DULUTH, Minn. - Authorities are releasing more information about the elderly Duluth couple found dead on Saturday.

 Duluth police say Ron Tarnowski, 82, and Mary Tarnowski, 78, were found on Saturday shortly before 4 p.m., after they were missing for eight days.

 A U.S. Border Patrol Helicopter found their vehicle in a rural area about 150 yards off of Highway 2 in the Brookston, Minnesota area. St. Louis County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Wade Rasch says it appears the couple drove off the road onto a swampy trail that was likely only used as a snowmobile trail during the winter.

 Rasch said Mary Tarnowski was found in the car, which was stuck on the trail, and Ron Tarnowski was found closer to the highway. Rasch said it appears Ron went to get help after the car became stuck.

 RELATED: Police seek help finding missing Duluth couple

 The autopsy results are pending, but Rasch said it's likely the couple died of exposure.

 A post on the Find Ron and Mary Tarnowski Facebook page stated, "It is with great sadness that we must report that Ron and Mary Tarnowski have been found deceased in a remote area about a mile from their hunting camp."

 The couple had been last seen on surveillance video at a Country Corner store near Brookston, Minnesota, around 1 p.m. on Saturday, July 29.

 Ron had early-stage dementia, and Mary had right-sided paralysis, making it difficult to speak. ||||| After a week-long search, Ron and Mary Tarnowski were discovered dead in swampy area in Duluth on Aug. 5. The couple was married for 59 years. (Amber Ferguson/The Washington Post)

 Ron and Mary Tarnowski spent their days confined almost entirely to their home in Duluth, Minn.

 Decades ago, at age 42, Mary Tarnowski suffered from a stroke that left her paralyzed on the right side of her body, making it difficult for her to move or speak. Her husband, Ron, served as her caretaker for more than 35 years, assisting her with daily tasks and rarely leaving her side.

 But in recent years, Ron Tarnowski, an Air Force veteran and retired captain for the local fire department, began showing signs of early-stage dementia, his son and police told The Washington Post. Suddenly, the tough man with a “commanding presence,” adventurous spirit and the build of a former football player needed to be taken care of, too.

 Getting around became even more difficult for the Tarnowskis — Mary, 78, and Ron, 81. The couple hardly ever left the home, which their son, Karl Tarnowski, built adjacent to his own so he could keep an eye on them.

 Occasionally, Mary Tarnowski would ask her husband to go for a drive, perhaps to nearby restaurants. But they never stayed away for very long and would always be back well before nightfall.

 “When the sun sets they’ve always been home,” Karl Tarnowski, the younger of the couple’s two sons, said in an interview with The Washington Post.

 So it was troubling when, on the evening of July 29, Karl Tarnowski and his wife found the elderly couple’s home empty and their Chevy Tahoe gone.

 Mary and Ron Tarnowski had driven away that day without telling anyone. They left behind a cellphone, Mary’s wheelchair and purse, and their medications. At 10 p.m., their worried children called the police to report them missing.

 For the next seven days, the family, law enforcement and hundreds of community members in Duluth launched an extensive search effort that covered thousands of miles.

 Relatives and local authorities posted fliers all over the surrounding area and posted updates on a Facebook group called “Find Ron and Mary Tarnowski,” which was followed by more than 7,000 people across Minnesota and the United States. Retired Duluth firefighters joined the search for one of their own.

 Duluth residents tied purple ribbons around trees and on businesses, in honor of the Alzheimer’s Association. They held news conferences outside the Tarnowskis’ home attended by the Duluth police chief and about 100 community members.

 Relatives and police officials weighed several possible theories of where the couple could have gone. Perhaps they had headed northwest to Grand Rapids, Minn., where their sons had been spending the day. Maybe they were stopping by their family’s hunting shack, about 30 miles away from their Duluth home.

 On Saturday afternoon, eight days after the couple went missing, the family received their answer, and a tragic end to their strenuous search. A U.S. Border Patrol helicopter found the couple’s Chevy Tahoe on an overgrown, abandoned driveway in a swampy area off the road just two miles away from the family’s hunting property. They were near Brookston, a town about 30 miles from their Duluth home.

 Mary’s Tarnowski’s body was discovered inside the Tahoe, and her husband’s body was found outside the vehicle, about 50 feet from the road.

 Authorities suspect Ron Tarnowski may have driven onto the trail accidentally before getting his car stuck in the mud, said Lt. Mike Ceynowa, public information officer for the Duluth Police Department. He said police think Tarnowski left the vehicle to seek help.

 Autopsy results are pending, but Karl Tarnowski said there are signs that his mother died of a combination of dehydration and heat while sitting in the car on a day with temperatures in the upper 80s. There is also evidence that Ron Tarnowski had fallen down while trudging through the mud, his son said.

 Both are believed to have died July 29, the day they went missing, the son said. No foul play is suspected, according to authorities.

 “It’s a horrific case,” Ceynowa said. “Nobody wants to lose their parents this way.”

 But in the parents’ final moments, Ceynowa said, Ron Tarnowski “was doing what he’s done for years: trying to help his wife and take care of her.”

 Karl Tarnowski does not know what prompted his parents to drive so far away, but he suspects his father’s dementia played a role. His father rarely visited the hunting cabin in recent years, and he never traveled there without one of his two sons. Even then, he would be on edge, wanting to hurry home before sundown to take care of his wife.

 The morning before they went missing, “everything seemed totally normal,” Karl Tarnowski said. His wife gave his mother a bath and cooked the couple some breakfast. Later that morning, he left town for the day, telling his father, “See you later, Papa.”

 “He said, ‘Take your time, but hurry back,'” Tarnowski said. “He said, “We’ll be here anyway. We never go anywhere.”

 Evidence uncovered during the course of the seven-day search revealed some details about the rest of their day. The couple stopped by a local Wells Fargo Bank, where Ron Tarnowski withdrew an amount of cash typical for him. Then they stopped at a restaurant for lunch, Karl Tarnowski said.

 The map shows the distance from Ron and Mary Tarnowski’s home to where their bodies were found. (Google Maps)

 At some point afterward, they headed northwest on Highway 2 toward their hunting property. It was a “beautiful” summer day, Ceynowa said, “a day we all hope for in the north.”

 A video from security cameras showed the couple in one of their final moments, walking through a bar and grill in Brookston, Minn., possibly hours before their vehicle got stuck.

 The surveillance footage captured the extent of the couple’s immobility. They could be seen slowly walking into the restaurant. Ron Tarnowski led the way, trudging along with his cane and holding his wife’s hand as she walked behind him, dragging a leg. It took 16 minutes for the couple to take a bathroom break, Karl Tarnowski said.

 They had been married for 59 years.

 Lately, caring for his wife had became a taxing responsibility for Ron Tarnowski. And in recent years, his mental deterioration became a challenge for his wife, their son said.

 But throughout these tribulations, Karl Tarnowski said, “their love was outstanding for one another.”

 Ron Tarnowski joined the Air Force before graduating from high school and was stationed in the Philippines for a long time, his son said. He actively volunteered with the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization. As a father, he could be a “kind of harsh person” at times, but he had a “heart of gold,” Karl Tarnowski said.

 His father often offered to work on welding projects for neighbors and friends, and would always say “this weld is guaranteed,” Tarnowski recounted. “If it breaks, I’ll weld it again.”

 Mary Tarnowski was a “big-hearted” mother who “loved people” and always looked forward to playing cards with friends. Before her stroke, she volunteered with the census every 10 years, participated in her children’s parent-teacher associations and made sure everything in the home was organized. She never had a driver’s license, so her husband would frequently drive her around town.

 “They went everywhere together,” said Mark Lavalier, a retired firefighter who worked with Ron Tarnowski for several years and who assisted with the search efforts. “You’d never see one without the other.”

 The story of the missing couple resonated with families across the state, particularly those with elderly parents, Lavalier said.

 “Everybody’s got parents. Everybody watches them get old and realizes they become vulnerable,” Lavalier said. “That’s what people reacted to. This could be my parents. This could be everybody’s parents.”

 The story of the Tarnowskis also underscored the dangers vulnerable adults can face when they leave home with no way of being reached or tracked. The OnStar device on the Chevy Tahoe was not activated, and neither Tarnowski was accustomed to carrying and using a cellphone.

 Karl Tarnowski urged the importance of making sure vulnerable adults carry GPS tracking devices or cellphones at all times.

 “If there’s any positive outcome to this,” he said, it’s that, perhaps, “it’s going to help somebody else find their parents someday.”

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 After months of bullying, her parents say, a 12-year-old New Jersey girl killed herself. They blame the school. ||||| A U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Air and Marine Operations helicopter crew discovered the elderly Duluth couple’s vehicle in a remote location at about 3:45 p.m. Saturday, according to the Duluth Police Department. The investigation into the deaths was ongoing Saturday night, but foul play wasn’t suspected. It appeared the couple’s SUV had gotten stuck, police said.

 They were found about a mile from the family’s hunting camp, according to a statement posted on the “Find Ron and Mary Tarnowski” Facebook page that family members had started to aid the search. The camp is near U.S. Highway 2 between Brookston and Floodwood, and a few miles from where the couple had been last seen, the Country Corner store.

 “The family would like to thank the many men and women of law enforcement, the active and retired firefighters, the Alzheimer’s Association, and the overwhelming support of the community and the media for the diligent efforts this past week,” the Facebook statement read.

 Aircraft involved in the search had been grounded Friday because of thunderstorms in the region, officials said, but returned to the air on Saturday.

 The news prompted an outpouring of condolences and support on social media for the Tarnowski family — including the couple’s sons, Kurt and Karl, and Karl’s wife Bev — who had been tireless in recent days in organizing search efforts and checking on possible sightings.

