| RNC chairwoman says Republicans who distance themselves from Trump are 'hurting themselves in the long run' Posted: 18 Oct 2020 11:05 AM PDT  Her comments came after Trump lashed out at Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse for leaked audio from a constituent town hall where he criticized the president.
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| Rapper charged with coronavirus benefit fraud after boasting in song about benefit fraud Posted: 18 Oct 2020 09:31 AM PDT  Nuke Bizzle bragged about fraudulently claiming unemployment benefits in a music video on YouTube prior to his arrest.
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| Ankara-backed nationalist ousts president in Turkish Cypriot poll Posted: 18 Oct 2020 10:56 AM PDT  Right-wing nationalist Ersin Tatar, backed by Ankara, scored a surprise victory in a run-off presidential election Sunday in breakaway northern Cyprus, ousting pro-reunification incumbent Mustafa Akinci.
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| Lottery player goes out for mac and cheese and ends up winning big in North Carolina Posted: 18 Oct 2020 01:25 PM PDT  "I was about to walk out the store until something told me to, ya know, buy a ticket."
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| Archbishop performs exorcism to cleanse protest site Posted: 17 Oct 2020 02:16 PM PDT |
| Cruise ship rescues 24 people from boat off Florida coast Posted: 18 Oct 2020 10:53 AM PDT  A Carnival Cruise Line ship rescued two dozen people, including two children, from a sinking boat 37 miles off the Florida coast, the cruise line reported Saturday.
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| Fact check: True claim about Harris failing bar exam on first try and Barrett's law school rank Posted: 18 Oct 2020 12:32 PM PDT  A post compares the early career qualifications of Judge Amy Coney Barrett and Sen. Kamala Harris. We rate this claim true.
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| 'Home Improvement’ star Zachery Ty Bryan arrested for allegedly choking girlfriend Posted: 17 Oct 2020 03:00 PM PDT  Bryan was arrested at an Eugene, Oregon apartment complex late Friday night.
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| Pelosi's office says the latest coronavirus stimulus talk with Mnuchin had 'encouraging news on testing' Posted: 18 Oct 2020 06:22 AM PDT  The second coronavirus stimulus package remains stalled in Congress as Republicans and Democrats deadlock on the size of the plan.
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| CNN's Jake Tapper scolds Lara Trump for seemingly mocking Joe Biden's stutter in heated interview Posted: 18 Oct 2020 09:34 AM PDT  CNN's Jake Tapper cut off Lara Trump during a tense interview on State of the Union on Sunday after she dodged a question about appearing to mock Joe Biden's stutter by claiming the Democratic presidential candidate is in "cognitive decline."Tapper had aired a clip of Trump's daughter-in-law claiming that every time Biden speaks, "I'm like 'Joe, can ya get it out, let's get the words out, Joe.' You kinda feel bad for him." Tapper asked Lara Trump in response, "How do you think it makes little kids with stutters feel when they see you make a comment like that?"Trump said she didn't know Biden had famously overcome a stutter, and pivoted to alleging his speech was evidence of "cognitive decline." Tapper quickly interrupted: "I think you have absolutely no standing to diagnose somebody's cognitive decline," he told her, pointing out that "I'm sure it offends you" when people do the same to President Trump."I'm not diagnosing him," Trump protested. "I'm saying Joe Biden is struggling at times on stage and it's concerning to a lot of people that this could be the leader of the free world. That is all I'm saying. I genuinely feel sorry for Joe Biden."But Tapper's patience had run out. "I'm sure [your comments] were from a place of concern," he said. "We all believe that." Watch below. > Jake Tapper calls out Lara Trump for openly mocking Joe Biden's stutter. > > Lara says, "First and foremost I had no idea that Joe Biden ever suffered from a stutter. I think what we see on Joe Biden on stage is very clearly a cognitive decline."> > Tapper isn't having it. pic.twitter.com/qGlfOLzd3k> > -- The Recount (@therecount) October 18, 2020More stories from theweek.com Why this libertarian is voting for Biden The town halls weren't a debate — but Trump still won Is America ready for a boring president?
