Gooding Jr. could owe millions after ignoring rape lawsuit

NEW YORK – Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. could be on the hook for millions of dollars in damages after failing to respond to a lawsuit that accused him of raping a woman in New York City in 2013.

U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty issued a default judgment against Gooding on Thursday, saying it appeared the Oscar-winning “Jerry Maguire” star was willfully ignoring the lawsuit and that waiting for him any longer would be unfair to his accuser.

Judge Crotty said that under the law, the 53-year-old Gooding’s failure to respond and defend himself in the lawsuit constituted an admission of liability.

The judge gave Gooding a final deadline of Sept. 7 to participate in the case. After that, the judge said, he’ll decide on damages.

The plaintiff in the lawsuit, identified in court papers as Jane Doe, alleged Gooding raped her without protection after meeting her at a Greenwich Village VIP lounge and luring her to his hotel room under false pretenses.

She is seeking $6 million in damages.

No lawyer was listed for Gooding in the federal court docket. A message seeking comment was left with his lawyer in his New York City criminal case.

Attorney Mark Heller, who represent Gooding in the criminal case, said the events alleged in the lawsuit “never took place” and suggested the plaintiff was somebody “looking for some glory to bask in the publicity and notoriety of Cuba Gooding Jr.’s case.”

Citing case law, Crotty said in his order Thursday that he will invite both sides to argue over damages in court before deciding what Gooding owes.

The accuser originally sued Gooding in August 2020. The case was dismissed and then quickly reopened in March over a technical issue. Gooding was served with court papers April 22 and failed to respond to an initial May 13 deadline, Crotty said in his order.

In his criminal case, being tried in state court in New York, Gooding is accused of violating three different women at three different Manhattan night spots in 2018 and 2019. One of the women alleged Gooding pinched her buttocks. Another said he squeezed her breast.

Gooding has pleaded not guilty. An Oct. 18 hearing is scheduled to set a trial date.

Olympic champ Biles withdraws from all-around competition

TOKYO (AP) — Simone Biles will not defend her Olympic title.

The American gymnastics superstar withdrew from Thursday’s all-around competition to focus on her mental well-being.

USA Gymnastics said in a statement on Wednesday that the 24-year-old is opting to not compete. The decision comes a day after Biles removed herself from the team final following one rotation because she felt she wasn’t mentally ready.

Jade Carey, who finished ninth in qualifying, will take Biles’ place in the all-around. Carey initially did not qualify because she was the third-ranking American behind Biles and Sunisa Lee. International Gymnastics Federation rules limit countries to two athletes per event in the finals.

The organization said Biles will be evaluated daily before deciding if she will participate in next week’s individual events. Biles qualified for the finals on all four apparatuses, something she didn’t even do during her five-medal haul in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.

The 24-year-old came to Tokyo as arguably the face of the Games following the retirement of swimmer Michael Phelps and sprinter Usain Bolt. She topped qualifying on Sunday despite piling up mandatory deductions on vault, floor and beam following shaky dismounts.

She posted on social media on Monday that she felt the weight of the world on her shoulders. The weight became too heavy after vaulting during team finals. She lost herself in mid-air and completed 1 1/2 twists instead of 2 1/2. She consulted with U.S. team doctor Marcia Faustin before walking off the field of play.

When she returned, she took off her bar grips, hugged teammates Sunisa Lee, Grace McCallum and Jordan Chiles and turned into the team’s head cheerleader as the U.S. claimed silver behind the Russian Olympic Committee.

“Once I came out here (to compete), I was like, ‘No mental is, not there so I just need to let the girls do it and focus on myself,’” Biles said following the medal ceremony.

The decision opens the door wide open for the all-around, a title that was long considered a foregone conclusion. Rebeca Andrade of Brazil finished second to Biles during qualifying, followed by Lee and Russians Angelina Melnikova and Vladislava Urazova. The four were separated by three-tenths of a point on Sunday.

Carey now finds herself in the final, capping a remarkable journey for the 21-year-old from Phoenix. She spent two years traveling the globe in an effort to pile up enough points on the World Cup circuit to earn an individual nominative spot, meaning she would be in the Olympics but technically not be part of the four-woman U.S. team.

Carey posted the second-best score on vault and the third-best on floor during qualifying, earning trips to the event finals in the process. Now she finds herself competing for an all-around medal while replacing the athlete considered the greatest of all-time in the sport.

Olympic champ Simone Biles injured, out of team finals

TOKYO (AP) — Reigning Olympic gymnastics champion Simone Biles is out of the team finals after apparently sustaining an injury during the vault.