 Ron, 82, and Mary, 78, had been last seen July 29 at the Country Corner store along Highway 2. Ron was in the early stages of dementia, and Mary suffered from right-side paralysis and had difficulty speaking. They lived in a home Karl Tarnowski built for his parents, adjacent to his own home in Duluth. They generally spent most of their time at home, going out only for an occasional meal at nearby restaurants.

 They weren’t carrying cellphones or credit cards when they went missing, and an OnStar system in their vehicle was not activated, which left authorities with few clues to pinpoint a search over the past week.

 “We're not looking for a needle in a haystack, because we haven't found the haystack yet,” Duluth Police Chief Mike Tusken said at a Saturday morning gathering at the Tarnowskis’ home.

 More than 100 volunteers, some wearing purple T-shirts and ribbons for Alzheimer’s awareness, gathered in Ron and Mary’s driveway to begin another day of searching for the couple Saturday. A photo of Ron and Mary was taped to their garage with a sign above it: “Missing 8 days.”

 About 20 current and retired Duluth firefighters were among the crowd of volunteers to search for one of their own. Ron was a Duluth firefighter for 31 years.

 Retired Duluth firefighters Jim Reed and Mark Lavalier had already been out searching in the past week. Lavalier worked with Ron and lives one block south of the Tarnowskis. Trying to hold back tears on Saturday morning, before the couple was found, he said, “If it was me, I know that they’d be there for me.”

 Reed didn’t know Ron well, but said “nobody deserves this, to be lost” and to be confused with dementia.

 Law enforcement’s efforts to find the Tarnowskis ramped up on Saturday with a new emergency command center set up in Pike Lake and a new tip line with two dispatchers dedicated to the case.

 During the Saturday morning gathering, Tusken said the police department’s violent crimes unit, which handles missing person cases, had been working on the case since Day One and had tracked down dozens of leads in six counties and two states.

 The police department decided to change tactics on Friday night due to the expanding search for the couple, and the command center created a centralized location for the various agencies assisting in the search.

 At the command center on Saturday, before the Tarnowskis were found, there was a steady stream of phone calls with tips and search updates.

 Law enforcement officials studied a gas station’s surveillance video, cross-referencing it with Google Maps and a tip to determine the likelihood that Ron and Mary’s vehicle might have been captured on the video.

 On the wall, areas already searched were being marked on a large map of Northeastern Minnesota. Authorities had notified FedEx, UPS and rural mail carriers to keep an eye out, and some student pilots had flown over the region to search while getting in their practice hours.

 Reed, the retired Duluth firefighter who had gathered with dozens of other volunteers Saturday morning at the Tarnowskis’ home, said at that time that the community response “is a big circle. Hopefully somebody will do it for us or one of our loved ones if it happened to them. That’s how we do it. We live in a society where we all got to help each other out.”

 Andrew Krueger of the News Tribune staff contributed to this report. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– "We're not looking for a needle in a haystack, because we haven't found the haystack yet," said the police chief of Duluth, Minnesota, Saturday morning in regards to the case of an elderly couple who had been missing for 8 days. By the afternoon, a helicopter had found both the haystack and the needle, to tragic ends. Ron and Mary Tarnowski were found dead in the Brookston area, near a hunting shack the family owned about 30 miles from Duluth. Foul play isn't suspected. The Washington Post reports the couple lived near one of their sons, Karl Tarnowski, who noticed they uncharacteristically didn't return home on July 29. The Duluth News Tribune reports the couple didn't have cellphones or credit cards on them, nor did their car's OnStar system engage, leaving authorities with little to go on. But there was, perhaps, a general area: Their last sighting had been at 1pm on the day they went missing at a corner store near Brookston. KARE reports the Tarnowskis' Chevy Tahoe was found in a remote area, apparently stuck on what seemed to be a "swampy" trail typically accessed by snowmobilers in the winter. Mary, 78, was in the vehicle; Ron, 82, was outside it, some 50 feet from the road, suggesting he had gone in search of help. Karl tells the Post that it's thought both died the day they went missing; Mary is believed to have succumbed to dehydration and heat. The couple is depicted as a devoted one: A stroke at age 42 left Mary paralyzed on her right side; Ron was constantly by her side, but had himself begun to show early signs of dementia. (This couple was found 75 years after they went missing.)


Here is a news article: A chance discovery at a rock shelter in southern Australia has revealed a human settlement dating back 49,000 years.

 Archaeologist Giles Hamm was surveying the territory in Flinders Ranges with aboriginal elder Clifford Coulthard when his colleague needed a toilet break.

 "Nature called and Cliff walked up this creek bed into this gorge and found this amazing spring surrounded by rock art," Mr Hamm told ABC news.

 "A man getting out of the car to go to the toilet led to the discovery of one of the most important sites in Australian pre-history."

 Image: The finding is crucial in understanding human settlement in Australia. Pic Giles Hamm

 What sparked the archaeologists' interest was a rock shelter with a blackened roof because, Mr Hamm told ABC, "that's people lighting fires inside that rock shelter, that's human activity".

 Sophisticated tools and bone fragments from the largest ever marsupial were found at the site.

 Eventually some 4,300 objects and 200 bone fragments were recovered.

 Scientists working with Mr Hamm's team have determined the age of the site at 49,000 years.

 Aboriginal Australians are the oldest continued civilisation in the world, descending from the first people to leave Africa, according to a genetic study published by the University of Copenhagen in September.

 Image: Scientists determined the age of the site at 49,000 years. Pic Giles Hamm

 But the time of arrival of the first Australians is debated among researchers. The consensus view is they arrived 50,000 years ago.

 But Mr Hamm said their presence 49,000 years ago at a site in southern Australia suggested they must have reached northern parts far earlier.

 "If people did come 50,000 years ago, it doesn't give them much time to move so far south," Mr Hamm said.

 "There could have been colonisation much earlier than the accepted time frame of 50,000 years ago. It could be 55,000 maybe 60,000 years ago."

 Image: Flinders Ranges is 550km north of Adelaide. Pic Giles Hamm

 The site also contained evidence of human interaction with mega fauna, namely the Diprotodon optatum - a marsupial measuring 2m in height and weighing more than 2,500kg.

 Scientists have previously puzzled over how humans had interacted with them.

 But the presence of bones from juvenile animals in a cave on a cliff suggests they were hunted, said Gavin Prideaux, palaeontologist at Flinders University in South Australia.

 "Those animals weren't built to climb up a cliff into the settlement, the only way they could have got there was through human agency," he said. ||||| Excavation methods

 Hand excavation was undertaken within Warratyi rock shelter (Extended Data Fig. 1a–c), using two 2 × 1 m trenches (Extended Data Fig. 1b, c). The first exploratory trench (squares 4C and 4D) was located on the southern side of the shelter to provide a cross-section through potential living areas from east to west (taking in part of the back wall). The second trench (squares 2B and 2C) was positioned in the centre of the shelter floor. Square 2B was only excavated down to spit 6 (30 cm) until obstructed by a large roof fall block.

 Excavation was carried out using a 1-m grid system. This grid was further subdivided into 25 cm square units (quadrats: A–D Extended Data Fig. 1c) to enable greater recording precision. Excavation was undertaken using 5 cm spits, with a trowel and hand shovel and the excavated material was dry-sieved through (8, 5 and 2 mm) sieves. Stratigraphic features, such as charcoal lenses, ash or hearth-like lenses, were all drawn, photographed and noted during the excavation process. Detailed profile drawings were made on completion of the excavation. If possible, stone artefacts, bone and ochre were individually recorded and excavated from their in situ location and bagged separately, rather than being retrieved from the bulk sediment collected from individual spits. To reduce the potential for contamination of the excavated surfaces by loose material falling into the pit, the area surrounding each square (where possible) was covered with plastic sheeting and any loose spoil removed. Excavators were encouraged to wear soft shoes to reduce potential damage to the pit walls.

 Each spit was recorded using a standard excavation sheet, which included making notes of the individual features and conditions encountered within each square and quadrat. A geomorphologist (P.M.) was present during the excavation process to advise excavators on the variability of sedimentary units and the positions of potential depositional changes associated with strata boundaries. When these depositional changes were detected during the excavation, they were noted and new strata were excavated as separate entities within a spit. This process reduced the potential for the sediment of two different strata being mixed.

 Where a filled burrow (mostly attributable to rabbits) was encountered, the infilling sediment was removed as a discrete unit and bagged separately. These burrows were excavated in each square before the undisturbed enclosing sediments were excavated, thereby minimising potential contamination of the primary sediment by younger and/or mixed burrow infill material.

 All in situ finds larger than 2 cm (including bone) were plotted in plan view within each excavated quadrat (A–D) and their depth ascertained by levelling within each spit (Extended Data Fig. 1b, c). Some of these in situ finds were photographed, however, most were not as their importance at the time of the excavation was not known (for example, bone point and Diprotodon bone fragments). All sediment removed from each spit was weighed. All material remaining on the sieves was bagged for further analysis. Bulk soil samples were removed for sedimentary analyses. At a later stage, sediment residues were wet-sieved through a 1-mm mesh before sorting. All charcoal, artefacts, bone fragments and plant matter recovered from this process were bagged. The location of charcoal samples collected during the excavation was plotted on plans, their depth recorded and then bagged separately.

