State College, Pennsylvania (CNN) --
The mother of one of Jerry Sandusky's alleged victims -- the first to come forward in the case -- said her son is afraid the former Penn State coach might go free. The son, who is identified as Victim 1 in the indictment, watched an NBC interview with Sandusky this week and cried, the mother told CNN on Wednesday.
"I said, 'Well, why did you cry?' And he said, 'Because I'm afraid that he might go free,' " said the woman, whose face and voice were altered to protect her -- and by extension her son's -- identity.
Sandusky told NBC's Bob Costas on Monday that he has been falsely accused, saying that he only "horsed around" with kids in the shower after workouts. Sandusky denied being sexually attracted to boys, and his lawyer, Joe Amendola, told CNN on Monday night that showering with children does not equate automatically to sexual assault. In the NBC interview, Sandusky denied one of the charges in the grand jury report that assistant coach Mike McQueary had walked in on him raping a boy about 10 years of age.
Sandusky was arrested on November 5, after the release of the grand jury report detailing crimes that he allegedly committed between 1994 and 2009. Sandusky is free on $100,000 bail, against the wishes of prosecutors.
In other developments, representatives of Penn State's campus police and State College police said Wednesday they have no record of having received any report from a Penn State assistant football coach about his having witnessed an alleged rape of a boy by Sandusky.
The alleged locker room rape witnessed by McQueary, who was then a graduate assistant, was detailed in a grand jury report released this month. According to the report, McQueary told Joe Paterno, who was then the team's coach; Paterno then alerted his boss, the school's athletic director.
The scandal revolves around Sandusky, charged by Pennsylvania's attorney general with 40 counts in what authorities allege was the sexual abuse of eight boys, and allegations that Penn State officials failed to inform police when the complaints reached them.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Mississippi voters reject 'life begins at conception' initiative
AL.COM
JACKSON, Mississippi -- Mississippi voters Tuesday defeated a ballot initiative that would've declared life begins at conception, a proposal that supporters sought in the Bible Belt state as a way to prompt a legal challenge to abortion rights nationwide.
The so-called "personhood" initiative was rejected by more than 55 percent of voters, falling far short of the threshold needed for it to be enacted. If it had passed, it was virtually assured of drawing legal challenges because it conflicts with the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a legal right to abortion. Supporters of the initiative wanted to provoke a lawsuit to challenge the landmark ruling.
Opponents said the measure would have made birth control, such as the morning-after pill or the intrauterine device, illegal. More specifically, the ballot measure called for abortion to be prohibited "from the moment of fertilization" — wording that opponents suggested would have deterred physicians from performing in vitro fertilization because they would fear criminal charges if an embryo doesn't survive.
Opponents said initiative supporters were trying to impose their religious beliefs on others by forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies, including those caused by rape or incest.
Amy Brunson voted against the measure, in part because she has been raped. She also has friends and family that had children through in vitro fertilization and she was worried this would end that process.
Hubert Hoover, a cabinet maker and construction worker, voted for the amendment. "I figure you can't be half for something, so if you're against abortion you should be for this. You've either got to be wholly for something or wholly against it," said Hoover, 71, who lives in a Jackson suburb.
Specifically, the proposed state constitutional amendment defined a person "to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof."
Mississippi already requires parental or judicial consent for any minor to get an abortion, mandatory in-person counseling and a 24-hour wait before any woman can terminate a pregnancy.
JACKSON, Mississippi -- Mississippi voters Tuesday defeated a ballot initiative that would've declared life begins at conception, a proposal that supporters sought in the Bible Belt state as a way to prompt a legal challenge to abortion rights nationwide.
The so-called "personhood" initiative was rejected by more than 55 percent of voters, falling far short of the threshold needed for it to be enacted. If it had passed, it was virtually assured of drawing legal challenges because it conflicts with the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a legal right to abortion. Supporters of the initiative wanted to provoke a lawsuit to challenge the landmark ruling.
