Two North Carolina University Students Fatally Shot At Party
Two North Carolina A&T students were shot and killed on Sunday. — Alamy Stock Photo
North Carolina A&T State University announced in posts across social media platforms that two of its students, Alisia Dieudonne and Ahmad Campbell, died early Sunday morning after a shooting.
Police said the shooting took place at a party in Greensboro. “Preliminary information gathered by the investigation indicates that in the early morning hours of October 2, 2016, a large party was taking place at 911 Circle Dr.,” the Greensboro Police Department said in a Facebook post. “Shortly after 2:00 a.m., an altercation began and an unknown subject produced a weapon and began firing.”
Dieudonne and Campbell sustained gunshots wounds and were pronounced dead at a local hospital, the department said.
The university notified students about the shooting in an email and described the suspect as a black male. He “was last seen leaving the area in a red vehicle and direction of travel was unknown,” the university wrote, adding that the Greensboro Police Department is investigating the incident.
Trump Supporters Don’t Care About Tax Revelations
"if #Trump deducted his way out of paying taxes & the #IRS agreed with his deductions, what's the problem?"
It remains to be seen how, if at all, the report could impact polling
numbers or even rock Trump’s core base of support just weeks away from
the presidential election. But at least for many of his fans online, the
tax revelations didn’t appear to have much of an immediate impact other
than prompt them to dismiss the Times’ report and defend the
presidential contender.
In posts across social media platforms, Trump’s supporters are asking one main question about his taxes: “Who cares?”
“Makes no difference to me whatsoever,” one user posted in a group called “The Deplorables Donald Trump For President 2016!!!!!!,” which has more than 170,000 members. “Personally I don’t care either,” wrote another.
The same sentiment filled threads on “Trump Train” and “Donald Trump – Made In America,” Facebook groups with more than 43,000 and 51,000 members, respectively.
Many of his supporters went further than declaring they don’t care, and echoed a Saturday statement from the Trump campaign that called Trump “a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required.” The statement neither confirmed nor denied claims made in the Times report that a $916 million loss on Trump’s 1995 tax records could have allowed him to legally avoid paying that same amount in taxes in subsequent years.
“If he doesn’t have to pay and it’s legal, what’s he supposed to do?” one Facebook user posted. “Do they want him to volunteer money to the IRS?”
Public figures on Sunday were also quick to defend Trump, who has not released his tax returns. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani called Trump a genius for how he dealt with the tax code. He said on ABC News’ “This Week” that Trump “would have been a fool not to take advantage of it.”
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the revelations show “what an absolute mess the federal tax code is, and that’s why Donald Trump is the person best positioned to fix it.”
The mounting defense of Trump came just hours after The New York Times reported on three pages of what appeared to be Trump’s returns from 1995. They were obtained by reporter Susanne Craig, who received them in the mail in an envelope with a return address at Trump Tower, the newspaper reported.
Some police agencies have complained that the frequent (and nearly always unfounded) calls of clown sightings are tying up resources, which is not a joke. In White Hall, Arkansas, an officer was suspended without pay for two days after photos of him wearing a clown suit appeared on social media, apparently because his bosses thought he was making light of recent clown threats in the area.
Yet other police departments have decided to have a little fun with this — on social media, because that’s where most of this mass panic is coming from in the first place.
For example, the Putnam County, Florida’s sheriff’s office recently boasted that it was a “clown free zone” and was “committed to keeping our community crime and clown free.”
And then there’s the Rolla, Missouri, police department, which posted the tale of Detective Adam Meyer (thanks Atlas Obscura for figuring out his name and title). Det. Meyer spent the day looking for clowns and then posted his findings on the department’s Facebook page, in an effort to reassure Rollaians not to worry about clown attacks.
The entire thing is worth a read, but to summarize: Nearly everyone who claimed to have seen clowns in the area admitted that they hadn’t actually seen a clown, but had heard of sightings second-hand; two people posing as clowns with scary Facebook accounts were actually children playing pranks; the only people who had truly seen clowns were the victims of a “joke” played by friends who knew they had clown phobias.
And then there was a “young man” who claimed he had been attacked by clowns, but was really just a habitual liar.
