Latest news with #Betz
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Springfield man charged with felony child endangerment after motorcycle crash
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — A Springfield man has been charged with felonies after a motorcycle crash left a child with serious injuries last year. According to court dockets filed Thursday, May 29, Jonathan Betz, born 1993, is charged with first-degree child endangerment causing serious physical injury, driving while intoxicated causing serious physical injury, and driving while intoxicated causing physical injury. The probable cause statement says the incident occurred on Aug. 11, 2024, when Betz was driving a Yahama Virago motorcycle with a passenger victim who was 11 years old at the time of the incident. The crash occurred on W. Mt. Vernon St. when a woman backed her Ford Mustang out of a driveway and into the street's eastbound lanes. As the woman was stopped for a few seconds to change gears, she saw Betz approaching on his motorcycle, but was unable to shift gears and move out of the way in time because of how fast Betz' motorcycle was approaching. Subsequently, Betz struck the woman's Mustang in the driver's side area. Three witnesses told police they observed Betz speeding prior to the crash. Law enforcement obtained video surveillance that didn't show the crash, but captured video footage of the 11-year-old victim as she went airborne over the vehicle. Following the crash, the 11-year-old was transported to a hospital. Medical records indicate she suffered a femur fracture requiring surgery, along with lacerations and a closed head injury. The child required a wheelchair to get around for a time, and a month after the crash, she still required a walker to get around, according to the statement. Betz was interviewed by police on Aug. 23, 2024, and he told police that prior to the crash, he and the victim were returning home after picking up pizza, which the victim was holding during the wreck. Betz allegedly told police he had consumed a mixed alcoholic drink around one hour before the crash. Medical records for Betz showed he suffered head trauma, multiple fractures, lacerations, abrasions and acute alcoholic intoxication. Toxicology reports showed he had a blood alcohol content level of .187 after being brought into the hospital from the crash. A warrant has been issued for Betz' arrest. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Gulf Insider
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Gulf Insider
Is Britain On The Brink Of Civil War?
According to David Betz, Professor of War in the Modern World at King's College London, many of the preconditions for civil war exist in Britain today. Using academic studies on social cohesion, civil war causation theory and social attitudes surveys, he argues that the following preconditions are in place: elite overreach, factional polarization, a collapse in trust, economic pressures, and the perceived downgrading of the majority population in a previously homogeneous society, are all present in contemporary Britain. The current dynamics, he continues, point to an emerging conflict between radicalized factions within the Muslim community and an incipient nativist white nationalism. Professor Betz goes on to claim – using the Maoist model that divides insurgencies into three phases – that the nativists are in phase one, the so-called defensive phase in which the group begins to organize, disseminate propaganda and build a conscious community of followers. Islamists, on the other hand, are in phase two – when violent attacks occur on a semi-regular basis, a military structure is being developed, but they are not yet strong enough to challenge the state's monopoly on violence. (Professor Betz believes that, due to the absence of clear geographic divisions between the antagonists, Britain is unlikely to reach phase three – the offensive phase. This is when the insurgent groups are strong enough to challenge government forces.) It is an arresting and troubling thesis. It is also convincing. The preconditions outlined above undeniably exist in modern Britain. There has been a collapse of public trust in the state, for example. The 41st British Social Attitudes Survey (BSA) report, published on 12 June 2024, concluded 'that people's trust in governments and politicians, and confidence in their systems of government, is as low now as it has ever been over the last 50 years, if not lower'. Indeed, a record high of 45% 'almost never' trust governments of any hue (22 points above the figure recorded in 2020); 58% (another record high) 'almost never' trust politicians to tell the truth when they are in a tight corner, up 19 points on 2020; and a striking 79% of respondents said that the system of governing Britain could be improved 'quite a lot' or a 'great deal', matching a record high recorded during the parliamentary stalemate over Brexit in 2019 and up 18 points on 2020. Professor John Curtice, the Senior Research Fellow at the National Centre for Social Research, the organisation that carried out the BSA survey, says: 'The government… will… need to address the concerns of a public that is as doubtful as it has ever been about the trustworthiness and efficacy of the country's system of government.' As Professors Curtice and Betz warn, public trust in governments of all stripes has collapsed and, with it, trust in the system of government that we have traditionally sacralised and encouraged others to adopt. That this trend, if left unchecked, could potentially shatter an already fragile social contract is a statement of the obvious. Trust in the state unites the disparate groups of a multicultural society, acting as what Professor Betz calls a kind of 'superglue'. Without it, the groups fracture and retreat into silos characterised by mutual suspicion and animosity. Click here to read more…
