To get attention, Theah Russell suffocated two babies, one of whom died. The 18-year-old confessed. She attempted to kill the four-month-old twice, and the infant miraculously survived. 11-month-old Harvey survived two attempts on his life, but died on the third. Russell has a history of attention-seeking behaviors, like making annoying phone calls and hanging up. […] The post Teen Daycare Worker Murders One Baby Suffocates Another for Attention appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Hard-line conservative Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) on Thursday bluntly called for the United States support regime change in Iran, saying America should help the Iranian people “take out the trash.” Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, posted a photo of himself earlier this week smoking a cigarette that appeared to have been lit by a burning photo of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini. He appeared with Fox News host Dana Perino. Smoke ’em if you got ’em. #Iran https://t.co/vvBjCKDCcs pic.twitter.com/x3DfiMonqw — Tim Sheehy (@TimSheehyMT) January 11, 2026 “Whether we like it or not Iran has been at war with us for 47 years.” Sheehy pointed out. “They’ve been hunting down, murdering, torturing, and slaughtering Americans all over the world, from the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing through our wars in Iraq, in Afghanistan, to of course, how this regime started.” He then recalled the Iranian revolution in 1979 when the Iranian government held more than 50 American hostages at the U.S. Embassy during the failed presidency of Jimmy Carter, only releasing them the day President Ronald Reagan, who had threatened the Iranians, took office. “Let’s not forget how the Ayatollah’s regime started: by taking our embassy hostage and holding hundreds of Americans hostage for a year and a half,” he noted. “So this regime’s literal foreign policy is ‘Death to America.’ They chant it every day and they back up those chants with actions by actually killing Americans and fueling global terror networks. They are the largest state sponsor of terror in the world.” “What did you think about the threat towards President Trump?” Perino asked. “That’s nothing new; they’ve been threatening to kill our leaders for years,’ Sheehy replied. “So the fact that the people of Iran are now taking to the streets, an overwhelming display that they are ready for this regime to go away, it’s not our job to go and conduct regime change, but we should help these people take out the trash.” “I fully support the president’s action if he decides to get involved and help tip the scales here,” he continued. “It’s high time we finally get rid of this murderous regime; we’ve been placating them for far too long. They’re like a hobo on LSD with a knife in the street and everyone stands back, not wanting to touch them. The reality is they are trying to kill us every day; it’s about time we knock this guy out, and I hope the people of Iran get the full support they need.” The Iranian regime are a bunch of murderous bastards who chant “death to America” and have been killing Americans for 46 years. It’s time to take out the trash. To the brave Iranian people – we applaud your courage. Keep fighting. pic.twitter.com/uX6mw4Emli — Tim Sheehy (@TimSheehyMT) January 15, 2026

Minnesota State Senator Bobby Joe Champion attempted to defend the men who jumped in to assault an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent on Wednesday, claiming that it was a clear example of Minnesotans pitching in to “help our neighbors.” Champion joined CNN’s Laura Coates to discuss the scene that unfolded on Wednesday when an ICE agent chased down a suspect who was believed to be Venezuelan, and two others — one of whom was wielding a shovel — joined the suspect in assaulting the agent. WATCH: ? State Sen. Bobby Joe Champion (D) says last night’s vicious assault of an ICE agent “is just an example of Minnesota being a place where we help our neighbors.” CNN: If they used weapons to attack the officer, would that change your opinion? Champion: “Actually, no.” SICK! pic.twitter.com/eWO8fPJzpl — Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 15, 2026 “If there were neighbors and others who came out to help this person, that is just an example of Minnesota being a place where we help our neighbors,” Champion said. “And we are clear that the ICE agents have been coming here — and there’s over two thousand of them — and they’ve been attacking and terrorizing our state.” “So yes, neighbors will come out and be helpful, I’m not certain if they had brooms or a shovel, that is to be further investigated,” he added. Coates pushed back, asking, “If they did, in fact, have some sort of weapons to use to attack the ICE officer, would that change your opinion of whatever unfolded next?” “Actually, no, right?” Champion replied. “Because from our vantage point, we want to make sure, and always want to make sure that Minnesotans are being dealt with properly. And when we think in terms of any pursuit or any apprehension of anyone, there’s a way for you to do your work where it’s respectful and it’s fair.” He went on to claim that ICE was not being “respectful” or “fair,” and asserted that agents were choosing to be “illegal, and to attack, and to be very aggressive with Minnesotans.” Champion concluded by claiming that the federal government was making things worse as more and more agents were surged to the area and allowed to “misbehave.” “That’s a tragedy. And a travesty,” he claimed.

