Wellington College bursar killed when ‘horseplay’ game of ‘slaps’ with son went wrong
A bursar at the prestigious Wellington College was killed when a “horseplay” game of ‘slaps’ with his son went tragically wrong, an inquest heard.
Army veteran Malcolm Callender and his son Ewan, 19, had been playing the game after watching football together at a bar in Reading in April last year.
CCTV footage in the bar showed Mr Callender, a bursar at top boarding school Wellington College in Crowthorne, Berkshire, raise his hand and strike his son, who went to retaliate but instead embraced his father.
But Ewan, who was himself in the army for three years, told an inquest in Reading that after leaving the bar his father turned around and told him: “Right, you can have your free shot”.
“I knew exactly what he meant, I get to slap him now”, Ewan said.
The inquest heard that Ewan did not want to slap his bigger-built father, who served in the military for 27 years, but “wanted to make his dad proud”.
Witnesses saw Ewan clench his fists before he delivered the slap which sent Mr Callender backwards onto the road, where he hit his head.
As nearby security staff and other bystanders at the scene rushed to try to assist Mr Callender, Ewan was heard screaming “wake up Dad! Dad I love you!”, before police arrested him.
Mr Callender was rushed to the Royal Berkshire Hospital where he was treated for an acute subdural haemorrhage, but he died in the early hours of the following morning and a cause of death was given as “blunt force trauma to the head.”
More than 18 months after Ewan was arrested by police at the scene, the Crown Prosecution Service decided they would not prosecute him.
At the inquest on Tuesday, Ian Wade QC, assistant coroner for Berkshire, explained that the slap should be seen as legal “horseplay.”
Ewan’s mother – Malcolm Callender’s wife – told the inquest that the slapping between father and son was a common game they played.
Kathryn Morrison-Callender, also an Army veteran, said: “As a family, we would always be messing about with each other and we would be giving each other quick little digs in the ribs which we called ‘fingers of steel’.
“Another game we would play was slaps.
“When Ewan was about 15 years old, he and Malcolm would progress to try to slap each other around the face. Malcolm would always be winding him up, saying, ‘you reckon you can take me yet?’
“Malcolm was very competitive so he would never let Ewan win, he would use it as a reminder that Ewan was not quite big enough yet.
“After Malcolm passed away I spoke to Ewan about what happened. From what he described, it sounded just like the games that they had been playing together since Ewan was a kid.”
Mr Wade said he would not reach a conclusion that Mr Callender had died from unlawful killing, explaining: “The law recognises that consent is a legitimate concept in the law of assault and the application of force that is consented to, is not assault.
“You are also allowed to consent to the application of force in what is a rather Victorian way called horseplay. It seems to me that what took place here fulfils the definition of horseplay.”
Concluding the inquest with a narrative verdict Mr Wade said Mr Callender died after “engaging in non-aggressive, not hostile, consensual horseplay.”
After a 27-year career in the military which saw “a number of tours in Bosnia”, Callender became the works and estates bursar at Wellington College in 2015 after getting a call from an old contact he made during the military.
Wellington College is a top day and boarding school in the village of Crowthorne, Berkshire, that teaches 1,100 pupils, between the ages of 13 and 18, each year.
It costs £13,860 per term for boarders, and previous alumni include author George Orwell, current Conservative MP Crispin Blunt and actor Sir Christopher Lee.
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/cm/wellington-college-bursar-killed-horseplay-180808884.html
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MSNBC is getting a new president, the first Black person to run a major cable news network
(CNN) — Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC for the past twelve years, will step down shortly after President-elect Biden’s inauguration in January.
Rashida Jones, a senior vice president with a wide portfolio at NBC News and MSNBC, will become president of the network on February 1.
The Wall Street Journal, which broke the news of her appointment, said that Jones will be the first Black person to run a major cable news network.
The transition was announced by NBCUniversal News Group chair Cesar Conde on Monday afternoon.
“She has an outstanding track-record and she leads with a laser-like focus and grace under pressure. I know she will be an excellent leader for MSNBC,” Conde wrote in an internal memo.
Conde said that Griffin came to him shortly after the presidential election and spoke about “his desire to depart at a time of his choosing and when he felt confident about the strength of the network he loves.”
Transitions in Washington, D.C. often lead to turnover in the news business as well.
Griffin, 64, “has many interests and passions outside news — and he is energized right now by the prospect of being able to participate in them professionally,” Conde said in his memo.
November was MSNBC’s most-watched month in its 24-year history. But the channel finds itself in a challenging competitive landscape at the end of President Trump’s time in office. In November the channel still ranked third in cable news behind CNN and Fox News, since cable news viewership was up across the board during the election period.
