Author: USA Facts News

Thanks to true crime documentaries and drama series such as Netflix’s Mindhunter, many of us are far too familiar with the crimes committed by some of history’s worst offenders.

Mindhunter in particular has proven popular, with the show’s inspiration John Douglas opening up recently on the chilling way psychopaths are often able to pass polygraph tests and lie detectors.

One of the worst serial killers he studied in the show is Edmund Kemper, known as the ‘Co-ed killer’ after he brutally murdered eight women including his mother in the space of 11 months, having already killed his grandparents at the age of 15.

The American man was convicted in late 1973, having spent much of the last year picking up hitchhiking young women from high schools and colleges before murdering them and performing sexual acts on their corpses. It is believed that the young women were simply surrogates for his mother, who was his second-to-last victim before he turned himself into police.

A recent photo of the 76-year-old also left fans of the show very creeped out, as at six-foot-nine, he is still a threat to anyone who comes close to him, even though he is now reportedly confined to a wheelchair.

Despite some sources describing Kemper as an almost-model citizen during his time behind bars, he has been repeatedly denied parole over his last 42 years living in the California Medical Facility, and considering what he said to FBI agent Robert Ressler back in the 1980s, it’s easy to see why he will never see freedom again.

According to American researcher and psychiatric clinical nurse specialist Ann Burgess, Kemper told Ressler at the end of one of their interviews: “The guard isn’t coming back. They’re on change of shift. He’s not going to be here for 30 minutes. In that time, I could snap your head and leave it on the table. I’d own the prison then. I killed an FBI agent.”

Given the serial killer’s apparent affixation with the human head, as he savagely decapitated most of his victims, that was an extremely serious threat, and you wouldn’t have blamed Ressler for bolting out of the room as soon as he heard the terrifying statement.

After the guard came back, Kemper said he was joking, but the FBI certainly didn’t see the funny side, and from then on, all agents were required to conduct interviews in pairs and could no longer do them on their own.

Despite originally requesting the death penalty at his trial in 1973, Kemper is still alive today, and will be up for parole again in 2031.

Think crude, offensive, and just plain wrong, then multiply it by 10.

That’s the level we’re talking here, but it also shouldn’t be forgotten that the show is excellent at tackling current affairs and issues in the world in its episodes in its own unique, comedic way.

The show was created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and has been a mainstay on Comedy Central since its pilot in 1997.

Each episode is usually written and animated in the week leading to its release, allowing it to be just about the most current comedy series on TV for almost 30 years.

However, touching on controversial topics such as Andrew Tate (see above), poking fun at religion, fielding racism jokes and more over the years, can cause those involved in the show to look back and cringe a bit.

I mean, there’s a Wikipedia page titled ‘South Park controversies’ for Pete’s sake.

Writer Pam Brady was part of the show for three seasons before moving on to pursue bigger film projects, and despite looking back fondly on her time on the show, she revealed the joke she regretted most.

The foul-mouthed foursome of Eric, Kyle, Kenny and Stan are known for their brutal one-liners from time to time, but Brady’s joke comes from another iconic character.

Speaking at 2025’s South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival, she spoke to Fox News Digital about the ‘worst’ joke she had ever written for the series.

The American writer and producer explained: “It was based on an old frat joke… one character said ‘I don’t trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn’t die’.

“I remember it was just like the most misogynistic frat boy joke that I’d heard of at that point… but we’re reclaiming it,” she insisted.

It’s fair to say that the comment hasn’t exactly aged well.

The character she’s referring to is none other than the boys’ fourth grade school teacher, Mr. Garrison, who you might know from Cartman’s infamous scene with the megaphone.

If you don’t, just Google it.

Despite not being the biggest fan of it today, the joke was part of the 1999 film titled South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut, which would receive an Oscar nomination in 2000.

Many fans consider the joke to be one of the show’s funniest, but Brady has reclaimed it following International Women’s Day, earlier this month.

Speaking about the treatment of women in Hollywood, she added: “I think there’s always improvement to be made. I mean, women are 51 percent of the population, so it should always be 50 percent [female in writers’ rooms].

“But I’ve been really lucky, you know, South Park’s writers’ room has always been 50-50, male-female,” she admitting, adding that the industry nowadays is no longer ‘the old boys network’.

While many think the art of comedy is dead nowadays due to cancel culture, Brady pointed out: “I do think you have to be more careful now, what you say.

“South Park had an episode where they represented… I’m not going to say what it was, but it was just someone you wouldn’t want to represent on a show… and you could do it 20 years ago, but you can’t do it now,” she admitted.

