Born premature, 15 weeks early and weighing just a pound and half, she spent the first three months of life in a neonatal intensive care unit. And her struggle had just begun.
Tori recalls being 8 when her mother asked her to carry out a drug deal. When she was 11, her uncle, whom she describes as a father figure, died of a heroin overdose.
Left to fend for herself, Tori says she did not even see a dentist or primary care physician — despite her fragile birth — until she was 10.
Her mother, a recovering heroin addict, has been clean now for three years, but Tori lives with her grandparents.
“I consider myself as a parent, and my mom the kid,” Tori, describing her early childhood, said in an interview in her grandparent’s home near Dayton. “She’d never take care of me, never feed me. I had to feed myself.”
The Boy Scouts of America announced on Wednesday that girls will soon be allowed to become Cub Scouts and to earn the coveted rank of Eagle Scout, the organization’s highest honor.
“We believe it is critical to evolve how our programs meet the needs of families interested in positive and lifelong experiences for their children,” said Michael Surbaugh, chief executive of the Boy Scouts.
The scouting board of directors voted unanimously to make the historic change in an organization that has been primarily for boys since its founding more than 100 years ago.
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Boy Scouts listen as President Donald Trump speaks during the National Boy Scout Jamboree at Summit Bechtel National Scout Reserve in Glen Jean, West Virginia, July 24, 2017. Saul Loeb / AFP-Getty Images
This year, 56 million sockeye salmon swam hundreds of miles from the ocean toward the rivers and streams of the Bristol Bay watershed in southwest Alaska.
Many that escaped fishermen and bears leapt over waterfalls and used a mysterious combination of the Earth’s magnetic field and their own sensory memories to locate the exact streams where they were born — and then spawned, made gravel nests for their young, and died.
“It seems like a heroic — and perhaps tragic — life cycle,” said Thomas Quinn, a professor at the University of Washington who has been studying fish in Bristol Bay for 30 years.
The salmon’s incredible migration also sustains people: Nearly half of the world’s sockeye catch comes from this one region, which is one of the last, great salmon fisheries on Earth. The returning salmon and other ecological resources create some 14,000 full- and part-time jobs, generate about $480 million annually — and support 4,000-year-old Alaska Native cultures.
The NFL says that President Donald Trump was wrong when he tweeted Wednesday that the league is now demanding that players stand during the National Anthem.
Trump praised NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for taking a hard line on the National Anthem protests, even though that’s not what the Commissioner did.
“It is about time that Roger Goodell of the NFL is finally demanding that all players STAND for our great National Anthem-RESPECT OUR COUNTRY,” he said in an early-morning tweet.
But Goodell didn’t demand or order players to stand.
The toll from Northern California’s ranging wildfires continued to grow Tuesday evening as officials said the fires destroyed up to 2,000 structures and killed at least 17 people.
The devastating losses establish firestorms among the most destructive in California history. The estimated losses of homes, businesses and other buildings jumped from 1,500 to 2,000, and officials fear the death toll will also continue to rise.
Sonoma County alone has received about 200 reports of missing people since Sunday night, and sheriff’s officials have located 45 of those people, said county spokeswoman Maggie Fleming.
The majority of the fatalities are from Sonoma County, where huge swaths of the city of Santa Rosa were leveled by the Tubbs fire. Eleven people have died in Sonoma County as of 7 p.m. Tuesday, officials said. Two people have died in Napa County, three in Mendocino County and one in Yuba County, Cal Fire officials said.
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Penny Wright discusses the loss of her home in the Fountaingrove neighborhood of Santa Rosa, Calif.
The New Yorker’s stomach-turning article about Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein published Tuesday, which details several rape allegations, comes with newly released audio of Weinstein admitting to groping a model in 2015.
The way the interaction unfolds (listen below) is all too familiar. Weinstein, who was captured on tape through a police investigation, can be heard alternately pleading with and threatening the model, Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, citing his own influence and power while trying to diminish her.
Harvey Weinstein stands accused of rape by multiple women, according to an explosive new story by The New Yorker magazine.
One of the accusers, Asia Argento, confirmed her account to CNN.
She also commented on the mountain of allegations against Weinstein by various actresses, saying, “This is our truth.”
Argento told reporter Ronan Farrow that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her, and she’s been haunted by the encounter ever since.
“Just his body, his presence, his face, bring me back to the little girl that I was when I was twenty-one,” she told Farrow. “When I see him, it makes me feel little and stupid and weak. After the rape, he won.”
Sonoma County said it had received more than 100 phone calls to its missing person hotline as wind-powered wildfires swept through California wine country overnight, destroying at least 1,500 homes.
Officials said they were combing through the calls and believed some could be duplicates.
At least 10 people have died in the blazes as more than a dozen wildfires consumed parts of California wine country. Gov. Jerry Brown declared an emergency in eight counties, including Napa and Sonoma, and asked for a federal declaration of a major disaster for the entire state.
Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano said seven people had been killed there in fire-related incidents — and “that number’s going to change.” The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection confirmed that two people had been killed in Napa County, as well as one person in Mendocino County.
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A helicopter drops water on a wind-driven wildfire in Orange, California on Monday. Mike Blake / Reuters
Hurricane Nate was expected to be a Category 2 storm when it makes landfall overnight southeast of New Orleans, the National Hurricane Center said late Saturday morning.
Nate, with lashing winds of 90 miles per hour, sprinted north Saturday morning across the Gulf of Mexico. The Category 1 storm, rumbling north-northwest at 26 mph, was 180 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River and 265 miles from Biloxi, Mississippi, the hurricane center said in its latest advisory.
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“A hurricane warning is in effect for portions of the northern Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Alabama, with the strongest winds expected to occur primarily to the east of the center,” said the hurricane center, which expanded its tropical storm warning east to Indian Pass, on the Florida Panhandle.
Harvey Weinstein’s movie company said Friday it would investigate allegations that the Hollywood producer sexually harassed women inside and outside the company for years. Weinstein will go on an indefinite leave of absence during the probe, the company said.
The board of the Weinstein Company met Friday and decided to hire a law firm to delve into allegations revealed in an article published in The New York Times, which quoted several women who alleged they were sexually harassed, including actress Ashley Judd. The article said several women received financial settlements over the years.
“We strongly endorse Harvey Weinstein’s already-announced decision to take an indefinite leave of absence from the Company, commencing today,” the board said in a statement Friday evening. “As Harvey has said, it is important for him to get professional help for the problems he has acknowledged.”
. Harvey Weinstein attends the annual Appeal of Conscience awards dinner at the New York Hilton on September 18, 2017. Tim Boxer / Getty Images file
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
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Media losing the thread on the NFL protests?
Penny Wright discusses the loss of her home in the Fountaingrove neighborhood of Santa Rosa, Calif.
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Harvey Weinstein
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James' World 2 