Man stabbed to death by rooster after attaching knife to its leg
An Indian man was stabbed to death by his own rooster after he attached a 3-inch knife to its leg for an illegal cockfight, police said Sunday.
Thangulla Satish, 45, was stabbed in the groin last week when the bird he had just armed for the fight fluttered in panic, according to police in Lothunur village in Telangana state.
“Satish was hit by the rooster’s knife in his groin and started bleeding heavily,” police inspector B. Jeevan said Sunday, revealing that the victim died on his way to a local hospital.
Police are now looking for over a dozen other people involved in organizing the deadly cockfight, warning that they could face up to two years in prison if found guilty.
The rooster survived, with photos of it tied with a rope and pecking on grains at the police station went viral locally on social media.
“We may need to produce it before the court,” Jeevan said.
In the fights — banned in India in 1960 — two birds with a knife or blade attached fight until one either dies or flees.
Despite the nationwide ban, they remain common in the southern Indian states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, often under the watch of powerful, local politicians with big-money bets.
via: https://nypost.com/2021/02/28/indian-man-stabbed-to-death-by-rooster-after-attaching-knife-to-leg/
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Mom’s heartbreak after baby swallows battery, dies
Texas mother Trista Hamsmith lost her 17-month-old daughter, Reese, in December due to complications from swallowing a battery — and she’s doing her part to ensure the toddler did not die in vain.
“Kids are dying,” Hamsmith, 39, told the “Today” show. “We’ve got to do everything we can to get this information to parents and put pressure on the industry to make changes to protect the kids.”
Hamsmith, who lives in Lubbock, noticed that Reese, who was typically a lively character, began wheezing. She was also congested and lethargic, and a pediatrician said croup — an upper-airway infection that generally affects children — was the cause.
Not long after, Hamsmith noticed a button battery had gone missing from a remote control; later, at a local emergency room, doctors confirmed that Reese had swallowed it, and it burned a hole in her esophagus.
“This story needs to be told,” Hamsmith added. “It didn’t have to happen.”
Dr. Emily Durkin, the medical director of children’s surgery at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan — who did not treat Reese — told “Today” that swallowed batteries can cause serious harm if they lodge in the esophagus, which has two narrow ends.
“If you get a narrow, flat, pancake-like button battery that gets stuck at one of these natural narrowings, then the front wall of the esophagus collapses against the button battery and the back wall,” she said. “[This] completes that circuit, and the electric current actually flows through the esophageal tissues. And when that happens, it starts to kill the tissues at the burn.”
Reese had surgery in October, then returned home. But several days later, she returned to the emergency room after more complications arose.
“We found out that a fistula had been created, which is like a passageway,” Hamsmith said. “There was a hole burned through her trachea and through her esophagus. When that tunnel formed, it was allowing air to go where it didn’t need to be. Food and drinks also went where they didn’t need to go.”
From that point forward, Reese had a feeding tube and was sedated on a ventilator. She even needed another surgery, then had to receive CPR twice after falling into distress. That second time led to Reese’s death on Dec. 17, 2020.
Now, Hamsmith is calling for action, demanding manufacturers make safer batteries and Congress address it. She also hopes that manufacturers can make safer device covers, like having batter-storage compartments secured by screws, to add a layer of safety for children.
“We just need safer batteries,” she said.
via: https://nypost.com/2021/03/02/texas-mom-takes-action-after-babys-battery-swallow-death/
Photo Credit: Pray for Reese Hamsmith/Facebook
Family ejected from Frontier Airlines flight, passengers say due to 18 month old baby – about 15 cops responded to incident
Frontier Airlines said they cancelled a flight from Florida on Sunday after a “large group” of passengers refused to wear masks — but the family involved claims they were booted simply because of a maskless baby.
The fracas took place aboard flight 2878, which was set to depart Miami en route to LaGuardia Airport at 7 p.m. until the disagreement forced all passengers to deplane and reschedule a flight for the next morning.
“Multiple people, including several adults, were asked repeatedly to wear their masks and refused to do so,” the airline said in a statement Sunday night.
“Based on the continued refusal to comply with the federal mask mandate, refusal to disembark the aircraft and aggression towards the flight crew, local law enforcement was engaged.”
However, fellow passenger Hershey Greenbaum told The Post the child seemed to be the reason for the family’s removal.
“We were all on the plane when they [flight attendants] came on and saw the 18-month-old baby without a mask,” Greenbaum said.
