Pharmacy giant Walgreens has closed its 10th store in the San Francisco area, prompting residents to blame rampant shoplifting caused by the city’s soft-on-crime policies.
Crime
Too many Black and Indigenous people are in prison. Researchers say mandatory minimum sentences are part of the problem
The federal government’s criminal justice reform bill has generally been described as a good first step in tackling the overrepresentation of Indigenous and Black people in the justice system.
But it’s also sparked the question: Why not go even further with Bill C-22?
The bill would repeal mandatory minimum penalties for all drug offences and some firearm offences, expand the use of conditional sentences such as house arrest, and urge police and prosecutors to use discretion in order to keep drug possession cases out of the justice system.
WARNING: Archived Toronto Star article.
Virtue-signalling Liberals strike out on preventing violent crime
Violent crime is a serious problem. It requires serious solutions. Unfortunately, Canadians will not get them from our current government. In less than a year, the Trudeau government has taken three swings at violent crime and missed every time. Their “solutions” will cost billions and may increase Canadians’ exposure to violent crime.
A New Crime Wave—and What to Do About It
New York City rejected the policing lessons that led to its success, and violence is surging.
For two decades, many New Yorkers had assured themselves that a return to the crime and squalor of the early 1990s was unlikely. Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who presided over a 62 percent drop in major felonies from 1994 through 2001, proved that violence was not an urban inevitability. His successor, Michael Bloomberg, drove crime down further, through the 2008 recession and beyond. Both mayors set a benchmark for what was possible, preemptively discrediting any future mayor’s excuse that crime was beyond his capacity to overcome.
Asian-Americans Under Attack?
Blame our soft-on-crime leaders.
Late last month, 84-year-old Vichar Ratanapakdee was taking a morning stroll in his San Francisco neighborhood when 19-year-old Antoine Watson charged him, shoving the older man to the ground. Ratanapakdee never regained consciousness—police found him on the street, dead from a brain hemorrhage.
Sons of bureaucrat fired after COVID-19 fraud are suing the Ford government for $1M, alleging they’re the real victims!
Sons of bureaucrat fired after COVID-19 fraud are suing the Ford government for $1M, alleging ‘indifference’ to theft
Two sons of the Ontario bureaucrat fired after the alleged theft of $11 million in COVID-19 relief funds are each suing Premier Doug Ford’s government for $1 million for “psychological” damages, the Star has learned.
Chinmaya Madan, 27, and Ujjawal Madan, 24, served the province with counter claims Friday charging the government’s “allegation of conspiracy” against them is “preposterous” and “has been advanced recklessly and maliciously.”
The brothers allege they are “victim(s) of identity theft committed by (their) own father,” because hundreds of bank accounts were opened in their names without their knowledge.
They’re the real victims!
Four charged in Sydney and Canada over alleged extortion attempt of senior Iraqi MP
Four people have been charged in Sydney and Canada over alleged attempts to extort $10 million from a senior Iraqi politician, after what was described as a year-long campaign of intimidation.
Dual raids were launched at dawn on Wednesday after a string of attacks on a Sydney home and online extortion attempts linked to an address in Canada.
The target was the family of a “very senior politician” who is a dual Australian and Iraqi citizen and “spends almost all of his time in Iraq”, Australian police said.
Charges stayed in one of Ontario’s largest Mob busts after alleged illegal conduct by investigators
One of the largest police investigations into organized crime in Ontario’s history has fallen apart after police allegedly illegally intercepted phone calls as part of a multimillion-dollar probe into suspected Mob activity in the Greater Toronto Area, CBC News has learned.
The operation, dubbed Project Sindacato, resulted in charges against nine people in Canada who police alleged were part of a criminal organization with ties to the Mob in Italy.
On Jan. 27, prosecutors stayed the charges against six of the accused, including alleged boss Angelo Figliomeni, after defence lawyers raised concerns that investigators committed “significant breaches of solicitor/client privilege.” Three of the accused previously had their charges stayed in 2020.
