Pat Quinn, co-founder of Ice Bucket Challenge, dead at 37 after losing ALS battle
The New York man who co-founded the viral “Ice Bucket Challenge” died Sunday after a long battle with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis — the disease he tirelessly raised awareness for until he succumbed himself.
Pat Quinn, a 37-year-old from Yonkers, was diagnosed with ALS in 2013 and soon after, created the social media challenge as a way to raise money to find a cure for the illness, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
“It is with great sadness that we must share the passing of Patrick early this morning. He was a blessing to us all in so many ways. We will always remember him for his inspiration and courage in his tireless fight against ALS,” a post on the Quinn for the Win Facebook page read Sunday.
The Ice Bucket Challenge, which swept social media starting in 2014, asked people to record themselves dumping a bucket of ice over their body. The stunt ended up raising over $220 million for ALS research, the Yonkers Times reported.
More than 20 million videos of the challenge were posted and included celebrities like former President George W. Bush and Bill Gates.
“I am so saddened to learn Yonkers lost its fighter, champion and warrior, Pat Quinn. While Pat was known to the world as one of the founders of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, in Yonkers, he was more than that — he was one of us, someone who fought until the very end for the betterment of others,” Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano told the local paper.
“Pat, who was an honorary Yonkers Police Officer, graciously accepted his life’s challenges and paid it forward — a lesson we will never forget. During this season of Thanksgiving, we are forever grateful for Pat’s courage, compassion and leadership.”
Even as ALS ravaged his body, Quinn kept a fighting spirit all the way to the end.
“A new way of life after tracheostomy, but its LIVING & I got shit to do! Last time I left the hospital, I was right back 1 day later with pneumonia/struggling to breathe. Round 2 today of going home! Wish me luck! I’m still here. Please be thankful for everything. Everything!” Quinn wrote in a social media post Friday, according to the outlet.
He recently visited his alma mater, Iona College, for one last Ice Bucket Challenge event — and also attended a Quinn for the Win golf outing shortly before he passed away, the outlet said.
The Greater New York ALS Community honored Quinn in a statement, calling him a “towering figure.”
“Pat Quinn, a fierce advocate and co-founder of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, helped change the course of the fight against ALS, raising hundreds of millions of dollars for research and giving renewed hope to patients and families worldwide,” the community said.
“He was an inspiration to us all. While his efforts had an impact across the world, Pat was a beloved figure in our own backyard. The Greater New York ALS Community was proud to know Pat, and it was a privilege to fight by his side.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/22/pat-quinn-co-founder-of-ice-bucket-challenge-dead-at-37/
Photo Credit: facebook
Authorities ‘predicted’ suspected subway shover would be a repeat offender
Article via NewYorkPost
Authorities predicted months ago that Justin Pena — the homeless man who allegedly shoved a stranger onto the tracks in Midtown last week — would become a serial subway menace, The Post has learned.
Law enforcement had told a previous subway-attack victim — a retired postal worker whom Pena allegedly slugged in the face on an F train in Chelsea on Jan. 16 — that the unhinged shelter resident would soon be back out on the street, free to terrorize again.
“They told us he’s going to get a slap on the wrist and be back on the street and do the exact same thing,” recalled Hermann Leung, the son of victim Anthony Lion. “It’s very upsetting.”
Ten months later, the prediction came true, police now say.
Pena, 23, allegedly sucker-punched a 36-year-old stranger multiple times on a platform of the 42nd Street-Bryant Park, and then shoved the randomly targeted man onto the tracks.
That victim was able to pull himself back onto the platform before a train arrived; he suffered only minor injuries to his knee and hands, becoming the latest in a spate of attacks on subway passengers by violent, mentally ill men.
In the nearly year-long stretch between allegedly beating up Lion, 73, and shoving the younger man to the tracks, Pena has cycled in and out of Bellevue, his mother’s home and the streets.
One place he did not go to was court. Pena, who is now back in Bellevue, has missed multiple court dates and still has not been arraigned, according to a spokesperson for the Manhattan DA’s office.