Is college basketball broken? The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania announced on Thursday the indictment of 26 suspects, including 20 former NCAA college basketball players from 17 schools for allegedly attempting to fix games through performance manipulation during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons. Officials said the scheme started in September 2022 when defendants bribed players in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) to participate in “point-shaving” their games, before moving to NCAA basketball. Point-shaving occurs when the final score is manipulated to satisfy the point-spread of the game, not the win-or-lose outcome. “Over the past two years, the FBI’s Philadelphia Field Office led an investigation into a point-shaving and sports-bribery conspiracy resulting in the indictments announced today,” said FBI Deputy Director Andrew Bailey. United States Attorney David Metcalf called the gambling scheme “historic,” and said the point-shaving scheme involved more than 39 players who were part of more than 17 teams who attempted to fix at least 29 men’s college basketball games “Certain players were targeted because they were missing out on NIL money,” Metcalf said, also adding: “This is the corruption of college sports.” According to the indictment, the suspects in the case include the following former college basketball players: Alberto Laureano, Arlando Arnold, Simeon Cottle, Kevin Cross, Bradley Ezewiro, Shawn Fulcher, Carlos Hart, Markeese Hastings, Cedquavious Hunter, Oumar Koureissi, Da’Sean Nelson, Demond Robinson, Camian Shell, Dyquavion Short, Airion Simmons, and Jalen Terry. “We allege an extensive international criminal conspiracy of NCAA players, alumni and professional bettors who fixed games across the country and poisoned the American spirit of competition for monetary gain,” Metcalf said. Other names listed in the indictment include trainers Jalen Smith and Roderick Winkler, as well as “high-stakes sports gamblers” Marves Fairley and Shane Hennen. Per the indictment, the defendants approached and communicated with NCAA basketball players, in person and through social media, text messages, and phone calls. The “fixers” offered the players bribe payments, usually ranging from $10,000 to $30,000 per game, to participate in the scheme. The suspects face charges including sports bribery and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, among others. The games that were allegedly fixed include matchups in China, as well as games involving the following schools: Nicholls State, Tulane, Northwestern State, Saint Louis, LaSalle, Fordham, Buffalo, DePaul, Robert Morris, Southern Miss, North Carolina A&T, Kennesaw State, Coppin State, New Orleans, Abilene Christian, Eastern Michigan, and Alabama State. “When criminals rig the outcome of games for the purpose to lose, we all lose,” Metcalf said. Antonio Blakeney, who is listed in the indictment as “charged elsewhere” from a previous sports gambling case, was one of the CBA’s top scorers and was allegedly recruited by Hennen and Fairley to join the point-shaving antics. According to the indictment, Blakeney received a $200,000 payment in Florida, which another defendant dropped into a storage unit. The former All-American from LSU went on to recruit college players to join the scheme. There are four current players this season who are listed in the case: Kennesaw State’s Simeon Cottle, Eastern Michigan’s Carlos Hart, Delaware State’s Camian Shell, and Texas Southern’s Oumar Koureissi. All players have played within the last week. Koureissi, at the time of the alleged crime, played for Nicholls State. The document states Koureissi was involved in fixing Nicholls State’s game against McNeese State in February of 2024. Koureissi allegedly fixed the game through point-shaving to ensure Nicholls State didn’t cover the spread against McNeese. Koureissi scored 0 points in that contest and won the fixers their bet. This is just one of the countless examples of fraud in the indictment. “There is integrity in sports,” Metcalf said. “You have the teammates of the players who were working their tail off.” NCAA President Charlie Baker released this statement Thursday: “Protecting competition integrity is of the utmost importance for the NCAA. We are thankful for law enforcement agencies working to detect and combat integrity issues and match manipulation in college sports. … The Association has and will continue to aggressively pursue sports betting violations in college athletics using a layered integrity monitoring program that covers over 22,000 contests, but we still need the remaining states, regulators and gaming companies to eliminate threats to integrity – such as collegiate prop bets – to better protect athletes and leagues from integrity risks and predatory bettors. We also will continue to cooperate fully with law enforcement. We urge all student-athletes to make well-informed choices to avoid jeopardizing the game and their eligibility.” This bombshell gambling case follows two others from last fall involving former NBA and MLB players. Sports gambling in some form is legal in 40 states. “I will say that the evidence in this case shows that the monetization of college athletics and athletics generally … furthered the enterprise in this case,” Metcalf said. The United States Attorney added that this case is extensive and the investigation is ongoing.

