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CHICAGO (AP) — Jussie Smollett took the witness stand Monday at his trial on charges of staging a racist, anti-gay attack on himself and lying to Chicago police about it. On the witness stand Monday, Smollett told the jury how he grew up in a close-knit family of six children and started performing as a child actor before getting more into music. He said he “came to terms with my sexuality” in his early 20s, when he got involved in charity organizations, including a group that fights AIDS in the Black community

The United Kingdom’s worsening drug problem intensifies as evidence of cocaine was discovered in toilets near the private office of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. A recent investigation into 12 locations within the Palace of Westminster found that 11 locations returned positive results for cocaine evidence, including Johnson’s office, according to the Sunday Times.

Anonymous alleged “U.S. and congressional officials” told the Wall Street Journal this week President Joe Biden is planning to remove the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a nearly 60-year-old terrorist organization responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, from America’s list of designated foreign terrorist groups. The FARC, a communist group, has been responsible for a wide variety of human rights atrocities in Colombia since its founding in 1964 that include mass killings, kidnappings, child rape, forced abortions, the use of child soldiers, and one of the world’s most lucrative drug trafficking operations. The government of then-President Juan Manuel...

Deputies in Florida found a live grenade in the truck of an “idiot” who was driving with a terrifying clown mannequin in the passenger seat, wild video shows. The footage released Monday by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office shows the moment a deputy stumbled upon the explosive find after Louis Branson, 65, was pulled over in Bunnell for expired tags on his Dodge pickup. “Oh shoot, is this for real?” a deputy asks her partners after discovering the grenade inside a sealed canister in the back of Branson’s ride, video shows. “Get out of the truck, it looked like a...

Elton John called the moment he took his first line of cocaine as one of the biggest regrets of his “unexpected” career. SNIP “I wouldn’t have taken as many drugs,” John told Ladbible TV when asked about regrets. “Although I continued to work when I took drugs, I didn't make my best work some of the time. ... I never really wanted to take drugs, I just joined in for the sake of it and it became an addiction. I became an addict and alcoholic, and I've since learned my lesson, but I would, if I could go back to...

Actor Michael K. Williams died of acute drug intoxication in what New York City’s medical examiner said Friday was an accidental death. Williams, known for playing Omar Little on “The Wire” and an Emmy Award nominee this year, had fentanyl, parafluorofentanyl, heroin and cocaine in his system when he died Sept. 6 in Brooklyn. Williams, 54, was found dead by family members in his penthouse apartment. Police said at the time that they suspected a drug overdose. The city’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner said it would not comment further. A message seeking comment was left with Williams’ representative. Williams...

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott asked President Biden to issue an emergency declaration for his state due to the increasingly difficult border crisis. In a letter to the president, Abbott specifically pointed to Val Verde County, where Haitian migrants have set up an encampment in Del Rio under the International Bridge. The governor said that as of Saturday there were nearly 16,000 migrants in Del Rio.

12:44 PM PT -- 9/5 -- TMZ has learned the names of the other two people who died from an apparent OD, alongside Fuquan Johnson -- and one is, indeed, another comic. Law enforcement tells us that the two other deceased victims are Enrico Colangeli (Rico Angeli) and Natalie Williamson, who were 48 and 33 years old, respectively. Meanwhile, it looks like Kate Quigley is going to pull through. As for who owns the place where this went down -- there's a few owners listed ... and we do know Quigley was a resident (and perhaps still is) at what...

A man riding a go-kart on the streets of a Florida city was busted in his tiny ride with a gun and a big bag of cocaine, deputies said. Miguel Angel Sanchez, 21, was spotted illegally driving a go-kart in Fort Pierce late Monday by a deputy, setting off a brief chase, according to the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office. “When the deputies tried to stop Mr. Sanchez, the game was on,” department officials said in a playful statement invoking Nintendo’s classic Mario Kart video game series. “Sanchez threw a backpack from his racer, bent a few corners and then...

Advocates for a safe supply of drugs handed out heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine outside the Vancouver Police Department Wednesday (July 14) afternoon. City Councillor Jean Swanson, along with members of the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), distributed the free drugs outside the Vancouver Police Department. The collective action demonstrates the "life-saving potential of a community-led response to the crisis of prohibition in Canada" as a necessary alternative to Vancouver's proposed model of decriminalization, explains a news release. The drugs that were handed out were tested via "FTIR spectrometry and immunoassay, and...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Kenyell Wilson, an outreach worker with the Safe Streets program, was shot and killed Thursday in Baltimore, police said. Wilson walked into Harbor Hospital with gunshot wounds at 4:41 p.m. and died a short time later, police said. Police have not determined where in the city the shooting occurred.Mayor Brandon Scott released a statement on Thursday evening following the news: “Safe Streets has a special place in my heart and I consider the Violence Interrupters who bravely serve this program as a part of my family. Tonight, our brother Kenyell Wilson became a victim of the gun...

