Dispute over dipping sauce leads to shooting of Wendy’s employee in St. Louis
ST. LOUIS — An argument over dipping sauce led to the shooting of a fast-food worker in St. Louis early Tuesday, authorities said.
The incident occurred at about 1 a.m. at a Wendy’s restaurant, KTVI reported.
According to police, the employee, a 31-year-old man, had been shot in the arm and torso, KSDK reported.
The victim told police he got into an argument with a customer in the drive-thru window, the television station reported. Workers told KTVI that the customer had asked for extra dipping sauce with his order, and when he did not receive it, he pulled up to the front of the store.
The employee told police he went outside to speak with the customer, but as he turned to go back inside the restaurant, the customer allegedly fired shots at him and left in a dark-colored Nissan, KSDK reported.
The victim was conscious and breathing when he was taken to the hospital, KMOV reported. Police did not release the man’s condition but said his vital signs were stable, the television station reported.
An investigation is ongoing.
via: https://www.boston25news.com/news/trending/dispute-over-dipping-sauce-leads-shooting-wendys-employee-st-louis/IVFJ5FGZMRE7LGSSFVP63CCS6E/
Photo Credit: www.boston25news.com
Indiana woman fatally shot herself while sitting in police car
A 32-year-old woman involved in a car crash in Indiana on Saturday morning fatally shot herself as she waited inside a police cruiser, authorities said.
Amanda Elbert, 32, was a passenger in a 2007 Chevrolet Impala that crashed into a utility pole in Grant County at about 8:15 a.m., according to a release from the Indiana State Police.
The driver of the car allegedly fled the scene on foot, police said.
As police were investigating, Elbert took up their offer to sit inside a police car in order to stay warm, the release said.
Once inside the vehicle, police say Elbert shot herself with a gun she had in her purse.
She was declared dead on scene.
Indiana State Police are investigating the woman’s death at the request of the Grant County Sheriff’s Department, which responded to the crash, along with officers from the Gas City Police Department and the Upland Police Department.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/21/indiana-woman-fatally-shot-herself-while-sitting-in-police-car/
Photo Credit: EPA
Alabama nursing student fatally shot while trying to sell AirPods
A 20-year-old nursing student was fatally shot in the parking lot of an Alabama university last Thursday night, according to police and reports.
Destiny Washington was with her boyfriend trying to sell AirPods for $100 when she was shot by a suspect in the parking lot of the Hill Student Center at the University of Alabama Birmingham, AL.com reported.
The nursing student was taken to Children’s Hospital of Alabama, but could not be saved.
Washington’s suspected shooter, 22-year-old Carlos Stephens, was arrested Saturday after turning himself in to police, the Birmingham Police Department announced Monday on Facebook.
The victim, from Trussville, attended nursing classes at Lawson State through a UAB joint admissions program, the report said.
Washington’s high school principal, Michael Lee, told the newspaper that she stood out from the other students at Clay-Chalkville High School.
“She was outstanding,’’ Lee said. “The thing I remember most about Destiny was her smile. She was a sweet, sweet soul.
“We love all of our students, but she was one of those special ones.”
Stephens, a UAB student and one-time football player there, was charged with capital murder, AL.com reported.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/21/alabama-nursing-student-fatally-shot-trying-to-sell-airpods/
Photo Credit: nypost.com
8-year-old boy killed by ‘single shot’ from BB gun
An 8-year-old North Carolina boy was killed this week by a “single shot” from a BB gun, authorities said.
The boy, who was not immediately identified, was shot Sunday at a home in Stony Point, where responding deputies found him struck in the chest with a “single shot from a BB or pellet gun” while shooting at targets with another child, the Alexander County Sheriff’s Office said Monday.
The boy was rushed to a hospital in Statesville before going into cardiac arrest while being transferred to another facility in Winston-Salem. He was then diverted to Davie Medical Center, where he died from his injuries, sheriff officials said.
The shooting occurred as the boy, and a 7-year-old pal were firing a BB gun and a pellet rifle at targets near one of their family’s homes.
An initial probe indicates that the shooting was accidental, authorities said.
Sheriff Chris Bowman told The Post Tuesday he doesn’t foresee any criminal charges filed in the shooting. Bowman declined to identify the 8-year-old who died.
“The investigation is continuing,” department officials said Monday in a statement. “There is no other information at this time.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/22/8-year-old-boy-killed-by-single-shot-from-bb-gun-deputies/
Photo Credit: Google Maps
Man arrested on a cross-country trip with a twelve-year-old girl
FRESNO, Calif. — A self-proclaimed pedophilia advocate who once ran for political office in Virginia has been arrested by authorities who said they caught him flying across the country earlier this week with a 12-year-old girl he had persuaded to run away from her California home.
