
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) played a big advocacy role in President-elect Joe Biden's 2020 bid, no doubt helping him lock up the typically red state of Georgia. Bottoms was expected to be offered a White House role in return, perhaps as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development or the head of the Small Business Administration, or even Biden's vice president. After the naming of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as Biden's running mate over the summer, and after Biden slotted Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) into the HUD spot, Bottoms' choices seemed to be slimming.

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Friday criticized the Texas GOP for floating the idea of secession after the Supreme Court rejected a bid to overturn the results of the presidential election. In a statement, the Texas GOP chairman suggested that "law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution." Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said the statement should be immediately retracted and the people involved fired.

A tip from a concerned citizen provided a pivotal break Friday in the Dec. 3 slaying of 26-year-old nurseย Caitlyn Kaufman, who worked in the intensive care unit at Saint Thomas West Hospital. Atย dawn,ย members of Metro Nashville Police Department's SWAT team descended on an East Nashville apartment complex and made anย arrest in the fatal shooting of a Nashville nurse who was driving to work when police say someoneย opened fire on her SUV. Devaunte Lewis Hill, 21, was taken into custody at 6:15 a.m. in Kaufman's death.

LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Britain is likely to complete its journey out of the European Union in three weeks without a trade deal, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday. Britain quit the EU in January but remains an informal member until Dec. 31 - the end of a transition period during which it has remained in the EU single market and customs union. Both sides say they want to agree arrangements to cover nearly $1 trillion in annual trade but negotiations are at an impasse, with Britain standing to lose zero-tariff and zero-quota access to the huge European single market.
An Associated Press investigation has identified at least six sexual misconduct allegations involving senior FBI officials over the past five years, including two new claims brought this week by women who say they were sexually assaulted by ranking agents.

Some Republican senators are using their unfounded election fraud claims as an excuse to muddy President-elect Joe Biden's transition. Biden has spent the past few weeks since the election filling out his Cabinet, hoping quick confirmations will help him get a quick start on reversing President Trump's policies. But "as long as there's litigation ongoing, and the election result is disputed, I do not think you will see the Senate act to confirm any nominee," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told Axios.

Sen. Mike Lee blocked two proposals that would establish new Smithsonian museums for American Latino and women's history. Both bipartisan bills passed the House of Representatives earlier this year, but the Republican senator said Americans didn't need "separate but equal" museums. Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez and GOP Sen. Susan Collins both pushed back against Lee during a dramatic Senate session on Thursday.

Tasked with a California family's historic getaway on Patmos, John Stefanidis gives the once-neutral house a vibrant polychrome presence Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

TALLAHASSEE โ Gov. Ron DeSantis lashed out Friday at a former Florida data scientist turned whistleblower whose home was raided by a state law enforcement team wielding a sledgehammer earlier this week. Just because you're a darling of some corners of the fever swamps, that does not exempt you from following the law,โ DeSantis said during an appearance in Tampa. The video of law enforcement's arrival at the Tallahassee home of Rebekah Jones has gone viral and the former health department data scientist has denied allegations that she accessed a state emergency alert system to urge former co-workers to speak out about the DeSantis administration's handling of the coronavirus.

Esther Dingley and Dan Colegate had been travelling throughout Europe since 2014 and she was expected to return from a solo trek on December 2. The 37-year-old set out to hike from the Port de la Glere to the Port de Venasque, a trek which follows the border between France and Spain, according to local police. Captain Jean-Marc Bordinaro of France's Gendarmerie de Saint-Gaudens told The Times: "Esther Dingley wanted to continue with her current way of life, journeys in a camper van and sporting activities including hiking, whilst Daniel Colegate seems a little tired of this nomadic life."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will discuss with state leaders on Sunday tightening lockdown restrictions to stem a rise in coronavirus infections, with school and shop closures on the agenda, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Germany has been in partial lockdown for six weeks, with bars and restaurants closed. Germany, which has Europe's largest economy, was more successful than many European countries in keeping the pandemic under control in the first wave in March and April, but it has been struggling to turn the tide in the second wave with what has been dubbed a "lockdown lite".

An investigation into President Trump being conducted by Manhattan prosecutors is reportedly "significantly escalating." The office of Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. has "stepped up its efforts" to investigate Trump's business conduct, in recent weeks "significantly escalating" the probe by interviewing employees of lender Deutsche Bank and insurance broker Aon, The New York Times reported on Friday. The prosecutors have reportedly issued new subpoenas and questioned witnesses before a grand jury for investigative purposes.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is one of four candidates being considered for attorney general in President-elect Joe Biden's administration, a source toldย the Associated Press on Friday. The other three contenders include former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, outgoing Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, and Judge Merrick Garland. Cuomo has previously said he has "no interest in going to Washington" despite having previously served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under then-President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001.

It took 51 years and a team of experts from three countries to crack the code to a cipher left by the still unidentified Zodiac Killer, who haunted northern California communities in the 1960s and 70s. โI hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me,โ the message, sent to the San Francisco Chronicle in November 1969 in a series of symbols, reads. The FBI confirmed that the news of the cracked code is the real deal, but said it does little to help investigators in the decades-long search for the serial killer.

