Stanford expels student involved in admissions bribery scandal ($500,000 donation to sailing program)
Article via CNN
Stanford University expelled a student who put false material in their college application and was linked to a $500,000 donation from the charity at the heart of the college admissions scam.”
We determined that some of the material in the student’s application is false, and, in accordance with our policies, have rescinded admission,” Stanford said in an update on its website. “Any credits earned have also been vacated. The student is no longer on Stanford’s campus.”
The student is not named in the statement or in court documents.
Stanford sailing coach John Vandemoer pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy to commit racketeering for arranging bribes of $110,000 and $160,000 to the sailing program in exchange for falsely designating two applicants as sailing recruits. Neither of the students had competitive sailing experience, the criminal complaint states.
The money was funneled from wealthy parents to a charity run by Rick Singer, who then directed the payments to Vandemoer, according to the complaint.
However, neither of those students completed the application process, so neither were admitted nor enrolled at the school, Stanford said.
A third student, though, was associated with a contribution to Stanford’s sailing program from the charity central to the scam, known as Key Worldwide Foundation, Stanford said.
“The contribution was made several months after the student was admitted to Stanford. The student had no recommendation from the former sailing coach, or any other coach, and has not at any time had an affiliation with the Stanford sailing program or any other Stanford athletic team,” Stanford said.
Stanford said KWF contributed a total of $770,000 to the sailing program in the form of three separate gifts. Given that the two students who did not enroll were associated with gifts of $110,000 and $160,000 to the sailing program, the third student was therefore associated with a gift of $500,000.
Stanford is the second school to expel a student as part of the fallout of the college admissions scam. Yale University kicked out a student two weeks ago whose family paid $1.2 million to get her admitted as a fake soccer player.
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R. Kelly’s first post-jail performance was 28 seconds long
Article via CNN
R. Kelly has given his first performance since getting out of jail and reportedly it was brief.According to CNN affiliates WICS and WRSP, the singer made an appearance at Dirty South Lounge in Springfield, Illinois, early Sunday morning.
Kelly reportedly arrived around 1:30 a.m. where he spent a little over half an hour taking selfies, chatting, dancing and smoking cigars with those who had gathered to see him.
He then grabbed a microphone, thanked his supporters and sang 28 seconds of one of his songs before the venue closed at 3 a.m., WICS and WRSP reported. The fee had been $100 for the event, but that was reduced to $50 after Kelly arrived, it was reported. Hours before he was set to appear Kelly announced the event on his official Instagram account and appealed to the media.
“I want the media to take it easy on me man,” Kelly said in the video. “This is how I got to get paid right now, for right now.” The singer was released on bail last month for in case in which authorities have said he failed to pay his ex-wife child support of $161,000. Kelly also faces 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse — a Class 2 felony — involving four alleged victims.
Kelly has vehemently denied any allegations of sexual misconduct.Last month his legal team filed a request asking the court to grant Kelly permission to travel to Dubai to perform shows as they argued he needs to work to pay child support and other bills. That request was later put on hold by Kelly’s attorneys.
Kelly’s attorney, Steve Greenberg, told CNN in a statement about his Dirty South Lounge appearance that “Months ago a show was scheduled in Springfield, and this was the “aftershow” party.””Although the show was canceled the nightclub asked him to still appear,” Greenberg said. “Because a commitment is a commitment he lived up to his, made the 3 hr drive, and appeared. Promoting and pricing were up to the club.”
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Cardi B Responds To Fan Who Said She Isn’t A Good Role Model
Article via HufingtonPost
The rapper said she feels trapped and “sad” about the position she’s in.
Don’t tell Cardi B that she can’t speak her mind.
The rapper had words for a fan on Twitter Saturday after the follower said that Cardi B wasn’t a good role model. The comments were in response to Cardi tweeting “I’m just nasty like that.”
“I love you ALOT but I don’t agree with the messages you’ve been sending us young girls,” the fan tweeted at the rapper. “So many of us look at you as a role model and that should send a very loud message.”
