Current Events
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The chief adviser to New York City Mayor Eric Adams resigned without warning over the weekend, as news broke of her impending indictment.
On Sunday (December 15), Ingrid Lewis-Martin, the top adviser to New York City Mayor Eric Adams, resigned from her position. The move comes three months after she was subpoenaed by federal investigators and amid reports that a grand jury is seeking to indict her. Lewis-Martin, 63, said in a statement that she is stepping down to spend more time with her family.
“I thank God, first and foremost, for allowing me to serve the city that I love for close to 35 years through volunteerism and employment,” she said in the statement. “While I previously announced my retirement, this is still a bittersweet moment for me as government has been my life’s work.” Lewis-Martin has been a staunch ally of Mayor Adams for close to four decades, from his time as a New York City Police Department officer to holding the highest position in the city.
In a separate statement, Mayor Adams wrote that she “has not been just a friend, a confidante and trusted adviser, but also a sister.” He continued: “We’ve always talked about when this day would come, and while we’ve long planned for it, it is still hard to know that Ingrid won’t be right next door every day. I, and every New Yorker, owe her a debt of gratitude for her decades of service to our city.”
According to reports, Manhattan prosecutors who have been investigating allegations of corruption by Lewis-Martin have presented evidence to a grand jury, with the possibility of an indictment being announced this week. Federal agents seized her phones in September after she arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport from a vacation to Japan with colleagues. Sources close to the investigation state that the focus is on bribery and money laundering being part of the city’s commercial leasing properties. Federal agents also searched her Brooklyn home and seized the phones of her son and colleagues the same day.
For Mayor Adams, his adviser’s resignation is a gut punch. Lewis-Martin’s departure is the latest in a string of those in his administration who have resigned early and after Adams’ federal indictment in September. Mayor Adams is set to go to trial on charges of corruption in April 2025, months before his re-election campaign officially kicks off.
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Source: Johnny Nunez / Getty
The chief adviser to New York City Mayor Eric Adams resigned without warning over the weekend, as news broke of her impending indictment.
On Sunday (December 15), Ingrid Lewis-Martin, the top adviser to New York City Mayor Eric Adams, resigned from her position. The move comes three months after she was subpoenaed by federal investigators and amid reports that a grand jury is seeking to indict her. Lewis-Martin, 63, said in a statement that she is stepping down to spend more time with her family.
“I thank God, first and foremost, for allowing me to serve the city that I love for close to 35 years through volunteerism and employment,” she said in the statement. “While I previously announced my retirement, this is still a bittersweet moment for me as government has been my life’s work.” Lewis-Martin has been a staunch ally of Mayor Adams for close to four decades, from his time as a New York City Police Department officer to holding the highest position in the city.
In a separate statement, Mayor Adams wrote that she “has not been just a friend, a confidante and trusted adviser, but also a sister.” He continued: “We’ve always talked about when this day would come, and while we’ve long planned for it, it is still hard to know that Ingrid won’t be right next door every day. I, and every New Yorker, owe her a debt of gratitude for her decades of service to our city.”
According to reports, Manhattan prosecutors who have been investigating allegations of corruption by Lewis-Martin have presented evidence to a grand jury, with the possibility of an indictment being announced this week. Federal agents seized her phones in September after she arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport from a vacation to Japan with colleagues. Sources close to the investigation state that the focus is on bribery and money laundering being part of the city’s commercial leasing properties. Federal agents also searched her Brooklyn home and seized the phones of her son and colleagues the same day.
For Mayor Adams, his adviser’s resignation is a gut punch. Lewis-Martin’s departure is the latest in a string of those in his administration who have resigned early and after Adams’ federal indictment in September. Mayor Adams is set to go to trial on charges of corruption in April 2025, months before his re-election campaign officially kicks off.
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Marijuana is legal in the state of California on the medical and recreational level but there are still rules and regulations in place despite this. Authorities in a California town have a major marijuana mystery on their hands after discovering a massive stash of the plant with a reported street value of $100 million.
According to a report from local outlet VVNG, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department entered a home in Oak Hills, just outside of Hesperia, Calif. On Monday, Dec. 9, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Marijuana Enforcement Team entered a home on a search warrant and discovered trash bags of cultivated and packaged products weighing around 90,000 pounds in total.
The property contained a large metal building that caught the eye of investigators, who later revealed the contents within via a statement.
Source: San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department / SBCSD
From the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department website:
On Monday, December 9, 2024, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Marijuana Enforcement Team served a search warrant at a residence along the 5000 block of Honeyhill Road in Oak Hills. The five acre property contained a newly built, 120’ x 40’ metal building, along the east fence line. Inside this metal building, investigators located over 3000 trash bags filled with processed marijuana, stacked over 12 feet high, from end to end of the building. The trash bags each weighed approximately 30 to 50 pounds.