Pena spent four years — from age 18 until shortly before the January attack — in jail on a gun-possession rap, said the mom, Angela Pena, 62.
Once released, never got the intensive, confining help he needed to stay on the medications he takes for bi-polar and attention deficit disorder, his adoptive mom, Angela Pena, 62, told The Post.
“Society did not do nothing for my son,” she cried, after learning from a reporter that he’d been jailed in connection to a second attack.
“Help my son, please!” she begged. “If you help him, he would not get in trouble.”
Pena had remained in Bellevue for just two weeks after the January attack, she said. Within weeks of returning home, he was off his medication and threatening to kill her, she said.
“I told them, ‘Keep him in the hospital. If you keep him in a hospital he will get medicated and he will not get violent,’” she said from her two-bedroom Bronx apartment, where she saves good memories of her son in a shoebox of photographs.
“But in the street, he will not be medicated. He will not take his medication,” she said.
“He didn’t take it with me. He didn’t take it when he was a baby. What makes them think he will take it in the streets?”
She added, “They should’ve done something [to help Pena] after he went to jail, because he’s violent.
“But nobody did nothing. Society did not do nothing for my son! My son went to jail. My son is sick in the head. My son is sick in the head,” she cried, despondent.
“Put him in a place where he could get medicated all the time, because if you tell him, ‘Medicate yourself,’ he does not medicate himself. He does whatever he wants.”
Experts agree with Pena’s mom.
To blame, they say, is a lack of intensive, in-patient facilities for the estimated 90,000 untreated, seriously mentally ill people who instead cycle in and out of New York’s jails, hospitals and homeless shelters.
The vast majority are harmful only to themselves, experts at the city-based Mental Illness Policy Organization — but a single-digit fraction of these street people are violent and, save for brief stints in hospital psychiatric wards, unhelped.
The city squandered $1 billion over the past five years on the ThriveNYC “wellness” program while programs for the seriously mentally ill go unfunded, they complain.
Meanwhile, cops are asked to pick up the pieces by responding to emergencies — or else are targeted by the “Defund the Police” movement.
“The subway is not a temporary housing facility for the homeless or mentally ill,” notes retired NYPD Sgt. Joseph Giacalone, an author and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
“You can spend all the time and money in the world on social workers to handle the mental health problem, but if there is no place to keep those that need the help, then it will fail miserably,” he told The Post Saturday.
“In addition, some of these suspects were arrested on other crimes, only to be released immediately under the new bail reform laws,” he added.
“Cops have seen this crisis coming for years,” agreed Pat Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association.
“Every time we handle a job involving a seriously mentally ill person — something we do successfully thousands of times each year — we leave knowing that any help we can provide is just a Band-Aid.”
The most psychotic street people — those who won’t take their medication on their own, “need to be confined for their own safety and the safety of others,” Lynch said.
Instead, “we’re being offered a false choice between ‘lock them all up’ [in jail] and ‘do nothing,’ because a real solution would take time, creativity, money and hard work,” he said.
The family of Anthony Lion still hasn’t recovered from his January assault — and after hearing of Wednesday’s alleged subway shove from The Post, they are afraid that more victims could follow.
“Oh wow, that’s terrible,” Lion’s wife, Dorothy, 66, said Saturday of last week’s attack.
Lion speaks mostly Cantonese, and is suffering from dementia, she said in speaking for him.
“There are a lot of mentally disordered people” in the city, she worried.
“Somebody has to follow up with [Pena’s] mental disorder and maybe send him to someplace like rehab or the hospital and get him treatment,” she said.
“I hope there’s no more of this type of victim — I hope it won’t happen again.”
‘Silver Spoons’ star Ricky Schroder helped bail out Kenosha shooting suspect Kyle Rittenhouse
The attorney of Kyle Rittenhouse, an Illinois teen charged with killing two people during a protest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, is thanking Silver Spoons actor Ricky Schroder for his support.
Atlanta-based attorney Lin Wood tweeted a Friday photo featuring the teen, Schroder and Rittenhouse lawyer John Pierce. “Free at last!!” wrote Wood.
