(NEW YORK) — The parents of a 6-year-old marathoner are speaking out after they say child protective services paid their family an unannounced visit and questioned their children at home.
Ben and Kami Crawford shared a photo on Instagram Sunday purportedly of one of their children being interviewed by a CPS staffer. In the accompanying caption, they wrote in part, “Yesterday Child Protective Services (CPS) arrived at our home unannounced and interviewed our children, parents & grandmother. This is a scary process because usually children are interrogated away from parents, against their will, and their answers determine the agency’s legal right to take away the kids.”
The Crawfords made headlines last week after they let their children, including their son Rainier, 6, run the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati on May 1 and shared it online. Their May 3 Instagram post in particular sparked outcry from social media users, with some critics going so far as to accuse the Crawfords of child abuse.
Campbell County, Kentucky, District Attorney Steve Franzen confirmed to “Good Morning America” that child services had visited the Crawfords, but said no determination had been made yet in the investigation.
Ben and Kami Crawford addressed critics’ accusations in a lengthy Instagram video Saturday.
“The real stuff that we got accused of was dragging Rainier, like physically dragging him on the marathon course after mile 13 and across the finish line,” Ben Crawford said.
“If you guys have seen our finish line picture, we all held hands for like the last probably, like, .2, .3 miles,” he added. “We talked about it ahead of time, like that’s what we’re going to do.”
The Crawfords maintain their 6-year-old wanted to run all along and stand by their decision to let the young boy run 26.2 miles.
“I don’t know if I should be angry. I like to believe that people are doing the best that they can. They’re not trying to ruin our life or, you know, they probably are legit afraid for our kids. But also, it’s like, where’s the line?” Ben Crawford asked.
“I feel like we’re doing what we feel passionate about,” Kami Crawford said. “It would be kind of tragic to stop all that.”
Experts say a marathon is a serious physical feat for anyone and it can take a toll on a child.
“If a young child were to run a marathon, I’m worried about electrolyte abnormalities, nausea, vomiting, heatstroke, all these signs and symptoms that may not be that clear in a young child,” Dr. Alok Patel previously told “GMA.”
Children may have a harder time recognizing warning signs of dehydration, exhaustion or other red flags. Parents and caregivers should consult with a child’s pediatrician before a child is permitted to engage in any strenuous exercise.
Next Wednesday, May 18, marks the 10th anniversary of Santana‘s first Las Vegas residency show at the House of Blues inside Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, and coinciding with the occasion, the band will launch its latest engagement at the venue that night.
Carlos Santana and his group also have extended their An Intimate Evening with Santana: Greatest Hits Live Vegas residency into the fall of 2022 with two newly announced eight-date series of concerts, taking place in September and November.
Tickets for all of the new performances go on sale to the general public this Saturday, May 14, at 10 a.m. local time via HouseofBlues.com/Santana, MandalayBay.com and Ticketmaster.com, or by calling 800-745-3000.
Citi card members and Santana fan club members can buy pre-sale tickets starting Wednesday, May 11, at 10 a.m. PT; visit CitiPrivatePass.com and and Santana.com for more information. House of Blues, Live Nation, MGM Rewards and Ticketmaster pre-sales will begin Thursday, May 12, at 10 a.m. PT.
Part of the money from the tickets sold for Santana’s Las Vegas shows will benefit the Milagro Foundation, the charity Carlos co-founded that helps young people in impoverished communities around the world. Some of the proceeds also will be donated to the House of Blues’ Music Forward Foundation, which uses music to help young people develop life skills.
Besides the Vegas shows, Santana will be mounting a major joint trek with Earth, Wind & Fire this summer dubbed Miraculous Supernatural 2022 Tour. The outing is scheduled from a June 17 concert in Chula Vista, California, through an August 27 performance in Tampa, Florida.
Here are all of the dates of Santana’s upcoming Las Vegas residency dates:
(NEW YORK) — Even if you’re not from Manhattan, chances are you’ve heard of, dreamt of or perhaps planned a visit to taste a scoop of Magnolia Bakery’s luscious, creamy, sweet banana pudding.
The New York City confectioner, known for its classic American desserts, has created a cookie with all the taste of the cult-favorite banana pudding.
Magnolia Bakery dropped its banana pudding cookie, which is available on MagnoliaBakery.com and at its 10 bakeries nationwide.
“It took six months to whip up, resulting in a soft, chewy cookie that’s full of flavor great to enjoy on its own or paired with a banana pudding,” a representative for the bakery told “GMA.”
The cookie is made with crushed vanilla wafers and mashed bananas in the dough to bring the classic flavor of the pudding to the baked treat. The treat is also packed with white chocolate chips and their world-famous Banana Pudding mix.
