Boston researchers report delayed skin reaction to Moderna COVID-19 vaccine
Some side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines are well-known, but now, there are reports of a skin rash at the injection site and the timing of it might be confusing.
Conservatives argue that a Minneapolis jury was intimidated into finding Chauvin guilty
He was on the Minneapolis police force for nearly 20 years and had previously documented incidents of using force with arrestees
For some of those who encountered Derek Chauvin's policing or witnessed his use of force as an officer there is no sympathy for the man convicted of killing George Floyd. Chauvin was the subject of at least 17 complaints during his career, according to police records, but only one led to discipline. Eric Nelson, Chauvin's lawyer, has defended his client's use of force as appropriate in potentially dangerous situations.
Iran said it wanted to show its strength after an attack on its Natanz nuclear plant earlier this month, which it blames Israel for.
An image showing President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris disembarking Air Force One together does not tell the whole story.
The law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service has been quietly running a program that tracks and collects Americans’ social media posts, including those about planned protests, according to a document obtained by Yahoo News.
Four crew members from a cargo ship that ran aground off the southern Philippines have died, while seven have been rescued and a search is continuing for nine others, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said on Wednesday. The crew of LCT Cebu Great Ocean abandoned the vessel, which was carrying nickel ore and 2,000 litres of diesel, before it ran aground in Surigao del Norte province on Monday, the coast guard said. The bodies of the four crew members were found after being washed onto the shore, while the seven were rescued in various parts of the southern province after reaching land, Gelly Rosales, a coast guard official, told Reuters.
Anas Alkharboutli/GettyA group of British academics was secretly in contact with Russian diplomats in four separate embassies as they worked to undermine evidence that Bashar al-Assad was using chemical weapons against his own people, according to emails seen by The Daily Beast.The documents were obtained as part of a sting operation on one member of the group that was disclosed last month by the BBC and The Times of London. Paul McKeigue, a Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and Statistical Genetics at the University of Edinburgh’s College of Medicine, was duped into sharing the inner workings of the so-called Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media by emails from someone calling himself “Ivan,” who implied he was a Russian intelligence officer.The Working Group consists of a handful of university professors (none with any expertise in Syria or the Middle East), who have spent years suggesting that the Assad regime has been framed for war crimes in an elaborate conspiracy consisting of Syrian rebels, White Helmet rescue workers, and the American and British intelligence services. Moreover, the Working Group alleges that conspiracy has been systematically laundered through journalists, academics and human rights workers who they believe to be CIA or MI6 agents.Some of these completely unproven theories have been taken up enthusiastically on social media and used to sow disinformation about Assad’s war crimes.In an apparent effort to further the conspiracy theories, McKeigue was all too happy to collude with someone he thought was one of Vladimir Putin’s spies.In the emails with “Ivan,” McKeigue boasted about his interactions with Russian officials, a journalist who worked for the Russian state media and WikiLeaks, which “very likely knew it was assisting a Russian intelligence influence effort” during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, according to a Senate Subcommittee on Intelligence report.McKeigue told “Ivan” in February that WikiLeaks had helped him secure free legal advice from one of Julian Assange’s personal lawyers, Melinda Taylor.The emails claim that Taylor had been communicating with the British epidemiologist since at least September 2019, when she sent him a lengthy “legal advice memorandum” detailing ways to make litigious claims against the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), an intergovernmental body that seeks to implement the worldwide ban on the stockpiling and use of chemical weapons such as sarin gas, which suffocates its drooling and vomiting victims to death.McKeigue refers to the memorandum as one way of conducting “lawfare” against the chemical watchdog—a term typically invoked to mean frivolous or harassing litigation. He said Taylor provided him with the memorandum, pro bono, to advance claims of impropriety among members of the OPCW.According to the emails, the advice memorandum also led to Taylor’s husband, Geoffrey Roberts, representing Brendan Whelan, a former OPCW employee who went rogue and criticized the group’s investigations, leaking material to WikiLeaks.McKeigue told “Ivan” that he could reach Whelan via Alexander Shulgin, Russia’s ambassador to the Netherlands and its permanent representative to the OPCW.