L.A. County jail inmates try to get COVID-19 to be set free
A group of L.A. County jail inmates intentionally tried to infect themselves with the novel coronavirus, hoping that they would then be set free. The scheme was discovered by a trustee inmate and recorded on video that was released by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. Read the full article: https://lat.ms/3cmufeE
A man drove over 500 miles to deliver N95 masks to his sister who is a nurse
Joshua Yajcaji, 30, drove over 500 miles to bring his older sister protective equipment to the hospital where she works.
Alexis Schulman, 34, is a nurse — among the health workers who are on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic. Like many working in hospitals, Schulman and her colleagues were tight on their supply of protective gear. On its website, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls shortages in protective gear for health care personnel “a tremendous challenge to the US healthcare system.”
Yajcaji wanted to help — so he encouraged Vivint Solar, the company where he works, to donate 395 N95 masks to Cone Health’s Green Valley Campus in High Point, North Carolina, where Schulman works. The hospital is dedicated to treating Covid-19 patients.
The masks were initially bought to protect the workers at Vivint Solar. But after learning that simple face coverings would suffice for its workers as they installed solar panels, the New Jersey-based company decided to donate them to those more in need.
“My sister being in that hospital swayed my mind a bit, but for that hospital to change to a strictly Covid hospital made me make that decision,” Yajcaji told CNN.
A simple FedEx delivery would have been quick and easy, but instead, Yajcaji and his lifelong friend, Corey Vafiadis, set out at 3 a.m. last Thursday to drive 530 miles to North Carolina.
“I haven’t seen my sister in years,” Yajcaji said. “To personally bring it down with something to bring us together (let’s me) show personally I’ll always be there for her.”
Schulman knew that her brother was coming, thanks to a little birdie named mom — but that didn’t make the gesture any less heartfelt, she said.
“I wasn’t surprised. He always does things for people and giving the shirt off his back to make sure they’re taken care of,” Schulman told CNN. “Three hundred and fifty masks mean we can be well protected for another several weeks.”
After Yajcaji passed on the box of masks to his sister, the siblings shared a socially distanced hug. And then Yajcaji and his friend hit the road again to drive back 530 miles to New Jersey.
While the 1,060-mile round trip was long and tiring, Yajcaji said he would do it all over again if he could.
“My sister is my life,” he said. “She’s always been a caring person and now that she found her career as a nurse, she can’t shut up about it. She’s found a real passion for it.”
Photo Credit: Courtesy Joshua Yajcaji
A woman was caught on camera masturbating while half-naked in a Chinese IKEA store prompted stricter security
The two-minute pornographic clip shows the unidentified woman wearing just a white shirt as she pleasures herself in various sections of the store.
As other shoppers walk by, the woman initially sat on a chair, touching herself as she thrust her butt toward the camera.
She then sat on a bed with her legs spread wide — at one point seeming to catch the eye of some guys walking past — before taking off her shirt in a more secluded spot in the store.
After going viral, the X-rated footage was soon scrubbed from Chinese social media — but with interest so high, even the Swedish furniture giant’s response got 9 million views, according to Agence France-Presse.
With nobody wearing a face mask, it is also assumed that the pornographic clip was filmed before the coronavirus outbreak, which brought China to a standstill from late January. The pandemic had forced IKEA to temporarily close stores around the world, including all 50 in its second-biggest market, the United States.
“This woman is so brave, I don’t understand, [she’s] just doing it in broad daylight,” read one Weibo post that gained more than 8,000 likes.
“There are so many people around, I just don’t understand,” another wrote.
It is not the first explicit video to cause a stir on China’s tightly controlled social media platforms, AFP noted.
A Beijing branch of the Japanese clothing chain Uniqlo became infamous in 2015 after a clip of a couple having sex in one of its changing rooms went viral.
Police arrested five people, including the young couple in the video, over the matter, while Uniqlo firmly denied that it was a publicity stunt.
The clip “severely violated socialist core values,” the Chinese Cyberspace Administration said at the time.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/05/11/ikea-masturbation-incident-forces-company-to-tighten-security/
Photo Credit: asiawire
Nurse dies two weeks after rushing without N95 mask to save coronavirus patient
A Los Angeles nurse succumbed to coronavirus just two weeks after rushing without an N95 mask into an infected patient’s room to save his life, according to a report.
Celia Marcos, 61, was only protected by a surgical mask when she gave chest compressions to a man who stopped breathing at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Marcos texted her niece about how she was the “one right in front of his face,” knowing that she’d likely exposed herself to the virus, according to the report.
“Celia was called to a COVID-19 isolation room while wearing only a surgical mask — not the required N95 respirator, gown, face shield, and booties that her hospital should have given her for her protection,” said Nina Wells, who is the president of the SEIU 121RN, a Southern California nurses union, in a statement to the newspaper.
Colleagues said that Marcos had known that going to obtain PPE would waste valuable time that could potentially save the patient’s life, the outlet reported.
