Latest news with #MacLaren
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Additional 10 men allege sexual abuse from former Oregon Youth Authority doctor
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — An additional 10 men are alleging that they were sexually abused by a former Oregon Youth Authority doctor, according to a new lawsuit. All 10 allege they were abused as children while in custody of the state by Dr. Gary Edwards, also known as 'Dr. Cold Fingers.' The abuse started in 2000 and continued through 2008, the suit says. This comes less than two months after a separate sexual abuse lawsuit was filed against OYA, which led to the firing of director Joe O'Leary. Edwards served as the primary medical provider at Maclaren from 1977 until at least 2008, and attorneys say he had private access to thousands of children during this time. 'This doctor was in charge of intake exams at MacLaren, which means that he had a reason to be alone with every single child that came through MacLaren during those 40+ years of service,' attorney Peter Janci said. 'And at nearly 300 youth housed there at any given time, by 40 years, that means this doctor had an opportunity to abuse more than 10,000 children in Oregon custody.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to
Irish Daily Star
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Daily Star
'Genius' mother's clever hack for getting picky kids to eat home-cooked meals
A clever mom has gone viral for her savvy method of getting her kids to eat home-cooked meals, earning praise from netizens who are hailing her tactic as "genius". In the age of social media, it's common to see a plethora of "hacks" for just about anything, ranging from tips to extend the life of produce to tricks for keeping their cars safer or even strategies to open soda cans. While some of these hacks may be met with skepticism or outright disapproval, others garner acclaim for being truly innovative solutions. A mother on TikTok recently shared one such ingenious strategy, where she divulged her secret for convincing her fussy children to eat the meals she prepares. Read More Related Articles Drivers urged to keep one vegetable in car to stop windows from fogging up Read More Related Articles You're opening soda cans wrong – game-changing hack will save your nails Alex MacLaren shared a series of TikTok videos featuring her meal preparation, but the video where she serves the food to her children truly captivated the audience's attention. MacLaren revealed her hack for getting her kids to eat her food that fans are calling "genius." Her video is captioned: "Tell my kids we got takeout, but really, I just packed food I cooked in takeout containers." In the clip, MacLaren can be seen unpacking the home-cooked meal, neatly packaged in restaurant-style takeout boxes, from a brown bag while informing her unsuspecting children that they're having delivery. "We ordered in food, this is an Italian place," she tells her children off-camera. "They sent us a lot of food, you guys!". Assisted by her husband in the deception, she then reveals to her children the night's menu: beans, tortellini minestrone soup, and chicken cacciatore with rice, with the sauce already poured over the rice. She asks her children if they'd prefer soup or chicken, and their enthusiastic responses of "Me, Chicken! and I want the big one!" fill the room. The mother of three revealed to TODAY that her kids, aged 3, 6, and 7, are more thrilled about restaurant food, which inspired the whole charade. "If my oldest thinks she's getting a sandwich from Subway, she would eat it, but if I made it, she'd say, 'What is this?'" MacLaren confessed. She also disclosed that she began ordering takeaway containers from Amazon for packing lunches and discovered the trick could also be used at dinner. She admitted to having fooled them thrice, pretending the homemade meals were freebies from restaurants in exchange for social media promotions. MacLaren also addressed some negative feedback she's received. "I've gotten comments like, 'You're lying to your kids,' but gaslighting is a pretty big part of my parenting strategy," she stated. "Why are we overthinking everything?". However, many others applauded her method, with comments on her TikTok video hailing her as a "hero. "Those kids are masters at being gaslighted. As a human, be ashamed. As a mom, you're my hero! ! ! !" one person commented. "It's all about the rebrand," another chimed in. "Now this is a parenting hack," added a third. "Every day, a mum on here proves the point that with kids, it's all about marketing and packaging." One user commented on the homemade feast, expressing a preference for the 'takeout' experience even if they knew it was made at home: "If I were your kid, even if I knew it was homemade, I would still want the 'takeout' experience. It all looks so delicious. That said, are you adopting?".
