Funeral worker apologizes for “thumbs up” selfie with Diego Maradona’s body
After receiving death threats, the funeral worker who posed for a selfie by the open coffin of Argentinian soccer legend Diego Maradona has begged for forgiveness, the BBC reported Saturday.
Claudio Fernández, who was fired over the incident, said the decision to take the photo was impulsive and he regrets it. Fernandez was snapped with his son, who made a thumbs-up signal, and another man.
Maradona died Wednesday at his home in Tigre, near Buenos Aires.
Several photos showed up online as Maradona’s body lay in state at the presidential palace, causing an uproar. In one photo one of the men appears to be touching the forehead of the late World Cup winner.
Maradona’s lawyer, Matías Morla, said he would sue “the scoundrel” responsible for the photos.
Fernandez told Radio 10 the decision to take the photo was “something instantaneous.”
“My son, like every kid, raised his thumb and they took the photo,” he said. “I know that many people have been offended, they have taken it badly.”
Fernández said he had gotten death threats.
“They say they are going to kill us, break our heads,” he said.
Matías Picón, the manager of the Sepelios Pinier funeral parlor, said Fernández was one of three “outsourced employees.” Picon told the TN news channel the company was “devastated” by the photos.
The company had long worked for the Maradona family.
“The family has total confidence in us, that’s why we are so affected,” he said.
“My father is 75-years-old and he is crying, I am crying, my brother too, we are destroyed.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/28/funeral-worker-apologizes-over-maradona-coffin-selfie/
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Ohio man pulls out brass knuckles after refusing to wear mask in Walmart
An Ohio man was arrested for allegedly whipping out brass knuckles during an argument about wearing a mask in Walmart, police said.
Colyn Tusing, 20, was busted at about 5 p.m. Saturday inside the store in the city of Sandusky.
Cops were called to the location when Tusing refused to leave the store after ignoring a worker’s request to wear a mask, according to an arrest report from the Perkins Township Police Department.
After an officer told Tusing to leave the Walmart, he put on the brass knuckles that were in his pocket as he walked away, the police report said.
Tusing was arrested and the officer removed the weapon from his hand.
The suspect asked the cop: “Do you really think I’m f—ing scared of you?” according to the report.
Tusing was also carrying an orange razor blade knife in his pocket, which police confiscated. He was charged with carrying a concealed weapon.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/25/man-pulls-out-brass-knuckles-after-refusing-to-wear-mask-in-walmart/
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Instagram model helps women catch cheating men by sliding into their DMs
A model from California is helping women catch cheating cads on Instagram.
Paige Woolen, 28, who has over 200,000 followers on her main account, has a side account, @dudesinthedm, from which she slides into the DMs of men who are suspected of cheating to see if she can catch them in the act.
“I had been noticing a lot of guys that DM me on my personal account had profile photos with their girlfriends,” Woolen told the Star. “It got me wondering if their girlfriends know or care that they DM random girls with photos in their bikinis.”
She posts images of the direct message exchanges she has with the men on Instagram, thus exposing the would-be cheaters.
She wrote to one partnered man recently saying: “Just thought you were so so cute. Was hoping to meet up if you’re single of course.”
The man replied instantly: “I’m single enough, do you have Snapchat?”
Another man flirted, claiming he was single, despite his Instagram account being full of pictures of his girlfriend.
Woolen — whose main Instagram account is filled with bikini pics of herself — said she was surprised at her exchanges with the men.
“Most of them either didn’t answer or if they said something mean or informed me they had a girlfriend,” Woolen said in the interview. “Only a few lied and said they were single.”
She added: “I personally believe snitches get stitches but I felt like using the power of Instagram for good and helping out my female followers.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/27/instagram-model-catches-cheating-men-by-sliding-into-their-dms/
Photo Credit: Instagram
Vermont schools will grill students on how they celebrated Thanksgiving during health checks
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott said during a press conference on Tuesday that schools in the state will include new questions during daily health checks about whether students and their parents attended gatherings outside of their households following the Thanksgiving holiday.