“The hospital wasn’t giving us appropriate PPE — the N95s were locked,” a nurse told the outlet.
Three days later, Marcos fell sick with the virus and later told her family that she developed pneumonia in both lungs, the outlet reported.
Marcos, who was previously healthy, went into cardiac arrest as she battled the virus, requiring resuscitation of her multiple times, the newspaper reported.
She died on April 17, just two weeks after she put her life at risk to save the patient, according to the report.
“It’s just too painful for everybody, what happened to her,” her colleague told the outlet.
The hospital has denied that Marcos didn’t have the proper PPE to treat the patient.
“Despite these efforts, and our commitment to following all guidelines, we still lost one of our own to this terrible virus, and we feel this loss very deeply,” the hospital said in a statement to the newspaper.
Photo Credit: facebook
Mount Sinai nurse who sounded the alarm about an inadequate supply of PPE by posting a photo of her colleagues wearing trash bags for gowns was called a “piece of s–t” and told to “shut the f–k up” by a top rep in her own union, emails show
Diane Torres, 33, a registered nurse at Mount Sinai West Hospital who posted the now viral photo on Facebook, was begging for supplies and information back in February but was continually rebuffed by hospital management, emails she sent to her union reps show.
By mid-March, Torres was infuriated by the continued lack of gear and that she wasn’t receiving adequate help from the union, so she posted the photo of her colleagues wearing the makeshift, Hefty-fashioned protective garb.
“NO MORE GOWNS IN THE WHOLE HOSPITAL,” Torres, a mom of three, wrote in the post.
When Torres’s picture got out and made it on the front page of The Post, New York State Nurses Association boss Terry Alaimo slammed her in an email to multiple union members and claimed her outcry was baseless.
“Diane is full of shit and has no F–king [idea] what is really going on… Tell Diane to shut the f–k up and if she has an issue to call me. She is not helping and I am sure she is not working. She is a useless piece of sh-t,” Alaimo, a NYSNA area director for the Mount Sinai System, wrote in the email obtained by The Post.
“Feel free to share,” Alaimo wrote at the end of the email.
Torres, who’s been toiling on the frontlines of the crisis for the last two months and previously served as an elected union delegate, said, “How dare she?”
“I’m useless because I’m trying to do whatever I can to help us? Because I’m afraid, because I’m concerned for my coworkers, for myself, for my family members?” Torres railed.
“They were angry at me because I was trying so hard. How could someone be so angry at me and hate me so much for trying to do the right thing during such difficult times?”
Torres claims she was given a single mask, gown and face shield that she was forced to use for the entire shift, even as she treated non-COVID patients in her acute rehabilitation unit.
“Prior to COVID, everything that comes into contact with the patient that’s contagious cannot leave that room and cannot be used on anyone else. Every piece that you’re wearing needs to be thrown out, it was never made or meant to be reused,” Torres said.
But once the pandemic hit, Torres had to take off the gear, hang it up, and then put it back on repeatedly as she switched between COVID and non-COVID patients, which put her and patients at risk, Torres said. She sent photos to The Post from March 26 showing her gown hanging up as she made rounds between patients.
“We became ‘unknown’ vectors of the virus and are spreading it to those we were suppose [sic] to keep healthy,” Torres told a union rep back on March 18, text messages show.
Mount Sinai Hospital said in a statement that Torres’s allegations are “not accurate” and “anyone moving from COVID to non-COVID always had to replace PPE to ensure no patients or areas were contaminated” and they “always follow CDC guidelines and policies.”
She added it was a “constant battle” to get supplies and when she requested them, she had to give an explanation as to why she needed it.
Alaimo, who earned $162,870 last year in her role according to public records, also asked about the “absolute minimum PPE” nurses needed, even as a slew of healthcare workers were getting sick and dying from the virus, messages from Alaimo show.
“Can someone let us know what you think is the absolute minimum PPE you can work with at the beginning of each shift and we will forward to them,” the message reads.
NYSNA spokesperson Carl Ginsburg downplayed Alaimo’s comments as just a “feud between two people” and said the remarks “in no way characterizes the relationship between NYSNA and its nurse members.”
Ginsburg further noted Alaimo’s comments about PPE were related to guidelines “made permissible” by the Centers for Disease Control, which lowered the PPE bar to “crisis-level” as a result of the pandemic’s magnitude.
But Torres said pointing fingers did not keep her or her colleagues safe. She believes the death of nurse manager Kious Kelly, who died on March 24, could’ve been prevented if he had proper PPE when the virus first struck. His sister previously echoed those same comments to The Post.
Ginsburg said there continues to be a lack of adequate PPE and hospitals, along with local and federal governments, need to do more to protect healthcare workers, especially as an inevitable second wave of the virus looms in the future.
In a statement, Mount Sinai Hospital said they “have always provided the proper PPE to our staff and strictly followed the CDC guidelines.”
