- 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.
- The Voyage of Life (Wikipedia)
The Voyage of Life is a series of four paintings created by Thomas Cole in 1842, representing an allegory of the four stages of human life. The paintings, Childhood, Youth, Manhood, and Old Age, depict a voyager who travels in a boat on a river through the mid-19th-century American wilderness. In each painting the voyager rides the boat on the River of Life accompanied by a guardian angel. The landscape, each reflecting one of the four seasons of the year, plays a major role in conveying the story. With each installment the boat’s direction of travel is reversed from the previous picture. In childhood, the infant glides from a dark cave into a rich, green landscape. As a youth, the boy takes control of the boat and aims for a shining castle in the sky. In manhood, the adult relies on prayer and religious faith to sustain him through rough waters and a threatening landscape. Finally, the man becomes old and the angel guides him to heaven across the waters of eternity.