Scott noted that any students who attend events with more than just their immediate household will be required to either take online classes for a two-week quarantine period or quarantine for a week and then have a negative COVID-19 test.
“We understand how difficult this is, but since we know these types of gatherings have been the cause of so many outbreaks, we’ve got to do all we can to slow this down,” Scott said.
The governor also encouraged businesses to take the same approach with their employees.
“From my standpoint, this is fair warning to those of you who are planning to have gatherings from outside your household for Thanksgiving,” Scott added. “If you don’t want your kids to have to transition to remote learning and quarantine for a seven-day period, maybe you ought to make other plans.”
The latest effort comes as state officials have warned small gatherings are fueling the recent spike in coronavirus cases and worry Thanksgiving gatherings with people from multiple households could exacerbate the problem.
Vermont, which still boasts some of the lowest COVID-19 case numbers in the country, reported 49 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, bringing the statewide total since the pandemic began to more than 3,760 cases.
Vermont’s commissioner for the Department of Financial Regulation, Michael Pieciak, says that of those cases, roughly 40 percent were reported in November alone. He noted that if Vermonters gather for Thanksgiving, it could lead to a worst-case scenario of 3,200 to 3,800 new infections and 40 to 50 hospitalizations.
However, officials are hopeful that by encouraging people to stay home, that worst-case scenario can be avoided.
“I know how done we are with this pandemic,” said Vermont Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine.
People who chose to attend gatherings and those who travel, including college students returning home, should follow the state’s quarantine procedures.
“Quarantine means staying home and away from other people for 14 days,” Levine said. “Do not go to school, do not go to work, do not go out to do errands or recreation other than perhaps a walk alone in the woods.”
The governor said that if people listen to the recommendations and the case numbers begin to go down, it will be possible to ease up on the restrictions while the state waits for the arrival of the vaccines that can end the pandemic.
“I know asking you to sacrifice yet again is frustrating,” Scott said in a tweet. “But there is a light at the end of the tunnel and we’ll get there. The sacrifices we make today and in the next few weeks will ensure we get to the end faster, stronger and in a better position than any other state.”
The 7-day rolling average of daily new cases in Vermont has risen over the past two weeks from 28 new cases per day on Nov. 9 to 100.86 new cases per day on Nov. 23.
Currently, there are 22 people hospitalized with COVID-19, including five who are hospitalized in the intensive care unit. In addition, 64 people have died from the virus.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/25/vermont-schools-will-grill-students-on-their-thanksgiving-celebrations/
Photo Credit: AP
Asymptomatic Oklahoma health care workers with COVID-19 infection can continue to work
Health care workers in Oklahoma who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus but are asymptomatic — meaning they are not showing any symptoms — can continue working at hospitals and long-term care facilities, but only as a “last resort,” according to health officials in the state.
“Because some Oklahoma hospitals and nursing homes are experiencing staffing shortages, the Oklahoma State Department of Health is allowing asymptomatic staff who previously tested positive for COVID-19 to continue working,” Travis Kirkpatrick, deputy commissioner of the Oklahoma Department of Health, in a statement, according to The Oklahoman.
“This is something already happening in many other states and we ask that it only be used as a last resort in emergencies and extreme staffing shortages,” he added.
States such as North Dakota and Michigan have implemented similar rules over fears of staffing shortages.
Kirkpatrick noted, however, that asymptomatic workers would not be allowed to treat non-COVID-19 patients and should be kept separate from other health care workers who are not infected. He said it would be up to hospitals and long term care facilities “to come up with their own protocols” around this, however, the newspaper reported.
“No nurse should ever be forced to work when they are asymptomatic,” he added, noting only health care workers who have volunteered to work while experiencing no symptoms should do so.
Some health care workers in the state have pushed back on the new guidance, however. The Oklahoma Nurses Association, for instance, called it “reckless.”
