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Tag: health and medical

  • Don’t serve disordered eating to your teens this holiday season | CNN

    Don’t serve disordered eating to your teens this holiday season | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: Katie Hurley, author of “No More Mean Girls: The Secret to Raising Strong, Confident and Compassionate Girls,” is a child and adolescent psychotherapist in Los Angeles. She specializes in work with tweens, teens and young adults.



    CNN
     — 

    “I have a couple of spots for anyone who wants to lose 20 pounds by the holidays! No diets, exercise, or cravings!”

    Ads for dieting and exercise programs like this started appearing in my social media feeds in early October 2022, often accompanied by photos of women pushing shopping carts full of Halloween candy intended to represent the weight they no longer carry with them.

    Whether it’s intermittent fasting or “cheat” days, diet culture is spreading wildly, and spiking in particular among young women and girls, a population group who might be at particular risk of social pressures and misinformation.

    The fact that diet culture all over social media targets grown women is bad enough, but such messaging also trickles down to tweens and teens. (And let’s be honest, a lot is aimed directly at young people too.) It couldn’t happen at a worse time: There’s been a noticeable spike in eating disorders, particularly among adolescent girls, since the beginning of the pandemic.

    “My mom is obsessed with (seeing) her Facebook friends losing tons of weight without dieting. Is this even real?” The question came from a teen girl who later revealed she was considering hiring a health coach to help her eat ‘healthier’ after watching her mom overhaul her diet. Sadly, the coaching she was falling victim to is part of a multilevel marketing brand that promotes quick weight loss through caloric restriction and buying costly meal replacements.

    Is it real? Yes. Is it healthy? Not likely, especially for a growing teen.

    Later that week, a different teen client asked about a clean eating movement she follows on Pinterest. She had read that a strict clean vegan diet is better for both her and the environment, and assumed this was true because the pinned article took her to a health coaching blog. It seemed legitimate. But a deep dive into the blogger’s credentials, however, showed that the clean eating practices they shared were not actually developed by a nutritionist.

    And another teen, fresh off a week of engaging in the “what I eat in a day” challenge — a video trend across TikTok, Instagram and other social media platforms where users document the food they consume in a particular timeframe — told me she decided to temporarily mute her social media accounts. Why? Because the time she’d spent limited her eating while pretending to feel full left her exhausted and unhappy. She had found the trend on TikTok and thought it might help her create healthier eating habits, but ended up becoming fixated on caloric intake instead. Still, she didn’t want her friends to see that the challenge actually made her feel terrible when she had spent a whole week promoting it.

    During any given week, I field numerous questions from tweens and teens about the diet culture they encounter online, out in the world, and sometimes even in their own homes. But as we enter the winter holiday season, shame-based diet culture pressure, often wrapped up with toxic positivity to appear encouraging, increases.

    “As we approach the holidays, diet culture is in the air as much as lights and music, and it’s certainly on social media,” said Dr. Hina Talib, an adolescent medicine specialist and associate professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in The Bronx, New York. “It’s so pervasive that even if it’s not targeted (at) teens, they are absorbing it by scrolling through it or hearing parents talk about it.”

    Social media isn’t the only place young people encounter harmful messaging about body image and weight loss. Teens are inundated with so-called ‘healthy eating’ content on TV and in popular culture, at school and while engaged in extracurricular or social activities, at home and in public spaces like malls or grocery stores — and even in restaurants.

    Instead of learning how to eat to fuel their bodies and their brains, today’s teens are getting the message that “clean eating,” to give just one example of a potentially problematic dietary trend, results in a better body — and, by extension, increased happiness. Diets cutting out all carbohydrates, dairy products, gluten, and meat-based proteins are popular among teens. Yet this mindset can trigger food anxiety, obsessive checking of food labels and dangerous calorie restriction.

    An obsessive focus on weight loss, toning muscles and improving overall looks actually runs contrary to what teens need to grow at a healthy pace.

    “Teens and tweens are growing into their adult bodies, and that growth requires weight gain,” said Oona Hanson, a parent coach based in Los Angeles. “Weight gain is not only normal but essential for health during adolescence.”

    The good news in all of this is that parents can take an active role in helping teens craft an emotionally healthier narrative around their eating habits. “Parents are often made to feel helpless in the face of TikTokers, peer pressure or wider diet culture, but it’s important to remember this: parents are influencers, too,” said Hanson. What we say and do matters to our teens.

    Parents can take an active role in helping teens craft an emotionally healthier narrative around their eating habits.

    Take a few moments to reflect on your own eating patterns. Teens tend to emulate what they see, even if they don’t talk about it.

    Parents and caregivers can model a healthy relationship with food by enjoying a wide variety of foods and trying new recipes for family meals. During the holiday season, when many celebrations can involve gathering around the table, take the opportunity to model shared connections. “Holidays are a great time to remember that foods nourish us in ways that could never be captured on a nutrition label,” Hanson said.

    Practice confronting unhealthy body talk

    The holiday season is full of opportunities to gather with friends and loved ones to celebrate and make memories, but these moments can be anxiety-producing when nutrition shaming occurs.

    When extended families gather for holiday celebrations, it’s common for people to comment on how others look or have changed since the last gathering. While this is usually done with good intentions, it can be awkward or upsetting to tweens and teens.

    “For young people going through puberty or body changes, it’s normal to be self-conscious or self-critical. To have someone say, ‘you’ve developed’ isn’t a welcome part of conversations,” cautioned Talib.

    Talib suggests practicing comebacks and topic changes ahead of time. Role play responses like, “We don’t talk about bodies,” or “We prefer to focus on all the things we’ve accomplished this year.” And be sure to check in and make space for your tween or teen to share and feelings of hurt and resentment over any such comments at an appropriate time.

    Open and honest communication is always the gold standard in helping tweens and teens work through the messaging and behaviors they internalize. When families talk about what they see and hear online, on podcasts, on TV, and in print, they normalize the process of engaging in critical thinking — and it can be a really great shared connection between parents and teens.

    “Teaching media literacy skills is a helpful way to frame the conversation,” says Talib. “Talk openly about it.”

    She suggests asking the following questions when discussing people’s messaging around diet culture:

    ● Who are they?

    ● What do you think their angle is?

    ● What do you think their message is?

    ● Are they a medical professional or are they trying to sell you something?

    ● Are they promoting a fitness program or a supplement that they are marketing?

    Talking to tweens and teens about this throughout the season — and at any time — brings a taboo topic to the forefront and makes it easier for your kids to share their inner thoughts with you.

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  • Rosalynn Carter Fast Facts | CNN

    Rosalynn Carter Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here is a look at the life of Rosalynn Carter, wife of former US President Jimmy Carter.

    Birth date: August 18, 1927

    Birth place: Plains, Georgia

    Birth name: Eleanor Rosalynn Smith

    Father: Wilburn Smith, a mechanic

    Mother: Allethea (Murray) Smith

    Marriage: Jimmy Carter (July 7, 1946-present)

    Children: Amy, October 19, 1967; Jeff, August 18, 1952; James Earl III (Chip), April 12, 1950; Jack, July 3, 1947

    Education: Georgia Southwestern College, 1946

    Founder of the “Rosalynn Carter Institute of Caregiving” at Georgia Southwestern State University. The mission of this organization is to help professional and family caregivers with the important role they play in our long-term health care system.

    Along with the Carter Work Project, partners with Habitat for Humanity, an international group of volunteers who build affordable homes for those in need.

    Advocate for mental health, early childhood immunization, human rights, and conflict resolution.

    1953 – The Carters return to Plains, Georgia, and run the family peanut, seed and fertilizer business.

    1962 – Jimmy Carter enters politics and wins a seat in the Georgia Senate.

    1977-1981 – As first lady, she focuses national attention on performing arts and mental health.

    1977-1978 – Serves as the Honorary Chairperson of the President’s Commission on Mental Health, and is instrumental in the passage of the 1980 Mental Health Systems Act.

    1982 – Founds the Carter Center with her husband.

    1984 – Her book, “First Lady from Plains,” is published.

    1985 – Initiates the annual Rosalynn Carter Symposium on Mental Health Policy.

    1987 – “Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life,” with Jimmy Carter, is published.

    1991 – Co-launches Every Child By Two, a nationwide campaign to promote childhood immunizations, with Betty Bumpers, the wife of Senator Dale Bumpers of Arkansas.

    1991-1999 – Serves on the policy advisory board of The Atlanta Project, a program of the Carter Center that addresses the social ills associated with poverty and quality of life around Atlanta.

    1994 – “Helping Yourself Help Others: A Book for Caregivers” is published.

    1999 – Is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

    1999 – The book, “Helping Someone with Mental Illness: A Compassionate Guide for Family, Friends, and Caregivers,” with Susan K. Golant, is published.

    2001 – Carter is inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

    March 22, 2005 – Carter and her husband step down as the leaders of the Carter Center’s Board of Trustees.

    2010 – The book, “Within Our Reach: Ending the Mental Health Crisis,” with Susan K. Golant and Kathryn E. Cade, is published.

    August 22, 2012 – Speaks at the ribbon cutting for phase one of the Rosalynn Carter Health and Human Sciences Complex at Georgia Southwestern State University.

    October 13, 2014 – Announces the next Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter Habitat Work Project will be building homes in Nepal. The Carters’ goal, with thousands of volunteers, is to help build shelter for 100,000 Nepali families by 2016.

    February 18, 2018 – Undergoes surgery to remove scar tissue from a portion of her small intestine. The scar tissue formed after a cyst was removed many years ago.

    May 16, 2019 – Carter is released from the hospital after being admitted for feeling “faint.” Her husband is released from the hospital the same day after being admitted for falling on his way to go turkey hunting.

    October 17, 2019 – Having been married 26,765 days, Carter and her husband are now the longest-married presidential couple in history (George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush previously held the record).

    December 10, 2020 – The US House of Representatives passes a resolution recognizing Carter’s 50 years of mental health advocacy.

    February 18, 2023 – In a statement, the Carter Center says that Jimmy Carter will begin receiving home hospice care after a series of short hospital stays.

    May 30, 2023 – The Carter Center announces that Rosalynn Carter has dementia.

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  • John F. Kennedy Assassination Fast Facts | CNN

    John F. Kennedy Assassination Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s some background information about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

    November 22, 1963
    – 11:37 a.m. – Air Force One arrives at Dallas’ Love Field with the President and his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, Texas Governor John B. Connally Jr. and his wife, Idanell Connally. Vice President Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, arrive in a separate plane. It is a campaign trip for the coming 1964 election, although not officially designated as such.

    During a 10-mile tour of Dallas, the President and Mrs. Kennedy and the governor and Mrs. Connally ride in an open convertible limousine. The motorcade is on the way to the Trade Mart where the President is to speak at a sold-out luncheon.

    – 12:30 p.m. – As the President’s limousine passes the Texas School Book Depository, shots are fired from a sixth-floor window.

    President Kennedy and Governor Connally are both wounded and are rushed to Parkland Hospital.

    Wire services report three shots were fired as the motorcade passed under Stemmons Freeway. Two bullets hit the President and one hit the Governor.

    Emergency efforts by Drs. Malcolm Perry, Kemp Clark and others are unsuccessful at reviving the president. Governor Connally’s injuries are critical but not fatal. From one bullet, he sustains three broken ribs, a punctured lung and a broken wrist. The bullet finally lodged in his left thigh.

    – 12:36 p.m. – The ABC radio network broadcasts the first nationwide news bulletin reporting that shots have been fired at the Kennedy motorcade.

    – 12:40 p.m. – The CBS television network broadcasts the first nationwide TV news bulletin also reporting on the shooting.

    – 1:00 p.m. – Kennedy is pronounced dead by Parkland Hospital doctors, becoming the fourth US president killed in office.

    – 1:07 p.m. – News of the shooting causes the New York Stock Exchange to halt trading after an $11 million flood of sell orders.

    – 1:15 p.m. – Lee Harvey Oswald kills Dallas Police Patrolman J.D. Tippit approximately 45 minutes after the assassination.

    – 2:00 p.m. – A bronze casket carrying the President’s body, accompanied by Mrs. Kennedy and the Johnsons, leaves Parkland Hospital for Air Force One.

    – 2:15 p.m. – Oswald, a 24-year-old ex-Marine, is arrested in the back of a movie theater where he fled after shooting Tippit.

    – 2:39 p.m. – Johnson is sworn in on the runway of Love Field aboard Air Force One. Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes, of the Northern District of Texas, administers the oath of office. Witnesses include Jacqueline Kennedy and Johnson’s wife.

    – 5:00 p.m. (6:00 p.m. ET) – Air Force One arrives at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland. The coffin bearing the President’s body is taken by ambulance to Bethesda Naval Hospital for an autopsy. The flag-draped coffin is taken to the East Room of the White House early the next morning following the autopsy.

    – 7:15 p.m. – Oswald is arraigned for the murder of Tippit.

    November 22-25, 1963 – Major television and radio networks devote continuous news coverage to ongoing events associated with the President’s assassination, canceling all entertainment and all commercials. Many theaters, stores and businesses, including the stock exchanges and government offices, are closed through November 25.

    November 23, 1963 – Oswald is arraigned for the murder of the president.

    November 23, 1963 – Johnson designates November 25 as a day of national mourning.

    November 24, 1963 – As Oswald is being transferred from the Dallas city jail to the county jail, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shoots and kills him. The shooting is inadvertently shown live on TV. Ruby is immediately arrested.

    November 24-25, 1963 – Kennedy’s flag-draped casket lies in state in the Capitol Rotunda.

    November 25, 1963 – Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors and representatives from more than 90 countries in attendance.

    November 26, 1963 – Ruby is indicted in Dallas for the murder of Oswald. He is later convicted, has the conviction overturned on appeal, and dies of cancer in 1967 awaiting a new trial.

    November 29, 1963 – Johnson appoints the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. Commonly called the Warren Commission, its purpose is to investigate the assassination.

    September 24, 1964 – The Warren Report is released with the following conclusions: “The shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired from the sixth-floor window at the southeast corner of the Texas School Book Depository.” And: “The shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald.”

    October 26,1992 – President George H.W. Bush signs the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act into law. The law directs the National Archives to establish a collection of records consisting of any materials, by any state or federal agency, that were created during the federal inquiry into the assassination.

    October 26, 2017 – The US government releases more than 2,800 records relating to Kennedy’s assassination in an effort to comply with a 1992 law mandating the documents’ release. President Donald Trump keeps roughly 300 files classified out of concern for US national security, law enforcement and foreign relations. In a memo, Trump directs agencies that requested redactions to re-review their reasons for keeping the records secret within 180 days.

    April 26, 2018 – Trump extends to 2021 the deadline for the public release of files related to the assassination. More than 19,000 documents are released by the National Archives, in compliance with the records law and Trump’s 2017 order.

    October 22, 2021 – The White House announces that it will further postpone the release of more documents related to the assassination, pointing to the “significant impact” of the Covid-19 pandemic.

    December 15, 2021 – The National Archives releases almost 1,500 previously classified documents related to the assassination.

    December 15, 2022 – The National Archives releases over 13,000 previously classified documents collected as part of the government review into the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

    June 30, 2023 – The White House announces the National Archives has concluded its review of the classified documents related to the assassination of President Kennedy, with 99% of the records having been made publicly available.

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  • Controversial Police Encounters Fast Facts | CNN

    Controversial Police Encounters Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at controversial police encounters that have prompted protests over the past three decades. This select list includes cases in which police officers were charged or a grand jury was convened.

    March 3, 1991 – LAPD officers beat motorist Rodney King after he leads police on a high-speed chase through Los Angeles County. George Holliday videotapes the beating from his apartment balcony. The video shows police hitting King more than 50 times with their batons. Over 20 officers are present at the scene, mostly from the LAPD. King suffers 11 fractures and other injuries.

    March 15, 1991 – A Los Angeles grand jury indicts Sergeant Stacey Koon and Officers Laurence Michael Powell, Timothy Wind and Theodore Briseno in connection with the beating.

    May 10, 1991 – A grand jury refuses to indict 17 officers who stood by at the King beating and did nothing.

    April 29, 1992 – The four LAPD officers are acquitted. Riots break out at the intersection of Florence and Normandie in South Central Los Angeles. Governor Pete Wilson declares a state of emergency and calls in the National Guard. Riots in the next few days leave more than 50 people dead and cause nearly $1 billion in property damage.

    May 1, 1992 – King makes an emotional plea for calm, “People, I just want to say, can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it horrible for the older people and the kids?”

    August 4, 1992 – A federal grand jury returns indictments against Koon, Powell, Wind, and Briseno on the charge of violating King’s civil rights.

    April 17, 1993 – Koon and Powell are convicted for violating King’s civil rights. Wind and Briseno are found not guilty. No disturbances follow the verdict. On August 4, both Koon and Powell are sentenced to 30 months in prison. Powell is found guilty of violating King’s constitutional right to be free from an arrest made with “unreasonable force.” Koon, the ranking officer, is convicted of permitting the civil rights violation to occur.

    April 19, 1994 – King is awarded $3.8 million in compensatory damages in a civil lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles. King had demanded $56 million, or $1 million for every blow struck by the officers.

    June 1, 1994 – In a civil trial against the police officers, a jury awards King $0 in punitive damages. He had asked for $15 million.

    June 17, 2012 – King is found dead in his swimming pool.

    November 5, 1992 – Two white police officers approach Malice Wayne Green, a 35-year-old black motorist, after he parks outside a suspected drug den. Witnesses say the police strike the unarmed man in the head repeatedly with heavy flashlights. The officers claim they feared Green was trying to reach for one of their weapons. Green dies of his injuries later that night.

    November 16, 1992 – Two officers, Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn, are charged with second-degree murder. Sgt. Freddie Douglas, a supervisor who arrived on the scene after a call for backup, is charged with involuntary manslaughter and willful neglect of duty. These charges are later dismissed. Another officer, Robert Lessnau, is charged with assault with intent to do great bodily harm.

    November 18, 1992 – The Detroit Free Press reports that toxicology tests revealed alcohol and a small amount of cocaine in Green’s system. A medical examiner later states that Green’s head injuries, combined with the cocaine and alcohol in his system, led to his death.

    December 1992 – The Detroit police chief fires the four officers.

    August 23, 1993 – Nevers and Budzyn are convicted of murder after a 45-day trial. Lessnau is acquitted. Nevers sentence is 12-25 years, while Budzyn’s sentence is 8-18 years.

    1997-1998 – The Michigan Supreme Court orders a retrial for Budzyn due to possible jury bias. During the second trial, a jury convicts Budzyn of a less serious charge, involuntary manslaughter, and he is released with time served.

    2000-2001 – A jury finds Nevers guilty of involuntary manslaughter after a second trial. He is released from prison in 2001.

    August 9, 1997 – Abner Louima, a 33-year-old Haitian immigrant, is arrested for interfering with officers trying to break up a fight in front of the Club Rendez-vous nightclub in Brooklyn. Louima alleges, while handcuffed, police officers lead him to the precinct bathroom and sodomized him with a plunger or broomstick.

    August 15, 1997 – Police officers Justin Volpe and Charles Schwarz are charged with aggravated sexual abuse and first-degree assault.

    August 16, 1997 – Thousands of angry protesters gather outside Brooklyn’s 70th Precinct to demonstrate against what they say is a long-standing problem of police brutality against minorities.

    August 18, 1997 – Two more officers, Thomas Wiese and Thomas Bruder, are charged with assault and criminal possession of a weapon.

    February 26, 1998 – Volpe, Bruder, Schwarz and Wiese are indicted on federal civil rights charges. A fifth officer, Michael Bellomo, is accused of helping the others cover up the alleged beating, as well as an alleged assault on another Haitian immigrant, Patrick Antoine, the same night.

