Three things for September 28
1. Capital Gazette shooter sentenced to more than five life sentences
On June 28, 2018, Jarrod Ramos walked into The Capital Gazette, a Maryland newspaper, and began to open fire with a gun. This action left five people, Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters, dead.
Today, Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Michael Wachs announced the sentencing for Ramos on 41 various charges, including five murder charges. In total, Ramos was sentenced to five life sentences without parole, plus another life sentence and an additional 345 years, to be served consecutively, for the other charges.
“To say the defendant showed a callous and cruel disregard for the sanctity of human life is simply an understatement,” said Wachs.
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2. Two Americans allowed to return from China after three years
Two American siblings, Cynthia and Victor Liu, have been allowed to return home from China after three years of being banned from leaving the country. The siblings, along with their mother, were being held on accusations of “economic crimes” while on a visit to China, reports BBC.
These actions are part of a series of actions critics use to accuse China of engaging in “hostage diplomacy” and using ordinary citizens as bargaining tools with other countries. China has denied these accusations.
“The siblings told The New York Times newspaper then that Chinese authorities were using them to lure their father, a former state-owned bank executive, back to China to face criminal fraud charges, even though he had reportedly cut ties with the family in 2012,” reports BBC.
This story comes on the heels of several Canadian citizens being released this past weekend.
Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released a joint statement that read, in part, ”We are so pleased to welcome Cynthia and Victor Liu back home after three difficult years being held in China as pawns for the Chinese government.”
3. USPS mail service to become permanently slower in certain postage situations
The United States Postal Service has been a topic of contention for several years. These conversations are largely centered around USPS reliability, cost and efficiency. Post-Master General Louis DeJoy, who was appointed in May 2020, has been slowly making changes as part of a 10-year strategic plan to attempt to ease all of these concerns.
As part of this plan, starting this Friday, USPS will begin to implement new service standards for First-Class Mail and Periodicals.
According to USPS spokesperson Kim Frum, “most first class mail (61%) and periodicals (93%) will be unaffected” with the only mail being affected being those pieces traveling a significant distance across the country.
“The Postal Service can entrust its ground network to deliver more First-Class Mail, which will lead to great consistency, reliability and efficiency that benefits its customers … whether it’s 300 miles or 3,000 miles, the current standard for (first-class packages) require 3-day service for any destination within the contiguous U.S. with a drive time greater than six hours. This is unattainable and forces us to rely on air transportation, yielding unreliable service. With this change, we will improve service reliability and predictability for customers while also driving efficiencies across the Postal Service network,” said Frum.
Along with this change, USPS is also temporarily increasing the prices of all shipping from Oct. 3-Dec. 26 as part of the annual holiday season increase in volume.
