Man who killed 9 in church shooting stages hunger strike in prison, complains of ‘harsh’ treatment
WASHINGTON (AP) — White supremacist mass murderer Dylann Roof staged a hunger strike this month while on federal death row, alleging in letters to The Associated Press that he’s been “targeted by staff,” “verbally harassed and abused without cause” and “treated disproportionately harsh.”
The 25-year-old Roof, who killed nine black church members during a Bible study in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, told the AP in a letter dated Feb. 13 that the staff at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, feel justified in their conduct “since I am hated by the general public.”
A person familiar with the matter said Roof had been on a hunger strike but was no longer on one, as of this week. The person couldn’t immediately provide specific details about the length of the hunger strike or whether medical staff needed to intervene. The person wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Roof wrote in his letter to the AP that he went on the hunger strike to protest the treatment he received from a Bureau of Prisons disciplinary hearing officer over earlier complaints that he was refused access to the law library and access to a copy machine to file legal papers.
Roof’s Feb. 13 letter indicated he was already “several days” into a hunger strike, and he wrote in a follow-up letter that the protest ended a day later after corrections officers forcibly tried to take his blood and insert an IV into his arm, causing him to briefly pass out.
“I feel confident I could have gone much, much longer without food,” Roof wrote in the Feb. 16 follow-up letter. “It’s just not worth being murdered over.”
The allegations could not immediately be verified and a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons said the agency had no comment on Roof’s allegations, citing privacy concerns.
Roof’s lawyers said in a statement that they were “working with BOP to resolve the issues addressed in the letters.”
Roof’s lawyers filed an appeal to his federal convictions and death sentence last month, arguing that he was mentally ill when he represented himself at his capital trial.
In a 321-page legal brief, Roof’s lawyers asked a federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, to review 20 issues, including errors they say were made by the judge and prosecutors that “tainted” his sentencing. One of their main arguments is that U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel should not have allowed Roof to represent himself during the penalty phase of his trial because he was a 22-year-old ninth-grade dropout “who believed his sentence didn’t matter because white nationalists would free him from prison after an impending race war.”
Roof is the first person to be ordered executed for a federal hate crime. Attorney General William Barr announced in July that the government would resume executions and scheduled five executions — though Roof is not included among that group — ending an informal moratorium on federal capital punishment as the issue receded from the public domain. The Supreme Court has temporarily halted the executions after some of the chosen inmates challenged the new execution procedures in court.
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Martinez reported from New York; AP writer Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina contributed to this report.
Photo Credit: Centralized Bond Hearing Court via AP
Jif peanut butter settles debate over how to pronounce GIF
Forget the great potato pronunciation debate — in the internet age, it’s all about GIF.
Just when the world thought that riddle was solved — that GIF, short for graphics interchange format, should be pronounced with a soft G, like the word “gentle” — peanut butter giant Jif is wading into the sticky situation.
Giphy, the addictive site that showcases all things GIF, has taken a definitive stand in a new partnership with the pantry staple.
“We know there’s only one Jif and it’s peanut butter. If you’re looking for all the GIFs, there’s only one Giphy,” the site’s co-founder and CEO Alex Chung said in a statement. “If you’re a soft G, please visit Jif.com. If you’re a hard G, thank you, we know you’re right.”
The debate has raged since 1987 when GIFs, known now for their fun looping videos, first surfaced. However, the format’s creator, Steve Wilhite, told the New York Times in 2013 that, despite popular opinion, it should strictly be pronounced like the peanut butter brand and not like “gift” without the T.
However, many have insisted on a hard G pronunciation, adhering to the natural logic of the acronym, starting with “graphics.”
Even President Barack Obama entered the fray, first from the official White House Twitter account and then in 2014 when he defiantly revealed his hard G stance: “That is my official position. I’ve pondered it a long time.”
For those who want to have their cake and eat it too, the J.M. Smucker Co. is offering limited-edition peanut butter jars with “Gif” labels for under $10 while supplies last at Amazon.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/02/25/jif-peanut-butter-settles-debate-over-how-to-pronounce-gif/
Photo Credit: Jif
7-year-old girl in South Carolina dies 1 minute into surgery to get tonsils removed
GREENWOOD, S.C. — The family of a 7-year-old girl from South Carolina is devastated after her heart stopped while she was having her tonsils removed.
Paisley Cogsdill, 7, died Feb. 21 during a tonsillectomy at Self Regional Hospital in Greenwood, South Carolina, WHNS reports.
Her parents say she went into surgery, and one minute later, her heart stopped. Doctors could not revive her.
“Going into surgery, she had no fear. She was smiling and happy. Nothing was wrong. She had no fear,” Paisley’s grandmother, Mary Beth Truelock, told WHNS.
The family says Paisley was a healthy child with no issues, other than she snored in her sleep. Autopsy results were expected Tuesday to help offer more clarification on her death.