New York Post
21-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
I gave my excited family ‘takeout' for dinner — but I'm shocked they didn't discover my secret hack
Call it culinary catfishing. Getting persnickety kids to eat a home-cooked meal can feel like pulling teeth. But one enterprising parent devised an ingenious way to get hers to eat the foods of her labor sans complaint — by packing up the vittles to make them think it's takeout. 'We ordered in food, this is an Italian place,' fibbed Alex MacLaren in the video, which currently boasts over 2.9 million views on TikTok. 3 'Takeout for a family can be expensive, so we don't order in often,' said MacLaren (pictured). Tiktok/@ The clever parent then busted out containers tortellini minestrone, chicken cacciotori with rice, and homemade cheesecake. 'Who wants soup and who wants chicken?' inquires MacLaren, as the kids clamor for their dinner. The youngsters happily tucked in, completely oblivious to the fact that their meal was homemade — like a reverse version of 'Mrs. Doubtfire's' titular character pawning off gourmet takeout as her own cooking. MacLaren told Newsweek she was surprised her family swallowed the tale hook, line and sinker — as she'd 'actually made this meal a few times before.' 3 MacLaren winks at the camera after pulling the wool over her offspring's eyes. Tiktok/@ 'They all liked it, but since they've eaten this before I wasn't surprised about that,' she said. MacLaren that her kids aren't 'overly picky' — despite having their preferences — but thought the bait and switch would be fun as her children get so excited when they order takeout. 'Takeout for a family can be expensive, so we don't order in often,' she lamented. 3 MacLaren serving her kids home-cooked Italian under the guise of restaurant delivery. Tiktok/@ Commenters were amazed over McLaren's hack. 'As a human, be ashamed. As a mom, you're my hero!!!!' enthused one fan. 'This definitely would have worked on me as a kid. I love it,' said another. 'I fear this would work on me as an adult,' quipped a third. 'My mother would do this to me when I was younger!' one exclaimed. 'Until I realized the 'takeout' my dad brought home was the same food I caught my mom making in the kitchen.' MacLaren says hopes to deploy this false advertising trick in the future — but acknowledges she'll have to choose her shots wisely. 'Since at least one of my kids is usually home with me at any given time, I don't know how often I'll be able to make a fake-out take-out without them noticing,' she said. 'I'll definitely try it again when I get the chance, though.' This hack is especially timely given the skyrocketing costs of delivery orders. A September Finance Buzz experiment found that ordering a meal off Grubhub, Doordash, UberEats and other delivery firms can cost almost double what it would to go out and collect it yourself — largely due to the number of fees, suggested tips and other costs that come with delivery in the modern age.
Los Angeles Times
04-04-2025
- Los Angeles Times
In unprecedented payout, L.A. County will settle sex abuse claims for $4 billion
Los Angeles County plans to pay $4 billion to settle nearly 7,000 claims of childhood sexual abuse that allegedly occurred in its juvenile facilities, dwarfing the largest sex abuse settlements in U.S. history. The mammoth settlement, which still needs to be approved by both the county claims board and county supervisors, is a billion dollars more than what county officials had anticipated as the worst-case scenario to resolve a flurry of lawsuits — and far more than other organizations notorious for allowing unchecked sex abuse have paid victims. The Boy Scouts of America, by comparison, agreed to pay $2.46 billion. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has paid out about $1.5 billion for alleged abuse at the hands of Catholic priests. Victims of USC gynecologist George Tyndall got $1.1 billion. Michigan State University paid $500 million to victims of team doctor Larry Nassar. The unprecedented settlement stems from AB 218, a 2020 state law that gave victims of childhood sexual abuse a new window to sue, even though the statute of limitations had expired. Many California counties, which are responsible for the care of children in foster homes and juvenile halls, saw an uptick in lawsuits. For L.A. County, it was a deluge that still hasn't stopped. Thousands of men and women came forward to say they had been molested or raped by probation officials decades ago while incarcerated as children in the county's sprawling network of juvenile halls and camps. Thousands more alleged sexual abuse at the now-shuttered MacLaren Children's Center, a county-run home for foster children that plaintiffs' attorneys have compared to a 'house of horrors.' A report found that the facility went decades without doing criminal background checks on its staff. Taken together, the thousands of lawsuits, most of which involve alleged abuse from the 1980s through the 2000s, paint a picture of a government that failed to intervene as its facilities turned into hunting grounds for predators, who held immense power over the children in their custody. 