    May 1999 – Volpe pleads guilty to beating and sodomizing Louima. He is later sentenced to 30 years in prison.

    June 8, 1999 – Schwarz is convicted of beating Louima, then holding him down while he was being tortured. Wiese, Bruder, and Bellomo are acquitted. Schwarz is later sentenced to 15 and a half years in prison for perjury.

    March 6, 2000 – In a second trial, Schwarz, Wiese, and Bruder are convicted of conspiring to obstruct justice by covering up the attack. On February 28, 2002, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturns their convictions.

    July 12, 2001 – Louima receives $8.75 million in a settlement agreement with the City of New York and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.

    September 2002 – Schwarz pleads guilty to perjury and is sentenced to five years in prison. He had been scheduled to face a new trial for civil rights violations but agreed to a deal.

    February 4, 1999 – Amadou Diallo, 22, a street vendor from West Africa, is confronted outside his home in the Bronx by four NYPD officers who are searching the neighborhood for a rapist. When Diallo reaches for his wallet, the officers open fire, reportedly fearing he was pulling out a gun. They fire 41 times and hit him 19 times, killing him.

    March 24, 1999 – More than 200 protestors are arrested outside NYPD headquarters. For weeks, activists have gathered to protest the use of force by NYPD officers.

    March 25, 1999 – A Bronx grand jury votes to indict the four officers – Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon, Kenneth Boss and Richard Murphy – for second-degree murder. On February 25, 2000, they are acquitted.

    January 2001 – The US Justice Department announces it will not pursue federal civil rights charges against the officers.

    January 2004 – Diallo’s family receives $3 million in a wrongful death lawsuit.

    September 4, 2005 – Six days after Hurricane Katrina devastates the area, New Orleans police officers receive a radio call that two officers are down under the Danziger vertical-lift bridge. According to the officers, people are shooting at them and they have returned fire.

    – Brothers Ronald and Lance Madison, along with four members of the Bartholomew family, are shot by police officers. Ronald Madison, 40, who is intellectually disabled, and James Brisette, 17 (some sources say 19), are fatally wounded.

    December 28, 2006 – Police Sgts. Kenneth Bowen and Robert Gisevius and officers Robert Faulcon and Anthony Villavaso are charged with first-degree murder. Officers Robert Barrios, Michael Hunter and Ignatius Hills are charged with attempted murder.

    August 2008 – State charges against the officers are thrown out.

    July 12, 2010 – Four officers are indicted on federal charges of murdering Brissette: Bowen, Gisevius, Faulcon and Villavaso. Faulcon is also charged with Madison’s murder. Bowen, Gisevius, Faulcon and Villavaso, along with Arthur Kaufman and Gerard Dugue are charged with covering up the shooting.

    April 8, 2010 – Hunter pleads guilty in federal court of covering up the police shooting. In December, he is sentenced to eight years in prison.

    August 5, 2011 – The jury finds five officers guilty of civil rights and obstruction charges: Bowen, Gisevius, Faulcon, Villavaso and Kaufman.

    October 5, 2011 – Hills receives a six and a half year sentence for his role in the shooting.

    April 4, 2012 – A federal judge sentences five officers to prison terms ranging from six to 65 years for the shootings of unarmed civilians. Faulcon receives 65 years. Bowen and Gisevius both receive 40 years. Villavaso receives 38 years. Kaufman, who was involved in the cover up, receives six years.

    March 2013 – After a January 2012 mistrial, Dugue’s trial is delayed indefinitely.

    September 17, 2013 – Bowen, Gisevius, Faulcon, Villavaso and Kaufman are awarded a new trial.

    April 20, 2016 – Bowen, Gisevius, Faulcon, Villavaso and Kaufman plead guilty in exchange for reduced sentences.

    November 25, 2006 – Sean Bell, 23, is fatally shot by NYPD officers outside a Queens bar the night before his wedding. Two of his companions, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, are wounded. Officers reportedly fired 50 times at the men.

    March 2007 – Three of the five officers involved in the shooting are indicted: Detectives Gescard F. Isnora and Michael Oliver are charged with manslaughter, and Michael Oliver is charged with reckless endangerment. On April 25, 2008, the three officers are acquitted of all charges.

    July 27, 2010 – New York City settles a lawsuit for more than $7 million filed by Bell’s family and two of his friends.

    2009 – Oakland, California – Oscar Grant

    January 1, 2009 – San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) officer Johannes Mehserle shoots Oscar Grant, an unarmed 22-year-old, in the back while he is lying face down on a platform at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland.

    January 7, 2009 – Footage from station KTVU shows demonstrators vandalizing businesses and assaulting police in Oakland during a protest. About 105 people are arrested. Some protesters lie on their stomachs, saying they are showing solidarity with Grant, who was shot in the back.

    January 27, 2010 – The mother of Grant’s young daughter receives a $1.5 million settlement from her lawsuit against BART.

    July 8, 2010 – A jury finds Mehserle guilty of involuntary manslaughter. At the trial, Mehserle says that he intended to draw and fire his Taser rather than his gun. On November 5, 2010, Mehserle is sentenced to two years in prison. Outrage over the light sentence leads to a night of violent protests.

    June 2011 – Mehserle is released from prison.

    July 12, 2013 – The movie, “Fruitvale Station” opens in limited release. It dramatizes the final hours of Grant’s life.

    July 5, 2011 – Fullerton police officers respond to a call about a homeless man looking into car windows and pulling on car handles. Surveillance camera footage shows Kelly Thomas being beaten and stunned with a Taser by police. Thomas, who was mentally ill, dies five days later in the hospital. When the surveillance video of Thomas’s beating is released in May 2012, it sparks a nationwide outcry.

    May 9, 2012 – Officer Manuel Ramos is charged with second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, and Cpl. Jay Patrick Cicinelli is charged with involuntary manslaughter and felony use of excessive force. On January 13, 2014, a jury acquits Ramos and Cicinelli.

    May 16, 2012 – The City of Fullerton awards $1 million to Thomas’ mother, Cathy Thomas.

    September 28, 2012 – A third police officer, Joseph Wolfe, is charged with involuntary manslaughter and excessive force in connection with Thomas’ death. The charges are later dropped.

    July 17, 2014 – Eric Garner, 43, dies after Officer Daniel Pantaleo uses a department-banned chokehold on him during an arrest for allegedly selling cigarettes illegally. Garner dies later that day.

    August 1, 2014 – The New York City Medical Examiner rules Garner’s death a homicide.

    December 3, 2014 – A grand jury decides not to indict Pantaleo. Protests are held in New York, Washington, Philadelphia and Oakland, California. Demonstrators chant Garner’s last words, “I can’t breathe!”

    July 14, 2015 – New York settles with Garner’s estate for $5.9 million.

    August 19, 2019 – The NYPD announces Pantaleo has been fired and will not receive his pension.

    August 21, 2019 – Pantaleo’s supervisor, Sgt. Kizzy Adonis, pleads no contest to a disciplinary charge of failure to supervise, and must forfeit the monetary value of 20 vacation days.

    August 9, 2014 – During a struggle, a police officer fatally shoots Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old.

    August 9-10, 2014 – Approximately 1,000 demonstrators protest Brown’s death. The Ferguson-area protest turns violent and police begin using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. Black Lives Matter, a protest movement that grew out of the Trayvon Martin shooting in 2012, grows in visibility during the Ferguson demonstrations.

    August 15, 2014 – Police identify the officer as 28-year-old Darren Wilson. Wilson is put on paid administrative leave after the incident.

    August 18, 2014 – Governor Jay Nixon calls in the Missouri National Guard to protect the police command center.

    November 24, 2014 – A grand jury does not indict Wilson for Brown’s shooting. Documents show that Wilson fired his gun 12 times. Protests erupt nationwide after the hearing.

    November 29, 2014 – Wilson resigns from the Ferguson police force.

    March 11, 2015 – Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson resigns a week after a scathing Justice Department report slams his department.

    August 9-10, 2015 – The anniversary observations of Brown’s death are largely peaceful during the day. After dark, shots are fired, businesses are vandalized and there are tense standoffs between officers and protestors, according to police. The next day, a state of emergency is declared and fifty-six people are arrested during a demonstration at a St. Louis courthouse.

    June 20, 2017 – A settlement is reached in the Brown family wrongful death lawsuit against the city of Ferguson. While the details of the settlement are not disclosed to the public, US Federal Judge Richard Webber calls the settlement, “fair and reasonable compensation.”

    October 20, 2014 – Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke shoots and kills Laquan McDonald, 17. Van Dyke says he fired in self-defense after McDonald lunged at him with a knife, but dashcam video shows McDonald walking away from police. Later, an autopsy shows McDonald was shot 16 times.

    April 15, 2015 – The city agrees to pay $5 million to McDonald’s family.

    November 19, 2015 – A judge in Chicago orders the city to release the police dashcam video that shows the shooting. For months, the city had fought attempts to have the video released to the public, saying it could jeopardize any ongoing investigation. The decision is the result of a Freedom of Information Act request by freelance journalist, Brandon Smith.

    November 24, 2015 – Van Dyke is charged with first-degree murder.

    December 1, 2015 – Mayor Rahm Emanuel announces he has asked for the resignation of Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.

    August 30, 2016 – Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson files administrative charges against six officers involved in the shooting. Five officers will have their cases heard by the Chicago Police Board, which will rule if the officers will be terminated. The sixth officer charged has resigned.

    March 2017 – Van Dyke is indicted on 16 additional counts of aggravated battery with a firearm.

    June 27, 2017 – Three officers are indicted on felony conspiracy, official misconduct and obstruction of justice charges for allegedly lying to investigators.

    October 5, 2018 – Van Dyke is found guilty of second-degree murder and of 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm, but not guilty of official misconduct. Though he was originally charged with first-degree murder, jurors were instructed on October 4 that they could consider second-degree murder. He is sentenced to six years and nine months in prison. On February 3, 2022, Van Dyke is released early from prison.

    January 17, 2019 – Cook County Associate Judge Domenica Stephenson finds three Chicago police officers not guilty of covering up details in the 2014 killing of McDonald. Stephenson’s ruling came more than a month after the officers’ five-day bench trial ended.

    July 18, 2019 – The Chicago Police Board announces that four Chicago police officers, Sgt. Stephen Franko, Officer Janet Mondragon, Officer Daphne Sebastian and Officer Ricardo Viramontes, have been fired for covering up the fatal shooting of McDonald.

    October 9, 2019 – Inspector General Joseph Ferguson releases a report detailing a cover-up involving 16 officers and supervisors.

    April 4, 2015 – North Charleston police officer Michael Slager fatally shoots Walter Scott, 50, an unarmed motorist stopped for a broken brake light. Slager says he feared for his life after Scott grabbed his Taser.

    April 7, 2015 – Cellphone video of the incident is released. It shows Scott running away and Slager shooting him in the back. Slager is charged with first-degree murder.

    October 8, 2015 – The North Charleston City Council approves a $6.5 million settlement with the family of Walter Scott.

    May 11, 2016 – A federal grand jury indicts Slager for misleading investigators and violating the civil rights of Walter Scott.

    December 5, 2016 – After three days of deliberations, the jury is unable to reach a verdict and the judge declares a mistrial in the case. The prosecutor says that the state will try Slager again.

    May 2, 2017 – Slager pleads guilty to a federal charge of using excessive force. State murder charges against Slager – as well as two other federal charges – will be dismissed as part of a plea deal. On December 7, 2017, Slager is sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.

    April 12, 2015 – Police arrest 25-year-old Freddie Gray on a weapons charge after he is found with a knife in his pocket. Witness video contains audio of Gray screaming as officers carry him to the prisoner transport van. After arriving at the police station, Gray is transferred to a trauma clinic with a severe spinal injury. He falls into a coma and dies one week later.

    April 21, 2015 – The names of six officers involved in the arrest are released. Lt. Brian Rice, 41, Officer Caesar Goodson, 45, Sgt. Alicia White, 30, Officer William Porter, 25, Officer Garrett Miller, 26, and Officer Edward Nero, 29, are all suspended.

    April 24, 2015 – Baltimore police acknowledge Gray did not get timely medical care after his arrest and was not buckled into a seat belt while being transported in the police van.

    April 27, 2015 – Protests turn into riots on the day of Gray’s funeral. At least 20 officers are injured as police and protesters clash on the streets. Gov. Larry Hogan’s office declares a state of emergency and activates the National Guard to address the unrest.

    May 21, 2015 – A Baltimore grand jury indicts the six officers involved in the arrest of Freddie Gray. The officers face a range of charges from involuntary manslaughter to reckless endangerment. Goodson, the driver of the transport van, will face the most severe charge: second-degree depraved-heart murder.

    September 10, 2015 – Judge Barry Williams denies the defendants’ motion to move their trials out of Baltimore, a day after officials approve a $6.4 million deal to settle all civil claims tied to Gray’s death.

    December 16, 2015 – The judge declares a mistrial in Porter’s case after jurors say they are deadlocked.

    May 23, 2016 – Nero is found not guilty.

    June 23, 2016 – Goodson is acquitted of all charges.

    July 18, 2016 – Rice, the highest-ranking officer to stand trial, is found not guilty on all charges.

    July 27, 2016 – Prosecutors drop charges against the three remaining officers awaiting trial in connection with Gray’s death.

    August 10, 2016 – A Justice Department investigation finds that the Baltimore Police Department engages in unconstitutional practices that lead to disproportionate rates of stops, searches and arrests of African-Americans. The report also finds excessive use of force against juveniles and people with mental health disabilities.

    January 12, 2017 – The city of Baltimore agrees to a consent decree with sweeping reforms proposed by the Justice Department.

    2016 – Falcon Heights, Minnesota – Philando Castile

    July 6, 2016 – Police officer Jeronimo Yanez shoots and kills Philando Castile during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights. Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, live-streams the aftermath of the confrontation, and says Castile was reaching for his identification when he was shot.

    November 16, 2016 – Yanez is charged with second-degree manslaughter and two felony counts of dangerous discharge of a firearm.

    December 15, 2016 – The Justice Department announces it will conduct a review of the St. Anthony Police Department, which services Falcon heights and two other towns.

    February 27, 2017 – Yanez pleads not guilty.

    June 16, 2017 – A jury finds Yanez not guilty on all counts. The city says it will offer Yanez a voluntary separation agreement from the police department.

    June 26, 2017 – It is announced that the family of Castile has reached a $3 million settlement with the city of St. Anthony, Minnesota.

    November 29, 2017 – The city of St. Anthony announces that Reynolds has settled with two cities for $800,000. St. Anthony will pay $675,000 of the settlement, while an insurance trust will pay $125,000 on behalf of Roseville.

    September 16, 2016 – Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby fatally shoots Terence Crutcher, a 40-year-old unarmed black man, after his car is found abandoned in the middle of the road.

    September 19, 2016 – The Tulsa Police Department releases video of the incident captured by a police helicopter, showing Shelby and other officers at the scene. At a news conference, the police chief tells reporters Crutcher was unarmed. Both the US Department of Justice and state authorities launch investigations into the officer-involved shooting.

    September 22, 2016 – Officer Shelby is charged with felony first-degree manslaughter.

    April 2, 2017 – During an interview on “60 Minutes,” Shelby says race was not a factor in her decision to open fire, and Crutcher “caused” his death when he ignored her commands, reaching into his vehicle to retrieve what she believed was a gun. “I saw a threat and I used the force I felt necessary to stop a threat.”

    May 17, 2017 – Shelby is acquitted.

    July 14, 2017 – Shelby announces she will resign from the Tulsa Police Department in August. On August 10, she joins the Rogers County, Oklahoma, Sheriff’s Office as a reserve deputy.

    October 25, 2017 – A Tulsa County District Court judge grants Shelby’s petition to have her record expunged.

    June 19, 2018 – Antwon Rose II, an unarmed 17-year-old, is shot and killed by police officer Michael Rosfeld in East Pittsburgh. Rose had been a passenger in a car that was stopped by police because it matched the description of a car that was involved in an earlier shooting. Rose and another passenger ran from the vehicle, and Rosfeld opened fire, striking Rose three times, Allegheny County police says.

    June 27, 2018 – The Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, district attorney charges Rosfeld with criminal homicide.

    March 22, 2019 – A jury finds Rosfeld not guilty on all counts.

    October 28, 2019 – A $2 million settlement is finalized in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against Rosfeld and East Pittsburgh.

    September 1, 2018 – During a traffic stop, O’Shae Terry is gunned down by an Arlington police officer. Terry, 24, was pulled over for having an expired temporary tag on his car. During the stop, officers reportedly smelled marijuana in the vehicle. Police video from the scene shows officer Bau Tran firing into the car as Terry tries to drive away. Investigators later locate a concealed firearm, marijuana and ecstasy pills in the vehicle.

    October 19, 2018 – The Arlington Police Department releases information about a criminal investigation into the incident. According to the release, Tran declined to provide detectives with a statement and the matter is pending with the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office. Tran is still employed by the police department but is working on restricted duty status, according to the news release.

    May 1, 2019 – A grand jury issues an indictment charging Tran with criminally negligent homicide. On May 17, 2019, the Arlington Police Department announces Tran has been fired.

    March 13, 2020 – Louisville Metro Police officers fatally shoot Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT, after they forcibly enter her apartment while executing a late-night, no-knock warrant in a narcotics investigation. Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker III, is also in the apartment and fires one shot at who he believes are intruders. Taylor is shot at least eight times and Walker is charged with attempted murder of a police officer and first-degree assault. The charges are later dismissed.

    April 27, 2020 – Taylor’s family files a wrongful death lawsuit. In the lawsuit, Taylor’s mother says the officers should have called off their search because the suspect they sought had already been arrested.

    May 21, 2020 – The FBI opens an investigation into Taylor’s death.

    June 11, 2020 – The Louisville, Kentucky, metro council unanimously votes to pass an ordinance called “Breonna’s Law,” banning no-knock search warrants.

    August 27, 2020 – Jamarcus Glover, Taylor’s ex-boyfriend and the focus of the Louisville police narcotics investigation that led officers to execute the warrant on Taylor’s home, is arrested on drug charges. The day before his arrest, Glover told a local Kentucky newspaper Taylor was not involved in any alleged drug trade.

    September 1, 2020 – Walker files a $10.5 million lawsuit against the Louisville Metro Police Department. Walker claims he was maliciously prosecuted for firing a single bullet with his licensed firearm at “assailants” who “violently broke down the door.” In December 2022, Walker reaches a $2 million settlement with the city of Louisville.

    September 15, 2020 – The city of Louisville agrees to pay $12 million to Taylor’s family and institute sweeping police reforms in a settlement of the family’s wrongful death lawsuit.

    September 23, 2020 – Det. Brett Hankison is indicted by a grand jury on three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree. The other two officers involved in the shooting are not indicted. On March 3, 2022, Hankison is acquitted.

    April 26, 2021 – Attorney General Merrick Garland announces a Justice Department investigation into the practices of the Louisville Police Department.

    August 4, 2022 – Garland announces four current and former Louisville police officers involved in the raid on Taylor’s home were arrested and charged with civil rights violations, unlawful conspiracies, unconstitutional use of force and obstruction. On August 23, one of the officers, Kelly Goodlett, pleads guilty.

    May 25, 2020 – George Floyd, 46, dies after pleading for help as Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneels on Floyd’s neck to pin him – unarmed and handcuffed – to the ground. Floyd had been arrested for allegedly using a counterfeit bill at a convenience store.

    May 26, 2020 – It is announced that four Minneapolis police officers have been fired for their involvement in the death of Floyd.

    May 27, 2020 – Gov. Tim Walz signs an executive order activating the Minnesota National Guard after protests and demonstrations erupt throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul.

