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Happy Thursday, Lunch Club!
Some gut punches in today’s edition, but I think they are important. I love local longform reporting that often goes under the radar, and we have two of those from Denver and Brooklyn. If you liked today’s selection, let me know. And if you hated them, also let me know!
Babies are dying from vitamin K deficiency because parents are declining a standard shot at birth, and the deaths are going largely uncounted because the government doesn't track refusals or outcomes.
The Savannah Bananas have revived the Indianapolis Clowns, a real Negro Leagues franchise with a complicated history of minstrelsy, and are trying to use it to bring Black players back to baseball.
A Gothamist investigation found that New York City's Tillary Street Women's Shelter has become so dangerous that residents are choosing the streets over staying inside, with violence up 72% since 2019 and security guards instructed not to intervene.
A Denver reporter spent months following Suzanne McKinney, a former attorney living blind in her car near Washington Park, as neighbors, police, and advocates all tried and failed to move her indoors.
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Babies are dying from a preventable bleeding disorder because parents are declining the vitamin K shot at birth, driven by social media misinformation and anti-vaccine sentiment. Researchers and hospitals report refusal rates climbing sharply: nationally, more than 5% of newborns skipped the shot in 2024, up 77% since 2017. Babies who don't receive it are 81 times more likely to develop a potentially fatal bleeding condition. The CDC has never required the condition to be reported, so death totals are likely undercounted. More than 700 newborns died from spontaneous brain bleeds in 2024 alone, and specialists say many of those deaths were linked to vitamin K deficiency.
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The Savannah Bananas, the touring baseball entertainment act that now outsells 11 MLB franchises in tickets, has revived the Indianapolis Clowns, a real Negro Leagues franchise that once signed Hank Aaron and Toni Stone. The new team recruits Black players like former Padres prospect Kobe Robinson and ex-Red Sox star Jackie Bradley Jr., partly as a way to push back against Black representation in baseball dropping to near-1956 levels. But the original Clowns were controversial: owned by a white promoter, they performed in blackface and minstrel skits that drew condemnation from Black sportswriters and peers. How the Bananas navigate that history remains an open and uncomfortable question.
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Gothamist
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Andrew Giambrone
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The Tillary Street Women's Shelter in Downtown Brooklyn has recorded at least 260 fights in 2024, a 72% increase since 2019, with priority-one incidents running more than double the citywide average for single-adult shelters. The 200-bed facility houses women with severe mental illness and addiction alongside those who simply have nowhere else to go. Security guards are instructed not to intervene physically, leaving 911 as the primary response tool. The previous operator ran the shelter for 16 years before quietly asking the city to hand it off. Residents describe staff indifference, slow housing placements, and violence so routine that some left for the streets rather than stay.
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Suzanne McKinney, a 63-year-old attorney, has lived in a yellow Mitsubishi Eclipse near Denver's Washington Park for a decade, refusing every offer of shelter, Medicaid, and mental health services the city has extended. Blinded by cataracts, she navigated parking restrictions by feel while neighbors, police, and advocates debated how to move her without destroying her. Kyle Harris follows the standoff as neighbors pressured a mutual friend to evict her, cops threatened to impound the car, and a Quaker congregation turned her away. A GoFundMe eventually funded cataract surgery. After the procedure, McKinney could see again, and with it came the first credible possibility that she might, one day, find her way inside.
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What I Am Listening to This Morning
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