Texas woman in her 30s died from COVID-19 while on flight
A Texas woman died from COVID-19 while on a flight from Arizona, officials announced this week.
The unidentified Garland woman in her 30s began to have difficulty breathing while on the tarmac awaiting takeoff on July 25, news station WFAA reported.
The woman, who had underlying health issues, was administered oxygen but ultimately died on the jetway, the outlet reported.
It’s unclear what airport she was taking off from or what airline she was flying back to Texas.
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said Sunday local officials were previously notified about her death, but only learned that she died from the virus a few days ago.
“We don’t know a whole lot,” Jenkins said at a press conference on COVID-19. “We may not know if she was aware she was sick.”
Jenkins noted that the woman contracted the virus while in Arizona and said her case was a “reminder that there is no age restriction in COVID.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/10/19/texas-woman-in-her-30s-died-from-covid-19-on-flight/
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Italian woman gets 4 years in jail for spiking coworkers’ coffee with sedatives
A woman in Italy has been sentenced to four years in prison after she took workplace rivalry to the extremes — spiking her colleague’s coffee as job cuts loomed so the coworker would get fired … and not her.
Mariangela Cerrato of Bra, Piedmont, was found guilty of putting sedatives in Alice Bordon’s coffee over a period of several months in 2017 so as to discredit Bordon in front of the company’s bosses.
Bordon toldthe newspaper La Stampa (via the Guardian) she “had always trusted the colleague and was still incredulous that she had tried to ‘eliminate’ her by slipping a tranquilizer into her coffee so that she would feel sleepy and underperform at work.”
Cerrato’s plot began in October 2017 when she bought Bordon a coffee from a nearby bar.
“Usually I would just sip it, but on that day, I drank it all in one gulp,” Bordon told La Stampa. Bordon went back to work and soon lost her balance noting: “Everything was black, I felt like I was floating.”
Bordon was treated for a suspected stroke at a hospital but incidents, including a car crash, kept occurring — always after Cerrato got her coffee. Bordon finally put two and two together after Cerrato took time off for the holidays that year.
“She had taken a few days off and during that time I was fine,” Bordon told the paper. “I thought there might be a link between the coffee and the [health] crises. A neurologist advised me not to drink it for a month, and that’s what I did.”
The next time she accepted a coffee from Cerrato, she got it tested.
“I put the other half in a test tube and tests revealed that it contained 10 times the amount of tranquilizer that is usually advised,” Borden said, who then alerted the police and set a trap for Cerrato.
“With the police involved, we managed to stop her as she was putting the medicine into my cup.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/10/17/italian-woman-gets-4-years-in-jail-for-spiking-coworkers-coffee/
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Ohio dad fatally shot in front of his girlfriend and children by shopper who was angry he held up the line
An impatient shopper gunned down an Ohio dad for holding up the line at a Family Dollar, police said.
Jerry Saffo, 32, of Euclid, was pronounced dead by responding cops Friday at the store in Cleveland, where he went shopping with his girlfriend and children, police said.
Saffo got involved in an argument with a cashier over “payment arrangements” when he was checking out, prompting a security guard to intervene and escort him outside, police said in a statement.
The pair were discussing the issue when another man who was “angry with [Saffo] for making him wait” longer in the line came outside and confronted them in a parking lot, police said.
The security guard then went back inside as Saffo and the second man starting arguing, leading Saffo to punch him, police said.
The suspect — described by investigators only as an “unknown male” — then pulled out a gun and shot Saffo before fleeing on foot, police said.
Saffo ran to the back of the building after being shot and collapsed. He was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
No suspects have been identified in the slaying as of Monday, Cleveland police Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia told The Post.
Saffo had been engaged since 2017, according to his Facebook page.
“Gone too soon,” read a post on Instagram showing Saffo inside a car. “Keep family and friends in your prayers.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/10/19/ohio-dad-shot-by-shopper-who-was-angry-he-held-up-line-cops-say/
Photo Credit: GoFundMe
13-year-old Georgia boy fatally shot while working in his front yard
A 13-year-old Georgia boy was gunned down in his front yard by a masked gunman who said nothing in the apparently random and “senseless” shooting, relatives and police said.
