Emily Shugerman

The convicted felon whose time on the run ended with his prison-guard girlfriend shooting herself in the head on Monday night was distraught by the death of his lover, his mother said. Casey White, 38, escaped jail with former assistant director of corrections Vicki White late last month. The two spent 11 days together on the run from authorities until a police chase ended with Vicki fatally shooting herself. White’s mother, Connie Moore, told the Daily Mail that her son was deeply in love with the prison guard, with whom he had a secret phone relationship for at least two years, […]

A 22-year-old woman claims her conservative Christian college disciplined her for allegedly having premarital sex after she reported her sexual assault. Former Visible Music College student Mara Louk filed a complaint with the Department of Education on Wednesday, claiming the school refused to remove her alleged assailant from her classes or even investigate the alleged rape, according to NBC News. The complaint claims Louk was assaulted by a fellow student at her off-campus apartment on Nov. 2, 2021. Louk says she reported the assault to an administrator the next day and filed a report with Memphis police on Nov. 4. A […]

An Alabama corrections officer of 25 years disappeared Friday with an inmate charged with capital murder. Assistant Director of Corrections Vicki White left the Lauderdale County Jail jail at 9:41am Friday with inmate Casey White, Sheriff Rick Singleton told reporters at a press conference. (The two Whites are not related.) The officer told jail officials she was escorting White to a mental health evaluation at the courthouse, Singleton said. No such evaluation was ever scheduled. Singleton said Vicki White dropped the inmate off at the courthouse and told a booking officer she was going to seek medical attention. When the officer […]

MIAMI BEACH—The thing about Bitcoin, the man at the back of the convention center wanted me to know, was that once you understood it, it changed everything. It seeped into every aspect of your life: personal, political, financial. Bitcoin was freedom, he said; it had the power to literally end all war. And that’s why he was here, at Bitcoin 2022—the largest Bitcoin event in the world—trying to spread the gospel through women’s panties. “Once you get into Bitcoin, there is no way back,” the man, whose name was Pablo, said over piles of women’s underwear emblazoned with the cryptocurrency’s logo. […]

MIAMI—It’s 2 a.m. and a group of four men and I are trying to get into E11even, a trendy downtown dance spot that doubles as a strip club and is best known for being the spot where Drake and Rihanna were spotted kissing in 2016. At this point in the night, the line is so long that people are spilling into the street. There is a woman walking around in stilts and lingerie and another dressed like a cat and tied to a leash, held by yet another woman in lingerie. A weary-seeming bouncer is trying to hold back the throngs […]

A North Carolina school district has apologized after a parent claimed her son was sold at a “slave auction” at his school. In a March 4 Facebook post, parent Ashley Palmer said her son had “experienced a slave auction by his classmates” at J.S. Waters School in Goldston, North Carolina, in which another student served as “slavemaster” and her son “went for $350.” She went on to claim that she had a video of students “harmonizing the N word.” “Since when were children so blatantly racist? Why is this culture acceptable?” she wrote in the post, which was first reported by […]

A 23-year-old Army veteran is wanted for injuring a former Kentucky state representative and killing his daughter when he allegedly broke into their $6.5 million estate this week. Police are still looking for Shannon V. Gilday of Taylor Mill, who they say broke into former state representative Wesley Morgan’s house outside of Richmond Tuesday, brandishing a rifle. Officials say he injured Morgan in a shootout and shot and killed his daughter, 32-year-old Jordan Morgan, in her bed. Police do not believe there was a relationship between Gilday and the Morgans and have declined to give a motive, according to the Northern […]

Like any new mother, Kathryn Jones thought the baby she was handed at Duncan Physicians and Surgeons Hospital on May 18, 1964, was the most beautiful child she had ever seen. “I loved her from that second that they laid her in my arms,” she said in a recent interview, pausing before adding: “Never once did I think she was not mine.” But according to a lawsuit filed in Stephens County District Court in Oklahoma, the infant Jones cradled and took home was not her biological daughter at all. Citing multiple home DNA tests, Jones alleges that employees at the hospital […]

The congregants of University AME Zion Church have owned their building in Palo Alto, California, for nearly 50 years. As far as the congregation was aware, the church—a low, white building where more than 100 people from around the city gather each Sunday—had not had a mortgage, taken out a loan, or so much as missed a utility bill since the early 1970s. So when Pastor Kaloma Smith received a default notice in June 2020 alerting him that his church was $235,730 past due on mortgage payments and facing imminent foreclosure, he was stunned. According to a recent filing by the […]