“Brendan keeps in contact with your embassy in Den Haag,” McKeigue wrote. “So if you wanted someone to make an introduction (for one of your diplomats, not in a covert role) to Melinda [Taylor] and Geoff [Roberts], this would be a possible route. Brendan knows them better than I do.”McKeigue, Taylor and Roberts declined to comment to The Daily Beast.The emails also show that Taylor corresponded with McKeigue to discuss the secret location of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), an NGO that has compiled documentary evidence of war crimes in Syria carried out by the Assad regime and ISIS. Some of their evidence was used in the first successful Syrian war crimes prosecution in Germany.It was CIJA that orchestrated the sting on McKeigue when they grew frustrated by the Working Group’s fixation on undermining evidence against Assad. CIJA was running the “Ivan” account all along.In the correspondence collected by the NGO, McKeigue outlined to his presumed Russian intelligence contact “complicated lines of communication” between the Working Group and a network of Russian Foreign Ministry officials in four separate embassies around the world: The Hague, New York, London, and Geneva. Russian diplomats, he noted, had been corresponding with members of the Working Group for a presentation at a January 2020 Arria formula meeting of the UN Security Council, convened by Russia in order to sow skepticism about the OPCW’s still-pending investigation.McKeigue wrote that he worked personally with Stepan Ankeev, an official at the Russian embassy in London, to put the plan in motion, while his Working Group associates kept in touch with other Russian diplomats in other countries. “But in the end it all worked out okay,” McKeigue wrote. “The only other diplomatic communication we have had is with Sergey Krutskikh in Geneva, who is Vanessa’s contact but has occasionally passed information to the Working Group via Piers.”“Piers” refers to Piers Robinson, the founder of the Working Group and an outspoken commentator on Syria on Twitter. “Vanessa” is Vanessa Beeley, perhaps the most prominent and controversial member of the Working Group. A former waste management consultant turned blogger, Beeley became a fixture on RT, the Russian government’s English language propaganda network, for her willingness to add all manner of unsubstantiated and imaginative allegations about the Syria conflict.She has repeatedly accused the White Helmets, an internationally funded rescue organization, of staging chemical attacks in Syria otherwise attributed to the Assad regime.Beeley and Robinson’s purported contact in Switzerland, Sergey Krutskikh, is secretary to Russia’s mission at the UN. He is also the son of a better-known Russian diplomat, Andrey Krutskikh, who was appointed early last year as the first director of Russian Foreign Ministry’s newly minted Department of International Information Security, which coordinates with European countries on cybersecurity.McKeigue also boasted to his supposed Russian handler about his work with state media employees at Ruptly, a streaming video platform based in Germany, which is funded by the Kremlin.The British academic was given screen captures from a database of sensitive personal details on activists and war crimes witnesses collected through interviews conducted on the ground in Syria by Ruptly staff. McKeigue passed the details on to “Ivan,” despite the apparent threat to these people.After a while, McKeigue decided that his contact at Ruptly was insufficiently loyal to the cause and asked “Ivan” to investigate him.Nerma Jelacic, the CIJA’s director of external relations and a member of the sting op, told The Daily Beast that the disclosure that Russian diplomats and state-run media outlets were working with the Working Group helped to explain why this otherwise obscure collection of academics had managed to make headlines around the world. “These networks would have remained nothing more than a bunch of marginalized ideologues and conspiracists,” Jelacic said.She added, “Russia’s disinformation campaigns about Syria would be far less effective if they had to rely solely on statements from the Russian foreign and ministries rather than on what Westerner academics and self-described ‘whistleblowers’ have said.”McKeigue’s correspondence with “Ivan” has been passed to British authorities. The University of Edinburgh continues to insist his commentary on Syria has been undertaken as a private citizen and not on behalf of the institution; it affirms McKeigue’s right to free expression.Kristyan Benedict, Amnesty International U.K. Campaigns Manager, told The Daily Beast: “Syrian victims and their families who have endured many horrors [deserve justice]. These individuals, quite disgracefully, are trying to deny Syrians these rights. They won’t succeed.”This piece is part of a joint investigation between The Daily Beast and Newlines magazine who have a more detailed analysis here.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
Three former police officers who responded to George Floyd call now face trial in August
Force releases body camera footage showing moment teenager was killed
Fox News host uses show to question validity of Derek Chauvin verdict, asking: ‘Can we trust the way this decision was made?’