Brayan Zavala, of Riverdale in Clayton County, was working on a lawn mower with his 16-year-old brother, Jesus, outside their home late Thursday when a suspect in a ski mask, sweater and black pants approached and shot him, the teen’s sibling told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“The shooter didn’t even say I want your money, or this is a robbery or I’m assaulting you,” Jesus recalled. “He just came, stood there [in] silence and shot my brother.”
Brayan, who was set to turn 14 next week, died before police responded at about 9:15 p.m. Thursday, his brother said.
“The bullets passed through him and blood just squirted out of him,” Jesus continued. “We tried to stop all the blood but by the time the police got here, it didn’t seem like he had life or a chance to live.”
The gunman drove by the family’s home and then turned around before getting out and walking up to Brayan with a shotgun, Jesus told WSB-TV. The suspect then took off in a Chevy HHR SUV with no plates, the grieving teen said.
“What did .. what did he do?” Jesus asked. “We were working on a lawnmower, and all of a sudden, my brother is dead … It’s not fair. What’s the reason? Why? I don’t get it. I don’t get why this happened.”
Two other men were also in the car, a neighbor told WSB-TV.
Investigators have yet to determine any link between Brayan and the gunman, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Friday.
“As a Clayton County police officer for over 38 years, very little shocks me,” Doug Jewett wrote the newspaper. “But, this brutal, senseless murder has overwhelmed me. I send my prayers to the family.”
A message seeking comment from a police spokesperson was not immediately returned early Monday.
Police in Clayton County are asking anyone with information about the shooting to contact investigators at (770) 477-4479.
An online fundraiser set up to help offset funeral costs for Brayan has exceeded $22,000.
“He has been taken from us for no reason,” the campaign reads. “At this time, Clayton County police are working to help my family track down the shooter. We have no answers”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/10/19/13-year-old-georgia-boy-killed-in-senseless-shooting/
Photo Credit: GoFundMe
Jeffrey Toobin was masturbating in front of New Yorker executives during Zoom meeting
The New Yorker writer and CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin didn’t just expose himself during a Zoom work meeting — he was caught masturbating, and those in the online powwow included some of magazine’s biggest other stars, a new report says.
Two people on last week’s video call told Vice that the online gathering was part of a virtual election simulation that included New Yorker bigs such as Jane Mayer, Evan Osnos, Masha Gessen and Jelani Cobb, as well as producers from the magazine and WNYC radio.
The two sources said that at one point, it looked as if Toobin was taking another call and lowered his camera — and that’s when they saw him touching his penis while masturbating.
Toobin — who has since been suspended by The New Yorker and is on leave at CNN — later told Vice, “I believed I was not visible on Zoom. I thought no one on the Zoom call could see me. I thought I had muted the Zoom video.”
It was unclear what if anything others on the virtual call saw.
During the simulation, Osnos was playing the role of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, Gessen was President Trump, Mayer represented establishment Republicans, and Cobb stood in for the Democrats, the sources told Vice.
Toobin was supposed to be playing the part of the courts, while Andrew Marantz represented the far right, Sue Halpern was the left and Dexter Filkins stood in for the military, according to Vice.
At one point, there was a break for those playing Democrats and Republicans to strategize together, and that’s when Toobin allegedly got to work — on himself.
He then left the Zoom chat for a few moments and called back in — apparently unaware that his camera had been kept on for at least part of his sex act, the sources said.
Vice first reported the cringe-worthy incident, although because of technical difficulties, the Web site was forced at one point to use Twitter to fully explain it.
A spokeswoman for the New Yorker said, “Jeffrey Toobin has been suspended while we investigate the matter.”
The magazine’s editor, David Remnick, added in an e-mail to staffers, “Dear All, As you may have read in various news reports today, one of our writers, Jeff Toobin, was suspended after an incident on a Zoom call last week,’’ according to Vice.
“Please be assured that we take such matters seriously and that we are looking into it. Best, David,’’ Remnick said.