Hours earlier, Wood tweeted that Rittenhouse was released from jail in Kenosha County, Wis. after posting a $2 million bail, and called out Schroder and My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell “for putting us over the top.” Lindell, made famous with his enthusiastic infomercials, is a supporter of President Trump.
“Ricky donated a low six figure amount to the #FightBack Foundation, which along with Mike Lindell’s generous contribution helped put the foundation over the top to cover the $2M bail amount,” Pierce tells Yahoo Entertainment. The non-profit foundation, of which Wood is CEO, is “prepared to confront those who seek to take away the right of self-defense. We #FightBack for the constitution,” reads its website.
Rittenhouse, 17, was charged with first-degree intentional homicide and first-degree reckless homicide for the deaths of two men who participated in an Aug. 25 protest over the police shooting of a 29-year-old Black man in Kenosha named Jacob Blake.
According to the New York Times, police had a warrant for Blake’s arrest on third-degree sexual assault and other charges, filed by a woman who called authorities the night of Aug. 23, claiming Blake was at her home. (Blake’s attorney Ben Crump said he was trying to deescalate a “disturbance” between two women). State officials reportedly said that Blake had resisted arrest before he was shot. According to Blake’s family, the father of six, who was shot seven times in the back by a white officer, was left paralyzed from his injuries. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil rights investigation and three officers from the Kenosha Police Department were placed on leave.
Following a summer of racial unrest, protests broke out in Kenosha and around the country. According to the Associated Press, Rittenhouse, who is white, claimed he was protecting a place of business when he was attacked.
“I feel I had to protect myself,” Rittenhouse told the Washington Post in November. “I would have died that night if I didn’t.”
On Aug. 26, Rittenhouse was arrested and confined in Kenosha County, with Friday marking his release. “Kyle is free, he is totally innocent, and it’s about time,” Pierce said, per the Washington Post. “He is totally innocent, and we are going to prove it.”
A representative of Schroder did not immediately return Yahoo Entertainment’s request for comment. The actor, who appeared on the television sitcom from 1982 to 1987, played a child who moved in with his estranged and wealthy father. In adulthood, he’s played roles on Scrubs, NYPD Blue and Dolly Parton’s Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love.
With 29,000 Twitter followers, Schroder’s only tweet, sent Friday, reveals that he had “moved to Parler,” a two-year-old social media app that encourages free speech. Reportedly launched by two conservatives, it’s become a preferred platform for users such as Ivanka Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz and Megyn Kelly. However, experts told ABC News that the unchecked nature of the app could encourage the spread of hate and false information.
Last year, Schroder, 50, was arrested for domestic violence for the second time, reported CNN, after an altercation with a woman at his Los Angeles home.
via: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/bail-donations-from-silver-spoon-star-ricky-schroder-helped-free-kenosha-shooter-kyle-rittenhouse-says-attorney-193135919.html
Photo Credit: twitter
Man who helped perform Michael Brown’s autopsy charged with fraud
Article via Yahoo News
Shawn Parcells was arrested in March 2019 on three counts of desecration of a body and theft after performing private autopsy services under a variety of names. Parcells is not a doctor, but he was paid by families to conduct private autopsies.
He played a role in the private death investigation of Brown, the unarmed teenager killed by police Officer Darren Wilson in 2014, whose fatal shooting sparked national outrage and protests in Ferguson, Missouri for months.
The Brown family hired a noted pathologist named Michael Baden to perform an independent autopsy on the 18-year-old. Parcells assisted him and appeared on national news shows discussing the case. Baden and Parcells concluded that Brown was likely bent over when fatal shots were fired into the top of his head.
Reports indicate over 20 families spanning the country have accused Parcells of taking their money for autopsy work that was never finished, an amount that passes $1 million, which they’re also trying to recover.
According to an assistant attorney general in Kansas, Parcells has described himself as someone who is self-taught in the trade of pathology. The court alleges he never disclosed his lack of formal training to customers who, prosecutors claim, he scammed out of thousands of dollars.
A judge ruled that there was enough evidence to suggest Parcells had violated the Kansas Consumer Protection Act and ordered him to stop conducting his business and shut down his website.
