An 11-year-old was told to clean his room. Instead, he killed his grandmother, then himself, in apparent murder-suicide
An Arizona boy fatally shot his grandmother, then killed himself Saturday, after being instructed to clean his room, his grandfather told authorities.
Doyle Herbert called police at about 5 p.m. to report his wife and their 11-year-old grandson were dead in an apparent murder-suicide, a spokesman for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, Joaquin Enriquez, said in a statement. Hebert told authorities the boy shot his 65-year-old grandmother, Yvonne Woodward, in the back of the head after they’d asked him repeatedly throughout the day to pick up after himself.
The boy was apparently “being stubborn about it,” according to the statement. After killing his grandmother, the boy turned the handgun — which belonged to his grandfather — on himself, the statement said.
The couple had just sat down in their living room in their Litchfield Park, Ariz., home, located about 20 miles west of Phoenix, to watch television when the boy approached his grandmother from behind and shot her, the statement said.
Herbert told police he initially chased after his grandson but stopped to perform first aid on his wife. Moments later, he heard another gunshot, saw his grandson take a few steps, then collapse to the ground. Herbert retrieved the weapon and called 911, police said.
Neighbors told a CNN affiliate that the boy was known for playing around the neighborhood and was part of a “nice family.”
“It really hasn’t set in just yet. I mean this is a nice neighborhood, it’s really quiet — as you can see — it’s just a tragic, tragic thing,” neighbor Walter Venerable told azfamily.
The boy’s grandfather told detectives he and his wife had full custody of their grandson. Investigators have not found evidence that suggests the boy wanted to harm others or himself before this incident.
Amazon drops $25 free shipping minimum for all US holiday shoppers
Amazon, Target, Walmart, and others are fighting hard for your holiday dollars.
Amazon’s latest perk will be available not just for its Prime members but for all holiday shoppers this year. The online retailer announced that starting today, November 5, all US-based Amazon customers can get free shipping with no minimum purchase amount. While the perk lasts only for a “limited time,” Amazon explains that the promotion will affect orders that arrive in time for the Christmas holiday.
Typically, Amazon imposes a $25 minimum order amount for non-Prime members to get free shipping. This promotion waives that minimum for the time being and puts Amazon in step with competitor Target, which waived its $35 order minimum and now offers free two-day shipping to all customers through December 22. Walmart, arguably Amazon’s biggest competitor in the US, has kept its $35 minimum threshold for free shipping for this holiday season (so far, at least).
Amazon is trying to capture as much of the holiday shopping market as possible as it faces growing competition from the likes of Target, Walmart, and other retailers. Amazon already offers free two-day shipping to its Prime members as a standard benefit, but those customers pay $120 annually for Prime. Amazon raised the price of a Prime membership by $20 earlier this year.
Removing the minimum order amount could convince non-Prime members to shop at Amazon more this holiday season than they might have previously. Amazon has the advantage of inventory, with millions of items eligible for free shipping, while Target and Walmart have thousands. Also, Amazon’s shipping and delivery infrastructure is much larger than that of any other US retailer (Target and Walmart have been expanding and striking up partnerships in order to better match Amazon’s delivery system).
However, Target and Walmart have many more brick-and-mortar locations than Amazon does, even with Whole Foods’ locations counting in Amazon’s favor. Both retailers use their thousands of locations to their advantage by offering services like curbside pickup for grocery orders and special in-store promotions.
Amazon instituted a number of promotions and discounts at Whole Foods after it purchased the specialty grocer for $13.7 billion last year, but most of those deals are for Prime members only. As far as other brick-and-mortar stores go, Amazon has a bookstore, top-rated items stores, and cashierless Amazon Go convenience stores across the country, but the number of physical locations pales in comparison to traditional retailers. Amazon likely hopes that offering free shipping with no strings attached to all will convince more people to do most of their holiday shopping online.
