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Mint
30-07-2025
- Health
- Mint
‘Concealed dangers of…' Gunman Shane Tamura's chilling note blames NFL for mental health issues
The gunman, Shane Tamura, who fatally shot four people inside a Manhattan office tower had originally planned to target the National Football League's headquarters but ended up in the wrong location after taking the wrong elevator, officials said Tuesday. The probe also revealed he was carrying handwritten note in his wallet blaming NFL for his mental health problems. Tamura—a security worker at a Las Vegas casino—was found carrying a handwritten note in his wallet alleging he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). In the three-page note found on his body, he accused the NFL of concealing the dangers to players' brains for profit. The degenerative brain disease has been linked to concussions and other repeated head trauma common in contact sports such as football. Tamura's note repeatedly said he was sorry and asked that his brain be studied for CTE. He mentioned a PBS Frontline documentary about the disease and referred to former NFL player Terry Long, who was diagnosed with CTE, and the manner in which Long killed himself in 2005. The attacker's grievances with the NFL emerged as police worked to piece together his background and motivations, and as loved ones began to mourn the dead. It's unclear whether Tamura showed symptoms of CTE, which can be diagnosed only by examining a brain after death. The NFL long denied the link between football and CTE, but it acknowledged the connection in 2016 testimony before Congress and has paid more than $1.4 billion to retired players to settle concussion-related claims. The shooting happened at a skyscraper on Park Avenue, one of the nation's most recognized streets, just blocks from Grand Central Terminal and Rockefeller Center. It is less than a 15-minute walk from where UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed last December by a man who prosecutors say was angry over what he saw as corporate greed. Tamura, 27, sprayed the skyscraper's lobby with bullets then shot another person in a 33rd-floor office on Monday before he killed himself, authorities said. Among the dead were a police officer, a security guard and two people who worked at companies in the building. An NFL employee was badly wounded but survived. Tamura, who played high school football in California a decade ago but never played in the NFL, had a history of mental illness, police said without giving details.
Fox Sports
29-07-2025
- Fox Sports
Gunman who killed 4 in NYC building blamed NFL for mental health issues and was targeting its office
Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — A gunman who killed four people inside a Manhattan office tower blamed his mental health problems on the National Football League and intended to target its headquarters but took the wrong elevator, officials said Tuesday. Shane Tamura, a Las Vegas casino security worker, was carrying a handwritten note in his wallet that claimed he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, known at CTE, investigators said. He accused the league of hiding the dangers of brain injuries linked to contact sports. Tamura, 27, sprayed the skyscraper's lobby with bullets then shot another person another in a 33rd-floor office on Monday before he killed himself, authorities said. Among the dead were a police officer, a security guard and two people who worked at companies in the building. An NFL employee was badly wounded but survived. The attacker's grievances with the NFL emerged as police worked to piece together his background and motivations, and as loved ones began to mourn the dead. It's unclear whether Tamura showed symptoms of CTE, which can be diagnosed only by examining a brain after death. Tamura, who played high school football in California a decade ago but never played in the NFL, had a history of mental illness, police said without giving details. In the three-page note found on his body, he accused the NFL of concealing the dangers to players' brains for profit. The degenerative brain disease has been linked to concussions and other repeated head trauma common in contact sports such as football. Detectives planned to question a man who supplied gun parts for the AR-15-style rifle used in the attack, including the weapon's lower receiver, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a video statement. She and members of the force also paid tribute to Officer Didarul Islam, who was guarding the building on a paid security job when he was killed. His flag-draped remains arrived late Tuesday afternoon at the Bronx mosque preparing for his funeral. NFL boss calls shooting 'unspeakable' Tamura's note repeatedly said he was sorry and asked that his brain be studied for CTE. He mentioned a PBS Frontline documentary about the disease and referred to former NFL player Terry Long, who was diagnosed with CTE, and the manner in which Long killed himself in 2005. The NFL long denied the link between football and CTE, but it acknowledged the connection in 2016 testimony before Congress and has paid more than $1.4 billion to retired players to settle concussion-related claims. