Florida martial arts school billed taxpayers over $350,000 for ‘ghost’ kids, state says

Funded by public grants, the United Martial Arts Academy in Homestead offered an array of self-defense training, including the “Tiny Tigers” and “Little Dragon” courses for kids.

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Sonic boom heard in Paris and suburbs caused by fighter jet breaking sound barrier

A loud blast heard throughout Paris on Wednesday briefly caused panic as edgy residents feared a bombing five days after a terrorist attack outside the former offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. The noise was caused by a sonic boom as a military jet broke the speed of sound, police said. Pierre Duclos, who was in a café around the corner from the site of the attack on Friday when the explosion-like noise was heard, said: “Everyone looked at each other and a few people got up and went outside. For a while, we thought another terrorist attack was coming and we were all shocked. Some people asked the café owner to close and lock the door. I was here on Friday and frankly I was really worried again today.

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A creepy presidential debate ad shows a deepfake of Putin telling Americans they're ruining their own democracy

In an ad campaign from non-profit RepresentUs, deepfakes of Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin warn Americans that they're ruining their own democracy.

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'Women in military, bad idea': Mike Pence’s most controversial comments about women

Mr Pence has a long history of making eyebrow-raising comments about women

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Coronavirus: How Italy has fought back from virus disaster

Italy was the first country in Europe to be overwhelmed by the virus but is so far keeping it in check.

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Nigeria turns 60: Can Africa's most populous nation remain united?

Nigeria's greatest challenge on its 60th anniversary remains its diversity, writes Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani.

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Rwanda's clothing spat with the US helps China

As the African nation continues to ban the import of used US clothes, China takes advantage.

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Trump Renews Fears of Voter Intimidation as G.O.P. Poll Watchers Mobilize

Republicans are putting together what they call an army of Trump supporters to monitor election procedures.

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The Proud Boys, Who Trade in Political Violence, Get a Boost From Trump

During this week’s presidential debate, President Trump said an extremist organization should “stand back and stand by.” Some saw it as an endorsement of a group known for street brawls.

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Biden Easily Cleared the Low Bar Set by Trump in a Chaotic First Debate

The former vice president didn’t deliver a stellar performance, but he largely executed his goal of providing a stable contrast to his rival.

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Study Finds ‘Single Largest Driver’ of Coronavirus Misinformation: Trump

Cornell University researchers analyzing 38 million English-language articles about the pandemic found that President Trump was the largest driver of the “infodemic.”

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Anyone Else Want to See Trump ‘Shut Up’?

Our president as a terrible toddler.

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Senior US lawmakers ask Trump to investigate Navalny poisoning

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Michigan mail-in voting: what to know

In Michigan, absentee ballots must be requested, but mail-in ballot applications are automatically sent to every registered voter. 

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Renfroe slam helps Rays sweep young Blue Jays in 1st round

Hunter Renfroe hit a grand slam and the top-seeded Tampa Bay Rays won a postseason series for the first time in 12 years, overpowering the young Toronto Blue Jays 8-2 Wednesday to finish a two-game sweep of their AL wild-card matchup.

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Cybersecurity researcher hacks smart coffee maker with ransomware, uses it to ask for money

Avast senior researcher Martin Hron found a way to hack into a smart coffee maker and use the machine to ask for money.

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Real life Russell Stover given chocolate-themed wedding by candy brand

The bride and groom were pleased with how their nuptials turned out.

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Undecided voters left disappointed, frustrated by first presidential debate: Pollster Frank Luntz

The first presidential debate between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden was a "disastrous meeting for American democracy" that resulted in no clear winner, pollster Frank Luntz told "Special Report" Wednesday.

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September Madness: MLB stages 8 playoff games in 1 day

Shortly after noon in Atlanta, Nick Senzel of the Cincinnati Reds slapped the first pitch from Max Fried to right field for a single, starting a day of baseball unlike any that had come before.

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House Democrats’ stimulus bill includes stimulus checks for illegal immigrants, protections from deportations

A massive stimulus package proposed by Democrats in the House of Representatives includes a number of items that will benefit illegal immigrants -- including an expansion of stimulus checks and protections from deportations for illegal immigrants in certain “essential” jobs.

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Fans to be allowed at World Series, NLCS in Arlington, Texas

Fans can take themselves out to the ball game for the first time this season during the NL Championship Series and World Series at new Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.

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Kathie Lee Gifford talks her second act in life: 'All I ever wanted to do is be an actress and be a singer'

The former 'Today' co-host stars in the film "Then Came You" alongside former late-night host Craig Ferguson.

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New York City mother killed by stray bullet that entered apartment window

A New York City mother has died Wednesday after being struck by a stray bullet that entered her apartment’s window – leaving her to be found by her 14-year-old son, police say. 

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Lost wallet used as bait to lure alleged meth dealer into an arrest, Florida cops say

The suspect showed up to the meeting spot with methamphetamine and $3,000 on his person.

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Amnesty International to halt India operations

The human rights watchdog tells the BBC that the move comes due to reprisal from the government.

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Why Trump voters just don't care about his taxes

