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HOUSTON (AP) —
Arian Foster was in a bad place, drinking heavily to self-medicate and deal with the problems in his life.
The Houston Texans running back knew he needed help but was reluctant to seek it because of the stigma surrounding mental health issues. He overcame that fear, sought therapy and it changed his life.
"It just got to a point where I just threw my hands in the air and I was like: 'This is going to kill me,'" Foster said. "So I went and got help and it was the best decision I ever made."
Now that he's embraced the benefits of counseling, Foster has joined the Jets' Brandon Marshall's PROJECT 375, a nonprofit organization dedicated to eradicating the stigma surrounding mental illnesses and disorders. Foster is the first of what Marshall hopes will become a group of athletes, entertainers and business leaders who will talk openly about the issue as members of what he calls the organization's founders circle.
Marshall, a receiver for the New York Jets, was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in 2011 when he sought treatment after off-the-field issues threatened to derail his NFL career. He and his wife, Michi, formed the organization and dedicated themselves to helping others with mental illnesses.
Doing this gave Marshall purpose and looking back he's so thankful he received his diagnosis and treatment when he did.
"I had a chance to lose my wife, possibly my career, and that would have been a lot, especially at the age of 27. I probably wouldn't have been able to cope and deal with that," Marshall said. "So I'm glad that we took the proper steps, did the work, and now we've went from patient to provider."
Foster and Marshall sat down for a deeply personal chat to mark the running back's partnership with PROJECT 375. Marshall asked the questions and Foster was open and shockingly candid.
Foster said he grew up in a home with domestic violence where there wasn't enough food at times. When he made it to the NFL, he found whole new set of problems related to money and whom to trust.
"It's just so much pressure and nobody tells you how to deal with it," Foster said.
He didn't see counseling as an option.
"I was drinking heavily. I was," he said. "I'm not proud of it. But it was something that helped me because it was numbing and what I found out, which was extremely powerful, was the emotions that you numb you can't be selective with. So everything that you numb that you're trying to numb you also numb everything good. So I was blocking out a lot of love"
He didn't hit rock bottom until his then-wife, Romina, made a life-changing decision.
"It was when my wife decided that we were going to get a divorce," he said. "This is extremely personal, but I was just not the best husband. I just wasn't. And that was because I didn't know how to be a husband. ... I was out there just trying to wing it."
His time in counseling helped Foster stop his destructive behavior. But soon after he started to feel happy again, he tore a groin muscle in training camp. He says he was OK though, because of the mental work he'd put in.
He returned on Oct. 4 and was riding high. Happy on the football field, proud of the father he'd become and enjoying life overall. Just four games after his return came another blow; Foster tore his Achilles tendon and would miss the rest of the season.
"It's like ... man I can't catch a break," he said. "But I've done so much emotional work that it didn't really faze me either."
Foster's passion for this cause isn't only because of his struggles. He has another big reason for wanting to help.
"My sister is bipolar," Foster said.
For many years Christina Foster's illness went undiagnosed.
"We didn't have money to get any kind of diagnosis so we just thought that she was an (jerk)," Foster said. "... It got to the point where I stopped talking to her because I couldn't deal with it, and I didn't know what she was going through. So we lost years of our life because we didn't know she was suffering from this disease."
Foster choked back tears as he spoke of his sister. He said she was living in government housing and using food stamps. She finally got help and is better now, which has allowed the two to repair their fractured relationship.
A condition of allowing Foster to share her story was that he include the happy ending.
"She said absolutely, but make sure that you tell them that it's a story of triumph," Foster said. "She takes the proper medicine and it's a struggle still, but every single day she fights it and she's on her way to get her master's (degree) now."
Marshall loves hearing people's stories because each one is valuable in starting to erase the stigma of discussing mental illness.
"The thing that is therapeutic ... is when I'm helping other people," Marshall said. "It's so freeing and rewarding. It also holds me accountable to continue to take the proper steps when I'm not feeling well, I'm having a bad day to ... use the tools and skills that I have to make sure I get back on track."
Foster writes poetry and songs, plays the piano and reads to keep centered.
"I'm on the brink of a career-ending injury according to pundits," he said. "I'm divorced. I'm supposed to be underneath the table drinking myself to death. But I've never been happier and it's because of the work I've put in and the want to change my life. I wouldn't change a thing man because that's what made me me. All these scars on my body, all these scars on my soul made me who I am and I like me."
