Sexual assaults during Lyft rides have seen uptick, report says
Sexual assault became an even more prominent issue at Lyft in recent years, according to the company’s community safety report released Thursday.
Although reported sexual assaults made up less than 1% of the ride-share giant’s completed U.S. trips in 2019, the latest year for which the report accounts, there was a significant uptick between 2017 and 2019.
“Most serious safety incidents ... are statistically very rare,” the report noted, adding, “Behind every number, there is a person who experienced that incident. Put simply, even one of these incidents is too many. That is what drives our relentless work to continuously improve safety for riders and drivers.”
“From 2017 to 2019, over 99% of trips occurred without any reported safety incident,” read the report. “The safety incidents referenced in this report account for 0.00002% of all trips.”
In 2019, the company received 1,807 reports of sexual assaults during Lyft trips, compared with 1,255 in 2018 and 1,096 in 2017.
Most of the reported assaults fell under the category of nonconsensual touching of a sexual body part. Lyft received 1,041 such reports in 2019 — making up 0.00014% of all completed U.S. trips, up from 661 in 2018 and 598 in 2017.
—New York Daily News
Robert Durst charged with murdering first wife, Kathie, in New York
LOS ANGELES — A document formally charging Robert Durst with murder in the death of his first wife was filed in a New York courthouse earlier this week, days after the real estate scion was sentenced to life in prison in California for the murder of his confidante, Susan Berman.
The one-page complaint formally charges Durst with second-degree murder in the death of Kathie McCormack in or around the home they shared in South Salem, New York, in 1982. The complaint, signed by a New York State Police investigator, was filed Tuesday. The move comes as the district attorney’s office in New York's Westchester County carries out grand jury proceedings seeking to charge Durst in his first wife’s death.
A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office acknowledged the complaint but offered no further comment.
While Durst has always said he last saw his wife boarding a Manhattan-bound train on Jan. 31, 1982, police and prosecutors have long suspected he killed McCormack. Witnesses at Durst’s Los Angeles murder trial testified that the couple’s marriage was in shambles around the time McCormack vanished and that she lived in fear of her husband.
Durst’s lead defense attorney, Dick DeGuerin, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Earlier this week, DeGuerin confirmed Durst had been placed on a ventilator in an L.A. hospital and is suffering from the effects of COVID-19.
—Los Angeles Times
Neera Tanden, OMB nominee doomed by tweets, is named Biden aide
WASHINGTON — The White House has named Neera Tanden its new staff secretary, giving the longtime Democratic operative an influential role with close proximity to President Joe Biden.
A White House official confirmed the appointment, calling the position the central nervous system of the West Wing. The staff secretary job includes controlling the flow of paper in and out of the Oval Office.
Tanden earlier this year joined the White House staff as a senior adviser after Biden was forced to pull her nomination to head the Office of Management and Budget amid bipartisan opposition. Some of Tanden’s past tweets criticizing Democrats during Donald Trump’s presidency rankled key Democratic senators.
The White House official said Tanden’s economic, national security and domestic policy expertise would be an asset in her new role, which doesn’t require Senate confirmation. Her appointment was reported earlier by the Washington Post.
During her White House tenure, Tanden has been involved in efforts to help pass Biden’s economic agenda and has worked on the White House response to the Supreme Court’s Obamacare review.
Before entering the Biden administration, Tanden was president of the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank, served as a senior adviser to Senator Hillary Clinton. She was also a senior adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services in President Barack Obama’s administration.
—Bloomberg News
Illinois family welcomes home body of WWII soldier killed in Germany
CHICAGO — When a B-17 bomber exploded over Germany 76 years ago killing 20-year-old Sgt. Francis Wiemerslage, it left a hole in his River Grove, Illinois, family that never healed.
With his body unaccounted for, Wiemerslage’s grieving mother, Vivian, for several years after his disappearance set a place for him at the Thanksgiving dinner table in case her beloved son miraculously came home.
His kid brother Roland, just 9 when Wiemerslage died in battle, spent much of his life trying to fill the void of his missing brother. Before his death in 2019, Roland Wiemerslage provided a DNA sample for unidentified remains discovered in German fields that same year.
On Saturday, several Wiemerslage relatives plan to fulfill the wish of other departed family members and say goodbye to a son of River Grove cut down in his prime during the war. A military funeral will be held for Sgt. Wiemerslage at St. Cyprian Catholic Church in his hometown, where his family were early settlers and deeply involved in the community.
An urn with Wiemerslage’s remains will be buried in a family plot at St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery, along with his mother and brother, who mourned his death for years. “It’s kind of like a homecoming,” Phil Wiemerslage said of his Uncle Frankie, whom he never met.
—Chicago Tribune