Nathan Larson, 40, made the girl wear a long-haired wig to make her look older and told her to pretend to be mute during their travel, Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims announced on Saturday.
The investigation began Monday morning when the girl’s family reported her missing from her bedroom in Fresno, California.
Mims said detectives learned that Larson, a resident of Catlett, Virginia, met the girl previously through social media, flew to California and persuaded her to sneak out of her house around 2 a.m. Monday. They took a rideshare car to the Fresno Airport, where they board a plane bound for Washington, D.C., she added.
Larson was taken into custody and the girl was rescued by a Denver police officer who stopped the pair during their layover in Colorado, Mims said. The girl was not injured and later was reunited with her family.
Mims said that while the girl was not physically harmed detectives have evidence of inappropriate touching at the airport.
She said the steps Larson had taken to groom the girl were of a “sophisticated nature” and asked anyone who may have had inappropriate contact with Larson to contact police. She also urged parents to always monitor their children’s internet activity and who they are communicating with online.
Federal agents searched Larson’s house and discovered that during the past two months since meeting her online in October, Larson persuaded the girl to send him pornographic images of herself, according to Mims. During the search, Larson’s 69-year-old father, Arthur Larson, assaulted a federal agent and was arrested, she said.
Charged with assault and battery, the father was later released from jail after posting bond.
Mims said detectives also discovered the son’s “deeply disturbing background.”
“He is a white supremacist and a well-known advocate for pedophilia,” she said of the younger Larson. “This is a man who runs a website, which encourages the raping of children and sharing of naked photos and video of children being raped.”
Nathan Larson ran and lost a 2017 campaign to become a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, representing the 31st House District encompassing Prince William and Fauquier counties in northern Virginia. He ran as an independent and his platform included advocating for fathers to be able to marry their daughters, legalizing child pornography and suppressing women’s rights.
In 2009, while living in Boulder, Colorado, he was sentenced to 16 months in prison after pleading guilty to sending an email to the Secret Service that he intended to kill the president “in the near future.” It is unclear whether Larson was referring to then-President George W. Bush or then-President-elect Barack Obama.
He wound up serving 14 months.
Larson was being held in the Denver County jail facing a misdemeanor charge of harboring a minor. However, Fresno County authorities will seek an extradition request to Fresno where he will face felony charges of kidnapping, child abduction, soliciting child pornography from a minor and meeting a child for the intention of sex.
It wasn’t immediately known whether he has a lawyer.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/20/man-arrested-during-a-cross-country-trip-with-a-12-year-old-girl/
Photo Credit: AP
In California, wealthy patients are offering top dollar to cut the line for a Covid-19 vaccine
(CNN) — While the nation continues to see record levels of new Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths, wealthy patients in Southern California — the epicenter of the state’s Covid-19 crisis — are offering to pay top dollar to cut the line and be among the first to receive a vaccine.
At a number of concierge medical practices in Southern California, doctors say they’ve received calls from their well-off clients asking if they can have early access to the extremely limited supply of vaccine doses in exchange for a financial contribution to a hospital or charity.
Dr. Jeff Toll, whose boutique internal medicine practice has admitting privileges at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said one patient offered to donate $25,000 to the hospital in exchange for an early shot of the vaccine. Toll’s practice services a well-heeled clientele that includes chief executives and entertainment figures, but the doctor said he is telling his patients they too must wait as the first round of vaccines are distributed to those most in need of protection.
Earlier this week, California received 327,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, administering the first shots to front line health care workers battling the virus that has caused more than 22,000 deaths statewide since the start of the pandemic.
“I think one of the difficult things is for physicians who take care of these high-power people to be able to say, no you have to wait,” Toll said. “These people don’t usually have to wait.”
Toll said his practice has applied with the state of California to become a vaccine distribution center for his clients and has already purchased special ultra-cold freezers in anticipation of storing vials of the Pfizer vaccine.
‘They wanted it yesterday’
Dr. David Nazarian, of My Concierge MD in Beverly Hills, said a number of his A-list clients are contacting him, saying that money is no object if it helps them get the vaccine early.
“They wanted it yesterday,” said Nazarian. “We will play by the rules but are doing everything we can to secure and distribute the vaccine when its available to us.”
Southern California has in recent weeks seen an unprecedented surge of new Covid-19 infections and hospitalizations, with hospital intensive care bed capacity plunging to 0% and health officials issuing dire warnings if the virus continues to spread out of control.
The founder of Concierge MD LA, Dr. Abe Malkin, said he’s received over a hundred phone calls from people trying to get early access to the initial doses.
