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'Rich Men North of Richmond' tops iTunes as voice of working-class song goes viral

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Sun, 13 Aug 2023 18:34 UTC
Oliver Anthony
Oliver Anthony
The raw honesty of a former factory worker in what could be the protest song of our generation has become an internet sensation overnight. The song "Rich Men North of Richmond" has skyrocketed to No. 1 on iTunes this weekend.

Oliver Anthony, a former factory worker who decided to pursue a life in music last year and is living in the forgotten part of the US, Appalachia, an area plagued with an opioid crisis and abandoned factories, tells the story of the working-class folk who struggle daily while being ignored and mocked by political elites. Here is the first couple of lines from the song:
I've been selling my soul, working all day, overtime hours for bullshit pay,

So, I can sit out here and waste my life away, drag back home, and drown my troubles away.

It's a damn shame what the world's gotten to for people like me — for people like you.

Wish I could just wake up and it not be true. But it is. Oh, it is.
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Health

House explosion in Pennsylvania leaves 5 dead, 3 other homes destroyed and dozens damaged


KSL TV
Sun, 13 Aug 2023 18:25 UTC
plum pa explosion
© Samuel Long/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via APTwo firefighters stand on the debris around the smoldering wreckage of the the three houses that exploded near Rustic Ridge Drive and Brookside Drive in Plum, Pa., on Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023
Five people were found dead after a house explosion in western Pennsylvania that destroyed three structures and damaged at least a dozen others, authorities said Sunday.

Plum Borough Police Chief Lanny Conley said the bodies of four adults and one adolescent were recovered after the blast shortly before 10:30 a.m. Saturday in the borough, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Pittsburgh.

"This is certainly a sad, sad day and a sad time, for not just the folks in Plum but all the folks in the community and in this region," said Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald.

Of the three people taken to hospitals, two were released while one remained in critical condition, said Steve Imbarlina, deputy director of fire and emergency services for Allegheny County. Fifty-seven firefighters were treated at the scene for minor issues.
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Arrow Up

Saudi Embassy resumes operations in Tehran after over 7-year hiatus


Middle East Monitor
Wed, 09 Aug 2023 08:20 UTC
Embassy
© Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty ImagesSaudi Arabia embassy in Tehran, Iran
Saudi Arabia's Embassy in Tehran resumed its operations earlier this week after more than a seven-year hiatus, Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported on Wednesday.

The state agency cited an unnamed "official source" in the Foreign Ministry as confirming that the Saudi Embassy in the Iranian capital resumed its work "three days ago."

In June, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan during his visit to Tehran announced that the Saudi Embassy will be reopened soon, but stopped short of specifying the exact time. During the visit, Farhan and his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian agreed on forming joint political and economic committees to pursue common interests.
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Magnify

The IRS can't find millions of sensitive tax records for individuals, businesses

Arjun Singh
Daily Caller
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 01:44 UTC
taxprotest
© Economic Security ProjectAdvocates for tax reform
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has lost millions of tax records for businesses stored at their facilities, according to a government inspector general report released on Tuesday.

The IRS maintains several storage facilities across the country where tax records — such as tax returns, additional filings, evidence and dispute forms — are held, some in microfilm cartridges dating back decades. An investigation by the Department of the Treasury's Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) found empty boxes in place of the cartridges at two storage facilities, according to a report they issued on their findings.

TIGTA wrote of their visit to the IRS' storage facility in Ogden, Utah:
"We observed seven empty boxes ... Each box holds 24 cartridges meaning as many as 168 cartridges may have been sent for reformatting. IRS personnel in Ogden were unaware of the current location of these cartridges."
One cartridge may contain up to 2,000 images, according to Politico.
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Arrow Up

US suicides hit an all-time high last year


Valley News Live
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 02:18 UTC
man walking
© Charlie Riedel/AP/FileThe final journey
About 49,500 people took their own lives last year in the U.S., the highest number ever, according to new government data posted Thursday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which posted the numbers, has not yet calculated a suicide rate for the year, but available data suggests suicides are more common in the U.S. than at any time since the dawn of World War II.

Christina Wilbur, a 45-year-old Florida woman whose son shot himself to death last year, said:
"There's something wrong. The number should not be going up. My son should not have died. I know it's complicated, I really do. But we have to be able to do something. Something that we're not doing. Because whatever we're doing right now is not helping."
Experts caution that suicide is complicated, and that recent increases might be driven by a range of factors, including higher rates of depression and limited availability of mental health services.

But a main driver is the growing availability of guns, said Jill Harkavy-Friedman, senior vice president of research at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.


Comment: It always comes back to guns. Guns do not pull their own trigger. Suicide is a choice from an array of circumstances and reasons including societal upheavals that destabilize whole populations and untether the fragile network that serves to anchor much of humanity.

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Cardboard Box

US, UK, Canada sanction Riad Salameh for embezzling $300mn in public funds


The Cradle
Thu, 10 Aug 2023 00:00 UTC
salameh
© LBCIFormer Lebanon Central Bank Chief Riad Salameh
The US, UK, and Canada on 10 August announced coordinated sanctions against Riad Salameh, Lebanon's former central bank governor, and four of his associates "for their role in the diversion of over $300 [million]" from the bank's coffers.

