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🔗 United States 🔗 Biography 🔗 Chicago 🔗 African diaspora 🔗 United States/FBI 🔗 Civil Rights Movement 🔗 Illinois 🔗 Biography/Actors and Filmmakers

Fredrick Allen Hampton (August 30, 1948 – December 4, 1969) was an American activist and revolutionary socialist. He came to prominence in Chicago as chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP), and deputy chairman of the national BPP. In this capacity, he founded a prominent multicultural political organization, the Rainbow Coalition that initially included the Black Panthers, Young Patriots and the Young Lords, and an alliance among major Chicago street gangs to help them end infighting, and work for social change.

In 1967, Hampton was identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a radical threat. The FBI tried to subvert his activities in Chicago, sowing disinformation among these groups and placing a counterintelligence operative in the local Panthers. In December 1969, Hampton was shot and killed in his bed during a predawn raid at his Chicago apartment by a tactical unit of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office in conjunction with the Chicago Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation; during the raid, another Panther was killed and several seriously wounded. In January 1970, a coroner's jury held an inquest and ruled the deaths of Hampton and Mark Clark to be justifiable homicide.

A civil lawsuit was later filed on behalf of the survivors and the relatives of Hampton and Clark. It was resolved in 1982 by a settlement of $1.85 million; the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the federal government each paid one-third to a group of nine plaintiffs. Given revelations about the illegal COINTELPRO program and documents associated with the killings, scholars now widely consider Hampton's death an assassination under the FBI's initiative.

🔗 United States 🔗 Politics 🔗 Elections and Referendums

In American political jargon, an October surprise is a news event deliberately created or timed to influence the outcome of an election, particularly one for the U.S. presidency, or sometimes an event occurring spontaneously that has the same effect. Because the date for national elections (as well as many state and local elections) is in early November, events that take place in October have greater potential to influence the decisions of prospective voters. Thus these relatively last-minute news stories could either completely change the entire course of an election or strongly reinforce the inevitable.

The term "October surprise" was coined by William Casey when he served as campaign manager of Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. However, there were October election-upending events that predated the coining of the term.

🔗 United States/U.S. Government 🔗 United States 🔗 Law 🔗 Lists

A national emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to perform actions not normally permitted. The 1976 National Emergencies Act implemented various legal requirements regarding emergencies declared by the President of the United States.

Between the enactment of the National Emergencies Act in 1976 through March 13, 2020, 61 emergencies have been declared; 27 have expired while 34 are currently in effect, each having been renewed annually by the president.

🔗 United States 🔗 Disaster management 🔗 Occupational Safety and Health 🔗 United States/Massachusetts - Boston

The Great Molasses Flood, also known as the Boston Molasses Disaster or the Great Boston Molasses Flood, and sometimes referred to locally as the Boston Molassacre, occurred on January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. A large storage tank filled with 2.3 million US gal (8,700 m³) weighing approximately 13,000 short tons (12,000 t) of molasses burst, and the resultant wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 mph (56 km/h), killing 21 and injuring 150. The event entered local folklore and residents claimed for decades afterwards that the area still smelled of molasses on hot summer days.

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

The Office of Censorship was an emergency wartime agency set up by the United States federal government on December 19, 1941 to aid in the censorship of all communications coming into and going out of the United States, including its territories and the Philippines. The efforts of the Office of Censorship to balance the protection of sensitive war related information with the constitutional freedoms of the press is considered largely successful. The agency's implementation of censorship was done primarily through a voluntary regulatory code that was willingly adopted by the press. The phrase "loose lips sink ships" was popularized during World War II, which is a testament to the urgency Americans felt to protect information relating to the war effort. Radio broadcasts, newspapers, and newsreels were the primary ways Americans received their information about World War II and therefore were the medium most affected by the Office of Censorship code. The closure of the Office of Censorship in November 1945 corresponded with the ending of World War II.

🔗 United States 🔗 Finance & Investment 🔗 Economics 🔗 Business

The Panic of 1907 – also known as the 1907 Bankers' Panic or Knickerbocker Crisis – was a financial crisis that took place in the United States over a three-week period starting in mid-October, when the New York Stock Exchange fell almost 50% from its peak the previous year. Panic occurred, as this was during a time of economic recession, and there were numerous runs on banks and trust companies. The 1907 panic eventually spread throughout the nation when many state and local banks and businesses entered bankruptcy. Primary causes of the run included a retraction of market liquidity by a number of New York City banks and a loss of confidence among depositors, exacerbated by unregulated side bets at bucket shops.