“I’d say that 5 to 10 percent of those were willing to try to make some contribution to a charity to get themselves bumped up in line,” according to Malkin.
Malkin’s practice has also applied to become a vaccine distributor but is focusing on the newly FDA-authorized Moderna vaccine, which will be easier to handle because it doesn’t have the same extreme temperature storage requirements as the Pfizer doses.
When it comes cutting in line, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has warned the state will be “very aggressive in making sure that those with means, those with influence, are not crowding out those that are most deserving of the vaccines.”
“To those that think they can get ahead of the line, and those that think because they have resources, or they have relationships that will allow them to do it. We will be monitoring that very, very, closely,” Newsom said this month.
“We will prioritize, and we will expect that everyone in the health care delivery system is held to the same ethical standard of prioritizing truly, those that are most in need. And the real heroes in this pandemic are front line health care workers, and those are the folks that we must protect, and we must prioritize moving forward.”
via: https://www.kmov.com/news/in-california-wealthy-patients-are-offering-top-dollar-to-cut-the-line-for-a-covid/article_bc2d32c8-53df-511b-8adf-c8aafcbb057a.html
Photo Credit: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times
Keke Palmer: Tyler Perry offered to cover treatment for my ‘traumatic’ skin
Actress Keke Palmer has been struggling with troubled skin for years, recently revealing that director Tyler Perry once offered to cover the cost of correcting the issue.
“I remember when I was 14 and Tyler Perry pulled my mom aside at the NAACP awards and literally said, ‘I would pay for her to go to a dermatologist, to the best dermatologist, to help her with her skin,’” Palmer recalls in a clip from People. “So what I’ve dealt with, with my skin, has been so traumatic and big that people have literally reached into their own pockets to help me.”
The 27-year-old later added, “I’m grateful to Tyler Perry to this day. I don’t tell many people that story, but I was so grateful to him for helping me because he had the resources and he was paying it forward. And he was giving me that kind of first introduction to doing that personal care and knowing that I don’t have to live like that. If there’s something I want to improve about myself, there are people that can help me with that.”
“I had to go to so many specialists, that a lot of people don’t have the money to even go to one doctor,” she said.
The “Hustlers” actress recently shared an unfiltered photo of her facial acne, revealing that she never knew her PCOS was the cause of it all along.
“Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome has been attacking me from the inside out my entire life and I had no idea,” Palmer captioned her Instagram photos. “My acne has been so bad that people in my field offered to pay for me to get it fixed. I tried EVERYTHING.”
via: https://pagesix.com/2020/12/19/keke-palmer-tyler-perry-offered-to-cover-treatment-for-my-traumatic-skin/
Photo Credit: Instagram
Lil’ Kim drops sexy new clothing collection for PrettyLittleThing
Lil’ Kim is still the queen bee when it comes to style.
And on Thursday, the 46-year-old rap legend unveiled her new clothing line for PrettyLittleThing, which includes sexy snake-print looks, see-through mesh dresses, shiny vinyl separates and more.
“The thing I love is that it’s a little bit of me mixed with PrettyLittleThing. You guys can get beautiful looks that are so affordable,” Lil’ Kim said in a press release.
“I wanted to stay true to the PLT aesthetic and show everyone that I’m a real stylist and visionary. This collection was designed by me and I’m super proud of that.”
Prices start at $10 for an animal-print face mask, and top out at $190 for a floor-length faux fur coat and sparkling mesh body-con dress.
“I’ve been a huge fan of Kim for years and after her performance at our New York Fashion Week show I knew she would be the perfect fit to launch our Partywear collection,” said PrettyLittleThing CEO Umar Kamani.
“She has worked so closely with our design team bringing her version to life, recreating some of her most iconic looks which I know her fans will recognize.”
Head to PrettyLittleThing.com to shop the full collection.
via: https://pagesix.com/2020/12/18/lil-kim-drops-sexy-new-clothing-line-for-prettylittlething/?_ga=2.134016969.618904403.1608253016-1483909753.1590005431
Photo Credit: PrettyLittleThing
Temp travel nurses are making $11K a week to give COVID-19 vaccines
Travel nurses are raking in big bucks as the city’s public hospital system is filing its ranks with temps to give COVID shots, some earning as much as $11,000 a week.
The Health + Hospitals Corp. is supplementing its staff during the coronavirus outbreak with travel nurses from across the country who come for weeks or months at a time.
One local RN said she was recruited to do COVID-19 vaccinations at a rate of $70 an hour for a 40-hour week plus a stipend of $2,200 for a total of $5,000 a week. But she said she met other nurses at an orientation session and some said they would be pulling down $11,000 a week.