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
I fear Britain is lurching towards civil war, and nobody knows how to stop it
I now fear Britain is heading for open sectarian conflict, possibly war, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. Here's a snapshot of what I'm hearing. On one night in Westminster, I met someone who argued for voluntary repatriation, two generations back; a Labour activist told me we must 're-educate' Muslims; and Jacob Rees-Mogg, debating me on GB News, said Britain should take 'zero' refugees. I spluttered a reply about the good Samaritan and staggered off to bed, confused and depressed. For two decades I've argued for controlling immigration, and successive governments, including Jacob's, increased it. Suddenly I've woken up in a land where everyone manically wants to reduce or even reverse it, and they've leapfrogged me into a pool of dark resentment. Nigel Farage is mocked as a 'dhimmi' for appointing a Muslim to chair his party; he looks nervous of his own supporters. Even Labour has turned on the Sentencing Council, which, for all its faults, was trying to fix a genuine racial disparity (it's black people who tend to get longer sentences than whites, not the other way around). On that last saga, so much hinges. It goes to the heart of how a society kills itself with kindness. Nearly 200,000 YouTubers have watched an interview given to Louise Perry by David Betz, a professor of conflict studies at King's, London. Betz argues that the conditions for a failed state we ordinarily apply overseas are now found here: frayed social contract, falling trust, polarisation. Into this mix Britain injected multiculturalism, encouraging millions to move here without expecting integration. If you think 'fear of the other' is a human instinct, the policy was mad to begin with. Combine it with economic decline and you invite ethnic competition over services and jobs. Implicit in the Sentencing Council's guidance is the belief that when you operate a multicultural society – packed with groups with different values and experiences, advantages and handicaps – the only way to achieve equal outcomes is to treat people differently. In this spirit, says Betz, the modern state acts like an imperial administrator, promoting the interests of preferred minorities while trying to avoid a riot. I grew up in a post-colonial world where we said 'I don't see race' and honestly, if naively, meant it. Over the past 30 years, liberal institutions have taught us to see race again – by stressing the wonders of diversity so persistently that some white people feel the state has actively taken a side against them. Ancient, binding concepts, such as 'equality before the law' ring hollow. The latest Police Race Action Plan openly rejects the principle of 'treating everyone the same' in favour of 'equality of police outcomes'. A situation in which millions believe cops are not impartial public servants but an occupying force is the headline metric of state failure. Mainland Britain has become Ulster. It isn't an endorsement of white resentment to acknowledge that it's real and growing, that beyond the curated Question Time audience, millions have evolved from irony to nihilism to something more disturbing. Just read the comments beneath the Betz video. 'As a 28-year-old, fighting-age male, I am ready to lay down my life for Mother England and the survival of my folk.' Viewers refer in code to Rotherham – to avoid being muted in the forum – and the grooming scandal that suggested the authorities were willing to cover up rape to maintain the peace. The UK is 'a tinder box waiting to explode', writes an unhappy reviewer, which is also the worry of Canadian officials. In 2024, its police force produced a report warning their nation might be further buffeted by inequality, climate change and 'paranoid populism'. Separately, a government think tank warned of 'civil war… in the United States' as a potential 'underanticipated disruption'. In fact, the low level insurgency has already begun. Ireland has seen arson at asylum hotels. Last year, Britain had riots. Why did No10 insist that so many be thrown into jail? Betz notes that while Islamist terrorism is more lethal than far-Right extremism, there are only 4 million Muslims whereas there are around 50 million whites. Were the latter group radicalised, things might go south very fast, hence some in the security forces clearly regard white Britons as the emergent threat. Well, when 'a formerly dominant social majority fears it is in danger of losing that dominance,' to quote Betz, it doesn't surrender its position quietly – and yet this is what elites constantly tell the white working-class they must do, while refusing to abandon their own privileges. Labour, the party of racial and gender equality, has never seen fit to elect a non-white or a woman as leader. Neither is it willing to revive the economy with free market capitalism; nor to revive solidarity with socialism. Instead it tries to knit the country back together with petty cash thrown at potholes or a