MSNBC’s biggest strengths are political talk shows like “The Rachel Maddow Show” and “The Beat with Ari Melber,” which have big and loyal audiences.
Conde’s memo credited Griffin with “six straight record years” in the ratings, “each one better than the last,” which is in part a testament to intense interest in Trump’s campaign and presidency.
The beginning of the Biden presidency may scramble the cable news wars in ways that remain to be seen.
Jones has been at MSNBC and NBC News since 2013. She previously worked at The Weather Channel and at local stations. She rose through the ranks at NBC and became the senior vice president for specials in 2017.
Jones’ portfolio was expanded earlier this year when she was put in charge of MSNBC’s daytime and weekend news schedule.
“In the last year alone that has meant, of course, that she has masterfully guided our coverage of the global pandemic, the social justice protests and unrest, Decision 2020, and the two most-viewed Democratic presidential debates in television history,” Conde wrote on Monday.
via: https://www.kmov.com/news/msnbc-is-getting-a-new-president-the-first-black-person-to-run-a-major-cable/article_2ad90b61-64e9-5a86-ab3e-8b9f401ca2a2.html
Photo Credit: Virginia Sherwood/NBCUniversal
Joe Exotic asks Kim Kardashian to help get him presidential pardon
Joe Exotic — the ex-zookeeper convicted of trying to hire a hit man to kill rival Carole Baskin — is hoping Kim Kardashian can get him out of jail, a report said Tuesday.
Exotic, whose story was made famous in the Netflix show “Tiger King,” penned a letter to Kardashian, asking if she could help score him a pardon from President Trump, ET reported.
“I know you have never met me and may never want to however I do believe that you hold the values of our justice system dear to your heart,” reads the note, dated Nov. 4.
“Please help me by just taking 10 minutes out of your life and placing a call to President Trump to look at my 257 page pardon,” he wrote, according to ET.
“It’s all the evidence I’m innocent and ask him to sign my pardon so I can return home to [my husband] Dillon [Passage] and my father.”
Kardashian successfully lobbied President Trump in 2018 to grant clemency to Alice Marie Johnson, a grandmother who was serving a life sentence without parole for drug offenses.
Since then, the reality-TV icon has continued to advocate for criminal justice reform, and met with an Oklahoma death row inmate just last month.
Joe Exotic — whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage — urged Kardashian to call him.
“No one even has to know you did it,” he wrote — though the cat’s out of the bag now that the letter was published.
The flamboyant felon, 53, is a year into his 22-year sentence in the failed murder-for-hire plot against Baskin, who runs a big-cat zoo in Florida.
His reps have been campaigning for a pardon as Trump’s time in office comes to a close — even reportedly spending $10,000 at the president’s hotel in Washington, DC.
Exotic became a star from behind bars following the hugely successful Netflix series “Tiger King,” which aired at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US.
Kardashian, 40, appears to be a fan of the show and tweeted about it back in March.
She and her friend Jonathan Cheban dressed up as Baskin and Joe Exotic for Halloween, while Kardashian’s four kids went as tigers.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Kardashian had received the letter.
Exotic recently penned another letter to Fox 23 in Oklahoma, begging for Gov. Kevin Stitt to rally on his behalf.
“I am not only asking President Trump for an immediate pardon, but I am asking Governor Stitt to place a call to President Trump and ask him to sign my pardon,” he wrote.
In April, Trump said he’d “take a look” at Exotic’s request.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/08/joe-exotic-asks-kim-kardashian-to-help-get-him-pardon/
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Ohio teacher was robbed at knifepoint by a convicted felon — who had only been out of prison for 36 days — during a Zoom meeting with a student
Amanda Zupancic, a special education teacher at Kirtland Local Schools, was alone at her Cleveland home on Nov. 23 when she heard glass shattering during a virtual session with a middle school student and his mother, she told WEWS.
“There was a man walking through my baby gate with a knife in his hand walking upstairs,” Zupancic recalled.
“He started threatening me, yelling at me, calling me names. He grabbed me upstairs into my bedroom.”
As the Zoom call was still ongoing, the knife-wielding man starting rifling through Zupancic’s belongings and grabbed watches and wedding rings, she told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“He was telling me, ‘Don’t move. Give me your wallet and keys,’” Zupanic said.
Zupancic, whose husband and 1-year-old had left just 20 minutes earlier, said she then led the armed intruder downstairs, where she unlocked a baby gate to release her two dogs: a German shepherd and a Great Dane-boxer mix.