An order of six cookies is available online for $25 plus shipping and in-store cookies cost $3.70 apiece.
(MONTGOMERY, Ala.) — Alabama’s gender-affirming care ban went into effect on May 8, and physicians in the state say they’re scrambling to figure out how provide care for their young transgender patients.
S.B. 184, the Vulnerable Child Protection Act, states that anyone who provides gender-affirming care to anyone under 19 could be convicted of a felony and face up to 10 years in prison and a $15,000 fine.
This type of care includes providing puberty blockers, hormone therapy or physical gender-affirming surgeries.
Pediatric endocrinologist Hussein Abdul-Latif, who provides gender-affirming care for trans youth, told ABC News that before the ban went into effect, he was rushing to see his patients and refill the necessary prescriptions to continue their treatment in the meantime.
He has already seen the fear this legislation has caused as patients prepare for an end to healthcare.
“It was a scramble, trying to gather as many names as possible of the kids that we see in our clinic and make sure that they do have refills called in before the law took effect,” Abdul-Latif said.
Abdul-Latif says patients have attempted suicide due to discrimination, bullying and anti-trans sentiment. With this new law in place, he fears the worst.
“Physicians and the patient and the family [typically] walk through the different options that they have and come to the best solution that works for that particular context,” Abdul-Latif said. “By having a law, it took all that dialogue and that discussion that’s deep and that’s heartfelt … now, there’s no discussion. You just abide by the law or I will put you guys in jail. That is not how medicine is effective, but this is also not how civil society reacts.”
He’s had to cancel in-person appointments with trans patients who live too far away and would waste their time and money just to leave empty-handed, without the gender-affirming treatments they were traveling to him for.
He also said that some patients fell through the cracks and did not receive their prescription refills in time.
Now, Abdul-Latif says he and his fellow physicians that provide such care are left hoping that a federal judge will block the ban following a lawsuit filed by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and other civil rights organizations against Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and other state officials seeking an injunction against the law. The judge is expected to issue a decision by the end of the week.
“We’re trying to prepare for the worst-case scenario while we’re hoping for the best-case scenario,” he said.
The governor’s office did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment Tuesday.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Shay Shelnutt, has called gender-affirming health care, “child abuse.”
“We don’t want parents to be abusing their children. We don’t want to make that an option because that’s what it is, it’s child abuse. This is just to protect children,” Shelnutt said on the state Senate floor in February.
After signing the bill into law last month, Ivey said, “I believe very strongly that if the Good Lord made you a boy, you are a boy, and if he made you a girl, you are a girl.”
She continued, “We should especially protect our children from these radical, life-altering drugs and surgeries when they are at such a vulnerable stage in life. Instead, let us all focus on helping them to properly develop into the adults God intended them to be.”
The law was panned by physicians, including Abdullatif, who say it is riddled with misinformation about gender-affirming care.
The legislation makes the claim that puberty blockers can cause infertility or other health risks.
According to physicians, these potential side effects only present real risks after puberty and are not a risk to youth taking puberty blockers.
The bill also cites the higher rate of mental health conditions among transgender people as a reason to ban care — though many medical organizations say poor mental health conditions is due to anti-trans discrimination and lack of gender-affirming care.
“I know that I am a girl and I always have been,” said a 15-year-old transgender girl in a statement from LGBTQ legal advocacy group Lambda Legal. “The possibility of losing access to my medical care because of this law causes me deep anxiety. I would not feel like myself anymore if this lifesaving medication was criminalized.”
Several medical organizations, including American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and American Academy of Pediatrics, have spoken out against the bill.
“The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that youth who identify as transgender have access to comprehensive, gender-affirming, and developmentally appropriate health care that is provided in a safe and inclusive clinical space,” the American Academy of Pediatrics said in a statement.
It continued, “These bills not only ignore these recommendations, they undermine them.”
(NOTE LANGUAGE) In her new single, “Dead to Me,” DaniLeigh isn’t holding back her negative feelings towards a certain “someone” in her life…and that “someone” seems to be her rapper ex-boyfriend and father to her baby daughter, DaBaby.
In the track, which dropped Tuesday, the “Lil Bebe” singer confesses her extreme dislike for whomever caused “toxic energy” in her life.
The chorus of the new song goes, “You know you dead to me, never kept your word with what you said to me/ You know you dead to me, I ain’t got no more time for toxic energy, oh no/ Mama never liked yo’ a**, brotha wanna fight yo’ a**, Daddy hate yo’ triflin’ a**.”
The close-to-three-minute track is said to address her hurtful and highly publicized unhealthy relationship with DaBaby, which lasted a little over a year, according to reports.
Their time together was marked with numerous fights and altercations made public for the world to watch. What may have been the last straw for DaniLeigh was the assault charged she faced as a result of a vicious argument, shared via IG live, after the singer accused DaBaby with kicking her and her newborn out of his North Carolina home.