Over the course of two days, the Marijuana Enforcement Team, San Bernardino County Code Enforcement, and California Fish and Wildlife Department, seized 51 truck loads of processed marijuana totaling over 90,000 pounds, with a market value of over $100,000,000.00.
No arrests have been made thus far.
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Photo: Getty/San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department
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Amazon and Meta are contributing $1 million each to the inauguration fund for Donald Trump in an attempt to curry good favor with him.
According to reports, Meta and Amazon are donating $1 million to the inauguration fund for President-elect Donald Trump. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, made its announcement of the move on Wednesday (Dec. 11), weeks after founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Amazon announced its decision the following day, with Trump claiming that he would meet with Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos next week.
In addition, Amazon will livestream the inauguration ceremony on Prime Video, representing an “in-kind” donation totaling up to $1 million. Amazon also did the same with President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021. “Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory,” Bezos wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Nov. 6. “No nation has bigger opportunities. Wishing @realDonaldTrump all success in leading and uniting the America we all love.”
The donations come after Trump’s turbulent history with Amazon and Facebook. Trump opposed a proposed ban on social media giant TikTok, claiming that Meta would benefit if it took place. “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. He also accused Facebook of interfering in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump has also blasted Bezos, calling the “Fake Washington Post” an Amazon lobbying arm and alleging that Amazon was avoiding paying U.S. Postal Service rates in full during his first presidential administration. The two seemed to reconcile after the assassination attempt on Trump’s life in Pennsylvania in July, and Bezos recently said at the DealBook Summit last week that Trump “seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. And my point of view is, if I can help him do that, I’m going to help him, because we do have too much regulation in this country.”
The moves are seen as a way to gain favor with the incoming administration – the Trump team has promised donors who contribute $1 million top-tier benefits, which include six tickets to inaugural events from January 17 to 20 as well as tickets to the ceremony and “an elegant and intimate dinner with President Donald J. Trump and Mrs. Melania Trump” on Jan. 19.
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President Joe Biden is issuing a record-setting amount of pardons and clemency in one day – and states that there will be more to come.
On Thursday, the White House announced that President Joe Biden was issuing clemency for almost 1,500 people sentenced to home confinement and 39 other individuals convicted of non-violent crimes. The executive action is the largest such act of granting clemency and pardons in the history of the presidency. According to the White House, President Biden had already issued more commutations of sentences in his term at this point than any other recent president.
A list of the 39 individuals who received pardons has been released by the White House, along with brief biographies for each of them. Many had been convicted of non-violent crimes and had “proven rehabilitation” through their actions afterward, with many serving in the military, and others serving their communities as nurses and addiction counselors. Some of those receiving commutations to their sentences are expected to be released this month, with others set to be freed in March 2025.
“My administration will continue reviewing clemency petitions to advance equal justice under the law, promote public safety, support rehabilitation and reentry, and provide meaningful second chances,” President Biden said in a statement. According to CNN, Biden is in constant talks with the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney as well as White House Counsel Ed Siskel.
The action comes after the president was under constant criticism from politicians and figures on both sides of the aisle after he moved to issue a blanket pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, at the beginning of the month. Hunter Biden had been convicted on tax charges as well as a charge related to having a firearm. There is no word on whether the president will consider retroactive pardons for political figures who have been marked for retribution by President-elect Donald Trump once he assumes office in late January 2025. Another question will be if President Biden will heed advice from Democratic lawmakers to commute the sentences of the 40 prisoners who remain on federal death row in the nation.
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Source: Jeff Swensen / Getty
The manifesto and online posts of the accused UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione have left many on social media taking constant notice.
The man alleged to have shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Luigi Mangione, has captivated the public since the incident last Wednesday (December 4) and more so as his social media history and manifesto have been revealed. Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein published the manifesto through his Substack on Tuesday (December 10), which he shared in a post on X, formerly Twitter. Klippenstein would later chastise major outlets for not attempting to publish the manifesto in another post.
https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/1866587110641188940
The 262-word letter addressed to “the Feds” was found on Mangione by law enforcement officials who detained him in Altoona, Pennsylvania on Monday (December 9). Mangione called out the United States for having the “most expensive healthcare system in the world,” but being only ranked 42nd in life expectancy across the globe. He attacked UnitedHealthcare in the document, stating that it was the “largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart.” While not naming Thompson, Mangione went on to apologize for any ripple effect of chaos but wrote, “These parasites simply had it coming.” The 26-year-old would go on to say that he respected law enforcement for what they do, and stressed that he worked alone. Mangione ended the manifesto by writing that it was “not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play” — and declared that he’s simply “the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”
Mangione’s social media history has come under scrutiny since his apprehension, primarily on X, formerly Twitter, with some highlighting his first string of posts upon joining the platform back in 2016. Another user named BabsGrey highlighted a connection with books he read on Goodreads and an X-ray of someone getting spinal fusion treatment as his header on X, writing that “he must have gone through some kind of personal hell with insurance.”
