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The blowtorch flame cast a halo of heat on Oko Jewelry’s double-paned, laminated glass door. After letting the glass cool, two masked men shattered the posh East Burnside Street shop’s threshold about 4 a.m. last Thursday, then reached through to the deadbolt and let themselves in.

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING. The images interspersed throughout the video are graphic and many may find them highly disturbing. I did not provide any such images from the video below – just one photo of Dr. Jane Ruby and Mr. Richard Hirschman. The 3 images within the first 10 minutes are medical in nature, pertaining to blood clots in an embalming setting, the third picture includes a glimpse of the deceased's legs. I posted time markers in the transcript to indicate approximate location of the images, but I was not precise and they may appear a bit earlier in the video...

No one appears to have been in charge at Black Lives Matter for months. The address it lists on tax forms is wrong, and the charity's two board members won't say who controls its $60 million bankroll, a Washington Examiner investigation has found. BLM's shocking lack of transparency surrounding its finances and operations raises major legal and ethical red flags, multiple charity experts told the Washington Examiner. ... "Like a giant ghost ship full of treasure drifting in the night with no captain, no discernible crew, and no clear direction," CharityWatch Executive Director Laurie Styron said of BLM. ... BLM...

Spend enough time studying the “racial equity” and “ethnic studies” programs sweeping school districts across the nation and you’ll find that they are following in the footsteps, on a several-year delay, of one of America’s most progressive cities: Seattle. It’s worth examining, then, how all that worked out in Seattle. Despite decades of the most aggressive equity programs anyone could ask for, Seattle’s racial disparities are among the worst in the nation – and they’re getting worse, not better. At the forefront of Seattle Public Schools’ (SPS) initiatives was Tracy Castro-Gill, until recently its director of ethnic studies, who represented...

Lia Thomas' Teammate Reveals Trans Swimmer Doesn't Always Cover Up His Genitals in Locker Room Members of the University of Pennsylvania women’s swim team are uncomfortable changing and showering in the locker room with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, according to a new report. The Daily Mail reported Thursday that one of the female swimmers is speaking out about the issues she and her teammates face after the school allowed a man who identifies as a woman to join the squad this year. Thomas — who competed on the men’s team as Will Thomas for three years before taking a hiatus,...

Another must-pass bill, another rushed policy that severely damages the privacy and constitutional rights of cryptocurrency users. We’ve just seen language in the America COMPETES Act of 2022 (see page 1482)—a bill ostensibly about economic competitiveness with China—that would strip all administrative procedures and safeguards from the imposition of so-called “special measures” prohibitions in the Bank Secrecy Act while simultaneously expanding authority for such prohibitions to cryptocurrency activities. In brief, it would hand the Treasury Secretary unchecked discretion to forbid financial institutions (including cryptocurrency exchanges) from offering their customers access to cryptocurrency networks. The Secretary may not use this discretion...

From a pregnant man to a biting lip, the 37 new emojis coming to iPhones have finally been revealed. Apple's own designs for the new emojis are already available in a beta test of iOS 15.4 software update released on Thursday, prior to its full release in the spring. The pregnant man and pregnant person recognise that 'pregnancy is possible for some transgender men and non-binary people', says Emojipedia, which is part of the California-based Unicode Consortium, the central bank of all approved emoji. But the two new pregnant emoji could also potentially be used as 'a tongue-in-cheek way to...

Days after Spotify announced on that it is granting Neil Young’s wish and removing the singer-songwriter’s music from the platform, an online rumor began to spread that Barry Manilow will be following suit. However, as of Friday (Jan. 28), the 78-year-old star’s music is still on Spotify, and he took to Twitter to address the situation. “I recently heard a rumor about me and Spotify,” he tweeted. “I don’t know where it started, but it didn’t start with me or anyone who represents me.”

One of the stories in my new book, The Dumbest Generation Grows Up: From Stupefied Youth to Dangerous Adults is that of the changed status of undergraduates and professors. They don’t relate to one another the way they used to. If you wandered the hallways at State U in 1980, you’d sense an ordinary relationship of students and teachers, one side in charge, the other obedient (whether because of fear, custom, or sincere respect—it would vary). Do it today, and you get a whole other feel. Let me explain. Around 2011, I joined a panel at University of Minnesota on...

Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci this week failed to provide a timeline for a when the U.S. will reach a state of pre-pandemic normalcy, stating that they will have to “always be prepared for the possibility that there may be a variant that will make that timetable turn around.” AP White House reporter Zeke Miller asked on Wednesday if the public health experts believed that “this is the last disruptive surge of COVID-19, given all of the tools — you know, vaccines, boosters, antibodies, and the like?”

Actor Sean Penn is no champion of the conservative movement and there’s a good chance he never will be. But he does appear to agree with many of his political opposites when it comes to traditional gender roles. The “Mystic River” alum is unhappy with men becoming more feminine and wishes the trend would reverse. “I am in the club that believes that men in American culture have become wildly feminized,” Penn told UK-based inews.co while promoting his new movie, “Flag Day.” “I don’t think that being a brute or having insensitivity or disrespect for women is anything to do...

Her teen children helped pin the man until police arrived.A Watsonville mother fought off an armed man who broke into her home during the day on Wednesday. According to police, the mom and her teen children arrived at their home on Holly Drive when they noticed the window had been tampered with. When the family tried to go inside, they encountered a man who closed the door from inside the home. The mom and the burglar began to struggle at the door, police said. During their scuffle, the man pulled a knife and threatened to stab the family. The mom...

Back on the Hill!… Everyone is being respectful and showing nothing but love

A man was sentenced to two years in federal prison last week for attempting to export at least $150,000 worth of wild succulents that he poached from native habitats in Northern California state parks, the United States Justice Department said, SFGate.com reported. On Oct. 11, 2018, Byungsu Kim, 46, and co-defendants Youngin Back, 47, and Bong Jun Kim, 46, traveled by car from Los Angeles International Airport to Crescent City, Calif., with plans to harvest wild plants and smuggle them to South Korea, the department said in a statement Jan. 20. Throughout October 2018, they pulled plants from the ground...

And does the big guy get his customary 10%?

new study has highlighted how American dependence on Taiwan for semiconductors could fuel a crisis conflict with China amid a global chip shortage. The war game results from the Center for a New American Security were released on Thursday, comparing US reliance on Taiwanese chips to America's former dependence on the Middle East for oil. The new war game envisions a scenario in which production at three Taiwanese semiconductor foundries suddenly fails, raising questions about whether a Chinese cyberattack is to blame. In the scenario, the incident touches off a crisis between China in the US, devastating the world economy...

A new court filing by special counsel John Durham reveals that Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz concealed crucial information from Durham in connection with the ongoing prosecution of Michael Sussmann, a former attorney to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. The filing also reveals that Horowitz failed to disclose that his office is in possession of two cellphones used by former FBI general counsel James Baker. The phones may contain information that’s important to the Sussmann case, as well as to a separate criminal leak investigation of Baker that Durham personally conducted between 2017 and 2019. Horowitz first...

Left-wing billionaire and Democrat donor George Soros has reportedly fueled Democrats with $125 million through a super PAC heading into the November midterms. Dubbed as a “long-term investment,” the money is one of the largest political donations in recent years, Politico reported, noting political donations of nine figures are exceedingly rare. The donation will also likely be one of the largest political donations heading into the midterms. Soros told the publication the “Democracy PAC” will be allocated to “causes and candidates” to strengthen the “infrastructure of American democracy: voting rights and civic participation, civil rights and liberties, and the rule...

A House committee advanced a bill Thursday that would ban abortions in Florida after 15 weeks, despite Democratic lawmakers decrying the measure and activists interrupting the meeting with chants and shouts. Lawmakers listened to more than an hour of public testimony on the proposal (HB 5), underscoring the bill’s contentious nature and the nation’s ongoing divisions over abortion rights. But when Health Care Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Bryan Avila cut public testimony short, he struck a nerve among a handful of activists occupying the room. “Let us speak,” they chanted as security personnel escorted a speaker outside of the room. Security...

Fool's Ball Conference Championships!!!! Your home for all things Fool's Ball! In Memoriam Danny Lee (BENDER2)