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The former head coach of the Washington Spirit was fired by the National Women's Soccer League following an investigation into allegations of harassment and a toxic work culture. Other team representatives were also suspended from roles within the league. "After considering the substance of the report, and taking into account prior actions of the Spirit, the NWSL's board of governors has determined that the Spirit and its ownership have failed to act in the best interests of the League," the NWSL said in its statement Tuesday. The termination of former head coach Richie Burke follows weeks of reports by The Washington Post that alleged he was responsible for creating a toxic work culture for female employees. The NWSL doesn't mention Burke by name in its statement, but rather says the "Washington Spirit's head coach has been terminated for cause." The league opened an investigation into Burke and the team, which is based in the Washington, D.C. area...

She was abducted while working ovenight at a convenience store. Tina Milford felt uneasy as she reported to work at midnight on June 24, 1983. The 23-year-old worked as an overnight clerk at a Little Cricket convenience store near Interstate 85 in Anderson, South Carolina, but she had recently requested to be moved to the day shift. A few months earlier, while she was working at a different Little Cricket store located four miles away, Tina had been badly beaten during a robbery. The experience had traumatized her; she told friends that she no longer felt safe working there. She had transferred to the store closer to Interstate 85, but it would prove to be even more dangerous. The first indication that something was wrong came around 2:45 am, when a customer entered the Little Cricket store and found it seemingly abandoned. Although the front door was unlocked and all the lights were on, no one was inside. The customer waited in the store for a few minutes, but no employees appeared. R...

One of the most spectacular Einstein rings ever seen in space is enabling us to see what's happening in a galaxy almost at the dawn of time. The smears of light called the Molten Ring, stretched out and warped by gravitational fields, are magnifications and duplications of a galaxy whose light has traveled a whopping 9.4 billion light-years. This magnification has given us a rare insight into the stellar 'baby boom' when the Universe was still in its infancy. The early evolution of the Universe is a difficult time to understand. It blinked into existence as we understand it roughly 13.8 billion years ago, with the first light emerging (we think) around 1 billion years later . Light traveling for that amount of time is faint, the sources of it small, and dust obscures much of it. Even the most intrinsically luminous objects are extraordinarily hard to see across that gulf of space-time, so there are large gaps in our understanding of how the Universe assembled itself from p...

JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. — A Washington County, Tennessee Sheriff's Office employee accused of using excessive force against an inmate has been fired. Brandon Ross Ramsey, 29, of Johnson City was indicted by a grand jury on charges of official misconduct and assault. Ramsey turned himself into authorities on September 15. According to the Washington County, TN Chief Deputy Leighta Laitinen, an internal investigation began "after officers on duty witnessed an incident and reported to jail supervision." The findings determined Ramsey "violated departmental policy and he was subsequently terminated." The investigation was then turned over to the district attorney's office. Ramsey was released on a $3,000 bond. His arraignment is scheduled for November 29.

LOUISVILLE – The Louisville Board of Aldermen voted to fire Officer Ty Hardin of the Louisville Police Department for multiple violations of city and police department rules. “The accusations are still under investigation and most likely, we’re going to pass this on to an outside agency,” says Louisville Police Chief Sean Holdiness. That’s where Chief Holdiness says things stand after the board voted to dismiss Officer Hardin based on his recommendation. The decision comes as the result of an internal investigation involving the 30-year-old officer over the past several months. Chief Holdiness and Mayor Will Hill say the investigation uncovered violations of policies and procedures for both LPD and the city. “Violations plural,” Mayor Hill says. “I am not at liberty to discuss as things that are in executive session are personnel-related.” Chief Holdiness says the investigation began in July after witnesses came forward regarding Hardin’s actions. “Specifically, transportation of other...

A woman who claims that in order to keep a man happy, their wives should wear dresses and keep the house tidy has sparked outrage on TikTok, as her video went viral. A woman has divided opinions online for her controversial tips on how to keep a man happy. The woman shared the controversial advice on TikTok, where she posts under the username @girlygirluk , where people have criticised her for being outdated. "A man isn't really hard to please," she said in the video, which has since gone viral, racking up more than 3.5 million views. "Feed him, kiss him, wear dresses, get flirty, be his best friend, make home a paradise, shower compliments." She then went on to say that keeping a man happy is "not so hard" to do - if you follow her advice. Since being posted, the video has racked up more than 92,000 likes and almost 23,000 comments, many from viewers who disagree with her beliefs and said she was living in the wrong decade. One person said: "You ...