In video footage of the incident, the father can be seen explaining that the child was under the age of two.
Greenbaum said other passengers came to the defense of the family and became “rowdy” when they were booted.
The parents told the attendants they would try to fit a covering on the baby, according to Greenbaum, but that not did not stop them from taking action.
“All the people on the plane were getting really mad and rowdy because, what are you going to do? It’s an 18-month old baby,” Greenbaum said.
“Most of them were saying ‘Don’t let them do this to you,’” Greenbaum said of the other passengers. “Most of the people were against it, Jewish or not Jewish, why are you picking on an 18-month-old kid?”
The company said: “To be clear, the issue did not stem from a child under the age of two.”
At least one passenger filmed part of the interaction, which was later posted to Twitter by the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council.
Numerous passengers can be heard calling out the flight staff for what they believed to be an unjustified action.
“What are you accomplishing?” one person says.
“You’re gonna pay the consequences,” another passenger can be heard saying.
“This is Nazi Germany,” a third person shouts.
Greenbaum said about 15 police officers responded to the incident.
via: https://nypost.com/2021/03/01/frontier-airlines-claims-large-group-of-maskless-passengers-disrupted-flight/
Photo Credit: twitter
Arkansas school shooting: Student reportedly shot on first day of in-person learning
A student was shot and killed at an Arkansas middle school early Monday on the first day that full-time classes resumed after months of coronavirus lockdown restrictions.
The incident at the Watson Chapel Junior High School in Pine Bluff forced the district into a new emergency lockdown, with one student dead and a second youngster in police custody, KARK-TV reported.
The victim was rushed to Arkansas Children’s Hospital by helicopter in “very serious condition,”, according to KATV-TV.
Police later said the teen had died from his wounds.
Pine Bluff Police Chief Kelvin Sergeant called the incident an “isolated and targeted” attack involving two students enrolled at the school.
Speaking at an afternoon briefing, Sergeant said police arrived at the school around 10 a.m. and found the wounded student in a hallway near the school office.
The alleged shooter, also 15, was found by police K-9 officers hiding behind a house nearby, the chief said.
“We don’t have a definite motive right now as to why the incident occurred,” Sergeant said. “However, we do believe this was a targeted incident as opposed to a random incident.”
No additional details were available about the youngster in custody, but the chief said charges are pending.
“There has been a shooting at the Watson Chapel Junior High,” the school district said on Facebook. “ALL campuses are on lock down. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department and Pine Bluff Police Department are on site to control the situation.”
“This was an isolated incident and all students are safe at this time,” the district said. “The parent of the student hurt has been notified so if you have not been notified by the school your student is safe and secure.”
“The police are not letting anyone in and out of the buildings,” the post said. “You will not be allowed to come get your student at this time.”
According to KATV, the lockdown had been lifted by noon.
No further details were immediately available.
via: https://nypost.com/2021/03/01/arkansas-school-shooting-at-least-one-student-reportedly-shot/
Photo Credit: Google
Ohio mom arrested for allegedly driving over son, dumping body in river
An Ohio mother killed her 6-year-old son by driving over him at a wildlife area before dumping his body a day later in a river, according to police and a new report.
Brittany Gosney, 29, of Middletown, reported her son, James Robert Hutchinson, missing on Sunday, according to the Middletown Division of Police.
Upon further questioning, Gosney admitted what had happened, authorities said.
“They now say that James was killed in Preble County a few days ago,” police said. “The child’s body was brought back to Middletown, where they live, and later put into the Ohio River.”
Gosney admitted to driving to a wildlife area to abandon James, and then running over him when he attempted to get back in the car, according to court records obtained by WXIX.
Gosney “stated she picked the child up, put him back in the vehicle and drove back (to their home on Crawford Street) where she took the child in the house and placed him in an upstairs bedroom,” according to the criminal complaint.
The next day, she said, she drove to the Ohio River, where she left her son’s body in the water.
Gosney has been charged with murder, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence, according to cops.
Her boyfriend, James Hamilton, 42, was charged with abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence, police said.
Cops were working with searchers to recover the body.
“The river is very high and treacherous, so we will not be disclosing the exact location in hopes of avoiding another tragic incident,” police said.
Two other children have been removed from the couple’s home, police said.
via: https://nypost.com/2021/03/01/ohio-mom-arrested-for-driving-over-son-dumping-body-in-river/
Photo Credit: Middletown Division of Police
Spanish rapper reportedly chops off roommate’s penis for gory video
A Spanish rapper is accused of hacking off his roommate’s penis with a 12-inch kitchen knife as part of a gruesome attempt to get attention on social media, according to reports.
