The OOTIKOF, an internationally renowned society of flamers since 1998, invites you to join in the fun. Clicking on Casual Banter will get you to all the sections.
Posts : 111040 Join date : 2014-07-29 Age : 101 Location : A Mile High
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Fri Dec 10, 2021 3:10 am
California cops arrest 180 in takedown of violent gang Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021 | AP
Authorities on Thursday announced the takedown of a Southern California street gang that included 180 arrests and the seizure of illegal gambling machines, drugs and guns.
The investigation into the violent Westside Verdugo gang, which has been based in the San Bernardino area for decades, also helped detectives solve two homicides, authorities said.
David Green, police chief in the city of San Bernardino, announced the arrests in a news conference with California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Jason Anderson, the county's district attorney.
"Members and associates of this gang have committed violent crimes in San Bernardino with no regard for the people in the community who are directly or indirectly harmed,” Bonta said in a statement.
The 180 people arrested include 129 convicted felons, 40 people who are on probation and 12 on parole, Green said in an email.
Investigators on Wednesday executed 34 search warrants in San Bernardino County, officials said. They arrested 31 people and seized 11 firearms.
The probe also targeted the gang's illegal gambling parlors, which allegedly brought in tens of thousands of dollars weekly, authorities said in a statement.
Detectives shut down 30 gambling sites — including some linked to five homicides and other violent crimes this year— and seized more than 100 gambling machines and devices, officials said in the statement.
Authorities also said they seized 92 handguns and 19 assault weapons, nearly $300,000 in cash and hundreds of pounds of narcotics.
The Wise And Powerful Admin
Posts : 111040 Join date : 2014-07-29 Age : 101 Location : A Mile High
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Sat Dec 11, 2021 6:51 am
Mother tried to flush pet monkey down lavatory after offering it cocaine
Posts : 111040 Join date : 2014-07-29 Age : 101 Location : A Mile High
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Fri Dec 24, 2021 12:23 am
Dec 20, 2021
The steamboat geyser YELLOWSTONE has been unusually active in recent months and US Geological Survey experts USGS has announced a compelling reason for an eruption occurring atop a dormant supervolcano. Located in Yellowstone National Park, Steamboat Geyser is the highest active geyser in the world today. And boasting a pair of vents, this unexpected spring has been erupting at "record speeds" since March 2018, the USGS has confirmed.
The Wise And Powerful Admin
Posts : 111040 Join date : 2014-07-29 Age : 101 Location : A Mile High
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Sun Jan 02, 2022 12:30 am
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Sun Jan 09, 2022 7:54 pm
1-9-2022
Family member forced 6-year-old into cold shower as punishment — after it killed him relatives hid the body.
CHICAGO — The 6-year-old North Chicago boy reported missing before his body was found days later in an abandoned northwest Indiana house had been forced into a cold shower by a relative as punishment before he died, Lake County prosecutors told a judge Sunday.
Damari Perry had been forced to stay in the running shower for an unknown amount of time before he began vomiting and became unresponsive Dec. 29, authorities said during a Sunday morning bail hearing for his older brother.
That sibling, Jeremiah R. Perry, 20, was charged with aggravated battery causing great bodily harm to a child younger than 12, concealing a homicidal death and obstructing justice, according to authorities. A judge ordered him held on $3 million bail during the hearing, said Jim Newton, a spokesman for the Lake County (Illinois) state’s attorney’s office.
Damari’s mother, Jannie M. Perry, 38, also faces charges of first-degree murder and concealment of a homicidal death, but her expected appearance was removed from the Sunday court call for unknown reasons. North Chicago police weren’t immediately available for comment.
Another of Damari’s siblings appeared in Lake County juvenile court Sunday on similar charges, but Newton declined to provide details on that case.
During the hearing, Assistant State’s Attorney Kyle Doyle told the court that Damari had apparently misbehaved inside his home last month and the frigid shower was his punishment, according to Newton. Authorities didn’t say which family member forced the boy into the shower. It wasn’t immediately clear what specifically the 6-year-old was being punished for.
Despite the boy’s troubled state, no one in the house sought medical attention and he later died from his injuries, officials said. After Damari’s death, his family took his body to an abandoned house in the 700 block of Van Buren Street in Gary, Indiana.
Damari was reported missing Wednesday by his mother and a sibling, and the family at first told police he might be in Skokie, which turned out to be a “completely false” story contradicted by evidence and resulting in the obstructing justice charges, according to the state’s attorney’s office.
Then investigators quickly turned their focus to the boy’s home in North Chicago and the three were arrested Friday night. The boy’s body was discovered in Indiana early the next day.
Damari’s tragic death is eerily similar to that of 5-year-old Andrew “AJ” Freund, of northwest suburban Crystal Lake, who authorities said died in April 2019 after his parents put him in a cold shower “for an extended period of time” as punishment before he was beaten and put to bed naked, wet and cold.