CHICAGO (AP) —
A white Chicago police officer who shot a black teenager 16 times last year was charged with first-degree murder Tuesday, hours before the city released a video of the killing that many people fear could spark unrest.
City officials and community leaders have been bracing for the release of the dash-cam video, fearing the kind of turmoil that occurred in cities such as Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, after young black men were slain by police or died in police custody.
A judge ordered that the recording be made public by Wednesday. Moments before it was released, the mayor and the police chief appealed for calm.
"People have a right to be angry. People have a right to protest. People have a right to free speech. But they do not have a right to ... criminal acts," Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said.
The relevant portion of the video runs for less than 40 seconds and has no audio.
Laquan McDonald, 17, swings into view on a four-lane street where police vehicles are stopped in the middle of the roadway. As he jogs down an empty lane, he appears to pull up his pants and then slows to a brisk walk, veering away from two officers who are emerging from a vehicle and drawing their guns.
Almost immediately, one of the officers appears to fire from close range. McDonald spins around and crumples to the pavement.
The car with the camera continues to roll forward until the officers are out of the frame. Then McDonald can be seen lying on the ground, moving occasionally. At least two small puffs of smoke are seen coming off his body as the officer continues firing.
In the final moments, an officer kicks something out of McDonald's hands.
Police have said the teen had a knife. Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said Tuesday that a 3-inch knife with its blade folded into the handle was recovered from the scene.
Shortly after the video's release, protesters began marching through city streets. Several hundred people blocked traffic on the near West Side. Some circled police cars in an intersection and chanted "16 shots."
"I'm so hurt and so angry," said Jedidiah Brown, a South Side activist and pastor who had just seen the video. "I can feel pain through my body."
Groups of demonstrators, at times numbering in the hundreds, marched through streets in the downtown and near South Side areas, gathering at one point outside the police department's District 1 headquarters.
Later, along Michigan Avenue, at least one person was detained, which led to a tense moment as protesters tried to prevent police from taking him away. Some threw plastic water bottles at officers and sat behind a police vehicle, refusing to move. Officers pulled them away, and the vehicle sped off.
The biggest group had mostly dissipated by 11 p.m., with a few dozen returning to the District 1 building. Another group of at least 50 people briefly blocked a busy expressway before walking toward a lakefront park. A few yelled at police officers, others chanted as they blocked a street.
City officials spent months arguing that the footage could not be made public until the conclusion of several investigations. After the judge's order, the investigations were quickly wrapped up and a charge announced.
Alvarez defended the 13 months it took to charge officer Jason Van Dyke. She said cases involving police present "highly complex" legal issues and that she would rather take the time to get it right than "rush to judgment."
Alvarez said concern about the impending release prompted her to move up the announcement of the murder charge.
"It is graphic. It is violent. It is chilling," she said. "To watch a 17-year-old young man die in such a violent manner is deeply disturbing. I have absolutely no doubt that this video will tear at the hearts of all Chicagoans."
But she insisted that she made a decision "weeks ago" to charge Van Dyke and the video's ordered release did not influence that.
Some community leaders said there was no doubt that Alvarez only brought charges because of the order to release the video from Oct. 20, 2014.
"This is a panicky reaction to an institutional crisis within the criminal-justice system," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who said he hoped to see "massive" but peaceful demonstrations.
Months after McDonald's death, the city agreed to a $5 million settlement with his family, even before relatives filed a lawsuit.
The city's hurried attempts to defuse tensions also included a community meeting, official statements of outrage at the officer's conduct and an abrupt announcement Monday night that another officer who has been the subject of protests for months might now be fired.
"You had this tape for a year, and you are only talking to us now because you need our help keeping things calm," the Rev. Corey Brooks said of Monday's community gathering with the mayor.
An autopsy report showed that McDonald was shot at least twice in his back and PCP, a hallucinogenic drug, was found in his system.
At the time of his death, police were responding to complaints about someone breaking into cars and stealing radios.
Van Dyke, who was denied bond on Tuesday, was the only officer of the several who were on the scene to open fire. Alvarez said the officer emptied his 9 mm pistol of all 16 rounds and that he was on the scene for just 30 seconds before he started shooting. She said he opened fire just six seconds after getting out of his vehicle and kept firing even though McDonald dropped to the ground after the initial shots.
At Tuesday's hearing, Assistant State's Attorney Bill Delaney said the shooting lasted 14 or 15 seconds and that McDonald was on the ground for 13 of those seconds.
Van Dyke's attorney, Dan Herbert, maintains his client feared for his life and acted lawfully and that the video does not tell the whole story. Van Dyke, stripped of his police powers, has been assigned to desk duty since the shooting.
