Transformer explosion causes chaos in New York City
The explosion at a power plant in Queens, New York, caused the sky to light up a turquoise blue hue, knocked power out in the area and grounded flights at LaGuardia Airport.
Black sales exec was compared to ‘Buckwheat,’ told to dance for colleagues, lawsuit alleges
By Janelle Griffith
A former sales executive for Marriott Vacations Worldwide alleges in a lawsuit that he was asked to dance during meetings as entertainment for other employees and that a photo of the character Buckwheat was used to represent him during a team building exercise.
Daryl Robinson is suing for unlawful race discrimination, unlawful race harassment, failure to prevent race discrimination and harassment and retaliation for opposing forbidden practices.
Robinson began working in February 2017 as a sales executive with Marriott Vacations Worldwide selling timeshares to vacation properties. He says he was the only African-American employee in the office.
In the suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday, Robinson alleges that he was asked on multiple occasions to dance by a director of sales during sales meetings, usually to music by Michael Jackson.
On another occasion, the director of sales complimented most of the staff by saying “we have a good-looking crew” or related comments, according to the suit. The director of sales then looked at Robinson and allegedly said, “Daryl looks ready to breakdance.”
Robinson said his co-workers laughed at the remark and he was “completely humiliated, dejected and felt completely defeated.”
John Dalton, Robinson’s attorney, told NBC News on Wednesday that Robinson was singled out and embarrassed while at his offices in Palm Desert, California.
“Admittedly, one time, he did get up and dance,” Dalton said. “There were a number of times he was asked and he was like, ‘No, no thanks.’ And when he did get up, he was the new guy. He didn’t want to make waves.”
Dalton said he spent several months investigating Robinson’s claims and was able to corroborate most of them by speaking to his former colleagues.
At another meeting, when Robinson did not submit a baby photo of himself to use for a team building exercise centered around how well employees knew one another, a colleague displayed a photo of “Little Rascals” character Buckwheat and asked the team: “Who do you guys think this is?”
Robinson says he had already informed his colleague who was collecting the photos that he did not have one to submit and that as the only African-American in the office, his photo would be easy to identify.
Robinson alleges that he was told by this colleague that if he did not provide a photo, she would use an image of Buckwheat. He claims that he told her that the character was stereotypically racist, degrading to African-Americans and would be inappropriate and offensive to him if she used it but she did anyway.
He walked out of the meeting in tears after the photo was shown and his two supervisors apologized, his lawyer said.
Robinson also claims that he was not given a cubicle like the other sales representatives and instead, worked out of a “cramped” storage closet that had no air conditioning. The work space was half that of his colleagues, the suit states. He claims his co-workers even wondered aloud if he was put there because of his race, according to the suit.
Robinson’s doctor put him on a medical leave because of his anxiety, his attorney said. Robinson resigned from the company on Jan. 1, 2018.
Marriott Vacations Worldwide spokesman Ed Kinney told NBC News on Wednesday: “We are aware of the allegations of this suit but as a policy, do not comment on legal issues and matters.”
Robinson is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, according to the suit.
Trump Threatens to Close Border if Congress Won’t Fund Wall
WASHINGTON — On the seventh day of a partial government shutdown, President Trump threatened on Friday to close the southern border and cut off aid to Central America if Congress refuses to fund a wall.
“We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall & also change the ridiculous immigration laws that our Country is saddled with,” Mr. Trump tweeted Friday. “Hard to believe there was a Congress & President who would approve!”
“We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall & also change the ridiculous immigration laws that our Country is saddled with,” Mr. Trump tweeted Friday. “Hard to believe there was a Congress & President who would approve!”
Mr. Trump escalated his threats as up to 800,000 government workers were left in limbo and with Congress not set to take up the issue again until after the new year. “At this point, it looks like we could be in for a very long-term shutdown,” Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina and a close ally of Mr. Trump’s, told CNN.
Democrats stood firm against agreeing to funding for a border wall, according to a spokesman for Representative Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California and the incoming House speaker. “Democrats are united against the President’s immoral, ineffective and expensive wall, the wall that he specifically promised that Mexico would pay for,” the spokesman, Drew Hammill, said in a statement. Mr. Hammill also noted that the White House has made no formal outreach to Ms. Pelosi since Dec. 11, when Ms. Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, met with the president at the White House.
Mr. Trump also reiterated his threat on Twitter on Friday to cut off aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador as punishment to countries he claimed “are doing nothing for the United States but taking our money.”
Migrants have been fleeing Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, choosing to join caravans and confront Mr. Trump’s threats to prevent them from crossing the border over the dangers of life at home.