The revelation, per Sunday's New York Times report, that President Trump paid little to no federal income tax in recent years will redirect the conversation at Tuesday night's general election debate. But will it redirect any meaningful number of votes?I suspect not, not even among the president's most reluctant supporters.In broad strokes, there are two reasons to vote for Trump in 2020: liking who he is or liking what (you think) he'll do. This is an artificial separation of two rationales that often overlap, but let's call them the personality voter and the transactional voter.The personality voter likes how crude and cunning Trump is. She proudly brands herself "a deplorable" in reference to Hillary Clinton's infamous 2016 remark. She thinks it's funny when Trump riles his enemies, who, not coincidentally, are her enemies, too. This strain of Trump support tends to have a strong populist flavor, where supporting Trump gives "a collective middle finger" to political and cultural elites this voter despises and whom she believes despise her in turn.For the personality voter, Trump's ability to avoid paying income taxes is untroubling. It's far from the first violation of establishment norms she has vicariously enjoyed through her candidate. If anything, she agrees, as he said at a 2016 debate with Clinton, that successful tax avoidance "makes [him] smart." The populist hypocrisy Trump's critics see here won't register.Personality isn't necessarily relevant for the transactional voter, our second type. In some cases, Trump's personality helps him deliver on his side of the transaction. If the thing a voter wants from Trump is to own the libs, for example, his personality is an asset. But if the thing desired involves a policy or program, Trump's personality might be immaterial or actually detrimental. Many purely transactional voters would willingly — maybe far more willingly — vote for any candidate who would do what they want Trump to do. Their vote isn't for Trump qua Trump but for Trump qua the candidate they think is most likely to provide what they want."I voted for the Supreme Court. I didn't want to vote for Trump," an archetypal transactional Trump voter named Jim George told The Washington Post in 2017. "With Trump, you just hold your nose."A transactional Trump voter in 2020 is already holding his nose too firmly to catch a whiff of these tax returns. If he's decided everything Trump has said and done over the past four years does not tip the scales against whatever good he believes will come from re-electing the president, the tax story won't do it, either. It definitely won't turn him into a Joe Biden voter, and I'm skeptical that it could even keep him home, because Trump's personal life is irrelevant to his provision of whatever benefit(s) is anticipated.The transactional voter is already under contract. He's had ample time to inspect Trump, and he didn't find anything that made him want to back out of the deal.There is one scenario in which that arrangement might fall through, and that's if Trump's personal financial circumstances rendered him unable to hold up his end of the imagined bargain. But how would that happen? Or rather, how would the transactional voter become convinced it had happened were he satisfied with Trump's performance to date?The Times reported Trump has hundreds of millions of dollars in debt for which he is personally liable coming due over the next four years, possibly including around $100 million owed to the IRS should the agency decide a large tax rebate was improperly obtained. These are staggering numbers for us little people to contemplate, but if he holds onto the presidency, Trump is expected simply to obtain extensions on his loans and use his office however he can to mitigate his personal financial catastrophe. It would be an enormous debacle, very possibly leading to another impeachment or special counsel investigation and distracting the president from whatever his part of the transaction is supposed to be.Well, so what? Trump's first four years have had an enormous debacle every week, and an impeachment and special counsel investigation, too. Trump accomplished relatively little of his policy promises, certainly none of the headlines. The wall is not built; the swamp is not drained; not a single one of the "endless wars" is ended; the American steel industry did not come roaring back to life. Trump's most significant fulfilled promise — nominating conservative justices to the Supreme Court — was the one over which he arguably had the least influence: He could not know whether or when there would be a vacancy, and he was undoubtedly responsible for few, if any, of the names on his shortlist.If this level of distraction and failure is acceptable to the transactional voter, a second-term Trump fighting foreclosure and the IRS is too.More stories from theweek.com 'Sully' Sullenberger savages Trump's 'lethal lies and incompetence' in new Lincoln Project ad Disney will lay off 28,000 theme park employees after months of coronavirus furloughs Trump reportedly made tens of millions in the Great Recession by partnering with multilevel marketing companies

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'Utter devastation': Three dead as multiple wildfires in California explode in size

"This was pretty devastating," one official said. "Just literally hundreds and hundreds of homes devastated with nothing standing."

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Justice Ginsburg buried at Arlington in private ceremony

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was buried Tuesday in a private ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, laid to rest beside her husband and near some of her former colleagues on the court. Washington last week honored the 87-year-old Ginsburg, who died Sept. 18, with two days where the public could view her casket at the top of the Supreme Court's steps and pay their respects. On Friday, the women's rights trailblazer and second woman to join the high court lay in state at the U.S. Capitol, the first woman to do so.

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Opinion: Trump's reality distortion machine is in overdrive for his debate with Biden

The Trump team, like the president himself, is working aggressively to make voters disbelieve what they see and hear from Joe Biden at the first debate.

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Joyce Echaquan: Outcry in Canada over treatment of dying indigenous woman

A nurse is sacked after Joyce Echaquan filmed herself in hospital apparently being insulted by staff.

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Biden and Trump Will Debate Six Main Issues. Here’s Where They Stand.

The long-anticipated first debate will cover issues like the coronavirus, social unrest and the Supreme Court, offering each candidate the chance to defend his record and attack his opponent’s.

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Presidential Polls Ahead of the Trump vs Biden Debate

A crucial fraction of the millions who watch the first presidential debate on Tuesday will have yet to make up their minds. Here’s what polling tells us about the issues that will come up.

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In the Breonna Taylor Case, a Battle of Blame Over the Grand Jury

In theory, jurors have broad powers to investigate, subpoena witnesses and bring charges, legal experts said. But in practice, prosecutors control the process and are rarely challenged.

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Trump Sent a Warning. Let’s Take It Seriously.

Our democracy is in terrible danger — more than in 1861, more than after Pearl Harbor, more than during the Cuban missile crisis.

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Cuomo and De Blasio Need a United Front on Coronavirus Hot Spots

Working together, the governor and mayor can help keep the virus at bay.

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The Very Jewish R.B.G.

Back in the days of Clinton and Obama, Ginsburg’s presence on the bench was a symbol of progress. In the days of Trump, she was a bulwark.

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Byron York claims Democrats making 'structural' effort to remove Trump from office

Democrats in Congress have relentlessly sought to remove President Trump from office almost from the day he was inaugurated, Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York told “Your World” Tuesday.

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Dog trained to sniff out invasive spotted lanternfly in an attempt to stop the bug from spreading

With an invasive insect species threatening plants, Pennsylvania agriculture officials have turned to man’s best friend for help.

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Senate advances stopgap funding measure to keep government open before election

The U.S. Senate moved on Tuesday to avert a pre-election government shutdown by voting to advance a stopgap funding measure that would keep the government open through Dec. 11.

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Police station security footage captures attack where man pistol-whipped LAPD officer

Security footage of the incident shows 29-year-old Jose Guzman struggling with the officer before he manages to remove and gain control of the officer's gun. Guzman then continues his assault, hitting the officer on the head with the gun, causing lacerations and immediate bleeding.

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Netanyahu says Trump’s critics ‘dead wrong’ on Middle East peace efforts

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that President Trump’s critics were “dead wrong,” in predicting that the Trump administration’s attempts to bring peace to the Middle East would fail -- after a series of landmark U.S.-brokered deals were signed this month. 

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Lee Carter: In three presidential debates, undecided voters want to hear these things from Trump and Biden

In the three presidential debates kicking off Tuesday night, President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden need to focus on winning the support of the 6% to 9% of voters who remain undecided.

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Lili Reinhart says she’s 'nostalgic for my quarantine life' as she shares topless pic and snapshots with pals

Months after production on "Riverdale" was shut down due to the global spread of coronavirus, the 23-year-old actress has been summoned back to Canada to resume filming.

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Assaults on Los Angeles police officers have risen 156% since last year, chief says

Assaults on Los Angeles police officers have skyrocketed this year, fueled by ongoing protests against police misconduct, officials said Tuesday. 

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Ohio Governor predicts Trump will win Buckeye State

Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Tuesday predicted that the presidential race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be close in Ohio but will ultimately result in a Trump victory.

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Giolito dazzles, Abreu slugs White Sox past A's in opener

Lucas Giolito dazzled in his postseason debut, stymieing the Oakland Athletics through six perfect innings and sending the Chicago White Sox to a 4-1 victory in the opener of their best-of-three wild-card series Tuesday.

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The Senate could vote to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court just days before the presidential election

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham laid out a timeline for the confirmation process, saying he hopes to begin hearings on October 12.