The statement issued by the UK government reads:
"Riad Salameh's actions benefited himself and his close associates at the expense of the Lebanese people. His brother Raja Salameh, former assistant Marianne Hoayek, and former partner Anna Kosakova financially benefited from this corruption, lining their pockets with money belonging to the Lebanese people."
In another harshly-worded statement, the US Treasury Department says:
"Salameh abused his position of power, likely in violation of Lebanese law, to enrich himself and his associates by funneling hundreds of millions of dollars through layered shell companies to invest in European real estate."
The US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also placed the disgraced former official on the specially designated nationals and blocked persons list.

He faces other criminal investigations for money laundering and corruption in Luxembourg, the UK, Switzerland, and Lebanon. Salameh is also wanted by France and Germany under charges of illicit enrichment and the laundering of $330 million in Lebanese public funds. Two Interpol red notices have been issued against him; however, Beirut does not extradite its nationals.
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Map

Flashback Oprah Winfrey buys 870 acres in Maui for $6.6 million

Katie Schultz
Architectural Digest
Tue, 07 Mar 2023 00:01 UTC
Oprah Winfrey
© Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagicOprah Winfrey's main residence is in Montecito, California.
After over 15 years of living in Maui part-time, Oprah Winfrey spent the last few months majorly expanding her property holdings in the Aloha state, according to a report from local news outlet KITV4. The media mogul spent about $6.6 million on four parcels of agricultural land totaling 870 acres in Kula, Maui, per Maui Now. Two of those parcels were sold by ʻUlupalakua Ranch last month: one 520-acre plot for $3.89 million and another 330 acres for $2.47 million. Near the end of last year, Winfrey acquired an additional two 10-acre swaths of land, each for $100,000.

The talk show trailblazer already owned over 100 acres of Maui land, according to the report, meaning Winfrey now owns roughly 1,000 acres on the island. The acquisition was met with mixed reactions from local residents, some of whom worried that the purchase would contribute to the displacement of native Hawaiians.

Comment:




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Arrow Down

Rates of erectile dysfunction among US men have nearly doubled to 30 MILLION in recent years, data suggests - and progressive states are behind the rise

Cassidy Morrison
Daily Mail
Sat, 12 Aug 2023 08:37 UTC
erectile dysfunction by state
Northeastern states like Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire have relatively high median ages. ED is typically more common in older men.
The number of men seeking treatment for erectile dysfunction has soared in recent years amid what some have described as a 'silent epidemic'.

Viagra - the 'little blue pill' - is normally associated with old people but the most recent figures suggest an estimated 30 million American men now live with erectile dysfunction - nearly twice as many in the early 2000s.

Around a quarter of under-40s are thought to struggle to get it up in bed, which has been linked to a rise in obesity rates, poor mental health, and an overconsumption of pornography.

Comment: See also:

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Sherlock

Another explosion at a port in Turkey: Gas pressure at waste disposal area blamed - Germany's largest scrap yard at Duisburg port also catches fire


APA
Mon, 14 Aug 2023 14:22 UTC
turkey port
Screenshot
At least one was reported killed and another was injured in an explosion caused by gas pressure in a ship's waste warehouse in the Tuzla shipyards region, Türkiye, Istanbul Governor's Office confirmed on Monday, APA's Istanbul correspondent reports.

The office added that the explosion took place at around 10.30 am. local time. Following the blast, rescue workers and firefighters rush to the scene of the explosion to stop the blaze.

Comment: Footage of the port:


Whether this is just simply an accident, or whether it's related to the incident a week ago remains to be seen: Explosion at grain silos at Turkey's Derince port, several injured

And just 4 days ago: Huge fire erupts at grain silos at French Atlantic port

Also 4 days ago was this other incident which is notable for being yet another fire/explosion at a port, and, as with the incident in Turkey, it also occurred at an area for waste disposal:
Fire breaks out at Germany's largest scrap yard

In Germany, a scrap metal dump, which is the largest in the country, caught fire. Bild newspaper writes about it. Eyewitnesses are posting video of the fire on social media.

According to the publication, we are talking about a landfill in the river port of Duisburg. About a thousand tons of scrap metal are stored there.
duisburg fire
Image of the fire at Duisburg
Rescue services said that the concentration of harmful substances in the air is not exceeded. Nevertheless, residents of nearby areas were still advised to tightly close windows and doors.

Currently, 250 firefighters are engaged in extinguishing the fire. According to experts, it will be possible to eliminate the fire not earlier than August 11.


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Eye 1

Marine charged with sexual assault weeks after missing 14-year-old discovered in his Camp Pendleton barracks

Katherine Donlevy
New York Post
Sat, 12 Aug 2023 01:29 UTC
us marine camp pendleton
The US Marine accused of having a 14-year-old girl inside the barracks at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton has been charged.
A Marine based in California was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl who had been missing for more than two weeks when she was found in his barracks.

Military prosecutors slapped the Marine with sexual assault of a minor charges Friday, months after military police discovered the teenager holing up at Camp Pendleton on June 28, Capt. Charles Palmer of the 1st Marine Logistics Group said in a statement.

He was also charged with violating liberty restriction from an earlier, unrelated case.
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