“He told me that he lied,” Meyer said. “I of course asked him if he actually had seen any creepy clowns and he began to explain how there were a couple in this other park. I asked him if he was lying again and he said that he was. He quickly admitted that he had not been assaulted, stabbed, threatened, mean mugged or even given a stern talking to by any clown whatsoever. He had not seen a clown, creepy or not, of any kind.”
Meyer’s conclusion was that Rolla’s streets were safe from “creepy killer homicidal clowns.” He then made a mime joke before warning people that putting on a clown mask isn’t illegal in Rolla, but it could prompt a legitimately scared person to attack in self-defense. In that case, Meyer said, Rolla PD will be there to investigate, hopefully with the same gusto it displayed when solving the Case of the Creepy Killer Clowns.
In posts across social media platforms, Trump’s supporters are asking one main question about his taxes: “Who cares?”
“Makes no difference to me whatsoever,” one user posted in a group called “The Deplorables Donald Trump For President 2016!!!!!!,” which has more than 170,000 members. “Personally I don’t care either,” wrote another.
The same sentiment filled threads on “Trump Train” and “Donald Trump – Made In America,” Facebook groups with more than 43,000 and 51,000 members, respectively.
Many of his supporters went further than declaring they don’t care, and echoed a Saturday statement from the Trump campaign that called Trump “a highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required.” The statement neither confirmed nor denied claims made in the Times report that a $916 million loss on Trump’s 1995 tax records could have allowed him to legally avoid paying that same amount in taxes in subsequent years.
“If he doesn’t have to pay and it’s legal, what’s he supposed to do?” one Facebook user posted. “Do they want him to volunteer money to the IRS?”
Public figures on Sunday were also quick to defend Trump, who has not released his tax returns. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani called Trump a genius for how he dealt with the tax code. He said on ABC News’ “This Week” that Trump “would have been a fool not to take advantage of it.”
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the revelations show “what an absolute mess the federal tax code is, and that’s why Donald Trump is the person best positioned to fix it.”
The mounting defense of Trump came just hours after The New York Times reported on three pages of what appeared to be Trump’s returns from 1995. They were obtained by reporter Susanne Craig, who received them in the mail in an envelope with a return address at Trump Tower, the newspaper reported.
Trump Appeared In A Softcore Playboy Video
BuzzFeed News found the 2000 VHS, which shows Trump spilling champagne on a limo
REUTERS
After
escalating his feud with Miss Universe Alicia Machado by accusing her
of having a sex tape, it turns out Donald Trump also has a dirty movie
in his past. The Republican presidential nominee made an appearance in a
2000 Playboy video that features nude women posing in a variety of
sexual and suggestive positions.
Uncovered by BuzzFeed News, Trump can be seen in the video breaking a bottle of champagne on a Playboy-branded limo while many of the playmates visit New York City. “Beauty is beauty, and let’s see what happens with New York,” Trump says.
The cover of the video reads, “From luxuriating in a warm, soapy tub, to reveling at an exclusive nigh club, Carol and Darlene [Bernaola] bare their sex appeal and lead you on a sensual journey of discovery.”
On Friday, Trump said Machado had a “sex tape” — even though it turned out to be a barely viewable night vision video of her having intercourse on a reality show. But even before that, Vocativ found that porn searches on sites such as Pornhub and RedTube, searches for Machado skyrocketed since last Monday’s presidential debate.
Uncovered by BuzzFeed News, Trump can be seen in the video breaking a bottle of champagne on a Playboy-branded limo while many of the playmates visit New York City. “Beauty is beauty, and let’s see what happens with New York,” Trump says.
The cover of the video reads, “From luxuriating in a warm, soapy tub, to reveling at an exclusive nigh club, Carol and Darlene [Bernaola] bare their sex appeal and lead you on a sensual journey of discovery.”
On Friday, Trump said Machado had a “sex tape” — even though it turned out to be a barely viewable night vision video of her having intercourse on a reality show. But even before that, Vocativ found that porn searches on sites such as Pornhub and RedTube, searches for Machado skyrocketed since last Monday’s presidential debate.
Dogged Detective Chronicles His Search For Killer Clowns
Never let it be said that the Rolla Police Department is not thorough.