As one of her pooches “went at him,” Zupancic took the split-second opportunity to grab a pair of scissors and chase the man to her front door, she told WEWS.
“I started chasing him with his pair of scissors, in my house shoes, down the street, yelling, ‘Help me, help me, this guy robbed me,’” the shaken teacher recalled.
A contractor working nearby spotted Zupancic and tackled the suspect, later identified as Charles Derosett, and detained him until cops arrived, WEWS reported.
“I’m lucky that there’s enough loving people in the world to figure this all out,” she told the station.
Derosett, meanwhile, was indicted by a Cuyahoga County grand jury last week on charges of aggravated robbery and felonious assault.
He had been out of prison for 36 days prior to the alleged break-in, WJW reported. It is unclear why he was in prison.
It’s unclear if Derosett has hired an attorney who could speak on his behalf, ABC News reported.
“This individual needs to be taken off the street,” Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley told WJW. “Our county is not safe with him out again, he is out for 36 days and breaking into occupied homes. He needs to go back to prison.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/08/teacher-robbed-at-knife-point-during-zoom-call-with-student/
Photo Credit: Amanda Zupancic
Man on trial for killing schoolboy who threatened to reveal ‘intimate’ relationship
A 19-year-old British apprentice fatally bludgeoned a 15-year-old schoolboy with a wrench after paying nearly $2,700 to stop him from reporting their “intimate” relationship to cops, prosecutors allege.
Matthew Mason, an apprentice mechanic, allegedly lured Alex Rodda to a remote wooded area under the guise of meeting up for sex last December and then struck him at least 15 times with a long wrench, the Manchester Evening News reported.
Rodda’s partially clothed body was found near the village of Ashley in Cheshire, England, on Dec. 13.
Prosecutors said the boy had been involved in an ongoing intimate relationship with Mason, then 18, at the time of his death, the newspaper reported.
Prosecutor Ian Unsworth told a judge Monday that Mason led Rodda to the woods “on the pretense of sexual activity” before murdering the boy in “cold blood,” BBC News reported.
Weeks earlier, Rodda had reached out to Mason’s girlfriend and told her he had received “flirty” messages from her boyfriend, including an explicit video and photo, Unsworth said.
Mason, who denies killing Rodda, also shot down allegations that he sent the boy explicit material, but the aspiring mechanic allegedly started making deposits in Rodda’s bank account, ultimately paying him $2,696, according to prosecutors.
Rodda also told a friend Mason had been paying him for sex and threatened to go to cops if he stopped, which the teen’s pal said was wrong and amounted to “blackmail,” Unsworth said.
Mason later allegedly complained in messages recovered by investigators that the payments were “cleaning him out,” the Chester Chronicle reported.
Unsworth said the pair had sex on at least five occasions after connecting on Instagram, the Manchester Evening News reported.
At one point, Rodda’s mother allegedly returned home and found her son “flustered” with Mason inside, according to the newspaper.
“You may well think that Matthew Mason didn’t want Alex to tell anyone about their relationship,” Unsworth said in court Tuesday. “He manifestly made sure that Alex never could.”
Mason’s trial, which adjourned for the day Tuesday, is expected to last several weeks.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/08/uk-teen-accused-of-murdering-boy-who-threatened-to-reveal-r elationship/
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Cops raid home of scientist who said she was fired for not doctoring COVID-19 data
Florida police on Monday raided the home of a former state data scientist who claimed she was fired from the Department of Health for refusing to doctor coronavirus figures.
Rebekah Jones posted video on Twitter showing officers with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement drawing their guns as they entered her house in Tallahassee.
“They pointed a gun in my face. They pointed guns at my kids,” she wrote.
Jones — who has been a vocal critic of Gov. DeSantis’ handling of the pandemic since she was canned in May — said agents seized her phone and computer.
“They claimed it was about a security breach. This was DeSantis. He sent the gestapo,” she wrote.
A police spokeswoman confirmed that officers served a search warrant at Jones’ home, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.
The warrant stemmed from an investigation into an alleged hack of the Department of Health’s messaging alert system used for emergencies.
On Nov. 10, someone used the alert system to send a message stating: “It’s time to speak up before another 17,000 people are dead. You know this is wrong. You don’t have to be a part of this. Be a hero. Speak out before it’s too late,” the newspaper reported.
About 1,750 of the messages went out before delivery was stopped, according to the search warrant.
Agents suspect someone at Jones’ home “illegally accessed the system,” the police spokeswoman said.
Jones denied hacking the system.