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Veteran facing border wall scam charges with Steve Bannon: ‘Not a penny’ was taken

When ‘Build the Wall’ amputee veteran Brian Kolfage was arrested, officers forbade use of prosthetic legs, now he plans to sue

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Trump’s 2016 Campaign Listed Millions of Black Voters It Wanted to Stop From Voting, Leak Reveals

LONDON—Over three million Black voters in key states were identified by President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign as people they had to persuade to stay at home on Election Day to help him reach the White House.The revelation comes from an enormous data leak obtained by the British news network Channel 4. It shows that, four years ago, the Trump campaign prepared files on almost 200 million American voters and separated some out into eight different categories. One such category, assigned to 3.5 million Black voters, was titled: “Deterrence.”The leaked database was reportedly used by Trump’s digital campaign team, which was critical to Trump’s narrow victory. Channel 4 News has a track record of exposing the unethical practices of Cambridge Analytica—the now-defunct British digital black-ops firm that harvested the Facebook data of tens of millions of voters for the use of Team Trump.The leaked files show that Black Americans were disproportionately marked ‘Deterrence’ by the 2016 campaign, making up far more of the category when compared to general population stats. For example, in Georgia, Black people make up around a third of the population, but 61 percent of the Trump campaign’s ‘Deterrence’ category there. The same pattern can be seen in data for North Carolina and Wisconsin.Cambridge Analytica’s Real Role in Trump’s Dark Facebook CampaignOverall, people of colour—labelled by the campaign as Black, Hispanic, Asian and ‘Other’ groups—made up 54 percent of the people in the ‘Deterrence’ category, according to Channel 4 News. In contrast, the lists of voters that the campaign wanted to encourage to head out to vote were mostly white. It’s impossible to say how effective the tactics were, but research shows that, in 2016, Black turnout fell by eight points.The data does not offer a complete picture of exactly how the ‘Deterrence’ list was exploited, though it’s likely that it was used to help the campaign micro-target people on Facebook in the months leading up to Election Day in 2016. The Daily Beast revealed two years ago that Team Trump used audience lists created by Cambridge Analytica to target “dark ads” on Facebook in the final months of the 2016 campaign.There’s no public record of those “dark ads,” which disappeared when the campaign stopped paying for them, and there’s no public information on the lists that were used to target voters. However, Channel 4 does report that it found some evidence that Team Trump pushed ads at Black voters designed to damage opinions of Trump’s rival, Hillary Clinton.One video ad showed Clinton talking about “super-predators” in 1996—a comment she apologized for in 2016 after the clip spread online. Channel 4 reports that Cambridge Analytica privately admitted that the campaign did target “AA,” or African Americans, with what it called the “Predators video,” though it’s not known if the ‘Deterrence’ list was used.Trump Data Guru Officially Disqualified Over ‘Shady’ Campaign TacticsPresented with Channel 4’s findings, Jamal Watkins, Vice President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said: “We use data... but it’s to motivate, persuade and encourage folks to participate. We don't use the data to say who can we deter and keep at home. That just seems, fundamentally, it’s a shift from the notion of democracy.”Watkins added: “It's not ‘may the best candidate win’ at that point it’s ‘may the best well-funded machine suppress voters and keep them at home thereby rigging the election so that someone can win’.”An unnamed Facebook spokesperson said: “Since 2016, elections have changed and so has Facebook—what happened with Cambridge Analytica couldn’t happen today.” The company cited its new rules prohibiting voter suppression, and its searchable political ads library which means that ads don’t just disappear from the network as they did in 2016.The Trump campaign didn’t provide any comment.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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‘Everything he says is false’: CDC chief condemns Trump’s coronavirus adviser in leaked phone call

CDC director was rebuked by president earlier this year over virus vaccine

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Tow company sold vehicles of Texas military members while they were on duty, feds say

One of the service members was at basic training when his car was towed, officials say.

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Pakistan's top court accepts appeal by Daniel Pearl's family

Pakistan's Supreme Court on Monday accepted an appeal by the family of slain American journalist Daniel Pearl seeking to keep a British-born Pakistani man on death row over the beheading of the Wall Street Journal reporter. The court delayed until next week hearing the appeal over the lower-court acquittal of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who had been on death row since his conviction in 2002 over Pearl's killing. The Supreme Court ordered Sheikh to remain in custody but Faisal Siddiqi, the lawyer for Pearl's family, told The Associated Press on Monday the court will decide next week whether Sheikh will remain imprisoned during the course of the appeal, which could be years.

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Angry about Breonna Taylor? Do what Barack Obama said in 2016: 'Don't boo. Vote'

There's only one thing to do now that the we know the outcome of the Breonna Taylor case: 'Don't boo. Vote.'

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‘His case is made in urine’: Biden campaign responds to Trump call for drug testing ahead of debate

President has repeatedly claimed rival may be using performance-enhancing stimulants

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How can you safely have a Thanksgiving meal? CDC has tips for families during COVID-19

Here’s what health officials say about dinners and travel for the upcoming holiday.

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BTS to become multi-millionaires after label goes public

The South Korean K-pop group will become multi-millionaires after their label Big Hit goes public.

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Ai Weiwei: 'Too late' to curb China's global influence

The Chinese artist and dissident says the West should have worried about China decades ago.

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Kangana Ranaut: The star taking on Bollywood

Why is Kangana Ranaut on a warpath with many of her colleagues?

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Trump’s Debt, His Future and Ours

The president — our chief law enforcement and national security official — could be facing huge liabilities. That’s chilling.

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Meet a Secret Trump Voter

‘Being a lesbian who’s voting for Trump is like coming out of the closet again.’

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Paulo Costa demands UFC title fight rematch after Israel Adesanya humping incident

Paulo Costa demanded a rematch with Israel Adesanya on Monday – two days after he lost via a second-round technical knockout in a UFC Middleweight Championship fight.

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Jimmy Butler on NBA title hopes: 'If you want to win, you have to go through a LeBron James-led team'

Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler acknowledged Sunday that to be the best he’s going to have to beat the best in LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers.

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Patriots' Cam Newton on not moving family to Boston area: 'This is a business trip for me'

New England Patriots quarterback Cam Newton is strictly about business.

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Biden supporters trying to take over 'Trump corner' on popular Florida street

There has been growing friction between Joe Biden supporters and supporters of President Trump in Palm Beach, Fla., as both sides vie for a coveted street corner spot, to spread their political message to the masses. 

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Cuomo extends moratorium on evictions in New York

Tens of thousands of New Yorkers are believed to be at risk of eviction when the policy expires.

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Dax Shepard says he's 'really, really grateful' for fans' support after revealing relapse

The star previously explained that he had been sober for 16 years. 

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New Orleans cop accused of molesting girl whose sex assault he was investigating

A veteran New Orleans police officer allegedly molested an underage girl whose sexual assault he was investigating, according to a report.

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Rayshard Brooks shooting investigation completed by GBI

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has completed its investigation into the shooting death of a Black man whose fatal shooting by a white police officer came amid growing calls for an end to racial injustice.

