Elderly Penryn woman critically injured after e-bike hit and run
A woman in her 80s is in a critical condition after a hit and run.Devon and Cornwall Police said the woman had been seriously injured when she had been hit by what they believe to be an electric motorbike in West Street, Penryn.The collision took place at about 18:50 BST on Saturday, they added.The force has appealed for witnesses who may be able to help officers identify the motorbike rider to come forward.
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The Guardian
38 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘The risk is the lure': subway surfing in New York City continues to claim young lives
Jaida Rivera's 11-year son, Cayden, was supposed to be in school at Brooklyn's Fort Greene preparatory academy on the morning of 16 September last year. Staff saw him in the cafeteria after his grandmother dropped him off at 7.45am. But 30 minutes later he was marked as absent. Cayden had somehow slipped out, boarded a G subway train traveling south and was riding on top of one of its carriages when he fell on to the tracks at the Fourth Avenue-Ninth Street station just after 10.00am. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The boy was the youngest of six to die subway surfing in New York City last year – a highly dangerous practice of balancing on top of the swift-moving subway trains as they rattle through the city. It is typically attempted in Brooklyn and Queens, where New York's subways often run aboveground, and typically in warmer months when schools are in session – suggesting that it has become a dangerous type of after-school activity often spurred by social media cachet. New York has long warned against the stunts. But to little avail. Police data shows that arrests for subway surfing were up 70% from the prior year, and the average age of those apprehended was 14. Arrests of young people for subway surfing have spiked 46% this year, with police statistics showing 164 children arrested so far, up from 112 during the same period last year. So far two have died. Last week, a 14-year-old, described as a repeat offender, was critically injured when he fell from a 5 line train in the Bronx. But the 7 line, between Manhattan and Queens, is the most popular, according to the NYPD's transit chief, Joseph Gulotta, in part because surfing the 7 mimics the closing frames of 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming. Earlier this month, New York's governor, Kathy Hochul, launched a new 'Ride Inside, Stay Alive' campaign aimed at high school students and featuring pro BMX athlete Nigel Sylvester to warn about the dangers of subway surfing. Train surfing dates back more than a century: local newspaper archives mention people getting maimed or killed riding on top of trains as early as 1904 – the year the subway opened. The 'risk is the lure', a 1991 New York Times story deduced. So it's not uniquely a internet 'challenge' phenomenon. Committed subway surfers speak in familiar terms. 'I could quit anytime I want,' a 14-year-old subway surfer named Efaru told the Times last year, adding that it was 'not an addiction' but acknowledged: 'Running on top feels like you're in a real-life movie.' The 2025 anti-surfing campaign includes announcements in subways and drones in the sky. 'New York will continue to do everything we can to keep our young people safe on the subways,' Hochul said. But city and state administrators know they're up against a powerful if unwitting promoter – namely the peer value of subway surfing videos on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and other social media platforms. In 2023, when five people died from subway surfing – a striking increase over five who died between 2018 and 2022 – New York City's mayor, Eric Adams, held a social media summit during which he said 'unfettered access is hurting our children – encouraging them to steal cars, ride on top of subways'. Soon after, the main social media platforms removed about 3,000 subway surfing videos. So far this year, more than 1,800 videos have been taken down. After the death of a teenage girl who was subway surfing last year, Adams said: 'The allure of social media fame has lured too many young people on top of trains, and the consequences have been deadly.' He said that social media companies whose 'algorithms promote this deadly content haven't done nearly enough to put an end to it'. Last week, Cayden's distraught mom, Jaida, 26, was in her attorneys office in lower Manhattan. The outside world, she said, was triggering. 'I don't do much but sit in my room or in the bathtub. I find quiet there,' she added. She had sometimes confiscated her son's phone, she said, but 'the first thing that would be on TikTok when he opened it would be surfing'. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion Last year, the state passed a law to prohibit the provision of addictive feeds to minors. But Rikki Davidoff, Rivera's attorney, says the efforts by social media companies has proved ineffective at curbing the spread of subway surfing videos. 'Your algorithm is your algorithm, right?' she says. 'It's still easy for a four-year-old to search subway surfing as it is for a 12-year-old. But one is far more impressionable for the other.' There are renewed efforts to hold New York's city authorities accountable. Davidoff plans to sue the city, the board of education and the MTA, but there are a number of hurdles, including an 1847 law that limits compensation in wrongful death cases to financial losses – losses that wouldn't be applicable to a minor, almost by definition. A bill that would open up the law to grief and anguish claims like Rivera's has been blocked three times by Hochul. Known as the 'grieving families' bill, it recently passed the New York legislature again, and again sits on the governor's desk. The governor calls the bill 'well-intentioned', but says it would lead to higher health insurance premiums and other costs. 