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Jill Biden shuts down question over husband's 'gaffes'

‘After Donald Trump, you cannot even say the word’, says ex-VP’s wife ahead of debate

“So much misinformation”: Fauci calls out Fox News and Trump’s new adviser for “outlandish” claims

"Fox News . . . some of the things that they report there are outlandish, to be honest with you"

‘Defund the police’ message on Starbucks cups gets barista fired in Texas

Starbucks called the incident “unacceptable.”

'False alarm': Cruise crew who tested positive for COVID-19 in Greece got 3 more tests, all negative

The Mein Schiff 6, operated by TUI Cruises, began its trip in Heraklion on the southern Greek island of Crete on Sunday night.

Cheating has gone into overdrive after slowing at the start of the pandemic, according to infidelity dating app Ashley Madison

The report found more people are cheating during the pandemic, fueled by lockdown frustration with their spouse, a lack of intimacy, and more.

Texas sheriff indicted and booked in own jail after probe into Black man's death

A Texas sheriff has been indicted on charges of destroying or concealing video in an investigation into the death in custody of a Black man, Javier Ambler, that was filmed by the police reality TV series “Live PD," prosecutors said Monday.

A hacker published thousands of students' grades and private information after a Nevada school district refused to pay ransom

The school district suffered a ransomware attack during its first week of online classes and said law enforcement was investigating.

No more 'ladies and gentlemen' on Japan Airlines flights

The airline says it has committed to not discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Singapore Airlines drops 'flights to nowhere' after outcry

Singapore Airlines said Tuesday it had scrapped plans for "flights to nowhere" aimed at boosting its coronavirus-hit finances after an outcry over the environmental impact.

Senate advances bill to fund government into December

A bill to fund the federal government cleared a key Senate procedural hurdle Tuesday as lawmakers sought to accomplish the bare minimum before they depart Washington to campaign — preventing a shutdown when the new fiscal year begins. A final vote on Wednesday would send the stopgap spending bill to President Donald Trump in time for his signature before the new budget year starts Thursday. The funding measure advanced while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made a last-ditch effort to strike an agreement on a separate COVID-19 rescue bill that has eluded them for weeks.

Mitch McConnell ‘refusing to debate his election rival if there is a female moderator’

‘He continues to resist allowing women to host debates,’ said McConnell’s opponent in the Kentucky Senate race

Let's be real: Biden is cruising to victory

Those of us who would very much like to see President Trump go down to a decisive defeat in November have plenty to worry about. The race could narrow in the coming weeks. A Trump lead based on votes cast in person on Election Day could give way to a Biden surge in mail-in ballots that our embattled president will seek to discredit, sending the whole process of vote-counting spinning into chaos.But as we head into the first of three debates between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, it's worth pausing to remind ourselves that another scenario is far more likely — which is that the outcome of the election will comport with every reputable poll going back months. Those polls have consistently shown Biden with a large and incredibly stable lead. Yes, we should prepare for the worst. But we also shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Biden supporters seem to be headed toward a much happier outcome.The pervasive anxiety among Democrats is understandable. Many thought Hillary Clinton was on track for easy victory four years ago, and they've never recovered from the shock of what happened instead — or from the horrible realization that it's possible for a Republican to win the presidency while losing the popular vote by three million votes.But Democrats are also responding to the preternatural confidence of their opponents. Whenever I write a column sharply critical of Trump, I receive emails and direct messages through social media platforms from Republicans unwaveringly convinced that Trump will win re-election in a massive landslide that will at long last humiliate me by demonstrating my worthlessness as a pundit and the cluelessness of my likeminded colleagues in the liberal media. That kind of assertion, received often enough, can't help but inspire second thoughts. Could it be true? What am I missing? Might Biden actually be cruising toward a crushing loss I'm just too blind to see coming?Such doubts might be natural for an empirically minded journalist. But the truth is that there is no evidence at all to back up the confidence of the unwavering Trump voter. Sure, it's possible that the president could prevail by once again barely carrying several battleground states while losing the national popular vote by a wide margin. But there is no indication at all that Trump is headed toward a landslide victory. (Even the comically Republican-friendly Rasmussen poll still frequently shows Trump's approval rating underwater.) The far more likely scenario is that dozens of polls are correct in showing that Biden is on track to win and win big.Those dozens of polls show Biden with a large (roughly 7-point) national lead and a smaller but equally solid advantage in the crucial battleground states. These leads have been incredibly stable over time. Something very close to 50 percent of the country wants Trump gone under any imaginable circumstance, while something between 42 and 44 percent will support the president no matter what. These two voting blocs are frozen solid, immobile.How do we know this? Because nothing has changed the overall shape of the race over the madness of the past nine months. Not the deadliest pandemic in a century. Not a massive economic downturn. Not the worst protests and urban unrest in 50 years. Through it all, Biden has maintained his lead. The closest Trump has come to overtaking him since the pandemic lockdowns began last March was a brief period in May when he got within 4.4 points of Biden in RealClearPolitics' polling average. Since then, Biden has led Trump by anywhere from 5.9 to 10.2 points. On the eve of the first debate, Biden leads by 6.9.A race in which one person consistently leads by that wide of a margin is a race that person is overwhelmingly likely to win.But couldn't the race narrow over the next five weeks, placing Trump within reach of the same inside straight he pulled last time? Sure, it could. And it probably will tighten a bit. But tightening beyond a couple of points is pretty unlikely at this point — because Trump has proven himself incapable of appealing to voters outside of the right-wing Republican base that's already maximally committed to him.The past few months is when we would have expected a floundering incumbent president to make a broader pitch for support. Instead, Trump has repeatedly shown that he's only capable of talking and governing like a prime-time Fox News pundit, despite the fact that Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham speak to an audience, at most, of just five million viewers in a country where something on the order of 140 million will vote for president.Denying the pain and alienation and hardship of living through COVID-19 while the death toll rises above 200,000 with no end in sight; stoking racial tensions and violence in the name of "law and order"; trying to jam a right-wing nominee onto the Supreme Court to replace the widely admired liberal jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg; refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power to his successor if he's defeated — each of these Trump moves over the past few months is red-meat thrown at the right, who devour it ravenously. But it turns the stomach of everyone else.Trump's own presidency serves as an endless loop of negative advertising against his own re-election.For all of these reasons, it's exceedingly unlikely that the debates are going to change anything about the dynamic of the race. I suspect Biden will come off fine and certainly exceed the absurdly low expectations the Trump campaign has set for him. But the real insurance policy is Trump himself, who with every word is guaranteed to remind viewers who don't take their cues from Tucker Carlson's incendiary hate-rants that they just want Trump gone, no matter who his opponent is.Whatever the strengths and weaknesses of the man who would replace Trump, at least he isn't Trump. That thought, echoing through the minds of millions of voters throughout this awful year and repeated endlessly over these final five weeks, is and will remain the key to Biden's likely win.Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.More stories from theweek.com Body language expert shares 'stress indicators' to watch for during the debate North Carolina senate candidate commits grievous sin: confusing grilling for barbecuing 'Sully' Sullenberger savages Trump's 'lethal lies and incompetence' in new Lincoln Project ad