So the killer clown mass hysteria doesn’t seem to be dying down anytime soon, despite the World Clown Association’s attempt to reassure the world that real clowns are a good and harmless people. On Friday, schools in Reading, Ohio, were closed following an alleged clown attack, during which a clown reportedly threatened local students, and a high school on Long Island, New York, was put on lockdown for “clown-related threats.”Some police agencies have complained that the frequent (and nearly always unfounded) calls of clown sightings are tying up resources, which is not a joke. In White Hall, Arkansas, an officer was suspended without pay for two days after photos of him wearing a clown suit appeared on social media, apparently because his bosses thought he was making light of recent clown threats in the area.
Yet other police departments have decided to have a little fun with this — on social media, because that’s where most of this mass panic is coming from in the first place.
For example, the Putnam County, Florida’s sheriff’s office recently boasted that it was a “clown free zone” and was “committed to keeping our community crime and clown free.”
And then there’s the Rolla, Missouri, police department, which posted the tale of Detective Adam Meyer (thanks Atlas Obscura for figuring out his name and title). Det. Meyer spent the day looking for clowns and then posted his findings on the department’s Facebook page, in an effort to reassure Rollaians not to worry about clown attacks.
The entire thing is worth a read, but to summarize: Nearly everyone who claimed to have seen clowns in the area admitted that they hadn’t actually seen a clown, but had heard of sightings second-hand; two people posing as clowns with scary Facebook accounts were actually children playing pranks; the only people who had truly seen clowns were the victims of a “joke” played by friends who knew they had clown phobias.
And then there was a “young man” who claimed he had been attacked by clowns, but was really just a habitual liar.
“He told me that he lied,” Meyer said. “I of course asked him if he actually had seen any creepy clowns and he began to explain how there were a couple in this other park. I asked him if he was lying again and he said that he was. He quickly admitted that he had not been assaulted, stabbed, threatened, mean mugged or even given a stern talking to by any clown whatsoever. He had not seen a clown, creepy or not, of any kind.”
Meyer’s conclusion was that Rolla’s streets were safe from “creepy killer homicidal clowns.” He then made a mime joke before warning people that putting on a clown mask isn’t illegal in Rolla, but it could prompt a legitimately scared person to attack in self-defense. In that case, Meyer said, Rolla PD will be there to investigate, hopefully with the same gusto it displayed when solving the Case of the Creepy Killer Clowns.
Hamstrung At Home, John Kerry Struggles To Ink Peace Deal In Syria
America’s chief diplomat has taken on Russia and the Syrian civil war with “his hands tied behind his back,” and a president reluctant to act in his final days in office
As long as Assad stays, Kerry has little room to move and even less time — REUTERS
When
former Senator John Kerry leapt at the chance to serve as Secretary of
State, taking center-stage in the hot glare of international diplomacy,
it was likely with moments like the recent opening of the United Nations
General Assembly in mind. Kerry was set to arrive in New York with a
hard-won cease-fire in hand to stop the horrific carnage of the Syrian
civil war. By sheer force of will and determination, Kerry had hammered
out the agreement in seemingly ceaseless negotiations with his Russian
counterpart. With the clock rapidly ticking down for the Obama
administration, it was perhaps Kerry’s final opportunity to tamp down
the fires of a crisis that had burned throughout his tenure as the
country’s top diplomat.
The cease-fire called for Moscow to use its influence to ground the Syrian regime’s air force in exchange for the United States separating U.S.-supported rebels from Islamist extremist groups in Syria. Then both the U.S. and Russian militaries were to work together to strike the likes of the Islamic State and the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. The complex deal he negotiated required a tenuous alignment of interests on the part of myriad players in the conflict, with the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and assorted rebel groups on one side, and Russia, Iran, the Syrian regime and their proxy militias on the other.
And with the ink hardly dry and the cease-fire less than a week old, the deal was blown apart from a direction no one saw coming –– the U.S. military. After an errant U.S. airstrike reportedly killed scores of Syrian troops who were apparently mistaken for terrorists, suspected Russian aircraft bombed a U.N. relief convoy and killed humanitarian relief workers. Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad declared the cease-fire over before it had even taken hold, and together with Russian air forces launched perhaps the most intense bombardment of the five-year war, raining bunker buster and incendiary bombs on hospitals, first-responders and neighborhoods in rebel-held areas of Aleppo that contain an estimated 250,000 civilians.