Aaron Beltran allegedly made a deal with Andrew Breach, an Oxford-educated British teacher, to amputate his manhood — with Breach agreeing to pay a fee depending on how many times the video was shared on YouTube, the Independent reported.
The payout ranged from £173, or about $240, to a maximum of £2,164, or about $3,000, according to the report.
Beltran now faces four and a half years behind bars if convicted of carrying out the grisly act in Zaragoza, Spain, in March 2019, the newspaper said.
“On the afternoon of March 8, just before 7:15 p.m. when both men were in the victim’s bedroom, Andrew tied his pajama cord round the bottom of his penis to avoid hemorrhaging,” the indictment reads, the Sun reported.
“The accused, who was sat on a chair in front of him, cut his penis with a 12-inch kitchen knife which was never found because the accused got rid of it.”
A police officer told the court in eastern Spain that he found Breach, 35, who taught at a local language academy, bleeding heavily after the gory stunt.
Another officer said Breach had wanted to sever his penis because he did not feel like he was completely male.
“When interviewing the victim in hospital he told us the accused cut off his penis. Andrew said he did not feel 100 percent a man and wanted to get rid of his penis,” the cop told the court.
“He agreed on a deal with the accused to pay him €200 which would depend on how many views the video of the amputation received on YouTube. It was done on the basis of hits,” the cop added.
Surgeons managed to reattach the penis, which is now fully functional, according to the Independent.
Breach spent three weeks in the hospital and then returned to the UK.
Prosecutors admit the amputation was consensual but argue that Beltran still bears criminal responsibility.
Meanwhile, Breach claimed in court he had cut off his own penis, contradicting his sworn statement that Beltran was responsible.
“I cut off my own penis. I was unwell. It was myself,” he said, adding that he had felt pressure from police to blame his roommate. Police denied his claim.
Prosecutors have accepted that Breach suffers from gender dysphoria, the outlet reported.
Local reports around the time of the amputation said the two men drank four bottles of wine and took Valium to gather the courage to go through with it, the Sun reported.
Beltran, who spent four months in prison before being released on bail, goes by the artistic name Sanatorio del Atico — or Attic Sanatorium.
via: https://nypost.com/2021/03/01/rapper-reportedly-chops-off-roommates-penis-for-video-views/
Photo Credit: youtube
NBA veteran Jeremy Lin says he’s been called ‘coronavirus’ on the court
(CNN)As the number of violent attacks against Asian Americans escalates, former NBA star Jeremy Lin said he has experienced racism while playing basketball.
“Being a 9 year NBA veteran doesn’t protect me from being called ‘coronavirus’ on the court,” the former New York Knicks star wrote on Facebook.Lin, who currently plays for the Santa Cruz Warriors, which is the G League affiliate of the Golden State Warriors, expressed his anguish for the racism and violence targeting Asian Americans on Thursday.
In his post, Lin recounted the several ways Asian Americans experience racism, prejudice and bigotry.
“Something is changing in this generation of Asian Americans. We are tired of being told that we don’t experience racism, we are tired of being told to keep our heads down and not make trouble,” he wrote.
“We are tired of Asian American kids growing up and being asked where they’re REALLY from, of having our eyes mocked, of being objectified as exotic or being told we’re inherently unattractive. We are tired of the stereotypes in Hollywood affecting our psyche and limiting who we think we can be. We are tired of being invisible, of being mistaken for our colleague or told our struggles aren’t as real.
In 2019, Lin became the first Asian American to win a NBA title while playing for the Toronto Raptors. Lin became a household name back in 2012, when he emerged as the breakout star of the New York Knicks. His success was dubbed “Linsanity.”
Lin, who has helped other Asian-American athletes fight racist stereotypes, is the latest high-profile figure speaking up to stop the violence against the AAPI community.
Earlier this month, actress Olivia Munn joined the effort to help find a man who attacked an Asian American woman on the streets of New York while actors Daniel Wu and Daniel Dae Kim teamed up to offer a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in attacks that took place in Oakland’s Chinatown.
Communities and advocates across the US have been on high alert in recent weeks following a string of recent attacks against Asian Americans.While it’s unclear what is fueling the more recent incidents, advocates and authorities have been seen pattern of targeted hate since the coronavirus pandemic began.