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| Healthcare workers, high-risk people will get priority for COVID-19 vaccine in New York: governor Posted: 18 Oct 2020 10:19 AM PDT  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday that healthcare workers and high-risk populations, including some long-term care residents, would get priority in his state to receive a COVID-19 vaccine when one is approved and available. According to the five-phase preliminary plan for New York's vaccine administration program, some details of which Cuomo announced at a news briefing, healthcare workers in patient-care settings, long-term care facility workers and some long-term care residents would be among the first to receive a vaccine. In the second phase of vaccine rollout, first responders, school staff, other public-facing frontline workers and people whose health conditions put them at extreme risk would get priority for the vaccine.
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| Not enough or double the prejudice: On being Black and Asian American in 2020 Posted: 18 Oct 2020 04:00 AM PDT  12 multiracial people discuss the messy, complicated conversations they're having about identity in this political moment.
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| Iran announces its virus death toll passes 30,000 Posted: 17 Oct 2020 03:34 AM PDT  Iran announced Saturday that its death toll from the coronavirus has passed the milestone of 30,000, in what has been the Mideast region's worst outbreak. Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari announced that the total death toll from the outbreak had reached at least 30,123. Iran has been struggling with the coronavirus since announcing its first cases in February, with more than 526,000 confirmed cases to date.
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| 'They're amateurs': Feds say plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was dangerous, poorly planned Posted: 18 Oct 2020 01:26 PM PDT  U.S. Magistrate Judge Sally Berens agreed the government had probable cause to charge the six defendants, despite objections by defense lawyers.
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| Black voters' mail-in ballots being rejected at higher rate Posted: 17 Oct 2020 06:00 AM PDT  Data from North Carolina suggests unfamiliarity with voting by mail and need to have witness signature may play a partBlack voters in North Carolina are disproportionately having their mail-in ballots flagged for potential rejection in the battleground state, setting off alarms about disenfranchisement.North Carolina requires mail-in voters to get a witness for their ballots and at least 7,000 mail-in ballots have been flagged across the state because of a deficiency, according to data collected by Michael Bitzer, a professor at Catawba College who closely tracks voting data in the state. As of Wednesday, 40% of rejected ballots – 2,871 – were from Black voters, even though they comprised only 16% of the overall ballots returned. (A spokesman for the state board of elections cautioned some of the data may be outdated because local election offices have not been entering rejection data into the statewide system while legal challenges are pending.)The Rev Anthony Spearman, the head of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, attributed the higher rate at which Black voters' ballots were being flagged to the fact that African Americans traditionally have not widely voted by mail in the state, instead opting for in-person voting. Many voters are getting tripped up by the state's requirement that mail-in voters get a witness to sign their absentee ballot, he said."The African American community, many of them for the first time, are utilizing absentee ballots and have not been cultivated to the practices thereof. There is a level of them being not aware of the process and how it goes and so they're not filling out their forms correctly," he said.Just 3% of the Black voters whose ballots were flagged for rejection voted by mail in 2016, according to data collected by Bitzer."Voting by mail is very different than voting in person," Bitzer said. "Until I'm presented otherwise I have to think lack of familiarity with the vote method process is probably what is hanging up so much of these ballots."The North Carolina data underscores the conundrum Democrats are facing this year as they encourage supporters to cast their votes by mail amid concerns about Covid-19. A mail vote is more likely to be rejected than an in-person one and research has shown that first-time voters and minorities are all much more likely to have their ballots rejected.There is an ongoing legal battle in the state over how easy it should be for voters to fix a ballot flagged for rejection. Earlier this year state officials said that if voters had any omissions with the witness portion of their ballots – the section Spearman said was confusing voters – they could sign an affidavit and have their ballot count.But state officials quickly suspended that guidance