[FoxBusiness] Three Los Angeles-area residents were recently convicted in an unusual insurance fraud scheme using a person in a bear costume to fake attacks on high-end vehicles to collect insurance payouts.
As part of the California Department of Insurance's Operation Bear Claw, Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Valley Village; Ruben Tamrazian, 26, of Glendale; and Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, of Glendale, pleaded no contest to felony insurance fraud and were sentenced to 180 days in jail and two years of supervised probation and were ordered to pay restitution.
A fourth suspect, Ararat Chirkinian, 39, of Glendale, is scheduled to return to court in September for a preliminary hearing.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A Chicago criminal notorious for livestreaming the racist torture of a disabled white teenager has been arrested again.
Tesfaye Cooper, 30, who served a seven-year prison sentence for the 2017 on-camera incident, was arrested on April 8 after allegedly chasing down and mugging a cyclist near a train station in the city.
He was taken into custody alongside Mazi Pearson, 33, who also had active warrants for failing to appear in court on four pending felony court cases, reports CWB Chicago.
The two men allegedly chased and robbed the white cyclist when the victim waved at them, which led them to shout that they are 'GDs', or 'Gangster Disciples', police said.
Cooper and Pearson allegedly chased the man into the train station, punched and spat at him, before stealing his bike and fleeing.
Police captured the two men soon after, and Pearson was allegedly found with ten bags of heroin and four bags of cocaine. Pearson was charged with robbery and possession of a controlled substance, and Cooper was charged with robbery.
The incident comes just two years after Cooper finished serving his seven-year prison stretch for the torture of the disabled 18-year-old.
Cooper and three others brutally tortured and racially abused the teenager while livestreaming it on Facebook Live. The violent incident generated such outrage that then-President Barack Obama even expressed his horror at it.
Cooper was caught by police following the torture of the teenager alongside Jordan Hill, Tanishia Covington, and Brittany Covington.
The gang kidnapped and tied up the victim in a Chicago apartment as they physically tortured and racially abused him on the livestream.
They could be heard shouting 'f*** white people' and 'f*** Trump' during the ordeal.
During the days-long torture campaign, Hill also called the victim's mother and demanded $300 in ransom for his return.
The victim was kidnapped on New Year's Eve after telling his parents he was meeting Hill at a McDonald's and staying at his home.
Instead, Hill drove the victim around in a stolen van for a couple of days, ending up at a home in Chicago, where two of the other suspects lived.
Horrific livestream footage showed the victim with tape over his mouth and his hands tied as he was beaten and abused for hours at a time.
The victim eventually escaped and a police officer spotted him wandering down a street, bloodied and disoriented.
Following the gang's arrests, they were all given plea deals, with Brittany Covington avoiding jail time and being handed a sentence of four years' probation.
Tanishia Covington was handed three years behind bars, Cooper was given seven and Hill eight.
The relatively light sentences sparked backlash at the time as gory details of the victim's torture emerged.
The gang had gagged the victim for days, cut out part of his scalp with a knife, and forced him to drink from a toilet, police said.
Prosecutors said the gang's livestream stayed up on Facebook for over half an hour, while the victim's abuse lasted over three days.
When Cooper was sentenced, the victim's family said they went out of their way to ensure he would receive support services when he was freed from prison.
The judge in the case told Cooper: 'They’re interested in making sure … that there are some resources that are available that will help you... To make you understand that hatred is not something that is going to be a possibility for you when you get out.'
[FoxNews] An investigation in New Orleans discovered high levels of lead contamination in playgrounds all over the city, despite previous efforts to rid them of the health hazard.
Now, city officials are racing to secure $5 million in federal aid to clean up the soil where local children play.
In February, Verite News reporters tested more than 80 playgrounds across the city, finding that 50% of the sites harbored lead levels that experts deem unsafe.
Children younger than age 6 are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning, which health institutions claim[?] can severely affect growth and brain development.
"Through internal cross-departmental working groups and the Mayor’s NORD task force, we are aligning public health, recreation, capital projects and community partners to compile a full assessment of playground conditions, act decisively to prioritize remediation, and ensure that facilities remain safe for every child and family."
[breathe]
"At the same time, we are actively pursuing additional external funding to expand our capacity, accelerate improvements, and ensure that long-term protections are in place."
#1
New Orleans. Well, when you're flooded in the Hurricane right next to the downflow from the Mississippi river, its a surprise the whole city wasn't tested immediately afterward. I doubt the contamination is limited to public parks.
…whose mother calls him Ramsey Khalid Ismael. He claims a Somali father and an Ethiopian mother, and that he was once a child soldier and pirate in the Somali civil war. He also was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 2000, so he definitely has an active imagination. He’s been banned from Twitch, Kick, Rumble and Parti for being a stupid idiot, and has been arrested in various countries, including Japan and Israel…
the obnoxious streamer who went overseas and committed some heinous acts for views, likes, cash and prizes, has been sentenced to PRISON by a South Korean judge. Good.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/17/2026 10:39 Comments ||
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#4
Koreans don’t mess around. Remember the Rooftop Koreans during the Los Angeles riots? And that idiot college kid from Cincinnati, Otto Warmbier, who stole a propaganda poster while on a quick tour to North Korea, and was sent home a year into a 17 year prison sentence so severely brain damaged that his parents turned off the machines a week later?
