Dr. Daniel McNeely had an unusual patient on his operating table: a stuffed teddy bear.

The Canadian neurosurgeon tweeted images of him dressed in surgical scrubs with scissors in hand, fixing the torn arm of an 8-year-old patient’s teddy bear.

“Patient asks if I can also fix teddy bear just before being put off to sleep… how could I say no?” McNeely wrote in a tweet that has since gone viral.

McNeely, who works at IWK Health Centre in Halifax, was about to head into a procedure to repair a shunt for a boy who has been his patient since he was an infant.

“I was about to do his surgery to fix his shunt, and he pointed out to me that his teddy bear had a tear and asked if I could fix that up while we were at it,” McNeely told USA TODAY. And, as he tweeted: “How could I say no?”

After his patient’s procedure was completed, nurses helped set up a small table on the side with leftover stitches to “operate” on the boy’s furry friend, McNeely said.

“I thought it was an unusual request, but I was only too happy to help if it could provide the patient with a bit of comfort,” he added.

As for why the bear has an anesthesia mask over its nose? “Neonatal face mask — helps to preserve the teddy bear’s anonymity!” McNeely tweeted. 

A medical resident photographed the moment, which McNeely later showed to the family. “They seemed so delighted with the pictures,” he said. “It seemed to make them quite happy.”

Though he had never tweeted before, McNeely decided to share the photos on social media with hopes that they might bring smiles to others’ faces. 

Since the Sept. 30 tweet, the doctor has garnered roughly 14,000 retweets and 30,000 likes as of Wednesday afternoon – a “overwhelming” response but one that he welcomes.

The boy’s father, Rick McKie, told CBC News that the bear, named Little Baby, and his son have been together since an ultrasound before the child was born.

“He was so proud. He had Little Baby laying up in the hospital bed with him and everything,” McKie told CBC News of the boy’s reaction.

Follow Ryan Miller on Twitter @RyanW_Miller

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk seemed to take aim at the Securities and Exchange Commission in a tweet on Thursday, calling it the “Shortseller Enrichment Commission.”

“Just want to that the Shortseller Enrichment Commission is doing incredible work,” he said. “And the name change is so on point!”

The SEC declined Business Insider’s request for comment. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on what Musk meant by the tweet.

Some Twitter users celebrated Musk’s tweet, while others expressed disapproval.

“Keep it coming, Elon,” one person said.

“Elon, please stop,” said another. “This hurts shareholders worse than the SEC.”

About 40 minutes after his initial tweet, Musk published another in which he addressed a typo in that tweet and appeared to target the SEC again.

“Sorry about the typo. That was unforgivable,” he said. “Why would they be upset about their mission? It’s what they do.”

The SEC sued Musk last Thursday, and he and the agency reached a settlement on Saturday. Under its terms, Musk doesn’t admit or deny the allegations in the agency’s lawsuit but will step down as the chairman of Tesla’s board of directors for three years and pay a $20 million fine.

According to the SEC, Tesla must create a committee of independent directors and “put in place additional controls and procedures to oversee Musk’s communications,” including on platforms like Twitter.

Several news outlets reported that the agency sued after Musk rejected a settlement under which he would have had to step down as chairman for two years, add two independent directors to the company’s board, and pay a $10 million fine.

The SEC in its lawsuit accused Musk of making “false and misleading statements” in August about the possibility of taking Tesla private. It sought to bar Musk from being an officer or director of a public company.

The SEC alleged that Musk said a representative from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund had shown interest in taking Tesla private but had never discussed with Musk any of the specific terms he described on Twitter, including a proposed $420 share price and an option for all existing Tesla shareholders to remain with the company after it went private.

Musk said in a company statement last week that he was “deeply saddened and disappointed” by the lawsuit, which he described as “unjustified.”

Have a Tesla news tip? Contact this reporter at mmatousek@businessinsider.com.

It’s been two years since Anderson .Paak dropped his musical burst of sunshine Malibu, and it appears his full-length followup, Oxnard (named after another California city), is on the horizon. .Paak’s been hinting at a team-up with fellow L.A. great Kendrick Lamar, and on Thursday (October 4), that collab emerged with “Tints,” an easy, breezy jam about cruising around SoCal with tinted windows. Truly, nothing is more on brand for .Paak.

Over a funk-infused beat, .Paak breezily muses, “I been feelin’ kinda cooped up, cooped up / I’m tryna get some fresh air.” K. Dot, meanwhile, swoops in with an especially effortless verse that’s anything but humble: “Bitch, I’m Kendrick Lamar, respect me from afar / I was made in his image, you call me a god.”