The failure of yet another U.S.-Russia brokered ceasefire and the renewed slaughter prompted some in Congress to call Kerry “delusional” for trusting the Russians yet again. Instead of celebrating a cease-fire at the UN General Assembly, Kerry was left impotently demanding a halt in the destruction of Aleppo that some have compared to the fire-bombing of Dresden during World War II.
“How can people go sit at a table with a regime that bombs hospitals and drops chlorine gas again and again and again and again and again and again, and acts with impunity,” Kerry said in a special session of the U.N. Security Council on September 21, his frustration and agony over the wanton slaughter in Syria apparent.
As for being delusional for continuing to try and reach a cease-fire with the Russians, Kerry insists he is anything but. “The cause of what is happening is Assad and Russia wanting to simply try to pursue a military victory. And it would be diplomatic malpractice not to try to pursue whether or not through some kind of diplomatic effort you could actually wind up reducing the violence,” Kerry was quoted in the Washington Post. “What’s the alternative? Today’s there’s not a cease-fire, and we’re not talking to [Russia] right now. What’s happening? The place is being utterly destroyed. Okay? That’s not delusional. That’s a fact.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry responded to Kerry’s comments by insisting that the United States was in an “emotional breakdown.”
This week Kerry called Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and threatened to suspend all U.S.-Russian bilateral engagement on Syria unless the evisceration of Aleppo is halted. On September 28, the White House also convened a National Security Council deputies meeting on the Syrian crisis to consider possible options, including additional U.S. military actions that might give Kerry more leverage in his talks with his Russian counterpart. With the clock soon to strike midnight on his White House tenure, however, President Obama is not expected to risk steps that might further ensnare the United States in a Syrian conflict he has avoided for his entire second term.
“The cease-fire Kerry negotiated was predicated on the belief that Russia places high value on a counterterrorism partnership with the United States that would legitimize its presence and actions in Syria, but it’s not clear that Moscow has the influence to impose a cease-fire on Iran and Syria, who are really calling the shots on the ground,” said Faysal Itani, a Syrian expert and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. When the cease-fire broke down Russia paid virtually no penalty, he notes, and Lavrov believes Kerry is so desperate to stop the killing that he’ll inevitably come back to the negotiating table for yet another round.
“It would be uncharitable to blame Kerry for this impasse, because he’s an ambitious and self-confident diplomat who has repeatedly asked the White House for more forceful U.S. military actions to give him leverage in his negotiations with Russia,” Itani said. “The White House has refused, leaving Kerry with really pathetic tools to try and reach a deal. So Kerry going back to the Russians time and again may look bizarre and absurd given the track record, but the only other option is to throw up his hands and quit. Given the huge humanitarian stakes, Kerry doesn’t want to do that.”
The kind of U.S. military action that many experts in the State Department believe are necessary to break the impasse were made clear in an internal memo written last July and signed by 50 U.S. diplomats. The memo called for the “judicious use of standoff and air weapons” against Syrian regime forces, “which would undergird and drive a more focused and hardnosed U.S.-led diplomatic process.”
Other proposed options include arming U.S.-backed rebels in Syria with man-portable, surface-to-air missiles to counter the regime’s airpower. A similar CIA program arming Afghan mujahedeen with Stinger missiles in the 1980s proved decisive in driving the Soviet Army out of Afghanistan. As happened in that instance, however, U.S. government officials worry that some of the missiles would end up in the hands of Islamist extremists groups in Syria, to include the Islamic State and a rebranded Al Qaeda affiliate called the Conquest of Syria Front, both of which could prove a threat to civil aviation. The possibility that they might down a Russian jet with U.S.-supplied weapons adds another element of unpredictability to an already volatile conflict.
Beyond the difficulty of reaching an elusive cease-fire, Kerry’s lack of leverage points to a fundamental asymmetry of interests. Russia and Iran have both committed military forces to backstop the Syrian regime. That commitment gives both nations a greater stake in the conflict, and increased influence in defining the terms of any potential settlement. Nor do U.S. and Russian interests align in terms of a final peace deal.