Article via Arstechnica
Harvey Weinstein lawyers ask for case dismissal citing text from accuser
Lawyers for disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein asked a judge Monday to toss the remains of the criminal case against him — revealing for the first time that one of the accusers tried to meet with him soon after she claims he abused her.
Production assistant Mimi Haleyi alleged in a press conference last year that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in his SoHo home in 2006.
According to the motion, on Feb. 12, 2007, she allegedly texted Weinstein’s phone: “Hi! Just wondering if u have any news on whether harvey will have time to see me before he leaves? x Miriam.”
“This message makes clear that Mimi Haleyi wished to continue seeing Mr. Weinstein even after the alleged sexual assault,” defense attorney Ben Brafman wrote in the filing.
He blasts prosecutors for not presenting this communication to the grand jury.
The Haleyi text is the latest dent in the Manhattan District Attorney’s rapidly crumbling sex abuse case against the former film industry giant.
She is one of two victims whose allegations are still propping up the indictment. The second victim, who hasn’t been publicly identified, alleges that Weinstein raped her in March 2013.
A judge last month dismissed the felony count related to a third victim, Lucia Evans, over spiraling credibility worries.
Evans, who was once considered the strongest part of the case, accused Weinstein of forcing her to perform oral sex on him in 2004 in his Tribeca office when she was a fledgling actress.
But prosecutors eventually uncovered an exculpatory email she wrote to her husband that suggested that the encounter was consensual.
She also told a friend that the act was not coerced. Evans allegedly told a pal that she gave Weinstein oral sex in exchange for an acting job, according to Joan Illuzzi-Orbon.
The friend said she described her recollections to lead detective Nicholas DiGaudio – but that he pressured her not to disclose the information.
DiGaudio was kicked off the case for alleged misconduct.
A few weeks later, Illuzzi-Orbon disclosed that the same detective coached the second victim to “delete anything she did not want anyone to see” from her phone before turning it over to authorities.
DiGaudio has denied the allegations.
Brafman argues in the latest motion that the entire case has been irreversibly contaminated by DiGaudio’s conduct and Evans’ alleged “perjury.”
The attorney also questioned the credibility of the second victim, who had a “long-term, consensual” relationship with Weinstein, which continued after she alleges he raped her March 18, 2013, in a Manhattan hotel.
In an email sent nearly four years later, she allegedly wrote: “I love you, always do. But I hate feeling like a booty call :)”
These communications, the lawyer says, were also not presented to the grand jury.
Article via PageSix
Principal: Students who spelled out racial slur admit they planned it
GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. – Several Brookwood High School students involved in spelling out a racial slur during a marching band performance at halftime of a weekend football game have admitted to planning the whole thing, according to the school district.
According to a letter to parents and students from Brookwood High School Principal William Bo Ford Jr., the investigation into the Friday night incident found that three seniors planned and executed the stunt.
Ford said a fourth student, who carried one of the letters spelling out the racial slur, appears to have agreed to go along with it “at the last minute.”
“In our interviews, the students — two of whom are African American, one of whom is Asian, and one of whom is Hispanic — indicated that this was intended as a joke, one that they thought would be funny,” Ford said in the letter. “However, they acknowledged that they knew this racist term was not acceptable.”
Ford said two more students weren’t involved in the planning and execution, but gave “false information to school officials.”
All six of these students will receive discipline consequences commensurate with their involvement in this incident,” Ford said in the letter.
Read the entire letter below:
I am following up to you on my communication from over the weekend regarding the situation that occurred during our band’s halftime show on Friday night. As promised, we started an investigation into this matter, and I wanted to share with you our current findings and the steps we are taking with the students who were involved. After extensive interviews with many students, we have determined that three seniors intentionally planned and executed the use of the sousaphone covers to spell out a completely unacceptable, racist term. The fourth student, a junior, who carried one of the letters spelling out the word, appears to have gone along with the plan at the last minute. However, all four of the students knew what was going to happen and knew what they were spelling out during the halftime show. In our interviews, the students– two of whom are African American, one of whom is Asian, and one of whom is Hispanic – indicated that this was intended as a joke, one that they thought would be funny. However, they acknowledged that they knew this racist term was not acceptable. We have identified two other students who do not appear to be involved in the planning and execution but did provide false information to school officials. All six of these students will receive discipline consequences commensurate with their involvement in this incident.
