Four dead after shooting at Fresno football watch party
Four people were dead and six others injured after a shooting at a backyard gathering in Fresno, California on Sunday night, a report said.
The carnage unfolded when a number of suspects barged onto the property at about 6 p.m. and opened fire while the guests were over watching Sunday football games, according to The Fresno Bee.
“Officers arrived on scene – what we found were several individuals deceased in the backyard,” Fresno Police Lt. Bill Dooley told the paper.
“Everyone was watching football this evening when unknown suspects approached the residence, snuck into the backyard and opened fire.”
The suspects fled following the bloodshed and, as of early Monday morning, remained at large.
None of the shooting victims were immediately identified.
The injured victims were taken to a nearby hospital, where some were listed in critical condition.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/11/18/several-people-shot-dead-during-mass-casualty-event-in-fresno-report/
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Britain’s ‘first gay dads’ split after one starts dating daughter’s ex
The well-documented relationship between Britain’s “first gay dads” has officially come to an end — as one of the men is now “in love” and dating the ex-boyfriend of one of their daughters, a report said.
Tony and Barrie Drewitt-Barlow — who were England’s first same-sex couple to be named on a birth certificate as parents — have parted ways and Barrie opened up about their new unconventional living arrangement to The Sun on Saturday.
“I’ve fallen in love with Scott and he has done the same,” Barrie, 50, said, referring to the ex of his 19-year-old daughter Saffron, who is openly bisexual. “
“I feel stupid at my age to have these feelings about someone other than Tony and half my age. But when you know something is right, it’s right. We have not made definite plans but I would like to marry Scott.”
Scott, 25, and Barrie are continuing to live in the family’s $7.5 million Florida mansion, along with Tony and Saffron and the rest of the family.
Barrie told the paper that his estranged husband and Saffron are accepting of the relationship.
“I’m not having a mid-life crisis — if I was having one I’d buy myself a Porsche 911,” Barrie said.
“This is the real deal. But not everyone will get it, as our living arrangements are unorthodox — I feel like I’m living in a commune, we are all still living together.”
Barrie and Tony in 1999 welcomed twins born to a surrogate and declared themselves “Britain’s first gay dads,” The Sun said.
The couple became civil partners in 2006 and married in 2014 once it became legal to do so in the UK, the report said. They have five children.
Barrie said that while Tony is his “true love” the two grew romantically distant in recent years with the two sleeping in separate bedrooms.
That coupled with Tony’s deteriorating health following a 2006 cancer diagnosis led them to drift “into a platonic relationship.”
via: https://nypost.com/2019/11/17/britains-first-gay-dads-split-after-one-starts-dating-daughters-ex/
Photo Credit: REUTERS
Man opens fire after Iowa strip club denies debit card for lap dance
A man in Iowa allegedly opened fire in a strip club parking lot after his debit card was declined for a private dance, a report said.
James Allen Wells, 67, was a patron at the Porsches Theater of the Arts strip club in Waterloo on Friday night at around 11 p.m. when he got a lap dance and stiffed the club, according to The Courier.
After the card was declined, Wells stormed into the parking lot and pulled a .38-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver from his waistband, firing off five rounds, the report said.
Multiple cars were struck including: the rear window of a Dodge Durango, the tailgate of a Chrysler Town and County, and the windshield of a Chevrolet Impala.
The gunman then fled the scene and police attempted to pull him over for speeding — but he refused to stop, leading to a short chase.
Wells eventually crashed his vehicle into a curb and was apprehended after a scuffle with cops. One of the officers injured a hand during the arrest.
Wells was charged with criminal mischief, reckless use of a firearm, assault on a peace officer and reckless driving.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/11/17/man-opened-fire-after-iowa-strip-club-denies-debit-card-for-lap-dance/
Photo Credit: nypost.com
5-year-old boy brings heroin to school, tells teacher eating it turns him into Spider-Man
HOLYOKE, Mass. — A Massachusetts man has pleaded not guilty to drug charges after authorities said his 5-year-old son brought heroin to school and told his teacher that when he tastes the powder he becomes Spider-Man.
The Daily Hampshire Gazette reports that 29-year-old Benny Garcia, of Holyoke, was arraigned Friday in Holyoke District Court. He faces charges of drug possession and reckless endangerment of a child.
Prosecutors say Garcia’s son brought a plastic bag decorated with Spider-Man to kindergarten Thursday and put it in his mouth, telling a teacher eating the powder turns him into the superhero. Authorities say the boy was taken to a hospital but was unharmed.