CNN — where Toobin, who graduated from Harvard Law School, is the chief legal analyst — said, “Jeff Toobin has asked for some time off while he deals with a personal issue, which we have granted.’’
via: https://nypost.com/2020/10/19/jeffrey-toobin-was-masturbating-in-front-of-new-yorker-bigs-report/
Photo Credit: Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File
12-year-old Georgia boy is a sophomore in college majoring in aerospace engineering
Like many other 12-year-old boys, Caleb Anderson enjoys collecting action figures, watching Netflix and playing with Beyblades. He also happens to be a sophomore in college majoring in aerospace engineering.
Caleb is currently enrolled as a student at Chattahoochee Technical College in Marietta, Georgia, where he’ll graduate with a bachelor’s degree in two years. He hopes to continue his education at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute for Technology and eventually get an internship working for Elon Musk.
“When I was like 1, I always wanted to go to space,” Caleb, who’s favorite subject is math, told USA TODAY. “I figured that aerospace engineering would be the best path.”
Caleb’s mother, Claire, said she first realized her son was gifted when he began mimicking her speech at just 4 weeks old. At 9 months, he could sign more than 250 words in American Sign Language and had no trouble reading words he’d never seen before.
“I was getting my master’s in education so I knew that there was something special about that,” she said.
While enrolled in a traditional middle school, Claire Anderson, 46, said Caleb would breeze through tests without having to study because he already knew most of the material. The former teacher and current stay-at-home mom worried that he wasn’t being challenged enough.
“I didn’t like the character that was building in him,” she said. “He didn’t have any study skills, perseverance, grit. He didn’t ask for help.”
Both Claire and her husband, Kobi, acknowledged that at times his intelligence made it difficult for Caleb to make friends. Kobi Anderson, 45, recalled Caleb getting upset that his friends couldn’t communicate with him when he was just 3 years old.
His father, who is an IT salesman, now supervises him on campus. But Kobi Anderson made it clear that Caleb has excelled way past the point of his dad being able to help with homework.
“We can’t do that,” he said with a laugh. “He’s already passed me in math.”
Although they can’t help him in the classroom, Claire Anderson said she’s focused on raising a well-rounded child and that starting college early helped relieve some of his anxiety.
“Both of us are not rocket scientists,” she said. “We had to learn there are other things that we can teach him about compassion, kindness, looking for good in others.”
Caleb agreed, too, that college is the best place for him.
“It’s really accepting,” he said. “People might think something about it, but they don’t show it which is really nice.”
The Andersons have two other children – Aaron, 8, and Hannah, 7, who are in the gifted program at their school. While they describe Caleb as verbally gifted, meaning he quickly picks up other languages, Aaron is good with numbers and Hannah excels at puzzles.
When asked what advice he had for other parents, Kobi Anderson said parents can start by advocating for their children’s academic growth in the same way achievements in areas like sports are celebrated.
“My wife frequently says ‘raise the child you have not the child that you want,'” he said. “You’ve got to nurture what nature gives you.”
Photo Credit: Anderson Family
FL Company president warns of lay offs if Biden wins presidency in letter to employees
Workers at a Central Florida company are wondering about their job futures, and whether that has anything to do with how they vote.
The head of that company put letters in pay stub envelopes saying if President Trump doesn’t win re-election, they might lose their jobs.
WESH 2 News spoke to some of the 170 employees as they were heading home from Daniels Manufacturing in Orlando, where a Trump banner is displayed on the flag pole out front.
Some said they were voting for Trump, while others we spoke to said they were upset to receive a letter obtained through a company source from DMC president George Daniels.
The company which makes tools and electronics for the aerospace, military and aircraft industries has been weathering the economic downturn.
The letter warns: “If Trump and the Republicans win (the election), DMC will hopefully be able to continue operating, more or less as it has been operating lately.”
“However, if Biden and the Democrats win, DMC could be forced to begin permanent layoffs beginning in late 2020 and/or early 2021.”
“Everybody has a choice to make their own decision,” employee Stan Smith said.
Smith says the letter, which he considered offensive, is one of the reasons he’s quitting.
Other workers, who told us they were too afraid to be fired to speak with us, said they felt intimidated by the letter.