I am hurt and disappointed in these students and their actions that have stunned our community. As you all know, this is not who we are. Brookwood is proud to be an inclusive and accepting school community. This is a teachable moment for all of us, and students need to be aware that their actions and words have consequences.
We are wrapping up our investigation; however, in an effort to be transparent and responsive to our community, I felt it was important to share our findings with you as quickly as possible. I have heard from many of you since my first communication, and, unfortunately, I have not been able to get back with all of you. As you would expect, our first priority was to conduct a thorough and fair investigation into this matter. That said, I appreciate your patience and support and will be reaching out to those who have contacted me. It is also important for us to unite in support of our program and student and staff leaders of our award-winning band. I have faith in our students and community that we will rise together and become stronger in this challenging time. I hope that our program, school, and community will not be judged based on the unfortunate decisions and actions of a few developing teenagers. As always, thank you for your support of our students and school.
© 2018 Cox Media Group
Article via WSB-TV
Lowe’s is closing 51 stores in the US and Canada
New York (CNN Business)In another sign of the times for retail, Lowe’s is closing 51 North American stores.
Florida teen killed mom and buried her in fire pit after arguing over bad grade, police say
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Authorities say a 15-year-old Florida boy strangled his mother after getting into an argument over a bad grade he received. Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood told CBS affiliate WKMG-TV Gregory Ramos was arrested early Saturday after the body of 46-year-old Gail Cleavenger was found buried under a nearby church’s fire pit.
Investigators say Ramos killed her after they argued about his school grades. Chitwood said the boy is one of the “top three sociopaths” he has ever encountered, calling him a “soulless individual.”
Chitwood says he faces murder charges. It was unclear Saturday if he has a lawyer to represent him.
After the killing, authorities say the boy called friends to help him make it look like someone had burglarized the home. The boy initially told deputies his mother was missing.
“To watch how cold and callous and calculating he was, I think was probably the most shocking thing for all of us,” Chitwood said. “No sign of remorse whatsoever.”
The two 17-year-old friends face multiple charges.
Article via CBSNews
Teacher caught on camera punching 14-year-old student at LA school
A teacher and student at a southeast Los Angeles, California, high school came to blows Friday afternoon, and it was all caught on video.
The footage from CNN affiliates KTLA-TV and KCAL shows Maywood Academy High School music teacher Marston Riley, 64, standing face to face with a 14-year-old boy at the front of a classroom when Riley punches him. It’s at this point the two begin exchanging punches. The boy wound up on the ground wrapping his arms around Riley’s leg. Riley, at this point, repeatedly punches him.
The brawl ends with students and what appears to be a campus resource officer trying to separate the two, but Riley continues to pursue the student. It is not clear when the short video started and if it caught the entire exchange.
Students told KTLA the fight began after Riley asked the student to leave the class because he wasn’t wearing the proper uniform. The boy refused, students said, and the video shows him shouting profanity and a racial slur at Riley, who is black.
The boy, who has not been identified, was taken to a local hospital where he was treated for moderate injuries and later released, according to a news release from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Riley was arrested on charges of child abuse, the release said. He posted bond and was released Saturday. Riley has an arraignment scheduled for November 30.
CNN has reached out to Riley, but has not heard back.