roundtable on the spectre of white male violence. Centrist dad redux. Labour's instinct is to lean into multiculturalism, flirting with laws against islamophobia: the worst response imaginable. In that vein, what moron thought it would be clever to ban Marine Le Pen from running for office? Every conspiracy theory is confirmed, and without a democratic outlet for anger – seeing their aspirations limited and being too poor to emigrate – where else will a militant faction of angry whites go but to violence? Reform is a vehicle for dissent but offers no programme for change. The Tories lack imagination, and the world they exist to preserve is dead. We have no national culture to reunite us; no universalising religion to appeal to. When I saw a Tory MP tell GB News that the Sentencing Council evinced a bias against 'white Christian' defendants, I laughed at the innocence. If someone's in the dock for murder or rape, they probably don't go to Evensong. Betz sees no solution, so suggests we prepare for anarchy. I'm more concerned about fascism. We're not far away from a politician running for office as explicitly anti-Muslim, and to those who say authoritarianism cannot happen here, I reply: lockdown. Did you ever think the state could imprison us in our homes? And if it can isolate the diseased from the healthy, the vaxed from the unvaxed, do you think it can't, or won't, someday separate us based on race or religion? We are literally debating the legalisation of euthanasia, a favourite tool of tyrants. As my companion on that horrid evening spoke of repatriation, I imagined foreign-made parts of me being politely invited to leave and floating off through the window, an arm to Ireland, a foot to France. What remained prayed silently that if this country does go mad, I won't lose my head. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
I fear Britain is lurching towards civil war, and nobody knows how to stop it
I now fear Britain is heading for open sectarian conflict, possibly war, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. Here's a snapshot of what I'm hearing. On one night in Westminster, I met someone who argued for voluntary repatriation, two generations back; a Labour activist told me we must 're-educate' Muslims; and Jacob Rees-Mogg, debating me on GB News, said Britain should take 'zero' refugees. I spluttered a reply about the good Samaritan and staggered off to bed, confused and depressed. For two decades I've argued for controlling immigration, and successive governments, including Jacob's, increased it. Suddenly I've woken up in a land where everyone manically wants to reduce or even reverse it, and they've leapfrogged me into a pool of dark resentment. Nigel Farage is mocked as a 'dhimmi' for appointing a Muslim to chair his party; he looks nervous of his own supporters. Even Labour has turned on the Sentencing Council, which, for all its faults, was trying to fix a genuine racial disparity (it's black people who tend to get longer sentences than whites, not the other way around). On that last saga, so much hinges. It goes to the heart of how a society kills itself with kindness. Nearly 200,000 YouTubers have watched an interview given to Louise Perry by David Betz, a professor of conflict studies at King's, London. Betz argues that the conditions for a failed state we ordinarily apply overseas are now found here: frayed social contract, falling trust, polarisation. Into this mix Britain injected multiculturalism, encouraging millions to move here without expecting integration. If you think 'fear of the other' is a human instinct, the policy was mad to begin with. Combine it with economic decline and you invite ethnic competition over services and jobs. Implicit in the Sentencing Council's guidance is the belief that when you operate a multicultural society – packed with groups with different values and experiences, advantages and handicaps – the only way to achieve equal outcomes is to treat people differently. In this spirit, says Betz, the modern state acts like an imperial administrator, promoting the interests of preferred minorities while trying to avoid a riot. I grew up in a post-colonial world where we said 'I don't see race' and honestly, if naively, meant it. Over the past 30 years, liberal institutions have taught us to see race again – by stressing the wonders of diversity so persistently that some white people feel the state has actively taken a side against them. Ancient, binding concepts, such as 'equality before the law' ring hollow. The latest Police Race Action Plan openly rejects the principle of 'treating everyone the same' in favour of 'equality of police outcomes'. A situation in which millions believe cops are not impartial public servants but an occupying force is the headline metric of state failure. Mainland Britain has become Ulster. It isn't an endorsement of white resentment to acknowledge that it's real and growing, that beyond the curated Question Time audience, millions have evolved from irony to nihilism to something more disturbing. Just read the comments beneath the Betz video. 