A Mississippi teenager, entangled in a tragic case involving the murder of an elderly couple, was not unfamiliar to local law enforcement. Deputies have linked him to several local burglaries and car thefts, according to an incident report acquired by News Media.

The victims, Billy Blair, aged 74, and his 71-year-old wife, Virginia Carol Blair, were allegedly murdered by 17-year-old Cordarius Hobbs. Authorities claim Hobbs forcibly entered their home in Mendenhall, Mississippi, on June 3. During a preliminary hearing in July, Hobbs’ family members mentioned that the teen had previously done odd jobs for the Blairs, such as household cleaning, leading up to the tragic incident.

The incident report from the Simpson County Sheriff’s Department, as accessed by News Media, described Hobbs as a “troubled juvenile.” It further suggested that he is a suspect in a number of other criminal activities in the region.

“Upon our arrival, myself and fellow deputies alongside investigators immediately felt that the suspect might be Cordarius Hobbs,” remarked the incident report. It continued, “Hobbs is well-known to us and is implicated in numerous residential break-ins and auto thefts in this vicinity.”

Billy Newsome, Hobbs’ grandfather, said he believes his grandson was called to work on the day of the alleged shooting but believes he’s innocent.

“My grandson used to work for the man, why you gone rob a man that you work for,” Newsome said. “Why you gone stay there that long and you know the police out there, and then you gone wait until everybody gets there to run, it just ain’t adding up, something just ain’t right here.”

Three contractors arrived at the Blairs’ home on June 3 to install a generator and found a car door open around 10 a.m., with several guns piled on the seats, according to a Mississippi Bureau of Investigation investigator. The workers called the Simpson County Sheriff’s Department for a welfare check at 11:30 a.m.

By noon, the investigator said that officers arrived and were met with shots fired at them, starting a nearly two-hour-long standoff. Hobbs was captured after trying to run away from officers, the official said, adding that the teen was unarmed when he was caught.

Carol Blair was found curled in the fetal position in a bedroom, shot three times in the back of the head, the investigator said in court. Her husband was found lying on his back in the kitchen with three gunshot wounds to his face.

Hobbs’ defense attorney, Zachary Vaughn, told News Media in a statement that Hobbs has been respectful and courteous in their meetings.

“I have visited with my client several times in the short time I’ve known him and he has always been very respectful and courteous to me,” Vaughn said.

Vaughn argued after a court hearing that there’s a lack of direct forensic evidence connecting the teenager to the shooting.

“There was nothing to say he’s a principal, he’s the one that pulled the trigger on these things,” Vaughn said. “One of the things alone was, one of the victims was shot twice on one side of the head and once on the other. I think that’s pretty compelling that somebody else may have been in there. There’s a lot of things that are possible, just a tremendous amount of things.”

“When you have an officer say there’s no one that can identify him at the time of the shooting, I just don’t see how that adds up,” he said.

Hobbs is charged with two counts of capital murder and one count of burglary, in addition to 10 other charges. He was denied bond.

In a statement on Facebook, the couple’s family previously said, “We are crushed in spirit, bruised, and brokenhearted, but we are not alone.”

A crew comprising both American and Russian astronauts successfully returned from the International Space Station, touching down in Kazakhstan’s steppes on Sunday after spending eight months in orbit.

NASA astronaut Chris Williams, along with Russian colleagues Sergei Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev, made their descent in the Soyuz MS-28. The spacecraft landed smoothly under parachute in a designated zone southeast of Dzhezkazgan.

During their 241-day mission, both Williams and Mikaev experienced their inaugural journey into space, while Kud-Sverchkov marked his second venture beyond Earth.

This is a developing story

In a deeply saddening turn of events, Atlanta’s own rapper, 21 Savage, is mourning a personal loss after a 14-year-old, whom he considered akin to a nephew, tragically ended his own life following an accidental shooting of his sister.

The boy, Seven Shirley, died by suicide on Wednesday in Stockbridge, Georgia, a town situated roughly 25 miles southeast of Atlanta, as reported by 11Alive News.

According to reports, prior to taking his life, the teenage boy had shot his sister, Lyric, in the neck, leading to the devastating sequence of events.

Seven was raised by his grandmother, Sharon Smith, since he was an infant of just 11 months. She expressed her confusion and distress over how the young teenager had accessed the gun.

In an emotional statement, Smith said, “Something needs to be done about the person who sold that gun, because if he would have never bought that gun, this would have never happened,” underscoring the urgent need to address such reckless transactions.

The weeping grandmother noted how quickly Seven had ‘made the decision to kill himself’ upon shooting his sister, believed to be aged 12 or 13.