“We are extremely disturbed by the reports of the events that occurred at Maywood Academy High School,” the Los Angeles Unified School District said in a statement. “We take this matter very seriously and do not condone violence or intolerance of any kind. Los Angeles Unified is cooperating with law enforcement in investigating this incident. Crisis counselors and additional School Police patrols will be at the school on Monday to support our students and staff.”
via: https://pix11.com/2018/11/04/teacher-caught-on-camera-punching-14-year-old-student-at-la-school/
Roy Hargrove Grammy-Winning Jazz Trumpeter Dies At 49
Roy Hargrove, an incisive trumpeter who embodied the brightest promise of his jazz generation, both as a young steward of the bebop tradition and a savvy bridge to hip-hop and R&B, died on Friday night in New York City. He was 49.
The cause was cardiac arrest, according to his longtime manager, Larry Clothier. Hargrove had been admitted to the hospital for reasons related to kidney function.
A briskly assertive soloist with a tone that could evoke either burnished steel or a soft, golden glow, Hargrove was a galvanizing presence in jazz over the last 30 years. Dapper and slight of build, he exuded a sly, sparkling charisma onstage, whether he was holding court at a late-night jam session or performing in the grandest concert hall. His capacity for combustion and bravura was equaled by his commitment to lyricism, especially when finessing a ballad on flugelhorn.
Hargrove is also known for his vital presence in the turn-of-the-century movement known as neo-soul. He made crucial contributions to Voodoo, the epochal album by D’Angelo, released in 2000. He appeared the same year on Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun and Common’s Like Water for Chocolate, and later formed his own hybrid project, The RH Factor, with the aim of furthering the dialogue between modern jazz, hip-hop and R&B. But Hargrove always maintained his foothold in the mainstream jazz tradition; he saw his forays into other forms of black music as an extension of, rather than any departure from, that tradition.
He first emerged in the late 1980s, at a cultural moment when his precocity and poise amounted to a form of currency in jazz. His first album, Diamond in the Rough, was released on the Novus imprint of RCA in 1990. Soon afterward, he went on tour with a package called Jazz Futures, featuring a peer group of other young torchbearers, including alto saxophonist Antonio Hart and bassist Christian McBride.
Hargrove was also quick to earn the coveted approval of his elders — not only alto saxophonist Bobby Watson, who provided some of his first experience in a recording studio, but also tenor saxophone titan Sonny Rollins, who featured him on a tune called “Young Roy” in 1991 (and also at his 80th birthday concert in 2010).
As he achieved his own wealth of experience, Hargrove was generous as a mentor himself. Among the younger musicians who responded to his death on social media was fellow trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, who wrote on Twitter: “I don’t think I would be alive if I hadn’t met him when I did. I am extremely grateful I got to tell him as a grown man to his face.”
Roy Anthony Hargrove was born on Oct. 16, 1969, in Waco, Texas, to Roy Allan and Jacklyn Hargrove. He grew up in Dallas, where he attended Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, an arts magnet that also produced Erykah Badu and Norah Jones.
The first jazz musician who made a substantial impression on him was David “Fathead” Newman, a tenor saxophonist best known for his long tenure with Ray Charles; he was a Dallas-area native, and Hargrove heard him at a junior high assembly. Then in 1987, Wynton Marsalis heard a teenaged Hargrove in a clinic at Booker T. Washington and was so impressed that he invited the young trumpeter to sit in on his gig that week in Fort Worth.
Roy Hargrove, an incisive trumpeter who embodied the brightest promise of his jazz generation, both as a young steward of the bebop tradition and a savvy bridge to hip-hop and R&B, died on Friday night in New York City. He was 49.
The cause was cardiac arrest, according to his longtime manager, Larry Clothier. Hargrove had been admitted to the hospital for reasons related to kidney function.
A briskly assertive soloist with a tone that could evoke either burnished steel or a soft, golden glow, Hargrove was a galvanizing presence in jazz over the last 30 years. Dapper and slight of build, he exuded a sly, sparkling charisma onstage, whether he was holding court at a late-night jam session or performing in the grandest concert hall. His capacity for combustion and bravura was equaled by his commitment to lyricism, especially when finessing a ballad on flugelhorn.