After announcing her pregnancy in July of last year, DaniLeigh gave birth to her first child, Velour, whom she shares with the “Suge” rapper.
In honor of Mother’s Day this past Sunday, she penned a sweet message to her daughter on Instagram, thanking her baby girl for “giving me purpose.”
(NEW YORK) — ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff and his cameraman Doug Vogt were covering the Iraq War in 2006 and embedded with U.S. and Iraqi forces when an explosion nearly killed them.
Woodruff and Vogt were severely injured and rushed to the hospital in Baghdad, the place where Woodruff met the medic who he says helped save their lives, Sgt. Dave Williamson, including by giving them pharmaceutical-grade fentanyl to manage their pain.
Once in the trauma bay, Williamson and his surgical team were able to treat Vogt and Woodruff.
“We knew that [Woodruff and Vogt] were in, in serious, serious, serious dire straits … we just needed to get a tube in your throat and have you breathing off machines,” Williamson said.
Due to the severity of Woodruff’s injuries, Williamson injected him with multiple drugs, including fentanyl. Williamson said he had complete control over the drug, and he knew that it was the kind of opioid that would manage Woodruff’s pain.
“Our go-to drug was fentanyl. So at the time the fentanyl that we had was given in micrograms and it was glass vials,” Williamson said. “We had a very solid understanding of what it is, what it’s capable of doing and also how dangerous it was.”
Fentanyl was developed in 1959 to be used for chronic pain, anesthesia as well as sedation, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The drug, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.
Although fentanyl and other opioids are intended for patients suffering from extreme pain, they are also powerfully addictive and carry strong warnings about the potential for harm.
Today, medical experts say illicit versions of the drug are driving the opioid crisis and contributing to one of the leading causes of drug overdoses in America.
Originally made for sedation during surgery, fentanyl rapidly began infiltrating the illicit drug market. Considered to be one of the most powerful opioids ever created — Mexican cartels are pouring tons of fentanyl over the U.S. border every year, according to the DEA.
Woodruff and Vogt safely returned to the U.S. and, as the war began to wind down, Williamson left the military. The effects of the war, however, stayed with him for years after his return and he was soon diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“You’re looking for anything to numb the pain. Even though it may not be physical pain, it’s something that just doesn’t go away,” Williamson said. “It just stays with you and it just gnaws and you’re trying to emotionally cope with everything that happened over the course of 18 months for 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, and you don’t have time to deal with it then, and now you’re home or you’re out of the Army and now you’ve got time to process it.”
Now at home and away from the conflict, the medic who administered opioids to numb his patients’ pain, developed an addiction to them.
“They prescribed me Percocet,” Williamson said about a surgery he had shortly after returning home. “And I rifled through those Percocet like it was nobody’s business and then I just wanted to do it more and more and more and more and more,” he said.
Williamson was then introduced to OxyContin by a close friend, making his addiction even worse. He would often buy the drug on the street and, before realizing it, the spiral descended from painkillers to meth and even heroin.
“So it’s just this sense of loneliness, of solitude and, before you know it, it’s spiraling out of control,” Williamson said.
His wife, Jessica Williamson, also suffered from opioid addiction. Jessica said she had her first contact with the drug after a car wreck when she was 17. She was prescribed painkillers to help her recovery.
“OxyContin came around and that was a huge problem for me, that was really when things got pretty bad for me,” Jessica said.
The couple began struggling to access OxyContin due to its high price, so they found themselves turning to the streets and using cheaper drugs, such as heroin.
One night, the couple says they believe the pills they got from a dealer were laced with fentanyl — the same extremely powerful opioid Williamson had used to treat Woodruff’s nearly fatal injury.
“We’re sitting in this parking lot and David did his and immediately was, you know, nodding out and was in and out. And I thought, ‘Wow, he did too much.’ Then I started throwing up, I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I did too much.’ But I knew that I hadn’t done more than what I normally do. And I was sick. I mean, it was scary. It was very scary,” Jessica said.
The couple said they would not knowingly take fentanyl. They both believe that without their years of building a tolerance to opioids, those pills would have easily killed them.
The couple’s turning point, however, was when their 3-year-old son witnessed what they had been hiding for years.
“One of the things that was a turning point was when my 3-year-old walked into my room when I was shooting up and I screamed at him to shut the door,” Dave Williamson said.
“And I mean… “Is this what I’m going to do when he’s 30?”
Williamson then decided to join a program to seek treatment for his opioid dependency.
With the help of therapy and support groups, the Williamsons said they have stopped using opioids, and their hope is to keep drugs out of their lives forever.
“Once you’re an addict, you’re always an addict. It’s just that we don’t have the want or the need or the desire to chase it anymore,” Williamson said.
