The last critical Arizona Senate race ended a month ago, and the next one is already kicking off — with pressure on Democrats to dodge a political disaster. Read More

Ex-police officer once tasked with protecting Jewish communities also linked to foiled Reichsbürger plan. A celebrity gourmet chef whose daughter is the girlfriend of the Real Madrid footballer David Alaba and an ex-police officer once tasked with protecting Jewish communities from terror attacks are among the latest figures to have been linked to the foiled Reichsbürger coup plan in Germany, with further arrests expected as investigations continue. Details emerging after the biggest ever national police operation against rightwing extremism indicate that suspects may have been informed in advance of the raids, in which 3,000 police officers targeted more than 150 addresses across Germany, and in Austria and Italy, making 23 arrests. Read More

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has agreed to testify before the House Financial Services Committee at a hearing about the crypto exchange's collapse on Tuesday, he said in a series of tweets Friday morning. There's been a lot of back and forth in Washington over whether lawmakers would have to subpoena Bankman-Fried, who said he would voluntarily testify since the committee "still thinks it would be useful." It was unclear whether he would show up on Capitol Hill in person or stay in the Bahamas where he's been holed up for much of the time since his company filed for bankruptcy last month, holding interviews with reporters. Read More

House Democrats introduced a bill Tuesday known as the “Identifying Mass Shooters Act” that will direct the National Institute of Justice to collect, study and analyze online content to identify potential mass shooters before they act, according to a copy of the bill obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The bill, introduced by Democratic Maryland Rep. Kweisi Mfume along with several other Democrats, will require the director of the NIJ to create and submit a report to Congress detailing the “content patterns” of mass shooters within two years of the legislation’s enactment. The bill claims that existing oversight and accountability measures for social media platforms produce an environment that fosters hate speech, extremism, radicalization, and violence.” Read More

The Fed will need to rate interest rates closer to 6% to meaningfully ease inflationary pressures, said legendary property investor Sam Zell.  A "shocking event" was mortgage rates more than doubling this year, the billionaire told Fox Business.  Zell also sees the US economy falling into a recession.  There's little comfort to be had in a recent softening in mortgage rates because the Federal Reserve is likely to continue with its string of rate hikes to catch up in taming inflation, billionaire property investor Sam Zell said Thursday. Read More

Conservationist groups hail legislation aimed at curbing private ownership of tigers and lions in US with little oversight. Conservation groups in the US have hailed a new law that will end what they call the “horrific” practice of keeping big cats such as tigers and lions as pets or as petting zoo amusements. Joe Biden is expected to swiftly sign the new legislation, which requires that only certified zoos and universities are allowed to hold lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars and other large cats, following its passage in the US Senate this week. The House of Representatives voted for the bill, called the Big Cat Public Safety Act, in July. Read More

“Brittney Griner is coming back to the country she disrespected and whose anthem she couldn’t be bothered to stand for,” Project 21 member Michael Austin said. “Hopefully, she learns the true cost of freedom is far higher than taking a knee at a basketball game no one watches. Welcome back to freedom Ms. Griner.” (RELATED: Brittney Griner Freed From Russia In Exchange For ‘Merchant Of Death’, Ex-Marine Left Behind) Tim Parrish, a veteran, business owner and conservative activist, believes it is “always a great day” when an American is returned home, but pointed to a time when the American government didn’t negotiate with terrorists, according to the release. “The Griner-Bout swap will be recorded as the most lopsided, Un-American prisoner swap ever conducted,” Parrish said. Read More

The Democratic majority on the House Oversight and Reform Committee is getting its last licks in before the entire House is turned into the Hunter's Laptop Comedy Hour under the Republicans in January. On Friday, the committee is expected to release a massive load of documents demonstrating that the commitment of our major oil companies to a "transition" to a low-carbon economy was not made in good faith, and that major oil companies say one thing in public while doing quite the other thing in private—and therefore are truthless goons. We'll pause for a moment while you try to get over the shock of it all. Read More

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol is weighing criminal referrals not only against former President Donald Trump, but at least four additional people connected to him and efforts to subvert the 2020 election, according to media reports. Those include onetime White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, attorney John Eastman and former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark. Read More

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that his nation may cut crude oil production in response to the Group of Seven Nation’s (G7) price cap on Russian crude, Bloomberg reported Friday. The G7, which includes the U.S. and Australia, imposed a $60 per barrel price cap on seaborne Russian oil on Dec. 5 to target Moscow’s oil revenues which are helping fund its invasion of Ukraine. Putin told reporters on Russian state TV that Russia will consider cutting production due to the price cap and added that he would soon announce a presidential decree to further respond to G7’s move, according to Bloomberg. (RELATED: Biden Admin Allows Chevron To Pump Oil In Communist Venezuela) Read More