American women, who traditionally make most of the healthcare decisions in their families, are more wary than men of the new, rapidly developed COVID-19 vaccines, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, presenting a potential challenge to efforts to immunize the public. The regulator said on Friday it was working rapidly to issue an emergency use authorization.

One of Florida's largest newspapers on Friday publicly apologized to its readers for endorsing the re-election of Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) after the congressman signed on to the Trump-backed Texas lawsuit seeking to overthrow the 2020 election. This week, amid a series of resounding defeats for Team Trump's legal efforts to steal the election from President-elect Joe Biden, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a last-ditch lawsuit with the Supreme Court. The suit seeks to toss out the election results of four states that voted for Biden, claiming those states had unlawfully altered their voting laws.

The mayor of Columbus, Ohio, criticized a U.S. Marshal on Friday for providing an "inappropriate, uninformed" statement about the death of 23-year-old Casey Goodson Jr. Soon after Goodson was fatally shot by a sheriff's deputy last Friday, U.S. Marshal Peter Tobin made multiple claims that have been disputed by Goodson's family and have not been repeated by authorities investigating the shooting. He has since said his comments were "premature." In the aftermath of the December 4 shooting, Tobin told reporters on the scene that the victim "was seen driving down the street waving a gun" before he was confronted by the deputy, who was later identified as Franklin County Sheriff's Deputy Jason M...

Olivier Conan didn't see how it was going to work, keeping Barbรจs, his Brooklyn bar/performance space, open through the pandemic when live performances and crowded spaces have been at the top of the DON'T list. The months of pandemic have meant nothing but change for the city's restaurant and bar owners, who have had to deal with limits to what kind of service they could offer, how many people could be inside when indoor dining was allowed to return, and how to adjust to the rise of outdoor dining. Wade Hagenbart has closed down a restaurant he had just opened in late 2019, as well as Angry Wade, a Brooklyn bar he started 20 years ago, leaving him with his Gueros restaurant focusing on takeout.
For the attack on Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was the latest sign that assassination (โtargeted killingโ in modern military parlance) โ a practice shunned internationally and legally proscribed for over a century โ is finding official favor again and making a comeback. It was operated by remote control via satellite, using facial recognition technology to confirm they had the right man. Advances in military technology, such as drones and other remote-control weaponry, have made targeted killings easier for all sorts of actors, not only sophisticated national armies.

The US Supreme Court on Friday brought an abrupt end to a long-shot lawsuit filed by Texas and backed by President Donald Trump seeking to throw out voting results in four states, dealing him a crushing setback in his quest to undo his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden. The justices in a brief order rejected the bid by Texas to file the extraordinary challenge targeting Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin directly with the Supreme Court, as is allowed in some instances of litigation between states under a legal doctrine called "original jurisdiction". The order said Texas did not have legal standing to bring the claim.

Former members of the celebrity megachurch Hillsong recently came forward to Insider with multiple accusations of racism, anti-LGBTQ behavior, and exploitation after pastor Carl Lentz was fired for infidelity last month. After celebrity pastor of Hillsong NYC Carl Lentz was fired for cheating on his wife in November, sources told Insider that the issues at Hillsong run much deeper than one affair. Several former volunteers said top pastors regularly took advantage of free and underpaid labor, and in some cases paid little or no money for volunteers to babysit their children.

Gordon Ramsay and Gigi Hadid share a mutual love of cooking. In a live cooking event on Saturday, December 12, at 12 p.m. EST, Ramsay will pay homage to a spicy pasta and shrimp dish he said Hadid sent him recently. The "MasterChef" judge will also make a "glamorous" banana bread pancake cereal with warm, vanilla-infused milk.

The night after their immigration court hearing, Francisco Sical heldย his youngย daughter in his arms in a freezing Border Patrol cell. Melissa Sical โ second-youngest of his seven children, with long brown hair and a shy smile โ had glimpsed El Paso from the government van and wanted to see more of the houses with yards beyond the highways. Now she was trembling with cold, and Sical couldn't bear to tell her that they were detained.

Hours before the Food and Drug Administration authorized the first COVD-19 vaccine late Friday, a high-ranking White House official told the agency's chief he could face firing if the vaccine was not cleared by day's end, two administration officials said. The FDA granted emergency use for the vaccine produced by Pfizer Inc. and its German partner BioNTech. President Donald Trump said late Friday that Pfizer had โpassed the gold standard of safetyโ and hailed the vaccine as โone of the greatest scientific accomplishments in history.โ

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that the nation's 21 million healthcare workers and 3 million residents of long-term care facilities - including assisted living and nursing homes - get priority access to the shots. With the FDA's authorization, Pfizer can distribute shots using its own delivery system, which is centered in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. Pfizer has 6.4 million vaccine doses available, but the company's first shipments will only contain 2.9 million doses.


โThe prospect of a 2024 run is politically significant. Itโs also a complete fiction.โ
โHis flirtation with a 2024 bid ensures heโll remain the dominant force in the Republican Party.โ
โHe shouldnโt run for president again. Thereโs a better job and life for him on the horizon.โ
โTrump is in for years of scandals and humiliationsโฆHeโll have to devote much of his energy to trying to stay out of prison.โ
โIf Trump himself passes on the opportunity, his two very political children could also potentially pick up the mantle.โ