 A total of 1,070 stone artefacts were tested for refitting from square 2C in order to confirm the integrity of the apparently intact depositional laminae. These artefacts were assessed to see if they could be refitted together as parts of a former piece of stone artefact, on the assumption that their original separation was attributable to stone reduction activity and that they must have originated on a single surface in the shelter. All artefacts from square 2C that were greater than 10 mm in maximum dimension were assessed for refitting. Each refit set comprised artefacts that could be treated analytically as a single knapping episode30. As such, the distance between artefact elevations for each refitting set provides a proxy measure for the vertical displacement of cultural material through the deposit by human trampling and other post-depositional activty31. Refitting was attempted within a 1 × 1 m area, which represents only a sample of the occupied area and therefore is unlikely to capture an entire knapping event. In addition, artefacts will have undoubtedly been laterally dispersed as a result of repeated human and animal occupation; therefore we can predict that the overall percentage of refits (the ‘success rate’) will be low32.

 Optical dating of quartz grains

 Seven optical dating samples were collected from cleaned exposures of excavation square 2C using metal tubes, and wrapped in light-proof bags for transportation and storage. Bulk sediment samples were also collected from the surrounding few centimetres of each sample tube for β-dose rate determination and water content analysis. In the laboratory, quartz grains of 180–212 μm diameter were extracted from the un-illuminated centres of the metal tubes under safe light (dim red LED) conditions and prepared for burial dose estimation using standard procedures33, including etching by 48% hydrofluoric acid for 40 min to remove the α-irradiated external layers.

 Two semi-independent approaches were used to obtain optical age estimates for the Warratyi samples. Single-grain optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of quartz34, 35 was routinely applied to all samples, and was preferred over standard multiple-grain OSL dating because of its ability to identify insufficiently bleached grain populations36, 37, contaminant grains associated with post-depositional mixing38, and aberrant grains displaying inherently unsuitable luminescence properties39, 40. Single-grain TT-OSL dating of quartz41, 42, 43 was applied to the oldest sample in the sequence (ERS-7) as a means of cross-checking the reliability of the OSL-dating approach over dose ranges of 150–200 Gy. TT-OSL dating was applied to individual grains of quartz rather than multi-grain aliquots in this study, following the reliable application of this approach at other archaeological cave and rock shelter sites38, 44, 45.

 OSL and TT-OSL equivalent dose (D e ) measurements were made using experimental apparatus and quality assurance criteria described previously38, 44. Samples were irradiated with a Risø TL-DA-20 90Sr/90Y β source that had been calibrated to administer known doses to multi-grain aliquots and single-grain discs. For single-grain measurements, spatial variations in the β-dose rate across the disc plane were taken into account by undertaking hole-specific calibrations using γ-irradiated quartz. Quartz grains with a diameter of 180–212 μm were measured in standard single-grain aluminium discs drilled with an array of 300 × 300 μm holes.

 D e values were determined for individual grains of quartz using the single-aliquot regenerative-dose (SAR) procedures34 shown in Supplementary Table 3. Between 900 and 1,300 individual quartz grains of each sample were measured for D e determination (Supplementary Table 4). Sensitivity-corrected dose–response curves were constructed using the first 0.17 s of each green-laser stimulation after subtracting a mean background count obtained from the last 0.25 s of the signal. A preheat of 260 °C for 10 s was used in the OSL SAR procedure before measuring the natural (L n ) and regenerative dose (L x ) signals, and a cut-heat of 160 °C was applied before undertaking the test-dose OSL measurements (T n and T x ) (Supplementary Table 3). These preheating conditions yielded an accurate measured-to-recovered dose ratio of 1.03 ± 0.03 and a relatively low overdispersion value of 12 ± 3% for a ~130 Gy dose-recovery test performed on individual grains of sample ERS-5 (Extended Data Fig. 6A). The single-grain TT-OSL SAR procedure (Supplementary Table 3) uses a TT-OSL test dose measurement rather than an OSL test-dose measurement (step 11) to correct for sensitivity change, following suitability assessments performed elsewhere40, 44, 45, 46. A dose-recovery test performed on 1,200 individual quartz grains of sample ERS-7 attests to the general suitability of this SAR procedure (Extended Data Fig 6A). The TT-OSL dose-recovery test was performed on a batch of unbleached grains owing to the relatively long periods of light exposure needed to bleach natural TT-OSL signals down to low residual levels47. A known (172 Gy) laboratory dose of similar magnitude to the expected D e was added on top of the natural signals for these grains. The recovered dose was then calculated by subtracting the weighted mean natural D e of sample ERS-7 (168 ± 12 Gy; determined on a separate batch of grains and summarized in Supplementary Table 5) from the weighted mean D e of these unbleached and dosed grains (350 ± 18 Gy). This approach yielded a net (that is, natural-subtracted) recovered-to-given ratio of 1.06 ± 0.09 for sample ESR-7. An overdispersion value of 12 ± 9% was calculated for the D e distribution of the unbleached and dosed batch of grains, which is consistent with that obtained for the single-grain OSL dose-recovery test.

 Individual D e estimates are presented with their 1 standard error ranges (Supplementary Table 5 and Extended Data Fig. 6C), which have been derived from three sources of uncertainty: (i) a random uncertainty term arising from photon-counting statistics for each OSL or TT-OSL measurement, calculated using equation 3 from ref. 48; (ii) an empirically determined instrument-reproducibility uncertainty of 2% for each single-grain measurement; and (iii) a dose–response curve fitting uncertainty determined using 1,000 iterations of the Monte Carlo method implemented in Analyst49.

 Environmental dose rates have been calculated using a combination of in situ field γ-ray spectrometry and high-resolution γ spectrometry of dried and homogenized bulk sediments collected directly from the OSL-sampling positions. Cosmic-ray dose-rate contributions were calculated using the equations in ref. 50 after taking into consideration site altitude, geomagnetic latitude, density, thickness and geometry of the sediment or bedrock overburden. A small, assumed internal (α plus β) dose rate of 0.03 ± 0.01 Gy per kyr has been included in the final dose-rate calculations, based on published 238U and 232Th measurements for etched quartz grains from a range of locations51, 52, 53, 54 and an α efficiency factor (a value) of 0.04 ± 0.01 (refs 55, 56, 57). Radionuclide concentrations and specific activities have been converted to dose rates using published conversion factors58, allowing for β-dose attenuation59, 60 where applicable.

 Radiocarbon (14C) dating of hearth charcoal and eggshell samples

 Seventeen eggshell fragments (15 Dromaius, 2 megapode) and two large charcoal fragments associated with hearth features were used to derive the final 14C chronology of SU1A to SU4. A range of other organic materials were initially submitted for 14C analysis but these were considered unreliable based on stratigraphic or methodological grounds, as detailed in Supplementary Information (radiocarbon dating). Samples were pretreated using acid–base–acid procedures and their 14C contents were measured using accelerator mass spectrometry at the Waikato Radiocarbon Laboratory and the ANSTO Radiocarbon Facility. Uncalibrated eggshell and charcoal 14C ages (Supplementary Table 7) are expressed in 14C years before present (14C yr bp, where bp is defined as 1950 ad) following standard reporting conventions61. Isotopic fractionation has been corrected for by using the measured δ13C value of each sample. The 14C age estimates have been calibrated with the internationally ratified southern hemisphere SHCal13 curve62, using OxCal v4.2.4 (ref. 63). The calibrated 14C age ranges (cal yr bp) are described as 95.4% probability ranges throughout.

 Bayesian age modelling

 Bayesian age modelling was used to integrate all stratigraphically reliable chronological information within a unified statistical framework and to derive combined age estimates for individual stratigraphic units. The Bayesian age model for Warratyi was constructed using OxCal v4.2.4 (ref. 63). A sequence-deposition model with nested phases of uniform prior duration and associated boundaries was used to derive a combined chronostratigraphic framework for the site, following the approach outlined previously64. The main depositional sequence incorporates the five stratigraphic units found at Warratyi (SU1A–SU4) in an ordered succession according to depth. Units have been represented as nested sequences within the broader depositional column as their overall stratigraphic ordering is sufficiently well preserved. Separate phases have been used to represent groupings of numerical ages within individual units. This approach was deemed necessary for SU2–SU4 because the 14C and optical dating samples were collected from multiple excavation squares that exhibited potentially irregular or spatially heterogeneous stratigraphic relationships. The exact relative ordering of dating samples from each unit could therefore not be directly constrained in a vertical profile. SU1A and SU1B are internally heterogeneous and exhibit signs of inter-horizon mixing, as borne out by the multiple dose components of optical dating samples ERS-1, ERS-2 and ERS-3 (see Supplementary Information: chronology). This has prevented us from making any assumptions about relative chronological ordering of dated horizons within these units, although the relative ordering of SU1A and SU1B remains sufficiently clear. Groupings within SU1A and SU1B were therefore also nested as separate phases rather than sub-sequences.

 Each stratigraphic unit has been represented by a single phase, with the exception of SU3. This unit is significantly thicker than the others at Warratyi and can be differentiated into two broad archaeo–palaeontological phases according to distinct changes in artefact content and bone abundance at a depth of approximately 60–65 cm (Fig. 2). Two separate phases were nested within the SU3 sequence to account for archaeological sub-structuring of the dated horizons. Boundaries were used to delineate the beginning and end of each stratigraphic unit. We have not, however, incorporated any prior depositional gaps in the sequence model as there is no direct evidence of unconformities at Warratyi. The entire site sequence has been constrained with a minimum age of 0 years before 1950 ad and a maximum age of 60 kyr before 1950 ad. The latter represents a conservative upper age estimate for this archaeological sequence and has been chosen to predate sufficiently the earliest existing evidence of human presence in Australia around ≤50 ka, as determined from an assessment of 26 early occupation sites across Sahul65. We note, however, that the Bayesian age model is largely insensitive to our choice of maximum age constraint given the range of likelihoods obtained on the lowest stratigraphic unit.