Hargrove is also known for his vital presence in the turn-of-the-century movement known as neo-soul. He made crucial contributions to Voodoo, the epochal album by D’Angelo, released in 2000. He appeared the same year on Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun and Common’s Like Water for Chocolate, and later formed his own hybrid project, The RH Factor, with the aim of furthering the dialogue between modern jazz, hip-hop and R&B. But Hargrove always maintained his foothold in the mainstream jazz tradition; he saw his forays into other forms of black music as an extension of, rather than any departure from, that tradition.
He first emerged in the late 1980s, at a cultural moment when his precocity and poise amounted to a form of currency in jazz. His first album, Diamond in the Rough, was released on the Novus imprint of RCA in 1990. Soon afterward, he went on tour with a package called Jazz Futures, featuring a peer group of other young torchbearers, including alto saxophonist Antonio Hart and bassist Christian McBride.
Hargrove was also quick to earn the coveted approval of his elders — not only alto saxophonist Bobby Watson, who provided some of his first experience in a recording studio, but also tenor saxophone titan Sonny Rollins, who featured him on a tune called “Young Roy” in 1991 (and also at his 80th birthday concert in 2010).
As he achieved his own wealth of experience, Hargrove was generous as a mentor himself. Among the younger musicians who responded to his death on social media was fellow trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, who wrote on Twitter: “I don’t think I would be alive if I hadn’t met him when I did. I am extremely grateful I got to tell him as a grown man to his face.”
Roy Anthony Hargrove was born on Oct. 16, 1969, in Waco, Texas, to Roy Allan and Jacklyn Hargrove. He grew up in Dallas, where he attended Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, an arts magnet that also produced Erykah Badu and Norah Jones.
The first jazz musician who made a substantial impression on him was David “Fathead” Newman, a tenor saxophonist best known for his long tenure with Ray Charles; he was a Dallas-area native, and Hargrove heard him at a junior high assembly. Then in 1987, Wynton Marsalis heard a teenaged Hargrove in a clinic at Booker T. Washington and was so impressed that he invited the young trumpeter to sit in on his gig that week in Fort Worth.
Hargrove attended the Berklee College of Music on scholarship for 18 months, before transferring to the New School in New York. In jazz’s close-knit musician community, the meteoric force of his arrival was comparable only to that of Marsalis’ about a decade earlier.
Hargrove was a two-time Grammy winner, in two illustrative categories: best jazz instrumental album in 2003 for Directions in Music, featuring a post-bop supergroup with pianist Herbie Hancock and saxophonist Michael Brecker; and best Latin jazz performance in 1998 for Habana, a groundbreaking Afro-Cuban project recorded in Havana.
Early in his New York experience, in 1992, Hargrove and a business partner, Dale Fitzgerald, signed a lease on a loft in Lower Manhattan with the intention of finding a place for practicing and rehearsals. Three years later, Hargrove and Fitzgerald partnered with Lezlie Harrison to convert it into a nonprofit performance space, The Jazz Gallery. Though it moved to a new location in 2013, The Jazz Gallery continues to be an integral hub for the music. Hargrove continued to play there, just as he never stopped being a late-night fixture at Smalls.
He is survived by his wife, singer and producer Aida Brandes; a daughter from a previous relationship, Kamala Hargrove; his mother, Jacklyn Hargrove; and his younger brother, Brian Hargrove.
Along with his quintet — a sterling hard-bop unit that released an album called Earfood in 2008, and was recorded at The Village Vanguard in 2011 by WBGO and NPR Music — Hargrove intermittently led a big band. He often stood in for one of his many trumpet totems in the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band. And he continued to sit in and pop up as a special guest; he’s prominently featured on an album released last year by singer and pianist Johnny O’Neal.
For a number of years, Hargrove struggled with substance abuse and its attendant problems. In 2014, he pleaded guilty to cocaine possession in Manhattan criminal court and was sentenced to two days of community service.
