A T 5:44 P.M. ON FEB. 23, 2022, my phone lit up with a WhatsApp message from a stranger. “Hello Sean Williams,” he wrote. “I have something for you.” Seconds later, the stranger sent a link to a Spectrum 1 News interview with a retired LAPD cop and writer named …
Read More »He Spent 25 Years Infiltrating Nazis, the Klan, and Biker Gangs
W e’ll come to the homegrown terrorists he foiled and the race war they tried to foment. To the journalists he saved from assassination and the synagogue marked for carnage in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. To the gun-rights march on the steps of a state capitol, where they planned to …
Read More »QAnon's Deadly Price
T he sun had only just risen over Rosarito, Mexico, on August 9th when a neighbor told Roberto Salinas Ramirez about the blood spattered across the dry creek outside his small pink home. Ramirez, 47, lives on a farm next to fields of tomatoes and lettuce, in full view of …
Read More »The Music That Got Me Through 9/11 and Its Aftermath
I was new in town — I moved to New York in the year 2000, looking for some breathing room after some sad times in Virginia. I found a cheap apartment in downtown Manhattan, right under the World Trade Center, on John Street. A weird place to live — nobody …
Read More »A Target Sex-Trafficking Hoax Is Going Viral on TikTok
“OK, so I saw this TikTok that Target is the new sex trafficking hub, or very commonly known for sex trafficking, and I saw this girl posted her story so I wanted to say about mine,” Makenzie Jade says in her video. She then tells a story about being followed …
Read More »Porn Creators Are Getting In on the NFT Craze
Against a verdant background, a woman in fishnets, a bustier, and a bright green hunter’s cap drags an image of Robinhood CEO Vladimir Tenev on a leash, while he clasps his hands together in supplication. “Get on your knees and repent, Vlad,” the caption reads. “But I’m still robbing you …
Read More »Frank Serpico: Police See Themselves as 'Judge, Jury, and Executioner'
On February 3rd, 1971, detective Frank Serpico — immortalized by Al Pacino in the gritty 1973 cop drama Serpico — was shot in the face. The bullet pierced him under the eye and lodged in his jaw. Just a year earlier, he had gone public with evidence of shocking corruption …
Read More »The 'World Wide Robin Hood Society' Had a Very Weird Week
Bob White was just starting to settle in to a quiet night with his family at his Nottingham, England home last Friday when his cell phone dinged. And dinged again. And again. The affable, 77-year-old retiree was enjoying a cup of coffee and was barely used to two alerts in …
Read More »Mom Influencers on Instagram Are Spreading Anti-Mask Propaganda
Earlier this week, Jodie Meschuk, an anti-vaccination advocate with 19,000 followers, posted a graphic of children’s cherubic cartoon faces, with the caption “Un-mask our kids. Let’s talk mom to mom.” The graphic contained many erroneous claims about the risks associated with wearing face masks, including that it can lead to …
Read More »The Untold History of the Dennis Rodman Tattoo T-Shirt
Unlike the basketball-deprived millions glued to their TVs on Sunday nights, Micky Goldschmidt isn’t watching The Last Dance, ESPN’s 10-part docuseries about the 1990s Chicago Bulls dynasty. “I grew up a die-hard New York Knicks fan,” the 48-year-old says of the team that Michael Jordan would knock out of the …
Read More »