Lanez was convicted last December on three felony charges stemming from the shooting, and on Tuesday he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. At his sentencing Lanez said he still cares about Megan, called her his friend, and said they had bonded over the losses of their mothers. Curiously, he also shared, “I said some very immature things that I shouldn’t have said. I revealed some secrets I shouldn’t have revealed,” as though shooting a partner is some kind of free speech argument.

But the road to holding Lanez accountable for his brutal domestic violence was was anything but smooth. Megan Thee Stallion was re-victimized at every turn. Misogynoir took over, as is typically the case for Black women reporting sexual assault or domestic violence.

Many Black men on social media (and some women, too) were quick to call Megan a liar, make fun of the shooting, and immediately side with Lanez.

Rappers like Drake and 50 Cent mocked her. Drake, for his part, wrote the song, “Circo Loco,” featuring lyrics that accused Megan of lying about the shooting, while 50 Cent posted an insensitive meme of Megan running while being shot. (Not too long after, 50 Cent apologized to Megan, saying, “Damn I didn’t think this shit was real…It sounded so crazy,” which kind of illustrates the overall problem of Black women not being believed.)

Throughout the trial, Megan was taunted by blogs tearing apart every piece of her testimony, going through her sexual history, and trying to diminish her story. Some hip-hop blogs and entertainment industry bloggers blatantly supported Tory Lanez, ignoring the facts of the case and essentially misleading the public. Podcasts and social media included theories that Megan thee Stallion wasn’t shot at all—focusing on her sexual history and portraying her as an aggressor deserving of whatever happened.

When people incredulously ask why victims don’t report abuse, this is why.

Megan Thee Stallion gave a poignant first-hand account to Elle magazine in April 2023 about her long ordeal—including that she mistakenly expected that, after getting shot by her boyfriend, she would be believed.

Tory Lanez continues to insist he’s innocent, and that if he is guilty, it’s because of his alcoholism and childhood trauma, as reported by PopBase. Lanez makes pleas for therapy, not prison. And even after being found guilty, more then 70 letters of support for Lanez (including one from pop star Iggy Azalea) were sent to the sentencing judge.

But if Megan Thee Stallion, a multi-award winning artist, was nearly threatened into silence—afraid to report violence against her and push for charges—what does this say for the average Black woman suffering?

Domestic violence is one of the most pervasive struggles affecting American women, and studies show Black women are affected at higher rates than any other race or ethnicity. While 31 percent of all women experience domestic violence, for Black women it’s 40 percent, according to the Institute of Women’s Policy Research.

In fact, most Black women have a friend or family member that has fallen under the weight of domestic violence. Sadly, many have been murdered.

Contrary to popular belief, there is no particular profile of domestic violence. It’s not just the weak, meek, and mild woman with low self-esteem and little money. There isn’t a single look to the victims—everyone from your neighbor to supermodels actresses and entertainers like Halle Berry, Tina Turner, Rihanna, and Megan Thee Stallion have faced partner violence.

Financial hardships and uncertainty often discourage Black women from reporting abuse or pressing charges, but the realities of the criminal justice system also affect their decisions, especially if the perpetrator is also Black.

According to domestic violence support advocate and Ohio state Rep. Vanessa Summers, “We know that African American men are more apt to go [through] the criminal justice system, and we don’t want to send them—even if they shot us in the head.” Summers added, “We don’t trust the police because we don’t want to get our man in trouble, but there has to be a way to break that cycle.” Before serving in the Indiana House of Representatives, Summers worked at the Julian Center, a domestic violence treatment Center in Indianapolis.

If Black women can’t always afford to leave abusive relationships, and are overwhelmed by a culture that doesn’t believe they can be victims, on top of the urge to not report due to institutionalized racism in the justice system—what avenues do they have to stop a cycle that can literally kill them?

Domestic violence is one of the leading causes of death for Black women between 15 and 35, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Black women are three times more likely than white women to die at the hands of a domestic partner.

These statistics aren’t just numbers. They are moms, they are friends, they are neighbors, they are essential workers—they are victims of systems that need to change. We know what happens if domestic violence goes undeterred…women die.

President Joe Biden fought for and succeeded in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)—increasing domestic violence victims’ access to services and support, calling on federal law enforcement to hold perpetrators accountable, and enhanced protective orders across state lines. But much work needs to be done in expanding its impact across low-income and communities of color.

Common sense gun reforms could go a long way in closing the so-called “boyfriend loophole,” keeping guns out of the hands of abusers. Unfortunately, conservatives don’t support life-saving changes to gun laws, like this one.

There has to be a cultural and societal shift in protecting women and believing women, particularly Black women, who are victims of abuse at the highest rates.

If a global superstar like Megan Thee Stallion had to navigate the hoops of misogynoir, victim-shaming, public humiliation, and anti-Black woman tropes to find justice, think of what everyday Black women must do to get a fraction of the attention much less justice delivered. We have to do better. Lives depend on it.

The post What Tory Lanez’s Sentencing Means For Black Women appeared first on The Daily Beast.

Visible phone plans are some of the cheapest in the industry, which is great considering its service runs on a carrier known to be the most expensive. This Verizon-backed wireless provider uses the very same 5G cellular network, albeit with modest data restrictions.

It couldn’t be simpler to decide which Visible plan to go with. Visible and Visible Plus are your only two options, and both offer unlimited talk, text, data, and mobile hotspot (limited to 5-megabit speeds during network congestion on the basic plan and slowed after 50GB of usage on Plus). You also get unlimited talk and text to Canada and Mexico.

Best deals on Visible phone plans

Visible regularly discounts its already affordable service, and those offers change constantly. Typically, you might be able to save $5 to $10 on several months of service. No such offers are available as of writing, but keep checking back as Visible refreshes them periodically.

Visible also offers gift cards up to $200 when purchasing a phone with your plan. Those savings are scant right now, but you can also take advantage of deals on unlocked phones elsewhere to activate a plan. For instance, current Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 deals allow you to get the phone cheaper than buying straight from Visible. Just activate your SIM card after purchasing your desired service plan.

And right now, if you purchase your phone with Affirm financing and pay at least 50% off, Visible is offering to pay the remaining 50% when you upgrade to the next model.

Want to try the service free? If you own an unlocked iPhone XS/XR or higher, you can try Visible free for 15 days. Visible allows you to try the full service without strings, and you don’t need to cut ties with your previous carrier.

Visible vs. Visible Plus: what’s the difference?

The most significant difference between Visible and Visible Plus is that the latter offers access to Verizon’s fastest 5G Ultra Wideband (UW) network, which has faster speeds and better reliability in congested areas—if you can even access it. 5G UW is only available in select markets and requires specific phones. You’ll also get broader international calling and texting options, and the “Premium Network Experience” guarantees you full speeds up to 50GB, even during peak traffic hours.

If you’d like to read more about the network and how it handles in the real world, be sure to take a look at our in-depth Visible Wireless review.

The post Best deals on Visible phone plans in August 2023: as low as $20 monthly for Verizon-like service appeared first on Business Insider.

Against the backdrop of high casualties emerging from areas like the Donbass, another statistic has escaped public attention, Braga said: “Sixteen thousand Russian soldiers have deserted. Sixteen thousand have been taken off the battlefield without having to expend kinetic rounds. That’s probably a combination of effects…I would suggest that have been assisted by space capability, cyber capability, human capability, and just old-school information operations there,” he said during the Space Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.

“The importance of information ops, I think, it’s the most important lesson learned from Ukraine right now. And it does apply to Taiwan or the INDOPACOM scenario,” he said, referring to the effort to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. 

As the U.S. military has shifted away from the Middle East to counter China and Russia, U.S. special operations forces have begun to emphasize the role of rapid access to data and asymmetrical capabilities like drones and cyber effects. Braga said the war in Ukraine illustrates what those capabilities look like when they are employed as part of a coordinated effort, with each leg of the triad providing support to the overall structure. And the United States is not alone in reaching that realization. 

Lt. Gen.  Maria Barrett, commander of U.S. Army Cyber Command, pointed out that effective influence campaigning requires assured access to networks and, therefore, potentially denying the adversary the opportunity to use their own networks, their own systems of information dispersion. “If you’re out there navigating in gray space, looking at adversary networks, and you’re also over here looking at how a competitor may be delivering its influence messages, at some level, you get to a cyber layer. And so that’s where the synergy comes in between Information Operations and cyber. If you want to have an effect, you can have an effect by delivering the right awesome content to counter a message where you can actually understand the infrastructure in which it’s being delivered.” 

This is important because our familiarity with cyberwarfare as a public is much less evolved than that of many other nations, like Estonia. But consider how an adversary might view that same opportunity set. We experience hacking and leaking campaigns such as the 2016 Russian active measures effort as events that affect other people involved in politics. We don’t consider how an adversary might scale that experience to affect us, individually. Cyberwarfare in the future could mean limited access to information spaces we take for granted.

Said Braga, “Each leg of the triad, we’re seeing our adversaries being very aggressive, obviously in gray zone actor activities, irregular warfare, certainly in the space domain and certainly in the cyber domain for a long time. And as that price point and entry point lowers, and continues to lower [for deploying cyber effects, information warfare, etc.], it’s going to be even more important that we don’t have three disparate efforts, but one converged effort on the holistic use and synergy of the triad moving forward.”

Developing those capabilities jointly will make each one more powerful, and give policymakers better tools to decide how the United States should use them for deterrence or before a conflict starts, he said.  “When you bring on a new piece of equipment, a new weapon system, a new technique, it’s a question every time for policymakers, ‘Are you contributing towards escalation or towards deterrence?’ We have to be better at developing those capabilities for the policymakers and being able to deliver on those effects in order to make informed decisions [and make] a larger contribution to actual strategic deterrence there,” he said. 

Combining multiple intelligence threads and capabilities together will also be key to U.S. efforts to defeat enemy swarming drones, Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey, director of the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office, also said on Tuesday. That means combining things like high-power microwaves with smaller drones, or even ballistic interceptors, and doing so in a way that avoids firing expensive and dangerous missiles at small drones. 