‘He probably sat up there and thought, “I’m [gonna] go to jail, they’re going to ridicule me, everybody is going to be doing this and that and this, and this and that,” and he couldn’t take it,’ she said.

21 Savage, whose real name is Shéyaa Bin Abraham-Joseph, posted a photo of Seven on Instagram with the message, ‘[I] Remember when you was a baby,’ with broken heart emojis.

Lyric has undergone three surgeries on her neck and vocal cords, according to her family.

However, it is still not known when she will be able to return home.

In a statement to the outlet, the grieving family said that Lyric was ‘fighting for her life, and we are believing God for her healing, strength, and complete recovery.’

The family also asked their community to ‘stand with us in another way’ and ‘please help us get these guns off our streets.’

‘Far too many young lives are being taken by senseless gun violence,’ the family told 11Alive. ‘We must work together to stop the illegal sale and access of firearms to minors and do everything we can to protect our children.’

The statement continued: ‘Our family has lost one child, and another is fighting for her life. No family should ever have to experience this kind of pain.’

Smith, Seven’s grandmother, said Thursday on Facebook that ‘one of the hardest thing for me to do is bury my baby.’

‘You are finally back with your daddy,’ she added. 

Seven’s cousin, 13-year-old DeMarcus Shirley, was killed in a drive-by shooting earlier this month.

He was at a sleepover with friends at a DeKalb County home, according to AtlantaNewsFirst.

Investigators said that several shots had been fired into the home from outside, the outlet reported.

Grammy-winning rapper 21 Savage has previously spoken out against the gun violence in Atlanta and surrounding areas.

In a 2022 post on X, he urged Atlanta to ‘Put The F****** Guns Down !!!!!’

Some online users pushed back on the rapper’s lyrics describing gun violence, but 21 Savage responded that his songs were ‘for entertainment.’

The Daily Mail has reached out to Smith, Seven’s grandmother, for further comment.

In a legal twist from the Pacific Northwest, an Oregon resident is now under scrutiny for supposedly wrestling with and unlawfully capturing two species of protected sharks in the waters of Puget Sound. The suspect allegedly mishandled both the bluntnose sixgill shark and the broadnose sevengill shark, stirring environmental concerns.

This month, the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife released revealing body cam footage. The video captures an encounter between an officer and 27-year-old Connor Seifert. It took place in June, amid the scenic locale of Pierce County, Washington.

“You’re well aware of the shark regulations,” the officer mentions sternly in the shared footage while addressing Seifert. “It’s forbidden to remove sixgill sharks from the water, even partially or fully.”

Continuing his caution, the officer added, “Bringing a sixgill to the shore and getting on its back exposes its gills to air, which can be fatal. As you’re aware, Puget Sound serves as a crucial nursery for these shark species. Catching these sharks during this developmental stage can severely impact the unborn pups, leading to increased mortality rates.”

He added, “Once they exhaust themselves being fought to shore, then all of their babies die. And then, sooner than you know it, you’re not going to have sixgill and sevengill returning to Puget Sound anymore.”

This came after months of following Seifert’s movements and his online posts, with officers finally setting up surveillance so they could catch him making an illegal catch.

He has been charged in Pierce County with nine counts of unlawful recreational fishing in the second degree and one count of making a false or misleading statement to a public servant. The first is a misdemeanor and the second is a gross misdemeanor.

Misdemeanors carry up to a $1,000 fine and 90 days in jail if found guilty and gross demeanors carry up to a $5,000 fine and a year in jail.

“Fishing for sixgill and sevengill sharks is unlawful, and unfortunately, officers are seeing a growing number of online posts showing these sharks targeted and then unlawfully removed from or partially removed from the water,” the department said in a post about Seifert’s charges.

Seifert claimed that he hadn’t been targeting the sharks and that he had accidentally caught them, but videos he posted to social media that allegedly showed him holding a shark’s mouth open, while sitting on its back and holding it by its tail on the shore while it attempted to get away paint another picture.

The department said it has gotten 14 complaints about Seifert, mainly connected to his allegedly targeting the sharks.

“Puget Sound acts like a nursey for sixgill and sevengill sharks before they head out to the ocean, the department said.

The department added, “This is one of the primary reasons why it is unlawful to target these sharks locally, as the anglers fishing for these creatures are targeting them during a highly volatile era in the animals’ lives.”

Both shark species are listed as “Species of Greatest Conservation Need” in Washington State.

