- On May 14, 2022, a mass shooting occurred in Buffalo, New York, United States, at a Tops Friendly Markets supermarket in the East Side neighborhood. Ten people, all of whom were African Americans, were murdered and three were injured. The shooter, identified as 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron, livestreamed part of the attack on Twitch, but the livestream was shut down by the service in under two minutes. Gendron was taken into custody and charged with first-degree murder. He formally entered a plea of “not guilty” on May 19, 2022. On November 28, 2022, Gendron pleaded guilty to all state charges in the shooting, including murder, domestic terrorism, and hate crimes. On February 15, 2023, Gendron was sentenced to 11 concurrent life sentences without the possibility of parole; as of that date, federal charges are still ongoing, and the federal prosecution also expressed their intention to seek the death penalty.
- Buffalo, New York (Wikipedia)
Buffalo is a city in the U.S. state of New York and the county seat of Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River on the Canada–United States border. With a population of 278,349 according to the 2020 census, Buffalo is the second-most populous city in New York state after New York City, and the 81st-most populous city in the U.S. Buffalo and the city of Niagara Falls together make up the two-county Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area, which had an estimated population of 1.2 million in 2020, making it the 49th-largest metro area in the U.S.
- Terence McKenna (Wikipedia)
Terence Kemp McKenna (November 16, 1946 – April 3, 2000) was an American ethnobotanist and mystic who advocated the responsible use of naturally occurring psychedelic plants. He spoke and wrote about a variety of subjects, including psychedelic drugs, plant-based entheogens, shamanism, metaphysics, alchemy, language, philosophy, culture, technology, environmentalism, and the theoretical origins of human consciousness. He was called the “Timothy Leary of the ’90s”, “one of the leading authorities on the ontological foundations of shamanism”, and the “intellectual voice of rave culture”.