This week, we discuss one of Britain's most notorious serial killers, Harold Shipman, and how toxicology results were pivotal to his conviction. We will then break down how toxicology works.

It's going to be a peaceful age, right? Right??

Traces of other pharmaceuticals, including muscle relaxants and sedatives, were also found in blubber samples.

A Massachusetts judge may lose her job after she allegedly helped an illegal alien arrested on drug charges to evade ICE agents several years ago.In April 2018, just a few months after she rose to the Massachusetts District Court bench, Judge Shelley Joseph presided over a hearing for Jose Medina-Perez, a native of the Dominican Republican who had been deported from the U.S. in 2003 and 2007.'ICE is gonna get him? ... What if we detain him?'Medina-Perez had been arrested on two misdemeanor counts of drug possession as well as a charge of fugitive from justice. ICE considered him a "deportable alien," and agents were on hand at the courthouse to obtain custody of him as soon as he was released from the state. During the hearing, Judge Joseph ordered the ICE agents to wait outside her courtroom, but these agents appeared to give several court officials cause for concern.According to a press release from the Commission on Judicial Conduct, while conducting a sidebar conversation during the hearing, the defense attorney noted, "If he’s bailed out ... ICE will pick him up."Joseph then replied, "ICE is gonna get him? ... What if we detain him?"Moments later, the defense attorney asked whether he could speak with Judge Joseph off the record. The judge then asked for the official recording of the proceeding to be turned off temporarily, in apparent violation of state law. The recording was stopped for approximately 52 seconds, the press release said.During those 52 seconds, the defense attorney allegedly requested that he be allowed to escort his client back to the lockup area, where the defendant could slip "through the rear sally-port exit of the courthouse" and avoid the ICE agents who were waiting for him, the press release indicated.When the court recording resumed, the defense attorney stammered: "I would ask that he, uh — I believe he has some property downstairs. I’d like to speak with him downstairs with the interpreter if I may," the press release claimed, citing the court transcript. Judge Joseph agreed: "That's fine. Of course." She later reiterated to the session clerk that the defense attorney had "asked if the interpreter can accompany him downstairs, um, to further interview him — and I’ve allowed that to happen."After another pretrial hearing was scheduled, Medina-Perez, his attorney, an interpreter, and another court officer went down to the lockup area. "Once inside the lockup area, the court officer used his security access card to open the rear sally-port exit of the courthouse and released the defendant out of the courthouse through the sally-port exit," the press release said.When questioned about Medina-Perez's apparent escape from the courthouse, Judge Joseph allegedly replied: "I assumed that the defendant was in the custody of ICE. I was not aware until two days later when I returned to the Newton District Court that he had not been taken into ICE custody."She later added: "I regret the harm that my handling of the matter caused the reputation of the Massachusetts judiciary."'This judge should never see another day in court as a judge. This type of reckless behavior doesn’t belong in our courtrooms.'Judge Joseph was also charged with federal crimes and temporarily suspended from the bench in connection with the incident, but prosecutors later agreed to drop those charges when Joseph promised to refer herself to the Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct.Joseph returned to the bench and eventually moved to Boston Municipal Court, where she currently serves.On Monday, the Commission on Judicial Conduct filed formal charges against Joseph, alleging that she had violated the Code of Judicial Conduct.Furthermore, the commission alleged that her actions that day amounted to "willful judicial misconduct, conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice and unbecoming a judicial officer, and that brings the judicial office into disrepute." A hearing regarding these non-criminal charges will be held within the next 60 days after a hearing officer can be appointed to preside over it. Depending on the outcome of the hearing, Joseph could be removed from the bench.In her rebuttal to the charges, which was also included in the press release, Joseph denied intentionally assisting Medina-Perez and professed to have "fully cooperated and responded truthfully to the inquiries of her judicial colleagues, supervisors, and judicial disciplinary authorities." She did acknowledge that she "unknowingly" violated state statute when she paused the official court recording."Judge Joseph looks forward to a hearing where all the circumstances finally become public," said a statement from her attorney, Thomas Hoopes, according to Boston.com.Paul Craney of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance called the entire situation "unfortunate." "It's unfortunate this rogue judge decided to work against our law enforcement agency in charge of keeping the public safe. This judge should never see another day in court as a judge. This type of reckless behavior doesn’t belong in our courtrooms," Craney said in a statement to Blaze News.Medina-Perez apparently managed to evade ICE that day, but ICE apprehended him two weeks later. In December 2021, he was even "HELD WITHOUT BAIL DUE TO IDENTITY ISSUES," a court docket showed. However, all charges against him in connection with this hearing were eventually dropped.