I live every day with the knowledge that my story could become George Floyd's family's story. It gnaws at my spirit in even the most banal of moments.
Inkblots produce random, alien-like shapes with no logic to them. The same is true of gerrymandered congressional districts, report Richard Hall and Charlotte Hodges.
Incredulous fellow anchors groan in background as Gutfeld offers take on verdict
BREAKING: North Carolina will ease almost all COVID restrictions, but face coverings will still be required.
A black teenage girl was shot dead by police in Ohio on Tuesday minutes after a guilty verdict was returned in the case of the officer who killed George Floyd. Officers were responding to a call on Legion Lane in the city of Columbus when police shot the girl, who was named locally as 16-year-old Makiah Bryant. Police later released body camera footage showing an officer shooting the victim, who was holding a knife and was poised to attack another girl. Police Chief Michael Woods, who called a late-night press conference, said they took the unprecedented step of releasing the footage within hours of the incident as the force wanted to provide some answers for what exactly happened, with America on edge after the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin. A video taken by a witnesses circulated on social media which appeared to show a victim wearing jeans and trainers lying motionless on the ground as a police officer stood nearby. Witnesses say the girl was shot in the chest. Crowds gathered near the scene shortly after the shooting, which occurred around 4.45pm, and began shouting “no racist police” and "enough is enough" at officers gathered.
Ohio’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation leading investigation into fatal police shooting
The European Super League drama is over – but the story of football reform has only just begun. What’s the story? What began on Sunday as an attempt by six English football clubs to break away to play solely with their European rivals has become an all-out war by ministers on avaricious club owners and their apparent disregard for fans. Boris Johnson, along with Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, Prince William and a litany of MPs came out to criticise the Super League plan, which would have meant the beginning of a whole new football tournament for the richest clubs, and an end to the Premier League as we know it. So angered were ministers that they promised that if footballing bodies couldn’t put a stop to it with the “full backing” of Government, then Mr Johnson would wade in with a “legislative bomb” to try and end the ESL with law. In the event, that wasn’t necessary. On Tuesday night the six English clubs, led by Chelsea, withdrew from the league and it decided to "reshape the project" without them. But what remains is the Government’s commitment to a “root and branch” review of football in the UK, led by the former sports minister Tracey Crouch. Now the immediate threat of the end of football as we know it has passed, there is less pressure on that review, and Ms Crouch will have time to consider what reforms could be made to the structure and governance of football in the UK to democratise the sport. Mr Dowden yesterday vowed that the Government’s review would “make sure this never happens again”. “The whole ESL move shows how out of touch these owners are. They have completely misjudged the strength of feeling from fans, players and the whole country,” he said. “Football is for the fans.” Looking back The football shakeup has its roots in the 2019 Tory manifesto, which promised to embark on a “fan-led” review of the sport following a series of farcical episodes, including the near-collapse of Bolton Wanderers in May 2019 and the asset stripping of Blackpool FC by Owen Oyston, a convicted rapist, and his son Karl over the previous decade. The Conservative Party is not a natural champion of football, but the Government had spent years under pressure from Damian Collins, a Tory MP who chaired the sport and culture select committee, who was pushing for an Ofcom-style statutory football regulator that would have more power than the FA. Since then, the party’s sporting acumen has been improved significantly by Ms Crouch (named by one insider as “the number one ruling authority in the Tory party” on football) and Elena Narozanski, a former special adviser to Michael Gove and Team England boxer who now works in Downing Street. Tory party officials used the 2019 election campaign to convince Mr Johnson - who prefers the rugby - that reforming football was a vote winner, and the policy was written into the manifesto by Rachel Wolf, a former colleague of Ms Narozanski at the lobbying firm Public First. On a visit to Cheadle during the election campaign, the Prime Minister (below) took part in a penalty shoot-out with the local under-10s girls’ team. He conceded several goals before explaining to reporters that a “fan-led review” of the sport was vital.
‘If the effect is deleterious to the ability of people of colour to participate in elections, then that is problematic and that is wrong,’ Abrams says
‘She was just a kid,’ demonstrators chant on Tuesday evening