Cardi B thoughtfully responded to the criticism in a tweet.
“For these past two years I been watching what I say and I haven’t been myself. I been feeling [trapped] and sad cause it’s not ME but everybody tell me to be it for me to be this ‘role model’ and guess what? People still spit my past right in my face so for now imma be my old self again,” she said.
The rapper’s honest tweet earned praise from many of her followers.
Recently, the rapper apologized for past comments on a recently resurfaced, years-old Instagram Live clip in which she admitted to drugging and robbing men when she worked as a stripper.
The comments immediately caused an intense backlash against the 26-year-old entertainer.
Cardi B said it was something she “needed to do to make a living” at the time and said that she had “a past that I can’t change we all do.”
“I never claim to be perfect or come from a perfect world [with] a perfect past,” she wrote. “I always speak my truth I always own my shit.”
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Growing Up Poor Not Only Affects Your Health, It Changes as Many as 1 in 13 Genes
Article via ScienceAlert
We all love a good rags to riches story, but the truth is that poverty never really leaves you. Not only does it have a lasting effect on your health and mental well-being, growing up poor changes you at a genetic level.
A new study demonstrates the extent of poverty’s impact on our DNA, revealing that nearly eight percent of our genome can be affected by chemical edits that could stick with you for life.
Researchers from across the US and Canada arrived at this remarkable statistic by conducting a genome-wide analysis on just under 500 participants in the Philippine-based Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey.
Using genetic and survey data taken from women who gave birth in the early 1980s, the team identified a relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and tendency for genes to be modified through a process called epigenetics.
“First, we have known for a long time that SES is a powerful determinant of health, but the underlying mechanisms through which our bodies ‘remember’ the experiences of poverty are not known,” says Northwestern University biological anthropologist Thomas McDade.
The process doesn’t change the actual coding of the genes, but is no less physical in terms of its outcome.
Epigenetics involves chemical changes to DNA that prevent or enhance the reading of a sequence. In cases such as this, the precise mechanism referred to as methylation describes the addition of a methyl group to a gene, modifying its transcription.
The phenomenon has attracted increasing focus in research fields over recent years, with studies suggesting everything from receiving affection as an infant to childhood trauma can prompt your body to edit your genes.
The consequences aren’t trivial, either, potentially affecting cognitive development and even playing a role in conditions such as autism spectrum disorder.
As McDade puts it, “There is no nature vs. nurture.”
Our early life experiences not only shape our minds, they literally change how our bodies work at a fundamental level. And with signs that epigenetic changes have the potential to be passed on through the generations, any potential cause should be taken seriously.
Applying tailored genetic probes to blood samples taken from the survey’s children around their 21st birthday, the researchers identified more than 2,500 sites of methylation affecting 1,537 genes among those identified as being raised in low SES conditions.
Compared with children born into relative wealth, those who became poor later in life didn’t show any significant differences.
Since current estimates put the total count of protein-coding genes in our genome at close to 20,000, we’re looking at changes to nearly 8 percent of our genes. Further studies could reveal even more changes that weren’t evident in this investigation.
Growing up poor is already associated with a significant decline in health for a wide variety of reasons.
Many of the causes are clearly understood. For example, risks associated with differences in diet, access to education, and medical availability can lift chances of disease and poor mental health.
But there are also physiological changes associated with being poor that might not always have convenient explanations, such as chronic inflammation, reduced cell-mediated immunity, and increased insulin resistance, which can lead to health problems.
The study doesn’t go so far as to identify precise links between methylated genes and their potential health impacts, but many sites have previously been implicated in the development of important systems related to immunity and neurology.
Further research should help fill in the missing details, demonstrating the extent to which this surprising diversity of epigenetic changes sets up those living in poverty for a lifetime of suffering.
“These are the areas we’ll be focusing on to determine if DNA methylation is indeed an important mechanism through which socioeconomic status can leave a lasting molecular imprint on the body, with implications for health later in life,” says McDade.
