
The first federal executions during a president's lame-duck period in over a century have turned attention to how President-elect Joe Biden's administration will handle the death penalty. The high-profile case of Brandon Bernard — one of five gang members convicted in the murders of two youth ministers in 1999 — sparked national interest over the past few months, as celebrities and politicians railed against his pending execution as part of a larger push to eradicate the death penalty. On Thursday, the Supreme Court denied a petition filed by Bernard's attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr, and he was put to death later that evening.

Throughout the hard-hit states of the Upper Midwest and northern Plains — in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas — coronavirus case counts have been falling for weeks. When case counts were skyrocketing across the Upper Midwest earlier this fall, the national media was all over the story. Part of that may have been a reluctance to find silver linings in states where infection rates still rank among the highest in the nation (even if they're slowing down) and where hospitalizations and deaths, which lag cases by weeks, still haven't peaked.

In the contentious aftermath of the presidential election, one issue should not be forgotten: the pressing need for police reform. To this end, it may surprise many people that the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) supports the aims of the Black Lives Matter movement. We also believe that resetting the relationship between police officers and the communities they serve must be a bipartisan effort that is embraced at both the federal and state levels.

DUBAI (Reuters) -Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned Turkey's ambassador on Friday over remarks by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan during a visit to Azerbaijan, which Tehran said amounted to meddling in its affairs. Erdogan recited an Azeri-Iranian poem about the division of Azerbaijan's territory between Russia and Iran in the 19th century. Tehran appeared concerned his remarks could fan separatist tendencies among Iran's Azeri minority.
President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani provides insight into the strongest piece of evidence he will present for legal challenge.

The US is to execute a female federal inmate for the first time in almost 70 years, the Justice Department said. Lisa Montgomery strangled a pregnant woman in Missouri before cutting out and kidnapping the baby in 2004. The last woman to be executed by the US government was Bonnie Heady, who died in a gas chamber in Missouri in 1953, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Pakistan's foreign minister on Friday called for the United Nations and the European Union to investigate a recent report exposing a 15-year disinformation campaign that Islamabad alleges was designed to serve India's interests and discredit Pakistan. The extensive report was published earlier this week by EU DisinfoLab, a Brussels-based nongovernmental organization. The findings detail how 10 defunct but U.N.-accredited NGOs were “revived” in order to influence the EU and the U.N. Human Rights Council.

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, according to people familiar with the matter. 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.

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.

Studies of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine showed no major safety concerns, and regulators at the US Food and Drug Administration cleared the shot on Friday for emergency use. The vaccine is highly effective and safe, based on a clinical trial of more than 40,000 participants. There were temporary side effects that are generally expected with most vaccines.

Olivier Conan didn't see how it was going to work, keeping Barbès, 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.

President Donald Trump lambasted the Supreme Court on Saturday for declining to take a case he hoped would overturn President-elect Joe Biden's election victory and called Attorney General William Barr a "disappointment." The decision comes ahead of a meeting by the U.S. Electoral College on Monday to make Democrat Biden's victory official. Trump, a Republican, has refused to concede despite losing to Biden, who took 306 votes to Trump's 232 in the state-by-state Electoral College, which allots votes to all 50 states and the District of Columbia based on population.

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.

A lone senator from Utah has singlehandedly blocked the bipartisan approval of two new national museums to honor American Latinos and women, arguing that “last thing we need is to further divide an already divided nation.” Republican Sen. Mike Lee objected Thursday to the creation of the two proposed Smithsonian museums, stalling two projects that have been in the making for decades and enjoy broad bipartisan support. Senate approval would have sent the legislation approving the Latino museum to President Donald Trump for his signature.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected a long-shot lawsuit by Texas and backed by President Donald Trump seeking to throw out voting results in four states, dealing him a likely fatal blow in his quest to undo his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden. The decision allows the U.S. Electoral College to press ahead with a meeting on Monday, where it is expected to formally cast its votes and make Biden's victory official. Biden, a Democrat, has amassed 306 votes to Trump's 232 in the state-by-state Electoral College, which allots votes to all 50 states and the District of Columbia based on population.

