Texas Man Receives First American Full-Face Transplant

A Texas man underwent a miraculous full face transplant last week to become only the third person in the U.S. to receive the groundbreaking medical procedure.

Dallas Wiens, a 25-year-old father from Fort Worth, underwent the intensive procedure in Boston last week, the city's Brigham and Women's Hospital said Monday.

"Today's tremendous news marks a new milestone in Brigham and Women's legacy in transplant surgery," Hospital President Dr. Betsy Nabel said.

"The pioneering achievement accomplished by the entire transplant team is a gift made possible by the most selfless act one human being can do for another: organ donation."

The procedure took about 15 hours and included a team of more than 30 doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, residents.

"This remarkable, anonymous gift is another example of the life-affirming power of organ and tissue donation," said Richard Luskin, president and CEO of New England Organ Bank.

Wiens suffered severe burns when his head touched a high-voltage wire in November 2008.

He has no memory of the incident. The contractor was helping his brother and uncle paint a church when, while high above the ground on a boom lift, he hit a power line.

"I'm told I lost control of the lift and ended up moving directly into the power lines," he said.

The accident left him in a coma for three months.

Doctors at the time were able to transfer skin and muscle from

Wiens' back and thighs onto his charred skull, but they could not restore his lips or nose. The incident left him blind.

He has had nearly two dozen operations since.

"I do miss my sight," Wiens said last year. "But I miss the sensation of my face and my sense of smell the most."

The hospital approved him for the face transplant in October.

"I'm a little nervous, as you can expect, with any major procedure like this," he said before the operation. "I'm extremely excited over the possibility of just having a normal life back."

Weins had no health insurance at the time of the accident. Medicaid covered his costs initially, but eventually it dropped him when his disability payments put him over its income limits.

The Department of Defense will pay for the cost of surgery, he said. It's underwriting the transplant with the hope of eventually being able to help soldiers with severe facial injuries.

Crime : Two Manhattan cops charged with raping a drunk woman

Police officers Kenneth Moreno (left) and Franklin Mata, accused of raping a drunk woman, arrive at Manhattan Supreme Court for jury selection in their trial Monday.

The trial of two Manhattan cops charged with raping a drunk woman was postponed Monday as prosecutors announced new evidence: video showing they visited her four times that night. Authorities originally thought Kenneth Moreno and Franklin Mata were in the woman's East Village home three times the night of Dec. 7, 2008. But they say further examination of surveillance video revealed the fourth visit - which they used to obtain a new indictment against the cops with a litany of extra charges.

Among the new allegations: Moreno, 43, and Mata, 27, failed to call an ambulance for the 29-year-old victim, who was severely intoxicated.

The suspended cops pleaded not guilty as they were arraigned on the new indictment - which forced a one-week trial delay so the defense can review the latest charges.

The cops responded to a 911 call to help the stumbling woman into her E. 13th St. apartment, and prosecutors have said all along that surveillance tape showed them returning two more times.

Now they say the cops returned yet again, shortly after 4 a.m., and stayed for an hour - allegedly after signing out for a meal break.

"This new evidence in no way makes the people's case weaker - but rather stronger," Assistant District Attorney Coleen Balbert told the judge.

Defense lawyers say the extra visit helps their case.

"That would suggest a guy who raped a woman would come back an hour later to see if she's okay," said Moreno's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina.

"That is an illogical conclusion."

He said that prosecutors previously said the rape happened on one of the first three visits and will be contradicting themselves if they tell the jury it happened during the fourth.

It was revealed last month that prosecutors wired the woman when she confronted Moreno outside his stationhouse several days after the attack.

She demanded to know if he had sex with her and if he wore a condom.

"Yes, yes I did," Moreno told her after repeated denials.

The woman was so drunk she remembers little, officials have said.

The cops face up to 25 years behind bars if convicted. Moreno is charged with raping the woman, while Mata allegedly helped him commit the crime and cover it up.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/03/21/2011-03-21_video_shows_nyc_cops_accused_of_raping_drunk_woman_visiting_apt_4x_that_night_le.html#ixzz1HGPeP5Fi

Watch: How One Man Caught Secret Video Inside North Korea, and Lived

Pyongyang Style from Steve Gong on Vimeo.

It wasn't photographer Steve Gong's first trip to North Korea. But on this trip, putting his life at risk, he practiced for months to capture secret video footage in the notoriously clandestine country. And he pulled it off.

To even enter the country, visitors must be given special permission and go through a monitored, government-arranged tour group. A few years ago, a South Korean tourist was reportedly shot for wandering off to watch the sunrise without her group.

(More on TIME.com: See rare pictures inside North Korea.)

Using a Canon 5D, Gong taped out the backside of the camera, and for weeks, practiced shooting video with the camera around his neck. What's captured is a precious glimpse into North Korean daily life, something very little known about in the outside world.

And when he was leaving the country, perhaps, with serendipity on his side, “…the [funny] thing is, the military officer who was supposed to go through every single picture on my camera [never] show[ed] up,” he wrote on his blog.

HIS BLOG HERE http://stevegong.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/pyongyang-style-north-korean-haircut/

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/17/watch-how-one-man-caught-secret-video-inside-north-korea-and-lived/#ixzz1GuOEO7Kl

NYC patient infected with AIDS virus by transplant

ATLANTA – Health officials are reporting that a patient was infected with the AIDS virus through a kidney transplant from a live donor.