The World Health Organisation estimates some 1.2 billion people across the globe are making their way through life on less than a dollar per day.
Policies and charities that provide health support can only go so far, especially when the consequences of poverty stretch beyond the childhood years.
This research was published in Physical Anthropology.
1st Living HIV-Positive Organ Donor Wants To Lift ‘The Shroud Of HIV Related Stigma’
Article via NPR
Nina Martinez just became the world’s first living HIV-positive organ donor.
In a medical breakthrough, surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital late last month successfully transplanted one of her kidneys to a recipient who is also HIV positive.
“I feel wonderful,” Martinez, 35, said in an interview with NPR’s Michel Martin, 11 days into her recovery. The patient who received her kidney has chosen to remain anonymous, but is doing well, Martinez is told.
“They’re doing wonderfully and they got an organ they desperately needed to get and that’s all I could ask for,” Martinez said.
HIV advocates are celebrating the achievement as an important step towards lifting the stigma around a disease that affects some 1.1 million Americans. In 2017, an estimated 18 patients died each day while waiting for an organ transplant. Many of these deaths involved HIV positive patients who have traditionally had access to a much smaller pool of potential organ donors.
The decision to donate
Martinez contracted HIV through a blood transfusion when she was an infant in the early 1980s.
“I do think that my lack of discomfort in talking about HIV does make people more comfortable with the idea, and I do attribute that to being diagnosed at such a young age,” she said. “I didn’t know HIV was supposed to be something that I was ashamed of.”
She said she first looked into becoming a donor last year, when Johns Hopkins became the first hospital in the United States to announce plans to perform organ transplants for HIV patients from donors who are HIV positive. Previously, doctors had only transplanted organs to HIV-positive recipients from deceased HIV donors.
“Like most living kidney donors, I did start this process for a friend that I knew who needed a kidney,” said Martinez.
Then her friend died in November, when Martinez was in the middle of a rigorous evaluation process. “I knew that this was a lot of medical spending not to try and do something with,” she said. So Johns Hopkins found another recipient.
Explaining why she felt compelled to share her story, Martinez pointed to when Johns Hopkins performed the first transplants from deceased HIV-positive donors to two anonymous patients in 2016.
“It was important to me to be able to put a name and a face to that story to show that the need for HIV-positive organs is real and actually benefits everybody,” she said. “My taking somebody off the deceased donor waitlist who is HIV positive means that everyone moves up the waitlist whether they’re HIV positive or not.”
Currently, more than 113,000 people in the U.S. — including those living with HIV — are waiting to receive an organ transplant, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS).
A years-long drive
Last month’s surgery marked the culmination of a years-long drive to expand access to organ donors for patients with HIV.
In 2016, UNOS gave Johns Hopkins approval to carry out the first transplant from an HIV positive donor to an HIV positive patient, capping a two-year push by Martinez’s surgeon, Dorry Segev, to legalize such procedures.
Before that, Segev, an associate professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, helped draft the HIV Organ Policy Equity Act signed by President Obama in 2013. The measure reversed a 1988 law preventing doctors from procuring HIV-infected organs regardless of the recipient’s HIV status.
Segev, speaking with NPR in 2016, said he was motivated to address the “antiquated law” when he saw that the need for organ transplants among HIV patients had swelled since the start of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.
Segev said he grew frustrated as he watched potentially life-saving organs going to waste. In one 2011 study, he and his colleagues projected that an estimated 500 to 600 would-be organ donors with HIV die each year. Had they been allowed to donate while they were alive, they could have been saving more than 1,000 lives annually.
“We were throwing away organs that were infected with HIV that could be used to help people with HIV,” Segev said.
Today, an HIV diagnosis is no longer the death sentence it once was. “People live their lives with it,” said Segev. “They just need to take antiretroviral medication.”
