Florida Sentinel Bulletin

An STD rumor may be at the root of the recent murder-suicide deaths of three women and one man in North Carolina, according to relatives of one of the victims.

The bodies of 23-year-old Alexandria Pierce, 24-year-old Amesha Page-Smith, 22-year-old Adrianne Stevens and 23-year-old gunman Brinton Millsap were found Saturday (June 18) on the side of a Durham highway.

Authorities believe Millsap killed the women in the car before taking his own life.

Family members say that a nasty STD rumor may have sparked the deaths. According to Pierce’s mother, her daughter went to Durham along with her friends to talk to Millsap about a rumor that she had given him herpes. According to Pierce’s mother, one of Pierce’s friends had apparently started the false rumor.

Millsap’s brother says, Brinton was “outraged” when the rumors of him contracting an STD circulated. Millsap also has Lupus, which can give a false positive for herpes according to doctors. His brother said the disease altered his way of thinking.

“He was looking at things differently,” his brother said.

Authorities have yet to confirm the rumor as a motive for the killings.

Pictured: Alexandria Pierce, Amesha Page-Smith, Adrianne Stevens And Brinton Millsap

Firefighters found a 2-month-old girl in a first-floor bedroom while responding to a house fire in the Austin neighborhood. The baby died on the scene.

Tiniya Coleman was found in a first-floor bedroom of 831 N. Laramie Ave. Firefighters responded to the fire around 2 a.m. and immediately found the little girl, District Chief Timothy Sampey said.

The fire was quickly struck out. Flames were mostly contained to the first floor, where the fire likely started. There was some minor damage to a neighboring house.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. There were smoke detectors in the house, but they weren’t working, according to fire officials.

The wildfires that burned homes and cars near the Dallas-Ellis County line Saturday are flaring back up in certain areas. Firefighters and homeowners have been fighting the hot spots.

The only homeowner in Glenn Heights whose house was destroyed returned home Sunday to see it for the first time. Remica Cox couldn’t believe her eyes, as she walked into the home she bought just eight months ago.

“Oh my goodness. This doesn’t look like the same house I left this time last Sunday,” said Cox through tears. “I had all their baby pictures up on the fireplace. And it’s all gone. I had all the pictures.”

The single mother was out of state with her two daughters at a church conference, when they got the news that a wildfire had destroyed their home and everything inside.

It’s a long way from the soccer fields of Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp to the Ivy League — but Morris Kaunda Michael made the journey.

Last month, Michael, a 23-year-old Sudanese refugee, graduated from Columbia’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering with a B.S. in biomedical engineering. He hopes to continue his studies in medical school so he can use his education to help people still living in the severe poverty he left behind.

“I owe something to the world. As a refugee, you don’t have a lot of things of your own. Most things are gifts,” said Michael. “The best I can do is to give back to the community.”

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday blocked a massive sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart on behalf of women who work there.

The court ruled unanimously that the lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. cannot proceed as a class action, reversing a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The lawsuit could have involved up to 1.6 million women, with Wal-Mart facing potentially billions of dollars in damages.

Now, the handful of women who brought the lawsuit may pursue their claims on their own, with much less money at stake and less pressure on Wal-Mart to settle. The justices divided 5-4 on another aspect of the ruling that could make it much harder to mount similar class-action discrimination lawsuits against large employers.

Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion for the court’s conservative majority said there needs to be common elements tying together “literally millions of employment decisions at once.” But Scalia said that in the lawsuit against the nation’s largest private employer, “That is entirely absent here.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the court’s four liberal justices, said there was more than enough uniting the claims. “Wal-Mart’s delegation of discretion over pay and promotions is a policy uniform throughout all stores,” Ginsburg said.

In this March 29, 2011 file photo, the five plaintiffs in a case of women employees against Wal-Mart, from left, Stephanie Odle, of Norman, Okla., Betty Dukes, of Pittsburg, Calif., Deborah Gunter, of Palm Springs, Calif., Christine Kwapnoski, of Bay Point, Calif., and Edith Arena, of Duarte, Calif. pose for a photograph outside the Supreme Court in Washington.

A Broward County judge gave a penniless mother a priceless gift this week: freedom.

Angel Smith, 41, had been arrested for leaving her two children in a hot car for two hours while she gave blood to earn money to feed them.

She was paid around $30 for giving blood, but when she left the center, cops were waiting.

A security guard at the blood donation clinic saw the children – ages 4 and 7 – alone in the car and called police, who arrested Smith on child neglect charges. The children were unharmed and are in the custody of the Department of Children and Families.

But Judge John Hurley said that life had given the desperate mother enough hard times and that she didn’t deserve to serve hard time. Smith was living out of a hotel and had just been laid off.

Tanya McDowell went from being a sympathetic figure to a convicted drug dealing criminal in a matter of months.

In April, the homeless single mother enrolled her son in a school in the wrong district under a babysitter’s address and was charged with larceny.

The Connecticut mom offered a Stamford undercover officer crack cocaine, marijuana and the use of prostitutes McDowell was pimping from her aunt’s home in Bridgeport.

This is a dramatic turn of events for the mother that was trying to get the best education for her son. Now he can learn from her mistakes as officers reported three incidents where McDowell sold drugs to them. Her bond is set at $200,000.

Her lawyer, Darnell Crosland, is claiming entrapment because of the public support she received including a visit from Civil Rights activist, Reverend Al Sharpton.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was recently released from the hospital and will continue her recovery from a devastating head wound at her husband’s suburban Houston home.

Giffords’ departure Wednesday from Houston’s TIRR Memorial Hermann marks a new phase in her rehabilitation.

She struggles to speak and walk, and will need daily, intensive therapy, and whether she will ever recover enough to resume her congressional duties is still unknown.

But doctors, her husband Mark Kelly and experts who have been observing Giffords’ recovery emphasize that going home is a key milestone and could help stimulate her progress.

“Anyone who knows Gabby knows that she loves being outside, Kelly said in a statement released by the hospital. Living and working in a rehab facility for five months straight has been especially challenging for her.”

Giffords will still go to the hospital each day where she will participate in speech, music, physical and occupational therapy with the same team that has treated her since she arrived in Houston in late January.

The congresswoman will move to Kelly’s home in League City, a suburb near the Johnson Space Center, where she will have 24-hour help from a home care assistant.

The 41-year-old was shot in the left side of the brain, the part that controls speech and communication, on Jan. 8 while meeting with constituents in Tucson. Six people were killed and 13 wounded in the attack, including the lawmaker and members of her staff.

A Louisville man is facing multiple sex charges after police said he forced another man to perform oral sex on him at gunpoint before shooting him twice in the leg.

Anton L. Malone is charged with three counts of first-degree sodomy and one charged of second-degree assault.