 The 14C data were input into the model as conventional ages (using the OxCal R_Date function) and were subsequently calibrated using the SHCal13 curve62 as part of the modelling procedure. Modelled posterior 14C age ranges are therefore presented in calendar years before 1950 ad (cal yr bp). To avoid introducing systematic errors in the posterior results, optical dating ages (calculated as kyr before sample collection in 2012 ad) were similarly converted to years before 1950 ad before their incorporation in the model.

 The final Bayesian age model for Warratyi was run using the general outlier function66, which is based on a Student’s t-test distribution with 5 degrees of freedom. Prior outlier probabilities of 5% were equally assigned to all dating samples to identify potentially significant statistical outliers. Likelihood estimates that yielded posterior outlier probabilities >5% were not excluded from the final model but were proportionally down-weighted in the iterative Monte Carlo runs, thereby producing an averaged chronological model66.

 Use-wear and residue analyses

 Use-wear studies were conducted using a hand-held polarizing Dino-Lite AM4815ZT microscope at magnifications of 30× to 230×. Additional high-power microscopic investigation using an Olympus BX51 at magnifications of 50× and 500× in brightfield and darkfield, were undertaken on seven artefacts. Within the overall study, six small samples of residue (approximately 10–20 μl) were extracted from margins or areas of interest on specific stone artefacts. Samples were extracted with pipettes using distilled water as the lifting medium and transferred to slides that had been pre-cleaned with ethanol. The Dino-lite was used to guide this process. Sample slides were dried under covers for 24 h and then stained with a 0.25% solution of picrosirius red using the protocols described previously67. A Leitz Dialux 22 microscope with polarizing capability was used to examine the stained slides. Residues were photographed in plane, part-polarized and cross-polarized light at a magnification of 400× using a Tucsen ISH 500 camera.

 Data availability

 All elements necessary to allow interpretation and replication of results, including full datasets and detailed experimental procedures are provided in the Supplementary Information. Fossils and archaeological material generated in this study will be deposited at the SA Museum and an Adnyamathanha Traditional Lands Association (ATLA)-keeping place within a 6–12-month time-frame and will be publicly accessible upon request with permission from ATLA and the corresponding author. ||||| Oldest known evidence of Aboriginal settlement in arid Australia found in Flinders Ranges rock shelter

 Updated

 The chance discovery of a rock shelter in the Flinders Ranges has unearthed one of the most important prehistoric sites in Australia.

 Key points: Dating of artefacts and fossils from Warratyi indicates human settlement between 49,000 and 46,000 years ago

 Timing shows people moved through central Australia and used key technologies such as stone axes and ochre much earlier than previously thought

 Archaeological evidence also shows humans lived alongside, and hunted megafauna

 The site, known as Warratyi, shows Aboriginal Australians settled the arid interior of the country around 49,000 years ago — some 10,000 years earlier than previously thought.

 The shelter, about 550 kilometres north of Adelaide, also contains the first reliably dated evidence of human interaction with megafauna.

 Artefacts excavated at the site also push back the earliest-known dates on the development of key bone and stone axe technologies and the use of ochre in Australia.

 Lead author Giles Hamm, a consultant archaeologist and doctoral student at La Trobe University, found the site with local Adnyamathanha elder Clifford Coulthard while surveying gorges in the northern Flinders Ranges.

 "Nature called and Cliff walked up this creek bed into this gorge and found this amazing spring surrounded by rock art," Mr Hamm said.

 "A man getting out of the car to go to the toilet led to the discovery of one of the most important sites in Australian pre-history."

 Mr Hamm said during a survey of the gorge they noticed a rock shelter with a blackened roof about 20 metres above the creek bed.

 "Immediately when we saw that we thought, 'Wow, that's people lighting fires inside that rock shelter, that's human activity'," he said.

 At the time they had no idea how significant the find was, Mr Hamm admitted, and thought maybe it would reach back about 5,000 years.

 Excavations reveal treasure trove of artefacts and bones

 Working with the Adnyamathanha people over the past nine years, Mr Hamm and colleagues recovered from the one-metre-deep excavations around 4,300 artefacts and 200 bone fragments from 16 mammals and one reptile.

 Importantly dating of the artefacts and fossil finds show humans occupied the site from 49,000 to 46,000 years ago.

 Mr Hamm said the significance of the site was the combination of its age and geographic location.

 The previous oldest-known site in the arid zone, located at Puritjarra in western Central Australia, is around 38,000 years old.

 "[This discovery] puts people moving south from the northern part of the continent to the southern interior a lot sooner than we thought," he said.

 However, Mr Hamm said it was likely the climate was more favourable when they arrived.

 "They got there before it became really arid," he said.

 "In one sense they were trapped in the Flinders Ranges because once the climate changed [due to the last glacial maximum] it was too risky to move out of these well-watered ranges that had these permanent springs."

 It was a view supported by palaeoanthropologist Michael Westaway at Griffith University, who was part of a recent genomic study that confirmed modern Aboriginal Australians are the descendants of the first people to inhabit Australia and showed they adapted genetically to survive in the desert.

 "Our DNA paper suggested the arid centre at 50,000 years ago was not really a barrier to the movement of people, and this seems to be what Giles is suggesting — people were able to migrate south quite quickly," Dr Westaway said.

 Among the other significant artefact finds at the site was the earliest-known use of ochre in Australia and South-East Asia around 49,000-46,000 years ago.

 Mr Hamm said they had pushed back the dates on the development of technologies such as bone needles (40,000-38,000 years ago), wood-handled stone tools (at least 24,000 years ago) and gypsum use (40,000-33,000 years ago).

 The site also provided reliably dated evidence of hafted axe technology about 38,000 years ago.

 Evidence dates cohabitation with megafauna

 Co-author Professor Gavin Prideaux pointed to the discovery of bones from the extinct giant wombat-like Diprotodon optatum and eggs from an ancient giant bird as important evidence of interaction with ancient humans which would have an impact on the debate over the extinction of megafauna.

 Professor Prideaux, from Flinders University's School of Biological Sciences, said the only previous site in Australia where megafauna remains and human artefacts had been found together was Cuddie Springs in NSW, which had become the subject of controversy over the accuracy of dating.

 "One good thing about this study ... is there's no doubt there are megafauna remains in the form of Diprotodon and a giant bird in that rock shelter in a well-dated, well-stratified context sometime between 45,000 and 50,000 years ago," Professor Prideaux said.

 "The only way those bones and shells got there [because of the steep incline up to the rock shelter] is because people brought them there [to eat] ... in terms of megafauna that's the really significant finding."

 Professor Prideaux said the discovery was an important milestone in the debate over whether humans or climate change drove the extinction of megafauna.

 "[The find] undermines one of the supposed pillars of support for climate change, not humans, causing the extinctions because [the Warrayti site shows] humans lived alongside these animals and hunted them," he said.

 Professor Prideaux said the paper, published yesterday in Nature, "smashed several paradigms about Indigenous Australians".

 "People ... were set up in arid southern Australia by about 50,000 years ago and they had all these amazing technologies much earlier than what we've thought."

 Dr Westaway supported this view.

 "There is a Eurocentric view that material culture in Australia is quite simplistic and backward, but this helps rewrite that story," he said.

 Elders told stories of shelters

 Mr Coulthard, of the Adnyamathanha Traditional Lands Association, said he had worked on the property where Warratyi was located when he was a teenager.

 The elders he had worked with had told him their people had lived in the area and had pointed out a lot of the shelters.

 He had forgotten the information until he teamed up with Mr Hamm and believed "the spirits showed me the road" to the site.

 He said the Adnyamathanha people were proud and happy about the discovery and interested to know how it would be received.

 Topics: science-and-technology, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, archaeology, sa

 First posted ||||| Humans arrived in the arid interior of Australia some 10,000 years earlier than we thought, archaeologists suggest, with the discovery of ancient artefacts in a South Australian cave that have been dated to as far back as 49,000 years ago.

 That means once humans first set foot on the Australian coastline, it took a mere 1,000 years for them to expand out into its dry interior - further evidence of the ingenuity of what now stands as the oldest continuous civilisation on Earth.

 The site, which is a newly discovered cave in the Flinders Ranges, about 550 km north of Adelaide, is known as the Warratyi rock-shelter.

 Archaeologist Giles Hamm from La Trobe University in Melbourne led the excavations at the cave, finding what appear to be some of the oldest bone and quartz tools ever found in Australia, plus the earliest known use of the pigment ochre in the country’s history.

 Artefacts that have been found so far include burnt eggshells, sharpened stone and bone tools, red ochre and gypsum pigments, and the team says this is evidence that these early technologies were developed locally.

 "The old idea is that people might have come from the East, from the Levant, out of Africa, and these modern humans may have come with a package of innovative technologies," Hamm told Nicola Davis at The Guardian.

 "But the development of these fine stone tools, the bone technology, we think that happened as a local innovation, due to a local cultural evolution."

 That’s significant, adds one of the team, Gavin Prideaux from Flinders University in Adelaide, because it challenges certain assumptions that Indigenous Australians were not as innovative as similar populations elsewhere in on the globe.

 "There is a Eurocentric view that material culture in Australia is quite simplistic and backward, but this helps rewrite that story," he told ABC News.

 Until now, the oldest human tool found in Australia’s vast, arid interior has been a tiny axe fragment found earlier this year in the Carpenter's Gap rock-shelter of the Kimberley region of northwest Australia.

 While the Carpenter’s Gap site is not far from the northwest coast of Australia - thought to be one of the earliest settled parts of Australia - the Warratyi rock-shelter sits more than 2,000 km from the early settlement of Lake Mungo in southeasten New South Wales, making it a much more difficult trek.

