Florida deputies who fatally shot US airman burst into wrong apartment, attorney says

Yeah, the black dude did have a gun in hand but the cop was hiding like a creep so I'd answer the door armed as well.

The real lesson here being never answer the door.

!transphobes

The leader of a "grisly and gruesome" extreme body modification network who streamed mutilations on his "eunuch maker" website has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years.

Marius Gustavson, 46, was the "arch manipulator" of vulnerable victims and was said to have been involved in at least 29 procedures, which were "little short of human butchery", the Old Bailey in London heard.

The "large-scale, dangerous and extremely disturbing" four-year enterprise included castrations, the use of clamps to crush testicles, peepee removals, the freezing of limbs and administering electric shocks to a 16-year-old boy, which were streamed on Gustavson's website.

The "busy and lucrative" business is estimated to have taken more than £300,000 from its 22,841 paying subscribers across the world between 2017 and 2021.

Gustavson, who had previously admitted charges including conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm, appeared for sentence via video link alongside six other men who had all admitted their part in the scheme. The charges relate to 13 victims who are being safeguarded by specialist detectives.

Judge Mark Lucraft, the recorder of London and most senior judge at the Old Bailey, said as he announced the sentence: "Gustavson, you are very much the mastermind behind this grisly and gruesome enterprise. The business you set up was one that was both busy and lucrative. As with all the others involved, you have no medical qualifications."

He added: "The footage uploaded was extremely explicit and made available to paying subscribers no doubt so they could watch it for their sexual gratification [...] Like-minded individuals were recruited by you, Gustavson, to assist in what became a large-scale, dangerous, and extremely disturbing enterprise."

The prosecutor Caroline Carberry KC told the three-day sentencing hearing that there was "clear evidence" of cannibalism and that Gustavson had cooked testicles for lunch in an "artfully arranged salad platter". He also kept numerous body parts as "trophies" in a fridge at his home in Harringay, north London and "sold" severed genitalia online.

The court heard the procedures were carried out in "amateur and dangerous" ways with kitchen knives, surgical scalpels and implements designed to be used on livestock, leaving victims writhing in pain and needing medical attention.

The judge said: "They are permanent and irreversible procedures and will have a long-term, lifetime effect on the ability of the victim to carry out their day-to-day activities."

Gustavson's film-production techniques began to take on a more and more professional feel as the number of procedures increased. The videos were uploaded to the website, and subscribers paid to watch, with varying levels of membership from "free" to "VIP", which cost £100, the court heard.

The scale of the operation Gustavson, a Norwegian national, and other "like-minded individuals" ran was "without precedent", Carberry said, saying it was "impossible to know" the full scale of the offending.

The court previously heard that the procedures are linked to a subculture where men become "nullos", short for genital nullification, by having their peepee and testicles removed.

In a video of one incident, which was played in court, one of the group's victims was branded with the letters "EM", for eunuch maker, on the back of his calf. The man later complained to police about Gustavson and his "circle of acolytes", and an investigation was launched.

In a victim impact statement, the branded man described Gustavson as a "lunatic" who had put together a "slick, professional website".

The other six defendants admitted conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm.

The judge said: "I am entirely satisfied that the motivation of all those involved were a mix of sexual gratification as well as financial reward."

Gustavson pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit grievous bodily harm, five counts of grievous bodily harm with intent, making and distributing an indecent photograph of a child, and possession of criminal property.

Peter Wates, 67, of Purley, Surrey, a retired former member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Forensic officers found a scrotum and two penile shafts inside a tub of butter marked with the instruction "do not defrost" at his home address.

Janus Atkin, 38, of Newport, Gwent, who had been completing a veterinary course, was jailed for 12 years.

Ion Ciucur, 30, of Gretna, Scotland, received five years and eight months' imprisonment, and Stefan Scharf, 61, of no fixed address, was sentenced to four and a half years in jail.

David Carruthers, 61, and Ashley Williams, 32, of Newport, Gwent, were jailed for 11 years and four years, six months respectively.

In January, three men were sentenced after admitting causing grievous bodily harm to Gustavson. Damien Byrnes, 36, from north London, was jailed for five years for removing Gustavson's peepee with a kitchen knife on video at his home on 18 February 2017.

