Sun: US Life Expectancy Sucks. Why?

Teach Your Children Well. Otherwise They Might Screw Up a Mass Murder Conspiracy

A schoolgirl who shot her father as part of a pre-planned murder-pact with a friend before turning the gun on herself can be pictured for the first time.

Emma Brown, 12, shot her father, Daniel Brown, 38, in the abdomen at their home in Poolville, Texas, around 30 miles from Fort Worth on September 20, 2022. Emma shot herself in the head and died in hospital two days later.

Exclusive pictures obtained by DailyMail.com show the father, who survived, and daughter smiling as they posed with a rifle and handguns together before the horror incident.

The seventh grade student had plotted to kill her entire family and pets, along with another 12-year-old girl from Lufkin, Texas, though it is unclear how they met.

Parker County District Attorney's office confirmed that the second girl, who has not been identified, was charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

Check Out the T-Shirt. She Really Was Up to No Good.

It's Not Who Votes, But Who Counts the Votes

Next year’s elections are still 16 months away. But for voters, perhaps the most important developments took place during the first half of this year — when states drafted and passed the legislation that will shape how those contests are run.

“The rules that will govern the 2024 election are being written today,” said Megan Bellamy, vice president for law and policy at the Voting Rights Lab, which tracks state elections legislation and works to protect access to the ballot. “Already, based on what we’ve seen, it will look different from the 2020 election for many voters, all the way from how they vote to how their ballots are counted.”

With all but a few state legislatures now having wrapped up their sessions, it’s clear that for voters in some states, it will be easier to cast a ballot, while in others, it will be harder.

According to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice, 21 bills that restrict voting or interfere with election administration were either signed into law, or await the governor’s signature, as of May 29. Meanwhile, 23 bills that expand access to voting became law or are on governors’ desks.

Red states and blue states “are moving in opposite directions in the regulation of election administration,” the election law scholar Edward Foley wrote recently, “with red states becoming more restrictive as blue states are becoming more expansive.”

Or Who You Let Vote

This Candidate Promises to Sink Her Teeth Into the City's Problems.

Toronto will soon decide who will be its next mayor, after revelations of an extramarital affair pushed the city's long-time leader out of office. There is no shortage of candidates to choose from - in fact, a historic total of 102 names will be on the ballot, including Molly, the dog.

The six-year-old wolf-husky canine, and her owner Toby Heaps, are running on the promise to "Stop the Salt Assault" on city roads during the winter.

The overuse of salt on roads during the winter, Mr Heaps argued, can hurt the paws of tender-footed canines like Molly. His campaign also proposes a fix to housing unaffordability, a tax-hike on billion-dollar businesses and a ban on fossil-fuel heating systems in new homes and commercial buildings.

If he wins, he said he will designate Molly as the city's first honorary dog mayor.



And She Will Take a Bite Out of Crime

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow ... Back the Next Day?

Unsightly skin moles may offer a possible avenue to treat hair loss, according to a study published this week in the journal Nature.

For nearly a decade, scientists at the University of California, Irvine have been studying skin moles to understand why they produce such long hairs. Their new paper shows that such moles contain particular molecules that promote hair growth.

"Nature gave us clues in those hairy skin moles," said Maksim Plikus, the study's lead author and a professor of developmental and cell biology at UC, Irvine.

People normally shed between 50 and 100 hairs per day, then generate new hair from the stem cells in hair follicles. But in individuals with baldness or pattern baldness — what doctors call alopecia or androgenic alopecia — the stem cells lie dormant, so new hair can’t grow.

In experiments involving mice, Plikus and his research team demonstrated that a molecule called osteopontin, which is especially prominent in hairy skin moles, could activate hair follicle stem cells that were previously dormant.

The researchers tested this by grafting human skin samples onto mice, then giving the animals three injections of the molecule, spaced one day apart. Within days, the injections helped the mice grow new hairs that are around 1 centimeter long.

To verify that the osteopontin was responsible for the hair growth, the researchers also injected a neutral protein in a different spot on the skin, but that injection site did not sprout new hair.

Plikus said that unlike studies that focus on mouse fur, his findings are more applicable to humans because the experiment used human skin samples and tested a molecule found in human moles.

"The mechanism that they identify in mice seemed to be applicable to understand hair follicle growth in humans. That is a remarkable part of the study," said Mayumi Ito, a professor of dermatology and cell biology at NYU Langone Health, who wasn't involved in the research.

Plikus hopes that his research could eventually lead to an outpatient procedure to promote hair growth — perhaps performed in a dermatologist’s office, similar to a cosmetic procedure like Botox. The molecule would take the form of a gel and get injected or administered through a process called microneedling, which rolls tiny needles over the skin, he said.

In theory, Plikus said, people could then see their natural hair grow back as it was before they experienced baldness.

Mosquitoes Seem to Love Those Red-State, Red-Blooded Americans

In late May, Sarasota County, Florida, health officials confirmed they had identified a case of locally transmitted malaria. In mid-June, they confirmed the second. On June 23, Texas joined in: its state health department announced it had confirmed a case of local malaria transmission in Cameron County.

This is all highly unusual. The US hasn’t documented a locally acquired malaria case in 20 years.

Although about 2,000 people infected with malaria turn up in the US health care system every year, those cases are all linked to travel outside the US. Neither those involved in the Florida cases nor the Texas case had traveled. That means in both states, the infection was acquired within US borders.

Experts say the three cases shouldn’t warrant panic about widespread malaria transmission in the US. But it does warrant asking some questions, and being wary of the threat of more local transmission. Mosquitoes can infect multiple people before a full-on outbreak is even identified — so more cases could be out there.

Even if this turns out not to be widespread, it’s a good reminder: Malaria could make a comeback in the US, and we — and our public health infrastructure — ought to be prepared. This is especially true as a changing climate and shifting weather patterns increasingly drive mosquito migration into new places worldwide, allowing malaria to settle in where it hasn’t before.

Who's the Boss?

On April 26th, 13 year-old seventh grader Dillon Reeves was on the school bus No. 46 taking him, and over sixty (!) other students home from Lois E. Carter Middle School in Warren, Michigan, just outside of Detroit.

Sitting in the fourth row.

He felt the bus ‘swerve’, noticed no other kids had noticed.

Recalled Dillon, "She didn't even have her hands on the steering wheel or the gas pedal. It just didn't seem right."

The driver begin to have a medical emergency.

She started to convulse before passing out.

Before she did so, she radioed for help and slowed the bus, attempting to pull over, but didn’t make it in time.

And as she passed out, her legs spasmed which accelerated the bus.

And veered straight into uncoming traffic at an intersection.

Dillon didn’t hesitate, but literally sprang into action.

He turned the wheel right before it hit a car, and gently pumped the air- brakes and when it was slow enough, shifted the transmission into park.

Which he learned how to do by watching the bus driver, who he is friends with, do it.

And then turned to the screaming kids to call 911.

And totally controlled the situation.

Like a boss.