Bluntnose sixgills are categorized as “near threatened” and broadnose sevengills are “vulnerable,” according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The Democratic Socialists of America are reportedly planning an ambitious transformation of New York City’s public school system, intending to shape young minds in alignment with their ideological principles. The organization’s aim, according to sources, is to cultivate a new generation of what they refer to as “baby Bolsheviks.”

Maureen Fadem, a professor at a City University of New York (CUNY) institution, has expressed a desire for students to be educated under a “democratic socialist framework.” She advocates for the inclusion of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the curriculum, despite the controversial legacy of their writings, which have been associated with historical figures like Stalin and Mao, known for their oppressive regimes.

Fadem, who teaches at CUNY Kingsborough Community College, argues for a comprehensive overhaul of the current educational curriculum. She emphasizes the need to re-evaluate, revise, and reframe it through a lens of class consciousness.

Under this proposed educational reform, students would be taught about “class consciousness,” a concept rooted in Marxist ideology that views a continual conflict between labor and capital, advocating for the abolition of private property. Moreover, Fadem highlights the necessity for teachers to also be trained in developing “race consciousness.”

Expanding on her vision, Fadem insists on incorporating lessons about institutional racism in teacher training programs. She believes such education in pedagogy is crucial to adjusting the racial perspectives within the teaching workforce.

The socialist is among a rogues’ gallery of controversial CUNY professors — some with criminal charges — employed by the taxpayer-funded university system. Fadem has argued for slavery reparations and says school curricula has been shaped by a conservative perspective.

“The curriculum was built not under a democratic socialist frame, it was built under a neoliberal and conservative frame,” she said.

The meeting, titled “Planning for Socialist School Governance,” was led by NYC DSA Labor Working Group co-chair Nina Bruckenthal, a math teacher at NEST+m, a public science-oriented K-12 school on the Lower East Side, and Amanda Vender, an ESL teacher at the International High School of Sciences in Elmhurst, Queens.

Another teacher warned that the organization’s revolutionary agenda could cause parents to flee the public school system and opt to enroll their kids in charter schools instead — and urged the DSA to fight school choice and “strengthen the UFT.”

“All of our reforms are obviously not very popular. And so as long as school choice exists, parents are going to pull away and go to charter schools that are ununionized because they believe in that,” one teacher admitted.

The DSA educators vowed to use their connections to fellow socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani to get their agenda through, and also conspired to use upcoming contract negotiations to realize their far-left goals.

“DSA does have a relationship with the mayor and we can leverage that,” Bruckenthal said.

They also pledged to insert their demands into upcoming contract negotiations between the United Federation of Teachers and NYC.

“The webinar made clear that the DSA sees Mayor Mamdani [as a] window of opportunity to advance its agenda,” North American Values Institute Research Director Mika Hacker said.

Former Community Education Council 2 President Maud Maron said parents should beware the power-hungry radicals.

“Childless apparatchiks seeking access to other people’s children in order to convert them to their beliefs is the definition of grooming. Hands off the kids,” Maron told The Post.

The UFT contract for Gotham teachers is set to expire Nov. 28, 2027 and the DSA has progressively been strengthening its grip on the union.

“We can make real wins through our contract bargaining process. I would argue for this group, something that is strategic and winnable could be won through our bargaining,” Bruckenthal said.

Many DSA members are part of the UFT’s Movement of Rank-and-File Educators caucus, and the two organizations have joined together to stage anti-Israel protests throughout the city.

The group articulated a plan to wrest control of the UFT and use its power to influence local politics — noting many members were in the MORE caucus in an internal memo published in Politico.

Two friends have captured the internet’s imagination by turning a dilapidated pontoon into an exquisite houseboat adorned with Hamptons-inspired shingles and sleek sliding glass doors.

Jake Doggett, 25, and James Little, 26, embarked on this transformative journey after purchasing the 24-foot craft for $4,000 in June 2024. Their vision was clear: create a timeless retreat in Massachusetts for their future families.

“I was the engineer, and he was the aesthetic designer,” Doggett shared with the Daily Mail, highlighting the duo’s complementary skills.

Over 14 months, they meticulously stripped and rebuilt what was once a sunken pontoon, transforming it into a striking 100-square-foot houseboat. This eye-catching vessel now graces the picturesque Essex Bay, located about 38 miles northeast of Boston.

“James reached out to me and said, ‘Hey, we should really build something together.’ By combining our strengths and creativity, we decided, ‘You know what? I built a house on a truck, and that was a blast. Let’s create a house on a boat to experience Essex Bay from an entirely new perspective,'” Doggett recalled.

It was the biggest project either of them had ever taken on, and they had to learn a lot on the fly to make sure their houseboat would not only float, but it wouldn’t corrode in the saltwater, which meant splashing out on stainless steel materials. 

