Former heavyweight champion Leon Spinks Jr. dies at 67 after battling prostate cancer
A release from a public relations firm says the St. Louis native died Friday night. His wife, Brenda Glur Spinks, and a few close friends and other family members were by his side when he passed away. Spinks won gold at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. But he rose in prominence when he beat Muhammed Ali for the heavyweight title in 1978.
via: https://www.kmov.com/news/former-heavyweight-champion-leon-spinks-jr-dies-at-67/article_a9311d92-68d9-11eb-9e0b-5fe8510d566c.html
Photo Credit: AP
Fox Business suddenly cancels ‘Lou Dobbs Tonight,’ its highest-rated show
(CNN) — Lou Dobbs, the longtime host of the signature right-wing talk show on the Fox Business Network, was canned by the network on Friday night.
“Lou Dobbs Tonight” is off the air, effective immediately, a Fox spokesperson confirmed. An interim show will take Dobbs’ place at 5 and 7 p.m. Eastern starting Monday.
It was a head-scratching change by Fox Business, since Dobbs was its highest-rated host, albeit on a relatively low-rated network. He often doubled his lead-in’s ratings, which is a rare feat in television.
Dobbs, a veteran financial news anchor, became known at Fox Business for his sycophantic pro-Trump programs. He was one of the former president’s biggest boosters on television, and Trump regularly thanked him in return.
In one of Trump’s first statements since leaving the White House, he effusively praised his friend, saying Dobbs “is and was great. Nobody loves America more than Lou. He had a large and loyal following that will be watching closely for his next move, and that following includes me.”
The pro-Trump propaganda bent juiced Dobbs’ ratings. But his far-right programming choices repeatedly caused consternation within the company, a source close to the matter said, and his program was a loss leader for Fox because many advertisers didn’t want to be associated with his content.
Most recently, Dobbs was named in a $2.7 billion lawsuit filed by a voting technology company, Smartmatic, on Thursday.
The lawsuit asserts that Dobbs and other Fox hosts defamed Smartmatic while perpetuating President Trump’s lies about election fraud.
A source close to Dobbs confirmed that he had been “benched” by the network. Dobbs declined to comment.
The Los Angeles Times, which broke the news, said Dobbs “remains under contract at Fox News but he will in all likelihood not appear on the company’s networks again.”
This is something known in the TV business as “pay or play” — a network can opt to keep paying a host but not put them on TV, keeping them out of the hands of rival outlets.
Sources at Fox indicated that the Smartmatic lawsuit was just one factor in the decision to cancel Dobbs. His weak performance with advertisers was also a significant factor, one of the sources said.
But Fox is clearly under enormous legal pressure from Smartmatic and another voter systems firm, Dominion, which has threatened to sue the network, but has not done so to date.
Smartmatic’s suit against Fox named Dobbs and two other Fox hosts, Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo, as defendants.
Legal experts have said the case against the conservative cable channel is strong. CNN legal analyst Ellie Honig described it as a “legitimate threat” to Fox and added, “There is real teeth to this.”
The lawsuit accused Dobbs of having been “one of the primary proponents” of a “disinformation campaign” against Smartmatic.
Smartmatic’s lawsuit identified multiple instances in which Dobbs’ program promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election results and said that his behavior was “contrary to his public persona” of being a “provider of factual information” to his viewers.
Not only did Dobbs allow guests to defame Smartmatic, the lawsuit said, but he “took the initiative and contributed additional falsehoods to the narrative.”
A Fox spokesperson said in a statement on behalf of the network and its hosts Thursday that it was “proud” of its 2020 election coverage and said it would “vigorously defend this meritless lawsuit in court.”
via: https://www.kmov.com/news/fox-business-suddenly-cancels-lou-dobbs-tonight-its-highest-rated-show/article_553437e4-f52f-5e38-8be2-892808ca4109.html
Photo Credit: John Lamparski/kmov
Kroger to pay workers $100 if they get the Covid-19 vaccine
The company announced that its associates would get a one-time $100 payment if they show proof that they’ve received the full manufacturer-recommended doses of a Covid-19 vaccine. Workers that can’t get the vaccine for health or religious reasons can get the payment if they take an educational health and safety course, the company said in a news release.
“We know that the most effective defense against this pandemic comes in the form of the COVID-19 vaccine and the continuation of the rigorous safety precautions we’ve established across our stores, manufacturing facilities and supply chain,” said Dr. Marc Watkins, Kroger’s chief medical officer in the statement. “We are strongly encouraging all customers and associates to receive the vaccine to curb the spread of COVID-19, and we’ll do all we can to ensure they have access as soon as it’s available.”
The Kroger Co. (KR) operates grocery stores under a number of names in 35 states.
