Saturday, September 27, 2008
Teller's Sarcasm Thwarts Bank Robber
CENTEREACH, N.Y. -- Police said a bank teller in suburban New York had a simple question for a would-be robber: Are you serious? Police said that was enough to spook the female suspect, who fled the Roslyn Savings Bank in Centereach late Thursday afternoon without a dime. Police said she walked into the bank located inside a supermarket on Route 25 about 4:49 p.m. and handed the teller a note demanding cash and threatening to open fire with a gun if the teller didn't comply.That's when the teller apparently expressed her crime-fighting skepticism. Police said the woman left without ever showing a gun. They said she is also a suspect in the robbery of the Bank of Smithtown, also in Centereach, on September 23
Friday, September 26, 2008
11 Children, Including Family of 9, Abandoned
AP
Aug. 22, 2008: A sign designating the Alegent Health Emmanuel Medical Center as a safe haven is seen in Omaha, Neb.
Aug. 22, 2008: A sign designating the Alegent Health Emmanuel Medical Center as a safe haven is seen in Omaha, Neb.
OMAHA, Neb. — Eleven children ranging in age from 1 to 17 were left at hospitals Wednesday under Nebraska's unique safe haven law, which allows caregivers to abandon youngsters as old as 19 without fear of prosecution.
Nine of the children came from one family. The six boys and three girls were left by their father, who was not identified, at Creighton University Medical Center's emergency room. Unrelated boys ages 11 and 15 also were surrendered Wednesday at Immanuel Medical Center.
The law, which went into effect in July, initially was intended to protect infants. In a compromise with senators worried about arbitrary age limits, the measure was expanded to include the word "child," which wasn't defined. Some have interpreted this to mean anyone under the age of 19.
At least 14 children have been abandoned under the state's safe haven law since it took effect.
Todd Landry, director of Health and Human Services' division of Children and Family Services, said that in nearly every case, the parents who left their children felt overwhelmed and had decided they didn't want to be parents anymore. None of the kids dropped off so far has been in danger, Landry said.
The children surrendered Wednesday are OK, said Kathie Osterman, spokeswoman for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. She didn't know why they had been abandoned. Further details weren't immediately available.
Nebraska was the last state in the nation to adopt a safe-haven law. Under previous law, a parent who abandoned a baby could have been charged with child neglect or abandonment, both misdemeanors, or child abuse, a felony.
State Sen. Arnie Stuthman said he introduced the bill intending to protect infants. In a compromise with senators worried about arbitrary age limits, the measure was expanded.
Abandoning teenagers was not the original intent of the law, Stuthman said Thursday.
"People are leaving them off just because they can't control them," he said. "They're probably in no real danger, so it's an easy way out for the caretaker.
Baby born from 21-year-old sperm
Baby born from 21-year-old sperm
Father froze his sperm before chemo left him sterile; interval a near-record
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The male side of infertility
Sept. 17: TODAY’s Natalie Morales catches up with two couples struggling with male infertility; TODAY’s Matt Lauer talks to Ken and Michelle Decker about their struggles to get pregnant. Today show |
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Learn more about the techniques used to help infertile couples conceive a child. |
By Michael Inbar
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 9:14 a.m. MT, Wed., Sept. 17, 2008
Madison Decker has just celebrated her 1-month birthday, but the roots of her birth go back some 21 years: Her father, Ken, had his sperm frozen before undergoing chemotherapy for Hodgkin’s disease in the 1980s.
It was a decision that paid big dividends when he met the love of his life.
Ken and Michelle Decker, with infant Madison in tow, appeared on TODAY Wednesday to tell Matt Lauer their amazing story of welcoming into the world a daughter who was created, in part, in another time. The 21 years between Ken’s freezing his sperm and Madison’s being born is one of the longest periods of time for conception on medical record.
Ken, a cameraman for TODAY, told Lauer the prescient decision to freeze his sperm at age 24 — before his 1986 chemo left him sterile — was a case of “Mother knows best.”
