the "Headline That Caught My Attention or the WTF" thread

This one takes Family Christmas Spats to a new low...

Florida teen kills sister during fight over Christmas gifts, sheriff says

The woman, who was holding her infant son, was killed by her 14-year-old brother, who was then shot by his 15-year-old brother. Both boys were in possession of guns.

A Christmas Eve argument between teen brothers over who was getting more gifts ended in tragedy in Florida: A 14-year-old boy shot and killed his sister, who had tried to defuse the fight – and then was shot by his older brother, the local sheriff said.

The brothers – a year apart in age – were Christmas shopping on Sunday with their mother and their sister, Abrielle Baldwin, 23, and her two sons when the argument broke out.


“They had this family spat over who was getting what and how much money was being spent on who,” Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri told a news conference Tuesday.

The argument continued as the family made their way from the store to their grandmother’s house in Largo, Fla. The brothers were each in possession of a gun, the sheriff said.

“They get to grandma’s house [and the 14-year-old] takes out his gun and tells him he’s going to shoot him in the head,” the sheriff said.

The older brother said he didn’t want to fight and asked his younger sibling to get out of the house, he added. Their uncle and sister, Baldwin, attempted to turn the situation around.

“You all need to leave that stuff alone. … It’s Christmas,” Baldwin told them while standing outside the property, according to Gualtieri.

The 14-year-old, after allegedly threatening to shoot his sister and her baby, is accused of shooting Baldwin in the chest while she was holding her son in a carrier at 1:45 p.m. She fell to the ground and was later pronounced dead at a hospital. Her baby was not injured.

Seconds after the shooting, the 15-year-old brother came outside holding his own handgun and shot his younger brother in the stomach, Gualtieri said. The 14-year-old was unarmed when his brother shot him, he said, and is in custody in stable condition at a hospital.

The 15-year-old then fled, tossing his weapon into a yard nearby, Gualtieri said. He was later taken into custody at a relative’s house.

Gualtieri said that both teens were arrested and that only one of the two weapons was recovered at the scene, expressing concern that the missing gun would eventually be picked up and used in another crime. Audio of the incident was captured on a neighbor’s camera, Gualtieri said.

“The problem is, we got way too many kids out there with way too many guns,” Gualtieri said, adding that he hoped gun laws would change. “We need to get serious, and we need to get tough.”

He said prosecutors are reviewing the case and will decide whether to charge the 14-year-old as an adult with first-degree murder.

The 15-year-old will be charged with attempted first-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence, he added. He is being held in a mental health facility after making statements about harming himself, Gualtieri said.

Before the shooting, the 14-year-old posed on Snapchat with the weapon “he used to kill his sister,” Gualtieri said, adding that people who knew the brothers told police that the teens “carried guns all the time.” Gualtieri said that obtaining a gun is “really easy” and that people are either buying stolen ones “cheap on the street” or taking them from unlocked vehicles. Earlier this year, he said, both brothers were arrested for “numerous car burglaries” in their area.

Yeah. If only they didn't have guns, they'd have all lived happily ever after. :rolleyes:
 

Picture this: You're driving your luxurious 2018 Ford F-150 Limited, a high-feature model retailing at over $60,000. Everything is smooth sailing until, boom! A dashboard light flickers, signaling an issue with your blind-spot warning and cross-traffic alert systems. Fast forward, and you're slapped with a repair bill that sends shivers down your spine: $5,600. All because of water damage to your taillights. Yes, you read that right.

We are not alone in this sky-rocketing auto repair universe. According to a recent CNBC News report, car repair costs have surged nearly 20% over the past year, based on the consumer price index. That's a staggering six times the national inflation rate and among the highest annual price increases for any household good or service. If you thought your last mechanic's bill was pricey, you might want to sit down for this one.


So, how does one end up with a $5,600 repair bill for taillights, you ask? Enter mechanic Brian Makuloco and his FordTechMakuloco YouTube channel. His recent episode pulled back the curtains on this automotive horror story. Initially, the truck was brought into Makuloco's shop for issues with its blind-spot warning and cross-traffic alert systems. As an added glitch, the stereo hard keys and HVAC climate-control buttons were entirely unresponsive. That's when the mechanic rolled up his sleeves and dove into the vehicle's medium-speed computer network, used for medium-priority functions like the errant safety systems.

Following a thorough computer diagnosis, Makuloco unearthed the shocking truth: Water had leaked into the tail lights, damaging the truck's safety systems. These systems were all on the same medium-speed computer network, causing a domino effect that crippled the entire network and rendered other functionalities useless.
 
If those batteries ignite, this is going to be one hell of a bonfire, and ecological disaster. Oh, but those batteries might be for those Eco-Friendly EVs...

Fire Breaks Out Aboard Ship Carrying Lithium-Ion Batteries

The vessel, now off the Alaskan coast, is carrying nearly 2,000 tons of lithium-ion batteries, which contain highly flammable materials, officials said.

The authorities on Saturday continued to assess how to fight a fire that broke out two days ago aboard a cargo ship that is carrying nearly 2,000 tons of lithium-ion batteries and was ordered to remain off the Alaskan coast.

The U.S. Coast Guard said there were no injuries to the 19 crew members aboard the vessel, Genius Star XI, and that it remained seaworthy.

