Alabama is facing another off-season issue, this time involving the arrest of two players. Star left tackle Cam Robinson and defensive back Laurence Hootie Jones are in jail with Robinson facing felony charges.
Robinson and Jones were arrested in their hometown of West Monroe, La., and charged with misdemeanor possession of narcotics. Robinson was charged with felony illegal possession of stolen firearms. Jones was also charged of illegal carrying of a weapon in the presence of narcotics.
According to the police report, the arrest occurred early Tuesday morning in the parking lot of a park. Officers approached Robinsons car and smelled marijuana and the officers spotted a handgun on the lap of the passenger. The officers then noticed a bag of marijuana on the drivers side floorboard and the stolen handgun was located under Robinsons seat.
Robinson, a 6-foot-6, 327-pound junior, was considered the top offensive line recruit in the country. He started for the Crimson Tide in 2014 as a freshman. On last seasons national championship team as a sophomore, Robinson earned first-team All-Southeastern Conference honors.
Jones, 6-foot-2, 215-pound junior, has spent his first two seasons as a reserve defensive back.
Late last month, Alabama defensive line coach Bo Davis resigned unexpectedly because of possible recruiting violations that has led the school to start an internal investigation.
One of every five refugees resettled in Minnesota by the federal government tested positive for latent tuberculosis in 2014, according to the states Department of Health.
Only 4 percent of the general population in the United States tested positive for latent tuberculosis in the most recent reportprovided bythe Centers for Disease Control.
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The April 2016 edition of the Refugee Health Quarterly, published by the Minnesota Department of Health reportsthat:
Minnesota had 150 cases of TB in 2015, compared to 147 cases in 2014 (a 2 percent increase). The most common risk factor for TB cases in Minnesota is being from a country where TB is common.
TB screening is offered to all refugees during the domestic refugee health exam.
In 2014, 22 percent of refugees screened tested positive for LTBI (latent tuberculosis infection).
26 percent of all foreign born cases of tuberculosis in Minnesota were from people born in Somalia. Somalians almost exclusively enter the state through the refugee resettlement program.
More than 70,000 refugees have been resettled in the United States annually for the past three decades by the federal government.Its not just tuberculosis being brought in by these resettled refugees. Measles, whooping cough, diptheria, and other diseases that were on their way to eradication are also coming in across the borders of the United States.
A recent outbreak of measles in Memphis, Tennessee, a center for refugee resettlement, began at a local mosque, as Breitbart News reported previously.
The alarming public health report from Minnesota comes on the heels of news from the Centers for Disease Control that in 2015, the incidence of tuberculosis in the United States increased.
Data from 2015 show that the number of TB cases has increased (by 1.7 percent) nationally [in the United States] for the first time in 23 years, with a total of 9,563 TB cases reported, the Minnesota Department of Health reports.
As the Star Tribune, Minnesotas largest daily newspaper, reports:
The CDC is still trying to determine the reason for the uptick.
The goal set by the CDC, in 1989, of eliminating TB by 2010 defined as less than one case in a million people remains elusive. Even if the trend of declining cases had continued, the United States would not have eliminated TB by the end of this century, the CDC said.
We are not yet certain why TB incidence has leveled off, but we do know it indicates the need for a new, expanded approach to TB elimination, said Dr. Philip LoBue, director of the CDCs Division of Tuberculosis Elimination, in an email.
A dual approach is needed: continue to find and treat cases of disease and evaluate their contacts, as well as identify and evaluate other high-risk persons for latent TB infection, he said.
There may be a positive correlation between the increase in the number of refugees resettled in the United States during this period and the sudden increase in the incidence of tuberculosis, a disease that many thought was on the path to eradication in the United States.
As the Centers for Disease Control report:
In 2014, a total of 66% of reported TB cases in the United States occurred among foreign-born persons. The case rate among foreign-born persons (15.4 cases per 100,000 persons) in 2014 was approximately 13 times higher than among U.S.-born persons (1.2 cases per 100,000 persons).
Today four states California, New York, Texas and Florida have more than half the nations active TB cases, though they have only a third of the countrys population. The four states have the highest numbers of foreign-born residents, according to the Star Tribune.
A person with latent tuberculosis is not infectious and does not have symptoms of the disease.A person with active tuberculosis is infectious and has symptoms of the disease.
Ten percent of those with latent tuberculosis develop active tuberculosis if not treated, according to the World Health Organization.
As the Star Tribune reports:
TB is an airborne infectious disease caused by bacteria that spreads through the air, person to person, when someone coughs or sneezes. One in three people worldwide have latent TB, according to the World Health Organization. In the United States, up to 13 million people have been exposed to TB and could develop the disease.
