'A huge leap forward': Democrats add a host of retirement provisions to the $3.5T reconciliation bill

Inside the Democrats' forthcoming package of proposed social spending is a host of significant changes to how Americans might save for retirement in the years and decades ahead. The provisions – if enacted – would be one of the most impactful changes to the private retirement system since the SECURE Act was passed in 2019. Susan Neely, president and CEO of American Council of Life Insurers, supports the proposals and told Yahoo Finance that "the punchline is it will be a huge leap forward in closing the retirement savings gap which was a problem in this country pre-pandemic."

Jon Stewart Admits Why He Was Wrong About Donald Trump

Jon Stewart admitted the mistake he made when Donald Trump first announced his candidacy for president in 2015. Back then, the then-host of “The Daily Show” figured the reality TV personality was a comedic “gift from heaven. But in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Wednesday, Stewart said he misjudged, failing to consider that Trump's “certainty, his ridiculousness, his shamelessness is what made him dangerous.

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  Jon Stewart says he initially dismissed how Trump's 'shamelessness' made him 'dangerous'

  Business Insider
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  Jon Stewart explains why his new show 'can be more satisfying' than The Daily Show

  The Week

Al Capone’s ‘Piece of Crap’ Miami Beach Home Likely to Be Demolished

Your beloved Miami Beach house, which you purchased for $40,000 in 1928, is scheduled to be torn down. The new owners of your Florida refuge, who purchased it for $10.75 million this summer, told the Miami Herald that the house has flood damage and standing water under it. Now, Al, please don't grab your Thompson submachine gun.

Rivian vehicles are now ready for sale in all 50 states, following key certifications

Rivian vehicles have received certifications from three agencies, the final hurdle that allows the electric automaker to sell and deliver its R1T pickup truck and R1S SUV in all 50 U.S. states. Rivian confirmed to TechCrunch in an email that the vehicles are fully certified by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board. Bloomberg also reported that Rivian has received regulatory approval to deliver vehicles to customers.

Employers are spying on Americans at home with ‘tattleware’. It’s time to track them instead

Writing in the Guardian, Sandy Milne recently reported on the rise of “bossware” or “tattleware”, essentially spyware that enables managers to monitor their employees working from home. There are good reasons for the lack of trust between employer and employee – alas, they are mostly the fault of the employer. The Wall Street Journal found some people who were doing two full-time jobs simultaneously, fooling each of their employers into thinking they had their full attention, and made a federal case out of it.

Woman tied to dog dragged to death by San Francisco train

A woman who had a dog tethered to her waist with a leash was dragged to death by a train in San Francisco, transit officials said Tuesday. The woman had boarded a Bay Area Rapid Transit train at Powell Station with her dog and as the doors were about to close she stepped out but the dog stayed on the train. As the train took off, she was dragged, pulled onto the tracks and killed Monday, BART officials said in a statement.

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  Woman tethered to dog is dragged to death by BART train at San Francisco station

  LA Times
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  Woman killed in SF BART dragging was tethered to dog in train

  KGO – San Francisco

High school teacher says telling students to behave in class is 'white supremacy'

A Virginia high school teacher posted a TikTok video that said telling students to behave themselves in class falls under the definition of "white supremacy." "I stated that PBIS is white supremacy with a hug and a lot of y'all wanted to know more about that," the teacher said in the May TikTok video. "So, if PBIS concerns itself with positive behaviors, we have to ask ourselves, 'OK, well what are those positive behaviors?' And it's things like making sure that you're following directions and making sure that you're sitting quietly and you are in your seat and all these things that come from white culture."

This is how much the average Social Security check is likely to rise next year

The reason is that August's official inflation figures came in below expectations—thanks in part to the effects of the “delta” variant of COVID-19, which caused a slump in the prices of things like air travel and hotel tickets, and some weird looking numbers on housing (more on this below). Each year's Social Security COLA is fixed by looking at consumer prices for July, August and September and then comparing them to the prices during the same three months a year earlier. July and August of this year are running 5.9% ahead of the same months last year.

U.S. judge rules Trump cannot stop rape accuser's lawsuit from proceeding

A U.S. judge on Wednesday said former President Donald Trump cannot delay a lawsuit accusing him of defaming former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll after she claimed he raped her in the mid-1990s. In a one-sentence order, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan refused to put the case on hold while Trump appeals an earlier ruling he made. The order could let Carroll obtain documents and other materials from Trump during the appeal.

