Former tabloid publisher David Pecker helped establish the basis for the criminal charges in New York against longtime friend Donald Trump when he admitted under oath to engaging in a so-called catch & kill scheme. Pecker told the jury that the National Enquirer would buy stories they believed would harm Donald Trump's election chances in 2016 and then refuse to publish the stories in order to influence the election outcome.
President Joe Biden has found himself in the spotlight once again as he stumbled over his words during a speaking event, inadvertently shifting attention to his opponent, former President Donald Trump. Addressing supporters at a community college in Tampa, the 81-year-old president attempted to portray Trump as untrustworthy regarding the issue of abortion, particularly in light of Florida's impending ban on abortions past six weeks. The president called out Trump as the sole person responsible for the "cruelty and chaos" since the the overturn of Roe v. Wade. In a momentary gaffe, Biden inadvertently asked: "How many times does he have to prove we can't be trusted?" The slip prompted ABC News to swiftly attempt to rectify the statement by replacing "we" with "he" in their coverage, though the original remark was clearly audible.
A Polish pilot proposed to his flight attendant girlfriend during a flight from Warsaw to Krakow, and she said yes. Read more
Steve Benen - Last fall, Democrats wanted to pass a security aid package. Republicans responded that they'd support such a bill, but only if Democrats agreed to add conservative provisions related to immigration and border policy. Democrats agreed to the GOP's demands, negotiated a bipartisan border bill, and packaged the two policies together. Republicans, acting at Donald Trump's behest, killed the compromise plan they demanded. Republican leaders eventually agree to pass a security aid package without immigration and border reforms. Read more
Researchers are warning that facial recognition technologies are "more threatening than previously thought" and pose "serious challenges to privacy" after a study found that artificial intelligence can be successful in predicting a person's political orientation based on images of expressionless faces. "Facebook shows you their picture, and what our study shows is that this is essentially to some extent the equivalent to just telling you what their political orientation is." Read more
Joe Biden will land a major union endorsement Wednesday from North America's Building Trades Unions, whose leaders say the president has his infrastructure bill largely to thank for it. In making one of their earliest ever presidential endorsements, NABTU leaders are kickstarting an eight-figure organizing program to try to deliver their 250,000 members in the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin for Biden. Read more
The US Senate has approved a $95bn (76bn) foreign aid package that includes military support for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the legislation into law on Wednesday. The Senate on Tuesday evening backed the measure passed by the US House of Representatives on Saturday. It includes $61bn in military aid for Ukraine, which the Pentagon says can start being delivered to the war-torn nation "within days". It passed in a bipartisan vote of 79-18.
Research financed by the International Olympic Committee introduced new data to the unsettled and fractious debate about bans on transgender athletes. A new study financed by the International Olympic Committee found that transgender female athletes showed greater handgrip strength " an indicator of overall muscle strength " but lower jumping ability, lung function and relative cardiovascular fitness compared with women whose gender was assigned female at birth.
Recent protests blocking roadways over the Israel-Hamas war has led to Democrats looking to team up with Republicans in California to increase the penalty for protestors. Monday, the Assembly Transportation Committee passed Assembly Bill 2742 on an 8-5 vote, with four Democrats siding with Republicans to push it through.
The identity thief allegedly stole the identity of the victim more than three decades ago when both worked at a hot dog cart in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The thief then used it in "every aspect of his life" since then, eventually working at a hospital as the key administrator of critical systems." His salary in 2023 was $140,501, according to the hospital. The victim eventually learned that his identity was being used for racking up huge amounts of debt, he went to a bank to complain and ended up being arrested and being medicated and confined to a mental hospital because he insisted that he was who he said he was. Read more
Former New York Rep. George Santos, who was expelled from the House and is facing federal charges, said he is withdrawing his bid for Congress in New York's 1st District. "I have decided to withdraw from my independent run for #NY1 ... I don't want my run to be portrayed as reprisal against Nick Lalota ... Although Nick and I don't have the same voting record and I remain critical of his abysmal record, I don't want to split the ticket and be responsible for handing the house to Dems," Santos said Read more
An autonomous taxi drove on the wrong side of a street to avoid colliding with cyclists. The taxi was recorded crossing over the double-yellow dividing line and driving at least one block on the left side of the road. Read more
This privacy reporter and her husband bought a Chevrolet Bolt in December. Two risk-profiling companies had been getting detailed data about their driving ever since.
For the first time in five months, NASA engineers have received decipherable data from Voyager 1 after crafting a creative solution to fix a communication problem aboard humanity's most distant spacecraft in the cosmos. Voyager 1 is currently about 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away, and at 46 years old, the probe has shown multiple quirks and signs of aging in recent years.
Baltimore has sued the operators of the container ship that hit and destroyed one of the US city's main bridges last month, killing six people. The city says the Dali was "clearly unseaworthy" and accuses its owners and manager of negligence. The ship's Singapore-based owner and manager have already asked a court to limit their liability. Read more
A union that represents Boeing Co. employees says the company retaliated against two engineers who raised concerns about its 777 and 787 jets in 2022.