Jacob Crimi-Appleby, 23, from Epsom in Surrey, was jailed for three years and eight months for freezing Gustavson's leg leading to the need for it to be amputated in February 2019.

Nathan Arnold, 48, from South Kensington, west London, received a two-year suspended sentence for the partial removal of Gustavson's nipple with a scalpel in the summer of 2019.

Kate Mulholland, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "Whilst the victims in this case all seemingly consented to surgeries and amputations, the victim who bravely reported his assault to the police expressed serious regret regarding his procedure and the lasting impact it has had upon him. This clearly emphasises why such practices are unlawful."

DI Amanda Greig, from the Met's specialist crime command, thanked the victims for their bravery, adding: "I would like to highlight the excellent work of the Met's investigation team, who have examined thousands of hours of horrific material seized from the suspects. Their diligence and professionalism have ensured no one else will suffer at the hands of these men."

The Met said a search of Gustavson's flat had uncovered boxes of medical needles and syringes, local anaesthetic packs, surgical cowtools, a wooden chopping board and a mallet, a body board with leg and arm restraints attached, disposable skin staplers, and numerous medical procedure videos.

Easily my favourite leaf writer and political commentator.

!nooticers

Catera Bentley stared at the positive pregnancy test and couldn't believe her eyes. She took a second test, then a third --- there was no question. She was pregnant.

She called her husband at work and told him that there was a giant spider in the house that he had to come get rid of. He rushed home, and when he arrived, Bentley revealed the news. They both burst into tears.

The couple, who live in Steele, Alabama, had been trying to have a child for more than two years, but Bentley's doctor had told her that she may be unable to conceive because of her history of polycystic ovary syndrome, known as PCOS.

The news had left her feeling without a purpose. "That's all I wanted to be was a mom and a wife," said Bentley, 25. "I was depressed, severely depressed for that whole time."

Five months earlier, in October 2022, Bentley had started taking Mounjaro for weight loss. Over the first few months, she said, she lost about 40 pounds. Her menstrual cycles, which had been irregular because of PCOS, became normal. And she even felt happier.

"It just made me feel like a whole new person," she said. "I was in a better mood every single day."

Bentley had hoped that losing weight might help her get pregnant, and she'd heard about others having success with weight loss while taking the shot. But when she did become pregnant --- sooner than she expected --- she worried about the effects it might have on her baby.

'Ozempic babies'

Bentley is far from alone. Numerous women have shared stories of "Ozempic babies" on social media. But the joy some experience in discovering pregnancies may come with anxiety about the unknowns, as these medicines haven't been studied in people who are pregnant.

"We don't know the effect of early exposure ... on the fetus," said Dr. Jody Dushay, a physician focused on endocrinology and metabolism at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

Dushay said she recommends that women stop taking these drugs two months before trying to get pregnant, as directed in their prescribing information.

Ozempic and Mounjaro are part of a class of drugs called GLP-1 receptor agonists, which act by mimicking hormones in the gut involved in insulin regulation and appetite. They're both approved to treat type 2 diabetes, and each have twin medicines approved for weight loss. Ozempic uses the active ingredient semaglutide, and Wegovy is the version approved for weight loss. Mounjaro uses tirzepatide, which also targets a second hormone called GIP, and Zepbound is its brand name for weight loss.

The medicines have been shown to help people lose 15% to 20% of their body weight, on average, in clinical trials.

And because of the way GLP-1 drugs work, experts say, there are reasons they may lead to more pregnancies as well as cause for caution about their use in early pregnancy.

An effect on birth control

For one, weight loss can generally be associated with increased fertility by restoring normal ovulation in people who have PCOS or other causes of abnormal cycles, said Dr. Daniel Drucker, a professor and researcher at the University of Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital and a pioneer of research into GLP-1.

"If you start on these medicines and then you lose 5, 10, 15% of your body weight, very often, you will have an improvement in ovulation," Drucker said.

One scenario that's "quite conceivable," he said, is that someone who has obesity and doesn't have frequent menstrual periods starts one of these medicines, loses weight over several months and finds that they're still not having regular periods --- "only now it might be because you're pregnant."

On top of that, Mounjaro and Zepbound have a warning in their prescribing information that they may render birth control pills less effective.

Drucker said this may be because the drugs work in part by slowing the rate at which food moves through the stomach. This can make people feel full for longer but also could interfere with absorption of other medicines, including birth control pills.