The writer highlighted: “I think times change and I think sometimes it’s good that you go, ‘oh, you shouldn’t do something that’s like, a racist phrase that your grandparents would use.’ And that’s sort of just evolving.”

The discussion around intimacy co-ordinators has become a hot topic in Hollywood in recent years, with the introduction of the role post #MeToo becoming the new industry standard.

This year’s Best Actress winner at the Oscars, Mikey Madison, sparked controversy when she declined using an intimacy co-ordinator for her leading role as a sex worker in Anora.

While other actors have been full of praise for the new on-set position, Paltrow revealed that she and Chalamet asked theirs to ‘step back’ when shooting their upcoming film.

The pair are starring together in a new A24 film called Marty Supreme and went viral after pictures showed the pair locking lips on the set of the film.

The film, directed Josh Safdie and releasing December of this year in the US, features the pair in an age gap relationship, with Paltrow, 52, joking that she said to the 29-year-old Chalamet: “I was like, ‘OK, great. I’m 109 years old. You’re 14.”

Paltrow said in an interview with Vanity Fair: “We have a lot of sex in this movie. There’s a lot.

“There’s now something called an intimacy coordinator, which I did not know existed. I was like, ‘Girl, I’m from the era where you get naked, you get in bed, the camera’s on’.”

She stated that she said to the intimacy co-ordinator on the film: “I think we’re good. You can step a little bit back.”

Paltrow went on to add: “I don’t know how it is for kids who are starting out, but if someone is like, ‘Okay, and then he’s going to put his hand here,’ I would feel, as an artist, very stifled by that.”

The 52-year-old was full of praise for Chalamet, saying of the two-time Academy Award nominee: “He’s such a thinking man’s sex symbol.

“He’s just a very polite, properly raised, I was going to say kid, he’s a man who takes his work really seriously and is a fun partner.”

Exact plot details for Marty Supreme have largely been kept under wraps so far, with Variety saying that Chalamet is set to star as a ‘ping pong protégé competing overseas’.

Paltrow revealed in the Vanity Fair profile, however, that she plays the wife of a rival within the sport who begins an affair with Chalamet’s character.

She said in the interview: “This woman who is married to someone who is in the Ping-Pong mafia, as it were.

“They meet and she’s had a pretty tough life, and I think he breathes life back into her, but it’s kind of transactional for them both.”

Director Safdie said of Paltrow: “She’s a movie star. I say that in the cosmic sense.

“She’s got a gravitational pull that only a camera can depict. I think her absence from acting has lent a vulnerability to her abilities.”

Marty Supreme is set to release January 1, 2026, in the UK.

Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub were assigned on the Expedition 70 spacewalk to check up on an external radiator on the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module.

Upon inspection, Kononenko spotted a number of small holes on the radiator’s surface, all randomly distributed.

“The holes have very even edges, like they’ve been drilled through,” the flight engineer said.

“There are lots of them. They are spread in a chaotic manner.”

But as the pair worked to isolate the issue, they discovered a droplet of coolant which started to form between the radiator panels.

They soon realised it wasn’t just the holes he had to worry about.

It seems Kononenko had a much bigger problem on his hands, the fact that he had encountered a growing ‘blob’, or ‘droplet’, while trying to soak up any escaping liquid from the generator.

He had intended to mop up the leak with a cloth towel, but it was a lot more liquid than he had first expected.

It turns out that this ‘blob’ was residual coolant, which had been disturbed while Kononenko and Chub were carrying out their work close to the valves – and it attached itself to Kononenko’s safety tether, which keeps him connected to the ISS.

His superiors instructed him to leave the area immediately and return to the ISS after the breach, although the Russian insisted none of the liquid had reached his suit.

Thankfully, the astronauts were well prepared for this kind of incident and had taken tissues and cloths to wipe down their gear and tools so that they wouldn’t bring any contaminated kit back inside of the ISS.

Kononenko instead had to ‘bag’ his tether which had touched the bizarre blob and then left it outside after the spacewalk – which lasted seven hours and 41 minutes – came to an end.

Roscosmos later announced in a Telegram post that the lab’s primary coolant loop was not affected and ‘the crew and the station are not in any danger,’ according to CBS News.

The Expedition 70 crew then safely returned to Earth on 5 April, 2024, after the 191 day mission was complete.

Personally, Kononenko has spent 1,111 days in space, which makes him the astronaut who has spent the most time in orbit.