Authorities in South Carolina say an infant died from ingesting cocaine. Now the baby’s teen parents are accused of homicide. Brady Lynden Wearn, 18, and Mary Catherine Bedenbaugh, 17, of Prosperity, S.C., were charged Friday, according to online records in Newberry County. According to local sheriff’s deputies, paramedics responded to a call about a four-month-old unresponsive baby who was not breathing. The child was pronounced dead at Newberry Hospital. “Due to this death being a child 17-years-old or younger, the Newberry County Coroner’s Office, Newberry County Sheriff’s Office, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Child Fatality Unit and South Carolina Department...

The U.S. Coast Guard offloaded over 7,500 pounds of cocaine at Port Everglades on Monday, CBS Miami reports. The crew of the Coast Guard Cutter Tahoma removed the bales, which had an estimated street value of $143.5 million.The coke — more than 3.75 tons of it — was seized in three interdictions in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

In a video that went viral on TikTok, an ex-police K9 yields a hilarious reaction, when his owner slips the word “cocaine” into an ordinary sentence to see if the highly trained sniffer dog will notice. In the clip, German shepherd Dante starts off panting away blissfully, chilling with his owner Davey Rutherford—who adopted Dante after he was retired from the force. Without a worry in the world, Dante looks as happy as a clam. But the former K9 officer’s placid contentment is soon shattered when Rutherford reels off a few words, his grocery shopping list—but with a twist.

The full extent of an unprecedented FBI effort to beat the criminal underworld at its own encrypted-communications game became clearer Tuesday following a two-day takedown, with some 800 arrests worldwide and San Diego racketeering indictments against 17 high-level targets, according to federal authorities. Dubbed Operation Trojan Shield, the effort was largely led by FBI agents and federal prosecutors in San Diego who covertly created a closed-loop encryption cellphone service, called ANØM, and then convinced trusted voices already embedded in criminal syndicates to distribute the customized phones. The agents secretly read each message that poured in — 27 million in all....

A private security firm hired a high-ranking U.S. Secret Service agent as CEO one week after he ran an intervention on Hunter Biden amid an alleged drug and prostitute binge at a Los Angeles hotel room. “Press releases by a private security firm published a week after the text exchange with Hunter announced the agent left the Secret Service after a 25-year career and joined the firm as CEO,” writes the Daily Mail. The Washington Examiner provided more details. “One week after the incident, a private security firm released a press release saying [Robert] Savage, [the supervising agent of the...

A private security firm hired a high-ranking U.S. Secret Service agent as CEO one week after he ran an intervention on Hunter Biden amid an alleged drug and prostitute binge at a Los Angeles hotel room in 2018, text messages reportedly show. “Press releases by a private security firm published a week after the text exchange with Hunter announced the agent left the Secret Service after a 25-year career and joined the firm as CEO,” writes the Daily Mail, which first reported on the Los Angeles incident in April. On Wednesday, the Washington Examiner provided more details of the May...

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) will no longer search for or release records stemming from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests surrounding Hunter Biden and his firearms. According to the Bureau, there are “substantial privacy interests” surrounding the requests. Reports broke in October about “… the widow of Beau Biden, Hallie Biden, allegedly took Hunter Biden’s firearm and threw it in a dumpster behind a Delaware grocery store. Police investigated out of concern the gun could be used in a crime, particularly because the grocery store was in close proximity to a school,” The Daily Wire...

Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren said Thursday that her husband’s cocaine and firearms arrest was politically motivated. The Democrat spoke briefly with reporters, claiming she had done nothing wrong and the police raid on her house and charges against her husband Timothy Granison were an attempt to discredit her reelection campaign. “I find the timing of yesterday’s events, three weeks before early voting starts, to be highly suspicious,” Warren said, in her speech, which was posted by Rochester First. “There’s nothing implicating me in these charges today, because I’ve done nothing wrong. I haven’t spoken to Tim since his arrest, and...

Andrew Broadhurst was filmed by a concerned motorist repeatedly weaving across the road and narrowly missing oncoming vehicles. When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Your information will be used in accordance with ourPrivacy Notice. A man caught behind the wheel almost 16 times over the legal drug-drive limit had earlier got back in his van and continued driving after testing positive for drugs, a court has heard. Andrew Broadhurst was filmed repeatedly weaving across the road and narrowly missing oncoming traffic just hours after he had been been pulled over, tested...