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🔗 United States 🔗 Biography 🔗 Olympics 🔗 United States/FBI 🔗 Georgia (U.S. state)

Richard Allensworth Jewell (born Richard White; December 17, 1962 – August 29, 2007) was an American security guard and law enforcement officer who alerted police during the Centennial Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. For months afterwards he was suspected of planting the bomb, leading to adverse publicity that "came to symbolize the excesses of law enforcement and the news media."

While working as a security guard at the Olympic Park, Jewell discovered a backpack containing three pipe bombs on the park grounds. He alerted law enforcement and helped evacuate the area before the bomb exploded, probably saving many people from injury or death.

Initially hailed by the media as a hero, Jewell was soon considered a suspect by the FBI and local law enforcement based on scientific profiling. Though never charged, he underwent a "trial by media", which took a toll on his personal and professional life. Jewell was cleared as a suspect after 88 days of public scrutiny. Eric Rudolph eventually confessed and pleaded guilty to that bombing and other attacks. The media circus surrounding the investigation, which was leaked to the press, has been widely cited as an example of law enforcement and media excesses.

In recent years, Jewell's heroic legacy has been the subject of popular culture, including the 2019 film Richard Jewell, and the drama anthology series Manhunt.

🔗 United States 🔗 Finance & Investment

The term 3-6-3 Rule describes how the United States retail banking industry operated from the 1950s to the 1980s. The name 3-6-3 refers to the impression that bankers had a stable, comfortable existence by paying 3 percent interest on deposits, lending money out at 6 percent, and being able to "tee off at the golf course by 3 p.m."

The implication was that the banks were less competitive during that period than in subsequent years due to tight regulations that limited the formation and location of banks as well as restrictions on interest rates that could be charged or paid. As a result, bankers had "power and prestige ... while profits were steady and certain". These regulations were loosened in the 1980s.

Richmond Federal Reserve senior economist John R. Walter argues that, although there is evidence that restrictions on banks before the 1980s did limit the competitiveness of banking markets and thereby granted some banks monopoly power, "the regulatory restrictions probably had a limited effect on competition" during the time in question. Chicago Federal Reserve researchers Robert DeYoung and Tara Rice argue that, "Like most good jokes, the 3-6-3 rule mixes a grain of truth with a highly simplified view of reality."

The rule has been noted positively following the late-2000s financial crisis as a preferable way for banks to operate following the bailout of major banks.

Australia's banking system, which was deregulated in the 1990s in a manner similar to that in the U.S., also came to be characterized in the same way as did the United Kingdom's.

🔗 United States 🔗 Law 🔗 Correction and Detention Facilities 🔗 African diaspora

In the United States, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution states the following:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

This prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, but leaves an exception for punishment for a crime of which one has been convicted. Various commentators have accused states of abusing this provision to re-establish systems similar to slavery, or of otherwise exploiting such labor in a manner unfair to local labor.

Starting in the late 2010s and extending into the mid-2020s, a movement emerged to repeal the exception clause from both the federal and state constitutions. As of February 2026, eight states had joined Rhode Island in repealing the exception clause from their state constitutions, while 26 states' constitutions make no mention of either slavery or involuntary servitude and 15 states retain an exception clause.

🔗 United States 🔗 International relations 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/North American military history 🔗 Military history/United States military history 🔗 United States/Military history - U.S. military history 🔗 Iran 🔗 Israel 🔗 Western Asia 🔗 Military history/Middle Eastern military history 🔗 Military history/Post-Cold War

Numerous reasons have been given by different people for the 2026 Iran war, which began when the United States and Israel launched surprise airstrikes on Iran on 28 February 2026. The reasons are described as diverse, changing, and at times contradictory.

US and Israeli officials have framed it as a preemptive war of self-defense. They argue that diplomacy had failed to contain the unacceptable and potentially existential threats of Iran's nuclear program and ballistic missiles. They also argued the strikes were justified as a response to Iran's regional activities (support for proxy groups, attacks on shipping, etc.) and its violent suppression of domestic protests in January 2026. Critics have described it as a war of choice. Some analysts describe the war as a classic "security dilemma", where both sides saw the other's military buildup as threatening, making conflict increasingly likely even if neither side necessarily wanted full-scale war. Regional actors, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, share many of the US and Israel's war aims though differing on whether to pursue war or diplomacy.

🔗 United States/U.S. Government 🔗 United States 🔗 Terrorism

The 1983 U.S. Senate bombing was a bomb explosion at the United States Senate on November 7, 1983, motivated by United States military involvement in Lebanon and Grenada. The attack led to heightened security in the DC metropolitan area, and the inaccessibility of certain parts of the Senate Building. Six members of the radical left-wing Resistance Conspiracy were arrested in May 1988 and charged with the bombing, as well as related bombings of Fort McNair and the Washington Navy Yard which occurred April 25, 1983, and April 20, 1984, respectively.