In a separate civil case, Parcells was hit with a temporary restraining order to prevent him from performing services.
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt alleged that Parcells violated the state’s False Claims Act and Consumer Protection Act. The state also alleges he billed his county for at least 14 autopsies that were never performed.
In a statement, Parcells’ attorney said that he was assessing the “best course of action” in the case.
Missouri state law requires county medical examiners to be licensed physicians; the law differs in Kansas.
“I feel a sense of accomplishment in that I was able to help this family and, of course, work with Dr. Baden,” Parcells said following the Brown autopsy in 2014, according to The Kansas City Star. “My business is still recovering. I do feel like I’ve bounced back some.”
Darren Wilson’s verdict causes protests & looting in Ferguson #mikebrown
Darren Wilson receives huge donations/Michael Brown’s step father facing charges
Ratchet FL ~Dr. Love A.r.r.e.s.t.e.d AGAIN this is the 2nd time in 2 weeks!
Makers of grow-your-own human steaks say meal kit is not ‘technically’ cannibalism
Article via NewYorkPost
The saying “You are what you eat” may soon become a lot more literal.
A “DIY meal kit” for growing steaks made from human cells was recently nominated for “design of the year” by the London-based Design Museum.
Named the Ouroboros Steak after the circular symbol of a snake eating itself tail-first, the hypothetical kit would come with everything one needs to use their own cells to grow miniature human meat steaks.
“People think that eating oneself is cannibalism, which technically this is not,” Grace Knight, one of the designers, told Dezeen magazine.
Before you go running for your wallet, know this isn’t a product available to buy. It was created by scientist Andrew Pelling, artist Orkan Telhan and Knight, an industrial designer, on commission by the Philadelphia Museum of Art for an exhibit last year.
“Cooking is all about people. Food is maybe the only universal thing that really has the power to bring everyone together. No matter what culture, everywhere around the world, people get together to eat”, Guy Fieri#cultivatedmeat #cleanmeat #kitchentissueengineering pic.twitter.com/R0gdC5jkJ5
— ourochef (@ourochef) October 18, 2019
“Growing yourself ensures that you and your loved ones always know the origin of your food, how it has been raised and that its cells were acquired ethically and consensually,” a website for the imagined product states.
The project was made as a critique of the lab-grown meat industry, which the designers told Dezeen magazine is not actually as animal-friendly as one might expect. Lab-grown meat relies on fetal bovine serum for animal cell cultures, though some companies have claimed to have found alternatives. FBS is made from calf fetus blood after pregnant cows are slaughtered.
“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” – Anthelme Brillat-Savarin pic.twitter.com/xvcInFamAr
— ourochef (@ourochef) October 17, 2019
Lab-grown meat has not yet been approved for human consumption, though some products could hit store shelves in the next few years.
“As the lab-grown meat industry is developing rapidly, it is important to develop designs that expose some of its underlying constraints in order to see beyond the hype,” Pelling told Dezeen.
At Ourochef our goal is to supply everything you need to create cultivated food at home from your own cells #cultivatedmeat #cleanmeat #labgrownmeat #kitchentissueengineering ? @orkan pic.twitter.com/BTYa1tKizu
— ourochef (@ourochef) October 17, 2019
Growing an Ouroboros Steak would take about three months using cells taken from inside your cheek, the magazine reported. For the collection of sample steaks on display in the museum, the team used human cell cultures purchased from the American Tissue Culture Collection and grew them with donated blood that expired and would have otherwise been destroyed. They preserved the final products in resin.
“Expired human blood is a waste material in the medical system and is cheaper and more sustainable than FBS, but culturally less accepted,” Knight told Dezeen.
“Wipeout” contestant dies after completing obstacle course
A contestant on “Wipeout” has died after completing the game show’s obstacle course, authorities and sources close to the production said Friday. The man, who was in his 30s, was declared dead at a hospital shortly before 7 p.m. Wednesday, Los Angeles County coroner’s spokeswoman Sarah Ardalani said. The cause of death has not been released, and the man’s name is being withheld until relatives can be notified.
