Johannesburg — A spate of mass shootings in three major South African cities killed nearly 40 people this week, with such incidents increasingly common in a country already known for its high crime rates.
On Saturday night, South African police said at least 10 people were killed at a shisanyama — a common kind of local restaurant selling barbecued meat — near Cape Town, while eleven others were injured.
SINGAPORE, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Crude oil flows out of the Strait of Hormuz reached 33.7 million barrels so far in the week starting September 20, preliminary ship-tracking data from Kpler showed on Friday, putting exports roughly on track with the previous week's levels.The traffic comprised 19 tankers, of which 17 are very large crude carriers (VLCCs) that can carry 2 million barrels of oil, the data showed. Most of the tankers are laden with crude from Saudi Arabia, followed by Iraq.
And that does not include ships transitting with transponders turned off. Still not at prewar levels but not at 0 either.
Case: 26-2660184
Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Time: 3:51 a.m.
Location: 200 block of Virtus Bend
Victim (Deceased): Dmario Antonie Jones, Black male, 05/09/2002
On Wednesday, September 23, 2026, at 3:51 a.m., Austin Police (APD) officers responded to a report of a burglary in the 200 block of Virtus Bend. When officers arrived on the scene, they located a male, later identified as Dmario Antonie Jones, with apparent gunshot wounds. Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services (ATCEMS) arrived on scene and attempted life-saving measures, however, Mr. Jones succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced deceased at 4:10 a.m.
APD Homicide Detectives and the Austin Forensic Science Crime Specialists responded to process the crime scene. The preliminary investigation determined that Mr. Jones entered a residence, proceeded into the bedroom, and was shot by the homeowner during the commission of the burglary. The homeowner was interviewed by detectives and has been fully cooperative with the investigation. The homeowner has since been released, and no charges have been filed at this time.
The shooting happened around 12:43 am Monday at West Oakland's City Towers housing complex, on the 1000 block of Eighth Street, when as many as four vehicles carrying multiple people were traveling eastbound. As Bay Area News Group reports, occupants of at least two of the vehicles began shooting at three security guards, who returned fire, according to initial police reports.
The gunfire triggered a gunshot detection system alert, and the security guards also called police, but the vehicles had left by the time officers arrived.
According to the News Group, the 15-year-old showed up at a hospital a short time later with a gunshot wound to his foot. Police confirmed he had been involved in the shooting by connecting him to a Hyundai parked near the hospital with at least one bullet hole that had been reported stolen earlier in Oakland. Police reportedly found blood on the driver’s seat as well as a pistol.
Well, for some values of "comprehensive" and "all":
The study published earlier this week mapped out the roads into what the Roman network could have looked like at the peak of the empire's power, sometime between the 2nd to 4th centuries AD. That network of main roads and little countryside paths didn't centralize in Rome, though. Tom Brughmans, classical archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark and one of the leads on the project, told Reuters that, "...when we consider all movement within the entire Italian peninsula, we were shocked to discover that the most central road actually follows the opposite Adriatic coastline, bypassing Rome altogether."
It is said that history is 90% n geography and 10% common sense. It would make no sense at all for traffic from Hispania to Syria to be routed to Rome. The direct route goes via Constantinople:
Following an investigation, deputies said the property owner encountered a male suspect inside the residence. The suspect reportedly attempted to assault the owner, and a fight occurred. Shots were fired, and the intruder was struck before fleeing the scene.
"What we know thus far, and this is very preliminary, is that a person believed to be an intruder may have been the person who was shot," said Miami Police spokeswoman Officer Kenia Fallat. "We also have one person at the station that we are speaking to."
Fallat said it is not yet clear whether the resident is a homeowner or a tenant, and police are seeking a search warrant to enter the home.
"The studio releasing Alex Gibney’s new Elon Musk documentary Musk is finding itself unable to buy an ad on the biggest social platforms.Dude makes a documentary that essentially states "unhinged, unaccountable billionaires have way too much power in our society".
YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram and Facebook owner Meta are all declining to run the trailer for Musk, along with X itself, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
That last one is perhaps understandable, given its owner. But the rejection by the other platforms has taken distributor Bleecker Street by surprise, and it is internally scrambling to understand why the ad has been rejected, according to a person familiar with the company’s processes who is not authorized to talk about them publicly."
The cover shown is just a draft for a possible kindle cover to give my publisher some ideas what I like but the book is finally done and off to the publisher to start round 2 of editing, then formatting and all of that.
It should be out by the first of the year. So far, a few galley drafts went out for advance review. Thank you all for your patience with the blog - with household, the death of our Lab Sunny at age 3, and general medical going on's it's been hard to post much beyond Facebook (I know "Facebook is for OLD people" - my granddaughters.)