'extensive international criminal conspiracy'

'Another imperialist clown'

'You're a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion'

Youth comes with gifts: one of them is the inability to recognize when you should be intimidated. When two teenagers in New Delhi wanted to do something to improve the city’s waste collection, age and experience would have told them that they were out of their minds. Yet just a few short years later and […] The post Inspired by Asthma Attack, New Delhi Teens Recycle 2 Million Pounds of Waste Across 14 Indian Cities appeared first on Good News Network.

Excerpts Science Fiction Read an Excerpt From The Hospital At The End of This World by Justin C. Key In a near future where artificial intelligence runs the world, a medical student must unravel family secrets to investigate his father’s death. By Justin C. Key | Published on January 15, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Hospital At The End of This World, a near-future science fiction thriller by Justin C. Key, out from Harper on February 3. In a time not so far from our own, society is run by a global AI system controlled by an all powerful corporation. The Shepherd Organization oversees every medical school in the country save one in New Orleans, the renegade Hippocrates which still insists on human-led medicine. It is the last choice school for an ambitious young New Yorker named Pok. But after his father—himself a physician—dies under mysterious circumstance that seems connected to “the shepherds” and their megalomaniacal young CEO, Pok finds himself on a quest for answers that leads right to Hippocrates. Once enrolled, he stumbles upon a further mystery: a strange illness is plaguing newcomers to New Orleans who grew up under shepherd rule. What is causing this fatal anomaly? And how does it relate to the mystery of Pok’s father’s death and his own mysterious past? One Decision Day The narrow overhang jutting out from the New York City apartment building did little to protect from the downpour. Pok’s back pressed against hard brick as he scanned the gray skies, his augmented reality glasses made pedestrian by the weather. The whir of an ambulance rose and dissipated, leaving behind the hum of rolling traffic. Directly above him, solid lines of rain ran from the air-conditioning unit hanging from their third-story window and cascaded off the fire escape. Where is it? The decision drone should have arrived ten minutes ago. After acquiring twelve of the country’s top medical institutions, the Shepherd Organization made clear their confidence in their state-of-the-art AI-centered medical curriculum by waiting until all other schools had sent out decisions before deploying theirs. It was a ballsy move. The stunt had paid off. According to the message boards, hardly anyone had accepted offers from non-shepherd schools even though most semesters started within the next month. Everyone was waiting on “The Prestigious Twelve.” “Decision day?” Skip James called above the rain and traffic as he stepped out of the small shop directly under Pok’s apartment. The longtime owner of Park Avenue Market, one of the last human-staffed brick-and-mortar stores in Manhattan, chucked two black bags into the garbage. Rainwater fell in sheets from the lid. “It’s all over my feed!” “They’re late,” Pok said. “Don’t catch a cold, kid.” You can’t catch a cold from the rain, Pok thought. He was about to check the message boards when a soft, persistent buzzing drew his attention. He stepped out from under the ledge, instantly drenched, a touch of metal on his tongue. The buzzing grew, steady and direct, and the drone emerged from between city buildings, cut through the rain, and stopped inches from Pok. The drone’s indicator blinked red; Pok raised his AR glasses and readily offered his irises for scanning. Verification done, its hatch opened and a silver case dropped on a string. Pok examined his delivery. The metal was warm. The Shepherd Organization’s insignia—a shepherd holding a stiffened snake as a staff—was engraved above the fresh stamp: Applicant Pok Morning. Verified at 12:14 p.m. Inside, his unique quick-response code. Kris Boles popped onto Pok’s glass display right as the decision page loaded. His friend’s temperament was spirited. His environment was dry. Yellow bordered his display. “Where’d you get in?” he said. “I haven’t checked. You got in?” “What do you mean you haven’t checked? How could you not check?” “It’s still loading.” Come on, come on. Every mentor and counselor had assured he’d have beautifully tough decisions to make at the end of this application cycle. Pok, who had applied to all twelve, had his heart set on the Shepherd School of Medicine at MacArthur Hospital, just up the street from his and his father’s apartment, where East Harlem met the Upper East