Category: Bazaar News

This February, we’ll get to find out just how many Titanic fanatics will truly never let go.

James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster is returning to theaters for its 25th anniversary—and this time, it’ll be in 3D. It’s actually not the first time viewers have gotten the chance to re-experience Jack and Rose’s tragic love story in tri-dimensional glory; there was a theater re-release back in 2012, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ship’s first and final voyage in 1912. That version, as Cameron said at the time, had been “digitally re-mastered at 4K and painstakingly converted to 3D.” 

But this latest re-release boasts an update that goes beyond 3D and 4K: high frame rate. Basically, most movies are projected at 24 frames per second; with HFR, each second of film simply contains more frames (often 48). It’s Cameron’s new favorite way to make his 3D movies feel smoother and more immersive, though he’s pretty particular about when and where the technology is deployed. In Avatar: The Way of Water, HFR is only used for underwater scenes, as well as “some of the flying scenes and some of the broad vistas,” Cameron told Yahoo UK. 

So it seems fair to assume that the director and his collaborators at his production company, Lightstorm Entertainment, will have used HFR similarly in Titanic—which, of course, also features a lot of water and some fast-paced action.

Titanic will return to the silver screen on Friday, February 10, 2023. Other key details—like where you can see it and how long it will stay in theaters—have yet to be announced, but it is listed (without showtimes) on Regal Cinemas’ and AMC’s websites.

Airbnb’s new policy comes months after a viral TikTok revealed the listing of an “1830s slave cabin” on the platform.

In July 2022, a TikTok exposing “an 1830s slave cabin” on Airbnb went viral, prompting a wave of outrage online. Now, just over half a year later, Airbnb said they will no longer allow users to list properties that were once used to house enslaved people.

Per The Root, Airbnb’s new policy states that they will be removing any listed residences on plantations “if structures that existed during the time of slavery are still present on the property.”

In accordance with the new policy, going forward, listing any structures that were built for the purpose of housing enslaved people will be prohibited, and property owners will not be able to use “slave-related features” to market listings.

Airbnb is already working to take down listings and “will continue to evaluate cases as they arise,” Ben Breit, an Airbnb spokesperson, told BuzzFeed News.

“Currently, we have removed listings and experiences associated with roughly 30 properties that are violating our policies,” Breit said.

This new policy follows Airbnb’s Project Lighthouse initiative, which the company says will help “to uncover, measure, and overcome discrimination” on the platform.

“Discrimination and bias unfortunately happen in our world, so they can play out on platforms like Airbnb — and that’s unacceptable to us,” said Janaye Ingram, Airbnb’s Director of Community Partner Programs and Engagement. “We believe you can’t fix what you don’t measure, so we’re using Project Lighthouse to help us uncover disparities among perceived racial groups and inform our work to make Airbnb more equitable for people of color.”

Issues of racial discrimination on Airbnb previously came to attention in 2019 when the racial justice organization Color of Change called for websites to stop promoting content that glorified or romanticized former slave plantations. The organization has been working directly with Airbnb to develop the new policy.

Speaking to Buzzfeed News, Color of Change’s deputy senior campaign director Evan Feeney called the new policy an “industry-leading prohibition on the glorification and marketing of slavery” and hopes other vacation rental platforms will follow Airbnb’s example.

“The only place now where plantations will be able to be listed [on Airbnb] is through specifically curated experiences that have historical value and are not meant to be a form of profit or entertainment,” Feeney said.

The new policy announcement comes just months after a TikTok posted by lawyer Wynton Yates pointed out the listing of the Panther Burn Cottage on Belmont Plantation in Greenville, Mississippi, which was touted as “an 1830s slave cabin” that “has also been used as a tenant sharecroppers cabin.” The listing also touted that the “wide cypress boards are original to the first build in the 1830s.”

Airbnb removed the property listing shortly after and issued an apology in a statement saying, “Properties that formerly housed the enslaved have no place on Airbnb.”

The property’s owner, Brad Hauser, also apologized in a statement to CNN, saying:

“As the new, three-week owner of The Belmont in Greenville, Mississippi, I apologize for the decision to provide our guests a stay at ‘the slave quarters’ behind the 1857 antebellum home that is now a bed and breakfast. I also apologize for insulting African Americans whose ancestors were slaves.”

