QUOTE OF THE DAY “We expected Utah to be the last place we could get married.” Adam Blatter, who married his domestic partner Monday, on a federal judge overturning Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage Friday, then rejecting a request from the state Monday to put a stop to the weddings Article, this page Judge to hospital: Don’t pull plug on girl
OAKLAND, Calif. - A California judge has ordered a hospital to keep a 13-year-old girl declared brain dead on a ventilator for another week.
The order by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo on Monday calls for Children’s Hospital in Oakland to continue providing treatment and support to Jahi McMath until Monday or further order from the court.
Doctors at Children’s Hospital in Oakland, where Jahi is on life support, have concluded she is brain dead. But Jahi’s family disputes that.
Jahi’s family said the girl bled profusely after a routine tonsillectomy and then went into cardiac arrest before being declared brain dead Dec. 12.
The judge earlier Monday ordered an independent review of Jahi’s condition by a pediatric neurologist from Stanford University.
The family’s attorney also asked Judge Evelio Grillo to allow a third evaluation by Paul Byrne, a pediatric professor at the University of Toledo. The hospital’s attorney objected to Byrne, saying he is not a pediatric neurologist.
The judge is expected to take up the request to use Byrne, and another hearing was scheduled for this morning.
NYC jumper had son for first solo visit
NEW YORK - A father threw his young child off the roof of a 52-story Manhattan apartment building and then jumped in a murder-suicide on the first day he was allowed to be alone with the boy amid a custody battle with the mother, police officials said Monday.
“There was a history of domestic turmoil,” said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
Dmitriy Kanarikov picked up his 3-year-old son at 10 a.m. Sunday at a Manhattan police precinct - a neutral site negotiated in advance by the parents - to spend time with him for the first time “outside of some sort of institutional setting,” Kelly said.
A friend of Kanarikov’s had once lived in the building.
Investigators recovered a security video showing the father and son entering without being stopped by the doorman.
Kanarikov’s Lexus was found parked outside.
The motive behind the deaths remained murky Monday.
Kelly said there was no note found, and investigators have no evidence Kanarikov ever threatened to harm his son. However, at one point, he had told his wife that “unless she signed over the house to him and some undisclosed property, he was going to take the child,” Kelly said.
Study: Nuts OK after all for the pregnant
LOS ANGELES - A study released Monday shows an association between pregnant women who ate the most peanuts and tree nuts and children with a decreased allergy risk.
Women had been advised to avoid peanuts and tree nuts, as well as other highly allergic foods, during pregnancy and until the child turned 3, as a way to try to reduce the chances of an allergy. But those recommendations were rescinded after researchers found that the effort didn’t work.
The study from Boston Children’s Hospital, which was published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics, found that women who ate nuts more than five times a month had the lowest incidence of allergic children.
“By linking maternal peanut consumption to reduced allergy risk, we are providing new data to support the hypothesis that early allergen exposure increases tolerance and reduces risk of childhood food allergy,” Dr. Michael Young, lead author of the study, said in a statement.
Peanut allergies affect 1 percent to 3 percent of people in most Western countries. In the U.S., it’s at 4 percent, according to the study.
Spacewalk to wrap up repairs, NASA says
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The Christmas Eve spacewalk planned by NASA at the International Space Station should complete repair work on a faulty cooling line, officials said Monday.
Mission Control said that unless something goes awry, two astronauts ought to finish installing a new ammonia pump today during this second spacewalk. NASA originally thought three spacewalks might be needed.
Astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins removed the faulty pump Saturday. Everything went so well, they jumped ahead in their effort to fix the external cooling line that shut down Dec. 11.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 12/24/2013