Opponents said the measure would have made birth control, such as the morning-after pill or the intrauterine device, illegal. More specifically, the ballot measure called for abortion to be prohibited "from the moment of fertilization" — wording that opponents suggested would have deterred physicians from performing in vitro fertilization because they would fear criminal charges if an embryo doesn't survive.
Opponents said initiative supporters were trying to impose their religious beliefs on others by forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies, including those caused by rape or incest.
Amy Brunson voted against the measure, in part because she has been raped. She also has friends and family that had children through in vitro fertilization and she was worried this would end that process.
Hubert Hoover, a cabinet maker and construction worker, voted for the amendment. "I figure you can't be half for something, so if you're against abortion you should be for this. You've either got to be wholly for something or wholly against it," said Hoover, 71, who lives in a Jackson suburb.
Specifically, the proposed state constitutional amendment defined a person "to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof."
Mississippi already requires parental or judicial consent for any minor to get an abortion, mandatory in-person counseling and a 24-hour wait before any woman can terminate a pregnancy.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Preaching Virtue of Spanking, Even as Deaths Fuel Debate
PLEASANTVILLE, Tenn. — After services at the Church at Cane Creek on a recent Sunday, a few dozen families held a potluck picnic and giggling children played pin the tail on the donkey. The white-bearded preacher, Michael Pearl, who delivered his sermon in stained work pants, and his wife, Debi, mixed warmly with the families drawn to their evangelical ministry, including some of their own grandchildren.
The pastoral mood in the hills of Tennessee offered a stark contrast to the storm raging around the country over the Pearls’ teachings on child discipline, which advocate systematic use of “the rod” to teach toddlers to submit to authority. The methods, seen as common sense by some grateful parents and as horrific by others, are modeled, Mr. Pearl is fond of saying, on “the same principles the Amish use to train their stubborn mules.”
Debate over the Pearls’ teachings, first seen on Christian Web sites, gained new intensity after the death of a third child, all allegedly at the hands of parents who kept the Pearls’ book, “To Train Up a Child,” in their homes. On Sept. 29, the parents were charged with homicide by abuse.
More than 670,000 copies of the Pearls’ self-published book are in circulation, and it is especially popular among Christian home-schoolers, who praise it in their magazines and on their Web sites. The Pearls provide instructions on using a switch from as early as six months to discourage misbehavior and describe how to make use of implements for hitting on the arms, legs or back, including a quarter-inch flexible plumbing line that, Mr. Pearl notes, “can be rolled up and carried in your pocket.”
The furor in part reflects societal disagreements over corporal punishment, which conservative Christians say is called for in the Bible and which many Americans consider reasonable up to a point, even as many parents and pediatricians reject it. The issue flared recently when a video was posted online of a Texas judge whipping his daughter.
Mr. Pearl, 66, and Mrs. Pearl, 60, say that blaming their book for extreme abuse by a few unstable parents is preposterous and that they explicitly counsel against acting in anger or causing a bruise. They say that their methods, properly used, yield peace and happy teenagers.
In the latest case, Larry and Carri Williams of Sedro-Woolley, Wash., were home-schooling their six children when they adopted a girl and a boy, ages 11 and 7, from Ethiopia in 2008. The two were seen by their new parents as rebellious, according to friends.
Late one night in May this year, the adopted girl, Hana, was found face down, naked and emaciated in the backyard; her death was caused by hypothermia and malnutrition, officials determined. According to the sheriff’s report, the parents had deprived her of food for days at a time and had made her sleep in a cold barn or a closet and shower outside with a hose. And they often whipped her, leaving marks on her legs. The mother had praised the Pearls’ book and given a copy to a friend, the sheriff’s report said. Hana had been beaten the day of her death, the report said, with the 15-inch plastic tube recommended by Mr. Pearl.
Some of the Williamses’ other tactics also seemed to involve Pearl advice taken to extremes; the Pearls say that “a little fasting is good training,” for example, and suggest hosing off a child who has potty-training lapses. The Williamses have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.
The Skagit County prosecutor said that he was not charging the Pearls and that the case for homicide did not depend on the Williamses’ readings or religion.