 The tools have been dated based on a couple of estimates - quartz grains from the site have been dated to 44,000 years ago, but radiocarbon dating of the burnt eggshells, which are thought to be evidence of human cooking, revealed them to be between 45,000 and 49,000 years old.

 The shells are thought to have come from emus and a large, extinct flightless bird from the Genyornis genus. Together with discovery of bones of a huge, extinct wombat-like species, Diprotodon optatum, this suggests that early humans were actually interacting with Australia’s legendary megafauna.

 Diprotodon reconstruction. Credit: Dmitry Bogdanov/Wikimedia

 This doesn’t necessarily mean they were hunting them, but they were at least living in close enough quarters that they could find bones and eggs and bring them back to the cave.

 "One good thing about this study ... is there's no doubt there are megafauna remains in the form of Diprotodon and a giant bird in that rock shelter in a well-dated, well-stratified context sometime between 45,000 and 50,000 years ago," Prideaux told the ABC.

 "The only way those bones and shells got there is because people brought them there ... in terms of megafauna that's the really significant finding."

 The find is, of course, controversial, because that tiny axe fragment we mentioned earlier has been dated to around the same time period - 44,000 to 49,000 years ago. The problem is these estimates are all fairly rough, and still up for interpretation - Hamm's team, for example, insists that the axe is no more than 48,000 years old.

 "[E]veryone is keen to make their site sound older," Sue O'Connor from the Australian National University, who was not involved in either find, told Marcus Strom at The Sydney Morning Herald. But she did add that "the Hamm discovery was likely older".

 "The methodology of this study is as good as it gets," she said. "It's a very important site and a really significant find."

 Debate will likely rage among archaeologists for some time, but the most important thing is that we're finally seeing real evidence of just how widespread the Indigenous Australians were within just 1,000 years of hitting the coast.

 The study has been published in Nature. |||||
A summary of this is?

– "A man getting out of the car to go to the toilet led to the discovery of one of the most important sites in Australian pre-history," archaeologist Giles Hamm tells ABC News. Hamm was surveying a section of Australia's Flinders Ranges when his partner, aboriginal elder Clifford Coulthard, had to go to the bathroom. "Nature called and Cliff walked up this creek bed into this gorge and found this amazing spring surrounded by rock art," Hamm says. At the time, Hamm thought the newly discovered human settlement, a site called Warratyi, was only 5,000 years old. It turns out it's closer to 49,000 years old, and that has huge ramifications for our knowledge of ancient Australian civilization, Sky News reports. Hamm and his team published a study on Warratyi this week in Nature. The discovery of Warratyi in the arid interior of the continent means humans either arrived in Australia up to 10,000 years earlier than previously believed—or they expanded across the continent at a much quicker rate, Science Alert reports. Researchers at the site found 4,300 objects, including tools, and 200 bone fragments from multiple animals, including a 5,500-pound marsupial. The bones help explain how early Australians interacted with megafauna, including hunting them. The tools show Australians were using bone and stone axes earlier than believed and are evidence that early Australians developed some technologies on their own rather than adopting them from other peoples as previously believed. (Ninety rocks in Australia could rank up there with Stonehenge.)


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– A giant bell on a billboard in St. Louis will ring every time a child completes chemotherapy at a local hospital, per the AP. The 12-foot-tall metal bell went up Wednesday on a billboard over Interstate 44 that reads "Childhood wins another round against cancer." Hospital staff will use a mobile app to trigger the bell every time a child completes cancer treatment at St. Louis Children's Hospital, explains the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The bell's speakers enable people passing by to hear it ring. The hospital has its own bell that children with cancer can ring to mark their last day of chemotherapy, and five to 10 kids a month do so.


Summarize this article:

Rodney Todd cared for his seven children, running their Princess Anne household, preparing meals and then working in dining services at a nearby college. For his five daughters, "he did their hair," said Lloyd Edwards, Todd's stepfather.

 All of them — Todd, 36, and his children ages 6 to 15 — were found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in their modest, one-story, yellow-siding home on Antioch Avenue on Monday. Police said Tuesday that they died in bed and a power generator with an empty gas tank was found inside the house.

 "It appears as though they were sleeping," Princess Anne police Chief Scott Keller said. "Probably it was bedtime and they decided they needed some light and probably some heat. ... Even though it was spring we were having some pretty chilly nights."

 Edwards said Todd had a generator because the electricity had been shut off at the home.

 Delmarva Power said the home had been without service since March 25, when workers discovered a stolen electric meter and shut off power for "safety reasons." The utility originally disconnected power there in October, before the Todds began renting the home, and Delmarva said no request had been made to reconnect service.

 Shock and disbelief in a small Eastern Shore community. Carbon monoxide claims the lives of a father and his seven children--all found dead inside their home. (WJZ Video) Shock and disbelief in a small Eastern Shore community. Carbon monoxide claims the lives of a father and his seven children--all found dead inside their home. (WJZ Video) SEE MORE VIDEOS

 The police chief said the utility has been subpoenaed to document what happened. Maryland's Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, also is investigating.

 State law prohibits utilities from cutting electrical service for nonpayment of bills from Nov. 1 through March 31, without an affidavit filed to the Public Service Commission. Utilities can terminate service without notice if it finds hazardous conditions or the customer had tampered with equipment.

 Edwards, who was called on to identify the bodies of his seven grandchildren and his stepson, described Todd as "a magnificent father."

 I'm just numb...Like it's a nightmare but it's not. — Tyisha Luneice Chambers, the children's mother

 "His main job was taking care of his seven children," Edwards said. But "he never complained."

 The children's mother, Tyisha Luneice Chambers, told the Associated Press on Tuesday: "If I had known he was without electricity, I would have helped."

 "I'm just numb," she said. "Like it's a nightmare but it's not."

 Chambers said she had been the primary breadwinner when they were together and continued to pay child support until losing track of them in Todd's last move. She said Todd was physically abusive to her. He pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in 2011.

 Todd's mother and Edwards' wife, Bonnie, identified her grandsons as Cameron and Zhiheem, who were 13 and 7, and her granddaughters, Tyjuziana, Tykeria, Tynijuzia, Tyniah and Tyberyia, who were 15, 12, 10, 9 and 6, respectively.

 Another son of Todd's, Rodney Jr., was not living at the home.

 Bonnie Edwards said she spent every birthday with her son and his children. The two eldest, Tyjuziana and Cameron, watched over their younger siblings as their father worked to put food on the table, she said. The younger ones loved to joke around, ride bikes, play basketball at the playground near their home and challenge each other to dance games on a Nintendo Wii they owned. They all exemplified the best qualities of their father and proudly looked up to him, their grandmother said. For his part, "He knew their likes, dislikes and attitudes," she said. "He knew them from the inside out."

 Todd and the children were discovered after he didn't show up for work for days. His supervisor at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore grew concerned and called police. According to police, she had not seen Todd since March 28.

 Stephanie Wells, the supervisor, joined a number of people who came to the home Tuesday to pay respects.

 "He was private. He was the type of person — he didn't ask people for help," said Wells, 49. "He was just low-key. Took care of his kids."

 Sarah Hardy, 29, and Angela Collins, 38, friends of Todd's, sat outside the home Monday night and all day Tuesday. They couldn't believe he and his family were no longer inside.

 "We're waiting for our brother to come out that door," Hardy said.

 Hardy said she had grown close to Todd after the two were introduced by her child's father. "Our bond grew strong, strong, strong," she said. "He didn't want to call me his friend; he wanted to call me his sister."

 When Hardy heard he had died, "I just rushed down here," she said, adding that she couldn't believe it when she saw the bodies being carried out. "I think they're just ghosts they brought out of the house. I'm still thinking they're in there and they just are quiet and don't want anyone to realize."

 Public safety and health officials say the deaths are another tragic reminder of preventable deaths caused by carbon monoxide poisoning.

 Last year Maryland counted 17 carbon monoxide poisoning-related deaths, 12 of which were suicides, four of which were accidental, and one undetermined, according to the state medical examiner's office.

 A statewide law requires hard-wired carbon monoxide detectors in new dwellings built after Jan. 1, 2008. Officials recommend homeowners install operating alarms outside sleeping areas, as well as one on each level.

 Despite awareness of the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning, "there is absolutely still work to be done," said Clifford S. Mitchell, director of the environmental health bureau with the state health department. "You end up with a situation where you unfortunately have to warn people every time."

 Mitchell said the challenge is ensuring that people heed the warnings even in "stressful situations" — such as being homeless or without power for a prolonged period after a storm.

 Mitchell said generators should not be used inside the home, and should be kept at least 15 feet from the building. "Even if a generator is outside, if it's close to the house, you have the potential for carbon monoxide entering," he said.

 Dr. Kinjal Sethuraman, a physician at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center and assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said generators are a common cause of carbon monoxide toxicity.

 Carbon monoxide poisoning patients are often sent to Shock Trauma because it has a hyperbaric chamber, which is used to treat patients by administering oxygen at higher pressure.

 Last year, the hospital treated 55 patients from Maryland, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and Virginia with the hyperbaric chamber — compared with 95 patients in 2013 and 65 in 2012, Sethuraman said. She said those figures do not include milder cases in which physicians didn't have to use hyperbaric treatment.

 Carbon monoxide is odorless, colorless, and the symptoms are "nonspecific," Mitchell said. ||||| PRINCESS ANNE, Md. (AP) — A divorced father and the seven children he was trying to raise on a kitchen worker's salary were poisoned in their sleep by carbon monoxide only days after the power company discovered a stolen meter and cut off electricity to their rental home, police said Tuesday.

