Lung injuries and deaths linked to the use of e-cigarettes and vaping products has continued to rise in the US. The CDC has confirmed 2,290 vaping related lung injury cases and 47 deaths reported as of November 21st, 2019. Cases have been reported in all states except Alaska, along with the District of Columbia and two U.S. territories. Deaths have been confirmed in 25 states and Washington D.C., with more being investigated. Those affected by these illnesses range in age from 13 to 75 years old.
CDC data shows on 514 patients, about 77% reported using THC-containing products in the 30 days prior to the start of their symptoms. However, 16% reported using only nicotine-containing products. The illness is marked by chest pain, shortness of breath and vomiting, and it has largely affected young people. The vast majority of cases, almost 80%, involve e-cigarette users younger than 35, and another 15% are younger than 18.
While the investigation into the cause is still ongoing, the CDC has uncovered a potential cause- vitamin E acetate. Samples taken from the lungs of 29 people with e-cigarette, or vaping, product use associated lung injury or (EVALI) all contained vitamin E acetate. The CDC has also expanded its laboratory testing to include lung fluid, blood, and urine samples from patients, as well as lung biopsy and autopsy specimens.
Vitamin E acetate is commonly used in ingested supplements or skin care, and in those cases appears to be safe. Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC said previous research has found that when vitamin E acetate is inhaled, it may interfere with normal lung function. She said they are no longer seeing such a dramatic rise in EVALI cases as earlier this fall but that some states are still investigating potential cases.
The agency continues to work with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), states, and health providers to track and investigate this outbreak. The agency is also testing the vapor of e-cigarette products that have been involved in these cases to look for potentially harmful compounds. While it appears that vitamin E acetate is associated with EVALI, evidence is not yet sufficient to rule out contribution of other chemicals of concern to EVALI. Many different substances and product sources are still under investigation, and it may be that there is more than one cause of this outbreak.
EVALI looks and sounds like pneumonia. Symptoms include chest pain, shortness of breath, fever, nausea and vomiting. But it’s not an infection. The antibiotics used to clear up pneumonia don’t help the vaping illness and without knowing if a patient vapes-doctors might pursue the wrong treatment or miss the chance to encourage the person to stop. The CDC reports that some early patients with the illness who have been out of the hospital for several weeks have begun receiving follow-up care. Doctors are reporting that patients’ recoveries have varied, with some patients appearing to make full recoveries and others continuing to have trouble breathing. CDC reported that some patients have relapsed and had to be hospitalized a second time, with readmissions occurring from as few as five days to as many as 55 days after initial discharge.
E-cigarette manufacturers have advertised their products as a better option for adult smokers who are already hooked on nicotine. For thousands of young people who have never smoked, however, vaping plays the opposite role: It establishes a nicotine addiction that will ultimately lead to cigarette smoking.
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The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by gun manufacturer Remington Arms, that argued it should be shielded by a 2005 federal law preventing most lawsuits against firearms manufacturers when their products are used in crimes. The decision has cleared the way for survivors and the families of the 26 victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to pursue their lawsuit against the maker of the rifle used to kill 26 people.
The families are arguing that Remington violated Connecticut law when it marketed the Bushmaster rifle for assaults against human beings. The Supreme Court’s decision not to take up the case allows the lawsuit filed in Connecticut state court by a survivor and relatives of nine victims who died at the Newtown, Connecticut, school on Dec. 14, 2012, to go forward. The lawsuit says the Madison, North Carolina-based company should never have sold a weapon as dangerous as the Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle to the public.
Gunman Adam Lanza used it to kill 20 children between the ages of 5 and 10 along with six educators, after killing his mother at the home they shared. The rifle used in the killings was legally owned by his mother. The lawsuit also alleges Remington targeted younger, at-risk males in marketing and product placement in violent video games. Lanza was 20 years old when he committed the mass shooting. Only two of the victims who were shot by Lanza—both teachers—survived the attack. Lanza killed himself as police arrived at the school.
The case is being watched by gun control advocates, gun rights supporters and gun manufacturers across the country, as it has the potential to provide a roadmap for victims of other mass shootings to circumvent the federal law and sue the makers of firearm. The National Rifle Association, 10 mainly Republican-led states and 22 Republicans in Congress were among those urging the court to jump into the case and end the lawsuit against Remington.
