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In a shocking turn, a judge has upheld murder charges against a rape victim who killed her attacker. Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Jennifer Hold rejected the “stand your ground” defense after Brittany Smith, 32, shot the man who had strangled and sexually assaulted her at her home in Stevenson, Alabama. Brittany Smith, a mother-of-four, will stand trial for murdering her rapist. (Photo Credit: Facebook) Brittany claimed that she had no choice but to shoot 38-year-old Joshua “Todd” Smith, who is of no relation to her, after he had raped and sodomized her. She alleged that she killed her attacker only because he was attempting to murder her brother, Chris McCallie, who had come to her aid after the sexual assault. Her court-appointed lawyers cited a law that states that an individual no longer has “a duty to retreat” and may use deadly force if confronted with an imminent threat. They argued that the murder charge should be dropped because Brittany was reasonably in fear for her and...

Ryan Louis Livingston was born in Franklin County, Ill., on October 29, 1983, to Richard and Denise Livingston. He has an older brother, Randy, and a younger brother, Robert. At just 22 years old, Ryan Livingston was already a father. His daughter, Hannah, born in 2004, was his everything. Becoming a father at such a young age would be hard for any man, but Livingston accepted his responsibility without complaint. Ryan loved his little girl more than life itself. Maybe that’s why the events that unfolded in July 2006 made it that much harder for his friends and family. A Life Taken Too Soon Carbondale, Illinois, sits in Jackson County and is home to Southern Illinois University, or SIUC, for short. Population is between 25,000 and 30,000. Thursday, July 13, 2006, was a typically hot summer day with temperatures reaching around 90 degrees. Later that evening, Ryan attended an outdoor concert at SIUC’s Shryock Auditorium. Around 9 p.m., he received a ride to a friend’s house on East Park...

The Milky Way galaxy has a history of violence. Over the Universe's 13.8-billion-year lifespan, it has repeatedly collided with and subsumed multiple other galaxies – and it's not done. It's in the process of merging with smaller satellite galaxies even as you read these words: the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy , and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds . But these satellite galaxies aren't innocents in the matter, oh no. A team of astronomers led by Alessio Mucciarelli of the University of Bologna in Italy has found evidence that the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is also a cannibal, having merged with another galaxy at some point in its mysterious past. The finding, the researchers say, represents fascinating support for the way we think massive galaxies grow: by swallowing smaller satellite galaxies, a process we call hierarchical assembly. "This discovery," they write in their paper , "is observational evidence that the process of hierarchical a...

A longtime Lexington television reporter and popular radio host said she was fired from WKYT for failing to get vaccinated against COVID-19. DeAnn Stephens, who has held a variety of positions at WKYT for 27 years, wrote in a Facebook post Oct. 13 that WKYT, owned by Gray Television, had required staff to get the coronavirus vaccination. Stephens said due to medical issues, her doctor had advised her not to get inoculated. “Gray required all employees to be vaccinated against COVID. Unfortunately, due to my medical history, my physician has told me I am NOT a candidate for the COVID vaccination. I have explained my medical history and provided my doctor’s records and her opinion to Gray. But sadly Gray has terminated my employment instead.” Stephens said her decision not to get vaccinated has nothing to do with politics. “This is not about being for or against vaccinations,” Stephens wrote. “This is about following my doctor’s recommendation to not get it because (of) my past medical h...

Stephen Roszel was preparing for his "dream job" teaching AP Government and social studies at Monacan High School this year when the Chesterfield School Board adopted a mask mandate, a move recommended by the federal Centers for Disease Control and ultimately required by the state. Roszel declined on principle. He joined parents in filing open records requests for the science behind the mandate, which is designed to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, communicated his reasoning to the administration and never stepped foot in the school. This week, he was fired. He joins a growing number of teachers around the country, from Iowa to Oregon, who are losing their jobs or being reprimanded for refusing to comply with public health rules they say infringe on personal choice. Roszel said his issue isn’t with the mask itself, but with the state mandate. “I’m opposed to the mandate. If you want to wear a mask, wear a mask, if you don’t, don’t. If I’m hanging out with you and you’re more ...

Debra stayed home from school after falling on ice and disappeared after her parents left for work. Debra Horn, 11, resided with her family in Allenstown and attended sixth grade at her local school. Small in stature, she stood 4 feet, 4 inches tall, and weighed about 50 pounds. She had wavy brown hair styled in a pixie cut made famous by 1960s fashion model Twiggy and actress Mia Farrow in the classic film “Rosemary’s Baby.” Both of Debra’s parents worked full-time jobs. Kenneth Horn Sr., 34, was a self-employed mechanic, while Myrtle Horn, 34, worked as a secretary. Debra has an older brother, Kenneth Horn, Jr. On Jan. 29, 1969, the morning started as a typical school day for Debra and her brother. They arose early to get ready for school. Debra donned a gold corduroy jumper, white turtleneck sweater, gold knee-length socks, and silver earrings. She slipped a gold ring with an oval pink stone onto her finger and fastened a watch to her wrist. Then she and her brother started walking ...

