Latest news with #Ybarra
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Advancing Awareness and Equity: Leaders Discuss Black History and Community Initiatives
Presented by: Centric Health During Studio 17's Black History Month special, local leaders emphasized the importance of awareness, diversity and supporting African American initiatives within the community. Joining the conversation were Michael Bowers, vice president of public and government affairs at Centric Health, and Les Ybarra, president of California Medicaid at Anthem Blue Cross. For Bowers, a Bakersfield native, these discussions are key to breaking stereotypes and fostering inclusion. 'Black history is American history,' Bowers said. 'When we say, 'We the people,' that means all people. Conversations like this help us move forward by challenging misconceptions and increasing understanding.' Ybarra echoed the importance of education and action in achieving meaningful change. 'At Anthem Blue Cross, our purpose is to improve the health of humanity,' he said. 'That takes leadership, partnerships and a commitment to serving the communities that need it most.' Health disparities remain a critical issue for African Americans, particularly in underserved areas. Bowers pointed out that parts of Bakersfield, including the neighborhood where he grew up, still lack basic healthcare services such as pharmacies, urgent care centers and behavioral health resources. 'Accessibility is a major challenge,' Bowers said. 'We're still seeing significant gaps in care, especially in communities of color.' Ybarra stressed the importance of addressing these disparities by focusing on whole-person care, particularly in maternal and child health, behavioral health and chronic disease management. 'We have a responsibility to ensure care is available at the right time and place,' he said. 'That means providing resources, reducing disparities and meeting people where they are.' As Black History Month concludes, both leaders underscored the need for ongoing conversations and action. 'We need to keep coming back, year after year, to talk about these issues,' Bowers said. 'That's how we drive progress and create lasting change.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
16-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Inside the pain and torture of a family ruined by Munchausen by Proxy disorder
Early 2009 was a difficult time for the Fort Worth, Texas-based Ybarra family. Hope Ybarra, a mother of three, had been fighting a rare form of bone cancer for eight years. Now, the cancer had reappeared after two remissions, and this time, she told her family, it would be fatal. Making this worse was that her youngest, 5-year-old Sophia, had been sick almost since birth with cystic fibrosis, generating a 15,000-page medical file. After hearing the news of Hope's remission, Sophia put her arms around her. 'I'm going to miss you, Mommy,' she said. But according to Andrea Dunlop and Mike Weber's new book, 'The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy' (St. Martin's Press, out Feb. 4), none of this was true. Ybarra wasn't dying. She had never had cancer. And Sophia, who had spent her life being subjected to medical procedures including a surgically implanted feeding tube, had also never actually been sick. The form of abuse that causes a parent to subject her child to years of unnecessary medical intrusions is known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Dunlop, who hosts a podcast about the condition called 'Nobody Should Believe Me,' emphasizes that Munchausen syndrome by proxy is defined by deliberate deception and 'are not cases of someone who is simply anxious or even having outright delusions about illnesses.' In 2001, Ybarra, then a mother of two, was six months pregnant with twins when she told her husband, Fabian, that she had cancer. 'Hope faced an agonizing decision,' Dunlop writes of the story Ybarra shared. 'Her treatment could put the babies at risk, but if she forwent it, they could all die. She went ahead with the radiation, and two weeks in, she was hit by another blow. She had lost the pregnancy.' Her family was devastated. '[Her sister] Robin remembers seeing ultrasound pictures of the twin girls, whom they had already named Alexandria and Alexia,' Dunlop writes. 'Robin would go on to name her son Alexander in memory of the lost little girls.' Sophia was born in March 2004 four months premature, and was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis soon after. For five years, the family's life was dominated by concerns for both Sophia's sickness and the possibility that Hope's cancer would return. Eventually, Ybarra moved with Sophia to Birmingham, Ala., after Sophia's pulmonologist relocated there, necessitating regular 10-hour drives back and forth for treatment. Ybarra's parents, Susan and Paul, raised almost $100,000 for the family, including donations from many of their friends and clients. By April 2009, when Ybarra was supposedly dying, she was moved to the hospital to receive palliative care. But when Sophia's oncologist called Susan for information on Ybarra's care team, the grieving mother couldn't find anything. Ybarra's lie was exposed. For her family, it was as if the fabric of reality had split apart. 'One minute your child is dying,' Paul told Dunlop. 'Now your child's a really confusing character.' Ybarra was transferred to the hospital's psych ward and diagnosed with major depressive disorder and Munchausen syndrome. Susan and Paul had to return the money they had raised, and sharing the story destroyed their lives. Paul was asked to leave his job for 25 years. The couple lost their home and their marriage fell apart, though they did eventually reconcile. (Susan died in 2019.) But also, the family was forced to ask what else Ybarra might have lied about — like if the pregnancy she lost had even been real. Susan checked the urn that supposedly contained the twins' ashes. It was empty. Alexandra and Alexia had never existed. Robin had named her son after a lie. Now doubly devastated, the family knew they needed one more potentially heartbreaking answer. The Ybarras brought Sophia in for the test that determines whether a child has cystic fibrosis. It came back negative. 'For almost any parent in the world, the news that their child didn't have a terminal illness would have brought tears of relief,' writes Dunlop. 'But upon hearing the test results, Hope broke down in tears for a very different reason. She'd been caught.' Over the course of an hours-long interview turned interrogation, Weber, who Dunlop describes as 'the only detective in the United States who has made this a focused area of expertise,' got Ybarra to admit to putting a pathogen in the cup that was used to test Sophia's saliva, among other misdeeds. Ybarra was arrested in October 2009. A $25,000 bond was set, but no one would pay it. One year later, she accepted a plea bargain of 10 years in prison, and Dunlop writes that 'she served every day of her ten-year sentence.' The three children, now grown, have had no contact with Ybarra since her arrest. Fabian visited her in prison just once, to ask what happened to their once sizable savings account. But Ybarra said she didn't remember. 'To this day, her favorite line is, I don't remember,' Fabian told Dunlop. 'She's still the victim,' Fabian said. 'She will always be the victim.'