Portland police seize shields, arrest 24 before march; one officer hospitalized

At least 24 people were arrested when police broke up a planned march, then declared an unlawful assembly when protesters reorganized.

ICE reverses COVID-19 measure, says it will resume arresting non-criminal migrants

U.S. immigration officials quietly announced they would resume regular apprehension and detention practices, an apparent reversal from an earlier temporary suspension of non-criminal enforcement due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

They Protested at a Police Station. They’re Charged With Trying to Kidnap Cops.

The July 3 protest in Aurora, Colorado, seemed, at least on the surface, like just another of the hundreds of racial justice protests that have swept the nation this year. Demonstrators sat outside a police station chanting and playing music. Although they said they wouldn’t leave until their demands were met, the protesters were cleared out by police around 4:30 a.m.Colorado Protest Erupts in Panic as Car Drives Into Crowd, Shots Fired But several of the protest leaders are facing felony attempted kidnapping charges for allegedly imprisoning police officers in their own precinct during the protest—charges their fellow activists are calling absurd.Lillian House, Joel Northam, and Whitney “Eliza” Lucero are among a group of Denver-area activists facing a slate of charges related to their protest activities this summer. Local prosecutors say the activists tried to kidnap police by holding a short-lived “occupation”-style protest outside the precinct and blocking its doors. But activists allege a crackdown on the most visible members of their movement, leading to terrifying SWAT arrests and the threat of years in prison.“This characterization that someone quote-unquote kidnapped officers is absolutely ridiculous,” Ryan Hamby, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Marxist group with which House, Northam, and Lucero are affiliated, told The Daily Beast.“It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious,” he added.The July 3 protest was one of many that called for the termination of officers involved in the killing of Elijah McClain, a young Black man who died in Aurora Police custody last year. McClain was not accused of any crime but became the subject of police suspicion while walking home from the convenience store when someone called 911 to report him “look[ing] sketchy.” Police placed McClain in a now-banned chokehold, causing him to vomit and lose consciousness. Paramedics later injected him with the sedative ketamine.An autopsy did not conclusively identify a single cause of death, and two of the three arresting officers have not been fired. The third arresting officer was fired for responding “ha ha” to pictures of other officers re-enacting and mocking McClain’s death. (That officer is suing the city over his termination.)The firings of the police who re-enacted McClain’s death were announced July 3, the same day as the protest outside the police precinct where demonstrators believed the remaining officers worked. Media reports—and even police tweets from most of the night—characterize the demonstration as peaceful, with some 600 protesters sitting around. Police ordered protesters to disperse at 2:30 a.m., tweeted a half-hour later that protesters were throwing things, and had cleared out the site by 4:30, the Denver Post reported at the time.But a statement from the Adams County district attorney this month accused protesters of holding cops hostage. Protesters “prevented 18 officers inside from leaving the building by barricading entrances and securing doors with wires, ropes, boards, picnic tables and sandbags,” the statement read. (The district attorney was unavailable for comment. In a call with Denver’s 9News, defendant Lillian House said she was unaware of the alleged barricade.)Those allegations come alongside serious criminal charges for six protest leaders, including three who are accused of attempted kidnapping, inciting a riot, and inciting a riot by giving commands, all of which are felonies.The protesters and prosecutors both point to a mid-protest phone call between activist Lillian House and Aurora’s interim police chief Vanessa Wilson, which House broadcast to protesters over a microphone. House called on Wilson to fire the remaining officers involved in McClain’s death; Wilson said she didn’t have the authority to do that but thanked the protesters for not trying to enter the precinct.“I appreciate that you haven’t breached the building and I hope that you continue to keep that promise,” Wilson said.Activists like Hamby have pointed to the call as evidence that protesters stayed within their rights.“Like, why would you even say that?” Hamby said of Wilson’s call. “She’s basically admitting on the phone that we have not done any of the things that they’re now claiming we did in this affidavit.”On the phone call, House, who is also accused of a felony count of attempting to influence a public servant, affirmed that the protesters wouldn’t enter the building. But they wouldn’t leave, either, until the two remaining officers in McClain’s killing were fired.“I just want to make it perfectly crystal clear that everyone here has agreed that we are going to sit here,” she said. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re not going in, we’re not going out, we’re sure not going out, and neither are these pigs that are inside the building. So we’re not doing anything wrong. We’re standing here.” (The protesters did, in fact, reportedly leave before sunrise, when police advanced on them.)House’s statements appear to be part of the basis for the prosecution’s claims that the protest was actually a kidnapping attempt. What followed, fellow activists allege, was a heavy-handed roundup of the protest’s most visible faces.Hamby, who organizes with House, Northam, and Lucero, claimed the busts were an attempt to “strike fear into organizers, strike fear into the movement.”House and Lucero were arrested by multiple squad cars—House while driving and Lucero while in her apartment—and detained in jail for eight days, Hamby said. Fellow organizers have accused corrections officers of verbally abusing the two women and failing to provide adequate COVID-19 protections. Another protester, John “Russel” Ruch, was followed from his home in unmarked cars and scooped up in a Home Depot parking lot around dawn by officers who gave him “no information” about the cause for his arrest, Hamby claimed.In the most aggressive instance, multiple organizers claimed a SWAT team showed up to arrest protester Joel Northam, allegedly banging on the door and refusing to slide a warrant underneath. Aurora Police did not return a request for comment.“He was on the phone with a lawyer the entire time, and the lawyer ended up telling him, ‘You need to comply with what they’re saying,’” Hamby said. “Because at that point we were worried that they were going to bust down the door and kill him.”If convicted on all counts, the activists accused of attempted kidnapping could face decades in prison. The charges come as other activists associated with Black Lives Matter protests face heavy-handed charges, including a Utah protester who faced life in prison for allegedly purchasing paint that was used in a demonstration (the most aggressive charging enhancements in that case have since been dropped).Hamby said protesters planned on further mobilizing around a call to drop the charges. “If anything, the fight-back will be strengthened and emboldened,” he said.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.

China's UK envoy warns Britain to avoid lectures over human rights

China's ambassador to London has told Britain that it will suffer "setbacks" in its relationship with Beijing if it continues to raise issues about human rights. The warning came after a junior Foreign Office minister took Beijing to task at a Chinese embassy function on Monday, held to mark the 71st anniversary of the People's Republic. In his remarks, James Duddridge said that while Britain wanted to retain good relations with China, it was also concerned about Beijing's erosion of democracy in Hong Kong and its treatment of the Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang. Mr Duddridge’s comments drew a cool response from Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador, who is understood to have replied pointedly that as Hong Kong was no longer under British rule, Beijing was not obliged to listen to British concerns. Mr Liu added that China's policies in Xinjiang, where the government has been accused of putting up to two million people into "re-education" camps, were designed to combat terrorism. Unless Britain and China observed a policy of "non-interference" in each other's internal politics, he continued, their relationship "would suffer setbacks or even retrogression." Mr Liu, 64, who has been China's envoy to London since 2010, is one of a new generation of Chinese diplomats who have eschewed the low profile traditionally favoured by their predecessors. Earlier this year, he hinted that some Chinese companies might pull out of Britain after the government reversed its decision to allow telecoms giant Huawei a key role in the 5G network. Last year, he also criticised the then Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, over his support for pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong, saying the protests were "a matter about breaking laws". His robust reply to Mr Duddridge's comments, which were made during an online gathering of guests, will be seen as a further indication of how relations between London and Beijing have cooled. Traditionally, routine diplomatic functions are not seen as forums where political differences are aired. Other Chinese ambassadors have already taken up a much more aggressive tack than Mr Liu, developing what become known as "wolf-warrior" diplomacy - a new, assertive dialogue to remind the world that China is now a superpower. Named after a Chinese film in which Beijing's troops defeat US enemies in Africa and Asia, the "wolf warrior" tactic was pioneered by Zhao Lijian, until last year China's envoy to Pakistan. In July last year, he got in a vicious Twitter spat with Susan Rice, a former advisor to Barack Obama, about China's treatment of Uighur Muslims, in which he suggested America improve its own record on race relations. It culminated in Ms Rice urging the Chinese government to recall him to Beijing.

