“Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty of all charges against him Friday, including of intentional homicide – the most serious of five charges against him in a case that largely divided America along political and racial lines more than a year after he shot three men during a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Rittenhouse fatally shot Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz during often violent protests in the summer of 2020 following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse, 17 at the time, faced charges ranging from intentional homicide to reckless and attempted homicide.
The Rittenhouse case garnered national attention from the beginning, a reflection of the country's division over race, guns and politics.” Read more at USA Today
“(CNN)House Democrats have voted to pass President Joe Biden's sweeping $1.9 trillion social safety net expansion legislation, a victory for the party even as the legislation faces a tough road ahead in the Senate.
The final tally was 220 to 213. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine was the only Democrat to vote against the bill and no Republicans voted for it.
The vote took place on Friday morning after House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy stalled an effort to vote Thursday evening by delivering a record-breaking marathon floor speech overnight.
The sweeping economic legislation stands as a key pillar of Biden's domestic agenda. It would deliver on longstanding Democratic priorities by dramatically expanding social services for Americans, working to mitigate the climate crisis, increasing access to health care and delivering aid to families and children.” Read more at CNN
“Federal regulators on Friday authorized Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna coronavirus vaccine boosters for all adults, a one-size-fits-all strategy designed to shore up Americans’ defenses against a tenacious virus and reduce confusion over guidelines that have varied based on people’s age, occupation and where they live.
The Food and Drug Administration cleared the boosters for people 18 and older who are at least six months past their second shot of the two-dose vaccines. The move reflects an urgent effort to spur the uptake of boosters to counter waning vaccine protection heading into the winter holiday season when millions of people travel to see friends and family. It’s also an attempt to put in place a coherent federal approach as about a dozen states move ahead on their own to grant broad access to boosters.
Even as the Biden administration scrambles to put universal boosters in place, it has been leapfrogged by New York City and several states, including Louisiana, Maine and Colorado, where worried officials already have endorsed widespread use of the extra shots to try to stave off a spike in cases over the holidays.” Read more at Washington Post
A new look at the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic points straight back to a seafood market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, says a scientist who's been studying the pandemic since the beginning. That was the original suspected source of the pandemic, but as more entities investigated and the Chinese government sought to deflect blame, the picture has become muddied. His research also reveals the possible first documented case of Covid-19: a seafood vendor who worked at the market and got sick on December 11, 2019. Nearly two years later, the world is still struggling with how to handle the virus. Austria is due to go into a national lockdown Monday, and in the US, more than a million people are estimated to still be missing their sense of smell after a Covid-19 infection.” Read more at CNN
“A bipartisan group of 10 state attorneys general has launched an investigation into Meta -- formerly known as Facebook -- focused on the potential harms of its Instagram platform on children and teens. The announcement follows extensive reporting on a trove of internal documents leaked by a former Facebook employee-turned-whistleblower. Some of the documents show that the company's own researchers have found that Instagram can damage young users' mental health and body image and can exacerbate dangerous behaviors such as eating disorders. The attorneys general say they will look into whether, by continuing to provide and promote Instagram despite knowing of the potential harms, Meta violated consumer protection laws and ‘put the public at risk.’” Read more at CNN
“Attorneys are due to begin closing arguments Monday in the trial of three White men involved in the killing of Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery after more than 20 witnesses and investigators took the stand over 10 days. Arbery was shot in a Georgia neighborhood in February 2020 after being pursued by the defendants in their vehicles. Travis McMichael, who shot and killed Arbery; his father Gregory McMichael; and their neighbor William ‘Roddie’ Bryan Jr. are charged with malice and felony murder. They have also been indicted on federal hate crime and attempted kidnapping charges. Defense attorneys argued their clients were trying to conduct a lawful citizen's arrest of Arbery, whom they suspected of burglary. Prosecutors have noted, by the men’s own account, Arbery did not appear armed, threatening or interested in confrontation. One Black and 11 White jurors will decide their fate.” Read more at CNN
“International concern is growing over the whereabouts of Peng Shuai, a Chinese tennis star who made explosive allegations of sexual assault against a former top Communist Party leader. Peng has not been seen in public since she posted the allegations to social media this month. The post triggered swift and widespread censorship, with even the barest reference of her scrubbed from online conversations. China has even blocked CNN's broadcast signal to prevent further reporting about Peng. In response, the tennis world has come together in a broad outcry. The head of the Women's Tennis Association says he's willing to pull business out of China altogether if reliable information about her whereabouts isn’t provided. The German Olympic Sport Federation is the latest body to call for clarity around the situation.” Read more at CNN
“CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — A jury began deliberations Friday in a civil trial of white nationalists accused of conspiring to commit racially motivated violence at the deadly ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville four years ago.