Mr. Trump has made threats to shut down the border completely before. Last month, Mr. Trump said he would close the border “permanently” if Mexico refused to send asylum seekers back to their native countries.
His latest warning comes as Democrats are preparing to take control of the House of Representatives and have shown no sign of caving on his demands for $5 billion for a border wall. Democrats are considering three different ways to reopen the government, none of which include money for Mr. Trump’s proposed wall, his signature campaign promise.
In a series of tweets on Friday morning, Mr. Trump also complained that the North American Free Trade Agreement cost the United States so much money “that I would consider closing the Southern Border a ‘profit making operation.’”
In another sign that the White House sees no end to the shutdown in sight, Mick Mulvaney, the budget director who is set to take over as acting White House chief of staff in the new year, said on “Fox & Friends” on Friday that Mr. Trump would remain in Washington through New Year’s Eve.
Mr. Trump, who had been scheduled to spend a 16-day stretch over the holidays at his private club in Florida, has postponed the trip because of the shutdown. His wife, Melania Trump, left on Thursday for the Palm Beach club, Mar-a-Lago, a spokeswoman said.
When asked about Mr. Trump’s threat to close the border entirely, Mr. Mulvaney said that “what the president is trying to do, and rightly so, is shed some light on what’s happening here.”
Mr. Mulvaney also sought to divide Democrats, indicating that while he believed Mr. Schumer might be willing to come to a compromise on wall funding, “the more we’re hearing this week is that it’s Nancy Pelosi who is preventing that from happening.”
Article via NYTimes
Instagram assures users horizontal feed change was just a test
Instagram head Adam Mosseri took to Twitter Thursday to reassure users alarmed by an unannounced change in the apps’ interface that the shift from a vertical scroll to a horizontal swipe was just a test that accidentally rolled out widely.
Why it matters: There have been reports that Instagram has been testing the new design for months, presumably to foster deeper user engagement with content and less “mindless scrolling” between posts.Show less
What they’re saying: “This was supposed to be a very small test but we went broader than we anticipated…Should already be rolled back,” Mosseri said on Twitter.
The big picture: Mindless scrolling between posts was a big problem for Instagram’s parent company Facebook, and was something executives told investors repeatedly that they wanted to fix.
- To do so, Facebook changed the type of content it would algorithmically surface in the feed to include fewer posts from brands and media companies, and more from friends and family.
- Instagram seems to be trying a different approach: Swiping requires a more deliberate thumb gesture than scrolling.
Between the lines: Some users complained about the adjustment on social media, arguing that it made the functionality difficult to understand and that the “swipe” function between posts was not preferable to scrolling.
Yes, but: Users frequently complain about app redesigns at first before they adjust to changes. There was an uproar in 2015 when Instagram updated the app so that posts were no longer chronological, but rather algorithmically surfaced in the feed.
Be smart: With most redesigns, users do eventually come around. But we’ve seen with Snapchat’s redesign earlier this year how that effort can go very wrong, and alienate users who feel that the changes go too far.
Article via Axios
Teen’s mugshot goes viral for the wrong reason
The mugshot of a 19-year-old man sparked a social media frenzy as many appeared to be astonished by the man’s age.
Murad Mansurovich Kurbanov was arrested Tuesday and charged with theft of a rental vehicle, failure to stop at the command of police and reckless driving, according to FOX 13 Salt Lake City.
His alleged crime, however, isn’t what got social media riled up.
A mugshot was posted on the FOX 13 Salt Lake City Facebook page and comments poking fun at the man ensued.
“Where’s the 19 yr old?? I only see the 40 yr old,” one person commented.
“If that dude is 19 then I’m 12,” another person wrote.
Another wrote: “This dude really makes me feel good about being in my 40’s”.
As of Thursday morning, the post had generated more than 650 comments.
One user also admitted they were only there for the comments.MOn Tuesday, police saw a U-Haul van run through multiple red lights and illegally pass vehicles in Murray. Police attempted to pull Kurbanov over but he didn’t stop, FOX 13 Salt Lake City reported, citing a probable cause statement.
Later, a tip led police to Kurbanov’s location. He was found at a Murray apartment complex and told responding officers he was there visiting a friend, the station reported, citing a probable cause statement.
Police escorted him to his friend’s apartment but no one answered and he couldn’t provide another way of contacting the friend, the station reported.
The U-Haul rental he had rented was supposed to be returned Dec. 14, but wasn’t. Under Utah state law, it was considered to be stolen.