The company said it would also spend an additional $50 million to thank and reward its associates, including a $100 store credit and 1,000 fuel points to its hourly front line grocery, supply chain, manufacturing, pharmacy and call center associates.
Earlier this week, the chain announced that it would permanently close two Ralphs and Food 4 Less stores it owns in Long Beach, California, to avoid paying a $4/hour hazard pay required by the city.
Aldi, Trader Joe’s, Dollar General and Instacart have also announced that they would pay workers to encourage them to get vaccinated.
Health officials say there has been progress in the US vaccination effort.
A total of 36,819,212 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in the US and the 7-day average is 1.3 million doses per day, according to data published Friday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
via: https://www.kmov.com/news/kroger-to-pay-workers-100-if-they-get-the-covid-19-vaccine/article_cf1592bc-adde-5883-a84f-f28d239e77a6.html?block_id=985911
Photo Credit: Stacie Scott/Bloomberg
Woman, 95, Indicted on 10,000 Counts of Accessory to Murder in Nazi Camp
Public prosecutors in Germany have indicted a 95-year-old woman for her role supporting the Nazi killing machinery as a secretary in a concentration camp, charging her with 10,000 counts of being an accessory to murder, and complicity in attempted murders.
The indictment against the woman, identified only as Irmgard F. under German privacy laws, followed a five-year investigation, prosecutors said Friday. Because she was under 21 at the time of the offenses she is accused of, they said, she would be tried in a juvenile court, where she is likely to receive a milder sentence.
The woman worked between June of 1943 and April of 1945 as a secretary for the camp commander at the Stutthof camp, 20 miles from the Polish city of Gdansk, which was known as Danzig under German rule at the time.
“It’s about the concrete responsibility she had in the daily functioning of the camp,” said Peter Müller-Rakow of the public prosecutor’s offices in Itzehoe, north of Hamburg.
A regional court will decide whether to follow through on the indictment and start a trial, a process that could take from a few months to years.
Last year, a 93-year-old man was convicted in a juvenile court in Hamburg of being an accessory to 5,230 murders when he was a 17-year-old guard at Stutthof.
More than 60,000 people are believed to have died or been killed at Stutthof, which was the first concentration camp to be established by the Nazi regime outside Germany’s borders.
With the last people involved in carrying out atrocities for the Nazi regime close to death, German authorities have been pushing hard to bring as many of them as possible to justice.
John Demjanjuk, who worked for years as an autoworker in the United States, was found guilty in a Munich court in 2011 on charges in the killing of 28,000 Jews when he was a guard at the Sobibor camp in German-occupied Poland in 1943.
After that case, other local prosecutors began investigating the responsibility of other surviving concentration camp guards, charging them with accessory to many murders as opposed to individual, documented killings.
In 2018, another ex-guard from the Stutthof camp was put on trial, but that process was eventually suspended because the accused, who died in 2019, was often too unwell to attend.
“It’s a real milestone in judicial accountability,” said Onur Özata, a lawyer representing survivors in the trial of the former camp secretary. “The fact that a secretary in this system, a bureaucratic cog, can be brought to justice is something new.”
The case will hinge on whether the former secretary played a role in the atrocities perpetrated by guards inside the camp.
Prosecutors said that she had admitted that much of the correspondence related to the camp and many files crossed her desk, and that she knew of some killings of inmates. But she maintains that she did not know that large numbers of the camp’s inmates were being killed by gas during the time she worked there. She has also said that her office window pointed away from the camp, so that she could not see what was going on, according to media reports.
“It’s fair to say that the majority of these women knew about the persecution of the Jews and some of them knew about them being murdered,” said Rachel Century, a British historian who wrote a book on female administrators in the Third Reich. “But some secretaries had roles that gave them more access to information than others.”
The public prosecutor’s office in Itzehoe has investigated the case for five years, interviewing survivors both in the United States and Israel, as well as the former camp secretary. They also hired an independent historian to make an assessment.
“It’s a highly complicated case,” said Mr. Müller-Rakow.
According to the public broadcaster that interviewed her last year, Ms. F. had been in court as a witness in 1957, when the camp’s commander, Paul Werner Hoppe, went on trial. Mr. Hoppe was convicted of his crimes, but was released in the 1960s and died in 1974. The prosecutors did not provide details of the former camp secretary’s life after she served in Stutthof.
“The court cases are also important because, beyond historical research, they help to document and clarify Nazi crimes, and because they bring the subject to the public’s attention,” said Jens-Christian Wagner, the director of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps memorial.
via: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/world/europe/germany-nazi-secretary-Irmgard.html
Photo Credit: Czarek Sokolowski/Associated Press
Massachusetts man swallows AirPods in his sleep
A Massachusetts man went to bed listening to music on his Apple AirPods — and woke up with one of the wireless headphones inside of him.
