Amazon workers ‘forced to go back to work’ after fellow employee dies on shift
An Amazon worker in apparent cardiac arrest was lying on the floor of a warehouse for 20 minutes before anyone noticed, according to a report.
Billy Foister, 48, who scanned and stocked shelves for the Internet giant, collapsed at an Etna, Ohio, facility just a week after he’d visited a medical clinic complaining of chest pains and a headache. He was given two beverages to combat dehydration and sent back to work, the Guardian reported.
Foister’s brother, Edward, told the paper he was shocked his brother was on the floor dying for so long before an Amazon floor monitor spotted him.
“How can you not see a 6’3” man laying on the ground and not help him within 20 minutes? A couple of days before, he put the wrong product in the wrong bin and within two minutes management saw it on camera and came down to talk to him about it,” Edward Foister said.
According to the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, which included Amazon on its 2019 “Dirty Dozen” list of the most dangerous employers in the United States, six Amazon workers died on the job between November 2018 and April 2019. At the Etna warehouse alone, 28 calls to 911 were made between January and March 2019.
An employee who worked the same shift as Foister told the Guardian that after he died, they were immediately “forced to go back to work.”
“No time to decompress. Basically watch a man pass away and then get told to go back to work, everyone, and act like it’s fine,” said the Amazon employee.
Amazon said they responded to Foister “within minutes,” but Edward blames the company for his brother’s death.
“There was no reason for my brother to have died. He went to AmCare complaining about chest pains. He should have been sent to the hospital, not just sent back to work just to put things like toothpaste in a bin so somebody can get it in an hour,” Edward told the Guardian. “It seems Amazon values money way more than life. If they did their job right, I wouldn’t have had to bury my little brother.”
In March, at the same warehouse, another worker died after going into cardiac arrest. In a 911 call, a supervisor tells another employee to “go back to work.”
In January 2019, Linda Becker, the widow of Thomas Becker, sued Amazon after her husband had a heart attack while toiling at the company’s Joliet, Illinois, warehouse.
An Amazon rep told the Guardian they “work hard to provide a safe, quality working environment for the 250,000 hourly employees across Amazon’s US facilities.
Photo Credit: AFP/Getty Images
Police Are Warning Parents To Check Kids’ Halloween Candy Over Fears They Could Be Laced With THC
Police in Pennsylvania issued a Facebook post warning parents to check their children’s Halloween candy this year, as some THC edibles have been made to look like some popular Halloween candies.
Alongside a photo of some seized edibles, The Johnstown Police Department cautioned parents that these were made to look and taste like candies such as Nerds Ropes, so they should be paying attention when taking their kids trick-or-treating this year.
“The Johnstown Police would like to draw extra attention to the Nerds Rope edibles containing 400mg of THC found during a search warrant in Stoney Creek Twp,” the post reads. “During this Halloween, we urge parents to be ever vigilant in checking their children’s candy before allowing them to consume those treats. Drug laced edibles are package like regular candy and may be hard to distinguish from the real candy.”
In case you were wondering, these edibles have nothing to do with Ferrara Candy Company, who makes Nerds Ropes, as they said in a statement to CNN.
“This product is counterfeit and in no way associated with Ferrara Candy Company. We want to reassure consumers that the Nerds products they find at major retailers across the country and at nerdscandy.com are safe to consume,” the statement read.
Now, far be it from me to act like I know more than…literally anyone…but as many people pointed out in the comments, marijuana edibles tend to be pretty expensive and wasting them on trick-or-treaters seems like, well, a waste! We can’t even get people to pass out full-size candy bars…I doubt anyone is going to drop like $10 a pop on edibles and then just send them out into the world.
To be fair, when contacted about the post, the police department clarified to Rolling Stone, it was just an attempt to “raise awareness” and they weren’t trying to imply the ropes would be distributed to children.
Messages like this go out every year because we’re (rightfully!) scared of…everything. I remember lining up at the hospital as a kid to get my candy scanned for razor blades. Just fun childhood things.
But urban legends of razor blades, drugs, and other scary things inside candy are just that—urban legends. Honestly, chances are these candies exist not because people want to get random children high on THC, but because adults are essentially giant children who still love candy almost as much as they now love getting high. Go figure.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t be cautious if that makes you feel better. But chances are when searching your kid’s candy, all you’ll find are some Reese’s you’ll want to pocket for yourself.
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/lifestyle/police-warning-parents-check-kids-134900713.html
Photo Credit: Photo credit: Johnstown Police Department – Facebook
An African American security guard asked a student to not call him the n-word. The request got him fired
An African American security guard told a student to stop calling him the n-word. It cost him his job.
