U.S.TechCrunchIt might be time for companies in San Francisco to call employees' bluff
The question, and one asked this week by the San Francisco Chronicle, is why San Francisco isn't bouncing back in the same way. As reporter Roland Li writes: "There's always been a disparity -- New York has 10 times the population of San Francisco -- but the coastal tourism and economic hubs have diverged in striking ways as they recover from the pandemic." Consider, writes Li, that while the construction of major commercial property projects in Manhattan were completed during the pandemic -- and while much of that new office space is almost fully leased -- over in San Francisco, projects have stalled and existing buildings struggle to find tenants because of work-from-home policies.
U.S.The RootCharlottesville's First Black Woman Police Chief Fired As Officers Refused to Comply
After a midsummer meeting in June 2021, newly hired police chief RaShall Brackney felt the need to double down on her personal safety, unholstering her gun as she left headquarters. Brackney's fear however was not prompted by the activity on the streets, or even the ongoing public threats made against the police department over the years. Instead, she found herself afraid of her own subordinates, cops who wanted her gone after making some controversial, yet necessary shake ups throughout the force.
U.S.The StateIn her own words: SC Mega Millions winner’s testimony shows how she lost $83 million to NY attorney
On the morning after she became a multi-millionaire, a South Carolina woman drove by the KC Mart No. in Simpsonville where she bought her lottery ticket, to see if anyone was there, just in case she had made a mistake and didn't really win. It was the largest Mega Millions jackpot to be won by a single ticket — more than $1.5 billion — and she had seen the numbers reported on television.
U.S.AutoblogOregon cops make arrests in thefts of 44,000 catalytic converters
Police in suburban Portland, Oregon, said Thursday they arrested a crime ring leader responsible for trafficking more than 44,000 catalytic converters stolen from vehicles on the West Coast since 2021. Beaverton police say they busted a local organized crime ring, arresting two suspected ringleaders and 12 suspected associates. According to Oregon Live, authorities were alerted to the operations when one of the suspects was caught hauling 100 stolen catalytic converters during a traffic stop late in 2021.
U.S.NBC NewsTexas man convicted of child sexual assault dies after chugging from bottle as verdict is read
A Texas man charged with five counts of child sexual assault died after a jury convicted him and he chugged a bottle of liquid in the courtroom, his lawyer said Friday. After the first count was read on Thursday afternoon and the Denton County jury returned a guilty verdict, Edward Leclair, 57, started drinking from a plastic water bottle filled with what appeared to be clear liquid, lawyer Mike Howard said. “I looked over and noticed him drinking,” Howard said.
PoliticsINSIDERTrump's allies are alarmed and starting to 'go dark' amid Mar-a-Lago search warrant revelations, reporter says
Allies of former President Donald Trump, alarmed and shocked by the details in the unsealed Mar-a-Lago search warrant and receipt of goods, are starting to distance themselves and "go dark" in recent days, according to The Washington Post political investigative reporter Josh Dawsey. "Alarm has grown in recent days when you talk to advisers of the former president," said Dawsey, speaking on MSNBC on Friday night, per HuffPost. Some of them are now "trying to go dark," refusing to defend Trump, and hope to "stay as far away from this as they can," Dawsey said.
U.S.Associated PressItaly's Lake Garda shrinks to near-historic low amid drought
Italy's worst drought in decades has reduced Lake Garda, the country's largest lake, to near its lowest level ever recorded, exposing swaths of previously underwater rocks and warming the water to temperatures that approach the average in the Caribbean Sea. Tourists flocking to the popular northern lake Friday for the start of Italy's key summer long weekend found a vastly different landscape than in past years. An expansive stretch of bleached rock extended far from the normal shoreline, ringing the southern Sirmione Peninsula with a yellow halo between the green hues of the water and the trees on the shore.
U.S.CBS NewsLow water levels at Lake Mead reveal more than just human remains
Lake Mead National Recreation Area is showing the dramatic effects of falling water levels from the ongoing drought. The nation's largest reservoir is now giving up many of its secrets, including a fourth set of human remains discovered since May. Among those found were the remains of Daniel Kolod, who went missing in 1958.
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Video shows model hitting boyfriend months before his alleged murder
Surveillance video shows an incident between social media model Courtney Clenney and her boyfriend, Christian Obumseli, in an elevator in their private Miami apartment building, months before she allegedly killed him. She was charged with second-degree murder this week.
