I know this is a day early but I have special posts for our 250th year…..sorry about that….
Local–This weekend is the 78th Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo….lots of dead fish, carnival atmosphere and heat and do not forget the pungent odors……..there is also a Crab Fest in another town along the Coast.
The big news is that the cops shot a 1 year old while he was strsapped into his car seat….
An independent autopsy is adding fuel to community questions over how a Mississippi toddler was killed during a police response to a Walmart shoplifting call, NBC News reports. Attorneys for the family of 1-year-old Kohen Wiley say the exam found the bullet entered from the side of the car he was riding in, not the front, and that debris injuries on his torso match shattered tempered glass from a side window—details they argue undercut claims that an officer fired in self-defense as the vehicle drove toward police. Wiley’s mother says her friend was driving the car away from police when the lethal shot was fired, the AP reports. A woman was also critically injured in the incident but is now in stable condition, Action News 5 reports.
Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, citing findings by forensic pathologist Dr. Roger Mitchell, said the pattern of wounds suggests “this police is shooting from the side,” and pressed why an officer would fire into a car “where you’re clearly not in harm’s way.” State investigators have released few details since the June 14 shooting and say they won’t disclose video until their probe is finished; the officer involved remains on leave and has not been named. Crump is urging Walmart and authorities to make any footage public, while a local group, the Senatobia Committee for Accountability and Transparency, is pushing to get the case on the next city council agenda.
Personal–Chemo hit me especially hard this time…all I feel like doing is being grumpy and sleeping.
Time to move on to the news of the week….
The big story is that the heat wave in Europe is killing people hand over fist….could A/C be the reason?
When horrible things happen to people you care about, it’s only natural to seek someone to blame. If you ask the mayoral administration in charge of Paris, France, it seems responsibility for Europe’s devastating heatwave is being placed on the United States’ affinity for air conditioning.
Last week, recently-elected Paris mayor Emmanuel Grégoire went on the record with Le Monde amidst one of the worst heatwaves in the city’s history — an event which has reportedly resulted in over 1,000 excess deaths across France.
Asked whether Parisians should rush out to install AC units in their homes which famously shun them, Grégoire sharply disagreed, saying that “individual air conditioning is a scourge — it makes the problem worse by heating the city even more.”
https://futurism.com/science-energy/air-conditioning-climate-change-france-killing-people
There is a bunch of news these days about ticks and Lyme Disease….but there is others….
A tick-borne illness that tends to lurk behind Lyme in public awareness is moving closer to center stage. Health officials say Powassan virus disease, still rare but often more dangerous than Lyme, has shot up from seven reported US cases in 2015 to 76 in 2025, reports the Washington Post. Recent infections in New Jersey and New Hampshire have drawn attention, and NBC Boston reports that a man in Rhode Island also is recovering. The disease is spread mainly by blacklegged (deer) ticks in the Northeast and Upper Midwest, the same ticks that carry Lyme. But there’s one big difference: The virus can pass to humans in as little as 15 minutes of attachment—far faster than Lyme.
Most infected people are thought to have no symptoms, but those who do may first feel flu-like: fever, fatigue, muscle aches, per the CDC. In some, the virus invades the central nervous system within weeks, causing brain or spinal cord inflammation and symptoms that can resemble a stroke: confusion, slurred speech, loss of coordination, seizures, or paralysis. Among symptomatic patients, about 15% die and half of survivors have lasting neurological issues.
There’s no vaccine or specific treatment for Powassan. Experts link the rise in cases to tick expansion related to warming temperatures, and they advise the usual tactics: repellents, permethrin-treated clothing, frequent tick checks, and prompt removal of any ticks found. The illness is named for the Canadian city where it was first identified decades ago.
Be careful this Summer.
More health stuff…
A man in Spain who feared he had brain cancer turned out to have something else in his head: tapeworms, Gizmodo reports. The 60-year-old went to doctors with worsening headaches and subtle behavior changes; a CT scan suggested metastatic brain tumors, and he was started on steroids commonly used to ease cancer-related brain swelling, which quickly improved his symptoms. But further testing couldn’t find any primary cancer, and an MRI scan eventually revealed the real culprit—cysts from the pork tapeworm Taenia solium lodged in his brain. The condition occurs when microscopic tapeworm eggs are ingested and settle in the brain, the New York Post reports.
The diagnosis, detailed in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, confirmed a case of neurocysticercosis, a parasitic brain infection that’s rare in wealthier countries but a leading cause of adult-onset seizures worldwide. The man, who hadn’t traveled to tapeworm-endemic regions, likely picked up the parasite through local exposure on construction sites where he shared food and bathrooms with migrant workers, the authors say—evidence of unusual local transmission in Western Europe. Fox News reports exposure to the eggs could have occurred years earlier. He was treated with antiparasitic drugs and tapered off steroids without complications. The doctors say the case shows that brain infections from T. solium should remain on the diagnostic radar, even where cancer is statistically far more likely.
