Skip to main content

The weather outside is frightful

Ashley Shaffer   | Paste BN

A deadly winter storm hit millions. The largest private security company in the world can’t keep track of its guns. And everyone wants a piece of the new "Cosmic Crisp" apple.  

It's Ashley. Here's a slice of the news everyone is talking about. 🍎

But first, porch pirates beware: The former NASA engineer who went viral last year for his glitter-bomb-fake-Amazon package has an updated model for 2019. It's great. 

The Short List newsletter is a snappy Paste BN news roundup. Subscribe here!

Deadly weather: Stay safe out there

At least 10 people died from weather-related crashes, and almost 60 million people were under weather alerts as a storm pounded much of the Midwest and East with snow, ice and a wintry mix. Four fatalities were reported in Missouri, three in Nebraska, two in Indiana and one in Kansas. The National Weather Service posted winter weather advisories – hazardous conditions expected – for more than 53 million people and winter storm warnings to nearly 6 million more. 

Tornado watches and warnings were in effect across portions of the Deep South on Monday, a prelude to what promised to be a violent afternoon and evening of severe weather. One fatality was confirmed from a tornado that roared near Alexandria, Louisiana. 

A security giant has lost hundreds of guns. Here’s where we found them 

These guns were supposed to protect you. But lax oversight by private security giant G4S means guns that were supposed to be secured have been bought by children, stolen by criminals and used in murders, rapes and robberies across the USA. For decades, G4S failed to secure the company’s vast arsenal despite repeated warnings from federal regulators, a Paste BN and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation found. It’s the first public accounting of a problem the feds have known about for decades while the security company loses weapons every week. Many of the lost guns have never been located – and they could be anywhere.

What everyone’s talking about

Supreme Court refuses to consider efforts to make sleeping outside a crime for homeless 

The Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a case on whether cities could make it a crime for homeless people to sleep outside. The justices chose not to hear a case from Boise, Idaho, that had nationwide ramifications for cities with large numbers of homeless people living on the streets. The question was whether the homeless can be prosecuted using laws designed to regulate public camping and sleeping – or whether that constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. The court's refusal to take up the issue is a setback to some states and cities with burgeoning homelessness. 

Tried six times in quadruple murder, Curtis Flowers freed after Supreme Court finds racism in trial

For the first time in more than 20 years, Curtis Flowers will be allowed to return home to his family. Throughout a decades-long legal saga – as Flowers was tried six times on the same crime – he stayed behind bars. Monday, the 49-year-old former death row inmate appeared before a judge for a bond hearing, less than a mile from where four furniture store employees were shot in the head, execution-style, in Winona, Mississippi, in 1996. A judge granted him bond, allowing Flowers to leave jail to live with his family while his case makes its way through court. 

Real quick 

The long-awaited Cosmic Crisps have landed 🍎 👾

A new kind of apple is coming to a grocery store near you. The ~Cosmic Crisp~ is a cross between the disease-resistant Enterprise and the popular, crunchy Honeycrisp varieties. After a long wait, they are arriving in grocery stores, ready for lunchboxes and holiday apple pies. But good luck finding one: They’re in ridiculously high demand. See that apple emoji up there? 👆A Cosmic Crisp looks a little like that but speckled with bright yellowish dots on its skin. The little specks look like distant stars, which is how the apple got its name: Cosmic Crisp.  

A break from the news

This is a compilation of stories from across the Paste BN Network.

Facebook Twitter Email