'On behalf of the county, I apologize wholeheartedly to everyone who was harmed by these reprehensible acts,' said L.A. County Chief Executive Officer Fesia Davenport in a statement. She said the county has worked in recent years to crack down on sexual abuse of minors. Improvements touted by the county include bolstering the vetting of foster parents and probation staffers and winding down the use of group homes like MacLaren Children's Center. Davenport made headlines in 2023 when she estimated in a public budget hearing that the county could be looking at $1.6 billion to $3 billion in liability for the roughly 3,000 sex abuse claims it expected. Her estimate was met with shock and a dash of skepticism from seasoned attorneys suing the county, who said it would blow any previous sex abuse payout out of the water. Since then, thousands of additional victims have sued, with more coming forward every month. In addition to creating a three-year window for victims, which closed at the end of 2023, the new state law let plaintiffs sue if they were under the age of 40 or had recently discovered the abuse they suffered as children. The county said the $4-billion settlement covers most — but not all — of the childhood sexual abuse lawsuits. Some attorneys were not willing to participate in the 'global mediation process,' and plaintiffs in those cases will be part of a separate settlement, according to the county. Patrick McNicholas, whose law firm is representing 1,200 plaintiffs, said he was mindful during settlement discussions to reach for a number that would bring some justice to the thousands of victims without bankrupting the county, which serves as the region's social safety net. He reasoned that the government could stay solvent with a $4-billion payout — and yet it was still the largest sex abuse payout he has ever heard of. 'This is a historic settlement,' he said, noting that he couldn't find a larger sex abuse settlement anywhere in the world. 'It recognizes the horrific harm that has been done.' The $4-billion payout will be a huge blow to a county already in tumultuous financial waters, thanks to threats of funding cuts from the Trump White House and the cost of recovering from the devastating Palisades and Eaton wildfires. Davenport has warned that the county government, which has a roughly $49-billion budget, could face 'a fiscal crisis' unless hiring is frozen. County officials have said the money will come from draining the county's rainy day fund, slashing department budgets and taking out bonds. The county is expected to owe hundreds of millions of dollars in interest on those bonds, which have to be paid off by 2051. The county said it will pay out the settlement money between January 2026 and Jan. 30, 2030, providing the billions to 'independent allocators' who will decide how to divvy it up among the roughly 6,800 plaintiffs. There have been few criminal prosecutions of county staffers accused of abuse in the lawsuits. The probation department presented the L.A. County district attorney's office with evidence against two staff members, Thomas Jackson and Altovise Abner, in December 2023. The status of those cases was not immediately available. Some of the employees accused of being the most prolific abusers were on the county payroll until recently. Jackson resigned from the probation department in fall 2023, ending a 33-year career during which at least 20 women accused him of sexually abused them when they were girls.
USA Today
05-03-2025
- Climate
- USA Today
Players scramble to relocate after Cyclone Alfred cancels LET event in Australia
Players scramble to relocate after Cyclone Alfred cancels LET event in Australia Meghan MacLaren has seen a lot over the course of her globe-trotting professional career, but what happened this week at the Australian WPGA Championship is a new one. Tournament officials canceled the event earlier this week due to the impending impact of Cyclone Alfred. The storm was projected to have wind gusts of up to 96 mph and is expected to hit Brisbane, Queensland's capital, on Friday morning. Forecasters say more than 30 inches of rain could fall in some regions, making the threat of flash flooding a major concern, according to Reuters. It's been more than 50 years since the area has been hit by a cyclone. The event was slated to take play March 6-9 at at Sanctuary Cove Golf and Country Club on Australia's Gold Coast and kicks off a three-week stretch of Ladies European Tour events in Australia. Instead of playing another practice round, MacLaren shared on X that she drove 12 hours away from the area, back to where she was last week to practice and prep for next week's event, the Australian Women's Classic, which is another nine hours away. Tour officials put together a formal list of 10 clubs for players to use as a temporary home base until the next event. 'All of us in professional golf know how quickly plans can change, and that finding suitable locations to practice and play on short notice is no easy task,' said WPGA Tour of Australasia CEO Karen Lunn. 'To see the support of golf clubs and facilities and PGA members around New South Wales has helped to remind everyone just what an amazing industry we are in. 'It was obviously crushing to make the decision to cancel the Australian WPGA Championship in the interest of safety for players, staff, fans and more, especially given how amazing every element of the event looked on the ground. However, the silver lining of support and readiness to act has helped to soften the blow and will only serve to encourage our LET visitors to return again next year.'
