Richmond

'Anonymous' WH official who wrote about officials thwarting Trump reveals himself

Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, revealed himself Wednesday as the author of an anonymous 2018 New York Times op-ed that depicted President Trump as a danger to the nation.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman got served a lawsuit via WhatsApp. Court documents show that he received and read the message.

The case, filed by former top security advisor Dr. Saad Al-Jabri alleges that bin Salman set a hit squad to assassinate him in Canada.

AOC hits back at Laura Ingraham's criticism of her Vanity Fair cover in scathing tweet

‘GOP, get yourselves together. It’s sad’

Erdogan vows legal response to Charlie Hebdo cartoon showing him lifting skirt of veiled woman

Anger at France deepened in Muslim-majority countries on Wednesday over a Charlie Hebdo cartoon showing Turkey’s president drinking beer while lifting the skirt of a woman wearing a hijab to reveal her naked buttocks. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president, described the cartoonists as “scoundrels” and accused the West of wanting to “relaunch the Crusades”. His office also vowed to take unspecified "legal and diplomatic actions" through the Turkish legal system. His row with France erupted after President Emmanuel Macron ordered a crackdown on Islamists this month, following the beheading of a teacher who showed his class Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Protesters in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu shouted: “Down with France. It insulted our prophet.”

Body and dash camera video released in Illinois police fatal shooting of Black man

The encounter killed 19-year-old Marcellis Stinnette and wounded girlfriend Tafara Williams, who has said police harassed the pair prior to the shooting.

Facebook throttled Hunter Biden article after being warned by FBI of 'hack and leak' operations, Mark Zuckerberg says

Zuckerberg told Congress that Facebook throttled a New York Post article after being warned by law enforcement about 'hack and leak' operations.

How a Pacific missile test site is keeping up with challenging tests in a pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic hasn't derailed testing at the U.S. Army-managed remote missile test site in the Kwajalein Atoll.

Pilot killed as Taiwan fighter jet crashes into sea

A Taiwanese pilot was killed Thursday after his fighter jet crashed off the island's eastern coast during routine training, the air force said, in the second fatal air crash in three months.

Tony Chung: Hong Kong activist detained near US consulate charged

Tony Chung was detained as he reportedly planned to claim asylum at the US consulate.

Politics, COVID and attacks on civil service wearing on intelligence community as election approaches

A worsening pandemic and fears about losing their protections as civil servants amid political chaos is leading many intelligence officers in the U.S. government to consider leaving their agencies, according to current and former intelligence officers who spoke to Yahoo News.

Fauci says it's time for the US to 'put aside these extraordinary excuses' and mandate masks

"We have to sort of shake each other by the collar and say, 'take a look at what's going on. Look at the data. It speaks for itself,' Fauci said.

2020 polls: Can Trump pull another 2016 upset? The data says no chance

The blue wave is coming - if you believe the polls

President Erdogan accused of fuelling the anger that led to French terror attacks

The Turkish president’s bellicose rhetoric towards France over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed may have contributed to a climate of anger that led to the deadly terror attack in the city of Nice on Thursday, terrorism experts and EU politicians have said. A woman was decapitated, and two more people killed, in an attack in a church in Nice on Thursday that the city’s mayor described as terrorism after the alleged perpetrator reportedly chanted “Alllahu akbar” as he was arrested. Terrorism experts believe the attack – alongside a stabbing at the French consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and an incident in Avignon where police killed a man brandishing a gun – were retaliation by extremists for France’s hardening attitudes towards Muslims. French President Emmanuel Macron ordered a crackdown on Islamists this month, following the beheading of a teacher who showed his class caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, something many Muslims consider blasphemous and offensive. Turkish President Recep Tayipp Erdogan has led criticism in the Muslim world of Mr Macron, repeatedly saying he needed mental evaluation over his stance towards Islam.

Members of white supremacist group accused of intimating Mich. family

Two members of a white supremacist group were arrested Thursday and accused of intimidating a Michigan family, authorities said.

A woman went missing for 12 days in Zion National Park. Here's how her story led to an online frenzy

Holly Courtier was found concussed, starving and dehydrated in Zion National Park last week. Her rescue has sparked an online frenzy.

Polish president backtracks on abortion view amid protests

“It cannot be that the law requires this kind of heroism from a woman,” Duda said in an interview.