After finding him dead early the next morning, his father allegedly stored the boy’s body in a plastic tote in the basement before burying his body a few towns away — three days before reporting him missing to police. The FBI was called in to assist on that case, just as with Damari.
AJ’s parents, JoAnn Cunningham and Andrew Freund Sr., were charged in connection with AJ’s death not long after AJ’s body was found in a shallow grave near Woodstock. Both were held on $5 million bail before trial and later were convicted.
Cunningham, 37 at the time, was sentenced to 35 years in prison, which some family members felt was not a harsh enough sentence. Even McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally said his team was disappointed Cunningham did not receive the maximum 60-year prison term allowed under a plea deal his office reached with defense attorneys. She faced a minimum of 20 years.
Andrew Freund Sr., then 61, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, aggravated battery of a child and concealment of a homicidal death. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
AJ also had a younger brother who, although displaying no visible signs of abuse or neglect at the time of the investigation, was placed with a licensed foster parent.
Similarly, all other children in the Perry family home were placed in the custody of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, authorities said.
Damari’s father is not implicated in connection with his son’s death. Calls to Damari’s father and other relatives were not returned Sunday night.
Jeremiah Perry is scheduled to return to court Tuesday.
An autopsy is expected to be performed Monday in Lake County, Indiana, to determine Damari’s cause and manner of death.
Chicago Tribun
The Wise And Powerful Admin
Posts : 111040 Join date : 2014-07-29 Age : 101 Location : A Mile High
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Wed Jan 12, 2022 2:39 am
Desperate Kim Jong Un Pleads With Citizens to Make More Poop Donald Kirk Tue, January 11, 2022, 7:00 PM
SEOUL—North Korea is placing as much emphasis on producing manure as it is on firing missiles, and it doesn’t matter whether it comes from people or animals.
While test-firing two missiles in less than a week, North Korea has been waging “the battle for manure,” which is far more vital for average North Koreans than the splash of another test-shot into the sea off the east coast.
The quest has reached crisis level over the past two years as fertilizer almost stopped coming in from China after North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un closed borders at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. And then, last March, the North refused donations from South Korea while demanding an end to U.S. and UN sanctions.
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Sun Jan 16, 2022 6:11 pm
1-16-2022
Tulsa pastor spits on his hand and smears it on parishioner to prove trusting God isn't easy.
Tulsa, Oklahoma Pastor Mike Todd delivered a sermon to parishioners Sunday titled "Receiving vision from God might get nasty."
To illustrate his point, he had a man on stage with him, and while speaking to him, he snorted all of the mucus he could muster from his nose and sinuses into his mouth and spit into his hand.
The Transformation Church leader held the mucus and saliva mix as he told the flock that trusting the Lord can be difficult. Sometimes it can be outright disgusting. But the righteous can face anything.
He then smeared the mucus on the forehead and cheeks of the man next to him. The audience erupted with "ew" sounds.
As the man stood with mucus visibly stuck to his cheeks, Pastor Todd explained, "How you just reacted, is how the people in your life will react when God is doing what it takes for the miracle."
According to studies, COVID-19 has spread through the larger aerosolized droplets of spit within things like coughs or sneezes.
Pastor Todd worked with Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R-OK) in a state-wide day of prayer to protect the state from the pandemic. Sadly, more Oklahomans have died since that day of prayer than before it.
directorate Regular Member
Posts : 5789 Join date : 2017-05-22
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Wed Feb 09, 2022 1:35 am
The Wise And Powerful Admin
Posts : 111040 Join date : 2014-07-29 Age : 101 Location : A Mile High
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Thu Feb 10, 2022 3:32 pm
Solar storm knocks out 40 newly launched SpaceX satellites
Posts : 111040 Join date : 2014-07-29 Age : 101 Location : A Mile High
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Sun Feb 20, 2022 8:43 pm
Is it a requirement to have your brains and courage removed along with your sense of responsibility to the troops you “lead” in order to become a general officer or is it only a requirement for the top generals?
The Wise And Powerful Admin
Posts : 111040 Join date : 2014-07-29 Age : 101 Location : A Mile High
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Wed Mar 09, 2022 9:38 pm
Russia increases censorship with new law: 15 years in jail for calling Ukraine invasion a 'war'
“War” and “invasion” are two words that can land someone in prison for up to 15 years under a new Russian law.
Those words are “fake news" in the eyes of Russian lawmakers and President Vladimir Putin, who last week passed a law criminalizing the intentional spread of information that goes against the government’s narrative about what the country prefers to call a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
As Russia grows increasingly isolated from the Western world as a result of sanctions and bans, the Kremlin has, in some ways, embraced the isolation by pushing out non-Russian speech and press.