Police searching Garcia’s home say they found more than 200 bags of heroin and cocaine.
A judge ordered Garcia to be held without bail until a Nov. 20 hearing.
Photo Credit” pix11.com
Student, 13, accused of putting toilet water in child’s bottle
VINELAND, N.J. — Police say a middle school student in New Jersey poured toilet water into another child’s water bottle.
Vineland police say the child drank from the bottle.
Authorities have charged the 13-year-old student with aggravated assault and tampering with a food product.
The teen was turned over to the custody of a guardian pending additional court hearings.
The student’s name was not released because the student is a minor.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/11/17/student-13-accused-of-putting-toiler-water-in-childs-bottle/
Photo Credit: pix11.com
Ohio High School Plans to Drug-Test All Students at Least Once a Year
In an effort to discourage drug use and vaping, a Catholic high school in Ohio has announced plans to begin testing its students for drugs and nicotine, joining what education professionals are calling a growing trend.
Administrators at Stephen T. Badin High School in Hamilton, Ohio, said in a letter to parents this week that the drug-testing program, which they said had been shaped over the course of two years with help from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, would go into effect in January.
Students will be tested at least once a year for illicit drugs, alcohol, nicotine and other banned substances, the school said in the letter. There is no maximum number of times a student may be tested.
“The impact of drug use on young students and their families is staggering and our community is not immune to this issue,” the letter said, adding that testing would encourage students not to do drugs.
Students are required to consent to the testing as a condition of their enrollment at the school, and potential consequences for violating the drug policy include suspension and expulsion, the letter said. Under the new guidelines, a first positive drug test alone would not necessarily result in disciplinary action, provided there are no other violations of the policy, like rules against intoxication during school hours or possession of drugs on campus. But a comprehensive intervention plan would be put into place after a second positive test, and expulsion might be recommended after a third.
Badin High School, which is about 25 miles north of Cincinnati and has a coeducational enrollment of 622 students, did not respond to a request for comment this past week, but a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati said in a statement that decisions about drug-testing policies were made at the local level.
“The individual school administration and board decide if drug testing is a policy they want to enact,” the spokeswoman, Jennifer Schack, said on Thursday.
Private schools have control over their enrollments, David Bloomfield, an education law professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, said in an interview. “The school seems largely within its rights to come up with this policy,” he said.
But there may be potential legal concerns if the school is found to disproportionately test one group of students over another, he noted, possibly bringing about “arbitrary enforcement and harassment.”
“The well-known public school standard for a search is reasonable suspicion; here it’s just suspicion,” Bloomfield said. “That could be a whim or a hunch, without any real tangible basis.”
Marginalized students may be affected most by the policy, he said, adding, “That could be a legal problem when it’s discriminatory enforcement.”
The debate about whether schools can test their pupils for drugs dates back to before 2002, the year the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the random drug testing of public school students. The 5-4 decision expanded an earlier ruling that endorsed drug testing for student athletes.
The case made national headlines after an Oklahoma school district required students who engaged in “competitive” extracurricular activities — such as the future homemakers’ club, cheerleading and choir — to undergo random drug testing. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his opinion that the district’s drug-testing program was “entirely reasonable” because of the “nationwide epidemic of drug use” among school-age children.
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study from 2016 said more than 37% of school districts had adopted a drug-testing policy. There seems to be an increase in similar programs across the country, Cindy Huang, assistant professor of counseling psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, said in an interview.
The research to prove if drug testing is beneficial to students is mixed, according to Huang. “There’s really no clear indication that implementing mandatory drug testing will directly lead to better and reduced substance abuse rates,” she said.
Parents across the country should not be concerned if their school begins a drug-testing program if it is “properly planned and then implemented,” Huang said. In such cases, she said, it has the potential to work as prevention.
She added that parents should be asking detailed questions about what happens if a child tests positive, whether testing will truly be conducted at random and in such a way that does not target specific children, and whether there will be programs in addition to drug testing that will promote awareness of substance use.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ohio-high-school-plans-drug-171203460.html
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‘Put him on a diet and Go Away!’: Texas mom finds rude note in 5-year-old’s lunchbox from daycare worker
(CNN) — A Texas mother is outraged after she put a sweet note in her five-year-old son’s lunchbox, only to get a nasty note from a daycare employee in return.
The incident has led to a firing.
The mother, identified only as Francesca, said her son has been going to Rocking Horse Day Care in Kingwood for three years and has never had any problems.