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Trey Gowdy blasts Senate Dems over 'incredibly disrespectful' treatment of Judge Amy Coney Barrett

Senate Democrats who have already vowed not to meet with Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett ahead of her confirmation hearing next month are being "incredibly disrespectful," former House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy told “The Daily Briefing” Monday.

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Meng Wanzhou: The PowerPoint that sparked an international row

The top Huawei executive's closely watched extradition case returns to court on Monday.

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Coronavirus vaccine: Johnson & Johnson jab shows response in 98% of test participants

Johnson & Johnson vaccine development moves on to 60,000 person trial

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'Taiwan is Taiwan': China name dispute moves from birds to climate change

The dispute over international organisations referring to Taiwan as Chinese has moved from wild bird conservation to climate change, after a global alliance of mayors began listing Taiwanese cities as belonging to China on its website. China has ramped up pressure on international groups and companies to refer to democratic, self-ruled Taiwan as being part of China, to the anger of Taiwan's government and many of its people. This month a Taiwan bird conservation body said it had been expelled from a partnership with a British-based wildlife charity after it demanded the Taiwan group change its name and sign documents stating it did not support Taiwan's independence.

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Lindsey Graham: We need a ninth Supreme Court justice, because "the courts will decide" the election

"The courts will hear all of our complaints," the GOP senator says on "Fox & Friends." "The courts will decide"

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The 'very troubling' questions Kentucky's attorney general isn't answering on the Breonna Taylor decision

Why wasn’t Brett Hankison charged with endangering Breonna Taylor? Did the grand jury even vote on homicide charges? A look at unanswered questions.

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Where Law Ends review: why Mueller failed to hold Trump to account

Andrew Weissmann, a senior member of the special counsel’s team, has written an alarming and necessary bookThe Mueller investigation ended a year and a half ago, but the aftershocks never stopped. A passel of books highlight the omissions and missteps of the special counsel’s office. The Senate intelligence committee report fills in some of the gaps on Russian interference in the 2016 election.Although Robert Mueller found no basis for conspiracy charges, collusion remains a partisan buzzword, obstruction of justice a live concern. The harshest criticism leveled at Mueller is that he blinked.Specifically, the special counsel failed to issue a grand jury subpoena to Donald Trump, needlessly ceding the advantage to the White House. Then, his report went silent on whether grounds existed for charging the president with obstruction of justice, despite analysis that revealed such grounds. The weight of the presidency and fear of its occupant triumphed.“Had we used all available tools to uncover the truth, undeterred by the onslaught of the president’s unique powers to undermine our efforts?” asks Andrew Weissmann. “I know the hard answer to that simple question: we could have done more.”That makes Where Law Ends unique among Trump-themed books. The author was a member of Mueller’s team, supervisor of the prosecution of Paul Manafort. He is both admiring and critical of his former boss, which lends credibility and originality. Pathos is part of the package too.Weissman is a former federal prosecutor whose career intersected with Mueller’s, FBI general counsel when Mueller was director. Before the FBI, Weissmann had a reputation for zealousness. In the Enron case, he successfully prosecuted Arthur Andersen, only to see the supreme court overturn the conviction and to watch the accounting firm close.As a younger government lawyer, Weissmann prosecuted Felix Sater. In 2015, according to the Mueller Report, Sater explored the “possibility of a Trump Tower project in Moscow while working with the Trump Organization”.Under an apt subtitle, “Inside the Mueller Investigation”, Weissmann offers a detailed look at why the special counsel reached the conclusions he did, and expands on how Bill Barr ambushed Mueller with his four-page summary of a 400-plus-page report.“We had just been played by the attorney general,” Weissmann writes.Weissman expresses anger toward Barr but points the finger at Mueller: “Part of the reason the president and his enablers were able to spin the report was that we had left the playing field open for them to do so.”He is convinced of the substantive basis of an obstruction claim, even if justice department guidelines precluded the indictment of a sitting president. The “facts of the [James] Comey firing appeared to satisfy all the elements of … obstruction of justice”, Weissmann writes. “There was simply no other credible conclusion one could reach.”Where Law Ends also worries about the future of the US body politic.“I now know that the death of our democracy is possible,” Weissmann writes. “Fixing it is possible too.”That is the book’s last line. Weissmann’s rhetoric is hot – but not overblown.Trump has publicly refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power. Take him literally and seriously, especially when polls show Biden up in Ohio, with Iowa and Georgia close.“We’re going to have to see what happens, you know that” is one for the ages. Whether it is a historic blip or a harbinger remains to be determined.Where Law Ends is also a guide to how the Mueller investigation divvied up its work. Sections on the case of Michael Cohen are particularly instructive. Trump’s fixer was charged by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York – a strategic decision.Weissmann explains that the investigation of potential campaign finance violations fell outside Mueller’s purview. He could have sought permission to charge Cohen from Rod Rosenstein, then deputy attorney general. Or he could hand the case to SDNY, where in Weissmann’s words, “prosecutors have free rein to examine all potential federal crimes”.Contrary to the hype surrounding the early days of the Mueller investigation, this was no “dream team”. In Weissmann’s telling, senior members did not possess supervisory experience, and in one instance a lawyer was hired simply because he had been a supreme court clerk. Those looking to work for Mueller were prone to both cockiness and hand-wringing, traits Mueller himself found distasteful.At one point, Mueller turned to Jeannie Rhee, a veteran prosecutor, and said she embodied the “pizazz” he wanted, but which appeared lacking in the applicant pool. Rhee, Weissmann writes, possessed “a kind of can-do, combustible energy” which is always in high demand and short supply.Weissmann upbraids Aaron Zebley, another Mueller deputy, for being overly cautious. Weissmann and Rhee concluded that the broad issue of Russian election interference was within their purview. For Zebley, the focus was limited to possible “links and coordination” between Russia and the Trump campaign.Weissmann hearkens back to the generals who served Abraham Lincoln, comparing Zebley to the “timorous” George McClellan, reluctant to fight the Confederates, and presenting himself and Rhee as approximations of Philip Sheridan and Ulysses S Grant. Sheridan helped defeat Robert E Lee at Appomattox Courthouse. Grant, who accepted Lee’s surrender, would be elected president.Perhaps Weissmann overstates. William Barnett, the FBI agent assigned to the case, contends that the lawyers, not his bureau’s investigators, drove most of the decisions. In a recent filing by the government in the Michael Flynn case, Barnett also says the special counsel’s office was both permeated by groupthink and out to “get” the president. Either way, Where Law Ends is a dispiriting work. It is not simply about the Mueller investigation, or Trump. It is also an examination of where America stands.Weissmann contrasts Trump’s inauguration with protest marches held the day after, and observes the country’s changing demographics. Mindful of history, he ponders whether the civil war ever ended. Looking at the coming election, that is an open question. America’s fissures are once again on display.

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NASA astronaut says voting is 'critical' to democracy so she plans to cast an absentee ballot from space

"It's really important for everybody to vote, and if we can do it from space, then I believe folks can do it from the ground too," Kate Rubins told AP.