“Definitely missing her all the time. You don’t understand why these things happen, but we know it was God’s plan. That’s the only thing that is going to get us through because we know it was God,” Mary Beth said.
Paisley’s uncle, Cameron Truelock, says the 7-year-old was the light in the family. She loved everyone and made sure everybody was close.
She was just spunky, energetic. She would always keep us on our toes,” Cameron said. “She loved going to church, being active in church, and she loved being close to everybody. She was the community’s kid. She loved everybody in the community.”
Mary Beth says the community has shown so much love through this most difficult time. A GoFundMe set up to cover funeral expenses has raised more than $32,000.
“This is a horrible time for us. We live second by second right now because nobody should ever go through this pain that you’re going through,” Mary Beth said.
A service to celebrate Paisley’s life will be held Thursday in Clinton, South Carolina. It will be followed by a burial ceremony.
WHNS, WPTV and CNN Newsource contributed to this report.
Photo Credit: pix11.com
Boy, 11, died of heart condition after trainee doctor Googled his symptoms
An 11-year-old boy died hours after a junior doctor failed to spot his enlarged heart on a hospital X-ray and instead used Google to diagnose him, an inquest heard.
Clayton Hague-Winterbottom would likely have survived if the size of his heart had been noted by Dr Rida Fatima and a different treatment put in place, cardiologist Dr Timothy Gray told the hearing.
Assistant coroner Lisa Judge has ruled his death was contributed to by neglect.
The youngster was admitted to The Royal Oldham Hospital on March 31 last year, three days after he was correctly diagnosed with a chest infection by his GP.
Despite his enlarged heart being picked up on an X-ray and a medical history that included epilepsy and autism, Dr Fatima used Google to research his condition. After learning of the GP’s chest infection diagnosis, she focused on examining the boy’s lungs.
Clayton was discharged without any blood tests being taken and collapsed at home just 40 hours later. He was later pronounced dead in hospital.
The cause of Clayton’s death was found to be cardiac failure and pneumonia, contributed to by enlarged chambers of the heart.
At the inquest in Heywood, near Rochdale, Dr Fatima, who is now working at a different health trust in Luton, Bedfordshire, broke down in tears as she apologised to Clayton’s family for the error.
She said: “I can only apologise for not noticing the heart – I am so sorry. My conclusion was Clayton likely had an ongoing chest infection. I didn’t specifically look at the heart but I did look at his lungs.”
Ms Judge recorded a verdict of death by natural causes but said it was contributed to by neglect and “gross failures” in his medical attention. She said: “There were a number of things that should have been done differently.”
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/boy-11-died-heart-condition-143114268.html
Photo Credit: Cavendish Press
A 10-year-old boy was accidentally shot by his babysitter while she was taking selfies with a gun
A 10-year-old boy was accidentally shot by his babysitter when she was taking selfies while holding a gun, a Texas sheriff’s office said.
The boy was taken to a hospital in critical condition, but is recovering.
The incident occurred at an apartment in Houston on Tuesday evening when the 19-year-old relative who was watching the child found a gun, according to tweets from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.
Thinking the weapon was unloaded, the girl started posing and taking pictures with it, authorities said. That’s when the gun went off, hitting the boy in the stomach.
The child was taken to the hospital in critical condition, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez tweeted.
His condition has improved and he is stable after undergoing surgery, Senior Deputy Thomas Gilliland told CNN. The investigation is ongoing and no charges have yet been made, Gilliland said.
Accidental and preventable gun deaths make up 1% of overall gun-related deaths in the US, according to the National Safety Council. Gilliland reminded the public to always remember that firearms are not to be played around with.
“Firearms are dangerous weapons so take precautions to make sure things like that don’t happen,” Gilliland said. “Taking selfies was not the best thing to be doing.”
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/xandr/10-old-boy-accidentally-shot-222243324.html
Photo Credit: KTRK / KTRK
Teen slaps mom’s breasts for clicks in bizarre TikTok stunt
Finally, a viral challenge so vile, even the most rabid TikTok watchers are talking smack about it.
Thought the “taste test-icle” challenge was weird? TikTokker Aiden Ridings, 17, devised an even more disturbing way to “rack” up social media views — by smacking his mom’s breasts to the beat of “Undercover Martyn” by Two Door Cinema Club.
The eight-second clip — posted Feb. 18 to Ridings’ now-deleted TikTok account — shows the teen trying to stifle a smirk before swiftly mauling his mom’s mammaries.
The video-sharing platform is infamous for its self-indulgent (and often dangerous) stunts — but this bizarre attention grab went too far for many fans.
Ridings’ clip sparked so many outraged comments that he yanked it, but not before it was pirated and uploaded to Twitter, where it has garnered nearly 4.5 million viral views and more than 160,000 highly suspect “likes.”
The Western Australia teen’s stoic matriarch barely flinches during her son’s bosom-beating, and even appears to share a laugh with him by the video’s end.
