Referee banned for using rock/paper/scissors backed by 100s of officials
The referee banned for using rock/paper/scissors to decide kickoff has been backed after hundreds of fellow officials got in on the act.
Referees across grassroots matches in England used rock/paper/scissors ahead of their games after ref David McNamara was banned for using that method before a Women’s Super League match. McNamara was suspended for three weeks by the Football Association.
“A lot of us were thinking of David,” referee Ryan Hampson told BBC Sport. “We wanted to show solidarity.”
Hampson said players had requested rock/paper/scissors before he took control of the match in Lancashire.
“Without me saying a word, four players came up to me and said: ‘Are we getting on the rock/paper/scissors today?’ as they had seen coverage of the issue,” he said.
Law 8 states that before the match or extra time, “a coin is tossed and the team that wins the toss decides which goal it will attack in the first half of the match.”
“We can’t condone anyone deliberately breaking the laws of football,” Ref Support UK chief executive Martin Cassidy said. “However, we understand hundreds took part.
“The level of support should send out a message that the punishment was disproportionate. This suggests people are willing to face a possible charge from the FA or their county FA as they feel so strongly about it.”
However, not everyone is behind this heart-warming act of solidarity.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right. Referees are law-enforcers and not law-breakers,” a Southern Sunday League spokesperson told the BBC. “This action is unprofessional, and it brings the game into disrepute.
“Doing this due to a forgotten coin is one thing, but this is a step too far.”
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3rd Autopsy Finds Evidence of Foul Play in Gym Mat Death: Kendrick Johnson’s family is trying to get case re-opened
A third autopsy has been done in the strange case of a teen found dead in a rolled-up gym mat in January 2013, and this one found evidence of foul play. Kendrick Johnson’s parents have had two of the three autopsies done, as they continue to insist the 17-year-old’s death was no accident, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. The Georgia sophomore was found upside down in the mat in his high school’s gym; state and local investigators believe he got stuck inside while reaching for a pair of sneakers. The state medical examiner’s office found that he died of positional asphyxia, meaning that he suffocated due to the position he was trapped in. The Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office classified his death as accidental, and Kenneth and Jackie Johnson have been fighting that finding ever since; they have had their son’s body exhumed twice, per the Valdosta Daily Times.
The two autopsies done at their request found the teen died of non-accidental blunt force trauma between his neck and abdomen. The Johnsons believe their son was killed by two sons of a local FBI agent, though video evidence showed they were not near the Lowndes High School gym at the time Johnson was last seen alive. A federal investigation was opened into the teen’s death and ultimately found no evidence of foul play. Because of that, the Journal-Constitution says the impact of the latest autopsy will likely be “minimal.” But WALB reports that in addition to the latest autopsy, the Johnsons submitted an affidavit to the local sheriff’s office stating that they were told this year someone killed their son by hitting him in the chest with a 45-pound dumbbell and that surveillance footage was edited to remove more than an hour of video. They are hoping to get the case re-opened.
via: http://www.newser.com/story/267414/3rd-autopsy-finds-evidence-of-foul-play-in-gym-mat-death.html
Florida Woman Made 13-Year-Old Girl Walk Naked In Public
A Florida woman is facing a child abuse charge after she allegedly punished a 13-year-old girl by forcing her to walk naked down a road.
Rosalie Contreras, 34, was arrested Thursday evening on one count of child abuse related to the incident, which happened around 4 p.m. that day in Dade City.
The victim’s relationship with Contreras has not been disclosed, but the girl told deputies Contreras wanted to punish her for misbehaving, according to BayNews9.com.
Contreras allegedly drove the girl to a remote location, made her remove her clothes and then made the girl walk naked and barefoot down the road while she followed in her car.
When another car came driving by, deputies said, Contreras made the girl get back in the car. The suspect allegedly slapped the victim, punched her back and twisted her breasts, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
The teen victim later called police and reported Contreras for child abuse. Deputies said she showed bruises and red marks that allegedly came from Contreras.
Police said Contreras admitted to taking the victim out to the location and claimed an unnamed person would not let her spank the girl.
Investigators said Contreras allegedly admitted to hitting and injuring the girl, according to ABC Action News.
Contreras was booked into the Pasco County Jail where she remains, according to jail records.
Woman fatally shot as husband was cleaning gun
CORINTH, N.Y. — Police say an upstate New York woman was killed in an apparent accident when a shot discharged as her husband was cleaning his gun.