Cynthia Choi, co-executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action said the anti-Asian sentiment has been linked to the false idea that Asians could be blamed for the pandemic.
Choi is also one of the co-founders of Stop APPI Hate, a coalition that has documented anti-Asian hate and discrimination since March of last year. Nearly a year since its creation, the coalition has received more than 3,000 first-hand accounts of anti-Asian incidents, Choi said.
“It’s a very fearful time, a very anxiety-ruled, riddled time because Asian Americans feel like they are experiencing so much racism and bigotry. Some are legitimately afraid to leave their homes,” Choi told CNN on Friday.
CNN’s David Close contributed to this report.
via: https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/26/us/jeremy-lin-asian-american-attacks-response/index.html
Photo Credit: CNN
A middle schooler was insecure about his haircut. So his principal fixed it himself instead of disciplining the boy for wearing a hat
(CNN) — We’ve all had at least one bad haircut in our lifetimes, and chances are, we remember how that bad haircut made us feel.
Jason Smith, the middle school principal at Stonybrook Intermediate and Middle School in Indianapolis, Indiana, understood that feeling. And that’s why it was a no-brainer to jump into action for one of his students, Anthony Moore.
Moore was wearing a hat, which is against the school’s dress code. After the student spoke with a school dean for about 30 minutes, Smith was asked to step in.
“I sat across from him and asked, ‘What’s wrong? Why are you being defiant, why are you refusing to take your hat off? It’s a pretty simple request,'” Smith said. “And he explained that his parents took him to get a haircut and he didn’t like the results.”
Smith said he and the dean thought his hair looked fine. “But you know he’s a 13 [or] 14-year-old kid, and we know social acceptance is more important than adult acceptance,” he said.
“I told him, ‘Look, I’ve been cutting hair since I was your age,’ and I showed him pictures of my son’s haircuts that I did and some of me cutting hair in college. And I said, ‘If I run home and get my clippers and fix your line, will you go back to class?'” Smith said. “He hesitated but then he said yes.”
So in the snow, Smith drove back home to get his clippers and brought them to his office to line Moore’s head up while his parents were called for consent to touch up his hair.
Tawanda Johnson, Moore’s mom, said she thought the gesture was wonderful.
“He (Smith) handled it very well to keep him from getting in trouble at school,” she said. “I’m just glad that he was able to handle that without … being put in in-school suspension.”
“He didn’t say straight out, but I feel like he didn’t want to be laughed at,” Smith said. “The barbershop and hair cuts as Black males is very important in the community and looking your best and being sharp — it’s just a cultural aspect.”
“Just from my being a Black male myself and coming through that culture and you know, I really think girls matter at that age, which [means] appearance then could matter. He was scared he was going to be laughed at and we were pretty sure no one would notice, but he was looking through his lens,” Smith said.
Smith made sure to check on Moore throughout the day, and found that he was learning and didn’t have his hat on after the touch-up.
“All behavior is communication and when a student is struggling, we need to ask ourselves what happened to this child instead of what’s wrong with the child,” Smith said. “What need is the child trying to get met and really, the future of urban education rests on that question.”
Smith said the consequence for not abiding by the dress code ordinarily would have been in-school suspension or being picked up by a parent, which, Smith said, “would have prevented him from being in front of a classroom teacher and giving him the education he deserves, so it really worked out well.”
via: https://www.kmov.com/news/a-middle-schooler-was-insecure-about-his-haircut-so-his-principal-fixed-it-himself-instead/article_8f5edff8-6032-5de5-9eb4-42f7dc71c576.html
Photo Credit: Lewis Speaks
NYC woman sues landlord for negligence after stranger raped her in apartment
A woman who was raped after opening her Manhattan apartment door to a stranger posing as a delivery man is suing the owners of the building, saying there should have been a locked door between the complex and an adjacent parking garage, new court papers allege.
The 27-year-old victim was allegedly choked unconscious and raped by homeless man Elijah Kelly at her Kips Bay apartment on 30th Street on New Year’s Eve
Kelly, 23, was arrested a few days later and a criminal rape case is pending against him. Kelly — who is not named in the lawsuit — is being held on $100,000 bail.
The woman is now blaming the owners and management company of the building — which she has since moved out of — for “allowing an unlocked door to exist between the adjacent public parking garage and the residential part of the building which had no alarm, no lock, no video surveillance which was being actively monitored,” her Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit alleges.
The building let their tenants believe “that the building was secure when in fact it was unsecure” the court documents claim adding that the area has high crime.