A Virginia cop and his wife are both facing criminal charges after she secretly recorded him to prove he was having an affair—and accidentally captured what might be key information in a felony trial. Sharon Maddox, 41, admitted in a bond hearing Wednesday to bugging her husband, Chesapeake Police officer Sean Maddox, after she became concerned he was cheating on her last April. She told local news outlet 10 On Your Side that she surreptitiously placed a recording device in his squad car for three days after finding a blonde hair in his car and some suspicious activity on his Facebook. […]

A Connecticut government official gunned down her tenant this week over a rent payment dispute, police say. Ellen Wink, 61, was arrested Thursday after she allegedly shot and killed a tenant in her building, 54-year-old Kurt Lametta. Police say it was Wink herself who called the police about the shooting at her Norwalk building, where they arrived to find Lametta suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Wink—a local landlord and the city’s deputy Republican registrar of voters—allegedly copped to the shooting, telling them that Lametta was chronically behind on his rent, according to documents obtained […]

Footage released late Friday by authorities in Sedgwick County, Kansas shows employees of a county juvenile center holding a 17-year-old boy on the floor of a cell for more than half an hour, just two days before his death. The Sept. 26 death of the teenager, Cedric Lofton, attracted national attention after an autopsy report ruled it a homicide. The county DA has declined to press charges against the juvenile center employees, but Lofton’s family members have demanded they be held accountable. “Cedric’s death was caused by the hands of the very authorities that were obligated to protect him and make […]

When volunteers at Venue Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, arrived at their pastor’s house last November, they were hoping to raise his spirits with a surprise visit. Instead they got a shock: Pastor Tavner Smith alone with a female church employee—her in a towel, him in his boxers. The charismatic 41-year-old hurried to explain that the two of them had been making chili and hot dogs and gotten food on their clothes, according to one volunteer who was present. But, as the volunteer put it, “I don’t think none of us was that dumb.” “If she dropped chili on her clothes, why […]

Last year, Ash Pereira called the police in her hometown of Enterprise, Alabama, to report a rape. The date of the alleged crime was nearly 15 years earlier; the accused, her now ex-husband, Jason Greathouse. Pereira, now 30, was locked in a bitter custody dispute with the man, a former youth pastor who impregnated her when she was 15 and he was 25. What ensued was shocking to Pereira and many observers: Her ex was allowed to plead to a misdemeanor, did not have to register as a sex offender, and maintains partial custody of their 14-year-old daughter. Pereira, meanwhile, had […]

In a tearful interview earlier this month, Kristy Siple mourned the loss of her 5-year-old daughter, Kamarie, who had been found dead in an abandoned home just hours before. Siple, 35, called her daughter a “blessing” and told interviewers she “lived for her daily.” “She was just the sweetest girl in the world,” she told local news station WTVM. “You could not harm that little girl because she was so innocent, she was so smart … She was perfect.” Two weeks later, Siple was charged in the death and alleged sexual abuse of her “perfect” little girl. Ina news conference Tuesday, […]

The head of an organization promoting Black girls in tech says she was unceremoniously ousted from the group—which she created—earlier this week. Kimberly Bryant, CEO and founder of Black Girls Code, told The Daily Beast she awoke Tuesday morning to find she had been locked out of her email and Slack accounts connected to the organization. When she called senior staff to find out what was happening, no one would take her calls. It was only when she checked her personal email that she saw a message from Board Chair Heather Hiles telling her she had been suspended, effective immediately. “Press […]

A fourth woman has come forward to accuse actor Chris Noth of sexual assault, claiming he forcibly kissed and groped her in her New York apartment in 2002. The woman, singer-songwriter Lisa Gentile, spoke out in a press conference Thursday with high-profile attorney Gloria Allred. Her claims follow those of three other women who allege the Sex and the City star sexually assaulted them between 2004 and 2015—allegations that Noth has strongly denied. There was no immediate comment from Noth on the new accusation. Gentile says she met Noth in 1998, when they were both regulars at Manhattan restaurant Da Marino. […]

It started, as approximately zero other controversies have before, with the cover of Vogue Knitting. Last month’s magazine—circulation 206,000—featured former first lady Michelle Obama in a genial conversation about “becoming a knitter.” The cover was widely celebrated by women of color, who rarely see themselves represented in the white-washed world of knitting media. But over Thanksgiving weekend, a white knitting YouTuber named Kristy Glass took to Instagram to criticize the cover, asking why Obama was not wearing knitwear and why her wedding ring appeared to be on the wrong hand. (The answer to the latter was simple: the photo was flipped […]

Alice Sebold, the best-selling author whose popular memoir, Lucky, revolved around her 1981 rape outside Syracuse University, apologized Tuesday to the man she had accused in that case, saying she “deeply regret[ted]” what he had been through. The man Sebold accused of raping her, Anthony Broadwater, was exonerated last week after a judge ruled that the prosecution had been deeply flawed. Broadwater spent 16 years in prison after Sebold identified him as her attacker, and has struggled to hold down a job and maintain relationships in the two decades since his release. Sebold had remained silent throughout Broadwater’s exoneration process. In […]