    May 27, 2020 – Surveillance video from outside a Minneapolis restaurant is released and appears to contradict police claims that Floyd resisted arrest before an officer knelt on his neck.

    May 28-29, 2020 – Several buildings are damaged and the Minneapolis police department’s Third Precinct is set ablaze during protests.

    May 29, 2020 – Chauvin is arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter, according to Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman.

    June 3, 2020 – Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announces charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder for the three previously uncharged officers at the scene of the incident. According to court documents, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng helped restrain Floyd, while officer Tou Thao stood near the others. Chauvin’s charge is upgraded from third- to second-degree murder.

    October 21, 2020 – Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill drops the third-degree murder charge against Chauvin, but he still faces the higher charge of second-degree unintentional murder and second-degree manslaughter. On March 11, 2021, Judge Cahill reinstates the third-degree murder charge due to an appeals court ruling.

    March 12, 2021 – The Minneapolis city council unanimously votes to approve a $27 million settlement with Floyd’s family.

    April 20, 2021 – The jury finds Chauvin guilty on all three counts. He is sentenced to 22 and a half years.

    May 7, 2021 – A federal grand jury indicts the four former Minneapolis police officers in connection with Floyd’s death, alleging the officers violated Floyd’s constitutional rights.

    December 15, 2021 – Chauvin pleads guilty in federal court to two civil rights violations, one related to Floyd’s death, plus another case. Prosecutors request that he be sentenced to 25 years in prison to be served concurrently with his current sentence.

    February 24, 2022 – Lane, Kueng and Thao are found guilty of depriving Floyd of his civil rights by showing deliberate indifference to his medical needs. The jurors also find Thao and Kueng guilty of an additional charge for failing to intervene to stop Chauvin. Lane, who did not face the extra charge, had testified that he asked Chauvin twice to reposition Floyd while restraining him but was denied both times.

    May 4, 2022 – A federal judge accepts Chauvin’s plea deal and will sentence him to 20 to 25 years in prison. Based on the plea filed, the sentence will be served concurrently with the 22.5-year sentence tied to his murder conviction at the state level. On July 7, Chauvin is sentenced to 21 years in prison.

    May 18, 2022 – Thomas Lane pleads guilty to second-degree manslaughter as part of a plea deal dismissing his murder charge. State and defense attorneys jointly recommend to the court Lane be sentenced to 36 months.

    July 27, 2022 – Kueng and Thao are sentenced to three years and three and a half years in federal prison, respectively.

    September 21, 2022 – Lane is sentenced to three years in prison on a state charge of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in Floyd’s death.

    October 24, 2022 – On the day his state trial is set to begin on charges of aiding and abetting in George Floyd’s killing, Kueng pleads guilty.

    December 3, 2022 – Kueng is sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for his role in the killing of Floyd.

    May 1, 2023 – A Minnesota judge finds Thao guilty of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter, according to court documents. He is sentenced to four years and nine months in prison.

    June 12, 2020 – Rayshard Brooks, 27, is shot and killed by Atlanta police officer Garrett Rolfe outside a Wendy’s restaurant after failing a sobriety test, fighting with two officers, taking a Taser from one and running away.

    June 13, 2020 – Rolfe is terminated from the Atlanta Police Department, according to an Atlanta police spokesperson. A second officer involved is placed on administrative leave.

    June 14, 2020 – According to a release from the Fulton County, Georgia, Medical Examiner’s Office, Brooks died from a gunshot wound to the back. The manner of death is listed as homicide.

    June 17, 2020 – Fulton County’s district attorney announces felony murder charges against Rolfe. Another officer, Devin Brosnan, is facing an aggravated assault charge for standing or stepping on Brooks’ shoulder while he was lying on the ground. On August 23, 2022, a Georgia special prosecutor announces the charges will be dismissed, saying the officers acted reasonably in response to a deadly threat. Both officers remain on administrative leave with the Atlanta Police Department and will undergo recertification and training, the department said in a statement.

    May 5, 2021 – The Atlanta Civil Service Board rules that Rolfe was wrongfully terminated.

    November 21, 2022 – The family of Brooks reaches a $1 million settlement with the city of Atlanta, according to Ryan Julison, a spokesperson for Stewart Miller Simmons Trial Attorneys, the law firm representing Brooks’ family.

    April 11, 2021 – Daunte Wright, 20, is shot and killed by Brooklyn Center police officer Kimberly Potter following a routine traffic stop for an expired tag.

    April 12, 2021 – During a press conference, Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon announces Potter accidentally drew a handgun instead of a Taser. According to Gannon, “this was an accidental discharge, that resulted in a tragic death of Mr. Wright.” Potter is placed on administrative leave. According to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office, Wright’s death has been ruled a homicide.

    April 13, 2021 – Gannon submits his resignation. CNN is told Potter has also submitted a letter of resignation.

    April 14, 2021 – Potter is arrested and charged with second degree manslaughter. Washington County Attorney Pete Orput issues a news release which includes a summary of the criminal complaint filed against Potter. According to the release, Potter shot Wright with a Glock handgun holstered on her right side, after saying she would tase Wright. Later, the state amends the complaint against Potter, adding an additional charge of manslaughter in the first degree.

    December 23, 2021 – Potter is found guilty of first and second-degree manslaughter. On February 18, 2022, she is sentenced to two years in prison. In April 2023, Potter is released from prison after serving 16 months.

    June 21, 2022 – The city of Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, agrees to pay $3.25 million to the family of Wright. The sum is part of a settlement deal the family struck with the city, which also agreed to make changes in its policing policies and training, the Wright family legal team said in a news release.

    2022 – Grand Rapids, Michigan – Patrick Lyoya

    April 4, 2022 – Patrick Lyoya, 26-year-old Black man, is shot and killed by a police officer following a traffic stop.

    April 13, 2022 – Grand Rapids police release video from police body camera, the police unit’s dashcam, a cell phone and a home surveillance system, which show the police officer’s encounter with Lyoya, including two clips showing the fatal shot. Lyoya was pulled over for an allegedly unregistered license plate when he got out of the car and ran. He resisted the officer’s attempt to arrest him and was shot while struggling with the officer on the ground.

    April 19, 2022 – An autopsy commissioned by Lyoya’s family shows the 26-year-old was shot in the back of the head following the April 4 encounter with a Grand Rapids police officer, attorneys representing the family announce. The officer has not been publicly identified.

    April 21, 2022 – Michigan state officials ask the US Department of Justice to launch a “pattern-or-practice” investigation into the Grand Rapids Police Department after the death of Lyoya.

    April 25, 2022 – The chief of Grand Rapids police identifies Christopher Schurr as the officer who fatally shot Lyoya.

    June 9 ,2022 – Schurr is charged with one count of second-degree murder in the death of Lyoya. Benjamin Crump. the Lyoya family attorney says in a statement, “we are encouraged by attorney Christopher Becker’s decision to charge Schurr for the brutal killing of Patrick Lyoya, which we all witnessed when the video footage was released to the public.” On June 10, 2022, Schurr pleads not guilty.

    January 7, 2023 – Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, is hospitalized following a traffic stop that lead to a violent arrest. Nichols dies three days later from injuries sustained, according to police.

    January 15, 2023 – The Memphis Police Department announces they immediately launched an investigation into the action of officers involved in the arrest of Nichols.

    January 18, 2023 – The Department of Justice says a civil rights investigation has been opened into the death of Nichols.

    January 20, 2023 – The five officers are named and fired: Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith.

    January 23, 2023 – Nichols’ family and their attorneys view police video of the arrest.

    January 26, 2023 – A grand jury indicts the five police officers. They are each charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, two charges of aggravated kidnapping, two charges of official misconduct and one charge of official oppression, according to both Shelby County criminal court and Shelby County jail records.

    January 27, 2023 – The city of Memphis releases body camera and surveillance video of the the traffic stop and beating that led to the Nichols’ death.

    January 30, 2023 – Memphis police say two additional officers have been placed on leave. Only one officer is identified, Preston Hemphill. Additionally, the Memphis Fire Department announces three employees have been fired over their response to the incident: emergency medical technicians Robert Long and JaMichael Sandridge and Lt. Michelle Whitaker.

    May 4, 2023 – The Shelby County medical examiner’s report shows that Nichols died from blunt force trauma to the head. His death has been ruled a homicide.

    September 12, 2023 – The five police officers involved are indicted by a federal grand jury on several charges including deprivation of rights.

    November 2, 2023 – Desmond Mills Jr., one of the five former Memphis police officers accused in the death of Nichols, pleads guilty to federal charges and agrees to plead guilty to related state charges as part of a plea deal with prosecutors.

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  • This city never slept. But with China tightening its grip, is the party over? | CNN Business

    This city never slept. But with China tightening its grip, is the party over? | CNN Business

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    Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world.


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    As the scattered patrons hop from one deserted bar to the next, it’s hard to believe the near-empty streets they are zigzagging down were once among the most vibrant in Asia.

    It is Thursday evening, a normally busy night, but there are no crowds for them to weave through, no revelers spilling onto the pavements and no need for them to wait to be seated. At some of the stops on this muted bar crawl, they are the only ones in the room.

    It wasn’t always this way. It might seem unlikely from this recent snapshot, but Hong Kong was once a leading light in Asia’s nightlife scene, a famously freewheeling neon-lit city that never slept, where East met West and crowds would spill from the bars throughout the night and long into the morning – even on a weekday.

    Such images were beamed around the world in 1997, when Britain handed over sovereignty of its prized former colony to China, and locals and visitors alike welcomed in the new era with a 12-hour rave featuring Boy George, Grace Jones, Pete Tong and Paul Oakenfold.

    China’s message at the time was that even if change was coming to Hong Kong, its spirit of “anything goes” would be staying put. The city was promised a high degree of autonomy for the next 50 years and assured that its Western ways could continue. Or, as China’s then leader Deng Xiaoping put it: “Horses will still run, stocks will still sizzle and dancers will still dance.”

    And for long after the British departed, the dancing did indeed continue. Hong Kong retained not only the spirit of capitalism, but many other freedoms unknown in the rest of China – not just the gambling on horse races that Deng alluded to, but political freedoms of the press, speech and the right to protest. Even calls for greater democracy were tolerated – at least, for a time.

    But little more than halfway into those 50 years, Deng’s promise now rings hollow to many. Spasms of mass protests – against “patriotic education” legislation in 2012, the Occupy Central movement in 2014 and pro-democracy demonstrations in 2019 – led China to restrict civil liberties with a sweeping National Security Law. Hundreds of pro-democracy figures have since been jailed and tens of thousands of residents have headed for the exits.

    That crackdown and Hong Kong’s fading freedoms have been well-documented, but it is only more recently that a less-reported knock-on effect of China’s crackdown has started to emerge: In the streets and the bars, the trendy clubs and Michelin-starred restaurants, the city that never slept has begun to doze.

    Nightlife in the city has become a pale shadow of its heyday as a regional rest and relaxation magnet, when its reputation rested on it being easier to navigate than Japan, less boring than Singapore and freer than mainland China.

    Now, apparently in tandem with the diminishing political freedoms, business in the city’s once-thriving bars is drying up. And while some argue over whether politics or Covid is at fault, few dispute that something needs to be done.

    Bars earned about $88.9 million in the first half of 2023, 18% less than the $108.5 million brought in during the same period in 2019, according to official data.

    In an effort to arrest the decline, the Hong Kong government has launched a “Night Vibes” campaign featuring bazaars at three waterfront areas, splurged millions on a recent fireworks show to celebrate China’s National Day and reintroduced a dragon dance, lit by incense sticks, in its neighborhood of Tai Hang.

    Those efforts have attracted a mixture of criticism and mockery – with many pointing out the irony of the campaign’s opening ceremony featuring two white lions, a color associated in Chinese culture with funerals. Meanwhile, the bazaars have been interrupted by a mix of typhoons and security concerns over the use of fireworks.

    Still, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee insists the events are a success, saying at least 100,000 people have checked out the bazaars and that 460,000 tourists from mainland China visited for National Day. And the white lions? Officials say they were “fluorescent.”

    A Hong Kong government spokesman told CNN this week that the activities were “well-received by local residents and tourists”. A recent Hong Kong Wine & Dine Festival brought in 140,000 patrons and shopping malls supporting the Night Vibes campaign said they had seen “growth in visitor flow and turnover,” he added.

    A man walks past a closed bar along a near-empty street in the Soho area of Hong Kong.

    There are some who point the finger solely at Covid.

    “It’s obvious that it’s worse than before. This is the side effect of Covid, which has changed the way of life,” said Gary Ng, an economist with French investment bank Natixis.

    And few would dispute that Covid took its toll. During the pandemic, Hong Kong made a virtue of cleaving closely to a mainland Chinese-style zero-tolerance approach that, though not quite as draconian, was still extreme enough to send large numbers of expatriates heading for the exit, with many of them decamping to rival Asian cities like Singapore, Thailand and Japan.

    Hong Kong, where incoming travelers faced weeks in quarantine and restaurant tables were limited to two customers, was suddenly the boring one and Singapore – in a telling comparison – the more lively.

    Under Hong Kong’s pandemic restrictions, live music was all but banned in small venues for more than 650 days.

    But others say Hong Kong is in denial and that its nightlife problems go much deeper than the pandemic. Other places have recovered, they say, why not Hong Kong?

    These observers note the city’s response to Covid should itself be seen through the lens of the city’s ever disappearing freedoms.

    Months before the virus emerged, China had been tightening its grip on Hong Kong in response to pro-democracy protests that had spread throughout the city.

    It introduced restrictions on freedoms – such as of expression and of the press – which were supposedly guaranteed at the time of the handover.

    Songs and slogans perceived as linked to the protests were outlawed, memories of past protests scrubbed from the internet, sensitive films censored and newspaper editors charged with sedition and colluding with foreign forces.

    The government has maintained that legal enforcement is necessary for Hong Kong to restore stability and prosperity and stop what China says is “foreign forces” from meddling in the city.

    “We strongly disapproved of and firmly rejected those groundless attacks, slanders and smears against the HKSAR on the protection of such fundamental rights and freedoms in Hong Kong,” a spokesman said, referring to Hong Kong’s official name, in a reply to CNN.

    But, the critics hit back, none of that lends itself to an atmosphere where people will want to sit back, relax and shoot the breeze.

    “People may feel like they have to self-censor when having a chat at restaurants or bars because, who knows who may be listening. They may as well stay home for the same chat where they feel safe,” said Benson Wong, one of the hundreds of thousands who have left Hong Kong.

    Wong, a former associate professor who specialized in local politics, said he used to enjoy eating out at dai pai dongs – open-air stalls selling Cantonese classics and (usually) plenty of beer – where patrons once talked freely about everything from celebrity gossip to politics.

    Now though, he said, “one won’t feel happy if they have to watch everything they say.”

    A man sits inside a bar in Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong's renowned nightlife hub.

    Whether it was Covid or the crackdown, or some combination of the two, an exodus of middle-class Hong Kongers and affluent expats has taken place in recent years.

    Last year, the city saw a net outflow of 60,000 residents, its third drop in as many years, taking the number of usual residents down to 7.19 million as of the end of 2022 — a drop of almost 144,000 from the end of 2020.

    Tens of thousands of them are Hong Kongers who have taken up special visas and pathways to citizenship offered by Western countries such as Britain, Canada and Australia in the wake of China’s crackdown.

    But there has also been a steady drip of departures from the expat population that, like a post-colonial hangover, had remained in the city long after Britain’s departure. They were largely professionals in finance and law with a reputation for working hard and partying even harder, regardless of the politics.

    Local media is now awash with reports of banking and law firms relocating their offices, in part or full, to rival financial hubs such as the no-longer-boring Singapore.

    Unfortunately for bar and restaurant owners, the two demographics leaving are among their biggest customers.

    “The expats have relocated, as well as [Hong Kongers] with a higher income. Their departure of course will have an impact,” said Ng, from Natixis.

    Increasingly, these two groups are being replaced by people from mainland China, who now account for more than 70% of the 103,000 work or graduate visas granted since 2022, according to the Immigration Department. The newly dominant migrants, economists point out, tend to have very different spending habits.

    Yan Wai-hin, an economics lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the city’s previously robust nightlife was propped up largely by a base of expats and middle-class locals steeped in the time-honored drinking culture of enjoying a nice cold one after a long day.

    “The makeup of the population is different now,” Yan said. “Now we have more immigrants from the mainland, and they tend to love to go back to mainland China to spend instead.”

    At Hong Kong’s most famous nightlife district, Lan Kwai Fong, the music may be fading, but it hasn’t stopped completely.

    The area was long synonymous with jam-packed streets of revelers who would spill out from the bars as the air filled with the sounds of boisterous chatter, clinking glasses and dance music blasting away late into the night.

    But during a recent visit by CNN, there was little to distinguish the area from any other street.

    People stand and drink in Lan Kwai Fong in 2017, back when the place was still pumping.

    “It has been very challenging so far and it has not got back to normal by a long shot,” said Richard Feldman, who runs the gay bar Petticoat Lane at the California Tower in Lan Kwai Fong.

    The chairman of the Soho Association, who has been running businesses in the city for more than three decades, Feldman said business was slightly better between Friday and Saturday than weekdays and shops with a good reputation have been less affected.

    But across the board, he too said the number of Western faces were dwindling in what was once a favored expat haunt.

    “It was a mix of expats and local professionals who would go out for drinks and a late night dance. But that demographic has eased quite a bit in the past year,” said another bar owner Becky Lam. “We are getting more mainland customers.”

    Lam, joint founder of a number of Hong Kong bars and restaurants, including wine bar Shady Acres in Central, said while mainland Chinese were willing to spend, they tended to gravitate towards restaurants rather than bars and were less likely to stay out late.

    On a weekday, she said, the bars she runs have been getting only half of the customers compared to pre-pandemic days.

    “They’ll settle for the Happy Hours and that’s it. We are not talking about 2 a.m. to 3 a.m.,” she said.

    There are other problems gnawing away at the nightlife sector.

    “People’s habits have changed since Covid, as many are so used to staying at home watching TV and Netflix,” Feldman said.

    During the pandemic, Hong Kong imposed a lengthy ban on bars and dine-in services to stem social gatherings, in what many saw as a nod to mainland China’s “zero-Covid” strategy.

    This affected shops and malls, which shortened their business hours due to the lack of customers. In many cases, those shortened hours have now become the new normal, with some shops now closing as early as 9 p.m. as opposed to the pre-Covid standard of 10:30 p.m.

    Lan Kwai Fong during its heyday in 2017

    Also conspiring against the city’s nightlife is a strong Hong Kong dollar compared to the Chinese yuan, which affects how both Hong Kongers and potential tourists spend their money.

    “People from the mainland are less likely to come here to shop, while people in Hong Kong are going to Shenzhen to spend their money,” said Marco Chan, head of research at real estate and investment firm CBRE.

    While mainland tourists now think twice about coming to Hong Kong, many Hongkongers have been spending their weekends in mainland China, where many services come at a fraction of the price, Chan said.

    Known as the “Godfather of Lan Kwai Fong,” Allan Zeman – the entrepreneur who turned the small square in Hong Kong’s Central district into a renowned nightlife hub – cuts a more optimistic figure than most and insists business is not as bad as it appears.

    He estimates mainland Chinese customers now account for 35% of the patrons in Lan Kwai Fong and says they are big spenders.

    Allan Zeman, chairman of Lan Kwai Fong Group, says mainland Chinese tourists are still spending generously.

    “They’ll go up to a club, like the California Tower on the roof, and they’ll spend like 400,000 to 550,000 Hong Kong dollars ($51,000 to $70,000) just for drinks,” he said.

    His take is that it is Hong Kong’s strong currency and a relative lack of incoming flights compared to the pre-Covid era that are stalling the city’s comeback. “I think it’s temporary,” he said.