“My mother was open to doing it,” the teen, a diesel mechanic apprentice, tells Jam Press. “I thought it was really funny and I needed to do the video for laughs on my TikTok page.”
However, many Twitter critics don’t share his sophomoric sense of humor.
“White people let their kids get away with anything bruh,” tweeted one over Aiden’s mother being such a good sport.
“If my kids even asked me anything like that let alone did it — they would be slapped to the ground!!!” posted another.
“Alabama TikTok is wild,” quipped another, seemingly unaware the incident occurred in Australia.
Still, Ridings says he doesn’t “mind the criticism because that’s social media.”
“I thought it was funny and I posted it so others can think it’s funny too,” Ridings says. “And people say some stuff but I just choose to ignore it.”
Thumping chests for TikTok clicks isn’t a new phenomenon. The video-sharing app and YouTube are both inundated with clips of knuckleheads slapping their usually male friends’ nipples to the tune of “Undercover Martyn.”
This appears to be the first instance of a son engaging in a maternal mammary smackdown in order to boost his social media “clout.”
Still, in the realm of harebrained TikTok stunts, the aforementioned prank is arguably less dangerous than the “Cha-Cha Slide” challenge, which involves crazily swerving your car in time with music. Plus, the viral “penny challenge” has been slammed by firefighters as a fire hazard, while the “skull-breaker” challenge has been deemed deadly by doctors.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/02/25/teen-slaps-moms-breasts-for-clicks-in-bizarre-tiktok-stunt/
Photo Credit: Jam Press
School bus driver arrested for fatally mowing down 10-year-old girl in Brooklyn
The school bus driver accused of fatally mowing down a 10-year-old girl in Brooklyn early Tuesday has been arrested, police said.
Pedro Colon, 61, was slapped with charges of failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care for the 6:45 a.m. collision that left little Patience Albert dead, cops said.
Patience and her brother were on their way to school when she was fatally struck at the intersection of Wortman Avenue and Crescent Street in East New York, witnesses and police said.
When authorities arrived on scene, they found Patience lying unconscious in the street with severe body trauma and her 15-year-old brother with a leg injury.
Witnesses said the boy had glass in his bleeding leg.
The NYPD Highway District’s Collision Investigation Squad determined that Colon was traveling northbound on Crescent Street in the yellow school bus and attempted to make a right turn heading eastbound on Wortman Avenue at the time Patience and the boy were attempting to cross Wortman Avenue in the crosswalk.
The children were rushed to Brookdale Hospital Medical Center where Patience was pronounced dead.
Colon remained at the scene, and he was taken into custody.
The bus Colon was driving was a Department of Education-contracted vehicle, officials said.
Colon was suspended pending the outcome the police investigation, according to officials.
Photo Credit: Family photo; Paul Martinka
Man dies while ice fishing after jumping into water to retrieve his cell phone
MACOMB COUNTY (WXYZ) —
The body of a 27-year-old man who was ice fishing in Harrison Township Sunday has been located, according to the Macomb County Sheriff’s Office.
The man was ice fishing with a friend early Sunday near San Jaun and North River Road when his cell phone fell into the water. The 27-year-old went into the water after his phone and did not resurface for several hours, investigators said.
A search by rescue teams located the body.
This is an ongoing investigation.
Photo Credit: pix11.com
Barneys New York closes its doors months after declaring bankruptcy
MANHATTAN — Barneys New York, the iconic retailer, has finally closed its doors.
The company filed for bankruptcy in August and spent months shutting down. On Sunday, workers could be seen carrying out fixtures.
Barneys was started Barney Pressman back in 1923 as a small, discount menswear store on 17th Street. Over the next 97 years, the company rocketed to the fashion stratosphere at Madison Avenue and 61st Street where the rent was said to be $30 million a year.
The company was the first to carry Armani, Versace and Comme de Garçons.
Online shopping sounded the death knell for the brick-and-mortar giant.
Fashion licensing company Authentic Brands Group and and financial firm B. Riley bought Barneys for $271.4 million and plan to turn the Madison Avenue flagship into a pop-up experiential site. Fred’s, the iconic restaurant on the 9th floor, will live on
Photo Credit: pix11.com
Prius crushes, kill Missouri man who was under it trying to steal catalytic converter
KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) — A man was killed Friday morning when the car he was trying to steal from fell on him, police say.
Police and an ambulance responded to a parking lot along Baltimore Avenue near Seventh Street in reference to a stealing and someone who needed medical attention.
Police at the scene and the car’s owner told KCTV5 News that a man was trying to steal a catalytic converter off of a Toyota Prius, when it fell on him and crushed him.
The man was briefly able to call for help, and a passerby tried to use a jack to lift the car up and get the man out from under it. By that time, though, the man had died, police and the car’s owner said.
Police are continuing to investigate the situation.
Photo Credit: kmov.com