The jury in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville is being asked to decide whether two dozen white supremacists, neo-Nazis and white nationalist organizations are responsible for violence during two days of demonstrations in 2017. Jurors will also decide if the defendants are liable for compensatory and punitive damages for nine people who were physically hurt or emotionally scarred by the violence and filed a federal lawsuit.
Just before deliberations began Friday morning, Judge Norman Moon said one juror was dismissed because his two children were possibly exposed to COVID-19 at school and were told to quarantine at home. Moon said the juror is unvaccinated and therefore poses a greater risk to others.
Hundreds of white nationalists descended on Charlottesville on Aug. 11-12, 2017, ostensibly to protest the city’s plans to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
During a march on the University of Virginia campus, white nationalists surrounded counterprotesters, shouted ‘Jews will not replace us!’ and threw burning tiki torches at them. The next day, an avowed admirer of Adolf Hitler rammed his car into a crowd, killing one woman and injuring 19.” Read more at Richmond Times-Dispatch
“The Pennsylvania lab worker who stumbled across a stash of frozen vials labeled “smallpox” this week can breathe a sigh of relief. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement Thursday that, following testing, scientists were able to confirm that the vials didn’t contain the variola virus, which causes smallpox. According to the CDC, they actually contained vaccinia—the enveloped virus that was used to create the vaccine that eradicated smallpox in the 1970s. Smallpox is considered to be so dangerous that only two facilities on Earth—one in Russia and the other in Atlanta—are allowed to keep samples of it. A lab worker discovered the mislabeled vials while cleaning out a freezer at a Merck facility in Montgomery County, near Philadelphia.” [Daily Beast] Read more at NBC News
“A far-right militia man who was seen wielding a baseball bat at the Capitol riot has reportedly begged to be released from prison because he’s tired of spending time with other jailed rioters. Robert Gieswein, a Colorado man linked to the far-right Three Percenters, was hit with a string of riot-related charges after the Jan. 6 insurrection. He’s pleaded not guilty to all charges and is in jail awaiting trial. But, in a handwritten letter to U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan filed Thursday, Gieswein begged for pre-trial release, arguing that it’s harmful for him to spend all his time with other accused rioters. Gieswein wrote: ‘It’s not healthy to spend every day in here like it’s Groundhog’s [SIC] Day, with people with the same viewpoint, in the same situation... It is natural in this environment for the conversation to turn to January 6, and for us to look to each other for strength.’ He went on to argue: ‘It’s easy to get stuck in your bubble in this environment... Outside, I could choose to seek out other perspectives.’” [Daily Beast] Read more at Raw Story
“You’ve got to make your own fun when sitting through an eight-and-a-half-hour speech from Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). The speech, the longest ever delivered from the House floor, delayed passage of Democrats’ social spending and climate package, who responded by ridiculing the House minority leader. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) clearly had enough just one hour into the speech. Introducing her Instagram coverage, she said: ‘Live, from the cloakroom of the U.S. House of Representatives, one of the worst, lowest-quality speeches I have ever had the absolute atrocious lack of privilege to witness.’ She noted that every Republican flanking McCarthy was a white man, telling viewers: ‘Look at those different color ties and haircuts! I’ve never seen a more diverse Republican Party.’ Then, sitting down with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), AOC noted McCarthy’s poor vocabulary, saying: ‘If you’re going to be evil, you might as well be an evil genius, not an evil...’ Raskin interjected: ‘Imbecile!’ AOC agreed: ‘Imbecile. At least give us some pizzazz with the undercutting of social safety nets.’ McCarthy went on to speak for seven more hours.” [Daily Beast] Read more at HuffPost
“A federal grand jury in Sacramento has indicted a former Santa Clara University professor on charges related to an arson spree near the massive Dixie Fire this summer. The Thursday indictment charges Gary Stephen Maynard, 47, with setting four fires over the course of two weeks in July and August. His blazes threatened to trap firefighters battling the Dixie firestorm, California’s second largest in history. He now faces four counts of arson to federal property and a count of setting timber alight.