'You will be proud of us': Romanian villagers re-elect dead mayor

Romanian villagers have re-elected their mayor by a landslide even though he died two weeks ago from COVID-19 complications, saying he had done a good job and deserved his posthumous victory. A video shared on social media showed dozens of villagers visiting the grave of Ion Aliman, a Social Democrat, to light candles after voting had ended in Sunday's local elections. Aliman won his third term as mayor of Deveselu, a village of around 3,000 people in southern Romania, with 64% of the vote, electoral bureau data showed on Monday.

Man dies after falling 100 feet from Oregon cliff while posing for photo in tree

Branch brake caused 43-year-old to plummet into ocean

Amnesty International to halt India operations

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

Fire on Navy Cruiser Antietam Injures 13 in Philippine Sea

The fire is the fourth to break out on a Navy ship in recent months.

Dr. Birx reportedly played a central role in pressuring CDC to advise for school reopening despite surges in coronavirus cases this summer

The New York Times reported Birx asked the CDC to include a document in school reopening guidance that downplayed the risk of infection.

North Carolina senate candidate commits grievous sin: confusing grilling for barbecuing

You've got to hand it to North Carolina — they have some truly scrumptious scandals down in the Tar Heel State.Democratic Senate candidate Cal Cunningham found himself in hot water on Monday night after tweeting a photo of himself standing next to a gas grill, spatula in hand as he apparently readied hot dogs and hamburgers. "There's nothing better than BBQ — except for winning this Senate seat, of course," he wrote as a caption.> There's nothing better than BBQ—except for winning this Senate seat, of course. pic.twitter.com/oEsDXIZ5O2> > — Cal Cunningham (@CalforNC) September 28, 2020But North Carolinians quickly took issue with the fact that "the tweet itself appears to suggest, wrongly, that barbecue can be made on a gas grill, or worse, that grilling falls within the realm of barbecue," explains the Raleigh-based News & Observer. Sure enough, Cunningham was soon the target of many angry foodies online:> My dude, folks are not going to think you really have a whole hog on that tiny grill. And I know you are not referring to cooking hotdogs & burgers as "BBQ." > > It may behoove you to issue a statement on NC barbecue forthwith. You can thank me later.> > — Aylett "What's your voting plan?" Colston (@EveryVoiceNC) September 29, 2020> This is Dukakis in a tank bad in North Carolina. Why. https://t.co/POTba6FIot> > — Rory Cooper (@rorycooper) September 29, 2020Sure enough, the North Carolina GOP even issued a statement, slamming Cunningham by writing, "In North Carolina, we have Eastern BBQ and Western BBQ but neither involves a spatula, hot dog buns or gas grills. Cunningham is an elitist trial lawyer, and this BBQ gaffe demonstrates that he is out of touch with North Carolina voters who actually know what North Carolina BBQ is."Cunningham, a native of Lexington, quickly backtracked, telling The News & Observer that he would never mix up grilling with barbecuing. "No self-respecting son of Lexington would ever do that," he emphasized, claiming he'd only used the term because he was showing off his new campaign swag, an apron which reads — perhaps now rather audaciously — "Ambassador for North Carolina BBQ."More stories from theweek.com The worst presidential debate of all time Trump pummels Biden — and America Undecided voters describe Trump as a 'crackhead,' 'arrogant' in post-debate focus group

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.

$20M settlement reached in police killing of handcuffed man

A Maryland county has agreed to a $20 million settlement with the family of a man who was handcuffed in a patrol car when a police officer shot and killed him, a county official said Monday. The Prince George's County police officer who killed William Green in January was arrested on charges including second-degree murder and has a trial scheduled for next year. Michael Owen Jr., who was a 10-year veteran of the police department, has been jailed since his arrest.

South Carolina city apologizes to Black residents for racial injustice resulting from its policies

The Spartanburg city council unanimously approved a resolution that acknowledges systematic racism.

Germany walks away from Lockheed, Boeing cargo helicopter offers

The surprise decision halts an acquisition race that was scheduled to a see a contract awarded in 2021.

Oregon hostage situation leaves ‘multiple people' dead

Officers responded to an address in Salem at around 12:30 pm on Monday

Nigeria's Boko Haram crisis: 'Bomb on donkey' used to ambush Borno governor

Militants from an Islamic State-linked group strapped the animal with explosives in Borno state.

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.