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Trump, Biden make final preparations before first presidential debate

President Trump says he prepares ‘every day’ for debate; Griff Jenkins reports.

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A ballistics report pokes holes in Kentucky AG's claim that Breonna Taylor's boyfriend shot a police officer

Friendly fire had been ruled out when it came to a police officer being shot before officers unloaded 30 bullets into Breonna Taylor's apartment.

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The woman who quit smoking and built a global hypnotherapy firm

Grace Smith used hypnosis to give up smoking, and it inspired her to take up the profession.

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Why India needs to worry about post-Covid care

Experts say India needs more post-Covid care centres as many patients are reporting lasting symptoms.

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Ransomware Attacks Take On New Urgency Ahead of Vote

Attacks against small towns, big cities and the contractors who run their voting systems have federal officials fearing that hackers will try to sow chaos around the election.

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Trump Wants to Discredit the Election. This Nerd Could Stop Him.

Fox News, the president’s favored network, will face enormous pressure to call the election for Mr. Trump. The outcome rests on a little-known 65-year-old wonk who will declare the winner.

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Shepard Smith, Fox News Apostate, Is Starting Over at CNBC

In a new show on a new network, the anchor wants a ‘no pundits’ approach: ‘We’re not interested in helping you know how to think.’

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We Don’t Need Debates

Trump will just make a scene and lie. What’s in it for voters?

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Social Media Needs an Election Declaration of Conscience

The platforms must not tolerate voter disinformation.

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In Praise of PBS, a True Democratic Institution

Next month will mark 50 years of television that aims to educate and unite.

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Will Trump’s Presidency Ever End?

America is in terrible danger.

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Bengals, Eagles play to 23-23 tie

Joe Burrow kept his team from losing again. So did Carson Wentz after several mistakes.

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Belichick reaches milestone as Patriots top Raiders 36-20

Rex Burkhead can’t remember the last time he scored three touchdowns in a game. But he said every time he reached the end zone Sunday was for James White.

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Pompeo to give keynote at conservative Christian event in Florida one month before election day

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is slated to give a speech to a conservative Christian group in the all-important swing state of Florida, just one month before the presidential election between Joe Biden and President Donald Trump. 

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Falcons fans fume after team blows big lead in loss for second straight game

The Atlanta Falcons became the first team in NFL history to lose consecutive games after leading by 15 or more points on Sunday after blowing a big lead to the Chicago Bears.

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Military leaders say active-duty suicides up 20% during COVID-19 pandemic

The Pentagon has yet to release official numbers, but military leaders are actively discussing measures to counter-act the trend.

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Hirono, Blumenthal say they won’t meet with Amy Coney Barrett

Two Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have said they will not meet with Amy Coney Barrett -- President Trump’s pick to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court.

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Loeffler pushes back after Schumer says 'no precedent' for confirming SCOTUS pick between July and Election Day

Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., has pushed back against a claim by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that there was “no precedent” for confirming a Supreme Court nominee between July and Election Day in a presidential year.

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Schumer puts health care on forefront as Dems prepare to fight Amy Coney Barrett nomination

Schumer warned that Barrett could be the deciding vote in the Supreme Court striking down the Affordable Care Act (ACA)

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Dems slam Barrett nomination over health care, 'illegitimate process' after Trump nomination

Democrats took to social media to slam President Trump's choice of Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court nominee after the president's announcement Saturday night -- with one senator claiming the nomination is the result of an "illegitimate process."

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Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court praised by religious conservatives

President Trump nominated Judge Amy Cohen Barrett to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court Saturday, a move that was immediately met with praise from religious conservatives, who she has been a favorite of for years. 

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Federal prosecutor says Attorney General Bill Barr has ‘brought shame’ on DOJ

A federal prosecutor has spoken out against Attorney General William Barr about his recent stances on the Mueller investigation and mail-in voting, saying that Barr has “brought sham” on the Department of Justice (DOJ).

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RNC launches $10M campaign to promote Judge Amy Coney Barrett ahead of Supreme Court confirmation process

The Republican National Committee launched a $10 million campaign to promote President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett to “hold Democrats accountable” for what the GOP called their “hypocrisy” on the nomination process to the high court.

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When Biden calls a 'lid,' Democrats wet the bed — and Trump starts mocking

The Democratic nominee is sticking to his strategy: Keep a low profile, and let Trump light himself on fire.

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House Republicans Call on Attorney General Barr to Investigate Recent Spike in Anti-Catholic Hate Crimes

A group of House Republicans led by Representative Jim Banks (R., Ind.) on Friday called on attorney general William Barr to investigate a recent rise in anti-Catholic hate crimes.There have been 70 instances of anti-Catholic violence in North America this year — with 57 crimes being reported since May alone — according to a letter sent to the attorney general by Banks and 15 other House Republicans.By contrast, in all of 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, the FBI reported 53 incidents of anti-Catholic hate crimes in the U.S.“Bigoted criminals are threatening Catholics and undermining America's core ideal of religious liberty,” Banks said in a statement. “The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division exists to combat spikes in targeted violence. It needs to fulfill its duty, determine who is behind this pattern of attacks and bring them to justice.”Beginning in early July, reports of “horrific and brutal attacks on Catholic and Church properties” spiked, the letter says, including in Boston where a statue of the Virgin Mary at Saint Peters Parish Church was set ablaze. One day earlier, the letter says, a man in Florida allegedly drove a van into a church with parishioners inside before spilling gasoline in the church’s foyer and attempting to set it on fire.That same day, San Gabriel Mission in California was burned down. The letter calls the issue “ongoing,” citing an incident in September where a man was videotaped toppling an Our Lady of Guadalupe statue in Coney Island, N.Y.“As in any other instance of a rapid spike in hate crimes targeted at a specific group, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has an obligation to investigate the perpetrators of this violence and any organizational or ideological connections between them,” the letter states.“Crimes like these aren't just targeted at individuals and their property; they are targeted at American society as a whole,” it continues. “They are motivated by a destructive impulse to harm property and persons, but also the equally warped desire to undermine America's constitutionally guaranteed rights and social trust within our communities.”The Republicans' call to investigate concludes in saying the attacks threaten the physical safety of Catholics as well as the integrity of the American system, and saying the Department of Justice has an obligation to uphold both. The letter was co-signed by Representatives Andy Harris (R., Md.), Greg Steube (R., Fl.), Ted Yoho (R., Fl.), Jackie Walorski (R., Ind.), Doug Collins (R., Ga.), Jeff Duncan (R., S.C.), Rick Allen (R., Ga.), Pete Olson (R., Texas), Glenn Grothman (R., Wisc.), Chuck Fleischmann (R., Tenn.), Ron Wright (R., Texas), Paul Gosar (R., Ariz.), Mike Kelly (R., Pa.), Ken Buck (R., Colo.), and Dan Crenshaw (R., Texas).