Ukraine, again, provides a clear example of the sort of drone problem that the United States could face. “We heard that Ukraine was going through about 10,000 UAS encounters in a month. How does the U.S. Army counter these kinds of numbers if we’re going to be in an active conflict?” Gainey said.

The post Space-cyber-special operations triad critical for future wars, says Army special operations head appeared first on Defense One.

An investigation by U.S. and Australian officials led to the arrests and the release of 13 children, according to an announcement Tuesday.

FBI legal attaché Nitiana Mann said in a media briefing that 79 people had been arrested by U.S. authorities and 43 had been convicted. Police in Australia indicated that they had arrested 19 men.

The Australian Federal Police said that its investigation began in 2022 when the FBI provided information about a “technologically sophisticated child abuse network” involving Australians who created child abuse images and videos and used the dark web to circulate the content.

“The complexity and anonymity of these platforms means that no agency or country can fight these threats alone,” said Mann.

That investigation involved a 2021 incident at the apartment of David Lee Huber in Sunrise, Florida, during which he fired upon FBI agents attempting to serve a search warrant for child abuse charges. Huber killed two agents, Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger, and injured three others before turning the gun on himself.

“After their murder the FBI commenced an international operation targeting offenders on the platform,” said Australian police.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement at the time that the two agents “exemplified heroism today in defense of their country.”

The men arrested in Australia were aged between 32 and 81 years old, according to Australian police. They indicated that additional arrests might be made in the case.

“We see it as a significant outcome and it should serve as a warning to those who are preying on our most vulnerable,” said Australian Federal Police Cmdr. Helen Schneider.

“We are looking for you, and we will find you and arrest you,” she added.

Here’s a local news report about the arrests:

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The post Nearly 100 suspects arrested and 13 children rescued in child sex abuse case related to deaths of two FBI agents appeared first on TheBlaze.

The temperature rose to 46.4 degrees Celsius (115.5 Fahrenheit) in Santarem, central Portugal, on Monday, a record for 2023 according to provisional data from the meteorological office.

More than 1,000 firefighters backed by 10 water-bomber planes were battling a blaze that has already burned thousands of hectares near Odemira, southwestern Portugal, not far from the tourist hub of the Algarve.

Nearly 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) have been blackened since Saturday, Vitor Vaz Pinto of the civil protection agency said, adding that the blaze was still spreading “on two fronts”.

Local media reported that one home as well as a rural tourist lodging had been destroyed, which had not yet been confirmed by authorities.

Nearly 1,500 people, residents as well as tourists, have been evacuated from the area.

“It was terrible, there were flames everywhere and we had to scramble. Nobody was there to help us, thankfully I had three friends who came to help,” Ana Costa, a farmer in the region, told AFP.

Around 40 people, including 28 fire officers, have been given emergency medical treatment.

Heatwave alerts

A separate wildfire that has already destroyed around 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) in Leiria, central Portugal, calmed somewhat overnight on Monday.

Across the country, nearly 2,800 firefighters and 16 water-bombers were in action on Tuesday.

Weather warnings remained in place in both Portugal and Spain.

Much of the southern half of Spain was on orange alert on Tuesday, with the weather service saying temperatures were expected to top 44C on Tuesday and Wednesday, which are predicted to be the fiercest days of this heatwave, the third in the country this year.

The Spanish met office (AEMET) issued maximum red alerts for parts of Andalusia in the south, the Madrid region in the centre and the Basque Country in the far north.

More than 1,000 hectares of land were destroyed by flames in Spain over the weekend.

A fourth large wildfire broke out on Monday in Estremadura, central Spain, near the border with Portugal. Firefighters were unable to contain it overnight.

In total, wildfires have destroyed 100,000 hectares of land across the Iberian Peninsula this year, according to preliminary estimates. This is on top of the record 400,000 hectares destroyed last year.

The post Portugal, Spain battle wildfires amid heatwave alerts appeared first on France 24.

OpenUSD is a 3D framework designed to foster interoperability between software tools and data types for creating virtual worlds. It has a chance to become the lingua franca of the 3D content, including the universe of virtual worlds known as the metaverse.

To bolster the development of OpenUSD, Nvidia has introduced a portfolio of cutting-edge technologies and cloud application programming interfaces (APIs), including ChatUSD and RunUSD. These APIs, along with the newly launched Nvidia OpenUSD Developer Program, are poised to drive the widespread adoption of OpenUSD, amplifying its potential impact.

The investments made by Nvidia in OpenUSD build upon its co-founding of the Alliance for OpenUSD (AOUSD), an organization formed in collaboration with industry leaders such as Pixar, Adobe, Apple, and Autodesk. The AOUSD aims to establish standardized OpenUSD specifications, facilitating seamless integration and cooperation across the industry.

In a keynote at Siggraph, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang expressed his enthusiasm for OpenUSD, likening its potential to the transformative impact of HTML on the 2D internet. Huang believes that OpenUSD will spearhead the era of collaborative 3D design and industrial digitalization. He said Nvidia is fully committed to advancing and promoting OpenUSD through the development of Nvidia Omniverse and generative AI.

As part of its OpenUSD initiative, Nvidia has introduced four new Omniverse Cloud APIs, developed in-house, to enable developers to seamlessly implement and deploy OpenUSD pipelines and applications:

RunUSD: This cloud API utilizes path tracing to render fully path-traced images by checking the compatibility of uploaded OpenUSD files against different OpenUSD releases. Developers can generate renders using Omniverse Cloud, and a demo of the API is available for developers in the Nvidia OpenUSD Developer Program.

ChatUSD: Powered by the Nvidia NeMo framework, ChatUSD is a large language model (LLM) agent capable of generating Python-USD code scripts from text and answering USD-related queries. This groundbreaking model will assist developers and artists in working with OpenUSD data and scenes, democratizing OpenUSD expertise. ChatUSD will soon be available as an Omniverse Cloud API.

DeepSearch: DeepSearch is an LLM agent designed for fast semantic search through vast untagged asset databases, streamlining asset discovery and retrieval.

USD-GDN Publisher: This one-click service empowers enterprises and software developers to publish high-fidelity, OpenUSD-based experiences to the Omniverse Cloud Graphics Delivery Network (GDN). It allows real-time streaming to web browsers and mobile devices, enhancing accessibility and user experience.

In addition to these cloud APIs, Nvidia is also focusing on evolving OpenUSD functionality to address diverse industrial and perception AI workloads. Nvidia is developing geospatial data models that enable the creation of simulations and calculations for true-to-reality digital twins of factories, cities, and even the Earth. To ensure accurate representation, these models account for the curvature of the planet.

To enable seamless integration of diverse datasets, Nvidia is working on a metrics assembly for OpenUSD, allowing users to combine different datasets accurately. Furthermore, Nvidia is developing SimReady 3D models that incorporate realistic material and physical properties. These models are crucial for training autonomous robots and vehicles, enabling them to interact with the physical world accurately.

The post Nvidia makes contributions to OpenUSD framework for 3D content appeared first on Venture Beat.

In speeches, social media posts and ads, Mr. Trump has repeatedly declared the prosecutions a political witch hunt, and he has cast himself as a martyr who is taking hits from Democrats and the government on their behalf.

“They want to take away my freedom because I will never let them take away your freedom,” Mr. Trump told the crowd at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Tuesday. “They want to silence me because I will never let them silence you.”

In two previous campaigns, 2016 and 2020, Mr. Trump presented himself to voters as an insurgent candidate who understood their grievances and promised to fight for them. Now, however, Mr. Trump has made his 2024 race principally about his own personal grievances — attempting to convince supporters to see themselves in him. He continues to argue, falsely, that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and to present it as a theft also against his voters. The legal jeopardy he now faces from multiple indictments, he tells followers, is the sort of persecution that they, too, could suffer.

There is evidence that the message is resonating.

Lorraine Rudd, who attended Mr. Trump’s appearance in New Hampshire, said that after his third indictment last week, in a point-by-point 45-page account of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, she felt that she, too, could be wrongly prosecuted.

“If they can do it to him and take him down, they can come for me,” Ms. Rudd, a 64-year old Massachusetts resident, said.

She said she firmly agreed with Mr. Trump’s false claim that he won the 2020 election. “What, am I next?” she said.

In March, when Mr. Trump announced his candidacy before any indictments, he told supporters, “I am your retribution.” The shift to the recent plaint of “I am being indicted for you” suggests a further tailoring of his campaign pitch, as he paints the criminal cases against him as an effort to prevent him from returning to the White House.

In June, after being charged with retaining government secrets, Mr. Trump told a Republican gathering in Michigan: “Essentially, I’m being indicted for you.”

On Aug. 3, the day of his third indictment, for seeking to overturn the 2020 election, Mr. Trump posted on his social media site that facing fraud and obstruction charges in Washington was an “honor” because, as he wrote in all caps, “I am being arrested for you.”

Portraying himself as a victim of the criminal justice system — and echoing themes from when he faced an investigation over Russian influence in the 2016 campaign and his first impeachment — has served to consolidate Republican support around Mr. Trump.

Since his very first indictment in March, in New York on charges related to payments to a porn star, Republican voters have buoyed Mr. Trump in polls. Congressional Republicans, mindful that the party base has largely embraced Mr. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, have leaned into investigations of what they call the “weaponization” of federal law enforcement. And many of Mr. Trump’s 2024 Republican rivals have repeated his pledge to fire the F.B.I. director and end the Justice Department’s traditional independence from the White House.

In a New York Times/Siena College poll released last week, before Mr. Trump’s latest indictment, 71 percent of Republican voters said he had not committed serious federal crimes and that Republicans needed to stand behind him.

When a long-shot challenger of Mr. Trump, former Representative Will Hurd of Texas, told a Republican gathering in Iowa recently that the former president was running not to represent people who supported him in 2016 or 2020 but “to stay out of prison,’’ Mr. Hurd was booed.

In public comments, Mr. Trump’s lawyers have indicated they will mount a free-speech defense in the latest case related to the 2020 election. They have argued that anything Mr. Trump said leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot were merely “aspirational” requests. Those include lying about widespread fraud to voters, pressuring Mr. Pence to ignore the Constitution and asking Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” enough additional votes to help him win the state.

