Author: Henry

An Arizona woman says she felt “helpless and violated” after a police officer entered her home and handcuffed her while she was wearing only a towel, in an incident that was captured on video and shared online. Elmerelda Rossi of Chandler, Arizona, had been in the shower when two local police officers arrived at her home in response to a reported domestic disturbance involving her estranged husband. By the time officers reached the property, the disagreement had already subsided. Her teenage daughter answered the door while Rossi was still showering. After her daughter informed her that police were at the…

A synthetic stimulant that can be purchased for as little as five dollars and remains legal across much of the United States is being linked to a wave of violent and erratic incidents, with cases rising by nearly 780% in just three years. The drug, known as flakka — or “gravel” in parts of Ohio and Texas, where it resembles the coloured pebbles used in fish tanks — belongs to the same chemical family as bath salts, the synthetic drug that made international headlines several years ago for causing extreme and sometimes fatal behavioural episodes. The key difference is that…

A person’s eye colour could one day help doctors assess their risk of developing alcohol dependency, according to new research that has found a statistically significant link between light-coloured eyes and alcoholism. The study, carried out by scientists at the University of Vermont and published in the American Journal of Medical Genetics, followed 1,263 European Americans and found that those with light eyes — including blue, grey and green — were more likely to show signs of alcohol dependency than those with darker eyes. Among the light-eyed participants, those with blue eyes recorded the highest rates of dependency. The finding…

Federal figures charting nearly two decades of deaths found rates rising among girls and young women while falling among their male peers — a gap that later surveys show persisting in a different form Suicide rates among girls and young women in the United States climbed over an 18-year period while rates among boys and young men fell, according to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency’s report examined people aged 10 to 24 and compared figures from 1994 through to 2012. It found the female rate rose from 2.7 to 3.2 per 100,000, while…

A senior Republican congressman has warned his party may have no choice but to seek Democratic support to elect the next House Speaker, following Kevin McCarthy’s sudden and unexpected decision to withdraw from the race. McCarthy’s exit blindsided colleagues and threw the House into uncertainty, with no clear successor immediately emerging. In the moments after the announcement, Pennsylvania Republican Charlie Dent told CNN the situation had fundamentally changed the political landscape inside the chamber. Dent argued that whoever takes the speakership must not be a candidate who wins the role by making concessions to the most hardline members of the…