    But bar owner Lam said Hong Kong needs to reexamine its regulatory approach, if it is to thrive at night once more.

    Lam pointed to a drive in recent years by the authorities to remove the city’s famous neon lights in the name of safety as an example of the current misguided approach, saying Hong Kong’s most defining nighttime icons were being dismantled one sign at a time.

    She also said her bar, Shady Acres, had been told to serve customers only indoors and shut all doors and windows after 9 p.m. as part of its licensing requirement.

    “These kinds of hurdles are really big in Hong Kong,” Lam said. “But I look at our neighboring cities like Bangkok, Shanghai and Taipei. These cities have an exciting nightlife as they really make it late night fun with music, street art and late night dining.”

    Feldman, of Petticoat Lane, had another suggestion. “Hong Kong used to be a far more international destination. Now it is a domestic destination,” he said.

    The city, said Feldman, should “do everything it can to attract people not only from China but from all over the world.”

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  • Before he became a politician, House Speaker Mike Johnson partnered with an anti-gay conversion therapy group | CNN Politics

    Before he became a politician, House Speaker Mike Johnson partnered with an anti-gay conversion therapy group | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Speaker of the House Mike Johnson closely collaborated with a group in the mid-to-late 2000s that promoted “conversion therapy,” a discredited practice that asserted it could change the sexual orientation of gay and lesbian individuals.

    Prior to launching his political career, Johnson, a lawyer, gave legal advice to an organization called Exodus International and partnered with the group to put on an annual anti-gay event aimed at teens, according to a CNN KFile review of more than a dozen of Johnson’s media appearances from that timespan.

    Founded in 1976, Exodus International was a leader in the so-called “ex-gay” movement, which aimed to make gay individuals straight through conversion therapy programs using religious and counseling methods. Exodus International connected ministries across the world using these controversial approaches.

    The group shut down in 2013, with its founder posting a public apology for the “pain and hurt” his organization caused. Conversion therapy has been widely condemned by most major medical institutions and has been shown to be harmful to struggling LGBTQ people.

    At the time, Johnson worked as an attorney for the socially conservative legal advocacy group, Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). He and his group collaborated with Exodus from 2006 to 2010.

    For years, Johnson and Exodus worked on an event started by ADF in 2005 known as the “Day of Truth” – a counterprotest to the “Day of Silence,” a day in schools in which students stayed silent to bring awareness to bullying faced by LGBTQ youth.

    The Day of Truth sought to counter that silence by distributing information about what Johnson described as the “dangerous” gay lifestyle.

    “I mean, our race, the size of our feet, the color of our eyes, these are things we’re born with and we cannot change,” Johnson told one radio host in 2008 promoting the event. “What these adult advocacy groups like the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network are promoting is a type of behavior. Homosexual behavior is something you do, it’s not something that you are.”

    In print, radio and on television, Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, frequently disparaged homosexuality, according to KFile’s review. He advocated for the criminalization of gay sex and went so far as to partially blame it for the fall of the Roman Empire.

    “Some credit to the fall of Rome to not only the deprivation of the society and the loss of morals, but also to the rampant homosexual behavior that was condoned by the society,” Johnson told a radio host in 2008.

    Johnson’s office did not respond to a CNN request for comment asking about his work with Exodus.

    Exodus International joined ADF’s Day of Truth event in 2006 and the groups worked together on promotional material for the event, including a standalone website which pointed users to Exodus’ conversion ministries. Documents on that website cited the since-repudiated academic work in support of conversion therapy. Exodus Youth, the group’s youth wing, promoted the event within its blogs.

    Videos put out by Exodus and ADF on their standalone Day of Truth website featured two Exodus staffers speaking about how teens didn’t need to “accept” or “embrace” their homosexuality. The videos featured testimonials of a “former-homosexual” and “former lesbian.”

    Documents on the website were not archived online but were saved by anti-conversion therapy groups such as Truth Wins Out in 2007 and 2008. The website featured a FAQ on homosexuality provided by Exodus and sold t-shirts saying, “the Truth cannot be silenced.”

    One video featured Johnson, who was later quoted in a press release on Exodus International’s website ahead of the event, saying, “An open, honest discussion allows truth to rise to the surface.”

    Johnson promoted the event heavily in the media – through radio interviews, comments in newspapers, and an editorial. In interviews, he repeatedly cited the case of a teen who went to school after the Day of Silence wearing a shirt that read, “Be ashamed. Our school has embraced what God has condemned” and “Homosexuality is shameful.” The teen was suspended and ADF represented him in legal action over the incident. The case was dismissed because the teen graduated, and the court found he no longer had standing to challenge the dress code.

    “Day of Truth was really established to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda in public schools,” Johnson told a radio host in 2008.

    Those who worked to counter ADF and Exodus at the time, said the event was dangerous to confused youth.

    “This directly harmed LGBTQ youth,” Wayne Besen, the executive director of Truth Wins Out and an expert on the ex-gay industry, told CNN. “This is someone whose core was promoting anti-gay and ex-gay viewpoints. He wouldn’t pander to anti-gay advocates, he was the anti-gay and ex-gay advocate.”

    Randy Scobey, a former executive vice president at Exodus, who worked on the Day of Truth in the organization’s collaboration with ADF, called the event one of his biggest regrets.

    “It was bullying those who were trying to not be bullied,” said Scobey, who now lives openly as a gay man. “That was one of the public ways that the Alliance Defense Fund worked with us.”

    Ties between Exodus and ADF extended beyond the event.

    ADF, which has since changed its name to the Alliance Defending Freedom, touted Exodus International in promotional brochures in 2004, crediting it as an organization that “played an instrumental role in helping thousands of individuals come out of homosexual behavior.”

    Scobey recalled Johnson as quiet, but firm in his beliefs that homosexuality was wrong. He said Johnson and ADF provided crucial legal advice to Exodus and its “member ministries.”

    “We worked with them behind the scenes a lot,” Scobey told CNN, saying the group offered them legal guidance over their ex-gay counseling. “They were very important to us as far as helping us to feel more secure legally and politically.”

    Exodus International stopped sponsoring the Day of Truth event in 2010, saying it became adversarial and counterproductive.

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  • Should you let Halloween be a candy free-for-all? Maybe, experts say | CNN

    Should you let Halloween be a candy free-for-all? Maybe, experts say | CNN

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    Get inspired by a weekly roundup on living well, made simple. Sign up for CNN’s Life, But Better newsletter for information and tools designed to improve your well-being.



    CNN
     — 

    Micromanaging how your child eats candy this Halloween might be more of a trick than a treat, experts say.

    Once you’re a grown-up raising kids, that bag full of candy might be the scariest part of Halloween — whether it’s concern about a potential sugar rush, worries of parenting perfectionism or diet culture anxiety.

    “It makes sense to be scared, because we’ve been taught to be scared,” said Oona Hanson, a parent coach based in Los Angeles. “Sugar is sort of the boogeyman in our current cultural conversation.”

    But micromanaging your child’s candy supply can backfire, leading to an overvaluing of sweets, binge behavior or unhealthy restriction in your child, said Natalie Mokari, a registered dietitian nutritionist in Charlotte, North Carolina.

    As stressful as it may be to see your child faced with more candy in one night than they would eat in an entire year, the best approach may be to lean into the joy, she added.

    “They are only in that age where they want to trick or treat for just a small glimpse of time — it’s so short-lived,” Mokari said. “Let them enjoy that day.”

    Experts aren’t suggesting kids have sugar all day every day. The American Heart Association and the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee — groups charged with providing science-based recommendations every five years — have recommended lower daily levels of sugar. Too much added sugar has been associated with cardiovascular disease and lack of essential nutrients.

    But a healthy relationship with food has balance, and you can keep your kids’ diets full of nutrients while allowing them to eat sweets, Mokari said.

    She and Hanson shared some tips on how to relieve candy-eating stress this Halloween.

    Some stress over limiting children’s Halloween candy may reflect the adults’ relationship with food.

    If you look at the candy in your child’s bag and worry that you will binge on it or get anxiety about weight, it may be a good idea to talk to a mental health professional or dietitian about reworking your own relationship with food, Mokari said.

    It is especially important because what we say about food in front of children can make a big impact on the relationship they have with it and their bodies, Hanson said.

    A passing comment of “I really need to work out after all that sugar” or “I can’t have that in the house — I’m going to get so fat” can have long-lasting impacts of overeating or under eating, she said.

    Should you trade out the candy?

    Many communities have their own traditions to encourage kids to give up their Halloween loot. Maybe it’s making a “donation” to dentists for a reward or switching candy with the Switch Witch for a toy instead.

    There is a place for weeding out candy after Halloween for some children, Hanson said.

    If your children just aren’t excited by the candy, they may ask to trade it for toys, Mokari said. Or if they have allergies or aversions to certain candies, they may welcome an opportunity to get rid of what they can’t or don’t want to eat, Hanson said.

    But if your child looks at the full candy bag with glee, enforcing a reduction could turn the sweets even more valuable in their minds and heighten a fixation that may not have been there initially, Mokari said.

    Should Halloween be a candy free-for-all? Maybe, Mokari said.

    Just as adults find themselves craving whatever they have outlawed for themselves on a restrictive diet, kids who have their candy highly managed may start to value it more than they would have otherwise, she said.

    “The forbidden Twix tastes the sweetest,” Hanson said.

    Enjoying different foods on different occasions is part of a healthy relationship with food — so try to relax and lean into the holiday, Mokari said. And remember that though they may be breaking into a lot of candy on Halloween, that isn’t how they always eat, she added.

    If you are worried about a candy binge in the days following, make a plan with your child to divvy up the treats in ways that are exciting, Mokari said. Maybe that means packing a few pieces up with lunch or adding them to an afternoon snack with a few more food groups, she added.

    It can be difficult to relax around a pound of chocolate, however, when you are worried about the negative impact that candy might have on your child.

    Maybe it’s a stomachache from eating too much. It isn’t the worst outcome, Hanson said. That upset stomach can be an important lesson in how to listen to what their body needs and know when they’ve had too much of something that tastes good, she added.

    Maybe you worry about a sugar rush. Well, sugar affects everyone differently, and some kids might seem to get a boost, while others grow irritable, Mokari said. But both will likely end in a crash.

    And either way, kids will likely be extra enthusiastic on Halloween, Hanson said. Even without all the sugar, she said to remember it’s exciting for them.

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  • A nonprofit is racing to get its portable baby incubators into Israel and Gaza as crisis deepens | CNN Business

    A nonprofit is racing to get its portable baby incubators into Israel and Gaza as crisis deepens | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Jane Chen is racing against the clock, again. She knows well how every minute that passes is crucial for a new life that emerges prematurely into the world in the most vulnerable of circumstances — in the midst of war, in the aftermath of a natural disaster or in a remote village far away from a medical center.

    Acutely aware of the deepening crisis between Israel and Gaza, Chen is mobilizing her team at Embrace Global, a nonprofit she co-founded to help save babies’ lives, in a way that’s become second nature to her.

    Embrace, based in San Francisco, California, makes low-cost portable baby incubators that don’t require a stable electricity supply.

    The Embrace incubator resembles a sleeping bag, but for a baby. It’s a three-part system consisting of an infant sleeping bag, a removable and reusable pouch filled with a wax-like phase-change material which maintains a constant temperature of 98 degrees F for up to eight hours at a stretch when heated, and a heater to reheat the pouch when it cools.

    Chen said the pouch requires just a 30-minute charge to be fully ready for reuse. “This is really ideal for settings that have intermittent access to electricity, which is a lot of places where we work in the world,” she said.

    According to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), an estimated 50,000 pregnant women currently reside in Gaza, 5,500 of whom are due to give birth in the coming month.

    The stats are startling to Chen, who is bracing for a swell of need there. She’s learned how access to incubators becomes critical in conflict areas through the organization’s efforts to donate 3,000 Embrace incubators with the help of UNICEF to doctors and hospitals in Ukraine where a war with Russia rages on. The nonprofit also sent the devices to Turkey and Syria after devastating earthquakes there earlier this year.

    Medical experts point to elevated stress as a potentially serious factor that could trigger preterm deliveries in these situations.

    “There’s been plenty of data that show stress not only causes preterm birth but also low-birth-weight,” said Dr. Veronica Gillispie-Bell, an obstetrician-gynecologist and associate professor with Ochsner Health in New Orleans, Louisiana

    In general, babies born preterm or before 37 weeks, have difficulty maintaining their body temperature, said Bell. “Specifically, if we are speaking of disasters…. in my own experience of being here during [Hurricane] Katrina, in those very stressful situations, we have seen an uptick during those times in preterm birth and low birth weight,” she said.

    Because preterm and low-birth-weight babies don’t have as much body fat, it’s harder for them to maintain their body temperature, which for a healthy baby is between 96.8 and 99.5 degrees F, she said. “The lower it is below that, the more oxygen and energy they need to stay warm. So they would have use even more energy.”

    In both cases of preterm and low-birth-weight infants, quick and constant access to an incubator is vital.

    In Ukraine, Chen said doctors have indicated that preterm births are on the rise across the country at the same time that intermittent power outages have made the use of conventional incubators very challenging. Several doctors and nurses, she said, also must consistently take babies and mothers to basement shelters as bombings continue.

    Dr. Halyna Masiura, a general practitioner, is experiencing this first hand at the Berezivka Primary Healthcare Center in the Odesa region of Ukraine.

    Embrace Global donated its incubators to hospitals in Ukraine through its partner Project HOPE, including to the Sumy Regional Perinatal center in Northeastern Ukraine in 2022. Seen here is a nurse at Sumy Perinatal center secures an infant into an Embrace incubator.

    “Half of the babies being born in this area need more care,” Masiura told CNN. “They are being born early and with low birth weight. When air raids happen, we all have to go into shelters.” Masiura said her staff members have been relying on donated Embrace incubators for babies born with a birth weight of 2 kg (4 lbs) and up.

    In the Palestinian exclave of Gaza, Israel has instructed more than half of the more than 2 million residents in the north to evacuate to the southern region ahead of an anticipated ground operation in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in response to Hamas’ deadly October 7 attack on Israel.

    That attack killed more than 1,400 people.

    In Gaza, where half of the overall population are children, access to medical aid, food, water, fuel, electricity and other normal daily necessities of life have evaporated in recent days amid sustained Israeli bombardment.

    Over the weekend, after days of a complete siege of the exclave by Israel, the first trucks reported to be carrying medicine and medical supplies, food and water entered Gaza on Saturday.

    Palestinians search under the rubble of a building destroyed by Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 17, 2023.

    For Chen, the most pressing problem is to figure out how to get the incubators to where they are most needed on the ground there. “As we did for Ukraine, we’re looking for partnerships with organizations that can get into the region effectively and also for funding,” she said. As a nonprofit, Chen said donations are sought through GoFundMe and a mix of individual donors, foundations and corporate donations.

    Her team is working on a partnership with a humanitarian relief organization to respond in Gaza. “We’re also reaching out to organizations in Israel to assess the need for our incubators there,” she added.

    A couple of hundred incubators are ready to immediately be sent to Israel and Gaza. Said Chen, “Depending on the need, we would go into production for more. But the big question is, can we get into those areas? We don’t want to ship products and then have them sit there.”

    Linus Liang, along with Chen, was among the original team of graduate students at Stanford University who, as part of a class assignment in 2007, were given a challenge to develop a low-cost infant incubator for use in developing countries.

    Liang, a software engineer who had already created and sold two gaming companies by then, was intrigued. “This class deliberately brought together people from different disciplines – law, business, medical school, engineers – to collaborate to solve world problems,” he said.

    “Our challenge was that about 20 million premature and low-birth-weight babies are born globally every year,” he said. “Many of them don’t survive, or if they do, they live with terrible health conditions.”

    Embrace Global founder Jane Chen at SVYM hospital in Karnataka, India, in 2013.

    The reasons why came down to factors such as a shortage of expensive conventional incubators or families living far away from medical centers to access quickly for their newborns.

    The team formed their company in 2008 and then took a few years to engineer and produce the solution, with Liang and Chen both moving to India for a few years to get it off the ground and market test it there. Chen said the incubators, made in India, underwent rigorous testing and are CE certified, a regulatory standard that a device must meet to be approved for use in the European market and in Asia and Africa.

    “We chose that route instead of seeking FDA approval because the need really is outside of the US,” said Liang. The cost per incubator is about $500, including cost of the product, training, distribution, shipping, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, said Chen. That compares to as much as $30,000 or more per conventional incubators, she said.

    Chen estimates some 15,000 babies benefited from Embrace incubators in 2022.

    Dr. Leah Seaman has been using Embrace incubators for three years in Zambia. Seaman is a doctor working in pediatrics for the last 12 years, including six years focusing on neonatal care at the Kapiri Mposhi District Hospital in the Central Province of Zambia.

    Seaman has also been busy setting up a new specialized neonatal ward in the rural district hospital. “When I first came to Zambia, we had one old incubator that would draw a lot of power,” she said. “We often struggle with power cuts here, so even the voltage can be too low for the incubator to function well. Having enough space to set up conventional incubator was an issue as well.”

    So she reached out to Chen in late 2020 after researching solutions that would work for the specific conditions in Zambia.

    Ambulance midwives after being trained in how to use the Embrace incubators at the Kapiri Mposhi District Hospital in Zambia in 2022.

    “In Zambia, 13% of births are premature, and that’s not even including low-birth-weight babies born at term,” she said. “We needed an effective solution.”

    Embrace Global donated 15 incubators to the hospital. The new neonatal ward, set to open this month, is built around the Embrace incubator stations with Kangaroo mother care, or skin to skin contact between mother and baby.

    “Last year we had 800 babies through the ward and maybe half of them used the Embrace incubator,” said Seaman. “This year we’ve had over 800 already. We haven’t asked for any conventional incubators because from 1 kg (2.2 lbs) and above, the Embrace incubator does the work.”

    Because of their heavy use, Seaman said the main challenge with the incubators is making sure that the heating pad is kept warm and reheated in a timely manner. “We’ve built a mattress station where we will be teaching the new mothers how to do that,” she said.

    “Why do we keep babies warm? It’s not just a nice thing. It literally does save lives,” Seaman said.

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  • Here’s what we know about the suspect in the Maine mass shooting | CNN

    Here’s what we know about the suspect in the Maine mass shooting | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The suspect in the Maine mass shooting started making statements about hearing voices and wanting to hurt fellow soldiers while serving at a military base this summer, and spent a few weeks in a hospital, law enforcement officials told CNN.

    But a relative of the suspect and two former colleagues in the Army Reserve told CNN they weren’t aware of him having any longstanding history of mental health issues – although one former colleague remembered him as a skilled marksman and outdoorsman who was among the best shooters in his unit.

    Robert R. Card II, who police are searching for in connection with the fatal shooting of at least 18 people in Lewiston, Maine, made his troubling statements while he was at the Camp Smith training facility in New York, the law enforcement officials said. His command referred him to a military hospital, and he spent a few weeks under evaluation, they said.

    In July, Army Reserve officials reported Card for “behaving erratically,” and he was transported to the nearby Keller Army Community Hospital at the United States Military Academy for “medical evaluation,” a National Guard spokesman told CNN.

    “Out of concern for his safety, the unit requested that law enforcement be contacted,” said the spokesperson, Col. Richard Goldenberg. New York State Police responded and transported Card to the hospital, he said.

    Card then spent a few weeks under evaluation at the hospital, the law enforcement officials said.

    The 40-year-old Card also threatened to shoot up a National Guard base in Maine, law enforcement officials previously told CNN.

    Card’s sister-in-law, Katie O’Neill, said in a brief conversation with CNN Thursday that Card does not have a long history of mental health struggles.

    “This is something that was an acute episode. This is not who he is,” O’Neill said. “He is not someone who has had mental health issues for his lifetime or anything like that.”