Republicans are signaling that they won't support the $908 billion bipartisan coronavirus relief plan. The plan was intended to be a compromise between Democrats and Republicans after months of deadlock over how much should be spent and on what. Democrats have dismissed the White House's alternative proposal in favor of working on the bipartisan one, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has suggested that negotiations could continue after Christmas.

In the hands of Pierre Yovanovitch, the Paris apartment that iconic designer Jean-Michel Frank once called home gets a spectacular new lease on life Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

Turkey on Saturday summoned the Iranian ambassador to Ankara over Iran's “aggressive” reaction to the Turkish president's recitation of a poem on a visit to Azerbaijan, which Tehran deemed to support a secession of Azeri ethnic parts of Iran. The diplomatic spat between neighbors Iran and Turkey began earlier this week when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who strongly backs Azerbaijan, read parts of a poem during a parade in the Caucasian country's capital of Baku. The verses that Erdogan read included lines about how a border tore apart ancient Azeri, or Azerbaijani, lands “by force.

Virgin Galactic is set to carry out a milestone test flight of its rocket-powered tourist plane on Saturday. This will be the first crewed flight of its reusable Unity vehicle to take off from the purpose-built commercial spaceport in New Mexico, US. Sir Richard Branson's company will begin space tourism flights in 2021.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured farmers on Saturday that reforms in the agrarian sector were aimed at helping them as thousands of farmers continued protests against three new laws to overhaul procurement and sale of produce. "Reforms will help draw investment in agriculture and benefit farmers," he said at the annual meeting of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi. "The aim of the all government reforms is to make farmers' prosperous," he said adding that private sector must help improve the country's agriculture sector.

On Saturday morning, aggrieved Trump supporters are set to rally outside the Supreme Court, Congress, and the Department of Justice's headquarters. For the second time since those elections concluded, his fans are set to flock to the nation's capital to rally for a cause that the Supreme Court itself—on Friday night—dismissed. Arina Grossu, a Jericho March co-founder and staffer at the conservative Family Research Council, claims she had a vision two days after Election Day that imagined Trump supporters protesting the election results by marching around buildings.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is one of several contenders under consideration by President-elect Joe Biden for the role of attorney general, a person with knowledge of the search process said Friday. The other three contenders at the moment include outgoing Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, said the person, who cautioned that no decision had been reached and no announcement was expected imminently. The person was not authorized to discuss the search process by name and spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press.

Steve Bannon, the former adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, has hired a lawyer who also represents the president's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to defend him against criminal fraud charges. Bannon's hiring of Robert Costello came five weeks after his prior lawyer, William Burck, withdrew following Bannon's Nov. 5 online suggestion that the government infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray be beheaded for being disloyal to Trump.

A Virgin Galactic test flight Saturday ended prematurely as the spacecraft's rocket motor failed to ignite and it then glided down safely to its landing site in southern New Mexico. The hourlong flight was the first from Virgin Galactic's new headquarters at Spaceport America, a futuristic desert outpost where the aircraft carrying the spacecraft took off at approximately 8:25 a.m.

A congressional monitor of federal pandemic aid is raising the possibility of a link between President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and a $700 million relief loan to a struggling trucking company. Bharat Ramamurti, a Democratic member of the four-person Congressional Oversight Commission, raised the possible Kushner connection at a hearing Thursday, as panel members from both parties challenged the Treasury Department's decision to award the loan to YRC Worldwide. The taxpayer-funded loan was made on the grounds that the company's operations are critical for maintaining national security.


“The prospect of a 2024 run is politically significant. It’s also a complete fiction.”
“His flirtation with a 2024 bid ensures he’ll remain the dominant force in the Republican Party.”
“He shouldn’t run for president again. There’s a better job and life for him on the horizon.”
“Trump is in for years of scandals and humiliations…He’ll have to devote much of his energy to trying to stay out of prison.”
“If Trump himself passes on the opportunity, his two very political children could also potentially pick up the mantle.”