The Connecticut Supreme Court had earlier ruled 4-3 that the lawsuit could proceed for now, citing an exemption in the federal law. The decision overturned a ruling by a trial court judge who dismissed the lawsuit based on the 2005 federal law, named the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
The federal law has been criticized by gun control advocates as being too favorable to gun-makers. It has been cited by other courts that rejected lawsuits against gun-makers and dealers in other high-profile shooting attacks, including the 2012 Colorado movie theater shooting and the Washington, D.C., sniper shootings in 2002.
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The Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments in the case of slain Mexican teenager killed by a US Border Patrol agent. The court heard arguments in the family’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling dismissing their case against the agent, Jesus Mesa, who had fired across a concrete spillway into Mexico from the Texas side of the border during the 2010 incident, striking 15-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca in the face.
The incident took place in June 2010 on the border between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. The Border Patrol said at the time Hernandez was pelting U.S. agents with rocks from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande when he was shot. Witnesses say Sergio and his friends were playing a game of chicken where they would run up the embankment, touch the barbed-wire fence on the U.S. side, and then sprint back. As they were playing, smugglers were nearby, throwing rocks at U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents. At some point, Agent Jesus Mesa, Jr. showed up on a bicycle and detained one of Sergio’s friends. Sergio ran back into Mexican territory and hid behind a bridge pillar. Standing on U.S. soil, Agent Mesa fired at least two shots across the border at Sergio, striking him in the face and killing him.
Following Sergio’s death, his parents, Jesus Hernandez and Maria Bentacour, sued the United States government, Agent Mesa, and Mesa’s supervisors. Their attorneys argue that Sergio—despite being a Mexican national—was nevertheless protected by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, since he was killed by a federal officer who fired from American soil. The U.S. Department of Justice investigated the shooting but decided in 2012 it was “a reasonable use of force or would constitute an act of self-defense.” Federal prosecutors refused to indict Mesa. The Mexican government, on the other hand, charged Mesa with murder, but the United States won’t extradite Mesa so he can face trial.
With criminal prosecution off the table, Sergio’s family sought justice through a civil lawsuit. During arguments, liberal justices expressed concerns over providing no legal relief to the families of people who have been killed in cross -border shootings by U.S. agents, essentially allowing federal officers on American soil to act unlawfully with impunity. During the arguments, conservative justices appeared to lean toward the administration’s concerns while liberal justices voiced worry about leaving individuals with no way to hold federal officers accountable for unlawful conduct. The court has a 5-4 conservative majority.
The dispute hinges on whether the family, despite Hernandez having died on Mexican soil, can seek monetary damages against what they call a “rogue” agent for violating for the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which bars unjustified deadly force as well as Hernandez’s right to due process under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. For the family’s lawsuit to move forward, the Supreme Court would have to widen the scope of its 1971 decision allowing certain suits against federal officials. That case, referred to as the Bivens action, involved a domestic search.
The high court previously considered Hernandez’s case in 2017 but did not decide the central legal question, instead directing the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its ruling that had barred the lawsuit. The 5th Circuit last year again ruled against the family, prompting a second trip to the Supreme Court where they will again decide if the Bivens act should be extended and Mesa held accountable.
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As the GM strike continues, picketers received some bad news from Tennessee. A striking United Auto Worker union member was hit by a car and killed outside the General Motors plant in Spring Hill where workers were maintaining an active picket line. The UAW said in a statement that 55-year-old union member Roy McCombs “tragically lost his life today on a picket line standing up for a better life for himself and his coworkers.”
McCombs was hit on a bridge outside the GM plant as he was crossing the road to get to the picket line around 6 am. McCombs was transported to a hospital and pronounced dead in the emergency room, said Lt. Jeremy Haywood of the Columbia police department in Columbia, Tennessee. The driver who hit McCombs was cooperating with investigators.
Local 1853 Chairman Mike Herron said, “Sergeant Orlando Cox from the Columbia Police Dept. will be releasing a statement shortly that will describe this event as an innocent tragic accident. He has asked that everyone refrain from going to the South Gate for safety reasons. He requested that any vigils be held at our union hall and not in the vicinity of this accident — to ensure the safety of the participants.”