Mounjaro and Zepbound warn about this explicitly on their labels, but Ozempic and Wegovy onlywarn more broadly about absorption of any drugs taken by mouth.

Safety in pregnancy

Even as GLP-1 medicines may increase fertility, little is known about their safety during pregnancy. The drugs' makers, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, excluded people who were pregnant or planned to become pregnant from their clinical trials, a common practice when testing new medicines.

But that doesn't mean there's no information available.

"The more these meds are used, the more women will get pregnant while taking them, and we will in that way accumulate data on risk of early pregnancy exposure," Dushay explained. In other words, "we basically gather data from 'accidents' as we do for most drugs."

The few studies available about babies whose mothers took GLP-1s early in pregnancy haven't turned up major causes for concern, although researchers note that more study is needed --- and it's underway.

Novo Nordisk has a registry where it's collecting data about the safety of Wegovy during pregnancy. A company spokesperson says the findings will be disclosed at the end of the study. An entry on a government database on clinical trials notes that the study plans to enroll more than 1,100 participants and is expected to be completed by the summer of 2027.

An Eli Lilly spokesperson said the company also plans to open a pregnancy registry for Zepbound, which was approved at the end of last year.

Studies in animals, though, have suggested some cause for caution, Drucker said.

"If animals get high doses of these drugs, very often, the babies that are born to the mice and rats are small, and sometimes, they have some malformations," he noted.

That's probably because the drugs also work by reducing appetite.

"If you restrict energy intake in a pregnant animal, then the baby's not going to get enough nutrients and won't be able to grow properly," Drucker said.

He also pointed to a study in animals suggesting that GLP-1 drugs may reduce the number of proteins that are responsible for transferring nutrients from the mother to the fetus, often found in the placenta.

Already in use for PCOS

Those concerns complicate research on the medicines for infertility, but some work is ongoing on one of the most common causes: PCOS. The condition affects as many as 12% of women of reproductive age in the United States, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The exact cause of PCOS is unknown, but it's associated with excess weight, which is thought to contribute to the body's production of too much insulin. That, in turn, results in hormonal imbalances --- specifically, higher levels of hormones like testosterone, which can stop ovulation and cause irregular periods, acne and excess facial hair, according to the CDC.

Although there's no cure, weight loss alone can lead to significant improvement of symptoms and resumption of regular ovulation and menstruation, said Dr. Anuja Dokras, director of the PCOS clinic at the University of Pennsylvania.

Lifestyle changes are the first-line treatment for PCOS, but if those interventions aren't successful, doctors may prescribe Ozempic or other GLP-1 agonist medications, Dokras said. The 2023 international PCOS guidelines list GLP-1 agonists among the medications for "management of higher weight in adults with PCOS."

GLP-1 agonists improve insulin resistance and lead to weight loss, so it makes sense that they also improve PCOS symptoms, added Dr. Melanie Cree, director of the multidisciplinary PCOS Clinic at Children's Hospital Colorado.

"It is completely being used now with no evidence because the [obstetrics] field knows that if you have 5% weight loss in these individuals with PCOS, you will improve fertility," she said.

Cree noted that studies have shown that liraglutide, an earlier GLP-1 drug sold as Victoza for type 2 diabetes and Saxenda for weight loss, is effective at reducing body weight and testosterone levels in women with PCOS and obesity.

Cree also just wrapped up a clinical trial investigating the use of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, for PCOS treatment in adolescent girls. The preliminary findings, which have not been published, showed that both semaglutide and a low-sugar diet resulted in more frequent periods, lower testosterone levels and weight loss --- and the weight loss was much more pronounced in the group taking semaglutide.

Regardless of the method, the study found, people who lost more weight had greater decreases in testosterone levels.

Cree is now running a larger and longer clinical trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health, that will look specifically at fertility outcomes for young women with PCOS who take semaglutide.

And while the drugs' makers aren't currently running trials in PCOS --- which Cree attributes in part to the fact that PCOS overlaps so much with obesity that it wouldn't dramatically expand the market for the medicines --- approval for the condition, she pointed out, could have an important effect on insurance coverage, which is challenging for many people using them for weight loss.

"For example, Colorado mandates fertility coverage, so if it was approved as a fertility medication, then it would be covered for that indication," she said.