Hauser added that he has no plans to list the property on Airbnb again, and that the listing and a now-private promotional video on YouTube were the decisions of the previous owner.

Hauser said he “strongly opposed the previous owner’s decision to market the building as the place where slaves once slept after toiling in the cotton fields in human bondage.”

Of course, Hauser’s property was far from the first to advertise a former slave plantation as a luxurious property. In fact, many of these sorts of properties are rented out for weddings or other events and touted as “a place of happiness and cheer and like, good ol’ days,” Feeney told Buzzfeed News.

“These places really should be remembered for the hardships and horrific acts that happened here. They should not be a source of profit and entertainment,” he said.

“Just the same way that we would be appalled if someone was trying to rent out concentration camps in Austria and Germany and Poland as summer getaways,” Feeney added, “we should be equally as appalled here in the United States when someone’s trying to rent out houses where Black folks were enslaved for hundreds of years.”

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Learn about the history of America’s slave plantations by reading the story of Ona Judge, the woman who escaped from Washington’s fields. Or, read the story of Mary Thomas, the plantation worker who led a revolution against her imperialist oppressors.

Vaccines have been instrumental in improving human health. Now it appears they might be able to do the same for honeybees.

Early last week, biotech company Dalan Animal Health announced the approval of a honeybee vaccine, the first ever for an insect. The conditional license, provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, could help honeybees combat American foulbrood, a disease caused by Paenibacillus larvae, a spore-forming bacterium.

Foulbrood strikes honeybees in the pre-pupal or pupal stage, killing them. The condition can wipe out colonies and beekeepers struggle to combat it. Antibiotics for it offer only mixed results, are time-intensive to administer, and can be costly. Often, the only solution is to burn infected hives and bees.

Dalan’s vaccine isn’t given via a syringe; instead, bees ingest dead P. larvae cells, then pass them on via their royal jelly, or sugar feed, to the queen. From there, the vaccine will wind up in her ovaries. This way, the developing larvae are immunized before they’re born.

“This is an exciting step forward for beekeepers, as we rely on antibiotic treatment that has limited effectiveness and requires lots of time and energy to apply to our hives,” Trevor Tauzer, owner of Tauzer Apiaries and a California State Beekeepers Association board member, said in a statement. “If we can prevent an infection in our hives, we can avoid costly treatments and focus our energy on other important elements of keeping our bees healthy.”

The vaccine—which the company claims is safe to use in organic farming—is set to be distributed this year. Because it’s a conditional license, the USDA will evaluate the vaccine and its efficacy after a period of time. At that point, they can extend the conditional license or grant a full license.

Bees have considerable stress to deal with when it comes to declining populations, from pollution to environmental changes. If Dalan’s product is successful, beekeepers will have one less thing to worry about.

[h/t Smithsonian]

SOUTH CAROLINA – Anderson County Sheriff’s Office in South Carolina discovered ecstasy pills disguised as Lucky Charm Marshmallows after conducting a traffic stop.

An officer witnessed firsthand a drug deal take place in a parking lot along Clemson Boulevard , deputies followed the vehicle and stopped Shemica Nicole Hammonds.

After the stop a drug bust took place and 7 pounds of clear plastic bags with “Lucky Charms-like” ecstasy were found. Totaling 10,000 pills.

“We’re thankful these pills are off the streets,” the post said. “Parents, please talk to your kids about how these drugs may look enticing but they’re nothing to play around with!”

A word doesn’t need a centuries-old history or some lofty Latin pedigree to end up in the Oxford English Dictionary. It just needs to have been around long enough and used frequently enough for lexicographers to recognize that it is—slang or not—part of the English language.

This month, nearly 700 new terms made the grade. Some are completely new entries—like CODA, “a person who has one or more parents or guardians who are deaf or hard of hearing.” The acronym originally referred to the organization Children of Deaf Adults, formed in 1983, but has since broadened in usage and popularity, helped in part by the success of the 2022 Oscar Best Picture winner, CODA.