The 24-year-old U.S. star, considered to be the greatest gymnast of all time, huddled with a trainer after landing her vault. She then exited the competition floor with the team doctor.

Biles returned several minutes later. She took off her bar grips, hugged teammates Grace McCallum, Sunisa Lee and Jordan Chiles before putting on a jacket and sweatpants.

The Americans will be forced to finish the rest of the competition without her, severely hampering their bid to claim a third straight Olympic title.

The U.S. began finals on vault, with Biles going last. She was supposed to do an “Amanar,” a vault that begins with a roundoff back handspring onto the table followed by 2 1/2 twists. She seemed to change her mind in mid-air, doing just 1 1/2 twist instead.

She walked off the podium and was tended to by team doctor Marcia Faustin before making her way out of the arena.

Biles arrived in Tokyo as the unquestioned star of the Games but struggled, at least by her high standards, during qualifying. In a social media post on Monday, she admitted she felt like the weight of the world was on her shoulders and that the Olympics “were no joke.”

Biles won five medals in Rio de Janeiro five years ago and had a chance to actually top that after advancing to all five finals. It remains to be seen whether she will be available for the all-around final on Thursday night and the event finals later in the Games.

After two rotations, the United States trails ROC 2.5 points.

US ships 22M vaccine doses to other countries

WASHINGTON – White House press secretary Jen Psaki says the United States has shipped 22 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine to other countries this week.

The total was a weekly record as vaccines went to 23 countries. Psaki says the recipients included Pakistan, Vietnam, Guatemala, Panama, Senegal, Cameroon and Morocco, among other nations. By this weekend, roughly 80 million doses in total will have shipped from the United States to other countries.

Psaki stressed at Friday’s White House news briefing that the United States is “donating more to the world than any other country.” Still, there is a global vaccine gap between wealthier nations and poorer ones, a reflection of the economic might of American and European countries as well as the pressure to address the needs of domestic populations.

Search for bodies concludes at Florida condo collapse site

MIAMI – Firefighters on Friday declared the end of their search for bodies at the site of a collapsed Florida condo building, concluding a month of painstaking work removing layers of dangerous debris that were once piled several stories high.

The June 24 collapse at the oceanside Champlain Towers South killed 97 people, with at least one more missing person yet to be identified. The site has been mostly swept flat and the rubble moved to a Miami warehouse. Although forensic scientists are still at work, including examining the debris at the warehouse, there are no more bodies to be found where the building once stood.

Except during the early hours after the collapse, survivors never emerged. Search teams spent weeks battling the hazards of the rubble, including an unstable portion of the building that teetered above, a recurring fire and Florida’s stifling summer heat and thunderstorms. They went through more than 14,000 tons (13,000 metric tonnes) of broken concrete and rebar, often working boulder by bounder, rock by rock, before finally declaring the mission complete.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue’s urban search-and-rescue team pulled away from the site Friday in a convoy of firetrucks and other vehicles, slowly driving to their headquarters for a news conference to announce that the search was officially over.

At a ceremony, Fire Chief Alan Cominsky saluted the firefighters who worked 12-hour shifts while camping out at the site.

“It’s obviously devastating. It’s obviously a difficult situation across the board,” Cominsky said. “I couldn’t be prouder of the men and women that represent Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.”

Officials have declined to clarify whether they have one additional set of human remains in hand that pathologists are struggling to identify or whether a search for that final set of remains continues.

If found, Estelle Hedaya would bring the death toll to 98.

Hedaya was an outgoing 54-year-old who loved to travel and was fond of striking up conversations with strangers. Her younger brother Ikey has given DNA samples and visited the site twice to see the search efforts for himself.

“As we enter month two alone, without any other families, we feel helpless,” he told The Associated Press on Friday. He said he gets frequent updates from the medical examiner’s office.

Leah Sutton, who knew Hedaya since birth and considered herself a second mother to her, is worried that she will be forgotten.

“They seem to be packing up and congratulating everyone on a job well done. And yes, they deserve all the accolades, but after they find Estelle.”

The dead included members of the area’s large Orthodox Jewish community, the sister of Paraguay’s first lady, her family and their nanny, as well as a local salesman, his wife and their two young daughters.

The collapse fueled a race to inspect other aging residential towers in Florida and beyond, and it raised broader questions about the nation’s regulations governing condominium associations and building safety.