“I have never had access to that system,” she told the Sun Sentinel. “I am not a hacker. I do data statistics and analysis.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/07/cops-raid-home-of-scientist-who-said-she-was-fired-for-not-doctoring-covid-19-data/
Photo Credit: Florida Department of Health
Politically correct Santa tells crying kid he won’t bring him Nerf gun
A mall Santa dropped the hammer on a little boy who asked him for a Nerf gun for Christmas — telling the bawling kid he wouldn’t bring him the toy.
The politically correct Kris Kringle was caught on video asking the child what he wanted for the holiday, according to a Facebook post by the boy’s mother.
The boy apparently mentioned a gun, because the Santa could be heard replying, “No, no guns.’’
When the kid’s mom, who was standing nearby, piped in just to be clear, “Nerf gun,’’ the not-so-jolly Ol’ St. Nick was still having none of it.
“Nope, not even a Nerf gun,’’ said the unmoved Father Christmas, who was sitting at a table surrounded by fake presents, with the boy across from him nervously holding his face mask, in what looked like a mall.
“If your dad wants to get it for you that’s fine, but I can’t bring it to you,” the Santa Claus said. “What else would you like? Lots of other toys. Legos. There’s bicycles. There’s cars and trucks. What do you think?”
The child turned to his mom and burst into tears, continuing to sob even when she bent down to hug and comfort him — and told him, “You’ll still get it.’’
It’s not clear when or where the incident took place, but the Twittersphere reaction was swift — and heavily against Santa.
“Leftists are monsters!” one user wrote.
Another added, “Havnt kids been through enough this year? I give the mom credit because I would have caused a scene”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/07/santa-tells-crying-kid-he-wont-bring-him-nerf-gun/
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Cartoon Network and Black-owned animation studio launch awards show honoring Black animators
(CNN) — Cartoon Network Studios is partnering with animation house Black Women Animate to establish the Black in Animation Awards Show.
The online event will be held Sunday and aims to recognize Black creatives who have left a tremendous mark and continue to do so within the field of animation.
“This is a time to celebrate and honor Black creatives who often do not get the recognition that they deserve within the media industry,” said JLove Calderón, the managing partner of Black Women Animate. “Many Black animators have been doing this work for so long and are often overshadowed. This awards show will not only pay respect to them but also inspire the next wave of future Black animators, producers, and creatives alike.”
The inaugural ceremony will be hosted by Grammy-winning artist Estelle, who voices one of the characters on the Cartoon Network series “Steven Universe.” Estelle will perform as well.
“When JLove and I came up with the idea, we were surprised to learn that there wasn’t already a platform to celebrate Black animators yet,” said Taylor K. Shaw, founder and CEO of Black Women Animate.
“This is so important in this moment because we have had a very challenging year, and this year for Black people especially, has not been the easiest. As we think about the way this country and the entertainment industry is going, it’s even more critical that Black folks are being centered and honored for our contributions to the media and animation industry.”
Black Women Animate, also known as BWA, was founded by Shaw in collaboration with Calderón, the organization aims to create content and offer production-related services to other studios and companies within the animation industry.
“The name of our studio is very intentional; it serves as a call to action that our studio is a place to support the rise of Black female talent in animation,” Calderón said. “When we first started, we were told that no one was going to work with us due to our name. Fast forward three years later, when you are focused on authentic representation it makes a greater impact in our content, mission, and influence on the entertainment industry.”
BWA is run by Black female creative professionals and focuses on hiring and creating content produced by minorities.
“We are a mission-driven animation studio it is our goal to create awesome content that is reflective of the African diaspora,” Shaw said. “And while doing that, we want to make sure that we are consciously hiring Black women, women of color, and non-binary people of color. We exist as a studio to amplify creativity and Black talent.”
BWA hopes that the award show and future events the studio is planning can help inspire the next generation of creatives.
“My message to the future generation of creators is you can, and you will,” said Shaw. “And these people that you are watching in the award show are examples of what is possible to become in the field of animation and beyond as well. Keep your dream alive.”
The inaugural Black in Animation Awards show will be broadcast online on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT. Viewers must register to watch the show at BWA’s website.
via: https://www.kmov.com/cartoon-network-and-black-owned-animation-studio-launch-awards-show-honoring-black-animators/article_b4ded204-1715-559e-a7ae-88a20021f293.html
Photo Credit: Courtesy Kristina Bakrevski
‘I couldn’t save either one of them.’ ICU nurse loses husband and mom to Covid-19
(CNN) — Oklahoma City ICU nurse Lizanne Jennings comforted her husband, Dennis, in the moments before he succumbed to Covid-19.
“Are you ready to be at peace?” she recalled asking him on November 23.