But not all the “new” terms are quite so modern. Aestel, for example, first showed up in King Alfred’s preface to his 9th-century translation of Pastoral Care, a tome by Pope Gregory I that dates back to the 6th century. Though we technically still don’t know for sure what it means, it’s “now frequently considered to be a pointer, or handle for a pointer, used to follow along or keep one’s place when reading a manuscript,” per the OED.

Other terms have been slotted beneath pre-existing entries. Air fryer, for example, is one of many phrases found on the air page; and tailgate now has a section devoted to tailgate party. Final has one for final girl, which, for non-horror fans, describes the archetypal female character—usually clever and virtuous—who outlasts everyone else in a horror film.

See some of the other new additions below, and learn more about the update here.

1. aestel: “an artefact … now frequently considered to be a pointer, or handle for a pointer, used to follow along or keep one’s place when reading a manuscript”
2. agrivoltaics: “the simultaneous use of an area of land for farming and for electricity generation using photovoltaic solar panels”
3. air fryer: “a small convection oven, typically used to fry foods using very little oil”
4. Captain Obvious: “(a sarcastic or disparaging name for) someone who makes an obvious or superfluous statement”
5. CODA: “a person who has one or more parents or guardians who are deaf or hard of hearing”
6. crash diet: “a diet intended to result in a very rapid weight loss through severe restrictions on calorie intake over a relatively short period of time”
7. dap: “a casual gesture of greeting, acknowledgement, or affirmation, typically involving slapping palms, bumping fists, or snapping fingers”
8. final girl: “a stock female character who survives to defeat or evade the attacker after the other characters have been killed, and who is typically portrayed as intelligent, serious, cautious, and chaste”
9. halfsies: “halves; two equal shares or parts”
10. jag: Scottish term for “a hypodermic injection, esp. a vaccination”
11. keep cup: “a reusable cup”
12. mononym: “a one-word name … by which someone, esp. a celebrity, is known”
13. parasocial: “designating a relationship characterized by the one-sided, unreciprocated sense of intimacy felt … for a well-known or prominent figure”
14. pinkie promise: “a promise made while linking one’s little finger with that of another person, and regarded as especially binding or sincere”
15. porch pirate: “a person who steals parcels that have been delivered and left unattended outside the intended recipient’s home, business, etc.”
16. sh**housery: “something regarded as despicable, unacceptable, or bad”
17. superyacht: “an exceptionally large or powerful yacht”
18. tailgate party: “a party typically held in the car park of a stadium before a sports event … at which food and drink are served at the open tailgate of a motor vehicle”
19. tallywacker: “the penis” or “a stupid, annoying, or otherwise objectionable person (esp. a man)”
20. textspeak: “language regarded as characteristic of text messaging and other forms of electronic communication, often consisting of abbreviations, acronyms, emoticons or emojis, etc.”

People in India spend 10 hours and 42 minutes a week reading, the most of any country on Earth. The U.S. makes up about 30% of the world’s book-buying population. But Americans don’t crack the top 5 for the time spent reading metric.

Where do most readers live? People in India read the most

India, Thailand, China, Phillippines, and Egypt round out the top 5 for the most time spent reading per person, on average, per week.

Data collected between 2017 and 2022 showed that:

• India ranks first, with people spending 10 hours and 42 minutes reading per week (556.4 hours per year).

• Thailand ranks second with weekly totals averaging 9 hours and 24 minutes (488.8 hours per year).

• China readers average 8 hours a week (or 416 hours per year).

• Those in the Philippines tend to read 7 hours and 36 minutes per week (395.2 per year.)

• And Egyptians read for 7 hours and 30 minutes per week (or 390 minutes per year).

Books and their readers

Data collected between 2011 and 2020 shows that Americans love buying books (and they do read them, so it’s not just book hoarding). And most Americans do read books.