But Dr. Frances Chalmers, a pediatrician who examined Hana’s death for the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, said of the Pearl methods: “My fear is that this book, while perhaps well intended, could easily be misinterpreted and could lead to what I consider significant abuse.”
Some conservative Christian parents reject the Pearls’ teachings and have started a petition drive asking sellers like Amazon not to stock their books. Crystal Lutton, who runs Grace-Based Discipline, one of several Christian blogs that oppose corporal punishment, said the danger with the Pearls’ methods is that “if you don’t get results, the only thing to do is to punish harder and harder.”
Parents at Mr. Pearl’s church said they largely followed the couple’s approach and were puzzled by the controversy. The Pearls’ children, too, say the attacks on their parents are misguided. “I had a wonderful childhood,” said their daughter Shoshanna Easling, 28, who is training her two children the same way. “My parents never spoke to me in anger, and I can only remember being spanked a couple of times.”
Mr. Pearl said that Shoshanna was spanked probably 50 times as a toddler but that it soon became unnecessary.
The pastoral mood in the hills of Tennessee offered a stark contrast to the storm raging around the country over the Pearls’ teachings on child discipline, which advocate systematic use of “the rod” to teach toddlers to submit to authority. The methods, seen as common sense by some grateful parents and as horrific by others, are modeled, Mr. Pearl is fond of saying, on “the same principles the Amish use to train their stubborn mules.”
Debate over the Pearls’ teachings, first seen on Christian Web sites, gained new intensity after the death of a third child, all allegedly at the hands of parents who kept the Pearls’ book, “To Train Up a Child,” in their homes. On Sept. 29, the parents were charged with homicide by abuse.
More than 670,000 copies of the Pearls’ self-published book are in circulation, and it is especially popular among Christian home-schoolers, who praise it in their magazines and on their Web sites. The Pearls provide instructions on using a switch from as early as six months to discourage misbehavior and describe how to make use of implements for hitting on the arms, legs or back, including a quarter-inch flexible plumbing line that, Mr. Pearl notes, “can be rolled up and carried in your pocket.”
The furor in part reflects societal disagreements over corporal punishment, which conservative Christians say is called for in the Bible and which many Americans consider reasonable up to a point, even as many parents and pediatricians reject it. The issue flared recently when a video was posted online of a Texas judge whipping his daughter.
Mr. Pearl, 66, and Mrs. Pearl, 60, say that blaming their book for extreme abuse by a few unstable parents is preposterous and that they explicitly counsel against acting in anger or causing a bruise. They say that their methods, properly used, yield peace and happy teenagers.
In the latest case, Larry and Carri Williams of Sedro-Woolley, Wash., were home-schooling their six children when they adopted a girl and a boy, ages 11 and 7, from Ethiopia in 2008. The two were seen by their new parents as rebellious, according to friends.
Late one night in May this year, the adopted girl, Hana, was found face down, naked and emaciated in the backyard; her death was caused by hypothermia and malnutrition, officials determined. According to the sheriff’s report, the parents had deprived her of food for days at a time and had made her sleep in a cold barn or a closet and shower outside with a hose. And they often whipped her, leaving marks on her legs. The mother had praised the Pearls’ book and given a copy to a friend, the sheriff’s report said. Hana had been beaten the day of her death, the report said, with the 15-inch plastic tube recommended by Mr. Pearl.
Some of the Williamses’ other tactics also seemed to involve Pearl advice taken to extremes; the Pearls say that “a little fasting is good training,” for example, and suggest hosing off a child who has potty-training lapses. The Williamses have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.
The Skagit County prosecutor said that he was not charging the Pearls and that the case for homicide did not depend on the Williamses’ readings or religion.
But Dr. Frances Chalmers, a pediatrician who examined Hana’s death for the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, said of the Pearl methods: “My fear is that this book, while perhaps well intended, could easily be misinterpreted and could lead to what I consider significant abuse.”
