Daily paper. Local, state, and wire news and commentary. Photo galleries, business and obituaries. The boy is.
48 years ago today, Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, an unsurpassed milestone in the history of human exploration. To celebrate, luxury auction house Sotheby’s is. The reason why I’m recalling this tale of stupidity is because I recently found myself in a 2017 BMW M240i convertible. My colleague, Mike Ballaban, picked me up. Please note, as an introduction to this section, let me just make one thing crystal clear. You can purchase diatomaceous earth in a variety of forms (remember we. A father of six. A free spirit who befriended strangers in the grocery store checkout line. A mother of three who fled religious persecution in Iran. Tickets for Concerts, Sports, Theatre and More Online at TicketsInventory.com.
Black Widow Spider Bite Can Kill Pets If You Don't Act Fast. By Dr. Becker. Today I want to talk about two types of spiders, the black widow and the brown recluse, both of which have bites that can be poisonous to pets. Black Widow Spider. In the US, there are actually three species of widow spiders that are highly venomous to both pets and people. There’s the Western black widow, which is found in the western regions of the country; the Northern black widow, found in the northernmost areas of the US and southeast Canada; and the Southern black widow in the southeast US, from Florida to New York, and also in many of the southwest states. Widow spiders are found in every state but Alaska.
Female black widows are larger than males, measuring from three quarters to about an inch in length. They’re shiny black and have a red or red- orange hourglass- shaped mark on the underside of the abdomen. Some females also have a red marking on the top of the abdomen, above the spinnerets (silk- spinning organs).
Younger female spiders are brownish in color, with red, orange, or yellow stripes across the top of the abdomen. These markings change into the hourglass shape as the spider matures and changes to a black color. Male spiders are about half the size of females, have light brown coloring, and don’t have the red hourglass marking. The males aren’t considered a threat, since it’s usually the female that bites. Symptoms of a Black Widow Spider Bite. Black widow spider bites can be dry, meaning no venom is injected.
When there is venom present, it is a potent neurotoxin that triggers a massive release in a dog’s or cat’s body of acetylcholine and norepinephrine. Younger and older pets are at increased risk for severe symptoms due to their typically weaker immune systems. Animals with systemic high blood pressure are also at increased risk of fatal complications from black widow spider bites.
Symptoms of a venomous black widow bite in pets include the following: Early marked paralysis. Muscle tremors and cramping. Rigid and painful abdomen.
Severely painful muscles in the back, chest, and abdomen. Difficulty breathing and/or respiratory collapse resulting from paralysis of the abdominal muscle. Excessive drooling. Restlessness. Increased blood pressure and heart rate. Loss of coordination and the ability to stand.
Vomiting and diarrhea. A black widow spider bite can be fatal if anti- venom treatment isn’t given quickly. Diagnosis. Symptoms of a black widow spider bite can be difficult to diagnose because they are symptoms that are seen in many other illnesses and diseases in pets, including other types of poisonings. Your veterinarian will do a chemical blood profile, a complete blood count (CBC), a urinalysis, and a thorough physical examination. He or she will be on the lookout for marks on your pet’s skin that may indicate the location of the spider bite.
Muscle and abdominal rigidity are classic signs of a venomous black widow bite. Black Widow Spider Bite Treatment Options. If you suspect your pet has been bitten by a black widow spider, contact your veterinarian or emergency animal hospital immediately. I also suggest administering the homeopathic remedy Latrodectus mactans as soon as possible. A pet that has been poisoned by the bite of a black widow spider will be hospitalized and given supportive care. This may include oxygen to assist breathing and intravenous (IV) fluids to lower blood pressure.
Muscle spasms and pain will be controlled with IV muscle relaxants and painkillers. Anti- seizure medications will be given as needed. Without the anti- venom, a black widow bite is usually fatal in cats and also in many dogs. Your veterinarian will monitor the wound site until it has completely healed. The prognosis is often uncertain for days after treatment begins, and weakness, fatigue, and insomnia can persist for many months. Brown Recluse Spider.
The brown recluse spider is also known as the “fiddle back” or “violin” spider after the violin- shaped marking on its back. It is typically found in the Midwestern US, as far west as Colorado and New Mexico, and as far east as northern Georgia. It is also found throughout the southern US, as well as up the Mississippi River valley to southern Wisconsin. The brown recluse is brown in color, with a violin- shaped marking on the upper portion of the body, with the neck of the violin extending down to the base of the tail.
