Woman marries HERSELF in emotional wedding ceremony after failing to meet ‘the one’ before the age of 40

According to Black Art in America, the bridal party included ten bridesmaids as well as the bride’s mother, who walked her down the aisle.

In an emotional Facebook post afterwards, Ms Eleby said that she ‘couldn’t imagine the ceremony being any more poignant and meaningful.’

She added: ‘I was overwhelmed with the outpouring of love and support that was shown to me during my celebration of love and life.’

In turn, her friends have been nothing but supportive.

One replied: ‘Congrats on loving yourself enough to wait. It took some of us to get to 40 to recognize we didn’t need a man to be complete regardless of what was instilled in us.’

Celebration: The bridal party included ten bridesmaids, all clad in dove gray dresses

And another called it ‘a well-deserved celebration of life.’

Ms Eleby first announced that she would be marrying herself in May 2013.

She wrote on Facebook: ‘Did you guys really think I would get married without letting anybody know????? I want all y’all to dance at my wedding so I wouldn’t do it without you! So be ready by 2015!!!!!! [sic]’

Ms Eleby loves to travel and her plans to visit Cambodia, Laos, and Dubai this year will serve as an extended honeymoon.

But while Ms Eleby’s actions are unusual, she is not the first person to marry herself.

In July last year, a former radio host from Australia, Sammy Power, celebrated her 50th birthday by tying the knot with a life-sized cardboard cutout of herself.

She said that the ceremony commemorated a year of important life changes; quitting smoking and drinking and losing 25kgs.

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BlackBerry shares soar as software sales hit record

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada’s BlackBerry Ltd reported stronger-than-expected quarterly profit on Thursday as high-margin software sales hit a record, boosting investor confidence in its turnaround and sending shares up 14 percent.

Software and services revenue rose 26 percent to $196 million in the second quarter ended Aug. 31 from a year earlier, above the average forecast of $175 million of two analysts polled by Reuters.

The results bolstered hopes that Chief Executive John Chen was succeeding in rebuilding BlackBerry, whose revenue has declined for seven years as its smartphone business collapsed. Chen has discontinued handset manufacturing and focused on selling software to industrial companies, governments and corporations.

“Obviously a very good quarter for the software business, which is a good sign for BlackBerry,” said Nicholas McQuire, an analyst at CCS Insight.

The company reported quarterly profit of 5 cents a share, excluding special items, versus a break-even forecast by analysts.

Quarterly software and services revenue was buoyed by a sharp increase in licensing fees, to $56 million from $16 million a year earlier.

Licensing will eventually contribute about as much revenue as BlackBerry’s larger enterprise software business, Chen said in a call with reporters, according to Bloomberg News.

Chen told BNN television that the company hoped to close another autonomous-vehicle software deal directly with an unnamed carmaker later this year, which would follow a deal inked with Ford Motor Co last October that has started to produce revenue for BlackBerry.

“There’s some exciting growth opportunities,” Morningstar analyst Ali Mogharabi said, citing progress in getting BlackBerry technology into self-driving cars.

The company said on Sept. 20 that it would partner with auto supplier Delphi Automotive Plc on a software operating system for self-driving cars, sending its shares up 9 percent that day.

BlackBerry could earn licensing fees of $5 to $25 per car with advanced self-driving technology, up from the $1.50 to $5 it earns for just providing infotainment systems, Chen said on an analyst call.

Some investors said it was too early to call the turnaround a success.

“The company is at the intersection of some interesting trends … but it’s still early days for them,” said Lori Keith, a portfolio manager at Parnassus Investments, which does not own BlackBerry shares.

Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry said it expected adjusted full-year revenue of $920 million to $950 million. Analysts on average had forecast $924.4 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. It also forecast meeting its software sales growth target of 10 to 15 percent.

Licensing revenue for its software and brand name include royalties on BlackBerry-branded devices sold by China’s TCL Communication Technology Holdings Ltd and Indonesia’s BB Merah Putih.

BlackBerry also said on Thursday it signed a new deal for a Chinese manufacturer to sell BlackBerry Secure-branded devices starting early next year.

The company posted quarterly net income of $19 million, or 4 cents per share, compared to a loss of $372 million, or 71 cents a share, a year earlier. Total revenue excluding items fell 29 percent to $249 million.

BlackBerry’s Canadian-listed shares were up 12.5 percent at C$12.98 after rising as high as $13.47. Its U.S.-listed stock rose 13.2 percent to $10.45, the highest since June.

Source : Reuters.com

Advanced stages of CTE found in Aaron Hernandez’s brain

BOSTON — Former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez had a severe case of the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, researchers said on Thursday. His lawyer announced a lawsuit against the NFL and the team, accusing them of hiding the true dangers of the sport.

Dr. Ann McKee, the director of the CTE Center at Boston University, said Hernandez had stage 3 (out of 4) of the disease, which can cause violent mood swings, depression and other cognitive disorders.