KYIV, Ukraine -- The head of NATO expressed worry that the fighting in Ukraine could spin out of control and become a war between Russia and NATO, according to an interview released Friday.. “If things go wrong, they can go horribly wrong,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in remarks to Norwegian broadcaster NRK. Read More

Wholesale prices rose more than expected in November, dampening hopes that inflation could be headed lower, the Labor Department reported Friday. The producer price index, a measure of what companies get for their products in the pipeline, increased 0.3% for the month and 7.4% from a year ago. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a 0.2% gain. Read More

Haussmann Visuals | Moment | Getty Images The European Central Bank is worried about the potential risks to financial markets from an EU-wide cap on natural gas prices. The bloc has been in intense discussions for several weeks over how to impose a limit on gas prices. The measure — designed to prevent sky-high costs for consumers — is proving controversial for Europe amid an acute energy crisis following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Read More

Speaking authoritatively about what makes a great rom-com while you're suffering through soaring Scoville levels is an impressive feat. Kate Hudson took on First We Feast's Hot Ones, talking about not only her upcoming film Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, but what makes a good romantic comedy. "Just because they're made to feel bright doesn't mean they have to look so bright," she says amid her spice-fuelled dissertation. "I'm going to be at NYU film school when I'm 75. I'll be the professor of rom-coms." Mainly, Hudson just wants to beat her How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days co-star Matthew McConaughey at handling the spice levels. "That’s all I care about, I want to take Matthew down on this one." Read More

Twitter CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the platform has imposed search and visibility restrictions on the accounts of political candidates running for office, limiting voters’ ability to hear from them during this time, in tweets on Thursday and Friday. “Yes,” wrote Musk in response to a question about whether candidates either “running for office or seeking reelection” were subject to such restrictions, termed “shadowbans” by Musk and others. The question focused on politicians in the U.S. or elsewhere, and no other information has been released about how many candidates were affected in the United States, or their political leanings. (RELATED: Twitter Had Secret ‘Blacklists’ That Suppressed Stanford Doctor, Top Conservatives, Docs Show) Read More

Cartels are ramping up attacks near the U.S. border with attempts to kidnap migrants. Mexican authorities are raising concerns over the issue, saying the cartels are becoming more brazen with the influx of migrants bound for the U.S. with seven large migrant kidnapping attempts, according to Border Report. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered a record of more than 2.3 million migrants in fiscal year 2022. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: ‘Regret’: ICE Apologizes For ‘Miscalculation’ Of Illegal Immigrant Data After DCNF Exposes Major Errors) Read More

Kevin Winter | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images If this was a movie, indeed. Taylor Swift has only just begun an Oscar campaign for her short film "All Too Well," and she's already struck a deal with Disney to make her feature directorial debut. The singer-songwriter has written an original script that will be produced by Searchlight Pictures, the studio behind best picture winners like "Slumdog Millionaire," "12 Years a Slave," "Birdman" and "The Shape of Water." Read More

Russia is considering slashing its oil production in response to the Western price cap, Vladimir Putin said on Friday. The Russian president also said Moscow wouldn't be financially affected by the price cap, calling the mechanism "stupid." If Russia cuts output, it could spur volatility and send crude prices higher, experts have warned. Russia will consider slashing its oil output in retaliation to the G7 and European Union's price cap, according to President Vladimir Putin. Read More

The Biden administration issued a volley of sanctions against Chinese and Russian individuals and businesses over human rights concerns Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The sanctions target Beijing’s persecution of Tibetan dissidents and illegal fishing practices, along with identified Russian war crimes in Ukraine and Moscow’s use of Iranian drones to support its firefighting aims, the WSJ reported, citing officials familiar with the matter. The sanctions aim to cut off individuals accused of corruption and human rights abuses from critical financial networks, punishment for the associated offenses and a possible deterrent against further violations. Read More

“Others who have legitimate investigations, I think, will see that criminal cases can be brought and can be won,” Vance told POLITICO. “I think that was always the big question mark, and that question has now been answered.” The Trump Organization concealed compensation including apartments, cars, and private school tuition from tax authorities. (Trump called the conviction a “witch hunt” and vowed an appeal.) Former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, the scheme’s chief beneficiary, pleaded guilty and agreed to testify at his employer’s trial. Read More

This time last year, the Delta variant was about to send Covid-19 cases to what would be their highest peak of the pandemic so far. It's no wonder, then, that 45% of Americans ranked Covid as the biggest issue facing the U.S. at the time, according to last year's Consumer Trends survey from The New Consumer. Read More

Republican House Freedom Caucus (HFC) members called for key rule and policy changes in a letter Thursday, recommending that the speaker of the House adopt their recommendations as the 118th Congress is formed. The letter highlighted the implementation of “must-pass” legislation to check the Biden administration, the formation of “church commission style” committees to “target weaponized government,” bills that are focused, amendable and readable, conservative representation on committees and among chairs and a halting of Republican leaders being involved in primary elections. Read More

Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images China and Saudi Arabia stressed the importance of global oil market stability and Riyadh's role in achieving this balance, following a three-day Saudi visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping. "The People's Republic of China welcomed the Kingdom's role as a supporter of the balance and stability in the world oil markets, and as reliable major exporter of crude oil to China," said a joint statement published by Riyadh's state-owned Saudi Press Agency. Read More

Biden’s authorization to release Bout, the Russian felon once nicknamed “the Merchant of Death,” underscored the heightened urgency that his administration faced to get Griner home, particularly after the recent resolution of her criminal case on drug charges and her subsequent transfer to a penal colony. Griner was seen getting off a plane that landed Friday at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas. Read More

DETROIT — Workers at a General Motors joint venture battery plant in Ohio overwhelmingly voted in favor of representation with the United Auto Workers, the union said early Friday. The vote was being closely watched as such battery plants are viewed as crucial for automakers to transition from traditional vehicles with internal combustion engines to all-electric cars and trucks. Several other multi-billion dollar plants from GM and other automakers are under construction in the U.S. Read More

Missouri Republican Rep. Vicky Hartzler went viral for her teary (and unsuccessful) plea to stop the Respect for Marriage Act. Her gay nephew wants a word. View Entire Post › Read More

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared that Moscow might think about adopting what he described as a U.S. concept of a preemptive military strike, noting that it has the weapons to do the job Read More

The Associated Press has filed a motion seeking to protect public access to records detailing the treatment of a Tennessee death row inmate who cut off his penis while on suicide watch Read More

The RCN boss poised to lead the first NHS-wide strike reflects on her long-established readiness to tackle perceived injustices.Nurses’ union leader accuses Steve Barclay of ‘bullyboy’ tactics Pat Cullen tells a story that is very revealing about the character of the woman who is about to lead Britain’s nurses into their first-ever NHS-wide strike – herself. Almost 40 years ago, back in 1983, Cullen was an 18-year-old trainee nurse at Holywell psychiatric hospital in Antrim, Northern Ireland. She was appalled that under its “token economy system” staff punished patients whose behaviour proved difficult by taking away their personal possessions – sweets, cigarettes, washbags or blankets. Read More

Karwai Tang via Getty Images Actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney welcomed King Charles III and Camilla, the queen consort of Britain on Friday as co-owners of the Wrexham A.F.C. soccer club in Wales, Entertainment Tonight reported. Gathered on the pitch, the four took photos, shook hands and laughed together. “Welcome to Wrexham Season 2: Charles in Charge,” Reynolds later tweeted alongside a photo of him and the king. Read More

In July, 1971, the young poet Bernadette Mayer took thirty-six diaristic photos a day and noted down a companionable number of words, then assembled it all into a show, “Memory,” in which the images were mounted on the walls of a gallery and the words, read aloud and recorded, played out so that it would take much of a day, as a viewer and a listener, to hear and see the whole month. The project, in its mix of exhaustive documentation and randomness, feels part Buckminster Fuller and part John Cage—except that it also feels singular. “July 1971 was a random point in time,” Mayer said, in a 2020 interview in Artforum. “If you practice writing constantly, you can start to speak in poetry form and so whenever you feel like writing something, all you have to do is immediately write what you’re thinking.” This, of course, wouldn’t work for most people, but for Mayer, who died last month, at the age of seventy-seven, the practice made her a part of what she was observing. Read More

FLINT, Mich. -- A judge dismissed criminal charges against former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder in the Flint water crisis, months after the state Supreme Court said indictments returned by a one-person grand jury were invalid. Snyder, a Republican who left office in 2019, was charged with two misdemeanor counts of misconduct in office. He was the first person in state history to be charged for alleged crimes related to service as governor. Read More

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- An attorney requested a new hearing on Friday on the motion that led to the release of Adnan Syed, whose murder conviction chronicled in the hit podcast “Serial” already has been overturned. Steve Kelly, an attorney for the family of victim Hae Min Lee, filed the request in a legal brief in the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, the state's second-highest court. Read More

Force agrees to pay damages and costs in settlement with Dijon and Liam Joseph over 2018 incident. The Metropolitan police have apologised and paid tens of thousands of pounds in damages and costs to two young black men who were stopped and searched after officers saw them bump fists in the street and wrongly suspected them of dealing drugs. As part of a legal settlement, the Met declared that brothers Dijon and Liam Joseph, 33 and 31, were blameless for their ordeal four years ago, in which Dijon was handcuffed and which left them traumatised and humiliated. Read More

Tournament favourites Brazil were knocked out of the World Cup on penalties as Croatia kept their nerve to edge through to the semi-finals. Croatia, beaten finalists four years ago, scored with all four of their spot-kicks as Rodrygo - taking his team's first kick - was denied by the brilliant Dominik Livakovic and Marquinhos' crucial fourth effort struck the post. Read More