Herbert said the case needs to be tried in a courtroom and "can't be tried in the streets, can't be tried on social media and can't be tried on Facebook."
Chicago police also moved late Monday to discipline a second officer who shot and killed an unarmed black woman in 2012.
McCarthy recommended firing officer Dante Servin for the shooting of 22-year-old Rekia Boyd, saying Servin showed "incredibly poor judgment." A judge acquitted Servin of involuntary manslaughter and other charges last April.
NEW YORK (AP) —
If the beginning of the holiday season is any indication, it could be a merry mobile Christmas for shoppers.
For the first time, there's expected to be more people visiting retailers' web sites through their smartphones than on desktop computers or tablets during the first weekend of the holiday shopping season that begins on Thanksgiving Day.
Mobile traffic during the five-day start to what is typically the busiest shopping period of the year is expected to reach 56.9 percent of total traffic, up from 48.5 percent last year, according to IBM Watson.
And even though everyone who "window shops" on their phones isn't going to buy, mobile sales are jumping too. Mobile sales are expected to account for 36.1 percent of online sales, up from 27 percent last year, according to IBM Watson Trend.
The bumps in traffic and sales come as retailers try to make the mobile shopping experience easier by improving their mobile apps and adding coupons and other deals. Shoppers also have gotten more comfortable browsing retailers' web sites as smartphone screen sizes have gotten bigger, making it easier for them to see photos of the items they want to buy. Digital wallets and apps that let shoppers store payment information are helping too.
"It's very convenient," said Seth Reineke, 25, an insurance worker from Iowa City, Iowa, who plans to peruse Amazon's weekend deals from his phone. "It allows me to keep track of time-sensitive sales without being tied to a computer or having to leave a holiday event or get-together."
Overall spending this season is expected to be somewhat muted. The National Retail Federation, a trade group for storeowners, expects industry-wide sales to be up 3.7 percent in November and December, less than the 4.1 percent of last year's holiday season.
But online spending figures are stronger. Forrester predicts online sales will rise 11 percent to $95 billion. And mobile sales are becoming a bigger piece of that pie. Forrester expects them to account for 35 percent of e-commerce this year and 49 percent in five years. That compares to 29 percent in 2014.
Adobe, which measures 80 percent of online sales from the top 100 U.S. retailers, predicts 40 to 45 percent of all retail traffic during November and December will come from mobile devices, up from 37 percent last year. Mobile sales are expected to total 20 to 25 percent of total online sales, up from 16 percent last year.
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, expects that 75 percent of U.S. traffic to its website will come from mobile devices this holiday shopping season. That's up from 50 percent two years ago. Likewise, eBay says it expects mobile sales during the holidays will be "significantly" higher than the 41 percent mobile sales made up of total revenue in the third quarter.
Thanksgiving and the day after the holiday known as Black Friday are expected to be particularly mobile-friendly shopping dates because people can use their phones to take advantage of limited-time offers wherever they may be. Adobe predicts mobile will drive the majority of shopping traffic, 51 percent, for the first time on Thanksgiving Day.
"There's a lot of opportunity to do 'shopping under the table' on Thanksgiving Day," said Tamara Gaffney, director of Adobe Digital Index. "In between cooking, watching football and in general hanging around family and friends, there's down time to glance at the iPad and smartphone and do some shopping."
Take Danyell Taylor, 34, a writer in Washington, D.C. who likes the "easy access" of smartphone shopping. Taylor plans to start looking for holiday deals on Wednesday and continuing through the weekend, specifically for Converse shoes and Kate Spade home accessories.
"I'm going to sit on my couch with my phone and my laptop and buy from there," she says. "I don't plan on going into the store at all."
Mobile shopping still has its problems, including security concerns, sluggish apps and hard-to-navigate mobile web sites. And much of mobile traffic doesn't translate into sales.
But for shoppers, the convenience factor is hard to beat, says Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru.
"While retailers may lament their low conversion rates and slow download speeds on mobile devices, shoppers still keep shopping on those devices," Mulpuru says, adding that shoppers "appear to have greater tolerance for imperfection, much like in the early days of desktop."
Jill Markiewicz, 38, a personal shopper in New York, says she shops frequently on her iPhone 6s on Saks Fifth Ave and J.Crew's mobile web sites.
"I'm typically on foot running around a lot ... don't get a whole lot of desk time," Markiewicz says. "You can go from email to checkout cart in a matter of minutes."