Xuan-Kha Tran Pham has been arrested and charged with assaulting two Congressional staffers with a baseball bat. Pham has now been charged with the federal crime of assaulting federal employees as well. According to an FBI affidavit, Pham burst into the congressional office and hit two staffers with an aluminum baseball bat, saying “I’m going to kill you” and “you’re going to die.” Pham's father has said that his son suffers from schizophrenia.
The forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy on the body of a 13-year-old girl found dead in a Burnaby park in British Columbia nearly six years ago said he took swabs of the girl's neck to preserve any DNA that may have been left by her alleged attacker. Dr. Jason Morin said under cross-examination by Ibrahim Ali’s defence lawyer that he took the swabs because the girl appeared to have been strangled. Ali has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the trial in the British Columbia Supreme Court.
A volunteer investigative group called Case Breakers has claimed that the FBI has had a suspect in the notorious Zodiac Killer case on record since 2016. The group has offered evidence that the Air Force veteran Gary Francis Poste was the killer. Case Breakers is made up of 40 independent investigators, including forensic experts and retired police officers. The group accuses law enforcement agencies of ignoring state laws on investigating homicides, citing “apathy,” “egos,” and fear of “humiliation." The Zodiac Killer was a serial murderer who sent letters taunting police in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1968 and 1969. At least five people died at the hands of the killer and the case has never been properly solved. The FBI has rejected the idea that Poste could be the killer repeatedly, and in an announcement from October 2021, they maintained that the cold case was still ongoing. Poste died in 2018 but the Case Breakers claim to have tied him to each murder.
US father Steve Goncalves, whose daughter Kaylee was one of four University of Idaho students murdered in November 2021, paid warm tribute to Brittany Funke and Dylan Mortensen, who were inside the home of the students who were killed and who survived the attack carried out by former Washington State student Brian Kim Kohberger. They had been subject to harassment when their passivity on the night of the killings was widely discussed. Kohberger was indicted on one burglary charge and four murder counts by a grand jury on 15 March.
New research indicates that groups from across Africa contributed to the emergence of the modern Homo sapiens, migrating and mixing over hundreds of thousands of years. The study, which is based on modern African genome data, found that people alive now can trace their ancestry back one million years to at least two populations that were in Africa at that time. The research contradicts the theory that our species evolved in a single region of Africa. The study was based on genome data from 290 people from four diverse African populations.
A tech consultant has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Bob Lee, a co-founder of the digital payments platform Cash App and the chief product officer of cryptocurrency MobileCoin, who was found dead in San Francisco in April. Prosecutors accuse Nima Momeni of killing Lee after driving him to a secluded location over a dispute involving Momeni's sister, Khazar Elyassnia. Momeni's DNA was found on the knife handle while Lee's blood was found on the blade according to prosecutors.
Nima Momeni has pleaded not guilty to the murder of technology entrepreneur Bob Lee. The prosecution claims the killing was premeditated, arguing that Momeni drove Lee to a secluded area and stabbed him twice in the chest. Despite this, Momeni's lawyer argued against the use of CCTV footage, stating that it does not show enough to conclusively determine events. While the prosecution did not suggest a motive, court documents have revealed that Momeni questioned Lee about his sister. Momeni's sister, Khazar Elyassnia, is married to a local plastic surgeon and both she and her husband attended the hearing. Momeni was ordered to be detained ahead of his trial.
Obesity should be renamed a disease called “chronic appetite dysregulation,” according to researchers at the University of Galway and the School of Public Health at University College Cork. People who suffer from the illness should be treated with compassion, so that they seek medical help, say the scientists. Researchers also suggest that body mass index only offers an inadequate view of people’s metabolic health and that doctors should look at physiological health before considering treatment.
Surrogacy allows children to be sold like "designer hand luggage" and is not in children's best interest, according to this piece in the Times of Israel. Commercial surrogacy, especially international surrogacy, is covered by an industry that can cost upwards of $200,000. The article argues that in addition to the monetary fees, the newborn carries the highest cost of all. It explains that surrogate mothers do not use their own eggs to conceive the child they carry but surrogates and babies share a genetic bond through a process called fetal microchimerism where traces of the surrogate's DNA remain in the child.
A recent roundtable in the US House of Representatives has shone a light on the issue of fertility fraud, a more commonplace problem than many people realise. The issue is down to a lack of legal and moral accountability placed on fertility clinics and doctors. Proposed solutions include the Preventing Families from Fertility Fraud Act of 2023 which criminalises so-called assisted reproductive technology fraud, including the doctor’s use of eggs, embryos or sperm that the client had not agreed to use, which would result in criminal charges.
The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) has said that people who have suffered from a stroke caused by a blood clot should be genetically tested to discover whether they are eligible for a drug that will prevent further attacks. While medication is recommended to reduce stroke risks, the standard anti-clotting drug clopidogrel is only suitable for those with particular genes. Roughly one out of every three people, and even more in Asian families, do not have the necessary enzymes to process the drug. Recurrent or repeat strokes account for half of the UK’s 100,000 annual occurrences.