The World Population Review compiled numbers from various research studies and showed that while people in India read the most (in terms of hours spent reading):

Altogether, Americans read 275,232 books per year and makeup 30% of the market share of book buyers. A Pew Research Center study published in 2016 found that 72% of Americans had read a book the preceding year, a number that rose to 75% in 2022. But that rise was almost certainly due to the pandemic keeping people at home. In 2016 Americans read an average of 12 books a year (though 50% of the nation reads 4 or fewer, so we’re depending on some people to read a lot of books to make us look good). But we still tend to read more physical books than e-books, even though the e-book trend is growing in the U.S.

In other countries:

• China reads 208,418 books on average per year (10% of all books purchased).

• The United Kingdom reads about 188,000 books every year, and book sales have reached about 212 million!)
• Japan makes up 7% of the market share for book buyers, and the Japanese read an average of 139,078 books per year. This makes up about 7% of the total market share.

What are the most popular books in the world? Well, you can probably guess – it’s the Holy Bible and the Holy Qu’ran. Next in line come The Harry Potter Series, The Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse Tung, and Lord of the Rings. Eclectic! — WTF fun facts

Source: “Average Books Read Per Year by Country 2023” — World Population Review

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Ever wonder which U.S. cities are actually the best in terms of where to find work? If you’re raring to relocate and fine with figuring out how to make money once you get there, you might consider heading to St. Louis, Missouri, or Columbia, South Carolina. According to a new report by WalletHub, those two cities are teeming with job opportunities. 

But WalletHub based its 2023 breakdown of the best U.S. cities for jobs on a lot more than just job openings. Researchers looked at 32 weighted metrics, all of which fell into one of two categories: job market and socioeconomics. The former covered factors like unemployment rate, job security, job satisfaction, employee benefits, and monthly average starting salary. The latter comprised everything from median annual income and housing affordability to family-friendliness and annual transportation costs.

To figure out the best job markets in the U.S., WalletHub looked at 182 cities, including 150 of the country’s most populous cities (along with the second most populous city in each state). This guaranteed that each state was featured in the rankings without short-changing big states with larger populations. So, unsurprisingly, California, Texas, and Florida were especially well-represented. The Golden State had three spots in the top 10 (San Francisco in first place overall, followed by San Jose and Fremont), and eight total in the top 50. Texas had four in the top 50, and Florida had six.

Of course, there are plenty of promising places to launch or continue your career beyond the borders of those three states. Columbia, Maryland, took second place overall, while Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, and South Burlington, Vermont, all fell within the top 10.

Below, see how each state in the top 50 scored (out of 100 possible points), and delve into WalletHub’s comprehensive breakdown of the data here.

1. San Francisco, California // 65.40
2. Columbia, Maryland // 65.24
3. Orlando, Florida // 64.15
4. San Jose, California // 63.63
5. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania // 62.74
6. Fremont, California // 62.69
7. (Tie) Salt Lake City, Utah // 62.69
8. South Burlington, Vermont // 62.39
9. Plano, Texas // 61.78
10. Portland, Maine // 60.93
11. Seattle, Washington // 60.72
12. Irving, Texas // 60.66
13. Irvine, California // 60.02
14. Scottsdale, Arizona // 59.81
15. Nashua, New Hampshire // 59.68
16. Tampa, Florida // 59.34
17. (Tie) Warwick, Rhode Island // 59.34
18. Minneapolis, Minnesota // 59.14
19. Pearl City, Hawaii // 59.10
20. Austin, Texas // 58.98
21. West Valley City, Utah // 58.71
22. Burlington, Vermont // 58.54
23. Denver, Colorado // 58.41
24. Atlanta, Georgia // 58.02
25. Grand Prairie, Texas // 57.78
26. Grand Rapids, Michigan // 57.74
27. Huntington Beach, California // 57.73
28. Chandler, Arizona // 57.72
29. Overland Park, Kansas // 57.67
30. San Diego, California // 57.60
31. Charleston, South Carolina // 57.57
32. Boston, Massachusetts // 57.54
33. Wilmington, Delaware // 57.42
34. (Tie) Fort Lauderdale, Florida // 57.42
35. Boise, Idaho // 57.33
36. Raleigh, North Carolina // 57.22
37. St. Louis, Missouri // 57.17
38. St. Petersburg, Florida // 57.03
39. Des Moines, Iowa // 56.97
40. Virginia Beach, Virginia // 56.56
41. Garden Grove, California // 56.53
42. Tempe, Arizona // 56.51
43. Jersey City, New Jersey // 56.47
44. Cedar Rapids, Iowa // 56.32
45. Manchester, New Hampshire // 56.10
46. Sacramento, California // 55.97
47. Washington, D.C. // 55.89
48. Jacksonville, Florida // 55.76
49. Pembroke Pines, Florida // 55.67
50. Honolulu, Hawaii // 55.65