Shortly after the disaster, it became clear that warnings about Champlain Towers South, which opened in 1981, had gone unheeded. A 2018 engineering report detailed cracked and degraded concrete support beams in the underground parking garage and other problems that would cost nearly $10 million to fix.

The repairs did not happen, and the estimate grew to $15 million this year as the owners of the building’s 136 units and its governing condo board squabbled over the cost, especially after a Surfside town inspector told them the building was safe.

A complete collapse was all but impossible to imagine. As many officials said in the catastrophe’s first days, buildings of that size do not just collapse in the U.S. outside of a terrorist attack. Even tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes rarely bring them down.

The ultimate fate of the property where the building once stood has yet to be determined. A judge presiding over several lawsuits filed in the collapse aftermath wants the property sold at market rates, which would bring in an estimated $100 million or more. Some condo owners want to rebuild, and others say a memorial should be erected to remember the dead.

“All options are on the table,” Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman said this week at a hearing.

The disaster was one of the nation’s deadliest engineering failures. A set of overhead walkways collapsed at a Kansas City hotel in 1981, killing 114 people attending a dance. But that wasn’t the structure itself. A Washington, D.C., movie theater collapsed in 1922, killing 98. But that came after a blizzard dumped feet of snow on the flat roof.

In the weeks after the collapse, a 28-story courthouse in downtown Miami, built in 1928, and two apartment buildings were closed after inspectors uncovered structural problems. They will remain shut until repairs are made.

The first calls to 911 came at about 1:20 a.m., when Champlain residents reported that the parking garage had collapsed. A woman standing on her balcony called her husband, who was on a business trip, and said the swimming pool had fallen into the garage.

Then, in an instant, a section of the L-shaped building fell straight down. Eight seconds later, another section followed, leaving 35 people alive in the standing portion. In the initial hours, a teen was rescued, and firefighters believed others might be found alive. They took hope from noises emanating from inside the pile that might have been survivors tapping, but in retrospect the sounds came from shifting debris.

Rescue crews worked tirelessly, even when smoke and heat from a fire inside the building’s standing portion hampered their efforts. They persisted when the temperatures pushed into the upper 90s (35 Celsius) under the blazing sun, some toiling until they needed IVs to replenish fluids. They carried on when Tropical Storm Elsa passed nearby and dumped torrential rain. They left the pile only when lightning developed.

The portion of the building that remained standing posed another grave threat as it loomed precariously above the workers. Authorities ordered it demolished on July 4.

In the end, crews found no evidence that anyone who was found dead had survived the initial collapse, Cominsky said.

Federal judges block transgender restrictions in 2 states

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – Federal judges on Wednesday temporarily blocked an Arkansas law banning gender confirming treatments for transgender youth and a West Virginia ban on trans athletes in women’s sports, two major victories for LGBTQ advocates against a wave of restrictions approved by Republican legislators.

The ruling in Arkansas prevents the state from enforcing the law that made it the first state to forbid doctors from providing gender confirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or sex reassignment surgery to anyone under 18 years old. The law, which was to take effect July 28, also banned doctors from referring the minors to other providers for such treatment.

U.S. District Judge Jay Moody found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed with their challenge and that allowing it to be enforced would hurt transgender youth currently receiving the treatments.

“To pull this care midstream from these patients, or minors, would cause irreparable harm,” Moody said.

The laws were among several restrictions on transgender people’s rights that were enacted in Republican states this year. Tennessee’s governor in May signed a ban on gender confirming treatments similar to Arkansas’. West Virginia was among at least seven states that approved restrictions on transgender athletes.

Moody’s ruling came the same day a federal judge issued an injunction preventing West Virginia from enforcing its transgender athletes restriction on an 11-year-old trans girl who had hoped to compete in middle school cross country.

Becky Pepper-Jackson said she comes from a family of runners and simply wants to compete with her classmates.

“I am excited to know that I will be able to try out for the girls’ cross-country team and follow in the running shoes of my family,” she said in a statement released later Wednesday by the LGBTQ interest group Lambda Legal. “It hurt that the State of West Virginia would try to block me from pursuing my dreams. I just want to play.”

The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal filed the West Virginia lawsuit on behalf of Pepper-Jackson. The ACLU had sued Arkansas over its treatment ban on behalf of four transgender youths and their families, as well as two doctors who provide gender confirming treatments.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin said in his order that it was in the public interest to uphold the girl’s constitutional right to not be treated differently than her peers “because any harm to (her) personal rights is a harm to the share of American rights that we all hold collectively.”

