The manager of a Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Iowa organized a winner-take-all betting pool for supervisors to wager on how many workers at the facility would contract COVID-19 around the start of the pandemic, a new lawsuit charges.

The manager of the Waterloo pork plant, Tom Hart, allegedly set up the sadistic wager as coronavirus spread through the company’s facilities around the globe and workers crowded into the Iowa plant without face masks or other protective equipment.

In the federal lawsuit filed in Iowa, the son of a plant worker who died of coronavirus, alleges Hart and other supervisors steered clear of the plant floor in late March and early April “because they were afraid of contracting the virus.”

“Around this time, Defendant Tom Hart, the Plant Manager of the Waterloo Facility, organized a cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many employees would test positive for COVID-19,” the suit states.

On April 12, more than two dozen workers at the plant were hospitalized with coronavirus, according to the suit.

The plant remained open despite repeated calls from local officials to stop production, the suit states, and supervisors were encouraged to work even if they had symptoms of the deadly virus.

On one occasion, a top plant official, “intercepted a sick supervisor en-route to get tested and ordered the supervisor to get back to work, adding, ‘we all have symptoms—you have a job to do’,” the suit alleges.

The plant is the company’s largest pork plant in the US and employs some 2,800 workers.

In May, the Des Moines Register reported more than 1,000 workers at the facility tested positive for the virus.

The son of the worker who filed the suit, Oscar Fernandez, is seeking unspecified damages for gross negligence.

Tyson Foods and Hart did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/18/tyson-foods-boss-had-betting-pool-for-worker-covid-19-cases-suit/

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Gonorrhea infections are increasing in Michigan, according to state health officials.

By the end of October, cases of gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease (STD), had surpassed those reported in 2019, the Detroit News reported, citing the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

Last year, an estimated 18,264 gonorrhea infections were reported in Michigan. The state this year is on track for a 22 percent increase in infections.

The uptick in cases is “even more alarming as it is likely an underestimate of the actual burden of disease due to decreased testing for sexually transmitted diseases during the pandemic,” health officials said in a statement, per the outlet.

“A shortage of testing supplies during a significant statewide increase in cases presents an alarming potential for a host of negative health outcomes for (Michiganians),” Joneigh Khaldun, the department’s chief medical executive and chief deputy for health, said in a statement, according to the Detroit News. “Because laboratory testing is challenging at this time, it is imperative that medical providers continue to clinically diagnose and treat suspected cases of gonorrhea to slow the spread in our state.”

Gonorrhea – colloquially referred to as “the clap” – is an STD that can affect both men and women, typically causing “infections in the genitals, rectum and throat,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Most people become infected with gonorrhea after having intercourse with someone who has the disease.

Men who have the STD can experience a burning sensation when urinating, discharge from the penis – it’s usually green, yellow or white in color – and swollen testicles. For women, however, symptoms are less obvious – if they’re apparent at all.

“Even when a woman has symptoms, they are often mild and can be mistaken for a bladder or vaginal infection,” the federal health agency says, noting women with gonorrhea “are at risk of developing serious complications from the infection, even if they don’t have any symptoms.”

If a woman does experience symptoms, however, they typically include a burning sensation when urinating, increased vaginal discharge and bleeding between periods, among other signs.

The disease can cause serious complications if left untreated. The gonorrhea bacterium is capable of spreading through an untreated person’s bloodstream and eventually infecting other parts of the body, causing joint pain and a skin rash, according to the Mayo Clinic.

If the disease is left untreated altogether, it can also lead to infertility in both men and women.

via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/19/gonorrhea-infections-increasing-in-michigan/

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The former Ohio cheerleader acquitted of murdering her newborn baby has been released from probation nearly two months early — saying she wants to be “a normal person again.”

Brooke Skylar Richardson was sentenced to three years probation for burying the baby girl’s corpse in her parents’ Carlisle backyard in May 2017. She was released on Tuesday after serving 14 months, the Dayton Daily News reported.

racy Johnson, the grandmother of Richardson’s child, fought against her early release.

“You had the option of giving her up to six months in prison with time served … I don’t think three years probation is too much to ask,” Johnson told Warren County Judge Donald Oda II.

Richardson, meanwhile, again apologized in a teary-eyed statement in court.

“I am sorry for everything I have put everyone through … I know that doesn’t seem like a lot at all,” she said, according to the publication.

“I am very sorry and I hurt a lot. I just want to show that I can be a normal person again, that’s all.”

The judge said the purpose of probation was not punishment.

“There is no reason for me to invest the time and resources of my probation department in supervising you,” Oda told Richardson.

“It is an opportunity to demonstrate why the stated prison term of 12 months in prison should not be imposed.”

Richardson was 18 years old when she hid her pregnancy from her family and friends, giving birth to a full-term baby girl she named Annabelle in 2017.