Shepard Smith: Fox News’ Chris Wallace Won’t Tolerate Lies at Presidential Debate

Shepard Smith’s new CNBC show is called simply The News. And with that in mind, the former Fox News anchor is trying his best to play everything right down the middle.Ahead of his premiere this Wednesday, Smith appeared on his new network colleague Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, where he offered up a series of non-committal, both-sides takes on the biggest news events of the week.Smith got in one joke about Donald Trump writing off $70,000 in hairstyling expenses but otherwise said he didn’t expect the bombshell report on the president’s tax returns to change any voters’ minds. He similarly had little to say about the coming Supreme Court fight, telling Fallon, “Whether it’ll affect the election or not, it probably will, you just don’t know which way it’s going to play.”“Will conservatives be so happy about it that they come out and vote for more?” he asked. “Or will Democrats and people on the left say we can’t let this happen again and come out and vote in bigger numbers? I don’t think we’ll know until we know.”The anchor said definitively that there is no evidence of widespread fraud in vote-by-mail, but couldn’t bring himself to criticize Trump for refusing to agree to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose, only saying, “I’m not exactly sure what it is he is trying to accomplish.”Smith’s strongest convictions seemed to come when Fallon asked about Tuesday’s night debate, which will be moderated by his former Fox colleague Chris Wallace. Stephen Colbert Unloads on ‘Fake Billionaire’ Trump for Massive Tax Grift“I expect Chris Wallace to be prepared,” Smith said. “Nobody who has watched Chris Wallace thinks [anything] other than that he is a very tough, very thoroughly prepared journalist. And he has said repeatedly over the years, to me and publicly, ‘My job is to stay out of the way and be unnoticed as much as possible.’”“But he’s not one to let a falsehood or a misrepresentation or a ‘look over here’ kind of shiny object thing just slide by the way,” he continued. “He will hold them [accountable]. Both of them. He’s not a partisan guy. He’s searching for truth. He’s trying to speak truth to power. And trying to get information to the public. That’s what all journalists want to do.”It’s the same thing Smith is trying to do at CNBC after spending 23 long years at Fox News. “We’re not going to have pundits, we’re not going to have opinion,” he said. “We’ll bring you facts. The facts, the truth, the news.”Ex-Fox News Anchor Shepard Smith Vows to Fight Disinformation With New CNBC Show“Sometimes people live in a world of just lies,” he added. “And when that’s happening and it rises to the public discourse, we’ll point it out.” Drawing an implicit contrast with Fox, Smith said, “We want to be a source of truth and honesty and we’ll hold truth to power because that is our job.”“The Founding Fathers didn’t only put journalism in the Constitution for no reason,” he said. “They put it there because it is important and journalists have a responsibility to get it right and tell it straight and that’s what we’re going to do.”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.

A 2nd woman has reportedly accused Nikola Motors founder Trevor Milton of sexual assault

Two women have filed police reports against Milton, both accusing him of sexually abusing them when they were 15, CNBC reported.

Mom’s sudden death left children fending for themselves for five days, Texas cops say

School officials asked for a welfare check at the home when the 5- and 7-year-old brothers didn’t show up all week.

Massacre in Mexican bar leaves 11 people dead

A massacre in a Mexican bar left 11 people dead on Sunday (September 27). The attorney general's office in the central state of Guanajuato said the bodies of seven men and four women were found at the scene in the city of Jaral del Progreso in the early hours. Authorities added that another woman was also found with gunshot injuries. It comes as the country grapples with a record homicide rate - despite the government's promises to tackle gang violence. Guanajuato, a major car-making hub, has become a recurring scene of criminal violence in Mexico, ravaged by a turf war between the local Santa Rosa de Lima gang and the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel. In July, gunmen killed 24 people at a drug rehabilitation center in Guanajuato. It was one of the worst mass slayings since President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office - pledging to reduce record levels of violence.

Brake failure, 'egregious disregard for safety' caused NY limo crash that killed 20 people, NTSB says

Two years after the country's worst road transportation disaster since 2005, the NTSB finalized its report on the cause of the Schoharie, New York, crash.

Officer charged in Breonna Taylor case pleads not guilty

The lone Kentucky detective facing charges related to the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor pleaded not guilty Monday. Brett Hankison’s plea comes five days after a grand jury indicted him on three counts of wanton endangerment for firing into the home of Taylor’s neighbors. Hankison’s lawyer asked that his client be allowed to keep firearms for self-defense, saying Hankison, who was fired in June, “has received a number of threats.”

Police officer who choked black man during stop will never serve again

Officer captured on camera saying he had choked Desmond Marrow

Senate Democrats Want to Wait until November 4 to Reveal Their Court-Packing Plan