Man tried to pay for McDonald’s with bag of weed
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Police in Florida say a 23-year-old man went through a McDonald’s drive-thru and tried to pay for his order with a bag of marijuana.
News outlets report Port St. Lucie police say the fast food worker denied the trade and Anthony Andrew Gallagher drove off, only to return again a short time later. Police arrested him Sunday on charges of marijuana possession and driving under the influence.
Police were alerted to Gallagher’s offer early Sunday morning and got a description of him from the worker. They say a suspect matching his description went through the drive-thru a little while later and police approached him.
It’s unclear if Gallagher attempted to pay for his order with drugs the second time. It’s also unclear if he has a lawyer.
via: https://pix11.com/2018/12/25/police-man-tried-to-pay-for-mcdonalds-with-bag-of-weed/
Kentucky man has been arrested after he threw a ham at a woman during an argument over which day Christmas dinner should take place.
LONDON, Ky. (AP) — Authorities say a Kentucky man has been arrested after he threw a ham at a woman during an argument over which day Christmas dinner should take place.
WAVE-TV reports that David Brannon was arrested Sunday after he tried to flee from police officers who reported to a home on a domestic dispute call.
The Laurel County Sheriff’s Office said Brannon threw items at the woman, including the ham to be eaten for Christmas dinner.
Deputies say several items were found on the kitchen floor.
Brannon is being held in the Laurel County Correctional Center on charges of assault and fleeing or evading police. Online jail records do not show if he has a lawyer.
Mom Wants To Know How To Help Her ‘Racist Infant’ & People Are Getting Heated
Teaching your kids to be thoughtful about race is not just a good suggested parenting practice — it’s absolutely crucial. But for one mom, her overwhelming concern that her child is racist has caused the Internet to question her own thinking. That’s because the kid she’s worried about is only 4 months old. The mom wrote in to an advice column looking for ways to deal with her infant’s “issue,” but many are now pointing out that it most likely isn’t the baby who has a problem.In a letter written to Slate’s advice columnist, the mom known as She Didn’t Know Any Better! shared her concerns:
Dear Care and Feeding,
I’m a white parent with a white family, in a predominantly white area. When my kids get closer to school age, we’d like to move into a more diverse area, and for now I try to choose books and media with diverse characters. However, yesterday, at a company party, my 4-month-old met a black person (the significant other of a co-worker) for one of the first times. He had just finished telling me how much babies love him; then, my infant took one look at him and started crying. I gave a weak excuse about her being hungry, but it was pretty transparent.
I’m embarrassed and unsure if I should address the situation with my co-worker or pretend it didn’t happen. Any thoughts on how to handle my racist infant?
—She Didn’t Know Any Better!
In a recent edition of the Care and Feeding advice column, the new mom explained that despite ensuring that her kid is exposed to “books and media with diverse characters,” her daughter cried when she met someone who was African American for the first time.
“He had just finished telling me how much babies love him; then, my infant took one look at him and started crying,” she wrote. “I gave a weak excuse about her being hungry, but it was pretty transparent.”
Pretty … transparent?
Doctor tells parents their partially paralyzed 7-year-old was ‘faking her symptoms’ to get her parents attention because she was jealous of her new baby sister.
When 7-year-old Bailey Sheehan arrived at a hospital in Oregon partially paralyzed, a doctor said the girl was faking her symptoms to get her parents’ attention because she was jealous of her new baby sister.
But that doctor was proved wrong when an MRI showed that the girl had acute flaccid myelitis or AFM, a polio-like disease that’s struck hundreds of children since 2014.
Erin Olivera, mother of a child with AFM and founder of a private Facebook page for parents of 400 children with the disease, says Bailey’s experience is hardly unique. She estimates that based on postings by parents, as many as 1 in 10 children were told that the paralysis was all in their heads when they first sought medical care.
Experts who study the art and science of diagnosis say the problem goes beyond this one rare disease. They say that in general, when presented with a puzzling disease, physicians too often leap to a diagnosis of a psychiatric problem.
“Mental disorders become the default position to deal with medical uncertainty,” said Dr. Allen Frances, former chair of psychiatry at the Duke University School of Medicine. “It’s widespread, and it’s dangerous.”
Dr. Mark Graber, president emeritus of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, added, “It’s a tendency that physicians have when they can’t find a physical cause.
“It’s bad. It’s very bad.”
Bailey’s story
Bailey was a healthy little girl until October 28, 2014, when she suddenly couldn’t move her neck or her right shoulder or leg.
A rehabilitation expert at a children’s hospital said Bailey wasn’t really paralyzed, according to her mother, Mikell Sheehan.
