U.S.Associated PressMississippi revises demands on Favre in welfare lawsuit
The Mississippi Department of Human Services on Monday changed its demands against retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre in a lawsuit that seeks repayment of misspent welfare money that was intended to help some of the poorest people in the U.S. The department dropped its demand of $1.1 million against Favre, acknowledging he has already repaid that money for an unfulfilled pledge of public speeches. But it made a new demand of up to $5 million against Favre and a university sports foundation, saying money from an anti-poverty program was improperly used to pay for a volleyball arena at the University of Southern Mississippi.
U.S.INSIDERAn Arizona cult leader accused of taking more than 20 women and girls as wives 'constantly' said he wanted to kiss and touch his underage daughter, FBI says
The FBI alleges he told the daughter "if his feelings were right, he would make her have a child." An Arizona cult leader from a polygamist sect accused of taking more than 20 women and girls as wives felt compelled to marry his underage daughter and "constantly" said he wanted to kiss and touch the teen, federal court documents allege. The FBI alleges in an affidavit filed last week in federal court in Washington and obtained by Insider that Samuel Rappylee Bateman, 46, first said that he wanted to take his daughter — born in 2005 — as his wife in 2019.
U.S.JezebelHerschel Walker's Closing Message: 'I Don't Even Know What the Heck Is a Pronoun'
Herschel Walker, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Georgia, doesn't seem to know what a lot of things are. One of the women who says Walker was violent toward her also claimed she witnessed firsthand just how little control Walker has over his dissociative identity disorder in a Daily Beast report from last week.
SportsYahoo SportsFox Sports horrifies Big Ten Championship viewers with Jim Harbaugh ref cam
Have you ever wondered what it's like to get the full Jim Harbaugh ref experience, from the frenzied, unblinking eyes staring at you to the constantly agape mouth? With officials wearing hat cams at the 2022 Big Ten Championship Game between Michigan and Purdue, it was only a matter of time before Harbaugh went off. To be fair to Harbaugh, very few of us would look normal when recorded during an argument and aired in slow motion, but the Michigan coach does seem to take the weirdness to another level.
U.S.Miami HeraldPeople scream as boat propeller kills woman retrieving sandals on Colombia vacation
A woman on vacation in Colombia was fatally struck by a boat propeller when she tried to retrieve her sandals, according to media reports. Natalia Andrea Larrañaga Fajardo, 26, visited San Andrés island's White Watta beach on vacation, Colombian news outlet La Razon reported. Fajardo jumped back into the water to retrieve some sandals when the boat propeller struck her, The Archipeilago Press and Radio Colombia Network reported.
U.S.The Daily BeastElementary School Principal Dead in Apparent Disneyland Suicide
An elementary school principal died in an apparent suicide after jumping from a multistory parking structure at Disneyland in California, officials said. Anaheim Police said they found a man dead when they were called to the amusement park just before 9 p.m. on Saturday. On Sunday, the Orange County coroner identified the man as 51-year-old Christopher Christensen, the principal of William T. Newland Elementary School in Huntington Beach.
PoliticsAssociated PressTrump faces peril in docs probe after decades of scrutiny
As a businessman and president, Donald Trump faced a litany of lawsuits and criminal investigations yet emerged from the legal scrutiny time and again with his public and political standing largely intact. The sense of vulnerability has been heightened in recent weeks not only by the Justice Department's appointment of a special counsel with a reputation for aggressiveness but also by the removal of a Trump-requested independent arbiter in the case and by judges' unequivocal rejection of his lawyers' arguments. It's impossible to predict how much longer the investigation will last or whether the Justice Department will take the unprecedented step of indicting a former president and current candidate.
BusinessVarietyABC News Benches Amy Robach, T.J. Holmes After Romance Disclosure
Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes will be benched from their anchoring duties at ABC News' “GMA3′ while the news division weighs the effect their recent disclosure of a romantic relationship might have on the program and the company, ABC News President Kim Godwin informed staffers Monday. Godwin told ABC News employees during an editorial call Monday that Robach and Holmes had not violated any company policy, according to a person familiar with the matter, but indicated ABC News felt the matter had become “an internal and external disruption,” and “wanted to do what's best for the organization. ABC News declined to make executives available for comment.
