4 children among 7 injured in drive-by shooting in Arizona: Police

 

Seven people, including four children, were injured in an apparent drive-by shooting Friday night in Mesa, Arizona, authorities said.

The incident occurred around 9:30 p.m. local time in a parking lot where a crowd was gathered, police said. A vehicle drove by and opened fire on families visiting food vendors, police said.

The victims included three adults and four children ages 1, 6, 9 and 16, Mesa Police Department Chief Ken Cost said Saturday afternoon during a press briefing. The children were from multiple families.

The 1-year-old was hospitalized in "extremely critical" condition, Cost said, while the other victims had non-life-threatening injuries that ranged from minor to severe.

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Anchorage, Alaska chooses 1st woman, openly gay acting mayor

 

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Austin Quinn-Davidson will serve as acting mayor of Anchorage starting next Friday after Mayor Ethan Berkowitz's resignation.

Quinn-Davidson, 40, is an attorney who was first elected to the Assembly in 2018. She will be the first woman and openly gay person to serve as mayor or acting mayor of Anchorage, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

The city's charter states that the chair of its Assembly will serve as acting mayor during a vacancy. The Assembly voted Friday to appoint Quinn-Davidson as the new chair, replacing Felix Rivera.

Berkowitz resigned after admitting to having an inappropriate relationship with a female reporter three days after she made online allegations against the married official.

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News for this day 10/18/2020

 

4 children among 7 injured in drive-by shooting in Arizona: Police

 

Anchorage, Alaska chooses 1st woman, openly gay acting mayor

 

Investigation underway after explosion injures several people at a Virginia shopping center

12-Year-Old Makes History As Youngest Student To Study Aerospace Engineering At Georgia Tech

 

Claire and Kobi Anderson said it didn't take long to realize their son Caleb was special.

At age two, he could read the United States Constitution. At age three, and while he learned English as his first language, he also learned Spanish, French and Mandarin, too.

He whizzed through elementary, middle and high school.

"He said, 'Mom I'm bored. This is not challenging'," Claire recalled her son saying. "'It's really not helping me grow in my learning, and I think I'm ready for college.'"

Now, at just 12 years old, he's just started his sophomore year at Chattahoochee Technical College, majoring in aerospace engineering.

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WNBA superstar Sue Bird: 'We are not cute White girls like soccer players'

 

(CNN)They are sport's ultimate power couple -- equal partners as multiple winners at world and Olympic level for the United States -- and even in the autumn of their careers still cutting it at the highest level

Sue Bird turns 40 this week but was a standout in claiming her fourth Women's National Basketball Association (WBNA) title with Seattle Storm, watched from start to finish of the coronavirus shortened season by her girlfriend Megan Rapinoe, the US women's soccer star.

Rapinoe stayed in the WNBA bubble to support Bird's latest triumph and celebrated with the team as the Storm swept past Las Vegas Aces in three straight games in the finals.

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A Michigan teacher was giving a virtual lesson when she heard a student's grandma slur her words. What she did next saved a life

 

A first-grade teacher at a Michigan elementary school is being hailed as a hero after alerting the school principal that her online student's grandmother was having a stroke.

Julia Koch was teaching her virtual learning class at Edgewood Elementary School on September 22 when she received a call from a grandparent who was having technical difficulties.

When Koch spoke to Cynthia Phillips, who was having trouble charging her granddaughter's school tablet, the teacher noticed something was off in the grandmother's voice.

"It was clear there was something very wrong. Her words were so jumbled, and I couldn't understand what she was trying to say," Koch told CNN. "She didn't sound like herself."

 

Worried that Phillips might be in danger, Koch immediately called Charlie Lovelady, the principal of the school in Muskegon Heights, who then got a staff member to call 911 while he spoke to Phillips on the phone.

"I noticed her speech was impaired, and I asked her if she was alright, and she was stumbling over her words and it was getting worse by the minute," Lovelady told CNN. "I knew the symptoms of a stroke because I lost my father from a stroke so I told her hold on and immediately got her help."

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'I Never Saw Stars Before': Gene Therapy Restores 8-Year-Old's Sight

 

An 8-year-old boy in Toronto was losing his vision due to a rare genetic disorder.

Now he can now see clearly again, thanks to gene therapy.

 

Sam was diagnosed after birth with a genetic disorder called retinitis pigmentosa, a form of genetic retinal degeneration resulting from mutations in the RPE65 gene. Symptoms often begin in childhood, which includes decreased vision at night or in low light as well as loss of side vision.

The eye disease is progressive and affects between 1 in 3,500 to 1 in 4,000 Canadians, according to Fighting Blindness Canada.

"Sometimes you have to walk in the night and I couldn't see things and you bump into things," Sam told CTV News.

So, last year, Sam and his family traveled to the U.S to try gene therapy because it wasn't approved in Canada yet.

His mother, Sarah Banon, noticed changes quickly.