If Democrats control Congress and the White House in 2021, will they pack the Supreme Court with additional progressive justices?Following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the efforts of the Senate GOP majority to fill the vacancy, it may be the most important question facing Democrats in 2020. But it’s a question only a few Senate Democrats are willing to answer.Massachusetts senator Ed Markey tweeted on September 21: “This Republican hypocrisy is shameful but not surprising. If they violate their own precedent, we must expand the Supreme Court.” West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, told CNN on Sunday that he “can’t support” court-packing.But most Democratic senators have made it clear they don’t want to reveal their intentions on court-packing until after the election. “What we need to do before we talk about what happens in the next session of Congress is for Democrats to win the presidency and a majority in the Senate,” Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal told National Review in the Capitol last week when asked about court-packing.Before voters go to the polls, should they get to know whether court-packing is likely or even on the table? “There are so many reasons to vote for Democrats now — that we need to focus on the pandemic,” replied Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “You know, we just passed 200,000 deaths. The president’s failure to deal with the pandemic and the public-health and economic crises and his cruel and reckless indifference [are] costing lives.”“I think we’ve got to wait to get through the election,” Pennsylvania Democratic senator Bob Casey said when asked about court-packing. “The key thing right now is people have to understand what’s at stake, especially on ACA and preexisting conditions.”“No thoughts at the moment,” New Mexico Democratic senator Martin Heinrich replied when asked about adding justices to the Court. “We have a job to do before we have that conversation.”California senator Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, dodged the question during an appearance on MSNBC on Monday night.“If Judge Barrett is confirmed and the Democrats have control of the Senate next year and the White House and the House of Representatives, should the Supreme Court be expanded?” MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell asked Harris.“You know, let’s, I think that — first of all — Joe has been very clear that he is going to pay attention to the fact, and I’m with him on this 1,000 percent — pay attention to the fact that right now, Lawrence, people are voting,” Harris replied. She said that the winner of the November presidential election should fill the current vacancy, but she never said a word about what a Biden-Harris administration would do on court-packing.It’s not clear how likely court-packing would be if Democrats have unified control of Congress and the White House in 2021. It’s obviously more likely in a Senate with 54 Democrats than a Senate with 51 Democrats. If they are unwilling to say before the election that they will pack the courts, they will not be able to say in 2021 they have a mandate to do so. And it’s worth remembering that Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried and failed to pack the Court when Democrats held 76 out of 96 Senate seats and 334 out of 435 House seats. (The pressure did famously result in one justice’s beginning to rule favorably on the New Deal — the “switch in time saves nine.”)If Democrats do add justices to the Court, it guarantees that Republicans would do the same the next time they control Congress and the White House. In October 2019, Joe Biden said: “I would not get into court-packing. We add three justices; next time around, we lose control, they add three justices. We begin to lose any credibility the Court has at all.”But since the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Biden has repeatedly refused to state his position on court-packing. “It’s a legitimate question,” Biden said last week. "But let me tell you why I’m not going to answer that question. It will shift the focus. That’s what [Trump] wants. Let’s say I answer, then the whole debate’s gonna be about what Biden said or didn’t say. Biden said he would or wouldn’t.”Asked again about court-packing on Sunday, Biden said: “I know you’re going to be upset with my answer. But what I’m not going to do is play the Trump game — which is a good game he plays — take your eye off the issue before us. If I were to say yes or no to that, that becomes a big issue.”Given how transformative court-packing would be to our system of government, it’s not clear that Biden and Senate Democrats will be able to get away with that non-answer over the next month.

British Museum 'won't remove controversial objects' from display

Cultural institutions received a letter from the government warning them not to remove artefacts.

I voted for Trump as soon as I became a citizen. Here's why I'm doing it again.

I gave up everything I knew to live in a nonsocialist country. That some Democrats here now praise socialism is among the reasons I support the president.

Body camera footage shows Trump's former campaign manager Brad Parscale being tackled by police outside his Florida home

Candice Parscale called 911 on Sunday, saying her husband had loaded a firearm and threatened to hurt himself, according to a police report.

Air Force Completes 8-Year B-1 Bomber Battle Station Upgrade

The service announced that it finished the Integrated Battle Station, or IBS, modification earlier this month.

FBI investigates land owned by missing Colorado mom's husband

The scent of human remains has been discovered on land owned by Barry Morphew, the husband of missing Colorado mom Suzanne Morphew, her brother told multiple media outlets on Monday.

The number of children with COVID-19 has risen 'dramatically' over the past 5 months, report finds

Children make up 10% of COVID-19 cases, a big rise from 2.2% in April, the American Academy of Pediatrics reports. Increased testing isn't to blame.

Barrett tied to faith group ex-members say subjugates women

President Donald Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court has close ties to a charismatic Christian religious group that holds men are divinely ordained as the "head” of the family and faith. Former members of the group, called People of Praise, say it teaches that wives must submit to the will of their husbands. Federal appeals judge Amy Coney Barrett has not commented publicly about her own or her family’s involvement, and a People of Praise spokesman declined to say whether she and her husband are current members.

Texas man had 13-year-old drive him for ice cream because he was too drunk, cops say

The driver told the officer she was “driving her stepfather to get ice cream because he was drunk.”