U.S.INSIDERChris Christie's niece bit and kicked deputies trying to escort her off a Spirit Airlines flight after she asked passengers who she thought were Latino if they were 'smuggling cocaine,' report says
Shannon Epstein, the niece of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, was arrested on Spirit Airlines. Epstein reportedly asked passengers she thought were Latino if they were carrying cocaine Epstein had to be handcuffed to a wheelchair, The Times-Picayune reported. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's 25-year-old niece was arrested on a handful of charges, including six counts of battery, after causing a scene on a Spirit Airlines flight departing from Louis Armstrong International Airport on Thanksgiving Day, the Times-Picayune reported.
U.S.Associated PressUnmarked graves, an 'ugly history': W.Va. weighs mine safety
The forgotten burial ground is overrun by four-wheel tire tracks near a path strewn with discarded bottles and other trash. More than a century of overgrowth on this West Virginia hillside has erased any trace of the graveyard known locally as Little Egypt, the resting place for dozens of coal miners who died in a 1912 mine explosion. “There are 80 people here that nobody has said a prayer over in a long, long time,” said Ed Evans, a state lawmaker and retired public school teacher as he side-stepped a patch of sunken earth on a rainy summer day.
- U.S.People
Married Pastor, Who Stepped Away After Messaging Another Woman, Cheered as He Returns to Pulpit
Matt Chandler, lead pastor at the Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas, apologized for his "foolishness" and received a standing ovation during a service on Sunday
U.S.JezebelSamuel Alito 'Joked' About Black Kids Wearing KKK Robes During Oral Arguments
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that's framed as being about free speech but is actually a Trojan horse for upending civil rights protections. The case is related to 2018's Masterpiece Cakeshop, and it could not only affect the rights of LGBTQ people, but also open the door for even more legalized discrimination based on race, religion, or disability status. Alito later tried to use this as a jumping off point, suggesting that letting businesses refuse certain clients is good, actually, because that allows them not to serve groups like the KKK, seemingly thinking he'd delivered a stunning checkmate to the woke libs.
WorldReutersUkraine hails air defences after heavy Russian missile strikes
Russia rained long-range missiles on Ukraine on Monday, killing two people, destroying homes in the southeast and causing power outages, but Kyiv said its air defences had limited the damage. Air raid sirens blared across the country and men, women and children huddled in the capital's cavernous metro system to take cover during the latest big wave of missile strikes since Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Moscow has been targeting Ukraine's power grid in intense waves of attacks since October, and state energy company Ukrenergo, which operates the national power grid, said more infrastructure had been hit on Monday Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal later said energy facilities had been hit i...
U.S.Miami Herald‘Dangerously defective’ pistol fires even if you don’t touch the trigger, lawsuit says
A gunmaker promised one of its pistols sold in the U.S. “won't fire unless you want it to” — but a new federal lawsuit argues that's a lie. The lives of experienced gun users, who are suing Sig Sauer, Inc., were “upended” by the company's “dangerously defective pistol,” a complaint filed Nov. 30 in federal court in New Hampshire states. Twenty plaintiffs named in the lawsuit became gunshot victims when their own Sig Sauer P320 Pistol fired unexpectedly, without the trigger ever being touched, according to the complaint representing the plaintiffs nationwide.
WorldThe Daily BeastExplosion at Nuclear Airbase Just 150 Miles From Moscow Opens Stunning New Phase of War
Two explosions at major Russian military bases, including the Dyagilevo base near Ryazan just 150 miles from Moscow, mean the war in Ukraine has come right to Vladimir Putin's doorstep. The explosions—which may have been missile or drone strikes but that has yet to be confirmed—suggest that whoever is behind them wanted to strike fear right in the heart of Russia. The second explosion struck the Engels-2 base, from which Tu-95 bombers have been pummeling Ukraine's infrastructure over the last month.
WorldYahoo NewsRussia-Ukraine war: Putin 'becoming more informed' about challenges, U.S. intel chief says
Meanwhile, a Kremlin official defended Russia's repeated strikes against Ukraine's crucial energy facilities, which the civilian population needs to stay warm this winter. Here are the latest developments. Putin more 'informed' about military difficulties, says intelligence chief The U.S. director of national intelligence said on Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has become “better informed” about the challenges the military is facing.
U.S.Sacramento BeeBold coyote grabs toddler outside California home — then dad steps in, video shows
A California father's quick reaction saved his young daughter from being dragged away by a coyote on the sidewalk outside their home, security video shows. Ariel Eliyahuo was collecting his daughter's toys from his SUV while she played on the sidewalk after arriving home from her preschool on Friday, Dec. 2, in Woodland Hills he told KTLA. “I heard her screaming and crying and I thought she fell down and I saw the coyote was there,” Eliyahuo told KNBC.