We’ve all fallen victim to the Gruen Transfer. In fact, stores, casinos, and malls are built around this theory in order to make us fall victim to it. The payoff is more spending on our part.

What is the Gruen Transfer?

Have you ever gone to a store and just started wandering around? Plenty of us can run in and out for what we need, but it’s hard to not start wandering occasionally, just to see if there’s anything else we might need or want. And that’s the whole point.

Marketers and designers specifically build floor plans and displays that disorient us and lure us in. It’s all designed to give us a general desire to keep shopping and looking at things. If you just go to Target for fun, you’re WAY deep into the Gruen Transfer.

According to Gizmodo (cited below): “The Gruen transfer is the idea that the shopping experience itself was worth doing, and that paying money for something not on any specific agenda was the agenda.”

Of course, it’s all about getting you to consume more things.

Who was Victor Gruen?

The Gruen Transfer “mind trick” is named after architect Victor Gruen. But he’s probably rolling over in his grave since he hated the idea of disorienting consumers. His goal was to put items people needed in the same general location for convenience.

What his goal WASN’T was to confuse people and make them feel disoriented. In fact, Gizmodo’s article on the Gruen Effect (cited below) brings this to the fore, noting that “Gruen wasn’t a fan of the transfer at all. He railed against confusing, maddening stores that baffled consumers. In fact, his whole idea of a mall was based on efficiency on a very wide scale.”

“And, because there were only so many ways to design efficiently, many stores would be standardized. But Gruen wanted something more. Shopping places, he thought, should feature gardens, benches, cafes, and courtyards. It should be an experience. Then things like malls wouldn’t just be commercial zones, but would serve as public gathering places, where everyone, from every level of society, could mingle. He wanted to entice people, and get people to interact with each other, not confuse them.”

Making the transfer

Nevertheess, his name became associated with what the marketers and other designers did with his ideas. It became applicable within a store as well – such as a grocery store. Confusion reigns so you can see more things you might want to buy. The same is true of casinos. It’s easy for people to become disoriented, spend more time there, and part with more money.

Gruen just wanted public space for all. Now those places are ones where you can’t go to socialize anymore. You can only be there if you plan to shop.

As Gizmodo notes: “And so the guy who wanted to provide a public space, where everyone could get their shopping done so they could socialize, ended up inventing a system in which socialization equals shopping.” — WTF fun facts

Source: “The cruel irony of the Gruen Transfer” — Gizmodo

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On September 2, 2010, 24-year-old Michelle O’Connell was found dead at Jeremy Banks’ home in St. Augustine, Florida. Authorities initially concluded it was a suicide, but O’Connell’s loved ones thought otherwise.

When 24-year-old Michelle O’Connell died on the floor of her boyfriend’s St. Augustine, Florida home from a gunshot wound to her mouth, it was her boyfriend, a police officer named Jeremy Banks, who reported the shooting.

O’Connell had had everything to live for, and though her death was swiftly ruled a suicide, it seemed to some that she had died under suspicious circumstances.

Later, a second independent investigation revealed new evidence, calling into question the assumption of suicide and prompting the original medical examiner to conclude that Michelle O’Connell’s death was “probably a homicide.”

Did Michelle O’Connell die by suicide? Or was there something more sinister at play?

Who Was Michelle O’Connell?

Born on Oct. 6, 1985, Michelle O’Connell was raised by a single mother in a cramped St. Augustine apartment with five older siblings. By the time O’Connell turned 20, she had a child of her own.

Her daughter Alexis became the light of her life, and all of her future decisions were made with Alexis in mind. O’Connell worked multiple jobs to support her daughter before finally landing her dream job, a full-time position at a daycare center that offered health insurance and allowed her to take Alexis, then 4, to work with her.