She claimed the baby was stillborn — but was charged with killing the child and burying it in her parents’ backyard.

A jury acquitted Richardson of murder but convicted her of abuse of a corpse.

Oda sentenced her to seven days in county jail but she was credited with time served and given three years probation.

via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/18/brooke-skylar-richardson-released-from-probation-early/

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A California woman showed up at her neighbors’ home with what appears to be a Taser and told them to “stop acting black” in their “white neighborhood” when a confrontation over their dogs escalated, videos show.

“You guys are acting like black people and you should act like white people,” the white woman — whom neighbors identified as Adana Dean — said in footage of the altercation, news station KGO reported.

Jariell Jones, who is black, said Dean initially approached her 13-year-old nephew Monday in their Discovery Bay neighborhood asking to pet the family’s pit bull, Dice, and he obliged, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

But then five minutes later, she showed up on their doorstep and claimed that their dog had attacked her poodle.

Dean was seen on video holding her poodle in one hand and what appears to be a Taser in the other, KGO reported.

“I don’t want to see that dog outside,” Dean could be heard telling Jones’ brother, Gerritt Jones.

Gerritt then replies, “Well, he’s going to be outside, I have a right to have him outside like every other person.”

In the videos, Dean could be heard telling him, “You’re a black person in a white neighborhood and you’re acting like one. Why don’t you act like a white person in a white neighborhood?”

Gerritt asked Dean to leave the property, which she eventually did, but not before threatening legal action against the family, KGO reported.

Dean on Tuesday said she had only approached the family to ask if the pit bull had received its rabies shot.

“The reason I went to them was because there was a dog in the street with a little boy — a little black boy — so I knew whose it was,” Dean told the Chronicle.

She denied making any racist comments and suggested that the Jones family had doctored the footage.

“There’s no racial discrimination here — absolutely none. I am completely aghast at what’s going on here,” Dean told the paper.

She also insisted that she had not been wielding a stun gun, saying it was a device that uses a bright light to chase away other dogs, the outlet reported.

The Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office said it responded to the scene, though they determined there was no criminal behavior.

“Although Deputies determined that no crime had been committed, a report was taken to document the interaction between the two neighbors, as the original complaint was in reference to a neighbor dispute due to an off-leash dog,” the agency said.

The Jones family denied the pit bull was off its leash and called accusations they altered their video “delusional.”

“She’s obviously lying, and it’s sad to see that she continues to lie, even after she’s been caught,” Jariell told the Chronicle.

via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/18/ca-family-told-to-stop-acting-like-black-people-by-neighbor/

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A devoted Army National Guard soldier killed herself after she reported being sexually assaulted on the job — but the military branch did nothing to help, according to her mom.

“To think that that’s what took her life — that’s what broke her,” Debbie Robinson, the mother of officer Morgan Robinson, told CBS Evening News.

“They wanted her body. And they took her soul.”

The horror that led to Morgan Robinson’s suicide began two years earlier, when one of her supervisors allegedly sexually assaulted her multiple times while they were stationed in Kuwait, according to CBS, which is investigating failures by the US military to address sex crimes internally.

But when Morgan reported the attacks, higher-ups did “nothing” to punish the supervisor or protect her, according to her mother.

“She got nothing,” Debbie said.

While on the same deployment, Robinson was then sent to Afghanistan, where multiple soldiers allegedly gang-raped her, CBS reports. This time, she was too scared and disillusioned by the system to report it — and four months later, she committed suicide.

The Army began an investigation into her untimely death and later handed Debbie a report — but much of it was redacted.

The parts that weren’t blacked out said: “Sergeant Robinson suffered sexual, physical, and psychological trauma while deployed. The sequel of this trauma was a factor in her death,” according to CBS.

“I just didn’t understand how they could actually stand there and look me in the eyes, and hand that to me,” the mom said.

She believes the Army is responsible for Morgan’s death — for failing to properly investigate her daughter’s first sexual assault claim and “handle what happened.”

“They can’t police their self. How can you investigate yourself? You can’t,” Debbie said, adding there should be an outside agency that probes sexual assaults within the Army.

Eight months after her death, the officer who allegedly attacked her in Kuwait was finally given a written reprimand — which Debbie said is too little, too late.

“[It was] a job that she loved. It was for her country,” she said of her daughter, who joined the Army in 2010. “Everything just plays over and over and over in [my] head, thinking, ‘Did I miss something? Could I have done something?’”

The Army said in a statement that officers conducted a full investigation into the sexual assault report and took “appropriate” action against the supervisor in question.

“The department remains committed to our goals of ending sexual assault in the military, providing the highest quality response to service members and holding offenders appropriately accountable,” the Army’s principal policy adviser Elizabeth Van Winkle said.

via: https://nypost.com/2020/11/18/soldier-killed-herself-after-being-gang-raped-by-colleagues-mom/

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