    Except for an arrest in 2007 for an alleged driving under the influence charge, the suspect is not known to ATF or in FBI holdings, according to law enforcement sources. He legally possesses multiple weapons and owns a home on hundreds of acres of land in Maine, the sources said.

    Card is a petroleum supply specialist in the Army Reserve and first enlisted in 2002, according to records provided by the Army on Thursday. He has no combat deployments, according to the records. 

    Clifford Steeves of Massachusetts told CNN he knew Card when they served in the Army Reserve together, starting in the early 2000s until about a decade ago. He said he never witnessed any concerning behavior from Card.

    “He was a very nice guy – very quiet. He never overused his authority or was mean or rude to other soldiers,” Steeves said. “It’s really upsetting.”

    Steeves said the two served together around the country at different points, including in Wisconsin, Georgia and New York. He said he felt as though he “grew up” with Card because they entered the Army as young men and trained together. 

    Steeves said that while “aggressive leadership was very prominent” in the Army, Card stuck out for being a “rational, understanding person” who “led through respect rather than fear.”

     Steeves said Card never saw combat but had extensive training, including firearms training and land navigation, “so he would be very comfortable in the woods.” He described Card as an “outdoors type of guy” and a skilled marksman who was one of the best shooters in his unit.

    Another former Army Reserve member who served with Card also described him as a “nice guy” who “never had an issue with anybody.” The servicemember, who asked to speak anonymously due to the sensitivity of the situation, did not recall Card showing any kind of violent behavior.

    Card studied engineering technology at the University of Maine between 2001 and 2004 but did not graduate, Eric Gordon, a university spokesperson, told CNN. 

    Public records show addresses for Card in Bowdoin, Maine, a town near Lewiston. Card appears to have been a member of a local horseshoe-throwing club in the nearby town of Lisbon, Maine, according to a local news story and a Facebook photo that showed him wearing a t-shirt with the club’s logo.  

    An account on the social media platform X with Card’s name and a photo that appears to be him, which has been taken offline, had a history of liking right-wing and Republican political content. 

    When WNBA player Brittney Griner was released from Russian detention after a prisoner exchange for a convicted arms dealer, the account posted what appeared to be its only tweet. Responding to a CNBC story about the topic, the account wrote: “Mass murderer for a wnba player great job keep up the good work,” in an apparent jab at President Joe Biden.

    The account liked a tweet earlier this year from right-wing author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza arguing against an assault weapons ban, as well as other tweets from political figures like Donald Trump Jr. and Tucker Carlson.  

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  • 82-year-old Korean man has heart attack after choking on ‘live octopus’ dish | CNN

    82-year-old Korean man has heart attack after choking on ‘live octopus’ dish | CNN

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    Seoul, South Korea
    CNN
     — 

    An 82-year-old man in South Korea had a heart attack after choking on a piece of “live octopus,” or san-nakji, a local delicacy comprised of freshly severed – and still wriggling – tentacles.

    Fire station authorities in Gwangju, a city near the country’s southern tip, received a report on Monday morning that a piece of san-nakji had become stuck in a man’s throat, according to a fire station official.

    When first responders arrived on site, the man had a cardiac arrest, and they conducted CPR, the official said.

    The official did not say whether the man survived.

    San-nakji refers to a small octopus that is sliced and served raw, often eaten in South Korea’s coastal areas or seafood markets.

    Though the dish’s name translates to “live octopus,” this is slightly misleading – the octopus is killed before serving, with its tentacles cut into portions.

    However, it is served immediately after slicing, and is so fresh that the tentacles’ nerves are still active – causing the octopus to appear “live” as it continues moving on the plate.

    San-nakji is often served with sesame oil, sesame seeds, and sometimes ginger, and has a chewy texture.

    It made an appearance on a 2015 episode of Anthony Bourdain’s CNN series “Parts Unknown,” when the famed chef and television host traveled to South Korea to sample everything from soju to Korean fried chicken – and san-nakji, with Bourdain using his chopsticks to peel a sticky tentacle off the plate.

    The dish has also previously made headlines, with local media reporting multiple cases over the years of diners dying after choking or asphyxiating on “live octopus.”

    In perhaps the best-known case, dubbed the “octopus murder,” a South Korean man was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2012 for allegedly killing his girlfriend and claiming it was a san-nakji accident – before he was acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2013 for insufficient evidence.

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  • An A to Z of the top foods and drinks Australians love most — Vegemite included | CNN

    An A to Z of the top foods and drinks Australians love most — Vegemite included | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    There are countless things about our homeland that Australians miss after moving abroad: the magnificent landscape, the laid-back lifestyle and that endless blue sky, to name a few.

    But something as simple as a trip to the supermarket can leave us expats – according to some reports there are an estimated one million of us – feeling desperately homesick.

    With its long history of immigration, Australia is quite literally a melting pot of cuisines.

    While some foods are the result of cultural influences such as the Chiko Roll, others are uniquely Aussie, like Golden Gaytime ice cream.

    And who could forget the most famous of them all, Vegemite, which turns 100 on October 25.

    According to the National Museum of Australia, it was invented by chemist CP Callister in Melbourne in 1923 when Australian food manufacturer Fred Walker asked him to create a product similar to British Marmite.

    “During the Second World War, Vegemite captured the Australian market. Marmite was unobtainable and the Australian Army supplied Vegemite to its troops,” says the museum in a post highlighting defining symbols of Australia.

    “In the 1950s and 60s, despite acquisition by the American company Kraft, Vegemite became a distinctively ‘Australian’ food. It featured in songs, on souvenirs and other popular culture ephemera. Vegemite returned to Australian ownership in 2017 when purchased by dairy company Bega.”

    More on this famed brown spread below as we round up the A-Z of Aussie favorites:

    Introduced in 1927, this simple dessert is an Australian classic.

    Every Australian child grew up singing the famous 1930s jingle: “I like Aeroplane Jelly, Aeroplane Jelly for me!”

    The brand’s “Bertie the Aeroplane” mascot was named after inventor Bert Appleroth – a Sydney tram driver who is said to have made the first batch in his bathtub.

    Although now owned by an American company, Aeroplane Jelly has hardly changed since grandma was a girl.

    Sure, there are plenty of brands of jelly available worldwide, but when it comes time to make a trifle or treat for the kids, Aussie parents can’t resist this familiar favorite.

    An Australian variety of mango that isn’t grown anywhere else in the world, the Bowen is considered the best of the best.

    It was first discovered in the northern Queensland town of Bowen, hence the name, but is also known as Kensington Pride.

    Bigger and juicer than other varieties, Bowen mangoes account for 80% of mangoes produced in Australia. Some are exported but arguably not enough for the huge number of mango-loving expats.

    To Aussies, mangoes are the taste of summer. No matter where we are in the world, the craving for a Bowen mango usually kicks in around Christmas.

    This strange little deep-fried snack has been an Australian icon since 1950 when it was first sold by an enterprising boilermaker at football games.

    Inspired by Chinese spring rolls, the exact recipe is a little unclear but the combination of meat, veg and some unknown spices hits the spot.

    Best consumed with a couple of potato scallops and a soft drink, the Chiko Roll is the go-to for tradies on their lunch break or those 3 a.m. munchies on your way home from the pub.

    And the only place to get them is a typical Aussie takeaway joint.

    Dukkah – a humble blend of crushed Middle Eastern spices, herbs and nuts from Egypt – has been embraced by Australian foodies.

    Its versatility is one of the reasons this condiment is so popular. Dukkah can be used as a garnish, a coating on a piece of meat or mixed with olive oil as a dip for bread.

    A number of producers have given the basic dukkah recipe an Australian twist by adding native ingredients, such as lemon myrtle, macadamia nuts, wattleseed, saltbush and pepperleaf.

    Expats can find many variations in Australian supermarkets and, fortunately, they’re often sold in packets small enough to sneak into a suitcase.

    Australia is one of the few countries where it is considered perfectly acceptable to eat the coat of arms.

    Exceptionally lean and gamey, emu and kangaroo tend to be popular among adventurous chefs in Australia.

    But when living abroad, neither is easy to get your hands on.

    A number of restaurants and specialty butchers offer native meats, but the expense involved in raising emus, in particular, means it’s harder to come by.

    The flat white is practically Australia's national drink.

    Thanks to the influx of Greek and Italian immigrants who brought “proper coffee” to Australia post WWII, we have become a nation of coffee snobs.

    The flat white is almost Aussie enough to be called the national drink.

    All over the world, café goers and baristas have been confounded as Aussie expats seek out their favorite brew abroad.

    With less milk than a latte and without the froth of a cappuccino, the flat white requires special attention (it’s all in the pouring).

    One of the first questions asked on expat forums: “Where can I get a decent flat white in this town?”

    And it’s usually the first thing ordered at the airport café when back on home soil.

    Ice creams feature highly on the most-wanted lists of expats, so it’s only natural we highlight them here.

    Milky Paddle Pops and fruity Splice have been popular summer treats since the 1960s.

    Likewise, Weis Bars have also been around for more than 60 years, and the mango and cream concoctions invoke memories of lazy summer afternoons.

    But the number one, the crème de la crème, is the Golden Gaytime – a vanilla and toffee ice cream coated in chocolate and dipped in crunchy biscuit pieces that has inspired many a replica over the years.

    While the burger itself is not an Australian invention, we have added some unconventional ingredients that make the Aussie version truly memorable.

    Take the essentials – a beef patty, cheese, tomato, lettuce, grilled onions, tomato sauce (ketchup) – and add beetroot, pineapple, a fried egg and bacon, and you have yourself a massive mouthful.

    A quick online search reveals variations that include pickled beetroot and spicy mayo, among others, but the classic Aussie burger celebrates simplicity.

    It’s easy enough to replicate at home, but nothing beats the experience of ducking into the local milk-bar (café), or fish and chip shop, to enjoy a burger and a milkshake after a day at the beach.

    The Iced VoVo – a biscuit covered in pink fondant, raspberry jam and shredded coconut – is a national treasure.

    Produced by Arnott’s since the early 1900s, the iconic treat was mentioned by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in his victory speech after the 2007 election, leading to a spike in sales.

    “Friends, tomorrow, the work begins. You can have a strong cup of tea if you want, even an Iced VoVo on the way through. But the celebration stops there,” Rudd said.

    Not often found for sale overseas, this sweet treat is one to enjoy with a cup of tea when you’re home visiting mum.

    Caramello Koala is a brand of chocolate bar manufactured by Cadbury Australia.

    Ask any Australian expat what they miss most about ‘home’ and their list is sure to include at least one type of junk food – the absence of which is felt most keenly at kids’ birthday parties.

    Allen’s Lollies (candy) have been around for decades and Minties, Fantales, Jaffas, Snakes and the Classic Party Mix remain as popular as ever.

    The Aussie public doesn’t seem to mind that they are all owned by Nestlé, which is headquartered in Switzerland.

    Fairy Bread – essentially white bread covered in butter and sprinkles – is another party staple that manages to be devoid of nutrition but highly nostalgic.

    On return trips to Australia, expats are known to bulk-buy chocolate bars like Cadbury Cherry Ripes, Caramello Koalas and ever-popular Violet Crumbles.

    When it comes to savory junk foods, Smith’s Chips, cheesy Twisties and Nobby’s nuts are synonymous with snacking – and nothing produced overseas comes close.

    The perfect late-night snack.

    We tend to lump all Middle Eastern meat-and-pita combos under the heading of “kebab” and be done with it.

    Of course, there are subtle differences between doner kebabs, shawarma, souvlaki, and gyros – in both ingredients and quality – depending on the source.

    Connoisseurs agree that pork gyros (Greek flatbread filled with rotisserie-roasted meat) found in more legitimate venues around Australia are the best.

    Consider the sauce dripping down the front of your shirt an essential part of the experience.

    Proving that Aussies love anything with jam and coconut, the lamington is the country’s favorite cake.

    Named after Lord Lamington, Queensland’s eighth governor, these delightful squares of sponge cake – dipped in chocolate and coated with coconut – have become nothing short of a culinary icon.

    There are entire websites (and an Australian Lamington Appreciation Society) devoted to the origins of the lamington and how to make them. Achieving the right ratio of chocolate, jam and coconut is essential.

    Meat pies: Colloquially referred to as a

    There are pies, and then there are Aussie meat pies.

    Synonymous with afternoons at the football pitch, brands like Four ‘N Twenty and Vili’s have cornered the market for mass-produced pies.

    Small local outfits (like the Bemboka Pie Shop and Harry’s Café de Wheels) are institutions in their own right.

    Everyone has a favorite type, whether it’s shepherd’s pie, a floater with peas, cheese and bacon or straight-up meat.

    The only requirement? The pie is served piping hot with tomato sauce … and eaten one-handed.

    With Four ‘N Twenty now exporting to the United States and parts of Asia, some expats can get their pie fix without venturing too far.

    Australia’s love affair with Asian food is no secret, and our northern neighbors strongly influence what we put on our plates.

    Even Aussies living in Asia admit to craving “Aussie Chinese” or “Aussie Thai” – dishes that give a nod to the original but are not as authentic as the real thing. In fact, some would say they’re potentially even better.

    We’d argue the fresh, high-quality produce and quality meats available in Australia bring out the best in Asian dishes.

    A fishmonger shucks an oyster at the Sydney Fish Market.

    It’s fair to say that oysters are an acquired taste, but for those with a penchant for the salty mollusks, Australia produces some of the best in the world.

    You’ll find two main species in Aussie waters: rock oysters and Pacific.

    As bivalves, oysters filter the water around them and their location dictates their flavor.

    The pristine waters along Australia’s coastline provide the perfect conditions for oysters, and they rarely need any accompaniment.

    There’s nothing quite like eating these slippery snacks straight off the rocks – export just doesn’t do them justice.

    A pavlova cake is typically served with summer fruits heaped on top.

    The origins of this meringue-based dessert are hotly contested.

    Recent research suggests that the Pav didn’t come from the antipodes at all, but nevertheless it remains a firm favorite.

    Meringue, cream and plenty of fruit are the key ingredients, though there are no hard and fast rules about what has to be included.

    Expats living in tropical climes often bemoan how challenging it is to get a decent meringue, given humid weather can turn it soft and sticky, so Pavlova is a rare treat.

    Q: Quandong and quince

    Both the native quandong and the foreign quince lend themselves to some of our favorite condiments and desserts.

    Similar to a wild peach, the quandong is incredibly versatile and nutritious and can be made into juice, jam, filling for pies or eaten raw.

    The quince is a relative of the apple and pear, and while several varieties are grown commercially in Australia the fruit is best known as the star in Maggie Beer’s quince paste – the only way to eat soft cheese.

    Bottle number 1,888 of Bundaberg Rum's 125th anniversary rum.

    Bundaberg Rum, to be more specific. Or just Bundy, as it’s known to locals.

    This Australian beverage was created way back in 1888 to deal with an oversupply of molasses in Queensland’s sugarcane region.

    Producers believe that it’s the sugar, grown in volcanic soil, that gives Bundy its distinct, rich flavor.

    The distillery produces 60,000 bottles a day and the factory was the subject of a National Geographic documentary in 2013.

    To say this drop has cult status would be an understatement.

    Just throw a shrimp on the barbie.

    There are so many foods starting with S – smashed avocado, SAO biscuits, sausages – that could represent the land down under.

    But Australia’s best produce comes from the sea and expats fondly reminisce about mornings spent at the fish markets picking up the catch of the day before special occasions.

    While we’re known to “throw a shrimp on the barbie” there are some creatures that are far more popular.

    Barramundi, Balmain or Moreton Bay bugs, abalone, and of course, prawns are just some of the native seafood worth queuing for.

    Malted, creamy, crunchy goodness.

    Technically a junk food, Tim Tam biscuits are so famous, so overwhelmingly popular, that they deserve their own spot on this list.

    The original Tim Tams are the best: A chocolate-coated sandwich of two malted chocolate biscuits with chocolate cream filling.

    Arnott’s, the manufacturers, now export to more than 40 countries around the world, so you can get your fix whether you’re skiing the slopes of Niseko, in Japan, or catching rays on a Tahitian beach.

    Uncle Tobys began producing oats way back in 1893. But it wasn’t until the 1970s, when convenience foods started hitting the shelves, that they developed their now famous muesli bars.

    The ultimate lunchbox treat or after-school snack, kids had the luxury of choosing not only the flavor, but also the texture.

    Many a playground war has been fought over which was best – crunchy or chewy. For the record, we’re firmly in the crunchy camp.

    These days the range has grown to include yoghurt and choc-chip toppings. There’s even a lamington flavor.

    No round-up of Aussie foods would be complete without this ubiquitous salty brown spread, which turns 100 on October 25.

    Twenty million jars of Vegemite are sold each year – that’s one for every Australian citizen.

    Now owned by Bega Cheese, there was great joy when the icon returned to Australian ownership several years ago.

    No one else quite understands the appeal of our favorite toast topping.

    For those living in countries where it’s not yet exported, Vegemite comes in massive 560 gram jars and travel-sized tubes.

    While there are similar cereals available around the world, there’s nothing quite like “Australia’s favorite breakfast.”

    These small biscuits made from wholegrain wheat are occasionally available in supermarkets overseas, but they generally sell out pretty quickly.

    Aussie mums have been known to stock up on them on trips to the motherland.

    Best eaten with a little bit of sugar, some chopped banana and a lot of milk, Weet-Bix is promoted as family-friendly health food. But we’d love them even if they weren’t good for us.

    XXXX beer is a necessity, even during a flood.

    Another product of sunny Queensland, XXXX (pronounced four-ex) originated in Victoria in 1878 before moving north, where it is still produced today.

    XXXX has endeared itself to Aussies as a great brew and a big supporter of sports and small communities.

    It’s not widely available outside of Australia, but if you’re an expat in China or Dubai, you may be able to find it in a bar near you.

    For Australia visitors wanting to have a taste, Perth restaurant Grabs is famed for its yabbies.

    Small freshwater crustaceans, yabbies are similar to lobsters – both prized as delicacies.

    They’re hardy little creatures, and if you grew up on a farm chances are you spent your summers fishing for yabbies in the local creek.

    Yabbies have a lot of meat on them, mostly in the tail and claws, and it tastes sweet and succulent when cooked right.

    Expats might find these clawed crustaceans in restaurants, but you’re unlikely to find them in your local supermarket.

    The zucchini fritter is yet another delicious byproduct of immigration.

    Depending on who you ask, they’re either Turkish and served with yogurt, or Greek, in which case they come with tzatziki.

    Either way, olive oil should ooze out when you take a bite.

    In some parts of Australia, you can find zucchini fritters at a local takeaway, next to the potato scallops and Chiko Rolls.

    These fried pancakes may have more health benefits than your average fried snack, but they are no less delicious.

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  • Police are searching for motive in the death of the Detroit synagogue leader who was found with multiple stab wounds | CNN

    Police are searching for motive in the death of the Detroit synagogue leader who was found with multiple stab wounds | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Investigators are searching for a motive in the death of a Detroit synagogue leader found stabbed over the weekend, the city’s police chief said.

    The body of Samantha Woll, president of the board of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue, was discovered with multiple stab wounds at her home on Saturday morning, the Detroit Police Department said in a statement. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

    Responding officers had followed “a trail of blood leading officers to the victim’s residence,” where it is believed the crime happened, the Detroit Police Department said in a statement.

    Police have not identified a suspect in the case, and it’s still unclear what led up to the killing.

    “Understandably, this crime leaves many unanswered questions,” Detroit Police Chief James E. White said in a statement on social media site X. “This matter is under investigation, and I am asking that everyone remain patient while investigators carefully examine every aspect of the available evidence.”