The former president and his allies in the conservative media and in Congress are simultaneously waging a battle for public opinion by accusing Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son, of misconduct in business dealings and trying to tie allegations of shady practices to Mr. Biden himself when he was vice president. Investigations led by House Republicans have turned up no evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden, but the effort has convinced many Republicans that Mr. Trump’s indictments are part of a conspiracy to divert scrutiny from Mr. Biden and his family.

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump promised to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Bidens, his likely political rival should he win the G.O.P. nomination. He also continued his personal attacks on Jack Smith, the special counsel in the federal cases against Mr. Trump, calling him “deranged.”

And without referring to her by name, he criticized Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., who is Black, as a “racist.” She is overseeing a separate investigation into alleged efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to interfere with the election in the state, where he lost to President Biden.

With Mr. Trump dominating every Republican primary poll, a few 2024 rivals have lately been more direct in challenging him on the subject of the 2020 election.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said this week that “of course” Mr. Trump lost re-election in his most blunt acknowledgment yet of a reality he has tiptoed around for three years. Former Vice President Mike Pence, who could be a star witness in a trial focused on Jan. 6, said that Mr. Trump pushed him to “essentially overturn the election.”

Roughly an hour northwest of Mr. Trump’s rally on Tuesday night, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, one of Mr. Trump’s toughest critics in the race, mocked the former president’s proclamations.

“As I’m walking around Ukraine, he’s waltzing into a courtroom in Washington, D.C., to tell us that he’s being indicted for us. For us! How lucky are we! That we have such a selfless, magnanimous leader,” Mr. Christie said, prompting laughter and a sprinkling of applause. “Because you know that the government was coming to get you and on their way to get you, lo and behold, they came across Donald Trump and they said, ‘Okay, we won’t get you, we’ll get him, for you.’”

The narrative of unfair persecution by the criminal justice system, which Republicans as the party of law and order once staunchly defended, has taken strong root among Mr. Trump’s supporters.

Steve Vicere, who drove all the way from his home in Florida to see Mr. Trump in New Hampshire, said the indictments were a “diversion” and represented attempts by Democrats to stop Mr. Trump from regaining power.

“Everyday freedoms are being systematically taken away, and nobody ever gets held accountable,” Mr. Vicere, 54, said.

Dean Brady, a limo driver from Newmarket, N.H., embraced Mr. Trump’s message that he was taking a hit on behalf of his supporters.

“He’s representing us,” Mr. Brady, 60, said. “He’s not in it for himself, he could quit this and just go on with life. He’s up there because he loves America and he cares about us.”

But not all Republican voters embrace Mr. Trump’s sense of victimhood. Jean Davis, who attended a barbecue in Iowa on Sunday to hear seven of Mr. Trump’s G.O.P. rivals, said that his latest indictment ought to disqualify him as a candidate.

Her husband, Russ Davis, who supports Mr. DeSantis, said that if Mr. Trump were to become the nominee, his chances of defeating Mr. Biden would be “next to nothing.”

“There are so many people on the Republican side who just can’t get past his loud mouth,’’ he said.

The post Trump Tells Supporters His Criminal Indictments Are About ‘You’ appeared first on New York Times.

The existence of the Dec. 6, 2020, memo came to light in last week’s indictment of Mr. Trump, though its details remained unclear. But a copy obtained by The New York Times shows for the first time that the lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, acknowledged from the start that he was proposing “a bold, controversial strategy” that the Supreme Court “likely” would reject in the end.

But even if the plan did not ultimately pass legal muster at the highest level, Mr. Chesebro argued that it would achieve two goals. It would focus attention on claims of voter fraud and “buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump’s column.”

The memo had been a missing link in the public record of how Mr. Trump’s allies developed their strategy to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory. In mid-December, the false Trump electors could go through the motions of voting as if they had the authority to do so. Then, on Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally count those slates of votes, rather than the official and certified ones for Joseph R. Biden Jr.

While that basic plan itself was already known, the memo provides new details about how it originated and was discussed behind the scenes. Among those details is Mr. Chesebro’s proposed “messaging” strategy to explain why pro-Trump electors were meeting in states where Mr. Biden was declared the winner. The campaign would present that step as “a routine measure that is necessary to ensure” that the correct electoral slate could be counted by Congress if courts or legislatures later concluded that Mr. Trump had actually won the states.

It was not the first time Mr. Chesebro had raised the notion of creating alternate electors. In November, he had suggested doing so in Wisconsin, although for a different reason: to safeguard Mr. Trump’s rights in case he later won a court battle and was declared that state’s certified winner by Jan. 6, as had happened with Hawaii in 1960.

But the indictment portrayed the Dec. 6 memo as a “sharp departure” from that proposal, becoming what prosecutors say was a criminal plot to engineer “a fake controversy that would derail the proper certification of Biden as president-elect.”

“I recognize that what I suggest is a bold, controversial strategy, and that there are many reasons why it might not end up being executed on Jan. 6,” Mr. Chesebro wrote. “But as long as it is one possible option, to preserve it as a possibility it is important that the Trump-Pence electors cast their electoral votes on Dec. 14.”

Three days later, Mr. Chesebro drew up specific instructions to create fraudulent electors in multiple states — in another memo whose existence, along with the one in November, was first reported by The Times last year. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot also cited them in its December report, but it apparently did not learn of the Dec. 6 memo.

“I believe that what can be achieved on Jan. 6 is not simply to keep Biden below 270 electoral votes,” Mr. Chesebro wrote in the newly disclosed memo. “It seems feasible that the vote count can be conducted so that at no point will Trump be behind in the electoral vote count unless and until Biden can obtain a favorable decision from the Supreme Court upholding the Electoral Count Act as constitutional, or otherwise recognizing the power of Congress (and not the president of the Senate) to count the votes.”

Mr. Chesebro and his lawyer did not respond to requests for comment. A Trump spokesman did not respond to an email seeking comment.

The false electors’ scheme was perhaps the most sprawling of Mr. Trump’s various efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It involved lawyers working on his campaign’s behalf across seven states, dozens of electors willing to claim that Mr. Trump — not Mr. Biden — had won their states, and open resistance from some of those potential electors that the plan could be illegal or even “appear treasonous.” In the end, it became the cornerstone of the indictment against Mr. Trump.

While another lawyer — John Eastman, described as Co-Conspirator 2 in the indictment — became a key figure who championed the plan and worked more directly with Mr. Trump on it, Mr. Chesebro was an architect of it. He was first enlisted by the Trump campaign in Wisconsin to help with a legal challenge to the results there.

Prosecutors are still hearing evidence related to the investigation, even after charges were leveled against Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the matter. The House committee last year released emails its investigators obtained showing that Mr. Chesebro had sent copies of the two previously reported memos, one from Nov. 18 and another from Dec. 9, to allies in the states working on the fake electors’ plan.

But he did not attach his Dec. 6 memo to those messages, which laid out a more audacious idea: having Mr. Pence take “the position that it is his constitutional power and duty, alone, as president of the Senate, to both open and count the votes.” That is, he could resolve the dispute over which slate was valid by counting the alternate electors for Mr. Trump even if Mr. Biden remained the certified winner of their states.

Mr. Chesebro, who is described as Co-Conspirator 5 in the indictment but has not been charged by the special counsel, addressed the second memo to James R. Troupis, a lawyer who was assisting the Trump campaign’s efforts to challenge Mr. Biden’s victory in Wisconsin.

By the next day, the indictment said, Mr. Chesebro’s memo had reached Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer.

According to the indictment, Mr. Giuliani, who is referred to as Co-Conspirator 1, spoke with someone identified only as Co-Conspirator 6 about finding lawyers to help with the effort in seven states. An email reviewed by The Times suggests that particular conspirator could be Boris Epshteyn, a campaign strategic adviser for the Trump campaign who was paid for political consulting. That day, Mr. Epshteyn sent Mr. Giuliani an email recommending lawyers in those seven states.

As he had done in the earlier memo, Mr. Chesebro cited writings by a Harvard Law School professor, Laurence H. Tribe, to bolster his argument that the deadlines and procedures in the Electoral Count Act are unconstitutional and that state electoral votes need not be finalized until Congress’s certification on Jan. 6. Mr. Chesebro had worked as Mr. Tribe’s research assistant as a law student and later helped him in his representation of Vice President Al Gore during the 2000 election.

Calling his former mentor “a key Biden supporter and fervent Trump critic,” Mr. Chesebro cited what he described as Mr. Tribe’s legal views, along with writings by several other liberals as potential fodder for a messaging strategy. It would be “the height of hypocrisy for Democrats to resist Jan. 6 as the real deadline, or to suggest that Trump and Pence would be doing anything particularly controversial,” he wrote.

But in an essay published on Tuesday on the legal website Just Security, Mr. Tribe said Mr. Chesebro’s Nov. 18 memo “relied on a gross misrepresentation of my scholarship.”

For one, Mr. Chesebro quoted a clause from a law review article by Mr. Tribe about Bush v. Gore as support for the idea that the only real legal deadline is Jan. 6. That was taken out of context, Mr. Tribe wrote, saying he was only narrowly “discussing the specifics of Florida state law.” Mr. Chesebro, by contrast, made it sound as if he was putting forward “a general proposition about the power of states to do what they wish regardless of the Electoral Count Act and independent of the deadlines set by Congress,” he added.

For another, Mr. Chesebro cited a constitutional treatise in which Mr. Tribe wrote that a past Congress cannot bind the actions of a later Congress, which Mr. Chesebro used to buttress his proposal that parts of the Electoral Count Act are unconstitutional. But Mr. Tribe wrote that what he meant was Congress can pass new legislation changing such a law.

The indictment also accuses Mr. Trump and his unindicted co-conspirators of acting with deception in recruiting some of the fraudulent electors. That included telling some of them that their votes for Mr. Trump would be used only if a court ruling handed victory in their state to Mr. Trump.