Here is the back cover description: I thought it would be shorter to just say "I got Abdominal Septic Shock and ended up on the Liver Transplant List and all I got was this Plushie Liver " (which I loved - Thank you Erin C.), but my publisher said "no". (Acually I dont go into much detail on that whole ordeal from a medical standpoint, but the liver is healing and I'm off the list. They checked the rest of me out beyond thoroughly, and even at my age I was in the running (non smoker, non drinker, normal weight, no medications and heart health of a 30 year old though gravity is winning).
In Paolo Sorrentino’s film Youth, an elderly composer observes, with bewilderment, “I’ve become old and I don’t know how I got here.”Best-selling author, commercial airline pilot, and retired air crash investigator L.B. Johnson knows exactly how she got here. She just never expected to arrive quite so soon.
In The Serenity Chronicles, Johnson turns her attention from wreckage to reflection. A bout of septic shock and its lasting consequences forced her to reconsider not only the future she had imagined after retirement, but the very meaning of time. Rather than measure life by what remained, she chose to live more deliberately in the days she had.
Written as a series of candid, sometimes irreverent vignettes, this literary memoir wanders through subjects that initially seem wonderfully random, yet gradually reveal an unexpected coherence. Johnson considers the changing landscapes of the body, the ghosts of family history, the persistence of faith, the enduring gifts of love, and the peculiar indignities that aging so generously provides.
There is grief here, and an honest reckoning with mortality. But there is also laughter, gratitude, and the recognition that even an imperfect life can contain extraordinary beauty.
Johnson writes frankly about what aging takes away—and what it gives in return. Readers may wince in recognition, laugh at life’s absurdities, and find some part of their own journey reflected in these pages. Because being alive is an exercise in enduring surprise.
Sometimes, serenity is not found in knowing what comes next.
Sometimes, it is found in being willing to find out.
Here are a couple author blurbs for the back cover.
There’s a reason that LB Johnson has a loyal and even passionate following, and this book shows why. Other writers try to write down the bones, while she loves those bones, polishes them, and gives them life through storytelling. --Latayne C. Scott, award winning author of The Conspiracy of Breath
L.B. Johnson, possesses a sure lyrical style that opens the reader frankly to emotions otherwise neglected. Johnson’s poetic words do not fly off all unattached but plaster themselves to the realities of grief and hope, leaving the reader to sit back and try to account for that which is unaccountable.--Larry Sommers, Author of The Price of Passage
But the one that made me smile the most was this shout out in the substack column for an author that is one of the editors - who is reading it now.
SIG Sauer’s new XRAY5 pistol red dot and FOXTROT2R LightFight have just raised the bar for handgun accessories.
Patricia Cornwell, author of the many popular crime novels featuring Dr. Kay Scarpetta, a forensic pathologist, recently published “True Crime: A Memoir.” Her autobiography is a solid read.Ms. Cornwell’s lead character often carries a gun, and occasionally uses it to resolve dangerous situations with homicidal criminals. If I recall correctly, the first novel or one […]The post Q&A September 2026: Resto-Mod Pistols, 6x45mm SAW, and M14s first appeared on Forgotten Weapons.
Officers say they found three men with suspected gunshot wounds on Pleasant Avenue.
Officers say a 39-year-old man was asked to move out of a home allegedly due to accusations of stealing. The 39-year-old allegedly then shot a 32-year-old man and a 28-year-old man when those two tried to retrieve their items. Then, a fourth man allegedly returned fire and shot the 39-year-old man.
While inside the residence, Davis allegedly stole items from the counter. As he was exiting, he was confronted by the homeowner.
During the exchange, the victim believed Davis was armed with a firearm and had fired one round himself, striking Davis in the groin.
Davis fled the home and was later located in a nearby alley. He was transported to Mosaic for medical treatment and was released into police custody.
Knowledge to make your life better. If you have some free time, check out some of these links this weekend. Terminal Ballistics II: What Pistol Bullets Do (And Don’t Do) Part two of this must-read series on handgun stopping power. If you carry a handgun defensively, you must understand these concepts. When you finish […]Police arrested Palomo hours after responding to an early morning shooting in the backyard of a home in the 4300 block of Martin Drive, in southeast Fort Worth.
When police arrived at the home at around 3:30 a.m., they learned that a man and woman who knew one another were fighting. Another man intervened, and the two men began fighting, pulled out handguns and began firing, according to information from police.
The man who intervened and another man were pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
The victim said her ex-boyfriend was at her door threatening to break in if she didn’t open up. The victim was inside with her child and current boyfriend, who warned the suspect against coming in.
The suspect scaled the apartment balcony and tried to get in through a window. In response, the current boyfriend shot the suspect once in the leg.
Officers arrived to find the suspect bleeding on the victim’s balcony. Officers applied a tourniquet, and paramedics arrived to take him to the hospital.