Every year, tuberculosis claims 1.5 million lives worldwide and 500 to 600 in this country.
Tuberculosis (TB) has surpassed HIV as the leading cause of death from infectious disease worldwide, the Minnesota Department of Health reports.
Tuberculosis is airborne and can be spread when a person active tuberculosis coughs, sneezes, or otherwise transmits the infection to a previously uninfected individual.
Treatment for tuberculosis is long and expensive. If caught early, it typically takes about nine months for a person with active tuberculosis to improve to latent tuberculosis. Not everyone diagnosed with active tuberculosis, however, improves. Mortality rates for those with active tuberculosis are much higher than health professionals would like, even in the United States.
According tothe Star Tribune:
Treating TB patients is labor intensive. To ensure that TB patients complete the course of drugs that lasts six months or longer, Directly Observed Therapy programs require a health care worker not a family member to watch patients with active TB swallow every dose. If a patient cannot get to a clinic, a health care worker goes to the persons home. The worker monitors patients for side effects and other problems.
Care also involves communication and cultural challenges. In Michigan, where the number of active TB cases rose from 105 in 2014 to 130 last year, the health department reaches out to Detroits large Arab and Bangladeshi populations. In other parts of the state, Burmese immigrants have different needs, said Peter Davidson, Michigan TB control manager.
Some local health departments have strong partnerships with translation services. Some rely on a less formal mechanism a private physician or someone on staff at the hospital who speaks the language, Davidson said.
The cost of treating an active TB case that is susceptible or responsive to drugs averages $17,000, according to the CDC. Care of patients with drug-resistant TB, which can result from taking antibiotics prescribed before TB was properly diagnosed, costs many times more: $134,000 for a multidrug-resistant patient and $430,000 for an extensively drug-resistant one.
Minnesota public health officials point to the high treatment rate of those refugees diagnosed with latent tuberculosis as a reason for optimism.
Eliminating TB in the U.S. will require increased attention to the diagnosis and treatment of latent TB infection (LTBI), the April 2016 Refugee Health Quarterly reports.Minnesotas LTBI treatment completion rate for refugees who start treatment is one of the highest in the nation at 86 percent in 2013, the report adds.
An alternative public health policyone that the United States used for decades in the latter part of the nineteenth century and early twentieth centuryis to test immigrants and refugees for infectious disease before they are allowed into the country.
In that earlier era, those who tested positive were sent home. Today, however, many are welcomed in and pose a risk of infecting the rest of the American population.
(Note: Valley News Live in Fargo, North Dakota was the first broadcast outlet to report on the 22 percent incidence of latent tuberculosis among refugees in Minnesota.)
Recently I wrote a list of Texas musicians I felt folks should try to see perform live while they still have the opportunity, and in many people"s minds the one glaring omission I made was Guy Clark. Now, Clark appears to be on a (hopefully) temporary hiatus from playing live shows, and has lived and written in Nashville since the "70s, but his contributions to music and especially to the strange tapestry of what could be called "Texas songwriting" is inestimable, so I have to admit I screwed up by leaving his name off of that list. That was a mistake as big as the Lone Star State, as any dedicated fan of country music or Texas folk can attest, and needs to be corrected now.
Clark was born in 1941 and raised in Monahans, a small town of about 6,000 people west of Odessa. His early years in west Texas, and encounters with people moving through or staying at the motel his grandmother owned, have provided career-long inspiration for his songs. In the late "60s, Clark was living in Houston and working his way around the local folk-music scene, where he met longtime friend and partner in crime Townes Van Zandt, and filled out his musical vocabulary watching musicians like Lightnin" Hopkins do their thing. During this period, Clark began writing songs and developing his own style of music, a uniquely Texan blending of folk and blues-infused country.
Eventually Clark headed west, like countless others following a dream, and found his way first to San Francisco. There he met and married his muse, a woman named Susanna, herself a gifted artist and songwriter. Before long, the couple moved south to Los Angeles for a short but tumultuous stay that inspired his classic song "L.A. Freeway." In the early "70s, the Clarks landed in Nashville, where Guy worked as a writer with several music-publishing companies before eventually being signed by RCA Records. In 1975, his first album,Old No. 1, was released, followed by Texas Cookin" in 1976, which cemented Clark"s status as one of the most promising writers creating a new breed of Texas-influenced country music.
Clark has always been considered a "songwriter"s songwriter," someone who has consistently crafted excellent songs that other performers fell in love with and often turned into hits. Over his long career, Clark penned songs that Jerry Jeff Walker, David Allen Coe, Johnny Cash, George Strait, Ricky Skaggs, and others turned into Billboard gold, but never quite turned into a country-music superstar himself. While he might never have emerged as a household name like some of the country music royalty who recorded his tunes, Clark still developed an enormous and well-deserved fanbase, and has been crucial to creating a unique type of serious country music, one rooted in emotional relevance instead of relying on corny boot-scootin" clichs or songs about loving one"s truck.