“We’re told it was the most severe case they had ever seen for someone of Aaron’s age,” attorney Jose Baez said.

Hernandez was 27 when he killed himself in April in the prison cell where he was serving a life-without-parole sentence for murder. Baez said Hernandez had shown signs of memory loss, impulsivity and aggression that could be attributed to CTE.

“When hindsight is 20-20, you look back and there are things you might have noticed,” he said. “But you don’t know.”

An Oklahoma City police officer shot and killed a deaf man who was holding a metal pipe on Tuesday night, authorities said.

According to police spokesman Capt. Bo Mathews, neighbors told Sgt. Chris Barnes that 35-year-old Magdiel Sanchez could not hear his commands. It remains unclear whether Barnes heard those warnings before discharging his weapon multiple times.

Barnes and Lt. Matthew Lindsey went to Sanchez’s home to investigate a hit-and-run that had occurred earlier in the evening, Mathews said. Sanchez’s father was allegedly the driver of the car that fled the scene.

The two officers found Sanchez, who did not have a criminal record and was not involved in the hit-and-run, on the porch of the house holding a 2-foot-long metal pipe. The pipe had a small loop on one end, which is meant to be worn around the wrist, NBC reported. A neighbor told The Associated Press that Sanchez often carried the pipe to scare off the neighborhood’s many stray dogs.

When Sanchez approached, the officers ordered him to drop the pipe and “get on the ground,” Mathews said. Sanchez allegedly did not follow their commands and continued to move towards them.

Hearing the commotion, witnesses began yelling at the cops, telling them about Sanchez’s hearing disability.

“He can’t hear you,” they shouted, per Mathews.

Neighbors told KOCO 5 News that Sanchez was deaf and nonverbal.

When Sanchez got within 15 feet of the officers, Barnes fired his gun and Lindsey deployed his Taser. Mathews said Barnes discharged his firearm more than once. A witness told AP she heard “five or six gunshots.”

Sanchez was later pronounced dead at the scene.

“They killed an innocent man,” neighbor Julio Rayos told KOCO. “He was never aggressive to nobody. He was a real nice guy. I don’t think he deserved to die like that.”

The shooting is being investigated as a homicide, and Barnes has been placed on paid administrative leave.

Mathews said he wasn’t sure why the officers had not taken heed of the neighbors’ shouts about Sanchez’s disability, but said “tunnel vision” may have prevented them from processing the warnings.

“In those situations, very volatile situations, you have a weapon out, you can get what they call tunnel vision, or you can really lock into just the person that has the weapon that’d be the threat against you,” Mathews said. “I don’t know exactly what the officers were thinking at that point.”

The Oklahoma City Police Department is in the process of obtaining body cameras for its officers, NBC News reported. Neither Barnes nor Lindsey was wearing one at the time of Sanchez’s shooting.

This article has been updated throughout with new details about the shooting. Initial reports said Sanchez was holding a “stick” when he was shot, but Mathews said it was a metal pipe.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

41 state attorneys ubiquitous summons opioid manufacturers and distributors

Buprenorphine is a opioid used as an alternative to methadone to help addicts recovering from heroin use. Buprenorphine is different from other opioids because it’s a “partial opioid agonist,” which means that when taken in proper prescribed doses, it should produce less euphoria and physical dependence, and therefore a lower potential for misuse. It’s also supposed to have a relatively mild withdrawal profile.

However, if abused by crushing and snorting or injecting, it can suppress breathing and cause dizziness, confusion, unconsciousness and death.

Subutex, the brand name for buprenorphine, is taken as a tablet placed under the tongue and allowed to dissolve.

The brand Suboxone is a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone, an opioid antagonist. Antagonists block the opiate receptors in the brain, keeping the narcotic from creating the high abusers crave.

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The Lonely Road Back From a Very Public Injury

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Michael Steele/Getty Images.

“I thought something was wrong,” he said. “I knew I had to come out.”

A few minutes later, in the treatment area that sits on the other side of the wall from the first-team changing room at City’s Etihad Stadium, Sala’s on-field suspicion — a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament — was confirmed with a few cursory tests.

Gundogan injured his right knee when he and Watford’s Nordin Amrabat collided during a match in December. He returned to the field briefly, but soon realized he could not continue.

Many athletes fear a torn A.C.L. more than any other injury. It is not as visibly painful, or as gruesome, as a broken bone, but it is much more menacing. Not so long ago, it was more often than not the end of a career; even now, many who suffer it find they are never quite the same.

Deep down, as Gundogan watched the second half of that December game against Watford on a laptop in silence, his knee packed in ice, he knew what was coming. He tried to be optimistic.

“People know what to do now,” he thought. “They know how to operate, how to do rehab, how long you are out.”

He had steeled himself for the worst. Now he just had to face it.

What he was facing, though, was intimidating. There would be the delicate hours of surgery, the endless days of rest, the long, slow weeks and months that would teach him first to walk, then to run, and finally to play again.

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