They are calling it the first confirmed instance of HIV spreading through an organ transplant from a live donor since routine laboratory screening of donors began in the 1980s.

It happened in New York City in 2009, but New York City health officials said Thursday that they only learned of the case late last year.

The male donor had been tested for HIV about 10 weeks before he donated a kidney. Health officials believe he was infected in the time between that test and the surgery.

No other details about the donor or recipient were released. Health officials say both are alive and receiving HIV treatment.

Pink tweets about how stylist 'butchered' her hair; 'I hate it' the pregnant pop star tweeted

Singer Pink arrives at Lionsgate and Lakeshore Entertainment's premiere of "The Lincoln Lawyer" on March 10, 2011 in Hollywood, California.

Pop star Pink has learned that misery loves company – especially when it comes to bad haircuts.

"The woman that did my hair butchered it," Pink, 31, tweeted last weekend after she attended the L.A. premiere of "The Lincoln Lawyer." "I hate it."

Pink's fans apparently agreed with her assessment of her silvery-gray, slightly uneven, pixie-cut 'do.

"Thanks for pointing out how much you all hate it, too. Helpful," she tweeted.

Pink, who is pregnant, doesn't just reach out to her fans for beauty tips – she also seeks out health advice, too.

Pink confirms her pregnancy on the 'Ellen DeGeneres Show' show in November 2010 (Rozman/Warner Bros.)

"Ok my sweet-tweets ... what does a pregnant mama do for the flu without antibiotics?" she asked.

Her fans weighed in with a wide array of helpful hints, including "chicken soup, hot tea, lemon, suffer or smoke crack."

"Gotta love twitter land," she responded. "Think i'll go with tea."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/fashion/2011/03/16/2011-03-16_pink_tweets_about_how_stylist_butchered_her_hair_i_hate_it_the_pregnant_pop_star.html#ixzz1GoLeS845

Eric Persaud, Queens man who burned girlfriend's face with hot iron, sentenced to 13 years in prison

Eric Persaud gets ready for his sentencing to 13 years in jail at Queens criminal court for burning his girlfriend's face with an iron and slashing her with a box cutter.

A Queens man who burned his girlfriend's face with a hot iron while their three children watched was sentenced to 13 years in prison Wednesday by a judge who called the gruesome attack "horrendous and sick."

Eric Persaud apologized to his girlfriend and urged her to be a good mother to their young children.

"My actions were cowardly, and there was no excuse for losing my cool," Persaud told Queens Supreme Court Justice Gregory Lasak, his voice trembling.

Lasak scolded Persaud for forcing the woman to turn up the heat on the iron so he could permanently scar her for calling the cops over an earlier attack.

"Your actions are some of the worst I've seen a man do to a woman," Lasak told Persaud. "The actions that you took on that day were horrendous and sick."

Prosecutors say Persaud, 36, flew into a rage on April 30, 2009, because he was upset that she'd called 911 a week before when he smashed her phone and computer. He promised to kill her if she called the cops again.

When the woman refused to burn herself with the iron, Persaud stuck a towel in her mouth and burned her on both cheeks while forcing her to turn up the heat.

When that wasn't enough, he slashed her in the face with a razor blade, prosecutors say.

The woman spent 11 days in the hospital.

Persaud called the woman hundreds of times from Rikers Island, begging her not to testify against him. Queens prosecutors retrieved recordings of the phone calls and planned to use them against Persaud if he'd gone to trial.

Persaud pleaded guilty to an assault charge last month




Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2011/03/16/2011-03-16_eric_persaud_queens_man_who_burned_girlfriends_face_with_hot_iron_sentenced_to_1.html#ixzz1Gnv9LlJK

'Regulate' rapper Nate Dogg dead at 41; Rose to fame with Snoop Dogg, Warren G, Dr. Dre

Nate Dogg, whose smooth voice added a soft touch to some of the biggest rap hits to come out of the West Coast, has died. He was 41.

The cause of death was not immediately announced, but the lyricist, born Nathaniel Dwayne Hale, had suffered two serious strokes in recent years.

Hale made his first waves in hip-hop in 1991 as part of the rap trio 213 with Warren G andSnoop Dogg and later rose to fame as a guest vocalist on Dr. Dre's mega-hit, "The Chronic."

But he was best known for the hook he provided on the 1994 hit song "Regulate," with Warren G.

Appearing on the soundtrack of the film "Above the Rim," starring late rapper Tupac Shakur, the song hit No. 2 on the Billboard Top 100.

"We lost a true legend n hip hop n rnb," Snoop Dogg tweeted. "One of my best friends n a brother to me since 1986 when I was a sophomore at poly high where we met. I love u buddy luv. U will always b wit me 4ever n a day."

Hale began singing as a child in a Long Beach, Calif. Baptist church where his father was the pastor.

When he was 16, he dropped out of high school and joined the Marines where he served for three years.

When Dr. Dre heard a demo by 213 he was intrigued, and began to work with the group. Their collaboration helped make Snoop Dogg one of hip-hop's biggest stars.

Hale went on to make three solo albums, but was best known for his collaborative work, singing hooks on other rappers' songs.

He was nominated for four Grammy Awards, most recently for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for the 2007 Eminem track, "Shake That."

Hale he was left paralyzed on one side of his body following a stroke that year. He suffered a second stroke in 2008.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music/2011/03/16/2011-03-16_regulate_rapper_nate_dogg_dead_at_41_rose_to_fame_with_snoop_dogg_warren_g_dr_dr.html#ixzz1GlsIKgVu