Clark is also a survivor in a quickly disappearing and irreplaceable generation of songsmiths a writer who brought a Texan sensibility to Nashville in the "70s, and who made an indelible mark on the music being created there. Clark was a hard-partying musician for decades, and while friends of his like Townes Van Zandt were ultimately destroyed by those excesses, Guy Clark is still around. His last album, My Favorite Picture of You, came out in 2013, filled with songs that are as good as anything he"s ever written. The especially moving title track is about his wife Susanna, whom Clark cared for during years of ill health before she succumbed to cancer in 2012. Unfortunately, Clark"s own health hasn"t been great recently, and as a result he hasn"t been able to tour. Hopefully that will change sometime in the near future.
When compiling my list of Texas living legends, I foolishly passed over Clark because he"s lived in Nashville for so long that it didn"t seem appropriate to include him. That was a grievous error, as his contributions to the music culture of this state are considerable, and his influence on the music of artists like Jerry Jeff Walker, Steve Earle, Lyle Lovett and others shouldn"t be underestimated. With that in mind: I apologize, Mr. Clark, and thank you very much for your music.
Here"s hoping you feel better soon. We"d all like a chance to see you play again.
Sinead O"Connor Missing | Police Searching for Singer
As unanswered questions continue to swirl surrounding the sudden death of Prince, a bombshell new allegation has come from an unexpected source: Irish singer Sinead OConnor posted a disturbing rant on her Facebook page this afternoon claiming Arsenio Hall was behind the iconic musicians death!
Two words for the DEA investigating where Prince got his drugs over the decades, she wrote in the outrageous post. Arsenio Hall
Anyone imagining Prince was not a long time hard drug user is living in cloud cuckoo land, she continued.
Arsenio Ive reported you to the Carver County Sheriffs office. Expect their call. They are aware you spiked me years ago at Eddie Murphys house. You best get tidying your man cave.
Reps for OConnor did not immediately respond to Radars request for comment, and neither did the Carver County Sheriffs.
This is just the latest in a series of troubling outbursts by the former music superstar. In October 2013, she wrote at least four open letters eviscerating Miley Cyrus.
PHOTOS: Shocking! Prince Spotted Just Four Days Before He Died
And in November 2015, she posted a troubling suicide threat on her Facebook page.
Her last post before the Prince rant claimed that she was fed up with getting spied on.
As Radar reported, Prince was found dead at the age of 57 on April 21 in his Paisley Park estate in Minnesota. Toxicology reports are still pending, and there is an open police investigationinto the circumstances surrounding his death.
PHOTOS: Peace At Last: Inside Music Icon Princes Wild Life
As The National ENQUIRER reported, he struggled with AIDS in the months before his passing.
UPDATE:
A rep for Hall told Radar, The statement regarding Arsenio Hall is absolutely false, ridiculous and absurd.
Apple Inc - AAPL Stock Chart Technical Analysis for 05-12-16
Google may have last week managed to overtake Apple as the worlds most valuable company for the second time this year, but as was the case last time, it didnt last long. AsPhilip Elmer-DeWitt noted in his blog, Apple has quickly regained its number one slot
The back-and-forth reflects Apples changing stock market fortunes as the market attempts to make sense of the recent decline in iPhone sales. Even noted billionaire investors seem uncertain which way to bet, Carl Icahn bailing out as Warren Buffet jumped in.
Quartz reporter and former WSJ finance writerMatt Phillips suggested that Buffetts move may, paradoxically, be because he thinks Apples days of rapid growth are over.
Berkshire Hathaways stake is actually just an acknowledgement of the direction Apple has been heading in for years under CEO Tim Cook. Since taking the helm in 2011, Cook has essentially been tasked with managing the transformation of Apple from a fast-growing company seemingly immune to the law of large numbers, to a more statelybut still incredibly profitablecorporate powerhouse that consistently showers shareholders with dividends and buybacks.
Now, Apple is joining the ranks of the high-quality, if somewhat sleepy, clutch of corporations Berkshire has owned for decades, including Coca-Cola and IBM. There are worse fates.
InvestorPlace agrees that Buffett enters stocks for the long run.
If youre a shareholder, theres definitely reason to cheer todays news. While Mr. Icahn is the stereotypical corporate raider swooping into a position, rabble-rousing and demanding changes, dividends and buybacks, and then selling out Buffett cares only about long-term investing.
HasAAPL become a boring blue-chip investment, or is there more big-time growth to come? Share your thoughts in the comments.