New York state police say 34-year-old Ashley Rosenbrock was shot Thursday night in her home in Corinth. She was pronounced dead at Saratoga Hospital.
Police said Saturday that Rosenbrock’s 35-year-old husband, Eric Rosenbrock, was “performing maintenance” on his legally owned handgun when it went off.
The investigation is ongoing and no charges have been filed.
The Post-Star of Glens Falls reports that Eric Rosenbrock is a science teacher in the Lake George school district and the father of three young children with his wife. The couple had an 18-month-old daughter who died from an infection five years ago.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/11/17/woman-fatally-shot-as-husband-was-cleaning-gun-cops/
Days Away From Mars, NASA Awaits ‘The Seven Minutes Of Terror’
Article via Forbes
Flying the freeway to Mars, the robotic probe InSight nears the end of its 301-million-mile cruise with nary a hitch and hardly a hiccup.
But looming just ahead is the exit ramp—the Martian atmosphere.
“There’s a classic term for it,” says Rob Grover of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “The seven minutes of terror.”
That’s approximately the time InSight takes to land, a spooky 70-mile descent from the top of the atmosphere down to the ground.
Says Grover: “There is very little room for things to go wrong.”
Yet hundreds of things must go right, all without NASA’s backseat driving; during landing, there’s no joysticking.
“We can’t fly the vehicle in ourselves,” Grover says. “The flight computer on board has to do it on its own. Everything has to work perfectly by itself.”
And for those seven minutes: “Our hearts will be pounding.”
On left, the cruise stage, now separated; on right, the backshell containing the lander.Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
InSight lands November 26, the Monday after Thanksgiving, at 11:47 AM Pacific Time (2:47 PM Eastern).
Before the clock starts: The cruise stage—its delivery done—detaches from the capsule containing the lander.
Then the capsule—just before reaching the atmosphere—points itself, “tilting down 12 degrees,” says Grover. NASA’s leeway is minuscule, only “plus or minus a quarter of a degree.” Too shallow an angle, and the spacecraft skips off the atmosphere. Too steep, and it burns up.
And now the terrifying part.
Illustration: EDL (entry, descent, and landing) is underway.Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
InSight thunders in at 12,300 miles per hour—almost three-and-a-half miles per second.
Friction roasts it. The temperature on the heat shield hits 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.
Friction also brakes it; within two minutes, the speed of the spacecraft slows by more than 90 percent.
Yet it’s still going 1,000 miles per hour.
At seven miles up—commercial airliners fly about that high—the parachute opens. Within 15 seconds, the heat shield jettisons. For the first time, the lander is exposed to Martian air.
Another 10 seconds, and the three legs deploy. One mile above the ground, the lander falls from the backshell. Descent engines turn on. Touchdown velocity is 5 miles per hour.
Illustration: InSight lander, with parachute, descending.Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
Illustration: InSight, legs extended, touching down.Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
Much could happen. The parachute might not open properly. The falling heat shield could graze the lander. Descent engines may not shut off. A large surface rock could sit in the way. One of the legs might not release and lock.
Those scenarios, though unlikely, are not implausible. Any of them could cause an erratic landing.
“If the lander were to tip over,” says Grover, “it doesn’t have the ability to right itself. We would be stuck in that position. The science would be very difficult to do.”
Not helping any of this: The probe touches down during dust storm season.
“A global dust storm can blow up in a matter of days,” acknowledges Grover. But NASA isn’t fretting.
“We’ve been rehearsing for that,” he says. “We’ll land successfully in just about any conditions thought possible during the season.”
Right now, atmospheric dust is minimal; weather at the landing site appears normal.
Illustration: the InSight lander, deployed on the Martian surface. InSight will study the “inner space” of Mars, says NASA—its crust, mantle, and core. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
Grover—a 17-year JPL veteran, including six years on InSight—admits “there’s a lot of anticipation” at NASA about the landing.
“A combination of excitement and nervousness,” he says. “But there’s a sense we’ve done everything we can.”
Any surprises from the mission, he expects, will be good ones.
“There’s magic around it,” he says, “even better than Christmas.” Just get past those seven minutes.
Worse than opioids: Alcohol deaths soar among the middle aged, women
Alcohol kills more people each year than overdoses through cancer, liver cirrhosis, pancreatitis and suicide, among other ways.
