Random News and Notes 21 May
On this date in 1881, the American Red Cross was founded. In Washington, D.C., humanitarians Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons found the American National Red Cross, an organization established to provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters in congruence with the International Red Cross.
Barton, born in Massachusetts in 1821, worked with the sick and wounded during the American Civil War and became known as the “Angel of the Battlefield” for her tireless dedication. In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln commissioned her to search for lost prisoners of war, and with the extensive records she had compiled during the war she succeeded in identifying thousands of the Union dead at the Andersonville prisoner-of-war camp.
She was in Europe in 1870 when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and she went behind the German lines to work for the International Red Cross. In 1873, she returned to the United States, and four years later she organized an American branch of the International Red Cross. The American Red Cross received its first U.S. federal charter in 1900. Barton headed the organization into her 80s and died in 1912. Solomons served alongside her as vice president for 12 years.
On this date in 1921, one of the most sensational and sordid murders in US history occurred. It was in this day that 14-year-old Bobby Franks is abducted from a Chicago, Illinois, street and killed by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. They were wealthy and intelligent teenagers whose sole motive for killing Franks was the desire to commit the “perfect crime.” Both were convinced that their intelligence and social privilege exempted them from the laws that bound other people.
Loeb stabbed Bobby Franks several times in the backseat of a rented car as Leopold drove through Chicago’s heavy traffic. After Franks bled to death on the floor of the car, Leopold and Loeb threw his body in a previously scouted swamp and then disposed of the other evidence in various locations. But Leopold and Loeb had made a couple of key mistakes.
First, the body, which was poorly hidden, was discovered the next day. This prompted an immediate search for the killers, which Loeb himself joined. The typewriter used to type the ransom note was recovered from a lake and, more important, a pair of glasses was found near Franks’ body. When the glasses were traced to Loeb’s optometrist, police learned that the optometrist had only written three such prescriptions. Two were immediately accounted for and the third belonged to Nathan Leopold.
The pair were sentenced to life in prison after a defense by famed attorney Clarence Darrow convinced the judge to forego the death penalty. In January 1936, a fellow inmate killed Loeb in a bloody razor fight in the prison’s shower. Leopold was released on parole in 1958 with help from noted poet Carl Sandburg, who testified on his behalf. He lived out the rest of his life in Puerto Rico, where he died in 1971.
We start off the news in California with yet another story about an illegal alien CDL driver killing someone with their vehicle. Manvir Singh, an Indian national who entered the U.S. illegally in 2023, rear-ended a chain of vehicles on Highway 99 near Lodi, California, on May 20 around 12:20 p.m. The rig he was driving pushed a Kia Forte into a Nissan Frontier and Toyota Camry before hitting a guardrail killing two and seriously injuring 5 more.
He faces felony charges of vehicular manslaughter, hit-and-run, and resisting arrest, with bail at $185,000 and court on Thursday. Federal officials confirmed his status and criticized his California-issued commercial driver’s license from March 2025.
Staying in California for the moment, Chevron gas stations across the state have started putting up signs telling consumers who is responsible for the abhorrently high gas and diesel prices in that state. The signs, prominently displayed at the pumps, pin the state’s $6.07 average gas price—$1.50 above the national $4.56—on state taxes, fees, and regulations like the Cap-and-Trade program and Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which total $1.00 to $1.35 per gallon.
The signs highlight refinery closures and import reliance, urging drivers to scan QR codes for details, as part of Chevron’s long-standing push against these policies. It’s about time the companies push back against the constant demonization by leftists.
The Justice Department swore in its largest-ever class of immigration judges on Wednesday—77 permanent and 5 temporary—mostly former ICE attorneys, prosecutors, and military judge advocates. This follows the removal of over 100 judges since President Trump took office in January 2025, dropping the total below 600 before this rebuild toward 700.
With 3.5 million pending cases, the enforcement-experienced hires aim to speed up decisions on asylum claims and deportations.
This next one is kinda funny, but the reasons behind it are not. New York City got between 5 and 6 inches of rain yesterday and it caused flash flooding across the 5 boroughs. A video went viral showing a pink-shirted woman being swept off her feet by floodwaters as she exited a bus.
She was uninjured, but the video highlights a bigger issue in NYC. Flooding like this has become commonplace, and it has nothing to do with climate change or any of the snake oil that the left is trying to peddle. The storm sewers have not been maintained and that is the direct cause of the flooding. The retard Muslim commie mayor is only going to make the situation worse.