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13 Years After Yates Tragedy, Calls For Mandatory Post-partum Screening

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Five stories that have North Texas talking: the state of post-partum care and treatment 13 years after the Andrea Yates tragedy, the NBA gets its first female assistant coach in history, Frisco snuffs out e-cigarettes in city parks, and more.

It's been 13 years since Houston police found Andrea Yates and her five drowned children. Yates was suffering from severe postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis when she drowned her children. Since that time, there have been major changes in the way post-partum depression and psychosis is viewed and treated. Yates' lawyer George Parnham and his wife Mary pushed to get the Andrea Yates bill passed, which requires doctors and hospitals to inform patients about post-partum illnesses. In the 2015 legislative session, the Texas Tribune reports, the Parnhams are hoping to get a bill passed that requires medical professionals to screen for signs of post-partum illnesses in patients.

  • The NBA will finally have a female assistant coach for the first time in history – and she’s joining the San Antonio Spurs. Becky Hammon has spent the last eight years playing for the WNBA Silver Stars and has made six WNBA all-star teams. She originally dreamed of joining the NBA as a kid, and she’ll finally realize her dream, albeit in a different role than she imagined. Hammon told the San Antonio Express-News: “I think anything’s possible as far as women coaching men. It’s really silly. People ask me all the time, will there ever be a woman player in the NBA? To be honest, no. There are differences. The guys are too big, too strong and that’s just the way it is. But when it comes to things of the mind — game-planning, coming up with schemes — there’s no reason a woman couldn’t be in the mix or shouldn’t be in the mix.”

  • Contrary to public opinion, Governor Rick Perry wears those dark-rimmed glasses for his vision. He's been sporting specs for some time. They were most notable in his 2012 bid for President, and some critics wondered if Perry was wearing them to appear smarter, and if he even needed glasses at all. The Atlantic’s Michelle Cottle wanted to find out, so she went straight to the source. Perry has what’s called pre-retinal fibrosis – scar tissue on the eye that’s not always detectable by exam, but can affect eyesight. When it came to his critics, Perry said, “I like being able to see.” 

  • Frisco is tightening up its smoking ordinance in city parks. The city council voted yesterday to expand its smoking ban to include e-cigarettes and liquid nicotine products. Chewing tobacco will still be allowed in city parks, but it was on the table to be included in the smoking ban, the Dallas Morning News reports. Frisco joins neighboring Prosper and McKinney in banning smoking in all city parks. Dallas has no such ordinance in place.

  • Vanilla Ice is not pleased with the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle rap. The Carrollton native was a nightclub performer in the 1991 movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze and the purveyor of the original Ninja rap. For the TMNT franchise reboot, “Shell Shocked” will be the replacement, with Wiz Khalifa, Juicy J, and Ty Dolla $ign. Vanilla Ice told GQ that the song felt “a little artificial…it sounds like a bunch of executives in the corporate world put it together. I think you have to understand, and be a true ninja, to posses the Magic to really pull off the secret sound.” According to Rolling Stone, Khalifa countered this with a statement saying he has Donatello tattooed on his leg. Watch the original Ninja Rap:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEUaE2pUR_U

Former KERA staffer Krystina Martinez was an assistant producer. She produced local content for Morning Edition and KERANews.org. She also produced The Friday Conversation, a weekly series of conversations with North Texas newsmakers. Krystina was also the backup newscaster for the Texas Standard.