Herron said the UAW local sends thoughts and prayers to McCombs’ family as well as the driver, “who was on her way to drop off her kids at the day care center located at the south exit when this tragic accident occurred.” All strike activity has ended at the South Gate of the plant and no pickets will be set up there in the future, Herron said. Also, the UAW crisis team has been called in and will meet personally with UAW members that were on the South Gate at the time of the accident as well as McCombs’ coworkers on the third shift.
UAW members at Spring Hill have taken part in picketing as part of the union’s nationwide strike against GM since Sept. 16 though it’s been contentious from the start. Maury County sheriff’s deputies in Tennessee had arrested nine protesters on Sept. 18 when they refused to stop blocking the south entrance to the plant. A 10th arrest came when someone drove recklessly through plant’s entrance, sheriff’s officials said.
A court in Tennessee granted GM’s request to prevent UAW picketers from blocking the entrance to the factory. The order was in effect until Oct. 8. It followed several arrests at the plant since GM’s 46,000 UAW workers went on strike. “After dialogue failed to stop the incidents of harassment, violence and vandalism by a few people, we had to take necessary actions to protect everyone involved,” GM said at the time. The order barred the UAW and its members from blocking entrances, detaining vehicles, creating obstructions on roadways or “assaulting, intimidating, falsely imprisoning, harassing or destroying the property of GM employees” and others at the plant.
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Fort Worth, Texas Police Officer Aaron Dean, 34, has been arrested and charged with murder after he shot and killed a 28-year-old Atatiana Jefferson inside her own home. Aaron Dean was booked into the Tarrant County Corrections Center and later released on a $200,000 bond, according to jail officials. The arrest came just hours after Dean’s resignation from the police force. Dean, who joined the department in April 2018, still faces possible civil rights violations, Kraus said.
Interim police Chief Ed Kraus said during a press conference earlier that he intended to end Officer Aaron Dean’s employment, but that Dean tendered his resignation first. Had the officer not resigned, I would have fired him for violations for several policies, including our use of force policy, our de-escalation policy and unprofessional conduct. Dean was initially placed on administrative leave after he shot Jefferson to death but he has not been cooperating with investigators in the case, Kraus said.
Officer Dean was responding to a non-emergency call from a neighbor for a wellness check after the neighbor saw Jefferson’s front door was open. Jefferson was playing video games with her 8 year old nephew early Saturday morning just minutes before she was killed. Body camera shows that when police arrived, Dean shined a flashlight through Jefferson’s window and yelled, “Put your hands up — show me your hands,” before firing a single shot at Jefferson seconds later. He never identified himself as a police officer.
Police Chief Kraus said he doesn’t know what, exactly, led Dean to open fire. “I cannot make sense of why she had to lose her life.” The chief said Dean resigned without talking to internal affairs investigators. The video included images of a gun inside a bedroom. Kraus said he did not know whether Jefferson was holding the weapon. But he said the mere fact she had a gun shouldn’t be considered unusual in Texas. “We’re homeowners in Texas,” the police chief said. “Most of us, if we thought we had somebody outside our house that shouldn’t be and we had access to a firearm, we would be acting very similarly to how she was acting.” Kraus said that, in hindsight, releasing the images of the weapon was “a bad thing to do.”
Jefferson was staying at her mother’s house in Fort Worth to help her recover from an injury when the shooting happened at about 2:25 a.m. A lawyer for Jefferson’s family, Lee Merritt, said her relatives were “relieved” over the arrest. Merritt said that on the night of the shooting she had been playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew and lost track of time. Earlier that night, he said, the family had opened the front door to allow crisp fall air inside to cool down the house. “We need to see this through to a vigorous prosecution & appropriate sentencing,” he tweeted. “The City of Fort Worth has much work to do to reform a brutal culture of policing.”