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Ex- GOP lawmaker charged with assaulting poll worker

 

RALEIGH, N.C. -- A former North Carolina Republican lawmaker who was observing an early voting site in Wake Forest on behalf of his party was charged Friday with a Class 3 misdemeanor for allegedly assaulting a poll worker.

Gary Pendleton, a 73-year-old former state House lawmaker and former Wake County commissioner, confirmed the charge. He said he had pushed an early voting official who he says blocked his pathway to enter the polling site around 7:30 a.m.

At the direction of his county party, Pendleton said he had sought to gain access to the site an hour before the polls opened at 8 a.m. to make sure no fraudulent voting activities were taking place. He said he was met by a security guard who refused him entrance.

When he asked for a supervisor to let him in, the supervisor instructed him that he'd have to wait outside. Frustrated with the experience, Pendleton tried to re-enter about 20 minutes later, where he was again refused entry by the same elections official.

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https://newscafeinkfish.blogspot.com/2020/10/battle-over-eu-ban-on-veggie-burger.html

Battle over EU ban on ‘veggie burger’ label reaches key vote

https://newscafeinkfish.blogspot.com/2020/10/ex-gop-lawmaker-charged-with-assaulting.html

 Ex- GOP lawmaker charged with assaulting poll worker 

 https://newscafeinkfish.blogspot.com/2020/10/i-never-saw-stars-before-gene-therapy.html

 'I Never Saw Stars Before': Gene Therapy Restores 8-Year-Old's Sight

 

 

Battle over EU ban on ‘veggie burger’ label reaches key vote

Farmers and meat lobbyists accuse plant-based food producers of ‘cultural hijacking’

The terms “veggie burger” and “veggie sausage” could be banned under proposals being voted on by the European Parliament next week. Also banned would be terms such as “yoghurt-style” and ”‘cheese-like” for plant-based alternatives to dairy products.

Sales of these products are growing fast but farming and meat lobbyists say the terms mislead people and amount to a “cultural hijacking” of the meat industry. Opponents, backed by major food companies including Unilever and Nestle, say the claims of consumer confusion are ridiculous. They say a ban would also contradict the EU’s drive to help consumers choose more sustainable food and cut climate-heating emissions.

The meat lobby’s proposal states: “Names currently used for meat products shall be reserved exclusively for products containing meat [including] steak, sausage, escalope and burger.” A similar ban would apply to plant-based chicken products.

Read more on The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/16/eu-ban-veggie-burger-label-parliament-vote-meat

Europe, US reel as virus infections surge at record pace

 

Coronavirus cases around the world have climbed to all-time highs of more than 330,000 per day as the scourge comes storming back across Europe and spreads with renewed speed in the U.S., forcing many places to reimpose tough restrictions eased just months ago.

Well after Europe seemed to have largely tamed the virus that proved so lethal last spring, newly confirmed infections are reaching unprecedented levels in Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy and Poland. Most of the rest of the continent is seeing similar danger signs.

France announced a 9 p.m. curfew in Paris and other big cities. Londoners face new restrictions on meeting with people indoors. The Netherlands closed bars and restaurants this week. The Czech Republic and Northern Ireland shut schools. Poland limited restaurant hours and closed gyms and pools.

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100 top stars, producers express outrage to NBC over Trump's dueling town hall

 

More than 100 Hollywood stars and producers have signed a letter protesting NBC's decision to schedule a town hall with President Trump Thursday night, directly opposite Democratic candidate Joe Biden's town hall on ABC. 

Stars including Ava DuVernay, Billy Porter, Amy Schumer, Julianne Moore and Seth Rogen – and NBC talent such as the cast of "This is Us" and "Law & Order: SVU" actress Mariska Hargitay – said they were "devastated" over the decision. The letter, sent to top NBC Universal executives and obtained by USA TODAY, was also signed by top producers including J.J. Abrams, Greg Berlanti, Damon Lindelof and Dan Fogelman, creator of "This is Us."

"This is not a partisan issue. This is about the political health of our democracy," the letter reads. "President Trump refused to participate in the virtual debate scheduled for Thursday night by the Presidential Debate Commission. By agreeing to air his town hall as counterprogramming opposite Vice President Biden’s town hall on ABC, you are enabling the President’s bad behavior while undercutting the Presidential Debate Commission and doing a disservice to the American public.  

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Black man serving life for stealing hedge clippers paroled

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NEW ORLEANS -- A Black man whose life sentence for making off with hedge clippers in a 1997 burglary drew scathing criticism from the chief justice of Louisiana’s Supreme Court was granted parole Thursday.

The 3-0 vote during an online meeting of the Committee on Parole means freedom, with conditions, for Fair Wayne Bryant.

Louisiana’s Supreme Court had denied release for Bryant, 63, earlier this year for the burglary from a carport storage room.

The case drew national attention for a dissent by Chief Justice Bernette Johnson, the high court's only Black justice. She said the habitual offender law under which Bryant was sentenced was a “modern manifestation” of Jim Crow era laws aimed at jailing Black people for simple crime.

The head of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana said the decision was long overdue.

 

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