The last time lawyer Erika Byrd talked her way out of an alcohol rehab center, her father took her to lunch.
“Dad, I know what alcohol has done to me,” she told him that day in January 2011. “I know what it has made me do to you and mom. But that wasn’t me.”
By the time she died three months later, Byrd had blocked her parents’ calls because they kept having her involuntarily committed. They once had a magistrate judge hold a hearing at her hospital bed. He ordered herto undergo a month of in-patient treatment.
Byrd, who died in April 2011 at the age of 42, is among the rising number of people in the United States who have been killed by alcohol in the last decade.
It’s an increase that has been obscured by the opioid epidemic. But alcohol kills more people each year than overdoses – through cancer, liver cirrhosis, pancreatitis and suicide, among other ways.
From 2007 to 2017, the number of deaths attributable to alcohol increased 35 percent, according to a new analysis by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. The death rate rose 24 percent.
One alarming statistic: Deaths among women rose 67 percent. Women once drank far less than men, and their more moderate drinking helped prevent heart disease, offsetting some of the harm.
Deaths among men rose 29 percent.
While teen deaths from drinking were down about 16 percent during the same period, deaths among people aged 45 to 64 rose by about a quarter.
People’s risk of dying, of course, increases as they age. What’s new is that alcohol is increasingly the cause.
“The story is that no one has noticed this,” says Max Griswold, who helped develop the alcohol estimates for the institute. “It hasn’t really been researched before.”
The District of Columbia, less than 10 miles away from the Venable law office where Byrd was a partner, had the highest rate of death from alcohol in the country, according to the institute’s analysis. Georgia and Alabama came in second and third.
Alabama, in fact, ranked third among states with the strongest alcohol control policies, as rated by medical researchers in a 2014 report published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
States can influence drinking – especially dangerous binge drinking – with policies such as taxes on alcohol and restrictions on where and when it can be sold.
Psychologist Benjamin Miller, chief strategy officer at the nonprofit Well Being Trust, says the larger health challenges in the South are to blame for high alcohol death rates. Southern states typically rank near the bottom in national rankings in cancer, cardiovascular disease and overall health.
Oklahoma, Utah, Kansas and Tennessee rounded out the five states with the strongest alcohol control policies, the researchers reported. States with more stringent alcohol control policies had lower rates of binge drinking, they found.
Nevada, South Dakota, Iowa, Wyoming and Wisconsin had the weakest alcohol control policies.
David Jernigan, a professor at Boston University’s school of public health who has specialized in alcohol research for 30 years, notes that the beer industry holds considerable sway in Wisconsin.
Binge drinking is sending far more people to the emergency room, a separate team of researchers reported in the February 2018 issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
The researchers, who looked at ER visits from 2006 to 2014,found the largest increases were among the middle aged – especially women. The number of teenage binge drinkers landing in the ER during that time actually declined.
States can influence drinking – especially dangerous binge drinking – with policies such as taxes on alcohol and restrictions on where and when it can be sold.
Psychologist Benjamin Miller, chief strategy officer at the nonprofit Well Being Trust, says the larger health challenges in the South are to blame for high alcohol death rates. Southern states typically rank near the bottom in national rankings in cancer, cardiovascular disease and overall health.
Oklahoma, Utah, Kansas and Tennessee rounded out the five states with the strongest alcohol control policies, the researchers reported. States with more stringent alcohol control policies had lower rates of binge drinking, they found.
Nevada, South Dakota, Iowa, Wyoming and Wisconsin had the weakest alcohol control policies.
David Jernigan, a professor at Boston University’s school of public health who has specialized in alcohol research for 30 years, notes that the beer industry holds considerable sway in Wisconsin.
Binge drinking is sending far more people to the emergency room, a separate team of researchers reported in the February 2018 issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
The researchers, who looked at ER visits from 2006 to 2014,found the largest increases were among the middle aged – especially women. The number of teenage binge drinkers landing in the ER during that time actually declined.
Older, often lifelong drinkers don’t need only to have their stomachs pumped. They frequently have multiple complications from their drinking.
Their often bulbous bellies need to be drained of fluid, which builds up from liver cirrhosis, and their lungs cleared of aspirated vomit, says Dr. Anthony Marchetti, an emergency room doctor at Upson Regional Medical Center in Thomaston, Georgia.
They might also have brain hemorrhages or internal bleeding, because booze prevents their blood from clotting properly.