 Onlookers gather outside of a house, where police say seven children and one adult have been found dead Monday, April 6, 2015, in Princess Anne, Md. Police were sent to the home Monday after being contacted... (Associated Press)

 Sheets are held as a body is removed from a residence where police say seven children and one adult have been found dead Monday, April 6, 2015, in Princess Anne, Md. Officers were sent to the home Monday... (Associated Press)

 Onlookers gather outside of a house, where police say seven children and one adult have been found dead Monday, April 6, 2015, in Princess Anne, Md. Police were sent to the home Monday after being contacted... (Associated Press)

 Onlookers gather outside of a house, where police say seven children and one adult have been found dead Monday, April 6, 2015, in Princess Anne, Md. Officers were sent to the home Monday after being contacted... (Associated Press)

 A woman looks away as bodies are removed from a house, where police say seven children and one adult have been found dead Monday, April 6, 2015, in Princess Anne, Md. Police were sent to the home Monday... (Associated Press)

 Police Chief Scott Keller speaks about a home where police say seven children and one adult have been found dead Monday, April 6, 2015, in Princess Anne, Md. Police were sent to the home Monday after... (Associated Press)

 Lloyd Edwards, left, and Bonnie Edwards, the stepfather and mother of Rodney Todd stand outside the home where Todd and his seven children found dead Monday, April 6, 2015, in Princess Anne, Md. Police... (Associated Press)

 Delmarva Power said it did not cut off the family's electricity because they were behind on their bills, but for safety reasons after discovering the illegal connection March 25.

 Rodney Todd, 36, then bought a gas-powered generator and installed it in his kitchen to keep his two sons and five daughters warm. Friends and relatives last saw them alive March 28.

 "The children were all in beds, and it appears as though they were sleeping," Princess Anne police Chief Scott Keller said. "Probably it was bedtime and they decided they needed some light and probably some heat, because toward the end of March even though it was spring we were having some pretty chilly nights."

 Police found their bodies Monday inside the one-story wood-frame home on Maryland's Eastern Shore after school workers, friends and Todd's co-workers knocked on the door with no answer.

 "I'm just numb. Like it's a nightmare but it's not," the children's mother, Tyisha Luneice Chambers, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "If I had known he was without electricity, I would have helped."

 Why Todd had a generator running indoors wasn't clear. The chief ruled out foul play and speculated that had it been outside, the noise would have bothered neighbors.

 Matt Likovich, a spokesman for Delmarva Power, said Tuesday that the utility was not contacted to have power restored in the home after the illegal meter was removed. "We had no record of who was living there," Likovich said. "There was no way to determine what their situation was."

 Likovich said customers are encouraged to contact the utility if they are having difficulty paying their bill. He says there are options for such customers, including partnerships with social service agencies. But, he said, the customers "have to contact us."

 The police chief said the utility has been subpoenaed to document exactly what it did when. Maryland's Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, also is investigating.

 Maryland regulations allow utility companies to terminate service without notice if the utility finds a condition on the customer's premise is hazardous or the customer has tampered with the utility's equipment.

 Sen. James Mathias Jr., a Democrat who represents Princess Anne, addressed Maryland's Senate on Tuesday, asking his fellow lawmakers to work with agencies and neighborhood groups to make certain the eight deaths were not in vain.

 Although Todd got some welfare money, it wasn't enough to pay the bills, his close friend Sarah Hardy said Tuesday morning.

 "How can a man survive off of basically minimum wage with seven kids, and you can't help him with a utility bill?" Hardy asked. "This man was working. And Delmarva Power cuts the lights off?"

 Later Tuesday, the utility revealed that the rental home never had legal power while the Todds lived there. The utility said the electricity had been disconnected in October, and there was no request to reconnect it after the family moved there in November.

 "Through the use of smart meter technology, Delmarva Power discovered a stolen electric meter was being used at the home on March 25, 2015. Delmarva Power disconnected the illegally connected meter for safety reasons and to comply with standard protocol. Delmarva Power did not disconnect electric service at this address for nonpayment," its statement said.

 Bonnie Edwards said her grandsons, Cameron and ZhiHeem, were 13 and 7, and her granddaughters, Tyjuziana, Tykeria, Tynijuzia, TyNiah and Tybreyia, were 15, 12, 10, 9 and 6, respectively. Todd did all he could to stretch his money for their care, she said.

 "There was nothing he wouldn't do for them," Edwards said. "All he was trying to do was to keep his kids warm."

 A co-worker at the nearby University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Brittney Hudson, said Todd "was always smiling and laughing."

 "He's the man you need to know and the man you want to be," said Bilel Smith, who lives nearby. "They were their own football team, their own basketball team. This is breaking our hearts."

 Todd retained full custody when their divorce was finalized last September, and his ex-wife said he never harmed the children. But Chambers said he was physically abusive to her and stabbed her in the face before serving 16 months in prison for assaulting her.

 Chambers also said she had been the primary breadwinner when they were together and kept paying child support until losing track of them in Todd's last move.

 "I was working 12-16 hours as a manager at McDonald's, the overnight shift. He was home cooking and cleaning, and I was the working mom," she said.

 But Hardy said there is more to that story.

 "She abandoned him and the family," Hardy said. "He took his seven kids and her son and raised them on his own."

 Todd had received assistance with utility bills in the past but did not apply for help this year, said Tom VanLandingham, who directs the Office of Home Energy Programs in Somerset County. Families can apply once a year, and assistance is based on household income and energy use, among other factors.

 "We're all kind of baffled as to why he did not apply this year. ... That's the million-dollar question," VanLandingham said before the utility's announcement.

 Todd's children had big personalities.

 The youngest, Tybreyia, "was the bashful type," Hardy said, "but she was really loving." Cameron, who Hardy nicknamed "Pun," was a "quiet and reserved, but he was a Casanova." The older girls loved it when Todd styled their hair —a skill he almost mastered.

 "They took care of each other," and they helped their dad, too, she said.

 "Even the little one," Hardy said, referring to 7-year-old ZhiHeem, "I'd see him with a little broom and dustpan."

 ___

 Associated Press Writers Amanda Myers and Sarah Brumfield in Washington, D.C., contributed. |||||

– The utility that cut off power to a Maryland home days before Rodney Todd and his seven children were found dead says it didn't cut him off for not paying bills—because it never sent him any. Delmarva Power says it shut off power to the rented home in October; Todd moved there in November and it says there was no request to have it reconnected. The utility says it cut off electricity for safety reasons when workers discovered a stolen meter on March 25, reports the Baltimore Sun, which notes that state law makes it difficult for utilities to cut off service for unpaid bills between Nov. 1 and March 31, but service can be cut off without notice in the case of hazardous conditions or illegal connections. Police believe Todd, 36, and the children were poisoned by carbon monoxide from a generator. "It appears as though they were sleeping," Princess Anne Police Chief Scott Keller tells the AP. "Probably it was bedtime and they decided they needed some light and probably some heat. Even though it was spring, we were having some pretty chilly nights." Todd was a kitchen worker at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, where his supervisor tells the Sun he was a private man who didn't ask for help. "He was just low-key. Took care of his kids," she says. "I'm just numb. Like it's a nightmare, but it's not," the children's mother, whose divorce from Todd was finalized last fall, tells the AP. "If I had known he was without electricity, I would have helped." She says she paid child support until she lost track of the family when Todd last moved.


Summarize this article:

Tweet with a location

 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Updated | Fox News host Sean Hannity on Tuesday offered what was perhaps the most bizarre assessment yet of former President Barack Obama's official portrait by suggesting an artist included "sexual innuendo" in his depiction of the 44th president.

 A now-deleted post on Hannity's website claimed the portrait, painted by Kehinde Wiley, featured "secret sperm cells," seemingly referencing the detail of Obama's temple in the painting. In a since-deleted tweet on this, Hannity wrote, "Obama's portrait - a stark contrast to predecessors with inappropriate sexual innuendo."

 Hannity has habitually made it clear he's no fan of Obama and this isn't the first time he's promoted a conspiracy theory in relation to the former president.

 The conservative later issued a statement about the post that appeared on his website.

 "Earlier today my web staff posted content that was not reviewed by me before publication," he said. "It does not reflect my voice and message and, therefore, I had it taken down."

 Mark Wilson/Getty Images

 Wiley is a Yale-educated painter who's highly regarded for his work. As the painting was unveiled Monday, Obama said, "How about that? That's pretty sharp." The former president added that he's always been quite taken with Wiley's paintings, which is why he chose to work with him on the official portrait.

 "What I was always struck by whenever I saw his portraits, was the degree to which they challenged our conventional views of power, wealth, privilege and the way that he would take extraordinary care and precision and vision in recognizing the beauty and the grace and the dignity of people who are so often invisible in our lives, and put them on a grand stage," he said.

 He went on: "The people in our families, people who built this country, built this capital, served food, took out the garbage. Kehinde lifted them up, and gave them a platform, and said they belonged at the center of American life. And, that was something that moved me deeply because, in my small way, that's part of what I believe politics should be about."

 At Tuesday's unveiling, which took place at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., Wiley expressed his delight at being the first African-American artist to earn a presidential portrait commission and to have the chance to paint the first African-American president. "It doesn't get any better than that," he said.

 This story has been updated to include a statement from Sean Hannity. ||||| The official portraits of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama received a wide array of reactions when they were unveiled on Monday. But none has been quite as insane as the one Sean Hannity promoted on his Twitter account Tuesday afternoon.

 “Obama's portrait—a stark contrast to predecessors with inappropriate sexual innuendo,” the Fox News host tweeted, linking to a truly bizarre article on his website written by “Hannity Staff.”

 “PORTRAIT PERVERSION: Obama Portrait Features ‘SECRET SPERM,’ Artist Joked About ‘Killing Whitey’” the headline screamed. And it only got weirder from there.