Greenwald resigns from The Intercept over Biden article

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald said Thursday he had resigned from The Intercept after the US investigative media outlet refused to publish his article critical of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Mexican president slams European coronavirus lockdown measures

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday blasted European countries for adopting strict lockdowns to stem the spread of coronavirus, suggesting they smacked of authoritarianism. Germany and France were on Wednesday preparing to announce restrictions approaching the level of spring's blanket lockdowns as COVID deaths across Europe surged. National or local authorities have already imposed nighttime curfews in several European countries, including France, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic.

Everybody is moving to Miami during the pandemic. Honestly, we’d rather you didn’t

So you want to move to Miami.

Pelosi, Trump administration trade blame over virus aid

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a scolding assessment, blaming Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for failing to produce answers to her demands for Democratic priorities as part of the approximately $2 trillion aid package. President Donald Trump again promised “a very big package as soon as the election is over" and faulted Pelosi for the pre-election standoff that has rattled markets and shows, at least for now, no signs of easing. Pelosi sent Mnuchin a letter faulting Republicans for the failed talks, which ground on for three months and cratered in the final days before the election.

Gov. Ron DeSantis had trouble voting because someone had falsely submitted a change of address under his name

Anthony Guevara, 20, was charged with altering a voter registration without consent and unauthorized access of a computer, in connection to the case.

Angela Merkel heckled in German parliament after warning against Covid 'lies and disinformation'

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, was heckled by opposition MPs during a speech to parliament on Thursday when she took aim at groups spreading "lies and disinformation" as the country continues to battle coronavirus. The speech – which took place the morning after Mrs Merkel announced a range of sweeping measures to tackle the spread of the virus – warned that the German people find themselves in a "dramatic situation". On Thursday morning, Germany recorded 16,774 new daily coronavirus infections, the highest number of new cases within a 24-hour period since the pandemic began.

Officer sues Breonna Taylor's boyfriend over emotional distress

"Walker's conduct in shooting Mattingly is outrageous, intolerable, and offends all accepted standards of decency and morality," the lawsuit notes.

'Offensive and embarrassing': Senators struggle to pronounce Google CEO Sundar Pichai's name correctly

Senators questioning Google CEO Sundar Pichai alongside Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter's Jack Dorsey couldn’t pronounce his name correctly.

UPS locates mysterious Tucker Carlson package presenter claims contains 'damning' material about Biden family

‘UPS will always focus first on our customers, and will never stop working to solve issues and make things right’

Karabakh city hit by heaviest shelling in month of fighting: official

Azerbaijan on Thursday launched its heaviest missile strikes in a month of fighting on the largest city in its Armenian-populated breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, separatist officials said.

Megyn Kelly slams Sunny Hostin over SCOTUS comments: ‘More intentionally dishonest than stupid’

Megyn Kelly is no stranger to controversy and being called out on social media, but this week she was the one taking the offensive against Sunny Hostin for what she believes to be “intentionally dishonest” rhetoric. Hostin, who serves as a co-host and political analyst on The View, slammed the Republican Party on Tuesday for stealing seats from the Democrats and pushing through right-wing judges in their place. “We all know the Republican Party has been packing the Supreme Court for decades,” Hostin said.

At least 2 killed, 7 injured in Tennessee school bus crash

The school bus was struck by a utility service vehicle operated by Service Electric that lost control and veered into oncoming traffic.

White House says medical insurance price transparency rule finalized

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday finalized a requirement for health insurance companies to disclose to the public the price they pay for covered services and prescription drugs, the White House said. "Further, insurance companies will be required to disclose the estimated cost a patient will have to pay, prior to that patient receiving care," the White House said in a statement. Healthcare costs during the coronavirus pandemic is one of the main issues in the campaign for Tuesday's presidential election in which Republican Trump trails his Democratic rival Joe Biden in opinion polls.

A mutated coronavirus strain causes most new COVID-19 infections in Europe and was spread within the continent by tourists, scientists say

The coronavirus variant, known as 20A.EU1, has been identified in 12 European countries as well as in Hong Kong and New Zealand, scientists said.

Top U.S. officials were briefed on an active threat against Pentagon leaders, say five officials

Some officials said the briefings suggested the threat may be potential retaliation for the U.S. military's killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

SCOTUS: N.C. ballots can be counted up to nine days after election

The Supreme Court will allow absentee ballots in North Carolina to be received and counted up to nine days after Election Day.