Two California businessmen and notorious playboys were accused last year of participating in an international sex trafficking ring. Now, one appears to have flipped on the other, and is providing evidence to suggest that his friend may have been engaged in a harassment campaign against his accusers. Ten women sued Danny Fitzgerald, a Hollywood real estate developer and landlord to the stars, and pal Steven Powers last November, claiming they took part in a trafficking operation perpetuated by Canadian fashion designer Peter Nygard. The lawsuit against Fitzgerald claims the developer also maintained a ring of his own, deceiving women into living […]

The vast majority of Time’s Up’s remaining staffers were laid off Friday in what they described a debacle that began with leaders revealing they gave the news to the Washington Post first and ended with board member Ashley Judd breaking down in tears. The embattled organization, limping since its CEO and entire board resigned this summer, announced Friday that it would lay off the vast majority of its remaining staff. Leadership informed staff of the decision in a virtual meeting that started 15 minutes before the Post article made the pink slips national news. “They said on the call, ‘The Washington […]

A former bartender says a San Antonio strip club fired her after she became pregnant, with managers telling her she no longer fit the “fantasy” of the establishment. The bartender, Sara Soto, alleges in a federal lawsuit filed last week that managers at—also known as San Antonio Men’s Club—reduced her hours to zero after she informed them she was expecting a baby. (Calls and emails to the club from The Daily Beast went unanswered. Reached by phone, one of the owners, Theodore Dimopoulos, declined to comment.) Soto, 31, started working at the strip club in 2017 and says she generally worked […]

Looks like a fight between a sex-toy seller and New York’s public transportation system will have a happy ending after all. Dame, the “sexual wellness” brand that sued the New York public transportation authority for rejecting ads for its sex toys, announced Monday that it has settled and will begin running ads in the subway system this month. Dame made headlines in 2019 with its federal complaint, which alleged that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) was biased in rejecting the ads, which featured photos of sex toys alongside text reading, “91% of men get where they’re going while 60% of women…don’t,” […]

When Daphna Cardinale gave birth to her second child two years ago, her husband, Alexander, took a step back in shock. The baby—which the Los Angeles couple had conceived via in vitro fertilization nine months earlier—looked nothing like its parents, according to a lawsuit filed Monday. The couple struggled for months with what to do, oscillating between denial and dark humor to mask their confusion. Finally, after seven weeks of limbo, they decided to take a DNA test. The result was what they had feared all along: The child Daphna had carried for nine months, whom she had cuddled and breastfed […]

A Washington State physician’s assistant who mounted a “public campaign touting the use of ivermectin” for treating COVID, allegedly bullying hospital staffers to prescribe the unproven drug, had his license suspended by the state medical commission. Scott Miller runs a private pediatric medical practice in Washougal that provides services such as genetic testing, lactation counseling, and treatment for pediatric autism, ADHD, and sleep disorders. A quote from Miller on his office website says there is “there is no greater calling and joy in [his] life than helping my patients achieve wellness.” In recent months, Miller has become a presence at Washougal-area […]

National Football League cheerleaders are calling on the NFL to release its full report into workplace culture after allegations surfaced that coaches had secretly distributed nude photos of them by email. The emails, first reported by the New York Times Monday, were allegedly sent by then-ESPN commentator Jon Gruden to then Washington Football Team General Manager Bruce Allen (who had hired Gruden’s brother, Jay, to coach the team, then called the Redskins) and several other men. Former cheerleaders for both teams told The Daily Beast Tuesday they were horrified by the revelations, but not surprised. Both teams have been hit by […]

The email sent to hundreds of reproductive rights organizations last year contained an urgent warning: Anti-abortion groups had seized on TikTok and were gaining “extreme traction” with the platform’s young audience. “There is serious, untapped potential here, and you should capitalize on it,” it read. Perhaps even more surprising than the message was the identity of its author: a 15-year-old California high school student who was stuck home because of the pandemic and had, like many Americans, gotten sucked into the app. Another surprise: the abortion rights movement listened to her. Now, a year and a half after sending that email, […]

A Texas abortion provider has resumed providing abortions after six weeks gestation, more than a month after a law banning the procedure past that point halted nearly all abortions in the state. Whole Woman’s Health, which operates four clinics in the state, resumed providing abortions Thursday morning, after U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman issued an injunction blocking the Texas law. Founder and CEO Amy Hagstrom Miller said the clinics had already provided several abortions to people whose pregnancies show evidence of fetal cardiac activity. “Today, with Judge Pitman’s ruling, we are proud to have been part of this case,” Hagstrom […]