The doctor said the paralysis was an emotional reaction to her sister’s birth four months earlier. He diagnosed Bailey with a mental condition called conversion disorder.
Sheehan told the doctor off.
“I said, ‘You’ve been with my child for 15 minutes, and you think it’s psychological? Get out of my face,’ ” she remembered.
Sheehan said the doctor hinted that she was unstable.
“He said, you know, ‘moms with new babies don’t get enough sleep,’ ” she said.
Bailey’s regular pediatrician, who’d known the girl since birth, disagreed with the diagnosis and pushed for further testing. That’s when the MRI showed that she had AFM.
Armed with the correct diagnosis, Bailey received treatment for AFM, including extensive physical therapy, and four years later is walking again.
“We were lucky that her pediatrician was such an advocate for us, but I don’t know if everyone’s that lucky,” Sheehan said.
Sheehan says she understands why doctors didn’t immediately think of AFM for her daughter, because the disease was not well-known four years ago. But there are several other causes of paralysis in children, and she wonders why her daughter didn’t get a full round of testing for those.
Dr. Benjamin Greenberg, a neurologist who’s seen cases of AFM across the country, said that even this year, when AFM has made headlines nationally, parents have told him that doctors have missed the disease and suggested that their children were faking their paralysis.
“The stories I can tell are maddening and saddening,” said Greenberg, associate professor of neurology at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
Four years later, Sheehan says, she still feels the scars from her daughter’s misdiagnosis.
“You feel violated and wrongly accused,” she said.
The dangers of false certainty
Though there’s no data indicating how frequently doctors misdiagnose physical conditions as psychiatric ones, experts in the field of diagnosis say they see it all too often.
It typically starts when a patient has a perplexing illness and doctors feel a need to come up with a diagnosis.
“Doctors are uncomfortable with not having answers,” Frances said.
The consequences can be “catastrophic,” he said, because a misdiagnosis can lead to a patient receiving treatment for a disease they don’t have and missing out on treatment for the disease they do have.
“False certainty is much more dangerous than uncertainty,” he said.
The American Medical Association and the American College of Emergency Physicians declined requests for comment.
Graber, who is also professor emeritus of medicine at the Stony Brook University in New York, said part of the problem is that medical students are taught that physical symptoms sometimes have a psychological basis. That’s true, he said, but doctors need to thoroughly test for physical problems before defaulting to a psychiatric diagnosis.
“Physicians have an obligation to do a thorough workup before turning to a psychological explanation,” he said. “When a doctor can’t find a cause, that’s a great time to get a second opinion or consult with a specialist.”
Frances added that it’s OK for a doctor to simply say “I don’t know.”
“Doctors need to learn to embrace medical uncertainty,” he said.
Girl, 14, shot ‘point blank’ by mom after calling 911
A woman bound the ankles and wrists of her 14-year-old daughter with zip ties — then fatally shot the girl between her eyes at “near point-blank range’’ as the brave youngster was on the phone with 911 pleading for help, police said.
The horrific murder took place Tuesday in the Seattle, Wash., suburb of Renton.
Before the gun was fired, the dispatcher heard someone shout, “You called 911” and something that sounded like “blow your head off,” ABC News reported.
Authorities say the mom, 52-year-old Svetlana B. Laurel, who is separated from her husband, Michael Gulizia, went to his home on Tuesday, according to ABC.
He recently had been awarded custody of the girl, Natalie, and her 12-year-old brother. Laurel was told she could make only supervised visits.
Laurel arrived on her unsupervised visit while her daughter was upstairs and Gulizia and the boy were out, The Seattle Times reported.
Around that time, she called a friend in New York and spoke to him in Russian. The friend said the call was “strange,” noting Laurel told him she had amended her will to include him. The pal, fearing she’d commit suicide, called Renton cops and asked them to check on her. They didn’t get the chance.
When her husband and son arrived home, she allegedly tied up the boy, jammed a sock into his mouth and threatened to use a stun gun on him.
Laurel got the drop on her husband, used her zip ties to restrain him and zapped him with the stun gun, according to the Times.
When she heard the commotion downstairs, the daughter dialed 911 and was shot to death. Laurel then allegedly tried to kill Gulizia with her pistol — but it misfired, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
As Svetlana was struggling to clear the malfunction, Gulizia rammed her into the wall with his shoulder and was able to grab the weapon.
Officers arrived too late to save the daughter.
Laurel, who had no police record, was charged with numerous crimes and could be sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Both Gulizia and his wife worked at Boeing.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/12/23/girl-14-shot-point-blank-by-mom-after-calling-911/