‘He said, ‘Uh-huh.’ And I said, ‘OK. Mom’s fine. She’s back at the house. She’s going to stay with me.’ Because I knew he would keep fighting if I told him my mom had already died. And so they started giving him morphine and Ativan. I turned him over and I rubbed his back. I said, ‘I love you.’ He said, ‘I love you.’ And I said, “You’re going to go now, OK? You can finally be at peace.'”
Dennis took his last breath 30 minutes later, Jennings told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on Tuesday. Her mother, Linda, who had also been infected with Covid-19, had died just three days earlier.
“It’s just so raw,” Jennings said in an interview, struggling to keep her composure as her son Brayden placed his hand on her shoulder.
“Sometimes I’m grieving for my husband and then I realize my mom’s gone. And I’m grieving for my mom. I just think … oh, I’m going to go tell Dennis but then Dennis is gone. So the two people that would have been so supportive … you know, they’re both gone.”
The sense of loss leaves her and her two sons feeling like they’re drowning, she said.
“As we go down, we’re trying to push the other one back up to take a breath,” she said. “It didn’t have to be this way…. Our family didn’t have to be gutted.”
Her son Brayden, an attorney, lamented that he couldn’t be there to support his mother when he also became infected.
“It’s kind of like we’re broken, but we’re continuing to break,” he said. “And at that time when I got that positive result that, that took away her support system. They were both in the hospital, and I couldn’t come hug my mom because I couldn’t get her sick.”
Jennings and her son remembered Dennis as strong and “full of life.” Before becoming ill, dad had beaten his son in a pushup contest.
But, months after warning her husband about the deadly virus, Jennings now watched him lying on his stomach in a hospital bed. Moments after he died, she bathed him and cut his hair.
“And then I left him,” she said. “There’s nothing else. I couldn’t save either one of them. If people don’t wear masks, they don’t want to wear a mask… This got brought into our home. My mom never left the house. My husband was so careful. Stop being selfish. Stop being selfish. That’s all.”
In March, during the start of the first wave of the pandemic, Jennings talked to her husband about how much worse things were going to get.
“‘Look at me. This is going to get bad. This is going to get so bad,'” she told him.
“I said, ‘One of us could die and I need you to hear that and I need you to wear your mask and I need you to hand sanitize. And so he did… Mom stayed home for eight and a half months. And so you have people that are doing everything right and we didn’t get to hug my mom and we didn’t go anywhere… And we still lost them. It doesn’t matter how strong you are. People are like, ‘Oh man, Dennis is so strong. He’s going to make it.’ It happens no matter what. The virus keeps winning.”
via: https://www.kmov.com/news/i-couldnt-save-either-one-of-them-icu-nurse-loses-husband-and-mom-to-covid/article_a09de7ea-1a66-5c77-8602-3e0dcceff716.html?block_id=985911
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Model claims sunbathing vagina for 2 hours a day boosted her libido
A Brazilian model claims that she increases her sex drive with a little afternoon d-light by way of sunning her vagina.
“Nothing better than a morning sun…,” 23-year-old Letícia Martins, who goes by Lunna Leblanc, captioned a nude Instagram post of herself this week in which she displays her naked body, legs spread at the sun.
“Did you know that exposing your private parts to the sun can provide you with more energy, increase your libido, improve circadian rhythm (which regulates the entire functioning of the human body) and still help you get a good night’s sleep?” the bikini influencer continued in Portuguese, ending the post with a question to her 14,400 followers. “What did you think of this experience?”
The majority of comments on the photo, which has racked up more than 1,200 likes since being posted, are mostly fire and heart emojis and comments on Martins’ body, with a few stragglers warning of the sun’s dangers, including its cancer-causing abilities. “If you want to upload more juicy content do it but don’t mess with practices that can be fatal,” wrote one troubled viewer, reprimanding Martins and telling her “don’t mislead your followers.”
Several studies have linked vitamin D to sex drive changes, although Martins doesn’t cite any scientific backing for pointing your genitalia at the sky.
Last year, wellness influencers were gripped by another nude trend involving pointing one’s nether regions at the sky: perineum sunning. Medical experts, however, were quick to dismiss its benefits.
“There is no evidence that sunbathing in this way has any effect on physical well-being,” Dr. Diana Gall of UK-based online doctor service Doctor 4 U told Insider at the time. “Yes, practicing mindfulness and meditation, and getting your dose of vitamin D, is beneficial for mental and physical health, but you don’t need to damage your skin in the process from sun exposure.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/12/04/model-claims-sunbathing-vagina-daily-boosted-libido/
Photo Credit: Instagram