July 17, 2021

76 years ago from today, a flash of light in the New Mexico desert changed the world forever

The world has never been the same ever since.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)

July 16, 2021

Catholic School Teacher Who Coached Track Sexually Abused Boy, 15, While Driving Him Home from Meet

?w=1200&h=800&crop=1

An Ohio high school teacher and who coached track must register as a sex offender after she pleaded guilty to sexual battery for having sex with a 15-year-old student. Corissa A. McCalister, 22, has been sentenced to two years of probation and community service, PEOPLE confirms. She must register as a sex offender within 90 days.

McCalister was a Spanish teacher at Central Catholic High School in Steubenville, Ohio. She also coached both cross country and track. It was her first year of teaching. Authorities say the abuse occurred on March 30 of this year, when McCalister drove the student home from a track meet at a rival school. Sheriff Joe Myers told WTRF at the time that McCalister parked her car at the Harrison County Fair ground in Cadiz, Ohio. She and the student allegedly had sexual intercourse in her parked car.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

Charging documents obtained by WTRF said the student's mother learned about the sexual conduct and reported McCalister to the school. The principal notified other staff members, the Catholic diocese and authorities.

https://people.com/crime/catholic-school-teacher-track-coach-sexually-abused-student-on-ride-back-from-meet/

July 16, 2021

47% of West Coast Dems, 66% of Southern Republicans Want to Secede From U.S.

Two-thirds of Southern Republicans say they support breaking away from the U.S. and forming their own country with nearby states, while nearly half of Democrats on the West Coast would do the same. A 66 percent majority of Republicans in 13 Southern states including Texas and Florida are in favor of seceding from the union, according to a poll released Wednesday by Bright Line Watch. Half of all independents in the South agreed, while only 20 percent of Southern Democrats were on board.

Support for forming a breakaway country reached 47 percent among Democrats in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii. One-third of West Coast independents, or 33 percent, were in favor of succession, along with 27 percent of West Coast Republicans.

A smaller share of respondents from other regions agreed. In 13 Midwest states, support was highest among independents, 43 percent of whom wanted to secede. In Northeastern states, 39 percent of Democrats were in favor of leaving the U.S. and forming their own country, while 43 percent of Republicans in states near the Rocky Mountains said the same.

Data analyst Christopher Ingraham described the poll results as the "most disturbing datapoint" he had recently seen on Twitter. In a post on his Substack online newsletter, Ingraham noted that many of those who expressed support for secession may be expressing support to indicate partisan loyalties rather than support for a potential new Civil War.

https://www.newsweek.com/47-west-coast-dems-66-southern-republicans-want-secede-us-1609875

July 15, 2021

Has anyone here actually made money from Bitcoin?

I can't make up my mind on this thing, what's the DU consensus towards it?

July 14, 2021

Florida cop sentenced to 12 years in prison for planting drugs

A former Florida cop was sentenced Tuesday to 12 years and six months in prison for planting drugs at three different traffic stops. Wester was convicted in the cases of Teresa Odom, Joshua Emanuel and Steven Vann. During Odom’s arrest, Wester was seen on body-cam footage carrying a baggie to her truck.

Zachary Wester, 28, was convicted in May on 19 charges related to the three incidents that occurred while he worked for the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office from 2016 to 2018. Wester was fired amid the investigation, and prosecutors in the panhandle county dropped 119 cases he was involved in.

Wester was convicted of one count of racketeering, three counts of official misconduct, three counts of perjury, three counts of fabricating evidence, four counts of possession of a controlled substance, three counts of possession of drug paraphernalia and two counts of false imprisonment. The sentences for those crimes would not usually merit such a lengthy sentence, but prosecutors argued Wester’s case was a special circumstance, according to the Democrat.

“With that great power comes great responsibility,” Williams said Tuesday at the sentencing hearing. “The defendant made choices to violate that trust and committed crimes against those people he was sworn to protect.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/florida-cop-sentenced-to-12-years-in-prison-for-planting-drugs/ar-AAM7E28

July 13, 2021

60% of millennials earning over $100,000 say they're living paycheck to paycheck

That's partly because of lifestyle choices. Many of these millennials are likely HENRYs — short for high earner, not rich yet. The acronym was invented in 2003, but it has come to characterize a certain group of 30-something six-figure earners who struggle to balance their spending and savings habits.

HENRYs typically fall victim to lifestyle creep, when one increases one's standard of living to match a rise in discretionary income. They prefer a comfortable and often expensive lifestyle that leaves them living paycheck to paycheck. The generation is facing an affordability crisis. Income increases simply have not kept up with an exponential increase in living costs, and the pandemic hasn't helped matters by throwing job loss and pay cuts into the mix.

The cost of education has also more than doubled since the 1970s, leaving many millennials with student debt. Priya Malani, the founder of Stash Wealth, a financial firm that works with HENRYs, previously told Insider that 40% of her clients had student loans. On average, they owed $80,000.