Ex-members of Nxivm say leader Keith Raniere brainwashed women into starving themselves

Nxivm leader Keith Raniere used brainwashing tactics to manipulate his followers into obeying him, ex-members said at Raniere's prison sentencing.

Jeff Bezos may be considering purchase of CNN, according to bankers

Rumours of the purchase stem from investment bankers discussing the potential sale

China pushes domestic economy, tech power in five-year plan

China's Communist leadership outlined a five-year vision Thursday to develop the country into a powerhouse centred on stronger domestic spending and tech self-reliance, but held back from the usual practice of issuing an overall economic growth target.

He knew he was going to jail for ‘stealing Bank of America,’ Florida Keys deputies say

A routine DUI stop last Friday in the Florida Keys netted a man wanted for four years on multiple grand theft charges and accusations he used someone else’s identity to withdraw money from local banks.

Pompeo says AES of US, PetroVietnam to sign $2.8B LNG deal

The U.S. energy firm AES and PetroVietnam plan to soon sign an agreement on a $2.8 billion liquefied natural gas project, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday. Pompeo made the comments in pre-recorded remarks to a business conference hosted both online and in person in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital. Later Wednesday, the State Department announced that Pompeo had added a stop in Vietnam to his Asia tour this week.

Jeff Van Drew, congressman who ditched Democrats for Trump, struggling in reelection race

A congressman who switched from the Democratic Party to join Republican ranks is struggling in his ace for reelection.

Fact check: Images show Melania Trump, not a body double

A photo of President Donald Trump and Melania Trump has revived a conspiracy theory that the White House uses a body double for the first lady.

Lindsey Graham Is Being Boosted by a Tea Party Group That Has Always Hated Him

It’s no secret that Sen. Lindsey Graham is in the fight of his political life in the closing days of his campaign to win reelection to the U.S. Senate.“I’m getting overwhelmed,” Graham begged on-air with Fox News’ Sean Hannity last month, as his Democratic rival Jaime Harrison brought in a record-shattering $57 million in donations to unseat him. “Help me—they’re killing me money-wise. Help me.”But with ersatz ally President Donald Trump nowhere to be seen, a group that once despised Graham—and whose most prominent members have spent months propping up bizarre conspiracy theories, posting wildly racist content on social media, and undermining confidence public health guidelines in the midst of the pandemic—are coming to the rescue.The question is, does Graham want their help?“This is not a time for us to be squabbling over differences of opinion,” Pressley Stutts, chair of the Greenville Tea Party, said at an event on Wednesday afternoon, before introducing nearly a dozen grassroots conservative leaders “to stand tall” with Graham.“Sen. Graham is in the race of his life,” said Stutts, introducing conservative activists who lambasted Harrison—or “Harris,” as several of them called him—for being a “Marxist-Leninist” who would impose socialism on South Carolina.Sam Manley, a conservative podcaster, put the stakes of the race directly: “If you ever vote your way into socialism, you’ll have to shoot your way out.”This ringing endorsement for Graham’s re-election—which included Michael LaPierre, who tried to primary Graham this year—amounts to a cease-fire between the Palmetto State’s most well-known elected official and a coterie of some of his most dedicated trolls. During the Tea Party wave in 2010, Graham—once seen as one of the most mainstream members of the Republican Party—became one of the movement’s most loathed “RINOs,” or Republicans In Name Only. Leaders of the state’s Tea Party chapters attempted to recruit then-Gov. Mark Sanford to primary Graham after he voted to confirm