Following the song’s premiere on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 show, .Paak said of Lamar, “He’s the most selfless, amazing, focused young gentleman I’ve ever met. Some people you can trust to just send it and they gonna send it back and it’s gonna be flames. I just knew that would be the case with him.”

“Tints” marks the pair’s first official team-up on a track, though they were both featured on Dr. Dre’s Compton, and .Paak was one of the artists Kendrick tapped for his star-studded Black Panther: The Album. Hopefully this isn’t the last time we’ll hear the two SoCal kings together.

It was described as a watershed moment when, last year, tens of millions of people from around the world shared their personal stories of sexual harassment, assault and violence.

The accounts were shared under #MeToo, which has since grown into a movement to end sexual violence in all its forms, support survivors, and educate people about the widespread issue.

As the one-year anniversary of that viral moment takes place later this month, and as sexual abuse allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh regalvanise the movement, the work of #MeToo continues, says Tarana Burke, the US-based community organiser who first used the phrase more than a decade ago.

“We have this amazing, historic opportunity to shift things in such a way that it doesn’t ever shift back,” Burke recently told Al Jazeera in a telephone interview.

“We have an opportunity to talk about this differently, to think about it differently, to work toward it differently. That’s the work that happens now.”

While #MeToo has dominated the headlines like never before, in many ways, it’s not been an easy year for the movement, either.

Detractors have decried the harm sexual abuse allegations have had on men’s reputations – describing alleged abusers as “#MeToo casualties” – while with new accusations, newspapers have questioned whether #MeToo has “gone too far”. Alleged abusers have also attempted comebacks in recent weeks.

Al Jazeera spoke to Burke about what’s happened since #MeToo went viral last year, the misconceptions that persist around sexual violence, why apologies aren’t enough and what work still lies ahead.

Al Jazeera: How do you feel about what has happened since the #MeToo hashtag went viral a year ago?

Tarana Burke: I feel like we have a lot of work to do still, but I feel like we’ve made some strides in the last year.

But what has also happened is the conversation has stagnated around the perpetrators of the crime and the celebrity involved and hasn’t been expanded to the survivors of sexual violence and why [the hashtag resonated with] so many millions of people.

I think that the way the conversation [around Kavanaugh] has unfolded makes it clear that there’s still a lot of education necessary in the country around the realities of surviving sexual violence, and the realities of what it does to a person physically, mentally and emotionally.

Tarana Burke, founder of the Me Too movement

Al Jazeera: Over the past two weeks, the #MeToo conversation in the US has centred on the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, who has been accused of sexual assault. How do you feel about how that conversation has gone?

Burke: I think that the way the conversation has unfolded makes it clear that there’s still a lot of education necessary in the country around the realities of surviving sexual violence, and the realities of what it does to a person physically, mentally and emotionally.

The kind of stereotypes around falsehoods and misconceptions that people have around sexual violence are playing out on a public stage with the president tweeting out victim-blaming tweets, or Kavanaugh talking about [how] his supposed virginity shields him from being a sexual assaulter.

I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2018

Al Jazeera: What impact do these types of misconceptions – being shared so widely in relation to the Kavanaugh accusations – have on sexual assault survivors?

Burke: I think it’s clearly a negative impact.

For [Trump] to single out citizens who survive sexual violence and blame them for their own victimisation is awful and it’s certainly is not helpful for those of us who are trying to encourage survivors and tell them that healing is possible. 

We are on one hand saying it’s not your fault, and you’re not alone, and there’s a community that supports you, and you did the right thing by coming forward.

And then [we] have people in leadership who are saying, ‘No, she was drunk, or she didn’t report, so she’s invalidated.’

Al Jazeera: In the past year, critics of #MeToo have said the movement is harming men’s reputations and alleged abusers have been described as “#MeToo casualties”. How do you feel about that type of framing of the issue?

Burke: It’s a very dangerous narrative.

We are already dealing with people – millions of people, in fact – that are impacted by sexual violence, and to watch people turn #MeToo into a weapon, as opposed to acknowledging it as a tool, is not just unfortunate, but it’s dangerous.

It creates this idea that the labour that survivors are putting forth to tell their stories, to try to shift the narrative about being a survivor, is only about taking down powerful men.

Al Jazeera: How would you describe what the #MeToo movement is really about?

Burke: I would describe it as a global movement of survivors and allies who are working toward ending sexual violence and also working toward healing from the trauma of sexual violence.

