Comments(0) A courageous nine-year-old who is battling cerebral palsy was given the special honour of officially unveiling a revamped store in her home town. Kareena Hayes hit the headlines in February after thieves stole a cafe's charity box set up to raise money towards a 10,000 target for life-changing private treatment at Queen's Medical Centre, to help her walk. But within days, the youngster was smiling again after an anonymous businessman heard of her plight and stumped up the money to pay for the operation. Now Kareena, a pupil of Longmore Primary School, in Long Eaton, has been given another boost after she and her fellow pupils helped to cut the ribbon and declare the new-look Co-op store in the town's Grasmere Road officially open, following a 600,000 refurbishment. As well as inviting Kareena and her classmates to be guests of honour, the store has also launched a fundraising appeal for Kareena, to help towards the appeal set up by her family for the operation and additional costs including for physiotherapy afterwards. Kareena's father, Craig Hammond, 39, who is her full-time carer and also dad to Nathan, 11, said: "It's great that we've had a lot of support from the … Continue reading →

PRINCETON, N.J. An ethics professor at Princeton University has penned a controversial op-ed in defense of a Rutgers professor who was convicted of sexually assaulting a man with severe cerebral palsy, asserting that the two were in love and the man might have actually consented. The New York Times published Peter Singers article on April 3, which centered on the case of Anna Stubblefield, who is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence. Stubblefield was found guilty in October 2015 of engaging in sexual activity with a 29-year-old man named D.J., who is unable to speak. In addition to the criminal case, D.Js family sued Stubblefield in their belief that their son was molested and was awarded $4 million by a New Jersey court last year. But Singer, along with Jeff McMahan, a professor of moral philosophy at Oxford, argue thatit is rather Stubblefield who is a victim of grievous and unjust harms because there is no evidence that the sexual relationship hurt D.J. For someone to spend 12 years in prison for a sexual act that took place in the context of a long-term, caring relationship that was motivated by loveat least on Stubblefields partand about which there is no … Continue reading →

By Pete Banda Managing Editor [emailprotected] When Tristan Shafer was born, doctors told his parents that he would most likely never be able to run or play any kind of sport. In fact, doctors informed the parents to prepare for the possibility that Shafer would never be able to walk due to his cerebral palsy. So you can only imagine the amount of joy and intrigue they felt when their son came to them with the revelation that he wanted to join the track team at Riverside Middle school. It would be Tristans first time trying out for mainstream sports team. Tristan has been taking part in the Special Olympics since last year and he really enjoys it, said Tristans mom, Lauren Shafer, who is a teacher at Riverside. He heard on the intercom at school that they were going to be holding tryouts for the track team and he came to my class to tell me that he wanted to join the team It was a little shocking because he had never gone out for any mainstream sports, but I talked to his Dad and we agreed to let him go ahead and do it. Tristan would go on … Continue reading →