By middle age, Marchetti says, long-term drinking can also lead to heart failure, infections due to immune suppression, a type of dementia from alcohol-induced brain damage, stomach ulcers and a much higher risk of cancer.
Read more 12News
Mel B details attempted suicide with 200 painkillers in new book excerpt
In December 2014, during the live “X Factor” shows, Mel B tried to take her own life by downing 200 painkillers. She blacked out and woke up covered in bruises.
It echoed a previous attempt on her own life aged 14 when she was growing up in Leeds.
She was replaced for the Saturday semi but bravely appeared for the Sunday live final in a dress which showed off her injuries. At the time she blamed a stomach ulcer.
Here, in an exclusive extract from new autobiography Brutally Honest, Mel explains what really happened over those few dramatic days.
—
Here I am, 39 years of age, staring in a mirror in the en-suite bathroom of my rented house in Kensington, London, holding an open bottle of aspirin from the stash I’ve stockpiled over the years, putting one pill after another into my mouth.
As each pill goes into my mouth, I ask myself: “Are you sure?” And I take another one. Ten, 20, 50, 100. “Are you sure?”
It’s Thursday night. 11 December 2014. I’ve come back from dinner with my husband Stephen. Tomorrow I’m going to “The X Factor.”
It will be the red-carpet launch for the final weekend. I’ll be wearing a beautiful dress, my hair and make-up will be perfect. But if you want the absolute truth, I don’t care about any of it. My life is a mess and I want out.
One hundred and 20. “Are you sure?” 150. “Are you sure?”
Behind the glitter of fame, I felt emotionally battered, estranged from my family.
I felt ugly and detested by the very man who once promised to love and protect me, my husband and manager Stephen.
A man who after ten years of marriage now had a library of sex tapes that could — as we both well knew — ruin my career and destroy my family.
I wrote frantic, disjointed notes for Phoenix, my eldest daughter, my soulmate — the girl who is little sister, friend and daughter to me.
It was going to be up to her to get my other little girls, Angel and Madison, to Leeds where they could all live with my mum.
In my head, in that moment, it was that simple.
Two hundred. “Now what’s going to happen, Melanie? STOP!” As soon as I’d swallowed that last pill, I knew I didn’t want to go anywhere. “Melanie! What the f— are you doing? Get a grip!”
Suicide was not the answer. I had to make my life count. I had to get to a hospital. I had to get those pills out of my stomach before anything happened.
My head was spinning. All I thought was that I needed to get out of the room but for some reason, the door was jammed.
I can’t clearly remember what happened next but I remember throwing myself at the door, crashing my full weight against it.
Those bruises on my face and shoulder everyone saw at “The X Factor” final three days later — most of them were caused by those moments trapped in that doorway.
I can’t remember the pain but I can still remember the fear, panic and absolute confusion in my head.
Then everything started to go black and I collapsed to my knees. I could feel the life in me starting to drain away.
And then nothing, silence. I lay semi-conscious on the bathroom floor and, with tears streaming down my face, drifting in and out of consciousness, waited to die.
I remember getting to the hospital and calling Simon Cowell. I remember he didn’t sound horrified, just calm, like he knew that’s what I needed from him.
I must have lost consciousness again. When I woke up, I was surrounded by doctors and nurses.
“Mom. What the hell?” Phoenix was standing by my bed. Furious, shaking, full of rage. Of all the memories from all those hours, it is the one that still floors me. “Why, Mum? Why? Why?” It was the saddest moment of my life. All I ever want is for her to know how sorry I am, how lost I was and how I’ll never, ever abandon her again.
Looking at my daughter — distraught, devastated, angry — was the moment I knew the fightback had to start.
The situation with “The X Factor” was quickly sorted because it had to be — the semi-finals were going to be shown live in two days’ time.
Tulisa Contostavlos would cover for me on Saturday night and be on standby for the Sunday final.
Despite all the drugs I was being given, I was wired. The doctors kept telling me that I was in the High Dependency Unit and was seriously ill. I needed to get well.
If you think I was surrounded by friends, relatives, other concerned celebrities and flowers, you would be wrong. Thanks to my relationship with Stephen, I was pretty much on my own apart from my security, my hairdresser and Simon my publicist.
Every one of the Spice Girls tried to contact me. I couldn’t speak to them. I wasn’t ready, and I was too ashamed. My family also managed to track me down, but they were the last people I wanted to see.