In her early 20s, O’Connell met St. Johns County Sheriff’s officer Jeremy Banks through her brother Scott, himself a St. Johns deputy. At 24, she moved into Banks’ home.

Banks and O’Connell’s almost year-long relationship was fraught with constant arguments, Banks later admitted. But O’Connell’s family believes these arguments may have sometimes turned violent.

According to The New York Times, her sisters later said that O’Connell had hinted Banks was physically and verbally abusive, but didn’t report it to the police because she didn’t want “trouble” for Banks, or for her brother and mother, who also worked for the sheriff’s department.

Michelle O’Connell’s Last Hours

On the day of her death, Sept. 2, 2010, O’Connell had lunch with her sister, Chrissy. Chrissy later reported that O’Connell told her over lunch that she planned to break up with Banks that night and was scared he’d be angry.

The couple had tickets for a Paramore concert that evening, but Chrissy told O’Connell not to go, worrying that Banks might get violent.

Still, O’Connell went to the concert. According to ABC News, Banks later told detectives that the two argued before, during, and after the show.

During the concert, O’Connell also sent some cryptic texts to Chrissy, who was babysitting Alexis at her home that night.

Michelle: “Promise me one thing. Lexi will be happy and always have a good life”

Chrissy: “Promise you what?”

Michelle: “That no matter what, Lexi will always be safe and loved”

Chrissy: “What’s going on? I’m scared”

Michelle: “I’ll be there soon.”

But Michelle O’Connell never arrived to pick up her daughter.

On the ride home from the concert, O’Connell told Banks she was leaving him. When they got to his house, she began packing her things.

At 11:20 p.m., Banks made a frantic 911 call, and on arrival, the St. Johns County sheriff’s deputies found their intoxicated colleague crouched at the bathroom door, clutching his phone.

Interviewed later, Banks said that he was in his garage when he heard a pop inside the house, and knew exactly what it was. Following a second shot, Banks said he kicked open the locked bedroom door to find O’Connell lying on the carpet with a gunshot to her mouth, his service weapon by her side.

Questions Raised In O’Connell’s Death

The police had been trained to investigate every death scene as a homicide until proven otherwise. But that night, the inexperienced detectives on the scene had already concluded O’Connell had died by suicide, apparently taking Banks at his word.

A few hours after visiting the scene, they notified Michelle O’Connell’s family that she had died by suicide. And two days after her death, a medical examiner confirmed this assessment.

The O’Connells didn’t believe that Michelle would have taken her own life. She had just landed her dream job, and had been making plans to meet friends and family later in the week. But the O’Connell family was never interviewed as part of the investigation.

There were also some suspicious details in the case that emerged later.

Crime scene photographs showed Banks’ gun near O’Connell’s left hand, but she was right-handed, and a second bullet was lodged into the carpet near O’Connell’s body.

The gun’s retention holster would have made it difficult for an inexperienced user to remove the weapon from its holster. And the tactical search light attached to the gun barrel, used to illuminate a target for better aim, was on.

O’Connell also had an unexplained small cut above her right eye. And two of Banks’ empty prescription pill bottles were in her purse, but all the pills were accounted for, Jacksonville.com reported, with none of them found in her system.

Twelve days after the shooting, Banks submitted to a second videotaped interview, where he admitted that he had read the department’s confidential investigative report on the shooting. He was not disciplined after this revelation.

“He was never treated like a suspect,” O’Connell’s friend Ciara Morris told the Times. “He was treated like a brother. I mean, that’s the best way I can put it. He was treated like a brother.”

A Second Investigation

In January 2011, under pressure from the O’Connell family, the elected Sheriff David Shoar asked for an independent state inquiry by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The investigation was led by Rusty Rodgers, a former Investigator of the Year, who quickly found that the initial investigation was mishandled from the start.

Although investigators had collected Banks’ gun, clothing and other evidence, they never had the items forensically tested for fingerprints, DNA, or gunshot residue, even though blood was spotted on Banks’ shirt. They failed to download Banks’ cellphone data or to isolate and photograph Banks before he was interviewed.