Marlon Anderson was a security guard at Madison West High School in Wisconsin. Last Wednesday, he was called in to help the assistant principal escort a student from school grounds, he told CNN.
The student was resisting, including yelling and pushing the principal. Anderson called for backup, and the student started yelling expletives at him, including the racial slur, Anderson said.
At first, Anderson said he asked the student to stop calling him that, without saying the word. But the student continued to call him different variations of the word.
Finally, Anderson said he responded: “Don’t call me (n-word).”
That’s the comment that got him fired.
A ‘zero-tolerance’ policy
When contacted for comment, the school did not respond directly to Anderson’s firing, but said it has a zero-tolerance policy for the use of racial slurs.
“We are working to make our school climates the best they can be for all students and staff,” said Gloria Reyes, president of the Madison Board of Education in a statement. “We’ve taken a tough stance on racial slurs, and we believe that language has no place in schools.”
But Anderson doesn’t agree with the policy.
“The district just wants to say you can’t use this word, period,” he told CNN. “These policies are hurting the kids and staff. Without context this isn’t helpful; it’s more hurtful.”
The school board plans on reviewing their approach, Reyes continued in the statement.
Anderson is represented by a union, which filed a grievance with the school district this week on his behalf. He’s seeking reinstatement and back pay, according to a statement from the union.
Anderson had been working at the school district for 11 years. He has two sons who attended Madison West High School. One is a current senior and the other is a graduate of the high school.
Anderson isn’t without his supporters, though. The Boys & Girls Club of Dane County hired Anderson as its temporary director of program operations. In a Facebook post announcing the hire, the nonprofit wrote that Anderson has “an amazing track record” with local teens.
CNN affiliate WKOW reported that Madison West students staged a walkout on Friday in support of Anderson.
And if that wasn’t enough, singer Cher even offered to pay his legal fees if he chooses to sue.
Photo Credit: pix11.com
Coffee-infused soda drives Coca-Cola revenue beat
Coca-Cola reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue on Friday, boosted by strong demand for its zero-sugar sodas and Coca-Cola Plus Coffee, a blend of its traditional soda and coffee.
Faltering demand for sugary drinks has forced the world’s two largest beverage makers, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, to roll out low-sugar drinks, while diversifying their offerings into coffee, tea and bottled waters to boost sales.
Coca-Cola has been rolling out new offerings such as Coca-Cola Plus Coffee as well as drinks in small packs that command higher prices and are more appealing to consumers. It also expanded its coffee business with the multibillion-dollar purchase of Britain-based Costa Coffee last year.
Volume in sparkling soft drinks rose 2 percent in the quarter, driven by double-digit percentage growth in Coca-Cola Zero Sugar as well as Coke and Sprite in North America.
Organic revenue climbed 5 percent during the quarter, above the average analyst estimate of 4.3 percent, according to five analysts polled by Refinitiv.
Coca-Cola also said it now expects full-year organic revenue growth excluding currency fluctuations, acquisitions and divestitures to be at least 5 percent, from its previous forecast of 5 percent growth.
The company’s shares climbed 2 percent before the bell, adding to the 14 percent they have gained this year.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/10/18/coffee-infused-soda-drives-coca-cola-revenue-beat/
Photo Credit: LightRocket via Getty Images
Video shows off-duty deputy pulling gun on teens over loud music
A “big bully” sheriff’s deputy was placed on leave after he was caught on video pulling a gun on a teen at a California skatepark — and allegedly threatening to shoot the youngster in the face.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department deputy was off duty when he approached a group of teens in San Clemente on Saturday and asked them to turn down their loud music, KABC reports.
Video obtained by the station shows the unidentified deputy pointing a gun at a teen who briefly raises his skateboard during the confrontation. The deputy also briefly flashes his badge as the teen backs away with his hands raised, video shows.
The deputy did not immediately identify himself as a law enforcement officer, the mother of one teen told the station.
The skaters agreed to turn down their music, but that didn’t satisfy the hostile deputy, another teen said.
“He was coming up to a friend very fast and aggressive, so my other friend jumped in and put his hand out for him to stop,” Koa McClung told KCBS. “My other friend held up his skateboard for him to stop, then the guy pulled a gun and said, ‘I’ll shoot you in the f–king face if you don’t stop.’”
Some teens told the station they weren’t sure that the badge flashed by the man was authentic, particularly given how they said the lawman was acting.
“I was right next to the kid that he pulled the gun on,” Sage McClung told KCBS. “The officer wasn’t acting like an officer, just a big bully.”
The deputy has since been placed on administrative leave after an internal probe was launched Wednesday.