🔗 United States 🔗 Law

In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 88 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (Fed. Cir. 2008), was an en banc decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on the patenting of method claims, particularly business methods. The Federal Circuit court affirmed the rejection of the patent claims involving a method of hedging risks in commodities trading. The court also reiterated the machine-or-transformation test as the (meaning sole) applicable test for patent-eligible subject matter, and stated that the test in State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group should no longer be relied upon.

The Supreme Court of the United States issued an opinion on appeal (as Bilski v. Kappos) that affirmed the judgment of the CAFC, but revised many aspects of the CAFC's decision. In its decision, handed down on June 28, 2010, the Supreme Court rejected the machine-or-transformation test as the sole test of process patent eligibility based on an interpretation of the language of § 101. The majority, however, had high praise for the Federal Circuit opinions, advising that "[s]tudents of patent law would be well advised to study these scholarly opinions."

🔗 United States 🔗 California 🔗 Companies 🔗 California/San Francisco Bay Area 🔗 Internet 🔗 Internet culture 🔗 Business 🔗 Crime and Criminal Biography

The eBay stalking scandal was a campaign conducted in 2019 by eBay and contractors. The scandal involved the aggressive stalking and harassment of two e-commerce bloggers, Ina and David Steiner, who wrote frequent commentary about eBay on their website EcommerceBytes. Seven eBay employees pleaded guilty to charges involving criminal conspiracies. The seven employees included two senior members of eBay’s corporate security team. Two members of eBay's Executive Leadership Team who were implicated in the scandal were not charged.

🔗 United States 🔗 International relations 🔗 Soviet Union 🔗 Russia 🔗 Politics 🔗 Media 🔗 Journalism

Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument. It is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda. When criticisms were leveled at the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the Soviet response would often be "What about..." followed by an event in the Western world. As Garry Kasparov noted, it is a word that was coined to describe the frequent use of a rhetorical diversion by Soviet apologists and dictators, who would counter charges of their oppression, "massacres, gulags, and forced deportations" by invoking American slavery, racism, lynchings, etc. It has been adopted by other politicians and countries.

🔗 United States 🔗 Skepticism 🔗 United States/Washington - Seattle 🔗 United States/Washington

The Seattle windshield pitting epidemic is a phenomenon which affected Bellingham, Seattle, and other communities of Washington state in April, 1954; it is considered an example of a mass delusion. It was characterized by widespread observation of previously unnoticed windshield holes, pits and dings, leading residents to believe that a common causative agent was at work. It was originally thought to be the work of vandals but the rate of pitting was so great that residents began to attribute it to everything from sand flea eggs to nuclear bomb testing.

Originating in Bellingham in March, police initially believed the work to be vandals using BB guns. However the pitting was soon observed in the nearby towns of Sedro Woolley and Mount Vernon and by mid-April, appeared to have spread to the town of Anacortes on Fidalgo Island.

Within a week, the news and the so-called "pitting epidemic" had reached metropolitan Seattle. As the newspapers began to feature the story, more and more reports of pitting were called in. Motorists began stopping police cars to report damage. Car lots and parking garages reported particularly severe attacks.

Several hypotheses for the widespread damage were postulated:

• Some thought that a new million-watt radio transmitter at nearby Jim Creek Naval Radio Station was producing waves that caused physical oscillations in glass;
• Some believed it to be the work of cosmic rays;
• Some reported seeing glass bubbles form right before their eyes, believing it to be the work of sand fleas.

By April 15, close to 3,000 windshields had been reported as affected. Mayor Allan Pomeroy contacted Washington Governor Arthur B. Langlie, then President Dwight D. Eisenhower asking for assistance.

Finally, Sergeant Max Allison of the Seattle police crime laboratory stated that the pitting reports consisted of "5 per cent hoodlum-ism, and 95 per cent public hysteria." By April 17, the pitting suddenly stopped.

The "Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic" as it is called has become a textbook case of collective delusion (not "mass hysteria" as reported). Although natural windshield pitting had been going on for some time, it was only when the media called public attention to it that people actually looked at their windshields and saw damage they had never noticed before.

🔗 United States 🔗 Politics 🔗 Socialism 🔗 Politics/American politics 🔗 United States/U.S. history

A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which are referred to by this name. The First Red Scare, which occurred immediately after World War I, revolved around a perceived threat from the American labor movement, anarchist revolution, and political radicalism. The Second Red Scare, which occurred immediately after World War II, was preoccupied with the perception that national or foreign communists were infiltrating or subverting American society and the federal government. The name refers to the red flag as a common symbol of communism.