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Fact check: Viral meme listing Breonna Taylor 'truths' includes misinformation

Lists claiming to spell out what is true about the Breonna Taylor case are not entirely right. We rate a viral meme with 7 claims to be partly false.

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Fact check: Joe Biden did not botch the Pledge of Allegiance in speech

An eight-second clip from a speech purports to illustrate another Joe Biden gaffe. But what is missing is the rest of the speech.

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Virginia governor and wife test positive for Covid

Trump will hold a rally with 4,000 people in the state today, defying Northam's executive order on large gatherings.

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The Trump Administration’s Obamacare Punt

A   group of states has brought a longshot lawsuit to invalidate Obamacare, and the Trump administration has largely supported their position. Democrats have seized the opportunity to charge that Republicans would eliminate legal protections for people with pre-existing conditions. President Trump’s counter has been to promise that he will make sure that they have protection even after Obamacare. A new executive order puts that promise into writing without explaining how he would keep it. What Republicans are telling voters concerned about this issue is: Trust us. The flaw in the political strategy is that they generally don’t.A significant number of people with chronic conditions had difficulty getting affordable insurance before Obamacare. The law dealt with the problem by prohibiting insurers from discriminating on the basis of health status. If you have a chronic condition, they have to sell you the same policy at the same rate they would offer someone in perfect health. That regulation raises the cost of health insurance for healthy people and thus discourages them from buying it. (It also creates an incentive for insurers to design policies that are more attractive to healthy than to sick people.)When they tried to legislate a replacement to Obamacare in 2017, Republicans sought to let states relax that regulation. Under their proposal, states could have required insurers to offer the same policies at the same rates to all customers, regardless of health status, so long as they had previously maintained coverage. That way, people would have had an incentive to purchase insurance while healthy, bringing premiums down. States would have been allowed to make this change only if they had shown that they had credible plans to take care of those who fell through the cracks.This would not have been a return to the pre-Obamacare situation. People would have had much greater ability to maintain continuous coverage than they did back then, thanks both to new forms of federal assistance (tax credits created under Obamacare and largely maintained under Republican replacements) and to the requirement that insurers offer affordable coverage to those who already had it. High-risk pools to assist the uninsured, which had been inadequate to handle the problem before Obamacare, would have much more easily helped a smaller population in need. But Republicans in Congress, largely unfamiliar with the ins and outs of health policy, did not make the case for their approach.Republicans now have three basic choices in answering the question of how they would help people with pre-existing conditions if they replaced Obamacare or courts invalidated it. The first would be to promise that they would reenact Obamacare’s stringent regulation and provide subsidies for those who need it to afford the high premiums it necessitates -- essentially re-creating a lot of Obamacare. The second would be to promise to enact continuous-coverage protections of the type they proposed in 2017. And the third would be to do nothing, telling people with pre-existing conditions that they are on their own (even though the paucity of cheap, renewable catastrophic policies is largely the result of government policies).Our preference would be the second option. The Trump administration, unable to decide among these options, is instead, effectively, promising to choose among them at some future date when the courts have struck down Obamacare or Republicans have unified control in Washington. That refusal to choose lets the Democrats hang the third position around Republican necks while also doing nothing to dislodge Obamacare. It also lets Democrats say that Republicans are dodging the question instead of leveling with the voters. Which is, unfortunately, true.

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Federal judge blocks Texas’ elimination of straight-ticket voting

Democrats sued the state in March to overturn the Texas Legislature’s removal of straight-ticket voting.

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'Be very careful in the middle of the street': People have driven into protests 104 times this summer

Amid thousands of protests nationwide this summer, dozens of drivers have plowed into crowds of protesters marching in roadways.

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Will Democrats grow backbones amid Trump-Republican rush to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

Most Americans didn't vote for Trump or the GOP Senate. The time has come to consider new states, more justices and 18-year Supreme Court term limits.

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Amy Coney Barrett: Who is Trump's Supreme Court pick?

A favourite of social conservatives, Judge Barrett would swing the highest US court further right.

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Photography award winners show the fragility and beauty of mangrove forests

The Mangrove Photography Award winners show the beauty and fragility of the unique ecosystems.

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Denmark confronts sexual harassment at work in #MeToo moment

It started with a comedy awards show and a bombshell revelation that left the audience stunned.

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Italian family fosters Gambian migrant: 'The son we never had'

When Gambian orphan Muhammed Sanneh arrived in Sicily aged 16, his life took an unexpected turn.

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Amy Coney Barrett and the New, Old Anti-Catholicism

Critics of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee argue that pious Catholics are a problem for liberalism. They have a point.

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Trump’s Messy Divorce From New York

Has a president ever been so at odds with his hometown?

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Will Trump’s Presidency Ever End?

America is in terrible danger.

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One farmer finds answer to ESL students' virtual learning struggles

For non-native speaking English students, trying to get good grades while learning a new language can be challenging at the best of times, but as classes turn virtual some students are being left behind. In Arizona ESL classes vary, some school districts don’t offer any programs while others call them essential.

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Biden maintains dominance over Trump in ad wars spending battle

While the president’s in-person campaigning vastly dwarfs Biden’s efforts, the former vice president retains a large advantage over Trump in another crucial campaign metric – the ad wars.

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San Francisco neighborhood sees 100% increase in burglaries during pandemic

San Francisco is seeing a sharp uptick in burglaries, according to police data, with some neighborhoods experiencing nearly double the number of break-ins reported last year. 

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Former congressman Ron Paul hospitalized, says he's OK

Former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul posted a picture of himself in a hospital Friday but said he was OK after video circulated online of him struggling to speak during an interview. The 85-year-old former Texas congressman, who ran for president three times, posted a picture on Facebook showing him smiling in a hospital gown and giving a thumbs-up. The post came after a video took off on social media showing Paul having trouble speaking during an appearance on his livestreamed show “Ron Paul Liberty Report.”

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Drivers Keep Running Over Protesters—and Getting Away With It