Not all recluses have the marking, for example, young brown recluse spiders do not. But generally speaking, the violin- shaped marking is a good way to recognize them. These spiders also have a unique pattern of six eyes instead of three. They’re less than an inch in length, with very long legs. Symptoms of a Brown Recluse Spider Bite. Despite their fierce reputation, brown recluses really are reclusive and typically non- aggressive, preferring to stay away from people and pets.
They are active at night, and bites usually occur when a spider gets trapped in bedding and an animal or human rolls over on it. A spider will also bite if an animal disturbs it in its space. Cats may be at higher risk because of their tendency to crawl into dark, small spaces, such as under the bed or behind cabinets. A brown recluse spider bite is necrotizing, which means the bite wound will ulcerate and cause the death of surrounding soft tissue.
The wound is very slow to heal, which increases the risk of secondary infections. Serious complications arise when an ulcerated wound progresses to gangrene, or when the venom enters the bloodstream and/or internal organs. Rarely, this can lead to destruction of red blood cells, kidney failure, coagulation disruption, and even death. Some pets show no symptoms from the bite of a brown recluse. This can actually help you locate the bite mark - - you might need to shave the area or part the fur to visualize the wound. The intense pain is followed by itching and soreness at the wound site. The lesion that forms will be white in color, with a dark scab in the middle, and a zone of reddish inflammation around the bite.
After two to five weeks, the central scab may slough off, revealing a deep, slow- healing ulcer that typically kills surrounding soft tissue. Other signs that may occur within two to three days of the bite include fever, chills, rash, weakness, rapid production of white blood cells (which can be picked up on bloodwork), nausea, and joint pain.
Rarely, anemia with bloody urine is also seen within the first 2. Diagnosis. The bite from a brown recluse can look like a number of other bite wounds. Unless you actually saw the spider bite your pet, it’s likely your vet will search for a range of other possible causes for the symptoms your dog or cat is experiencing. A chemical blood profile, complete blood count (CBC), and urinalysis will be conducted. A coagulation profile may be necessary to check your pet’s blood clotting activity. If you live where there are brown recluse spiders, you might want to ask the vet to check for the presence of venom in your pet’s bloodstream. This is done with an enzyme- linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test.
But unless you bring up the possibility of a spider bite, your vet may not think to test for venom. Unaddressed, the venom from a brown recluse can cause severe damage to pets. The tissue death can spread well beyond the initial bite wound, and in some cases of substantial tissue devitalization, an entire limb can be affected. In a worst- case scenario, amputation may be necessary. The faster a spider bite is found, the better the chance of preventing complications. Treating a Brown Recluse Bite.
Routine wound care will be given unless your pet is extremely ill. Very sick animals must be hospitalized to receive IV fluid therapy and blood transfusion(s) if necessary.
If the venom is mild, cold compresses can be used to reduce inflammation and pain, and several different homeopathic remedies can be very beneficial at that point in time.
Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking the Deck of Justice. More than a decade in the making, the move to block class actions was engineered by a Wall Street- led coalition of credit card companies and retailers, according to interviews with coalition members and court records.
Strategizing from law offices on Park Avenue and in Washington, members of the group came up with a plan to insulate themselves from the costly lawsuits. Their work culminated in two Supreme Court rulings, in 2. The decisions drew little attention outside legal circles, even though they upended decades of jurisprudence put in place to protect consumers and employees.
One of the players behind the scenes, The Times found, was John G. Roberts Jr., who as a private lawyer representing Discover Bank unsuccessfully petitioned the Supreme Court to hear a case involving class- action bans.
By the time the Supreme Court handed down its favorable decisions, he was the chief justice. Corporations said that class actions were not needed because arbitration enabled individuals to resolve their grievances easily. But court and arbitration records show the opposite has happened: Once blocked from going to court as a group, most people dropped their claims entirely. The Times investigation was based on thousands of court records and interviews with hundreds of lawyers, corporate executives, judges, arbitrators and plaintiffs in 3. Since no government agency tracks class actions, The Times examined federal cases filed between 2. Of 1,1. 79 class actions that companies sought to push into arbitration, judges ruled in their favor in four out of every five cases. In 2. 01. 4 alone, judges upheld class- action bans in 1.
Some of the lawsuits involved small banking fees, including one brought by Citibank customers who said they were duped into buying insurance they were never eligible to use. Fees like this, multiplied over millions of customers, amount to billions of dollars in profits for companies. The regulators “have required significant remediations and large fines to address issues they found, with very little loss in value to the consumer,” said the spokeswoman, Marina H. Norville. Law enforcement officials, though, say they have lost an essential tool for uncovering patterns of corporate abuse. In a letter last year to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, attorneys general in 1. In October, the bureau outlined rules to prevent financial firms from banning class actions.