Some conservative Christian parents reject the Pearls’ teachings and have started a petition drive asking sellers like Amazon not to stock their books. Crystal Lutton, who runs Grace-Based Discipline, one of several Christian blogs that oppose corporal punishment, said the danger with the Pearls’ methods is that “if you don’t get results, the only thing to do is to punish harder and harder.”
Parents at Mr. Pearl’s church said they largely followed the couple’s approach and were puzzled by the controversy. The Pearls’ children, too, say the attacks on their parents are misguided. “I had a wonderful childhood,” said their daughter Shoshanna Easling, 28, who is training her two children the same way. “My parents never spoke to me in anger, and I can only remember being spanked a couple of times.”
Mr. Pearl said that Shoshanna was spanked probably 50 times as a toddler but that it soon became unnecessary.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Tribe sues NCAA to let UND use name
UPI.COM
GRAND FORKS, N.D., Nov. 1 (UPI) -- The Spirit Lake tribe Tuesday sued the NCAA for blocking its attempt to let the University of North Dakota use the sports nickname Fighting Sioux.
Tribal attorney Reed Soderstrom said the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court challenges the NCAA's policy banning the use of Native American names and imagery by collegiate athletic teams.
He said the suit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association was brought on behalf of more than 1,004 members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe "in direct response to their attempt to take away and prevent the North Dakota Sioux Indians from giving their name forever to the University of North Dakota" despite a tribal vote in 2009 and a "sacred and religious spiritual ceremony" by tribal leaders in 1969 that granted "perpetual use" of the name to the school.
"However, the NCAA has unilaterally decided that the name 'Fighting Sioux' is derogatory to the very people who feel honored by the name -- the North Dakota Sioux tribes," Soderstrom said in a statement posted on the tribe's Web site. "The NCAA has declared, without input from the Dakota Sioux, that UND will be prevented from hosting any post-season sporting events; and is encouraging other universities to boycott UND if the university does not remove the name 'Fighting Sioux' and the accompanying logo honoring the traditions and customs of the proud Dakota Sioux people. These actions are a violation of the religious and first amendment rights of the Dakota Sioux tribes, and show the NCAA believes it knows the interests of the North Dakota Sioux community better than Sioux people themselves."
Soderstrom noted while the NCAA considers "Fighting Sioux" derogatory, it allows the University of Illinois to use "Fighting Illini" and Florida State University to use the name "Seminoles" with an Indian mascot.
"Inexplicably, the NCAA fails to accept the tribal vote and the sacred religious ceremony as endorsements of the name 'Fighting Sioux' by the North Dakota Sioux Nation," he said. "The NCAA's actions violate Native American civil rights, equal protection rights, and religious rights."
GRAND FORKS, N.D., Nov. 1 (UPI) -- The Spirit Lake tribe Tuesday sued the NCAA for blocking its attempt to let the University of North Dakota use the sports nickname Fighting Sioux.
Tribal attorney Reed Soderstrom said the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court challenges the NCAA's policy banning the use of Native American names and imagery by collegiate athletic teams.
He said the suit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association was brought on behalf of more than 1,004 members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe "in direct response to their attempt to take away and prevent the North Dakota Sioux Indians from giving their name forever to the University of North Dakota" despite a tribal vote in 2009 and a "sacred and religious spiritual ceremony" by tribal leaders in 1969 that granted "perpetual use" of the name to the school.
"However, the NCAA has unilaterally decided that the name 'Fighting Sioux' is derogatory to the very people who feel honored by the name -- the North Dakota Sioux tribes," Soderstrom said in a statement posted on the tribe's Web site. "The NCAA has declared, without input from the Dakota Sioux, that UND will be prevented from hosting any post-season sporting events; and is encouraging other universities to boycott UND if the university does not remove the name 'Fighting Sioux' and the accompanying logo honoring the traditions and customs of the proud Dakota Sioux people. These actions are a violation of the religious and first amendment rights of the Dakota Sioux tribes, and show the NCAA believes it knows the interests of the North Dakota Sioux community better than Sioux people themselves."