In a separate news conference earlier Monday, Jefferson’s family demanded an outside investigation into her death. “This man murdered someone,” Darius Carr, Jefferson’s brother, told reporters. Jefferson was “simply going on along with her life, living a law-abiding citizen’s peaceful life, and she was killed by a reckless act of a Fort Worth police officer,” an older sister, Ashley Carr, said. “There is simply no justification for his actions.” Police Chief Kraus brought the case to the Texas Rangers, who he said were not inclined to take it up at that point, and to the FBI, which did not immediately say whether it would review it.
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The U.S. Coast Guard has recovered all but one body after a commercial diving boat named the Conception, caught fire in the early hours of Monday morning off the coast of Santa Cruz Island in Southern California. The only survivors were five crew members of the 75-foot vessel who were sleeping on or above deck. All 33 passengers and one crew member sleeping below deck at the time of the fire were killed in horrific disaster. Authorities have yet to determine the cause of the fire.
The boat and company, Truth Aquatics Inc., are well-known in the tight-knit Southern California diving community, which is now reeling from the horrific maritime tragedy that killed teenagers, families, veteran divers, and one crew member, who were wrapping up a three-day scuba diving trip. Divers were inspecting the ship’s wreckage with plans to raise it from the ocean floor, but that process may be complicated by forecast high winds in the coming days.
The surviving crew members told a harrowing story of their frantic attempts to save the passengers trapped below deck in a bunk room already engulfed in flames. One member of the crew told of hearing a noise from his bunk on the wheelhouse deck of the Conception and that when he opened the door of the wheelhouse, he saw flames erupting from the galley area but never heard smoke alarms. He told investigators he tried to get down a ladder but flames had engulfed the ladder.
Scrambling, the other crew members jumped from the bridge of the boat to the main deck. One person broke their leg doing so. They then rushed to the galley’s double doors to try and reach the passengers below, but the fire was already too intense.
At around 3:15 a.m., the captain made a frantic mayday call to authorities, telling them that the boat was engulfed, 33 people couldn’t escape, and “there’s no escape hatch for any of the people on board.” At that point, due to heat, flames, and smoke, the crew had to jump from the boat. Two crew members swam to the back of the Conception to get the inflatable skiff, then collected the others and made it to a nearby fishing boat, the Grape Escape.
Shirley Hansen, owner of the Grape Escape, said that she and her husband awoke at 3:30 a.m. to “horrific pounding” and a group of distraught, wet men, some injured and just in their underwear. Once on the Hansen’s boat, the men tried to call 911 for rescue and two crew members then took the dinghy boat back to the Conception to try and rescue any survivors but there were none. The Hansen’s said you could hear explosions from the engulfed diving boat every couple of minutes.
Officials have been looking at the dive boat’s maintenance and inspection records, which the Coast Guard said were up to date, and trying to understand if the 34 victims who had been sleeping in rows of narrow bunks even had a chance to escape. Officials are using advanced DNA technology to identify the victims. None of the names of the dead, who ranged in age from 17 to 60, have been publicly released by authorities but friends and family have confirmed who was on the boat. Among the victims were a family of five, a teacher and his daughter, and a diving instructor and marine biologist.
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Newark, New Jersey’s water crisis is growing worse as authorities temporarily halted their distribution of bottled water to families whose tap water is contaminated with lead. The Environmental Protection Agency told city officials to distribute bottled water “as soon as possible,” after it determined that water filters were ineffective at safely filtering lead from the water supply of thousands of homes. State and local officials began offering free bottled water to 15,000 Newark households, and hundreds of people queued in long lines in the summer heat for their allotment. Officials stopped handing out the water after discovering many of the bottles had exceeded their best-by date.
The levels of lead in Newark, New Jersey’s drinking water are some of the highest recently recorded by a large water system in the United States. City and state officials have been violating the Safe Drinking Water Act in several ways, such as failing to treat its water to prevent lead from flaking off from pipes into residents’ drinking water and neglecting to notify people about the elevated levels and the health risks. For years, the city has had the greatest number of lead-poisoned children in New Jersey. This likely stems from a variety of exposures to lead, including from contaminated tap water and other sources.