“It was a mom decision,” he said with a laugh. “I was playing, scuba diving, chasing a career, and Mom was like, ‘You have to bank your sperm.’ I said, OK. I did what Mom said to do.”
Wrote off fatherhood
Still, the decision didn’t seem to carry much weight in Decker’s life, even after he met Michelle (who also works for TODAY) and married her in 2004. While sperm freezes well, and many of the sperm can survive indefinite storage, the technology hadn’t yet been developed to create a viable pregnancy.
“The sperm was not viable — I wrote off fatherhood,” Decker told Lauer. “I never thought I would be a father.”
But Michelle’s love for Ken towered over any obstacles to their becoming parents, she told Lauer. They talked about their chances for a family before their marriage, she said.
“I never thought it was a possibility that we’d be able to have a biological child,” Michelle recounted. “He told me he was sterile, and I said, ‘You know what? We’ll conquer it. We’ll either adopt or we’ll figure something out — maybe a miracle will happen.’ ”
That miracle came through the invention of Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection — ISCI for short — which allows doctors to choose one good sperm to implant into one good egg, rather than using up an entire banked sperm reserve to bombard an egg.
The technique has dramatically raised the success rate for pregnancies. Ken Decker told Lauer, “Until this recent ISCI technology, for the last 20 years there was nothing that was going to help us.”
Fourth time’s the charm
Still, bringing Madison into the world was an arduous, often disappointing journey for the couple. Michelle called it a “three-year-plus process” that included three failed attempts to create a viable pregnancy.
But a fourth attempt, performed by renowned New York-based fertility specialist Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, created a successful in vitro fertilization for the couple. Thus, three years, some 200 needle injections, four in vitro cycles with ISCI and $90,000 later, Ken and Michelle Decker were able to present their newborn to a smiling Lauer.
Lauer, a father of three children himself, cooed over tiny Madison and presented Ken and Michelle with a gift of a TODAY show onesie. Looking on as Michelle draped the gift over her
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TODAY Michelle Decker proudly shows off 1-month-old Madison, born from her husband’s 21-year-old sperm. |
The Deckers’ odds of realizing their dreams of having a child were about even. Rosenwaks said that through ISCI, pregnancy rates were 56 percent, and half ultimately had live births.
As for becoming a record holder for having a baby some 21 years after his sperm was first frozen, Ken Decker laughed and said, “It’s really exciting. I hope no one beats us out.”
TODAY highlighted the male side of infertility Wednesday. While women are usually the focal point when it comes to the ability to conceive, studies show a roughly 50-50 split between men and women when there are problems. All told, 5 to 7 percent of males are diagnosed as infertile.
“It’s remarkable how often we see women who have gone through significant evaluation, even sometimes treatment, without figuring out where things stand for the man,” urologist and reproductive specialist Peter Schlegel told TODAY. “Obviously, it takes two.”
Man Accuses Maryland Doctor of Stapling Buttocks Shut
Arguments began Monday in a federal lawsuit alleging that a Maryland doctor stapled a man's rectum shut during an operation, rendering him unable to move his bowels for 17 days, the Baltimore Examiner reported.
Ronald Watkins, 64, of West Virginia, has accused Dr. Manuel Casiano, a doctor in Frederick County, Maryland for botching a September 2004 surgery that left him with permanent bowel problems, according to the report.
But an attorney representing Casiano told jurors the doctor did not staple Watkins' buttocks shut.
Attorney Conrad Varner said Watkins’ bowels became “swollen shut” because of medical problems — not because of stapling and that his two-pack-a-day smoking habit added to his bowel problems, the Examiner reported.
Watkins' attorney, Julia Lodowski argued that the medical error was in fact caused by Casiano and has led Watkins to experience continual “rectal discharge," which requires him to wipe himself between 12 and 15 times a day.