amid objections from Republicans and ongoing litigation. On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that a voter could use an affidavit to fix small discrepancies with the witness section, but said the voter would have to cast a new ballot if the witness forgot to sign altogether. Republicans are appealing against the ruling.There also appears to have been some inconsistency in how strictly election officials needed to review a ballot to determine if it should be rejected. Earlier this month, state officials released a memo instructing local election boards that they should not automatically reject a ballot if an address for a witness was incomplete.Guilford county, home to Greensboro, was flagging nearly one in every 10 ballots that came in for rejection before the memo. Madeline Reed, a voter in the county, told the Greensboro News and Record her ballot was flagged for rejection because officials couldn't read the letter "C" in her witness signature. The rejection rate in the county has since fallen to 2.2%, according to data collected by Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida."Our staff is very, very effective and they have been trained very well and they tend to scrutinize more closely the ballots they take a look at. And that may have something to do with the higher numbers in Guilford county," said Spearman, who is also a member of the county's board of elections.In-person early voting began Thursday in North Carolina and Spearman said he would encourage anyone who had their ballot flagged for rejection to forget about casting a new mail-in ballot and vote in person instead. " I think people will go ahead and do that," he said.
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| The Beach Boys, tony Lido Isle, $150,000 tickets: A peek inside Trump's Orange County fundraiser Posted: 18 Oct 2020 07:38 AM PDT  The cash-strapped president comes to deep blue California to raise money 16 days before election day, heading to Newport Beach for a high-dollar fundraiser.
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| Letters to the Editor: We've always had white nationalists, but social media amplifies the threat Posted: 17 Oct 2020 03:00 AM PDT  A former official in the Anti-Defamation League recalls dealing with anti-Semitic white nationalists and warns that social media poses a unique threat.
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| Merkel's old rival Merz says Germany has become 'sluggish' under the Chancellor in first CDU husting Posted: 18 Oct 2020 09:20 AM PDT  Angela Merkel's old foe Friedrich Merz said that Germany had become "too sluggish" under its veteran leader, as the three candidates for the Christian Democratic Union party leadership met in Berlin for the first hustings on Saturday evening. Mr Merz, a pro-business millionaire who has been out of frontline politics for the best part of two decades, argued that the government has dropped the ball on issues such as digitalisation and clean energy technologies. "This country has become too slow, we have become too sluggish," he said, complaining that a lack of digitalisation in schools had been exposed during the pandemic. The 64-year-old is up against the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, Armin Laschet, and foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen. Mr Röttgen is only seen as having an outside chance of winning the vote among party delegates at the party convention on December 4th. Mr Laschet, a centrist and close confidant of Ms Merkel, told the meeting that he was the man to continue the success that she had brought Germany. The leadership race takes place just two years after the last contest to take over the dominant party of German post-war politics. The woman who won on that occasion, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, beat Mr Merz in a closely fought contest. But she stood down at the beginning of this year after failing to reverse slumping polling figures. It was just a few weeks after her resignation that the party's fortunes were turned around because of strong public approval for how Berlin managed the coronavirus pandemic. Unusually, the public's favourite to take over from Ms Merkel is not a member of the CDU. Instead Markus Söder, leader of the Bavarian CSU, a sister party to the CDU, is enjoying strong polling figures thanks to his safety-first approach to the pandemic. Mr Söder, state premier in Bavaria, has however signalled that he does not intend to run for the top job.
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| Fire experts say mismanaged, choked forests need to be cleared out Posted: 18 Oct 2020 08:38 AM PDT  "Forest management is a lot like gardening. You have to keep the forest open and thin," said Mike Rogers, a former Angeles National Forest supervisor.
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| US schedules first federal execution of woman since 1953 Posted: 18 Oct 2020 05:34 PM PDT  Lisa Montgomery is due to become the first woman to face federal execution in the US in 67 years.