The Dec. 6 memo dovetails with that approach. Mr. Chesebro wrote that Mr. Pence could count purported Trump electors from a state as long as there was a lawsuit pending challenging Mr. Biden’s declared victory there. But he also proposed telling the public that the Trump electors were meeting on Dec. 14 merely as a precaution in case “the courts (or state legislatures) were to later conclude that Trump actually won the state.”

Mr. Chesebro also suggested he knew that even that part of the strategy would draw blowback.

“There is no requirement that they meet in public. It might be preferable for them to meet in private, to thwart the ability of protesters to disrupt the event,” he wrote, adding: “Even if held in private, perhaps print and even TV journalists would be invited to attend to cover the event.”

The post Previously Secret Memo Laid Out Strategy for Trump to Overturn Biden’s Win appeared first on New York Times.

He shot Megan Thee Stallion at pool party in the Hollywood Hills in July 2020.

In December last year, a jury found Lanez, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, guilty of carrying a loaded and unregistered firearm in a vehicle, assault with a semiautomatic handgun and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.

Megan Thee Stallion, whose real name is Megan Pete, previously said she needed surgery and spent four days in hospital undergoing physical therapy before she could walk again.

In a statement read in court Monday, the said she had not experienced “a single day of peace” since she was shot just over three years ago.

“He not only shot me, he made a mockery of my trauma,” she said.

Sentence rocks hip-hop community

Judge David Herriford said he received more than 70 letters on Lanez’s behalf, including from his celebrity friends like Australian rapper Iggy Azalea, who he said had requested a sentence that was “transformational, not life-destroying.”

Lanez asked the judge for leniency, saying he takes responsibility for what he did.

“If I could turn back the series of events that night and change them,” I would, Lanez said on Tuesday. “The victim was my friend. The victim is someone I still care for to this day.”

Herriford said it was “difficult to reconcile” the kind person and good father many people described Lanez as being during the hearing with the person who fired the gun at Megan Thee Stallion.

The sentence brings to an end a dramatic dispute in the hip-hop community that cast a spotlight on the reluctance of Black victims to speak to police, gender politics in hip-hop, online toxicity, and calls to better protect .

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon said, after December’s verdict, that women, especially Black women, are often afraid to report crimes such as because they are too often not believed.

“I hope that Ms Pete’s bravery gives hope to those who feel helpless,” he said at a news conference after the sentencing on Tuesday.

zc/jsi (AP, Reuters)

The post Tory Lanez gets 10 years for shooting Megan Thee Stallion appeared first on Deutsche Welle.

Tech. Entertainment. Science. Your inbox.

Sign up for the most interesting tech & entertainment news out there.

Email:

SIGN UP

By signing up, I agree to the Terms of Use and have reviewed the Privacy Notice.

That’s just one improvement. Google also makes it easier to remove explicit images from Google Search results, including revenge porn.

Revenge porn is a term that describes the online distribution of sexually explicit images without the consent of the individual shown in them. Once online, these images and videos are almost impossible to hide. And, again, Google isn’t actually able to delete anything from the internet. That’s up to the people hosting those websites.

But removing the images and videos from Google Search is a good start. It makes those images and videos more difficult to find on the world’s biggest search engine. Note that other search engines might still display results containing your data.

Google says in its recent Google Search privacy update that it has always had policies that “enable you to remove non-consensual explicit imagery” from Google Search.

The company has a support document that explains what you have to do to remove explicit or intimate personal images from Google.

Google is now building on those features. It will let users remove any “personal, explicit images that they no longer wish to be visible in Search.” This isn’t just about revenge porn. It should protect creators who no longer want to have their explicit content show up online:

For example, if you created and uploaded explicit content to a website, then deleted it, you can request its removal from Search if it’s being published elsewhere without approval. This policy doesn’t apply to content you are currently commercializing.

As you can see, Google’s policy change doesn’t mention revenge porn; its scope is bigger than that.

However, the implication is that removing revenge porn from Google Search results should be easier than before. Again, once such content becomes available on the web, it’s nearly impossible to remove. What’s more likely to happen is for it to show up in other places. This makes it almost impossible to suppress those images or videos.

Google’s update to Google Search privacy should make it easier for victims to remove results once they appear on other websites. Hopefully, it’s a situation you’ll never have to deal with. But if you do need help, you should check out Google’s blog post on the matter. And head to this link for more information on how to get started with your Google Search removal requests.

The post How to remove revenge porn from Google Search appeared first on BGR.

Federal criminal courts long have prohibited cameras or recording devices of any kind, but the momentous nature of the Trump case already has seen Capitol Hill lawmakers argue for an exception, and a coalition of major news organizations is expected to make some sort of appeal to the judicial branch.

Yet as unlikely as Depp/Heard-like live coverage of Trump’s federal case seems, given futile efforts so far to secure camera or audio of the proceedings, legal experts say that there are other options that would at least expand what is available.

Other options include:

• Audio coverage. During Covid, the Supreme Court started to allow live audio streaming of oral arguments, a move that boosted hopes for further expanded access. There also was a break from precedent at district courts during the pandemic, as the public and media were allowed to listen to virtual proceedings, as long as they weren’t recording or broadcasting them. Audio also would address a central concern that judges have about cameras in the court — that they inadvertently might show jurors.
• Partial coverage. Another option is to allow cameras or audio for portions of the proceedings, like attorney opening and closing statements. That is far short of being able to transmit the most compelling aspects of the Trump trial — think Mike Pence’s testimony — but it is something that would convey the experience in the room. Some federal appellate courts already allow cameras to capture oral arguments.
• Tape delay. The Supreme Court in 2000 saw the unprecedented nature of the Bush v. Gore case and allowed the release of audio of oral arguments just shortly after they finished. That sounds like a pretty minimal step today, but it was a big deal at the time, as the justices had traditionally waited for a month to release those recordings. The point, according to University of Minnesota Law Professor Jane Kirtley, is that there have been moments when the high court has recognized when a case has such a large-scale public impact that it is necessary to break from longtime tradition. “My own gut feeling is the only way this is going to work is if the Judicial Conference, and [Chief Justice] John Roberts is approached with the argument of the exceptional nature of this case and that this is a one-off,” she said.
• Virtual courtrooms. Cameras already were in the courtroom when Trump appeared for his arraignment in Washington, D.C. The purpose, though, was to provide a video feed to public overflow and media rooms within the courthouse. Cameras and recording still were prohibited in those rooms, but it at least opened up the proceedings to more than 200 additional members of the public and media. One idea that has been floated in the past is to expand those virtual proceedings to other courthouses around the country. It’s far short of any kind of broadcast, but it still would mean more people can watch. This idea was floated back in 2010, when a federal trial over California’s ban on same-sex marriage was set to begin. Although the judge in the case approved of the plan for the virtual transmissions, defendants objected and the Supreme Court put the kibosh on it.

Attorney Ted Boutrous, who was part of the legal team representing plaintiffs in the Prop 8 case, has been a big supporter of cameras in the courtroom and said that there is ample example of judges being “very good at managing the circumstances.” He also noted that modern technology has made equipment less disruptive, while there are plenty of hybrid examples that have tested and have worked.

“It’s hard to argue against it, especially if the defendant is willing to support it,” he said.

That seems to be the case. Over the weekend, Trump’s attorney John Lauro told CNN he personally wanted cameras allowed.

In an op-ed in The New York Times this week, Court TV founder Steven Brill wrote: “The last thing our country and the world needs is for this trial to become the ultimate divisive spin game, in which each side roots for its team online and on the cable news networks as if cheering from the bleachers. Much of that would still happen, but imagine how a quiet and methodical but sure to be riveting presentation of both sides’ arguments — subject to the rules of evidence and decorum of a federal court, not the algorithms of Facebook and Twitter — might temper the national mood when a verdict is announced.” 

But he was clear-eyed about what it might take to allow for cameras or any other rule change, for that matter. The U.S. Judicial Conference, chaired by Roberts, would have to vote to suspend the rules prohibiting cameras, as would the judicial council of the D.C. Circuit. There also would be a change to the federal rules of criminal procedure.

Boutrous, who has represented the news media in a number of cases and issues of access, said that there is still time to do so before a trial, perhaps eight months to a year. While Brill and Kirtley say that the appeal should be the extraordinary circumstances of the Trump case, Boutrous said that it may be better to seek a rule change that could apply to all circumstances and now be “Donald Trump specific.”

As Trump was arraigned in his New York state criminal case in April, the judge did allow for a brief moment where still cameras could capture the former president and his attorneys, but they had to stop when the proceedings started. There is a bit of a conflict in New York law when it comes to trial court proceedings, but media can request to broadcast or record any proceeding that does not include witness or party testimony, according to the Radio and Television Digital News Association.

Trump also faces the prospect of charges in Georgia, where state courts do not have a blanket prohibition. The rules say that a “properly submitted request for recording should generally be approved,” but judges still have discretion.

“It would be somewhat strange for viewers to be able to see that trial and not the federal trial,” Boutrous said, albeit he said that he believes that courts will still be respected even if cameras are not allowed. “But there is so much public benefit.” He and others point to an adage: “The public can trust more of what they see.”

Kirtley notes that Minnesota courts have a policy that generally has restricted cameras of criminal proceedings, but Peter Cahill, the judge in Derek Chauvin’s trial for the murder of George Floyd, allowed for access, in part because of the obvious importance of the case and because of Covid restrictions otherwise limited in-person attendance. Cameras still were not allowed to show those testifying, with audio only, but Kirtley said that the experience showed that a judge’s concerns can be worked out.

“None of the things that naysayers said would happen happened,” she said, noting that Attorney General Keith Ellison had shifted from opposing cameras to supporting them.

“All of the arguments about cameras being a distraction and about the potential intimidation of witnesses — those are all things that judges have the inherent authority to control,” she said.

Federal courts have tested the idea of cameras in the courts going back to the 1990s but always have come out against it. With the sensationalism of the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial in Los Angeles, a state proceeding, “suddenly cameras became the scapegoat,” she said, noting that federal courts operate under stricter rules.

“All of those things they worry about can be dealt with,” she said.