 The article promises “shocking allegations” that the artist behind the former president’s portrait, Kehinde Wiley, “included ‘secret sperm cells’ within the painting and once joked about ‘Killing Whitey’ during an interview.”

 The evidence for the former claim comes from a 2008 New York Times article—conveniently not “fake news” when it supports Hannity’s agenda—that reports Wiley’s portraits “initially depicted African-American men against rich textile or wallpaper backgrounds whose patterns he has likened to abstractions of sperm.” Hannity’s piece includes a close up of a vein in Obama’s forehead in the portrait that someone on his “staff” apparently thinks looks sperm-like.

 It appears that the whole “sperm” theory originated on—where else?—4chan, where a thread was posted on Monday proclaiming, “Official Portrait of Obama has SPERM on his face!!!” That post just happened to include the same close up of Obama that Hannity used on his site.

 As for the “Kill Whitey” part, that dates back to a quote Wiley gave New York magazine in 2012 about a painting in which a black woman holds the severed head of a white woman in the style of Biblical depictions by artists like Caravaggio. In other words, art.

 The outrage echoed comments made by Hannity’s Fox News lead-in Tucker Carlson on Monday night about the “racially fraught decapitation portrait” by Wiley, who he mistakenly identified as female for some reason. “This is the person painting the Obamas’ portraits?” Carlson asked incredulously.

 Evidently, this particular conspiracy theory was too crazy even for Hannity, who deleted both the tweet and the article just a couple of hours after they were posted.

 But if he ever finds any evidence of bodily fluids in a portrait of Hillary Clinton, you can be sure he will let us all know.

 UPDATE: In a statement provided by Fox News, Hannity told The Daily Beast: “Earlier today my web staff posted content that was not reviewed by me before publication. It does not reflect my voice and message and, therefore, I had it taken down.” ||||| Fox News host Sean Hannity has claimed with no evidence whatsoever that former President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S., that he is in cahoots with the entire "liberal media," and that under his watch, a Democratic National Committee staffer was killed because he supposedly gave emails to WikiLeaks. Never one to miss something that definitely isn't there, Hannity's latest conspiracy involves "secret sperm cells" in Obama's official portrait. Yes, really.

 The Smithsonian's portrait of President Obama pic.twitter.com/buvVAEomrj — Axios (@axios) February 12, 2018

 Artist Kehinde Wiley's bold portrait of Barack Obama has been well received, with The Boston Globe calling the painting and its pair, Amy Sherald's portrait of Michelle Obama, "socio-cultural documents to surviving with grace and elegance." Obama praised Wiley's work at the unveiling Monday, saying: "What I was always struck by whenever I saw his portraits was the degree to which they challenged our conventional views of power and privilege."

 Hannity sees, well, something else. "Controversy surrounding Kehinde Wiley's wildly non-traditional portrait of the commander-in-chief broke out within minutes of its unveiling," Hannity's website alleges, "with industry insiders claiming the artist secretly inserted his trademark technique — concealing images of sperm within his paintings."

 Sean Hannity's website claims the Obama portrait includes a hidden sperm https://t.co/dlQR08l99n pic.twitter.com/LYpqqB2V0q — Will Sommer (@willsommer) February 13, 2018

 Maybe not so much. Hannity got one thing right, anyway: It is nontraditional. Wiley's portrait of Obama "dismantles so much and creates new visions of masculinity that black men rarely have the public permission to explore," argues Teach for America's Brittany Packnett. Jeva Lange

 Update 5:14 p.m. ET: Hannity later deleted the post from his site. In a statement, he said: "Earlier today my web staff posted content that was not reviewed by me before publication. It does not reflect my voice and message and, therefore, I had it taken down." |||||

– People have thoughts about the new Obama portraits, and some are weirder than others. On Tuesday, Sean Hannity's website pushed perhaps the weirdest of all—that the portrait contained hidden images of sperm. The Week quotes from the since-deleted page: "Controversy surrounding Kehinde Wiley's wildly non-traditional portrait of the commander-in-chief broke out within minutes of its unveiling, with industry insiders claiming the artist secretly inserted his trademark technique—concealing images of sperm within his paintings." And a since-deleted Hannity tweet read, "Obama's portrait - a stark contrast to predecessors with inappropriate sexual innuendo," per Newsweek. The allegation drew quite a bit of attention, and apparently Hannity himself was surprised. "Earlier today my web staff posted content that was not reviewed by me before publication," he said in a statement. "It does not reflect my voice and message and, therefore, I had it taken down." The sperm rumor apparently began circulating on 4chan, and the Daily Beast appears to have tracked down the original source, a 2008 article in the New York Times about artist Wiley. That article says his portraits “initially depicted African-American men against rich textile or wallpaper backgrounds whose patterns he has likened to abstractions of sperm.” This tweet shows the image making the sperm-conspiracy rounds.


Here is a news article: German authorities are considering using software akin to a smartphone app that would help them identify neo-Nazi music in seconds, SPIEGEL has learned.

 The interior ministers of the country's 16 regional states will meet this week to discuss an new method dubbed "Nazi Shazam," in reference to the mobile phone-based music identification service Shazam, which can identify music bands and song titles from a short sample picked up via the phone's microphone.

 The new software would let police quickly identify neo-Nazi rock music, which officials regard as a "gateway drug" into the far-right youth scene.

 The regional police office in the eastern state of Saxony has developed a prototype system of registering audio fingerprints from neo-Nazi rock. It has the advantage of "sparing resources and enabling very quick investigations," said an internal government assessment.

 Legal Concerns

 Police could use it to recognize neo-Nazi music being played on Internet radio stations or to intervene quickly if it is played at gatherings.

 Last year, the Federal Review Board for Media Harmful to Minors indexed a total of 79 pieces of music for espousing neo-Nazi ideology or having racist lyrics. The indexing imposes restrictions on sales and forbids them from being made accessible to people aged under 18.

 It's unclear whether Germany's interior ministers will adopt the system, though. A number of legal issues need to be addressed before it can be deployed. For example, lawyers need to determine whether the automatic identification of music being played in a hall would constitute acoustic surveillance. ||||| Software would allow authorities to act immediately if illegal far-right songs are played on radio, at clubs or in public

 German authorities are considering equipping police with a smartphone app that would instantly recognise illegal neo-Nazi songs.

 Already dubbed the "Nazi Shazam", after the music identification programme, the software would allow authorities to react instantly if far-right songs are played on radio stations, at concerts, club nights or demonstrations.

 The interior ministers of Germany's 16 regions will discuss the new practice at a meeting in Osnabrück this week.

 Considered by experts as a "gateway drug" to the neo-Nazi scene, 1,090 pieces of music with a far-right or racist message are currently indexed by the Federal Review Board for Media Harmful to Minors, restricting their sale and making them inaccessible to people under 18. They include traditional Nazi marching songs as well as more recent songs by bands such as Hate Society, Zyklon B or the British group Skrewdriver.

 Simone Rafael, of the website Network Against Nazis, said he approved of the initiative and that it would help police or watchdogs attending far-right events.

 "Music is indeed a weak spot through which young people can easily be recruited into neo-Nazi circles," she told the Guardian. "A song can plug teenagers straight into the ideology conveyed through the lyrics."

 In 2004, far-right groups tried to recruit young people by handing out CD compilations in schoolyards and youth centres.

 Commonly referred to as "rechtsrock", neo-Nazi songs are often musically diverse, ranging from punk to heavy metal, and from folk to rap. "We've come across pretty much everything but far-right swing bands," said far-right expert Bernd Wagner.

 Rafael said the only problem was that many far-right groups had already learned to avoid using the songs on the state index, instead favouring newer folk songs by nationalist singer-songwriters, such as Frank Rennicke, or German punk songs with a broader anti-establishment message. |||||
A summary of this is?

– Want to stop neo-Nazis using music to spread hate? There's now an app for that. Police in Germany have developed a app dubbed "Nazi Shazam" which can detect banned far-right songs within seconds, Der Spiegel reports. The country's authorities have identified more than a thousand songs with racist or Nazi-praising lyrics and banned them from being accessed by people under 18. Police say the software will allow them to react instantly if banned songs are played at concerts, far-right gatherings, or on Internet radio stations. Authorities consider hate songs a "gateway drug" to the far-right scene. "Music is indeed a weak spot through which young people can easily be recruited into neo-Nazi circles," a spokeswoman for the Network Against Nazis website tells the Guardian. "A song can plug teenagers straight into the ideology conveyed through the lyrics." The neo-Nazi songs span genres from punk to heavy metal to folk and even rap music. "We've come across pretty much everything but far-right swing bands," says an expert on the far-right.


Editor's Note: See our update on what the sun's magnetic flip means for Earth here: Sun's Magnetic Field Flip Won't Doom Earth, Scientists Say

 The sun is gearing up for a major solar flip, NASA says.

 In an event that occurs once every 11 years, the magnetic field of the sun will change its polarity in a matter of months, according new observations by NASA-supported observatories.

 The flipping of the sun's magnetic field marks the peak of the star's 11-year solar cycle and the halfway point in the sun's "solar maximum" — the peak of its solar weather cycle. NASA released a new video describing the sun's magnetic flip on Monday (Aug. 5).

 "It looks like we're no more than three to four months away from a complete field reversal," Todd Hoeksema, the director of Stanford University's Wilcox Solar Observatory, said in a statement. "This change will have ripple effects throughout the solar system."

 As the field shifts, the "current sheet" — a surface that radiates billions of kilometers outward from the sun's equator — becomes very wavy, NASA officials said. Earth orbits the sun, dipping in and out of the waves of the current sheet. The transition from a wave to a dip can create stormy space weather around Earth, NASA officials said.

