
A 12-year-old boy was killed by a horrifying brain-eating amoeba. Doctors are sounding the alarm that every American should read
Just two weeks later, the 12-year-old was dead, killed by a rare and deadly brain-eating amoeba lurking in the seemingly pristine waters.
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The Independent
5 minutes ago
- The Independent
Police arrest man suspected of shooting driver who crashed into an LA crowd
Police have arrested the man suspected of shooting the driver who rammed his car into a crowd outside a Los Angeles nightclub last month. The car crashed into a crowd of patrons leaving the Vermont Hollywood venue in the early hours of July 19 along a busy boulevard in East Hollywood, leading bystanders to attack the driver, authorities said. The driver was later found to have been shot in the lower back and the suspect escaped on foot, according to police. Efrain Villalobos, 28, was arrested Sunday afternoon in Redondo Beach, about 12 miles (19.3 kilometers) south of LA. He was booked on suspicion of attempted murder without bail. A phone number for Villalobos or family members could not be found in an online database search and the public defender's office did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. The driver, 29-year-old Fernando Ramirez, was initially taken to a hospital. His car came to a stop after colliding with several food carts, which became lodged underneath the vehicle. Some people were briefly trapped beneath the vehicle, police said. At least 23 people were taken to the hospital, with injuries ranging from minor pain to serious fractures and lacerations. Police have not released information on whether Villalobos knew the driver, or what the driver's motive was in the crash. Ramirez was charged with 37 felony counts of attempted murder and 37 felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon. If convicted, he could face multiple sentences of life imprisonment.


The Independent
35 minutes ago
- The Independent
Tennessee set to execute inmate without turning off his implanted defibrillator
Tennessee is set to execute an inmate Tuesday without deactivating his implanted defibrillator, as uncertainty lingers about whether the device will shock his heart when a lethal drug takes effect. Barring a late reprieve requested from the governor or the courts, Byron Black 's execution will go forward after a legal back-and-forth over whether the state would need to turn off his implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, or ICD. The nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center said it's unaware of any other cases in which an inmate was making similar claims to Black about ICDs or pacemakers. The execution would be Tennessee's second since May, after a pause for five years, first because of COVID-19 and then because of missteps by the Tennessee Department of Correction. Twenty-seven men have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S., and nine other people are scheduled to be put to death in seven states during the remainder of 2025. The number of executions this year exceeds the 25 carried out last year and in 2018. It is the highest total since 2015, when 28 people were put to death. Black's condition Black, 69, is in a wheelchair, suffering from dementia, brain damage, kidney failure, congestive heart failure and other conditions, his attorneys have said. In mid-July, a trial court judge agreed with Black's attorneys that officials must have the instrument deactivated to avert the risk that it could cause unnecessary pain and prolong the execution. But the state Supreme Court intervened July 31 to overturn that decision, saying the other judge lacked the authority to order the change. The state has disputed that the lethal injection would cause Black's defibrillator to shock him. Even if shocks were triggered, Black wouldn't feel them, the state has added. Black's attorneys have countered that even if the lethal drug being used, pentobarbital, renders someone unresponsive, they aren't necessarily unaware or unable to feel pain. Black's case Black was convicted in the 1988 shooting deaths of his girlfriend Angela Clay, 29, and her two daughters, Latoya Clay, 9, and Lakeisha Clay, 6. Prosecutors said he was in a jealous rage when he shot the three at their home. At the time, Black was on work-release while serving time for shooting Clay's estranged husband. Linette Bell, whose sister and two nieces were killed, recently told WKRN-TV: 'He didn't have mercy on them, so why should we have mercy on him?' 'It feels like it is never-ending,' Bell told the news outlet. 'They aren't even resting in their own grave.' Medical considerations An implantable cardioverter-defibrillator is a small, battery-powered electronic device that is surgically implanted in the chest, typically near the left collarbone. It serves as a pacemaker and an emergency defibrillator. Black's attorneys say the only way to be sure it's off is for a doctor to place a programming device over the implant site, sending it a deactivation command, with no surgery required. The legal case also spurred a reminder that most medical professionals consider participation in executions a violation of health care ethics. While the judge's order to deactivate the device was in place, state officials said Nashville General Hospital practitioners would do the procedure the day before at the hospital, but wouldn't travel to the prison on execution day as the court required. The judge offered some leeway, allowing the procedure at the hospital on the morning of the execution. But Nashville General then released a statement saying the state's contractor didn't reach out to proper hospital leadership and that there had been no agreement to do the work. Intellectual disability claim In recent years, Black's legal team has also tried and failed to get a new hearing over whether he is intellectually disabled and ineligible for the death penalty under U.S. Supreme Court precedent. His attorneys have said that if they had delayed a prior attempt to seek his intellectual disability claim, he would have been spared under a 2021 state law. Nashville District Attorney Glenn Funk contended in 2022 that Black is intellectually disabled and deserves a hearing under that 2021 law, but the judge denied it. That is because an inmate can't get an intellectual disability hearing under the 2021 law if they have already filed a similar request and a court has ruled on it 'on the merits." In Funk's attempt, he focused on input from an expert for the state in 2004 who determined back then that Black didn't meet the criteria for what was then called "mental retardation.' But she concluded that Black met the new law's criteria for a diagnosis of intellectual disability. Black has also been seeking a determination by the courts that he is incompetent to be executed.


The Independent
35 minutes ago
- The Independent
Former DOJ Trump ‘loyalty test' prosecutors are planning to run for office and fight back
At this time last year, Ryan Crosswell was hard at work trying to put New York City's mayor in prison on corruption charges while serving as a prosecutor in the Justice Department. But after resigning in protest over the Trump administration's decision to drop the case against Mayor Eric Adams and cut back on prosecutions of public corruption cases, he's looking at a switching careers to making laws instead of enforcing them. According to CBS News, Crosswell, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, left the department in February amid the uproar over the dropping of charges against Adams, a move which at the time was framed as a way to enable the mayor to better assist the Trump administration's immigration enforcement efforts. Four months later, he announced a campaign for the House of Representatives seat for Pennsylvania's seventh district against Republican Ryan Mackenzie, telling the television network: "If you're a Marine and you're a former prosecutor, you are protecting people." Crosswell is just one of a number of ex-federal prosecutors looking to continue public service careers by seeking election to various offices across the United States. The former prosecutors all have one thing in common — they left federal service in the tumultuous opening months of the Trump administration amid what have been described as loyalty tests as a condition of remaining in the government. Erika Evans, the granddaughter of Olympic track-and-field medalist Lee Evans, left the Department of Justice in March on account of the changes made to the Civil Rights Division under Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon. Dhillon, a longtime GOP activist, has made it a priority to refocus the division away from protecting racial minorities towards pushing back on alleged anti-white discrimination. Evans told CBS she resigned after receiving emails asking for DOJ employees to report colleagues involved in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion work that the Trump administration has banned. "We received emails requiring that we report any colleagues doing diversity work in the office. We had 10 to 14 days to report them or we would get in trouble ourselves," Evans said. "That was pretty disgusting." Now, she's looking to resume her public service career as Seattle's elected City Attorney. In a video released by her campaign, she says she'll 'take on Trump' if elected and 'demand the community safety we deserve' from the federal government. She explained how she'd wanted to spend her career in public service but felt she had to leave because of the Trump administration's priorities. "When I realized that that was not going to be possible any longer with the values that the Trump administration was having for the department, I knew I needed to shift,' she said.