    “It is important that no conclusions be drawn until all of the available facts are reviewed,” White added.

    The FBI is aware of the incident, and “will assist the Detroit Police Department as requested,” the agency said in a statement to CNN.

    Michigan State Police have also been assigned to support local police in the case, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced. “Together, they will investigate this vicious crime and bring the perpetrator to justice,” she added.

    “My heart breaks for her family, her friends, her synagogue, and all those who were lucky enough to know her,” Whitmer said. “She was a source of light, a beacon in her community who worked hard to make Michigan a better place.

    Woll’s synagogue released a statement Saturday expressing shock over the her death.

    “We are shocked and saddened to learn of the unexpected death of Samantha Woll, our Board President,” the synagogue said. “May her memory be a blessing.”

    Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said he and Woll were celebrating the newly renovated synagogue together just a few weeks ago.

    “It was a project she successfully led with great pride and enthusiasm,” Duggan said. “This entire city joins with her family and friends in mourning her tragic death.”

    MoReno Taylor II, who worked with Woll on Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s reelection campaign in 2022, said her death was “a devastating loss.”

    “Sam was a bright ball of light,” he told CNN. “She lit up every room that she walked into. She always had a huge smile. She always gave you a firm handshake and asked about you, wanted to get to know who you were.”

    He remembered Woll as a kind soul who was always involved in her community and was dedicated to giving back.

    “She didn’t deserve this, and I really hope that they find a resolution to this as soon as possible and find whoever is responsible,” he said.

    Taylor said he knew Woll for five years, and thought of her as a little sister.

    “It’s very difficult to imagine that someone who was so genuine and so kind could befall this kind of tragedy,” he added.

    Attorney General Nessel also shared her condolences in a statement on Facebook, saying, “Sam was as kind a person as I’ve ever known. She was driven by her sincere love of her community, state and country.”

    Woll had also previously worked with Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, according to a post on Slotkin’s social media.

    The congresswoman said Woll “dedicated her short life to building understanding across faiths, bringing light in the face of darkness.”

    The Democrat said Woll worked for her by helping set up the office and leading it throughout her first term.

    “My heart aches that we have lost someone so dedicated to serving others in such a senseless act. I’ll miss her relentless desire to serve & her bright smile seemingly everywhere across the Detroit area,” the congresswoman said.

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  • CNN Investigates: Forensic analysis of images and videos suggests rocket caused Gaza hospital blast, not Israeli airstrike | CNN

    CNN Investigates: Forensic analysis of images and videos suggests rocket caused Gaza hospital blast, not Israeli airstrike | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    In the days since a blast ripped through the packed Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, killing hundreds of Palestinians, dueling claims between Palestinian militants and the Israeli government over culpability are still raging. But forensic analysis of publicly available imagery and footage has begun to offer some clues as to what caused the explosion.

    CNN has reviewed dozens of videos posted on social media, aired on live broadcasts and filmed by a freelance journalist working for CNN in Gaza, as well as satellite imagery, to piece together what happened in as much detail as possible.

    Without the ability to access the site and gather evidence from the ground, no conclusion can be definitive. But CNN’s analysis suggests that a rocket launched from within Gaza broke up midair, and that the blast at the hospital was the result of part of the rocket landing at the hospital complex.

    Weapons and explosive experts with decades of experience assessing bomb damage, who reviewed the visual evidence, told CNN they believe this to be the most likely scenario – although they caution the absence of munition remnants or shrapnel from the scene made it difficult to be sure. All agreed that the available evidence of the damage at the site was not consistent with an Israeli airstrike.

    Israel says that a “misfired” rocket by militant group Islamic Jihad caused the blast, a claim that US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday is backed up by US intelligence. A spokesperson for the National Security Council later said that analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open-source information suggested that Israel is “not responsible.”

    Palestinian officials and several Arab leaders nevertheless accuse Israel of hitting the hospital amid its ongoing airstrikes in Gaza. Islamic Jihad (or PIJ) – a rival group to Hamas – has denied responsibility.

    The Israel-Hamas war has triggered a wave of misleading content and false claims online. That misinformation, coupled with the polarizing nature of the conflict, has made it difficult to sort fact from fiction.

    In the past few days, a number of outlets have published investigations into the Al-Ahli Hospital blast. Some have reached diametrically different conclusions, reflecting the challenges of doing such analysis remotely.

    But as more information surfaces, CNN’s investigation – which includes a review of nighttime video of the explosion, and horrifying images of those injured and killed inside the hospital complex – is an effort to shed light on details of the blast beyond what Israel and the US have produced publicly.

    Courtesy “Al Jazeera” – Gaza City, October 17

    On Tuesday evening, a barrage of rocket fire illuminated the night sky over Gaza before the deadly blast, according to videos analyzed by CNN.

    An Al Jazeera camera, located in western Gaza and facing east, was broadcasting live on the channel at 6:59 p.m. local time on Tuesday night, according to the timestamp. The footage appears to show a rocket fired from Gaza traveling in an upwards trajectory before reversing direction and exploding, leaving a brief, bright streak of light in the night sky above Gaza City. Just moments later, two blasts are visible on the ground, including one at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.

    By verifying the position of the camera, CNN was able to determine that the rocket was fired from an area south of Gaza City. CNN geolocated the hospital blast by referencing nearby buildings just west of the complex. Footage taken from a webcam in Tel Aviv pointing south towards Gaza, that CNN synched with the Al Jazeera live feed, shows a volley of rockets from Gaza shortly before the blast.

    Several weapons experts told CNN that the Al Jazeera video appeared to show a rocket burning out in the sky before crashing into the hospital grounds, but that they could not say with certainty that the two incidents were linked – due to the challenges of calculating the trajectory of a rocket that had failed or changed course mid-flight.

    “I believe this happened – a rocket malfunctioned, and it didn’t come down in one piece. It’s likely it fell apart mid-air for some reason and the body of the rocket crashed into the car park. There, the fuel remnants caught fire and ignited cars and other fuel at the hospital, causing the big explosion we saw,” Markus Schiller, a Europe-based missile expert who has worked on analysis for NATO and the European Union, told CNN.

    “But it’s impossible for me to confirm. If a rocket malfunctioned… it is impossible to predict its flight path and behavior, so I wouldn’t be able to draw on usual analysis drawing on altitude, flight path and the burn time,” he added.

    Retired US Air Force Col. Cedric Leighton, a former deputy director of the US National Security Agency, and a CNN military analyst, said that the aerial explosion was “consistent with a malfunctioning rocket,” adding that the streak of light was consistent with “a rocket burning fuel as it tries to reach altitude.”

    Chad Ohlandt, a senior engineer at the Rand Corporation in Washington, DC, agreed that the bright flash of light suggested that the solid rocket motor was “malfunctioning.”

    There has been some speculation on social media that the breakup of the rocket could have been caused by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. But experts said there is no evidence of another rocket intercepting it, and Israel says that it does not use the system in Gaza.

    At 7 p.m., Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, posted on its Telegram channel that it had bombarded Ashdod, a coastal Israeli city north of Gaza, with “a barrage of rockets.” A few minutes later, PIJ said on Telegram that its armed wing, Al-Quds Brigades, had launched strikes on Tel Aviv in response to the “enemy’s massacre of civilians.”

    Another nighttime video of the blast, which appears to have been filmed on a mobile phone from a balcony and was also geolocated by CNN, captures a whooshing sound before the sky lights up and a large explosion erupts.

    From X – Gaza City, October 17

    Two weapons experts who reviewed the footage for CNN said that the sound in the video was not consistent with that of a high-grade military explosive, such as a bomb or shell. Both said that it was not possible to form any definitive conclusions from the audio in the clip, caveating that the mobile phone could have affected the reliability of the sound.

    A leading US acoustic expert, who did not have permission to speak publicly from their university, analyzed the sound waveform from the video and concluded that, while there were changes in the sound frequency, indicating that the object was in motion, there was no directional information that could be gleaned from it.

    Panic and carnage

    Inside the hospital, the sound was deafening. Dr. Fadel Na’eem, head of the orthopedic department, said he was performing surgery when the blast sounded through the hospital. He said panic ensued as staff members ran into the operating room screaming for help and reporting multiple casualties.

    “I just finished one surgery and suddenly we heard a big explosion,” Dr. Na’eem told CNN in a recorded video. “We thought it’s outside the hospital because we never thought that they would bomb the hospital.”

    After he left the operating theater, Dr. Na’eem said he found an overwhelming scene. “The medical team scrambled to tend to the wounded and dying, but the magnitude of the devastation was overwhelming.”

    Dr. Na’eem said that it wasn’t the first time the hospital had been hit. On October 14, three days earlier, he said that two missiles had struck the building, and that the Israeli military had not called to warn them.

    “We thought it was by mistake. And the day after [the Israelis] called the medical director of the hospital and told them, ‘We warned you yesterday, why are you still working? You have to evacuate the hospital,” Dr. Na’eem said, adding that many people and patients had fled before the blast, afraid that the hospital would be hit again.

    CNN could not independently verify the details of the October 14 attack described by Dr. Na’eem and has reached out to the IDF for comment. The IDF has said it does not target hospitals, though the UN and Doctors Without Borders say Israeli airstrikes have hit medical facilities, including hospitals and ambulances.

    While it is difficult to independently confirm how many people died in the blast, the bloodshed could be seen in images from the aftermath shared on social media. In photos and videos, young children covered in dust are rushed to be treated for their wounds. Other bodies are seen lifeless on the ground.

    One local volunteer who did not give his name described the gruesome aftermath of the blast at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, saying that he arrived at 8 a.m. and helped to gather the remains of people killed there.

    “We gathered six bags filled with pieces of the dead bodies – pieces,” he said. “The eldest we gathered remains for was maybe eight or nine years old. Hands, feet, fingers, I have here half a body in the bag. What were they doing, what did they do. None of them even had a toothbrush let alone a weapon.”

    Bodies of those killed in a blast at Al-Ahli Hospital are laid out in the front yard of the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday, October 17.

    A freelance journalist working for CNN in Gaza went to the scene the following day, interviewing eyewitnesses and filming the blast radius in detail, capturing the impact crater, which was about 3×3 feet wide and one foot deep. Some debris and damage were visible in the wider area, including burned out cars, pockmarked buildings and blown out windows.

    Eight weapons and explosive experts who reviewed CNN’s footage of the scene agreed that the small crater size and widespread surface damage were inconsistent with an aircraft bomb, which would have destroyed most things at the point of impact. Many said that the evidence pointed to the possibility that a rocket was responsible for the explosion.

    Marc Garlasco, a former defense intelligence analyst and UN war crimes investigator with decades of experience assessing bomb damage, said that whatever hit the hospital in Gaza was not an airstrike. “Even the smallest JDAM [joint direct attack munition] leaves a 3m crater,” he told CNN, referring to a guided air-to-ground system that is part of the Israeli weapons stockpile provided by the US.

    Chris Cobb-Smith, a British weapons expert who was part of an Amnesty International team investigating weapons used by Israel during the Gaza War in 2009, told CNN the size of the crater led him to rule out a heavy, air-dropped bomb. “The type of crater that I’ve seen on the imagery so far, isn’t large enough to be the type of bomb that we’ve that we’ve seen dropped in, in the region on many occasions,” he said.

    An arms investigator said the impact was “more characteristic of a rocket strike with burn marks from leftover rocket fuel or propellant,” and not something you would see from “a typical artillery projectile.”

    Cobb-Smith said that the conflagration following the blast was inconsistent with an artillery strike, but that it could not be entirely ruled out.

    Others said the damage seen at the site – specifically to the burned-out cars – did not seem to suggest that the explosion was the result of an airburst fuze, which is when a shell explodes in the air before hitting the ground, or artillery fire. Patrick Senft, a research coordinator at Armament Research Services (ARES), said that he would have expected the roofs of the cars to show significant fragmentation damage and the impact site to be deeper, in that case.

    “For a 152 / 155 mm artillery projectile with a point detonation fuz (one that initiates the explosion upon hitting the ground) I would expect a crater of about 1.5m deep and 5m wide. The crater here seems substantially smaller,” Senft said.

    An explosives specialist, who is currently working in law enforcement and was not authorized to speak to the press, said it’s likely that the shrapnel from the projectile ignited the fuel and flammable liquid in the cars, which is why the fireball was so big. These kinds of explosions generate a shockwave that is particularly deadly to children and the frail.

    The same specialist, who has spent decades conducting forensic investigations in conflict zones around the world, also said the damage at the crater site, and at the scene, was not congruent with damage normally seen at an artillery shelling site.

    Without knowing what kind of projectile produced the crater, it is difficult to draw conclusions about the direction that it came from. However, the debris and ground markings point to a few possibilities.

    There are dark patches on the ground fanning out in a southwesterly direction from the crater. The trees behind it are scorched and a lamppost is entirely knocked over. In contrast, the trees on the other side of the crater are still intact, even with green leaves.

    This would be consistent with a rocket approaching from the southwest, as rockets scorch and damage the earth on approach to the ground. If the munition was artillery, however, these markings could indicate it came in from the northeast, spewing debris to the southwest. But if the projectile malfunctioned and broke apart in the air, as CNN’s analysis suggests, the direction of impact reflected by the crater would not be a reliable finding.

    Israel has presented two contrasting narratives on which direction the alleged Hamas rocket flew in from.

    In an audio recording released by Israeli officials, which they say is Hamas militants discussing the blast and attributing it to a rocket launched by Islamic Jihad (or PIJ), a “cemetery behind the hospital” is referenced as the launch site. CNN analyzed satellite imagery for the days prior to the attack and found no apparent evidence of a rocket launch site there. CNN could not verify the authenticity of the audio intercept.

    The IDF also published a map indicating the rocket had been launched several kilometers away, from a southwesterly direction, showing the trajectory towards the hospital. The map is not detailed but it indicates a rocket launch site that matches a location CNN has previously identified as a Hamas training site. Satellite imagery from this site indicates some activity in the days prior to the hospital blast but CNN cannot determine whether a rocket was launched from there and has also asked the IDF for more details about its map.

    Until an independent investigation is allowed on the ground and evidence collected from the site the prospect of determining who was behind the blast is remote.

    Palestinians assess the aftermath of the explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital on Wednesday, October 18.

    “An awful lot will depend on what remnants are found in the wreckage,” Chris Cobb-Smith told CNN. “We can analyze footage, we can listen to audio, but the definitive answer will come from the person or the team that go in and rummage around the rubble and come up with remnants of the munition itself.” Getting independent experts there will prove challenging given the war still raging, and Israel’s looming ground offensive in Gaza.

    Marc Garlasco, the former defense intelligence analyst and UN war crimes investigator, says there are signs of a lack of evidence at the Al-Ahli Hospital site.

    “When I investigate a site of a potential war crime the first thing I do is locate and identify parts of the weapon. The weapon tells you who did it and how. I’ve never seen such a lack of physical evidence for a weapon at a site. Ever. There’s always a piece of a bomb after the fact. In 20 years of investigating war crimes this is the first time I haven’t seen any weapon remnants. And I’ve worked three wars in Gaza.”

    Footage CNN collected the day after the blast shows a large number of people traversing the site. The risk that amid the chaos and panic of war, the evidence will be lost or tampered with, is high. Even before this conflict, accessing sites was challenging for independent investigators. Cobb-Smith has investigated in Gaza before.

    “The local authorities did not give me free access to the area or were very unhappy that I was trying to investigate something that had clearly gone wrong from their point of view.”

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  • How toy and game companies are winning back their grown-up former customers | CNN Business

    How toy and game companies are winning back their grown-up former customers | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    I was on vacation and hanging out quietly in the hotel room with my friend when, out of nowhere, she screamed “Zoo Pals are back!”

    We immediately tried to buy some. But to our misfortune, they were sold out. For days we refreshed the page to see if they were back in stock. Sure enough, I got my Zoo Pals a few weeks later.

    I’m almost embarrassed to share that Zoo Pals are paper plates that feature the bright, adorable faces of animals like pigs, turtles, ducks and whales. Each plate has one main section and two subsections for the animal’s ears or feet. In 2014, Hefty, the maker of Zoo Pals, discontinued them.

    As a child, Zoo Pals were a game-changer. That meant broccoli didn’t have to, God forbid, touch my chicken nuggets, and they also provided a special area for dipping the nuggets in ketchup. And I had an incentive to finish my plate so I could see my Zoo Pal’s face again.

    As an adult, I no longer have such needs. But $6.99 was a small price to pay for a walk down memory lane.

    Adults are increasingly shelling out for relics of their youth and for items, ranging from flip phones to film cameras to Tamagotchis, that evoke a late 20th-century or turn-of-the century nostalgia. That demand has created a treasure-trove of sales in particular for toys and products, like my Zoo Pals, originally geared to children.

    Toy recipients ages 18 and up — also known as “kidults” — represented about 17% of total toy sales in the United States for the 12 months ending in June 2023, according to data consumer research group Circana shared with CNN. That’s up four percentage points from 2021 and up a whopping eight percentage points from 2019.

    In total, toy sales for adults increased by $1.7 billion to $6.4 billion from June 2021 to June 2023, according to Circana data.

    The trend of adults buying toys for themselves is relatively new, but longing for the glory days of childhood is not. So how come adults lately have been willing to spend so much money on toys to relive the past?

    The pandemic drove more people to revisit their youth

    Adults started purchasing more toys for themselves after the pandemic began. Covid ushered in heightened levels of anxiety and it caused people to think about dying more, explains Krystine Batcho, a licensed psychologist who teaches at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York.

    Both factors are associated with “greater nostalgia,” said Batcho, whose research focuses on the psychology of nostalgia. Batcho created the Nostalgia Inventory, a survey that’s been widely used to assess what makes someone more inclined to feel nostalgic.

    For instance, her research and other research she’s studied point to millenials and members of Gen Z being in life stages that are prime for feeling nostalgic. “The transition away from childhood and adolescence to adulthood entails a bittersweet conflict between the desire to grow into independence and the desire for the carefree innocence and security of childhood,” she said.

    And, in general, people become more nostalgic during difficult times and in threatening circumstances, Batcho added.

    During the pandemic, as people were looking for ways to entertain themselves at home or in small groups they turned to social media for ideas, Juli Lennett, Circana’s toy industry advisor, told CNN. That helped fuel an increase in purchases for games, puzzles, collectibles, trading cards, building sets and more, she said.

    “Consumers found like-minded toy consumers and tribes formed around certain toy categories and brands. It continues to this day,” Lennett said.

    In 2021, Lego launched an entire product line designed for adults that can be found under the “Adults Welcome” section of its site. “In a world of distractions, LEGO Sets for Adults offer a focused, hands-on, mindful activity. A creative recharge. A zone of zen. A place to find your flow,” a post on Lego’s site states.

    A growing share of adults are buying toys for themselves.

    Mattel Inc.’s American Girl doll line has also seen an influx of purchases made by kidults over the past few years, “and it continues to grow in popularity,” Jamie Cygielman, the president of American Girl, told CNN.

    That started to take off in 2021 when American Girl re-released six of the original dolls the company had produced to celebrate its 35th anniversary. The dolls, priced at $150, began to sell out the first day they were listed online, said Cygielman. More than half of those purchases “were women purchasing for themselves, not for a child,” she said based on a subsequent survey American Girl conducted.

    American Girl first started selling alcohol at its first retail store café in Chicago in 1998. Now all nine of its cafés either have full liquor licenses or serve beer and wine, making it a popular destination for Gen Z and millennial customers to celebrate bachelorettes and birthdays, often with their dolls.

    “So we started really leaning into it a bit more,” she said. That meant re-releasing more dolls and doll outfits adults grew up with as well as adding more alcoholic beverages and food items that appeal to adults to its in-store café menus.

