Category: Portfolio.

Experts Discuss CTE Risk for Kids in Contact Sports

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The film screening and panel tackled the issue of preventing young athletes from developing the degenerative brain disorder.

Without football, Robert Turner II, assistant professor of clinical research and leadership at the George Washington University and former professional athlete, said he would not be where he is today.

Football made college accessible to him as a first-generation student, which later created paths for him to earn a master’s degree and a Ph.D.  Dr. Turner also authored the book being released late this summer, “Not for Long: The Life and Career of the NFL Athlete,” through his academic research, which would not have been possible if football hadn’t been available to him.

Still, Dr. Turner acknowledged the importance in making football and the culture surrounding the sport safer for children who play. Doing so, he said, would allow the sport to continue as a tool that adds value to the lives of the players.

“People need to play sports because there’s a lot of overall benefits to it, but where we get messed up a lot of times is when parents see their kid as the next so-forth and so-on, no matter what the sport is,” Dr. Turner said. “I think that has long-term negative consequences on the athletes themselves.”

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Civil Rights Activist Concludes South Asian Heritage Celebration

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Lawyer, activist and documentary filmmaker Valerie Kaur gave students tools for “revolutionary love” during keynote address.

Valerie Kaur, a civil rights activist and documentary filmmaker, came to the George Washington University for the South Asian Heritage Celebration to share her message of “revolutionary love.”

The GW community celebrates the culture and history of South Asian countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Burma with an annual South Asian Heritage Celebration, which is sponsored by the Multicultural Student Services Center.

The theme for this year’s celebration was “Red, White & Brown: The Audacity of Equality,” which comes from comedian Hasan Minhaj’s Netflix special, “Homecoming King.” The celebration aims to combat stereotypes, create a voice of influence on political issues and applaud positive representations in the media.

During her keynote for the celebration, Ms. Kaur explained her Revolutionary Love Project, which reclaims the ethic of love as a force for justice, and aims to make love a public ethic in the United States over the next 25 years.

She explained that love must pour in three different directions for it to be revolutionary and told some of her personal stories that reflect that. For love to be revolutionary, she said, one has to have love for others, love for opponents and love for oneself.

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Black Women Journalists Embrace Challenge of White House Coverage

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Panelists described covering the Trump administration as chaotic and tough.

April Ryan, a White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks and a political analyst for CNN, told an audience at George Washington University that she knows she has sometimes become part of the story of the Trump administration.

There was the time that the president asked Ms. Ryan from the podium during a press briefing to set up a meeting for him with the Congressional Black Caucus. And there have been social media battles between former White House aide Omarosa Manigault and Ms. Ryan and another social media rift between Ms. Ryan and a Trump appointee to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

But Ms. Ryan, a George Washington University Terker Distinguished Fellow in the School of Media and Public Affairs (SMPA), said she has not sought to become part of the story of the Trump White House.

“There have been attacks, there’s been retaliation for questions, but it’s not about me,” Ms. Ryan said. “Unfortunately, I have been in the news, but it’s not about me, it’s about the story, and when you look at it as the story and not yourself, you can move on, you can keep going back every day.”

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Political Commentator Kicks off Black Heritage Celebration

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CNN’s Angela Rye encouraged students to demand change with “a sense of urgency.”

Political strategist Angela Rye gave an engaging keynote speech to a packed auditorium on Monday night, where she talked about ways George Washington University students can begin “working woke.”

Ms. Rye said that she hoped her words inspire the audience in the Dorothy Betts Marvin Theatre to act on the issues facing the country, particularly the black community, and bring about social change by demanding rather than asking for solutions to those issues.

“We just have to get past the inspirational speeches,” Ms. Rye said. “It really is a season—it’s a really long season at this point—but it really is a season for us to begin moving and acting with a little bit more of a sense of urgency.”

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Flu Season Hits GW

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The Colonial Health Center reports an influx of students testing positive for flu virus, offers tips on prevention.

This year’s flu season has been hitting the United States at full force, and George Washington University is no exception.

Isabel Goldenberg, the director of medical services at the Colonial Health Center, said that the center is seeing double the number of flu cases it has seen in other years.

“This year we are a little bit alarmed because we have had a large number of cases of the flu,” Dr. Goldenberg said. “Since the students came back last week, we have seen several cases.”

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GW Community Reaches out for MLK Jr. Day of Service

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Hundreds of volunteers complete service projects with area nonprofits, D.C. public schools and others.

Several hundred students returned to the George Washington University before their winter break was over to participate in a day of service in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.