C-SPAN, which long has advocated for cameras in the Supreme Court and increased access in Congress, is part of a national media coalition advocating for access to the Trump federal and state trials, according to a spokesman. The channel “stands ready to provide live, gavel-to-gavel coverage of these trials on its TV and digital platforms on behalf of an informed public,” the spokesman said.

The most recent effort to ease the federal court policy in the Trump cases took place in June, when a media coalition requested limited camera access to Trump’s arraignment and the release of audio recordings immediately following the proceedings.

The coalition, which included major networks and news publications, argued that “the special and historic nature of this case warrants, at the very least, a limited, non-disruptive visual record before the hearing begins.”

The response from Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman was not only to reject the request but to deny electronic devices anywhere in the courthouse, including an overflow room with a video feed. That left networks scrambling to devise unique ways to get the news out about Trump’s not guilty plea.

While that was a last-minute request, past efforts to secure camera access to cover federal trials and pre-trial proceedings have had limited success.

In the 2010 Prop 8 case, the judge also was set to allow YouTube to stream the proceedings, albeit not live, and it eventually would be part of a Ninth Circuit pilot program to test cameras in the courtroom for civil proceedings. After the Supreme Court halted the plan, the proceedings still were videotaped — with Boutrous among those arguing at least for that historic record. But it was only last year, after records were sealed for a decade and then some extensive legal wrangling, were they made public. (The link to the proceedings is here.)

Despite experiments with cameras in federal district proceedings — some Ninth Circuit districts have continued a pilot program for civil cases — Judicial Conference has stuck with the status quo.

So far, the public’s information about Trump’s criminal case proceedings has come from journalists’ own accounts, something that will get more complicated once trials begin, or later in the day when official transcripts are released (for a hefty price). At the very least, in places where electronic devices are allowed in overflow rooms, there will be heavy reliance on fast typists for something close to real-time transcripts

With no cameras or audio feed, it would be up to the networks or major news organizations to come up with alternatives. When the Prop 8 case was unfolding, two filmmakers took to enlisting a group of actors for re-enactments of each day’s proceedings, based on court transcripts.

Thirteen years later, with advances in AI, could something else be possible?

The post Will Donald Trump’s Trials Be Televised? Courts Can Consider An Array Of Options To Boost Access To Momentous Proceedings appeared first on Deadline.

The abortion question turned what would normally be a sleepy summer election in an off year into a highly visible dogfight that took on national importance and drew an uncharacteristically high number of Ohio voters for an August election.

With about four in 10 ballots counted, opponent 60.5 percent of voters had opposed the proposal. The total vote far surpassed the turnout recorded in the state’s last primary election in May 2022, when candidates for both governor and the state’s 15 House seats were on the ballot.

The contest was seen as a major test of growing efforts by Republicans nationwide to curb voters’ use of ballot initiatives, and a potential bellwether of the political climate in next year’s national elections.

The heart of the Legislature’s proposal, which it enacted largely along party lines in May, required that amendments to the State Constitution gain approval by 60 percent of voters, up substantially from the current requirement of a simple majority. Republicans initially pitched that as an attempt to keep wealthy special interests from hijacking the amendment process for their own gain.

But from the start, that was overtaken by weightier arguments, led by — but hardly confined to — the abortion debate.

The Ohio Legislature passed some of the nation’s strictest curbs on abortion last year in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. State courts have yet to rule on the constitutionality of those curbs, but the law’s passage drove a successful grass-roots campaign this year to place an abortion-rights amendment on the November ballot.

Raising the threshold for adopting an amendment to 60 percent of votes would put the fate of the proposed amendment in doubt. In two polls, 58 percent and 59 percent of respondents supported granting a constitutional right to abortion access.

In the 111 years that Ohio voters have had the power to propose and vote on ballot initiatives, only about a third of constitutional amendments managed to exceed 60 percent, according to the political data website Ballotpedia.

Other provisions in the Tuesday referendum sought to raise hurdles even to putting amendments on the ballot. One required backers of amendments to gather a minimum number of signatures from all 88 Ohio counties instead of the current 44 counties. Another eliminated their ability to correct errors in signatures that were rejected by state officials.

The Legislature’s move to raise barriers to new amendments came weeks before that campaign delivered petitions with roughly a half million verified signatures to state offices, more than enough to force the November vote. And Tuesday’s election has become something of a proxy for the November election, with supporters of abortion access and anti-abortion forces waging a multimillion-dollar preview of the coming battle.

Ballotpedia estimated last week that at least $32.5 million has been spent on the battle, split roughly equally between the two sides. Eight in 10 dollars came from donors outside Ohio, that estimate said, including $4 million from a single donor, Richard Uihlein, the Illinois founder of a nationwide packing and shipping company, Uline Inc., who is one of the country’s most prolific patrons of right-wing causes.

Other out-of-state donors to supporters of the legislature’s proposal include Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a Washington, D.C. anti-abortion advocacy group that has contributed nearly $6.4 million. The Concord Fund, one of several organizations controlled by Leonard Leo, who has overseen campaigns to confirm Republican nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court, is another donor.

The leading out-of-state donors to opponents of the Legislature’s proposal include the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a Washington D.C. supporter of progressive causes that gave $2.64 million; the Tides Foundation, another donor to progressive causes that gave $1.88 million; and Karla Jurvetson, a Palo Alto, Calif., physician and supporter of Democratic candidates who donated nearly $1 million.

Beyond the battle over abortion, however, it appeared that some voters were simply put off by the tactics the Legislature used to get the proposed restrictions before voters. Republicans had outlawed almost all August elections in a vote last December, saying so few people voted in them that they had become easy prey for special interests with enough money to turn out their supporters.

The lawmakers reversed course in May when it became clear than a vote on an abortion rights amendment was likely in November. More than a few critics have noted that Tuesday’s referendum was, in essence, an election pushed by special interests with an abundance of money.

Among some who voted against the proposal, the anger over the Legislature’s tactics was all but palpable.

“This is one of the lowest, below-the-belt actions I’ve seen in politics ever,” Jim Nicholas, a medicine major at Case Western Reserve University, said outside a polling place at a middle school in Shaker Heights, a doggedly liberal Cleveland suburb.

In Miami Township, a Cincinnati suburb that went strongly for Donald J. Trump in 2020, Tom Baker, 46, called the referendum a last-minute attempt by the State Legislature to tilt the playing field in favor of “all of the touchstones the aging conservative population is trying to force on generations.”

“I don’t like the idea of changing the mechanisms of government,” he said, “especially for an agenda.”

That kind of skepticism carried no weight with many backers of the Legislature’s restrictions.

“Evil never sleeps,” said Bill McClellan, 67, as he cast a ballot at a crowded polling place in Strongsville, on Cleveland’s southwest side. “The liberals don’t like that Ohio is a red state, and they continue to attack us.”

The post Ohio Voters Reject Constitutional Change Intended to Thwart Abortion Amendment appeared first on New York Times.

Appearing on CNN, Marc Short read aloud emails he claimed were from Kellogg, Pence’s former national security adviser, on the night of Jan. 6. In the communications, Kellogg was supportive of Pence’s position: that he had solely ceremonial duties in overseeing the certification of presidential electors.

“[Kellogg] said, ‘The president is up in the residence. I recommend you stay on the Hill and finish the Electoral College issue tonight,’” Short told The Situation Room anchor Wolf Blitzer. “I responded, ‘That’s our plan.’ And he said, ‘That’s not a good plan. That’s a great plan. Close this thing out tonight.’”

CNN anchor Jim Sciutto later tweeted a photograph of the printed-out email.

“So on Jan. 6, Keith was clearly supporting the vice president’s actions,” Short explained. “I know that he’s still on Donald Trump’s payroll and perhaps that’s why he’s saying something different today.”

In his endorsement Monday, Kellogg praised Trump for “stand[ing] apart as a figure of unwavering determination, a deep vision for America, and the courage to take a stand where others wilt.” He also expressed his “disappointment in [Pence’s] recent actions regarding President Trump”–perhaps a dig at Pence’s Jan. 6-related comments after Trump’s indictment last week—and accused the former vice president of “avoiding confrontation.”

He then called out Short specifically.

“This lack of assertiveness, combined with an overreliance on failed political consultants like Marc Short, has demonstrated a laisse-faire [sic] leadership style unworthy of the Presidency.”

Also in the interview, Short claimed that although Kellogg was behind Pence in private, that was not the case in public.

“There were a lot of young men and women on our staff who stood at their posts on Jan. 6. Unfortunately, Keith was not one of them,” Short said.

“Keith was at the rally at the time that the United States Secret Service evacuated the vice president. The vice president’s national security adviser was down at the rally encouraging people to march on the Capitol,” he claimed. “So, he did not stand his post.”

The post Colleague Shares Jan. 6 Emails From Ex-Pence Adviser Who Endorsed Trump appeared first on The Daily Beast.

A witness said a group of men that included the teenager charged in the killing used homophobic slurs and told Mr. Sibley that they were Muslim, and he should stop dancing. Some initial media reports picked up that account. Mayor Eric Adams and the police held a news conference at which the mayor stressed that the killing was not evidence of Muslim hatred of gay people.

Now, it appears the man charged with Mr. Sibley’s murder is not Muslim at all. The suspect, Dmitry Popov, 17, is Christian, his lawyer said, altering at least one aspect of a killing that has drawn national attention.

Mr. Sibley’s death had raised concerns about how the charged accusations could hurt relations between two marginalized communities, gay people and Muslims. In fact, the two groups stood together.

At the news conference on Saturday, Mr. Adams, joined by leaders from the city’s gay and Muslim communities, said that both L.G.B.T.Q. people and Muslims have been victims of hate, he said, and the two communities “stand united against fighting any form of hate in this city.”

Mr. Sibley, a dancer and choreographer, was returning from New Jersey to his home in Brooklyn on the evening of Saturday, July 29, when he and his four friends stopped at the gas station, the police said. As the men filled up their car, they played music by Beyoncé and danced, and a group of men approached and told them to stop.

The men yelled homophobic slurs and anti-Black statements at Mr. Sibley and his friends, according to Joseph Kenny, an assistant chief at the Police Department’s detective bureau, at a news conference on Saturday.