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
"Rockstar is controlled by no one, including their publisher": Ex-Blizzard boss says Borderlands 4 "doesn't matter" in response to fans trying to narrow the GTA 6 release window down
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. People have been speculating about when Grand Theft Auto 6 will arrive this year, and Borderlands 4's September launch date has led some to believe we've narrowed the window down, as it likely won't clash with another game from the same publisher. Mike Ybarra, ex-Blizzard president, says this doesn't matter. It's been reported that publishers are waiting for Rockstar to announce when GTA 6 will launch before committing to their own games' release dates. This is because no one wants to compete with it. We only have so much money, we can't buy every game. If GTA 6 really is $100, people might not be able to buy another game for a while. So, that's the worry everyone else has, but Rockstar likely isn't phased by other games. "GTA 6 is the king," Ybarra tweets. "They don't care who announces what. Everyone will move their release out of the way whenever they announce the ship date for GTA 6. It is really the only game that has the power to do this today." One commenter replies that "it's advantageous for the publisher of both Borderlands 4 and GTA to space it out," Ybarra's response is definitive. "Borderlands 4 doesn't matter. Rockstar is controlled by no one, including their publisher." Take-Two publishes both GTA and Borderlands, so it wouldn't make any sense for the company to have two of its big games competing for attention in the same month, or even the same quarter, really. But, as Ybarra says, Rockstar is controlled by no one. GTA Online is an absolute money printing machine, so I wouldn't be surprised if it could do whatever it wanted without consequence. All this is to say, don't take news of Borderland 4's launch date as a confirmation GTA 6 won't launch around the same time. We won't know when GTA 6 is coming until Rockstar tells us, and even then, it could change its mind if it decides the game needs more time in the oven, or if it wants to bring the release forward. While we wait, check out our ranking of the best GTA games you can play right now.
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Former Blizzard boss says "GTA 6 is king" and "everyone will move their release" when it gets a launch date: "It is really the only game that has the power to do this today"
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra reckons Rockstar has the singular privilege of being able to release GTA 6 whenever it wants because every other publisher will move their releases around to avoid its shadow. Publishers regularly shift around release dates to avoid clashing with other big releases, but Ybarra says GTA 6 is such a behemoth that Rockstar isn't one bit concerned about other games stealing the spotlight. In response to an IGN article speculating about GTA 6's potential release date in the context of Borderlands 4's recently announced September 23 launch, Ybarra said: "GTA6 is the king. They don't care who announces what. Everyone will move their release out of the way whenever they announce the ship date for GTA6. It is really the only game that has the power to do this today." Ybarra doubled down in response to a tweet arguing it would be advantageous for both Rockstar and Gearbox to avoid releasing games too close to each other. "[Borderlands 4] doesn't matter," he said. "[Rockstar] is controlled by no one, including their publisher." Adding to that, Ybarra said "in some ways [Borderlands] needs to be 6+ months away from it or it's dead." Jeez, Borderlands 4 is catching some serious strays. GTA 6 has yet to set a firm release date, but Rockstar parent company Take-Two recently assured fans it's still on track to launch this Fall despite the ever-present risk of "slippage." Ybarra agreed with a commenter that an October release date is likely and predicted a PC port around June to "give it space." Rockstar Games seeks perfection in everything they do": Take-Two boss is confident in GTA 6, but "our competitors are not asleep."