Brad Gauthier is warning other AirPod users about his experience with the rare, but increasingly frequent, medical mishap that sent him to the emergency room this week.
Having no idea where his missing AirPod had disappeared to, Gauthier woke up on Tuesday morning and spent about an hour shoveling snow from his driveway with the device unknowingly lodged in his throat.
When he went inside to take a drink of water, the liquid wouldn’t go down — and Gauthier’s son suggested that perhaps he’d swallowed the missing earbud.
“By that point, my son and wife . . . brought it up jokingly at first, but it seemed too coincidental that I would be missing it when I knew I went to bed with it, while I felt a distinct blockage in the center of my chest,” Gauthier told local TV station 22 News.
An X-Ray, taken at a local emergency room and obtained by WWLP.com, shows a faint image of an earbud-shaped blockage in Gauthier’s throat.
Doctors used a long, thin tube to retract the AirPod, which measures about two inches long, and Gauthier was on his way — having experienced no more than minor discomfort.
“The GI physician said it’s extremely uncommon for a blockage not to be painful or severely discomforting,” he told WWLP. “It never occurred to me that [sleeping with headphones] could be a safety hazard. I was really quite lucky.”
via: https://nypost.com/2021/02/06/massachusetts-man-swallows-airpods-in-his-sleep/
Photo Credit: Caters News Agency
Florida burglary suspect flirts with judge, still gets $5K bail
A burglary suspect flirted shamelessly with his judge Thursday at a bail hearing in Fort Lauderdale, Florida — but his efforts got him nowhere but jail.
Footage of defendant Demetrius Lewis’ cringe-worthy virtual appearance before Judge Tabitha Blackmon was shared by local station WSVN.com.
“How ya doin’ how ya doin’?” the front-cuffed but casual suspect greets the judge at the start of his hearing.
“Alright, I’m good sir; how are you?” she answers with a wry smile.
“Judge, you is so gorgeous a judge … you’re gorgeous,” he tells her.
“I love you. I love you.”
“Alright Mr. Lewis. Flattery will get you everywhere,” she responds. “But maybe not here.”
The judge tells Lewis that she has found probable cause for charges of burglary and possession of the drug ecstasy.
Then a prosecutor asks for $7,500 bail, noting that three children were present in the home that Lewis allegedly tried to break into.
“WHAT!?” the defendant’s voice can be heard shouting.
Lewis was just released in 2019 after a four-year state prison stint for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon out of Orange County, the prosecutor added.
The judge then ordered him held on $5,000 — a $2,500 savings from the DA’s request.
via: https://nypost.com/2021/02/04/florida-burglary-suspect-flirts-with-judge-still-gets-5k-bail/
Photo Credit: Seventeenth Judicial Circuit of Florida
Horse tranquilizer is hitting the US as a dangerous street drug
(CNN)A new and dangerous street drug is emerging in the US.It’s called xylazine, though it’s better known by its street name, “tranq”.
It’s a non-opioid sedative used in veterinary medicine, typically with horses.And in Philadelphia, where drug overdoses have spiked to historic highs, it was present in nearly one-third of all fatal opioid overdose cases in 2019.
A new study in the journal Injury Prevention, published Wednesday, suggests the opioid epidemic in the US continues to evolve.
Xylazine is not for humans
Different from ketamine, an animal tranquilizer also used — effectively — in human medicine, xylazine has not been approved by the FDA for human use.In humans, the study said, xylazine may depress the central nervous and respiratory systems, and cause low blood pressure and a slow heart rate.When it’s combined with opioids to create “tranq dope,” it may be deadly.
‘Tranq’ use is spiking in Philadelphia
Philadelphia has been in the throes of a worsening opioid crisis in recent years, slightly relieved by the life-saving overdose reversal drug, naloxone.
But naxolone is ineffective for xylazine poisoning, because xylazine is not an opioid.Between 2010-2015, xylazine was only detected in 2% of heroin and/or fentanyl overdose deaths in Philadelphia.In 2019, that proportion jumped to 31%.
The reasons for its spike over the past decade aren’t yet clear, Jewell Johnson, MPH, substance abuse epidemiologist at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and lead author on the study, told CNN.
But, she said, one reason xylazine use is surging so quickly may be because of its powerful sedative effects.”We have heard in focus groups with people who use drugs in Philadelphia that ‘tranq dope makes you feel like you’re doing dope [heroin] in the old days [before it was replaced by fentanyl],'” she said.
According to the study, fentanyl has largely eclipsed heroin’s place in Philadelphia’s illicit drug market.The study said a combination approach for overdoses involving both xylazine and opioids — or “tranq dope” — may include naloxone with other measures, like intubation and ventilation.
It’s involved in overdoses in other states
Philadelphia isn’t the only US city to find a rise of xylazine in toxicology reports.