The reality competition show, in which contestants navigate an extreme obstacle course featuring giant balls and pitfalls that often result in spectacular crashes, ran on ABC from 2008 until 2014 and is being rebooted by TBS and production company Endemol Shine North America.
Two people close to the production said the man had completed the course on the show’s set in Santa Clarita, California, when he needed medical attention. He was helped by on-site medical staff until paramedics arrived and took him to the hospital. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The show stopped production Thursday and Friday and has a planned week off next week, they said. Its contestants undergo a medical exam before competing.
“We are devastated to have learned of his passing and our deepest sympathy goes out to the family.” TBS said in a statement.
Endemol Shine released a statement saying, “We offer our heartfelt condolences to the family and our thoughts are with them at this time.”
TBS announced in April that the show would be returning, and it said in September its new hosts would be John Cena and Nicole Byer. No premiere date had been set yet.
The death was first reported by TMZ.
Article via CBS
8 injured in Wisconsin mall shooting; suspect sought
WAUWATOSA, Wis. (AP) — Eight people were injured in a shooting Friday at a suburban Milwaukee mall and police said they were still seeking the suspect.
Wauwatosa Police Chief Barry Weber gave no motive for the attack at the Mayfair Mall in a brief update about three hours after the 2:50 p.m. incident near an entrance to the Macy’s store. He said the extent of injuries to the eight — seven adults and one teenager — was unknown, but all were alive. He added that the shooter was “no longer at the scene” when authorities arrived.
“Preliminary statements from witnesses indicate that the shooter is a white male in his 20s or 30s,” Weber told reporters. “Investigators are working on determining the identity of that suspect.”
The chief called the mall an active crime scene and asked people to continue to stay away. He said the mall would remain closed until further notice.
Witnesses told WISN-TV that they had heard what they believed to be eight to 12 gunshots. Some people remained in the mall while police searched for a suspect. The station interviewed several people outside the mall who said they had friends sheltering in stores inside.
Jill Wooley was inside Macy’s with her 79-year-old mother when they heard eight to 12 gun shots just outside the store entrance.
“We heard the first shot fired and knew immediately it was a gunshot,” Wooley told CBS58 in Milwaukee. “We both just dropped to the floor.”You Should Consider a Vanguard Stable Value FundThe goal of stable value funds in a portfolio is capital perservation. Discover why Vanguard stable value could be right for your plan.Ad By Vanguard See More
Wooley said she didn’t see anyone but the shots were “very close.” She added that they ran in the opposite direction to the basement of the store, where they then hid.
Trish Cox’s 19-year-old nephew works at Finish Line sporting goods store. She said she was worried because the store’s phone wasn’t being answered. She was waiting frantically while FBI agents cleared the mall.
An agent who wouldn’t give his name said the mall was being “methodically” cleared. Heavily armed FBI personnel were visible at the mall.
Mall operator Brookfield Properties said in a statement they were “disheartened and angered that our guests and tenants were subject to this violent incident today.” They declined further comment.
The Mayfair Mall was the site of a February shooting in which a city police officer, Joseph Mensah, shot and killed Alvin Cole, a Black 17-year-old. Police said Cole was fleeing from police; Mensah, who is also Black, said he shot Cole because Cole pointed a gun at him. The mall was the target of sporadic protests over several months in the wake of the shooting.
The Milwaukee County district attorney declined to file charges against Mensah, but the city this week agreed to a separation agreement in which Mensah will be paid at least $130,000 to leave the force.
via: https://www.kmov.com/news/police-8-injured-in-wisconsin-mall-shooting-suspect-sought/article_cce526a6-64b4-57ae-b3b6-07771e354a5e.html?block_id=985911
Photo Credit: WDJT via CNN Wire
Donald Trump Jr. tests positive for coronavirus
(CNN) — Donald Trump Jr., President Donald Trump’s eldest son, has tested positive for the coronavirus, a personal spokesman told CNN on Friday.
“Don tested positive at the start of the week and has been quarantining out at his cabin since the result,” the spokesman said. “He’s been completely asymptomatic so far and is following all medically recommended COVID-19 guidelines.”