When a blue Jeep sped down an Aurora, Colorado, roadway in July, narrowly missing protesters, some witnesses swore the driver had put their lives at risk.“I saw him look straight at the crowd and hit the gas,” Rebecca Wolff, a protester who spoke to police about the incident, told the Denver Post. Another protester broke a leg jumping off the raised highway to avoid the driver.But in an hour-long press conference on Wednesday, District Attorney George Brauchler announced that he would not press charges against the driver unless presented with more evidence against him. Also Wednesday, in neighboring Denver, a different man drove a car into a crowd that was protesting Kentucky prosecutors declining to charge any officers for fatally shooting Black 26-year-old EMT Breonna Taylor in March.As of Thursday evening, no charges had been filed in the Denver incident, either.Since the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May, Americans have spent months in the streets protesting racism and police brutality. Those same streets have also become the site of a disturbing pattern of vehicle attacks, with drivers speeding toward and sometimes striking protesters. Complicating matters are calls by lawmakers to impose harsh penalties on those who block traffic—and even to grant immunity to drivers who hit protesters under certain circumstances.As The Daily Beast recently reported, such calls have been percolating in legislative chambers for years, their language sometimes curiously similar, like a right-wing fever dream playing on repeat. But drivers don’t always need those immunity laws. A pattern of dropped or languishing cases across the country has already seen drivers duck charges for speeding at—and sometimes ramming into—protesters.Meanwhile, the attacks keep coming.Ari Weil, a PhD student studying terrorism at the University of Chicago, has been monitoring car attacks since racial justice protests swept the country in late May. Between those first days of protests and Sept. 5, he’d recorded 104 incidents of people driving into protesters: 96 of them civilians and eight of them law enforcement. Of those civilian drivers, 39 had been charged, Weil found.In other words, well under half of people who drove vehicles at protesters this year had been charged, he estimated.Not all of those cases are necessarily malicious, Weil stressed. Five of the 96 civilian cases appear to have stemmed from someone taking a wrong turn, or encountering a protest by accident. In 48 of those cases, Weil found, the driver’s intent was not immediately apparent.But he estimated 43 of them to be overtly malicious acts based on the driver either having known extremist associations, yelling slurs at protesters, or deliberately swerving or turning to run people down.Other monitors of car attacks have offered slightly different figures. A protest-tracker by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a conflict-mapping non-profit, has logged 69 malicious ramming attacks from May 28 to Sept. 15. More recent incidents not captured in the Weil or ACLED dataset included collisions following Wednesday’s announcement of no charges over Breonna Taylor’s death. In addition to the Denver incident, a driver in Buffalo, New York, was filmed hitting protesters. Both cases were under investigation as of Thursday.The discrepancies in such tallies reflect the difficulty of determining whether a vehicle attack was attempted murder, an honest mistake, or something in-between. When Brauchler declined to press charges against the Aurora Jeep driver on Wednesday, he said the driver was trying to get away from protesters. He noted, correctly, that a protester has been charged with attempted murder for firing a gun at the Jeep, although, again, the details vary according to individual accounts. The protester fired the gun after the Jeep driver started moving through the crowd, accelerating toward a “wall of moms,” two of those women told CBS4, accusing the driver of nearly killing them.It’s the kind of murky situation that has plagued the George Floyd protests—by many accounts the largest American mass-mobilization in history.Car attacks “in prior years have been a lot more cut-and-dry,” Weil said, noting the past use of car attacks by jihadists and the far right—most notoriously the murder of Heather Heyer at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. During the more recent protests, however, “there are many more opportunities for motorist-protester interactions, some of which are motivated by racism and some of which are not,” he added.The threat of vehicular homicide often has protesters looking over their shoulders, according to Maggie Ellinger-Locke, a lawyer with the National Lawyers Guild, which monitors protests.“This is a really dangerous trend that appears to be on the rise, where we’re seeing far-right actors using vehicles as weapons, driving into protesters,” she said, noting that, although anecdotal, car attacks do appear to be on the rise. “Protesters are aware of this. Legal support organizations like the National Lawyers Guild are aware of this, and they’re very alarmed by it.”Some car attacks have resulted in arrests. A driver who plowed through a Bloomington, Indiana, protest, striking at least two people, was arrested two days after the incident and charged with criminal recklessness and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in serious bodily injury. A self-proclaimed Ku Klux Klan member was convicted last month for an attack on Black Lives Matter protesters outside Richmond, Virginia. A Seattle man accused of driving onto a closed section of highway and striking two protesters (one fatally) has been arrested and pleaded not guilty to vehicular homicide and reckless driving. A Long Island man accused of hospitalizing two protesters with his car was arrested in July, as was an alleged Iowa City car attacker who, during his arrest, told police that protesters needed an “attitude adjustment.”But several high-profile cases have passed without charges. In Tampa, Florida, on June 21, the driver of a pickup truck was filmed cursing at protesters before driving over a median and onto the wrong side of the road to hit Jae Passmore, a prominent local activist. The driver has not been charged, although according to Passmore’s attorney Ben Crump, police know the driver’s identity.When Passmore held an event six days later, a second car ran into the group and drove away with an injured protester on the car’s hood, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Police stopped the driver, but did not arrest them. Instead, the protester was with four counts, including felony criminal mischief.A spokesperson for the State’s Attorney Office in the 13th Judicial Circuit on Thursday said the pickup incident was still under investigation. They added that the charges against the protester in the second incident were being dropped—but also that driver who struck them was off the hook.“There is no evidence that either person intended to cause harm, and therefore charges are not appropriate,” the spokesperson for prosecutors said in a statement. “Both people made decisions that escalated the situation, and basic courtesy by either person could have minimized or avoided this conflict.”A slew of these incidents remain in a bizarre state of investigative limbo. When a car full of pro-police demonstrators drove through a crowd of Black Lives Matter activists in Manhattan’s Times Square earlier this month, the news site Gothamist was quick to name the car’s likely driver, who has posted the vehicle on pro-police pages. (A passenger also spoke to the media under her own name.) Several witnesses have gone to police about the incident. Nearly a month later, the incident remains under investigation, a spokesperson for the Manhattan District Attorney told The Daily Beast.“Oftentimes there's been a big delay by prosecutors deciding whether to charge people,” Weil said.Prosecuting car attacks might become even more difficult under proposed legislation that would criminalize protesters blocking traffic or offer immunity to people who hit those protesters with cars. The most recent of those proposals, announced Monday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, would remove liability for people who strike or kill protesters with cars if the driver is “fleeing for safety from a mob.” It’s a claim made by many such drivers, including the neo-Nazi who killed Heyer in Charlottesville.Those proposals haven’t passed yet, and have been rejected in states like Kentucky and North Carolina. But Ellinger-Locke said even the suggestion of such laws—and the legitimacy they offer attackers—can heighten the risk of further harm.“I think they suggest to people engaging in that kind of dangerous, harmful, potentially murderous conduct, that it’s something law enforcement supports,” she said. “I think people are seeing the introduction of these bills and feeling emboldened to take action because of them. Not only does that chill the speech of demonstrators seeking to advance their message, but I think sends a clear message that that sort of conduct is okay.”Would-be attackers are sometimes aware of such proposals, Weil said, pointing to a Discord messaging group that planned 2017’s deadly Charlottesville rally. Some users, including the killer, James Fields Jr., spoke gleefully of the possibility of hitting anti-racist protesters, with another user writing, “I know NC law is on the books that driving over protesters blocking roadways isn’t an offense.” (The law was not, in fact, on the books, although that didn’t prevent Fields’ deadly attack.)Weil warned that language about hitting protesters is an active part of the far-right’s meme vocabulary.It’s also spread to conservative talk radio hosts.When a Denver woman was filmed in May driving through a crowd of protesters and making a U-turn, allegedly with the intent to hit another, the host of a morning show on Denver’s 710 KNUS radio station reportedly said on air that the driver “ran your monkey rear-end down… You’ve got that coming.”The apparent target of his comments, the man whom the driver allegedly made a U-turn to hit, was Black. On July 20, the driver was charged—nearly two months after the incident.Brauchler, the district attorney who on Wednesday declined to charge the driver of the Jeep in Aurora, hosts a different show on the same station.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Meet Magawa, the 'hero rat' awarded a bravery medal for detecting dozens of landmines

Magawa, an African Giant Pouched Rat, was awarded a gold medal from the PDSA for his working detecting landmines in Cambodia.