A young woman who claims she was sexually abused by a prominent member of New York’s Hasidic Jewish community three decades ago is going after his greatest legacy: a massive, gold-plated menorah in the heart of Brooklyn. The plaintiff, a 36-year-old woman now living in Israel, claims celebrated silversmith Hirschel Pekkar sexually assaulted her more than a dozen times in the 1990s, starting when she was 5 years old. Pekkar died this July, but his menorah—which the lawsuit describes as “one of the most important pieces of Jewish artwork of the 20th century”—lives on, displayed every Hanukkah outside the world headquarters […]

Allegations of sexual assault have triggered massive, rowdy protests at frat houses on campuses across the country in recent weeks. Now, one of those fraternities is casting itself as the victim—demanding protection and calling on school administrators to declare it an “innocent party.” The latest firestorm erupted at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst last Sunday, after someone posted on the anonymous app YikYak claiming that a student had been sexually assaulted at Theta Chi fraternity the night before. Approximately 300 people descended on the house, chanting “Fuck Theta Chi,” throwing bottles, and even flipping a car, according to video taken […]

Facebook is continuing to run ads for so-called “abortion pill reversal” a week after a report showed it had raked in more than $100,000 for advertising the unproven medical procedure. Data from the Facebook Ad library shows the tech company allowed three ads from the anti-abortion group Live Action to run in the week after the report was published; all of them claimed that “it is possible to reverse the abortion pill.” As The Daily Beast has previously reported, “abortion pill reversal” is a dubious method that has not been approved by the FDA and has been condemned by major medical […]

Internal documents from Time’s Up reveal that half of its staffers were warning of serious problems within the star-studded anti-harassment group last summer—more than a year before the organization’s very public leadership implosion. A June 2020 letter from staff members to then-CEO Tina Tchen lays out a cascade of issues that would later become the basis of bombshell reports about the group that doomed top officers, eroded public support, and put its future in jeopardy. The memo, former staffers say, should have served as a warning to the organization that it needed to make substantial changes before it was too late. […]

Rebekah Hagan was a college freshman when she discovered she was pregnant with her second child. In a vulnerable moment, swayed by pressure from the “abortion industry,” she obtained a medication abortion—a two-pill process that can successfully terminate most pregnancies before 10 weeks. She immediately regretted it. Luckily for Hagan, there was a revolutionary new procedure that could stop the effects of medication abortion in its tracks and save the life of a growing fetus. And it could be obtained by calling a single hotline. At least, that’s what dozens of ads on Facebook would like you to think. Hagan is […]

In an era in which underwear brands fundraise for Black Lives Matter and Pride month is essentially a corporate holiday, many Americans woke up Thursday wondering what the brands would have to say about the newly enacted Texas law that bans abortions after six weeks. “It’ll be very interesting to see which companies stand up for women by refusing to do business or [host] events/conferences/etc in Texas,” tweeted writer Jill Filipovic. “Good morning, which corporations have announced they’re leaving Texas because it’s no longer a safe place for their employees?” tweeted Amanda Litman, founder of the progressive political organization Run for […]

The Whole Woman’s Health clinic in Fort Worth, Texas, is usually open until 5pm. Last night, like the chain’s three other locations across Texas, it was open until midnight, caring for the waiting room full of pregnant people seeking abortions before they no longer could. Outside, anti-abortion protesters camped out, shining lights in the windows as night fell and calling the police to report nonexistent violations. Inside, a doctor who had worked for the health center for decades began to cry. This was the scene the night before S.B. 8, a law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy took effect […]

Three years after the most popular place to advertise “adult services” was seized by the U.S. government, its founders will stand trial Wednesday in an Arizona courtroom, in a case that could have lasting repercussions for the future of online sex work. The defendants, alt-weekly titans Michael Lacey and James Larkin, claim their website, Backpage.com, was a utopia for free expression, a place where “unpopular” speech was allowed to flourish and thrive. But the U.S. Department of Justice contends it was also a place where women and girls were sex trafficked against their will, with Lacey and Larkin’s knowledge. Whom the […]

Carré Otis wants justice, but she also wants change. The 52-year-old former supermodel—the one-time face of Guess, Calvin Klein, and other defining brands of the ’90s—has already brought a lawsuit against the modeling executive she says repeatedly raped her at age 17. But now she is calling on his former agency, Elite, to make sure this never happens to another model again. “I think survivors still face the same challenges [I did] when it comes to speaking up and speaking out—whether it’s a threat to their carers, to their lives, to their wellbeing,” the model, who now goes by her married […]

