna includes former “Bachelorette” cast member Chad Johnson, who announced in April that he was going to get into the porn industry — in particular, the world of foot fetishes.
“There’s some weird feet people out there,” says Johnson in the trailer, rocking a porn ’stache and wearing only a tight-fitting pair of briefs.
The series appears to center on how OnlyFans is making it rain on its stars: “In the last 58 days, I have made $93,000,” Johnson says.
One performer featured in the doc, Dallas Wade, says he makes more than $100,000 a month from his work on the site, most of which features his behind. “My butt became a thing,” he says in the trailer.
But it’s not all about the moneymakers: The docuseries will also show the pitfalls of this line of work. “I’m just kind of nervous about my kids and stuff,” says a Kim Kardashian look-alike in the clip.
“Right now, because of the whole pandemic, it’s been boosted,” one cam girl says of the financial boom in the industry.
She’s not wrong. The Post reported in early March that strippers who are unable to work in clubs because of the coronavirus pandemic have been turning to the service and raking in the dollars. Some escorts who can’t meet clients in person have been making the leap to virtual, through it brings a new set of challenges.
The service has gotten so popular during the quarantine that Beyoncé shouted it out on her remix of Megan Thee Stallion’s popular song “Savage.” Views on the site jumped 15% in less than 24 hours after it debuted, reports the Daily Beast.
Chyna, who had a show with Kardashian in 2016 called “Rob & Chyna,” is also currently featured on a Zeus Network show about her life, called “The Real Blac Chyna.”
The mom of two has her own OnlyFans page that she launched in April, where she charges $50 a month for her videos. She often posts teasers of her OnlyFans content to her Instagram, like videos of her posing in lingerie or of her soaking-wet feet stomping on grapes.
A subscription to Zeus costs $3.99 a month or $40 a year.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/05/15/blac-chyna-producing-nsfw-docuseries-on-porn-site-onlyfans/
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