    “Any given day as you walk into our café, you’ll see tables of young adults with not a child in sight,” said Cygielman. Many of them come there to celebrate birthdays and bachelorette parties, often with their dolls sitting in clip-on chairs beside them.

    Most recently, American Girl re-released two doll outfits that were originally sold in 1999.

    TikTokers and Instagramers had a field day seeing those and rushed to post about it.

    Since American Girl creates individual stories featuring historical eras like the Colonial period or World War II to complement the dolls they sell, users on social media started posting things like, “We need an American Girl doll who went to college in 2016.”

    The TikTok account that posted that request, @inbloombyemily, received nearly 200,000 likes on her video where she described the doll’s story and curated outfits and accessories which included a Svedka bottle of strawberry lemonade vodka.

    In February, American Girl rereleased the two outfits on the dolls pictured in the middle that were originally sold in 1999. It's part of the company's efforts to attract more nostalgic adults to make purchases for themselves.

    American Girl hasn’t seized the opportunity to actually make most of the dolls the memes capture, said Cygielman.

    “It’s a sincere form of flattery, but we don’t necessarily want to author it ourselves,” she said. “We’re still laser-focused on our core customer, which is that young girl and her caregiver gift giver.”

    As for the kidult trend, there are some signs that it could slow, Lennett said.

    “As consumers have less money in their wallets due to macroeconomic conditions, they are spending less on discretionary categories like toys,” she said. “If the conditions continue, we can expect a pullback in toy spending for adults.”

    But Batcho, the psychologist, notes that nostalgia can be healthy in hard times.

    “Nostalgic memories remind people of better times and can encourage them to seek solutions and move toward a more optimistic future,” she said. “Nostalgia has also been found to increase a sense of meaning and purpose in life. By strengthening social connectedness and feelings of belonging, nostalgia counteracts loneliness.”

    Even though the darkest days of the pandemic are, for the most part, in the rearview mirror there’s still “a nostalgic longing for the security and stability of pre-pandemic life,” Batcho said.

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  • First trucks carrying aid enter Gaza but besieged enclave desperately needs more | CNN

    First trucks carrying aid enter Gaza but besieged enclave desperately needs more | CNN

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    Gaza and Rafah
    CNN
     — 

    The first trucks carrying aid entered Gaza on Saturday, but international leaders have warned that much more is needed to combat the “catastrophic” humanitarian situation in the enclave that holds more than 2 million people.

    The admission of trucks comes two weeks after Israel launched a complete siege of the enclave in response to deadly attacks by the Islamist militant group Hamas.

    The trucks entered through the Rafah crossing, the only entry point to Gaza not controlled by Israel, as seen by CNN’s team on the Palestinian side of the border. The crossing closed quickly after the 20 trucks went through.

    The Egyptian trucks unloaded the humanitarian aid and returned to the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing, according to a CNN stringer on the ground.

    People on the Egyptian side of the border – where aid organizations had waited for days to be given the green light – were jubilant as the crossing opened, celebrating with ululations and chants.

    According to Egyptian authorities at the Rafah crossing, 13 trucks were carrying medicine and medical supplies, five were carrying food and two trucks had water.

    European commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, called it an “important first step that will alleviate the suffering of innocent people.”

    While these supplies are desperately needed, aid workers said they are a fraction of what’s required for the 2.2 million people crammed into Gaza under a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt.

    Martin Griffiths, United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said the delivery followed “days of deep and intense negotiations,” adding that the humanitarian situation in Gaza “has reached catastrophic levels.”

    Conditions have grown more dire each day, with hospitals on the verge of collapse and Gazans fast running out of food, water and other critical supplies amid near-constant bombardment by Israel.

    UNICEF said it managed to send more than 44,000 bottles of water with the convoy, which the agency said amounts to a day’s water supply for only 22,000 people.

    The lack of food is also a serious concern, with the World Food Programme’s (WFP) executive director Cindy McCain telling CNN that starvation is “rampant” in Gaza.

    World Health Organization (WHO) director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressed that “the needs are far higher” than the aid people in Gaza have received.

    The WHO said it is working with the Egyptian and Palestine Red Crescent societies to ensure the safe passage of supplies to health facilities, adding shortages have left hospitals in Gaza at “breaking point.”

    The Ministry of Health in Gaza said the aid convoy “constitutes only 3% of the daily health and humanitarian needs that used to enter the Gaza Strip before the aggression.”

    From Ramallah, in occupied West Bank, head of the Palestinian National Initiative Mustafa Barghouti said Gaza needs “7,000 trucks of immediate aid,” adding, “20 trucks will not really change much.”

    A lack of fuel is also a concern. Wael Abu Mohsen, head of communications for the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, told Saudi state media Al Hadath TV Saturday that fuel was not delivered, “despite fuel supplies running dangerously low at hospitals and schools in Gaza.”

    Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari confirmed that none of the trucks were carrying fuel.

    Injured Palestinian child describes moment missile landed near him

    The arrival of aid comes as world leaders gathered in Cairo, Egypt, for the Cairo Peace Summit on Saturday.

    Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi initiated the peace summit on Gaza in a bid to de-escalate the situation and protect civilians in the enclave. Representatives from 34 countries, including the Middle East, Africa and Europe, and the UN are in attendance, according to organizers. Israel was absent from the summit.

    After aid is delivered to Gaza, efforts should be focused on brokering a truce and ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, Sisi said.

    Then, negotiations should resume for a peace process leading to a “two-state solution and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state that lives side by side with Israel on the basis of international legitimacy,” Sisi added.

    But one political scientist played down hopes of a breakthrough. Dalia Dassa Kaye, a senior fellow from the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, told CNN: “I doubt we are going to see very immediate concrete results,” adding “it is clear the Egyptians and others in the region feel a need to show some kind of diplomatic horizon.”

    In pictures: The deadly clashes in Israel and Gaza

    Every day the civilian deaths in Gaza mount, fueling anger in the Middle East and beyond.

    The enclave, which was already under a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt for the past 17 years, became further isolated after the latest war broke out and Israel declared a complete siege.

    The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that about 1.4 million people had been displaced in Gaza – more than 60% of the entire strip’s population.

    More than 544,000 people are staying at UN-designated emergency shelters “in increasingly dire conditions,” with many at risk of infectious disease due to unsafe water, the OCHA added in a statement.

    On Friday, two American hostages were released from Gaza, the first since Hamas’ October 7 attacks – but their freedom also deepened questions about the fate of other hostages should Israeli troops go into the enclave. The IDF said Saturday that it believes 210 people are being held hostage in Gaza.

    Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, handed over the hostages at the border on Friday, with Judith Tai Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter Natalie Raanan now on their way to be reunited with loved ones.

    For their family, the release marked the end of a nightmare that began on October 7 when Hamas members carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, killing more than 1,400 people and abducting scores back to Gaza.

    So far at least 4,385 people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Gaza, according to the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, including hundreds of women and children – even as Israel claims it is only targeting Hamas locations.

    “We are ready to start this incredible journey of healing and trauma relief for her,” said Ben Raanan, Natalie’s brother.

    But, he pointed out, the nightmare continues for countless others.

    “There are families all over in Gaza and in Israel that are experiencing a loss that I can’t even imagine,” he said.

    Many of those Israeli families attended a ceremony in Tel Aviv on Friday, where a Shabbat dinner table was laid with 200 empty place settings to represent the hostages. Shabbat, a holy day of rest and reflection each week, is often a time when Jewish families gather for meals and prayer.

    A Hamas spokesperson claimed on Friday that the two US hostages had been released “for humanitarian reasons” and to “prove to the American people and the world” that claims made by the United States government “are false and baseless.”

    And while the release has been welcomed by world leaders, including those in the United States, United Kingdom and France, those in Israel have voiced skepticism about Hamas’ motivations and have promised to continue their blistering counterattack.

    mohammad shtayyeh becky anderson intv _00000000.png

    Palestinian prime minister: Blind support of Israel is a license for killing

    “Two of our hostages are home. We will not ease the effort to bring back all abductees and those missing. Simultaneously, we keep fighting until a victory is reached,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement on social media on Friday.

    Maj. Doron Spielman, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), told CNN on Friday it was an “absurd” attempt by Hamas to “gain more world favor by playing that humanitarian card.”

    Others have suggested the release could be an attempt by Hamas to buy time, as speculation swirls of a potential ground incursion by Israeli forces, who have massed by the border and warned Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza.

    Israeli officials have not publicly shared details about their plans, besides saying the goal is to eliminate Hamas and its infrastructure, much of which consists of heavily reinforced tunnels underground the densely populated cities.

    “Hamas is really under great pressure, and it is trying every trick in the book, and they will try many more as we go along, to stop the Israeli maneuver into the Gaza Strip,” said Rami Igra, former division chief of the hostages and MIA unit with the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service.

    “They are trying to postpone this. They are trying to ease the pressure on them, and they will use anything they can in order to get a ceasefire,” he added.

    The US and its allies have not tried to discourage this kind of ground assault – but they have urged Israel to be strategic and clear about its goals in the case of an incursion, warning against a prolonged occupation and emphasizing civilian safety, US and Western officials told CNN.

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  • Anger erupts across Middle East over Gaza hospital blast as Biden travels to Israel | CNN

    Anger erupts across Middle East over Gaza hospital blast as Biden travels to Israel | CNN

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    Gaza and Jerusalem
    CNN
     — 

    Protests erupted across the Middle East following the deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital as Israeli and Palestinian officials traded accusations over who was to blame just hours before US President Joe Biden is set to arrive in Tel Aviv.

    Hundreds of people were likely killed in the blast on Tuesday at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the center of Gaza City, where thousands were sheltering from Israeli strikes, the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement.

    CNN cannot independently confirm what caused the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital.

    But the blast marks a dangerous new phase in Israel’s war with Hamas, which threatens to spill over regionally. While Israelis grieve those killed in Hamas’ terror attacks on Israeli soil and families plea for the return of loved ones taken as hostages, millions of civilians in Gaza are at risk of injury, death or starvation as vital supplies have been cut to an area that is impossible to leave amid heavy Israeli bombardment.

    Palestinian officials blamed ongoing Israeli airstrikes for the lethal incident. But Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said no Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strikes took place in the area at the time of the blast, claiming to have intelligence pointing to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, a rival Islamist militant group to Hamas in Gaza.

    Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, described “unparalleled and indescribable” scenes after the blast.

    “Ambulance crews are still removing body parts as most of the victims are children and women,” Al-Qudra said. “Doctors were performing surgeries on the ground and in the corridors, some of them without anesthesia.”

    In pictures: The deadly clashes in Israel and Gaza

    Video geolocated by CNN from inside the al-Shifa Hospital, where some victims of the blast were taken, shows chaotic scenes with injured people packed into the crowded facility, doctors treating the wounded on the hospital floor and an emergency worker calling out as he carries an injured child.

    Images show women crying out and terrified children covered in black dust huddled together on the hospital floor.

    Calling the deadly hospital blast “unacceptable,” UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk said hospitals are sacrosanct and the killings and violence must stop.

    “Words fail me. Tonight, hundreds of people were killed – horrifically – in a massive strike… including patients, healthcare workers and families that had been seeking refuge in and around the hospital. Once again the most vulnerable,” Turk said in a statement.

    President Biden, who is en route to Tel Aviv for a high-security wartime visit to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said he was “outraged and deeply saddened by the explosion.”

    But the fallout from the blast threatens to derail US diplomatic efforts to ease the humanitarian suffering in Gaza, where concerns are mounting over Israel’s deprivation of food, fuel and electricity to the enclave’s population.

    Jordan canceled a planned Wednesday summit between Biden and the leaders of Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority. Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pulled out of the meeting earlier Tuesday in the immediate aftermath of the explosion.

    Biden was scheduled to visit Amman after his trip to Tel Aviv, though a White House official said the trip was “postponed.”

    “There is no point in doing anything at this time other than stopping this war,” Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told Al Jazeera Arabic early Wednesday. “There is no benefit to anyone in holding a summit at this time.”

    The blast has added fuel to rising anger in the region over Israel’s actions in Gaza.

    Israeli forces have laid siege to the coastal enclave controlled by Hamas following the October 7 attacks on Israel in which the Islamist militant group killed at least 1,400 people and took more than 150 hostages, including children and the elderly.

    Protests condemning the hospital explosion have erupted in multiple cities across the Middle East and North Africa, including in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Tunisia. Protests also rocked the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah as protesters clashed with Palestinian security forces.

    In the Jordanian capital Amman, angry protesters attempted to gather near the Israeli Embassy in the Rabieh area but security forces pushed them away. Two activists told CNN on Tuesday that Jordanian security forces using tear gas to disperse crowds.

    A Lebanese protestor hurls stones at burning building just outside the US Embassy during a protest in solidarity with the people of Gaza in Beirut, Lebanon on October 18.

    In Lebanon’s Beirut, hundreds of protesters gathered in the square that leads to the US Embassy on Tuesday and tried to break through security barriers, according to a CNN team there.

    Hamas said more than 500 people were killed in the bombing. The Palestinian Health Ministry earlier said preliminary estimates indicate that between 200 to 300 people died in the blast.

    The hospital tragedy comes as health services in Gaza are on the brink, with no fuel to run electricity or pump water for life-saving critical functions. UN agencies have warned that shops are less than a week away from running out of available food stocks and that Gaza’s last seawater desalination plant had shut down, bringing the risk of further deaths, dehydration and waterborne diseases.

    While the IDF has said it does not target hospitals, the UN and Doctors Without Borders say Israeli airstrikes have struck medical facilities, including hospitals and ambulances.

    Israel has insisted it was not responsible for the hospital bombing.

    The IDF presented imagery Wednesday which it said shows the destruction at the hospital could not have been the result of an airstrike.

    In the 30-second montage, the IDF claimed that a fire broke out at the hospital as a result of a failed rocket launch by Islamic Jihad. The imagery included fire damage to several vehicles in the hospital parking lot. The IDF said there were no visible signs of craters or significant damage to buildings that would result from an airstrike.

    IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told CNN Wednesday the “first packet of information” was “evidence that clearly supports the fact that it could not have been an Israeli bomb.”

    Islamic Jihad has denied Israel’s assertions that a failed rocket launch was responsible for the hundreds of civilian casualties at the hospital.

    The group described Israeli accusations as “false and baseless” and claimed it does not use public facilities such as hospitals for military purposes, according to a statement Wednesday.

    The US is also analyzing intelligence provided by Israel on the explosion, which includes signals intelligence, intercepted communications and other forms of data, according to an Israeli official and another source familiar with the matter.

    Several nations have condemned Israel following the explosion. Pakistan called it “inhumane and indefensible” and Palestinian observer to the UN Riyad Mansour said Israeli officials were being dishonest in blaming Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

    The UN Security Council will hold an open meeting Wednesday morning on developments in the Middle East, including the hospital bombing and both Israel and Palestinian representatives are expected to speak.

    More than a week of Israeli bombardment has killed at least 3,000 people, including 1,032 girls and 940 boys, and wounded 12,500 in Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said Tuesday. Casualties in Gaza over the past 10 days have now surpassed the number of those killed during the 51-day Gaza-Israel conflict in 2014.

    Conditions are dire for the 2.2 million people caught in the escalating crisis and now trapped in Gaza and those on the ground warn that nowhere is safe from relentless Israeli airstrikes and the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation.

    Urgent calls for help are mounting and diplomatic efforts to secure a humanitarian corridor out of Gaza have ramped up in recent days.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has led intense efforts across the Middle East, on Tuesday said the US and Israel “have agreed to develop a plan that will enable humanitarian aid from donor nations and multilateral organizations to reach civilians in Gaza.”

    But officials have said the Rafah border crossing – the only entry point in and out of Gaza that Israel does not control – remains extremely dangerous.

    On the Egyptian side of the crossing, a miles-long convoy of humanitarian assistance is awaiting entry into Gaza, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told CNN.

    “Until now, there is no safe passage that has been granted” as they do not “have any authorization or clear, secure routes for those convoys to be able to enter safely and without any possibility of their being targeted,” he said.

    He added that the crossing was bombed four times in the past few days.

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  • Deadly blast hits Gaza evacuation route after Israel issues deadline | CNN

    Deadly blast hits Gaza evacuation route after Israel issues deadline | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A blast has struck a convoy on an evacuation route in Gaza, killing a number of people including several children, after a stark deadline ahead of a possible Israeli ground assault.

    The IDF told civilians in and around Gaza City Friday that they must move south to avoid being caught up in Israeli military operations and announced a six-hour evacuation window on Saturday.

    Israel has massed troops and military equipment at the border with Gaza, and continued bombarding the densely populated territory in response to the deadly October 7 attacks by the Islamist militant group, Hamas.

    Videos authenticated by CNN showed a scene of extensive destruction following Friday’s blast on Salah Al-Deen street. A number of bodies, including those of children, can be seen on on a flat-bed trailer that appears to have been used to carry people away from Gaza City. There are also a number of badly burned and damaged cars.

    It’s unclear what caused the widespread devastation. CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment on any airstrikes in the same location.

    Even before the evacuation warning, more than 400,000 Palestinians had already been internally displaced by the past week of fighting as conditions worsen inside the bombarded strip.

    But the evacuation statement and the prospect of a potential incursion have been sharply criticized by rights groups, including the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) head, who warned that such a move could bring “catastrophic humanitarian consequences.”

    The IDF announced on Saturday it would allow people to move south “for their own safety” on specified streets of Gaza from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time, according to a statement shared by the IDF’s Arabic spokesperson Avishay Adraee on X, formerly known as Twitter.

    The IDF claimed Hamas leaders had already taken measures to protect themselves from strikes in the area.

    It is unclear how widely the messaging has been received on the ground given the current electricity and internet blackout.

    When asked by CNN how this six-hour window has been communicated to citizens in Gaza, IDF spokesperson Maj. Doron Spielman said that “everybody in Gaza City now knows exactly what’s happening.”

    “They’ve been notified in Arabic, in multiple languages on every available platform, both electronic and non-electronic platforms. Everyone in Gaza City knows that they need to go past Wadi Gaza.”

    Spielman confirmed the IDF had dropped leaflets informing people in Gaza about the IDF’s announcement.

    However, CNN has talked to a United Nations Relief and Works Agency school official, a paramedic and a journalist on the ground who were all unaware of this latest advisory on Saturday.

    Palestinians with dual citizenship wait outside Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

    Palestinian-Americans have been waiting for the Rafah border crossing into Egypt to open Saturday, after the US State Department sent out guidance to families Friday telling them that it “may be open” Saturday afternoon.

    “They told everybody to be here at 12, it’s been two hours almost, nobody showed up, nobody is here to open the gates.” Haneen Okal, a New Jersey resident, waiting with her three children, said.

    “People are waiting at the Rafah crossing point but it’s not open and there is no clear direction from the embassy,” said Mai Abushaaban, a 22-year-old from Houston who is in contact with her family at the border.

    CNN has reached out to the State Department and the US National Security Council for comment.

    Palestinians with their belongings flee to safer areas in Gaza City after Israeli air strikes on October 13, 2023.
    Palestinians wait at the Rafah border crossing.
    Palestinians with foreign passports arrive at the Rafah gate.

    More than 2 million Palestinians – including over a million children – live in the 140-square-mile Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places on Earth.

    Images from Gaza have shown a mass rush toward the south of the coastal enclave beginning Friday. Civilians crammed into cars, taxis, pickup trucks and even donkey-pulled carts. Roads were filled with snaking lines of vehicles strapped with suitcases and mattresses.

    Those without other options walked, carrying what they could. Some have stayed put regardless, telling CNN they felt nowhere was safe.

    Since the evacuation order was issued Friday, Israeli military airstrikes have killed 70 evacuees and injured 200 more, Hamas’ media office told CNN.