As a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at the UAB Hospital, Dr. Akila Subramaniam sees some of the most complicated pregnancies in Alabama and parts of the surrounding four states. She has never seen anything like this. The 1,157-bed hospital has already admitted 39 pregnant women with COVID-19 so far this month. Ten of those are in the intensive care unit, and seven are on ventilators due to the disease. In a usual week, Subramaniam told The Daily Beast, the number of pregnant women in the ICU would be one or two. As of this week, there were no more available ICU beds […]

Contracting COVID-19 isn’t stopping U.S. Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) from protesting mask mandates, even as his home state has run out of ICU beds in the latest pandemic wave. “I just don’t believe in mandates from the federal government,” Moore told The Daily Beast from his farm in Enterprise, Alabama on Saturday. “If I died of COVID yesterday, I wouldn’t want to force my beliefs and opinions on anyone.” Moore, an outspoken critic of mask mandates in the U.S. Capitol, announced Friday night that he and his wife had both contracted COVID-19. He said Saturday morning that he had experienced a […]

COVID cases are so high in Orlando, Florida, that residents are being asked to cut back on water usage to save oxygen supplies for patients. The city’s Utilities Commission asked residents Saturday to stop watering their lawns, citing a “shortage of liquid oxygen linked to the surge of COVID-19 inpatient treatments.” If residents didn’t do their part to reduce water consumption, the commission warned, “water quality may be impacted.” Linda Ferrone, the commission’s chief customer and marketing officer, said the commission may be forced to issue a boil water notice if conditions do not improve. “This is another impact of the […]

Erica MacKinnon was about to log in to her virtual English literature class when she learned that her college—the school she had enrolled in, then dropped out of, then re-enrolled in 22 years later; the same school her grandmother had graduated from exactly a century ago—was closing for good. The announcement, which came in an email opaquely titled “Mills Transition,” was as shocking to her as it was to the rest of the 700-person student body—along with the staff and faculty, who had heard of the closure only an hour earlier. But soon it would be splashed across national newspapers: Mills […]

It’s called the Central Registry and Lindsay R.’s name will be on it for up to 25 years, along with countless Arizona parents accused of abusing or neglecting their children. Her addition to the list cost her a social work job and could disqualify her from getting dozens of others. Her offense? She used medical marijuana with a prescription, in a state where it’s legal, while she was pregnant—to counter the effects of a dangerous condition that causes excessive vomiting. “At the beginning [I was fighting] for personal reasons: I want to keep my job; I don’t want it on there […]

A Kentucky fertility expert best known for claiming to have cloned a human embryo is now being accused of impregnating an unwitting patient with his own sperm. The woman, Lexington resident Diane White, claims in a lawsuit filed last month that Dr. Panayiotis Zavos gave her his own sperm instead of a donor’s when she visited him for fertility treatment in 1988. (Zavos denies this claim.) White says she was referred to Zavos by her gynecologist after she expressed interest in becoming pregnant via in vitro fertilization. At the time, Zavos was working out of Central Baptist Hospital (now known as […]

A Canadian court is weighing a surrogacy tug-of-war with a twist: A woman who bore a child for a married couple wants joint guardianship of the baby because she had an affair with the father. The surrogate, identified in British Columbia court documents only by the initials K.B., says she was engaged in an extramarital relationship with the father—also identified by his initials, M.S.B.—but volunteered to serve as a surrogate for him and his wife because she “wanted to support their marriage.” After a failed attempt to inseminate her artificially, however, she claims he suggested they try to conceive naturally—and secretly […]

Chelsea Curnutt didn’t plan to spend the day before her baby was due driving 16 hours to bang on the door of her fiancé’s parents’ house, but there she was. Nineteen months earlier, she’d started Instagram messaging with Richard Kane Mansir, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army whom everyone called Kane. He was 10 years her senior, had two sons from a previous marriage, and lived 600 miles away, but she didn’t mind. He was smart and funny, and they talked easily. He liked shooting and skydiving; she loved the first and always wanted to try the latter. They met […]

The petition for a restraining order, from a woman in Spokane, Washington, is straight to the point. She and the respondent, a man named Ron Ilg, are going through a difficult divorce, and she is afraid he will try to hurt her. Asked for evidence of any harassing behavior, she writes simply: “Respondent ordered a hit on me through the dark web to be kidnapped and drugged for 7 days in an effort to force me to return to our marriage.” “I believe he would hurt our son to get to me,” she adds later. “I believe we are both in […]

In the latest addition to the nightmarish situation outside Miami, rescue efforts at a collapsed 12-story apartment complex are being hampered by a “deep-seated fire” spreading among the rubble. Officials briefing media on the situation at the Champlain Towers South, were four people died and 159 were feared missing after the tower collapsed suddenly Thursday, said they were facing “incredible difficulties” in their round-the-clock search-and-rescue operation due to the fire and smoke. As a result, they had no updates to the body count Saturday—but officials were urging residents of nearby buildings to evacuate. “This is very frustrating because we want it […]