Side. Outwardly unimpressive, the interior was intricately designed. The medical school was built atop the busy, three-tier hospital that served all five boroughs. Its website proudly proclaimed its future doctors sat upon the figurative shoulders of the medicine they studied. That was his dream school. Buy the Book The Hospital At The End of This World Justin C. Key Buy Book The Hospital At The End of This World Justin C. Key Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Pok swiped clear his glass; new drops immediately streaked across the silicon display. Logos for twelve of the country’s top medical schools—all now rebranded with the Shepherd Organization’s crest—popped onto the page. Adrenaline navigated open veins. Red Xs lined the margins. Beside all twelve schools. Every single one. “I didn’t get in.” Speaking the words made them real. “What?” Kris said. “I didn’t get in. Anywhere. This is bullshit.” They were both speechless. A digital delivery scooter honked for Pok to move. It knocked the back of his knee. He could have fallen face down onto the flooding sidewalk, mouth filling with gritty rainwater, and he wouldn’t have cared. This was bullshit. “What about that one school?” Kris said. “Gaylen or something? Down south?” “Hippocrates.” Under his father’s insistence, he’d applied to the Louisiana-based anti-AI school as a “safety,” one he’d never expected to consider. They had fallen far off of TIME magazine’s yearly top medical school rankings after essentially eliminating the latest technology from their curriculum. Just the thought of moving to Louisiana—the most backward state in the country—twisted Pok’s gut. “I don’t understand. How many did you get into?” “I don’t think—” “How many?” “Eight.” Eight? The New York air somehow grew hotter; Pok could visualize the rain sizzling off his skin. He’d received perfect marks. He’d checked all the boxes. His own father was a physician who’d given fifteen years of his life to MacArthur Hospital. And eight of the Prestigious Twelve wanted Kris and none wanted Pok? He knew Kris’s application. Hell, he’d helped with the essays. There was no way Kris would be picked over him. No way. And eight times? No fucking way. Pok rounded his building’s corner, head down, embarrassment pounding at his ears and rain pelting the nape of his neck. He unlocked his apartment door remotely as he took the stairs two at a time—the elevator was broken again—and resented the smell of the city’s concrete summer. “It’s got to be a glitch or something,” Kris said. “Somebody messed up. You’re the smartest kid I know.” The Shepherd Organization’s algorithms didn’t make mistakes. Not like this. But Kris inadvertently sparked an idea that bloomed into an insatiable urge. Pok squinted against his bedroom’s harsh, swinging light. The building—which housed MacArthur’s many medical trainees, physicians, and personnel—offered to install ones that adjusted to pupil dilation. His father, old-fashioned but well-meaning, had refused. Pok cleared a spot on his bed, found his virtual reality gaming headset, and booted up Impact, an open-world, massively online multiplayer game about teamwork and survival. “I’m coming over,” Kris said. “Don’t.” Pok took a moment to finger-comb out his shoulder-length locs; water dripped onto his thighs and the edge of his bed. “What are you up to?” “Troubleshooting,” Pok said. “Don’t do anything stupid.” “You know me. I’ll catch you later. And congratulations.” Pok took off his glass and replaced it with his gaming set. His New York apartment fell away and Impact took hold. His temples hummed with adrenaline as he created a new profile and avatar and started anew as a lone nomad. He summoned a hovercraft and directed it away from active play, full speed. Impact advertised an endless world. It generated new maps—including towns, resources, and histories—whenever a player ventured into an uncharted area. When Pok was confident about the distance between him and any other online players, he ejected himself from the hovercraft, ran into the closest house—still rendering itself in real time—opened the first closet, and jumped inside. His avatar fell into darkness. Pok counted to three and activated his jet pack. Below him, disc-shaped platforms popped up in domino effect, one under the next, like giant floating stairs leading down an endless abyss. Each had its own unique landscape, from lush countryside to suburban neighborhoods to downtown districts replete with skyscrapers. He descended to a metropolis platform several levels down, landed on the tallest building, and found its control room. He went straight to the central kiosk, brought up its command line interface, and inserted his custom string of code. A door appeared and slid open. The bright room contrasted with the building’s otherwise dim, dark interior. Rows and rows of