Soderstrom noted while the NCAA considers "Fighting Sioux" derogatory, it allows the University of Illinois to use "Fighting Illini" and Florida State University to use the name "Seminoles" with an Indian mascot.
"Inexplicably, the NCAA fails to accept the tribal vote and the sacred religious ceremony as endorsements of the name 'Fighting Sioux' by the North Dakota Sioux Nation," he said. "The NCAA's actions violate Native American civil rights, equal protection rights, and religious rights."
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Should a cop killer ever be set free?
STAR/TRIBUNE
A cop lay dying at the hands of Tim Eling. The former Marine had botched yet another pharmacy robbery, escaping after a gunfight with police officer Richard Walton. Now, bleeding from a gunshot to the leg, Eling lay holed up at a relative's house in St. Paul, drifting in and out from a heavy dose of painkillers.
His brother-in-law walked in and dropped the morning newspaper. "The guy's dead,'' he said in disgust. He left Eling to read about the trail of grief he had blazed at Mounds Park Hospital in St. Paul the night before.
Today, 29 years later, Eling still walks the corridors at the Stillwater prison. A former drug addict and a first-degree murderer, he learned last week that his life sentence has been brought to an end with an extraordinary parole decision by state Corrections Commissioner Tom Roy. Corrections officials say they cannot recall the last time a first-degree murderer of a police officer was granted a parole.
Roy's decision has triggered an emotional debate over justice and forgiveness that has quickly spread to the State Capitol. On Friday, the Legislature's top Republicans, Sen. Amy Koch and Rep. Kurt Zellers, sent a letter to Gov. Mark Dayton protesting the parole and calling for legislative hearings.
The state's largest organization of police officers not only opposes parole for Eling, it says that cop killers deserve capital punishment. "I don't think anyone who kills an officer should ever get out alive,'' said Dennis Flaherty, executive director of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association. "Where do you draw the line, what kind of world would you be creating?''
Roy and his deputies understand the reaction, but say they believe their decision speaks to the ability of some violent criminals to transform themselves. They say Eling's conduct over the past 15 years suggests he will lead a life of service on the outside. They also note that, across several previous Corrections administrations, he had to repeatedly prove he was making changes in his life.
Eling, now 62, says he knows the gravity of the decision. Despite the parole, he must still complete four more years of a companion 1996 sentence for smuggling drugs while in prison. At the same time he'll try to outlast a cancer that doctors discovered several years ago.
In the course of a two-hour interview last week, Eling said he understands the disgust felt by police. "I'd probably feel the same way," he said. "The record speaks for itself. I have not been a good person in this life."
MaryAnn Walton, 74, the officer's former wife, said last week that she accepts the judgment of state parole officials. But she added: "I believe in transformations of heart and that people can be forgiven by God. What bothers me is I know how hard this will be on police officers. What kind of example is it going to be to have a cop killer turned loose?''
Several days before his September parole hearing, he said, Commissioner Roy spoke with him privately for an hour.
Life in prison didn't mean staying clean. Eling found himself part of a smuggling operation involving cocaine and marijuana. His urine screens kept coming back dirty and by the mid-1990s authorities went to his daughter's home to search for a possible connection. The warden at Oak Park Heights told him during a parole review: If you're trying to make sure you never get out, you're doing a good job of it, Eling recalled.
"The warden said, 'You need to find a reason to get up in the morning. Why don't you go back to school?' Out of nowhere this thought came to my head, 'You know, I'm done with it' and I've never been high since then."
Eling became a founding member of Stillwater's Restorative Justice Program, which brings crime victims in to speak to offenders about the pain they've caused. He took up painting, and today teaches a daily art class to 22 offenders. During Mass in the prison chapel, he gives the first reading.
"You have to ask yourself, 'How do I make amends for this?' '' Eling said. "If you stole something from somebody you can pay them back. If you broke something, it can be fixed. But how do you make amends for taking somebody's life?"
If he beats the cancer long enough to get out, Eling said he hopes to travel to Grand Marais and live along the North Shore, performing volunteer work and painting.
