Watch: California teen girl shoves bear off wall with her bare hands as it threatens her dogs



A Southern California teenager is receiving global attention after video went viral showing her shoving a mama bear off a wall using her bare hands as the predator threatened her dogs.

What are the details?

Hailey Morinico, 17, was captured on video rushing to save her family's four pet dogs as a mother bear with two cubs in tow sat on a wall in the back yard of her Bradbury home, swatting at the pets as they barked.

The bear was seen in the footage with her two babies walking on top of the barrier when one of Morinico's large dogs ran up barking at the bear. The mama bear swatted at the large dog, and Morinico sprang into action when the bear then started swatting at one of the smaller dogs.

"The dog that the bear grabbed, she's the baby," Morinico told KNBC-TV. "I have to protect the baby."

The teen recalled to the outlet that after she pushed the bear the predator fell back, then "the dog she grabbed ran away and I pick up my other dog and I scram."

The Daily Mail reported that in a TikTok video posted following the incident, Morinico said of the bear, "To be honest I don't think I pushed her that hard, I just pushed her enough to lose her balance."

The teen came out relatively unscathed from the incident, with a sprained finger and a scraped knee.

Morinico's mother posted on Facebook that her daughter "'Just saved our dog with super human strength," describing the scene as, "for me one of the scariest moments in life.'

'She sent the video on our family group chat and I just knew people would think it was crazy so I posted it. We did not expect this much of a reaction though!' her cousin Stephanie Lopez Villalobos, who posted the video of the rescue, told the Daily Mail.

'She's a crazy brave 17 year old!'

NBC News noted that according to experts, "squaring off with a bear should be avoided by humans at all costs."

Maryland cop fatally shoots teen who allegedly threatened him with what turned out to be an airsoft gun



A Maryland State Police trooper responding to two "suspicious person" calls fatally shot a 16-year-old who allegedly threatened the officer with a knife and what turned out to be an airsoft gun, authorities said Tuesday.

What are the details?

Superintendent Woodrow Jones said during a new conference that the initial 911 caller in Leonardtown reported saying they believed the "guy" had a gun, before hanging up on the dispatcher. The second caller gave a street address for the individual purportedly acting suspiciously.

Jones said that a witness described the teen, Peyton Ham, standing in a driveway in "a shooting stance, pointing a gun at the trooper" when he arrived alone. Ham allegedly told the officer he also had a knife. The officer then shot the teen, wounding him.

According to Jones, another witness claimed "Ham then pulled out a knife and tried to get up," the Associated Press reported. The trooper says he told Ham to drop the knife, but the teen allegedly refused, so the officer shot him a second time.

Fellow officers who later responded to assist at the scene rendered aid to Ham, who was taken to a hospital and later died.

According to the AP, both the trooper and Ham are white. There is no body camera footage or dashcam footage of the incident.

Maryland State Trooper shoots, kills teen that had a knife and airsoft gun, officials saywww.youtube.com

Anything else?

Online observers drew a correlation between the Maryland shooting and the 2014 high-profile death of the black 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was killed by an officer in Cleveland while holding what was later found to be an airsoft pistol.

Rice was shot "within two seconds" of officers arriving and seeing the child at Cudell Park, while responding to a report of a man with a gun. The pre-teen's replica gun was missing the telltale orange tip that is typically affixed to the non-lethal toy guns.

Officer Timothy Loehmann, who killed Rice, did not face charges in the incident that officials called "a perfect storm of human error."

Columbia University associate professor John McWhorter tweeted of the Maryland shooting, "I have often written that we simply never hear about whites killed by cops in the same ways as blacks. But I've never quite known of a parallel to one case: what happened to Tamir Rice - till now."

I have often written that we simply never hear about whites killed by cops in the same ways as blacks. But I've nev… https://t.co/Z5U8tESh2u
— John McWhorter (@John McWhorter)1618430685.0

McWhorter received mixed reviews and further calls for discussion over drawing the connection.

One person wrote, "You're ignoring that the police initially claimed that Rice pulled a gun on them. It was only the video footage that proved the police were lying. In this case there is no video footage and for some reason you're backing the police version without any verification."

Another added, "Also, now having read this story (assuming it's true which is not a given yet) this person is not similar to Tamir Rice at all, his having a knife on him and pointing the rifle at the cop. Tamir Rice was a kid whiling away his time. Cops pulled up and shot him in a millisecond."