But patients who use those antiretroviral treatments — along with other drugs used to treat the disease — are also at higher risks of kidney and liver failure and often end up on the organ waiting list.
Keeping transplants safe
Given the risk of kidney disease that’s associated with HIV, the medical community has until relatively recently considered it unsafe to leave a would-be donor with just one kidney.
But newer medications are thought to be both more effective and safer, and to guard against potential complications, Martinez was made to go through months of rigorous testing to ensure success for her and her recipient.
“They determined that my future risk of kidney disease was really, really, small,” Martinez said.
Martinez hopes her visibility and openness about her disease encourages others to realize they can be a part of advanced new treatments that allow HIV-positive people to live a healthy life.
“I hope that people who are not living with HIV who wouldn’t normally consider themselves to be potential living kidney donors would actually consider it in earnest, as well as people living with HIV who are on great treatment.”
NPR’s Emma Talkoff produced this story for broadcast.
Reginae Carter Shares Adorable Photo Of Lauren London’s Kids
Article via BCKOnline
Reginae Carter took to her Instagram earlier today to share an adorable photo of Lauren London’s kids-Kross and Cameron. The picture, which is a little blurry, shows the two brothers wearing Gucci outfits as they look at the camera.
“I love you Kross and Kam. Be strong for your mommy and brother, Kam Bam,” Reginae wrote as a caption to the photo.
Carter’s supportive words to her brother Cameron, 9, and his little brother Kross, 2, is one of a few encouraging posts that Reginae has shared since the untimely death of Nipsey Hussle.
Nipsey, who was Lauren London’s longtime love and the father to Kross, was fatally shot outside his clothing store on March 31st. Shortly after being rushed to to hospital, he was pronounced dead.
In another heartfelt post, Reginae criticized the senseless shooting and called for change.
“This world is getting scary! Too much killing, clout chasing is at its finest, and don’t nobody wanna support one another. Honestly, my heart can’t take,” she began.
She continued, “We gotta change y’all! It stars with this generation! You guys gotta start raising our kids how you want the next generation to be like. Teach them unity, respect and how to love. Make sure you tell your loved ones you love them every chance you get because you never know when it will be your last.”
Speaking to her followers, she added, “I understand social media has a lot to do with what’s going on in the world. Understand this tho… You don’t have to fake it to kick it, you don’t have to put someone else down to stand up, and you definitely don’t have to take someone else’s life because you’re not happy with yours. When people start realizing this… life would be better.”
Reginae is the daughter of Toya Wright and rapper Lil Wayne, who shares son Cameron Carter with Lauren London. Lauren and Nipsey welcomed their son Kross in 2016.
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Cliff plunge that killed family of 8 ruled a murder-suicide
Article via NewYorkTimes
Two women drugged themselves and their six adopted children before intentionally killing the entire family by driving off a California cliff last year, a special coroner’s jury has ruled.
A jury of eight women and six men unanimously found Thursday that Jennifer and Sarah Hart, both 38, committed suicide and that their six children — ages 12 to 19 — died “at the hands of another, other than an accident” in the Mendocino County murder-suicide on March 26, 2018, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The jury’s verdict came after eight investigators and one pathologist testified that the women took steps in advance to intentionally kill their entire family by driving off a 100-foot cliff along Highway 1 near Westport with their drugged children inside their 2003 GMC Yukon.
“They both decided that this was going to be the end,” California Highway Patrol investigator Jake Slates said. “That if they can’t have their kids, that nobody was going to have those kids.”
The fatal crash — the largest mass murder in Mendocino County history, according to Sheriff and Coroner Tom Allman — happened just days after authorities in Washington state opened an investigation into the family after allegations surfaced that the children were being neglected.
The bodies of three of the children — 19-year-old Markis, as well as Jeremiah and Abigail, both 14 — were found outside the SUV. A medical examiner ruled Wednesday that both Jennifer and Sarah Hart, as well as Markis, Jeremiah and Abigail, died of broken necks.