The bill was quickly passed through both houses of the Kremlin-controlled parliament and signed by Putin on March 4.
Newsrooms, both Russian and foreign, scrambled to protect their reporters: CNN stopped live broadcasting in Russia, while the BBC suspended its journalists’ work there. But the law doesn’t stop with news outlets: TikTok suspended livestreaming and new content from Russia, saying the new law left the social media giant “no choice.”
Experts told USA TODAY that Russia has been clamping down on free speech and independent press for years – even decades – without such momentous reaction. The country has even passed a number of similar laws in the past.
This time, the implications could be much more dangerous.
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Thu Mar 10, 2022 6:37 pm
3-10-2022
Jussie Smollett sentenced to 150 days for hate crime hoax scheme.
On Thursday, WGN9 reported that actor Jussie Smollett has been sentenced to 150 days in jail, plus 30 months' probation and a combined $145,000 in fines and restitution to the city of Chicago for his hate crime hoax.
According to the report, Smollett became emotional upon the handing down of the sentence, shouting, “I am not suicidal and I did not do it.”
Smollett, who had a key role on the show "Empire," was found guilty on 5 of 6 counts last December for the incident, in which he claimed that Donald Trump supporters committed a racist and homophobic hate crime against him in Chicago, attacking him in ski masks, placing a noose around his neck, and proclaiming "this is MAGA country."
Police investigating the incident quickly found inconsistencies in his story, unraveling the entire incident as fabricated and Smollett as having paid his supposed attackers to stage the whole thing.
The Wise And Powerful Admin
Posts : 111040 Join date : 2014-07-29 Age : 101 Location : A Mile High
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Sat Mar 12, 2022 2:09 am
The Wise And Powerful Admin
Posts : 111040 Join date : 2014-07-29 Age : 101 Location : A Mile High
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Sun Mar 13, 2022 1:40 pm
Jussie Smollett Placed In Psych Ward At Cook County Jail, Brother Claims On Instagram By Bruce Haring March 13, 2022 11:28am
Authorities are apparently taking no chances on Jussie Smollett’s safety while incarcerated at the Cook County jail.
Reacting to Smollett’s outburst upon being sentenced Thursday for his conviction on charges related to drumming up a hate hoax. authorities have placed him in a psychiatric ward. That’s typically where high-profile prisoners are kept.
Smollett yelled to the courtroom upon his conviction that he was not suicidal and would not kill himself while in custody. The statement was seen as a nod to other famous and infamous inmates like Jeffrey Epstein and John McAfee, who both allegedly committed suicide while incarcerated.
“Jussie is currently in a psych ward at the Cook County Jail,” Jocqui Smollett said in a video posted to the Empire actor’s Instagram. “What’s very concerning is that there was a note attached to his paperwork today and put on the front of his jail cell saying that he’s at risk of self-harm.”
Jocqui added, “I want to just make it clear to folks that he is in no way, shape, or form at risk of self-harm. And he wants to let folks know that he is very stable, he is very strong, he is very healthy, and ready to take on the challenge that ultimately has been put up against him.”
Smollett was sentenced to 150 days in jail, 30 months of probation, restitution of $120,106, and a fine of $25,000 on Thursday for his part in orchestrating a hate hoax.
The actor repeatedly shouted, “I am not suicidal, and I am innocent” as he exited on Thursday.
“You’re just a charlatan, pretending to be a victim of a hate crime,” Judge Linn said to Jussie Smollett during Thursday’s sentencing. She added that the actor’s name “has “has become an adverb for ‘lying,’” and that “there is nothing that I will do here today that can come close to the damage you’ve already done to your own life.”
Temple Regular Member
Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Sun Mar 13, 2022 4:15 pm
I liked the series Empire- However; I never liked Smollett/Jamal - he was a character I didn't care for him- I didn't notice or missed him during the last episodes.
directorate Regular Member
Posts : 5789 Join date : 2017-05-22
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Wed Mar 16, 2022 10:00 pm
Temple Regular Member
Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Thu Mar 24, 2022 7:43 pm
3-24-2022
'I regret going': Protester says he has nothing left after giving life savings to 'Freedom Convoy'.
A man who got involved with the anti-vaccine mandate "Freedom Convoy" protests in Canada now says he regrets going -- in no small part because he gave the convoy his entire $13,000 life savings
In an interview with CBC, Martin Joseph Anglehart said that he got involved in the convoy protests earlier this year even though he "never had a stance" on the vaccine mandates.
He says he started out delivering fuel and laundry to the protesters as they occupied major cities, including key bridges that are used as major trade routes.
Soon, however, Anglehart's participation became much more costly.
"From Jan. 28 to Feb. 14, bank statements provided to CBC show Anglehart transferred thousands of dollars and spent thousands more at a gas station near Coventry Road — where he was stationed for the majority of the protest," reports the CBC. "Anglehart is currently living out of his SUV, as he said his landlord kicked him out over his 'point of view' concerning the protest."
