Round One
Boner Candidate #1: SO, ONLY GAY HUMANS CAN CROSS THE STREET HERE?
Ames, Iowa, is only the latest city to be chided for pavement painted in pride colors, but some experts say the available research doesn’t support the Federal Highway Administration’s concerns. Ahead of an annual L.G.B.T.Q. festival in Ames, Iowa, members of the City Council decided to liven up a pedestrian crosswalk near the downtown shopping district by painting stripes in colors evoking the gay, nonbinary and transgender pride flags. “Who would have thought, 50 years ago, that a small town in central Iowa would be saying this: We see you, we hear you, we welcome you,” Reginald Stewart, vice president for diversity and inclusion at Iowa State University, said of the kaleidoscopic markings. But in early September, about a week after The Ames Tribune covered the cheerful ribbon-cutting ceremony, a letter arrived from the federal government: The motley intersection was a safety concern, it said, and a liability for the city.
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Boner Candidate #2: A “TROUBLING LOOPHOLE” IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT
A capital murder suspect in Texas had a court-ordered ankle monitor removed by the device’s operators because the company reportedly said he didn’t pay them a monitoring fee to wear the tracker. Clint Walker, 27, is accused of fatally shooting a man during a November 2016 robbery gone awry. Several months ago, Walker was released on a $100,000 surety bond and ordered to wear the GPS monitor, provided by a company called Guarding Public Safety. But Walker, according to KHOU, “failed to pay the company his monthly monitoring fee” that was reportedly a condition of his bond, and therefore the company removed the device — leaving authorities unable to track the murder suspect. Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said the company sent “a representative to physically remove his ankle monitor” on Sept. 19, and Walker wasn’t re-arrested until Oct. 2, according to jail records, which meant he was not monitored for a nearly two-week period.
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Boner Candidate #3: THAT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE A TREE.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said a woman arrested in February for the practice of unlicensed health care is now charged with attempting to hire someone to kill a witness in her case – her husband. Jesusadelaida “Jesse” Lopez, 40, has been in jail since Feb. 14, 2019. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said Lopez ran the “Drop It Like It’s Hot” weight loss clinic in Winter Haven. Detectives said Lopez performed medical procedures and portrayed herself as a registered nurse, even though she does not hold any medical degrees. Sheriff Grady Judd says Lopez is now facing a new charge of solicitation to commit first-degree murder, the victim being her husband Daniel Lopez. The investigation began August 2019 when the sheriff’s office started hearing that Jesse Lopez was making comments that she wanted her husband killed. The sheriff’s office orchestrated a scheme to get an undercover detective in contact with Lopez about her murder-for-hire wishes. During the investigation, the sheriff’s office said Lopez used the inmate account system to call the undercover detective and send him emails from jail. She also sent a letter to an undercover P.O. box. Within the messages and phone calls sent to the undercover detective, there was an instance where Lopez reportedly asked him to “remove a tree” from her house, and agreed to pay $2,000 for it. When asked for a picture of the tree, Lopez sent a picture of her husband.
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Round Two
Boner Candidate #1: I IT’S TRUE. YOU CAN’T BEAT MEAT.
A surprising new study challenged decades of nutrition advice and gave consumers the green light to eat more red and processed meat. But what the study didn’t say is that its lead author has past research ties to the meat and food industry. The new report, published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, stunned scientists and public health officials because it contradicted longstanding nutrition guidelines about limiting consumption of red and processed meats. The analysis, led by Bradley C. Johnston, an epidemiologist at Dalhousie University in Canada, and more than a dozen researchers concluded that warnings linking meat consumption to heart disease and cancer are not backed by strong scientific evidence. Several prominent nutrition scientists and health organizations criticized the study’s methods and findings. But Dr. Johnston and his colleagues defended the work, saying it relied on the highest standards of scientific evidence, and noted that the large team of investigators reported no conflicts of interest and conducted the review without outside funding. Dr. Johnston also indicated on a disclosure form that he did not have any conflicts of interest to report during the past three years. But as recently as December 2016 he was the senior author on a similar study that tried to discredit international health guidelines advising people to eat less sugar. That study, which also appeared in the Annals of Internal Medicine, was paid for by the International Life Sciences Institute, or ILSI, an industry trade group largely supported by agribusiness, food and pharmaceutical companies and whose members have included McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Cargill, one of the largest beef processors in North America. The industry group, founded by a top Coca-Cola executive four decades ago, has long been accused by the World Health Organization and others of trying to undermine public health recommendations to advance the interests of its corporate members.
Boner Candidate #2: LET’S GET THE BABY A LITTLE TOUPEE
A California mom left her baby daughter in the care of the child’s father so she could get some much-need sleep. Jasmin Aileen Valero didn’t expect to wake up to find her daughter’s head had been shaved. Footage of Valero’s shocked reaction to finding out baby Jazlyn was now bald went viral on Twitter. The video shows her gasping in disbelief while Jazlyn’s dad, Joshua Luevanoz, chuckles away. Valero captioned her tweet, “The one time I ask him to watch her so I can sleep in.” She later said, “In many Mexican families it is tradition to cut babies’ hair at a young age so their hair can grow thicker and nicer.” Valero said she and Jazlyn’s father agreed they weren’t going to do that … until the day she was woken up with that surprise. On the bright side, Jazlyn seems unfazed by the haircut. “Always such a happy baby,” Valero said.
Boner Candidate #3: WE’RE GONNA HAVE TO POSTPONE THE WEDDING.
A Texas man is accused of robbing a bank because he couldn’t pay for his wedding. Heath Bumpous turned himself in on Friday, about two hours after he robbed the Citizens State Bank in Groveton, Texas — and a day before he was set to get married, according to Trinity County Sheriff Woody Wallace. The bank is only about 500 feet away from the sheriff’s office in the small town north of Houston. “He basically stated that he was getting married tomorrow so he didn’t have enough money for a wedding ring that he wanted to buy and he needed to pay for the wedding venue,” Wallace said in a video message posted Friday on Facebook. Wallace said that Bumpous went into the bank and “demanded money and indicated that he had a weapon.” He was able to get away with an undisclosed amount of money, Wallace said. The sheriff’s office posted pictures from the bank’s surveillance video and a description of his vehicle on social media to see if the public could identify the suspect.
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