“Why would we imperil our nurses, patients and other health care staff by resorting to the use of asymptomatic COVID-19 positive nurses when we haven’t exhausted other strategies?” the association said in a statement, according to The Oklahoman.
In Oklahoma, there has been an explosive increase in COVID-19 cases recently. State officials reported 3,732 new cases on Wednesday alone. To date, the Sooner State has recorded more than 184,000 cases of the deadly virus, according to official estimates.
As of Tuesday, about 1,566 in the state were hospitalized with COVID-19, a record high, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/27/asymptomatic-oklahoma-health-care-workers-with-covid-19-infection-can-continue-to-work/
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Chinese doctors jailed for illegally harvesting organs of accident victims
Six people have been jailed in China after tracking down the families of accident victims and tricking them into donating their loved ones’ organs — so they could make big bucks on the black market, according to reports.
The group, which included four doctors who worked in organ procurement in hospitals, harvested livers and kidneys from 11 recently-deceased patients at a hospital in Anhui province between 2017 and 2018, according to the BBC, citing local reports.
The black market opportunists would often seek out the families of car crash victims or patients with severe brain damage because their bodies would be healthy otherwise, The Sun reported.
The former head of intensive care at Huaiyuan County People’s Hospital, Yang Suxun, would then persuade a patient’s family to sign bogus donation consent forms — and the organs would be illegally harvested in the middle of the night in a van disguised as an ambulance, according to the BBC.
The organs were later sold to other members of the illicit trafficking ring, which included both individuals and hospitals battling organ shortages.
The gruesome operation was eventually busted open by the son of one of the victims, Shi Xianglin, when he discovered inconsistencies on the donation consent form his family signed after his mother’s death in 2018, the outlet reported.
Xianglin later discovered there were also no records of his mother’s organs ever being held with local authorities or the China Organ Donation Administrative Centre in Beijing, the outlet said.
When he approached Suxun about the discrepancies, the doctor quickly offered him a large amount of hush money, Xianglin told local news outlet Dazhongwang, according to the BCC.
The six men in the organ trafficking ring were sentenced to between 10 and 28 months in July, The Sun reported, but the case has only just come to light after Xianglin spoke to local media.
China has come under international scrutiny before over reports of illegal organ harvesting.
In July, it emerged that human rights activists and international leaders were “collecting evidence” that Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province were being killed for their vital body parts, Fox News reported.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/27/chinese-doctors-jailed-for-harvesting-accident-victims-organs/
Photo Credit: nypost.com
‘Party girl’ gets jail for faking cancer in elaborate fraud, spending disability money on vacations, booze, drugs
Hanna Dickinson, a Melbourne resident and malignant narcissist who faked having cancer to defraud the Australian government, was slapped with another year in jail, The Age reports.
This particular punishment for Hannah Dickenson was for the cancer fraudster claiming $100,000 in disability sport from the government.
She pulled off this scam while she was also busy duping friends and family to hand over their own hard-earned cash.
Hanna Dickinson’s life as a cancer fraudster had its inception while she was wrapped up in extreme drug and alcohol use.
Dickinson was leading a party lifestyle of drugs and alcohol in 2013 when she told her family she was gravely ill with leiomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer, and she needed money to go overseas for treatment
But Hanna Dickinson never had cancer. She was a calculating fraudster.
Concerned for her welfare as she supposedly suffered from leiomyosarcoma, her friends and family pooled their resources and forked over $41,770 all told.
What did Hanna Dickinson do with her cancer fraud money? She jetted off to Thailand and Hong Kong on vacation and drank, sniffed or ingested much of the cash by consuming alcohol, cocaine and MDMA.
The Sun reports that Dickinson told her own mother that she had three months to live.
The court heard that Hanna had forged medical documents in order to claim over £55,069 in disability pension across four years.
