K-9s Trained to Sniff Out Devices Holding Child Porn

The number of child sex exploitation cases is rapidly rising in the Washington, D.C., region, and so, too, is pressure to find new tools for law enforcement to catch the predators.

U.S. Justice Department records obtained by the News4 I-Team in a public records request show more than 300 federal prosecutions for child sex crimes in D.C., Maryland and Virginia since 2016, including cases in which devices capable of holding tens of thousands of child sex images were seized.

“It happens everywhere, in the smallest towns and the biggest cities,” said Steve Grocki, chief of the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.

“(Predators) can very easily be communicating with people in Russia, China and anywhere in the world,” Grocki said. “It’s so easy online now, and language is not a barrier.”

The increase in prosecutions comes amid fast-evolving technology to record and share exploitative images, according to federal officials.

“Every person walks around 24 hours a day with a high definition photography device,” Grocki said.

Nurse accused of tampering with drips at hospital, killing dozens of people

A Japanese nurse is accused of tampering with the medical devices of dozens of near-death patients in order to kill them while she was off duty — all so she could avoid delivering the news to the patients’ grieving families.

Ayumi Kuboki, 31, was arrested Saturday in connection with the death of Sozo Nishikawa, 88, who was poisoned in 2016 at the Oguchi Hospital located in Yokohama, the Japan Times reported.

Kubo told investigators she did not like the responsibility of telling a patient’s family a loved one had passed away. She allegedly targeted patients who were close to death by tampering with their intravenous drips so another nurse on duty would have to ….

Married woman and mechanic die from carbon monoxide poisoning while having sex in garage: report

A married woman and her mechanic lover reportedly died from apparent carbon monoxide poisoning while having sex in a parking garage.

Kahali Johnson found his wife, Tameka Hargrave, 39, and the 56-year-old mechanic, who was not identified, dead in a parking garage on Monday night in Newark, N.J., ABC 7 New York reported.

Johnson was paying for work done on her vehicle by having sex with the mechanic, a police source told NJ.com.

Johnson told ABC 7 New York he arrived at his apartment on Monday night and smelled a strong odor in his home. He said an alarm went off and he began investigating the smell to the garage where he found his wife, the mechanic and a running car. He said he found his wife on the ground while the mechanic…

US Postal worker found dead in California after delivering mail in extreme heat, family says

A longtime U.S. Postal worker was found dead in her truck on Friday after delivering mail when temperatures reached nearly 120 degrees in Southern California, her family said.

Peggy Frank, 63, was found unresponsive in her truck around 3 p.m. Friday in Woodland Hills, FOX11 reported. Paramedics arrived at the scene and pronounced the grandmother dead after several attempts to revive her.

The exact cause of death was not released, but Frank’s family believes heat exhaustion may have led to her passing. Friday was Frank’s first day back on the job after she was placed on medical leave for a broken ankle, her family said.

Frank had been working for the U.S. Postal Service for 28 years.

This Family Hosted a Wedding For 2 Strangers at the Last Minute

Dulce Gonzalez was hoping for perfect weather for her beachside wedding in Pascagoula, MS, on July 1. While she awoke to clear skies on the big day, the sunshine didn’t last long, and just before she was set to marry Ariel, her boyfriend of two years, it started to pour as a storm rolled in.

Panicked, Dulce hopped in a car with the rest of her wedding party to wait out the storm until a friendly onlooker, Cynthia Strunk, offered up her home to the couple as a potential wedding venue. Cynthia shared how the situation went down in a Facebook post — and yes, she and her husband Shannon completely saved the day.

Papa John’s founder John Schnatter resigns as chairman of company’s board after apologizing for racial slur

Papa John’s founder John Schnatter has resigned as chairman of his company’s board after admitting and apologizing for using the N-word during a May conference call.

The company said in a statement it will appoint a new chairman in the coming weeks. Olivia Kirtley will act as the company’s lead independent director, it added.

News of Schnatter’s resignation came shortly after Yahoo Sports reported that the Major League Baseball had indefinitely suspended its Papa Slam promotion — a campaign that both sides have collaborated on since 2016.

The incident in May came to light after Forbes magazine detailed the incident in an article on Wednesday. The report said Schnatter was on a call with marketing agency Laundry Service when he tried to downplay comments he made about the National Football League and allegedly said, “Colonel Sanders called blacks n—–s.”