“Orange County Sheriff’s Department employees are expected to conduct themselves with professionalism on and off-duty,” agency officials said in a statement. “We take this incident seriously and will fully investigate.”
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Ex-nanny gets 20 years in prison for sexually abusing boy, giving birth to his child
A former live-in nanny who had sex with an 11-year-old Florida boy — and later gave birth to his child — has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Marissa Mowry, 28, was sentenced on Wednesday, some five years after sexually assaulting the now-17-year-old victim repeatedly over several months before giving birth to his son in October 2014, the Tampa Bay Times reports.
Mowry, who continued having sex with the boy until he told his mother three years later, must also serve 10 years of probation and register as a sexual predator, a judge ruled.
The boy told his mom about the sexual abuse in 2017, leading her to contact police. A DNA test later confirmed the boy was the father of Mowry’s child, the newspaper reports.
Mowry was hired by the family in early 2014 after a recommendation by a relative and ultimately moved in with them. The boy’s mother, Nadene Campbell, said she considered Mowry to be her daughter at one point.
But Campbell blasted the former nanny after Wednesday’s hearing, saying her actions irrevocably altered her son’s life.
“We’re talking about a child that was 11,” Campbell told the newspaper. “Not even a teenager. Eleven.”
Campbell’s son now cares for the 5-year-old himself, his mother said, taking the toddler to school before starting his own day of classes. But being a father has limited his social and dating life, Campbell said.
“Who wants to date a 17-year-old who had a 5-year-old?” she asked. “It has not ruined his life, but it’s changed his life. But he has turned into one of the most amazing dads you’ll ever meet.”
Mowry, for her part, declined to speak during her sentencing. She pleaded guilty to multiple counts of sexual battery on a victim under the age of 12 in September, WTVT reports.
But Campbell warned other parents not to assume that women won’t victimize children, particularly those entrusted to protect them.
“We don’t think about females being predators, usually,” Campbell told the station. “And I didn’t — and it cost me.”
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Toddler finds mom’s gun, accidentally shoots himself to death
MOORESVILLE, Ind. — Police in central Indiana say a toddler found his mother’s unsecured gun while she was out of the room and accidentally shot himself to death.
The Morgan County Sheriff’s Department says the shooting occurred Wednesday morning at a home outside Mooresville, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) southwest of Indianapolis.
The department identified the child as 2-year-old Anthony Jones of Indianapolis.
Deputies say his mother, 26-year-old Stephanie Jones, told them she had gone to the bathroom while her son was watching television, heard a gunshot and ran back to find him lying on the floor with a fatal head injury. The child was pronounced dead at the scene.
The boy’s father wasn’t home at the time. The family was housesitting for relatives.
The death remains under investigation.
via: https://pix11.com/2019/10/17/police-toddler-finds-moms-gun-accidentally-shoots-himself-to-death/
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Kellogg joins GLAAD for anti-bullying campaign with ‘All Together’ cereal with Raisin Bran, Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops and Frosted Mini Wheats in the same box
The new concoction isn’t just a kid’s breakfast dream — it’s an anti-bullying campaign.
Kellogg’s is partnering with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) to release a cereal called “All Together,” mixing cereals and their mascots to support anti-bullying and LGBTQ advocacy work.
“We all belong together,” the company said in a statement. “So for the first time in history, our famous mascots and cereals are offered exclusively together in the same box for All Together Cereal. It’s a symbol of acceptance no matter how you look, where you’re from or who you love.”
The cereals are packaged individually inside a purple box.
All Together is available for a limited time in honor of Spirit Day, an anti-bullying campaign that has millions of people wear purple to stand up against bullying.
Along with the cereal campaign, Kellogg’s also pledged to donate $50,000 to GLAAD in support of the group’s efforts.
Photo Credit: pix11.com
Florida man accused of killing 3 people claims he did it for God
POLK COUNTY, FL (WFTS) — As 35-year-old Stanley Mossburg was transported from the Polk County, Florida Sheriff’s Office to be booked into the jail for murder, he admitted to killing at least three people because God “needs them for the war.”
The bizarre exchange between reporters and the man accused of killing at least three people, lasted about a minute and a half.
In that brief moment, Mossburg with a bloody bandage on his forehead, shook his head smiling, at times seemed slightly confused and stared down journalists working to uncover any clue as to a motive behind two gruesome murders in Winter Haven.
“I’m a prophet, not a serial killer,” Mossburg said. “I’m doing what God tells me to do. Y’all will see God, and there’s gonna be an Angels and Demons fight from God. There’s a war, everybody will see.”
People who live next to the two innocent victims disagree. They are still in shock, trying to understand the evil that entered their community, upending their lives.