It’s a movement to raise consciousness. It’s a movement to educate people about the realities and the breadth and depth of sexual violence. It’s a movement about supporting survivors.

It’s everything but a movement about targeting perpetrators.

Al Jazeera: What’s your response to people who have been accused of sexual violence now trying to make their way back into the community? Louis CK, who recently performed stand-up to a widely receptive audience in New York, just a few months after apologising for masturbating in front of young female comics without their consent, for example.

Burke: It’s disappointing because what it tells me is that there’s no a real ask of accountability happening.

What it is, is people who were accused … kept their heads out of the public eye, and just are peeking out to say, ‘OK, has this media cycle passed yet? Has it died down yet? Can I come back yet?’

They’re counting on our notoriously short memory, and our propensity for forgiveness, if you will, for those who entertain us.

It’s not that there’s not a road back. It’s not that there’s not a possibility of being a part of the larger community again or doing the work that they want to do.

Let’s talk about Louis CK. He admitted that the behaviour was wrong, so there’s an admission of wrongdoing there, but that means that you have to follow that up with action that allows the person who you wronged to understand that you have learned from what you did and that you won’t engage in that behaviour again.

You can’t simply leave that to an apology [alone].

We haven’t seen a public expression of understanding about the gravity of some of the things that have happened. We haven’t seen the survivors of this misconduct or the abuse or the assault or whatever the thing is, talk about what they need.

Nobody’s asked them: what would you need in order to see this person come back into the spotlight, if at all?

Al Jazeera: You said earlier that #MeToo is a global movement. How important is it for people from marginalised communities to have a place within this conversation?

Burke: I think it’s critical. There is a part of sexual violence that is a unifier.

It’s a common denominator among vastly different groups, and I think seeing and hearing the fullness of the impact of sexual violence helps paint a larger picture.

While sexual violence knows no race or class or gender or what have you, the response to it does.

In the public discourse, we have not really scratched the surface of understanding the breadth of sexual violence, and in order to do that, we need to hear the stories of the most marginalized people.

While sexual violence knows no race or class or gender or what have you, the response to it does.

Tarana Burke, founder of the Me Too movement

The Native community is affected in one way. Black and Brown folk are affected in one way. People in Southeast Asia are affected in another way. There are religious implications. There are racial and cultural implications that we haven’t grappled with.

That’s important to understand what we’re actually dealing with.

Al Jazeera: When we talked last year, you stressed the importance of shifting the focus of #MeToo to making sure survivors get the support they need. Has that been happening, and if not, how can it get there?

Burke: I wish I had an answer to that. I feel like I’ve been talking for almost 12 months straight about the same thing.

As much as #MeToo has been in the media [and] as much as we hear about it, I don’t think people realise how disconnected what we hear and see is from the reality of what is going on, on the ground.

There are not a lot of [added] resources that have moved in this last year to support the people doing the work to end sexual violence.

On the ground, the people who are literally holding the hands of the survivors, who are coming in after disclosing their experience of sexual violence that they’ve held for 30 years – they’re going to rape counselling centres, and they’re going into counselling centres and they’re going to local support groups.

These are the people, these are soldiers on the ground, who need resources.

Al Jazeera: Why do you think those resources haven’t gone where they need to go?

Burke: People have to be bleeding and dying in the street in order for people to respond with the urgency it requires.

The fact that 12 million people in 48 hours responded to #MeToo on one social media platform should have set off bells and whistles. That should have been a state of emergency.

I hope [the movement] lends itself to creating solutions. I hope that it gives the people who have already experienced sexual violence a place to feel whole and fully actualised again. I hope we get the resources we need to do the work.

Tarana Burke, founder of the Me Too movement

That should have made everybody stop and say, ‘Oh God, what have we unearthed?’

‘Who’s doing the work to stop [sexual violence]? How do we support them? And what are we putting in place to make sure that we never have this many people suffering under the same thing again?’

Al Jazeera: So what work lies ahead for #MeToo?

Burke: Our work is to continue what we’ve been doing. To help survivors who need to find the resources they need; to help them understand that healing is possible.

To help people who have been motivated in this moment to do something toward the end of sexual violence, to help them figure out what their role is.

We’re doing that through our website; we’re doing that through giving out funds.

I hope [the movement] lends itself to creating solutions. I hope that it gives the people who have already experienced sexual violence a place to feel whole and fully actualised again. I hope we get the resources we need to do the work.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Venemous spiders prompted the shutdown of four east London schools as officials relayed news of the infestations to parents, British media outlets reported. The schools, all within two miles of each other, could close for up to three weeks due to the crawlers.