They also had to worry about height, as they had to get the wide-load to the bay, as well as, weight and stability.  

The final product even features a solar-powered shower, kitchen, oven, refrigerator, and freezer, with the full build-out documented on Doggett’s YouTube page Salvage to Scenic. It also has a seating area where the table lowers down to place a bed, which affected the boat’s ability to stay above water.

And all of it had to be installed by hand. 

Doggett was more in charge of building the actual structure and focusing on the precise engineering behind making it work, while Little focused on picking the paint, door knobs, and handles. 

For example, it was Little’s idea to put in two floor-to-ceiling glass doors on two conjoining walls to give practically panoramic views of the bay. Doggett was initially reluctant. 

‘That’s going to be really difficult to build,’ he recalled thinking. ‘The big panoramic glass wall posed some challenges as far as being safe and structurally sound.

‘So, I thought a lot about the systems, whereas James was really skilled in considering which flooring would look good with the blue paint, which shade of blue paint, what kind of knobs and handles should we pair with this, and so on and so forth.’ 

Doggett, who has known Little since first grade, said the project was a ‘beautiful marriage of skills.’ 

The biggest complication the two men hit was when they realized the frame of the house weighed much more than the pontoon’s maximum weight-bearing capacity.

The vessel was designed to hold up to 5,000 pounds, significantly lower than their 9,000-pound finished project.

The additional weight meant the friends had to purchase new floats, which would allow the vessel to hold up to 21,000 pounds. 

Doggett and Little also had to learn to built cabinets from scratch and install a rubber roof, as well as, solar panels, modify the oven door to make the house door close, and more. 

They almost gave up on the project several times, especially as it became more expensive. 

The friends initially believed it would cost them around $10,000. The finished project, however, took much longer and cost around $40,000 to complete, with multiple setbacks, including a winter break. 

Doggett and Little were also gifted some items, amounting roughly to $10,000 in supplies. This makes the total cost of the houseboat construction to be around $50,000, Doggett told the Daily Mail.  

The pair initially built the houseboat with the intention of sharing it for the rest of their lives until Little got a job working with horses in Florida.

So they decided to sell it, Doggett told the Daily Mail. 

‘I find myself at this bittersweet crossroads, where I can hold on to it, but it’s not really fair for me to hold on to the houseboat and enjoy it all myself when James has moved away,’ Doggett said. 

‘And so, the fairest thing I figure I can do for James is list it for sale and split the profits with him.’ 

It is currently listed on Facebook Marketplace for $140,000. It had to be relisted after Facebook took it down for suspicious activity after it became so popular. 

The pair have had some interested potential buyers, but for the time being, Doggett is enjoying his creation with his girlfriend. 

As for the future, Doggett is considering building a houseboat village in Essex Bay. 

‘Countless people have reached out with meaningful interest about renting and staying aboard this famous houseboat,’ he said. 

‘I’d like to be able to host people and share an on-the-water experience with them in person.’  

CHICAGO (WLS) — In a poignant gathering on Saturday, a multitude of cyclists came together to pay tribute to the victims who perished during the harrowing 1919 Chicago Race Riot.

This significant event also celebrated the completion of a citywide art initiative that honors these lost souls, marking their memories across various sites throughout Chicago.

ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24/7. Click here to watch

Participants embarked on a guided bicycle tour, highlighting landmarks tied to the racial violence, including the lakefront spot where 17-year-old Eugene Williams tragically lost his life in 1919.

“It’s been 107 years since that fateful day when Eugene Williams, a Black teenager, came here with friends to swim in Lake Michigan on a scorching Sunday,” recounted Professor Peter Cole from Western Illinois University. “As their raft drifted south, a white man began hurling rocks at them, leading to Eugene’s untimely death,” he solemnly noted.

Historians at the commemoration emphasized that during that period, there existed an unspoken boundary delineating the swimming areas designated for Black people from those for white people.

Williams’ death sparked an outbreak of racial violence in Chicago that left 38 people dead and hundreds injured.

“These markers form Chicago’s first citywide memorial dedicated to the victims of racial violence,” said Dr. Franklin Cosey-Gay, co-director of the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project.

The project includes 38 memorial markers spread across approximately 30 square miles of the city. Organizers said the memorial markers serve as a lasting tribute to the victims and as a reminder of a painful chapter that shaped the city of Chicago.

“We ensure that every person who lost their life during the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 is remembered where that life was taken – not erased in time, not reduced to just some simple footnote, but permanently woven into the landscape of our city,” said Kenya Merritt, commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.