    Palestinian medical services and civil defense crews were targeted by an Israeli strike at the site of a rescue operation in northern Gaza on Saturday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Interior and National Security.

    “Occupation forces target civil defense crews and medical services while they were working to rescue martyrs and wounded from the house of the Dahman family in the northern Gaza Strip, early this morning, Saturday,” the ministry said in a statement.

    Some healthcare facilities in the north of Gaza and Gaza City have said they will not be complying with Israel’s evacuation orders, as these “threats effectively act as a ‘death sentence’ for the thousands of injured and patients housed within these facilities.”

    Saturday morning marked one week since Hamas’ unprecedented and bloody attack on Israel, which killed more than 1,300 people and led to the capture of civilian and military hostages now believed to be held in Gaza.

    The surprise attack, widely described as Israel’s 9/11, saw waves of heavily armed Hamas fighters rampage through rural Israeli towns, kibbutzim and army bases.

    In response, Israel ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza, including blocking food, water and fuel, while mounting its heaviest ever airstrikes on the enclave.

    International observers warn the cutoff will see Gaza civilians die by starvation, disease and lack of medical care for the growing numbers of dying and wounded.

    Hostilities spilled over between the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and IDF forces on Saturday in the disputed Shebaa farms, near the Israel-Lebanon border. Israel said it returned fire after Hezbollah launched an attack on the territory – a disputed strip of land between Lebanon and Syria adjoining the Golan Heights, under Israeli control.

    Residents of Gaza City load a car with their belongings as they begin to evacuate on October 14.

    The UN has described the situation in the Gaza Strip as a matter of “life and death,” warning that the clean water supply for the 2 million people there is running dangerously low. The UN also warned of increasing risks of waterborne diseases.

    The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on Saturday called on Israel to not target its shelters in Gaza, warning that many people, including pregnant women and elderly or disabled people, will be unable to flee the area.

    At least 2,215 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza from Israeli strikes, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said in an update Saturday. That toll includes 724 children.

    An overwhelmed hospital in Gaza has resorted to using ice cream trucks from local factories as makeshift morgues to supplement the overflowing hospital mortuaries.

    Dr. Yasser Khatab, a forensic pathologist in al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, said in a video message sent to CNN on Saturday that the hospital in Deir al-Balah is unable to accommodate the increasing number of deceased.

    UN officials were initially told by Israel on Thursday that the relocation of Gaza residents should happen within 24 hours. But Israel has since acknowledged that the mass migration order will take time, and IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said Friday that any deadline “may slip,” adding to the uncertainty swirling.

    Another IDF spokesperson, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, claimed on Saturday that Hamas was trying to stop Palestinian civilians from evacuating “via messages and also checkpoints and stops on the ground,” citing media reports.

    When asked by CNN whether the evacuation order suggested an impending ground incursion, Conricus said the IDF would “assess the situation on the ground” and “see how many civilians are left in the area … Once we see that the situation will be permissible for significant combat operations, then they will commence.”

    The IDF also said Saturday that its fighter jets had struck operational headquarters used by Hamas militants, killing the head of the Hamas Aerial System in Gaza City, who the military claimed was “largely responsible for directing terrorists” during last week’s attack on Israel.

    Israel’s evacuation deadline has raised international alarm and sharp criticism from some rights groups, especially as critical supplies run out and deaths rise in the isolated enclave, from which residents say they have no escape.

    “The order to evacuate 1.1 million people from northern Gaza defies the rules of war and basic humanity,” wrote OCHA head Martin Griffiths in a statement late Friday. “Roads and homes (in Gaza) have been reduced to rubble. There is nowhere safe to go.”

    The territory has been under a land, sea and air blockade enforced by Israel since 2007, with more than half its residents living below the poverty line even before the latest conflict. Now there’s only one corridor left for Palestinians to flee or for aid to enter, connecting Gaza to Egypt – and it’s not clear if that’s even operational.

    Meanwhile, the World Food Programme said it distributed food to 135,000 people in shelters across Gaza on Friday, but warned “humanitarian supplies are running low.”

    OCHA added that most people now have no access to water in the strip. “As a last resort, people are consuming brackish water from agricultural wells, triggering serious concerns about the spread of waterborne diseases,” it said.

    In response, Israel’s ambassador to the UN said on Friday the government is doing “all that we can to minimize civilian casualties” by issuing the evacuation order, and accused the UN of not wanting Israel to “defend itself.”

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  • One officer who arrested Elijah McClain convicted of criminally negligent homicide; second officer acquitted | CNN

    One officer who arrested Elijah McClain convicted of criminally negligent homicide; second officer acquitted | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Randy Roedema, one of the Aurora, Colorado, police officers who arrested Elijah McClain, an unarmed 23-year-old Black man who died after he was subdued by police and injected with ketamine by paramedics in 2019, was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and assault by a jury on Thursday.

    At the same time, a second officer, Jason Rosenblatt, was acquitted of all charges against him, including reckless manslaughter and assault.

    The jury reached a verdict after deliberating for 16 hours over two days.

    Rosenblatt hugged both of his attorneys and wiped away tears after his verdict was announced. He also hugged members of Roedema’s family.

    Reid Elkus, an attorney for Roedema, comforted the officer’s wife after the verdict, saying, “He may not go to jail.” Roedema’s sentencing has been scheduled for January 5.

    “He’s OK. He’s OK. It’s not mandatory,” Elkus told Roedema’s wife.

    In a statement following the verdicts, Aurora Police Department Chief Art Acevedo said on X, formerly known as Twitter, “As a nation, we must be committed to the rule of law. As such, we hold the American judicial process in high regard.”

    “We respect the verdict handed down by the jury, and thank the members of the jury for their thoughtful deliberation and service,” he added. “Due to the additional pending trials, the Aurora Police Department is precluded from further comment at this time.”

    In closing arguments of the weekslong trial on Tuesday, prosecutors said Roedema and Rosenblatt used excessive force, failed to follow their training and misled paramedics about his health status.

    The officers “chose force at every opportunity,” instead of trying to de-escalate the situation as they’re trained, prosecutor Duane Lyons told the court.

    Meanwhile, defense attorneys placed blame on the paramedics and on McClain himself.

    Roedema and Rosenblatt both pleaded not guilty to charges of reckless manslaughter and assault in connection with McClain’s death. Rosenblatt was fired by the police department in 2020 and Roedema remains suspended.

    Rosenblatt’s attorney, Harvey Steinberg, painted his client as a “scapegoat” and said it’s the paramedics’ responsibility to evaluate a patient’s medical condition. Roedema’s attorney, Don Sisson, said his client’s use of force was justified because McClain resisted arrest. He said McClain had been given 34 commands to either “stop” or “stop fighting.”

    The case focused on the events of August 24, 2019, when officers responded to a call about a “suspicious person” wearing a ski mask, according to the indictment. The officers confronted McClain, a massage therapist, musician and animal lover who was walking home from a convenience store carrying a plastic bag with iced tea.

    In an interaction captured on body camera footage, police wrestled McClain to the ground and placed him in a carotid hold, and paramedics later injected him with the powerful sedative ketamine. He suffered a heart attack on the way to a hospital and was pronounced dead three days later.

    Prosecutors initially declined to bring charges, but the case received renewed scrutiny following the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests in spring 2020. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis appointed a special prosecutor to reexamine the case, and in 2021 a grand jury indicted three officers and two paramedics in McClain’s death.

    A third officer, Nathan Woodyard, and two paramedics who treated McClain, Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec, are set to go on trial in the coming weeks. They have also pleaded not guilty.

    The trial began last month and featured testimony from Aurora law enforcement officers who responded to the scene as well as from doctors who analyzed how McClain died. The defense did not call any witnesses.

    The prosecution played body-camera footage of the arrest and said the footage showed officers used excessive force for no reason. McClain repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe, yet the officers did not tell that to anyone on the scene.

    “His name was Elijah McClain, and he was going home. He was somebody. He mattered,” prosecutor Lyons began his argument Tuesday afternoon.

    A key focus of the trial was analysis of how McClain died and whether the officers’ actions caused his death.

    The jury heard from a pulmonary critical care physician who testified he believed the young man would not have died if the paramedics had recognized his issues and intervened.

    Dr. Robert Mitchell Jr., a forensic pathologist who reviewed McClain’s autopsy, testified the cause of death was “complications following acute ketamine administration during violent subdual and restraint by law enforcement, emergency response personnel.” He testified there was a “direct causal link” between the officers’ actions and McClain’s death.

    Meanwhile, defense attorneys argued there was no evidence the officers’ actions led to his death, and instead pointed to the ketamine injection.

    Though an initial autopsy report said the cause of death was undetermined, an amended report publicly released in 2022 listed “complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint” as the cause of death. The manner of death was undetermined.

    Dr. Stephen Cina, the pathologist who signed the autopsy report, wrote he saw no evidence injuries inflicted by police contributed to McClain’s death, and McClain “would most likely be alive but for the administration of ketamine.”

    In the prosecution’s rebuttal, Jason Slothouber told the court while the officers did not inject McClain with the ketamine, their failure to protect McClain’s airway allowed him to become hypoxic then acidotic, and that’s what made the ketamine so dangerous to McClain.

    Officers didn’t provide accurate information to the paramedics when they arrived on scene, and in doing so they “failed Elijah McClain,” Slothouber said.

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  • ‘Complete paralysis:’ Palestinian medics say disaster awaits Gaza as Israel pounds enclave with airstrikes | CNN

    ‘Complete paralysis:’ Palestinian medics say disaster awaits Gaza as Israel pounds enclave with airstrikes | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Medical and relief workers are pleading for safe passage for the 2 million civilians in Gaza as Israel pounds the enclave with airstrikes and imposes a complete siege, in response to the brutal attack launched by the militant group Hamas.

    Time is running out for the residents crammed into the increasingly battered 140-square-mile territory under Israeli and Egyptian blockades, as supplies of food and water run low. Families are desperately searching for shelter as missiles flatten buildings and towers. Medical supplies are in dire shortage. And most of the enclave has already lost power, after the fuel that generates electricity ran out on Wednesday.

    At least 1,417 Palestinians, including 447 children and 248 women, have so far been killed in Gaza, and 6,268 others injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

    In Israel, at 1,200 people have been killed, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said on Wednesday. Israel also said that up to 150 hostages, including civilians, have been taken to Gaza by Hamas – which controls the strip.

    Relief groups are calling for the protection of the many civilians in Gaza who continue to bear the brunt of the bloody war between Hamas and Israel, urging that an emergency corridor be established for the transfer of humanitarian aid.

    Smoke billows over Rafah, in southern Gaza, on Thursday. Israeli forces hammered the enclave for a sixth consecutive day.

    Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz on Thursday said Israel would deprive the strip of electricity, water and fuel until Hamas returns the hostages.

    “No electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened, and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home,” Katz wrote on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter. “And no one will preach us morals,” he added.

    Responding to a question about whether Israel is upholding the laws of warfare with its siege on Gaza, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Thursday his country “abides by international law, operates by international law.”

    “Every operation is secured and covered and reviewed legally with all due respect,” Herzog told CNN’s Becky Anderson at a press briefing in Jerusalem, adding that talk about war crimes is “totally out of context.”

    Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, the co-founder of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS), warned the complete siege of Gaza will pollute water and reduce oxygen supplies, depleting health indicators, including infant and maternal mortality rates, poverty, starvation and the spread of waterborne diseases and gastrointestinal infections.

    “You will have a very big rise of maternal mortality of women who are going to give birth under terrible conditions. We will see epidemics starting to spread in Gaza,” he said. “That’s also besides the number of people who will be killed by Israeli air strikes.

    “We are heading towards a complete paralysis of the medical system there.”

    Human Rights Watch earlier this week criticized Israel’s call for the complete siege as a form of “collective punishment” and a “war crime.”

    The Israeli blockade on Gaza has crippled the health system inside the Palestinian enclave, medical workers told CNN, as emergency teams struggle to triage patients amid dwindling medical supplies.

    Barghouti, the PMRS co-founder, said patients with pre-existing health conditions, including cancer and chronic kidney failure, are at risk of death because the siege has blocked access to fresh drugs.

    The PMRS has 180 doctors, nurses and psychotherapists stationed inside Gaza, alongside thousands of volunteers, he told CNN on Wednesday.

    “I receive calls around the clock from our people there [in Gaza], patients with kidney problems who need kidney dialysis, telling me that they could die in a few days,” said Barghouti, who is also the leader of the Palestinian National Initiative, a political party headquartered in the occupied West Bank.

    “Our medical teams are finding great difficulty moving from one place to another because, as people will say, there is no safe place at all. So it’s a disaster in front of our eyes.”

    A British-Palestinian surgeon working in Gaza, Ghassan Abu-Sitta, said that unless a humanitarian corridor replenishes the system, hospitals may not make it to the end of the week.

    “Unless there is a cessation of the bombing and the humanitarian corridor (opens), the Palestinian health system will not survive beyond the week,” Abu-Sitta, who was working inside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City but is now operating from a hospital in northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, told CNN.

    The doctor is yet to see any aid come through.

    Palestinian citizens inspect damage to their homes, which were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in the Karama area, in northern Gaza, on Wednesday.

    Hospitals all over Gaza are overwhelmed with patients, he said, adding that power is limited to generators and already scarce drinking water is being transported in tanks. Concerns of diseases spreading, including cholera, are growing, Abu-Sitta added.

    The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned on Thursday that Gaza likely only has enough fuel for a few more hours.

    “I wanted to say we are going toward a catastrophe, but we are already in the catastrophe,” ICRC’s regional director for the Middle East told reporters during a briefing in Geneva, adding that the humanitarian situation will soon become “unmanageable.”

    Gaza’s health infrastructure is close to a breaking point, Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, said Thursday. All beds are occupied, and there is no room for new patients in critical condition, Al-Qudra said.

    Earlier Thursday the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said hospitals in Gaza “risk turning into morgues” amid power cuts.

    The Palestinian Minister of Health Mai Al Kaila on Thursday called for urgent international help to field hospitals in Gaza. Medical supplies, emergency departments and intensive care units are urgently needed, she said.

    With the current Israeli siege, the only corridor through which Palestinians or aid can pass in and out of Gaza is the Rafah Crossing, which connects Gaza to Egypt.

    Egypt on Thursday denied reports of the crossing being closed, saying it has however sustained damage due to repeated Israeli airstrikes on the Palestinian side of the border.

    Palestinian officials in Gaza had said two days earlier that the crossing had been closed due to Israeli airstrikes. CNN could not independently verify whether the crossing is open or closed.

    In a statement, Egypt called on international partners to send humanitarian and relief aid to Palestinians in Gaza, adding that Egyptian authorities will be receiving aid packages at the Al-Arish International Airport in north Sinai.

    A Jordanian plane carrying medical aid for Gaza left for Egypt on Thursday, according to a statement from the Jordanian Hashemite Charitable Organization, a state-run relief agency, adding that the supplies will be delivered to medical authorities in Gaza through the Rafah border crossing.

    It is unclear how the aid will cross the border amid airstrikes on Gaza.

    CNN has reached out to the Egyptian government about the status of Rafah crossing, whether aid will be able to pass through, and whether Palestinians fleeing the conflict will be able to cross into Egyptian territory.

    The US said it is in talks with Israel and Egypt about creating a humanitarian corridor through which civilians can cross.

    “We’re talking to Israel about that. We’re talking to Egypt about that (getting civilians out of Gaza),” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday prior to departing for Israel.

    A senior Israeli official told CNN on Wednesday talks are “underway” to allow US citizens and Palestinian civilians in Gaza to cross over into Egypt ahead of any possible land invasion of the territory by Israeli forces.

    The official with knowledge of the negotiations told CNN’s Matthew Chance on Wednesday that under the proposal being discussed, all American citizens would be permitted to pass through the Rafah border crossing if they present their US passports, while the movement of other Palestinian civilians would be limited to 2,000 people a day.

    Final approval of the arrangement would need to come from the Egyptians, who control the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, but the Israeli official said it was “in Israel’s interests” for as many Palestinians as possible to leave Gaza.

    The IDF on Wednesday said it has amassed some 300,000 reservists near the Gaza border.

    “They (Hamas) will regret this moment – Gaza will never return to what it was,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said earlier.

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  • Jury begins deliberations in trial of officers charged in Elijah McClain’s death | CNN

    Jury begins deliberations in trial of officers charged in Elijah McClain’s death | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A jury began deliberations Tuesday in the trial of two Aurora, Colorado, police officers who arrested Elijah McClain, an unarmed 23-year-old Black man, who died after he was subdued by police and injected with ketamine by paramedics in 2019.

    The two officers, Randy Roedema and Jason Rosenblatt, each face charges including reckless manslaughter and have pleaded not guilty.

    Jurors were given the cases at around 4:30 p.m. local time and spent about half an hour in the jury room before being dismissed for the day. The 12 jurors will return at 8:30 a.m. local time Wednesday to resume deliberations.

    During closing arguments of the trial on Tuesday, prosecutors said the two officers used excessive force, failed to follow their training and misled paramedics about his health status.

    “They were trained. They were told what to do. They were given instructions. They had opportunities, and they failed to choose to de-esclate violence when they needed to, they failed to listen to Mr. McClain when they needed to, and they failed Mr. McClain,” prosecutor Duane Lyons said in court.

    Rosenblatt was fired by the police department in 2020 and Roedema remains suspended. Roedema and Rosenblatt have pleaded not guilty to charges of reckless manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and assault causing serious bodily injury in connection with McClain’s death.

    The case stems from the events of August 24, 2019, when officers responded to a call about a “suspicious person” wearing a ski mask, according to the indictment. The officers confronted McClain, a 23-year-old  massage therapist, musician and animal lover who was walking home from a convenience store carrying a plastic bag with iced tea.

    In an interaction captured on body camera footage, police wrestled McClain to the ground and placed him in a carotid hold, and paramedics later injected him with the powerful sedative ketamine. He suffered a heart attack on the way to the hospital and was pronounced dead three days later.

    Prosecutors initially declined to bring charges, but the case received renewed scrutiny following the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests in spring 2020. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis appointed a special prosecutor to reexamine the case, and in 2021 a grand jury indicted three officers and two paramedics in McClain’s death.

    In closing arguments, the prosecution played body-camera footage of the arrest and said the footage showed officers used excessive force for no reason. McClain also repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe, yet the officers did not tell that to anyone on the scene.

    Roedema and Rosenblatt’s joint trial began last month and featured testimony from Aurora law enforcement officers who responded to the scene as well as from doctors who analyzed how McClain died. The defense did not call any witnesses.

    In opening statements, prosecutors argued the officers used excessive force against McClain in the form of two carotid holds. The officers then failed to check his vital signs, even as he threw up in his ski mask and repeatedly said “I can’t breathe,” according to the prosecution.

    Dr. Robert Mitchell Jr., a forensic pathologist who reviewed McClain’s autopsy, testified the cause of death was “complications following acute ketamine administration during violent subdual and restraint by law enforcement, emergency response personnel.” He testified there was a “direct causal link” between the officers’ actions and McClain’s death.

    The defense argued the carotid holds were appropriate because McClain was physically resisting. Defense attorneys also argued there was no evidence the officers’ actions led to his death, and instead placed the blame on the paramedics’ decision to inject McClain with a dose of ketamine too large for his size.

    Dr. David Beuther, a pulmonary critical care physician, testified on cross-examination he believed McClain would not have died if the paramedics had recognized his issues and intervened.

    A third officer and two paramedics who responded to the scene are set to go on trial in the coming weeks. They have also pleaded not guilty.

    In 2021, the city of Aurora settled a civil rights lawsuit with the McClain family for $15 million, and the Aurora police and fire departments  agreed to a consent decree to address a pattern of racial bias found by a state investigation.

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