Bloomberg was first to report Trump Jr.’s positive result.
Trump Jr. becomes the latest figure close to the President to test positive for Covid-19. In addition to himself, first lady Melania Trump, his youngest son Barron, his chief of staff Mark Meadows and a number of other top aides both in his campaign and in the White House have tested positive in recent months.
Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, also tested positive for the virus over the summer as the duo campaigned for Trump throughout the country.Proton therapy targeted and defeated my cancerWhen Chuck Martinez was diagnosed with lung cancer, he turned to the MD Anderson Proton Therapy Center. Today, he’s healthier than ever.Ad By MD Anderson Cancer Center See More
Trump Jr. was among the roughly 250 guests who attended the White House’s indoor election night party, where nearly every attendee was seen not wearing a mask. Other party attendees have since tested positive, including Meadows, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and White House political affairs director Brian Jack.
Trump Jr. has spread a significant amount of misinformation about the coronavirus. Late last month, he told Fox News that the number of deaths from Covid-19 is now “almost nothing.” Over the summer, his Twitter account was restricted for sharing a video that spread false information about the drug hydroxychloroquine and he shared a Facebook meme spreading doubt about the effectiveness of masks against the coronavirus.
The news comes as Covid is spreading throughout the country, with daily case records being set nearly every day in November, and is also spreading throughout Washington’s halls of power. Two Republican senators, Rick Scott of Florida and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, have announced in the last few days that they tested positive and to this point 26 House members and 10 senators have so far tested positive or been presumed positive since the beginning of the pandemic.
via: https://www.kmov.com/news/donald-trump-jr-tests-positive-for-coronavirus/article_051c5794-1e4a-54c3-924b-e39dfbb25428.html?block_id=985911
Photo Credit: kmov.com
Florida woman charged with abandoning her sick baby on stranger’s doorstep
A Florida woman allegedly abandoned her sick 3-month-old son on the doorstep of a stranger’s home over the weekend, authorities said.
Melissa Kelley, 33, is accused of dropping off her baby in his car seat on Patricia Tillman’s porch Sunday night saying she couldn’t care for the infant any longer, the Dayton Beach News-Journal reported.
Kelley, of Astor, warned Tillman the baby had scabies — an infestation of the skin caused by a tiny burrowing mite — and that he had a dirty diaper, the outlet reported citing a police report.
She added that the child’s father would pick him up before she ran off.
Tillman eventually learned that the baby’s father was her daughter’s boyfriend, Clayton Zinck.
When investigators reached Zinck’s parents they said they wouldn’t take the baby, the outlet reported.
The police report states that Kelley threatened to harm her baby boy, texting relatives, “please don’t make me throw this baby in the trash,” and that she was going to kill herself because she wasn’t in a relationship with Zinck.
Kelley has been charged with unlawful desertion of a child and child neglect. The boy was taken by child services and treated at a local hospital.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/20/florida-woman-charged-with-abandoning-sick-baby-on-doorstep/
Photo Credit: Lake County Sheriff’s Office
Florida mom allegedly forced her 2-year-old son to smoke weed from a vape so that he would “sleep and eat better
Kiarra Clarisse, 22, of Meritt Island, was arrested Tuesday on a child neglect charge after her ex-girlfriend alerted the child’s father about the alleged vaping, news station WKMG reported.
The ex-girlfriend told him that Clarisse gave pot to the boy in order to “get him to sleep and eat better,” and that she had witnessed her forcing him to use a vaping device on a number of occasions, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by The Smoking Gun.
She claimed that Clarisse also canceled the child’s medical appointments out of fear that they would detect drugs in his system.
Upon learning about the alleged vaping, the boy’s father contacted the child welfare officials and brought the boy to a hospital, where he tested positive for THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, the outlets reported.
The father also told authorities that the boy also appeared “slow” and lethargic during a visit with the toddler earlier this month.
Clarisse was released from custody Thursday on $3,000 bond, according to court records. She’s set to appear in court Dec. 15.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/19/florida-mom-made-toddler-son-vape-so-he-sleep-better-cops/
Photo Credit: nypost.com