In defrauding the Australian social security payments system, called Centrelink, Hanna Dickinson claimed she suffered from a bowel tumor and a cancer known as soft tissue sarcoma of the shoulder.
As with her mother, she threw in the bit about having three months to live to milk the government’s welfare state for all it was worth.
Hanna Dickinson went so far in her fraud as to fake a letter from a colorectal surgeon who levied that surgery for her cancer amounted to her best chance at escaping certain death.
The Daily Mail reports that prosecutors insisted that Dickinson had borderline and narcissistic personality disorders, which the judge accepted as factors that fueled her ruthless scheming.
Dickinson was bullied as a child and used her parents’ money to buy her classmates lunch in an effort to ingratiate herself with them
By the time she hit adulthood, she found that compulsive lying gave her such a rush that she relied on it like a drug.
The court has ordered Hanna Dickinson to repay a current balance of $92,178.72 of the funds she obtained fraudulently through her tales of having cancer.
Her additional yearlong sentence in jail is being tacked onto an existing sentence she’s already serving for breaching an earlier court order.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Hanna Dickinson was “crying tears of self pity” as she was handed the new sentence for her cancer fraud.
The 37-year-old is now a convicted welfare cheat.
via: https://knewz.com/hanna-dickinson-cancer-fraud/?utm_source=nypost
Photo Credit: knewz.com
Gabourey Sidibe is engaged to Brandon Frankel
The “Precious” actress announced that she and Brandon Frankel are engaged, almost a year after going public with their relationship.
“It’s weird that people think we’re already married but I guess our hearts and intentions for each other are just that clear to see,” Sidibe, 37, wrote in an Instagram post on Tuesday. “My BFF proposed and now I get to hold him forever. The funniest man I’ve ever met. The sweetest human to exist.”
She then described the little ways that Frankel makes her happy every day.
“@brandontour made up a song for when i put my bonnet on at night. The second I look a bit stressed and overwhelmed, he jumps into action to take over what he can for me,” she wrote. “Every moment with him is a joy. He is the partner i thought I was too independent to need.”
For her Instagram engagement announcement, Sidibe shared a video of herself flashing a sparkling engagement ring while Frankel, 35, shouted, “I put a ring on it!”
Sidibe confirmed her relationship with Frankel on Dec. 31, 2019 by sharing a gushing Instagram post calling him “the cherry on top of this last decade and the foundation of the next.” Her post came after Frankel — whose Instagram profile says he works in “Strategic Partnerships Tech/Entertainment” — had already been sharing photos of Sidibe since May 2019.
via: https://pagesix.com/2020/11/24/gabourey-sidibe-is-engaged-to-brandon-frankel/?_ga=2.244008070.2007130589.1606100683-1483909753.1590005431
Photo Credit: twitter
Meet the single dad who sews stunning outfits for his daughter
When creative single dad Michael Gardner was let go from his job in March because of COVID-19, he found himself with plenty of time to bond with his daughter, Ava.
So, in part to save money, but mostly to show his love for Ava, he vowed to craft her a whole new wardrobe by hand.
Now the former finance director of a major hotel regularly dresses his 9-year-old in fashionable clothing whipped up on his trusty sewing machine.
“It has brought us even closer together,” Gardner told The Post. “She really enjoys wearing the outfits we collaborate on.”
The 34-year-old has made Ava a variety of flattering shorts, shirts, dresses and skirts. Ava’s favorites include a brightly-colored maxidress and a glittery shirt emblazoned with the slogan “I Love You Daddy.”
“On dress-down day at school, my friends ask me where I bought something,” Ava said. “I tell them that my daddy made it for me and they think it’s really cool. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.”
The partnership has become so successful, Gardner launched a fashion brand and social media campaign in September, @DaddyDressedMebyMG (MG are his initials).
It didn’t take long for their Instagram page to rack up 17.9K followers. They also appear dancing together on TikTok. The plan is for other dad-daughter duos to be inspired to follow their lead, Gardner said.
