A lifetime achievement award will be presented to the American Jewish TV producer Norman Lear at this year’s Golden Globes ceremonies on Feb. 28, and it may be time to wonder whether Lear’s fierce optimism was fully deserved by the nation he has devoted himself to for almost a century.
Born in 1922, Lear was the presiding force behind such landmark sitcoms as “All in the Family,” “Sanford and Son,” “The Jeffersons,” “Good Times” and “Maude.”
The resolve that Lear showed in flying combat missions as a radio operator/gunner on B-17 Flying Fortress bombers during World War II was later expressed in broaching controversial racial and gender issues.
A coronavirus patient has warned of the dangers of bending Covid-19 rules after a New Year’s Day whisky with neighbours led to him catching the virus after shielding for weeks.
Jim Cullen, 80, has been in the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, Renfrewshire, for more than two weeks but will soon be discharged.
Following the recent death of his wife and struggling with isolation, he decided to visit neighbours for a drink.
Mr Cullen, from Paisley, contracted the virus, and now hopes his story will ensure others stick to the rules.
Jim Cullen said he was ‘desperate for company’ when he had a drink with his neighbours (Jane Barlow/PA)
Exhausted NHS staff at a Scottish hospital have urged the public to stick with coronavirus measures as they struggle with the pandemic’s winter spike.
The PA news agency was given access to the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, where departments are colour-coded to warn of the Covid-19 risk.
Nurses and doctors wear masks in green areas and adorn additional PPE – a face shield, apron and gloves – when working in red wards with infectious patients.
Staff go about their tasks with good humour, chatter and an easiness that belies the dangerous circumstances of their workplace, where catching coronavirus is an ever present risk.
While he regrets visiting his neighbours, he acknowledged that self-isolating is difficult. “You are desperate for company,” he said. “It’s a difficult thing to deal with and I had just lost my wife, so I’m searching for people to talk to apart from on the phone.” Mr Cullen praised the NHS staff who treated him, saying they not only work in challenging circumstances but do so with good humour. “They have really knocked their socks off to help people,” he said.
Covid patient John McAllister receives care (Jane Barlow/PA) John McAllister, 52, from nearby Johnstone, is being treated in the specialist assessment treatment area in the hospital.
2:34 am UTC Dec. 17, 2020
Marion Phillips outside her home in Bradenton, Fla. in late 2019.THOMAS CORDY, PALM BEACH POST
They came on a sweltering August evening in 2015, to Marion Phillips’ first-floor apartment in Bradenton, past the sanitation department, the juvenile detention center, Ramirez Auto, and a soup kitchen named Our Daily Bread. Four cops and an investigator with the Florida Department of Children and Families.
They were there to look at Abby’s leg.
Someone, maybe a teacher, had noticed it earlier that day: A multicolored bruise stretching across the back of the 6-year-old’s left thigh. Pablo Torres, Marion’s boyfriend, admitted he had spanked Abby with a belt while Marion was at work.