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| Queen grants rare royal pardon to murderer who fought off a terrorist knife attacker with a 5-foot narwhal tusk on London Bridge Posted: 18 Oct 2020 04:55 AM PDT  Steve Gallant was on his day release at a conference set up to help rehabilitate prisoners when the terror attack took place last November.
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| A tabloid got a trove of data on Hunter Biden from Rudy Giuliani. Now, the FBI is probing a possible disinformation campaign. Posted: 18 Oct 2020 04:09 PM PDT  The FBI is examining whether the material supplied to the New York Post by Rudy Giuliani is part of a disinformation campaign by Russia.
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| Gottlieb says "biggest wave" of coronavirus infections still to come Posted: 18 Oct 2020 10:08 AM PDT  Hospitalizations are rising in 42 states, and 45 have expanding epidemics, Gottlieb said.
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| More than 1,000 current and former CDC staff hit out at Trump coronavirus response Posted: 18 Oct 2020 01:06 AM PDT  Open letter calls for greater role for CDC in fighting Covid-19
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| A year after disputed ballot, Bolivians return to polls, and ex-President Evo Morales looms large Posted: 17 Oct 2020 07:17 PM PDT  Bolivians vote Sunday a year after the resignation of President Evo Morales. Morales remains in exile, but his socialist party leads in polls.
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| Italy to announce new COVID-19 restrictions as infections spike: PM's office Posted: 17 Oct 2020 07:14 AM PDT  Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will announce on Sunday another set of measures to counter the new wave of COVID-19 cases, his office said, after the country registered a new daily record in infections on Saturday. Conte's office said the government is discussing new restrictions with local and health authorities, aiming to stem contagion while limiting the impact on individuals and businesses. Italy was the first major European country to be hit by COVID-19 and had managed to get the outbreak under control by the summer thanks to a rigid two-month lockdown on business and people's movement.
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| White House responds to Joe Biden's claims that NY Post report on Hunter is a 'smear campaign' Posted: 17 Oct 2020 06:33 AM PDT  White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany joins 'Fox & Friends.'
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| Officials crack down on planned 10,000 person NYC wedding Posted: 17 Oct 2020 11:11 AM PDT  The Rockland County Sheriff's Office tipped off state authorities to the wedding, apparently planned for Monday in Williamsburg.
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| Illinois Governor says spikes in COVID-19 infections are from 'president's allies' telling people in his state not to follow the rules Posted: 18 Oct 2020 11:23 AM PDT  "The reality is that this virus hasn't gone away, we do need to continue to keep ourselves safe from it," Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said.
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| Exclusive: Interpol facing Parliamentary inquiry over concerns UAE 'torture' chief may get top job Posted: 17 Oct 2020 05:42 AM PDT  Russia is a "criminal state" which is "abusing" the powers of Interpol, MPs will be told this week, amid concerns that a UAE security chief accused of presiding over 'torture' will become the organisation's new head. The global police and crime organisation is facing a Parliamentary inquiry over concerns that it is vulnerable to manipulation by 'rogue' member states including Russia, China and the UAE. The Foreign Affairs Committee will hear from Bill Browder, the British financier and arch critic of Vladimir Putin, who has been subject to eight interpol arrest notices by Russia on "trumped up" charges over the 'poisoning' of a Kremlin whistleblower - all of which have been refused. Interpol should "suspend access of serial abusers like Russia to its databases," he will say on Tuesday. "Britain should work with its allies – the US, Canada, Australia, the European Union, and others on withholding funds if Interpol refuses to reform," he will add. The organisation has come under increased scrutiny after its president Meng Hongwei was disappeared by Chinese authorities and sentenced to 13 years in prison on bribery charges in 2018. Russia's Alexander Prokopchuk was lined up as a presumptive successor but has been accused of abusing Red Notices. His election was likened to "putting a fox in charge of the henhouse" by US officials who helped block his leadership bid. Earlier this month, the Telegraph revealed that a United Arab Emirates security head accused of presiding over the 'torture' of a British academic is a frontrunner for the role, and could be elected in December. Major General Nasser Ahmed Al-Raisi has been accused of serious human rights violations in the Middle East, including against British citizens Matthew Hedges and Ali Ahmad, and Interpol has been warned it could lose credibility if he is chosen to be its President. He has never responded to claims. American-born Browder has spent more than a decade fighting to uncover Russian money laundering after once being the country's largest foreign investor. His lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was killed in a Moscow jail in 2009, and Mr Browder pushed through the Magnitsky Act in the US which barred a number of officials from entering America, as well as having their assets frozen.