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Establishmentarians struggling with the likelihood of having little to no representation in the incoming administration have spent weeks attacking several of President-elect Donald Trump's picks to helm federal agencies of consequence. Although Pete Hegseth, Trump's pick to run the Pentagon, has taken an inordinate amount of abuse, former National Security Council official Kash Patel has similarly become a top target for champions of the status quo, including Olivia Troye, a middling intelligence official in the George W. Bush administration who later served as an adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence. In conversation with identitarian MSNBC host Joy Reid this week, Troye viciously attacked Patel. Although accustomed — like most in the liberal media — to hurling verbal bombs without fear of personal consequence, the former Pence adviser was promptly met with a legal notice. Troye responded by playing the victim and bemoaning a potential state of things where talking heads might be answerable for their accusations. Shot Troye, an ardent critic of Trump who defended censorship before Congress and endorsed Kamala Harris, told Reid Monday that nameless unelected officials in Washington, D.C., believe Patel is dangerous. "I worked with Kash Patel in the White House. I was Vice President Mike Pence's counterterrorism adviser so I had to coordinate with Kash a lot. Kash Patel is a delusional liar. Let me just be very clear about that," said Troye. "And he would lie about intelligence. He would lie about making things up on operations. I think Mark Esper has talked about that as well, where he put the lives of Navy Seals at risk in an operation when it came to Nigeria." 'This is a complete fabrication.' "At some point, I realized I need to check Kash's work to make sure that I wasn't misinforming Mike Pence by relying on his word. So I had to go around him. And this is a guy who openly has contempt for people in national security, for people especially at DOJ and the FBI." Troye noted further that "there is a little bit of fear here from people where they know that someone like Kash Patel is fully capable of just doing partisan investigations, whatever it takes. It will be insane if he becomes the director of the FBI." Chaser Jesse Binnall of the Binnall Law Group, which represents Patel, sent a letter to Troye's counsel Wednesday threatening to take legal action against the MSNBC guest unless she publicly retracts her "defamatory statements." The legal notice further advised Troye to "identify and preserve all hard copy and electronically stored documents, information, and data that relate, in any way, to Mr. Patel and to [her] statements about him on MSNBC." Binnall focused on Troye's allegations that Patel would "lie about intelligence"; that he would "lie about making things up on operations"; that he was misinforming Pence; and that he "put the lives of Navy Seals at risk." "This is a complete fabrication," wrote Binnall. "And you know it is false by virtue of your former position in the White House. At no point did Mr. Patel ever lie about national intelligence, place Navy Seals at risk, or misinform the Vice President. Not only did you have actual knowledge of the falsity of this smear, but you also did so with the malicious intent of degrading his character and of cynical self-promotion." 'You're insufferable and so is your lawyer.' "This is, of course, not the first time you have milked your former title as a means of spreading lies about associates of President Donald J. Trump," added Binnall, referencing Troye's 2022 smear of former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, which resulted in a defamation lawsuit. Grenell's complaint indicated that Troye, who alleged Grenell tried to get Pence to attend a white supremacist event while overseas, "is a disgruntled former government employee who is on a malicious smear campaign against her political rivals." Unless Troye retracts her comments in a public statement on X by next week, Patel will apparently take legal action. Hangover Troye cried foul upon receipt of the legal notice, stating on X, "This aligns with [Patel's] threats against the media & political opponents, revealing how he might conduct himself if confirmed in the role." "I stand by my statements — my priority remains the safety & security of the American people," continued Troye. "I am not the only one who has expressed concerns about him. So why me? And so it begins." The account for the Georgia GOP offered a possible answer to Troye's "Why me?": "Because you defamed him on national television, perhaps." Jeff Clark, a former assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice's environment and natural resources division, responded to Troye, "You're insufferable and so is your lawyer. The good news is that your MSNBC platform is an oasis pod that is rapidly dehydrating before our eyes. Ratings circling the drain. We won't miss you when channel surfing and over time seeing you less and less." Troye is not the only former federal operative concern-mongering about Patel at MSNBC and at similar liberal media outfits. Frank Figliuzzi, a former assistant director for counterintelligence at the Federal Bureau of Investigation who now writes for MSNBC, noted Tuesday that Patel sounds like a "wannabe cop planning on false arrests and fabricated evidence" and insinuated that the FBI might resume its practice of illegal wiretaps, blackmail, and suggesting civil rights leaders kill themselves were Patel to take over. Former FBI Special Agent Daniel Brunner told CNN last month that "putting someone like Kash Patel in the position of director of the FBI is, I believe, extremely, extremely dangerous." Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director who undermined the Trump presidency with Crossfire Hurricane, told CNN on Sunday, "The installation or the nomination, I guess we should say at this point, of Kash Patel's FBI director can only possibly be a plan to disrupt, to dismantle, to distract the FBI, and to possibly use it as a tool for the president's political agenda." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

