Interesting, Non Political News

Soldiers have rarely won wars. They more often mop up after the barrage of epidemics. And typhus, with its brothers and sisters—plague, cholera, typhoid, dysentery—has decided more campaigns than Caesar, Hannibal, Napoleon, and the inspectors general of history. The epidemics get the blame for defeat, the generals get the credit for victory. It ought to be the other way around.

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Dying from epidemic typhus was not a pleasant way to go. After a brutal onset involving excruciating headache and blistering fever, a rash would arise. The face would darken and swell, and a crazed delirium could send the sufferer leaping about naked and screaming, impossible to subdue. Following this period, which sometimes seemed to subside into a false recovery, the patient would enter a stupor, which gave the disease its name: typhos in Greek means "smoky" or "hazy." Toward the end, gangrene could set in, rotting fingers and toes and driving away caregivers with the horrific stench. Death, when it came, would be a release.

Typhus was one of the greatest killers in human history. It shaped outcomes of war from the 16th century to the 20th, from Hungary and Turkey, and most of Europe and into the New World. In 1526, the French army had to end its siege of Naples because typhus had killed 28,000 of the besiegers in a month. For perspective, the failure to take Naples left Italy and the papacy in Spain’s power. The pope at the time, Clement VII, to avoid angering Charles V of Spain, declined to grant Henry VIII’s divorce (picture left) request from Catherine of Aragon…and the Protestant Reformation was born.

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For four years, the 34-year-old convicted drug trafficker captured daily life on contraband cameras at the Martin Correctional Institution. He smuggled footage dating back to 2017 out of the prison, and titled the documentary “Behind Tha Barb Wire.” The video — given to the Miami Herald — allows the public to see with their own eyes the violence, rampant drug use and appalling conditions inside the prison.

As the Herald previously reported, Florida prisons have gone to great lengths to withhold video footage and other documents from news outlets, as well as family members of inmates who have died in custody. To keep from releasing records, the agency has cited medical privacy laws and legal exemptions; sharing video footage specifically, it said, could jeopardize a facility’s security system and endanger prison personnel.

Whitney’s film, perhaps, underscored other reasons Florida’s Department of Corrections is keeping videos and records under wraps. From scene to scene, Whitney’s footage revealed an unkempt and decaying environment and demonstrated how little the officers care about their responsibilities or the inmates.

The video confirmed that homemade weapons and violence are hallmarks of life at Martin Correctional Institution, which the Herald said had 31 deaths in the past six years, including five homicides. Whitney modeled a makeshift stab-proof vest for the camera in one scene; in others, prisoners held a homemade knife and a “lock-and-belt weapon.” The film documented mold covering the kitchen and mice popping in through crumbling walls. It also memorialized Hurricane Irma in 2017, when inmates from other prisons were transported to and housed at the facility, sleeping on the floor.

Most saliently, though, it captured the widespread drug use inside the prison. “You got the war on drugs on the street, but once we get here you don’t care about the drugs,” he said to the camera. Scene after scene showed inmates slumped over, stumbling to the ground, dragged across the floor and “twaking out.” One man lay face down in a pool of his own blood and another was rolled out on a gurney. The culprit, Whitney said, was K2, a synthetic cannabinoid also known as “twak;” the Herald listed the drug as the most frequently confiscated contraband and the leading cause of overdose deaths. Whitney continued, “You know you might not wake up any day you smoke that.”

The Florida Department of Corrections Office of Inspector General has opened an investigation into the video. On September 19, Jordyn Gilley-Nixon, a prison reform advocate and former inmate, uploaded two minutes of Whitney’s footage to YouTube. Since then, prison officials have housed Whitney in isolation. If he’s released from solitary confinement, Whitney, whose drug trafficking sentence ends in 2040, promised to continue filming.

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As detailed in a criminal complaint, Benjamin approached the woman and “pulled out a water gun that contained his own urine” and squirted her “several times.”

In an interview with TSG days after his arrest, Benjamin admitted that, “I lost my fucking temper and shot her in the face with my squirt gun filled with piss.” Describing the attack as an “egregious thing to do,” Benjamin claimed he targeted the woman because she had been spying on him as part of a purported government surveillance campaign.

During police questioning, Benjamin showed no remorse, saying that he would “do it again,” according to the complaint.

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A Philadelphia jury on Tuesday said that Johnson & Johnson must pay $8 billion in punitive damages to a man who says a drug manufactured by the company caused him to grow breasts. A Maryland man, Nicholas Murray, alleged in a lawsuit that he developed gynecomastia, a condition that caused him to grow breasts, after taking J&J’s drug Risperdal from 2003 to 2008.

Risperdal is used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and irritability arising from autism. Murray was prescribed the drug when he was a child for difficulty sleeping, most likely arising from autism, his doctors said. The lawsuit claimed that J&J knew about the risk of gynecomastia and allegedly failed to properly warn doctors and healthcare providers about it. Murray is one of several plaintiffs making the same claims in a mass tort case against J&J. Mass tort cases are similar to class action suits, but plaintiffs have to individually prove how they were injured.

J&J is already entangled in a number of lawsuits related to other products. It has been sued over its baby powder allegedly containing asbestos and for how it marketed painkillers to doctors, which critics say fueled the opioid epidemic.

What’s next: J&J will appeal the verdict. The $8 billion figure will likely be lowered on appeal, Reuters reported.

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