Report typos and corrections to: corrections@rawstory.com.
Stories Chosen For You
Students at a Cincinnati-area high school are being punished for placing signs that designated water fountains as "Whites only" and "Blacks only."
As the Washington Post reports, the signs posted at the Colerain High School spurred outrage and brought back painful memories of race-based segregation that lasted until the passage of landmark civil rights legislation in the 1960s.
School officials this week revealed that they have found the students who were responsible for what they described as a "tasteless and hurtful act," and said that they "have been issued significant disciplinary actions."
The officials went on to emphasize that "this type of behavior is not and will not be condoned or tolerated."
IN OTHER NEWS: Trump's 'dangerous' election lies may be about to blow up in Pennsylvania Republicans' faces: NYT's Haberman
The signs first drew public outrage when a parent posted a photo of them on Facebook earlier this month, which prompted the school to launch an investigation.
One parent of a Colerain student this week told local news station Fox 19 that they were sickened by the signs, which they said "pushed us back so many generations."
"My heart dropped," the parent added. "I could not believe it. It was so offensive."
Colerain is a relatively diverse high school, as an estimated 30 percent of enrolled students are Black.
CONTINUE READING
Show less
Jean-Michel Basquiat's "Untitled" 1982 sold for $85 million at auction in New York Wednesday, well above its pre-sale estimate and netting Japanese billionaire space tourist Yusaku Maezawa a tidy profit.
Phillips auction house sold the 16-foot-wide painting on behalf of Maezawa, who purchased it in 2016 for $57.3 million.
The auctioneers had tipped it to go for around $70 million.
Phillips announced in a statement in March that it would put the artwork under the hammer.
Maezawa, the mega-rich founder of Japan's largest online fashion mall, said in the statement that the past six years of owning the painting were "a great pleasure."
But art "should be shared so that it can be a part of everyone's lives," he added.
Ahead of its sale, the massive artwork went on an international tour, being displayed in London, Los Angeles and Taipei.
Maezawa, who in 2017 set a new auction record for Basquiat works when he paid $110.5 million for another painting by the 20th century giant, has said he plans to create a new museum to exhibit his collection.
He founded the Contemporary Art Foundation in Tokyo and was on the 2017 list of "Top 200 Collectors" by the ARTnews magazine based in New York.
He has been in the headlines more recently for becoming the first space tourist to travel to the International Space Station with Russia's space agency.
His odyssey is believed to have cost around 10 billion yen ($87 million), and he plans to follow it up with a trip around the Moon organized by Elon Musk's SpaceX.
© 2022 AFP
CONTINUE READING
Show less
A writer who penned a piece titled "How To Murder Your Husband" is on trial in the United States for...killing her husband.
It is a case that has all the hallmarks of classic detective fiction -- a huge insurance payout, an impecunious suspect who claims to have amnesia, a missing weapon, and surveillance footage that seems to have caught the culprit red-handed.
But for novelist Nancy Crampton Brophy, it's not the plot of her latest book; it's real life in an Oregon court room.
Crampton Brophy, whose "Wrong Never Felt So Right" series of novels include "The Wrong Husband" and "The Wrong Lover," stands accused of shooting Daniel Brophy, using a gun whose now-missing barrel she bought on eBay.
Prosecutors say the 71-year-old writer was struggling to make payments on her mortgage, but kept up multiple life assurance policies that would pay out a total of $1.4 million in the event of her husband's demise.
"I do better with Dan alive financially than I do with Dan dead," she said as she took the stand in Portland this week, The Oregonian newspaper reported.
"Where is the motivation I would ask you? An editor would laugh and say, ‘I think you need to work harder on this story, you have a big hole in it.’"
Prosecutor Shawn Overstreet said security camera footage had captured Crampton Brophy's minivan outside the Oregon Culinary Institute on June 2, 2018 at almost exactly the time her chef husband was killed in one of the school's classrooms.
"You were there at the same time that someone happens to be shooting your husband....with the exact type of gun that you own and which is now mysteriously missing," he said.
Crampton Brophy told the court she has no memory of being there, though acknowledges she must have been, insisting the CCTV images show her in the area because she was driving around getting inspiration for a story.
"This is not a man I would have shot because I had a memory issue. It seems to me if I had shot him, I would know every detail."
Daniel Brophy, 63, was found dead that morning by students readying for a class. He had been shot twice.
Investigators say the barrel from the Glock handgun used in the slaying was purchased by the suspect on eBay.
That barrel -- which would contain damning forensic clues -- has never been recovered, despite an exhaustive police search.
Crampton Brophy admits having bought a Glock pistol, which she says was for her husband to protect himself when he went mushroom hunting in the woods, but says the missing barrel was purchased as part of research for an unfinished novel.
"There was a big separation between what was for writing and what was for protection," she told the court, The Oregonian reported.
Prosecutors say Crampton Brophy, whose "How To Murder Your Husband" remains accessible online and whose books can be bought on Amazon, was facing financial ruin before her husband's death, but continued to pay into 10 separate life insurance policies.
The blog on murdering a husband discusses methods and motivations for dispatching an unwanted spouse.
These include financial gain and the use of a firearm, although it notes guns are "loud, messy, require some skill."
"But the thing I know about murder is that every one of us have it in him/her when pushed far enough," the essay says.
The trial, which began in early April, is ongoing.
CONTINUE READING
Show less
Copyright © 2022 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 | Masthead | Privacy Policy | For corrections or concerns, please email corrections@rawstory.com.
{{ post.roar_specific_data.api_data.analytics }}