“If it was … to work in the ICU or the [emergency room], then it’s kind of like hazard pay,” she said. “But this is just to deliver immunizations.”
The nurse was recruited by Eminent, a Tennessee-based staffing agency which said it has been working with the public hospital system since April.
The system runs 11 hospitals including Elmhurst, which was overwhelmed with sick and dying patients at the height of the spring outbreak.
“We have several hundred people placed up there,” said Janet Tracy, the agency’s director of business development.
She said the nurses were placed at several H+H hospitals and declined to provide any information on how much they were getting paid.
Michael Fazio, who runs the Prime Staffing agency in Manhattan, said the company works with both H+H and the city’s private hospitals to provide nurses. He said the need has picked up in recent weeks similar to the spring surge when travel nurses poured into the Big Apple.
“The second we put 150 nurses in and I think ‘OK, we’ll settle for a few days,’ bang we get another 250 needs,” he said.
The Prime Staffing nurses are typically paid $110 to $120 a hour, including a weekly stipend for expenses in New York. The agency provides housing, usually putting them up in one of the city’s hotels.
He said the greatest need was for RNs to work in ICUs, emergency departments and on medical-surgical units.
Fazio said hospitals were trying to stay ahead of the rising number of coronavirus patients.
“Until we get this vaccine out there, they just don’t know what the end result is so they don’t want to not be prepared,” he said.
The hospitals contract with the the staffing agencies which then recruit, screen and pay the nurses.
A Health + Hospitals spokesman said it brought on 43 registered nurses, 16 licensed practical nurses and three nurse leaders for the immunization effort, as well as other nurses for other areas. He would not comment on how much they were being paid or the amount spent by the system this year on travel nurses.
“In light of increasing Covid-19 infections, we are onboarding additional staff to ensure that there is adequate support across affected clinical areas in our system,” said Christopher Miller.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/19/travel-nurses-are-making-11k-a-week-to-give-covid-vaccines/
Photo Credit: nypost.com
A homeless man sentenced to life in prison for a $20 marijuana sale is freed after 12 years
(CNN) — In 2008, Fate Winslow was approached by a plain-clothed undercover police officer in Shreveport, Louisiana, looking for some marijuana.
Winslow, recently homeless at the time, borrowed a friend’s bike and came back 10 minutes later with two small bags of marijuana worth $20, according to the Innocence Project New Orleans, who represented Winslow.
The officer arrested Winslow. And because Winslow had three priors — a burglary of a business when he was 17 in 1985, a car burglary in 1995 and possession of cocaine when he was 36 — the $20 sale landed Winslow a life sentence, according to IPNO.
On Wednesday, Winslow walked free after his case was resentenced for 12 years, with credit for time already served.
His case highlights the issues within the criminal justice system, IPNO said in a statement.
“There are hundreds of individuals serving life sentences for nonviolent crimes in Louisiana,” said Jee Park, Winslow’s attorney and the executive director of IPNO. “Instead of throwing the book at Mr. Winslow and sentencing him to life imprisonment just because we could, does not mean that was constitutional, legal and humane. He received an obscenely excessive sentence given his life circumstances and crime, and today, we are correcting that unconstitutional, inhumane sentence.”Returning to magic.For those longing for The Most Magical Place on Earth we’re thrilled to say: welcome.Ad By Walt Disney World Resort See More
The District Attorney’s office, according to the IPNO, agreed that Winslow did not receive effective counsel at his original sentencing. The office has agreed to the relief sought by Winslow in his Application for Postconviction Relief, the IPNO said.
CNN reached out to the Caddo Parish District Attorney’s Office but has not received a response.
With 15 states and Washington DC having legalized recreational cannabis, the drug has become a multi-billion dollar industry in the US, although it remains illegal under federal law.
As states legalize marijuana’s recreational use, more advocates have called for the expungement of marijuana-related criminal convictions. After legalizing cannabis in 2019, for example, Illinois offered relief to roughly 770,000 residents with marijauna-related offenses on their records, according to the Marijuana Policy Project.
New York made a similar move in 2019, though recreational marijuana is not legal in the state. More than 150,000 people had their marijuana convictions sealed in the state after Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law in July.
“My dad and I got closer while he was imprisoned,” Faith Winslow Canada, Winslow’s daughter, said in a statement. “I cannot wait to have my dad back fully in my life. Twelve years is a long time. Too long. He deserves a second chance and I am so glad he is getting one.”
via: https://www.kmov.com/news/a-homeless-man-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-for-a-20-marijuana-sale-is-freed/article_2285d713-4493-5a42-ae56-3990120263df.html
Photo Credit: Innocence Project New Orleans