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who works out of the offices, called the shooting 'an unspeakable act of violence,' saying he was deeply grateful to the law enforcement officers who responded. Goodell said in a memo to staff that the injured NFL employee was hospitalized in stable condition. The shooting happened at a skyscraper on Park Avenue, one of the nation's most recognized streets, just blocks from Grand Central Terminal and Rockefeller Center. It is less than a 15-minute walk from where UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed last December by a man who prosecutors say was angry over what he saw as corporate greed. Monday's attack drew a response from the White House, with President Donald Trump posting that his 'heart is with the families of the four people who were killed' and that the officer "made the ultimate sacrifice.' Video shows the gunman stroll into the building Tamura, who worked in the security department at the Horseshoe Las Vegas but failed to show up for his shift Sunday, drove across the country over the past few days and into New York City just before the attack, Tisch said. Surveillance video showed Tamura exit his BMW outside the building at about 6:30 p.m. Monday wearing a button-down shirt and jacket with the rifle at his side. Once inside the lobby, he opened fire and killed Islam and Wesley LePatner, a real estate executive at the investment firm Blackstone, which occupies much of the building. Tamura then made his way toward the elevator bank, shooting the NFL employee and an unarmed security guard, Aland Etienne, who helped control access to the upper floors. Tamura waited for the next elevator to arrive in the lobby, let a woman walk safely out of the elevator, then rode it up to the 33rd-floor offices of the company that owns the building, Rudin Management. He killed a worker for that company before killing himself, officials said. Friends and family mourn killed officer Islam, 36, had served as a police officer in New York City for over three years and was an immigrant from Bangladesh, Tisch said. He was working a department-approved job, in his New York Police Department uniform, when he was shot. Islam leaves a pregnant wife and two children. Friends and family stopped by their Bronx home on Tuesday to drop off food and pay their respects. 'He was a very friendly guy and a hardworking guy,' said Tanjim Talukdar, who knew him best from Friday prayers. 'Whenever I see him or he sees me, he says, 'How are you, my brother?'' ___ This story was updated to correct that Tamura played high school football about a decade ago, not nearly two decades ago. ___ Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut, and Seewer from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press reporters Michael Balsamo, Philip Marcelo and Julie Walker in New York; Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia, Rob Maaddi in Tampa, Florida; Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey; and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report. recommended Item 1 of 3 in this topic
India Today
29-07-2025
- Sport
- India Today
Manhattan shooter kills 4, says NFL caused his brain disease CTE in suicide note
A gunman who shot and killed four people at a Manhattan office tower on Monday left behind a handwritten note blaming the National Football League (NFL) for his deteriorating mental health and expressing regret for what he was about to do, authorities gunman, identified as Shane Tamura, 27, a former high school football player and Las Vegas casino worker, opened fire in the lobby of the 44-story skyscraper before heading to the 33rd floor, where he killed another person. Officials said he had intended to reach the NFL's headquarters, located in the building, but took the wrong the victims were an off-duty NYPD officer and a private security guard. Tamura died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Investigators recovered a three-page handwritten letter from Tamura's wallet, in which he claimed he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma — a condition he blamed on his years playing football in Tamura never played professionally, but referenced former NFL player Terry Long, who died by suicide in 2005 after being diagnosed posthumously with CTE. Tamura wrote that he had watched a PBS Frontline documentary on the disease and believed his mental decline mirrored what was shown on said Tamura had a known history of mental illness and had recently driven cross-country from Nevada to New York. They are still reviewing his digital and travel history to understand what led him to the midtown the NFL publicly denied the link between football and CTE for years, it acknowledged the connection in 2016 testimony before Congress. The league has since paid more than $1.4 billion in concussion-related settlements to retired SHOOTING SHAKES MANHATTANNFL Commissioner Roger Goodell called the shooting 'an unspeakable act of violence in our building,' saying he was deeply grateful to the law enforcement officers who responded and to the one who gave his life to protect said in a memo to staff that a league employee was seriously injured in the attack and was hospitalized in stable shooting happened along Park Avenue, one the nation's most recognized streets, and just blocks from Grand Central Terminal and Rockefeller Center. It's also less than a 15-minute walk from where UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed last December by a man who prosecutors say was angry over corporate attack also drew a response from the White House, with President Donald Trump posting on social media, 'My heart is with the families of the four people who were killed, including the NYPD Officer, who made the ultimate sacrifice.'VIDEO SHOWS THE GUNMAN STROLL INTO THE BUIDLINGadvertisement Shane Tamura, a former security guard at the Horseshoe Las Vegas, failed to report to work on Sunday and was later seen on surveillance video arriving in Manhattan in a BMW. He calmly walked across a midtown plaza with a rifle slung at his side before launching the deadly the building — home to corporate offices including Blackstone and Rudin Management — Tamura opened fire in the lobby, killing Didarul Islam, an off-duty NYPD officer working as private security. He also shot a woman attempting to hide, and two more victims near the lift bank, according to Police Commissioner Jessica then rode an elevator to the 33rd floor, where he fatally shot Wesley LePatner, a Blackstone real estate executive, before turning the gun on himself. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest, Mayor Eric Adams victim was identified as security officer Aland Etienne, according to a labour used an AR-15-style rifle, and detectives plan to question a person who provided key components for the weapon, including its lower building remained closed Tuesday as police investigated the attack and reviewed Tamura's background — including a handwritten note he left blaming mental illness and alleged brain damage on football-related OFF-DUTY OFFICER WAS FROM BANGLADESH Islam, 36, an NYPD officer and immigrant from Bangladesh, was one of four victims killed in Monday's shooting at a Park Avenue office building. Islam had served in the New York Police Department for three and a half years and was working a department-approved second job, in uniform, providing security when he was fatally body was draped in the NYPD flag as it was moved from the hospital to an ambulance, with fellow officers standing at attention in solemn leaves behind a pregnant wife and two children. Friends and family visited their Bronx home Tuesday to offer food and condolences.- Ends
Forbes
29-04-2025
- Health
- Forbes
New Plastic Recycling Method Achieves Cost-Parity With Virgin Plastic
DePoly Co-founders (L to R) Christopher Ireland, Samantha Anderson and Bardiya Valizadeh Single-use plastic might just be the most insane act of collective self-harm humanity commits every single day. Each year, we discard a staggering 430 million tonnes of plastic waste—a grotesque leap from just 2.1 million tonnes in 1950. At this rate, we're on course to triple plastic pollution to over a billion tonnes annually by 2060, fueled by relentless production and shoddy waste management. Our track record is dire. Around 60% of plastic waste is dumped in landfills or the natural environment. Only 15% gets recycled; 17% is incinerated; and over 22% is littered directly into ecosystems. Plastic doesn't biodegrade in any meaningful way—it fractures into toxic micro- and nanoplastics that contaminate everything from Arctic snow to deep-sea trenches. The consequences are grim. Plastic pollution drives biodiversity loss, killing an estimated 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds every year. Microplastics are now found in human organs—livers, kidneys, even placentas—and plastics leach chemicals linked to cancers, developmental disorders, and immune dysfunctions. Faced with this slow-motion catastrophe, how can we step up to turn the tide? And why hasn't more been done to treat plastic pollution like the human health and ecological crisis it is? Samantha Anderson, Co-founder and CEO of DePoly, was plagued by these questions during her PhD when she read about microplastics being discovered inside human bodies. "We noticed no one was offering a complete solution to the problem," she says. "The recycling industry, especially the oil sector, had been misleading people for decades about what plastic recycling could actually achieve." Investigations by NPR and PBS Frontline among others revealed a chilling truth: plastic manufacturers knowingly sold the myth of recycling, all while cashing in on virgin plastic sales. As one former industry insider told NPR, selling recycling sold plastic, even if it wasn't true. Global giants like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, PepsiCo—and, in the U.S., Starbucks—have been repeatedly called out as top plastic polluters. Despite some virtue signalling in the form of flashy green pledges, genuine action has been slow, dubious and patchy. Anderson and two fellow PhD students decided they wouldn't wait for the system to fix itself. With backgrounds in chemistry, they set out to engineer a new chemical recycling method. Within six months, they cracked it—and DePoly was born. "We started scaling up from there," Anderson recalls. "What began as a tiny side project is now a company of over 40 people." What sets DePoly apart is their ability to tackle the types of plastic waste that conventional methods can't touch: dirty, complex, multilayered materials like household waste, textiles, and post-industrial scrap. Traditional mechanical recycling can't handle this mess; DePoly's low-cost, low-energy chemical process can. Using safe, everyday chemicals—nothing exotic or dangerous—their technology recycles PET, polyester, and more, achieving a 65% lower CO₂ footprint compared to producing new plastics from fossil fuels while rescuing many tons of plastic from landfill. And crucially, DePoly's recycled materials aim for cost parity with virgin plastics—a game-changing milestone. "Packaging is an enormous, cutthroat industry," explains Claire Hae-Min Gusko, founder of sustainable packaging innovation company one•five. 'Margins are razor-thin.' Big brands answer to shareholders who demand quarterly growth. Already, many major companies are quietly abandoning their sustainability goals: 'and shareholders don't seem to mind,' she adds. "If anything, they're willing to accept it if it means growth continues. It's a harsh truth about the state of our capitalist markets, but it's a reality. Sustainable packaging has to be affordable; there's no way around it.' Shredded PET samples With the promise of offering both cost-parity and sustainability, DePoly is ready to compete with virgin plastic and has a scale-up journey that is both methodical and ambitious. They are currently building a pre-commercial plant to serve as a blueprint for full industrial facilities. Their first commercial plant is slated for 2027–2028, targeting markets in Europe, North America, and potentially Asia. Anderson still marvels at the scale of progress. "Seeing something that started as a 400-milligram lab sample now operating in a massive warehouse—it's surreal. It's amazing to see a vision we dreamed about actually come to life," she says. 