U.S.NextShark'Go back to China': Massachusetts driver charged for ramming Asian man 200 yards into ditch
A motorist from Quincy, Massachusetts, has been arrested and charged after allegedly hitting an Asian man and dragging him for hundreds of yards before flinging him into a construction ditch while making anti-Chinese remarks. It all started when the victim — who was standing outside a local post office with his sister and her three children — called out the driver for speeding. The family stayed and collected the driver's information.
PoliticsYahoo NewsTrump tries to clarify call for 'termination' of parts of Constitution amid backlash
Former President Donald Trump on Monday attempted to clarify his call for suspending parts of the U.S. Constitution or the “termination” of rules and regulations to allow himself to return to the White House, after drawing rebuke from other Republicans. Initially, Trump said on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that the role of social media companies limiting and removing misinformation and content that violated its policies in 2020 “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” In his newest post, Trump indicated he didn't say he wanted to terminate the Constitution, stating Monday that “steps must be immediately taken to RIGHT THE WRONG,” referring to what he describes as widespread fraud and deception involving “Big Tech” — of which he provided no evidence — in the 2020 election.
BusinessBenzingaTrump's Surprise Christmas Present to Joe Biden is Still Moving Markets
No one could predict what President Donald Trump would do in the last days of December 2020, and stunned onlookers could only wait and hope. One lobbyist recalled how he didn't dare to bring up the elephant in the room as Trump debated signing the $900 billion COVID recovery stimulus bill into law. “We didn't want to give him any excuse not to sign it,” the lobbyist said.
WorldUSA TODAYWhat is needle spiking, what travelers should know: 'You always think it won’t happen to you'
Micaela looked alarmed when she turned to me at the bar and told me she thought she might have been needle spiked, or injected with drugs. Prior to her move to London in September for graduate school, my friend Micaela, 27, received a warning from a friend in Germany about the prevalence of spiking throughout Europe – either by slipping a drug into a drink or injecting drugs into someone's body with a hypodermic needle. Micaela, whose last name isn't included due to the nature of her experience, hadn't even taken a sip of her drink when she felt the jab in her hip.
- U.S.Dr. Phil CBS
Family Says Son Was Never The Same After He Was Pulled From The Rubble Of A Tornado At 9 Years Old
Simon, his wife, Athena, and their three children, Marissa, Haley, and Xavier, all lived through a devastating tornado that ripped through Moore, Oklahoma nearly 10 years ago. The parents say Xavier, who was 9 at the time, was never the same after he was pulled from the rubble of his school. Of the seven kids that passed that day, six of them were in his class, just inches away from him,” Athena says.
PoliticsINSIDERIncoming House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries says there's 'a real risk' that the new GOP majority in the chamber will be 'hijacked by the extremists'
Hakeem Jeffries said there's "a real risk" the incoming House GOP majority is being "hijacked" by extremists. Jeffries, the incoming House Democratic leader, said Republicans have not laid out an economic plan. During his interview with CNN, Jeffries was relatively mum on his feelings about Kevin McCarthy.
U.S.CBS NewsSon's coach ID'd as Florida mom's killer decades after her murder
Sgt. Edgar Pickett: I could remember everything about it. Goin' to that window and lookin' at it, where he went through it. Then I went in there and the children was asleep.
U.S.Associated PressLawyer: Man charged in Takeoff killing says he's innocent
An attorney for a man accused of fatally shooting rapper Takeoff last month said Monday that the musician's death outside a Houston bowling alley was a tragedy but that her client says he's innocent of the crime. Patrick Xavier Clark, 33, made a brief court appearance in which prosecutors and his defense attorneys agreed to hold a bond reduction hearing on Dec. 14. Clark was arrested on a murder charge last week and is jailed on a $2 million bond.
“Democrats succeeded again in making the former President a central campaign issue, and Mr. Trump helped them do it.”
“If you work…to install a Supreme Court that will eliminate constitutional rights, prepare to live with the electoral consequences.”
“Trump pretty reliably put his thumb on the scale for the riskiest and most flawed candidates.”
“The Republicans should have done much better on inflation and the economy. They lacked an effective and transparent message.”
“Where does Trump end and the far-right begin?”