The pair were forced to stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for nine months, after technical issues to their spacecraft meant that their eight-day mission was extended indefinitely.

Williams and Wilmore were joined in the SpaceX Crew Dragon space capsule by NASA’s Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov as they splashed down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, USA, after a 17-hour journey.

After nine long months, Suni Williams was full of waves and had a huge grin across her face, while Wilmore looked relived to be back home.

They were made to wait almost an hour before being allowed out of the capsule though, as extensive safety checks were carried out on the capsule as it remained in the ocean following its successful splashdown.

The capsule experienced a smooth and successful re-entry, parachute deployment, and splashdown.

It was the first time that the two astronauts would experience a breath of fresh air in over nine months.

Several health and safety measures were taken to ensure that those onboard aren’t shocked by conditions on our planet, as a protective screen was inserted after the capsule’s hatch was opened.

Personalised foot rests were also placed in front of the astronauts to ease them back into the gravity experience, with all four astronauts smiling and waving at the camera when filmed for the first time.

Thousands watched on as NASA streamed the Space-9 Crew’s re-entry to Earth, and the Crew Dragon spacecraft’s subsequent splash down took place off the eastern coast of the US, at 21:58 GMT.

After docking at the ISS in June 2024, the capsule was sent back was sent back to Earth unmanned, there was no set date for the astronauts’ return.

After several delays, a date of 12 March was set for their return mission to launch, in a joint venture between NASA and SpaceX.

The pair have remained adamant throughout their stay on the ISS that they weren’t ‘stranded’, there is a reason behind their delayed return.

NASA’s Associate Administrator Ken Bowersox explained in a teleconference last Friday: “The SpaceX folks helped us with a lot of options for how we would bring Butch and Suni home on Dragon in a contingency.”

He further revealed there were ‘always options’ when it came to adding missions or bringing a capsule back earlier then planned.

Bowersox added: “But we ruled them out pretty quickly just based on how much money we’ve got in our budget, and the importance of keeping crews on the International Space Station,”

What do you watch after a show that good?

The Stephen Graham-fronted Netflix series has debuted to a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has left fans raving.

With an 8.4 on IMDb at the time of writing, Adolescence has topped Netflix’s charts both in the UK and globally.

To follow up a show this beloved, you have to find something similarly acclaimed, and that is what some fans of Adolescence and Netflix themselves have been recommending.

The series – which some say is the perfect next watch after Adolescence – also stars Graham and can be watched on Netflix, and similarly deals with serious socio-political issues in a gripping way.

The show is called The Walk-In and stars Graham as a real-life journalist and activist who infiltrated a far right hate group National Action.

National Action had previously posted online showing support for the murderer of Jo Cox and Matthew Collins, an activist, infiltrated the group.

Collins, himself a former reformed neo-Nazi, joined the group and attempted to derail them from within.

The series is based on real events which, without spoiling the show, rocked the UK with Collins’ revelations.

As well as being one of the recommended series underneath Adolescence on Netflix, Dexerto wrote an article titled ‘If you loved Adolescence, Netflix has another shocking Stephen Graham show you can binge now’ recommending The Walk-In.

Produced for ITV originally, and available to watch on ITV X, the series was hit with rave reviews on release.

The show has a whopping 80 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, in addition to a score of 7.3 on IMDb.

With a review of The Walk-In that you wouldn’t be shocked to find out was about Adolescence, Vicky Jessop of the London Evening Standard said: “It’s not subtle, but it doesn’t need to be.

“It’s gripping drama, and, I’d argue, necessary viewing. Show it to your friends and family — if only to make them understand how serious this all still is.”

Nick Hilton of The Independent said: “The Walk-In can be hard to watch, thanks to its unflinching portrait of British neo-Nazism, but there’s something deeply compelling about seeing an ordinary man getting sucked into, and pushed away from, these destructive ideologies.”

It is not just a fan with lofty critics however, as the average viewer also seem to be coming away from The Walk-In with nothing but positive things to say.

One 9/10 review of the show on IMDb said: “It goes without saying that if Stephen Graham’s name is listed on a new drama series, then you know it is an excellent bet to watch.

“The Walk-In is just that. A hard-hitting and tough drama to watch. This is yet another top-notch drama series to hit our screens and yet another which more than delivers.”

Eyes across the world were glued to screens as the highly awaited return of the astronauts finally came, with re-entry, parachute deployment, and splashdown going smoothly after a 17-hour journey back to the surface.