'It's been incredibly rewarding to bring in new team members who fully embraced the challenge and push the process even further than we imagined.' Location choices are strategic, factoring in local waste streams, regulatory landscapes, and economic incentives. And everything is geared toward one goal: mass-market competitiveness. Chemical recycling is no silver bullet—but it's a huge leap forward. "It's the logical next step after mechanical recycling," explains Hae-Min Gusko. "Chemical recycling can create higher-quality materials, closing the loop for plastics that would otherwise end up as trash." Still, challenges remain. Infrastructure investment, political will, and public awareness all lag behind. The waste industry already struggles with tight margins and tricky feedstocks; 'for chemical recycling to become a significant part of our recycling rates in the next 5-10 years, a huge amount of infrastructure investment and change will have to take place in the waste industry,' she adds. In a major vote of confidence, DePoly recently closed a $23 million funding round, making it one of Europe's top-funded recycling tech startups. The company's mission is simple but bold: convert plastic waste into virgin-quality raw materials without fossil fuels. Yet, for all the innovation, change won't come overnight and is often dependent on governments pushing industry through regulation. "Industries are trying to improve, but it's slow," says Anderson. "Still, the trends are in our favor. Regulation is tightening. Consumers are demanding better. Companies are actively looking for real solutions." European regulations, like the Green Deal and the new Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), are poised to reshape markets, forcing companies to prioritize recyclability and recycled content. For sectors like hospitality, additional rules under the Single-Use Plastics Directive will drive shifts toward reusable containers and natural polymers. 'The world of packaging is not a mystery: its future is being written by government policies and regulations such as the EU Green Deal,' explains Hae-Min Gusko. Looking at the EU alone, a closed-loop technology such as DePoly's fits well with the EU's vision for the future of its waste infrastructure.' "By 2028, we'll know whether these policies have had the expected impact," explains Hae-Min Gusko. "If they have, it'll be a turning point not just for Europe, but globally. Key markets in Asia, like Japan and South Korea, are already following similar regulatory paths." One wild card accelerating change? Artificial intelligence. AI is already transforming industries by boosting efficiency, but packaging and materials development remains a massive challenge due to its complexity and deep-rooted expertise, says Hae-Min Gusko. Her AI platform aims to change that - using AI to design new packaging solutions and move directly to mass production, skipping the costly, time-consuming testing loops—"It may sound ambitious, but with AI evolving rapidly, we believe it's within reach." Anderson is optimistic but clear-eyed about the road ahead: 'The tipping point will come from making recycling cost-competitive and giving waste real economic value.' "We're close," she says. "We just need that final push.' With the world drowning in plastic and big polluters under mounting pressure, solutions like chemical recycling can't come fast enough. Whether policymakers, investors, and industries move quickly enough to seize the moment will define the future health of our planet. Time, after all, is running out.
Asharq Al-Awsat
31-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Asharq Al-Awsat
‘Atropia' and ‘Twinless' Win Top Prizes at Sundance Film Festival
The war satire 'Atropia,' about actors in a military role-playing facility, won the grand jury prize in the Sundance Film Festival's US dramatic competition, while the Dylan O'Brien movie 'Twinless' got the coveted audience award. Juries and programmers for the 41st edition of the independent film festival announced the major prizewinners Friday in Park City, Utah. Other grand jury winners included the documentaries 'Seeds,' about farmers in rural Georgia and 'Cutting Through the Rocks,' about the first elected councilwoman in an Iranian village. The Indian drama 'Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears),' about a city dweller mourning his father in the western Indian countryside, won the top prize in the world cinema competition. 'It's for my dad,' said writer and director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade. His late father, he said, was the one who encouraged him to pursue filmmaking. Audiences also get to vote on their own awards, where James Sweeney's 'Twinless,' about the friendship between two men who meet in a twin bereavement support group, triumphed in the US dramatic category. O'Brien also won a special jury award for his acting. The US documentary audience award went to 'André is an Idiot,' a life-affirming film about dying of colon cancer. Other audience picks were 'Prime Minister,' about former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and 'DJ Ahmet,' a coming-of-age film about a 15-year-old boy in North Macedonia. Mstyslav Chernov, the Oscar-winning Associated Press journalist, won the world cinema documentary directing award for his latest dispatch from Ukraine, '2000 Meters to Andriivka,' a joint production between the AP and PBS Frontline. 'Here's to all documentary directors who are risking their lives in Ukraine trying to tell the stories of people who protect the land that I call home,' Chernov said onstage. Others singled out for directing include Geeta Gandbhir for 'The Perfect Neighbor,' a documentary about a murder in Florida told through the use of police body camera footage, and Rashad Frett for 'Ricky,' a drama about life post-incarceration. The Sundance Film Festival runs through Sunday.