PoliticsReutersTrump property appraiser no longer in contempt in NY civil probe
Cushman & Wakefield, which appraised several properties belonging to Donald Trump, is no longer in contempt of court for not complying with a subpoena for the New York attorney general's civil probe into the former U.S. president's business. In an order made public on Friday, Justice Arthur Engoron of a New York state court in Manhattan said Cushman had "purged its contempt of court," and that under an agreement with Attorney General Letitia James "no fines were paid, or need be paid." The attorney general is investigating whether Trump and his family business, the Trump Organization, fraudulently inflated the values of golf clubs, hotels and other assets to obtain loans, and reduced those values to save on taxes.
U.S.INSIDERA top LA County coroner described in graphic testimony what Kobe Bryant's body looked like to give the jury an idea of what the crash-site photos may have shown
Capt. Emily Tauscher gave graphic testimony about the post-crash condition of each victim's body. A top Los Angeles County coroner on Thursday testified in graphic detail about the state of Kobe Bryant's body following the 2020 helicopter crash that killed all nine passengers, including the basketball legend and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna Bryant.
U.S.Tampa Bay Times, St. Petersburg, Fla.Why is The Villages known as ‘the STD capital of America?’
Friends up north and across Tampa Bay snickered when Brian Lafferty revealed where he'd bought a new home. “Without exception, every person I've told I bought a house in The Villages has asked the same thing,” Lafferty said. The Villages, a mammoth retirement community that was the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the nation two years ago, is no stranger to folklore.
PoliticsAssociated PressWisconsin GOP leader Vos fires 2020 election investigator
Wisconsin's Republican Assembly leader on Friday ended a 14-month, taxpayer-funded inquiry into the 2020 election by firing his hand-picked investigator. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos' firing of Michael Gableman came just three days after the lawmaker narrowly survived a primary challenge from an opponent endorsed by former President Donald Trump and Gableman. While Gableman found no evidence of widespread fraud during his inquiry, he had joined Trump in calling for lawmakers to consider decertifying the 2020 election — something Vos and legal experts say is unconstitutional and impossible.
PoliticsThe Hill‘Shocked and disheartened’: How coal country is reacting to Manchin’s climate deal
Coal country is still reeling from Sen. Joe Manchin's (D-W.Va.) decision to back a sweeping climate and energy package that will accelerate the nation's transition away from coal. In the Mountain State, the once-burgeoning coal industry says it feels betrayed, displaced coal workers are celebrating the bill's black lung benefits and Republicans seeking Manchin's seat in 2024 are licking their chops. The Inflation Reduction Act includes several Appalachia-centric measures, including subsidies to build renewable energy projects on former coal fields and the permanent extension of a tax on coal companies that funds benefits for miners suffering from black lung disease.
U.S.INSIDERGang of female shoplifters stole thousands of dollars worth of men's Nike boxer shorts from Kohl's stores, investigators say
Police say three women stole about $1,800 worth of men's underwear from a Kohl's store in Newnan, Georgia. Kohl's says they stole Nike men's boxer shorts, which cost between $26 and $40, per Fox 5 Atlanta. More than $6,000 worth of high-end men's underwear has been stolen from Kohl's stores in the area, say police.
U.S.ReutersNew York gun bans alarm residents of upstate bear country
Gunfire has long echoed in New York's Adirondack Mountains. So June's landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court establishing a constitutional right to carry weapons in public seemed like a vindication of an upstate, gun-centric way of life. The ruling by the court's conservative majority appalled Democratic leaders across the country who said it would lead to more gun violence.
PoliticsHuffPostKevin McCarthy Mocked After Asking If Americans Are Better Off Than 2 Years Ago
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) tried to stop passage of the Inflation Reduction Act on Friday by using a rhetorical question made famous by former President Ronald Reagan. In a speech on the House floor, McCarthy asked, “Is America better off today than they were two years ago?” which referenced a question Reagan asked during a 1980 presidential debate with then-President Jimmy Carter. Although McCarthy's question was strictly a rhetorical device that he probably assumed would agitate Democrats, he probably wouldn't like the answers Twitter users gave to his inquiry.