Summy Ullah, a 32-year-old gas station attendant who witnessed the encounter, said one of the young men said, “I’m Muslim. I don’t want this here.”

Within minutes, the heated verbal altercation had turned violent, according to the police. Mr. Sibley was stabbed once in the chest, Mr. Kenny said. He was taken to Maimonides Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Mr. Popov, 17, a high school student from Brooklyn, turned himself in last Friday and was charged with second-degree murder, second-degree murder as a hate crime and criminal possession of a weapon. He was denied bail in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn on Monday and is being held in detention.

Court documents said that a witness heard the group with Mr. Popov say, “Stop dancing here, we are Muslim.”

But at the court hearing and in an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Popov’s lawyer, Mark Henry Pollard, pushed back against some of the initial narrative: Mr. Popov is not Muslim, Mr. Pollard said.

“He’s Christian,” he said in a phone interview. “Somehow they got it confused, he’s not a Muslim. I could understand if there were other friends that were, but he was the only person arrested.”

Right after Mr. Sibley was stabbed, Mr. Ullah tried to chase down the attacker.

“I’m Muslim myself,” said Mr. Ullah, who immigrated from Pakistan. “When I saw them dancing, I was laughing too, but I wasn’t making fun of them. Everyone has their own perspective, gay, transgender. We have gay people in our countries as well. You don’t make fun of them. They don’t say anything to you. They aren’t making fun of you.”

Sayeda Haider, 23, arrived at the gas station shortly after the stabbing and found Mr. Sibley’s friends weeping. She comforted them and told them she hoped their friend’s killer would be caught. Days later, Ms. Haider, who is Muslim, said she had reflected on the possibility that someone used her religion to justify an act of violence.

“It can’t be because of religion, because we dance,” she said. “We are strict, but we’ll dance at parties.”

In Islam, as in many religions, there are extremists who reject L.G.B.T.Q. people, she said, but she said that she had been raised to let people live their lives as they choose.

“We also came here because of freedom, because of the rights, so let other people have their rights too,” she said.

Soniya Ali, executive director of the Muslim Community Center, who also spoke at the news conference on Saturday, said it’s not a “surprise or a shock” that the narrative that the person who killed Mr. Sibley was Muslim spread in the media. Ms. Ali said she had neither experienced or witnessed any backlash from the gay community since Mr. Sibley’s killing.

She said she spoke on Saturday to show support for the L.G.B.T.Q. community in New York City, who she said were the first ones to reach out after former President Donald J. Trump instituted a travel ban soon after taking office barring visitors from six predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.

What’s important now, she said, is making sure that the focus remains on the tragedy of Mr. Sibley’s “senseless murder.”

“He was murdered. It was a hate crime,” she said. “That’s the gist of it.”

For Beckenbaur Hamilton, 51, a neighbor and friend of Mr. Sibley, the attacker’s religion is not important.

“That part isn’t even relevant,” said Mr. Hamilton, who is gay. “It doesn’t matter if he is Christian, Muslim, Jewish. If a person takes a person’s life he should be held accountable.”

The post Twist in Dancer’s Killing as Key Detail About Suspect Is Corrected appeared first on New York Times.

The rapper will perform at the city’s Toyota Center in October, which is “a different type of venue” from Astroworld’s NRG Park, Mary Benton, Mayor Sylvester Turner’s communications director, said in a statement. The announcement came a little over one month after Scott was found not criminally liable for the deaths of ten people during his 2021 show. 

“Before today’s announcement, Toyota Center representatives convened meetings with public safety officials and the City’s special events office. They will continue working together to ensure this concert’s safety, not unlike the thousands of concerts held at Toyota Center each year,” Benton said. 

The Houston Police Officers’ Union expressed its dismay at the news, noting that it had received information Scott would play one concert in October and another in November. 

“Like most we were in complete disbelief that anyone would approve of Travis Scott or the production company having another concert,” union president Douglas Griffith said in a statement. “Just two weeks ago we were asking for prayers and healing for the families of the Astroworld tragedy and then we are once again opening those wounds with announcing another concert.”

“We believe that it is unreasonable to allow this concert to go forward and call upon elected officials to stand up and say, not in our city, not again!” Griffith said.

Neither show was listed on Toyota Center’s events calendar on Tuesday evening.

A Harris County grand jury didn’t find enough evidence to criminally charge Scott or others connected to the concert with a role in the deaths, CBS affiliate KHOU reported on June 30.

The “mass casualty incident” occurred after 9 p.m. at Scott’s show on Nov. 6, 2021, when a crowd began to “compress” toward the front of the stage, “and that caused some panic, and it started causing some injuries,” Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña said at a news conference the day after the tragedy. 

The jury’s conclusion came after a 19-month investigation by the Houston Police Department that involved digital evidence, witness statements and chronology reports, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said.

S. Dev

S. Dev is a news editor for CBSNews.com.

The post Travis Scott to perform in Houston for first time since Astroworld appeared first on CBS News.

A witness said a group of men that included the teenager charged in the killing used homophobic slurs and told Mr. Sibley that they were Muslim, and he should stop dancing. Some initial media reports picked up that account. Mayor Eric Adams and the police held a news conference at which the mayor stressed that the killing was not evidence of Muslim hatred of gay people.

Now, it appears the man charged with Mr. Sibley’s murder is not Muslim at all. The suspect, Dmitry Popov, 17, is Christian, his lawyer said, altering at least one aspect of a killing that has drawn national attention.

Mr. Sibley’s death had raised concerns about how the charged accusations could hurt relations between two marginalized communities, gay people and Muslims. In fact, the two groups stood together.

At the news conference on Saturday, Mr. Adams, joined by leaders from the city’s gay and Muslim communities, said that both L.G.B.T.Q. people and Muslims have been victims of hate, he said, and the two communities “stand united against fighting any form of hate in this city.”

Mr. Sibley, a dancer and choreographer, was returning from New Jersey to his home in Brooklyn on the evening of Saturday, July 29, when he and his four friends stopped at the gas station, the police said. As the men filled up their car, they played music by Beyoncé and danced, and a group of men approached and told them to stop.

The men yelled homophobic slurs and anti-Black statements at Mr. Sibley and his friends, according to Joseph Kenny, an assistant chief at the Police Department’s detective bureau, at a news conference on Saturday.

Summy Ullah, a 32-year-old gas station attendant who witnessed the encounter, said one of the young men said, “I’m Muslim. I don’t want this here.”

Within minutes, the heated verbal altercation had turned violent, according to the police. Mr. Sibley was stabbed once in the chest, Mr. Kenny said. He was taken to Maimonides Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Mr. Popov, 17, a high school student from Brooklyn, turned himself in last Friday and was charged with second-degree murder, second-degree murder as a hate crime and criminal possession of a weapon. He was denied bail in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn on Monday and is being held in detention.

Court documents said that a witness heard the group with Mr. Popov say, “Stop dancing here, we are Muslim.”

But at the court hearing and in an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Popov’s lawyer, Mark Henry Pollard, pushed back against some of the initial narrative: Mr. Popov is not Muslim, Mr. Pollard said.

“He’s Christian,” he said in a phone interview. “Somehow they got it confused, he’s not a Muslim. I could understand if there were other friends that were, but he was the only person arrested.”

Right after Mr. Sibley was stabbed, Mr. Ullah tried to chase down the attacker.

“I’m Muslim myself,” said Mr. Ullah, who immigrated from Pakistan. “When I saw them dancing, I was laughing too, but I wasn’t making fun of them. Everyone has their own perspective, gay, transgender. We have gay people in our countries as well. You don’t make fun of them. They don’t say anything to you. They aren’t making fun of you.”

Sayeda Haider, 23, arrived at the gas station shortly after the stabbing and found Mr. Sibley’s friends weeping. She comforted them and told them she hoped their friend’s killer would be caught. Days later, Ms. Haider, who is Muslim, said she had reflected on the possibility that someone used her religion to justify an act of violence.

“It can’t be because of religion, because we dance,” she said. “We are strict, but we’ll dance at parties.”

In Islam, as in many religions, there are extremists who reject L.G.B.T.Q. people, she said, but she said that she had been raised to let people live their lives as they choose.

“We also came here because of freedom, because of the rights, so let other people have their rights too,” she said.

Soniya Ali, executive director of the Muslim Community Center, who also spoke at the news conference on Saturday, said it’s not a “surprise or a shock” that the narrative that the person who killed Mr. Sibley was Muslim spread in the media. Ms. Ali said she had neither experienced or witnessed any backlash from the gay community since Mr. Sibley’s killing.

She said she spoke on Saturday to show support for the L.G.B.T.Q. community in New York City, who she said were the first ones to reach out after former President Donald J. Trump instituted a travel ban soon after taking office barring visitors from six predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States.

What’s important now, she said, is making sure that the focus remains on the tragedy of Mr. Sibley’s “senseless murder.”

“He was murdered. It was a hate crime,” she said. “That’s the gist of it.”

For Beckenbaur Hamilton, 51, a neighbor and friend of Mr. Sibley, the attacker’s religion is not important.

“That part isn’t even relevant,” said Mr. Hamilton, who is gay. “It doesn’t matter if he is Christian, Muslim, Jewish. If a person takes a person’s life he should be held accountable.”

The post Twist in Dancer’s Killing as Key Detail About Suspect Is Challenged appeared first on New York Times.

Aug 8 – Canadian rapper Tory Lanez was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 years in prison, more than seven months after he was convicted of shooting fellow musical artist Megan Thee Stallion during an argument in 2020.

Judge David Herriford handed down the sentence to the 30-year-old rapper, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, during a hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court that had been pushed back by delays.

On Dec. 23, a jury found Lanez guilty of carrying a loaded and unregistered firearm in a vehicle, assault with a semiautomatic handgun and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.

Lanez was accused of shooting Grammy-winning rapper Megan Thee Stallion, 28, injuring her feet after a pool party in the Hollywood Hills in July 2020.

The shooting was preceded by an argument that became heated when the two began attacking each other’s music careers, she told the court during the two-week trial.