 The sun's magnetic field is gearing up to shift, a once in 11 year event, according to NASA officials. Credit: NASA

 "The sun's polar magnetic fields weaken, go to zero, and then emerge again with the opposite polarity," Stanford solar physicist Phil Scherrer said in a statement. "This is a regular part of the solar cycle."

 While the polarity shift can stir up some stormy weather, it also provides extra shielding from dangerous cosmic rays. These high-energy particles, which are accelerated by events like supernova explosions, zip through the universe at nearly the speed of light. They can harm satellites and astronauts in space, and the wrinkled current sheet better protects the planet from these particles.

 The effects of the rippled sheet can also be felt throughout the solar system, far beyond Pluto and even touching the Voyager probes near the barrier of interstellar space.

 "The sun's north pole has already changed sign, while the south pole is racing to catch up," Scherrer said. "Soon, however, both poles will be reversed, and the second half of solar max will be underway."

 The current solar maximum is the weakest in 100 years, experts have said. Usually, at the height of a solar cycle, sunspot activity increases. These dark regions on the sun's surface can give birth to solar flares and ejections, but there have been fewer observed sunspots this year than in the maximums of previous cycles.

 Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramer and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com. ||||| Get ready, Earth. The sun's magnetic field is about to do a 180 when the celestial body's electromagnetism flips and changes polarity.

 According to NASA-supported observations, the complete reversal is expected to take place in the coming months.

 "It looks like we're no more than three to four months away from a complete field reversal," Todd Hoeksema, a solar physicist and director of Stanford University's Wilcox Solar Observatory, said in a statement released by the agency. "This change will have ripple effects throughout the solar system."

 So should we be concerned about the reversal of the sun's magnetic field?

 History says no.

 While the field reversal is a big event for the solar system, the change in polarity is rather routine. The magnetic flip takes place at the peak of each solar cycle every 11 years. Nearing the mid-point of the sun's 24th observed solar cycle, the star's south pole will soon follow the north's lead and change its magnetic sign.

 The change in polarity will have certain effects throughout the heliosphere -- the sun's domain, which extends well beyond Pluto -- but, as NASA notes in its ScienceCasts video, one of the largest effects Earth can expect is some stormy space weather around the planet. Astronauts in orbit may also see some changes in cosmic rays, which could be a potential danger.

 The 11-year cycle governs the level of solar activity on the sun. This year, during the peak of the cycle when solar activity is the strongest, the flip will be accompanied by increased levels of turbulence, such as sunspots.

 However, as solar physicists have pointed out, 2013's cycle peak has turned out to be one of the weakest observed in the past century, with relatively minimal activity.

 Watch NASA's ScienceCasts video below for a thorough explanation of the magnetic field reversal.

 Clarification: The sun has gone through 24 solar cycles since scientists began recording solar activity. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Sun feel a little off to you these days? Congratulations on being finely attuned to the inner workings of the solar system. The sun is in the process of reversing its magnetic fields, and the full process should be complete before the year is out, reports Space.com. It may sound like a doomsday plot twist, but the reversal occurs every 11 years at the peak of the sun's solar cycle, explains the Huffington Post. "The sun's polar magnetic fields weaken, go to zero, and then emerge again with the opposite polarity," says Stanford physicist Phil Scherrer. In fact, "the sun's north pole has already changed sign, while the south pole is racing to catch up." The peak of the cycle usually is associated with an increase in sunspots and solar flares, but this year's peak is relatively tame. The flip, then, should occur with most earthlings being none the wiser.


Article:
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Actress Sherri Shepherd has lost her appeal of a Pennsylvania court ruling that found her responsible for a child born to a surrogate before she divorced.

 The state Supreme Court says Tuesday it won't hear the case brought by the sitcom actress and former co-host of "The View."

 Surrogacy advocates say the lower court ruling in her case is the first to declare surrogacy contracts binding in Pennsylvania.

 Shepherd is paying $4,100 in monthly child support to ex-husband Lamar Sally of Los Angeles. His lawyer, Tiffany Palmer, says Shepherd has not seen the 1-year-old.

 Shepherd spent more than $100,000 to arrange the surrogacy but tried to void the contract as the couple divorced in New Jersey.

 Shepherd's lawyer says he's surprised the court won't review the issue. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| Actress and TV personality Sherri Shepherd has been embroiled in a lengthy legal battle with her ex-husband Lamar Sally, which has shoved her and her family into the media spotlight.

 Sitting down with Entertainment Tonight's Nancy O'Dell to talk about her upcoming movie Woodlawn, the former View co-host opened up about her legal troubles. and how she's been holding up.

 NEWS: Sherri Sheperd & Lamar Sally Separate

 "Under the circumstances I'm doing really, really extremely well," Sherri told ET exclsuively. "I don't care what I go through, nothing gets me down. You know me. I will smile my way through anything. I believe smiling and laughter is the best medicine."

 The couple separated in May 2014 and have since been involved in a custody battle over a now 8-month-old baby born via surrogate. Just last week, a judge ruled that Shepherd is the legal mother of the baby. Up until that point, the surrogate was listed as the legal mother on the birth certificate.

 The 48-year-old star admits that, even with a positive outlook, her protracted legal fight has been emotionally challenging.

 VIDEO: Sherri Shepherd's Ex Speaks After Custody Hearing

 "Life is difficult. So you just hang tough and you keep going. People who know me, my character, my integrity — I feel it speaks for itself," Sherri said.

 As for how she sees this all playing out, Sherri remains hopeful.

 "I feel like everything always works out in the end,” she said. "I'm a big believer that everything always works out in the end. Everybody has their challenges. So right now, it’s my challenge.”

 NEWS: Inside Sherri Shepherd's Custody Battle

 Check out the video for more from Sherri on how she's been dealing with the courtroom drama.

 Related Gallery ||||| Sherri Shepherd, 48, may be appealing a Pennsylvania court ruling stating that she has to pay child support to her ex-husband Lamar Sally for their surrogate son, one-year-old Lamar Jr. (LJ), but as she continues her court battle, RadarOnline.com has learned that her ex is getting ready to wage a war of his own.

 Sally revealed during an interview with Radar that he is currently filming a reality show about his life as a single dad and the struggles he’s had to face in the wake of his divorce for Shepherd.

 “At the end of the day, I want my son to be proud of me,” he told Radar. “There are so many lies out there about me being a gold digger, me tricking Sherri into doing this and it’s just not true.”

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 Because of all that has happened, Sally wants to share his story.

 “So it’s time for me to stand up and say, ‘No, this is the truth. This what really happened,'” he explained.

 “She has a lot more money than me,” Sally continued. “She has celebrities that have talked about me. It’s ok, because I want my son to be proud of me to say, ‘Hey, against all odds, my father stood up for me, and whatever happens, this is what he did.'”

 PHOTOS: 21 Actors Who Got Their Big Breaks On TV Soap Operas

 Sally is also admittedly doing the show “to shine a light on single dads and fathers,” he said.

 He wants the world to know that single-dads struggle too.

 “We’re out there and we are raising our kids on our own,” Sally said. “We’re not trying to put down the mom, but to shine some light on what we’re doing.”

 PHOTOS: Paid For Doing Nothing? 16 Reality Stars With TV’s Highest Salaries

 “Unfortunately we are caught: whatever the ex-wife or baby mama says about you, you take it and just be the best father that you can,” he said. “Someone has to stand up for the dad and to have a voice and say, ‘Maybe there are two sides to this story.'”

 Sally and his costars plan to act as that voice.

 “We aren’t the dads that run out on their family,” he said. “No, we are dads that are in there every day grinding it out, being hands-on dads, working and we love our kids. We aren’t going to have this reputation of a weekend or part-time dad. No we are there every single day.”

 PHOTOS: The Top 20 Reality TV Paychecks Revealed

 Unfortunately, Sally has not discussed his reality show plans with Shepherd.

 She may also not have a clue that he is even working on the pilot.

 “I’m sure when she finds out that I’m doing the show, she’s going to say something towards me and it’s probably going to cost me another $10,000 to defend,” Sally said.

 PHOTOS: Reality Bites! 15 Examples Of Staged Reality TV Drama

 As Radar first reported, Shepherd has never met her son. She hasn’t even exchanged cards with him or sent him birthday presents.

 She is also in the process of trying to get her name removed from LJ’s birth certificate.

 “I don’t know why she doesn’t want to be a part of his life,” Sally told Radar. “He’s a really good baby. He’s charismatic and always laughing and smiling. She’s really missing out on a lot. He’s really something special.” |||||Summary:

– Sherri Shepherd must still pay child support to her ex-husband for a one-and-a-half-year-old boy her lawyer says Shepherd has never met, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declined Tuesday to hear her case. An appeals court ruled in November that Shepherd is the legal mother of the child, named LJ, despite the fact that she has no genetic connection to him, People reports. Shepherd and her ex, Lamar Sally, had the baby—conceived using Sally's sperm and a donor egg—via a surrogate who delivered in August 2014, after the couple had separated. Sally is raising the boy. Shepherd, 48, has said that she and Sally were already having marital problems when the baby was conceived, and she only agreed to the surrogacy because she was afraid Sally would leave her if she didn't. "I was scared to say, 'That's not going to work for me. I don't want that,'" she told People in August. But in November, Sally said Shepherd "lies" and added, "If she won't be there for LJ emotionally, I'll be parent enough for the both of us." He says he's filming a reality show about the surrogacy drama, Radar reports. Shepherd attempted to void the surrogacy contract as the couple was breaking up, the AP reports. She pays $4,100 per month in child support. (Click for more of Shepherd's thoughts on the battle.)