This seems an odd “own goal,” lawyer client privilege is a fundamental precept. Ain’t it?
Oklahoma man accused of cutting neighbor’s heart out, feeding it to his family
Lawrence Anderson allegedly stabbed Andrea Lynn Blankenship, 41, to death in her Chickasha home on Feb. 9, The Oklahoman reported.
“He took the heart back to 214 West Minnesota, Chickasha,” an agent with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation wrote in a search warrant obtained by the outlet.
Malcolm X family demands reopening of murder investigation
The daughters of assassinated US black civil rights leader Malcolm X have requested that the murder investigation be reopened in light of new evidence.
They cite a deathbed letter from a man who was a policeman at the time of the 1965 killing, alleging New York police and the FBI conspired in the murder.
Raymond Wood wrote his responsibility was to ensure Malcolm X’s security team were arrested days before he was shot dead in Manhattan, his family says.
Three men were convicted of the murder.
Brother vs. sister: Two of Barry and Honey Sherman’s children in a battle for control of the family empire
I popped my head into Jack Kay’s office at Apotex in the early fall of 2018, looking for a detail to help flesh out what seemed an apocryphal story: That murdered billionaire inventor/businessman Barry Sherman had driven a series of rusty, poorly maintained convertibles. Kay had been generous with his time, tutoring me about pharmaceuticals on Saturday afternoons, bringing me into the world he and Sherman shared for 35 years.
Looking up from what had been Sherman’s desk, Kay, muscled and lean from daily 6 a.m. workouts, was unusually frosty. I had just been down the hall talking to Joanne Mauro, Barry’s executive assistant for 42 years. In addition to Mauro describing the tremendous impact her late boss had on her — “I don’t let anything bother me anymore” — she said Sherman loaned her his car one day and the brake pedal sank to the floor.
Combat the surge in attacks on Asian American with … more police!
The media have lit up in recent weeks with stories and cable news segments about a “surge” in anti-Asian American violence across the country. Presumably, we should be looking for a solution, but not a single person on CNN or MSNBC is suggesting the most obvious one: more policing.
But there’s a problem. There’s no federal data on trends in crimes against Asian Americans — these claims come mostly from nonprofit advocacy groups and from city governments such as New York and Oakland, California. And while, again, there isn’t much data on the subject, virtually every incident caught on video shows a black male perpetrator.
Many lined up at the ‘Bank of Barry’ Sherman: Inside the $10 billion succession battle
Jonathon Sherman, wearing a boxy black suit and narrow tie, separated from his three sisters and crossed the floor of the convention centre-turned funeral home, walking stone-faced toward a row of dignitaries. He shook hands and embraced Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario’s then premier Kathleen Wynne and Toronto Mayor John Tory. In his eulogy, Jonathon had celebrated the lives of his parents, describing them as “exceptional people” and the “glue that kept us all together.” Returning to his shattered family, he clasped his husband’s hand, and, with his sisters, fell into step as the coffins carrying Barry and Honey Sherman were wheeled side by side towards two hearses.
Honey Sherman would have controlled the ‘net income’ of husband Barry’s multibillion-dollar fortune had she lived, sources reveal
Barry Sherman’s will decreed that if he died, all “net income” from his multibillion-dollar estate would go to wife Honey for her “comfort and maintenance” and “anything else my wife directs,” according to new information the Star has obtained in its ongoing investigation of the 2017 double murder of the high-powered philanthropists.
Honey would not control “capital” decisions, such as whether to invest in or sell shares or a major asset. Still, all the net income after expenses from the operation of businesses like the generic drug giant Apotex or her husband’s many real estate holdings would be hers to do with as she pleased.
With both Shermans dead, the estate — net income and capital — passed directly to the four Sherman children, son Jonathon and his sisters Lauren, Alexandra and Kaelen, to be split equally, according to family sources. As the Star will reveal in coming days, there are ongoing disputes over control and succession of the Sherman empire.