Megan Thee Stallion, who was born Megan Pete, needed surgery and spent four days in the hospital before physical therapy allowed her to walk again.

She did not attend the sentencing hearing, saying she could not bear to be in the same room as Lanez but wrote a statement that was read in court on Monday, the New York Times reported.

“He not only shot me, he made a mockery of my trauma,” the statement said. “This is a statement for all survivors that their lives matter and there is zero tolerance for the torture that accompanies violence.”

Jose Baez, a defense lawyer representing Lanez, told reporters outside the courthouse that he thought the sentence was too harsh and that Lanez would appeal his conviction, saying he had not received a fair trial. Lanez’ lawyers had sought a sentence of probation.

“I have seen homicide case, other cases where there’s a death and the person still gets less than 10 years,” Baez said. “It’s just another example of somebody being punished for their celebrity status, someone being utilized as an example.”

Megan Thee Stallion won Grammy awards for best new artist, best rap performance and best rap song in 2021. She has also been nominated for six more.

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, whose office prosecuted the case, said after December’s verdict that women, especially Black women, are afraid to report crimes such as assault and sexual violence because they are too often not believed.

“The fact that Ms. Pete is a successful entertainer has brought the spotlight on the important issue of violence against women,” he told reporters after the verdict.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The post Rapper Tory Lanez sentenced to 10 years in prison for shooting Megan Thee Stallion appeared first on Reuters.

The annual contest, which pits fanbases against each other in a battle for supremacy, saw SB19’s A’TIN and SEVENTEEN’s Carats going head-to-head in a fierce final battle that showcased their fans’ unmatched passion and dedication.

After 64 acts and five rounds, A’TIN was the last fandom standing in a very close match, bagging 51.1% of the votes.

“We really appreciate all of your efforts,” SB19’s Stell told fans after their win.

The Billboard Fan Army Face-Off has become an iconic event that not only celebrates the artists but also highlights the influential role that fan communities play in boosting their idols to global stardom.

This year’s showdown between SB19 and SEVENTEEN was particularly significant due to the massive impact the two groups have had on the international music scene.

SB19, a P-Pop idol group that debuted in 2018, made history by becoming the first Southeast Asian act to win the Billboard Fan Army Face-Off. The group, consisting of members Pablo, Stell, Ken, Josh, and Justin, has been a trailblazer in breaking down barriers and gaining recognition beyond the Philippines.

A’TIN, the passionate fandom supporting SB19, rallied to secure victory in the face-off, showcasing their dedication and commitment to the group’s success.

The 13-member SEVENTEEN also boasts a dedicated global fanbase known as Carats. The group has captivated audiences with their vocal prowess and energetic performances.

Carats have been instrumental in driving SEVENTEEN’s popularity both domestically and internationally, with their fans coming from all over the world.

SB19’s victory in the 2023 Billboard Fan Army Face-Off marks a significant milestone not only for the group but also for the broader Southeast Asian music scene. The win shows the growing recognition and influence of Filipino music and culture on the global stage.

Billboard

The post SB19’s A’TIN Beats SEVENTEEN’s Carats In 2023 Billboard Fan Army Face-Off appeared first on International Business Times.

Don’t own shot glasses? Or drinking your shots out of a regular sized glass? Well, you’re wrong. Doing a shot is a central cultural experience no matter where you’re from—even without alcohol it’s one of the things that ties all humans together. In my opinion, the only acceptable reason to not own any good shot glasses is if you exclusively do body shots off of a hot person (in which case please let me know what time to come over). Otherwise, do yourself (and your future guests) a favorite and invest in at least one set of glasses that make you feel cool. They don’t have to be expensive or especially nice; you just need to feel good drinking out of them. Plus, having a decent shot glass is a way to honor the spirit that you’re about to enjoy. Tequila simply tastes better out of a nice, tall shot glass. Fernet just hits the right way out of, well, literally any mid shot glass. Anyway, I am explicitly telling you that it’s your duty as a citizen of the world to own at least two shot glasses that you like. Here are some of our faves.

The OG style

Here’s your typical heavy base shot glass you’ll find in any dive bar, mid restaurant, or bowling alley. They’re perfect, and you should own some of these. They make whiskey taste perfect; don’t ask me how.

The beautiful and eternal red cup

Doing jello shots? Or trying to toast up with more people than you have actual glasses for? There’s a shot glass for that. When Kanye said, “This that red cup all on the lawn shit,” he was talking about glasses like these (though probably bigger ones, but who can really know what Kanye is thinking at any given moment?). If you typically drink with more than 10 people, stay stocked with these.

Never forget why we drink

You wouldn’t be sitting here on the porch listening to Garth Brooks if our forefathers hadn’t fought to make it this way. Honor them with every sip by getting some shot glasses commemorating the Declaration of Independence (and that also look like shotgun shells for some reason).

Bartender, your nicest bottle of Jack Daniel’s, please

Trying to be fancy without actually having to get crystal? This diamond-pattern glass from Crate & Barrel brings the elevated “Jay Gatsby was here” vibe, but also you can smash it after shooting (because we all know that sometimes a shot only counts if you break something after).

Behold, your tall and sexy shot of tequila (or whatever)

Some shots taste better out of tall gasses. I don’t know why—I’m no scientist. These are fun and elegant, though.

These are unusual shot glasses

Want something that says, “Yeah, I’m doing a shot, but I’m not like other people that do shots?” We love Viski, and this is a good option if you’re someone who likes glassware that makes everyone go “what the [redacted] is that?” Serve your dinner guests a little nip in one of these and they’ll be ready to head to the opera (or to see Oppenheimer).

Mezcal “tasting cups”

Masienda is one of our fave brands, and these ceramic Mezcal glasses are just gorgeous. You’ll definitely enjoy using them for the half second it takes you to shoot—uh, sorry, taste—your Mezcal.

Hear ye, hear ye, this is the shot glass I use most

It’s true. Whether I’m sipping on an amaro at the end of the night or jamming some rye with a homie before the big Carly Rae Jepsen The War on Drugs show, I use this bad boy pretty regularly. It’s durable, dependable, and French—it’s Duralex.

The after-dinner shot is a very specific kind of shot

Give me a sip of Fernet-Branca or Sfumato in one of these after dinner and I’m pretty much guaranteed to [redacted]. Because nothing’s as good as a little digestif in the right glass.

Shots! Shots! Shots!

The Rec Room staff independently selected all of the stuff featured in this story. Want more reviews, recommendations, and red-hot deals? Sign up for our newsletter.

The post The Best Shot Glasses for Toasting Up With the Crew appeared first on VICE.

Soldier of Fortune publisher Susan Katz Keating made the shocking claim, citing three security sources, in a report published Sunday — even texting a number linked to President Biden in a bid to sniff out the culprit.

According to Keating, while the Secret Service publicly announced July 13 they had closed the investigation without identifying a suspect due to a “lack of physical evidence,” authorities were able to follow enough clues to come up with a name — and were confident enough in their detective work to inform the commander-in-chief.

“If you want the name, ask Joe Biden,” one source told Keating. “He knows who it is.”

“It was someone within the Biden family orbit, and it wasn’t Hunter,” said a second source, referring to the president’s adult son — an admitted recovering drug addict.

Keating then said she texted a number provided by the White House, purportedly to send Biden SMS messages, and asked point-blank: “Three trusted sources tell me the Secret Service gave you the name of the person who brought the cocaine into the Executive Mansion. Is this true; and if so, can you please confirm the name?”

The message from Keating bounced back with the label “Not Delivered.”

The Post sought to replicate the process by texting the same number provided in the Soldier of Fortune article. The response appeared to be an automated text linking to the Community messaging platform.

Last July, the White House announced Biden had joined Community, a text messaging system in which celebrities can communicate with ordinary folks directly.

Biden’s team rolled out a Delaware-based phone number for the platform, encouraging everyday citizens to share their personal experiences with gun violence.

The Post has not been able to independently confirm or corroborate Keating’s report. The White House and Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Prior to purchasing Soldier of Fortune and becoming its publisher in May 2022, Keating worked as a reporter at the Washington Times covering security issues before moving to the Washington Examiner to become a senior editor.

“I noted the text because every other method I tried brought no results. I am getting a lot of good information from sources, but I have to give the White House / Biden the opportunity to respond,” Keating told The Post.

“I sent several text messages, as per their offering. Each time, it bounced back as undelivered. I published the screen shot to show that I used the method the White House told me to use, and it didn’t work. I wanted to document that I made the attempt.”

On July 2, a Secret Service agent on a routine patrol flagged roughly one gram of cocaine in a storage locker inside the West Wing executive entrance, according to GOP lawmakers briefed on the matter.

The illicit drug was discovered one floor below the Oval Office and steps from the Situation Room — though administration officials noted the latter room has not been used for months due to ongoing renovations.

There were also no cameras situated in a position to capture footage of the offender, the protective agency told lawmakers.

The quickness of the public investigation and the inability — or unwillingness — of law enforcement to identify who brought illegal drugs into one of the most secure buildings in the world caused shock and outrage among Republicans and other Biden critics.

“I wonder where that cocaine came from, what happened?” former President Donald Trump riffed at a New Hampshire rally Tuesday.

“That was the quickest investigation I’ve ever seen,” he added.

Last month, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre snapped at a Post reporter who sought assurances that the dimebag was not the property of a Biden family member.

“You know, there has been some irresponsible reporting about the family,” Jean-Pierre said. 

“The Biden family was not here,” Jean-Pierre stressed. “They were not here. They were at Camp David. They were not here Friday, they were not here Saturday or Sunday, they were not even here Monday. They came back on Tuesday. So to ask that question is actually incredibly irresponsible, and I’ll just leave it there.” 

The cocaine was discovered on a Sunday night, two days before the Independence Day holiday.

Biden had departed for Camp David the Friday before the discovery, accompanied by Hunter, who attracted suspicion after pool reports noted he had been spotted around the White House that day.

Cocaine is a Schedule II drug under the Controlled Substance Act and its possession, use and distribution are illegal under federal law.