Almost immediately, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce galvanized forces to stop the move. Andrew J. Pincus, a law partner at Mayer Brown in Washington who has represented companies that use arbitration, said class actions yielded little relief for plaintiffs. Pincus said. But by assembling records from arbitration firms across the country, The Times found that between 2.
Verizon, which has more than 1. Time Warner Cable, which has 1. Download Dvd Movie Persian Connection (2017) on this page.
One federal judge remarked in an opinion that “only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $3. Daniel Dempsey of Tucson admits he might be both. He has spent three years and $3.
Citibank in arbitration over a $1. Dempsey, who previously worked in Citi’s investment bank, said the erroneous charge ruined his credit score, and he vowed to continue until he was awarded damages. The odds are not in his favor.
Roughly two- thirds of consumers contesting credit card fraud, fees or costly loans received no monetary awards in arbitration, according to The Times’s data. The Supreme Court’s rulings amounted to a legal coup for a group of corporate lawyers who figured out how to twin arbitration clauses with class- action bans. The lawyers represented clients that had paid billions of dollars to resolve class actions over the years. The lawsuits, companies said, were driven by plaintiffs’ lawyers who stood to make millions of dollars. They said they had no choice but to settle even those cases that were without merit.“These lawsuits were not about protecting consumers but about plaintiffs’ lawyers,” said Duncan E. Mac. Donald, a former general counsel for Citibank who was part of the group. Here are several: Consumer advocates disagreed.
A class action, they argued, allowed people who lost small amounts of money to join together to seek relief. Others exposed wrongdoing, including a case against auto dealers who charged minority customers higher interest rates on car loans.
The consequences of arbitration clauses can be seen far beyond the financial sector. Even lawsuits that would not have been brought by a class have been forced out of the courts, according to the Times investigation.
Taking Wall Street’s lead, businesses — including obstetrics practices, private schools and funeral homes — have employed arbitration clauses to shield themselves from liability, interviews and arbitration and court records show. Thousands of cases brought by single plaintiffs over fraud, wrongful death and rape are now being decided behind closed doors. And the rules of arbitration largely favor companies, which can even steer cases to friendly arbitrators, interviews and records show. The sharp shift away from the civil justice system has barely registered with Americans. Paul Bland Jr., the executive director of Public Justice, a national consumer advocacy group, attributed this to the tangle of bans placed inside clauses added to contracts that no one reads in the first place.“Corporations are allowed to strip people of their constitutional right to go to court,” Mr.
Carlson said. Somewhat of a libertarian, Mr. Carlson said he used to associate big lawsuits with “ambulance chasers.” But that was before he needed one. In 2. 00. 3, he sued American Express on behalf of small businesses over steep processing fees. The fees — 3. 0 percent higher than Visa’s or Master.
Card’s — were hurting profits, but the restaurants could not afford to turn away diners who used American Express corporate cards. It was a classic antitrust case: A big company was accused of using its monopoly power to charge unfair prices. But as Italian Colors v. American Express wended its way through the courts over the next 1. When the case was filed, the alliance of corporate interests, including credit card companies, national retailers and carmakers, had already been strategizing on how to eliminate class actions. The effort was led by a lawyer at Ballard Spahr, a Philadelphia firm that represented big banks.
The only thing the lawyer, Alan S. Kaplinsky, had in common with Mr. Carlson was a first name. Laser- focused and admirably relentless, Mr. Kaplinsky preferred his polo shirts buttoned up and tucked in.
Photo. Alan Kaplinsky, a corporate lawyer, first brought companies and lawyers together in 1. Credit. Stephanie Diani for The New York Times Among his clients were Alabama money lenders accused of duping customers into taking out credit cards.
Settlements were costly; trying the cases in front of sympathetic juries was worse. Mr. Kaplinsky was searching for solutions when he remembered helping, as a young lawyer, a mutual savings and loan association draft an arbitration clause, he said in an interview. Banks could take it a step further, he thought, by writing class- action bans into the clauses.“Clients were telling me they were getting killed by frivolous lawsuits and asking me what on earth could be done about it,” Mr. Kaplinsky said. He soon joined forces with lawyers at Wilmer. Hale, a firm that had represented big banks. The group invited corporate legal teams in July 1.
New York offices to strategize about arbitration. Attendees included representatives from Bank of America, Chase, Citigroup, Discover, Sears, Toyota and General Electric. At a subsequent teleconference, participants dialed in remotely using an easy- to- remember code: a- r- b- i- t- r- a- t- i- o- n. Details of the meetings, and of more than a dozen others over the next three years, were culled from court records filed in a federal lawsuit in Manhattan and corroborated in interviews with lawyers who attended.