The exact cause of the fire was not known and remains under investigation. The Coast Guard was not immediately able to confirm who owns the vessel or say what other cargo it is carrying. The ship’s point of origin and destination were unavailable.

The fire broke out in cargo holds where lithium-ion batteries, which contain highly flammable materials, were being stored.

“These are very hot, very energetic fires,” said Richard Burke, a professor of naval architecture and marine engineering at the State University of New York Maritime College. Such fires can be long-lasting and difficult to put out, he added.

The Coast Guard ordered the vessel to remain two miles offshore from Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and officials established a one-mile safety zone around the vessel for the duration of the response effort.


A fire occurred in two separate cargo holds, said Lt. Cmdr. Michael Salerno, a spokesman for the 17th Coast Guard District, which covers 47,300 miles of shoreline throughout Alaska and the Arctic.

Firefighting systems on the vessel extinguished one of the fires. Members of the crew sealed off the other cargo hold and were taking temperature readings, which were normal as of Saturday, Commander Salerno said.

There were no signs of heat damage outside the cargo hold, and the authorities plan to monitor the temperature to see whether it continues to go down.

A team of marine firefighting experts who boarded the ship on Thursday to assess its condition found no signs of structural deformation or blistering outside the compartment, the Coast Guard said.

That the ship is still intact and afloat is good news for the environment, Professor Burke said.

These ships can carry hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo, such as silk blouses, beer, laptops and other commercial goods, which could potentially contaminate the ocean if the ship were to sink.

“The ship also has fuel,” he noted. “If you lose the ship, the fuel goes into the sea as well.”

While cargo ship fires are infrequent, they are not unheard-of, Professor Burke said.

In July, a cargo ship carrying nearly 3,000 cars off the Dutch island of Ameland in the North Sea caught fire, killing one crew member and injuring 22 others.

In 2022, a cargo ship carrying about 4,000 cars, including Porsches and Bentleys, caught fire 250 miles off the Azores and two weeks later ended up sinking.
 
If those batteries ignite, this is going to be one hell of a bonfire, and ecological disaster. Oh, but those batteries might be for those Eco-Friendly EVs...

Fire Breaks Out Aboard Ship Carrying Lithium-Ion Batteries

The vessel, now off the Alaskan coast, is carrying nearly 2,000 tons of lithium-ion batteries, which contain highly flammable materials, officials said.

The authorities on Saturday continued to assess how to fight a fire that broke out two days ago aboard a cargo ship that is carrying nearly 2,000 tons of lithium-ion batteries and was ordered to remain off the Alaskan coast.

The U.S. Coast Guard said there were no injuries to the 19 crew members aboard the vessel, Genius Star XI, and that it remained seaworthy.

The exact cause of the fire was not known and remains under investigation. The Coast Guard was not immediately able to confirm who owns the vessel or say what other cargo it is carrying. The ship’s point of origin and destination were unavailable.

The fire broke out in cargo holds where lithium-ion batteries, which contain highly flammable materials, were being stored.

“These are very hot, very energetic fires,” said Richard Burke, a professor of naval architecture and marine engineering at the State University of New York Maritime College. Such fires can be long-lasting and difficult to put out, he added.

The Coast Guard ordered the vessel to remain two miles offshore from Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and officials established a one-mile safety zone around the vessel for the duration of the response effort.


A fire occurred in two separate cargo holds, said Lt. Cmdr. Michael Salerno, a spokesman for the 17th Coast Guard District, which covers 47,300 miles of shoreline throughout Alaska and the Arctic.

Firefighting systems on the vessel extinguished one of the fires. Members of the crew sealed off the other cargo hold and were taking temperature readings, which were normal as of Saturday, Commander Salerno said.

There were no signs of heat damage outside the cargo hold, and the authorities plan to monitor the temperature to see whether it continues to go down.

A team of marine firefighting experts who boarded the ship on Thursday to assess its condition found no signs of structural deformation or blistering outside the compartment, the Coast Guard said.

That the ship is still intact and afloat is good news for the environment, Professor Burke said.

These ships can carry hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo, such as silk blouses, beer, laptops and other commercial goods, which could potentially contaminate the ocean if the ship were to sink.

“The ship also has fuel,” he noted. “If you lose the ship, the fuel goes into the sea as well.”

While cargo ship fires are infrequent, they are not unheard-of, Professor Burke said.

In July, a cargo ship carrying nearly 3,000 cars off the Dutch island of Ameland in the North Sea caught fire, killing one crew member and injuring 22 others.

In 2022, a cargo ship carrying about 4,000 cars, including Porsches and Bentleys, caught fire 250 miles off the Azores and two weeks later ended up sinking.
That would be real bad. Everything I read says very hot and very hard to put out. Look what happens when one of the bike batteries goes up.
 

As a record number of migrants invade the U.S., wreaking pain on New York City and other communities, one group is winning big time: the public advocacy lawyers. Their business is to constantly sue to win more so-called rights for migrants. Rights to shelter, rights to meals, rights to health care, even the right to vote in local elections.

Who pays the bills on both sides of these lawsuits? You do. Taxpayer money largely funds these legal combatants, which include the Coalition for the Homeless, Legal Aid Society and Vera Institute of Justice.

You're paying to be legally coerced into providing more for migrants, even at the cost of cutting vital city services – kind of like hiring your own assassin. It's absurd, but it's about to get worse.
 
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