We’re inundated by news stories every day and with a 24/7 news cycle, it’s nearly impossible to keep up. But thanks to GlobalGrind’s Think Tank, you’ll be quickly in the know, and then good to go.
From what’s going on in the Capitol to what’s happening oversees, we have it all.
Today we see that a man robbed a bank for $1 dollar, while Tunisa’s President and his wife get 35 years in jail.
Better Than Fiction
Character: James Verone
Plot Line: Going to jail for free health care? James Verone had to do something to heal his aliments so he said he walked up to a teller at a Gastonia, N.C. bank and handed her a note.
It said, “This is a bank robbery, please only give me one dollar.” Verone then told the teller he’d be sitting in a nearby chair, waiting for the police.
The 59-year-old said he did everything he could to get caught so he could receive free health care in jail.
Verone has a growth on his chest, two ruptured disks and a problem with his left foot. With no job, Verone thought his desperate plan was the best way to provide for himself.
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Inside the Capitol
Where: Afghanistan
Who: President Obama
What Happened: President Barack Obama is expected to announce the approval of a plan that would result in the 30,000 U.S. “surge” forces being withdrawn completely from Afghanistan by the end of 2012, an administration official said. An estimated 100,000 U.S. troops are serving in Afghanistan, and about 30,000 of them were part of the 2009 surge, aimed at snuffing rising violence in the country.
Obama had previously said those troops would begin coming home in July and indicated the number would be “significant.”
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Money On My Mind
Whose Wallet: California
Weight: $4 Billion
How They Hustled: Flipping the switch has become costly in California. The state has managed to spend $4 billion taxpayer dollars on capital punishment since 1978, according to a new cost analysis.
The study, conducted over three years by a senior federal judge and a law professor, estimates that the 13 executions California has carried out in the past three decades have cost an average of $308 million each in legal fees and death row security costs. According to the L.A. Times, a death penalty prosecution can cost the state up to 20 times more than a life-without-parole case.
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GlobalGrind’s Global Mind
Where: Tunisa
What Happened: A Tunisian court sentenced former president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in absentia on Monday to 35 years in jail, six months after his overthrow in a revolution helped to inspire the “Arab Spring.” Ben Ali, who has been in Saudi Arabia since he was forced from power, was found guilty after just one day of deliberation of theft and of illegally possessing jewelry and large sums of cash.
The same sentence was handed down to his wife Leila Trabelsi, a former hairdresser whose lavish lifestyle and clique of wealthy relatives were symbols of the corruption of the Ben Ali era for many Tunisians.
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Shame On You
Who: Janet Chiauzzi
Where: New York
What Happened: Crazy moms are taking over the summer. Janet Chiauzzi, 44, found allegedly threatening a Little League official when her son didn’t make the summer travel team in East Meadow, N.Y.
“This is a tragic situation and horrible for the community,” said Stew MacKay, one of the presidents of the East Meadow Little League on Long Island. “When you deal with children and parents running things, it gets dicey.”
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Numbers Game
Number: 14
Where: Kentucky
What Happened: Imagine being trapped for 14 hours. That was the fate of three miners who were trapped by flooding for almost 14 hours in a Bell County coal mine with a history of safety violations were rescued without injury Monday evening and reunited with their families.
The men came out of the mine about 8:20 p.m. and were taken to see their families, who had been waiting nearby at the West Cumberland Baptist Church.
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This Day In History
Year: 1964
What: Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney are killed by a Ku Klux Klan lynch mob near Meridian, Mississippi. The three young civil rights workers were working to register black voters in Mississippi, thus inspiring the ire of the local Klan. The deaths of Schwerner and Goodman, white Northerners and members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), caused a national outrage.