On the holiday observing what would have been Dr. King’s 89th birthday, students and other members of the GW community gathered Monday morning in Lisner Auditorium for a welcoming program to begin the daylong task of community service projects on campus and around Washington, D.C. The day of service kicks off King Week programming throughout January that includes panel discussions, lectures and film screenings.

The theme for the day of service in 2018—the year that marks the 50th anniversary of King’s death—is one of the popular messages King shared in his lifetime: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

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Overdose deaths on track to double last year’s numbers

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In the Northern Shenandoah Valley, the epidemic of addiction to heroin and other opioid drugs is showing no signs of slowing down.

For the six localities that make up this area – Winchester and the counties of Frederick, Clarke, Shenandoah, Page and Warren – data shows that  halfway through the year, overdose rates are at the full-year totals seen in 2015 and 2016.

There was only one death from a drug overdose in 2012, which has been marked as the beginning of the opioid problem, according to data from the Northwest Regional Drug Task Force, and that number jumped to 21 in 2013. In 2014, there were 33 opioid overdose deaths, and there were 30 fatal overdoses in both 2015 and 2016.

In past years, non-fatal overdoses rose dramatically as well. In 2012 there were only 18 non-fatal overdoses, but by 2013, there were 100, Cummings said. “Those numbers decreased in the next two years, with 73 non-fatal overdoses in 2014 and 55 in 2015. That number more than doubled in 2016, with 125 reported non-fatal overdoses in the area.

In 2017 to date, there have been 28 fatal opioid  overdoses, and, as of July 5, there have been 105 non-fatal opioid overdoses.

Lauren Cummings, executive director of the Northern Shenandoah Valley Substance Abuse Coalition, said the trend in non-fatal overdose rate is undeniably bleak. “We had hoped that we would never exceed our numbers that we saw in 2013,”Cummings said of the non-fatal overdose rate. “We’re on track to possibly even, unfortunately, doubling our numbers from 2013.”

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New Market woman charged with 10 counts of animal cruelty

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WOODSTOCK — A New Market woman has been formally charged with 10 counts of animal cruelty after authorities accused her of keeping more than 60 pets in poor conditions.

Nancy Ellen Jinkins, 52, is also the principal operator of Ardellen Animal Abode, a registered nonprofit animal rescue that lists its main address as Jinkins’ New Market home on the 9500 block of South Congress Street. Her nonprofit was registered by the IRS in November 2016, and has no reported finances yet.

The criminal complaint alleges that on June 29 Jinkins’ home had to be condemned by the Shenandoah County fire marshal because the residence had “extremely high”levels of ammonia – a statement from the Shenandoah County Sheriff’s Office reported ammonia levels at 100 parts per million.

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How the jury found a Front Royal man guilty of murder

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Clay Curtis

FRONT ROYAL — The attorneys in the Clay Marshall Curtis murder trial set the scene for the week-long trial to be nothing and everything like a Quentin Tarantino film.

“This is not going to be a straightforward story,” Commonwealth’s Attorney Brian Madden said during his opening statement, apologizing to the jury for the disjointed nature of the way evidence will be presented over the next few days.

John Bell, who with his co-counsel David Hensley defended Curtis, said during his opening statement that the “movie” the prosecution will show would be different from what they think they’re showing. Bell added that the prosecution would be stretching circumstantial evidence “like it’s silly putty” to make Curtis out to be guilty.

That circumstantial evidence was enough, however, for the jury to find Curtis guilty of the December 2014 shooting death of Front Royal cab driver Simon Funk at the end of the trial without much deliberation.

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Man found guilty of 1st degree murder

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FRONT ROYAL — After less than two hours of deliberation, A jury Thursday found Clay Marshall Curtis guilty of first degree murder in the 2014 shooting death of Front Royal cab driver Simon Funk.

The jury chose the maximum punishment, and recommended life imprisonment with a $100,000 fine.

Curtis, 64, was found not guilty on a related charge of attempted second-degree murder stemming from accusations that he attempted to hit Jeff Sisler, also of Front Royal, with a van belonging to Funk.

The jury unanimously agreed that Curtis killed Funk, that the killing was malicious, deliberate and premeditated, and therefore found the defendant guilty of first-degree murder. Curtis was also convicted of using a firearm in the commission of a felony.

The jury had the option of finding Curtis guilty on a lesser charge of second-degree murder, which does not require premeditation, or voluntary manslaughter, which would include a crime of passion or a killing during combat. They did not choose those options, however.

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