Certain groupings of bacteria or cellular tissues form systems that are called active fluids. These can flow spontaneously without having to be forced from the outside, since their components are able to generate forces and move autonomously. When the activity is high enough, the spontaneous flows become chaotic, like those observed in the turbulence of ordinary fluids. University of Barcelona (UB) researchers have identified universal laws in this turbulent behavior of active fluids. The results of their work have been published in the journal Physical Review X. Due to their visual resemblance to ordinary turbulence, chaotic flows in active fluids have been called active turbulence. The study of this phenomenon is significant for the design of nanomotors and can explain complex flows observed in living systems, such as those that occur during a wound closure. According to the UB researchers, the results of their work "are relevant because they show that the flows of active turbu...

Debra Sue Murray, 38, was the type of person who put everyone else’s needs before her own. Born on Jan. 23, 1960, in Ionia, Missouri, to Leonard and Ella Howery, she was one of several children born to the couple. In 1998, Debra lived in the 700 block of West Shawnee Drive in Chandler, Arizona with her husband, Jack Murray, 43, and their 12-year-old son, Timothy. She worked as a manager at the Jack in the Box restaurant on McClintock Drive and Southern Avenue. Debra has been described as “friendly, outgoing, and not a mean bone in her body.” She liked to bake cookies for her employees on their birthdays despite her hectic schedule. She treated her coworkers and customers well. Debra got along fine with her neighbors, who often saw her and Timmy walking together in the neighborhood. She did not have any known enemies, but she was having marital problems. At 4:40 a.m. on June 26, 1998, Debra was gunned down outside her home as she was preparing to head to work. The Murray’s nanny, Cathy ...

If the size of the standing-room only crowd at the Bartlesville Community Center Tuesday night is any indication, perhaps it is not surprising that the vaccination rate in Washington County for those ages 12 and older is just short of 43%. Those gathered, including GOP and public officials, nurses, pharmacists and other concerned citizens, gave standing ovations during the presentation of Dr. Peter McCullough, a Dallas cardiologist who is largely discredited by the scientific community for his assertions that the COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe and that early treatment options have been suppressed. Washington County COVID-19 vaccine tracker: 36% of people fully vaccinated While McCullough said that doctors were probably afraid to show up to the event, one of Oklahoma's top infectious disease physicians, Dr. Anuj Malik, director of infection prevention and control at Ascension St. John, said that the doctors he spoke to were not afraid to attend. They were just not interested in sitt...

The gargantuan Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet will strafe Saturn's orbit in 2031. Scientists are stoked. An enormous comet — possibly the largest one ever detected — is barreling toward the inner solar system with an estimated arrival time of 10 years from now, according to new research published on the preprint server arXiv.org . The comet, known as the Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet (or C/2014 UN271, in astro-speak), is at least 62 miles (100 kilometers) across — about 1,000 times more massive than a typical comet. It's so large that astronomers previously mistook it for a dwarf planet, according to a statement announcing the comet’s discovery in June 2021. But a closer analysis of the object revealed that it was moving rapidly through the Oort cloud — a vast scrapyard of icy rocks, billions of miles from Earth . The object appeared to be headed our way, and it even had a glowing tail, or "coma", behind it — a clear indication of an icy comet approaching the relati...

Thirty years after the brutal murder of a Cumberland Beach teen shook the small lakeside community north of Orillia, the impacts continue to reverberate as the anniversary of Leah Sousa’s death approaches. “She had the biggest sweetheart smile that lit up a room, a laugh that just was so contagious,” remembered Emily Knight, a family friend who was 10 at the time of the murder. “She was the kindest, sweetest person in the world. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Leah, Sousa was raped and killed by an unknown intruder in her home in Ontario, Canada during Labor Day weekend 1990. An intruder broke into the Sousa home during the early morning hours and attacked mother and daughter when they were the most vulnerable and could not fight back.  Leah Salina Sousa, 13, resided with her single mother, Lora Sousa, 36, and her 9-month-old brother in a small house in the 3400 block of Beachview Avenue in Cumberland Beach, Ontario, roughly 135 km north of Toronto. Shortly after midnight on Saturday, Sept. ...