One of Logitech’s best pro-gaming headsets, the Logitech G Pro X 2 Lightspeed, is now on sale at Amazon. This fantastic Logitech gaming headset deal is ideal if you’re looking for a set that delivers punchy audio quality without breaking the bank. In our Logitech G Pro X 2 Lightspeed review, we raved about this headset’s comfortable ear pads and clear sound potential. While it’s since been superseded on our best gaming headset guide by other Logitech headsets, including the Logitech G Astro A50 X, it’s still a great option for gamers. Continue reading Save $60 with this Logitech gaming headset deal, if you’re quick MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Logitech G Pro Superlight 2, Logitech G Pro X TKL Lightspeed review, Best gaming mouse

While the latest Intel GPUs have only just landed, the company is already looking ahead to the future. In a new edition of The Full Nerd Podcast, Intel Fellow Tom Petersen said the company's next-generation Xe3 gaming GPUs are already in progress. The launch of the Intel Arc Battlemage GPU lineup, which usse the Xe2 architecture, is coming shortly with the release of the Intel Arc B580 later in December, with the B570 following in January. It isn’t anticipated that the B580 and B570 will blow anyone’s socks off, unlike the best graphics cards, but they are expected to offer decent performance for their surprisingly low prices. Continue reading Intel says it’s already prepping new gaming GPU lineup to follow Battlemage MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Core i5 14600K review, Best gaming CPU, Core i9 14900K review

Two of the names of new AMD Radeon graphics cards appear to have been confirmed. A piece of code found on Github reveals that, at least internally, AMD plans to stick with its current naming for at least this generation. The new AMD Radeon RX 8800 and 8600 are directly referenced in a patch for AMD's ROCm software. This is a software stack meant for artificial intelligence projects, an area where the company is keen to make a splash. While the best graphics card options for AI have typically been based on Nvidia GPUs, AMD has been pushing ahead to ensure it’s not entirely left behind. Continue reading AMD just accidentally confirmed its new Radeon RX 8600 and 8800 graphics cards MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Ryzen 7 7800X3D review, Best gaming CPU, Radeon RX 7800 XT review

When it comes to train simulators, nothing else does it quite like Railroads Online, the huge open-world multiplayer sandbox where you can build railroads and control beautifully detailed locomotives. After spending over three years in early access improving everything from the UI to adding all-new content, Railroads Online has finally rolled into the station right now. Continue reading After three years, Railroads Online departs early access with two new DLCs MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best simulation games, Best train games, Best multiplayer games

The First Descendant Season 2 is upon us. The new update for the free Steam game brings a whole wealth of content and activities to Albion and, as a special treat to kick off the festivities, developer Nexon is giving everyone a free character of their choice. Beyond that, there’s plenty more to look forward to, including a new endgame dungeon, the introduction of Ultimate Sharen and her associated story quest, and new Descendants and weapons both at launch and rolling out as the season progresses. If you’ve yet to give The First Descendant a try, the Season 2 launch might be a great time to start. Continue reading The First Descendant Season 2 is here, with a free character of your choice MORE FROM PCGAMESN: The First Descendant system requirements, The First Descendant characters, The First Descendant crossplay