But those close to Hargrove say he had recently made great strides with any issues of dependency. “Whatever it was for a lot of years, it was radically, drastically curtailed over the last year or two,” attests Clothier. “He was playing great; he really had himself back together. This last run we did in Europe, it was as good as I heard him play in the last 10 years.”
Hargrove had been scheduled to perform on Saturday, Nov. 3, in a jazz vespers service at Bethany Baptist Church in Newark, N.J., as part of the TD James Moody Jazz Festival
Via NPR NEWS
Fran Drescher dishes on ‘The Nanny’ reboot with Cardi B
Maybe they’ll call it “Nanny B.”
Fran Drescher says she’s still talking to rap superstar Cardi B about working together on a TV series: either a re-imagining of “The Nanny” — Drescher’s classic CBS sitcom turning 25 on Saturday — or possibly as a mother/daughter TV combo in some other show.
“Look, it probably isn’t going to be ‘The Nanny’ because, for whatever reason, the whole reboot genre is beginning to wane,” says Drescher, 61, who played “The Nanny’s” nasal, flirty Fran Fine, a fashion queen-turned-nanny to the children of Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy), a wealthy, high-society Broadway producer.
COZI TV will pay homage to “The Nanny” on Saturday with an all-day, 25-episode marathon (6:30 a.m.-7 p.m.) celebrating its silver anniversary (it ran from Nov. 3, 1993, to June 23, 1999).
Talk of a possible Drescher/Cardi B pairing began in September, when the Bronx-born rapper, 26, Instagrammed a photo of herself wearing a leopard-skin dress as an homage to Drescher. “She’s a fan of the show and we’re both style icons with funny voices,” Drescher says. “She did that homage to me and it kind of mushroomed because I happened to be doing press [for the animated movie ‘Hotel Transylvania 3’] and I was asked if I was aware that she had linked us together with photos suggesting our similarities.
“I’m actually developing a millennial-and-me baby boomer show [to star in] and I thought maybe this is fortuitous, maybe we would be good together,” Drescher says. “She would be good playing my daughter. I’m taking meetings with her representatives and you never know, maybe something will develop out of that. We’re in the talking stages right now and our fans have been supportive on social media. She’s a fan of mine and I would protect her and take good care of her.
“It could be a limited series; it doesn’t have to be something that goes for years on end — maybe 10 episodes on Netflix or Amazon or any of those streaming channels,” she says. “She’s a very popular singer so I don’t think she would be able to commit to a TV series in the way I have in the past. She’s riding her wave; maybe three months [of shooting] and 10 episodes. She might really enjoy that and it would be another notch in her belt.”
Drescher cautions that, if the two were to strike a deal, the show could differ from “The Nanny,” which ended with Fran and Maxwell marrying and having twins.
“[‘The Nanny’] was a classic kind of fairy tale that had its end. I was really thinking of an original, new concept with [Cardi B] and me,” Drescher says. “Not a reboot of ‘The Nanny,’ but maybe a scenario where she would be the nanny and I could play … not Fran Fine but another Fran who has a different attitude. I’m not sure I’m all that interested in going back.
“When ‘The Nanny’ ended they had babies and were married … Fran was very much [Maxwell’s] partner and equal; the nuances and humor would be the same. Even if we make believe the last season never happened, I feel like I’m a little long-in-the-tooth to still be playing a nanny. There’s something uncool about that. The show has a reverence to it and I wouldn’t want to soil that.”
Still, Drescher would need to find a home for the show before it becomes a reality.
“I think ‘The Nanny’ is still so popular with millennials and on social media and we’re actually much more current [than other reboots],” she says. “It’s so ironic that TV people don’t seem to be wise to that. I don’t have any bites from any networks, to tell you the truth, as unbelievable as it sounds.”
via: https://nypost.com/2018/11/02/fran-drescher-dishes-on-the-nanny-reboot-with-cardi-b/