'As a 28-year-old, fighting-age male, I am ready to lay down my life for Mother England and the survival of my folk.' Viewers refer in code to Rotherham – to avoid being muted in the forum – and the grooming scandal that suggested the authorities were willing to cover up rape to maintain the peace. The UK is 'a tinder box waiting to explode', writes an unhappy reviewer, which is also the worry of Canadian officials. In 2024, its police force produced a report warning their nation might be further buffeted by inequality, climate change and 'paranoid populism'. Separately, a government think tank warned of 'civil war… in the United States' as a potential 'underanticipated disruption'. In fact, the low level insurgency has already begun. Ireland has seen arson at asylum hotels. Last year, Britain had riots. Why did No10 insist that so many be thrown into jail? Betz notes that while Islamist terrorism is more lethal than far-Right extremism, there are only 4 million Muslims whereas there are around 50 million whites. Were the latter group radicalised, things might go south very fast, hence some in the security forces clearly regard white Britons as the emergent threat. Well, when 'a formerly dominant social majority fears it is in danger of losing that dominance,' to quote Betz, it doesn't surrender its position quietly – and yet this is what elites constantly tell the white working-class they must do, while refusing to abandon their own privileges. Labour, the party of racial and gender equality, has never seen fit to elect a non-white or a woman as leader. Neither is it willing to revive the economy with free market capitalism; nor to revive solidarity with socialism. Instead it tries to knit the country back together with petty cash thrown at potholes or a roundtable on the spectre of white male violence. Centrist dad redux. Labour's instinct is to lean into multiculturalism, flirting with laws against islamophobia: the worst response imaginable. In that vein, what moron thought it would be clever to ban Marine Le Pen from running for office? Every conspiracy theory is confirmed, and without a democratic outlet for anger – seeing their aspirations limited and being too poor to emigrate – where else will a militant faction of angry whites go but to violence? Reform is a vehicle for dissent but offers no programme for change. The Tories lack imagination, and the world they exist to preserve is dead. We have no national culture to reunite us; no universalising religion to appeal to. When I saw a Tory MP tell GB News that the Sentencing Council evinced a bias against 'white Christian' defendants, I laughed at the innocence. If someone's in the dock for murder or rape, they probably don't go to Evensong. Betz sees no solution, so suggests we prepare for anarchy. I'm more concerned about fascism. We're not far away from a politician running for office as explicitly anti-Muslim, and to those who say authoritarianism cannot happen here, I reply: lockdown. Did you ever think the state could imprison us in our homes? And if it can isolate the diseased from the healthy, the vaxed from the unvaxed, do you think it can't, or won't, someday separate us based on race or religion? We are literally debating the legalisation of euthanasia, a favourite tool of tyrants. As my companion on that horrid evening spoke of repatriation, I imagined foreign-made parts of me being politely invited to leave and floating off through the window, an arm to Ireland, a foot to France. What remained prayed silently that if this country does go mad, I won't lose my head.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Yahoo
Murder suspect learns fate less than a year after crime
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — A man, who's convicted of killing a woman with a fatal dose of fentanyl, learned his fate this week. Elyse Betz's life was tragically taken last July. Some of her family flew to Oklahoma to read victim impact statements and see the man who took their sister's life for the first time. 'I'm not sure what I was expecting. He definitely looked a little rough around the edges and of course, he had a smirk, smug look on his face,' said Laura Beckman, Elyse Betz's younger sister. 'History is repeating itself': Family speaks after missing NC woman found dead in Edmond It's been less than a year since Elyse Betz was murdered at Coltrane Mini Storage in Edmond. 'We knew she had gone missing around June 15th out of North Carolina. It wasn't like her to fall off the grid, and her Facebook was gone. Her phone was turned off,' said Beckman in a 2024 interview with News 4. The shocking call from detectives was the family's first clue. Court records show Betz and Kyle Fedus came to Oklahoma to hide from law enforcement and had a suicide pact planned if they were caught. Fedus said he injected Betz first, then himself with Fentanyl and Meth. After the murder, Edmond police arrested Fedus at a nearby hotel in connection with the crime and for an outstanding warrant. A year later, Betz's family said it doesn't get any easier without her in their life. Murder investigation underway in Edmond after dead body is found 'We wake up every morning with an immense amount of grief and sadness, realizing that another day has passed and Elyse still isn't here,' said Beckman. Their sister gone too soon, with so many unanswered questions. Beckman said she grieves knowing her children won't know their aunt. 'My sister picked out my kids' names. She's never going to be able to call them by name. She's never going to meet them. My kids are going to know her, through stories only,' said Beckman. Kyle Fedus was sentenced to 28 years in prison, followed by probation for life. Betz's family said they're thankful Edmond police arrested Fedus so quickly, and getting him brought to justice. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