“The Russians are playing for time in order to strengthen the Syrian regime’s military position, and ultimately bring about a resolution on their terms, which are that Assad should stay as the Syrian leader because there is no viable alternative,” said Andrew Tabler, a Syrian expert and fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “For various political and military reasons, the Obama administration has not been willing to abandon its position that Assad must go. So Kerry has been left trying to bridge that difference with the White House having tied both hands behind his back, and that has done real damage to U.S. credibility and our relations with Russia.”
Retired Ambassador Thomas Pickering is the former U.S. representative to the United Nations, and ambassador to Russia. “I don’t think the Obama administration ever resolved the question of using military force in Syria, and the president was right that military action just for the sake of action is not the answer,” he said in an interview. “But Vladimir Putin has shown that military involvement to increase diplomatic leverage can work. I think we should seriously consider telling the Russians that if they can’t rein in Syria’s air forces, then the U.S. military is prepared to do it. As for the future of Assad, I would adopt an old Henry Kissinger principle that emphasized the long view: he can be in at the beginning of an eventual transition, but he has to be out by the end.”
In the meantime, given the obstacles he has confronted, the meager tools he has been given, and the fact that his latest diplomatic initiative was scuttled in part by a major mistake by the U.S. military, “I think John Kerry is doing remarkable work,” said Pickering.
A civil lawsuit against a Florida sheriff’s deputy became a viral news story after it was revealed that the (now former) deputy Michael Wohlers baked his victim, Stephanie Byron, an apology cake after he tased her.
Accompanying an article about the lawsuit in the Pensacola News Journal was a photo “special to the News Journal” of a, frankly, sloppily decorated cake showing a male stick figure tasing a female stick figure with the words “Sorry I Tased You” on it. It was a ridiculous cake, and several outlets gleefully picked up the story, only to be taken to task by a BuzzFeed reporter who noted that the photo was older than the incident itself by at least a year and pronounced it “#bogus.”
The cease-fire called for Moscow to use its influence to ground the Syrian regime’s air force in exchange for the United States separating U.S.-supported rebels from Islamist extremist groups in Syria. Then both the U.S. and Russian militaries were to work together to strike the likes of the Islamic State and the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. The complex deal he negotiated required a tenuous alignment of interests on the part of myriad players in the conflict, with the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and assorted rebel groups on one side, and Russia, Iran, the Syrian regime and their proxy militias on the other.
And with the ink hardly dry and the cease-fire less than a week old, the deal was blown apart from a direction no one saw coming –– the U.S. military. After an errant U.S. airstrike reportedly killed scores of Syrian troops who were apparently mistaken for terrorists, suspected Russian aircraft bombed a U.N. relief convoy and killed humanitarian relief workers. Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad declared the cease-fire over before it had even taken hold, and together with Russian air forces launched perhaps the most intense bombardment of the five-year war, raining bunker buster and incendiary bombs on hospitals, first-responders and neighborhoods in rebel-held areas of Aleppo that contain an estimated 250,000 civilians.
The failure of yet another U.S.-Russia brokered ceasefire and the renewed slaughter prompted some in Congress to call Kerry “delusional” for trusting the Russians yet again. Instead of celebrating a cease-fire at the UN General Assembly, Kerry was left impotently demanding a halt in the destruction of Aleppo that some have compared to the fire-bombing of Dresden during World War II.
“How can people go sit at a table with a regime that bombs hospitals and drops chlorine gas again and again and again and again and again and again, and acts with impunity,” Kerry said in a special session of the U.N. Security Council on September 21, his frustration and agony over the wanton slaughter in Syria apparent.
As for being delusional for continuing to try and reach a cease-fire with the Russians, Kerry insists he is anything but. “The cause of what is happening is Assad and Russia wanting to simply try to pursue a military victory. And it would be diplomatic malpractice not to try to pursue whether or not through some kind of diplomatic effort you could actually wind up reducing the violence,” Kerry was quoted in the Washington Post. “What’s the alternative? Today’s there’s not a cease-fire, and we’re not talking to [Russia] right now. What’s happening? The place is being utterly destroyed. Okay? That’s not delusional. That’s a fact.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry responded to Kerry’s comments by insisting that the United States was in an “emotional breakdown.”