The pair were originally sent up to the International Space Station (ISS) in June 2024 for an eight-day mission, but following some technical issues to their Boeing Starliner spacecraft, they were forced to stay on the ISS.

As the capsule was sent back was sent back to Earth unmanned, there was no set date for the astronauts’ return.

After several delays, a date of 12 March was set for their return mission to launch, in a joint venture between NASA and SpaceX.

Thousands watched on as NASA streamed the Space-9 Crew’s re-entry to Earth, and the Crew Dragon spacecraft’s subsequent splash down took place off the eastern coast of the US.

The splashdown took place off the coast of Florida at 21:57 GMT.

Why have the astronauts been in space for so long?

Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore arrived at the ISS on 6 June after their spacecraft ran into some issues – but why were they left in space for up to three quarters of a year?

While the pair have remained adamant that they weren’t ‘stranded’, there is a reason behind their delayed return.

NASA’s Associate Administrator Ken Bowersox explained in a teleconference last Friday: “The SpaceX folks helped us with a lot of options for how we would bring Butch and Suni home on Dragon in a contingency.”

He revealed there were ‘always options’ when it came to adding missions or bringing a capsule back earlier then planned.

Bowersox added: “But we ruled them out pretty quickly just based on how much money we’ve got in our budget, and the importance of keeping crews on the International Space Station,”

“They’re an important part of maintaining the station,” he said.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s involvement

While Musk may look like the hero here, providing a SpaceX capsule to bring the astronauts home, the businessman has, together with President Donald Trump, blamed the delay of Williams’ and Wilmore’s return on the Biden administration.

The Tesla CEO even claimed that he offered to bring them home earlier, but was shut down by the previous US leader.

While the astronauts denied any knowledge of this, the Crew-9 spacecraft arrived on Saturday (15 March) with four other astronauts, taking over duties on the ISS.

Trump previously claimed to reporters in the Oval Office: “Biden left them up there,

“We have two astronauts that are stuck in space. I have asked Elon (Musk), I said, ‘Do me a favour. Can you get them out?’ He said, ‘Yes.’

“He is preparing to go up, I think in two weeks,” he said at the time.

Trump then addressed the astronauts, saying: “We love you, and we’re coming up to get you. And you shouldn’t have been up there so long.”

What health effects can the astronauts expect to face?

It is known that the astronauts haven’t needed to use their muscles in space due to the lack of gravity, causing atrophy.

NASA state that weight-bearing bones lose an average of ‘1% to 1.5% of mineral density per month during spaceflight’.

But that’s not the only health issue the pair will face.

The changes to the body continue, as medical assessments taken from returning astronaut Scott Kelly showed a decrease in speed and accuracy of his cognitive performance, a change in gut bacteria, weight loss and potential DNA damage from exposure to radiation.

Astrophysicist Alan Duffy also revealed to The Guardian that being in space for a long period of time can make someone feel like they’ve got a ‘constant cold’.

This is because fluid builds up in the astronauts head and doesn’t drain properly, though apparently the impairment to smell is a blessing in disguise.

Rumour has it, the ISS is said to have a particular smell.

Graham has been getting worldwide attention for his role as Eddie Miller in the new Netflix series, Adolescence, a series that follows a teenage boy who has been accused of murdering a classmate, and the turmoil that his family has to endure as a result.

If that wasn’t gripping enough, each of the TV show’s four episodes, each an hour long, were impressively shot in one continuous take.

The streaming platform even revealed which takes were used for each episode, with the second take of the first episode being used, as well as takes 13, 11, and 16 of the following three episodes being released.

But what made the show the most watched in the world in the past week was the performance from the actors, with Graham and child actor Owen Cooper gaining plaudits for their performances.

Graham has previously spoken about the emotional connection he’s had with the show, something that he has had with past projects.

The British actor’s breakthrough role came as Combo in the This Is England franchise, as he first portrayed the racist skinhead in the 2006 film.

He’s come a long way since then, but he formed a special connection to those in the film, and even to the character, as he explained in a 2015 interview.

Speaking to Channel 4 after reprising his role as Combo for This Is England ’90 – one of three This Is England sequel series – the 51-year-old admitted that it’s ‘the role that changed my life’, saying that it was ‘a wonderful gift’ to play the character.

When Graham was asked about the difficulty of emotional scenes – some of which included elements of racism and violence – he spoke about ‘trust on set’ and being ready to ‘open up little bits of yourself’.

“Without sounding too w*nky, you have to show bits of your soul,” he admitted.