Lister Community School, a secondary campus in London’s Plaistow district, told parents Thursday in a letter it would “make the very difficult decision to close the school” after confirming “a false widow spider infestation.”

False widows aren’t likely to bite students, headteacher Anthony Wilson said, but such bites feel like a wasp sting and may provoke more severe reactions in students with certain conditions.

“Due to the intensive fumigation process that is now needed, the school is likely to remain closed until the October half-term break” on Oct. 29, Wilson said, noting teachers would supply homework for students in the interim.

False widow spiders aren’t life-threatening, The Guardian reported, but their bites can cause headaches, nausea and lethargy in about one-third of instances. They’ve been spotted inside homes across the country each autumn since first arriving in England in the 1870s, per the BBC.

The risk also proved too much for Ellen Wilkinson Primary School, Star Primary School and Rokeby School, all of which joined Lister in closing Wednesday, the BBC reported.

London’s Newham Council warned all schools and nurseries nearby to “check their premises carefully for these spiders,” the network reported.

Rokeby headteacher Charlotte Robison told parents in a letter it also made the “difficult decision” to close until Oct. 29, noting “it is in your child’s best interest to remain at home and not at school,” according to Sky News.

Star Lane headteacher Lisle Von Buchenroder told parents staff believes the “infestation is outside the building” and needs to “be treated immediately before the eggs start hatching.”

Follow Josh Hafner on Twitter: @joshhafner

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk apparently blasted federal regulators Thursday, less than a week after striking a settlement with them to resolve accusations that he misled investors with false statements.

Musk took a not-so-subtle shot at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission — known to most people as the SEC — in a tweet.

“Just want to that the Shortseller Enrichment Commission is doing incredible work. And the name change is so on point!” he said on Twitter. 

Shortly after that tweet, he added another in response to someone else who suggested he should be careful about “enraging the Shortseller Enrichment Committee.”

“Sorry about the typo. That was unforgivable,” Musk said. “Why would they be upset about their mission? It’s what they do.”

Musk has long derided short sellers, who bet against a company’s stock, for their thirst for Tesla’s stock to decline.

His distaste for short sellers was viewed as a key reason why he briefly proposed taking Tesla private — a short-lived plan that he revealed on Twitter despite, the SEC said, not having lined up the funding he claimed to have gotten for the deal.

The tweets come days after Musk agreed to relinquish his Tesla chairmanship for at least three years and pay a $20 million fine. The SEC had accused him of securities fraud in a lawsuit and had asked a federal judge to bar him from ever again leading a publicly traded company.

He did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

The deal also calls for Tesla to pay a $20 million fine and vet any social media posts by Musk that could have a material impact on the company’s finances.

The accord must still be approved by a judge and hasn’t yet taken effect. It was not immediately clear if Musk’s Thursday tweet was approved by the company.

“It probably doesn’t affect the settlement between Musk and the SEC, because it does not deny wrongdoing and does not seem to be material company information,” said former SEC enforcement official Alma Angotti, now serving as managing director of risk and compliance at Navigant Consulting, in an email.

But the deal could affect Tesla, Angotti said.

“They promised to have controls to keep him from doing these things,” she said. “Granted it has only been three days, but it may have been sensible to ask him not to tweet anything related to the company until they had an opportunity to put in the policies, procedures and controls required by the settlement.”

That Musk stirred further controversy on Twitter could irk regulators, since his tweets are what prompted the SEC’s accusations.

“It bolsters the SEC’s argument that he is uncontrollable,” Angotti said. “It also bolsters the SEC argument that the motive for the false and misleading tweets about taking the company private was to thwart the short sellers.”

More: Elon Musk is down with OPP – but what does it mean?

More: Tesla speeds up Model 3 electric car production despite Elon Musk controversy

More: Elon Musk and the SEC: A timeline of how we got here

The SEC declined to comment Thursday. A Tesla spokesman was not immediately available to comment.

The tweet appeared to jar investors, who drove Tesla shares down 2.4 percent in after-hours trading to $275. Shares had already fallen 4.4 percent before the tweet to close at $281.83.

Follow USA TODAY reporter Nathan Bomey on Twitter @NathanBomey.

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New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood in a Thursday court filing opposed President Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss the state lawsuit against him, his children, and his charity, the Trump Foundation.