Schnatter complained that the KFC founder never faced public backlash. The call was a role-playing exercise for Schnatter to prevent future public relations fumbles.

Shares of Papa John’s fell by as much as 5.9 percent to a new 12-month low of $47.80 a share in intraday trading Wednesday — erasing $96.2 million in market value. The stock recovered somewhat, closing down 4.8 percent at $48.33 a share. Papa John’s is down 13 percent so far this year while Domino’s shares are up 48.5 percent.

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Oprah Winfrey is about to get into the restaurant biz

The media mogul on Wednesday announced that she had made an undisclosed equity investment in True Food Kitchen, a health-driven restaurant chain based in Phoenix. The restaurant, which was named the 2018 top emerging restaurant brand by data firm Fishbowl, offers sustainable, local and organic meals, including vegan and vegetarian options.

True Food Kitchen declined to disclose how much Winfrey invested in the company, but said she would join the brand’s board of directors and act as a consultant. Private equity firm Centerbridge will remain the restaurant’s controlling shareholder.

Winfrey sought out True Food Kitchen’s CEO Christine Barone after dining at the chain with friend and health expert Bob Greene. Winfrey and Barone discussed a possible collaboration and the restaurant’s future over lunch at Winfrey’s house several months ago.

“I love bringing people together over a good meal,” Winfrey said in a statement. “When I first dined at True Food Kitchen, I was so impressed with the team’s passion for healthy eating and, of course, the delicious food, that I knew I wanted to be part of the company’s future.”

Tears flow as Thai boys and parents see each other for first time since cave rescue

July 11–CHIANG RAI, Thailand — Thai authorities aired the first footage Wednesday of the Thai boys rescued with their coach after being stranded in a flooded cave complex for days, in a tightly controlled event designed to protect the children from media attention and showcase pristine hospital facilities.

The boys, rescued in three groups from the Tham Luang Nang Non caves in northern Thailand, were in good health mentally and physically, according to doctors, with only one showing signs of a lung infection. They had lost weight — an average of 4 1/2 pounds each — but were hungry and largely unharmed from their ordeal.

Another boy who earlier showed signs of a lung infection has recovered, doctors said.
Video showed the boys wearing masks while resting in beds in Chiang Rai Prachanukroh Hospital in the city of Chiang Rai near the rescue site. Several flashed a victory sign.

Some parents wept as they gazed excitedly at their children through a window looking onto the hospital, some waving. All wore yellow shirts in celebration of the birth month of Thailand’s King Rama X.

Some families were allowed in the ward, although they had to remain six feet from the boys and no hugging was allowed, doctors said.
Rear Admiral Apakorn Youkongkaew, chief of the Thai Navy SEALS, said there had been no choice but to bring the group out of the cave swiftly, because oxygen levels were depleting rapidly and they would not have survived much longer.

Tuberculosis scare forces evacuations at Johns Hopkins Hospital

Two buildings on the campus of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore were evacuated because of a tuberculosis contamination.

Kim Hoppe, a spokeswoman with Johns Hopkins Medicine, told The Associated Press a small sample of frozen tuberculosis was “inadvertently released” in an internal bridge between two cancer research buildings. However, Hoppe said there was “no risk” of infection to any one on campus.

According to The Baltimore Sun, there were employees nearby when the contamination happened, but officials believe no one was exposed to the bacteria.

Dr. Landon King, executive vice dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told the Sun the sample was equal to a few drops.

Both buildings were closed for about four hours as firefighters and public safety officials checked to confirm it was safe to return.

Thailand cave rescue: Ex-navy diver dies on oxygen supply mission

A former Thailand navy SEAL has died while working to save 12 boys and their coach from the submerged Tham Luang cave complex, the New York Times reports. The death comes as a heavy blow to the rescue mission, as monsoon rains threaten further flooding and as oxygen levels inside the chamber have started to drop.

Around 1:00 am local time this morning, Saman Gunan, a 38-year-old retired Thai navy SEAL, was on his way out of the cave system after delivering extra oxygen canisters a long the route to the trapped boys and their coach when he ran out of oxygen and lost consciousness. His partner, who was unable to revive him, brought his body back to the mouth of the cave.

“His job was to deliver oxygen,” Passakorn Boonyaluck, the deputy governor of the Chiang Rai region, told reporters. “He did not have enough on his way back.”

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