The remains of Ciera, 12, were found weeks after the wreck in the Pacific Ocean, but her body was too decomposed to make a definitive ruling as to how she died. A partial foot found on a Northern California beach has been connected to 16-year-old Hannah, while the remains of the family’s sixth child, Devonte, 15, still have not been found.
Toxicology tests revealed that Jennifer Hart, who rarely drank, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.104 at the time, roughly the equivalent of five beers, investigators were told. And no one inside the SUV was believed to be wearing a seat belt, despite the fact that friends said Jennifer Hart regularly acted as a “seat belt Nazi,” often refusing to drive until her entire family buckled up, the Chronicle reported.
Separately, a search of Sarah Hart’s cellphone revealed Google searches inquiring what dosage of Benadyrl would kill a 120-pound woman, whether drowning would be painful and what common medications could be taken to prompt an overdose, the newspaper reports.
Toxicology reports found large doses of diphenhydramine — the active ingredient in Benadryl — in all of the victims. Slates said that the level found in Sarah Hart’s blood indicated she took 42 dosage units prior to the crash, while Markis had more than 19 doses in his blood.
“The children were more than likely unconscious,” Slates said. “Sarah would have been extremely intoxicated at that point.”
Despite the steps taken in advance of the fatal plunge, Slates said he didn’t think the Harts started their trip to California with the idea of killing themselves and their children. But at some point, that changed dramatically.
Read this update from January 2019 here
Devonte Hart’s Neighbors say they reported his parents before they plunged off the cliff
Blac Chyna Allowed to Depose Ryan Seacrest in Kardashian Legal Battle
Article via Popculture
Blac Chyna will be allowed to depose Ryan Seacrest in her legal battle with the Kardashians.
According to The Blast, Chyna’s legal team will be allowed to grill Seacrest on any information he may have pertinent to her case against the family, wherein she claims that the Kardashians and Jenners executed a plan to publicly defame her for the purpose of getting her reality series Rob & Chyna cancelled so that it could be replaced with Life of Kylie.
She also requested that Seacrest be forced to turn over private texts between he and Kylie Jenner, but the court is not requiring that of him at this time.
Seacrest previously refused to agree to a deposition on the basis that he was not personally involved with Rob & Chyna, and therefore “there simply is no legal or factual basis to subject
to a deposition” because he “had nothing whatsoever to do with the events giving rise to this action” and “has no relevant testimony to offer.”
Chyna and her team hit back at Seacrest, issuing a statement in response that read, “Contrary to Mr. Seacrest’s conduct… celebrities with massive wealth and fame are not above the law.”
“Although the requested amount of sanctions for Mr. Seacrest’s conduct will not make a dent in Mr. Seacrest’s wealth as a practical matter, it is very important of this Court to send a message to Mr. Seacrest and the celebrity community that they, in fact, are not above the law,” Chyna’s attorney, Lynne Ciani wrote in an affidavit:
“While no Californian likes to be subpoenaed for a deposition, noncompliance with that subpoena without justification should not be permitted simply because the subpoenaed Californian has the money to pay his attorneys to mount a baseless defense to the subpoena in court,” the affidavit added.
Ciani then went on to address Seacrest’s claims that he was never involved with Rob & Chyna.
“Now Seacrest is now falsely claiming he had no involvement with the show getting picked up for a second season,” she said. “One of the defenses in this case is that Season 2 of Rob & Chyna did not go forward due to ‘poor ratings.’ ”0comments
“However, Mr. Seacrest likely has unique knowledge regarding the impact on Defendants Kris Jenner, Kim Kardashian, and Kylie Jenner of the fact that Season 1 of Rob & Chyna had higher ratings than the concurrent season of KUWTK, and twice the ratings of Rob & Chyna‘s Season 2 replacement show, Life of Kylie,” Ciani added.
There is no word on when Seacrest deposition will be held, but if Chyna’s team is not satisfied with his statements they will be allowed to to depose him a second time.