That is something to think about…..
How about a little sciencey stuff?
Scientists claim that for the first time in history, they have constructed a synthetic cell that feeds, grows, and replicates — just like a natural one — out of non-living chemical components.
The team from the University of Minnesota says their “SpudCell” is the “first synthetic cell with a complete cell cycle,” and can “grow, replicate its genome, divide, and undergo selection and competition across multiple generations.”
The research, which is being hailed as a major breakthrough, could usher in a new biotech era defined by synthetic organisms that can be grown from scratch and programmed to complete specific functions. It’s a futuristic approach that could open many doors for our efforts to solve a wide variety of human problems, from fighting cancer to capturing carbon.
https://futurism.com/science-energy/fully-synthetic-cell-eat-reproduce
Next time you see a roach you might want to take a closer look….
Everyone’s heard the pop culture myth that cockroaches are virtually indestructible and will be the only animals to survive the apocalypse. If those end times involve Biblical floods or sea level rise, these grimy bugs may now have an even better shot at being the last one standing.
In a new study, cyborg cockroaches equipped with an integrated diving suit that lets them move underwater have been developed by scientists at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and Waseda University in Tokyo.
Now for the creepy…..
A former model who is serving time for killing her husband — and eating some of his cooked body parts — wants an early release from prison.
Omaima Nelson, an Egyptian-born former Costa Mesa resident, will go before a parole board next Wednesday, requesting early release.
Nelson is currently serving a 27-years-to-life sentence for murdering William Nelson, 56, in November of 1991.
Prosecutors said Nelson killed her husband in their Costa Mesa apartment. She was in her twenties at the time of the crime.
Michele Gile, reporting for CBS2 and KCAL9, said Nelson spent days trying to dispose of the body parts. In addition to putting various parts in the garbage disposal, Gile reports, Nelson also put parts in trash bags and suitcases.
She claimed her husband raped her the night before she killed him.
Randy Pawloski, the Orange County senior deputy district attorney, opposes her release because her crimes were particularly gruesome (“the mutilation was beyond belief”) and said Nelson had a history of violence even before the bizarre murder. He also maintains her story of abuse has changed several times.
Says Pawloski, “Initially to the police, she claimed it could have been a CIA operation. People came in and he had enemies and maybe wanted him to be murdered. [Then] she didn’t know what happened. Finally when it shook out, she said she was a battered spouse even though they had been married only three weeks.”
(cbsnews.com)
If you are starting your long weekend then as always….Be Well and Be Safe….
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
Sorry about the chemo stuff. Hopefully, it’s doing some good!
Nan it is but it is not curing the problem….just targeting it……chuq
I hope that you recover soon from the chemo sessions, chuq.
Why are they wasting money fitting diving suits on cockroaches to see how long they can survive under water? Just stamp on the filthy things!
Those cops who shot the baby are never going to be able to justify that.
The woman who killed and ate her husband? Sounds to me like she should stay in jail.
The French seem to hate A/C but they might change their minds about that soon. 40+C/105F in France this weekend
We have ‘sheep ticks’ here, and I am always wary of them.
Best wishes, Pete.
Sheep ticks are scary creatures indeed unless you catch them when they are young and gently raise them with love and lots of cane sugar goodies.
Then smash them into pancakes. chuq
Thanx for the kind words Pete but the treatments will continue for now…..it is getting a bit tiring….those cops will be found to be justified in the shooting as always….I have seen picks of people fighting over A/Cs in France….heat will do that to a person…..chuq
reminds me painfully of one of the first shootings when a woman driving AWAY from the scene was shot by ICE, who claimed she was trying to run them down…pathetic, all the way
Judy I have a problem with any of these types of shootings….their first instinct should not be to kill someone. chuq
Perhaps the car seat was the most dangerous part.
Maybe they feared that once the tiny astronaut slipped free of those five-point constellations, gravity itself would defect. Better, in the strange arithmetic of nightmares, to confront a captive comet than risk an untethered one.
The manuals in this upside-down kingdom must be fascinating: Never wait until the butterfly leaves the cocoon. Never let the goldfish reach open water. Above all, never permit a one-year-old the tactical advantage of independent mobility.
In the republic of impossible logic, restraint becomes escalation, helplessness becomes imminent threat, and the safest moment is somehow the one in which escape is physically impossible.
It is the kind of reasoning that only survives in dreams—or in headlines that make reality sound as though it has been written by a surrealist who misplaced the distinction between tragedy and parody.
Thanx John chuq