Perhaps the most shocking accusation from Britney Spears’ searing court hearing was that her guardians forced her to have an IUD—an implanted contraceptive device—even though she wants to have children. But it didn’t come as a surprise to reproductive rights experts who say such arrangements are all too common—and even worse than what the pop star revealed. Current laws allow guardians a huge amount of power over their conservatees’ reproductive lives, according to National Women’s Law Center attorney Ma’ayan Anafi. In fact, a majority of states allow conservators to enforce not just long-acting contraception, but permanent sterilization. “A lot of people […]

On the morning of March 11, 2018, five fertility center clients received an email alerting them to an “unfortunate incident” at their San Francisco clinic. A malfunction in the tank storing thousands of eggs and embryos had caused a temporary loss in liquid nitrogen, exposing them to unsafely high temperatures. The tissue they had harvested and stored in hopes of a future pregnancy might have been permanently destroyed. This week, a jury awarded the families nearly $15 million in damages, in what may be the first-ever jury award for lost eggs and embryos. “This is a historic verdict,” Adam Wolf, an […]

After a court declared him the sole legal parent of a 6-year-old son, real estate mogul Jordan Schnitzer allegedly threatened to have his ex-girlfriend and egg donor arrested if she tried to see the boy who calls her “Mommy.” “The wool got pulled out from underneath us in a pretty big way, and I’ve got a son left wondering why mommy didn’t pick him up,” the biological mother, Cory Sause, told The Daily Beast on Monday as her attorneys planned to appeal the court’s ruling. Sause, a shipping executive, had a romantic relationship with Schnitzer in 2014 and agreed to help […]

Dr. Lorna Breen survived COVID-19, but the pandemic still ended up taking her life. Last spring, Breen—a bright, exceptionally driven 49-year-old who supervised the New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital emergency department—recovered from the coronavirus, only to be hit with a wave of depression that landed her in a psychiatric ward. In the following days, her brother-in-law Corey Feist told The Daily Beast, she kept articulating one fear: that she would lose her medical license because of her treatment. About a week after being discharged, she died by suicide. “She was convinced beyond any doubt that she was going to lose her license,” […]

The owner of a Nashville hat shop that sparked outcry online for selling gold star-shaped patches reading “NOT VACCINATED” appears to have been in attendance at the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S capitol, according to posts on her social media accounts. Gigi Gaskins, the 60-year-old owner of hatWRKS hat shop, stoked backlash this week when she posted a photo of herself on Instagram wearing the patch, which was reminiscent of the gold stars Jewish people were forced to wear during the Holocaust. The post was eventually deleted and replaced with a text post questioning why so many people were upset […]

A judge in Sanders County, Montana, on Tuesday dropped deliberate homicide charges against a woman who killed her abusive ex-husband, in a surprising win for advocates who argued she should not have to live with the threat of prosecution hanging over her. Rachel Bellesen, a 38-year-old coordinator at the Abbie Shelter for domestic violence survivors, shot and killed her former husband, Jacob Glace, on Oct. 8 of last year. Bellesen admitted to the shooting but said she did so because Glace, who had pleaded guilty to assaulting her years earlier, had twice attempted to rape her that night. Prosecutors moved to […]

In California right now, you can get an abortion without speaking to a single other human being. You log onto a website—mychoix.co—put in your health information, answer some questions, and wait for an email from a clinician letting you know if you’ve been approved. If you are, an online pharmacy will ship you a package of mifepristone and misoprostol—a two-pill regime that is safer than many prescription drugs and 98 percent effective at terminating early-stage pregnancies. You will take it, you will bleed, your pregnancy will—in all likelihood—end. This particular configuration is available in only one state, for a limited time, […]

Texas lawmakers have sent Gov. Greg Abbott a bill that would allow anyone in the state to sue over an abortion performed past six weeks—essentially turning right-to-lifers into courthouse vigilantes. The law is a twist on the increasingly popular “heartbeat” laws that ban abortions past the date that a heartbeat can be detected—usually around six weeks’ gestation. (Experts say most embryos do not have a heart at this point, and that the technology is likely picking up an electric signal flutter.) Nine states have passed such six-week bans since 2013; all have been challenged in court and have yet to go […]

Just before 8 p.m. on Oct. 8, 2020, a 911 dispatcher in Sanders County, Montana, received a strange phone call. The woman on the other end said she was calling from a gas station in Hot Springs—a tiny, rural town located on the Flathead Indian Reservation. Her voice was shaky, her delivery broken. She could not give her exact address. But one thing came through loud and clear: “I need the police,” she said. “…I killed someone.” The woman on the phone that night was Rachel Bellesen, the 38-year-old coordinator at the nearby Abbie Shelter for domestic violence survivors. The shelter […]

