Pablo Escobar , in full Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria , (born December 1, 1949, Rionegro, Colombia—died December 2, 1993, Medellín ), Colombian criminal who, as head of the Medellín cartel, was arguably the world’s most powerful drug trafficker in the 1980s and early ’90s. 384.2K 213 0000214229-wtfvid007-109 Pablo Escobar QUICK FACTS BORN 1949 Envigado , Colombia DIED 1993 (aged 44) Medellín , Colombia Soon after his birth, Escobar’s family moved to Envigado , Colombia , a suburb of Medellín. While still a teenager, he began a life of crime . His early illegal activities included smuggling stereo equipment and stealing tombstones to resell. As the cocaine industry grew in Colombia—thanks in part to its proximity to Peru , Ecuador, and Bolivia , major growers of coca , from which cocaine is derived—Escobar became involved in drug smuggling. In the mid-1970s he helped found the crime ...
WASHINGTON—In this pandemic campaign year, the honking of car horns replaced the cheers of a crowd at candidate Joe Biden’s drive-in rallies. In the early afternoon, that beep-beep-beep became the soundtrack of the cities where he’d just become president-elect. For a Torontonian in Washington, it sounded like someone had just won the World Cup. And it went on for hours. Streets across Washington were filled with cars honking, many of their occupants leaning out of windows and screaming with joy as they passed sidewalks and parks full of people jumping up and down, waving Biden/Harris signs, or homemade variations of their message to Donald Trump: You’re fired. Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House, closed to traffic as it has been since the spring resurgence of a protest movement that gave it its name, was as full of bodies as a mosh pit in the warm afternoon sun. “Na-na-na-na, na-na-na-na, heeeeeeeey, goodbye!” the masked crowd sang at one point. Champagne w...
For 15 seconds, a choked-up Stephen Colbert had no words. It was Thursday night, a couple of hours after Donald Trump stunned the world by staggering into the White House briefing room and vomiting up a toxic speech that was the presidential equivalent of a delusional drunk ranting on a subway car at 2 a.m. This speech was to Churchill as an obscene stick-figure doodle is to Picasso. Unable to cope with the dawning reality — Joe Biden is on the road to victory — Trump cleaved to the dark conspiracies and baseless allegations conjured inside his MAGA silo. Voter fraud! Stolen election! He looked and sounded like a hallucinating mental patient in need of wrist restraints. The sad spectacle was too much for Colbert. Refusing to play a second from the speech, which he called “poison,” the late night host instead showed a clip from the 2016 election during which Trump revealed his Terms & Conditions in the event of a loss to Hillary Clinton: “I ...
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