'There are a lot of powerful interests on the other side of this,' says Sabrina Rezzy, spokesperson for the New York State Trial Lawyers Association. 'But 47 other states managed this without doctors fleeing the state and premiums skyrocketing. 'We're looking for our state government to stand up the rights of children,' Rezzy adds. 'We see the most vulnerable individuals affected most by the 1847 law, as you would expect.' Rivera's attorney has called on train operators to radio each other to slow down when they see surfers, and Rivera points to a failure by the public school system to crack down on truancy and failures by the MTA to make it harder to climb on top of trains. 'I don't think they're really done anything, to be honest,' she says before breaking off, sobbing.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
PSNI: Extra £200m funding could be "gamechanger' says Naomi Long
The expected allocation of an extra £200m for the Police Service of Northern Ireland could be a "gamechanger" for the organisation, the justice minister has said. Naomi Long said it would "allow us to rebuild police numbers which is the most important thing we can do".In January, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said it needed £200m over five years to recruit hundreds of new officers and bring its headcount to 7,000. On Friday, First Minister Michelle O'Neill said the finance minister was "very happy to sign that off" but added his recommendation must be approved by the Executive. The PSNI is seeking to increase its workforce from its current all-time low of about 6,200 officers to 7,000 to the BBC's Sunday Politics programme, Long said she had been working on the business case for some time and agreed real progress had been made. "I think this is potentially a gamechanger for us in terms of being able to rebuild".Long pointed out the PSNI currently has a £20m gap in its budget because of pressures like overtime and said recruiting more officers could fix that issue. "If you have a right-sized force you can actually reduce the amount of overtime individuals are working and make some savings there," she explained. "So I think this a really good opportunity to put the PSNI on a sustainable footing."The justice minister said the recruitment investment would improve public safety and also allow officers to "get their rest days" and "look after their health".She added funding was necessary to stop officers leaving their jobs "because they are under such personal strain as a result of having to work extended hours". Rioting pressures for police The recent rioting in Northern Ireland exposed the pressure the PSNI is facing with its current workforce responded to several consecutive nights of violent disorder which began two weeks ago in Ballymena, County Antrim, and spread to other towns and cities. The violence started on Monday 9 June, hours after two teenage boys appeared in court accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in two 14-year-old boys spoke through an interpreter in Romanian to confirm their names and ages and their solicitor said they would be denying the charges.A peaceful protest was held in Ballymena later that day, but after that demonstration dispersed, rioting broke the course of the next few days, 64 officers were injured while policing disorder in Ballymena, Larne, Portadown, Belfast and Londonderry. The PSNI sought support from Police Scotland, which deployed officers to Northern Ireland under what is known as mutual aid arrangements. Long also requested and received an additional £5m from the Northern Ireland Executive to meet the costs of policing the riots. She said the riots were a "drain on the resources of PSNI". "I put in a bid very early during the riots in Ballymena for additional resources for PSNI because we knew that they may need to call on mutual aid. "That's £5m to police those riots and most of that £5m, if not all of it, will have already been spent."The minister explained the PSNI needs £7m to cover its first year of recruitment under its business case and the rioting bill would have been better spent on that. "It's hugely frustrating at a time when our justice system is so stretched that we have people not just putting pressure on the resources of the PSNI, but destroying their own communities at a cost to everyone in our society because that will all have to be repaired and rebuilt." Last month, the Police Federation said that the PSNI had been told Stormont could not find the money for a £200m plan to increase officer Chief Constable, Jon Boutcher, said the "consequences of not getting the PSNI back on its feet will be dire".At that time, Long criticised the Police Federation remarks as "inaccurate and extremely unhelpful".
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Police appeal after motorcyclist killed in Aberdeenshire crash
A motorcyclist has died following a crash on a road in 59-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene on the B966 at Cairnton of Balbengo after the crash involving a blue and white Suzuki GSXR 750 bike on Saturday road between Fettercairn in Aberdeenshire and Edzell in Angus was closed from about 18:10 on Saturday until 00:10 on have launched an appeal for information and have asked any drivers in the area with dash-cam footage to come forward. Sgt Dave Cooper said: "Our thoughts are with the family of the man who died and an investigation is ongoing to establish the full circumstances."We would also like to speak to anyone who was in the area at the time and may have seen what happened or have dash-cam footage that could help."