Francesca said she recently made healthy changes to her son’s lunch and wrote a note for extra support. The note in his lunchbox asked workers to “please tell my son that his mommy loves him so much and that I’m thinking about him.”
That same note came back in the lunchbox that evening and had something new written at the bottom: “No! Put him on a diet & go away.”
Francesca alerted the day care, who then investigated and told her the employee never intended for her to see what was written.Click to find out more about a new promotionDon’t miss this content from our sponsor
A director at the center said the employee admitted to writing the message and was fired.
In the meantime, Francesca said she is going to find another daycare for her son.
Photo Credit: kmov.com
9-Year-Old Boy Shoots 3 Classmates With BB Gun at Elementary School in Pasadena
Three children suffered minor injuries after their 9-year-old classmate shot them with a BB gun at an elementary school in Pasadena, officials said Friday.
The boy brought the air gun to Washington Elementary STEM Magnet and shot three classmates between ages 9 and 12 at the playground on Thursday morning, Pasadena police Lt. Kim Smith said.
The three were not seriously hurt, the lieutenant said.
Officers spoke with the 9-year-old boy, who was never arrested, Smith noted. She said the department will pass along the case to the District Attorney’s Office.
The child’s motive was unclear, Smith added.
The Pasadena Unified School District said it has launched an investigation into the incident and is cooperating with police, who have “increased visibility around the campus.”
Counselors are also available to students, and the school is “implementing an enhanced awareness of safety by both students and staff, and encourage everyone that if they see something to say something to an adult on campus immediately,” a statement from the School District said.
“The student will be subject to appropriate discipline,” the statement noted.
The incident happened the day when officials said a 16-year-old student brought a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol to a high school in Santa Clarita, killing two of his classmates and injuring three others.
KTLA’s Alexis Lewis contributed to this report.
Photo Credit: ktla.com
Doctor scarred girl’s face during laser treatment to remove birthmark
A 6-year-old girl’s face was permanently scarred by a University of Minnesota doctor during a laser procedure to remove a birthmark, a new lawsuit claims.
The girl’s mother, Kasey Bernu, told the Star Tribune that she wants “accountability” after Dr. Kristen Hook’s inexperience while using a laser in 2017 left her daughter with several circular open wounds that stretch along the left side of her face from around her nose to near her ear.
“We’re bringing this lawsuit in large part because we do not want to see another child or family suffer the way my daughter and family has,” Bernu said in a statement.
The family’s lawsuit — filed Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court — named Hook and University of Minnesota Physicians as defendants.
Attorney Jeff Storms, who is representing Bernu in the malpractice suit, said her daughter still has clearly visible injuries nearly two years after the procedure at the University of Minnesota Medical Center.
“She still has very serious pocking and deep scarring on her face,” Storms told The Post on Friday. “And they’re going to be permanent.”
To make matters worse, the girl must wait “several years” before she can even consider surgical treatments to reduce or remove the scarring altogether, Storms said.
The girl, who lives in Minnesota’s Crow Wing County, is now 7 or 8 years old, the attorney said. She was born with a “port-wine stain,” a reddish birthmark that her family began treating shortly after her birth, the lawsuit claims.
Hook failed to disclose her inexperience using an “extremely powerful” laser — one that was more robust than the previous device used to treat the girl. She also gave the girl’s family “improper wound care” over the phone after her injuries developed, the suit claims.
Hook, who specializes in pediatric dermatology, couldn’t be reached for comment, and the University of Minnesota Physicians declined to comment, citing pending litigation, the Star Tribune reports.
The lawsuit seeks damages in excess of $50,000, Storms said.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Jeff Storms
Man pretended to be handicapped to trick home care workers into changing his diaper
NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — A New Orleans man has been arrested for pretending to be handicapped in order to have home health care workers change his adult diaper.
Twenty-nine-year-old Rutledge Deas, who also goes by “Rory,” created multiple social media posts for home health care workers.
Deas would specify in the ads that the services would be for his 18-year-old mentally and physically handicapped brother, “Cory.”
Deas would then pose as “Cory” and pretend to be handicapped while the nurses changed his adult diaper, a process Deas used to “obtain sexual arousal,” according to the Louisiana State Police.
Home healthcare workers became suspicious of the scheme on at least 10 separate occasions.
Deas was arrested at his home without incident and charged with 10 counts of sexual battery and human trafficking (labor), and one count of possession of a schedule II controlled dangerous substance.
The investigation remains ongoing, and additional victims are anticipated.
Anyone suspected of being a victim of Deas is urged to contact LSP Detectives at (504) 310-7000.
Photo Credit: pix11.com