The woman is suing for unspecified damages.
Her lawyer, Steven Beldock, told The Post, “A horrendous crime occurred as a result of the absolute utter negligence of the building owner and managing agent.
“He should never have been in that building.”
“They represent to the world that this is a secure building,” Beldock said. “It’s not. Anyone could walk in there.”
The owners could not immediately be reached for comment. Management company Abington Holdings, LLC did not immediately return a request for comment.
via: https://nypost.com/2021/02/26/nyc-woman-sues-landlord-for-negligence-after-stranger-raped-her-in-apartment/
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Lee Daniels hopes his new Billie Holiday film makes lynching a hate crime
At the intersection of artistry and addiction, director Lee Daniels found his connection with late blues icon Billie Holiday.
“I had to tell her story because it lived in me on so many different levels,” Daniels told The Post. “Not just as an artist, but as an artist who also struggled with addiction.”
Daniels, 61, pulls back the curtain on the troubled 1940s jazz singer’s simultaneous battles with substance abuse and the federal government in his new film, “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” out Friday on Hulu. The movie stars Andra Day as Billie Holiday, who has already been nominated for two Golden Globes for the performance.
The harrowing tale of Holiday’s traumatic childhood and tumultuous life in the spotlight has been famously recounted in the 1972 classic “Lady Sings the Blues,” starring Diana Ross, and on Broadway in the musical “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill,” led by Audra McDonald in 2014.
But in his tribute to the legendary songstress, Daniels chose to focus less on Holiday’s troubled past, and more on her ill-fated relationship with federal agent Jimmy Fletcher.
“It’s not a biopic,” Daniels said. “It’s really an espionage love story.”
The affair started when Fletcher was tapped by openly racist Federal Bureau of Narcotics Chief Harry Anslinger to take Holiday down for her heroin use.
But Anslinger’s true motive for targeting Holiday was to stop her from singing her anti-lynching anthem “Strange Fruit.”
“I get chills thinking about those lyrics,” Daniels said. “They’re so powerful because she called out social injustice when no one else would.”
“Strange Fruit” was originally a poem written by Jewish high school teacher and civil rights activist Abel Meeropol in 1937. The Bronx native penned the verse after seeing a haunting picture of a double lynching, and set the words to music for Holiday to begin performing at racially integrated New York City nightclubs in 1939.
The protest song infamously exposed the violence committed by white people who murdered black Americans by hanging them from trees in the segregated South.
Amid the spectacle of Holiday’s opioid abuse, extramarital liaisons — including an intimate relationship with actress Tallulah Bankhead — and repeated stints in jail on drug charges, the movie reaches a climax: a lynching scene, in which Holiday stumbles on a terrible crime.
“That was the hardest thing I’ve ever shot before in my life,” said Daniels, who also directed the Hollywood blockbusters “Precious” and “Lee Daniels’ The Butler.”
In the scene, Holiday wanders off of her tour bus and sees children crying in front of a burning cross, a signature of the Ku Klux Klan. Their father helplessly tries rescuing their mother as her limp body hangs from a branch.
At that moment, Holiday vows to continue performing “Strange Fruit,” despite the FBI’s attempts to silence her.
“She didn’t want to be a hero,” Daniels said. “She would not think of herself as a civil rights leader even though she was one. She just knew she had to sing this song.”
Daniels and Pulitzer Prize-winning screenwriter Suzan-Lori Parks wrapped the film before the nationwide demand for social justice, spurred by the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, in 2020. Daniels said he hopes the movie inspires the Senate to pass the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, legislation that would officially designate lynching a hate crime.
“I want this film to open up conversations that promote change,” Daniels said. “If we are doing the work to address systemic racism, I think we will have a better America.”
Holiday’s call for change, “Strange Fruit,” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1978, declared the “Song of the Century,” by Time in 1999 and added into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress in 2002.
As for Daniels’ homage to the late Lady Day, who died of cirrhosis handcuffed to a hospital bed a few months before he was born in 1959, the filmmaker says she approved of the film.
“On the last day of shooting, I dreamt I saw Ms. Holiday sitting in a 1950s car,” Daniels said.
“I asked her, ‘Is it okay that I’m doing your movie?’
She said, ‘Are you going to do me right?,’ and I said, ‘I think so.’ Then she smiled.”
via: https://nypost.com/2021/02/26/lee-daniels-on-the-united-states-vs-billie-holiday/
Photo Credit: HULU