However, Graham admitted that some of these difficult scenes – one of which saw Combo attack Milky in the 2006 film – can really bring out his emotions, adding: “If I’m really honest, there’s been many a time when I’ve gone back to my hotel room and phoned Hannah, my wife, and been in tears.

“And she’ll say ‘It’s okay, it’s only acting’. But sometimes you have to go to that level, in order to play the truth.”

He said that he would then try to play football or video games to get his mind off it, and admitted: “I’m very blessed, I’ve got Hannah and two beautiful children to help me with stuff like that.”

Speaking about how he would prepare for heavy scenes in the 2015 mini-series, Graham explained: “You try and play the truth in any situation, and Shane (Meadows) creates the environment for that.

“You talk about it, spend a lot of time analysing the scene.”

Adolescence follows 13-year-old Jamie Miller – portrayed by Owen Cooper in his first ever acting role – who is arrested after a teenage girl from his school is murdered.

Stephen Graham plays the boy’s father Eddie Miller, while Top Boy star Ashley Walters takes on the role of detective inspector Luke Bascombe.

Each of the four episodes were done in one single take – in the same way as the 2021 film Boiling Point – and writer Jack Thorne has explained how this impacted the storyline.

On why we didn’t find out what happened to Jamie, he told 5Live: “As a writer you have to think about corridors, you have to think about staircases, you have to think about all of those technical things.

“You also can’t tell all the story. So you are telling an incomplete story, because there is only so much you can see in an hour.

“So Jamie’s legal process, anything that the family is doing in terms of mourning the loss of Katie – any of these things you can’t cut to. And so you are sort of stuck in something and that forces you to be partial, and it forces you to be incomplete.

“I think that causes the audience to lean forward because they know they are not going to get all of the story. They have got to work.”

Viewers and fellow parents have been raving about the series on X, as one person tweeted: “This four part series called Adolescence on ⁦⁦@netflix is totally brilliant.

“The cast, production and filming are amazing and is one of the best things I have ever seen on TV. This must win every award going. BRILLIANT.”

Another added: “I’m not the first one to say this but #Adolescence from #Netflix redefines what truly great series can achieve. It defies the regular 3 act structure of cause and effect and plunges you deeply into the minds of the characters and allows you to reflect upon yourself. It’s next level storytelling. Watch it.”

“Watched Adolescence on Netflix and it literally blew my mind,” a third wrote. “Being a dad of a 14 year old, I can understand the challenges both the parents and kids face. But the way they have handled the series… I would recommend every parent to watch it.

“Not to mention the awesome continuous shots that you get throughout the series.

“Every actor has put their soul in the series and never fail to bring in the intensity and goosebumps where it’s meant to be… totally worth a watch.”

Weeks after Trump’s explosive White House meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the US president engaged in a 90-minute phone call with Russia’s Putin to broach the topic of a potential ceasefire and end to the war in Ukraine.

It was three years in February since Putin made the decision to launch a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, with around 18% of the Eastern European country’s territory believed to be occupied by Russia.

Since taking office in January, President Trump has pursued securing peace between the two nations by whatever means necessary — even going as far as temporarily pausing military aid and foreign intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

Following the conversation between Trump and Putin, the White House released the takeaways from the discussion, which include Russia agreeing to pause military strikes on Ukraines energy and infrastructure – although Putin rejected a proposal for an immediate ceasefire.

“Today, President Trump and President Putin spoke about the need for peace and a ceasefire in the Ukraine war. Both leaders agreed this conflict needs to end with a lasting peace,” the transcript read.

Key takeaways from Trump and Putin’s conversation include beginning with an ‘energy and infrastructure ceasefire’, before moving onto negotiations for the ‘implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, full ceasefire and permanent peace’.

“These negotiations will begin immediately in the Middle East. The leaders spoke broadly about the Middle East as a region of potential cooperation to prevent future conflicts,” the transcript continued.

The White House transcript went on to add that both Trump and Putin had also discussed the possibility of ‘improved bilateral relations between the United States and Russia’.

“The blood and treasure that both Ukraine and Russia have been spending in this war would be better spent on the needs of their people,” it added. “This conflict should never have started and should have been ended long ago with sincere and good faith peace efforts.”

The Kremlin has also released a statement of key points from the discussion, including calls for a ‘complete cessation’ of military intelligence and foreign aid to Ukraine.

Russia also stated that a swap of 175 prisoners on each side of the war would take place, with a further gravely wounded Ukrainian soldiers to be released as a ‘as a gesture of goodwill’.