“I don’t feel like it was correct to do something like that,” Smith said. “That’s like me coming to work because we had all these Black killings and I should come in here and wear a Black Lives Matter shirt and bring out hats and pass them out to everyone. I felt like it was unfair,” Smith said.
Campaign finance records with the federal government show George Daniels has contributed more than $600,000 to President and PACs that are supporting him and other Republicans this election cycle
A closer look at those campaign finance records reveals contributions to “Trump Victory” alone, of more than $139,000.
Daniels declined to be interviewed on camera, but said:
“I have been doing this for years. I have an obligation to let workers know what could happen, based on the outcome of an election. They certainly should vote for the candidate they want.”
It’s not against the law for business owners to talk politics with their employees, but some Daniels Manufacturing workers said the letter went a step too far.
Photo Credit: newsbreak
NYPD cuffed man to hospital bed after car wreck over unpaid tickets
A Bronx man is suing the NYPD for $10 million, claiming New York’s Finest handcuffed him to a hospital bed for a week over unpaid parking tickets.
An explosive federal lawsuit alleges that “agitated” cops violated Kevin Saulnier’s civil rights after the 24-year-old “had the misfortune” of getting into a car accident on City Island Road in the Bronx on April 17, 2019 with off-duty cops.
“This was a total abuse of power,” Saulnier told The Post. “They treated me like I killed 20 people.”
The steel worker said he had a three-inch piece of metal protruding from a “profusely bleeding” broken left leg that ultimately needed surgery to install a plate with five screws. The off-duty cops did not appear to be injured, the suit says.
The suit alleges the officers at the scene were angry “because one of their own was in an accident with a civilian. With absolutely no regard for the obvious injuries he had suffered, Saulnier was cuffed by [the] NYPD, as he lay in agony on the stretcher once he arrived at the emergency room at Jacobi Hospital.”
Then cops, “wanting to prolong Saulnier’s misery,” declined to issue a desk appearance ticket and “intentionally delayed” processing his arrest paperwork so that Saulnier — “in excruciating pain” — had to wait another week while “cuffed to his bed by his wrist and his ankle” to see a judge, the suit claims.
Saulnier says that on his “first evening as a prisoner” at Jacobi, an NYPD sergeant came to check on him — and tightened his cuffs.
I had a broken left leg, a shackled right leg and they handcuffed my left wrist. I said, ‘Why are you guys doing this to me?’ None of the cops had an answer.”
Saulnier told the Post he wasn’t allowed to make phone calls and his mom was in tears whenever she came to visit. A cop was stationed by his side 24/7.
“This was a regular car accident,” Saulnier’s attorney, Taso Pardalis, said. “The kid had unpaid tickets and his license was suspended for that and the cops united to punish him.”
Saulnier was driving his mom’s 2016 Chevy Malibu to a Westchester mall that evening when he collided head-on with an SUV. Saulnier said he was trying to avoid construction plates and both he and the oncoming driver were in a center fire lane.
He said his car careened and “tapped” a third car, whose driver and passenger were the off-duty cops.
The Bronx man said his Malibu went “up against the guard rail” and he couldn’t open the driver’s side door. He climbed into the passenger’s seat and then “tried to stand up but fell back into the vehicle because I couldn’t stand.”
“I’m lying in the car and 10 cop cars are there in under three minutes. … They all walked by me. … The first person to come up to me was FDNY,” he said. When cops finally approached him, they asked for his license and registration, but “didn’t care about me at all.
“And then they established that my license was suspended due to an unpaid parking ticket from 2017.”
Saulnier said it took him five months to start walking again and he suffers nightmares. The Manhattan federal court lawsuit names two responding officers, the city and the NYPD.
Saulnier satisfied the $303 ticket judgment the day after the accident, according to a lawsuit exhibit.
He was arraigned on charges of reckless driving and aggravated unlicensed operator and violation of vehicle and traffic law, a Bronx District Attorney spokeswoman said. Saulnier pleaded guilty on Oct. 24 to the VTL count and got a $75 fine, she said.