Johnson said jurisdictions in Ohio and Maryland have also detected xylazine in opioid overdose deaths in recent years.
In Frederick County, Maryland, xylazine remained largely a mystery until October 2020.”We started seeing clients that had necrotic tissue damage and severe abscesses … related to both injection use and snorting,” Andrea Walker, director of Behavioral Health Services for the Frederick County Health Department in Maryland, told CNN.
“We started hearing reports from the people who were using these substances — about really distressing side effects, such as periods of extended blackout,” she said. “They were losing hours of time.”After obtaining and testing substance samples, Walker said xylazine was being used as a cutting agent for fentanyl, heroin and cocaine.She confirmed that xylazine is still present in Frederick County, and was detected in a sample as recently as Dec. 29.
What we know and where it’s headed
While xylazine is newly emerging in the continental US, it has been a drug of abuse in Puerto Rico since the early 2000s, the study said.
A different study published in 2012 found that the prevalence of xylazine use among drug users sampled in the San Juan metropolitan area was 80.7%.
Xylazine’s trajectory in Philadelphia and elsewhere remains to be seen.Now, the study calls on jurisdictions who don’t test for xylazine in toxicology reports to include it. Researchers are also pushing for more education about the drug.”
Public efforts should be focused on informing people who use drugs that their drug supply may have been adulterated with xylazine, and warn them about the adverse effects,” Johnson said.More research is needed, she said, to understand the health consequences of xylazine use in combination with other drugs.
via: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/04/us/horse-tranquilizer-street-drug-trnd/index.html
Photo Credit: cnn.com
Florida man steals car carrying 30 vials of COVID-19 vaccine
Florida authorities are searching for a man they believe stole a car that contained 30 vials of the COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday.
The vehicle was stolen from the Strawberry Festival Grounds parking lot around 3 p.m. in Plant City, the Plant City Police Department said in a statement.
There were 30 vials inside the 2018 Hyundai Accent, and all of them were refrigerated at the time of the theft, WTVJ reported.
Cops say the keys had been in the car’s ignition.
Police released surveillance video of the suspect Thursday describing him as a man in his 20s with long hair.
via: https://nypost.com/2021/02/05/man-stole-car-carrying-30-covid-19-vaccine-vials-in-florida/
Photo Credit: Plant City PD
Man tries to board flight from Florida with 22 pounds of meth
A passenger at Orlando International Airport in Florida was arrested for trying to board his flight with 22 pounds of crystal meth, authorities said.
A TSA agent stopped Eli Brown at a gate around 8 a.m. on Jan. 22 for a random bag check before he could board his flight to Louisville, Kentucky, WKMG reported.
The agent found 22 clear bags, each containing one pound of crystal meth, that were wrapped in clothing, and $900 inside Brown’s backpack, according to the outlet.
Police say the drugs are worth $500,000.
Brown, 46, told cops the bag wasn’t his. He claimed he fell asleep on his flight from Los Angeles to Orlando, and when he woke up, he saw the bag next to him so he grabbed it assuming it was his because it looked the same, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by WKMG.
Cops then arrested Brown on a charge of trafficking in methamphetamine over 200 grams.
via: https://nypost.com/2021/02/03/man-tries-to-board-flight-from-florida-with-22-pounds-of-meth/
Photo Credit: Orlando Police Department
Lil Uzi Vert spends $24M on pink diamond face implant
The “XO TOUR Llif3” rapper, 26, is known to spend exorbitant amounts of money on watches, clothes, cars and all types of jewelry, but his latest purchase blows past all his previous splurges combined.
Last week, Lil Uzi — whose real name is Symere Bysil Woods — announced that he spent the past four years paying for a $24 million natural pink diamond that he planned to have implanted in his forehead.
When asked if he spent more on the diamond — which he said is between 10 and 11 carats and comes from his favorite jewelry designer, Elliot Eliantte — than he’s spent on his cars, the rapper replied, “Yes my Bugatti can’t even pay for it … all my cars together, plus home, this took so long now I can get this money.”
Responding to a fan who told the rapper he should just put the diamond in a ring, Uzi said, “If I lose the ring yeah U will make fun of me more than putting it in my forehead ha ha jokes on you ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha… And yes I do have insurance.”
On Tuesday, it appears Uzi followed through with his promise to have the gem placed in his face.
Fans immediately compared him to Vision, the Marvel superhero powered by the Mind Stone.
The inspiration behind the rapper’s look is unclear, though he’s long been interested in anime, the Heaven’s Gate cult and aliens.
via: https://pagesix.com/2021/02/03/lil-uzi-vert-spends-24m-on-pink-diamond-face-implant/?_ga=2.58571810.989391253.1612484045-593493795.1608856676
Photo Credit: Instagram