Justice Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, and one speaker at a Greenville Tea Party rally that year made accused Graham of “trying to sell out your own countrymen” to avoid being outed.For his part, Graham once relished his battles with the state’s most conservative activists, calling the inter-party skirmishes “more fun than any time I’ve been in politics,” but with polls showing Graham in a statistical dead heat with Harrison, the senator is scrambling to resolve those well-documented problems with voters who have largely moved from the Tea Party to Team MAGA—even though the group’s brand of politics couldn’t be less in sync with Graham’s own.Stutts, the group’s chair, is a longtime critic of vaccinations, and has publicly discouraged people from wearing face masks during the coronavirus pandemic and spread the conspiracy theory that billionaire Bill Gates is working to reduce the human population.Why Hasn’t Trump Come to Lindsey Graham’s Rescue?Stutts has even claimed in an April interview that a potential vaccine for COVID-19 could possibly “contain a microchip” for the government to track its citizens.“Even if it doesn’t contain a microchip, I could foresee the day, because right now you have to show your ID or your passport and here in South Carolina, we have to get that real ID just to fly commercially,” Stutts said on a conservative YouTube vlog at the time. “And I can see the point where they're going to say, okay, show me your vaccination papers next.”At one Greenville Tea Party event in 2018, Stutts even hosted a talk with Jennifer Smith, who described herself as a “naturopath,” who referenced the baseless theory that vaccines cause autism and said that she did not get her newborn son vaccinated for Hepatitus B because he was “not a promiscuous homosexual” or an IV drug user.Among the group’s other featured speakers at recent events include John Guandolo, the leader of a Dallas-based anti-Muslim group who was forced last year to pay $600,000 in a civil lawsuit for assaulting a county sheriff after the man confronted him about passing around hate literature at a meeting of the National Sheriffs’ Association.The group has also held protests against social distancing rules in South Carolina, which Graham has said are critical to stopping the spread of the virus, despite rising rates of infection in the state.“Tired of putting up with an onerous and inept government?” the group posted on Facebook in September. “Join us September 15th and let your voice be heard, too. Our legislators need to know that we've had enough! Show up. Stand up. Speak up! It's your family that has been negatively affected… ThugArmy mount up!!”Greenville Tea Party members and business partners have made even more extreme claims. Dan Harvell, a taxpayer advocate who spoke at Wednesday’s event and said that he was supporting Graham for the sake of “the traditional American values that we will have for our children,” has posted memes claiming that Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for vice president, slept her way to becoming San Francisco’s district attorney, and has called former first lady Michelle Obama a “race-baiter.”The Graham campaign did not respond to a request for comment about whether he disavowed the support of the Greenville Tea Party and its members, and neither did the group. But state Democrats called the dynamic of Graham playing along with a group he once despised the latest in a long arc of allowances the senator has made under Trump.“This is yet another demonstration of the extreme lengths Sen. Graham is going to in order to save his flailing campaign,” said Manuel Bonder, coordinated campaign spokesperson for the South Carolina Democratic Party. “Instead of scrambling to consolidate his support amongst fringe conspiracy theorists who know he is a hypocrite, Sen. Graham should focus on leading South Carolina through this crisis and delivering the relief working families and businesses desperately need.”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.