Anglehart tells CBC that he regrets that he now has "nothing left" -- and also that the protest disrupted life for so many Ottawa residents.
"I would like to apologize to [the] people in Ottawa," Anglehart now says. "I'm sorry... All I wanted was to help people."
Temple Regular Member
Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Tue Apr 19, 2022 9:54 pm
4-19-2022
Roseanne Barr pleads her case in upcoming documentary.
Roseanne Barr fans wanting to see the disgraced comic on TV again are in luck, thanks to a documentary airing this weekend on Reelz.
In a preview posted Tuesday, the Daily Beast says “Roseanne: Kicked Out of Hollywood” takes a very sympathetic look at the former sitcom star’s sudden fall from grace after she tweeted that Valerie Jarrett, who was senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, is what it would look like if the “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby.”
Almost immediately, her successfully rebooted program ‘90s show “Roseanne” was canceled as was the star herself, she protests.
According to the Daily Beast, Barr, 69, said her “rock ‘n’ roll” mindset, which included pills, contributed to the ill-advised tweet that preceded her fall.
“Everyone was begging me to give up my Twitter. Everyone,” Barr reportedly said. “My kids were trying to lock me out, but I wouldn’t! Because it’s like, I just couldn’t. I’m a godd— American. I’m not going to do it. I’m a comic, I’m a bad girl, I’m too rock ‘n’ roll. I’m going to say fuck it and fuck you 'til I take my last breath.”
But even still, Barr insists she wouldn’t have sent the racially insensitive tweet about Jarrett — which she said caused the May 2018 cancellation of her show 40 minutes later — if she’d been clearheaded.
“I did something I wouldn’t do if I hadn’t been on that Ambien,” she insists. “It makes you do a lot of crazy shit.”
Ambien is a powerful sleeping pill with side effects that include memory loss, abnormal thoughts, confusion and aggressive behavior, according to WebMD.
She also argues she was “really p—ed” the day she posted her nasty message.
Barr, who reportedly calls her plight a “witch-burning,” is defended on the Reelz 90-minute documentary by celebrities including Mo’Nique amd Howie Mandel, the Daily Beast said.
Her boyfriend Johnny Argent reportedly argued that the writer’s room on Barr’s show “would not accept” her politics, which were famously pro Donald Trump, for which there was mutual admiration.
“It was politically expedient for them to s— on my name,” complained Barr who, along with Argent, insists the mother of five is not a racist.
Barr told the New York Times that then-President Trump called her in March 2018 to congratulate her on the revival of a show that was “about us.”
Her “Roseanne” castmates continued on without their matriarch to do the ABC sitcom “The Conners,” which is in its fourth season.
Co-star Sara Gilbert said after Barr’s infamous tweet that the situation was “incredibly sad and difficult,” but said the entire cast had created a show they were proud of “that is separate and apart from the opinions and words of one cast member.”
Gilbert tweeted she was “disappointed in (Barr’s) actions to say the least.”
Actress Emma Kenney tweeted in 2018 that she had called her manager to quit the show when she learned “Roseanne” had been nixed.
Actor Michael Fishman played Barr’s son D.J. on the original “Roseanne” and its reboot. He called her comments “reprehensible.”
People magazine reports that Barr accused Fishman of knowing she created the show to celebrate “inclusivity” and added, “You throw me under the bus. Nice!”
ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey denounced Barr’s comments as “abhorrent” and “repugnant.”
The 90-minute Reelz show airs at 8 p.m. ET Sunday. Its promo describes Barr as a “cancel culture casualty” and celebrates her as “America’s Domestic Goddess.”
The Wise And Powerful Admin
Posts : 111040 Join date : 2014-07-29 Age : 101 Location : A Mile High
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Thu Apr 21, 2022 3:39 pm
False alarm: U.S. Capitol evacuated for air demo
The Wise And Powerful Admin
Posts : 111040 Join date : 2014-07-29 Age : 101 Location : A Mile High
Subject: Re: News You Might Have Missed Wed Apr 27, 2022 3:32 pm
Congresswoman Maxine Waters isolating after testing positive for COVID BY MADELINE SPEAR APRIL 27, 2022 / 11:54 AM / CBS LOS ANGELES
Congresswoman Maxine Waters is isolating after testing positive for COVID-19.
Waters released the following statement after receiving a positive result for COVID-19.
"Today, I have received a positive test result for COVID," she said. "I am currently isolating and have no symptoms. I am following all protocols as recommended by the Office of the Attending Physician and CDC guidance."
Waters said she is grateful to be fully vaccinated and to have received two booster shots. She also recommended everyone to get vaccinated if they have not been already.
The diagnosis comes a day after Vice President Kamala Harris announced she had tested positive for COVID.
Home 
