UK Police apparently refused to see patterns of abuse by a man repeatedly victimizing women.

The BBC investigation revealed that 11 women tried to report Harkins to Police Scotland as far back as 2012.

Despite allegations of physical attacks, frauds, threats and abuse, Harkins was not investigated by police until late 2019.

This one man abusing dozens of women, despite reports to police, wasn’t stopped until far too late.

His patterns, finally leading to his arrest and conviction, fit within much larger patterns of normalized abuse.

The news about abuse at McDonalds by many men paints a very widespread, systemic danger in the UK even at work.

A BBC investigation two years ago was told that workers, some as young as 17, were being groped and harassed. Earlier this year, McDonald’s staff told us they still faced sexual abuse and harassment.

McDonald’s said it welcomed the new measures, adding that they would “build on the significant progress we have already made in this space”. But one former worker said the announcement would not make a difference.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is now extending its original plan agreed in 2023 to protect staff at the fast-food chain from sexual harassment.

Two burglars apparently escaped police while one was caught hiding inside the walls of a business.

A business owner in the 100 block of South State Street reported hearing a loud noise from the ceiling or attic area of their business around 5:30 p.m., according to a media release from the Geneseo Police Department.

Officers searched the business and heard a noise but couldn’t find where it came from, officials said, and left the business before 6 p.m.

Around ten minutes later, the owner reported hearing more suspicious noises from a different area of the business. Officers came back…

Presumably many were hiding in the attic, intending to drop into the business area, while one instead fell down a gap between walls, making loud noises and needing rescue.

Historian pro-tip (pun not intended): tipping is rooted in slavery.

Fortune magazine just published a glowing profile of a former FBI special agent – someone whose entire career was supposedly about investigating financial crimes and upholding the law:

Former FBI special agent says he uses a simple trick to get the best hotel rooms in the world—and it’s all about showing love to the front desk

1. Teaching corruption techniques on TikTok
2. Bragging about 20 years of systematically bribing hotel workers
3. Framing it as a life hack instead of what it is: paying for unfair advantages
4. Getting positive press coverage from Fortune magazine for it

The cognitive dissonance is awful.

This guy investigated financial crimes, Ponzi schemes, and embezzlement. He knows what corruption looks like. He understands how small payments to circumvent official systems scale into institutional rot.

And yet, he’s pumping a detailed script for corruption:

• Identifying vulnerable low-wage workers
• Flattering them while placing $20 cash on their keyboard
• Explicitly requesting preferential treatment
• Claiming it’s about “appreciation” when it’s pure transaction

The really horrible part: He spent 26 years investigating financial crimes while simultaneously (by his own admission) corrupting hotel systems across Hawaii and the mainland.

And now he’s monetizing this on social media as a “simple trick” – spreading the practice further, teaching others to do it, normalizing the worst inflationary behavior. This is exactly how corruption works wherever it has become endemic – starts as optional, becomes expected, then becomes mandatory just to receive baseline services you’ve already paid for.

The pre-payment is the key (pun not intended). This is NOT kind or gratitude, it’s a quid pro quo. He even scripts it:

If you could get me a decent room, I’d appreciate it [while he puts cash on their keyboard].

He’s not subtle. He’s saying to those who refuse, they will lose income to those who participate in his scheme.

The fact that Fortune wrote this up as business travel advice rather than “Former FBI Agent Admits to Decades of Small-Scale Bribery” tells you everything about how normalized corruption is when it’s framed as “savvy tipping” behavior.

It’s absolutely wild. As I documented in 2014, American tipping culture was deliberately revived by the KKK in the 1920s as a way to deny fair wages to Black workers after emancipation. This FBI agent is now teaching people to extend a racist exploitative system.