West Virginia’s law, signed by Republican Gov. Jim Justice in April, prohibits transgender athletes from competing in female sports in middle and high schools and colleges. A spokeswoman for the state Department of Education did not immediately response to an email requesting comment on the ruling.

The U.S. Justice Department last month criticized both states’ bans as unconstitutional, filing statements of interest siding with challengers to the restrictions. The DOJ said the laws in both states violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. It also said the West Virginia law violates Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity receiving federal funds.

The ACLU argued that Arkansas’ prohibition would severely harm transgender youth in the state and violate their constitutional rights.

“This ruling sends a clear message to states across the country that gender affirming care is life-saving care, and we won’t let politicians in Arkansas – or anywhere else – take it away,” said Holly Dickson, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas.

An attorney for the ACLU had said the ban was forcing some families to consider uprooting from their homes to move to other states where the care was legal.

“This care has given me confidence that I didn’t know I had,” Dylan Brandt, a 15-year-old transgender boy from Greenwood who is one of the plaintiffs, said at at a news conference after the ruling.

Arkansas’ Republican-dominated Legislature overrode GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto of the measure. Hutchinson vetoed the ban following pleas from pediatricians, social workers and the parents of transgender youths who said it would harm a community already at risk for depression and suicide.

Hutchinson said the ruling indicates the law will be struck down for the same reason he vetoed it.

“The act was too extreme and did not provide any relief for those young people currently undergoing hormone treatment with the consent of their parents and under the care of a physician,” Hutchinson said in a statement. “If the act would have been more limited, such as prohibiting sex reassignment surgery for those under 18, then I suspect the outcome would have been different.”

There are currently no doctors in Arkansas who perform such surgeries on minors.

Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, a Republican, said she planned to appeal the decision.

“I will aggressively defend Arkansas’s law, which strongly limits permanent, life-altering sex changes to adolescents,” Rutledge said. “I will not sit idly by while radical groups such as the ACLU use our children as pawns for their own social agenda.”

Moody issued the ruling shortly after hearing arguments from the law’s opponents and the state for about an hour and a half.

The judge appeared skeptical of the state’s argument that the ban was targeting the procedure, not transgender people. For example, he questioned why a minor born as a male should be allowed to receive testosterone but not one who was born female

“How do you justify giving that to one sex but not the other and not call that sex discrimination?” Moody asked.

Arkansas argued that the state has a legitimate interest in banning the procedures for minors. Republican attorneys general from 17 states asked Moody to uphold the ban.

Several major medical groups, including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, filed a brief with the court challenging Arkansas’ ban. The state Chamber of Commerce and the Walton Family Foundation, which was founded by relatives of Arkansas-based Walmart’s founder, also asked the court to block the ban.

News to Know (07/20/2021)

Van Horn, Tx- The world’s richest man is slated to leave the planet this morning. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will ride an unpiloted rocket to the edge of space along with his brother and two others. They’re scheduled to blast off from a launch pad in west Texas at 9 a.m. Eastern time.

Pittsburg, Ks- Police arrest a man after a stabbing in Pittsburg. It happened Sunday, July 18, in the 400 block of West 6th Street. Authorities say a 40-year-old man suffered multiple stab wounds to the face and abdomen. After investigating, they identified 50-year-old Jose Flores-Velez as a suspect and arrested him later on Sunday. They are holding him without bond and requesting a charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

Joplin, Mo- Authorities are looking for a person caught on surveillance robbing a Joplin bank with a weapon. Police say it happened Monday afternoon at the great southern bank at 1232 South Rangeline. According to police, the robber entered the bank, demanded money while displaying a weapon, then fled with an undisclosed amount of cash. The Joplin Police Department and FBI are investigating. Great Southern Bank is offering a 35-hundred dollar reward for the identity, arrest, and conviction of the robber.

Joplin, Mo- The Joplin City Council finalized a contract for the 32nd Street widening project and approved another one on first reading. Earlier this month the council started the approval process for an eight-point-six million dollar contract to fund the widening project from Shifferdecker to Central City Road. Monday, July 20, they finalized that agreement with Emery Sapp and Sons, Inc. They also approved on first reading a 520-thousand dollar contract for construction phase engineering services for the project. Since this was only the first reading for the new contract, it will have to be approved again on second and third readings.

News To Know (07/19/2021)

Atlanta, Ga- New covid-19 cases have spiked almost 70 percent in the U.S. over the past week, while 8 states are seeing rapidly rising infections. A new CBS news poll shows that a majority of Americans are worried about the more contagious Delta Variant.  It’s the fully vaccinated who are more concerned than the unvaccinated.

