I'm not going to spend too long in one:
"Teens remain at risk from tanning fad; Salon use drops, but not all heed cancer warnings" by Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times January 11, 2015
TEQUESTA, Fla. — On their way home from an SAT tutoring session, the Van Dresser twins, Alexandra and Samantha, 17, popped into Tan Fever & Spa, a salon tucked into a strip mall between a bar and a supermarket. They wanted to get a tan before the prom, and 20 minutes in a tanning bed cost just $7. “It’s the quickness of the tanning bed,” Alexandra said. “We don’t have time to lay out on a beach.”
Indoor tanning remains a persistent part of American adolescence, popular all year but especially in winter, when bodies are palest. A review of the scientific evidence published last year estimated that tanning beds account for as many as 400,000 cases of skin cancer in the United States each year, including 6,000 cases of melanoma, the deadliest form.
Clinicians are concerned about the rate of melanoma in women younger than 40, which has risen by a third since the early 1990s, according to data from the National Cancer Institute. (Death rates have not gone up, a testament to earlier detection and better treatment.)
As such worrying signs have accumulated, tanning has emerged as a serious public health concern.
I'm done sitting in it.
Last year, the surgeon general called on Americans to reduce their exposure to the sun and tanning beds to prevent skin cancer, and the Food and Drug Administration invoked its most serious risk warning, putting tanning beds into the category of potentially harmful medical devices.
At least the FDA is looking out for you.
The Obama administration’s 2010 health care law imposed a little-noticed 10 percent tax on tanning salons.
I'm sure the kids will love finding that out.
More than 40 states now have some sort of restriction on the use of tanning salons by minors, according to AIM at Melanoma, an advocacy and research group based in California, the first state to adopt a ban on use by minors in 2011.
For the first time, new federal data has documented a decline in the use of indoor tanning among teenage girls, dropping to about a fifth of them in 2013, from a quarter in 2009. Gery P. Guy Jr., a researcher with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who analyzed the data, which was released in December, attributed the decline to greater awareness and tougher laws.
Even so, public health experts say tanning remains a persistent problem, especially among white teenage girls, a full third of whom say they have tanned indoors, more than the share who smoke cigarettes.
I blame the ma$$ media sexualization campaigns to sell beauty products, etc, etc.
There were about 14,000 salons across the country as of early 2014, according to John Overstreet, executive director of the Indoor Tanning Association. The number is down about a fifth in recent years, he said, because of the recession and the new tax.
Overstreet argues that there is no science that conclusively links moderate, nonburning ultraviolet ray exposure to melanoma.
“The folks who don’t like this industry are exaggerating the risks,” he said. “It’s just like anything in life. If you get too much of it, it’s bad for you.”
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Also see:
Miami judge weds gays and lesbians after ruling against ban
Gay couples flocking to Florida for weddings
‘‘It's a different world’’ now.
Good thing they can't have kids:
"Fla. man throws daughter, 5, off bridge" Associated Press January 09, 2015
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Just 12 hours before police said John Jonchuck threw his 5-year-old daughter off a bridge, the father calmly told a sheriff’s deputy he was happy, did not want to hurt himself or his little girl, and had ‘‘new clarity in his life.’’
The officer had made a point of interviewing Jonchuck in person because Jonchuck’s lawyer frantically called 911 to report that he was acting strange. The lawyer, Genevieve Torres, said Jonchuck had called her ‘‘God’’ and asked her to translate a Bible in Swedish when they met Wednesday to talk about Jonchuck’s custody case for his daughter, Phoebe. Yet, when police talked to Jonchuck, everything appeared OK.
Then police encountered Jonchuck again shortly after midnight Wednesday. He was going about 100 miles per hour toward the Sunshine Skyway bridge. By the time an officer caught up with him, Jonchuck had pulled over on the approach span to the bridge.
Jonchuck got out, and started toward the officer, who pulled his weapon. Jonchuck grabbed Phoebe from the back seat and ‘‘held her face to his chest’’ as he carried her to the railing, St. Petersburg police Chief Anthony Holloway said.
It was not clear whether Phoebe was alive when Jonchuck threw her into Tampa Bay about 60 feet below.
Phoebe’s body was recovered about a mile from the bridge about two hours later....
Before her death, Jonchuck and Phoebe had an odd encounter with his attorney. Torres told the 911 dispatcher that she had asked Jonchuck whether he wanted her to file paperwork in his custody case.
‘‘It’s not going to matter anymore,’’ she recalled him saying.
Honestly, I feel that way about so much of what I read in the Globe these days.
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Good thing she didn't grow up:
"Police: Young sisters charged in brother’s fatal shooting" by Jason Dearen, Associated Press January 08, 2015
WHITE SPRINGS, Fla. — A 15-year-old girl who fatally shot her 16-year-old brother suffered years of abuse, including being locked in a room for weeks at a time with only a blanket and a bucket to use the bathroom, according to police reports and interviews.
The shooting at a small white house off a dirt road in rural north Florida happened Monday while the children’s parents were away for work. The father, a truck driver, and his wife, who often goes with him, left the 16-year-old boy to watch over the 15-year-old, her 11-year-old sister, and their 3-year-old sister, police said. The parents left Sunday and were due back Tuesday.
Sometime Monday, the 15-year-old girl was locked in her room by her brother, police said. After the boy fell asleep, she talked her 11-year-old sister into unlocking her door.
The older girl knew her parents kept a pistol in their room, but they had locked their door. So the girl went outside and used a knife to remove an air conditioner from her parents’ bedroom window. She climbed in while her 11-year-old sister kept watch and grabbed the gun out of a pink bag and loaded it, police said.
The girl went back inside the house, telling her young sisters to get in the closet, she told police. She turned her head and fired at her sleeping brother in the living room, and he screamed ‘‘Help! Help!’’
She fled with her 11-year-old sister, leaving the 3-year-old behind, police said.
‘‘It’s hard for us to get our arms around this act,’’ Columbia County Sheriff Mark Hunter said.
The girls are being held in juvenile detention on suspicion of murder, and a prosecutor is trying to decide whether they will be charged as adults. Their parents face charges of child neglect and failing to supervise.
The 3-year-old is in the custody of child welfare officials.
Police documents released Wednesday said the girl’s uncle was convicted of molesting her in 2010.
Because of the girls’ ages and abuse allegations, the Associated Press is not naming the girls, their brother, or the parents.
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Good thing he didn't grow up:
"Man gets 77 months in hazing death at Florida A&M" Associated Press January 10, 2015
ORLANDO — A former Florida A&M University band member was sentenced Friday to more than six years in prison for manslaughter and felony hazing in the death of a drum major, making him the first to receive prison time in the case.
Dante Martin received 77 months, but prosecutors wanted nine years in the beating death of 26-year-old Robert Champion during a brutal hazing ritual in November 2011.
Judge Renee Roche said she chose to deviate from the recommended sentencing guideline for Martin because she believed it had been demonstrated that Champion had been a ‘‘willing participant’’ in the ritual.
Champion’s parents said afterward that they wanted to see a stiffer sentence to deter the hazing they called a quiet part of the FAMU’s famed Marching 100 band for decades. The Champions also took issue with the contention that their son consented to be hazed.
‘‘If people are not held accountable for what they are doing, then what is the system about?’’ Pam Champion said.
For show and jobs?
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I'm no longer championing that cause.
Also see: Three from Mass. hurt in fatal Fla. car crash
The people in Florida are f***ed up; at least, that's what the Globe seems to be inferring based on its choices of articles.