Maynard was arrested earlier this year after an investigation that involved a tracking device being put on his car. While in custody, according to an affidavit, the ex-teacher ‘became enraged and began kicking the jail cell door.’ Court records state that he began screaming: ‘I’m going to kill you, fucking pig! I told those fuckers I didn’t start any of those fires!’
If convicted, he could be sent to prison for up to 20 years and fined as much as $250,000, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California. Maynard was previously a lecturer at a number of California schools, including Sonoma State University, where he taught classes on criminal justice, cults, and deviant behavior.” [Daily Beast] Read more at CBS Sacramento
“The Jimmy Hoffa cold case may have a promising new lead after a deathbed statement by a man who claimed to have buried the labor union leader in a steel drum in a Jersey City landfill. The FBI has launched an investigation targeting the former landfill’s site, now little more than a large patch of dirt and gravel underneath the Pulaski Skyway. The Teamsters chief, who vanished in 1975 and was declared legally dead in 1982, has long been believed to have been murdered by the Mafia.
Frank Cappola, who died in March 2020, left the story with a journalist of how as a teenager he allegedly helped mobsters bury Hoffa. The disclosure is ‘100 percent’ credible, according to Dan Moldea, who brought the fresh lead to the FBI. The agency conducted a ‘site survey’ at the location on Oct. 25 and 26, its Detroit field office said.
‘FBI personnel from the Newark and Detroit field offices completed the survey and that data is currently being analyzed,’ a spokesperson told the New York Times on Thursday, without mentioning Hoffa by name. The steel drum is supposedly buried roughly 15 feet deep. The latest bid to locate Hoffa’s body follows a number of failed attempts over the years, but as Moldea put it, ‘This case needs to be solved.’” [Daily Beast] Read more at The New York Times
”Growing at unprecedented rates, and shaped by forces both familiar and new, dozens of African cities will join the ranks of humanity’s biggest megalopolises between now and 2100.
Several recent studies project that by the end of this century, Africa will be the only continent experiencing population growth. Thirteen of the world’s 20 biggest urban areas will be in Africa — up from just two today — as will more than a third of the world’s population.” Read more at Washington Post
“An original copy of the United States Constitution — believed to be one of just 13 originals left in existence — has sold for more than double its estimated price, breaking the record for the world’s most expensive document. Sotheby’s said it won’t release the name of the private buyer who bought the copy for $41 million (not counting fees). A group of cryptocurrency investors dubbed ConstitutionDAO made headlines this week after joining forces to raise $43.17 million from 17,437 donors in an effort to place a winning bid, but the group announced on Twitter that its efforts were unsuccessful and it would be refunding the money it had received.” [Daily Beast]
“Vice President Kamala Harris’ communications chief, Ashley Etienne, is leaving the Biden administration. The news was first reported by Vanity Fair, and a White House official confirmed to CNN that Etienne would be departing the White House “in December to pursue other opportunities.” Her departure comes just days after the publication of several stories on low morale, confusion, and frustration in the vice president’s office. Two sources told CNN the communications director’s departure was not unexpected. One said Etienne “was not a good fit” for the Harris team, contributing to what has been perceived as the vice president’s lack of a coherent communications strategy.
On Thursday morning, Harris appeared on Good Morning America to defend her place in the administration. ‘I’m very, very excited about the work we have accomplished,’ she told host George Stephanopoulos. ‘But I am absolutely, absolutely clear-eyed that there is a lot more to do, and we’re gonna get it done.’ [Daily Beast] Read more at Vanity Fair