The abuse was a secret Tanisha Johnson says she kept for years. First, she says, she felt too unstable to report it: debilitated from the daily migraines for which she had gone to the doctor in the first place; addicted to the opioids she claims he purposefully overprescribed for her. Later, she worried she wouldn’t be believed. Who would take the word of a queer Black woman living in public housing over the word of a prominent neurologist? Who would believe that a department chairman would grope her, expose himself, even force her to perform oral sex on him—all from his […]

A Rhode Island judge is allowing three young men to return home in a rape case that has divided the small town of South Kingstown, saying their continued pre-trial detention was “neither justified nor justifiable.” The case centers on the events of March 1 and 2, where the three men and one juvenile, who was released on bail earlier this month, met up with a former classmate for a night of drinking. The 19-year-old former classmate claims she quickly blacked out and does not remember the sexual conduct that followed. Lawyers for the accused say she was a consenting participant in […]

While the U.S. has passed many happy pandemic milestones in recent weeks, Hawaii this week passed a grim one: The first child under the age of 11 passed away from COVID-19 complications in the Aloha state while vacationing with his vaccinated parents. The young boy, whose exact age was not released, began showing symptoms hours after arriving in Hawaii, according to health officials. Both of the boy’s parents had recently tested negative for COVID-19. The Hawaii Department of Health is still investigating possible sources of exposure, and it was not clear if the boy contracted the virus while traveling or prior […]

Surgeons at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago have performed the first lung transplant on an American COVID-19 survivor using the lungs of another person known to have recovered from the disease. The recipient—a 60-year-old health-care worker from Illinois—was placed on life support after being diagnosed with COVID in May, according to the hospital. He was transferred to Northwestern and spent a week on the transplant list before being matched with the donor, who recovered from the disease before dying of unrelated causes. Surgeons performed the transplant in February and announced it this week. “This is a milestone for lung transplantation,” Ankit Bharat, […]

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is trashing Facebook and Twitter’s response to the harassment of pregnant women on their platforms, calling it “out-of-date, worn-out, and woefully inadequate.” “Vague content moderation policies, ineffective fact checking, inconsistent enforcement, and meaningless labels are cold comfort to the women continuously assailed by vile anti-vaccine hate and life-threatening falsehoods,” the senator said in a statement to The Daily Beast. Blumenthal sent letters to both Facebook and Twitter last month in response to a Daily Beast report that found women who had miscarriages after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine were being targeted and harassed by anti-vaxxers on social media. […]

Late last month, the founding members of Time’s Up Healthcare held a meeting to discuss what, exactly, they were doing. The group—an offshoot of the glitzy nonprofit founded to combat sexism in Hollywood—had been largely inactive for over a year, hosting only a handful of meetings and sunsetting multiple promising projects. As the pandemic raged, and members felt less and less supported, founders had begun writing in to complain about the lack of action. The members at the Feb. 24 meeting were thrilled to see each other, and leadership tried to put a positive spin on things, highlighting multiple initiatives the […]

A Florida man who challenged police to “find the body” in his Boynton Beach home was arrested Saturday when his wife’s remains were found in his backyard. The victim, Mary Stella Gomez-Mullet, was reported missing Feb. 20, when a friend called police to say she’d last spoken to her by phone two days earlier, while Gomez-Mullet was en route to Colon’s house. The friend later revealed she had overheard Gomez-Mullet yelling, “No, no, no Roberto!” and calling out her friend’s name before the call disconnected, according to a police report obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel and local news station […]

Founding members of Time’s Up Healthcare are fleeing the anti-discrimination organization en masse over the group’s handling of explosive allegations that a co-founder brushed off complaints of sexual harassment by a co-worker. At least five co-founders of the activist group, part of the larger Time’s Up organization created during the MeToo movement, announced they were stepping down in the last 24 hours. “Bravery must be demonstrated at all times even when it’s not popular,” tweeted Dr. Pringl Miller, a general surgeon and hospice and palliative care specialist who helped found the subsidiary in 2019. “If survivors exhibit bravery in coming forward […]

A growing number of activists and lawmakers have called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to step down following multiple allegations of sexual harassment against him. Notably absent are the powerful women’s groups that supported his election. All three of the women’s groups who endorsed Cuomo over progressive challenger Cynthia Nixon in 2018 called for an independent investigation of the allegations—an arrangement to which the governor has already agreed. Two of the groups, Planned Parenthood and the National Institute for Reproductive Health, declined to discuss the matter by phone, instead sending statements via email. The Daily Beast reached the president of the third […]