Last year, the Secret Service also discovered trace amounts of marijuana in the White House. The year before that, five members of President Biden’s staff were fired for past pot use, with one terminated aide claiming to the Daily Beast that the White House was “exclusively targeting younger staff and staff who came from states where it was legal.”

The post White House cocaine belonged to ‘Biden family orbit’ member: report appeared first on New York Post.

Pazder was a key figure in the PGA Tour’s controversial merger deal with the Saudi backers of the LIV Golf League, the framework agreement with the Saudi Public Investment Fund revealed in June.

Last month, Pazder was appointed to the Player Benefit Program committee to try and determine compensation for PGA Tour players who did not jump to LIV, whose record $25 million purses and guaranteed money for 54-hole events had lured several top players.

Pazder was also on a task force to decide possible paths back to the PGA Tour for LIV players who might want to return after the merger deal, which must still be ratified by a PGA policy board now including Tiger Woods, who gives players a majority on the panel.

Pazder is the second PGA Tour executive to resign within a month. On July 9, former AT&T chairman Randall Stephenson resigned his position on the PGA Tour policy board, expressing concerns about the planned agreement with the Saudis.

Tour executive vice president Tyler Dennis, who helped handle PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan’s duties when he took a leave in June and July over medical issues, will assume Pazder’s responsibilities, according to reports.

The move by Pazder, who began working for the tour in 1989, comes two days before the start of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs, the three final events of the 2022-23 campaign.

The post PGA chief events and competitions officer Pazder resigns: reports appeared first on France 24.

The post said “no spoilers.”

But leave it to TikTok to provide the possible reveal. According to a viral TikTok video, McDonald’s restaurants plan to serve a “Loki” sweet and sour sauce. The video, posted by a person who goes by the handle “mo0nf0x,” has received more than 122,000 views.

@mo0nf0x

new sauce alert. try the new Loki sweet and sour sauce at mcdonalds. it’s for our new meals in August in honor of loki. #loki #lokiseries #marvelstudios #marvel #mcdonalds #augustmeal #manager #fypシ #fypage

♬ original sound – blossom

“Just a friendly reminder: Get to your local McDonald’s so you can get the new Loki sauce because, you know, you don’t want to miss out. Gonna be delicious. I already like it . See you later,” the video states. The poster appears to be a McDonald’s worker and their TikTok feed includes other behind-the-scenes restaurant videos.

McDonald’s did not return a request for comment, but the “Loki” tie-in is not a stretch.

The second season of the Disney+ series, starring Tom Hiddleston as the god of mischief, is set to debut in October. A season 2 trailer shows one of the main characters, Sylvie, working at a McDonald’s. McDonald’s X post also briefly showed the character Loki with Sylvie dressed in a vintage McDonald’s uniform.

Over the past few years, McDonald’s has seen success with meal promotions tied to celebrities such as Travis Scott, Cardi B, BTS, and Saweetie. The fast food burger giant is also embracing nostalgia. In its latest earnings call, the chain said it plans to create a spinoff restaurant called CosMc’s. The restaurant is named after a McDonaldland character named CosMc. The company saw sales soar after it brought back Grimace for his 52nd birthday with a purple shake that went viral.

The post Is McDonald’s about to drop a ‘Loki’ sauce? A viral TikTok video says yes appeared first on Business Insider.

In June, the Connecticut Racial Profiling Prohibition Project released a report that suggested that at least 25,000, but perhaps as many as 58,000, traffic tickets had been reported to the racial profiling database but had never been reported to the Centralized Infractions Bureau, the department which actually processes traffic tickets. The report also indicated that the majority of likely falsified traffic stops supposedly involved white drivers while traffic stops involving black or Hispanic drivers went underreported.

“The records we believe were not valid — and there’s a high likelihood that they could be false — were more likely to be white,” asserted Ken Barone, associate director of the Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy at the University of Connecticut and one of the authors of the report.

State Police Colonel Stavros Mellekas later clarified that no driver, regardless of race, was ever issued a “fake ticket.” Instead, as Jaden Edison of CT Mirror explained, “Troopers and constables were making up traffic stops that didn’t happen and making up demographic information for the profiling system.”

The report — the result of an audit initiated after four troopers were suspected of falsifying records for better pay and other benefits in 2018 — examined data collected from more than 1,300 troopers between 2014 and 2021. The authors of the report stopped short of accusing any trooper of intentional “wrongdoing” and noted that some of the discrepancies could have resulted from human error, technological issues, or poor training.

“Identifying statistically significant discrepancies can be evidence of wrongdoing but a formal investigation would need to confirm that, and that is beyond the scope of our audit,” the authors said in the report.

Outrage regarding the report then prompted intervention from state leaders, and chief state’s attorney Patrick Griffin launched an investigation at the behest of Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont. Last week, the DOJ announced that it had asked Griffin to suspend his office’s investigation and to give way to an independent federal investigation. Griffin agreed, noting that the DOJ has better “tools and resources” for such investigations.

“If people need to be held accountable, either in federal court or in state court, we’ll do that,” Griffin said.

So far, the four troopers whose alleged actions motivated the initial audit have already been held to some account. Two of them received brief suspensions. Two others retired before the conclusion of the internal affairs inquiry. The state has also opened a criminal investigation into the four men.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The post Troopers in Connecticut may have fabricated thousands of traffic tickets supposedly issued to white drivers to skew racial profiling data, prompting DOJ investigation appeared first on TheBlaze.

Tech. Entertainment. Science. Your inbox.

Sign up for the most interesting tech & entertainment news out there.

Email:

SIGN UP

By signing up, I agree to the Terms of Use and have reviewed the Privacy Notice.

A new report claims that Google’s latest Pixels will start at 128GB of storage and go up to 512GB for the largest model.

Do you need 2TB of storage on an iPhone?

When I bought the iPhone 14 Pro, I chose the 256GB option instead of the base 128GB model and then considered returning it for the 512GB variant. I thought I needed more local storage. Nearly a year later, I use about 80GB regularly. And yes, I do delete photos, videos, and apps from time to time. I don’t see myself needing a 2TB iPhone.

But there are creators and pro users who would benefit from the capacity boost. The iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max cap out at 1TB of storage.

I’m telling you all of this to make a simple point. The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro will look much like their predecessors. They’re not exciting upgrades, according to leaks, and that’s understandable. Most handset vendors do it with their flagships, a strategy copied from Apple’s iPhone playbook.

Add the economy worries, and keeping costs down for Pixel phones customers aren’t dying to get is paramount for Google.

Storage capacity of the Pixel 8

WinFuture claims that a local retailer revealed the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro will come in 128GB and 256GB capacities in the region. The larger model will also come with 512GB of storage. The source has provided accurate information before.

The reason why Google will keep the 128GB storage tier in place concerns the starting price. The leak doesn’t mention prices, but I’d expect the Pixel 8 to have a competitive price in Europe and the US.

The 128GB Pixel 7 started at $599 last year and currently costs $449. The 128GB Pixel 7 Pro started at $899, but it’s now down to $699.

If you worry about local storage, you can always get the 256GB flavor instead of the base model. Pixel 8 preorders might get you various deals worth looking into that would make it cheaper to upgrade the storage. The alternative is getting more cloud storage for your needs down the road via Google One.

The leak also indicates the color options for the two upcoming Pixel 8 phones. The regular model will be available in Licorice, Peony, and Haze. Go for the Pixel 8 Pro, and you’ll choose between Licorice, Porcelain, and Sky.

Google will unveil the Pixel 8 phones in October, so expect everything to leak about the two handsets by then, including price tiers.

The post Don’t expect a 2TB Pixel 8 Pro this year appeared first on BGR.

Lanez, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, was convicted in December of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and two other felonies.

“Over the past three years, Mr. Peterson has engaged in a pattern of conduct that was intended to intimidate Ms. Pete and silence her truths from being heard,” Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said. “Women, especially Black women, are afraid to report crimes like assault because they are too often not believed.”

During the trial, Megan, whose legal name is Megan Pete, testified that Lanez shot at the back of her feet and told her to dance when she was walking away from an SUV that was carrying them in 2020. The rappers had been at a party at Kylie Jenner’s house.

In an interview last year with “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King, Megan said she wanted to get out of the vehicle because Lanez was having a heated argument with one of her friends. She said after she left the vehicle, shots rang out.

“He is standing up over the window shooting,” Megan told King. “And I didn’t even want to move. I didn’t want to move too quick. Like, cause I’m like, oh my God, if I take the wrong step, I don’t know if he’s going to shoot something that’s, like, super important. I don’t know if he could shoot me and kill me.”

Lanez was also convicted of having a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.

“Every day, I think of others across the world who are victims of violence and survive. It is truly the most powerless feeling, especially when you question whether the justice system can truly protect you,” Megan said in a statement read by Gascón.

At a press conference after the sentencing, Gascón and Deputy District Attorney Alex Bott described the years of harassment Megan faced after the shooting. Lanez subjected Megan to “years of hell,” Bott said. 

“He intimidated her, he harassed her,” Bott said. “Nevertheless, in the face of all that abuse and vitriol, Megan showed the courage to come forward and speak her truth.”

Prosecutors were seeking a 13-year sentence from Superior Court Judge David Herriford. Lanez’s attorneys wanted him to be sentenced to probation.

His lawyers tried to get a new trial earlier this year. They argued that Lanez’s attorney in the original trial wasn’t given enough time to prepare, that Lanez didn’t ask Megan to not speak to the police as she testified and that authorities didn’t follow industry standards when using DNA evidence to tie Lanez to the shooting. Herriford rejected their arguments.

During Monday’s hearing, Lanez’s father, Sonstar Peterson, apologized for saying Lanez was convicted in a “wicked system” following the jury’s guilty verdict. Peterson also said music became his son’s outlet after his mother died from a rare blood disorder when he was 11. In a letter, rapper Iggy Azalea urged the judge to impose a sentence that was “transformative, not life-destroying.”

The Associated Press and Aliza Chasan contributed reporting.

Alex Sundby

Alex Sundby is a senior editor for CBSNews.com

The post Tory Lanez gets 10 years for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the feet appeared first on CBS News.