“My own father never acknowledged me and I really struggled with self-esteem as a child and teenager,” said the Philadelphia, Penn., native Gardner, who is divorced from Ava’s mom. “I didn’t want the same thing to happen to Ava and have always encouraged her to believe in herself, in terms of both looks and personality.”
Gardner estimates he has made around 25 different outfits for Ava over the last eight months — about an eighth of the total number he has produced since first taking up sewing in 2014 when she was just three.
“I figured it out as I went along,” the dad said. “I started out upcycling women’s clothing from thrift stores and transforming it into little items for Ava. Then I felt confident enough to invest in proper fabric.”
In the beginning, he had free rein on the designs.
“I could dress her in anything I wanted because she didn’t have too much of an opinion on it,” he said with a laugh. Now that she is 9, she has much more of an influence.
“She asks a lot of questions,” added Gardner. “We go shopping and she picks out the fabric. I tell her what I have in mind and she gives her suggestions and ideas. It’s a collaboration these days.”
Comfort and durability are key. Nothing is too tight. And there are plenty of sparkles.
Ava has even started sewing herself. So far she has made masks and a skirt on her own sewing machine. “She’s a natural,” said her father.
The adorable pair often wears matching outfits, such as flower-patterned shirts and a coordinating dress and shorts combination.
“It’s a lot of fun,” said Ava. “We love dressing alike.”
Meanwhile, Gardner explained how the hobby relaxes him, especially during a stressful period of unemployment and the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s good to do something with your hands,” he said. “And to get out of your comfort zone and try something different.”
Gardner scoffed at the widespread claim that clueless men don’t know how to dress their children right — especially their daughters.
“There are a lot of stylish dads out there who can teach fashion to their kids,” he said. “I’m proud to be one of them.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/26/meet-the-single-dad-who-sews-stunning-outfits-for-his-daughter/
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Michael Gardner
Passed-out Texas mom arrested for abandoning her son, 4, at skating rink so she could smoke crack
Dead-beat mom Jennifer Frenchmeyer has been arrested by police in Spring, Texas, for abandoning her four-year-old boy at an ice skating rink for hours while she drifted through a drug-induced haze, KHOU reports.
She had taken the child to Skate Champions in the suburban town on Friday.
And then at some point, Jennifer Frenchmeyer abandons her boy at the rink.
In a tragic scene, the owner of the rink came to lock up at midnight when to his great surprise he found Jennifer Frenchmeyer’s abandoned boy.
Spring is a suburb north of Houston.
The small community has a population of about 55,000.
According to News Break, the rink’s owner called the cops about Jennifer Frenchmeyer’s abandoned boy just before midnight.
The police quickly arrived to respond to the call about the abandoned boy and soon found Jennfier Frenchmeyer unconscious in a car parked nearby.
Narcotics, as it turned out, played a hand in the mother’s egregious behavior.
Jennifer Frenchmeyer disclosed to the police that after she abandoned her little boy at the skating rink, she smoked crack cocaine.
Then, shortly after Jennifer Frenchmeyer abandons boy, she passed out.
Jennifer Frenchmeyer was arrested and charged with child abandonment with intent to return for leaving the boy all alone in the rink, Crime Online reports.
Child Protective Services got involved and passed the poor child over to a more responsible relative.
Police reviewed the surveillance videos from the skating rink to determine the course of events that had transpired when Jennifer Frenchmeyer abandoned her poor little boy.
They concluded that the child had been on his own for at least four hours.
The Twitter account of Mark Herman, the Harris County Constable for Precinct 4, tweeted the tragic image of Frenchmeyer’s mugshot, which features her looking chastened and glum while sporting heavy black eyeliner and eyebrow pencil, blood-red lipstick on a mouth drawn down into a scowl, and a neck tattoo.
via: https://knewz.com/jennifer-frenchmeyer-abandons-boy/?utm_source=nypost
Photo Credit: knewz.com