Kavanaugh corrects controversial opinion after Vermont fact-checks false claim about mail-in voting

Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos called out Kavanaugh's "erroneous claim" and called for a public correction

'Biggest thing to happen to renters since WWII': why this US eviction expert is optimistic

Matthew Desmond, author of Pulitzer prize winner Evicted, has found inspiration in how US housing activists have mobilized in response to the pandemic and economic crisisThe already acute eviction crisis in the US has been made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis, which has put 30 to 40 million Americans at risk of eviction.But one of the top eviction experts in the US, Matthew Desmond, has found inspiration and optimism in how housing activists have mobilized in response to the crisis and seen their bold policy ideas turned into policy in return.Desmond’s Pulitzer prize-winning book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City followed eight families in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, struggling to keep their housing. In 2017, he founded the Eviction Lab, which created America’s first national eviction database.“What the pandemic did is reveal just how many American renters are living incredibly close to an eviction notice,” Desmond told the Guardian.The revelation has given way to a rapid shift in government support for social safety net policies believed to be unthinkable in the US in recent decades, such as eviction moratoriums.Some politicians have even introduced legislation to reflect the movement to cancel rent for everyone during the pandemic, which was inspired by protests and rent strikes in major cities this spring. The movement aims to also carve out a fund for independent landlords who don’t benefit from tax breaks and subsidies made available to large firms.Desmond said the cancel rent campaign, as well as tenant mobilization movements born out of the 2008 recession, are “not just trying to promote renter rights and protections, but really trying to get Americans to think hard about: is our current system built on a sandy foundation?”In September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a moratorium on most evictions for non-payment of rent to last to the end of the year, citing public health concerns because of the Covid-19 outbreak.It followed an eviction ban Congress signed into law in late March to run through late July. Most states, and some cities, also had their own temporary eviction bans in place during this period and a few have been extended.The most recent federal moratorium has been criticized because it is being inconsistently enforced and renters will owe the back rent when the moratorium expires, but Desmond said it was “an unequivocally important thing”.“I would argue it’s the biggest thing to happen to renters since the rent freezes in World War II,” Desmond said. “It’s going to save lives, it’s a big deal.”Desmond explained how at the beginning of the pandemic, housing organizers in New York City suggested a local eviction moratorium and were laughed at and told it was impossible.“And then they did it in New York, and then North Dakota and then almost everywhere else,” Desmond said. “So to move from a place where we’re like, ‘we can’t have an eviction moratorium in a blue state or a city that has the most renting households’ to a place where the nation has one is a big move.”In some ways, the situation in the US has become so dire the country’s only option was to force change. Desmond said that the affordable housing crisis had never been as acute as it is today.Before the pandemic hit, about 3.7m evictions were filed in the US in an average year – that’s about seven evictions each minute. Most poor renting families spent at least half of their income on housing costs and about one in four of those families spent more than 70% of their income on housing costs.And when those facts collided this year with an economic recession which disproportionately affects people of color, women and low-wage workers, activists were quick to respond.Desmond said the current level of aggressive tenant mobilization echoes what happened after the Great Depression, when activism paved the way for major changes in US housing law.“That isn’t to say nothing has happened since the Great Depression, a lot has, but it was a moment of real tenant activism and action, and so what came out of that? Literally public housing and rent control came out of that,” Desmond said. “So I do think we’re seeing a real resurgence and it has deep echoes to the tenant mobilization in the 1940s.”This mobilization is also coinciding with the largest sustained protests against racial injustice in decades.In the months before those protests began, the country’s biggest demonstrations had been about rent. There was overlap between those activists and the ones who took to the streets against systemic racism after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis.> Housing has been such a deep mechanism in America for institutionalized racism“Housing has been such a deep mechanism in America for institutionalized racism,” Desmond said, pointing to the fact that most white families in the US own their homes and most Black and Latino families don’t.“Just by that alone, which is the product of historical legacies and the systematic dispossession of people of color from the land, you have a group of folks that are just massively, disproportionately exposed to the eviction crisis,” Desmond said. “And one of the calls that kept coming up when people talked about a radical rethinking of public spending to promote public safety was housing, housing, housing.”Desmond said housing was the country’s main driver of inequality and that returning to the way things were before the pandemic would be unacceptable.“Going back to normal is like going back to a situation where the entire population of Seattle is threatened with eviction every month, that’s normal,” Desmond said. “There are reasons to be optimistic and there are places to find real inspiration, and I think that for me to see the building organization on the ground with tenant movements is a place for real inspiration. And to see many of their bold ideas turned into federal policy, I think that’s reason for inspiration – there’s also real deep reasons for concern.”

Venezuela's Maduro says Amuay refinery was hit by a 'terrorist attack'

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday said the country's Amuay oil refinery was victim of a terrorist attack on Tuesday that involved a "powerful weapon", but said the country had gasoline reserves equivalent to 20 days of consumption. An explosion hit a distillation unit at the 645,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) plant on Tuesday, people familiar with the matter said, though there were no reports of injuries. "Yesterday, the Amuay refinery - one of the most important refineries in Venezuela and Latin America - was attacked with a long, powerful weapon," Maduro said at a press conference, adding that the government was seeking to determine what kind of weapon was involved.

Jack Dorsey says the New York Post Twitter account will remain locked until it deletes the original tweet featuring its Hunter Biden story

Dorsey spoke during a committee hearing on Section 230, the law that states tech firms cannot be held liable for content published on their platforms.

A North Carolina pastor is accused of peeing on a woman while she was sleeping on a Delta flight

"I jump up and I seen his private area out and I screamed and that woke everybody up," Alicia Beverly told a local news outlet on October 14.

Mother’s body decayed for years in home she shared with her adult children, TN cops say

Police found her skeleton buried under a pile of clothes on a bed

April the Giraffe's youngest calf dies at Texas zoo

‘This condition was entirely unexpected and unpreventable’

Melania Trump: the reluctant first lady

Melania Trump has been at the receiving end of criticism about everything from her words to her clothes. At times, she has seemed less than enthralled with life in the White House.

What's the truth behind claims Pakistani MPs chanted 'Modi'?

Media reports said the Indian prime minister's name was used during a vote in Pakistan's parliament.

Citing a burden on minority voters, US judge overrules Texas governor's exemption for masks at polls

The judge said Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's exemption for masks at polling sites put a "discriminatory burden on Black and Latino voters.”