One way lead particles get into water is through corrosion in pipes and it’s believed to be the cause in Newark. The metal in lead service plumbing lines starts to tear away and mix with the water passing through. This is often apparent in older pipes; in some affected Newark neighborhoods, pipes are over 100 years old. Citywide tests conducted in June 2017 showed that more than 10% of homes across Newark had twice the amount of lead that is considered safe according to federal law.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental and health advocacy group, sent a letter to officials in Newark later that year saying that they had failed to address the lead contamination issue. After the city failed two more citywide lead tests in December 2017 and June 2018, the city announced in October that year that it would provide over 40,000 water filters to residents. After the city then failed a fourth consecutive lead test in December 2018, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka wrote an open letter to the President asking for federal help to fix the water system in the city.
The city failed another lead test in June 2019 and in August, after testing three homes that were using water filters provided by the city, officials found that two of those homes still had elevated levels of lead in them. After the results of their water filter tests, city officials have begun handing out packages of bottled water to Newark residents, in accordance with guidance from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
There is no safe level of lead exposure and pregnant women and children are most at risk. Even low lead levels are associated with serious, irreversible damage to developing brains and nervous systems. Lead exposure is also linked to fertility issues, cardiovascular and kidney problems, cognitive dysfunction, and elevated blood pressure in otherwise healthy adults.
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The House Judiciary Committee unanimously passed a bill which would permanently reauthorize the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, the day after comedian Jon Stewart gave impassioned testimony in support of the bill. The bill will now go to the floor for a full vote in the House of Representatives, where it is likely to pass. Congress passed the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act in 2010 and the act was reauthorized in 2015 for 90 years. But a portion of the law — the Victim Compensation Fund — was only funded for five years, through the end of 2020.
The fund aimed to provide necessary financial support for the thousands who suffered serious medical issues, including a spate of cancer diagnoses, after the 2001 attacks. New York City health officials say the number of people who have been diagnosed with 9/11-linked cancers has tripled. Thousands of first responders rushed to the scene of the attacks and in doing so, exposed themselves to toxic debris in the air, including asbestos, lead, and pulverized concrete, which causes silicosis.
Nearly 5,500 first responders and local residents have now been diagnosed with cancers linked to the toxic smoke and dust of 9/11. As of September 2018, 2,000 deaths were attributed to 9/11 related illnesses. By the end of last year, many estimate that more people will have died from toxic exposures than were actually killed in the attack.
The spike in claims has left the VCF at risk of a massive funding shortfall. As a result, future payouts to 9/11 victims and their families may be cut by as much as 70%. The bill that passed the judiciary committee on Wednesday aims to make the VCF permanent and grant additional funding to the bill. A specific amount has not yet been allocated.
At an emotional congressional hearing, Stewart, who has been a longtime advocate for the fund, blasted lawmakers for their inaction ahead of a vote on renewing healthcare funding for 9/11 responders. During his testimony, Stewart became upset several times as he appealed to Congress. “Behind me, a filled room of 9/11 first responders. And in front of me, a nearly empty Congress. Sick and dying, they brought themselves down here to speak to no one. Shameful. It’s an embarrassment to the country, and it is a stain on this institution. And you should be ashamed of yourselves, for those that aren’t here. But you won’t be, because accountability doesn’t appear to be something that occurs in this chamber.”
Stewart made several points during his passionate speech. “The official FDNY response time to 9/11 was five seconds. Five seconds. That’s how long it took for FDNY, for NYPD, for Port Authority, EMS to respond to an urgent need from the public. Five seconds. Hundreds died in an instant. Thousands more poured in to continue to fight for their brothers and sisters.” He went on to point out that as lawmakers had at first, denied the health issues were caused by the debri left behind the attack and when they no longer could deny it then then said it was a New York issue. “More of these men and women are going to get sick and they are going to die. And I am awfully tired of hearing that it’s a 9/11 New York issue. Al Qaeda didn’t shout “Death to Tribeca.” They attacked America and these men and women and their response to it is what brought our country back. It’s what gave a reeling nation a solid foundation to stand back upon. To remind us of why this country is great, of why this country is worth fighting for. And you are ignoring them.”
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In an effort to broaden the company’s “social interaction” with our clients and FaceBook fans, Daily Trivia Questions are posted on both of our business pages. Here are the weekly standings for this past week, and the winner of the Sunday night Weekly Drawing for an AmEx gift card!