Investigators also hadn’t spoken to any neighbors or filed reports on what the attending officers had seen.

During his own investigation, Rodgers interviewed two neighbors who reported hearing arguing and screaming coming from Banks’ house that night. They had heard a female yell “help” before a gunshot, then “help” again, before a second gunshot. Both neighbors passed a polygraph test.

Rodgers also interviewed O’Connell’s daughter Alexis, who ABC News reports said that Banks was “a bad person” who had previously hit her mother with a belt.

Based on the neighbors’ statements, the original pathologist, Dr. Frederick Hobin, privately changed his ruling from suicide to homicide, but didn’t make the change official, and only disclosed it to the state attorney.

Meanwhile, Rodgers interviewed the O’Connell family, sent evidence for forensic testing, and hired a crime scene reconstruction expert as part of his investigation.

The Investigation Points To A Homicide

Finally, in February 2011, the forensic results came in, raising a new round of questions.

There was no blood on Banks’ gun. Banks’ fingerprints and DNA were also suspiciously absent from the weapon, even though he had worn his gun belt on his previous shift.

Banks had denied cleaning his gun before the police arrived that night. He also denied washing his hands before the gunshot residue test, which found surprisingly insignificant amounts of residue considering how much time he’d spent near the body after O’Connell’s death.

O’Connell’s DNA was found on Banks’ gun, but not on the two pill bottles in her purse. And two tiny spots of O’Connell’s blood were present on the inside of Banks’ T-shirt, though Banks told investigators he didn’t know how the blood had gotten there.

The crime scene reconstructionist also reported some interesting discoveries, including that the shooter had to have been left-handed (O’Connell was not left-handed, but Banks is).

After taking everything into account, The New York Times reports, the reconstructionist found the circumstances were consistent with homicide.

But Dr. Hobin never filed O’Connell’s amended death certificate, as the state attorney had instructed Hobin to hold off on doing so while the investigation was underway. Then, a new chief medical examiner was appointed, who upheld the original verdict that O’Connell’s death was a suicide.

When a special prosecutor gathered the O’Connell family in March 2012 to announce O’Connell’s official cause of death would remain a suicide, her brother Scott exploded into a tirade that cost him his sheriff’s deputy job.

The Aftermath Of Michelle O’Connell’s Death

Sheriff Shoar compiled a 152-page assessment of his agency’s and Rodgers’ investigations. While two pages of the report listed some of his own team’s mistakes, the rest either lauded his agency’s investigation or criticized Rodgers’.

Meanwhile, Banks filed a civil lawsuit alleging that Rodgers had violated his civil rights by detaining him as part of the investigation. A judge later dismissed this suit in 2018, finding that Rodgers had probable cause to detain Banks for homicide.

In April 2013, Shoar rehired Scott O’Connell. Scott had made up with Banks, and now accused the state agency of manipulating his family into thinking his sister was murdered — a stance that ostracized him from the rest of the family.

Then, in 2016, News4Jax reports, O’Connell’s body was exhumed and inspected by a forensic pathologist, who found her jaw was in two pieces, indicating a fracture — a detail that had previously been left out of the autopsy report.

Could a blow to O’Connell’s jaw have broken her mandible before the fatal gunshot wound?

Two Unresolved Cases

Despite the new evidence in her case, Michelle O’Connell’s death is still labeled a suicide. But her family is unwavering in their resolve that she was murdered by Jeremy Banks.

In January 2019, the case became even more complicated when Ellie Washtock, a 38-year-old amateur sleuth who sometimes went as “Eli,” was found dead in their St. Augustine condo.

They had been shot, and their death was ruled a homicide. Washtock had been independently investigating Michelle O’Connell’s death in the months leading up to their own murder, and O’Connell’s mother Patty O’Connell told First Coast News that she believes Washtock was killed for their investigation.

“He was finished with his work, he was confident we would prove Michelle was murdered,” she said. Washtock’s case is still cold.

Banks has never been charged with a crime, and remains a St. Johns County Sheriff’s deputy. Meanwhile, Michelle O’Connell’s family is still seeking justice.