Lodowski said Watkins also needed four “unnecessary surgeries” because of the alleged mistake.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Menezes officers 'had no photo'
Menezes officers 'had no photo'
 Mr de Menezes was killed the day after the 21 July 2005 failed bombings |
Some of the police staking out the home of Jean Charles de Menezes did not have a picture of the real suspect they were looking for, an inquest has heard.
Several surveillance officers watching Mr de Menezes' London flat saw only a poor image of would-be bomber Hussain Osman at a briefing, jurors were told.
Michael Mansfield QC said better images existed but had not been used.
Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot dead in July 2005 by police in London who mistook him for Osman.
Mr Mansfield, who represents the de Menezes family, told the hearing how surveillance officers were shown a passport-style picture of Osman recovered from a gym card found in his unexploded rucksack after the 21 July attempted suicide bombings.
Three other torn-up images of Osman and his wife were also found, he said.
Strategy
Mr de Menezes was killed when he boarded a train at Stockwell Tube station in south London after firearms officers mistook him for Osman the day after Osman and three other men had failed in their bombing attempts.
Mr Mansfield went on to question deputy assistant commissioner John McDowall, who was responsible for developing the strategy to capture the men behind the attempted 21 July attacks.
 | THE MENEZES KILLING   |
"Were you aware that, in fact, some of them were out and about on patrol as it were, as surveillance, without a photograph at all. Do you know that?"
Mr McDowall replied: "No, I was not aware of that."
Mr Mansfield continued: "I mean, that does not help does it, when you know about the difficulties of positive identification, if you do not even have a copy of the photograph with you and you have only seen it back at a briefing?
"That is not exactly best practice, is it?"
Mr McDowall replied: "No, sir, no."
'Omissions'
Mr Mansfield went on to accuse Mr McDowell of a series of failings, including taking strategic decisions "in a vacuum" without considering what could be achieved by firearms and surveillance colleagues.
He also said officers watching the Scotia Road flats had not been told clearly what do do if anyone emerged.
|  I think, there probably are things that I could have done but for whatever reason at that time I did not think of it  John McDowall Met Police deputy assistant commissioner |
Mr Mansfield asked: "Has that ever occurred to you that, in fact, there are omissions by you that really, had you followed up - and a large number of things - the whole scenario might have been different?"
Mr McDowall responded: "I do not accept that. I think that, with benefit of hindsight, one does look back at what one has or has not done and, clearly, I think, there probably are things that I could have done but for whatever reason at that time I did not think of it."
But he said there were "certain aspects" that could have been done differently when preparing the manhunt strategy.
'Split-second decision'
Mr McDowall went on to tell the courtroom at the Oval cricket ground that while he hoped it would not happen again, it was "entirely feasible" a similar tragedy could occur "just with the way circumstances unravel themselves".
On Monday - the first day of the 12-week inquest into Mr de Menezes' death - jurors were told firearms officers made a split-second decision to kill him.
The two firearms officers - identified only as Charlie Two and Charlie 12 - will give evidence in public for the first time later in the inquest.
The jury will consider whether or not Mr de Menezes was unlawfully killed.
There have been five inquiries relating to the death and its aftermath, including a criminal trial.
In 2007, an Old Bailey jury found the Metropolitan Police guilty of breaching health and safety laws, after hearing about the events leading up to Mr de Menezes being shot.Prosecutors Drop Charge Related to "Passing Gas" in DUI Case
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Passing Gas on Police Officer
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Md. Delegate Who Called for DUI Plates Charged
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| SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) -- A Maryland state delegate who called for "DUI" license plates that would be issued to people convicted more than once of drunken driving has been charged with driving under the influence himself. A Montgomery County police report says an officer cited Herman Taylor Jr. after finding him sleeping with his SUV idling at a 7-Eleven on New Hampshire Avenue in Silver Spring on May 1. The report says the officer saw Taylor pull into the parking lot, then rest his head on the back of his seat. The officer had to shake Taylor to wake him up and the report says the officer smelled alcohol. A trial for Taylor, a Montgomery County Democrat, is scheduled for Oct. 24 |
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