I remained trapped behind a wall of guilt, shame and worthlessness. I’d been hit in the past, but bruises fade.
My doctor looked at me as if I was completely crazy when I mentioned in the very early hours of Sunday morning that I would be on “The X Factor” later that day.
“That is not happening, Melanie,” he said.
“I don’t think you realise how serious your condition is. You are in intensive care. There is serious damage to your liver and kidneys.”
As my doctor walked out of the room, I texted my stylist: “Send me pix of all the dresses you’ve got me for the final tonight.”
I had bruises round my eyes, my cheek was swollen, and I had massive dark welts on my arms from the constant stabbing at my weak, narrow veins with the IV drips.
“I’ve got three perfect dresses with sleeves,” said my stylist, nervously eyeing the welts and purple marks on my arms which were clearly showing through thick body foundation. “No,” I said. “I’ve picked the dress already. No sleeves.”
Read more via FOX
Jaden Smith reaffirms that Tyler the Creator is his boyfriend: ‘It’s true’
Jaden Smith continues to call Tyler, the Creator his boyfriend.
While promoting his newest project, The Sunset Tapes: A Cool Tape Story, on Apple Music’s Beats 1 Radio on Friday, Jaden addressed his recent love proclamation.
“I recently said that Tyler, the Creator is my boyfriend, and that’s true. So, just so you know,” he said.
Jaden made headlines earlier this week, after appearing to share the relationship news at Camp Flog Gnaw on Sunday night. While praising the rapper on stage, Jaden got real about his feelings for Tyler.
“I just want to say Tyler, the Creator is the best friend in the world and I love him so f**king much,” Jaden said. “And I want tell you guys something. I want to tell you. Tyler doesn’t want to say, but Tyler’s my mother f**king boyfriend, and he’s been my mother f**king boyfriend my whole f**king life. Tyler, the Creator is my f**king boyfriend. It’s true.”
A video of Jaden’s speech panned over to Tyler, who was seen shaking his head and seemingly denying Jaden’s comments. ET has reached out to Jaden’s rep for comment.
Though he briefly mentioned Tyler on Friday, Jaden more openly discussed his past relationship with girlfriend Odessa Aldon.
“I did really f**k up in my relationship with Odessa, and this song is kind of like me being like, ‘Yo, I’m sorry,’ because I am sorry, and I’ve already said sorry to her a million times, but this is me saying sorry to her again,” he said his song, “Fallen Part Two.” “That’s what this song is. It’s kind of sad, high key. I made this in Hawaii, and I was sad.”
Article via Aol
Kanye West donates $150,000 for security guard killed by officer in suburban Chicago
Rapper Kanye West donated $150,000 to a memorial fundraising site for a security guard shot by an officer near his hometown Chicago.
How he was killed
Outrage following the killing
Article via CNN
YouTube is now streaming actual movies you can watch for free
YouTube has had free “movies” for years, most of them ripped from somebody’s DVD copy with a bizarrely cropped video and poorly synced audio (and they even used to be chopped up into 10-minute chunks), but lately the video site has been adding actual legal content that users can buy in order to make it more competitive with services like Amazon Prime. Now, YouTube has reached the next, inevitable stage of any non-Amazon/Netflix/Hulu streaming service: free movies!
Actually, the exclamation point there isn’t really warranted, as the majority of the free movies here aren’t, you know, good. But hey, a free movie is better than a movie you have to pay for (sometimes). The catch, other than some of the movies being bad, is that these free movies are ad-supported, so it’s just like watching an on-demand movie off of a cable box. Deadline notes that this comes after Roku added free, ad-supported movies on its Roku Channel and Walmart’s Vudu service got some free movies of its own. Also, while Deadline doesn’t know exactly how the monetization here works, YouTube says it will eventually be adding a way for advertisers to sponsor individual movies and offer special “screenings.”
But we’ve stalled long enough, and now it’s time to talk about the actual movies you can watch right now. You’ll actually have to go to this link to watch them, but what’s one extra click when it means you can watch Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London for free? Or how about Kevin James in Zookeeper? Or the first Agent Cody Banks? Or Legally Blonde, which is actually a good one? Or Rocky? Or Throw Momma From The Train? Or The Terminator? Or something called Mystery Road? Or a Western starring Josh Peck from Drake And Josh? Or a movie called The Great Buck Howard that has so many famous people in it that it must be good?
Article via AVClub