stacked computer screens aspired toward infinity. The Underground Web. A hacker’s portal to wherever they dared venture. Years ago, during AI’s great technological boom, a revolutionary driverless car company ventured into neuro-enhancing brain implants. Through the Underground, a hacker caused a violent psychosis in dozens of early adopters and triggered multiple concurrent killing sprees that left more than a hundred dead across five states. And because many of the neuro-hacked were social media influencers, the world watched much of it live. All tech companies subsequently banned the Underground, sucking it dry. Until the Shepherd Organization. It embraced and revitalized it, boldly proclaiming their system open to anyone with altruistic intentions. Any nefarious acts, however, would be immediately thwarted by powerful algorithms, leaving the perpetrator technologically exposed to TSO and buried in litigation. None of which Pok had an appetite for. He stayed pedestrian with his hacking, mainly using it to access betas of in-production games. Venturing into the Prestigious Twelve’s applicant database would be closer to the shepherd sun than he had ever dared to fly. Find the application, see what in the hell went wrong, and get out. Pok stepped inside and picked a random aisle. Identical screens ran various lines of code. One unit stood separate from the rest. An old-school computer connected to a physical keyboard sat atop a table. Pok paused the scrolling code with the tap of a key. A new line with a blinking cursor appeared. He typed: The Shepherd Schools of Medicine, Admissions. The screen flickered, scrolled more code, and soon his own face smiled out at him. Unease touched his belly. Exploring the Underground was like peeling back human flesh to see the inner biology at work. Only a skilled surgeon could hope to tamper without disastrous results. This was reckless; he should have stopped there. But every single medical school? Pok had to know why. He opened his file. “What the hell?” The application had his name, date of birth, and unique applicant ID. Beyond that, nothing else was his. While his transcript was perfect, the one submitted had a subpar GPA with multiple withdrawn classes. The extracurriculars were without theme or merit. Pok had numerous peer-reviewed, first-author publications; here, the “Research” section was blank. This wasn’t the application he’d turned in. Not at all. Why? How? Important questions, but secondary. He had to fix it. From his personal files, Pok queued for upload his true application, complete with his encrypted genome, and hesitated. Months ago, when initially submitting, he’d grappled with the same ingrained apprehension. His father had diligently waived genome analysis at every turn of Pok’s childhood and adolescence. Antidiscrimination laws made it illegal to require DNA in applications—except in select fields like medicine. Once TSO had his genome, there was no reversing it. Pok completed the transfer. This done, he brought up the activity log, scrolled past the various review stages, and found his initial submission time stamp. Shit. “Upload Incomplete.” He’d never received that error. He quickly saw why: only minutes later was another, completed transfer, initiated by user CryingRabbits218. Not an error: a fake. Pok combed his memory for past rivals he’d hacked, gaming foes he’d humiliated. This could be the perfect revenge prank. The handle, however, didn’t ring a bell. The screen flashed red. The hue leaked out to the surrounding room. Pok groaned. He’d programmed a warning system into his hacking interface. The shepherds were investigating his activity; he needed to abort before he had deeper problems than an anonymous online enemy. Pok moved quickly but meticulously. Source or not, he’d just hacked into a subset of TSO. He needed to cover his tracks. Pok backed out of the Underground and spent the next hour scouring the newly rendered area to seek out and kill any rogue NPCs. Each represented an errant line of code that, if left unneutralized, could infect his entire system. He then deployed a kill code to eradicate this particular door to the Underground and turned off his console. His senses came back to the real world. The patter of rain on his window. The whir of the hallway air conditioner. The lingering hint of metal on his tongue. Beside him, his glass still showed the decision page. He put it on and refreshed. As if the algorithms would magically reprocess, see what an exceptional candidate he was, and immediately offer a spot. Still rejected. Still unanimous. Red marks, all the way down. Excerpted from The Hospital At The End of This World, copyright © 2025 by Justin C. Key. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>The Hospital At The End of This World</i> by Justin C. Key appeared first on Reactor.