From her basement office, this Montreal-area woman is helping solve cold cases
CBC
23-05-19 08:00
Unidentified Human Remains Canada, a Facebook group run by Jan Guppy, is using AI and a network of volunteers to find missing people and identify bodies. Guppy uses a range of techniques, including creating age progression portraits of missing people and running DNA tests, to help families find out what happened to their loved ones. She also uses the U.S.-based Aware Foundation. Guppy posts regularly on Unidentified Human Remains Canada, which now has over 40,000 followers, using the page to identify bodies and to get people who might know something to come forward. Guppy says she can identify about a dozen bodies per year through her post and has also been successful at getting the remains back home to be buried by their family. The page now has a private Facebook group for those who want to help Guppy in her work.
Chinese researchers have developed a test called preimplantation DNA methylation screening that could dramatically increase the success rate of fertility treatments by verifying the health of developable embryos. Chinese authorities are eager to take steps to increase the current population, which fell for the first time in sixty years last year. According to the research, the live birth rate of assisted reproductive technology, often having an IVF process, increased from under 30% to 72%.
Recent poetry collections Bobish by Magdalena Ball and Dress Rehearsals by Madison Godfrey both take a life as their scaffolding, documenting people living between identities, where language slips and breaks. Both subjects suffered from chronic illness: untreated diabetes in Bobish and endometriosis in Dress Rehearsals, yet illness is not the primary focus in either collection, simply a hum in the background, much like in life. Dress Rehearsals is a memoir made of poetry, with each poem sounding like an attitude being tried on for size. The poetry highlights contemporary ideas around gender roles and performances.
Andy Rourke has died due to pancreatic cancer. Rourke was a bassist for the iconic band The Smiths for whom he created the melodic backbone for many of their songs. Rourke's post-Smiths career saw collaborations with several other musicians, and he was seen being the “supremely gifted musician” by Johnny Marr and “the most talented bass player” by Mike Joyce. Rourke’s legacy, a unique style of playing the bass guitar, lives on in the music of The Smiths.
39 years ago, on 20 May, 1983, researchers announced the discovery of a retrovirus later called the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. The team of French scientists at the Pasteur Institute in Paris were led by virologist Luc Montagnier who agreed to study a lymph node sample taken from one of infectious disease specialist Willy Rozenbaum’s patients – symptoms that were very close to what was described in a US public health bulletin Rozenbaum had read six months earlier. The team made a breakthrough when virologist Françoise Barré-Sinoussi discovered strong signs of reverse transcriptase activity, before Charles Daguet took the world’s first microscope images of the new retrovirus. The French and American teams later agreed to call themselves “co-discoverers” of the virus and split the royalties, but in 2008, Nobel prizes in medicine for their work to isolate the virus were awarded to Montagnier and Barré-Sinoussi alone.
Brianna Bell, author of The Globe and Mail, discusses her frustration growing up with her father’s surname instead of her mother’s maiden name, which was Maltese. Bell describes the influence of Maltese culture on her life and the importance of passing on that heritage, saying that she wishes she had taken the opportunity to legally adopt both her husband’s name and the name she had always wanted. While she feels her Maltese roots are fading away, she considers referring to herself as Brianna Zerafa Bell in recognition of her late mother's name.
UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has cautioned that pessimism could trigger a "self-fulfilling prophecy" of economic decline in the UK. In an opinion piece for The Telegraph, he blamed both the Left and the Right for portraying the country in a negative light, insisting that there are clear signs of economic improvement under Chancellor Rishi Sunak; inflation is falling, a recession is likely to be avoided and there will soon be a reduction in energy bills. However, Hunt revealed that critics have tried to question their economic priorities - especially within the context of local election losses.
Two men convicted of the first-degree murder of Allan Lanteigne, who was beaten to death in the front foyer of his Ossington Avenue home on March 2, 2011, have had their appeals dismissed by Ontario’s highest court. Papasotiriou, a disbarred lawyer who was married to Lanteigne, was released on bail pending appeal but has now been taken into custody to begin serving his life sentence. Michael Ivezic, who beat Lanteigne to death, has remained in prison since his conviction. Both men raised multiple grounds of appeal, but the prosecution presented a “formidable case pointing to Mr. Ivezic as the murderer” including Ivezic’s DNA being found beneath Lanteigne’s fingernails. While the case against Papasotiriou was “far from overwhelming,” it was open for the jury to convict him, according to the 3-judge panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal. The Crown argued Papasotiriou’s motive for the murder was money. He was the beneficiary of a $2m life insurance policy on Lanteigne’s life as well as his survivor pension benefits.
The remains of a Medal of Honor recipient who went missing in action during the Korean War have been identified almost 73 years later and will be buried on 29 May, Memorial Day. The body of Cpl. Luther H. Story will be interred at Andersonville National Cemetery in Georgia. Story was last seen fighting off North Korean attackers so that his fellow soldiers could escape. Unable to flee himself due to his wounds, Story remained behind, using every weapon available to fend off more attackers. He was posthumously awarded the highest military honor for his bravery.
