An Alabama baby was born with severe brain injury and eventually died due to botched care because her hospital was struggling with a ransomware attack, a lawsuit alleges.

The filing is the first credible public claim that someone’s death was caused at least in part by hackers who remotely shut down hospital computers in an extortion attempt, a rising trend in cybercrime.

The lawsuit, filed by Teiranni Kidd, the baby’s mother, was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. It alleges that the hospital, Springhill Medical Center, didn’t tell her that hospital computers were down because of a cyberattack, and subsequently gave her severely diminished care when she arrived to deliver her daughter.

Springhill announced in 2019 that it had been the victim of a “network security incident,” a common euphemism for a cyberattack. As reported at the time by local news station WKRG, Springhill claimed to be seeing a regular volume of patients at the time, even though it was turning some away because of the ransomware attack.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/baby-died-due-ransomware-attack-hospital-suit-claims-rcna2465

A former star of the Boston Ballet was named in a federal lawsuit that accuses her and her husband of sexually abusing dancers they were mentoring.

Two women, Sage Humphries and Gina Menichino, sued dance instructor Mitchell Taylor Button this summer and made disturbing allegations that he groomed them before he sexually abused them while they were his young students.

The civil complaint, filed Sept. 23 in U.S. District Court in Nevada, was amended last week to add three plaintiffs and to name former Boston Ballet principal dancer Dusty Button, Button's wife, as a co-defendant.

"The is a case about a couple who exploited their position of power and influence in the dance world to sexually abuse young dancers across the country," the complaint said.

The amended suit includes allegations by dancers Rosemarie DeAngelo and Danielle Gutierrez and a plaintiff identified as "Jane Doe 100."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/former-boston-ballet-star-her-husband-accused-lawsuit-sexually-abusing-n1280479

The North Carolina Courage announced Thursday afternoon that the team has fired head coach Paul Riley, effective immediately. The decision comes after multiple former players accused Riley of sexual coercion.

The allegations were detailed in a lengthy investigative story published by The Athletic Thursday morning. Sean Nahas has been named as interim head coach for the rest of the season, the team says. He starts that position at today's training.

In a statement issued Thursday afternoon, NWSL Commissioner Lisa Baird said she was "shocked and disgusted to read the new allegations" and that the NWSL is reporting the allegations to the US Center for SafeSport for investigation. She said the league is also implementing new measures to protect players including a new anonymous reporting process.

According to The Athletic, players contacted Baird directly earlier this year with their concerns. Baird told them a previous 2015 investigation into Riley's behavior had been "investigated to conclusion," the outlet reports.

https://www.wunc.org/sports/2021-09-30/north-carolina-courage-coach-paul-riley-accused-sexual-coercion-athletic-nwsl
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That's two this week alone.....

The North Carolina Courage announced Thursday afternoon that the team has fired head coach Paul Riley, effective immediately. The decision comes after multiple former players accused Riley of sexual coercion.

The allegations were detailed in a lengthy investigative story published by The Athletic Thursday morning. Sean Nahas has been named as interim head coach for the rest of the season, the team says. He starts that position at today's training.

In a statement issued Thursday afternoon, NWSL Commissioner Lisa Baird said she was "shocked and disgusted to read the new allegations" and that the NWSL is reporting the allegations to the US Center for SafeSport for investigation. She said the league is also implementing new measures to protect players including a new anonymous reporting process.

According to The Athletic, players contacted Baird directly earlier this year with their concerns. Baird told them a previous 2015 investigation into Riley's behavior had been "investigated to conclusion," the outlet reports.

https://www.wunc.org/sports/2021-09-30/north-carolina-courage-coach-paul-riley-accused-sexual-coercion-athletic-nwsl

Tommy Kirk, a child star who played in Disney films such as “Old Yeller” and “The Shaggy Dog,” has died. He was 79.

Kirk’s longtime friend and former child star, Paul Petersen, said he was found dead in his Las Vegas home on Tuesday. The cause of death has not been released.

Petersen said Kirk lived a private life as a gay man and was estranged from what “remains of his blood family.”

“He was very much a part of our kid star community,” Peterson said. “He made some wonderful films back in the day. We saw and enjoyed them. He was respected in his church. He lived a quiet, but full life."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2021/09/29/tommy-kirk-child-star-old-yeller-the-shaggy-dog-dead-79/5925623001/
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He looked a lot like my first love, who was the same age, so I liked him back then. RIP, Tommy.

Sex crimes are notoriously difficult to prosecute - but one woman in Kansas is using a rarely used 19th Century law to ask her fellow citizens to help bring charges against the man she says raped her.

In 2018, Madison Smith alleged that a classmate attacked her when she was a university student at Bethany College in Kansas. She reported the case as a rape.