“The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated countless lives and families and while our heroes on the frontlines continue to save lives, we will continue do everything in our power to ensure they are protected and supported as best we possibly can,” the hospital statement said.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/05/11/nurse-who-complained-about-lack-of-ppe-told-to-shut-the-f-k-up/
Photo Credit: Matthew McDermott
Photos of armed protesters in North Carolina carrying a rocket launcher, shotguns, and pistols while ordering food at a Subway restaurant are trending
Travis Long/The News & Observer
- Photos of armed protesters ordering sandwiches at a Subway restaurant in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Saturday quickly started to trend over the weekend.
- The protesters marched through Raleigh’s downtown streets to oppose the state’s stay-at-home orders, which it started easing Saturday.
- The armed protest came after others around the country, including a demonstration inside Michigan’s Capitol.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Photos of a group of nearly a dozen armed protesters parading through downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, on Saturday afternoon quickly started to trend.
Travis Long, a photojournalist for The News & Observer, tweeted the photos he took of protesters carrying shotguns, pistols, and an AT-4 anti-tank rocket launcher into a Subway restaurant.
The protesters marched to oppose the state’s stay-at-home orders, which it started easing on Saturday as the state entered phase one of the reopening process, The News & Observer reported.
The photos were widely shared in the US and even given the meme treatment after an Ohio woman digitally replaced the weapons with sandwiches.
The protesters organized on a Facebook group called Blue Igloo, according to The News & Observer. The Facebook page called the protest an “opportunity for First and Second Amendment supporters to get together, meet people with commonalities and get some exercise while we’re all wasting away at home.”
When a member of the demonstration entered the Subway restaurant, he asked if they could come inside and order and said they weren’t trying to scare anyone, according to a livestream of the march reviewed by The News & Observer.
North Carolina had nearly 15,000 COVID-19 cases and over 550 deaths as of May 10, according to Johns Hopkins.
The armed protest is not the first to spark conversation and criticism. A similar demonstration in Michigan’s Capitol on April 30 also drew widespread attention.
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/xandr/photos-armed-protesters-north-carolina-204704216.html
Photo Credit: currently.att.yahoo.com
NBC MEET THE PRESS FULL BROADCAST WITH CHUCK TODD FOR MAY 10TH 2020
Original broadcast date Sunday, May 11, 2020
Man drives BMW into Staten Island woman’s house on Mother’s Day
An 84-year-old Staten Island woman got an unwanted Mother’s Day surprise when a speeding driver launched his BMW 330i into her home’s sunroom early Sunday, cops said.
The unidentified man drove the silver Beemer into the woman’s house at 6000 Amboy Road around 2:30 a.m., cops said.
“I was getting back into bed after getting up to go to the bathroom,” said homeowner Beatrice Rocle. “I heard Ba-rooom! I thought the boiler burst. I opened the door and saw the car on my porch. At least nobody got killed.”
A neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous, said the driver was speeding and jumped a curb before plowing into Rocle’s house.
“He was doing at least 50 mph!” the neighbor said. “He didn’t even slow down, he was flying! He was coming straight down Clearmont Avenue and he flew through the intersection right into the house.”
The neighbor said the man was driving so fast “he hit the curb and went airborne into the house.”
The man then sat in his car honking the horn before he jumped out spewing nonsense and tried to run away. At one point, his pants fell down and he ran into a fence, the neighbor said.
The man was taken to Staten Island University Hospital North with minor injuries. Charges were pending, cops said.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/05/10/man-drives-bmw-into-womans-house-on-mothers-day/
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Betty Wright DEAD at AGE 66
We are losing our great R&B singers!! I remember Mama playing Betty about 1983 is when I first heard Miss Betty Wright!! Her live performances were bangin’
Rats are mysteriously infecting humans in Hong Kong with hepatitis
Rats have been infecting humans in Hong Kong with a new strain of hepatitis, leaving scientists baffled about how exactly the virus was being transmitted from the rodents, according to a report.
There have been at least 11 patients, including one as recently as April 30, who have been found to have the rat strain of hepatitis E, CNN reported.
“What we know is the rats in Hong Kong carry the virus, and we test the humans and find the virus. But how exactly it jumps between them — whether the rats contaminate our food, or there’s another animal involved, we don’t know,” said Dr. Siddharth Sridhar, a microbiologist from the University of Hong Kong.
In the most recent case, the 61-year-old patient had no rats or rat excrement in his home, no one else in his household experienced symptoms, and he has no recent travel history, according to a report.
“Based on the available epidemiological information, the source and the route of infection could not be determined,” said Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection (CHP) in a statement, the outlet reported.
The illness, which can also cause fever, jaundice, and long-term liver damage, can be dangerous for vulnerable patients.
“This should not be happening,” Sridhar told the outlet. “We need ongoing vigilance in the public to control this unusual infection. I really hope that public health authorities take the first step and look at how much their populations are actually being exposed to rat hepatitis E.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/05/10/rats-are-mysteriously-infecting-humans-with-hepatitis-in-hong-kong/
Photo Credit: nypost.com