Most of the cells in our bodies—be they bone, muscle or pancreas cells—are locked into the right place with the help of tiny anchors (called 'focal adhesions'). These strong anchors use protein chains to link the cell to collagen, the protein that gives structure to our body. The anchors help the cells stay put and, for the most part, resist disruptions to their environment—but if a cell morphs into a cancer cell, the chain can break, letting the cancer spread to other parts of the body. Now, for the first time, a team of UNSW Sydney scientists have found the specific protein (or link) in the chain responsible for upholding the connection. The findings, published today in Nature Materials, build on our understanding of cell mechanics—and could help give new directions for cancer research . "We've identified the protein that's essential for these attachments to function," says Ms Maria Lastra Cagigas, lead author of the study and Scientia Ph.D. candidate at U...

Amber Hagerman, 9, was abducted while playing with her brother in an abandoned grocery store parking lot in Arlington Texas. Four days later, her body was found. Her killer had kept her alive for two days before killing her. Her brutal murder still remains unsolved. Case File Overview On the afternoon of January 13th, 1996, 9-year-old Amber Hagerman went on a bike ride with her 5-year-old brother Ricky. To make the most of the warm winter day in Arlington, Texas, they headed to an abandoned grocery store parking lot that had a bike ramp many kids in the neighbourhood used. Amber and Ricky spent time playing in the parking lot. And after a while, Ricky decided to head back home, leaving his sister to enjoy cycling on her own. Minutes later, Amber was abducted. Amber wearing her Brownies uniform. Credit: NBC News. Four days after Amber’s kidnapping, a man walking his dog stumbled upon her body in a creek behind Forest Hills Apartments, an apartment complex less than five miles from the p...

BOYLE COUNTY, Ky – A deputy with the Boyle County Sheriff’s Office has been fired. Sheriff Derek Robbins said Tanner Abbott was terminated Tuesday for ethics violations. Robbins said he can’t elaborate because it’s a personnel matter. Tanner Abbott. Sources familiar with the case said at least some of the reasons relate to posts on Abbott’s Facebook page, including at least one that suggested Abbott was revealing a possible informant. The post has been taken down from Abbott’s page but screenshots of the post taken before it was deleted reveal the exchange. After Tanner Abbott was terminated last Tuesday, relieved of his duties as a deputy with the Boyle County Sheriff’s Office, a firestorm of social media posts began circulating. Speculation about why Abbott was fired focused on a Facebook comment he made earlier that day, where he tagged an individual and said the person had been “texting me, trying to set someone up, to work off your drug charges …” Sheriff Derek Robbins confirm...

Fixing breaks in genes with speed and perfection can be a matter of life and death for most organisms. Even the simplest changes in a sequence risk catastrophe, especially if the altered code is responsible for a critical function. Over the past half a century, biologists have studied the mechanisms involved to piece together most of the major steps involved in making faithful repairs in DNA. Yet, one part of the process has remained frustratingly unclear. By marking key enzymes and DNA with fluorescent tags and watching the repair process unfold in real-time in an Escherichia coli model, researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden have filled in missing details on how bacteria find the templates they rely on to keep genetic repairs error-free. One trick most living things use to keep their code in order is the process of homologous recombination , the biological equivalent of comparing two distinct versions of a script to make sure a copy hasn't mistakenly introduced any errors...

Jeremy Morris oversaw sexual harassment complaints against don who was readmitted despite student contact ban. The master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge University , has resigned over an allegation that he mishandled sexual harassment complaints, after an independent inquiry recommended the college initiate disciplinary action. Jeremy Morris oversaw a sexual harassment case in 2019, in which Cambridge don Peter Hutchinson was readmitted to his college less than two years after he had been permanently excluded and banned from contacting students after an internal investigation. Hutchinson, who had been accused of nearly a dozen incidents of inappropriate behaviour between 2014 and 2015, regained some college privileges when he automatically became an emeritus professor after his retirement. The college provoked widespread ire among staff and students in 2019 when it defended its decision to restore Hutchinson’s access to the college for certain college events and to exercise his dining ri...