Joplin, Mo- Authorities say they’ve identified a body found Friday, July 16, evening in Shoal Creek in Joplin. The Joplin Police Department says it was 46-year-old, Brandon Vickers, of Joplin, Missouri. Saturday rescue crews from Joplin, Neosho and Redings Mill recover Vickers body from Shoal Creek near McIndoe Park after kayakers spotted the body around 5:30 Friday evening. Officials say detectives are conducting an active death investigation.

Oswego, Ks- 4-State summer rains can sometimes result in flooded parks, and that was certainly the case for our friends in Oswego, Kansas over the weekend.  The situation at Danny Elliot Park, but that didn’t keep a handful of people from coming down and checking out the watery scene. One park visitor who brought his son to see the water in their usual play area , he tells KOAM that he estimates, the Danny Elliot Park floods like this two or three times per summer.

Neosho, Mo- The City of Neosho announced Sunday, July 18 that there will be two road closures in town starting today. Hill Street will be closed to all traffic from Neosho Boulevard to Oak Ridge Drive. This is to allow work to be done to realign the street for the new construction of the Neosho school district’s performing arts center. Sherman Street will also be closed from Oak Ridge Drive to Highland Place, it will be open only to residents. These streets will be closed until further notice.

News to Know (07/16/2021)

Albany, NY- New York, Governor, Andrew Cuomo is expected to be questioned on Saturday in connection with the probe into allegations of sexual harassments and misconduct against him. That’s according to a source familiar with the New York attorney general’s investigation into the Governor. Cuomo also faces an impeachment inquiry in the state assembly.

Airport Drive, Mo- Jasper County authorities are searching for two suspects in connection with a shooting in Airport Drive.
the Sheriff’s Department says witnesses reported hearing gunshots in the parking lot of Harps Grocery Store around 1:35 p.m. Thursday. Investigators say they found evidence in the parking lot of a possible shooting including evidence of quote “possible injuries”. Authorities say they’ve located the victims, a 22-year-old Webb City, woman and a 33-year-old man from California. The Jasper County Sheriff’s office released a description of the possible suspects. Police say the driver was a black man, driving a dark red Kia SUV, his passenger, another suspect, is a black man with four braids in his hair and neck tattoos.

Monett, Mo- a Monett Missouri man is dead following a Zero Turn lawn mower crash Thursday evening. According to the Missouri Highway Patrol 72-year-old Raymond Haddock lost control of the lawn mower and overturned into a creek. Haddock was pronounced dead at the scene.

Joplin, Mo- An uptick in Missouri Covid-19 cases has led to a bigger push to get vaccinated. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services labels several Southwest Missouri areas as Covid-19 hotspots, including Joplin and Jasper and Newton Counties. The Jordan Valley Community Health Center held a vaccination clinic in Joplin to help reach those still hesitant about getting their shot. They say by doing outreach with their mobile vaccine unit, they hope to see more of Missouri’s population vaccinated.

 

News to Know (07/15/2021)

Western, U.S- Thousands of Firefighters are battling dozens of wildfires across large parts of the Western U.S. More than a million acres of land have burned in about a dozen states. That as U.S. Fire officials report a shortage of jet fuel that could ground some planes used to drop retardant on fires.

Joplin, Mo- Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations are on the rise in the 4-state area, and it’s a major cause for concern for Joplin’s Freeman Coronavirus Team. Freeman Cardiologist Robert Stauffer is trying to convince the unvaccinated public to get their shots and addressed the media, saying vaccines are the only way for the 4-state area to truly overcome the Pandemic. Joplin’s Mayor tells us that city government is listening to the local medical community, and is not currently discussing bringing back Covid-19 restrictions. He and other members of city leadership believe focusing on getting the community vaccinated is the best way to beat the virus.

Jefferson City, Mo- Missouri Governor Mike Parson has signed bills that would increase police accountability, limit the use of officer chokeholds and, critics say, shield police while ramping up penalties for protesters. One measure puts limits on investigations of officers and provides protection against civil claims unless the officer is criminally convicted. The other bans police use of chokeholds.

Joplin, Mo- The City of Joplin is performing a structural analysis on a parking structure on East 6th Street, between Main and Virginia Avenue. The analysis comes after pieces of the structure’s ramp fell off when a forklift drove over it. That section of the street is closed off while the work is completed. Crews are currently using a non-destructive method of testing, x-raying the underlying structural steel. Renovations are expected to take place in the winter.