Armenians Fear Turkey Is Back to Finish Off the Genocide

MOSCOW—The fighting in a mountain enclave in the Caucasus escalated Tuesday when Turkish-backed forces shelled five villages including the capital of Stepanakert, according to Armenian officials.Skirmishes broke out on the border of Azerbaijan and Armenia over the weekend and the official death toll is over 100 as a decades-old dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh or the Republic of Artsakh erupted into violence.Artsakh is an ethnic Armenian pocket that was once part of Azerbaijan’s territory but now hews closely to Armenia against the wishes of Turkey, which has lucrative oil and gas deals with Azerbaijan and a long-standing enmity with Armenia.Turkey Sends ISIS Warlord to Azerbaijan to Face Off Against Putin’s Armenian Allies“We fight not only with Azerbaijan, with Turkey and thousands of its mercenary soldiers from the Middle East,” Masis Mailyan, foreign minister of the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh, told The Daily Beast in a phone interview on Tuesday. “This morning the attackers shelled an Armenian town of Vardenis. This is the continuation of the Turkish genocide against Armenian people. The genocide, that the U.S. Congress officially recognized in a resolution last year, affirming that the Turkey exterminated 1.5 million Armenians.”Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan has fueled the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, but he blames mediators for failing to solve the territorial dispute since a ceasefire in 1994. “The United States, Russia and France have not been able to resolve the conflict for almost 30 years. On the contrary, they are doing everything they can to prolong the problem,” Erdogan said in half an hour speech on Tuesday. “Azerbaijan has already listened to you for 30 years! But whose lands are occupied? Azerbaijan’s!”Civilians, including women and children, were reported killed on both sides. Tanks burned, armed drones and helicopters were shot out of the sky. The Armenian defense ministry reported that a Turkish warplane took off from Ganja airbase in Azerbaijan and shot down an Armenian jet aircraft Su-25 on Tuesday.“Turkey has never expressed any regret for the massacre in 1915,” Mailyan said. “Ankara criticized the Western countries for recognizing the Armenian Genocide.”The foreign minister said there was a chance that major powers would be drawn into the growing conflict. “Azerbaijan and Turkey have a program called ‘Great Turan’: Erdogan aims to take control over the South Caucasus, which will weaken Russia’s geopolitical positions,” he said.While it’s already bad, the worry is the conflict could easily escalate. The fighting threatens to involve Turkey, a NATO country, on the side of Azerbaijan while Russia’s forces back Armenia. “If Armenia officially asks Russia for help, the Kremlin would have to deploy the army, in accordance with the Collective Security Treaty between the two countries,” Mailyan told The Daily Beast, suggesting that even those consumed by domestic politics in the U.S. need to focus to prevent an even more disastrous war.The nation of Armenia with 2.9 million at home and millions in a diaspora in the United States, France, Russia, and elsewhere, feels very much united. In the first hours of the war, Kim Kardashian Tweeted her support for breakaway Artsakh: “We are praying for brave men and women risking their lives to protect Artsakh and Armenia. The news is misleading, these are not ‘clashes,’” Kardashian, whose family fell victim to the Armenian genocide, warned.The breakaway region is roughly the size of Connecticut. It is backed by Armenia and its diaspora in the West: at least ten American states, including California, Michigan and Massachusetts, have passed bills recognizing the independence of Artsakh, the Armenian name for the region.Both Azerbaijan and Armenia declared states of emergency on Sunday, for the first time after an escalation four years ago. Erdogan accused Armenia of being “the biggest threat to regional peace,” demanding its capital Yerevan give Nagorno-Karabakh territories back to Azerbaijan.Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, discussed the conflict with his ally in Armenia, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. While Turkey has almost brotherly relations with Azerbaijan, Orthodox Russia feels very close to Christian Armenia. There are Russian military bases on Armenian territory close to the borders with Turkey and Iran.While Turkey has an almost pathological hatred of one side in this dispute, Russia has tried to maintain good relations with both sides. It has strong business and political ties with Azerbaijan, a country that borders the often unstable Russian region of Dagestan. To keep Azerbaijan happy, Moscow sold weapons to Azerbaijan for $4 billion in 2016, a move that was widely criticized in Armenia.Last week Armenia joined Russia, China, Iran, and several other Kremlin allies taking part in military exercises called Caucasus 2020, which featured up to 80,000 soldiers.The violence which erupted over the weekend has been brewing for an age. Azeri opposition activists have been talking about the coming war for months.“Families, kids woke up to a real war on Sunday. We have thousands of refugees displaced from their homes, hiding in shelters,” Anahit Musheghyan, who lives in Yerevan, told The Daily Beast.None of the compromises Russia has suggested over the past two decades has worked. And peace talks failed in the midst of the pandemic, in July, after several clashes on the Armenia-Azerbaijani border that killed 15 people.More than 100,000 Azeri activists joined the pro-war rallies in Baku, pushing Aliyev to take action. “There is something important to understand about this war: every single Azeri person, without any exclusion, agrees the war is necessary–the war is the only point President Ilham Aliyev gets right: we all want back the territories occupied by Armenians in 1994,” Azeri journalist, Khadija Ismailova, explained to The Daily Beast.Ismailova, a fearless critic of Aliyev’s authoritarian regime, has spent a year in prison on unjust charges, but when it comes to this attack, she sounds supportive. “I am not militaristic, but it is clear to me that we need to fight,” she said. “The only concern we have is that Vladimir Putin might call Aliyev and tell him to stop advancing. If our forces occupy just a few villages and stop, that would be a huge disappointment. Putin must be talking with Erdogan a lot at the moment, negotiating their issues in Syria,” Ismayilova suggested.The feeling in Yerevan is equally passionate. “Our country has mobilized 10,000 volunteer soldiers,” photographer Karen Mirzoyan told The Daily Beast on Monday. “As soon as our people heard about Azeri shells killing a grandmother with her granddaughter, many men in reserve joined the forces.”Armenians have controlled what is internationally regarded as Azerbaijani territory since 1994, so why did Azerbaijan choose this month to advance? Thomas De Waal, the author of Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, said he thought Aliyev was trying to take advantage of election season in Washington. “Azerbaijan thinks that currently the U.S. is preoccupied with the presidential elections,” he said.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.