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'Enough is enough': China attacks US at Security Council

China on Thursday lashed out at the United States at a high-level UN meeting over its criticism on the coronavirus, with its envoy declaring, "Enough is enough!"

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Trump met with chants of 'Vote him out' while paying respects to Ruth Bader Ginsburg

As President Trump and first lady Melania Trump paid their respects to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court on Thursday, they were met by spectators who chanted “Vote him out.”

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Coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx reportedly says she is 'distressed' at direction of White House COVID-19 task force

Birx told people close to her that she felt her role was diminished after Dr. Scott Atlas joined the task force, CNN reported.

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She said she was raising money for murder victims. Instead she went shopping, cops say

“It’s not Christmas yet, but the Grinch has come to town.”

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Who Invited the Far-Right Oath Keepers to Downtown Louisville?

LOUISVILLE—On Wednesday night, at least 20 members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group, were observed guarding storefronts in downtown Louisville amid sometimes violent unrest over the lack of charges in the police killing of Breonna Taylor. The businesses included Bader’s Food Mart—which is also a Shell gas station—Stewart’s Pawn Shop, and Hampton Inn Downtown Louisville, all at or near the intersection of Jefferson and South 1st Street. All of the businesses, besides the hotel, appeared to be closed at the time.The heavily armed men—many bearing rifles, night-vision goggles, and wearing camouflage—were seen on the roof of Stewart’s Pawn Shop, the perimeter of the Shell station, and in the Hampton Inn parking lot. When asked why they were present, one militia member, who gave his name only as Angry Spongebob, said the owner of the Shell had received threats against the business.“She was told that people wanted to burn it down to the ground,” he told The Daily Beast. “We know her and so we came out to help protect it, because if it goes up, then it takes a significant portion of this block with it.”He didn’t clarify who “she” referred to, but records filed with the Kentucky Secretary of State’s office list Paula T. Bader as the president, secretary, and treasurer of Bader’s Food Mart, and she has been identified as the owner in local media reports. In a telephone conversation Thursday, a purported leader of the Oath Keepers on the ground in Louisville, who gave his name as Mike Whipp, said they had been invited by Bader to keep tabs on her business, as well as the pawn shop.According to Whipp, “[Bader] told us she was targeted by activists.”The Far Right Gives Jake Gardner the Kyle Rittenhouse Hero TreatmentBader could not immediately be reached for comment, but the food mart does have a history of violence—and of drawing activist ire.In July, an employee was reportedly shot during an armed robbery attempt. And early this month, an employee reportedly shot a customer after a verbal altercation, according to local police. The individual was fired and later charged with assault.On Sept. 4, a day after the employee allegedly shot a customer, activists with megaphones entered the store, leading Bader to close the place for several days."He was wrong," she told local outlet WDRB of her fired employee. But she also seemed to take umbrage at the prospect of being targeted by local activists."They were waiting on customers," she said. "The next thing they know, the store is full of people with the megaphones.”That day, an account listed under Bader’s name posted on Facebook, “This is the damage, looting and peaceful protesting that occurred at my store. Bader's Food Mart last night. Do you notice the small children. SMH.”When asked Thursday about the presence of a far-right militia group, a man who identified himself as the manager of Stewart’s Pawn Shop and gave only the first name Jeremy told The Daily Beast, “I just work during the day from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and have no idea if our owners made a deal with those guys.”When asked about the Shell station, he added, “I do know if it burns, it will harm a lot of people in the city.” Shell corporate did n0t immediately respond to a request for comment.Reached for comment Thursday, Stuart Stein, who is listed in state records as an incorporator of the pawn shop, confirmed he was an owner, but told The Daily Beast, “No comment, talk to someone at the store.” Attempts to reach other individuals listed on incorporation paperwork were unsuccessful.For her part, Mindy Wilson, general manager of Hampton Inn Downtown, told The Daily Beast of the militia, “We don’t know anything about them, so you can stop calling.” Hilton Corporate did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Oath Keepers are a virulently anti-government group founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes, a former Ron Paul aide. They have been a fixture at protests and political hot spots in recent years, from Ferguson to Trump rallies, and have been banned from Twitter after peddling conspiracy theories expressing thirst for Civil War.Followers have also been implicated in a slew of violent crimes in recent years, from bomb scares to threats against the government to rape, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.Members of the Oath Keepers group in Louisville claimed they were made up of patriots, Kentuckians, Louisville residents, former and retired members of the military, firefighters, and law enforcement who were merely trying to protect their community. The member who identified himself as Angry Spongebob expressed condolences to the family of Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician who was fatally shot during a botched attempt to serve a warrant on her home.Spongebob said burning the city down was misguided and unfair to the public. There was no evidence of this taking place, despite sporadic small fires in garbage cans on Wednesday.“Go to Frankfort, go to City Hall, don’t take out frustrations on private business owners,” Spongebob told The Daily Beast, blaming the lawlessness on elected officials like Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who declined to charge any cop for killing Taylor.As they often have at protests in recent weeks, the militiamen seemed to operate without harassment from local law enforcement, at least in the hours The Daily Beast observed them after the 9 p.m. curfew on Wednesday. Louisville Metro Police and the Kentucky National Guard did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Meanwhile, police said they made 123 arrests, mostly for unlawful assembly and curfew violations, on Wednesday. At least three journalists were reported to be among them. At least two officers were also shot during the chaos.Whipp, the Oath Keeper spokesperson, suggested there was no reason for his group to catch flak for being out past curfew. This despite increased scrutiny of the seemingly cozy ties between armed vigilantes and police after 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse—who allegedly shot and killed two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August—walked by cops unbothered shortly afterward. On the streets that night, Rittenhouse had attached himself to what amounted to an armed gang of militiamen.“We generally don't have trouble from the police,” Whipp told The Daily Beast. “Police did perceive one of our members as a threat, but we calmed them down, and stated our purpose.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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Nearly 500 pilot whales stranded in Australia; 380 dead

More pilot whales were found stranded in Australia on Wednesday, raising the estimated total to nearly 500, including 380 that have died, in the largest mass stranding ever recorded in the country. Authorities had already been working to rescue survivors among an estimated 270 whales found Monday on a beach and two sand bars near the remote coastal town of Strahan on the southern island state of Tasmania. Another 200 stranded whales were spotted from a helicopter on Wednesday less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) to the south, Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service Manager Nic Deka said.

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