Underwood said in the filing that Trump’s “arguments for dismissal are based on misstatements of the Attorney General’s claims or are otherwise without merit.”

Accused of being biased against the president, Underwood wrote that the lawsuit was filed because of alleged “extensive illegal conduct” the office had discovered, not because of any animosity toward Trump.

In August, Alan Futerfas, an attorney representing Trump, wrote in a motion to dismiss that former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman made it “his stated mission to ‘lead the resistance’ and attack Mr. Trump whenever possible.” He added that the attorney general’s office “turned a blind eye to serious and significant allegations of misconduct involving the Clinton Foundation.”

Futerfas wrote that the then-attorney general “actively stonewalled” Trump’s efforts to dissolve the charity.

Schneiderman opened the investigation into the foundation in 2016. After he resigned in May following allegations he physically abused women, Underwood completed the state’s investigation, culminating with the June lawsuit.

Futerfas wrote that Underwood continued to use “inflammatory rhetoric, stating publicly that she considers her battles with the President ‘the most important work (she) has ever done’ and has vowed that such ‘work will continue.’”

In her Thursday filing, Underwood wrote that “there can be no prejudice where the grounds for the relief sought are established by the substantial and incontrovertible evidence submitted in support of the Petition.”

Underwood wrote that Futerfas had misquoted her, insisted that she was talking about the job itself and not opposing Trump when she said this was “the most important work (she) has ever done.”

“In any case, were the Respondents to have adequately proven bias-a burden they have not come close to meeting-the proper remedy for bias is recusal of the biased person, not dismissal of the action,” she added.

The June lawsuit against Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, and the Trump Foundation alleges “a pattern of persistent illegal conduct” for more than a decade.

The lawsuit accused the foundation of engaging in illegal political coordination with Trump’s campaign, making multiple self-dealing transactions to benefit Trump and his business interests, and violating legal obligations for such nonprofits in New York.

Underwood is seeking $2.8 million in restitution plus additional penalties, as well as the dissolving of the Trump Foundation under court supervision. The suit seeks to bar Trump from running a New York nonprofit for the next decade while instituting a one-year ban for his three eldest children.

Trump has already paid more than $330,000 in reimbursements and penalty taxes, Underwood said in the suit.

Underwood also sent referral letters to the IRS and the Federal Election Commission identifying possible violations of federal law for the agencies to investigate.

When the lawsuit was first filed, Trump tweeted that Democrats were “doing everything they can to sue me on a foundation that took in $18,800,000 and gave out to charity more money than it took in, $19,200,000.”

“I won’t settle this case!” he said.

The Trump Foundation also attacked the attorney general’s office, accusing it of playing “politics at its very worst.” As evidence, the foundation cited the fact the lawsuit was made public on the same day as the release of the Department of Justice inspector general’s report on the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

Correction: An earlier version of this story referred to Underwood as the acting attorney general. She is the attorney general.

We’ve reached the end of an era. Chris Evans has finished filming all of his scenes as Captain America for the fourth Avengers film and the final installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s original 22-movie arc. He marked the “emotional” milestone with a tweet on Thursday (October 4).

“Officially wrapped on Avengers 4. It was an emotional day to say the least,” Evans began. “Playing this role over the last 8 years has been an honor. To everyone in front of the camera, behind the camera, and in the audience, thank you for the memories! Eternally grateful.”

Although there have been no official casting announcements regarding many of the franchise’s most beloved superheroes beyond Avengers 4, the conclusiveness of the tweet sounds pretty damning for Steve Rogers’s future — which may come as a disappointment for fans who have been analyzing every one of the actor’s wishy-washy sentiments about extending the role into the MCU’s next phase.

In March, the actor told the New York Times that he did not plan to renew his contract with the studio (his exact words were, “You want to get off the train before they push you off”), but the next month he told Variety that potential for a return “depends” on what they do with the story. “It’s hard to know where your head’s gonna be at in a few years,” he said.

If you’re feeling down about Avengers 4 seemingly being the last time we’ll see Evans donning Cap’s updated navy and gray suit and luscious flowing locks, know that you are not alone: Ryan Reynolds is right there with you. The Deadpool actor replied to Evans’s goodbye with a tweet of his own. “I’m not crying. I’m weeping. There’s a difference,” he wrote.

On the bright side, at least we have more confirmation that there’s hope for the half of the universe that disappeared at the snap of Thanos’s fingers at the end of Avengers: Infinity War… right?

Avengers 4 is slated to hit theaters May 3, 2019.