Priti Patel 'asked Home Office to explore sending asylum seekers to island in the south Atlantic'

Priti Patel ordered officials to explore building an asylum processing centre on a remote volcanic island in the south Atlantic - more than 4,000 miles from the UK, it has been reported. Home Office officials were instructed to look into the feasibility of transferring asylum seekers arriving in the UK to a centre on Ascension Island, a British overseas territory, according to the Financial Times. Another option said to have been considered was to construct an asylum centre on St Helena, another island in the group where Napoleon was exiled after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. The Foreign Office was consulted on the proposals, according to the paper, and provided an assessment on the practicalities of shipping migrants to such remote locations. Ascension Island, which is used as a staging post to supply and defend the Falkland Islands, has an RAF base and population of fewer than 1,000.

Why a Biden blowout is still the most likely result

Five weeks out from the 2020 presidential election, significant media attention is being given to the small possibility that President Donald Trump could again pull off a narrow Electoral College victory while losing the popular vote, or that even an Electoral College tie could push the election to the House. Those scenarios, though, are mainly making headlines because they're interesting fodder for the pundit class. All the data point to a big blowout victory for Democratic nominee Joe Biden.The major recent polls (Economist/YouGov: Biden +7, CNBC: Biden +9, Quinnipiac: Biden +10, NYT: Biden +8) show Biden with a truly commanding lead nationally. Equally important is how Biden leads. The 2016 election was always a much closer and more dynamic race, Trump was facing a much more unpopular opponent, and a much larger number of voters were undecided. None of those are the case this time.This year we have experienced a global pandemic which has so far killed over 200,000 Americans, a massive economic disruption, multiple Trump administration scandals, and the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Yet Biden's large lead over Trump is basically identical to what it was at the end of last year. There is still the possibility that some new development — even bigger than those listed above — could shift the dynamics of the race, but that seems very unlikely.Biden also polls much better than Hillary Clinton ever did in the late stages of the 2016 election cycle — largely because there are significantly fewer undecided and third-party voters. In the RealClearPolitics polling average of the four-way race, Clinton's share of the vote never went over 46.2 percent while, by comparison, Biden has been bouncing right around 50 percent for the past few months with 7 percent third-party/undecided. To realistically win, Trump would need to pick up almost all the undecided voters and even flip some Biden voters.In 2016, both candidates were unpopular. The final YouGov poll found Clinton with a favorable rating of 43 percent and 56 percent unfavorable, compared to Trump's rating of 39 percent favorable and 60 percent unfavorable. This gave the outsider Trump a chance to win over voters who disliked both candidates. By comparison, right now Biden's favorability numbers are 45 percent to 47 percent compared to Trump at 42 percent favorable and 53 unfavorable. In addition, 52 percent of voters disapprove of how Trump has handled his job as president, while 57 percent of voters are upset or dissatisfied with Trump. Trump effectively needs to win over voters who dislike him, disapprove of his job performance, and are simply ambivalent about Biden.To be sure, in 2016, the very limited polling in certain critical swing states was off in important ways, and the final national polling undercounted Trump's support by roughly 1-2 points. Maybe there is another systematic undercounting of Trump's support in the polling this year, and maybe late-breaking events move voters towards him, and maybe a large share of voters who disapprove of Trump's job performance can be persuaded to vote against Biden — but that is a lot of maybes.It is just as likely that Biden will outperform his already big lead. Elections tend to be referendums on incumbents, which is particularly true this year. Trump's polling numbers in head-to-head matchups with Biden have closely mirrored his overall job approval numbers. At the same time, Trump's job approval has been stuck in the low 40s effectively his entire time in office. Almost unique among modern presidents, he has never appealed to the majority of the country and has basically never tried. There really is no precedent for a chronically unpopular president who never tried to reach out beyond his base.If the final election results follow this job approval pattern, Biden wins in a landslide even larger than his current polling lead. Winning by such a large margin would swamp Trump's modest advantage in the Electoral College.More stories from theweek.com Trump's ear piece conspiracy is a perennial rehash 'Sully' Sullenberger savages Trump's 'lethal lies and incompetence' in new Lincoln Project ad Let's be real: Biden is cruising to victory

Breonna Taylor neighbor wants to know why cop wasn't charged for shooting into his unit

"If that bullet went through my bed maybe I would have been dead too," Breonna Taylor's neighbor Stanley David said.

Alicia Silverstone defends her 9-year-old son’s long hair

"We would never impose any social ideas about what hair on a boy or girl should look like," the actor wrote.