Separately, Cree pointed to another question about the medicines during pregnancy: the potential for quick weight regain that can happen when patients stop them suddenly.

"If that's happening in the setting of pregnancy, when you're gaining all this weight, what happens?" she said. "What does that mean? And we just don't know."

A 'Catch-22'

The drugs' makers are also following the "Ozempic babies" phenomenon. Eli Lilly's chief of research, Dr. Daniel Skovronsky, says the company has heard these kinds of stories from patients.

"One question we're asking is: is it possible that as we reduce fat, we improve fertility, decrease PCOS and other barriers to fertility?" Skovronsky said.

"It's kind of like heart failure or sleep apnea," he said, referring to conditions for which GLP-1 drugs have recently shown positive results. "Just another potential benefit of weight loss from this class of medications that we haven't tested yet."

He also underlined how tricky it is to run studies around fertility of medicines whose safety in pregnancy is unknown; Cree referred to a requirement for birth control in studies of GLP-1 drugs as a "Catch-22" for fertility indications.

"Right now, unfortunately, it's really hard to study the effects of these drugs on fertility, because that implies exposing women to a drug with a high risk that they'll have a pregnancy during exposure to the drug and the risks to the baby haven't been fully analyzed yet," Skovronsky said.

Bentley, who got pregnant while taking Mounjaro, said she stopped taking the medicine as soon as she found out she was pregnant. But she said she continued to worry about the effect of the drug on her baby.

"I worried up until the day I had her," she said.

Her daughter, Ivy, was born healthy on her due date, weighing 7 pounds and 7 ounces. Bentley started taking Mounjaro again six weeks after Ivy was born.

#leafs

Woman gets out of the car to argue with her husband while inside a Tiger Safari pic.twitter.com/MpI2UJoSNm

— CCTV IDIOTS (@cctvidiots) May 7, 2024

Her family is now suing the Tiger Safari

https://i.imgur.com/a/uvXVxam.png

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/family-woman-eaten-alive-tiger-9043872

https://x.com/HarmlessYardDog/status/1787961752103133398/photo/1

The devastated family of a woman eaten alive by a safari park tiger are suing zoo bosses for £250,000.

The tragic incident began when a young woman got out of a car inside the Siberian tiger enclosure to berate her partner in the driver's seat.

One of the powerful creatures quickly pounced at Badaling Wildlife Park in Beijing, China.

Her mother and a man then also got out and went to her rescue.

The woman is speaking into the car when the tiger approaches from behind

The older woman, known only by her surname Zhao, was then attacked by a second tiger who dragged her to her death as park rangers frantically tried to intervene.

Her daughter survived the attack and launched a bid for compensation.

Yanqing district government said the tourists should be held accountable as they ignored warnings from the park authorities.

But now the family are seeking damages of £250,000 (HK$2.3 million), which the park rejected.

The horrendous incident was partly captured on shocking CCTV footage.

A silver car is driving along a paved pathway through the park when it comes to a stop.

A young woman gets out of the front passenger seat, slams her door and stomps round to the driver's side.

The driver also opens his door as the woman appears to remonstrate with him.

But within seconds, a tiger appears from nowhere and pounces on the woman's back from behind.

She appears to hear it coming only at the last second and is unable to escape.

The animal pulls her to the ground and away from the vehicle with lightning speed.

The man gets out of the car and for a moment appears unsure whether to get back in or go after the woman.

He then disappears off camera.

A few seconds later, the older woman also gets out the car as park rangers appear in a jeep.

The man appears to motion her back into the vehicle, but she runs with him off camera as well.

The second tiger attack is not captured on camera.

The park has been closed while an investigation is underway, according to local media.

Sources told ChinaNews said the accident involved a family of four including three adults and a child.

As the vehicle travelled through the Siberian tiger garden area, there was an "altercation" between the young woman and man who was driving.

She suddenly got out of the car and went to try and open his door.

The new name puts a focus on inclusivity. Krone told The Associated Press that they wanted a name going forward that made clear that all children and teens are “very, very welcome.”

He added that when people question why the organization needs a new name, he points to historically low membership numbers.

Like other organizations, the scouts lost members during the pandemic, when participation was difficult. The high point over the past decade was in 2018, when there were more than 2 million members. Currently, the organization serves just over 1 million young people, including more than 176,000 girls and teens. Membership peaked in 1972 at almost 5 million.