Someone else replied, "I agree that knowing the details after the fact we can see a difference. But how is it different from the officers perspective when they have a gun of any kind pointed at them?"

'You will be destroyed': NY Dem says Gov. Cuomo threatened him over nursing home scandal



New York Assemblyman Ron Kim says fellow Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo threatened to ruin him while urging him to help mitigate the fallout against Cuomo after the lawmaker criticized the governor for underreporting COVID-19 nursing home deaths in the state.

What are the details?

The New York Post revealed last week that top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa admitted to state Democratic leaders that the governor's office hid the full data on nursing home fatalities during the Trump administration over fears of the political fallout. Cuomo denied responsibility and blamed nursing home staff for spreading the virus.

Kim told The Post Wednesday that shortly after their initial report, Cuomo called his home last Thursday night while he was bathing his kids and threatened him — yelling so loud into the phone that Kim's wife heard much of the conversation.

"At first, there was silence on the phone," Kim recalled. "Then the governor says, 'Mr. Kim, are you an honorable man?'

Kim said Cuomo asked him to release a statement "to say that Melissa DeRosa said there was a federal investigation and they had to deal with that first."

According to Kim, Cuomo went on to say, "You have not seen my wrath. I have been biting my tongue for months. I can tell the whole world what a bad person you are and you will be finished. You will be destroyed."

The assemblyman told the outlet, "After that call, we were devastated. My wife didn't sleep at all."

Kim says Cuomo called him again "four or five times on Saturday" but he ignored the calls.

During a media call on Wednesday, Cuomo acknowledged "a long hostile relationship with Assemblyman Kim," calling him a liar and accusing the lawmaker of being involved in "pay-to-play" politics in the past.

What was the governor's response?

Cuomo senior adviser Rich Azzopardi issued a statement following Kim's claims, saying that Kim was "lying about his conversation" with the governor, saying "at no time did anyone threaten to 'destroy' anyone with their 'wrath' nor engage in a 'coverup.'"

Azzopardi admitted, "We did ask for Mr. Kim to do the honorable thing and put out a truthful statement after he told the Governor he was misquoted in a news article, which he said he tried to correct but the reporter refused."

The Post noted that "Kim has been among Cuomo's most outspoken critics since his uncle, Son Kim, died in a nursing home in April after suffering symptoms of COVID-19."

On Monday, Kim rebuked Cuomo's explanations for the false reporting on nursing home deaths, saying "all of it is BS" and accusing the governor of a cover-up.

Parler removed from Google Play Store, threatened by Apple for lack of speech moderation



Social media site Parler—endorsed by several high profile conservatives as an alternative to Twitter—was removed from Google's Play Store on Friday, after being threatened with removal from Apple's app store over allegations that the 'free speech" platform has not done enough to crack down on violent rhetoric following the attack on the U.S. Capitol building.

What are the details?

On Friday, Buzzfeed News obtained an email from Apple to Parler executives threatening to take down the site from its iPhone app store unless the social media network implements a stringent speech moderation policy within 24 hours.

"We have received numerous complaints regarding objectionable content in your Parler service, accusations that the Parler app was used to plan, coordinate, and facilitate the illegal activities in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021 that led (among other things) to loss of life, numerous injuries, and the destruction of property," Apple wrote to Parler. "The app also appears to continue to be used to plan and facilitate yet further illegal and dangerous activities."

Within hours, Google Play Store removed the app from its store entirely, saying in a statement to Politico:

"In order to protect user safety on Google Play, our longstanding policies require that apps displaying user-generated content have moderation policies and enforcement that removes egregious content like posts that incite violence. All developers agree to these terms and we have reminded Parler of this clear policy in recent months. We're aware of continued posting on Parler app that seeks to incite ongoing violence in the U.S. We recognize that there can be reasonable debate about content policies and that it can be difficult for apps to immediately remove all violative content, but for us to distribute an app through Google Play, we do require that apps implement robust moderation for egregious content."

Parler suffered several outages on Friday despite Google yanking access from Android phones, after Twitter announced it had issued a lifelong ban to President Donald Trump citing "risk of further incitement of violence." Meanwhile, several conservatives on Twitter expressed concern that a broader purge was occurring on the platform, as countless users complained of losing a significant number of followers as the day progressed.

Twitter had announced earlier in the day that it would permanently shut down any accounts deemed "solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content," and issued bans on pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell and former national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn, who called for martial law following President Trump's election loss.