An already beleaguered U.S. vaccine roll-out has hit a new snag: Thousands of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine around the country are being dumped after being stored at the wrong temperature. More than 4,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine were wasted in Maine on Tuesday, when clinics opened their deliveries to find a red X on each of the vials, signifying that the vaccine had reached too high a temperature to be effective, according to the Portland Press Herald. That same day, the Detroit Free Press reported that providers in Michigan had the opposite problem: Nearly 12,000 doses were tossed because […]

A COVID-19 outbreak, pissed-off customers, and a public fight with local government. For a resort chain that promises “a no-worries vacation,” Sandals Resorts seems to be plagued with them. Earlier this week, the Barbados Health Ministry de-listed the Sandals Barbados Resort and Spa as an official “quarantine hotel”—one of few locations where newcomers to the island can stay while awaiting the results of two negative PCR tests required to move freely around the island. In a statement, the ministry cited several “verified complaints” of COVID-19 protocol breaches at the 280-room, all-inclusive resort, and warned that it would take “similar actions” against […]

In the face of a court order and nearly 2 million coronavirus cases in the state, a California church is still planning to host indoor services for Christmas. The church, Calvary Chapel in San Jose, has been cited multiple times for breaking local health rules that prohibit indoor gatherings, including for religious services. But Pastor Mike McClure has so far refused to pay the fines or shut down his weekly 700-person services. He’s reportedly said he doesn’t even care if the violations land him in jail. “I respect the judge and I respect what the law says,” he said in a […]

Racist comments from board members. A contractor referring to undocumented immigrants as “illegals.” Failing to take staff complaints seriously. It may sound like life at a stodgy, backwards corporate office, but workers say that’s what it’s like at a Planned Parenthood affiliate in Pennsylvania. This week, the entire staff of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Pennsylvania signed onto an open letter asking Executive Director Emily Callen to step down over allegations of racism and mismanagement. More than 900 others, including several state legislators, have signed onto the document, which accuses Callen of repeating racist stereotypes and tokenizing staff and board members of […]

Millions of pandemic-weary Americans are expected to head to the airport next week and board flights so they can spend Thanksgiving with family and friends. The loved ones of Eduard Faktorovich have a message for them: Stay home. A successful former travel agent, Faktorovich was thrilled when he landed a job as a TSA agent at Denver International Airport two years ago “because that was part of his passion,” his niece, Megan Faktorovich, told The Daily Beast. Early this month, the TSA agent was diagnosed with COVID-19. His last day at work was Nov. 2. By Monday, he was dead. As […]

Fox News host Tucker Carlson opened his show Wednesday by proclaiming that “truth really matters more than ever.” What he was about to report was “not a theory,” he said, adding: “It happened and we can prove it.” But two days later, he opened with an apology. One of the voters he claimed had cast a ballot from the grave on Friday’s episode—claims that were amplified by the Trump campaign and by members of Congress like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)—had not actually done so after all. The late James Blalock of Newtown County, Georgia, whom he profiled in the earlier episode, […]

The victim was 15 years old when she says church elders called her into a room with her mother and stepfather, sat her down, and made her listen to a recording of her own rape. A lifelong Jehovah’s Witness, the girl—who we’ll call Anna—says she was sexually assaulted by an older church member on multiple occasions. But when the church learned of it, they decided to investigate not her assailant, but her—for the crime of having sex outside of marriage. And now it’s down to the Utah Supreme Court to decide if they should get away with it. The court cases […]

Last Tuesday night, as election results slowly trickled in from around the country, an eclectic group of women came together for a Zoom call. They were of all different ages, from all around the country—conservative states like North Carolina, swing states like Ohio, reliably blue ones like New York. Most of them had never met each other. But they had one thing in common: All of them had accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct. Trump is the first American president to be accused sexual misconduct by dozens of women, as well as the first to be caught on tape claiming he […]

It’s still unclear whether Donald Trump will pull off the kind of poll-defying, frenzy-inducing victory he did in 2016. But this year’s election results hold another surprise victory—this time, for Republican women. While Republicans were largely left out of 2018’s “Year of the Woman,” when 126 Democratic women and just 20 GOP women were elected to Congress, they are on track for a record-breaking year in 2020. Twenty-three Republican women have already won their races so far—including six who flipped their districts from blue to red—setting them up to blow past their previous record for number of GOP women in Congress. […]

Coronavirus rates in Wisconsin are at an all-time high, but a group that calls themselves “pro-life” is attempting to block the governor’s “safer at home” order so they can continue holding fundraisers. Pro-Life Wisconsin, an anti-abortion group known for its bold stands on issues like buying Girl Scout cookies, joined with a local bar and grill owner Tuesday to appeal a court decision allowing Gov. Tony Evers’ emergency order to stand. The Oct. 6 order limits bars, restaurants, and other venues to 25 percent of their usual capacity in an effort to reduce the number of new coronavirus cases in the […]