Some people are keen to enjoy their new freedoms, but others are fearful of a major wave of infections. China’s scaling back of its zero-Covid regime has left its population reeling. Some are embracing their new freedoms, while others are struggling to overcome their fears of being infected after three years of tough restrictions. Frustration at protracted lockdowns and mass testing boiled over in late November into widespread protests, the biggest show of public discontent in decades. Read More

When you buy through our links, Insider may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more. Valve's Steam Deck is an impressive portable PC that launched in early 2022. Steam Deck takes design cues from the popular Nintendo Switch, but is much more powerful. While Switch is technically a weaker device, its innovative features provide better value and ease of use. Read More

These Covid subvariants are resistant to key antibody treatments, and studies indicate they are better at evading antibodies from vaccination and infection. Read More

Federal data indicates that an oil spill in northeastern Kansas this week is the largest for an onshore crude pipeline in more than nine years and by far the biggest in the history of the Keystone pipeline Read More

Brazil was considered a favorite to win the tournament. Dec 9, 2022, 12:51 PM EST| Updated 9 minutes ago Read More

Federal prosecutors in New Jersey want the Securities and Exchange Commission to postpone its civil case against the alleged masterminds behind a $100 million fraud scheme involving a small-town deli so it won't get in the way of their ongoing criminal case. Prosecutors for the District of New Jersey filed a motion on Wednesday saying the SEC's case "substantially" overlaps with their ongoing criminal case and the civil matter should be postponed until the litigation, including a potential trial, is completed, court records show. Read More

Lawmakers in Greece have approved legislation banning commercial spyware and reforming rules for legally-sanctioned wiretaps following allegations that senior government officials and journalists had been targeted by shadowy surveillance software Read More

A new approach to limit sexually transmitted infections adds antibiotics before exposure, but will this prevent the spread of illness or help microbes change and no longer respond to treatment? Read More

On Wednesday, December 7th, moments after President Pedro Castillo of Peru announced that he was dissolving Congress and instituting a nationwide curfew, and would be ruling by edict until a new legislature could be elected, a Peruvian friend texted me what I thought would be news from Lima, an up-to-the-minute report on the very latest from the streets of the capital. I opened the text, still stunned by the news, and saw instead what appeared to be an invitation to a children’s party, an image of pink-and-yellow balloons and, in one corner, a blurry drawing of Peppa Pig. “You’re invited to my second coup d’état,” it read. “Don’t miss it.” The first coup of my generation, of course, took place thirty years ago, in 1992, when then President Alberto Fujimori surrounded Congress with tanks, censored newspapers and television stations, and arrested journalists and opposition leaders, launching a dictatorship that would last for almost a decade. Read More

Biden nuclear official Sam Brinton has been charged in stealing other people’s luggage at airports in two separate incidents, in one case removing a woman’s clothing from the bag then lying to authorities about not having opened it.  Brinton, who is genderfluid and goes by “they/them” pronouns, has a history of publicly promoting spanking, bondage and other BDSM practices. Read More

Support for public sector workers shows that most people realise the government’s in the wrong, not exhausted nurses. Winter is suddenly here, and with it a chill descending. This Arctic snap brings with it the season of falls on icy pavements, breathing difficulties aggravated by the cold, cars skidding off frozen roads and drunken Christmas party casualties. The worst time of year, you might think, for the first ambulance strike since the 1980s and the first national nurses’ strike in more than a century, especially as the NHS is grappling with a rush of parents understandably panicking about an outbreak of strep A. The armed forces may be drafted in to cover, somewhat ironically given that they, too, are public sector workers who spent the pandemic building hospitals and shipping PPE in return for a less than bumper payrise. But it’s still no time to be old and frail, worrying about what might happen if you slip on the stairs, or to be a family without a car, wondering how you’d get a child to hospital in the middle of the night. Read More

Mr Trump struck deals with some countries, including Mexico and Canada. The Biden administration reached additional agreements with the European Union, Japan and the UK to reduce the impact of the tariffs, while keeping the measures, which have been supported by labour unions representing US steel workers. Read More

Steve Brodner Closing arguments, The post At the End of the Day appeared first on The Nation. Read More

Three countries have teamed up to build a self-flying fighter jet. Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom announced Friday they will be building a new sixth-generation fighter jet to compete with China and Russia, according to CNN. Read More

Invasive reptile scuttles into electric substation in Lake Worth Beach, frying power and itself. This rebel reptile had vaulting ambition – but definitely came down to earth with a bang. One of Florida’s notorious and plentiful green invasive iguanas wreaked chaos earlier this week in one city after scuttling into an electricity substation in Lake Worth Beach and somehow causing a massive power cut. Read More