This week Kerry called Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and threatened to suspend all U.S.-Russian bilateral engagement on Syria unless the evisceration of Aleppo is halted. On September 28, the White House also convened a National Security Council deputies meeting on the Syrian crisis to consider possible options, including additional U.S. military actions that might give Kerry more leverage in his talks with his Russian counterpart. With the clock soon to strike midnight on his White House tenure, however, President Obama is not expected to risk steps that might further ensnare the United States in a Syrian conflict he has avoided for his entire second term.
“The cease-fire Kerry negotiated was predicated on the belief that Russia places high value on a counterterrorism partnership with the United States that would legitimize its presence and actions in Syria, but it’s not clear that Moscow has the influence to impose a cease-fire on Iran and Syria, who are really calling the shots on the ground,” said Faysal Itani, a Syrian expert and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. When the cease-fire broke down Russia paid virtually no penalty, he notes, and Lavrov believes Kerry is so desperate to stop the killing that he’ll inevitably come back to the negotiating table for yet another round.
“It would be uncharitable to blame Kerry for this impasse, because he’s an ambitious and self-confident diplomat who has repeatedly asked the White House for more forceful U.S. military actions to give him leverage in his negotiations with Russia,” Itani said. “The White House has refused, leaving Kerry with really pathetic tools to try and reach a deal. So Kerry going back to the Russians time and again may look bizarre and absurd given the track record, but the only other option is to throw up his hands and quit. Given the huge humanitarian stakes, Kerry doesn’t want to do that.”
The kind of U.S. military action that many experts in the State Department believe are necessary to break the impasse were made clear in an internal memo written last July and signed by 50 U.S. diplomats. The memo called for the “judicious use of standoff and air weapons” against Syrian regime forces, “which would undergird and drive a more focused and hardnosed U.S.-led diplomatic process.”
Other proposed options include arming U.S.-backed rebels in Syria with man-portable, surface-to-air missiles to counter the regime’s airpower. A similar CIA program arming Afghan mujahedeen with Stinger missiles in the 1980s proved decisive in driving the Soviet Army out of Afghanistan. As happened in that instance, however, U.S. government officials worry that some of the missiles would end up in the hands of Islamist extremists groups in Syria, to include the Islamic State and a rebranded Al Qaeda affiliate called the Conquest of Syria Front, both of which could prove a threat to civil aviation. The possibility that they might down a Russian jet with U.S.-supplied weapons adds another element of unpredictability to an already volatile conflict.
Beyond the difficulty of reaching an elusive cease-fire, Kerry’s lack of leverage points to a fundamental asymmetry of interests. Russia and Iran have both committed military forces to backstop the Syrian regime. That commitment gives both nations a greater stake in the conflict, and increased influence in defining the terms of any potential settlement. Nor do U.S. and Russian interests align in terms of a final peace deal.
“The Russians are playing for time in order to strengthen the Syrian regime’s military position, and ultimately bring about a resolution on their terms, which are that Assad should stay as the Syrian leader because there is no viable alternative,” said Andrew Tabler, a Syrian expert and fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “For various political and military reasons, the Obama administration has not been willing to abandon its position that Assad must go. So Kerry has been left trying to bridge that difference with the White House having tied both hands behind his back, and that has done real damage to U.S. credibility and our relations with Russia.”
Retired Ambassador Thomas Pickering is the former U.S. representative to the United Nations, and ambassador to Russia. “I don’t think the Obama administration ever resolved the question of using military force in Syria, and the president was right that military action just for the sake of action is not the answer,” he said in an interview. “But Vladimir Putin has shown that military involvement to increase diplomatic leverage can work. I think we should seriously consider telling the Russians that if they can’t rein in Syria’s air forces, then the U.S. military is prepared to do it. As for the future of Assad, I would adopt an old Henry Kissinger principle that emphasized the long view: he can be in at the beginning of an eventual transition, but he has to be out by the end.”
In the meantime, given the obstacles he has confronted, the meager tools he has been given, and the fact that his latest diplomatic initiative was scuttled in part by a major mistake by the U.S. military, “I think John Kerry is doing remarkable work,” said Pickering.