Yet he has a recurring dream in which he is stopped for a driving violation. The officer runs a license check that comes back with the murder conviction that pops up on the computer screen.
"Some things you just don't get past,'' he said. "If you go by just the record, holy mackerel, look at this guy here. He doesn't deserve anything. It doesn't show anything else.''
A cop lay dying at the hands of Tim Eling. The former Marine had botched yet another pharmacy robbery, escaping after a gunfight with police officer Richard Walton. Now, bleeding from a gunshot to the leg, Eling lay holed up at a relative's house in St. Paul, drifting in and out from a heavy dose of painkillers.
His brother-in-law walked in and dropped the morning newspaper. "The guy's dead,'' he said in disgust. He left Eling to read about the trail of grief he had blazed at Mounds Park Hospital in St. Paul the night before.
Today, 29 years later, Eling still walks the corridors at the Stillwater prison. A former drug addict and a first-degree murderer, he learned last week that his life sentence has been brought to an end with an extraordinary parole decision by state Corrections Commissioner Tom Roy. Corrections officials say they cannot recall the last time a first-degree murderer of a police officer was granted a parole.
Roy's decision has triggered an emotional debate over justice and forgiveness that has quickly spread to the State Capitol. On Friday, the Legislature's top Republicans, Sen. Amy Koch and Rep. Kurt Zellers, sent a letter to Gov. Mark Dayton protesting the parole and calling for legislative hearings.
The state's largest organization of police officers not only opposes parole for Eling, it says that cop killers deserve capital punishment. "I don't think anyone who kills an officer should ever get out alive,'' said Dennis Flaherty, executive director of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association. "Where do you draw the line, what kind of world would you be creating?''
Roy and his deputies understand the reaction, but say they believe their decision speaks to the ability of some violent criminals to transform themselves. They say Eling's conduct over the past 15 years suggests he will lead a life of service on the outside. They also note that, across several previous Corrections administrations, he had to repeatedly prove he was making changes in his life.
Eling, now 62, says he knows the gravity of the decision. Despite the parole, he must still complete four more years of a companion 1996 sentence for smuggling drugs while in prison. At the same time he'll try to outlast a cancer that doctors discovered several years ago.
In the course of a two-hour interview last week, Eling said he understands the disgust felt by police. "I'd probably feel the same way," he said. "The record speaks for itself. I have not been a good person in this life."
MaryAnn Walton, 74, the officer's former wife, said last week that she accepts the judgment of state parole officials. But she added: "I believe in transformations of heart and that people can be forgiven by God. What bothers me is I know how hard this will be on police officers. What kind of example is it going to be to have a cop killer turned loose?''
Several days before his September parole hearing, he said, Commissioner Roy spoke with him privately for an hour.
Life in prison didn't mean staying clean. Eling found himself part of a smuggling operation involving cocaine and marijuana. His urine screens kept coming back dirty and by the mid-1990s authorities went to his daughter's home to search for a possible connection. The warden at Oak Park Heights told him during a parole review: If you're trying to make sure you never get out, you're doing a good job of it, Eling recalled.
"The warden said, 'You need to find a reason to get up in the morning. Why don't you go back to school?' Out of nowhere this thought came to my head, 'You know, I'm done with it' and I've never been high since then."
Eling became a founding member of Stillwater's Restorative Justice Program, which brings crime victims in to speak to offenders about the pain they've caused. He took up painting, and today teaches a daily art class to 22 offenders. During Mass in the prison chapel, he gives the first reading.
"You have to ask yourself, 'How do I make amends for this?' '' Eling said. "If you stole something from somebody you can pay them back. If you broke something, it can be fixed. But how do you make amends for taking somebody's life?"
If he beats the cancer long enough to get out, Eling said he hopes to travel to Grand Marais and live along the North Shore, performing volunteer work and painting.
Yet he has a recurring dream in which he is stopped for a driving violation. The officer runs a license check that comes back with the murder conviction that pops up on the computer screen.
"Some things you just don't get past,'' he said. "If you go by just the record, holy mackerel, look at this guy here. He doesn't deserve anything. It doesn't show anything else.''