Luigi Mangione’s twitter header has this X-Ray and his goodreads has these books…he must have gone through some kind of personal hell with insurance. pic.twitter.com/pJ3366zb5D
— Babs Gray (@BabsGray) December 9, 2024
Another user pointed out that Mangione’s last Goodreads review was of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, where he left five stars. “[H]is last Goodreads log being the Lorax is so funny. he said right that’s enough,” wrote the user named Rocky.
his last goodreads log being the lorax is so funny. he said right that’s enough pic.twitter.com/Il90Qrvzlo
— rocky (@WAYSTIAR) December 9, 2024
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President Joe Biden has named 40 Black women to become federal judges, shattering records and creating a new legacy on the bench.
In the final days of his administration, President Joe Biden is following through on one of his campaign promises to make the federal judiciary more diverse, appointing 40 Black women to the bench. That mark was reached when the United States Senate confirmed Tiffany Johnson on Monday (Dec. 9), to replace U.S. District Judge Steve Jones in the Northern District of Georgia.
The appointment means that Biden has named more Black women to the federal judiciary in history, more than the 26 confirmed during the two terms of President Obama. This also includes his nomination of Ketanji Brown-Jackson, the first-ever Black woman named to the Supreme Court. During President Donald Trump’s administration, there were only two Black women who were among the 234 judicial appointees confirmed, making it seven Black people overall. The numbers are highly significant as Trump is making his return to the White House in January, determined to dismantle government agencies such as the Department of Education and the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. Having Black women judges means that “there is a different kind of voice that can come from the Black female from the bench,” said John Jay College of Criminal Justice Professor-emeritus Delores Jones-Brown.
Having this many Black judges on the federal level is also highly important due to their “cultural presence” in places such as the South. “There are still courts in the Southern states that still don’t look like … the people they serve because Republican senators have blocked all kinds of diverse nominees, or any nominee from the Democratic president,” said Alliance For Justice Vice President of Communications Carolyn Leary Bobb. The confirmation of Johnson makes her the fifth federal judge in the state of Georgia.
Among the 40 Black women federal judges, there is also the first openly LGBTQ judge, Melissa R. DuBose, who will serve the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, and Cristal C. Brisco who will be the first Black judge to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. “Those very district court judges are usually the first ones to hear cases, and they hear many, many, many more than our circuit courts,” said legal scholar Lena Zwarensteyn, who noted that even their dissenting opinions carry so much weight.
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Source: Jeff Swensen / Getty / Luigi Mangione
Following the arrest of Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, things have been quite interesting on social media.
After it was confirmed by law enforcement that Luigi Mangione was a suspect and subsequently arrested in connection with the targeted killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Mangione’s social media accounts became a hotbed for attention.
Like most people his age, the 26-year-old was active on social media platforms like X, Facebook, Instagram, Goodreads, and others. Social media detectives didn’t take long to find his accounts.
At the time of this writing, his accounts on Facebook and Instgram were taken down, his Goodreads account is private,e and his X account is hilariously still active, which should tell you everything about the Elon Musk-owned platform and just how poorly run it is.
Since being pinched (arrested for those who are not hip), Mangione has gained cult-like status among those who feel he is a “hero” and has even gained 100K followers on X.
The Hypocrisy Is Loud On Social Media
There has even been a debate sparking with those on the right, yes, the same people who propped up Kyle Rittenhouse and now recently acquitted Daniel Penny, claiming that leftists are celebrating Mangione allegedly killing Thompson.
One post on X spoke on the hypocrisy going on, saying, “Conservatives condemning Luigi Mangione and calling leftists crazy for supporting him, yet they turned Kyle Rittenhouse into a celebrity after he drove to a BLM protest with an AR-15 and killed 2 people…the math isn’t matching.”
Mangione’s posts on social media have also gone viral, like a post about one of his fish being sucked into a filter and another one about his last log for Goodreads being Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax.
We are truly living in some strange times.
We don’t know if this man did the crime, but if he did, we don’t see him as no John Q either, even though we agree the United States healthcare system and insurance companies are a hot mess.
You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
1. Y’all are very unserious
3. Interesting observation
4. Interesting
5. Of course there are jokes
6. Britney Spears gets him hyped
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Daniel Penny, the former Marine who placed Jordan Neely in a chokehold on a subway train last year, was found not guilty of his death after the jury had deadlocked on a manslaughter charge.
On Monday (Dec. 9), Daniel Penny, who choked fellow subway passenger Jordan Neely on an uptown-bound F train last year, was acquitted on the charge of criminally negligent homicide. The decision came after the jury had previously been deadlocked on a charge of manslaughter, which the presiding judge dismissed last Friday (Dec. 6). The verdict means that the former Marine is a free man.