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| Fact check: It's true, Ginsburg said bipartisanship needed 'true patriots' on both sides Posted: 18 Oct 2020 02:03 PM PDT  A quote attributed to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a social media post is confirmed. She did speak of a need for bipartisanship.
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| Tens of thousands march in Belarus despite police threat to open fire Posted: 18 Oct 2020 10:00 AM PDT  Belarusian police on Sunday detained more than 200 people as tens of thousands marched against strongman Alexander Lukashenko in defiance of police threats to open fire after weeks of demonstrations.
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| Galapagos Islands | With tour boats moored due to the coronavirus pandemic, the animals are out Posted: 18 Oct 2020 04:00 AM PDT  The Galapagos marine reserve faces threats from industrial fishing, climate change and a drastic drop in tourism and funding for conservation.
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| Tulsa digs again for victims of 1921 race massacre Posted: 18 Oct 2020 06:35 AM PDT  A second excavation begins Monday at a cemetery in an effort to find and identify victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and shed light on violence that left hundreds dead and decimated an area that was once a cultural and economic mecca for African Americans. "I realize we can tell this story the way it needs to be told, now," said Phoebe Stubblefield, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Florida and a descendant of a survivor of the massacre who is assisting the search, told The Associated Press. The violence happened on May 31 and June 1 in 1921, when a white mob attacked Tulsa's Black Wall Street, killing an estimated 300 people and wounding 800 more while robbing and burning businesses, homes and churches.
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| White supremacists across the country indicted on drug and firearm charges Posted: 17 Oct 2020 01:27 PM PDT  According to the U.S. Justice Department, 21 Utah-based white supremacists have been indicted for allegedly selling drugs and firearms. In recent days, similar charges were brought against white supremacist gang members in Texas, Kentucky, and Mississippi.
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| National steelworkers union shines 'Biden Harris' sign on Trump Tower in Chicago Posted: 18 Oct 2020 01:33 PM PDT  The 98-story Chicago skyscraper previously sparked controversy from the public after an enormous, LED "TRUMP" logo was stamped on it.
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| Ex-White House lawyers question contract former friend signed to work for Melania Trump Posted: 17 Oct 2020 02:00 AM PDT  The Justice Department has sued Stephanie Winston Wolkoff over alleged breach of a contract that former White House lawyers call "bizarre," inappropriate.
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| French police arrest 9 people after 18-year-old decapitates teacher in terror attack Posted: 17 Oct 2020 02:18 AM PDT  Nine people have been arrested after a teacher in France was beheaded by an 18-year-old Chechen in what Emmanuel Macron called a "blatant Islamist terrorist attack". Samuel Paty, a married father, had shown his pupils cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in class on freedom of expression. The killer, who was shot dead by police on Friday in broad daylight, was identified as an 18 year-old Chechen Russian born in Moscow. A national tribute to Mr Paty is being planned. Parents of pupils laid flowers at the school gate. Some said their children were distraught.
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| Large 2,000-year-old cat discovered in Peru's Nazca lines Posted: 18 Oct 2020 10:19 AM PDT  The 37m feline figure, said to have been created some 2,000 years ago, escaped notice for centuries.
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