Congratulations – To this past week’s Trivia Contest Winner!! Our latest contest winner for the weekly FaceBook HealthInsurance4Everyone/Health & Life Solutions, LLC Trivia Contest, drawn randomly by computer late Sunday evening, June 9th, 2019 was:
JILL NAUYOKAS
Boston, MA
Winner Of A $25.00 AmEx Gift Card
Each day, fans who have “liked” either of our company FaceBook pages (HealthInsurance4Everyone or Health & Life Solutions LLC) are able to test their skills with our Daily TRIVIA QUESTION. The first 20 winners who post the correct answer to the TRIVIA QUESTION, will then get entered into the weekly drawing held late on Sunday evenings for a $25.00 Am Ex Gift Card.
Weekly Gift Card winners will be posted in our blog at this site. Remember to become a FaceBook fan and “Like and Follow” either of our company pages to enter and post your answers.
The drawing entries 6/3/19 thru 6/9/19 are:
6/3/19
Amber Chandler
Jennifer Lang
Darlene Whyte
Jenifer Garza
Brandi K Chaney
Sarah Harrison
Debbie Bloxom
Nicole Blaha
Tom Cavalli
Michelle Webb
Hunter Coffey
Brooke Scott
Amber McGrath
Thomas Ryan Gan
Dean Bruss
Terry Schmitt Sutton
Joann Tompkins-Winborn
Becky Holland
Robin Griffitts Pratt
Tina Casto-Shafer
Jennifer Marie
Susan Saunders
6/4/19
Amanda Rosario
Becky Holland
Christina Domingue
Becky Holland
Jennifer Ramlet
Traci Anderson
Sarah Frank
Kristina Rosson
Dawn Raasch
Katie Santos
Robin Griffitts Pratt
Alexis Maureen
Brooke Shelby Rae
Alison Giffune Paige
Carla Williams
April Ashcraft
Jenifer Garza
Jill Nagel
Sara Coyle
Crystal Young
Amber McGrath
6/5/19
Brittany Light
Mya Murphy
Kristy Lynn Ballard
Stacy Nelson
Kristina Rosson
Susan Clarke Jette
Samantha Smith
Sarah Bellestri Shih
Alyssa DiFazio
Kacie Rogers
April Ashcraft
Mike Adamski
Melissa Turner Baker
Nai Merri
Phylicia Phillips
Kimberly Snyder
Becca Neuenschwander Long
Kassie Lynn DiFazio
Wendi Black
Karyn Koehler
6/6/19
Darlene Whyte
Karen Brunet Moore
Samantha Smith
Martha Prescott
Shannon Rush
Kathi Taylor
Nicole Ryan
MarcyLynn Coull
Jill Nagel
Nai Merri
Alisa Jones
Trish Marks
Jan Peoples
Crystal Young
April Ashcraft
Carol Jean
Barbara Austin
Lisa Puckett
Lena Perry
Jill Nauyokas
6/7/19
Shannon Scott
Jodi Stevens
Nicole Blaha
Crystal Young
Ambreen Rouf
Eleazar Ruiz
Geri Rus
Jessica Steiner
Samantha Smith
Demara Peterson Broadus
Morgan Alexandra
J Bagavathula Bevara
Patricia Oehlert Vazquez
Nicole Ryan
Melissa Ann Stura-Bassett
Lori Capobianco
Tracy Heyer
Nai Merri
Christina Radcliff
Rose Elizabeth Cantu
Melissa Turner Baker
Rhonda Grisham
Eva Biggs
Joann Tompkins-Winborn
6/8/19
Jo Bagavathula Bevara
Tracy Heyer
Nicole Blaha
Dawn Raasch
Kim Avery
Joanie Waterman
Amanda Otis
Andrea Ayala
Jill Nagel
Brooke Shelby Rae
Kimberly Snyder
Brooke Scott
Nai Merri
Susan Saunders
Jenifer Garza
Karen Bondehagen
Phylicia Phillips
Jessica Steiner
Samantha Smith
Marie Beauregard
Pallavi Deshmukh
6/9/19
Nicole Blaha
Cheryl Ralley-Messick
Dale Fish
Eleazar Ruiz
Janice McKay Donahue
Brittany Deaver
Jennifer Lang
Andrew W Sauer
Tessa Davis
Phylicia Phillips
Eleazar Ruiz
Jodi Stevens
Sherry Kidwell
Charlotte Dennis
Wendi Black
Lena Perry
Adaria Johnson
Kristy Lynn Ballard
Jill Nauyokas
Traci Anderson
Alyssa DiFazio
Be sure to watch both of our FaceBook pages for your chance to win and enter again next week, with questions posted daily on HealthInsurance4Everyone or at Health & Life Solutions, LLC!!