The panic was triggered by the failed attempt in October 1907 to corner the market on stock of the United Copper Company. When this bid failed, banks that had lent money to the cornering scheme suffered runs that later spread to affiliated banks and trusts, leading a week later to the downfall of the Knickerbocker Trust Company—New York City's third-largest trust. The collapse of the Knickerbocker spread fear throughout the city's trusts as regional banks withdrew reserves from New York City banks. Panic extended across the nation as vast numbers of people withdrew deposits from their regional banks. It is the 9th largest decline in U.S. stock market history.

The panic might have deepened if not for the intervention of financier J. P. Morgan, who pledged large sums of his own money, and convinced other New York bankers to do the same, to shore up the banking system. This highlighted the impotence of the nation's Independent Treasury system, which managed the nation's money supply yet was unable to inject liquidity back into the market. By November, the financial contagion had largely ended, only to be replaced by a further crisis. This was due to the heavy borrowing of a large brokerage firm that used the stock of Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TC&I) as collateral. Collapse of TC&I's stock price was averted by an emergency takeover by Morgan's U.S. Steel Corporation—a move approved by anti-monopolist president Theodore Roosevelt. The following year, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, a leading Republican, established and chaired a commission to investigate the crisis and propose future solutions, leading to the creation of the Federal Reserve System.

🔗 United States 🔗 Companies 🔗 Taxation

Companies of the United States with untaxed profits deals with those U.S. companies whose offshore subsidiaries earn profits which are retained in foreign countries to defer paying U.S. corporate tax. The profits of United States corporations are subject to a federal corporate tax rate of 21%. In principle, the tax is payable on all profits of corporations, whether earned domestically or abroad. However, overseas subsidiaries of U.S. corporations are entitled to a tax deferral of profits on active income until repatriated to the U.S., and are regarded as untaxed. When repatriated, the corporations are entitled to a foreign tax credit for taxes (if any) paid in foreign countries.

Retaining such profits offshore may be regarded as a tax strategy. Many corporations have accumulated substantial untaxed profits offshore, especially in countries with low corporate tax rates. In recent years it has been estimated that untaxed profits range from US$1.6 to $2.1 trillion. The Wall Street Journal noted that the "[u]ntaxed foreign earnings are part of a contentious debate over U.S. fiscal policy and tax code." The profits earned abroad and retained there are subject to a foreign exchange risk, besides other financial risks.

The downside of a strategy of retaining profits offshore is that corporations may want or need to pay dividends to shareholders, or to make investments in the United States, besides other reasons. The alternative may be to borrow funds in the U.S., or access the funds retained offshore in the form of inter-company loans.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) imposed a one time tax on these offshore profits at 8% (non-cash) and 15.5% (cash) respectively. The Act also includes a provision that taxes all foreign profits in the US in the year they are earned ending the ability of US companies to defer paying US tax on unrepatriated earnings.

🔗 United States 🔗 Food and drink 🔗 Food and drink/Foodservice

The Pizza Meter refers to sudden increases of pizza orders from U.S. government offices, such as the White House and The Pentagon, before large events such as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the Panama Invasion, and the Grenada invasion.

On the night of August 1, 1990, the night before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, military personnel at The Pentagon came together to discuss issues in the Middle East. According to Frank Meeks, the owner of Washington, D.C.'s Domino's Pizza franchise of 45 restaurants, the CIA ordered a record-breaking 21 pizzas from Domino's that night. Between January 7 to January 16, 1991, the number of pizza deliveries to the Pentagon past 10 p.m reached 101, with another 55 pizzas delivered to the White House on January 16 between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.

Meeks tied the influx of pizza orders from the Pentagon, White House, and the CIA to oncoming major announcements from the White House, publicizing his observations. Consequently, the public nicknamed the event "The Pizza Meter". Shortly after Meeks' comments were released, government offices no longer ordered from Domino's branches in Washington, opting to buy pizza at separate times or at different pizza joints.

🔗 United States 🔗 Espionage 🔗 Law Enforcement

LOVEINT is the practice of intelligence service employees making use of their extensive monitoring capabilities to spy on their love interest or spouse. The term was coined in resemblance to intelligence terminology such as SIGINT, COMINT or HUMINT.

🔗 United States 🔗 Media 🔗 Popular Culture 🔗 Georgia (U.S. state) 🔗 United States/United States Presidents 🔗 Animals in media

The Jimmy Carter rabbit incident, sensationalized as the "killer rabbit attack" by the press, involved a swamp rabbit (Sylvilagus aquaticus) that swam toward then-U.S. President Jimmy Carter's fishing boat on April 20, 1979. The incident caught the imagination of the media after Carter's press secretary, Jody Powell, mentioned the event to a correspondent months later.

Political opponents argued that the incident was symbolic of Carter's purported weakness. According to Powell, anti-Carter political commentators went so far as to blame it for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran hostage crisis.