An NYPD spokeswoman said Saulnier was “driving in a fire lane at a high rate of speed,” and that his “claims have no merit and we look forward to defending against the baseless allegations.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/10/17/nypd-cuffed-man-to-hospital-bed-over-unpaid-tickets-suit/
Photo Credit: J.C. Rice
The Flaming Lips performed a concert with the band and fans encased in plastic bubbles
(CNN) — It’s unclear whether The Flaming Lips are using jelly — or vaseline, for that matter — at their concerts these days. The rock band is, however, trying plastic bubbles.
The rock musicians from Oklahoma City are literally blowing up in 2020, using inflatable human-sized bubbles to defend themselves and fans against Covid-19 while finding a way to play live.
Performing at The Criterion in their hometown on Monday evening, The Flaming Lips placed themselves — and all attending fans — inside individual plastic spheres. The concert — which was part live show, part music video shoot — was born out of a sketch doodled by Wayne Coyne during the pandemic’s early days, the frontman told CNN.
“I did a little drawing… where I drew a picture of The Flaming Lips doing a show in 2019. And I’m the only person in the space bubble, and everybody else is just normal,” Coyne told CNN during a phone interview on Friday. “Then (I did another drawing with) The Flaming Lips playing a show in 2020. The exact same scenario, but I’m in a bubble, and so is everybody else.”
At the time, Coyne says, the idea was more or less a social commentary on the state of virus, with the thinking that Covid-19 would never linger long enough to see the bubble experiment fully inflate.
“I don’t think anybody would have thought … in the middle of March that this is still going to be going, you know, eight months later. I think we all thought this is a month, this is maybe two months, but we’re going to get a handle on this,” he said.
Coyne and the band first unveiled the concept during a May visit to “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
That inspired them to keep going.
“We do a couple of songs with about 30 people in the bubbles. And we start to think, ‘Well, you know, just from doing that, we start to get an idea that we could actually do it, you know, and it could actually happen,'” Coyne revealed.
The “space bubbles” have long been a part of The Flaming Lips stage shows, so Coyne and company were familiar with a series of inflatable orbs. After setting the specs, the band ordered 100 bubbles from China, and this unique music event – one first drawn up on Coyne’s sketchpad — was ready to pop.
“Since May, the desire to see the live music has just gotten, you know, more, more amplified,” he told CNN, noting that fans interested in test-driving the experience were asked to arrive at The Criterion between 6:30 and 7 p.m. ET.
“Right at a little after six, we already had enough people.”
With a couple hundred fans floating about, The Flaming Lips performed a dance remix of “Assassins of Youth” and “Brother Eye,” a pair of tracks from their latest LP, “American Head.”
Coyne captioned an Instagram post from the show with the word “Yessss!!!” — a nod to the feat they had collectively pulled off.
“I like the way this looks, because you can get as excited as you want, you can scream as much as you want, you just can’t infect the person next to you, no matter what you forget about, how excited you get,” he said. “That barrier is still there, they’re protected, and you’re protected… that part of it is what we really felt like was the success,” he said.
So are bouncing bubbles, with fans and bands equally encased, the future of live music, at least amid this global pandemic?
“I’m willing to do everything I can, you know, to say, I think we could do this, and this would be absolutely safe,” says Coyne, who said that ultimately he’s holding out hope for a vaccine.
“We, as The Flaming Lips, we like the idea that we are doing something different…. I think it could be cool. It could be fun. And we could all have a, you know, a crazy unique experience,” he said.
“For the time being.”
Photo Credit: Courtesy Scott Booker/Warner Records
Hormel is making bacon-scented face masks
(CNN/Meredith) — It may be pumpkin spice season, but one food company wants to tease your olfactory system with another favorite — bacon!
Now you can enjoy the smell of bacon all day while protecting yourself from coronavirus with a new face mask made by Hormel.
The company calls it “Black Label Breathable Bacon.”
According to Hormel, the limited-edition mask uses the “latest in pork-scented technology” — whatever that is.
The bacon smell will go away after two or three washes.
You can try to win a free mask by registering at breathablebacon.com. The contest runs through Oct. 28.
It’s unclear if the masks will be available to purchase for people who don’t win a free one.
But if you don’t win, Hormel will still donate one meal to Feeding America for every request, up to 10,000.
Photo Credit: nypost.com