PoliticsAZCentral | The Arizona RepublicTrump, not Merrick Garland, is playing a dangerous game with the FBI raid
Trump and his supporters are up in arms, accusing the FBI of targeting him just because the agency doesn't like him. How quickly they've forgotten – or rather, how conveniently they keep ignoring – that Trump fired his own FBI chief, James Comey, who refused to pledge loyalty to him and wouldn't let Trump use the agency to go after his political rivals. Have they forgotten how Trump agreed with “lock her up” chants, referring to jailing his 2016 presidential opponent Hillary Clinton?
BusinessReutersExclusive-Kazakhstan to start oil sales via Azeri pipeline to bypass Russia
Kazakhstan is expected to sell some of its crude oil through Azerbaijan's biggest oil pipeline from September, as the nation seeks alternatives to a route Russia threatened to shut, three sources familiar with the matter said. For 20 years, they have been shipped through the CPC pipeline to Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, which provides access to the global market. In July a Russian court threatened to shut the CPC, prompting the Kazakh government and major foreign producers to set up contracts for other outlets as a precaution.
PoliticsThe RecountFox News' Steve Doocy to House GOP Chair Stefanik on nuclear documents reporting: "That's kind of a big deal!"
Fox News' Steve Doocy said to House GOP Chair Stefanik that reports the FBI were seeking to retrieve classified nuclear documents from Mar-a-Lago is: "kind of a big deal!" President Trump overnight said that he encouraged the judge who authorized the search to release both the warrant and the list of items sought in the search. DOOCY: Apparently, they're related to nuclear weapons.
U.S.INSIDERA New Orleans officer was suspended after a bystander claimed he did nothing to stop the public rape of an unconscious woman
A New Orleans officer was suspended after a bystander said he did nothing when he alerted that a woman was being assaulted nearby. The bystander told a 911 dispatcher that the officer didn't move when she told him of the rape. A New Orleans officer has been suspended after a claim that he failed to respond to the rape of an unconscious woman on a nearby corner from his car.
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Moscow warns of end to Russia-U.S. relations if assets seized - TASS
Any possible seizure of Russian assets by the United States will completely destroy Moscow's bilateral relations with Washington, TASS quoted the head of the North American Department at the Russian foreign ministry as saying on Saturday. "We warn the Americans of the detrimental consequences of such actions that will permanently damage bilateral relations, which is neither in their nor in our interests," Alexander Darchiev told TASS. It was not immediately clear which assets he was referring to.
U.S.INSIDERRep. Lauren Boebert's neighbors called 911 after her husband ran over their mailbox 'looking to fight'
Rep. Lauren Boebert's neighbors called 911 after an altercation with her husband, Jayson Boebert. Neighbors accused Jayson of driving under the influence and property damage, per The Denver Post. Officers from the Garfield County Sheriff's Office opted to let the neighbors settle the dispute among themselves.
U.S.TODAYNew video released of OnlyFans model Courtney Clenney, boyfriend she’s accused of murdering
Prosecutors in Miami released new video of an OnlyFans model in a violent altercation in an elevator with her boyfriend, who she is now accused of murdering. Courtney Clenney, 26, was charged with one count of second-degree murder in the April stabbing of her boyfriend, Christian “Toby” Obumseli, Miami-Dade County State Attorney Kathy Rundle said during a press conference Thursday. Rundle played a video of Clenney and Obumseli from February at their apartment building that appears to show Clenney hitting the elevator before she starts striking and shoving Obumseli.
WorldReutersAnalysis-China's Taiwan military drills offer spying opportunity for U.S
While China's expanded drills surrounding Taiwan have marked an unprecedented military and political warning against outside interference over the island, they opened a window to gather intelligence for the United States and its allies. The four days of intense drills last week - and extended manoeuvres this week - provide an opportunity to scrutinise the missiles China would use to drive off foreign militaries intervening in any future invasion as well as its command, control and communications systems, regional diplomats and security analysts say. And on the strategic intelligence front, the exercises have given a clue to China's ability to blockade the island as a prelude or alternative to any invasion, showcasing the firing of ballistic missiles over Taiwan for the first time as well as simulated air and sea attacks on ships on its east coast.
“The media has anointed men who have sex with men as the biggest threat to our survival from monkeypox.”
“Rich countries have ignored endemic monkeypox in West and Central Africa for far too long, despite having effective vaccines.”
“The biggest worry for Americans is not the disease: It’s that our response to it shows how little we have learned from COVID-19.”
“Monkeypox should be a relatively easier virus to control, but only if the United States takes the needed steps now.”
“Global health officials must advocate for and enact a unified, coherent approach to fighting the monkeypox pandemic.”