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Amy Winehouse drank herself to death
STAR/TRIBUNE
LONDON - Amy Winehouse drank herself to death. That was the ruling of a coroner's inquest into the death of the Grammy-winning soul singer, who died with empty vodka bottles in her room and lethal amounts of alcohol in her blood — more than five times the British drunk driving limit.
Coroner Suzanne Greenaway gave a verdict of "death by misadventure," saying Wednesday the singer suffered accidental alcohol poisoning when she resumed drinking after weeks of abstinence.
"The unintended consequence of such potentially fatal levels (of alcohol) was her sudden and unexpected death," Greenaway said.
The 27-year-old Winehouse had fought a very public battle with drug and alcohol abuse for years, and there had been much speculation that she died from a drug overdose. But a pathologist said the small amount of a drug prescribed to help her cope with the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal had nothing to do with her death.
Instead, a resumption of heavy drinking killed the singer, best-known for her tall beehive hairdos and Grammy-winning album "Back to Black." A security guard found Winehouse dead in bed at her London home on July 23.
"She's made tremendous efforts over the years," said Dr. Christina Romete, who had treated Winehouse. But "she had her own way and was very determined to do everything her way."
Winehouse gave up illicit drugs in 2008, but had swerved between heavy alcohol use and abstinence for a long time, Romete said. The singer had resumed drinking in the days before her death after staying away from alcohol for most of July, she said.
Romete said she warned Winehouse of the dangers of alcoholism. "The advice I had given to Amy over a long period of time was verbal and in written form about all the effects alcohol can have on the system, including respiratory depression and death, heart problems, fertility problems and liver problems," she said.
Winehouse joins a long list of celebrities who died after fighting alcohol problems, including jazz great Billie Holiday, AC/DC lead singer Bon Scott, film legend Richard Burton, writers Dylan Thomas and Jack Kerouac, and country music pioneer Hank Williams.
Police Detective Inspector Les Newman said three empty vodka bottles — two large and one small — were found in her bedroom.
Pathologist Suhail Baithun said blood and urine samples indicated Winehouse had consumed a "very large quantity of alcohol" prior to her death. The level of alcohol in her blood was 416 milligrams per 100 milliliters, he said — a blood alcohol level of 0.4 percent. The British and U.S. legal drunk-driving limit is 0.08 percent.
LONDON - Amy Winehouse drank herself to death. That was the ruling of a coroner's inquest into the death of the Grammy-winning soul singer, who died with empty vodka bottles in her room and lethal amounts of alcohol in her blood — more than five times the British drunk driving limit.
Coroner Suzanne Greenaway gave a verdict of "death by misadventure," saying Wednesday the singer suffered accidental alcohol poisoning when she resumed drinking after weeks of abstinence.
"The unintended consequence of such potentially fatal levels (of alcohol) was her sudden and unexpected death," Greenaway said.
The 27-year-old Winehouse had fought a very public battle with drug and alcohol abuse for years, and there had been much speculation that she died from a drug overdose. But a pathologist said the small amount of a drug prescribed to help her cope with the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal had nothing to do with her death.
Instead, a resumption of heavy drinking killed the singer, best-known for her tall beehive hairdos and Grammy-winning album "Back to Black." A security guard found Winehouse dead in bed at her London home on July 23.
"She's made tremendous efforts over the years," said Dr. Christina Romete, who had treated Winehouse. But "she had her own way and was very determined to do everything her way."
Winehouse gave up illicit drugs in 2008, but had swerved between heavy alcohol use and abstinence for a long time, Romete said. The singer had resumed drinking in the days before her death after staying away from alcohol for most of July, she said.
Romete said she warned Winehouse of the dangers of alcoholism. "The advice I had given to Amy over a long period of time was verbal and in written form about all the effects alcohol can have on the system, including respiratory depression and death, heart problems, fertility problems and liver problems," she said.