Neely, a 30-year-old unhoused man, boarded the F train last May shouting loudly and behaving randomly. Penny, 24, managed to get behind Neely and placed him in a chokehold to subdue him, with other passengers assisting. Video footage showed Neely, who is Black, struggling to get out of Penny’s hold for several minutes. Neely would be rushed to the hospital after police arrived, where he died due to compression of the neck, which was confirmed by the medical examiner. Penny would be charged the next month.
The case would become a fiercely debated flashpoint locally in New York City and nationwide, with conservatives and right-wingers rallying around Penny, who is white. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called him a “Good Samaritan.” Observers compared it to the incident 40 years ago where Bernard Goetz, who was white, shot four Black teenagers on the subway claiming he was a target for being mugged by them.
“Jordan Neely was failed by the city’s social service system for years. He was failed by our city when Daniel Penny put him in a chokehold on the subway. And today, Jordan was failed once again, this time by the city’s justice system, following the jury’s decision to acquit Penny of criminally negligent homicide,” wrote City Council members Sandy Nurse, Shahana Hanif, Jennifer Gutiérrez, Carmen de La Rosa, Kevin C. Riley and Crystal Hudson in a joint statement condemning the decision. As Penny was ushered away from the courthouse by his lawyers, Neely’s father, Mr. Zachery, spoke to reporters about the decision while surrounded by supporters, including the Reverend Al Sharpton. “I just want to say I miss my son,” he said after struggling with emotion for several minutes, adding: “It hurts. It really, really hurts.”
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Source: Courtesy / Netflix / Jamie Foxx
Telling his story on his terms, Jamie Foxx revealed to the world and his fans in his new Netflix comedy special Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was what exactly was the medical emergency that almost took his life in 2023.
Screaming “I’m back!” while dancing and exciting the crowd, the talented multihyphenate revealed that doctors at the Piedmont Hospital just 400 yards away from the Atlanta theater saved his life.
Before he revealed the answer to the burning question, what was the “mystery illness” that almost ended his story? Foxx said while fighting tears, “Please, Lord, let me get through this.”
Jame Foxx’s Sister’s Decision To Take Him To The Hospital Saved His Life
As he promised, he told his story, but using comedy, revealing to the crowd, “April 11, I had a bad headache, and I asked my boy for Aspirin. I realized quickly that when you’re in a medical emergency, your boys don’t know what the f*** to do.”
He revealed that before he could even swallow the Aspirin, he was unconscious for weeks, even joking about some lackluster care he received from one doctor before he got to the root of the issue.
“I don’t remember 20 days,” Foxx told the crowd. His friends told him that one doctor they took him to gave him a cortisone shot and sent him on his way. “What the fuck is that?” Foxx joked. “I don’t know if you can do Yelps for doctors, but that’s half a star.”
But his sister, Deidra Dixon, knew her brother was in serious trouble. “She says, ‘Get him in the car. That ain’t my brother right there,’” Foxx revealed. “She drove around — she didn’t know anything about Piedmont Hospital, but she had a hunch that some angels [were] in there.”
At the hospital, doctors told Dixon her brother was “having a brain bleed that has led to a stroke,” and had they not caught it sooner, he would have died. “My sister knelt down outside the operating room and prayed the whole time,” Foxx continued.
He claims it “was kind of oddly peaceful,” speaking of being unconscious and adding, “I saw the tunnel. I didn’t see the light.” Foxx then joked, “It was hot in that tunnel. Shit, am I going to the wrong place in this motherfucker? Because I looked at the end of the tunnel, and I thought I saw the Devil like, ‘C’mon.’ Or is that Puffy [Sean Combs]?”
Jamie Foxx Couldn’t Walk
Following his surgery, the doctor told Dixon he “may be able to make a full recovery, but it’s going to be the worst year of his life.” Foxx concurred: “That’s what it was.”
It was after that Dixon and his daughter Corinne Marie Foxx decided it was time to “cut it all off,” keeping all information from hitting the internet. “They didn’t want you to see me like that. And I didn’t want you to see me like that,” Foxx said while visibly choking up. “I want you to see me like this.”
When Foxx woke up at a Chicago rehabilitation center on May 4, he couldn’t understand why he was in a wheelchair and could not understand why he had a stroke because, as he puts it, “Jamie Foxx doesn’t have strokes.”
Foxx also shared an emotional story about his 14-year-old daughter sneaking into his room with her guitar to play songs for him, which helped his high vitals go down, also saving his life.
The comedian also did impressions of Katt Williams, Donald Trump, Denzel Washington, Dave Chappelle, Mike Tyson, and Jay-Z. He addressed conspiracy theories regarding him being a “clone” and made sure to remind folks he is a musical powerhouse as well.
Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was is now streaming on Netflix.