The county prosecutor refused to press rape charges, however, saying Ms Smith had merely experienced an "immature" sexual encounter. Her attacker was convicted of assault.

The county attorney's decision prompted Ms Smith, now 23, to use a state law dating back to 1887 to instead call up a "citizen's grand jury". It convened for the first time on Wednesday in what is thought to be the first case of its kind in the US.

A grand jury is usually set up by the officials investigating the case, and determines if there is enough evidence to pursue a prosecution.

This jury, which will meet in secret, will not decide if the accused is guilty or innocent, only if charges should be brought.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58729321

Welcome to Fat Bear Week 2021! Katmai National Park and Preserve’s brown bears spent the summer gorging on 4,500-calorie salmon, and they've transformed into rotund giants, some over 1,000 pounds. The Alaskan park is holding its annual playoff-like competition for the fattest of the fat bears (you can vote online between Sept. 29 through Oct. 5). Mashable will be following all the ursine activity.

Among the fat bear titans stands a fearless bear mama.

The fat bears of Katmai National Park and Preserve live in a world defined by an intense hierarchy. And in this pecking order the biggest bears, typically males, earn access to the best fishing spots.

But some female bears, particularly bear 128 (aka "Grazer" have bucked the hierarchy. This summer, Grazer, an aggressive bear, established her presence among the big boys in Katmai's salmon-filled Brooks River. When bears would move into her territory, she would often hold her ground, and sometimes attack.

"Grazer has been a force this year," said Mike Fitz, a former Katmai park ranger and currently a resident naturalist for explore.org, the foundation that runs the livestreamed bear cams. "There's an argument to be made that she is as dominant as the biggest adult males at the river."

https://mashable.com/article/fat-bear-week-dominant-bear-grazer

Robin Steenman pulled her daughter out of public school over a mask mandate last year.

She's now in private school and misses public school. But Steenman is keeping her out not because of masks, but because of lesson plans she says make students feel bad about their race.
"The school bus goes right in front of my house and my kid is dying to ride it," she told CNN. "But not until I have deemed that the curriculum is safe and will do no harm."
Steenman is counting on a new Tennessee law to force schools to end that curriculum -- and ban at least one book in the elementary school library written from the perspective of Mexican Americans.
The former fighter pilot leads a chapter of Moms For Liberty in this wealthy, Republican-leaning suburb of Nashville.
She says her group has ballooned in size since April, from less than 20 parents meeting at her house to more than 3,000 connecting on Facebook. The chapter has grabbed headlines for belligerent protests at school board meetings. They have attacked a high school LGBTQ pride float -- one tweet wondered if students passing out pride literature were doing "recruitment." And another meeting featured a tirade by a Moms For Liberty member against a children's book about the lives of seahorses, which she said was too sexual.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/29/us/tennessee-law-hb-580-book-debate/index.html
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"Discomfort?" What a bunch of precious weenies!

A judge dismissed a new batch of charges Tuesday in the government’s investigation of genital mutilation against girls in a Muslim sect, saying prosecutors in Detroit retaliated after major courtroom losses.

It’s another blow for the government, which broke new ground in 2017 when it charged a Detroit-area doctor with performing genital mutilation at a suburban clinic. The move was recognized as the first significant use of a federal law banning the practice.

The 1996 law, however, was declared unconstitutional in 2018 by U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman, who said genital mutilation, known as FGM, was a matter for states, not Congress. The government didn’t appeal.

Friedman’s latest decision came months after prosecutors filed a new indictment, this time charging four people, including two doctors, with conspiracy, making false statements and witness tampering during the investigation.

The judge said the new charges can’t stand because prosecutors are tying them to a core underlying crime that was found to be unconstitutional.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/judge-dismisses-charges-tied-michigan-female-genital-mutilation-case-n1280350
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Unconscionable. Also, same judge....isn't that wrong, somehow?

A judge dismissed a new batch of charges Tuesday in the government’s investigation of genital mutilation against girls in a Muslim sect, saying prosecutors in Detroit retaliated after major courtroom losses.

It’s another blow for the government, which broke new ground in 2017 when it charged a Detroit-area doctor with performing genital mutilation at a suburban clinic. The move was recognized as the first significant use of a federal law banning the practice.

The 1996 law, however, was declared unconstitutional in 2018 by U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman, who said genital mutilation, known as FGM, was a matter for states, not Congress. The government didn’t appeal.

Friedman’s latest decision came months after prosecutors filed a new indictment, this time charging four people, including two doctors, with conspiracy, making false statements and witness tampering during the investigation.

The judge said the new charges can’t stand because prosecutors are tying them to a core underlying crime that was found to be unconstitutional.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/judge-dismisses-charges-tied-michigan-female-genital-mutilation-case-n1280350
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This is unconscionable.