“It’s a hard thing to go through, cause I had just talked to Peggy that morning and it happened later in the day,” Bob Strouse said. Strouse said the two people killed inside his neighbor’s home were friends of his, named Peggy and Ken.
Strouse said they lived with the only person to survive the murder spree.
“He was frantic. We didn’t believe what he was telling us right off because it sounded so far fetched you don’t want to believe it, but we did,” Strouse said.
Strouse said his neighbor of nearly two decades, he identified as Tom Kohl, escaped sometime around 6 p.m. Monday, banging on Strouse’s door for help.
“It’s scary, really scary to know it could’ve happened to anyone here,” Strouse said. “You know, that evening I was getting a glass of water and I saw the light on over in the office and found out later that a lot was going on at that time. But, you look, see a light on and curtains drawn and you don’t think anything about it.”
Sheriff Grady Judd said Mossburg is pure evil and deserves the death penalty.
Judd said the man and woman were tied up, then stabbed to death. Judd said because the man fought back, Mossburg made him suffer before killing him.Save 20% on DeliveryThis New Grocery Delivery Service Might Be the Best One Out ThereAd By WalmartSee More
On Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the search for Mossburg was over; neighbors want the focus and attention to be on Kohl, the lone survivor. A man in his mid-to-late 60s has not only survived cancer, but now also a double murder.
“He seemed to be in decent spirits for what he went through,” Strouse said. “You know I don’t know how you are supposed to act when you go through something like that. He has no money. He has no car. He has no support, only his neighbors, who are very supportive. Donate to the GoFundMe . Please help.”
Neighbors are now feeding Kohl’s animals and trying to clean up the crime scene.
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Photo Credit: abcactionnews.com
A newborn was found wrapped in a plastic bag in Indiana
An hours-old baby girl was found wrapped in a plastic bag on a quiet street in Indiana — the latest in a series of abandoned babies found nationwide. The newborn, found by a woman walking her dog in Seymour on Tuesday, WRTV reported, comes not long after a baby with her umbilical cord attached was found on a porch in Pennsylvania. And in June, another infant was found swaddled in a plastic bag in Georgia.
The incidents highlight the importance of safe haven laws that allow parents or guardians to leave newborns in designated safe locations without the fear of prosecution.
Here are five things to know about the laws:
All states have laws protecting newborns
All 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have some sort of safe haven legislation to protect newborns and provide parents with an alternative to criminal abandonment, according to government agency Child Welfare Information Gateway.
Safe haven laws differ in various states
There’s no umbrella federal law over all the states so the safe haven specifics vary depending on where you live.
“For example, in approximately 11 states and Puerto Rico, only infants who are 72 hours old or younger may be relinquished to a designated safe haven. Approximately 19 states accept infants up to 1 month old. Other states specify varying age limits in their statutes,” the government agency says.
Some states such as Alabama and Arizona require the infants to be three days or younger while others such as Indiana and Arkansas allow babies up to 30 days old, it says.
Not everyone can drop off a baby
The person allowed to relinquish a baby varies by state.
In four states — Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota and Tennessee — only the mother is allowed to surrender her infant, according to the government agency.
Some states provide other options.
“Idaho specifies that only a custodial parent may surrender an infant. In the District of Columbia, an infant may be relinquished only by a custodial parent who is a resident of the District. In approximately 11 states, an agent of the parent (someone who has the parent’s approval) may take a baby to a safe haven for a parent,” the government agency says.
In California, Kansas and New York, if someone other than the parent is relinquishing a newborn, he or she must have legal custody.
What’s considered a safe location varies by state
Safe locations to leave a newborn are not the same for every state, either. In each state, a hospital is considered a safe location while some allow newborns to be left at a fire station or a police station.
At least 16 states and Puerto Rico mandate that babies be left only at a hospital, emergency medical services provider or healthcare facility. In 27 states, fire stations are also designated as safe havens. While in 25 states, police stations or other law enforcement agencies may accept infants. Arizona, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Vermont and Puerto Rico allow churches to act as safe havens, but someone has to be present at the time the infant is left.
Some safe havens require family history
Once a baby is relinquished, the safe haven is required to provide any immediate medical care required. In 10 states, the baby must be transferred to the hospital if received at a facility that does not provide medical care, the government agency says.
And in at least 21 states, the provider is required to ask the parent for family and medical history information. Some are required to try and talk to whoever dropped off the child about the legal repercussions.
“Safe haven providers are given protection from liability for anything that might happen to the infant while in their care, unless there is evidence of major negligence on the part of the provider,” the government agency says.
Photo Credit: fox2now.com