Samantha Bee Spots Real Reason For GOP Fearmongering On COVID-19 Vaccines, Mandates

Samantha Bee said Wednesday that Republicans “need to be honest” about why they're stoking anger about COVID-19 vaccines and mandates. Republicans aren't really afraid of them, said the “Full Frontal” host. They're just terrified of “the hate-filled, conspiracy-loving base they have cultivated.

Navy sailor slapped on 9/11 anniversary by woman calling him a fake. But he’s not

A man was verbally accosted and slapped at a pizza restaurant on the anniversary of Sept. 11 by a woman who said he was lying about being a Navy sailor. Photos dating back to 2020 show him at Naval Station Great Lakes, with the chief of the fire department he volunteers for also confirming his service. Nolte said the encounter began Saturday when the woman kept staring at him as he waited inside the pizza restaurant.

Petito family says her boyfriend 'left Gabby in the wilderness with grizzly bears and wolves while he sits in the comfort of his home' as their daughter is missing

Gabby Petito's family blasted her boyfriend on Wednesday, saying his "silence" was "reprehensible." Brian Laundrie "left Gabby in the wilderness with grizzly bears and wolves," her family said. The police have named Laundrie a person of interest in the case.

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  Missing woman's boyfriend labeled person of interest

  WABC – NY
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  Boyfriend of Gabby Petito named as person of interest in disappearance

  Washington Examiner

Indiana woman who strangled stepdaughter gets life sentence

A northern Indiana woman convicted of murder in the strangulation death of her 10-year-old stepdaughter was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Amanda Carmack, of Gas City, was sentenced during a hearing Wednesday. A jury convicted her last month on murder, strangulation, neglect and battery charges in the killing of Skylea Carmack.

2-year-old found at her baby brother’s side along Rio Grande in Texas, officials say

Two children were found abandoned along the Mexico border in Texas and a note was left with them, officials said. U.S. Border Patrol agents on the Rio Grande spotted an “unusual color” along the riverbank Tuesday and discovered the children, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. A note left under a baby carrier revealed the children are siblings from Honduras, officials said.

Trump is right about Bush

Trump was responding to a thinly veiled shot made by Bush towards the Trump-idolizing insurrectionists during a speech at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on Saturday to mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Without explicitly naming Trump supporters that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, Bush compared "violent extremists at home" to the terrorists who had hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001, and crashed them in New York City, Arlington, and Shanksville, killing nearly 3,000 people. "There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home," Bush explained.

Ex-cop's murder conviction reversed in 911 caller's death

The Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday threw out the third-degree murder conviction of a former Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot a woman who had called 911 to report a possible rape behind her home. In its ruling in the case of Mohamed Noor, the Supreme Court also clarified what would constitute third-degree murder, or depraved-mind murder, saying the statute doesn't apply if a defendant's actions are directed at a particular person. Noor was convicted of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the 2017 death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, a dual U.S.-Australian citizen who called 911 to report a possible sexual assault behind her home.

Only 30% of Americans Have Achieved This Huge Retirement Milestone. Have You?

Retirement savings statistics usually highlight how badly people are doing at preparing for their future, but one stat in Transamerica's latest retirement survey bucks this trend: Approximately 30% of households have saved $250,000 or more for retirement already. Most of us can fortunately count upon Social Security to help us with some of our retirement costs so we don't have to rely solely upon our personal savings. Most people will need $1 million or more to retire comfortably, but the only way to know what you'll need is to put together a retirement plan that takes your health and lifestyle into account.

‘Get out of there!’ Watch the moment a teenage surfer is attacked by shark in Florida

In an instant, a photographer caught a terrifyingly rare sight: a shark attacking a surfer off the Florida coast last week. Central Florida photographer Sam Scribner happened to be hanging out watching surfers in action Thursday at the Ponce Inlet in New Smyrna Beach when suddenly the unthinkable occurred. Posted on Scribner's Instagram (Headline: “Trigger Warning: SHARK BITE”), his video eerily looks like a scene from the 1975 classic “Jaws.

‘The world is a jungle’: France fumes at US-Australia nuclear submarine deal

French President Emmanuel Macron's team is outraged at President Joe Biden's announcement to share U.S. and British nuclear submarine technology with Australia, which scuttles an agreement for Australia to purchase French vessels. “The American choice to exclude a European ally and partner such as France from a structuring partnership with Australia, at a time when we are facing unprecedented challenges in the Indo-Pacific region ... shows a lack of coherence that France can only note and regret,” French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said in a joint statement Wednesday evening.

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  After Australia arms deal flop, EU to launch Indo-Pacific plan

  Reuters
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  France says Biden acted like Trump to sink Australia defence deal

  Reuters