[Forbes] On Monday, the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) released its annual Internet Crime Report, which found a 26% increase in cybercrime losses between 2024 and 2025, with a total of $20.88 billion lost in 2025.
The report, based on over a million complaints, found that cybercrime is on the rise with threat actors maintaining well-coordinated and targeted operations. Investment-related fraud and business email compromise (BEC) were two of the biggest threats last year, accounting for the majority of losses.
At the same time, the FBI found that many hackers were using AI to target victims, receiving more than 22,000 complaints related to this category with losses exceeding $893 million.
As AI tools become more advanced, the level of risk enterprises are exposed to is increasing. Now, security teams need to be prepared to protect their environments in a world where threat actors can create convincing scams at scale with just a few prompts.
[FoxNews] Texas is emerging as the nation’s leading economic engine and corporate America is following its lead, with companies rethinking where they call home. Beyond attracting investments, creating jobs and encouraging long-term growth, Texas saw a 10.1% increase in economic output per-capita from 2021 through 2024.
With the state’s thriving economy, the corporate exodus to Texas is no coincidence. Texas's economy continues to outpace the national average and ranks No. 1 in job creation. In March alone, 26 new projects were announced in locations across Texas, which are expected to create more than $20.5 billion in capital investment and 1,241 new jobs.
Supported by its pro-growth policies that advance freedom for companies and consumers alike, Texas is opening a new frontier in its growth story: attracting companies’ legal incorporations and their headquarters.
[ZERO] A 19-year-old Afghan national has been arrested and charged following a series of brutal sexual attacks on goats and sheep in Pennes-Mirabeau, a municipality in Bouches-du-Rhône, near Marseille.
The suspect was taken into custody by the anti-crime brigade (BAC) on the night of April 9-10, 2026, after local sheep and goat owners alerted police.
Since early 2026, several owners had discovered their animals injured, with incidents reported in both February and March.
The animals had their legs tied and showed clear signs of rape, according to French newspaper La Provence.
After multiple similar episodes, the owners installed motion-sensor cameras on their properties in an attempt to identify the perpetrator.
The footage revealed the silhouette of a young man visiting their livestock at night, and the images were handed over to police, who were eventually able to identify a matching suspect.
The man appeared before a judge on Saturday, April 11, who ordered his placement in pre-trial detention. He was set to appear in court on Monday, April 13.
He faces up to three years in prison and a €45,000 fine for acts of cruelty toward domesticated animals.
The case has drawn the attention of the Animal Protection Association (SPA), which announced it would pursue civil action in the matter.
"[We] are going to take this barbarian to court," the SPA declared.
"Thank you to the national police for their essential intervention."
#7
Just another cultural impedance mismatch in Islam vs Western Civ. As I understand, if you are a follower of Big Mo, boinking the livestock is cool as long as you don't eat the meat. Or sell it in your own village.
[Breitbart] The feature is meant to “satisfy users’ toilet needs on long journeys, while camping or while staying in the car” engineers explained in Seres’ patent filing in China on 10 April, as per the BBC.
Seres, an electric vehicle manufacturer based in the south-west city of Chongqing, has not announced any cars that have toilets and it is uncertain if any will be made.
Still, the company is proud to announce its patent and achievement.
The patent filing sets out in detail Seres’ plans for a facility that slides out from the bottom (no pun intended) of a passenger’s seat with a push or through voice-activated commands.
The on-the-go lavatory can be accessed manually through pushing the seat back, as well as through vocalising “start up toilet function,” the Hong Kong Standard reports.
Importantly, the toilet will come with a fan and exhaust pipe to channel odors out of the car, according to the filing on China’s intellectual property administration seen by the BBC. Hey, NASA
[FoxNews] Three Navy sailors were injured Tuesday after a small fire broke out aboard aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia.
A Navy spokesperson told Fox News Digital the fire was immediately contained and extinguished by the ship's force and Norfolk Navy Shipyard personnel, who "all responded swiftly as trained to do so."
Three sailors were treated by the ship's medical team for minor injuries and returned to full duty, according to the spokesperson.
It is unclear where the fire originated, as the Navy said the fire remains under investigation.
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has been moored at the shipyard for more than a year following a nine-month deployment to the Red Sea in 2023, defending against drone and missile attacks from Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, Fox News Digital previously reported.
It is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance including comprehensive work on the carrier’s propulsion systems, crew habitability, combat systems and aviation support capabilities, according to the Navy.
In addition to routine maintenance, upgrades to critical systems will ensure the carrier remains mission-ready and extends its operational effectiveness.
Ethylene glycol is used as a de-icing fluid for windshields and aircraft Potassium_permanganate has a great variety of niche uses such as biocide for water treatment purposes
#2
FWIW:
The fire in the laundry of the Ford seems to have been driven largely by a Navy 'Green' initiative. Seems that Navsea decided to change from a steam clean process to an ozone cleaning system, because new. You can imagine what fighting a fire with ozone generators would be like.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/17/2026 8:06 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