As a byproduct of this increased cost in living, the middle class has been shrinking. Pew Research Center defines the US middle class as people earning two-thirds to twice the median household income — i.e., about $48,500 to $145,500 in 2018, the most recent data available found. That means a six-figure salary is no longer what it used to be. In today's economy, $100,000 is considered middle class in the US.

https://www.businessinsider.com/high-earning-henry-millennials-six-figure-salaries-feel-broke-2021-6

July 12, 2021

Feb 1, 1893 - the worst lynching case in the history of the US

Jesus christ, I hadn't even heard of this until randomly finding it in wikipedia.

Henry Smith (1876 – February 1, 1893) was an African-American youth who was lynched in Paris, Texas. Smith allegedly confessed to murdering the three-year-old daughter of a law enforcement officer who had allegedly beaten him during an arrest. Smith fled, but was recaptured after a nationwide manhunt. He was then returned to Paris, where he was turned over to a mob and burned at the stake.[1] His lynching was covered by The New York Times and attracted national publicity.

A large crowd of from 5,000 to 15,000 people packed into an area of as little as 400 square yards (330 m2),[citation needed] took Smith from his captors and placed him on a mule cart. They paraded him through town[1] and to an open stretch of prairie between the cemetery and railroad tracks. There, organizers had built a 10-foot scaffold painted with the word "Justice".

Smith was tied up and tortured for 50 minutes[1] by Henry Vance, his 15-year-old son, and his brother-in-law. The men placed hot irons under Smith's feet, burned his trunk[8] and limbs, burned both eyes out with hot irons and then shoved a hot iron down his throat.[9] A February 2, 1893, article in the New York Sun reported: "Every groan from the fiend, every contortion of his body was cheered by the thickly packed crowd." The February 2 edition of the Boston Daily Globe deemed Smith's grotesque execution "White Savagery" and claimed "Civilization Seemingly a Failure in Texas."[10]

Finally, the crowd poured coal oil (kerosene) over Smith and set the scaffold on fire.[11] According to some newspaper accounts, Smith remained alive during the burning. When the flames rose high enough, they burned the rope that bound Smith to the stake away and he fell off the scaffolding.[12] At the base of the burning platform, Smith attempted to twist away from the flames, but onlookers kicked him back into the conflagration.[9] After the fire reduced Smith's body to brittle cinder, members of the surrounding crowd moved in and sifted through the ashes to collect Smith's bones and shards of wood as souvenirs.[13] On February 6, 1893, the governor of Texas, Jim Hogg, referred to the lynching of Henry Smith as a "terrible holocaust" and railed against mob violence in the state.[14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Smith_(lynching_victim)

July 12, 2021

What's going on with the housing market, why does it never stop going up?

I really wish I could own a house, even a small tiny one but the cost of real estate is just absolutely insane. I can't even dream of moving to another state outside of CA either now since it isn't that much better anymore in other states. Will the insane housing market just keep going up and up ever end? It just doesn't seem like it'll stop anytime soon, if ever.

July 11, 2021

How failure on Covid-19 has exposed the dangerous delusion of "Fortress Australia"

The country’s complacency on vaccines reflected the false belief that it could cut itself off from the world.

Australia was the envy of the world for much of 2020, but it is not anymore. Having endured the first year of Covid-19 with aplomb, the country is firmly in the grip of the virus once again. As London and New York open up, Sydney is in lockdown. Even outside the nation’s most populous city, travel restrictions mean many Australians are unable to move within the country. More than 30,000 residents also remain stranded overseas, with borders closed and no obvious way to return home anytime soon.

Australia’s political class have blamed the Delta variant of coronavirus. Delta is a “beast”, a “game-changer” in its ability to transmit in the community, unlike anything else seen since the pandemic arrived.

But that is only a small part of the story. The real tale is one of political failure – a truly seismic failure in which Australia’s politicians, civil servants, business leaders and medical experts have all played a part. That is why Australia’s Covid-19 response has collapsed so spectacularly.

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/australasia/2021/07/how-failure-covid-19-has-exposed-dangerous-delusion-fortress-australia

July 9, 2021

President Joe Biden offers to send 'strike force' to help Chicago violence crackdown

CHICAGO (WLS) -- President Joe Biden has offered to send a "strike force" to Chicago to crack down on gun trafficking.

President Biden spoke with Mayor Lori Lightfoot on the tarmac at O'Hare Airport on Wednesday when Biden was in town to visit Crystal Lake.

"My hope and my expectation is that they're going to be coming relatively soon. I've made no secret of the fact that this is a matter of incredible urgency and I think the president's plan is to make a difference in localities like Chicago this summer," Mayor Lightfoot said.

While there have been talks about more help, the mayor said she did not ask the president to send federal troops to the city to address the violence. But she agreed something needs to be done soon. The plan comes as violence soars across the city, with over 100 shootings last weekend.

https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-shootings-joe-biden-mayor-lori-lightfoot-president/10873737/