“You can’t grieve until you get justice,” Patty O’Connell told ABC News. “You have to have your justice. And it never goes away.”

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After learning about Michelle O’Connell, read about The Mysterious Death Of Michelle Von Emster. Then, learn The Unsolved Mystery Of Tiffany Valiante’s Grisly Death.

Recently released footage shows the two masked men dumping accelerant around the building, then running off into the night, engulfed in flames.

On the night of January 2, two men dressed all in black approached an immigrant services center in California in hopes of burning it down. Then they accidentally set themselves on fire before running off screaming into the night.

Footage captured by a Ring security camera placed outside the Servicio de Immigracion in Bakersfield, California shows the two men, their faces hidden behind masks, walk up to the center and pour accelerant onto the side of the building and in the parking lot.

One of the men then hunched over a small puddle of fuel and tried to light it, while the other continued to dump the accelerant out of its container. Unfortunately for the former, when the accelerant caught fire, it did so suddenly and violently — and caught his leg on fire in the process.

Panicking, he ran away, still on fire.

The second man, meanwhile, also began to panic, slipping and falling twice as the fire overcame him before also running off into the night, his clothes ablaze.

According to one worker, one of the suspects dropped their phone at some point in the panic, which has since been handed over to authorities as they try to determine the identities of the arsonists.

The flames, thankfully, were extinguished about 10 minutes after first responders arrived.

“Yeah the footage is quite dramatic,” KCFD Captain Andrew Freeborn told KBAK, “and we hope that these individuals are identified quickly.”

The immigration center’s owner, Max Solorzano, meanwhile lamented that the incident occurred at all, saying the city of Bakersfield needs to do more to protect its citizens.

“They have to work harder in that aspect, in keeping the community safe,” he told 23ABC. “We are a small business, and we help many people, so there will be people who will not be able to receive our services due to inactivity.”

One such service includes helping immigrant workers file their income taxes.

“That is what most saddens me,” Solorzano said. “We help many farmworker families with their immigration processes, we help people do taxes. I ask our clients to have patience with us, we will get through this.”

The fire itself was contained to the building’s garage, but smoke unfortunately found its way into the building, while other items including an industrial fan and a Ring security camera were damaged by the flames.

Solorzano commented that it saddens him to think that someone would want to see his business, which is only three years old, burned down.

“Dear customers,” the business wrote on its Facebook page, “we started the year a little bad. But with the grace of God we will get ahead, I would like to inform you that due to this incident that occurred on January 2, 2023, our office will be closed until further notice.”

A GoFundMe campaign was established to help pay for the damages. At the time of writing, the campaign has earned $16,453, exceeding its $15,000 goal.

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After reading about this bungled attempt at arson, check out the story of the 32-year-old Georgia man who lit his mother’s house on fire after an argument about Cheez-Its. Or, read the story of the California couple whose gender reveal party started a massive forest fire.

Last year, Burger King came up with a clever way to entice us all to sign up for its Royal Perks program: the promise of free French (well, not exactly French) fries. Although the perk was originally slated to end when 2022 did, we have some good news—the fast food gods have decided to continue it through June 30, 2023.

Here’s the deal: You can claim a free fry of any size—small, medium, or large—with any purchase once every week from now until the end of June. To reiterate, you will have to buy some other item in order to qualify for the prize; but feel free to choose the least expensive option on the menu, even if it’s just a drink or a cookie.

To actually get the deal, as Food & Wine reports, you have to sign up for Burger King’s free Royal Perks program, which basically just requires filling out your name and email address. Download the app, log in to your account, and you should see the free fries offer on your home page. You have to order through the app to redeem it; and make sure to add the offer to your order before you place it. The offer will reappear every Monday and remain throughout the week (until you redeem it again).

You’ll also rack up Crowns (10 per dollar you spend) during your visits, which you can turn around and use to buy more Burger King. But the biggest selling point of the perks program is the ability to upsize one item—fries, hash browns, a fountain drink, or coffee—every single day. (That said, you can’t combine that capability with other offers.) Learn more about the terms of the perks program here.

[h/t Food & Wine]