Winehouse joins a long list of celebrities who died after fighting alcohol problems, including jazz great Billie Holiday, AC/DC lead singer Bon Scott, film legend Richard Burton, writers Dylan Thomas and Jack Kerouac, and country music pioneer Hank Williams.
Police Detective Inspector Les Newman said three empty vodka bottles — two large and one small — were found in her bedroom.
Pathologist Suhail Baithun said blood and urine samples indicated Winehouse had consumed a "very large quantity of alcohol" prior to her death. The level of alcohol in her blood was 416 milligrams per 100 milliliters, he said — a blood alcohol level of 0.4 percent. The British and U.S. legal drunk-driving limit is 0.08 percent.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Student survey links teen soda consumption with violence
STAR/TRIBUNE
High school students who drink a lot of soda pop are also more likely to be violent, according to a study of surveys completed in 2008 by more than 1,800 Boston high school students. The study, released late Monday in the British medical journal Injury Prevention, does not suggest a cause and effect -- only an association between soda consumption and violence.
It is possible – even likely, researchers say – that other social or biological factors make teens who are prone to violence also prone to drinking a lot of soda. Maybe poor parenting or low-blood sugar are the catalysts that make students pursue both bad habits.
Even without proving cause and effect, the study makes a meaningful contribution because there has been little focus on this connection between soda consumption and violence before. The surveys asked students how much soda they had consumed in the prior week, and whether they had carried a weapon or been violent to classmates, boy/girlfriends or relatives in the past year. Perhaps soda consumption is simply a red flag that schools and parents can monitor for a higher likelihood of violent behavior. “If we want to understand youth violence and we want to reduce it, then we want to look at everything that can impact it,” said Sara Solnick, the chairwoman of the University of Vermont’s economic department who co-authored the Boston student study. “This was something that was not on the radar. Maybe we need to start paying attention.”
Students who drank a lot of soda also drank more alcohol and smoked. Those are behaviors that are strongly correlated with youth violence. However, even when the latest study factored out tobacco and alcohol use, there still was a strong relationship between heavy soda consumption and a higher rate of self-reported violence.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota (not involved with the study) urged great caution in interpreting the results, and certainly discouraged anyone from believing soda causes aggression at this point. The U's Simone French noted it can't simply be the sugar in soda that agitates teens and makes them more violent. "Using this logic, Halloween, a socially supported sugar-overdose, should cause an increase in violent behaviors among adolescents across the country," she said.
High school students who drink a lot of soda pop are also more likely to be violent, according to a study of surveys completed in 2008 by more than 1,800 Boston high school students. The study, released late Monday in the British medical journal Injury Prevention, does not suggest a cause and effect -- only an association between soda consumption and violence.
It is possible – even likely, researchers say – that other social or biological factors make teens who are prone to violence also prone to drinking a lot of soda. Maybe poor parenting or low-blood sugar are the catalysts that make students pursue both bad habits.
Even without proving cause and effect, the study makes a meaningful contribution because there has been little focus on this connection between soda consumption and violence before. The surveys asked students how much soda they had consumed in the prior week, and whether they had carried a weapon or been violent to classmates, boy/girlfriends or relatives in the past year. Perhaps soda consumption is simply a red flag that schools and parents can monitor for a higher likelihood of violent behavior. “If we want to understand youth violence and we want to reduce it, then we want to look at everything that can impact it,” said Sara Solnick, the chairwoman of the University of Vermont’s economic department who co-authored the Boston student study. “This was something that was not on the radar. Maybe we need to start paying attention.”
Students who drank a lot of soda also drank more alcohol and smoked. Those are behaviors that are strongly correlated with youth violence. However, even when the latest study factored out tobacco and alcohol use, there still was a strong relationship between heavy soda consumption and a higher rate of self-reported violence.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota (not involved with the study) urged great caution in interpreting the results, and certainly discouraged anyone from believing soda causes aggression at this point. The U's Simone French noted it can't simply be the sugar in soda that agitates teens and makes them more violent. "Using this logic, Halloween, a socially supported sugar-overdose, should cause an increase in violent behaviors among adolescents across the country," she said.
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