Cops Still Make A Marijuana Arrest Every 49 Seconds
Sound crazy? That's the slowest rate in 20 years
Illustration: Tara Jacoby
Support
for marijuana legalization might be at a national all-time high, but
not a single minute passes in U.S. without a cop pinching someone for
weed.
Crime data released by the FBI shows that police made 643,000 marijuana-related arrests in 2015, the lowest it’s been in 20 years. That figure still translates to a pot bust every 49 seconds. And nearly nine out of ten of these arrests were for possession as opposed to sale or cultivation, the data shows.
These new numbers come just weeks before nine states will vote on expanding legal access to marijuana, including recreational pot use in California, Massachusetts, Arizona, Nevada, and Maine. Four states — Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska — as well as the District of Columbia have already legalized the drug for recreational use. Medical marijuana is now legal in 25 states as well as D.C.
Despite a growing legal and cultural tolerance, low-level marijuana offenses continued to climb throughout the early 2000s. Weed arrests reached a peak of 872,720 — or an arrest every 36 seconds — in 2007, according to compiled FBI crime statistics. And as recently as 2013, taxpayers spent more than $3.5 billion annually to enforce laws against marijuana possession, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
States that allow recreational marijuana for adults have seen marijuana arrests plummet, data shows. In Colorado, for example, there were 95 percent fewer pot busts in 2015 than there were before the state legalized the drug in 2012. Should voters in places like California, the nation’s most populous state, approve recreational pot use in November, marijuana arrests in the U.S. will almost certainly continue to decline.
But for some advocates it’s not happening fast enough.
“While the numbers are thankfully dropping over time, it’s alarming and simply unacceptable that someone is harassed by the police just for marijuana every 49 seconds in this country,” said Tom Angell of the group Marijuana Majority in an interview with the Huffington Post.
Crime data released by the FBI shows that police made 643,000 marijuana-related arrests in 2015, the lowest it’s been in 20 years. That figure still translates to a pot bust every 49 seconds. And nearly nine out of ten of these arrests were for possession as opposed to sale or cultivation, the data shows.
These new numbers come just weeks before nine states will vote on expanding legal access to marijuana, including recreational pot use in California, Massachusetts, Arizona, Nevada, and Maine. Four states — Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska — as well as the District of Columbia have already legalized the drug for recreational use. Medical marijuana is now legal in 25 states as well as D.C.
Despite a growing legal and cultural tolerance, low-level marijuana offenses continued to climb throughout the early 2000s. Weed arrests reached a peak of 872,720 — or an arrest every 36 seconds — in 2007, according to compiled FBI crime statistics. And as recently as 2013, taxpayers spent more than $3.5 billion annually to enforce laws against marijuana possession, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
States that allow recreational marijuana for adults have seen marijuana arrests plummet, data shows. In Colorado, for example, there were 95 percent fewer pot busts in 2015 than there were before the state legalized the drug in 2012. Should voters in places like California, the nation’s most populous state, approve recreational pot use in November, marijuana arrests in the U.S. will almost certainly continue to decline.
But for some advocates it’s not happening fast enough.
“While the numbers are thankfully dropping over time, it’s alarming and simply unacceptable that someone is harassed by the police just for marijuana every 49 seconds in this country,” said Tom Angell of the group Marijuana Majority in an interview with the Huffington Post.
JUSTICE
The Actually True Tale Of The ‘Sorry I Tased You’ Cake
The viral "hoax" may not be such a hoax after all
Illustration: Diana Quach
A civil lawsuit against a Florida sheriff’s deputy became a viral news story after it was revealed that the (now former) deputy Michael Wohlers baked his victim, Stephanie Byron, an apology cake after he tased her.
Accompanying an article about the lawsuit in the Pensacola News Journal was a photo “special to the News Journal” of a, frankly, sloppily decorated cake showing a male stick figure tasing a female stick figure with the words “Sorry I Tased You” on it. It was a ridiculous cake, and several outlets gleefully picked up the story, only to be taken to task by a BuzzFeed reporter who noted that the photo was older than the incident itself by at least a year and pronounced it “#bogus.”
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