Remember that if you try your hand at answering the Trivia Question several days each week, your odds of winning the Sunday weekly drawing are much better.
Also note that a number of the posted answers each day are from contestants who have forgotten to “Like” one of our pages, so their names WILL NOT be entered at the end week drawing for the gift card, giving our fans a better chance!
You may also find that if you “Like” BOTH of the business pages, you will receive faster notifications of the other players as they post their answers to compete with you! 
—————————————————————-
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Utah police believe they have found the body of missing 5 year old Elizabeth Shelley just days after her uncle Alex Whipple was charged with aggravated murder. Elizabeth Shelley’s body was found in a wooded area a quarter mile away from her home in Logan. Court documents state Whipple, 21, has been charged with aggravated murder, child kidnapping, two counts of obstruction of justice and abuse or desecration of a human body.
Elizabeth’s mother reported her missing from her home on the west side of Logan on Saturday at approximately 10 a.m. Her mother, Jessica, said she and her live-in boyfriend, Detrich Black, last saw Shelley sleeping in her bed at approximately 1 a.m. when they checked on her before going to bed. Jessica stated that she had been drinking alcohol with Whipple and Detrich on Friday at approximately 10 p.m. She had invited her brother over via Facebook messenger. Elizabeth and her sister were already in bed when Whipple arrived at the residence. Jessica went to sleep around midnight and told Whipple that he could stay on the couch, court documents state.
At approximately 9:30 a.m., Jessica woke up and found the front door wide open. She recalled both Elizabeth and her brother, Whipple, were missing from the home. Court documents state Whipple left his cellphone and skateboard at the residence. The couple briefly looked for Whipple and Elizabeth outside before calling the police. The couple described her as wearing a red tank top and teal skirt to police and volunteers who began searching the area.
At approximately 3 p.m., Whipple was located in a remote area near the home. In his possession, police found a baseball bat, a pipe commonly used for narcotics, personal items and a Pabst Blue Ribbon 24-ounce beer can. He was transported to the Logan City Police Department for questioning. At the station, handcuffs were removed from Whipple and he was left alone in the room. Officers said he started licking his hands to try and wipe them clean. Police placed the handcuffs back on him to preserve evidence that may be on Whipple’s hands.
During an interview with police, Whipple initially denied going over to Jessica’s house on Friday night and changed his story several times. Court documents state Whipple said he drank beer at Jessica’s house and later left the residence to go on a walk because he could tell his sister and her boyfriend were “horny.” He told police he didn’t want to hear anything, so he went on a walk to enjoy the scenery just before sunrise. He claimed he had not seen Elizabeth while he was at her house. While he initially did not admit to any involvement in his niece’s disappearance, he told officers that when he drinks he sometimes blacks out and does “criminal things”.
When police asked why he left his cellphone and skateboard and why he left the door open, Whipple claimed he didn’t know and that he didn’t need his personal items. During the interview, investigators noticed dark colored stains on Whipple’s pants that were consistent with dried blood and several cuts on his dirty fingers. While Whipple was being questioned, investigators found a bloody knife that matched one missing from the Shelley home in a nearby parking lot, a PVC pipe with a red substance on it and a partial palm print, along with a teal skirt that was hastily buried under dirt and bark.
Court documents show that blood found on the knife, Whipple’s watch and a hooded sweatshirt all had positive matches to Elizabeth’s DNA profile. The beer can tested positive for Whipple’s DNA and the palm print on the PVC pipe was determined to be Whipple’s. When confronted with this evidence, Whipple admitted to the killing and drew a map for police to located her body in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table.
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