I sympathize with Sohi and city councillors.

The Alberta UCP are all r-slurs that make Trudeau look like the adult in the room.

!nooticers educate yourself

A new study has highlighted the extent to which LGBTQ+ people can be uniquely affected by climate change, underlining the particular and underreported vulnerabilities of a community that also often suffers from poverty and discrimination.

The report by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law found that same-s*x couples in the United States run a greater risk of being negatively affected by climate change than their heterosexual peers.

Same-s*x couples are more likely to live in areas with poor infrastructure and less access to resources, the study said, noting that same-s*x couples were also disproportionately located in coastal areas and cities.

The research builds on previous limited data and comes as LGBTQ+ activists around the world urge authorities to include the community in discussions around environmental policies.

Around 3.6 billion people live in areas susceptible to climate change, according to the World Health Organization.

Here's what you need to know about the specific vulnerabilities of the LGBTQ+ community.

Why are LGBTQ+ people more at risk from climate change?

Multiple studies have shown that climate change exacerbates existing societal inequalities and disproportionately affects marginalised communities, although specific research into the impact on LGBTQ+ lives is limited.

Globally, LGBTQ+ people, who already face legal and societal discrimination in some countries, are at greater risk of being homeless or in poverty, which can make them particularly vulnerable during natural disasters.

In the United States, former discriminatory housing and loan policies pushed LGBTQ+ communities into more under-resourced areas, which lack the infrastructure to deal with high temperatures or flooding, the Williams Institute report said.

It's a pattern repeated elsewhere.

In Jamaica, LGBTQ+ people face significant discrimination in the housing sector, and homeless LGBTQ+ youths have been known to make their homes in gullies, a report by Equality for All Foundation (EFAF) found in 2021.

LGBTQ+ people have also faced barriers in accessing disaster relief. Activists in the Pacific island of Tonga, which is facing more frequent cyclones, told how emergency shelters are mostly run by religious organisations, whose members might be hostile towards sexual and gender minorities.

In Haiti, after the 2010 earthquake, gay and bisexual men tried to adopt "a more masculine demeanour" to avoid harassment in displacement camps and were turned away from emergency housing and food programmes, said a report by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and Foundation and SEROvie, an HIV NGO.

When Hurricane Katrina hit southeastern United States in 2005 - before marriage equality was introduced in all states in 2015 - there were reports of LGBTQ+ couples being separated and struggling to apply for aid as relief efforts did not recognise same-s*x households as families.

In some countries, trans communities also struggle to access aid relief as they often don't have legal documentation, due to leaving home at a young age.

Where are LGBTQ+ people most affected?

Countries in the global south are already experiencing some of the worst effects of the extreme weather caused by climate change -- and many don't have a positive record on LGBTQ+ rights.

Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Chad, and Nigeria, all of which criminalise same-s*x activity, are among the worst-hit nations.

Small Island Developing States, including nations in the Caribbean and the Pacific, are at risk from rising seas and have also seen an increase in extreme weather, like hurricanes.

Several Caribbean islands, including Dominica, Barbados and Saint Kitts and Nevis, have moved to decriminalise same-s*x relations, but they are still criminalised in five nations.

Climate disasters have also put LGBTQ+ people at an increased risk of abuse in countries including Israel, the United States, Malaysia and New Zealand, where religious leaders have sometimes blamed the community for events like earthquakes and hurricanes.

How can communities be protected?

Activists and organisations have called for LGBTQ+ people to be included in the drafting of climate policy and asked for more research into the impacts of natural disasters and further training to reduce stigma and discrimination in aid operations.

They also want sexual orientation and gender identity to be explicitly protected against discrimination in disaster risk management frameworks, while legal protections -- such as marriage equality laws -- will help families feel protected in the event of disaster.

"LGBTQ+ people are almost entirely absent in climate change policies," Jason Ball from GiveOut, a global LGBTQ+ rights organisation with a climate-specific initiative, told Context.

"Intersectional approaches need to be embedded into climate justice work. Climate resilience tends to be about developing drought-resistant crops and sea walls; it doesn't always recognise the social vulnerabilities of certain communities."

He's from Jalisco New Generation, the main rival of the Sinaloa Cartel that controls the president.

Yes, we have a marsey for literally everything.

Looks like leftoids are finally starting to get their commupance.