“We both see how our lives were then and we see where our lives are now and we like where we’re at now and we know how slippery of a slope it is.”
(NEW YORK) — The woman accused of fatally pushing an 87-year-old woman on a New York City street was indicted on a manslaughter charge and ordered held without bail on Tuesday.
Lauren Pazienza, 26, pleaded not guilty in New York State Supreme Court to charges stemming from the March 10 attack, including one count of first-degree manslaughter and two counts of second-degree assault. She was remanded into custody, with the judge citing a recent bail reform change that allows judges to consider the seriousness of harm caused, according to New York ABC station WABC.
Prosecutors allege that on the evening of March 10, Pazienza crossed the street in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood and “shouted obscenities” at the victim, Barbara Maier Gustern, a well-known and beloved member of the city’s cabaret scene and a vocal coach. Pazienza then “intentionally shoved her to the ground,” prosecutors allege.
Gustern hit her head on the ground, causing a hemorrhage to the left side of her brain, and died five days later in the hospital after she was removed from life support, according to prosecutors.
“This was a senseless and unprovoked attack,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., said in a statement. “Barbara Gustern was a beloved vocal coach who lived a vibrant and active life at the age of 87, and her loss was felt deeply by many throughout the city.”
Prosecutors allege Pazienza “went to great lengths to avoid accountability for her actions,” including leaving the scene as Gustern lay bleeding on the ground. The suspect stayed in the area for about 20 minutes, during which time video footage showed her have a “physical altercation” with her fiance and watch the ambulance arrive, before they headed back to their apartment in Astoria, Queens, according to prosecutors.
Following the incident, Pazienza deleted her social media accounts, took down her wedding website and “eventually fled to Long Island to stay with family,” according to prosecutors.
Pazienza allegedly admitted to her fiance that she pushed Gustern, prosecutors said. She turned herself in to police on March 22, nearly two weeks after the incident, and was arrested on manslaughter and assault charges. She was initially released on $500,000 cash bail.
A motive for the attack remains unclear.
Following her arrest, her attorney called the victim’s death a “tragedy.”
“We’re just going to get to the bottom of what really happened that day after we have all the evidence that’s in possession of the prosecutors because we don’t have any evidence,” her attorney, Arthur Aidala, said in a statement at the time.
Pazienza is next due in court on July 26.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.
Wolf Alice is taking you behind the curtain of the band’s upcoming Blue Lullaby EP with a new documentary series.
The first episode, which is streaming now on YouTube, finds the U.K. rockers entering London’s Church Studios to record the EP, which features stripped-down, “lullaby” versions of songs off the group’s latest album, Blue Weekend.
In the clip, you can see and hear Wolf Alice record the Blue Lullaby version of the song “The Last Man on Earth.”
Blue Lullaby is set to be released June 24.
Blue Weekend, the third Wolf Alice album, dropped last June. It includes the single “Smile.”
Wolf Alice will launch a U.S. headlining tour in September. Next month, they’ll play shows opening for Bleachers and Halsey.
On Monday, the hitmaker teased a new song, and while it leaves much to the imagination, he does give fans a preview of the melody, which offers a perky, pop-country sound layered with his voice in the background.
“I can’t wait to show y’all what I’ve been working on. New music coming soon. Who’s ready?” Tyler captions the clip.
Many of his colleagues chimed in with their support, including Russell Dickerson, who praised “SMASHES ON SMASHES!!!!” Jake Owen added, “Come on with it,” while Tyler’s wife, Hayley Hubbard, responded with a simple “yay” along with the smiling face emoji with three hearts.
Tyler is one-half of the hit duo Florida Georgia Line. He and band mate Brian Kelley revealed in February that FGL was going on hiatus, and the two have have been working on solo projects. The duo will reunite for a series of tour dates this summer.
Mike Tyson will not face charges in the April 20 incident in which he was seen on a viral video punching a passenger onboard a JetBlue flight in San Francisco.
The San Mateo County DA’s office announced Tuesday that after reviewing police reports and videos, it has decided not to file charges against Tyson. The office said its decision is based on circumstances surrounding the confrontation, including requests by the victim that no charges be filed, the interactions between the victim and Tyson, and the conduct of the victim leading up to the incident.
As previously reported, the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department opened an investigation into the incident after the former heavyweight champ allegedly punched a fellow passenger on a still-grounded airplane. The exchange, caught on video and shared by TMZ, is said to have been a result of Tyson being provoked by the passenger who, according to eyewitnesses, was intoxicated.
A rep for the Tyson noted in April, “Unfortunately, Mr. Tyson had an incident on a flight with an aggressive passenger who began harassing him and threw a water bottle at him while he was in his seat.”
